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Today I'm talking to Christine, a Humane Marketing Circle member and Creative Start-Up Coach about passion and happiness. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with Christine Michaelis, author of the book “The Happiness Formula.” We explore the intriguing question of why some business owners find greater happiness in their endeavors than others. Throughout our discussion, we uncover a treasure trove of insights, examining the transformative power of habits that promote happiness, the art of setting achievable goals that foster fulfillment rather than disappointment, and the joy derived from being part of a vibrant community. Drawing from her extensive research and expertise, Christine offers practical strategies and illuminating anecdotes that are sure to inspire and motivate listeners to unlock their own path to happiness in business and beyond. So tune in as we embark on this captivating exploration of what it takes to be a truly happy and fulfilled business owner. In this episode, Christine and I share a conversation on: Why some business owners are happier than others Habits that make us happier How to set achievable goals that make us happy and not disappointed The happiness that comes from being in community with others Her new book ‘The Happiness Formula'  And much more Imperfect Transcript of the show We use and love Descript to edit our podcast and provide this free transcript of the episode. And yes, that's an affiliate link. [00:00:00] Sarah: Hello, humane marketers. Welcome back to the Humane Marketing Podcast, the place to be for the generation of marketers that cares. This is a show where we talk about running your business in a way that feels good to you, is aligned with your values, and also resonates with today's conscious customers because it's humane, ethical, and non-pushy. [00:00:23] I'm Sarah z Croce, your hippie turn business coach for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs and marketing impact pioneer. Mama Bear of the Humane Marketing Circle and renegade author of marketing like we're human and selling like we're human. If after listening to the show for a while, you're ready to move on to the next level and start implementing and would welcome a community of like-minded, quietly rebellious entrepreneurs who discuss with transparency what. [00:00:52] Works and what doesn't work in business, then we'd love to welcome you in our humane marketing circle. If you're picturing your [00:01:00] typical Facebook group, let me paint a new picture for you. This is a closed community of like-minded entrepreneurs from all over the world who come together once per month in a Zoom circle workshop to hold each other accountable and build their business in a. [00:01:15] Sustainable way we share with transparency and vulnerability, what works for us and what doesn't work, so that you can figure out what works for you instead of keep throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. Find out more at humane.marketing/circle, and if you prefer one-on-one support from me. [00:01:37] My humane business coaching could be just what you need, whether it's for your marketing, sales, general business building, or help with your big. Idea like writing a book. I'd love to share my brain and my heart with you together with my almost 15 years business experience and help you grow a sustainable business that is joyful and sustainable. [00:01:58] If you love this podcast, [00:02:00] wait until I show you my mama bear qualities as my one-on-one client can find out more at humane.marketing/coaching. And finally, if you are a Marketing Impact pioneer and would like to bring Humane Marketing to your organization, have a look at my offers and workshops on my website@humane.marketing. [00:02:32] Hi, friends. Welcome back. I hope you're doing well. Today's conversation fits under the P of Passion, so we're back to the first P of the Humane Marketing Mandala. If you're a regular here, you know that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven Ps of the Humane Marketing Mandala. And if this is your first time here and you probably don't know what I'm talking about, you can download your one page marketing plan with the [00:03:00] humane marketing version of the seven Ps of marketing@humane.marketing slash one page. [00:03:07] That's the number one and the word page. This one page marketing plan comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these different piece for your business. So it's not a, you know, six step plan here, do this. But it's more like prompting you with questions that help you reflect on your different piece. [00:03:29] On today's show, I'm talking to Christine, uh, Michael's, uh, humane Marketing Circle, member and creative startup coach about passion and happiness. But before I tell you a little bit more about Christine and today's show, I'd like to tell you about our upcoming storytelling, like We're Human Workshop that takes place on June 7th. [00:03:52] As you may have noticed, I have this series of workshops, live workshops, with the theme of being [00:04:00] human. Something being human, right? And the idea is to look at these different concepts. Marketing strategies, et cetera, from the perspective of humane marketing and marketing like we're human. So this, uh, time we're looking at storytelling and rather than looking at storytelling from this, Hero's perspective, right? [00:04:22] Hint, hero's journey. We're actually looking at it from being human. So how are we going to tell stories that feel like we're human? Uh, I think we are kind of tired of the, uh, heroes, uh, stories and we'd watch, rather hear from a human level. Connect on this human level and in order to get ideal clients, we know that we, uh, need to bring more of us to our marketing, more of us to our story, but. [00:04:55] How, that's the question, right? In which stories are relevant? [00:05:00] Well, that's exactly what we're discussing in this 90 minute live workshop on June 7th, and I'm so thrilled that Hillary Ria, uh, my co-host will help you find your five word life story. And I'm really super excited about this because I. I'm so happy to have found a storytelling expert that agrees with me that, you know, the, the typical heroes journey story type is kind of outdated. [00:05:29] We need to bring more of us to our story, and that's what we're gonna do in this live workshop. So it starts from within. That's actually what we're doing. Instead of trying to fit our story into the story arc, the hero's journey arc we're coming from within. And there's still a, you know, framework. [00:05:47] There's still structure, but it really comes from within. So please have a look at the details at humane.marketing/storytelling and uh, join us for only [00:06:00] $27 for this confidence boosting workshop. Cuz once you. Own your story. That's when you're really going out there and resonating with your ideal clients. [00:06:09] Right? Of course, if you're already a Humane Marketing Circle member, you can intend all our workshops for free. Okay, back to today's episode. Let me tell you a bit more about Christine. Christine Marketing and creative startup coach, founder of the Creative Startup Academy, author of multiple books, public speaker, podcast and workshop facilitator. [00:06:33] She has worked in marketing and advertising for more than 12 years before she decided to start her own business supporting startups. When her hands-on approach, she has helped hundreds of individuals validate their. Business idea and create a successful startup, as well as working with small businesses, supporting them, getting clarity and marketing their business. [00:06:56] She sees entrepreneurship as a way of life and [00:07:00] loves the passion that comes from working in that industry. In our conversation today, we talked about why some business owners are happier than others and how to help, uh, those who are not always happy to get to more happiness. Some habits that make us happier. [00:07:20] How to set achievable goals that make us happy and not disappointed. The happiness that comes from being in community with others. Her new book, the Happiness Formula, and so much more. So let's dive in and be happy with Christine McKays. [00:07:40] Hi Christine. Thanks so much for being on the Humane Marketing Podcast. I look forward to this conversation about happiness and bliss. [00:07:48] Christine: Yes, thank you. I'm very excited to share Rod It and um, Hopefully make some people happy. At least smile, [00:07:56] Sarah: at least. We're definitely smiling. Uh, I just said [00:08:00] offline, I spent most of my day in nature. [00:08:02] We saw these little ducklings and you know, it's finally spring. Yeah, I'm definitely happy today. So, but let's, let's start with you like, you know, it's, um, I'm basically featuring this episode under the P of Passion, which is the first P of the Humane Marketing Mandala. And so when you said that you're coming out with a book about happiness, I'm like, well, happiness, passion, you know, it's all these good feelings that we want to have more of. [00:08:31] So tell us yeah. What you are passionate about and, and then also obviously then we go into the, the whole definition of happiness and how do we get more happy as autism. [00:08:43] Christine: Yes. Um, well, thank you. First, uh, for having me. I'm, I'm very excited. Um, I know we've done so many things together and I know there will be so many more collaborations coming out of that. [00:08:56] Uh, and I think you can't find a more passionate person [00:09:00] about, uh, what they do. I know everyone is, but I really explode with passion when I, when I talk about, um, What I do and, and I just love it. Uh, and always I say I'm an accidental entrepreneur because I never wanted my own business. Um, but it had just happened and I absolutely love it. [00:09:19] And I only basically work with people because I work with entrepreneurs, um, that are really passionate about what they're doing. And that's lovely. That wraps off on me. And it really gives you energy, I think, um, when you, uh, yeah, when you work with people that are passionate. So what am I passionate about? [00:09:39] Work. Mm-hmm. In this case, my own company. Um, if we are looking from a business perspective, I'm really someone who loves getting things done and crossing things off the list. I, I really love, I'm, I'm like kind of, I'm really passionate about having this and I used to not anymore, uh, have to-do lists for [00:10:00] personal life. [00:10:01] Okay, do the sports, uh, go out for, for a walk, wash the dishes and stuff. Now I don't do that anymore, and I'm learning more and more to also sometimes do nothing, uh, which is really difficult for me because I love to finish things also. That's not very strange. But I love to finish a shampoo bottle or to, to finish a product or something. [00:10:24] I have to, that's fine with me. Um, I know what you [00:10:27] Sarah: mean. Yeah, I know what you mean. It's kind of like that's. Oh, okay. We finished this, you know, and it's like, oh, we can move on to the next thing. [00:10:35] Christine: Yeah. And challenges work really well for me. If you give me a 30 day challenge, I will do all 30 days. Um, But what I'm really passionate about is as well, um, is making people smile. [00:10:47] I think really people always say, oh, what's your purpose in life and stuff? And this sounds very cheesy now, but I, I love making people happy because it makes me really happy and it's all interconnected and it's lots of science behind it [00:11:00] as well. Um, however, that really, that may, that, that's what I'm passionate about, spreading some happiness in, in swan's life. [00:11:09] Hmm. Yeah. [00:11:10] Yeah. [00:11:11] Sarah: So, so let's talk about this happiness. Um, what, what I was thinking about is like, you know, how come what makes some entrepreneurs, business people happier than others? And, and then how can we help those who are not currently happy in their business or in their life? But since we're on a business podcast, we can talk about business. [00:11:37] Um, Yeah. How can we help them to find back to being happy? [00:11:44] Christine: I think the very first thing, I mean there's also official definitions of happiness and stuff. The very first thing is obviously to know and understand, um, which probably people do that. Happiness means different things to different people. Um, however, there's also science [00:12:00] that shows what doesn't make happy. [00:12:01] Um, but we are gonna focus, of course, also on the things that. Will make people happy and also, um, business owners. So, um, I, I would say you would need to define first, what does happiness mean to you? What does success mean to you? Because therefore, for, um, entrepreneurs are often interlinked, um, let's say saying, okay, if I have success, That makes me happy and that makes also the business sustainable. [00:12:28] But what does that mean? It does not necessarily mean, uh, a lot of money. It might mean I help X amount of people with what I do, or I have an impact on society, on an, the environment, whatever. Uh, a specific, uh, success definition. I think everyone, uh, as a business owner should have. I, uh, again, I appreciate that we all have to pay the bills and that is a business. [00:12:54] Um, so it, um, it's thinking about the money, but not in, in the connection with [00:13:00] happiness really. So understanding what does happiness mean to you and your, in your business, um, and what does success mean to you? It's the very, very first thing. And then if we go into a few really practical things and steps into what, um, science has shown, what really works, um, and what helps with happiness and increasing your happiness, Is, um, investing into experiences in instead of materialistic things. [00:13:29] So because they create lasting memories and give you the sense of personal growth as well, and that overall can contribute, um, to a deeper understanding and satisfaction and fulfillment. And, um, basically when you do that, you prioritize time. Over resources. You prioritized, uh, your time and resource in a way that really align with your values as well and your personal interests. [00:13:58] So in business [00:14:00] or in personal life as well. And again, this can give you this sense of fulfillment, fulfillment and feeds into the purpose that you might not have defined yet for yourself because it's a very difficult question. What's your purpose like? Mm-hmm. I just talked to someone else who said, I don't believe in that stuff. [00:14:17] I don't think we have any purpose. And I was like, okay. Uh, that's okay. Everyone has their own view. Um, but really you can, you can do that. And investing into experiences. You also invest in relationships with other people. You create memories together. And, um, you also share that, that success with, uh, other ones. [00:14:36] And in that case, um, you can share successes, for example, that you had or the company had with the team, with co-founders. With, uh, freelancers that you, that you work with, if you outsource something with suppliers, with clients, you can share this. If, if the client had a success, you should celebrate that. [00:14:54] Mm-hmm. Not because, oh, I'm so great. That was me, but really because you're happy for that person. [00:15:00] Mm-hmm. And it will make you happy. So that would be the next experiences. [00:15:04] Sarah: I really like that because I just come back, uh, from, from an experience. So, so basically we have a mastermind, uh, where we meet every, uh, every month and every month that somebody else hosts the, the get together. [00:15:18] And so today, I hosted and so I just, I said, instead of staying at our place, let's go down to the forest because I'm. Lucky enough to live next to a forest, next to, um, a little water, uh, stream as well. And so, um, you know, it takes time though to take time of our, out of our busy lives, right? Mm-hmm. And so, uh, only five out of the 10 people could make it, but those who made it, we just appreciated it so much. [00:15:47] And then, like I said, we saw the ducklings, we created memories together, right? And, and yeah, we just. Felt really happy. Where had we stayed in our office and, you know, [00:16:00] maybe, yeah. Made more money or, you know, had another client that it wouldn't have given us the same feeling of happiness. I'm sure. Yes. It's, yeah. [00:16:11] It's really those times where you step out of the. Normal kind of, um, things that, that you feel these moments of awe and, and experience what you, what you said. [00:16:23] Christine: Another thing that, and also with others. I mean with others, exactly. You, you can go by yourself and you have a great experiences, but if you share this moment with others, the shared moment again as another. [00:16:32] Yeah. Um, yeah. So another [00:16:34] Sarah: layer of happiness. