Well....fuck.
2020.
Am I right?!?!
So we fell off a bit. I made a lil post about it but I feel like it might be good to go into some detail. I’m Steph, head curator here at the Buddha Boxx. My friend Heather and I came up with this idea at yoga one day. It was kind of a joke and didn't really do much about it then...one day I mentioned it to another friend… and they were interested...that went on for a while, I’d mention the idea, people would perk up... while all that is happening, I’m working a regaularish job...I still work that regularish job because it costs a fucking lot to start a cannabis company. (You can read more about that here.) So with my regularish job, I typically have some time off around May through about August (any guesses). Well as y'all are aware the world kinda shut down this past March, then it kinda blew up in May, then it all kinda just stopped….but didn't stop at all. One of the things I did to spur this idea along to a business was create a schedule filling my ‘time off’ (from my regularish job) with all things entrepreneur. On the front end there wasn’t much to see, but on the back end webinars, workshops, podcast, research at nauseam for days, weeks and before I was aware months. I didn’t really do much to take care of me. I was getting about 3-4 ish hours of sleep, basically grinding my life away. Some of it was fun, I swear cooking with Heather, (really watching her cook while you ‘sample’ things) isn’t a bad part of the entrepreneur life. That was the best part really...but the hours of work to get seemingly nowhere...well that takes a toll on ya.
As I mentioned the world kinda blew up and around that blow up there was a spotlight on the lack of equity within many industries, including the cannabis industry… Before the blow up, I had previously promised myself the relaunch of our site and platforms world be my birthday present to myself. It was, and that relaunch just happened to coincide with the outcry for racial equality in the industry I was trying to break into. So with that energy, I was grateful to make connections to companies and platforms to help further our reach as well as building vendor contacts from companies already in the fight for equity in the cannabis industry as well as established companies who were earnest in their efforts to #amplifymelenatedvoices. With those connections being made, I stepped away from my plan of a slow structured relaunch and roll out. I started grinding harder without really replenishing myself and one day. I just stopped. I stopped grinding and forcing myself to submit one more proposal, hit up one more webinar. I didn’t recognize the fun company I created with my friend, it was a job. And not that there is anything wrong with that, but for me I had a regualarish job, already.
I had to step back, away from the ‘job aspect’ of our venture to live. Live and remember why we started this. What was possible for us and where I wanted this to go. I looked at my original plan of my relaunch roll out and realized if I had followed that plan, I likely wouldn’t have gotten swept up in the moment of the uprising. I started realizing we were a BIPOC company before BIPOC companies were trending. I realized if I want this to succeed, I’ve gotta take care of myself better. I realized nothing can stop an idea when its time has come.
So….
We aren’t going away…
We are still keeping our regularish jobs...
We ARE going back to our original plan of phasing our relaunch…
We are going to make many more mistakes…
We are going to keep growing our community…
We are going to keep breaking the stigma of cannabis in BIPOC communities…
We will keep researching yummy foods to infuse with cannabis…
We will stay silly and nerd out on all things cannabis