Making a difference with carbon offsetting
How can you "make a difference" with carbon offsetting?
Many of our members prefer to work with clients whose businesses are trying to make the world a better place and actively avoid those who treat the planet and its inhabitants badly.
But how can you tell who is really making a difference?
Lots of businesses claim to be "doing good" by offsetting their carbon footprint and sometimes its hard to tell if they're having a real impact or if they're just greenwashing.
What is greenwashing?
Mia Bazo, the innovative self-service platform that helps frequent travellers manage their climate impact as well as immigration, tax, security and other essential services, explains the problem:
There are two ways to combat climate change that is due to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. First, change your activities so you create less carbon dioxide (CO2). Next, undertake activities that decrease the amount of CO2 that’s already in the air.
We believe individuals and businesses should do both, through changing our activities and carbon offsetting. This is where the controversy comes in. If you’re purchasing carbon offset, are you really helping the planet, or is it greenwashing – simply giving the appearance that you’re helping mitigate climate change?
They give an example of organisations that donate water filters to people in areas where clean water is not available. The idea is that less wood burned is burned to boil and purify the water, resulting in less CO2 .
Is this really offsetting carbon?
Nope, says Mia Bazo they’re just contributing a bit to the situation not getting worse. If they’re not also taking positive steps to reduce the carbon footprint of their offices and manufacturing processes, that’s greenwashing.
What about tree planting, one of the most popular carbon offsetting schemes?
Mia Bazo says: Tree planting does a little good but if this is all a company does to decrease their carbon footprint, it still has a whiff of greenwashing. When a company examines every process, property, vehicle and employee travel for opportunities to reduce their carbon footprint, and then purchases valid carbon offset to reduce their balance to zero, that company is truly green.
Unless a company accurately measures their carbon footprint, how do they know how much they need to offset to make a real impact?
For more on Greenwashing and carbon offsetting see Mia Bazo's post Isn't Carbon Offset just Greenwashing?
Want to get involved?
You can sign up for a free Climate Impact Calculator Tool account to calculate, publish, offset and reduce your carbon footprint.
Can you take a compliment?
Are you more inclined to believe criticism than praise?
This is a guest post by David Brown of Potentiality Coaching.
Savouring positive experiences is a rare thing. Many people find it almost impossible to accept praise. They brush it off, deflect and move on without acknowledging the role they played in the success or kind deed.
What impact do you think this is having on your confidence? How do you imagine this affects your business?
Savour the positive
What if we were to savour the compliments? What if we took the time to let those kind comments sink in, feel it in our bodies, allow the praise to bolster our confidence, self- belief and sense of worth?
I think the world would be a very different place. We would be more self- assured and our health would be better.
The act of thinking positively releases feel good serotonin and oxytocin around the body.
In workhops I notice people wriggle and squirm when they receive compliments and affirmations from other participants. It seems to touch on feelings of unworthiness and imposter syndrome. These are deep- seated mindsets that prevent us from accepting praise and enjoying life more fully. How can we experience fulfillment in our life and work if we do not savour the moments when life is great?
Focus on the positive
This topic came up in a recent Friday check- in on the Drive Facebook Group. It reminded me of talking to my Father who was praising me for achieving my Black belt 4th dan in martial arts a couple of years ago. Every word of encouragement he said was competing with my own words of “Well, it wasn’t that hard” and “anyone can do it if they put the work in”. I feel very different now and can accept the compliment more easily. It is a work in progress.
What have you been praised for in your work life? Are there testimonials you can read that show you that you can do excellent work? Do you savour the spoken compliments that people make in passing, or the throw away social media positive sound bites that big you up? We all have a stack of them. Find them. Recall them.
In the article quoted below, the author explains that there is scientific evidence that points to the fact that negative experiences stick in our minds like Velcro. Positive experiences, by contrast, stick like Teflon (i.e. hardly at all). He explains that this has an evolutionary advantage and that we are biologically predisposed towards negative bias. I would argue that while this makes sense, the brain is in fact neutral- it will do what it is trained to do by experience and practice. If you practice focusing on the negative and ignoring the positive, you will see more negativity. It works the other way too- train yourself to see things in a positive light and you will see more positivity. That includes positive things about yourself.