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Another, um, point you make in the book that contributes to happiness is about building. Habits. Um, so talk to us about these habits. Why do habits, one could say, well, habits make it more boring. So, so how do habits make us more happy? [00:16:57] Christine: Yes. So building habits is [00:17:00] another thing like you just mentioned. [00:17:01] Uh, I just wanna mention three quickly other things as well. Um, before we jump into the habits, maybe because it's about the experiences, uh, that jumps back into that is the savoring the moment. Meaning that you really see and, and stay in that moment and see the positive side and aspects of things. And what you can do is you can share that with others. [00:17:23] So if it's an experience that you had yourself, um, to have a bigger impact, you can share this with others as well via the phone. Maybe a video, maybe a quick call, video call or something. Um, that can help that. Um, You can physically jump up in the air and, and be happy about things and, uh, stuff like that. [00:17:42] But anyway, just to, to, uh, combine that again with the experiences, so with the habits, um, because habits, um, enhance, can enhance if you're talking about good habits. Um, so, and these might have to be defined, but they, um, enhance really [00:18:00] your physical health, your mental health. Um, your emotional resilience and can really contribute to, uh, again, to this greater sense of purpose and fulfillment. [00:18:12] Mm-hmm. Now, creating habits, I'm gonna talk about this in a second, but, uh, engaging in hobbies or activities that bring you joy and there's a difference between joy and happiness. Officially there's this definition. Happiness is like the longer state and, uh, of something. The joy is the one that you have in that moment. [00:18:32] Mm-hmm. Um, but I would say find something that brings you joy outside of business also. Um, of course you should have joy in the business and what you're doing. But make sure you do find hobbies in, um, groups that you, um, go out with in nature and things that have nothing to do necessarily with your business. [00:18:56] Because I think as entrepreneurs as well, we [00:19:00] have difficulties to detach from work because it's always there and it's our baby and we're passionate about it so that we. Mm. Don't see that we overwork ourselves sometimes. So, uh, take some stuff out of there as well and create habits around it. Um, have regular working hours is a habit that I think everyone should have. [00:19:20] Um, when you ha work for someone else or if you work for yourself, have your own business. Make sure you have working hours set and don't work after those hours. There might be exceptions cuz maybe there's a podcast recording that you're doing with someone else after hours or. Um, you speak at an event and it's not possible to do otherwise, but the norm should be that you have regular set hours. [00:19:45] That's, I think, a good habit to have. Um, to have a end of work routine is something that I never had. And after I worked with someone, um, that was also a remote coach, basically that was one of the first things she said, [00:20:00] you should have. A habit, a routine when finished working because you can signal your brain. [00:20:06] Okay, that's it. That's the end of the work today, especially if you're working from home, right? Because, and you might be even in the same room and where you do other things, um, in the not have extra office. That's another great habit. Um, morning routines. I'm a massive fan of morning routine. Um, you don't have to be extreme, but having some kind of routine to start your day to wake up in a slower way. [00:20:30] I get up very early. I have almost two hour morning routine. Um, but where you involve different kind of senses, bit of exercise, doesn't have to be a massive exercise. Can be also yoga, some breathing exercise. Maybe people like to do visualizations in the morning, maybe to ride whatever you feel, what works for you, which gives you the time. [00:20:50] To wake up and to set up for the day. I think that would be a good habit to have. Um, healthy eating, which can be sometimes [00:21:00] challenging if you are in, in this run of getting things done. Um, Eating very fast. Even if you eat healthy stuff, uh, is also not, uh, recommended. And I'm still eating too fast. I'm, I'm done in six minutes with my whole, uh, lunch, which is, uh, not good. [00:21:19] I take an hour because then I do a walk and things like that, but the actual eating part is too short actually. Mm-hmm. Um, But eating healthy because it will give you energy, it will be good for your body. Um, and it will really have a big impact on your health and wellbeing and your happiness as well. [00:21:37] Sarah: What I hear is like there's a lot of habits that are actually more life related than they are business related. Um, and those are the ones who are really established as. Solid foundation. Right. Of course. Then we could also be speaking about, you know, create a habit to write every day, you know, [00:22:00] write blog posts every, like mm-hmm. [00:22:01] All of these other habits. But it sounds like the ones that really build a foundation and that make you happy, happy are, are more life related [00:22:12] Christine: habits. Yes. Yeah, because they, they impact you. Yeah. And the same with getting enough sleep. If you don't get enough sleep, you won't be able to focus enough during your day and get stuff done that you want to get done. [00:22:22] Right? So everything impacts your, um, impacts your work as well. If you don't eat healthy, you probably don't have enough. Uh, if you don't drink enough water, if you're not eating healthy, you don't have enough energy to get through the day, you will have a down point as well. Um, if you. If you don't give yourself enough time to wake up in the morning with a morning or dinner, that will impact your day. [00:22:44] Yeah. Um, of course these cutoff days and stuff that I mentioned are more work related, but yes, for sure. Yeah. I'm also [00:22:51] Sarah: a big fan of, um, I think it was Tim Ferris, at least that's who I heard, uh, talk about it. Uh, first is, is you know, kind of. [00:23:00] Minimizing the decision fatigue, like making, we we're making so many decisions every day as entrepreneurs, right? [00:23:08] Mm-hmm. So if you can just cut a few of these decisions and just have the habits, uh, for example, you know, I have oatmeal every morning, and that's just. Who I am now, it's basically who I am. It's like I'm Sarah who eats oatmeal with, um, turmeric every morning. And so then it just becomes part of you. I do yoga every morning. [00:23:30] It's becomes part of you. And so you don't have to decide, should I eat yoga today or should I not? And so that in a way that it's not boring to me. It just makes me happy. I look forward to my oatmeal every day. Right. Yeah. So, [00:23:44] Christine: and that's exactly the, the point of habits and, and because it becomes a habit, it's effortless. [00:23:50] You don't have to take a decision. It's just part of what you do. Yeah. And it's also okay, and I'm someone who also struggles with that because I'm so, [00:24:00] um, Chiefer mindset, uh, if you want to call it and crossing off things to this, but. It's also okay to be flexible if you stayed up longer, wake up later to get enough sleep and don't compromise on that part just to get your habit in. [00:24:17] Um, so I think this flexibility around habit building. Um, so they become part and become easy and you don't have to take the decision to do something. However, if for whatever reason you can't do it at one day, that's also okay. Yeah. And I think it, [00:24:33] Sarah: you have to struggle with, with yourself and say, okay, fine today, and don't do that habit. [00:24:38] Christine: Exactly. And just a, a couple of tips there. Um, maybe. And people have heard that before probably on how to actually build habits and how to create habit and to make it effortless and there's lots of science behind it. How long does it take? If some people say 21 days? Some people say, uh, 30 something, some 70 something, I think depends on the person, depends on the habit. [00:24:58] Hmm. Uh, getting rid of [00:25:00] habit is even more difficult than creating healthy habits. Um, but starting small. Is of course the, the really, the biggest thing. If you say, I wanna meditate every day, one hour, you won't, if you've never meditate before, if you say, I'm gonna take a mindful breath every day before I get out of bed, I can do that. [00:25:20] That's the smallest thing you can do. Take one mindful breath, that's like a meditation, or I do a five minute guided meditation from YouTube or stretching or something that probably you can do. Um, accountability can be something that can help. So find someone, uh, that you share this again, shared experiences. [00:25:39] Mm-hmm. They maybe the habit with, um, or you, some people like use tracking apps. Uh, right. Strangely enough, I don't, but, uh, I know there's a lot of happy tracking apps and stuff. Some people, for some people that works. Um, again, tracking the progress. Um, if you do yoga, like you mentioned, for example, if you.[00:26:00] [00:26:01] Um, you see, you get more flexible and, uh, it's, it's better and you have probably as back pain because, uh, we probably sit a lot in front of the computer with a lot of zoom meetings, things like that. A good habit to have is also have taking screen breaks, for example, um, not to be in front of the screen for eight hours a day. [00:26:20] Taking the breaks. Make sure your eyes can relax. Um, celebrating when you've done one of the habits, okay? You, you created something. So if you wanna do yoga, if you take a breath, whatever it is, then in the end, that habit is you celebrate that you did that. And that doesn't mean you have to then go out and drink something, or you, you go on a holiday every time you do a habit. [00:26:42] But it can be just like a Well done, Christine, a head on the shoulder. Maybe you wanna hug yourself. Maybe you look in the mirror and say, yes. Yes, I did that. Thank you. Good. That was good. That's like little celebration to signal your brain, that little success moment as well. [00:27:00] Yeah. Feeling more accomplished. [00:27:02] Um, and a final thing is, um, finding the situations and the support and the surroundings that help you to implement your healthy habits. So if you wanna establish something and your life and the people around you is not, just not set up for that. Then think about it and doing it consistently will help you to do that. [00:27:23] And um, I think the last thing they always say is, make sure you attach it to something that you already do. So someone said to me, oh, if, if you wanna do five sit ups in the morning, if we talk about physical exercise and you attach that to when you stopped brushing your teeth, Then you will do it more likely than trying to do it outside of something that you already do. [00:27:46] You wanna drink more water. That's why some [00:27:47] Sarah: people have their running shoes already out when they go to bed. Right, right next to the bed. [00:27:53] Christine: Yeah. Also, yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, this, uh, would be like, good, good tips. Thanks. Thank [00:27:59] Sarah: you. [00:28:00] Yeah. I, there's another thing I really wanna make sure we have time to talk about. [00:28:05] Mm-hmm. Um, which is goals. Because in a way, it kind of probably ties into our definition of success because we, as entrepreneurs, we set ourselves sometimes quite aggressive goals, right? Mm-hmm. And then we're not happy or we're sad if we're not achieving them. And so you talk about this idea of making sure that we set achievable goals. [00:28:34] Mm-hmm. Talk to us about that and how that makes us happier. [00:28:39] Christine: Yes. Um, well, because if we feel, um, first of all, if we are achieving goals and then we talk about how I usually set goals as well, um, then it gives us this sense of fulfillment that we achieved something, uh, we should always celebrate, we achieved the goal. [00:28:55] So it, it gives us a sense of moving forward. I think if you do not [00:29:00] set goals, it can be very demotivating in business. Um, and I always say, if you don't set yourself a goal, how do you know you achieved something? If you never wanted to achieve something because a goal is nothing else, then okay, I wanna get something done if we, okay. [00:29:15] Goal setting is a harsh, harsh thing and I know we all do it and, and stuff, and we're in business. Um, however, I think getting to a specific point where you want to be, It's already setting yourself a goal. And we all want to be somewhere. We all want to be, have specific impact. We all want to have a certain amount of money to support a lifestyle that we want. [00:29:36] We all, um, want to make work with X amount of people because then we know, again, we have that impact in that kind of way, so that that really can support making us happy. But one thing is extremely important. Goals might change. Goals are not written in stone like they say you can, it's your goal. [00:30:00] Well, I always say you have three questions. [00:30:02] Um, is it your goal, yes or no? Is it maybe put onto you by someone else? Um, especially when you work in a company and it's, you are not a business owner, then you often get goals set by other people. Um, does the goal excite you? And, um, if any of the answers to these questions is no. Revisit the goal because you will get demotivated. [00:30:27] Mm-hmm. And then there's obviously a lot of acronyms and formulas and stuff that you can use to set goals and, uh, one of the most used ones is smart. I actually don't like that too much, even though it does work. But I, I just don't like it too much because it's always used in corporate situations and stuff like that. [00:30:47] Um, so I, um, use actually a different one, which is called Achieve, which already has a great word in it. Okay, so the acronym like that much better? Yes. Um, so it's basically stating a goal as if [00:31:00] it already happened. So not I want this, but, um, as as it, I have a successful business. Let's start with that. [00:31:08] Instead of saying, oh, I don't want to be in a full-time job. Um, then we have the C, which is clear and specific, so you need to know what that means. What does a successful business mean to you? Where is it with whom is it? How much many clients do you have? The turnover, because you will have to think about the money side as well. [00:31:26] Um, and