Rachel Smith is a consultant, change-maker and author of Under$pent who says this is an important time for leaders to share the information and knowledge to inspire community members and ignite the fuse for change. ‘’We have been given a gift of time and we shouldn’t waste the opportunity to stop, and reflect and reset our own lives, our communities, our government services and infrastructure, and almost start again.‘’ This conversation is #8 of Jane Milburn’s Virtual Churchill series ARISING from Disruption – stories of adaptation, resourcefulness and self-sufficiency. Rachel’s best piece of advice is do not compare yourself to anyone else. ”It is really easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself with others, what they might have bought, what you think they’ve got, what you think they might earn. I think that is a really big issue at the moment. ”
Read notes from this conversation below, or read more about Rachel and Under$pent here.
What Rachel said:
I’m OK, because been working from home for past 18 months and I grew up in a rural area and made our own entertainment as kids so childhood has me well adapted to isolation.
I have two businesses: a transport, planning and infrastructure advisory consultancy which is being completely reinvented by going back to core skills of demand management and behaviour change; and Underspent which is helping people to break the habit of impulse or compulsive shopping. Basically, my work is at intersection of UN Goal 11 and UN Goal 12, which is about sustainable cities and communities, and responsible production and consumption. Everything I do aligns with those two United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
I’ve got a small business, there’s just me and my accountant so I’m very agile. I work from home so there are no big overheads except insurances and no huge costs. I’ve been working mostly interstate and overseas for the past 18 months – which is a hindrance now – lots of work in New Zealand, New South Wales, Singapore, and the UK.
What I’ve observed in others is we’ve had a huge consumer boom. Many of us thought this would be a time for sharing, reusing and repurposing, but actually we have seen that people are spending more than they’ve ever spent previously. Sleepwear sales are up 1100 percent, beauty products up 400 percent, homewares and entertainment are up 390 percent. Someone made a really good point the other day that people are buying the ‘perfect home’. When people have been allowed to take their laptop and screens home, to work at home, people haven’t done that they’ve gone and bought a new set-up for their own home office.
What I’ve observed in myself is my waste and resources have really reduced. Last year I did an experiment where I stored all my waste – all my recycling and everything that would normally go in the bin. I saw that within a week, the average household, is throwing away a lot of stuff. So I had really brought my waste back to next to nothing. Secondly, I have expanded my problem-solving to out-of-the-box thinking. When I want to do something or change something, I think about what resources are there in the house that can be used, adapted or modified. And thirdly, I’ve been buying a lot less food, being really mindful of purchases, going to local greengrocers that I can walk to and really using everything up. I’ve cleared out the freezer and am being really resourceful.
I grew up in a country area, self-contained small market town (in the UK), used to spend a lot of time with my grandparents on their farm. My grandma couldn’t drive so she planned ahead, they grew their own veg, had their own milk and meat. Then in 2014, I didn’t buy anything new or secondhand for a year. I guess I know how to be content with what I’ve got, to problem-solve and use what I already have to hand.
Routines: I am not a morning person, I struggle in the morning. In the normal world, I did most of my shallow work – my emails, invoicing, telephone calls – in the morning and then in the afternoon I did my deep work – my thinking, my report writing, my strategic work. During COVID-19, I’ve scrapped my schedule. I found that I was putting too much pressure on myself. Everyone else was doing two bike rides a day and yoga classes, and I thought I’m just going to do what is right for me and go with the flow. The mornings are, see how I feel and do what I want to do, and in the afternoons I’m doing all my reinvention work. I found in the beginning, I got invited to so many webinars and seminars, there was so much noise it was really overwhelming. Now I’m sticking with my trusted experts, prior to COVID-19, people who give me real value.
Everyday resourcefulness: I’ve been cooking a lot more. I was a home-cook-from-scratch person anyway, but have been doing more baking, things like apple crumble. I’m having two home-cooked meals a day – at lunchtime and in the evening. A lot more pottering around, doing DIY jobs, cleaning, crafting, that kind of stuff – practical things. I used to go to a clay pottering class every Tuesday evening, and I really enjoyed that. It was also like a women’s circle as well – I really do miss that. I’ve tried to bring the things I would do at pottery into everyday life now, because working with your hands is really important.
Tips: Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. That is a key message from my Underspent book, and my work in consumerism and shopping. It is really easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself with others, what they might have bought, what you think they’ve got, what you think they might earn. I think that is a really big issue at the moment. Lots of people have a permanent job and nothing has really changed for them. Easy to look on social media and see people in secure employment going on two bike rides a day, going to buy a coffee, it looks like they are having the time of their life but I’m sure they are not. It is really easy to see that superficial, curated story on social media about how other people are living their life, with perfect evenings doing jigsaw puzzles, cooking and having family dinners – and thinking those people are doing that, I should do that too. I compare it to Christmas. Everyone thinks everyone else is having the perfect Marks & Spencer Christmas and nothing is going wrong, but in reality everyone’s family Christmas is very different to the next family. So just enjoy your lockdown period, live your life in a way that’s right for your values, your passions, your purpose, and don’t compare yourself to others.
Changes: I’d like to see us planning for modern lifestyles and for a better society. My business is focused on changing the way we use government resources, services and infrastructure. I’d like demand management to be the legacy of COVID-19, where we are really looking at what the existing and future problems are, where the spare capacity is and how we can redistribute the demand. Maybe we will look at why we have 400 houses in a suburb and we each have got a lawnmower and a chainsaw – start sharing more. I don’t know whether we are going to see a consumer boom or a huge sharing boom, it’s hard right now to predict where things might go. We are likely in an L-shaped recession, which means an 18-month plateau or slowdown. We have been given a gift of time and we shouldn’t waste the opportunity to stop, and reflect and reset our own lives, our communities, our government services and infrastructure, and almost start again. But whether that will happen I don’t know. It is important for those of us who are change makers and leaders, to share the information and knowledge that we’ve got to inspire community members – so that they actually say, rather than following the norm, this person or these people over here have got a really good idea, why don’t we do that instead. So it is up to us, as change makers or rule breakers or leaders, to share everything that we know to ignite the fuse for change.
I heard a good quote from one of the fire captains from the Australian bush fires, who said that Shane Fitzsimmons, the Rural Fire Service Commissioner was the picture of leadership. He had the right messaging, he made the right moves, he was strong and a leader at the right time and compassionate at the right time. We should all have bit of Shane Fitzsimmons in us, to lead the change that we want to see.