🦋 How to become a Hyggepreneur
Learn how to create a career path rooted in meaning and wellbeing. With guest writer, and Feng Shui expert, Orie Prince offering 5 tips to turn your home office into a hub of warmth and creativity.
Liminalist is for people who want to spend their lives working creating.
This week I explore how to become a “Hyggepreneur” which is a fun, new concept that combines the essence of the Danish concept “hygge” with the spirit of entrepreneurship.
Included in this newsletter:
What a Hyggepreneur is
How to weave this concept into your everyday life
5 tips for how to make your home office cozy and inviting from Feng Shui expert, Orie Prince
On Tuesday, February 20th, I will be hosting a virtual gathering, Chaos to Creation, where I will guide you through an exercise that can bring you closer to creating the life you want. It will be hygge. I hope you’ll join me.
Let’s dive in. 🐇🕳️
I just had an a-ha moment while making my morning coffee.
Every job I've had, whether working for myself or others, has had an office that was either in a home or home-like setting.
I've worked out of a townhome in the West Village, a social club that had a cozy atmosphere, my former business partner's home when we were matchmakers, and a home that I transformed into a co-working space for women.
Then I launched a company helping people turn their homes into community centers and now I lead a remote team and we all work from home (or wherever we’re traveling for inspiration).
I’ve always felt how important home is for me, but this is a light bulb moment.
After leaving my matchmaking career in my twenties, I had to make a decision between two new roles.
The first job was at a company that genuinely excited me, but the office space was extremely traditional. It was freezing, with grey carpet, stark white walls, fluorescent lights, and rows of cubicles. The walls were covered with competitive team boards displaying sales goals, and the office was located near Penn Station, making the walk there loud, dirty, and uninspiring.
The second was in a beautiful converted gallery that felt like my dream home, with high ceilings, natural lighting, an abundance of green plants and a cafe inside.
When I look back on these two opportunities, I was actually more intrigued by the first option— it paid triple the salary and would have been more intellectually challenging for me.
But I went where I felt good → the cozy environment of a home.
Now, ten years later, as I stand in front of my espresso machine, attempting yet again to create latte art before sitting down to write, I realize that the simple practice of going where I feel good has been my guiding principle.
A principle that has led me on a deeply fulfilling and meaningful career path, working alongside people who inspire me daily, and whose values align with mine.
As kids, we’re not taught how to follow a feeling, or how to choose what is uniquely right for us.
We’re taught about responsibilities, obligations and compromise.
We’re taught how to be on time, how to be appropriate, and how to behave (or not behave).
We’re celebrated when we do something right, and reprimanded when we do something wrong.
Most of us spend our formative years in sterile schools, following an hourly bell from one room to the next.
We’re given assigned seats and lockers, and a short list of after school activities we have to pick and excel at if we want to get into a good school.
By 17 we’re expected to know what we want to do with our lives and pick the school that will take that dream and turn into a reality.
Some of us step up to the plate, bat and hit a societally acceptable home run.
That was me.
Others shut down and don’t even choose to play— I always secretly admired and was jealous of those people.
Neither path feels good, or inspired.
Both paths feel like a complete waste of time and human potential.
But as I sit here, I wonder if they are necessary to lead us to our truths.
Is this simply the hero's journey that we are all on? And if we didn't walk this path, we’d never experience the rewarding feeling when we finally discover what brings us joy?
Did I need to feel trapped in those spaces to learn what I don’t want, so I could find what I do?
The professional climate we’re living in is precarious and uncertain, but as I talk to people every day who are navigating the big question of how best to spend their remaining time on this planet, I find myself hopeful.
When a hard time leads to a broader cultural and societal movement towards purpose-driven living, I’m here for it.
So today, I want to add some flavor to this movement, for all the past, present and future founders out there who are reading this.
I invite you to become a “Hyggepreneur”
Hygge, pronounced “hoo-gah”, is a Danish concept that embodies a feeling of comfort, contentment and well-being through simple everyday experiences. It’s a way of living that prioritizes cosiness and surrounding yourself with the things that make life good— like connection, laughter and security, as well as warmth and light.
A Hyggepreneur combines the essence of Hygge with the spirit of entrepreneurship.
Qualities of a Hyggepreneur include:
Someone who prioritizes their well-being (and their employees) over the hustle and grind.
Someone who sets up their work environment to feel safe, cozy and inspiring.
Someone who creates products and services who leave others feeling good and supported.
Someone who weaves mindfulness and simplicity in their business models.
Someone who wants to spend their life
workingcreating.
Hyggepreneur’s seek to make the world a more hyggelig (cozy and enjoyable) place through their professional endeavors, often focusing on sustainability, work-life balance, and the promotion of a contented, fulfilling lifestyle.
Who’s in?
Since this term was born about an hour ago, let’s agree on what makes someone a Hyggepreneur.
You are a Hyggepreneur if you are doing any of the above, and strive to turn this into a way of being.
To guide you into designing your home office into a space that inspires you daily, I asked one of my dearest friends, and Feng Shui experts, Orie Prince to give us some tips. Here are his suggestions on how to bring coziness and connection into your home office:
Clear your surroundings.
Clutter blocks positive energy flow, and can bring about feelings of anxiety from disarray. Start with a completely empty space, then add your essentials aka things that serve an objective purpose like your computer, notebooks, pens, etc). From here there is a blank canvas with which you can do the following:
Opt for warm, inviting lighting with the use of task lighting.
This is my favorite desk lamp to ignite productivity. I recommend a 2700k or 3000k bulb for its soft, warm tone.
Ensure your seating is comfortable and inviting by adding a plush pillow or cozy throw blanket.
I LOVE this vegan, plush blanket from UNHIDE and have them all over my home and office. I love the “emerald kitten” teal green blanket for a workspace as this color is a blend of creativity and flow.
Situate your desk facing the entryway to the room.
We do this to feel secure and in control of managing whatever may enter the space. Do not have your back to the entrance as this can create a conscious or unconscious fear state, not being able to easily see anything or anyone entering the room.
Bring plants and/or a tranquil water feature into your workspace to instill a sense of calm, flow and balance.
If you would like more specific, free support for your home or office space, sign up for Orie’s newsletter here.
No matter where you are in your career, I hope the essence of this new concept permeates your day-to-day in some warm way. We all deserve to feel good, wherever we are.
From my cozy desk to yours,
Ashley
P.S. See you on Tuesday. Let’s go from chaos → creation together.
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