November 14, 2014

Digging deeper, part II.

Lee & I have been kicking around the idea of stepping out from behind the business facade of Paleo Treats so that you know a little bit more about *who* you're buying from when you bring Paleo Treats into your life.  When we first started I wrote a brief piece about the founders. 

Nik & Lee from Paleo Treats

Since then one of them (Dave) has stepped away from PT, and we've recently had a request for more about us as part of a separate potential marketing campaign, so I thought I'd share the updated version of Paleo Treats with you. 

Paleo Treats is just the latest and perhaps the most refined blossoming of our personal philosophy.  We wrote down a Mission Statement when we first started:

1. Add Quality, Beauty, and Joy to the world.
2. Have fun.
3. Make money.

We posted that up in our office on the first day we moved in, and it's been around in one form or another ever since.

Why are we in business, Paleo Treats Mission Statement

Still, it's just the tip of what I think you're after, which is the feel & drive of our combined efforts.  They might be summed up with four words; responsibility, quality, curiosity, and fierce independence.

First and foremost, if you were to ask us what single concept most dominates our outlook, Lee & I are both firm believers in the concept of responsibility.

Briefly, we both accept that you are responsible for what you experience, what you have experienced, and what you will experience. 

You get what you work for and the harder you work the luckier you get.  That doesn't mean bad luck doesn't show up every once in a while, but we call those appearances "wobbles", and we believe that your success as a business (and as a human) depends heavily on how you handle the wobbles.

When life sucks, for us it signifies that there's something *we're* doing that sucks; the external experience we're having is a direct reflection of the internal reality we're creating.  That may sound a little wishy-washy, but we've found that idea to be one that most closely represents and predicts the outcomes we've experienced.

Second, we're fans of quality.  From the material quality of the things we produce and buy to the visual quality of our created environment and into the quality of the very words we use, we have found that surrounding ourselves with the highest quality things we can find leads to the best possible outcomes. 

The heft of an old farm jacket, the balance of a finely wrought sword, the feel of a well made stove and the lines of beautiful sculpture all to speak to us in more dimensions than words can express.  The idea we share is to accept that quality may not submit to mere description but can be mutually appreciated and jointly understood, and we each acknowledge that perceptive ability in the other.

To discover that quality requires a driving curiosity.  Each in our different paths have been forced into curiosity, wandering abandoned mesas in the Southwest, exploring the heavy green jungle of the East Coast in summer, drifting windless on the sparkling blue of endless ocean or gazing in reverence at a silver pointed black desert sky. 

Staring awestruck, lips parted and mouths opened just enough for that most addictive of potions to wet the tongue; the faint and maddening taste of hunger for parts unknown.

Translated from early travels through distant lands to eventually become a driving force in all aspects of the unknown, the desire to know why, and who, and from where all this earthly quality came from continues to press us unrelentingly to a final education.

Finally, and perhaps most easily seen because it combines parts of the other qualities, a fierce independence.
 
You cannot accept the concepts of responsibility, quality, and curiosity into the fabric of your character without realizing that each of these is constantly under attack from mediocrity, and the final defense is also the only defense; your own independence. 

Whether through the persuasion of mass marketing, the expenditure of energy to achieve a goal, or the simple reality of scarcity of resources, the easiest choice is almost always the opposite of the responsible, high quality and curiosity satiating decision. 

The drive to overcome that mediocrity comes from a strong streak of independence; no one can or will drive you to reach the high peaks of life, you must reach them yourself, and the only one who can do it is you. 

Not the government, not your peers, not your friends or even your family has ultimate say in what you do, and therefore the responsibility you shoulder, the quality you experience, the curiosity you satisfy, and the independence you achieve through pursuit of those goals is attributable solely to yourself. 

Those four qualities; responsibility, quality, curiosity, and fierce independence, seem to best describe our approach to life as I understand it.

Feel free to comment below on whether or not you've found those same ideas ring true for you.

Cheers,

Nik


Nik Hawks

Author

Nik Hawks helps run the show at Paleo Treats. Fascinated by humans in all their strange glory, Nik is harnessed in and pulling hard in pursuit of excellence with the rest of the PT Crew. Enjoy!


Too much reading...
How about dessert?

Too Much Reading...How About Dessert?

2 Comments

Nik @ PT
Nik @ PT

November 16, 2014

Thanks Dorothy! Inspired in part by your own example. :) Cheers! -Nik

Dorothy Ainsworth
Dorothy Ainsworth

November 15, 2014

Excellent, excellent!!! Bravo Bravo!! Great philosophy and the only one that really works. I couldn’t have said it better myself, but I tried—www.dorothyainsworth.com/rely/self-rely.shtml.
I expounded on the subject, but you summed it up beautifully and succinctly. You are an exemplary free-enterprise company with the best of American values .
Sincerely,
Dorothy

Leave a comment

Comments will be approved before showing up.