then, um, be very clear and specific on that. And then the age is actually the hittable, which is. Achievable. Um, is this actually realistic? Too often I hear people that, oh, I'm gonna have, uh, this company that will have 2 million turnover at the end of, uh, year two. This is not realistic. Um, probably depends on the company. [00:31:49] Um, the I in Achieve is in a positive direction. So state what you want rather than what you don't want. Also has a bit to do with how the brain works. [00:32:00] Um, because they, uh, the brain does not understand negatives. Um, and if you give it what you already want, then there's a lot of research done that you will actually be more likely to achieve that e uh, so achieve, uh, is exciting. [00:32:16] So it should be exciting for you. If it doesn't excite you, I would not recommend. You're not gonna Yeah. Call, go for it. Yeah. And then the V is actually value-based. Um, and I think that's really important because, um, it should align with your values. You need to be clear on your values, what's important to you, what don't you want, what do you want in life, um, and it needs to align with that. [00:32:40] And then we have the last E, which is ecological. And basically what that means is who and what is affected by you achieving that goal. Because maybe you say, I want to have this company and I wanna run it in New Zealand. If you have a family, For example, or also friends or uh, husband [00:33:00] or children, they will be affected by you moving to New Zealand. [00:33:04] So you should check if they're okay with you achieving that goal. You might have less time for anyone because all of a sudden you have to work more. Um, and you check if they're okay with that. And if they are not okay with that, are you okay with them not being okay with that? That makes sense because it's your goal, it's your life. [00:33:24] But you, [00:33:24] Sarah: you're part of a bigger ecosystem and Exactly. You need to check in with them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like, I like that achieve much better than the the smart. Yeah. Mm. It's, yeah. It's somehow outdated and Yeah. It's maybe it's also bigger. It's overused. It's like from the corporate day, so we're like, nah, we're getting Exactly. [00:33:44] Christine: Exactly. [00:33:47] Sarah: I love that. Yeah. Um, We both have communities. Um, and so I'm just wondering also what happiness and community, where they [00:34:00] overlap what they have in common. Um, yeah. You wanna talk about your community and then we can also talk about the circle a little bit. [00:34:09] Christine: Yeah. Yeah. So in, in general, I would say just, um, to answer the question, what do communities have to do with, um, happiness? [00:34:17] Um, it's actually scientifically proven as well that soul through connection, doing things with others, um, is extremely important for happiness and it's crucial for your over overall wellbeing, um, and happiness. And I talk in, um, my book about that as well, a lot. Um, and they actually found that it's. If you are connected in a community, so that's even in a church or in our cases, right? [00:34:46] Sarah: Professional communities. Real life communities or [00:34:48] Christine: online? Yeah, online communities. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it, they, they've shown the studies have shown that you're less likely to experience, um, uh, premature, uh, [00:35:00] death and have more chances to survive fatal illnesses. Because it, it is a bit strange, but it's really, makes, makes total sense to me. [00:35:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think so because, um, it will also build up for more resilience and, um, you will have a support system when you're going through difficult times. You will, um, less likely feel loneliness and isolation, have this sense of belonging and you can discover your purpose there as well. Um, and usually you are part of a community that you have shared values with, right? [00:35:35] And, uh, this is where our communities and especially also yours come in and we just be a part of something and we can create new experiences together. So that's based again, of the shared experiences. Um, so having social connections and groups and communities that you belong to really play a massive role in health. [00:35:57] Physical health really. Um, but also in the [00:36:00] mental, um, health and wellbeing and, um, what my community is, uh, for entrepreneurs in the first three years to support them with all kind of things, uh, support, uh, in, in resources and life support and with the community. Um, and yours obviously is a fantastic community of professional people, but that are not. [00:36:22] Mm. Because sometimes when people hear the word professional, they're a bit put off because they think it's like that kind of person that just thinks, uh, uh, about numbers and about, uh, how many followers do I have and, um, how much money do I make? And stuff like, it's not that you can, in my point of view. [00:36:39] And also I know everyone in your community you can be professional, meaning reliable. Um, Exchange knowledge. So you're knowledgeable as well in what you're doing. And I think your community's amazing for that because I've met so many amazing people, started already collaborating with them. And I remember the very first [00:37:00] session that I attended life, I had so much that I took out of that that I then implemented into my business, which really works as well. [00:37:08] Um, and you. All the focus is obviously all on humane and gentle, um, marketing techniques as well. And it, it's really, it's really lovely and it, it does give me that sense of, I found a tribe that I belong to because I can feel that we have, um, shared values, we create these experiences. It's very relaxed and, um, but. [00:37:34] Still professional. Like I say, [00:37:36] Sarah: I love to highlight that. Right. It's this idea, well, I guess we do speak a lot about being human, right? Mm-hmm. Marketing, like we're human. And so that's really what I've wanting, wanted to create is a place where we can be human. Mm-hmm. And yet still be professionals or talk about marketing and business and, and I think that's what also [00:38:00] creates the happiness because we are. [00:38:02] All being our authentic selves. I think that's what you also meant by the community where you feel like you can be yourself, [00:38:10] Christine: right? Yes. And you can feel that passion that everyone has. Yeah. So coming back to the passion that everyone has for their business, and again, if you, if you talk to people that are passionate about something, this will wrap off on you because it's positive energy and it will really, really gives you energy. [00:38:28] Because I, I know it can be sometimes difficult to attend a meeting after hours. Um, right. But every time I, I attend, for example, one of yours, which will be for my time, for example, at five o'clock, sometimes once a month, um, or twice a month. Then I do think, oh yeah, I had a long day. Yeah. But I do know after this meeting, I will be energized actually. [00:38:51] Right. I will be energized because of the people [00:38:53] Sarah: in there. It's experience, again, it's how we started, right? Yeah. It's more of an experience rather than just like, [00:39:00] oh, let me listen to another meeting, or, yes, yes. Because it's not that. Yeah. And, and I just, because you started talking about, um, you know, other communities, church, or mm-hmm. [00:39:12] You know, faith-based or whatever. It's almost like, at least in Europe, that's kind of diminished, right? Mm-hmm. We don't have. Or a lot of us are not really in faith-based communities anymore. And I remember talking with my husband about it, and it's like, we're not craving the church, but we are thinking, you know, at least his parents, they were very, um, involved in church and he's like, yeah, we had a place to be on Sunday. [00:39:43] Mm-hmm. And, and it, and we, you know, we did things together and stuff like that. And it's true that. It's almost like we need to replace that now. [00:39:53] Christine: Mm-hmm. And there is actually someone who is doing that across the world also very successfully. Uh, they're called Sunday [00:40:00] Assembly Uhhuh, and they're on purpose, uh, not religious based. [00:40:03] So, um, he's actually saying, I don't believe in any gods or anything, but he believes in community and he creating those places where people go every Sunday. And have fun together. So I went to a lot of these in when I was in the UK because the guy who founded it, um, Who's also was hosting some of my events that I was doing across Europe, actually, because he's a comedian. [00:40:27] Um, they're really amazing events because people go there, you meet the same, and they, they're like a franchise. So people, they pop up everywhere. Also around the world, also in the US and stuff. And people go and you sing along to a someone to a karaoke song of, uh, of queen. Then there's someone who's, um, There's always a theme of the day. [00:40:48] Mm-hmm. Someone who has written a poem about that theme. Then there's someone who gives a talk about something. And then, um, so I, I actually also did a talk there about community building because of another project I was working on. [00:41:00] And then people stay together and they go together in the pub and, and stuff like that. [00:41:03] And that is really exactly what you mean. Yeah, [00:41:07] Sarah: yeah, yeah. It's so needed, so yeah. Yeah, I think so. I'm happy that you are creating your community for your people and, and yeah, I think there needs to be more opportunities for people to, to [00:41:22] Christine: commune, to get together. Yes. And also to get together, uh, in person. [00:41:28] I mean, we've never met in person. Hopefully we will next, uh, next year around this time, of course. Um, because I know you're organizing something, but. Everything is online and everything. It can be very difficult as well to activate a community and to get together and to have this community feeling, even though you're on the screen for zoom fatigue, this new word that came out, this new illness that all of a sudden happened. [00:41:50] But yeah, I think, yeah. [00:41:53] Sarah: Well, obviously everything we talked about here is, is kind of, well not everything, but a lot [00:42:00] of what we talked about here came from your book. So yes, please do. Tell us. Uh, and for those of us who are watching on YouTube, you can hold it up because you just got it today. Oh, [00:42:10] Christine: yes, wait, I have it here. [00:42:11] It's a first printed copy. Yay. The Happiness Formula. Thank you. Uh, you can get it on Amazon, basically on Amazons, but, uh, there is, uh, greatest startup academy.com/books where you can find that if in case you would be interested. Um, however, um, we are also for, for you, for the sense of this podcast, I would like to offer. [00:42:34] The Kindle book, at least the English version in this case are for free. So, Ooh. Thank you. Yeah. So, so when this one is, uh, aired, which, uh, is on the 2nd of June, I think. Yeah. Um, which is the Friday. So Friday, Saturday, Sunday, this book will be available, the Happiness Formula for three on Kindle. Wow, [00:42:55] Sarah: amazing. [00:42:55] So I'll make sure I use the right link where we can, uh, [00:43:00] download that and, and read about the habits and the goals. And there's so much else we had prepared but didn't have time to talk about. So yes, I'm just gonna have to read the book. Wonderful. Well, do you tell us, um, where people can find you, uh, your website again, where you most often hang out on social [00:43:20] Christine: media and all of that? [00:43:21] Uh, I think LinkedIn. Um, would be, um, one of the preferred ways to get in contact with me. Um, but you find everything on my website. Also the LinkedIn link on, on the bottom, uh, and the footer, um, to my profile. So if you go to creative startup academy.com, there you find everything, the book and also my LinkedIn. [00:43:40] Link the books [00:43:41] Sarah: because you've written like 20 books, right? Yeah. This is the [00:43:45] Christine: 20th. Yes. I got a bit [00:43:47] Sarah: obsessed. Make sure you celebrate because you tell everybody else to do it. So [00:43:52] Christine: make sure I, I, I, yes. I already celebrated when I unpacked earlier. Uh, and, and actually was running around and, and dancing and put a song on.[00:44:00] [00:44:00] And also my, my boyfriend was dancing with me, but we will celebrate more this weekend. [00:44:05] Sarah: Yes. Nice. I always have one last question on my podcast, and it's actually also, uh, another thing we skipped, which is gratitude. Uh, so what are you grateful for today? [00:44:17] Christine: Um, uh, this week apart from being grateful to have, uh, this opportunity to spread more joy and happiness, uh, in people's life, I think. [00:44:26] One, there's two big things I'm very grateful for. First, I, uh, I found love. Mm-hmm. Finding, uh, the person that you want to stay with for hopefully for the rest of your life that will be hopefully long and healthy. Mm-hmm. Um, that's one massive thing I'm massively grateful for, and that's always going in my gratitude journal every day. [00:44:46] Um, and the other thing, uh, is really to have these new opportunities, meeting so many lovely people. So there's so much support out there emotionally and um, with business [00:45:00] advice practically and everything, and I'm really, really grateful for that, that people are so openly sharing and supporting. [00:45:09] Sarah: Nice, nice. [00:45:10] Two things to be grateful for. Yeah. I'm grateful for this conversation. Thanks for being here. Thank you. [00:45:26] Thanks so much for listening to this episode. I hope it put a smile on your face and maybe got you curious about Christine's book to learn some more Happy. Habits so you can get her book, and as she said, she's offering it for free until June 4th, 2023 at creative startup academy.com/the-happiness-formula. [00:45:53] So go there now and download, uh, your free version of the Kindle book for free until June 4th. [00:46:00] You can find out more about Christine and her work at Creative Startup Academy. Dot com. And if you're looking for others who think like you, then why not join Christine and I in the Humane Marketing Circle? [00:46:14] You can find out more about, uh, this at humane.marketing/circle, and I also hope to see a few of you at the storytelling like we're human craft, your five word life story workshop. On June 7th with Hillary Rio, you can find out more about that at humane.marketing/storytelling. You'll find the show notes of this episode@humane.marketing slash 1 65. [00:46:47] And on this beautiful page, you'll also find a series of free offers, such as my Saturday newsletter, the Humane Business Manifesto, and the free Gentle Confidence mini course, as well as my two books, marketing like [00:47:00] we're human and selling like we're human. And if you're an audiobook fan, I have good news marketing like We're Human is. [00:47:07] Available on, uh, audible or everywhere else you get your audio books. So if you are kind of tired of reading, especially now as we are heading into the, um, nice sunny season, at least on my side of the world, maybe you just want to go for a walk in nature and listen to the book while you're walking. Uh, again, you can look that up on Audible or anywhere else where you find. [00:47:32] Uh, audiobooks, of course, read by yours truly. Thanks so much for listening and being part of a generation of marketers who cares for yourself, your clients, and the planet. We are change makers before we are marketers. So now go be the change you want to see in the world. Speak soon in.

