From the Kitchen table.
The intersection of entrepreneurship, seasonally connected living, motherhood and homemaking. Is this what we need?
Hello lovelies,
Autumn is well and truly here in Queenstown. We have had our first dusting of snow, a couple of light frosts and I am reminding myself of when I planted the garlic last year (May 26th! - so soon). The tips of the daffodils are already coming up and we have done the big turn of our compost. We spend lots of time walking around the garden plotting and planning for the next growing season.
As well as this I am taking the time to be in this liminal space I described in my last post. Being curious and going for long walks around the hills. Pushing myself just a little to do things differently like not just sit and watch tv at night but start writing a book that’s been in my head for ages, or pick up that knitting project or play board games with the boys.
For a while now I wondered how can I support women more deeply in their businesses while also talking about seasonal living, sustainability, slow/intentional living, motherhood, the garden, herbalism, rituals and creating in a way that feels good. I have been wanting to find a way to bring it all together - all of me - in one place. It occurred to me that I have often resonated with the hearth as the centre of the home but many don’t have fire places… but we do have kitchen tables. So many women I know have spent hours at their kitchen table amongst the dust, left over food bits, old flowers, homework, and washing creating something meaningful for themselves and their families. Etching out a space of their own. Creating an income in a way that works for them and their lifestyle. Because they want more, different and better.
The Kitchen Table is the Heart of the Home.
From our kitchen tables we make plans, we dream, we talk, we discuss difficult life decisions and we celebrate our lives (even if we have a dedicated office space which I do and I don’t use it as much). It holds space for both the practicalities of life like rolling out dough and the possibilities of our dream to become reality - much like the businesses we put our hearts into building.
My own table is around 150 years old. Shipped to New Zealand on a colonial boat and then loved by one family on a homestead in Canterbury for generations. We found it by chance in a woodworkers shop. It has dents, broken bits and sun-bleaching but it has seen so much of life.
Yet when we sit down to plan our businesses, we're told to leave that kitchen table wisdom behind. Instead, we're handed cold frameworks designed in boardrooms for corporates or “Big B” businesses I call them. We're given strategies that assume we have unlimited time, singular focus, and linear growth trajectories especially when it comes to marketing.
These traditional approaches rarely acknowledge the wisdom we've gained through motherhood or honour the rhythms of our homes and our kids. They ask us to compartmentalise rather than integrate, to hustle rather than nurture. To keep doing more, more, more and being as productive as we can in ALL the ways. I don’t know who said it first but to work like we don’t have kids and look after our kids like we don’t work. For thousands of mums this is just not possible. We’re tired and we need a new way. That works.
There is another way.
What if business planning could feel like coming home rather than stepping into a foreign landscape?
What if the wisdom you've cultivated through creating and tending to a family could become the foundation of your business strategy?
What if your kitchen table – literal or metaphorical – could become the birthplace of a business that truly supports the life you want to live?
Over the past several years of working with mother entrepreneurs, I've witnessed a pattern: the most successful and sustainable businesses aren't built on conventional wisdom. They're built on kitchen table wisdom. They are built honouring our own cycles, honouring our well-being, honouring the energetic changes of the seasons and always finding the joy and what feels good. They also deeply honour the cycles and focus on long term sustainable wins not quick hustled wins.
Here are some elements that I am playing around with - let me know what you think.
The Elements of Kitchen Table Business Planning
When we gather around a kitchen table several elements create that distinctive feeling of coming home:
1. The Heart(h) at the Center
A hearth represents warmth and nourishment. In business planning, this means identifying our core values and non-negotiables – the elements that must remain constant regardless of external pressures. Your hearth is what you return to when decisions become difficult or when the market suggests a direction that doesn't feel aligned.
What values form the hearth of your business?
What must remain non-negotiable for you to feel nourished by your work?
2. The Well-Stocked Pantry
Generations of women have known the importance of a well-tended pantry – resources preserved for both everyday nourishment and unexpected lean times. In your business, your pantry represents your resources: skills, support systems, financial reserves, and energy management. I recently had a full upgrade of my pantry after years of it not working. I designed it properly taking into account the best way to use it (especially that I wanted to be able “see” my jars and not having things hidden (except the snacks which are now in a drawer)) for the whole family. And I love it! It has made a huge difference to what we buy and what we use up for meals. No more wasted space or food.
