One reason to support them is to keep large corporations from taking over the world. Kudos to the heads of these corporations for being such excellent business people. However, most of these corporations keep growing, and don't need our help as much as, say, the fruit stand on the corner, the flower stand on the street, or the rare book store where the owners go out of their way to find that mint-condition 1920 edition of your favorite British novel.

 Another reason to support your local vendors is that their business is truly their bread-and-butter. They need to pay rent for their business space, as well as rents or mortgages on their living space; and of course they need to provide food and clothing for themselves and their families.

 A third reason, and one of the most important, is that by supporting your local vendors, you are supporting hope. The local vendor's business is their baby, their dream, their vision. They had the courage to set out on their own, nurturing their beliefs in themselves. By believing in them, you can also begin to set the intention to believe in yourself, and have faith in your own creativity.

 To start and run a local business of one's own–and have it be successful–does take all of the above. Connecting with and believing in yourself and your creativity, knowing that this business venture is truly aligned with your soul's path, having faith. What we feel and think (what we put out in to the universe) instantly attracts our current situations, at all times. If you feel in your body and know in your heart that you will be a success, the universe responds to that and you attract success like a magnet. There is no room for failure because there is no doubt or worry being tossed around–no chatterbox in the mind saying "what if-".

 Of course, businesses need the practical qualities of planning and advertising; the earthly things that must be there in order for clients and customers to learn that the business is there in the first place. But the practical aspects must be supported by the spirit for any product or service to start selling like wildfire.

 We can do anything we set our minds, bodies and souls to. The phrase "Think Globally, Act Locally" doesn't apply solely to environmental issues–it can pertain also to our own hopes and dreams–and by each of us nurturing hope locally, we can surely spread hope globally.

 Support your local vendors, the individualists–the courageous ones–it helps them, and inspires us to treat our own dreams as sacred.