Our guest today is Seak Smith. Seak is a wife, mother of three, a Patriot, a fierce warrior for children and the Founder of MOM & DAD Army. MOM Army is a survivor led organization with a mission to activate and unite millions of Mama Bears and their allies in the battle to stop the war on children and their innocence. MOM Army's vision is a world where children feel safe, loved, protected and honored. In the first 9 months since their launch on Instagram, MOM Army has grown to 25 chapters across America, Canada, the UK and Australia. 1) What are parents and concerned citizens saying about the attacks on children and what we can do to solve some of these issues? 2) What are some of the challenges in growing a national organization? 3) Where can MOM Army create the biggest change and impact to stop the war on children? 4) Who are your Dads in DAD Army? 5) You are also a Member of The DC Project. How are these two organizations similar and how are they unique from one another?

Today's episode features a special guest, Mark Schaefer, a globally-recognized keynote speaker, futurist, business consultant, and author. Mark and Sarah delve into the significance of community in today's world and its role in humane marketing. They explore the difference between a community and an audience, the importance of letting go of control as a community builder, the struggles of building a community, and the potential synergy between AI and human communities. They also discuss effective strategies for attracting new members, common mistakes made by community builders and how AI fits into the picture of community. As entrepreneurs, understanding the essence of community building and the benefits it offers can help us create meaningful connections and grow our businesses sustainably. He studied under Peter Drucker for three years and has advanced degrees in marketing and organizational development. Mark holds seven patents and is a faculty member of the graduate studies program at Rutgers University. His blog and podcast -- The Marketing Companion -- are at the top of the charts in the marketing field. Customized for every audience, Mark's inspiring and memorable programs specialize in marketing and strategies for digital marketing, social media, and personal branding. His clients range from successful start-ups to global brands such as Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, Dell, Pfizer, The U.S. Air Force, and the UK Government. Mark is the bestselling author of 10 path-finding books including the first book ever written on influence marketing. Mark's books are used as textbooks at more than 50 universities, have been translated into 15 languages, and can be found in more than 750 libraries worldwide. In this episode, Mark and I discuss: Why community is more important now then ever before The difference between a community and an audience The role of the ego for community builders The struggles of building a community AI and human communities: can they work together? And much more [00:00:00] Sarah: Hello, humane marketers. Welcome back to the Humane Marketing Podcast, the place to be for the generation of marketers that cares. This is a show where we talk about running your business in a way that feels good to you, is aligned with your values, and also resonates with today's conscious customers because it's humane, ethical, and non-pushy. [00:00:23] I'm Sarah z Croce, your hippie turn business coach for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs and marketing impact pioneer. Mama Bear of the Humane Marketing Circle and renegade author of marketing like we're human and selling like we're human. If after listening to the show for a while, you're ready to move on to the next level and start implementing and would welcome a community of like-minded, quietly rebellious entrepreneurs who discuss with transparency what. [00:00:52] Works and what doesn't work in business, then we'd love to welcome you in our humane marketing circle. If you're picturing your [00:01:00] typical Facebook group, let me paint a new picture for you. This is a closed community of like-minded entrepreneurs from all over the world who come together once per month in a Zoom circle workshop to hold each other accountable and build their business in a. [00:01:15] Sustainable way we share with transparency and vulnerability, what works for us and what doesn't work, so that you can figure out what works for you instead of keep throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. Find out more at humane.marketing/circle, and if you prefer one-on-one support from me. [00:01:37] My humane business coaching could be just what you need, whether it's for your marketing, sales, general business building, or help with your big. Idea like writing a book. I'd love to share my brain and my heart with you together with my almost 15 years business experience and help you grow a sustainable business that is joyful and sustainable. [00:01:58] If you love this podcast, [00:02:00] wait until I show you my mama bear qualities as my one-on-one client can find out more at humane.marketing/coaching. And finally, if you are a Marketing Impact pioneer and would like to bring Humane Marketing to your organization, have a look at my offers and workshops on my website@humane.marketing. [00:02:30] Hello friends. Welcome back. We arrived once again at the seventh P of the Humane Marketing Mandala. Today's conversation fits under the P of. Partnership. If you are a regular here, you know that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven Ps of the Humane Marketing Mandala. And if this is your first time here, you probably don't know what I'm talking about, but you can download your one page marketing plan that comes with [00:03:00] the seven Ps of Humane marketing@humane.marketing slash one page. [00:03:06] The number one and the word page, and this truly is a completely different version of the seven Ps of marketing that starts with yourself. It comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these different Ps. And so, like I said, today's. Conversation fits under the seventh p the P of partnership, and clearly that's a new P that I added. [00:03:32] It didn't exist in the original sixties version of the seven Ps of marketing. In today's episode, I'm joined by my colleague and fellow marketer, mark Schaffer. Mark is a returning guest as I've spoken to him twice before, since we're fellow introverts. And so he came once to speak on my. Previous podcasts, the one, two podcasts before. [00:03:58] So not the [00:04:00] gentle marketing podcasts, but the one before that, and where I was mainly talking to introverts. I'll dig out the episode. Link so you can go listen to that. So mark spoke to me about being an introvert in business and marketing, and then I had him come back also to talk about his book Marketing Rebellion which actually came out just before. [00:04:22] Weeks before marketing like we're human, which was then called the Gentle Marketing Revolution. So clearly we're kindred spirits, not just personality wise, but also otherwise how we think. Again, we didn't talk about this, but he came out with Marketing Rebellion and for me it was marketing Revolution. [00:04:45] So I'll tell you a bit more about Mark in just a moment, but. Since today's topic is all about community, I want to take a moment to tell you about our community, the Humane Marketing Circle, and what we've been up to in the last [00:05:00] few weeks and months. So the Humane Marketing Circle is a growing community for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs. [00:05:08] Here's the theme again, with the rebellion or the revolution. So we're a community for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs who are ready for something different, something fresh and new, a new way of marketing, and a new way of business building, and also a new way of being in community. We now have. Four monthly gatherings, two meetups in which we discuss marketing, one 90 minute business or marketing related workshop with an expert or someone from the community. [00:05:40] So I always try to find experts within the community because we're all experts. And then every now and then if I don't find someone in the community, I'll go and look outside. We're also starting this month with an. Extra call we, that we call net weaving, so it's not networking, but [00:06:00] net weaving which we focus on, in which we focus on forming friendships between members that then lead to new business op. [00:06:08] Opportunities, collaborations, referrals, et cetera. But the main focus is to be human in these net weaving calls. Really just let go of the mask and show up as humans in our comfy clothes and on our couches and sofas, and just build friendships that then eventually lead to new business opportunities. [00:06:31] Here's how our community meetups work. So those are the two regular monthly meetings that we have. One of them I lead and one of them is led by one of our three community ambassadors. In the first half of the call, members bring their questions and we have a conversation about what. It works for us in marketing. [00:06:54] For example, one of the last calls we talked about AI and we share [00:07:00] tools and discussed benefits, dangers, overall ethical questions. We also, just on the last call, we talked about the gentle sales path and what members are doing in terms of bringing new people into their gentle sales paths. And so we take turns, we raise our hands and take turns and everybody. [00:07:19] Is really a leader in the, in their chair, and they get to learn from others and also share. And in the second half of the call, we go into breakout rooms and we have a more intimate conversation with other heart-centered entrepreneurs, which is super valuable because we don't often get this, you know, brainstorming and kind of feedback from other entrepreneurs. [00:07:46] And for example, this month our topic is the P of people. So I always bring a question for the breakout rooms and We discussed, for example a limiting belief that holds our people back. So [00:08:00] what's a limiting belief that holds our clients back? And then we took turns in sharing that in the small breakout room. [00:08:07] So that's the format. Of our meetups. Then we've also successfully transitioned to our new community platform on Kajabi, and I have to say I'm super pleased with it. It's such a lot of fun. We had our first live call directly. In our live room, in the community, so not on Zoom but directly within the Cajabi community, which makes it really safe and it feels like you're really unique to us. [00:08:37] So rather than being on Zoom, which we kind of all use, but it, it has become this tool where. We somehow we show up in our business mindset where if we're all of a sudden in our own platform and we have a call, and it just really felt like, oh, this is, this is our [00:09:00] home. We're hanging out in our home. [00:09:01] And that's what members also mentioned. There's still a few bugs that were working out, but All in all, we love this new community platform on Kajabi, and we're just truly embracing it. And then, as I said, Eddie, our community facilitator will lead his first NetWeaving call really a, a fun call to foster friendships between members that then lead to business opportunities. [00:09:27] I'm super excited to have him on board. It's interesting because Mark, you'll hear him say in. In our podcast episode, you'll hear him say that it's good to hire the youngest member you can find, or the, the youngest person you can find. And so that's exactly what I did with Eddie. He's a millennial probably even. [00:09:48] Younger than millennial. Millennials are now kind of like, oh, they're, you know, they aged as well. So he's, he's 27 and he just brings such a new perspective, such a [00:10:00] different way of being in community, which yeah, which we all love. So it's been great. So I created a, a special may coupon code for you if you'd like to join us now and save 15% on your monthly membership rate for as long as you stay. [00:10:16] So if you feel like now's the time, you can use the coupon code may gift. So, m. A Y G I F T on the checkout page by going to humane.marketing/circle. And this code is valid until May 31st, 2023. So with that, let's go back to our conversation with Mark. About communities. But first, let me tell you a bit about Mark. [00:10:46] So Mark Schaefer is a globally recognized keynote speaker, futurist, business consultant, and author. His clients range from successful startups to global brands such as Adidas, Johnson and Johnson, [00:11:00] Dell, Pfizer, the US Air Force, and the UK government. Mark is the bestselling author of 10 pathfinding books, including the first book ever written on influence marketing. [00:11:11] Mark's books are used as textbooks at more than 50 universities have been translated into 15 languages and can be found in more than 250 libraries worldwide. In today's episode we talked about why community is more important now than ever before. The difference between a community and an audience. [00:11:34] The role of the ego for community builders, the struggles of building a community, how hard it is really to get people together and host the space. And finally we also talk about AI and the role of AI in human communities and how they can work together, cuz that's actually the third part of Mark's new book, belonging to the Brand.