What does it take to be heard?

My boyfriend has a great quote - "it's not what you say... it is what people hear." And I can't tell you how many times I have said, and have heard others say, "well I told him/her that why didn't they do it?"

We make an interesting assumption that every time we say something, that the listener understands what we say with the exact same clarity as we understand what we say. Not true. next time watch a conversation and watch how many times something has to get repeated, watch how one person tends to repeat things back to make sure they understand. Understanding comes from experience, it comes from connecting information to your perspective of the world.

Ok so what does this have to do with sustainability? The other day I was with my boyfriend listening to a program on the radio and the interviewee talked about sustainability in relation to marketing trends. Side note: My boyfriend is in sales and marketing. he repeated back to me concepts about sustainability that I have been telling him for years, like they were brand new ideas? I scratched my head... "Haven't you been listening to me?"
His response is incredibly important for people to take note of. he said "Yeah, but you have never said it like he did. You need to use those words."

This to me was a great eye opener on how we must communicate for understanding in order to be heard. Keep trying, keep using different words and messaging, and eventually ideas might find a connection to each of our listeners.

Waste

I just cleaned out my garden to harvest what I had, remove what was old and make room for my summer "crops". I have to admit there was an excessive amount of "waste" I think the ratio was 1/4 = food, 3/4 = went to the compost. Now often we reference nature as having NO waste. And how inefficient I would be if this were my business. If I were tossing out 75% of my investments, I wouldn't be in business for too long.
But there is a different story here. This organic waste isn't going just anywhere, it is going into a compost that will be broken down into new soil for future gardens and thus supporting future plants. Really I have to take a very long term approach to how I look at my garden and thus giving me better examples of how to look at how I would build on the nature model for my business. Everything we don't use, we should use at some point. And this is probably the strategy behind hoarders. Keep it, for it might be useful at some point.
This is different, keep it because you KNOW HOW it will be useful at some point. But knowing that means you have to have a pretty in-depth understanding of what your needs will be in the future. And that is not easy. If you look at the market economy to day and compare it to the needs of 10 years ago, there have been many changes. But there have also been many similarities.
This is where you can at least plan for. Humans will need to eat, to sleep, to shelter themselves, we are addicted to culture, so if your waste can feed those needs then it serves a purpose. Even if that purpose is not short term.