Take in the good
Try the process set out in this article (https://www.rickhanson.net/take-in-the-good/) by Dr. Rick Hanson that I paste directly below:
“Here’s how to take in the good – in three simple steps.
How?
- Look for good facts, and turn them into good experiences.
Good facts include positive events – like the taste of good coffee or getting an unexpected compliment – and positive aspects of the world and yourself. When you notice something good, let yourself feel good about it.
Try to do this at least a half dozen times a day. There are lots of opportunities to notice good events, and you can always recognize good things about the world and yourself. Each time takes just 30 seconds or so. It’s private; no one needs to know you are taking in the good. You can do it on the fly in daily life, or at special times of reflection, like just before falling asleep (when the brain is especially receptive to new learning).
Notice any reluctance to feeling good. Such as thinking that you don’t deserve to, or that it’s selfish, vain, or even shameful to feel pleasure. Or that if you feel good, you will lower your guard and let bad things happen.
Barriers to feeling good are common and understandable – but they get in the way of you taking in the resources you need to feel better, have more strength, and have more inside to give to others. So acknowledge them to yourself, and then turn your attention back to the good news. Keep opening up to it, breathing and relaxing, letting the good facts affect you.
It’s like sitting down to a meal: don’t just look at it—taste it!
- Really enjoy the experience.
Most of the time, a good experience is pretty mild, and that’s fine. But try to stay with it for 20 or 30 seconds in a row – instead of getting distracted by something else.
As you can, sense that it is filling your body, becoming a rich experience. As Marc Lewis and other researchers have shown, the longer that something is held in awareness and the more emotionally stimulating it is, the more neurons that fire and thus wire together, and the stronger the trace in memory.
You are not craving or clinging to positive experiences, since that would ultimately lead to tension and disappointment. Actually, you are doing the opposite: by taking them in and filling yourself up with them, you will increasingly feel less fragile or needy inside, and less dependent on external supplies; your happiness and love will become more unconditional, based on an inner fullness rather than on whether the momentary facts in your life happen to be good ones.
- Intend and sense that the good experience is sinking into you.
People do this in different ways. Some feel it in their body like a warm glow spreading through their chest like the warmth of a cup of hot cocoa on a cold wintry day. Others visualize things like a golden syrup sinking down inside, bringing good feelings and soothing old places of hurt, filling in old holes of loss or yearning; a child might imagine a jewel going into a treasure chest in her heart. And some might simply know conceptually, that while this good experience is held in awareness, its neurons are firing busily away, and gradually wiring together”
Business Transformation
Then, don’t forget to continue doing this process. The more you do it, the more your internal wiring will fire to let those compliments and other positive experiences really make a difference to your perception of yourself. And when you have a great perception of yourself, when you feel that you really do a great job of the work that you do, the impact on your business is transformative:
- You are more likely to charge the fees you are worth and do so unapologetically
- Your confidence will shine through giving your clients greater trust in you
- You will speak with more authority about your business and your field
- That self assurance will come across more effectively to clients in business and to colleagues and other business owners in networking situations
- You will enjoy your work and the journey more
Please do not underestimate the power of savouring the positive moments in your life. Although this article was prompted by a discussion about running a business, think about the impact that this could have on your life at large- your relationships with friends, children, partners and family, how you feel about yourself, the degree to which you enjoy daily life, living with less guilt and sense of unworthiness. How different would life look and feel from this more positive and empowering perspective?
Over to you
Does this article resonate with you? Is this a pattern that repeats in your life? Does it feel like this negatively impacts on your business and/ or quality of life?
If you’d like to feel more confident and more free to openly accept praise for the great contribution you make, why not get in touch?
David Brown
Potentiality Coaching
To grow your business - get uncomfortable!
You’ve heard the expression: if you’re not growing, you’re stagnating?
If not, you have now.
In my experience this is true.
It’s true for you on a personal level and it’s true for your business.
And, if you’re self- employed, your growth is linked to your business’ growth.
If you’re not pushing yourself and your business forward in some way, then it is stagnating. Left too long and it begins to shrink. You have to be strategic about your business growth and the growth you need to do to make your business grow. However, there are potential stumbling blocks, inherent resistance we all have when it comes to growth, development and change in areas where we feel uncomfortable and challenged.
You know this resistance to change as your comfort zone.