[00:12:00] [00:12:00] Let's dive in with Mark. [00:12:34] Court. Good to see you, mark. I, I just said, let's just hit record because we're already sharing all, all this, this good stuff. So we are, we are excited to have you back on the show here. Really looking forward to talking to you about community. Your latest book has a lot of bookmarks already. [00:12:57] Definitely excited. Belonging to the [00:13:00] brand by community is the last great marketing strategy. So let's dive right into it. Most people on, on my show already know who you are. So I'm not gonna go into tell me who Mark Schaffer is and all of that stuff. Why is community so essential and why now? [00:13:18] Mark: I think that's, that's the question is, is, is why now? [00:13:22] Because community has, has always been essential. There's a great quote in the book. From a, there's a great marketer. He was with Coca-Cola, he was with Airbnb, Jonathan Milton Hall, and Jonathan said, look, when our ancestors were gathering around the fire, it, it wa it, it was to create this sense of belonging. [00:13:44] We've always longed to belong a lot of the social structures in our world today. You know, have, have just collapsed, especially here in America. A lot of the ways we used to gather and, and find that community are gone. A lot of that [00:14:00] was made a lot worse during the pandemic. Now I wanna go back a step and assure people this isn't like a touchy-feely, fluffy book about, you know, You know why we should all be in a community. [00:14:14] This is a business book with, I think, a very strong business case of why businesses should view community as part of their marketing strategy. Community isn't new from the first days of the internet. Businesses tried to create communities. Most of them failed because they were set out to like sell more stuff. [00:14:39] People don't really want to gather to buy more stuff, so they didn't really work. Most of the communities today, about 70% of the communities that actually work today for businesses are focused on transactions, customer self-service, which is fine, but the point of my book is that. [00:15:00] The, the purpose of branding is to create this emotional connection with our customers. [00:15:05] A feeling, a meaning that keeps them connected to us. And there's no more powerful way to do that than community. And I show a lot of data. I have a lot of case studies in the book that kind of prove this while we're focused on. You know, customer self-service, which is what most communities look at, look at today. [00:15:28] We're missing bigger opportunities like collaborate, collaboration, co-creation, customer advocacy, sharing information quickly. These are all massive benefits that are going away in other marketing channels. So number one. This is a business book about marketing that works. But I also point out this is marketing that heals, which is a unique aspect of this idea. [00:15:57] Mm-hmm. Because as we talked about, we've got [00:16:00] this mental health crisis going. Everywhere in the world. I don't know what it's like for you in Switzerland, but here it's in the news every day, especially with our young people today. And so we're longing to belong. We need to belong. And if businesses would look at really effective communities from the brand marketing lens, it not only works, but it can actually have a very positive impact on our customers and even the world. [00:16:31] Yeah. [00:16:32] Sarah: And it's so interesting because in our pre-recording talk, we, we discussed, You know, I, I mentioned that I was gonna actually go all in and create a live event, and, and I mentioned that I have a place in Sicily, and you were like, oh, I like Sicily. And it reminded me of one of the stories in your book, and I think it's in the beginning of the book, where you talk about this store, this shop that I think it was actually led by a Sicilian, or [00:17:00] originally Sicilians, right? [00:17:02] Yeah. Mm-hmm. That, and they still have this. Shop. Yeah. So tell us the story about, because it it, and I tell you what I told my husband and, and really that's still the feeling that we get in Sicily. Like it really is still like that. Yeah. So tell us that story. Well, we don't [00:17:19] Mark: have that. It's, we don't have that feeling in a, in America or most places, so, yeah. [00:17:23] So. You know, when when I was a little boy, it was always a special occasion when my grandfather brought something back from, he, he would call it the Italian store. And so I, I got to go back. This store has still been there since 1903. Three brothers. Came to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and they started making pasta, handmade pasta, and now they, it's still in the same family. [00:17:53] Mm-hmm. And the family members make a point to be there in the store, you know, interacting with [00:18:00] customers. Mm-hmm. If you, if there's any, they, they also do like a lot of Shipping and stuff of their specialty products. And if there's ever a problem, I mean, one of, one of those family members is paying attention to it. [00:18:12] You know themselves, well, I, I, I was away from this store for like 40 years, came back, visited Pittsburgh and I, I went to this, this area. Which used to be like a, a, just like a warehouse area, you know, really kind of busy and, you know, dirty Now it's a, it's a big tourist area. Mm-hmm. And the store is still there. [00:18:34] Same old wooden floors. This, all the signs are handwritten all over the stores and, And you know, I walk in and they've got this huge class case with 400 different kinds of cheese, just magnificent and smoked sausages and all these things that they're bringing in from Italy and, and you know, most, mostly Italy, but some other parts of the world. [00:18:58] And I go there and [00:19:00] the people at the counter. Know the customers and they're asking about their, their family and their husbands. And, and one lady was there and her husband had had a health problem and the lady said, well, we just got his favorite kind of cheese. Let me wrap that up. Take it home to him, you know, that maybe this will make him feel better. [00:19:20] And then the lady looked over to the corner and there's some, some of her friends sitting there, she went over to talk to them. And I just felt so sad. Because I've never experienced this. Hmm. And I'm just one generational away, right from this is how all business was done. And I just longed to, to, to walk in a place where people would know me and connect with me and to me. [00:19:49] Shopping is just anxiety. I, I, I don't even, I don't want to go anyplace. Right. You know, it's just a process for me of being overwhelmed and disappointed. So I'm, you know, that's [00:19:59] Sarah: [00:20:00] the introvert in us, right? We're [00:20:01] Mark: like, no, thanks. Yeah. You and I, you and I had a special show on that a few years ago. Yeah. Right. [00:20:06] Yeah. Yeah. After I shop, I just wanna go home and crawl under a blanket. Oh yeah. So so, so it, it's this idea of. We've always had this inside of us. This it's, it's in our D n A, it's this tribal sort of thing is on a deep psychological and sociological level. We have got to belong. And Sarah, this was one of the elements in my life that. [00:20:35] Provoked me that drove me to write this book. A few years ago, there was a headline in the New York Times that said The Loneliest Generation. Mm-hmm. And was referring to Gen Z. And it just, it just broke my heart how our children and these teenagers, they're just suffering. Suffering. They're so isolated and lonely and depressed. [00:20:59] And[00:21:00] as I said, look You know, this is a business book, but it's also a way I think we can at least. Be aware of these issues in our world and think about how this can have a positive impact on, on, you know, everybody today, not just young people. Young people. They're finding their own communities. I talk about this at the end of the book. [00:21:22] You know, they're, they're, they're moving into their own communities and to the extent that. Companies, and not just companies. Why I say companies. It could be a nonprofit, it could be a university, you know, it could be, you know, whatever. A, a un an insurance company, a symphony, whatever, a nonprofit the, I think the com, the, the organizations that are the most human, which I know is something close to your heart. [00:21:48] The companies and the organizations that are the most belonging. How, how would it look like in your. Company in your culture, in your marketing, if you thought we're gonna be [00:22:00] the most belonging company, it, it, it, it sort of, you know, presents an interesting idea of how you might approach marketing in a, in a different way. [00:22:11] Yeah, [00:22:11] Sarah: absolutely. So, and, and that story about this Italian shab, it's not just a beautiful story, but it's a, an excellent business case. Yeah. Cause. You know, how hard is it for a small shop like that to survive and them still existing after 40 years? Well, It has to have to do [00:22:30] Mark: something. Community. It's, it's been well, they've been there since 1903. [00:22:36] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Not just, I was Generat four. Yeah. It had been 40 years since I had been there. Right. Yeah. But it's it's the same store. Yeah. They, they, yeah. It's, it's bigger now, but yeah. It's the same, it's the same store. [00:22:50] Sarah: Yeah. No, absolutely. I, I have a feeling like reading the book and I so resonate with this. [00:22:58] Because just like [00:23:00] anything in marketing marketer, marketers have a tendency to grab the latest Conta concept. So let's just say, okay, mark Schaffer, yay. He writes about communities, right? Yeah. And six months later, that's the latest marketing thing, right? It's like, just like we did with authenticity, just like we did with vulnerability, marketers are really good at jumping on these words and then abusing the crap out of them. [00:23:30] Yeah. And so what I really liked about your book, and you mentioned it several times, is this concept of letting go of control that. You cannot control a community growth. You cannot Yeah. You know, somehow market or Yeah. Kind of manipulate a community. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, talk to us about that. [00:23:56] Mark: Well, that's probably something you've learned [00:24:00] firsthand in your community, but, you know, give you a story that so when I started my community, I have a community On Discord, which I didn't really wanna be on Discord, but my community said, we wanna be on Discord. [00:24:12] So I'm giving up control. So here we are in Discord, thought, well, this is a community. This is a community that, you know, I kind of brought these people together and they're interested in the future of marketing. So they're probably interested in things I'm talking about, like personal branding and being a professional speaker and writing books. [00:24:34] So I created. My own little chat rooms thinking, oh, this is where we're gonna have interesting dialogue about these subjects. Now those rooms are the emptiest rooms on the whole site because they, they didn't wanna go there. They took it in completely different direction. They said, look, we wanna talk about the metaverse, we wanna talk about web three. [00:24:58] We wanna talk about chat, [00:25:00] G P T and artificial intelligence, and. They were right. We need to be talking about those things, right? They've taken me a whole new direction. It's, but that community has become my university. I'm learning from them. Almost every blog, post, podcast or speech I give the, a lot of the information and stories are coming out of that community, right? [00:25:24] So they're keeping me relevant because they're spread out all over the world. You know, teaching me what they're seeing is, is, is going on out there. [00:25:33] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. So, so that, that letting go of the control and, and almost like letting the community taking over that is Yeah. That is so big and it's, it's so, I think against what a lot of us business owners or marketers have learned where we, and I, and I also. [00:25:54] Remember you or mentioning that a community is definitely not an audience, [00:26:00] right? That distinction is so essential and yet, We see probably 90% of the people using the words interchangeably. They call a community, they, they say they have a community where they actually just have a free Facebook group where they sell their [00:26:16] Mark: programs. [00:26:17] Yeah. And I think the distinction is important because that's where the real power is. Right? You know, when people have an audience, And they say, this is my community. I say, well, the do do the people in the AU in your audience, do they know each other? Do they connect to each other? And the answer is no, cuz they're an audience. [00:26:37] Now I'm not. I mean, an audience is really important. I mean, I have an audience, right? And those are the people who buy things from me. So, I mean, audience is great, but. When people know each other and they build relationships, connections, and they collaborate and they do things together in new ways, that goodwill and [00:27:00] that emotion transfers to the brand. [00:27:04] This is one of the profound lessons I think in the book. I mean, I did a deep dig, deep dive on a lot of the psychology of community, the sociology of community, and almost suggests that, and this is hence at your point, that leadership in a community is like upside down compared to traditional marketing. [00:27:27] Yeah. You know leadership. And so instead of building the connection between the brand, And our audience. It's about building the connection between the audience members to create this community, because if you do that, it creates this layer of emotional switching costs. Mm-hmm. Like, these are my friends, this is my community. [00:27:49] I can never leave this brand cuz I never wanna leave this community. Right. So it, it, it, there's a lot of. Non-intuitive things about [00:28:00] community success That, that I'm, I'm learning firsthand. Yeah. [00:28:03] Sarah: And, and that's where I think you brought in the live event. And that's when I'm like, I. I'm a hundred percent convinced because I've been, you know, I had my community probably two, three years now, and I, what I've been learning is that there's a lot of unlearning first of all for the leader of the community, but then also for members of the community because I feel like as marketers we have kind of brainwashed. [00:28:34] Clients and customers into these membership site type things where people just come to consume content rather than to actually show up and Yeah. You know, express themselves and say, this is what works for me, what works for you, and collaborating, and so I've been kind of like, Yeah. Empower, giving power back to the people and saying, no, I [00:29:00] want you to show [00:29:01] Mark: up. [00:29:01] Yeah, that's a, that's, that's a really, really good point. You know, I, I had this conversation with a friend of mine last week. He has, has a community, but it's really an audience. Because