Why Trees Have the Best Business Wisdom for Winter
This piece was originally shared with my newsletter subscribers on the 17th January 2025.
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I did something last week that I'm slightly regretting this afternoon. 🫣
I got curious in that classic "I wonder what other people are saying about business right now" kind of way and downloaded someone's lead magnet that sounded intriguing. Curiosity is said to have killed the cat, but this cat just wanted to see what was out there for purrrrrrrly research purposes, especially as to what the "experts" are pushing in this very loud January.
That was yesterday afternoon.
I've just checked my inbox, and email number 5 has just popped in. Five emails from them in less than 24 hours, all selling me something and telling me what I'm doing wrong. One lead magnet, and my inbox is already under assault. 😫
Now my reasoning for this curiosity was purely for research, but if you are genuinely searching for the answer, for that missing piece in your business, then my little situation made me realize not only how noisy it is out there at the moment, but also the impact of external advice.
This Time of Year Is Noisy
It seems that everyone is shouting about Q1 goals, strategies, transformations, and all the things you "should" be doing at the moment (and if you're not doing them, then you're very much behind and apparently destined for a year that's not "your" one 😞).
And we're also heading into Blue Monday (the 19th), which I know is technically a marketing invention created to sell holidays but somehow we still take it to heart. It feels like it's a mountain to climb, especially when you're 3 weeks into January, the new year energy has faded, and you're wondering if you're the only one who hasn't got their act together yet.
Let me be VERY clear before we go any further: you're not. You're absolutely not behind, not in any shape or form.
The January Sales Machine
January is prime time for sales of transformation. It's that time of year when we naturally want a fresh start, promoted by the natural clearing of the slate that comes with the turn of a calendar page. Whilst a new year is a positive thing (it's another trip around the sun, after all 🌍), it also seems to become a pressurized container in which experts, gurus, and people who want to sell you things all have a framework, system, or proven process that promises the outcome you want.
If you're like me—or like most of the founders I work with—part of you wants to listen to all of it, because maybe THIS framework will be the one that fixes everything. Maybe THIS system will finally make sense of the chaos. Maybe this is the year you actually achieve all those wishes, hopes, and dreams you put on your list every January.
I really understand this train of thought, because I've been there, wanting to have all those dreams come true, all whilst feeling trapped in my business (saying yes when you mean no, working with clients who drain you, and exhausted by success that everyone else thinks looks brilliant).
It's very natural to want someone else to tell you exactly what to do when you're in that sort of pickle.
The Problem With External Voices
The external voices are so confident, certain, and clear about the exact steps you should take to remedy the problem. They feel the polar opposite of your own internal voice, which is quiet, hesitant, and a little bit uncertain, and dare I say, a little bit scared.
And so, you listen to the loud, confident voices. You consume their content, download their templates, bookmark the articles, and add things to your ever-growing "to look at/do/be" list.
I've done it too. I spent an entire January a few years ago consuming everything—every newsletter, every webinar, every framework I could find for free—desperately hoping someone would hand me the solution (plot twist: it didn't). My justification for absorbing all that content was that listening to confident external voices felt easier than sitting with my own uncomfortable internal one whispering "this isn't working, you're not okay."
The Compound Effect
What I learned, after coming through that experience, escaping my cage business and now being on the other side, is that when you're already trapped in a business and struggling to speak up for what you need, more external input doesn't help.
It actually makes it harder to hear what you need. It compounds the problem. 😭
Not because the advice is wrong—often it's quite good—but because the sheer volume drowns out the one voice that actually knows what you need: yours.
The glorious Oak tree on my walk today
What I Saw on My Walk Today
I went for a walk this morning (after receiving email number 3, I needed some space and air!), and I noticed the oak trees standing tall with their bare branches, looking dormant and asleep, waiting for spring. 🌳
That's when the wisdom bubbled up.
I realised that they're not asking anyone what to do.
They're not reading newsletters about "5 Strategies for Maximum Winter Growth" or attending webinars on "How to Optimise Your Dormant Season." 😂 They're not comparing themselves to the evergreens that stayed green all winter, wondering what they're doing wrong.
They're just... responding to conditions. Their own internal conditions and what their roots are telling them from deep in the ground. They're noticing the temperature and light and water, and they're listening to what their own rhythms are saying about when to rest and when to grow.
The Wisdom of Internal Knowing
They tune into themselves, and somehow, without any frameworks or strategies or 5 emails in 24 hours, they know exactly what to do. All without any comparison. Just deep, quiet, internal knowing.
What would happen if we embodied this approach? What if instead of consuming more content, we just listened to ourselves and that deep, ingrained intuition we all have about what is the right answer for us?
What I Did With Those 5 Emails
I deleted them all. I didn't read them properly. I scanned them, saw the hustle energy pulsating off the screen, and knew immediately that they weren't my cup of tea.
As the whoosh of those emails being emptied from the bin rang out of my iMac speakers, I felt a little boost of confidence. A quiet knowing that the way I'm approaching 2026, how I'm supporting my clients and their dreams and goals, is the right way for me: quiet, intentional, and completely different to everyone else.
That's what I'd love to share with you today—not more advice, but the permission to listen to what's already inside you. The wisdom that's already there waiting for you.
It's the permission to channel your inner tree and tune into what your intuition is whispering, rather than only listening to what's being shouted at you from the outside.
What Is Your Intuition Trying to Tell You?
If you're looking for answers, it might be a feeling of ease when you imagine something. Or discomfort when you think about another path. Or a quiet voice that says "this isn't for me" even when everyone says it should be.
Whatever it says, it might not deliver crystal-clear clarity either, and that's okay. Winter is for questions, not answers. ❄️ For listening, not deciding. For noticing what your roots are telling you deep underground where nobody else can see.
So, during the week ahead, when your feed and screens mention Blue Monday, maybe scroll on by the external advice, the comparison and the 5 emails in 24 hours telling you what you should be doing, and instead turn up the volume on that quiet internal knowing that's been waiting patiently for you to listen.
The trees know what's right for them without anyone telling them.
Onwards and Upwards
- Becky :)
About the Author: Becky Benfield Humberstone helps Quietly Disruptive founders escape the cage businesses keeping them from their real purpose. If you're so busy surviving that you can't remember why you started, or the impact you actually wanted to create, she gets it. Using The Two Questions Framework, Becky works with established entrepreneurs to move from trapped and silent, to free and making the impact they know, deep down, they're meant to create. Based in the UK and working globally via Zoom, she's walked this path herself.
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