How are you stocking your business pantry? What systems help you preserve energy and resources for the seasons ahead? Especially as the seasons and energy changes.
3. The Seasonal Garden
Traditional wisdom understands that different seasons call for different activities. Some seasons are for planting, others for tending, harvesting, or letting the soil rest. Your business follows similar natural rhythms, especially when integrated with family life. This has been a big aha moment for me. And often these seasonal business changes are not aligned with the actual seasons. We can’t keep pushing, forcing and being or doing the same 365 days of the year if actually we need to winter for a bit and come back to our selves for the next evolution.
This has been so true for me recently. In a business and energy ebb but instead of beating myself up, pushing harder or blaming I just return to acceptance, staying curious, and being compassionate. If I need rest, I need rest. If my kids need me more right now then my business can lull while I do that. Ebbs and flows, ups and downs. I am a human not a machine so shouldn’t expect myself to act like one every single moment of the day. Who cares if the house is dirtier than normal or I didn’t preserve everything I wanted to?
What season is your business currently experiencing? Are your expectations and activities aligned with this season?
4. The Kitchen Itself
The kitchen is where transformation happens – raw ingredients become nourishing meals through both intuition and technique. Similarly, your business implementation requires both structure and flexibility, recipes and intuition. I often counsel my clients that the hardest part (but also the most powerful) is to create the recipe that works for you. Your unique strategy may take time to find (and may change over time) but once you have it it is like no other. No templates or once-and-done strategies work 100% - you have to create your own unique list of ingredients and recipe for putting it all together. It might be a slow cooker rather than an air-fryer.
How might your business operations feel more like a well-loved kitchen – organised yet creative, structured yet responsive?
5. The Composting Phase
The whole basis of this new way of thinking is that it is regenerative, cyclical and we allow the letting go and removal of things that no longer serve us. We take the time to learn and reflect on what has gone on in the past week, month or cycle and use this to be “better” in our business for the next cycle. Composting as we now creates beautiful, nutrient dense soil for the next growing phase. We can use the idea of composting to create a regenerative practice that honours feminine wisdom, natural cycles, and the transformative power of rest and reflection.
Coming Home to Your Business
When mothers tell me they feel alienated by traditional business advice, what they're often describing is the dissonance between their lived experience and conventional wisdom. They're trying to force their beautifully organic, season-dependent, relationship-centered businesses into frameworks that value only linear growth, constant visibility, and detached strategy.
The Kitchen Table approach acknowledges that the wisdom you've gained through creating and maintaining a home – through nurturing life itself – is precisely the wisdom your business needs.
It recognises that:
The patience you've cultivated as a mother translates to sustainable business growth
Your ability to attend to multiple needs simultaneously is a superpower, not a liability
Your intuition is as valuable as any market research
Your commitment to creating a nourishing environment can extend to how you serve clients
Your understanding of natural rhythms and seasons creates sustainable business cycles
I am deep in making a new guide that goes deeper into all of this. But, my over-thinking brains is still wondering - would this work, is it relevant, have I put in way too much content (it’s a thing I do!), should I simplify etc etc?
If this does resonate with you consider:
What would change in your business if you brought it fully to the kitchen table? If you allowed yourself to plan and grow from this place of both nurturing and practical wisdom? If you added in or connected to the seasons, your energetic cycle, intentionality, feminine wisdom and regenerative methodologies?
I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Where do you feel most disconnected from traditional business advice? What kitchen table wisdom are you already bringing to your work? What season are you in for your business? Or are you resisting an evolution? Is this something you’d love to go deeper in?
The Breakthrough
Recently my biggest breakthrough was recognising and then deciding that the only way income generating was going to work for me was if I was all me. It had to be done my way. But it has taken time (and the details are still percolating) to get clarity on what that looked like. I needed to give myself the space to feel the discomfort and discombobulation of the breakthrough in my journey. I didn’t want to feel it. I didn’t want to acknowledge it. With some coaching I found that this is the journey. I need to go through this in order to evolve.
And here I am, kinda on the threshold of a new beginning, and yet it’s just a big integration and finally feels exciting and more me than ever before. This is what I want for all mama entrepreneurs to feel. A soul deep yes.
If you’d be interested in getting your hands on the guide when its ready let me know.
More to come.
xOlivia
