Ilan Shamir?s true nature blossoms with success

From a small line of greeting cards to a blossoming business offering 65 products, training workshops and motivational speaking, Ilan Shamir has seen his green business grow.

Fort Collins-based Your True Nature Inc. offers greeting cards, postcards, notepads, journals, T-shirts, and, of course, the seven books authored by Shamir. And business is booming.

Over 20 million of his Greeting Seeds cards have been sold around the world, and his motivational line — “A Thousand Things Went Right Today!” — is being used for team-building and to increase employee morale in organizations as disparate as the U.S. Marine Corps insurance giant Metropolitan Life, online retailer Lands End, the and the 29 school districts with 30,000 staff and teachers in Northern California.

Not bad for a one-man, $250,000 operation. (He does have a part-time person to help him keep up with orders.)

All of the products focus on positive thinking, sustainable living and a means of connecting with the earth. Shamir personally spreads that positive approach in his books and as a keynote speaker/trainer for a variety of organizations including Poudre Valley Hospital, Maryland Parks and Planning Association and the National Institute of Wellness.

Shamir’s company is a walk-the-talk operation that grows greener with each expansion. “We reduce, reuse, recycle and replant,” he said.

In fact, Shamir has been responsible for planting 50,000 trees to help replace the paper used in his business. The company’s fleet consists of hybrid vehicles, and a portion of the profits is donated annually to One Percent for the Planet, an alliance of companies dedicated to environmental concerns worldwide.

His newest product, Tree Greetings, which was premiered Oct. 1, goes greener yet.

“It’s an example of a new level of sustainability with no paper used in the entire process of the product,” he said.

When a greeting is ordered, a tree is marked for planting in the name of the receiver, who can view the card online and then take an “eTour” to view the tree and the location where it will be planted.

The thinking is that from small efforts, large things grow — in much the same way Shamir’s business grew.

Fulfilling personal quest

It all began with a small seed of a notion. After graduating summa cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis, the San Antonio native spent a previous life working in the corporate world under the name of Scott Alyn. He played a key role in creating the successful “Un-Cola” campaign for 7UP and, later, developed Willy Wonka confection products for Sunline Brands.

But during the 1970s, he began to reassess his life. “I figured if I could use my marketing creativity and talent to help sell billions of soft drinks, why not use what I learned to promote the environment, education and health?” he said.

So, in 1980, he developed Greeting Seeds, the greeting cards containing gifts of seeds, teas, potpourri, spices, bubble bath and cocoa as well as good wishes. The business took off and he found himself with a staff of 60 and back in a corporate role that just didn’t seem to fit.

“That was overwhelming,” Shamir recalled. “I was spending a lot of my energy to manage that many people, and I really wanted to put my energy into using my creative expression.”

He went back to the drawing board, where he came up with the idea of Your True Nature.

“My own personal quest was to live authentically as a businessman, as a father, as a person and that represented all of that,” he said. “It’s about living as true to myself as possible and being true to my business vision of sustainability.’

It was also about freeing up time to spend as a single dad with daughter, Laurel, who was born in 1988, the year Shamir settle in Fort Collins.

“I interviewed other fathers and asked, ‘What is your wisdom?’” he said. “I kept hearing how they grow up so quick. I didn’t want to miss that so I reorganized my work so that I could be there and began to work at home.”

The books — “Advice from a Tree,” “Advice from a River,” “Poet Tree,” “Tree Celebrations,” “The True Nature of Designing Successful Products,” “Simple Wisdom” and “A Thousand Things Went Right Today!” — came next.

Replanting grows

One thing led to another. With Fort Collins-based conservation group Trees Water & People, Shamir developed the “100 Percent Replanted” online calculator to help individuals and businesses determine how many trees they would have to replant to offset the paper they used. (For example, one mature tree yields about 230 pounds of paper.)

“We figured out how many we had used and then began to plant,” he said, a substantial task given the success of his books and greeting cards.

In 1990, he co-founded Fort Collins ReLeaf, a community forestry organization through which he planted or sponsored over 30,000 trees, including 7,000 trees in the Colorado State Forest near Gould, in Jackson County west of Cameron Pass.

Shamir has also sponsored the planting of an additional 20,000 trees, working with other nonprofit organizations like Trees Water & People. He continued to develop new products that encouraged sustainability including “The Gift of a Tree” and “This T Plants a Tree” line of shirts.

Another change occurred in the midst of all of this. Not only had he moved beyond his old job in the corporate world, he found that his old name no longer fit his true nature. In 1996, with advice from a friend, he selected the Hebrew name Ilan Shamir, which literally means “protector of the trees.”

The transformation was complete, but Shamir’s work on his true nature continues as a lecturer and trainer for organizations. “I share my stories about how I went from not living my true nature to living my true nature,” he said. “It’s also about serving others.”

The training helps organizations find ways to build teams, reduce stress, reduce employee turnover and focus on what’s working.

Shamir said he has found ways to make people and organizations more open to new thinking. “If people know they can make a difference, they’ll put their energy into it,” he said. “But sometimes you have to light a fire under them. You have to take a risk to make change.”

He took the risk, made the changes, and found his true nature as Ilan Shamir, protector of trees, life and celebration, he said. “That is so much who I am and how I live, how I make a living and how I’ll die.”

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