When you feel comfortable and confident in any role, doing anything, you are operating inside your comfort zone. To reach this stage is wonderful and it is important, as you are performing well in this role and this is good for productivity, customer satisfaction and sustaining your business. The comfort zone is not a bad thing in itself, it is just not the place you are going to grow, and eventually, neither is your business. So if you want to up productivity, customer satisfaction and grow your business, you are going to want to step up, to do something new and different, and that can be a challenge.
Now you are in the realm of stepping outside your comfort zone.
There are two ways to do this- either step just outside or way beyond it. The way beyond method suits some people as they love the challenge of really pushing themselves. It’s an adrenaline rush. For others, this method leads to overwhelm. I’m in this latter category.
For years I have had a fear of public speaking and tried to beat it. I’ve tried to speak at networking events, talks, lectures and so on and never been able to do it without feeling such overwhelming anxiety it was unreal. I knew my business was suffering for it, because I couldn’t get out there to promote myself. And so, rather than follow the lead of those I took advice from and take large steps which is what I had done in the past, I worked with a life coach to find a way that worked for me. It turned out that all I needed was to take smaller, more manageable steps. So I founded a public speaking group on MeetUp and for six months I spoke to whoever was in the room about something I was passionate about. It was never more than 5 people, but trust me that was a great start! In time I realised I could manage the anxiety fine and now the largest audience I have spoken in front of is three hundred.
The reason the audience size could increase is because once you have done something, your comfort zone expands with your experience. The fact of it is, if you want to keep growing you need to keep stepping out of your comfort zone. And, if you want your business to keep growing in new and exciting directions that stimulate and excite you, you are going to have to push your self to explore those avenues. This is an individual journey, as each person has their own sense of how they are prepared to stretch themselves.
Comparing your self to others does you no favours
Go at your own pace and make sure you keep moving forward, challenging your resistance to grow your self and your business.
Are you feeling cosy in your business? Have you noticed you haven’t offered anything new for a while because there is resistance within you to change and growth? Do you find your self feeling bored with your business? If so, you may be stuck inside your comfort zone and fearful of stepping outside it. Breaking out can be challenging for many reasons.
I am offering discounted coaching sessions to DRIVE members to support you in stepping out of your comfort zone and giving you the chance to grow your business into something that keeps evolving in the way that makes you grow too.
Get in touch if you'd like to talk about how we might work together or add your name to my mailing list to get new blog posts as they're published.
www.potentialitycoaching.co.uk
An invitation to listen to what you say
Communication is essential to your business.
by David Brown - Potentiality Coaching
Communication is about conveying ideas simply so that people can easily understand and make informed decisions, yet it never ceases to amaze me that when we talk about our businesses to fellow business people as well as possible clients, we use jargon and industry specific phrases that often mean nothing to the person we are talking to.
One of the keys skills in communicating is listening.
There are three different levels of listening:
Level 1 is your own internal dialogue.
Level 2 is listening to the other person, fully, deeply and clearly, so that your full attention is on the other person, not just their words, but also the flavor and meaning beneath the words, movements, gestures, posture and energy.
Level 3 listening is taking all of that in as well as the feel of the room, the ambience, the noises and all that is happening in the environment around you.
Start by listening to your own internal dialogue, processes and feelings, then move on to the other levels.
Think about what your prospective clients are hearing when you speak.
Are they truly hearing what you are hoping to communicate?
Do your words mean to them what they mean to you?
Do they understand what you are about?
Will they walk away from the conversation aware of what your services offer and what it would mean to them if they took advantage of your hard- won wisdom, continual professional development, passion for your industry and willingness to use it to change people’s lives for the better?[pullquote]Let’s not settle for the glazed look we all sometimes get when we speak about our businesses[/pullquote]
Listen to what they are saying to you (level 2).
They are speaking the language of your next great client .
Learn to put yourself in their shoes and see their eyes light up when they understand what you do and how it can help them.
Let’s not settle for the glazed look we all sometimes get when we speak about our businesses. I believe this is the look of not understanding, followed by boredom. You want to see the lights go on in their eyes and have them be excited about what you do.
So please promote your business from this level 2 and 3 listening rather than through the lens of your own perspective (level 1).
I believe it will make a huge difference to the way people relate to you and your business and make you stand out in your industry as someone who relates to their clients and really serves their clients’ needs.
And that can’t be a bad thing for business, can it?