it's, it's the, you know, he's, he's like creating content and it's premium content that you only get if you're in this community. [00:29:24] Right. And it, it, there's not really a lot of focus. I mean, that's a [00:29:28] Sarah: membership site. Yeah, it is. I think that type, yeah, that those three words, they're kind of like Yeah. Creating, yeah. [00:29:35] Mark: It's a membership site. Mm-hmm. You know, in my community. It is, it's free, it's open it, you know, it's, it's, it's like, you know, everybody is welcome to, to come in and give it a try. [00:29:47] You know, I, I do have like a, like a v i p section where it's like a small amount of money every year. And then, you know, we get, we have meetings with like legendary, legendary marketing people [00:30:00] and And that's a lot of fun. But I mean, at least 90% of the community is just there. It's free and we're just helping each other and it's very generous and very kind. [00:30:10] And you know, I made so many new friends and no many new connections. And of course, as I said, it's just become my number one place to, to learn about what's, what's new. I mean, I was really early. In the in the AI generated content around art, like mid journey and I mean, it was like people in my community said, have you seen this? [00:30:35] Get a membership, try this thing. And it was just like, oh my gosh. I mean this, like my, my jaw just dropped on the table. It was so unbelievable. And that, you know, I was early on chat G p t again because my community's like pulling me into these things, right? And, and, and I think that's a big part of being relevant today, not necessarily being an expert. [00:30:58] In everything, [00:31:00] but knowing enough to at least ask the right questions about everything. Just, you know, dabbling in the metaverse and web three and all these new things, and that the community's helping me remain relevant. What, what a gift is that? Now think about what that means to a big brand. Yeah. Is, is, is, you know Sarah, I saw this amazing quote. [00:31:21] Oh, I, I, I got hung on this. It was probably four years ago now. There's a quote by the C m O of Pepsi and he said the days of the big brand are over the big brand campaign. Campfires. Bonfires are over. And today it's about. Being relevant in cultural moments. And I thought that is fascinating, but what does that really mean? [00:31:54] How does that show up? And if you watch what some of these brands are doing now, they like, if there's like a [00:32:00] big award show like the Grammys or the Emmys or the Oscars and or, or there's like big festivals. One of the things Pepsi did for example, was there was some big like cultural festival. In, in New York and they created a soft drink, especially for this festival. [00:32:22] It tasted like zindel or something, right? I mean, I can't imagine how bizarre that would be, but it was a in a pink can. But you know, if, if you play this out, how can you be? What would be the platform to be relevant in these cultural moments? What would be more powerful than a community that's taking you into these moments? [00:32:45] Mm-hmm. Exposing you to these moments. Yeah. And, and I, I, so I think big company, small company solopreneur it, it, it, it's something that must be considered really for any kind of business right now. [00:33:00] Yeah, [00:33:00] Sarah: I absolutely agree. And, and, and I think one y you did say, okay, this is a business book, but business is so human today to come back to my favorite topic and, and yeah. [00:33:12] And so those are those humanizing moments, right? It's like, we're not, and that's why the. Let me build a community so that I can sell more stuff. Doesn't work, because that's not why humans gather. They don't, right. They don't come into a community to buy more. And so I think brands need to be super careful with that, you know, thing they, they can go completely wrong if they start selling into the community. [00:33:41] Mark: Yeah. That, that's the number one. Right. Reason why communities. Fail Yeah. Is because they say, okay, well, we'll start a community, but you know, this is gonna help us meet our, our quarterly sales numbers. And, you know, a company has to do that. I've, I've been in that world for a long time, but that's, that's gonna [00:34:00] drive your community away. [00:34:01] And it, you know, I, I think one of the gifts of this book, I hope people see this as a gift, is in chapter 10, I look at measurement. In an entirely new way. I mean, community and measurement. This has been just a, a thorn in the side of communities forever and. I give a case study in the book about these big sports drink brands, Gatorade versus Powerade, and I show the power of brand marketing where you sponsor events and you're, you know, you get connected to cultural moments and you know, maybe you sponsor the World Cup. [00:34:44] Well, okay, so if you sponsor the World Cup and your brand is everywhere. Does that sell more products? Yes. Can we measure that? No, [00:35:00] probably not. So I make this distinction between brand marketing and direct marketing. And what I'm showing is that almost every community is trying to manage it and measure it like direct marketing. [00:35:16] But if you do that, you, you miss the whole thing about trust. And loyalty and emotion and love and co-creation, collaboration and advocacy, you're missing the main event. Mm-hmm. And so you, if, if, if the community reports to the marketing department, which understands what brand marketing is, we kind of take that pressure off and, and we look at other measures. [00:35:43] That may not necessarily be directly tied to the bottom line, but we know it's a leading indicator of, of the bottom line. One of the biggest communities in the whole world is Sephora. Now Sephora is a cosmetics company. Do you have [00:36:00] Sephora over there? And We do. Yeah. They're, they're, they're based in Europe, I think. [00:36:03] Yeah. And they're French, right? I think maybe French. Yeah. They've got brick and mortar stores. In, in many, many countries, every major city in America has just a forest store, but 80% of their sales come from their online community. And their number one measure in their community is engagement because they see engagement as the leading indicator to to sales. [00:36:34] Mm-hmm. So it's, again, this goes back to what we were talking about earlier. It's like, This turns the traditional marketing mindset kind of upside down. But this, I think this is where the world needs to go. I think 20 years from now, maybe 30 years from now, we're, we're gonna, the, the young people leading businesses today are already moving this direction. [00:36:59] They're [00:37:00] already moving to community. 85% of startups today are leading with community as they're. Main marketing idea. 30 years from now, the world's gonna look back at the period we're in now. And we're gonna say, remember those days we used to spam people. We used to interrupt people, intercept people. We used to bother them. [00:37:22] We used to fill their mailboxes with all this direct mail that wasn't even relevant to them anymore. What were we thinking? Okay. I'm so happy we read Mark's book 30 years ago. [00:37:36] Sarah: No, I, I have to say, like, I, I really feel like you pivoted or you kind of. Created this new path with Marketing Rebellion already. [00:37:46] Yes, exactly. Right. And now this is like, you know, for whoever is ready for the next. Paradigm, basically. I'm, I'm glad you picked up. I'm so glad to have you kind of, you know, forged this [00:38:00] path for people like myself, because that is the, I wanna cry, like, this is the biggest pushback I always got is like, you can't measure it. [00:38:08] You can't measure humane marketing. Yeah. And I felt like saying, so what? You know? Yeah. Right. This is the only way we gotta go. Yeah. And, and so now to say, well then if you don't listen to me, listen to Mark [00:38:21] Mark: Schaffer. Right? Yeah. I mean, it is, it is. And look, I'm like, I'm a measurement junkie. You know, I've, a lot of people don't know this about me, but I actually have the, the equivalent of a master's degree in statistics. [00:38:33] So, I mean, I'm all about the numbers. But you know, there was a very powerful quote from Marketing Rebellion that I actually repeated in, in the new book, and it's this idea. That you can either keep, keep pace with the, with the pulse of our culture, or you can measure, you probably can't do both. I mean, I, I, I, I think Sarah, there, there's [00:39:00] no business leader. [00:39:01] Anywhere right now that can't be feeling a little overwhelmed by the by the amount and velocity of change. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, you, you've got to, to, you've gotta make that leap at some point to say, We've gotta go to market a different way. We can't keep holding. It's, it's a sickness. It literally is a sickness that we're holding on to this scaffolding of the old ways, you know, our, our relationships with ad agencies and producing, you know, glamorous television commercials. [00:39:35] Cause you know, cuz we can win an award for this and, and, and, and it, it's hard. To change our, our, our, the culture of our company to start embracing these new things. I think every company today should be taking at least 10% of their marketing budget and experimenting maybe on things you can't measure. [00:39:58] You have no, have no hope of [00:40:00] measuring to move more toward this human-centered. View of, of marketing. Because just because you can't measure it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. I mean, there's a lot of things we can't measure. We can't measure, you know, wind, we can't, me, well, we can measure, we can't measure love, right? [00:40:19] We can't measure love. We can't measure. How good we feel on a, on a sunny day. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't go to the beach, doesn't mean we shouldn't fall in love. We need to take advantage of those things. And there are many things in marketing today, you know, we are in the early days, in the early stages, and especially young people today have entirely different expectations and of, of what they want from businesses and what they want from marketing. [00:40:47] And we've gotta start moving that way now. Gen Z. They're not babies. We just had the first member of Gen Z become elected to the United States Congress. Mm-hmm. [00:41:00] They're consumers, right? In the next five years, they're gonna be our leaders, right? And our procurement managers. So, and, and, you know, great entrepreneurs. [00:41:10] So, I mean, we need, we need to wake up. We really do. Yeah. We need to get rid of this, these sick, these sick, antiquated practices and, and wake up to, to, to deliver. You know, we're gonna stop doing things that people hate. Just stop it and then double down. How do you feel? [00:41:29] Sarah: Yeah. How, how do you feel about, so these, you know, the marketers that are out there now in, in, let's say in bigger companies, but even entrepreneurs, like, besides you, you reading your book, how are they, how are we gonna get them up to speed with these skills? [00:41:48] Because unfortunately, Unless they have the luck to have you at their, at a lecture in their university, they're still being taught marketing from the sixties. Yeah. [00:42:00] It's, it's such a big mismatch. And, and I see that in, in the online marketing sphere as well. We're still being marketed to like 20 years ago with all the shaming and manipulating and [00:42:12] Mark: on the lot. [00:42:13] Yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting, Sarah, that a lot of the problem right now is actually even in the universities. I mean, the universities many universities are so far behind. Mm-hmm. You know, it, it, I, I think I. The slowest moving. Most bureaucratic organizations I've ever worked with are, are universities and these are the institutions sad that we're, that we're counting on to, to keep our, our students relevant. [00:42:42] And there's many young people coming outta universities that are, you know, connecting to me saying, I'm totally unprepared for the world. All this stuff I learned, nobody's even doing this stuff anymore. Yeah, so there's a lot of problems. There's a lot of issues. But here's the thing that gives me a lot of hope. [00:42:59] I. [00:43:00] First of all, there is change happening. Absolutely. Sarah. There have been people that have taken my Marketing rebellion book and said, this is the new framework. This is the way we're gonna go forward, not just small companies. There's a Fortune 100 company that, that contacted me and said, this is the way we need to go forward. [00:43:20] You know, how can you help us do this? So that's number one. Number two. I think the best leaders today, they wanna stay relevant. You know, to, if you are managing a brand, here is your mission. A brand is a never ending journey of relentless. Relevance, relevance, relevance, relevance, relevance to now, to this moment, to this year, to this culture. [00:43:49] That's it. That's your job. Yeah. And, and to be relevant, you, you, you, you, you've gotta move away from some of these things that people just see are [00:44:00] not relevant anymore. They don't even work anymore, right? So we've got to start reaching out. We've got to start experimenting. And I think what gives me hope is that, look, any, any. [00:44:12] Great professional today. They know this. They wanna be relevant, they wanna be relevant in their careers, they want their companies to be relevant and, and so I think my message is, is is gonna connect because it has to connect. [00:44:26] Sarah: Hmm. Yeah. I do feel also always come back to Covid, but I do feel like it has helped with human evolution and of consciousness and people like, you know, never. [00:44:41] Like before they, they're like, we're done with this spammy marketing stuff. Like the, the kind of, I call it the bullshit The word is escaping me, but, but like the trigger, you know, is likes meter. We know, we can tell that this is all fakes and that that's so, [00:45:00] so I do feel, yeah, there's this gap between consciousness that has risen and some of the, the marketing stuff that is just so outdated. [00:45:09] But yeah, like you, I totally believe in humanity