Hey there, it's Hannah. :)

Something I've been thinking about lately is how easy it is to get swept up in whatever is new, loud, and trending in the business world. Sometimes it's fun, and even useful to do so, but othertimes, it's just taking us away from the stuff that works.

Every week, there's a new thing we're supposed to master. A new platform to jump on. A new guru explaining that the old way of doing things is "dead". Sell this way, launch that way, use this AI tool, post on this platform before everyone else does. The pace of it all makes business feel like something humanity invented five minutes ago.

But people have been trading, building livelihoods, and running enterprises for thousands of years. Long before funnels and webinars and whatever's blowing up on TikTok right now. And when you zoom out and look across cultures, you start noticing something interesting. The same core ideas keep appearing, just in different languages, different places, different histories, yet many similar truths.

I spend an abnormal amount of time not only traveling to places to learn from different cultures, but also reading and absorbing information about places I haven't even been yet.

One such discovery that really struck a chord with me recently comes from Uganda.

In many homes, the best meal isn't cooked in the newest, shiniest pot. It's cooked in the oldest one. The one that's been used for years, sometimes decades, absorbing spices and smoke and flavor from every meal ever made in it. When an honored guest comes to visit, nobody reaches for the shiny new pot from the store. They reach for the old one, because the food will taste richer, and that is the experience they wish to extend to guests.

"The best food is cooked from the oldest pot."

I love this idea because it totally challenges our obsession with chasing the newest strategy, the newest voice, the newest secret. The richest results often come from something far less glamorous: experience. Time. Making mistakes and actually learning from them. The seasoning builds slowly! I talk about this a lot when I get approached by well-meaning folks who want to share the latest and greatest hacks for doing things: many of my systems are purposefully designed with "boring" yet tried-and-true reasoning, systems, and tools. They work, always have, always will.

Another one comes from Japan. There's a traditional practice called kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired using lacquer mixed with powdered gold. Instead of hiding the cracks, they're highlighted. The philosophy being that the breaks become part of the object's story, and the repaired piece is often considered more beautiful because of the cracks, not despite them. You don't have to burn it all to the ground and start fresh, even in the face of setbacks.

That one hits super close to home for me.

One of my first and biggest "failures" as a business owner was launching something before I was ready, psst, it was the very first edition of what today is known as The Virtual Excellence Academy. I'd been consuming a lot of advice about selling before you build: validate demand first, create later. Smart in theory! But I massively underestimated how long the creation process would actually take. Suddenly, I had people who had paid, expectations I had set, and a growing pit in my stomach. The hottest advice usually doesn't work for a lot of people.

So I did the only thing that felt honest: I told the truth.

I emailed everyone who had invested in this program and said, essentially, "I think I messed this up." Then I got everyone onto a Zoom call and said, "Let's build this together." I offered refunds, too, but to my surprise, there was a genuine air of excitement about moving forward as a cohort, and not one opted for the refund route.

Instead of pretending everything was fine, we leaned into the cracks. The program evolved through conversation and true collaboration. It was messy and imperfect and undeniably human. Looking back now, that moment probably built more trust and community than a perfectly executed launch ever could have. The gold went in where the cracks were, and while this was painful at the time, the beauty in the lessons learned and community built has served me for over a decade. I can now look back at these golden veins as badges of honor, a rite of passage on my way to truth, ownership, and boring, integrity-driven business that simply works.

When you zoom out even further, you find these ideas everywhere! Another from Japan again, the merchant philosophy of "Sanpō Yoshi", which says a good deal must be three things: good for the seller, good for the buyer, and good for society. In parts of the Andes, there's "ayni", a principle of reciprocity where communities support one another's work and livelihoods over time. In East Africa there's "harambee", meaning "all pull together," describing the collective effort communities use to fund projects and support each other's progress.

Different words, different continents, but they all echo one another. Some of the most longstanding traditions and ideas about business rest on these three principles:

Business works best when it's relational, reciprocal, and beneficial to more than just one person.

Which makes me remember that a lot of what we're chasing in modern entrepreneurship isn't actually new at all. It's rediscovery. Humanity has been slowly passing around the same wisdom for centuries: experience matters, repair builds beauty, communities thrive through reciprocity, and prosperity works best when everyone benefits.

This is actually why the way I teach isn't built around frameworks you copy and paste. It's guidance designed to help you tap into these universal truths while figuring out what they look like specifically for you, your business, and the people you're here to serve. Nobody else has your old pot. Nobody else has your cracks. And that's exactly the point.

So next time the business world starts shouting about the newest, hottest strategy, maybe it's worth pausing and asking whether the real answers have been simmering in your old pot the whole time.

Food for thought haha. 🍯

Some journalling prompts for you:

🪴 What's your "old pot"? The thing in your business that's worked precisely because it's been around, tested, and seasoned over time?

🏆 Where's your kintsugi moment? A crack that ended up becoming a strength?

🌍 Is there a piece of wisdom from your own culture or background that somehow shapes how you do business?

....and I'd love to hear from you: have you ever had a messy or imperfect situation in your business end up creating something better than the polished version would have? Those are always the most interesting stories. Hit reply and tell me! Perhaps you'll get a feature in the next newsletter 🙌

Stay groovy!

Hannah