How do you possibly slow down? How do you possibly slow down when your email is the last thing you read before you go to bed and the first thing when you wake up? When you have a business under two years old. When steps forward feel more like inches.
My only escape is a yearly practice that started when I was 10 years old.
When I was a child, I would go on hikes with my best friend – something we’ve now kept going for decades. When we started, I had no idea that this tradition would become my adult self’s sanity.
Our backpacking trips are the only days of the year that I’m officially disconnected. When you’re in the middle of the wilderness, there’s no pressure to impress. There’s pressure to survive. You tune into your body and its basic necessities and, for once, you can’t silence your own brain with news feeds or a full inbox.
These adventures have taken us all around the world. And most recently Big Sur.
This time, although I was truly disconnected, reminded me of connectivity. It grounded me in why we’re able to run this business in the first place.
Sifted didn’t come first. The idea didn’t come before the need. We exist because people with bigger ideas than us went ahead.
Our lunch programs serve a niche of companies who care as much about people as they do profit and believe that through their technology they can make lives better in their neighborhood and beyond.
We’re part of the startup ecosystem. As high-growth, tech-centric companies emerged who see perks as a way to holistically take care of their team, there was a vacuum for services that would elevate the perks and make the process fluid.
We’re professionalizing the office lunch, but only because many someones had an idea, took a risk, made a product, brought it to market, built a team and thanking their team with a soggy sandwich just didn’t feel right.
Like the trees and the ground and the sky and the water, we’re all connected. We have a business and a livelihood because we have the chance to support a greater ecosystem.
My encouragement is this – get away, even if just for an hour of yoga and perhaps you’ll gain perspective on just how small you are and find thanksgiving in the fact that your smallness and your work is needed.