and, and I be believe that people. Feel it, like you could just feel it that there's this craving for, for belonging and, and so [00:45:21] Mark: I'm just Yeah. Oh, that, I mean, you talk about measurement that is documented. I mean, it, it, it's, it's just coming at us in every, every day, in every way. [00:45:32] It's, it's all over the news here in America. And I mean, just like two weeks ago I saw this statistic that was just incredible that. Of the young people aged 18 to 24, 50 1% of them had sought medical treatment for a mental health issue. Hmm. The average for every other generation, including, you know, my generation is 24%. [00:45:59] [00:46:00] Wow. Yeah. For young people today, it's 51% and the average for every other generation is 24%. There's something really wrong here going on. Mm-hmm. And you know, look, my book is not Pollyannish saying, Hey, start a community and change the world. I'm saying, look, There's a, there's a real marketing urgency to consider new ideas like this. [00:46:26] And oh, by the way, it's, it's gonna do some, it's gonna do some good for the people in your community. [00:46:33] Sarah: Yeah. I, I really feel this more so than in other, in, in the other books that, that you come from this place of. Let go of the ego and tap into the love. That's there's some warmth, you know, even though it's a business book, I feel like there's some warmth reading this. [00:46:51] And then, yeah. And that's also the, the thing that we need. Now it's like, you know, how can you have a community that is Cold and [00:47:00] based on Eagle. Well that's not gonna work. So there definitely has to be yeah, the warmths as well. I wanna tap into also kind of the bridging it to the technology piece to, to wrap up, because it could almost be like a paradox, you know, it's like, wait, wait a minute, okay. [00:47:18] We have this problem with technology, young people, too much technology, and yet, You are talking about technology and AI and in web three in the last part of the book, so draws this picture, how do they fit together? [00:47:35] Mark: Well, first of all, thank you for reading all the way to the end of the book. [00:47:40] Sarah: That was a test, you [00:47:42] Mark: know? [00:47:42] And you know, I'll tell you some of the, some of the most interesting. Things I have in the book are at the end and, and I thought, gosh, maybe I should put this up more towards the beginning so people can make sure I make sure they see that well. So there are [00:48:00] two big issues I, I talk about at the end of the book, technological changes and sociological changes. [00:48:06] They kind of go together that. Are suggesting there are gonna be very new kinds of communities in the future, and businesses need to be waking up. Whether you have a community or you just want to tap into a community, a certain demographic of consumers, you've gotta be aware of what's going on. Number one, on the technology side. [00:48:31] We hear these mysterious words like Web three and NFTs and Metaverse, and the irony is there isn't really a good definition for any of those things. Maybe NFTs come, come closest, but you know, people have really wild, wide, varying ideas of what the Metaverse is gonna be or what Web three is going to be. [00:48:52] But when you cut through all the jargon, What you really end up with is new ways for [00:49:00] people to belong and especially young people today, are just surging into these areas. So we've gotta be aware of what's happening, what's going on there, how these communities are being created, and consider if that's one of the ways we need to be relevant. [00:49:18] On the sociological side, young people today, they want to be. Invisible. They don't wanna be found, they don't wanna be discovered. They don't wanna be criticized and bullied and and marketed to. So today, much of our marketing is dependent on social listening platforms that tap into Twitter and LinkedIn and Facebook. [00:49:45] Well, guess what? Young people today, they're not there. Mm-hmm. They're not there at all. It's amazing to me. Sometimes I do guest lectures at, you know, universities. Even like people in graduate school today, they're not [00:50:00] on LinkedIn. You know, it's, it's, it's crazy. So where are they? They're on Discord, they're on maybe they're on TikTok. [00:50:10] They're on you know, communities in the Metaverse, they're on Fortnite, they're on Twitch. Guess what? Social listening platforms aren't there. The, you know, millions and millions of people are having brand conversations in places we can't see, right? So, Just like you mentioned, marketing Rebellion was a bit of a wake up call. [00:50:34] I think this book, you know, part of it is a solution and part of it is a. You know, knock on the head as well to say the world is changing in rapid and unexpected ways, and we don't have all the answers right now, but be aware of what is going on. And, and like I said, gen Z, they're not babies. They're consumers, right? [00:50:56] With growing, growing, you know, [00:51:00] economic power. So this, this is not something to put off and we really need to think about this now. Yeah. [00:51:07] Sarah: Yeah. And, and, and I do also see this theme of letting go of control, right? The, the Gen Z doesn't want control, and so they want this connections of trust with the, with the not Bitcoin. [00:51:21] The other one. The, the NFTs blockchain. Yeah, the blockchain, you know, kind of like, okay, I can trust this connection because it's decentralized and, and so all of these topics that for us right now, I. They've most markers I would assume kind of sounds like Chinese. And so they have to, really, what you're saying is basically almost, you have to have one person per department stay on top of the new stuff, right? [00:51:51] It's like, yeah, yeah. [00:51:52] Mark: Go. Yeah. I, I, I, I think, you know, if you've got that kind of luxury, I mean, Sarah Wilson is someone I feature in my book. [00:52:00] She is former Facebook, former Instagram writes for Harvard Business Review, sort of looking at Gen Z culture and Zen Gen Z marketing strategies and, and she says rather boldly in the book, she said, I think it's time I. [00:52:16] Just to find the youngest person in your marketing department and say, pay attention to this because I don't understand it. [00:52:23] Sarah: Yeah. I saw that quote and I was like, lucky me. I have two sons, 16 and 19. They tell [00:52:29] Mark: me all the insights. Well, yeah. I, I, I, I mentor my, my kids are grown, but I mentor young kids. Yeah. [00:52:36] And I mean, I'm always asking them, what are you doing? What are you seeing? Exactly. Let me, Let me watch you play Roblox. Why did you do that? Yeah. Yeah. Why did you buy that? [00:52:47] Sarah: Yeah. And all the ad blockers, just like you said, right? It's like everywhere. Yeah. [00:52:51] Mark: I wanna, I, I gotta watch my, my kids I mentor play Fortnite cuz I die every time I can't. [00:52:57] It's like, what's the use? I die [00:53:00] immediately, which makes them laugh, but, you know, so I've gotta watch them. I gotta watch them do it. Yeah. [00:53:06] Sarah: Yeah. Wonderful. Well, I really appreciated this time with you, mark. I, I'm totally with you. Community is, is the way to go and I think we have a lot to learn from the communities, especially the marketers who think, you know, you just throw up a website and a pay button and then there you go. [00:53:26] You have your community. I think it's time to step back and come. Yeah. Step back from the ego and come with this humble learner approach to say, okay, what can I learn from this community? Yeah. That's the way I look at it. And it sounds like you do too. [00:53:42] Mark: Absolutely. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Sarah. It's always delight. [00:53:46] Yeah, likewise talking to you. It's nice to find such a, I, I think we're of one mind and one heart when it comes to marketing, so it's for sure good to find. It's good to find an ally out there. [00:53:58] Sarah: Thank you. Thank you. Do you [00:54:00] mention the names of your books again and your website so people can [00:54:03] Mark: find Yeah. [00:54:03] The books we talked about today are marketing Rebellion. We didn't mention known, but you know, we, the book on personal branding I think is extremely relevant today. I think personal branding, when you get down to it can be. It's, it's everything in, in many ways when it comes to our careers and marketing. [00:54:23] And then my new book is called Belonging to the Brand. My Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy and you can find my blog, my podcast, my books on my social media connections@businessesgrow.com. [00:54:39] Sarah: Wonderful. I always have one last question. Mark, what are you grateful for today or [00:54:43] Mark: this week? Right now. [00:54:46] Well, I'm grateful for so much. I'm grateful for, for my, for my health right now. I've, I've gone through a, a, a week of of of illness here and I'm I'm grateful for we talked a lot about community, but I'm also really grateful [00:55:00] for the, your audience, my audience, the out there that, that supports me in so many ways. [00:55:05] That's, that's just incredibly humbling just to be interested in my work and support my work. So I'm grateful for, for you and your listeners today. Thank you, [00:55:15] Sarah: mark. Always a pleasure to hang out. [00:55:18] Mark: Yeah. Thank you, Sarah. [00:55:27] Sarah: Whether you are a community member or are thinking about creating your own community, I hope you found this episode with Mark. Really, really helpful. I know I did find out more about Mark and his work@businessesgrow.com and check out my two favorite books from him, marketing Rebellion. And belonging to the brand. [00:55:49] You can find them on his website or directly at Amazon. And if you're looking for a community of like-minded humane marketers, then why not join us in the Humane Marketing Circle? [00:56:00] You can find out more at Humane. Dot Marketing slash circle. You find the show notes of this episode@humane.marketing slash H 1 64, and on this beautiful page, you'll also find a series of free offers, such as my Saturday newsletter, the Humane Business. [00:56:19] Manifesto and the free, gentle confidence mini course, as well as my two books, marketing like we're Human and selling like we're human. Thanks so much for listening and being part of a generation of marketers who cares for yourself, your clients, and the planet. We are change makers before we are marketers, so go be the change you want to see in the world. [00:56:43] Speak soon.[00:57:00]

Esther Rochel Gertner combines her background in psychology and special education along with her life experience as a parent to empower parents and teachers to successfully advocate for their child's needs, whilst providing a safe and nurturing environment. She is an Educational Consultant with a masters in psychology and has over 25 -years of experience working with both the students directly and the team around the child. She is passionate about helping families and educators tap into the strengths and delights of each individual by integrating educational, social and emotional functioning to help the whole child. _______________________________________________________ Become a JOWMA Member! www.jowma.org  Follow us on Instagram! www.instagram.com/JOWMA_org  Follow us on Twitter! www.twitter.com/JOWMA_med  Follow us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/JOWMAorg/ Stay up-to-date with JOWMA news! Sign up for the JOWMA newsletter! https://jowma.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9b4e9beb287874f9dc7f80289&id=ea3ef44644&mc_cid=dfb442d2a7&mc_eid=e9eee6e41e

Is your inner Mama Bear keeping you from thriving? I had a moment with my inner Mama Bear recently where I recognized that she was not serving me. Her protective instincts were out of proportion to the situation at hand and it was time to support her in calming down and allowing a new identity to emerge…my inner Queen. In this episode, you will: Learn about the single mom wound and how it often creates a hyper trauma response known as “Mama Bear”. You'll learn techniques for completing the stress cycle to promote healing. Transform from Mama Bear to Mama Care and step into your inner Queen. Experiment with proven nervous system release strategies for lasting stress reduction and relaxation. Learn to prioritize pleasure and its transformative power to shift from a survival mindset to a thriving existence. Completing Stress Cycles and Choosing Your Inner Queen Choosing one's inner queen symbolizes a shift in mentality, prioritizing self-love, care, and confidence. In addition to completing stress cycles, it's essential to focus on pleasure and engage in rituals that empower and support the process of nervous system regulation. By consistently choosing to practice completing stress cycles, a transformation begins to take place, allowing a person to regulate and choose a thriving identity.  During the episode, Tilly Storm shares her morning pleasure ritual (which you can download for FREE in the 5 Days to Epic Sex training below) as a practice that helps her connect deeply with herself and regulate her nervous system. —--------------------------------   Download my 5 Days to Epic Sex and Pleasure for High Achieving Woman Audio Training here: https://bit.ly/tillystorm   —--------------------------------   Book your complimentary Pleasure Assessment Call with me here: https://bit.ly/pleasureassessment   —--------------------------------   Discover ways to work with me here: https://bit.ly/workwithtilly  

Thank you for listening to Brown Mama Bear hosted by Shanera Williamson.  Today on the show, Shanera welcomes Kelley Gulley, chief of staff at The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation in Atlanta, GA.  Together they discuss the joy of being a Brown (Grand) Mama Bear.   Oprah Winfrey article on Motherhood (2003)   Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation   FromLoss2Life.org   Connect with Kelley Gulley: LinkedIn, Facebook   Connect with FromLoss2Life:  Facebook, Linktree, Instagram   Connect with Shanera and Brown Mama Bear: Facebook, Instagram, Website   Make sure you share Brown Mama Bear with at least 3 friends so you have someone to talk with about these things.  

