Last week, I completed a seven-year cycle as I closed the doors of my online biodegradable glitter store. Consciously ending something that you have created and birthed from your own heart, sweat, and tears is not easy to do. Even when you know letting go is the right thing, saying goodbye is still bittersweet.
The thing is, the mission that I had when I first started the biodegradable glitter business back in 2016 has largely been achieved. When I originally launched, it was a different world. A big part of the purpose of our existence was to educate people around the dangers of micro-plastic pollution (including glitter!) — and to provide a better, safer, sustainable alternative with our biodegradable plant-based products. I was also interested in modeling a different way of doing business, with more community and consciousness infused through everything.
After weathering a global pandemic, enduring temporary closures, trying to cut costs, and seeing waves of other eco-glitter brands come onto the market, it became clear to me at the start of 2023 that it was time for our family-run operation to shut down, and that it is now time for me to turn my attention and energy to other things.
Saying yes to a higher purpose means you are signing up to work towards a world where your work is no longer necessary. It’s about increasing your impact to the point that you become irrelevant. This is the ultimate endpoint that the online glitter store reached.
As I wrote in my book Regenerative Purpose, saying yes to a higher purpose means you are signing up to work towards a world where your work is no longer necessary. It’s about increasing your impact to the point that you become irrelevant. This is the endpoint that the online glitter store reached. Purpose complete.
The role that we had in leading the charge in educating consumers is no longer needed anymore. Because of that small ripple of awareness that we helped start (along with a few other intrepid purpose pioneers), biodegradable glitter alternatives became a global wave, and now it's the whole ocean.
It's widely known these days that micro-plastics are dangerous for the environment – and that conventional polyester glitter is a form of micro-plastic pollution. There are dozens of online resellers offering different kinds of Earth-safe alternatives to polyester glitter. And what is even more exciting is that there are innovators, who are making cleaner, more advanced versions of what we started with.
I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on the many learning-blessings I received from my experience as a small business owner, an online eco-brand builder, and purpose-led entrepreneur over these past seven years. It feels good to take a moment now to compost these lessons – and integrate them fully. I am grateful for this adventure and for all the gifts it has gifted me. Here are a seven things I have learned:
Trust in yourself and your innate resourcefulness and capacity to “figure it out” no matter what “it” is..
This was perhaps the most potent and valuable gift for me from these seven years in business. Because of this online, product-based, brand building, purpose-driven business, I tried doing many things that I had never done before... managing an online store, working with my mom, doing collaborations with influencers on Instagram. I had no idea what I was doing, and it was a wild ride of figuring it out along the way. Seeing this figuring-out process happen over and over again gave me so much self-confidence. This embodied belief in my own resourcefulness is a huge support to me as I step into a new phase of creation. I no longer let the thought: “I don’t know how to do that” stop me anymore. That old, fear-based, slam-on-the-brakes impulse has been replaced with the new thought, “I haven’t done that before, but I will learn.”Put people before profits, because relationships are the most valuable currency any business owner has.
After announcing the store closing, I got several beautiful messages from past customers and collaborators. One came from an Instagram micro influencer who was grateful for us “taking a chance on [her] as an up-and-coming makeup artist” back when she was starting out. Another one came from an appreciative buyer who grieved the loss of a “biodegradable glitter brand that [she] could really trust.” This was confirmation for me that we weren’t just another profit-seeking enterprise who happened to be building a brand by selling Earth-friendly products, but we were positively impacting people’s lives along the way by doing everything with heart.Work with people that you love and trust, because your work together will benefit from that foundation.
Running this business together turned my mom and me into a team. When I quit corporate and started doing my digital nomad thing, my mom's place became bio-glitter headquarters. Glitter mixing, picking, packaging and shipping was happening from her studio apartment, while I managed the online biz from whatever WiFi connection I could find. This business only worked because I had her hands-on support and geographically stable help. When I was deep in creation mode, there would be glitter all over the kitchen table and she never once complained. When I announced the store closing, we were flooded with tons of orders and again my mom – who is now in her mid 70's and already twice retired – took care of all of that for me. (Thanks mom!)Grow slowly and mindfully to make sure you stay aligned with your core values without compromising.
Our values alignment can easily get thrown off when we move too fast or try to grow bigger at all costs. A couple of years into this journey, I made the conscious decision to leave quite a bit of business on the table. Specifically, I decided that we would no longer ship orders to customers located outside of the United States. We actually said no to people who wanted to buy from us! Because at that point, there were enough other biodegradable glitter retailers around the globe, so there were good options for people in Europe or South America. They didn’t need us to ship them a package of bio-glitter from halfway around the world. The carbon footprint of doing that made absolutely no sense.Collaborate with your competitors — if you work for a purpose, then you are all on the same team.
When we stopped shipping to customers overseas, we started building a referral network of brands that we knew to be using legitimate biodegradable raw materials (because we share suppliers). And trust me, there were plenty of greenwashing fake eco brands popping up everywhere. So part of our mission was making sure to redirect would-be customers from other countries to the other small businesses that were selling Earth-safe products for real, and not just branding themselves that way because it became trendy.Resist the urge to compare your path with others and prioritize time to take care of yourself personally.
Make sure to take time out, to retreat from all the doing to rest when necessary. Ultimately, a regulated nervous system, healthy body, and balanced mind is the only sustainable wellspring of all success. Stress is never productive in the end. It might help us manage to achieve short-term gains, but we end up in burnout if we are constantly running. Don’t measure your success by holding yourself up next to others who are doing similar things. We each have our own unique, unrepeatable and precious flavor to bring to things. Always check your inner compass. What is working for someone else, or what is trendy, may not be the most aligned way forward for us individually.Let go lightly when it is time to let go, so you can put your energy towards more alive and aligned things.
It’s never easy to let go of the things that we create from. Our creations are like our children. We get attached to them; we make the making of them into part of our identity without even realizing. One of my favorite movies as a kid was The Sound of Music. I must have watched that VHS tape at least a few dozen times during my childhood. The quote from Maria that has always stuck with me from that movie is: “When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.” Or maybe, when one door closes, you will find another door that opens onto a runway and be handed the ignition key codes for a hypersonic jet!
It is my belief that Life is always giving us upgrades. So there’s no sense in stubbornly refusing to give up our seat in coach class. Right now, I am up out of my seat, dancing wildly in the aisle. I feel optimistic and excited to be revealed whatever is coming next.