“If you stand for nothing, you fall for everything”

We asked the community to tell us about the values and principles that guide their lives and businesses.

Teresa Ramirez Petroni | Energy/Bodyworker I H.H.P.

Ethical, inclusive and accessible Holistic Healing Services for ALL humans/walks of life. Healing is for everyone and I am deeply passionate about having an inclusive pricing/service offering allowing my business to serve more community members than I would with an exclusive pricing structure. Ethics within wellness and spiritual spaces are not talked about enough and as a leader in my business I seek to flip the script on this. I operate under a personal and professional ethical code where the client’s wellbeing (mental, physical and emotional) are in the forefront of my treatment process at all times whether it’s in a causal DM convo about wellness to a client on my table to a family/friend seeking wellness advice. People over profit always. Read more>>

Yari Cervas | Theatre Artist, Mental Health, and Indigenous Rights Advocate

I try to abide by what I call the “rules of play;” eight trauma-informed guidelines created to empower us through community. The most important one, encompassing all the others, is Rule #6 “Mend any harm through transformative justice.” This rule requires that we engage in our relationships with vulnerability, empathy, accountability, and curiosity. We all harm each other–it’s an inevitable part of humanness–straining and sometimes even severing our relationships. But if we approach these moments intending to “mend any harm,” our vulnerability can lead to empathy and invite us to accept accountability for our actions. Then, as a community, curiosity can guide us to transform our behavior so that everyone is honored. This applies to intimate conflicts and societal ones. The attitude to “mend any harm” guides us to restructure our world and the way we see it from something violently unequal to something lovingly shared. It’s easy for us to be complacent when we don’t empathize with the people around us. Read more>>

Noelle Bonus | Entrepreneur

I’d have to say that the principle of staying 100% true and honest with yourself matters most to me. You can only get so far doing things for validation and impressing other people until you lose yourself at some point and end up in a place where you didn’t mean to be. Whatever business you’re building or art you’re creating, staying true to yourself from the get-go will allow the long term results to be more authentic to you and more gratifying. Read more>>

George Jac | Actor + Director + Producer

When I thought of values or principles that matter the most to me, it was difficult to narrow it down to only one. But when I put a bit more thought into it, I realized that I can distill down all of the other values I was thinking of into one: EMPATHY. I believe that genuine empathy is the ultimate core value that we all as humans can aspire to develop. As an actor, I’ve always known that this attribute is one that should be greatly prioritized, but as I’ve grown older I have seen how empathy really is the key to thriving in all aspects of life: relationships, career, personal development. Read more>>

Bobby De Lancellotti | Executive Director, Founder of Estero Bay Kindness Coalition

The value of love matters most to me. It’s something that was engrained in me at very young age, seeing my mother ‘s acts of everyday kindness and her amazing heart of generosity was my motivating factor and set the trajectory for the rest of my life. One of the earliest influences in my life was the film Brother Son Sister Moon about Saint Francis of Assisi and his extravagant love for the poor and the forgotten. When I became a follower of Jesus and eventually started a church, loving the poor, and serving the most vulnerable in our community was the hallmark of who our church was and what I’m were about. Fast forward to 2018, I started a 501c3 nonprofit organization, Estero Bay Kindness Coalition in San Luis Obispo County, CA. Our mission is to bring the four corners of our community together: for-profits, nonprofits, schools, and churches to serve some of the most under-resourced, food insecure school kids and their families on our coast. Read more>>