Coming Back to Life Part 2: An Essay
Ben Ashby
Friday I wrote about my own personal journey of coming back to life. Today is similar but with FOLK. Do you ever feel things lining up and coming together? Slowly, quietly, almost naturally the universe is moving in a favorable direction. Occasionally I will catch myself realizing these pieces coming together, the energy moving and the feel of it all going well, but for the most part I feel terrified to even acknowledge the shift out of fear that the universe will stop, but it seems the time is here to really lean into the energy and take the steps to dive back in and create the business I dreamt of having.
Over the years I’ve made a lot of mistakes, valuable lessons learned to get me to where I am now. But, those mistakes crippled me and I became afraid to do anything. So I went to work for others…helping them build their brands while I neglected by purely because of fear. A fear of failure, a fear of making mistakes, and most importantly a fear of not knowing how to make the business financially solvent or sustainable. Somewhere in all of that I needed to learn lessons for myself, knowing that eventually I would come back to life, just not sure when or how it would be.
One of the keys for me was really digging into why I started the business in the first place….I wanted to share stories of rural places and makers. I have an eternal love of Americana and Slow Living. The business was created to celebrate those. Over time it grew to include travel and exploration and photography, but in that shift I lost the things I love. For me, returning to FOLK meant finding ways to incorporate all of those loves into one beautiful and cohesive mission. The funny thing is…they all naturally fit together, but with my anxiety and fear they didn’t seem to fit at all. So I continued to fight it all. But over the past year I’ve kept my eyes tuned into everything I can and it seems all of them fit together naturally. So, I’ll lean into it all…and here we go….
For me it is important to return to sharing stories and beautiful images and being a community. Not just dead end q and a stories or just my personal essays. For me it is going to embody submissions, essays, travel guides, the celebration of American made makers and artisans, slow living, and an appreciation for the little things in life. How we will make this financially sustainable I am not sure….but I think it means partnering with brands and companies within that realm, doing events, doing a couple special issues a year, and most importantly driving traffic to our website and newsletters. I do know that I am ready. I am ready to get it all rolling. If you have any suggestions or want to collaborate or submit email me (editor.folk@gmail.com).
The journey never ends….shall we get to living.
