The Doe and Her Fawns: Lessons in Business Resilience

I am blessed to live outside of town, surrounded by woods and wildlife.

One of my rites of summer is seeing the fawns the local 🦌 deer herds bring into the world. I see them in our backyard- a heavily wooded area that merges with the other wooded areas and local state parks. I see them when I take walks and when driving in and out of the community.

I have some basic- okay, more than basic- knowledge about the deer herds and how they operate. Case in point, I’ve learned enough about the doe and fawn dynamic to be dangerous, i.e., slightly helpful in weird situations. 🤣

In general, a doe will have twins, assuming the current environment, the space they have to roam, and available resources (forage, water) will support twins.

Here’s how the system works (bear with me, my business unicorns🦄, I’m getting there):

A doe that is less than a year old will have one fawn. Her body can support just one offspring.

A doe that is more than a year old will generally have two fawns. She has two teats, so feeding two is a breeze. However, it does require more effort, particularly when the fawns are very young. Fawns are hidden in the woods and meadows until they are big enough to travel with the herd during the day.

Twins (they are not of the same egg, but I always refer to two fawns as twins) are hidden in separate locations to lessen the chances of predation. That means that mom must travel to two locations to keep her babies fed and clean. They are a few weeks old before she brings them together and “drops them off” at the same location every day.

As long as nature provides rain, sun, and normal temperatures, the doe has enough to eat to feed her fawns while maintaining her own body weight and health.

This year, we had a wet spring, a wet summer, normal temperatures, and forage abounds.

The fawns are old enough to begin traveling with their mothers for part of the day. I saw a doe with three fawns in the back woods. I presumed I simply hadn’t seen the second doe, assuming one had twins and the other had a singleton.

A few days later, I saw the same thing. This time, I made the effort to find the second doe. There was no second doe.

A doe with triplets is rare. A doe with triplets that live to two or three months old is rarer still. Older, very healthy does may have triplets. Rearing them to adulthood requires a larger-than-normal expenditure of energy, environmental cooperation, and quite a bit of luck.

The Business Connection

Raising triplets is like building your business. Whether the business is a year old or a multi-seven-figure success story, the energetic expenditures are significant. Not everyone is designed to make it work.

You are the biggest factor in your business. Your health, knowledge, relationships- everything about you- is tested by entrepreneurship. If you have a chronic issue (like me with migraines) that impacts the hours you can work, your ability to focus while working, and your mental health.

The doe is the biggest factor in her fawns’ survival rate. If one of the fawns is weaker and she chooses to primarily feed the two stronger fawns, the weaker one will eventually succumb to predation or be left behind. (Nature can be a cruel bitch.)

If she cannot get enough high-quality forage, she will not be able to make enough milk to feed all three. If she has to travel long distances to find forage, that will take a toll on her body and require more food just to keep her healthy.

Her health must be superior to give her the strength to travel to all three fawns while getting enough food and water to maintain her body weight.

The weather cooperated this year with lots of rain and temperate temperatures. The forage and animals have not been stressed by drought or extreme high heat.

All contribute to the doe’s ability to keep herself and her offspring strong and healthy.  

Environmental Challenges

Our environment impacts what we have to do to keep the business moving forward. Buyers are smarter than they have ever been. Getting traffic to your sales page or freebie requires investing in paid traffic or spending more time than ever networking. National or global uncertainty stresses buyers, making them less willing to spend money.

If you’re not willing to invest and shift your business to meet the environment, the business will wither and die.

Mental and physical fortitude are required to move through the vagaries of business and to roll with changing times.

According to the Commerce Institute, 20.4% of businesses fail in their first year after opening, 49.4% fail in their first five years, and 65.3% fail in their first ten years.

Twenty percent in the first year is a huge percentage. Imagine sitting in a room with ten new entrepreneurs—two of them will be gone before the year is over. Running a business, any kind of business, is not for the faint of heart. Even when you think you've got this business thing figured out, the economy, buyer shifts, or almost anything can push your business into the "at risk" category.

A doe that raises all three of her fawns to adulthood is a magical rarity. The human who gives this business thing a try is the flashing star in the Universal sky.  The business owner who makes it to five years, seven years… is a magical rarity. 

The grit and determination involved will never be recognized or understood by most humans.

The Power of Community

But here’s what I’ve learned from watching that remarkable doe: she doesn’t do it alone. She may be the primary caregiver, but she exists within a larger herd- a community that shares information about food sources, warns of dangers, and creates safety in numbers. The other does have walked these paths before her. They know which clearings offer the best forage and which routes avoid predators.

In the business world, we often glorify the lone entrepreneur, the solo success story. But just like that doe with triplets, the most successful among us understand that thriving requires community. We need our herd- mentors who have traveled these paths before us, peers who share resources and warnings about market predators, and supporters who celebrate our wins and help us navigate our losses.

Don’t think that applies to you? I have traveled the rock-strewn road of “doing it alone,” and I have traveled the road with community. The road littered with community is more beautiful by far.

The doe with triplets teaches us that extraordinary success requires extraordinary support. When you’re pushing beyond what seems possible, when you’re nurturing multiple “offspring in your business, you cannot afford to go it alone. You need your community to share the load, offer guidance, and remind you that others have faced these same challenges and emerged stronger.

Whether you’re in your first year or your tenth, whether you’re raising one fawn or attempting the rare feat of triplets, remember this: even the most capable doe benefits from her herd. Your spiritually based business community- your mentors, peers, and supporters- isn’t just nice to have. It’s essential for survival and the key to becoming one of those magical rarities who not only survive but truly thrive.

It's not just about having the grit to do it alone. It’s about having the wisdom to join the community that will help carry you through.

The Soulful Success Circle is the community for you. Leaning into our spirituality (5D) and taking advantage of the traditional (3D) business tools that work, and making them authentically our own.

Feeling the pull to check out “the Circle”? Join the wait list. I’m opening the doors to new magical women in September. The wait list gets you a FRE* one-on-one with me when you join the community. ($147 value)