In this episode of the Humane Marketing podcast, I talk to Meg Casebolt, founder of Love At First Search, about search engine optimization (SEO) and specifically about Cornerstone content. We discuss the basic steps to optimize a website for search, using empathy in keyword research, whether to aim for high traffic or low competition keywords, how to write Cornerstone content, the length and structure of the content, and how fast to expect results. We also touch on the evolution of search with the arrival of AI and so much more. Meg Casebolt is the founder of Love At First Search and host of the Social Slowdown podcast. Meg loves to help businesses spend less time trying to hack the algorithms and instead creates SEO content that attracts your ideal audience to your website while helping entrepreneurs cut their dependency on social media for their business visibility. It was never her vision to run an agency, but as her reputation grew, she made the decision to build a team of women that could support these mostly women-owned businesses in a powerful, feminist way - to help them climb the ranks and get their digital voices heard in a crowded marketplace. Today we're talking about websites, or more specifically about generating traffic to our websites. Meg and I also discuss: How SEO is combining the tech with the human need Basic steps to get your website optimized for search Keyword research - myths and truths How we can use empathy in our keyword research Whether to write content for the keywords or for our people How Meg thinks search will evolve (with the arrival of AI) And much more Ep 163 transcript [00:00:00] Sarah: Hello, humane marketers. Welcome back to the Humane Marketing Podcast, the place to be for the generation of marketers that cares. This is a show where we talk about running your business in a way that feels good to you, is aligned with your values, and also resonates with today's conscious customers because it's humane, ethical, and non-pushy. [00:00:23] I'm Sarah z Croce, your hippie turn business coach for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs and marketing impact pioneer. Mama Bear of the Humane Marketing Circle and renegade author of marketing like we're human and selling like we're human. If after listening to the show for a while, you are ready to move on to the next level and start implementing and would welcome a community of like-minded, quietly rebellious entrepreneurs who discuss with transparency what. [00:00:52] Works and what doesn't work in business, then we'd love to welcome you in our humane marketing circle. If you're picturing your [00:01:00] typical Facebook group, let me paint a new picture for you. This is a closed community of like-minded entrepreneurs from all over the world who come together once per month in a Zoom Circle workshop to hold each other accountable and build their business in a sustainable way. [00:01:16] We share with transparency and vulnerability what works for us. And what doesn't work so that you can figure out what works for you instead of keep throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. Find out more at humane.marketing/circle, and if you prefer one-on-one support from me. My humane business coaching could be just what you need, whether it's for your marketing, sales, general business building, or help with your big idea like writing a book. [00:01:47] I'd love to share my brain and my heart with you together with my own. Almost 15 years business experience and help you grow a sustainable business that is joyful and sustainable. If you love this podcast, [00:02:00] wait until I show you my mama bear qualities as my one-on-one client can find out more at humane.marketing/coaching. [00:02:10] And finally, if you are a marketing impact pioneer and would like to bring friends back, podcast, have a look at offer conversation on my website, website Promotion Humane, and I'm talking to Casebolt about seo. Search engine optimization and specifically about cornerstone content, which Meg will explain in this episode. [00:02:34] If you're a regular here, you already know that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven Ps of the Humane Marketing Mandala. But if you're new here, you probably don't know what I'm talking about, but you can download your one page marketing plan with the humane marketing version of the seven Ps of marketing at Humane. [00:02:54] Dot marketing slash one page. That's the number one in the word [00:03:00] page. And this comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these different piece for your business. So it's not a blueprint where it tells you what to do, but it really invites you to think for yourself and, uh, think about these different peas for your business. [00:03:19] So here's a little info on Meg. Meg Case Vault is the founder of Love at First Search and host of the Social Slowdown podcast. Meg loves to help businesses spend less time trying to hack the algorithms, and instead creates SEO content that attracts your ideal audience to your website while helping entrepreneurs cut their dependency on social media for their business visibility. [00:03:45] It was never her vision to run an agency, but as her reputation grew, she made the decision to build a team of women that could support these mostly women owned businesses in a powerful feminist way to help them climb the [00:04:00] ranks and get their digital voices heard in a crowded marketplace. So today we're talking about websites or more specifically about generating traffic to our websites. [00:04:11] We address how. SEO is combining the tech with the human need. Basic steps to get your website optimized for search keyword research, myths and truths, how we can use empathy in our keyword research, whether to write content for the keywords or for our people. How Meg thinks search will evolve with the arrival of AI and so much more. [00:04:39] So, are you ready for seo for Humane Marketers? Well, then let's talk to Meg. Hey Meg, good to speak to [00:04:47] Meg: you. It's so good to be here with you. Thank you for having me, Sarah. [00:04:51] Sarah: Thanks. We just recorded another episode where I was the guest on your podcast and now you're here. I just love doing those. It's, it's when you [00:05:00] really get a feel for the human, you know? [00:05:02] It's not like, oh, we're just pitching each other for being a podcast guest, and then we never speak again this week. Like, yeah, we get to know each other a little bit, [00:05:11] Meg: so, And I think when you find somebody that you resonate with, the reciprocity comes naturally versus more of a, you know, well, you know, you scratch my back, I scratch, yours doesn't feel good, but hey, this, we have different things to say to different audiences, but there's a lot of alignment in there, so let's talk to both of these different groups. [00:05:30] It feels really good, you know? [00:05:32] Sarah: Exactly. It's not just like, oh, because. Yeah, you pay me now. I pay you back. [00:05:38] Meg: Yeah, that's true. Collaboration versus reciprocity, right? Yeah. Yeah. [00:05:43] Sarah: Mm-hmm. So your business is called, uh, love at First Search, and I just want you to start there and, and explain what that means. Well, I kind of gave it away in the intro, but still, uh, tell us, you know, how he came up with [00:06:00] that and. [00:06:01] And just, yeah, the word love already gives it away. Right? So like, tell us, give us more info [00:06:07] Meg: on that. Sure, so love it. First Search is a search engine optimization firm where we're helping small businesses mostly to be found on search engines like Google or Bing, but also YouTube is a search engine and any podcast, wherever you're listening to this podcast, that's also a search engine. [00:06:26] So we're talking a lot to content creators, um, about how to bring in people who. Want to hear your message, how to create content that makes them feel. Seen and valued and appreciated and understood. Uh, a lot of search engine marketing is like a numbers game. It is what is the keyword that you can that has the right amount of search volume, and also it has the low keyword difficulty and not too competitive in terms of our AdWords numbers. [00:06:59] And like, [00:07:00] there's a lot of metrics around it. Um, And I've had several clients come to me and say, I tried search before and my consultants all tried to push me in a direction that didn't feel good. Um, and so what we are trying to do at Love at First Search is show up in the search results that feel like we understand what our clients need from us, not just what is the most obvious opportunity we want it to feel relevant. [00:07:30] To what people need versus just kind of a spray and pray approach to marketing. [00:07:36] Sarah: Yeah, I love that. That is such a more human and humane way of explaining just, just the word s e o alone. Right? If you hear that, and I know that there's a lot of people. Who have never heard of seo, right? Mm-hmm. They have their websites, they're coaches or healers or, or consultants even. [00:07:58] Uh, and so [00:08:00] whenever we use an abbreviation that assumes that they are supposed to know what it means, but they don't, and then they feel really embarrassed and they're like, oh, I, should I be doing that? What's that? Mm-hmm. Right? And so the, the way you explain it makes so much more sense. Also for people who, who are in humane business because it's, it's not just, it's not just a keyword. [00:08:25] It, it is about this idea of resonating with ideal clients, right? So, yeah, I love [00:08:31] Meg: that. And I think a lot of times when people think about surge engine optimization, about s e o as a marketing tactic, um, they see it as a mass marketing tactic of how many people can I get in front of? Um, but. As we know from the ways that kind of the pendulum is swinging in the digital marketing world, it's not necessarily about quantity anymore. [00:08:55] Um, if you're running, I mean, it is for specific, some specific types of businesses. If you're [00:09:00] running sort of more of a blog or content platform type of business where the number of podcast downloads that, that you get impacts your sponsorship packages and the number of paid views that you get impacts your, you know, cost per visit, like, There is a place for those kinds of businesses where you can be a, a free resource because you have these, these backup monetization options. [00:09:24] But for so many of us, that's not how we're getting paid. We're getting paid because we are service providers or we sell very specific products to a small group of dedicated people. [00:09:39] Sarah: Hmm. Yeah. [00:09:40] Meg: And often the solutions that we're helping our, our audience with are not mass market solutions. We're not Nike trying to sell shoes to everybody. [00:09:50] We're like, I wanted to sell, you know, shoe insoles to joggers who, uh, have planter fasciitis, right? Like we get really [00:10:00] targeted down and we solve. Problems that people have. So why not? When those people are having those problems, why not be the ones that show up and help help those people in your audience to feel like they're understood? [00:10:15] Sarah: Yeah, that is such a good point that you, that you mention people are humans, right? Because what we usually hear is traffic or generating traffic. But when you think about traffic, you either see like, you know, a huge traffic jam on a highway and what you see there is cars. You don't see humans or on the internet, you think of traffic. [00:10:43] I don't see humans, when I think of internet traffic, I just, right. See like. Empty nothing. You know, it's like maybe wires or, or something like [00:10:51] Meg: that. And so much of the, the noun choices, the word choices that are used in the mass marketing approach and, uh, you've said like hype marketing or [00:11:00] bro marketing, like the, the phrases and choices that we make are traffic and users and page views and visitors. [00:11:09] They're, it's very, um, The leads, right? Like they're not, they're prospects. Um, especially when we get into like really metric space where it's like, these are the marketing qualified leads and these are the sale qualified leads. And they're not even people anymore. They're just s qls. Right? Like, and there's, there is a place for trying to figure out where your marketing resonates and where people may or may not fit for your messaging. [00:11:32] Right? But when we start to zoom out that far, we lose sight of Sure. You have. Hundred thousand users on your website. Every single one of those is a human sitting at a computer scrolling through your [00:11:49] Sarah: words. Exactly. Yeah. So you talk about using empathy in keywords, and so that already is kind of like I. [00:11:58] Feels like an oxymoron. It's like [00:12:00] what? Empathy keywords, how does that go together? I'm, I'm seeing like spreadsheets with empathy and I'm like, Hmm. How does that work? So tell us how that works. [00:12:10] Meg: Uh, I think, I think the core of how we need to do marketing better is not just, you know, look at the spreadsheet and figure out the easiest solution, but truly understanding. [00:12:26] Why our businesses exist, what they do for our audience, and like how we can really start to have that connection with them. And a lot of times, I don't know exactly how to explain this. Let me, you know, a lot of times when people are having some sort of problem or issue, they don't necessarily want to ask their friends for help. [00:12:53] They don't want to go on Facebook. Um, if, if you're a health coach and you're helping clients who have [00:13:00] Crohn's disease, Then they have a lot of symptoms that are not things that you want your friends to know about. We'll just leave that as like a nice clean answer there. Um, but when people have those kinds of problems, they go to search engines and they go like, I'm having a constant stomach ache. [00:13:19] Right? That's the nicest, cleanest way to say it. Um, there's a lot of poop keywords out there, so I'll try not to get too heavy in that. But, um, you know, the. They don't want people to know, but Google feels like a safe place to get slightly unbiased answers to questions that you don't wanna go on Facebook and say to people like, I'm struggling in my marriage and I'm thinking about getting a divorce, or, my child is struggling with this and, and like, there's a lot of pride that people have and they want to present themselves to their friends, to their, their networks as having it all together, but, When it comes to search, that's a safe place to ask the questions [00:14:00] that you don't feel safe asking in other places. [00:14:02] Sarah: Yeah, it, it reminds me of an exercise we do in the marketing, like we're human program where we look at the empathy map. Yes, you've seen this, right? Mm-hmm. Where you think about your ideal client and you, um, think of what they say, think, feel, and do. Mm-hmm. I don't know if I got the order correctly, but, but yeah, it's exactly that. [00:14:24] It's like, what are they thinking or, or what are they Googling would be a good way also to, to say it, right. What are they Googling? But they're never gonna say that in a first session with you, right? Mm-hmm. It's like, it's the embarrassing things that. If you then, and I guess what you're saying is where the empathy shows up is if you then write a post that in addresses that issue with empathy, not with shaming, of course. [00:14:54] Mm-hmm. Then they feel heard and seen because they just found a. The solution and [00:15:00] they found the human who offers that solution. [00:15:03] Meg: Yeah, sometimes it's not even like the post absolutely can be empathetic and that will help with the conversion, but just seeing the name of the post show up in those search results can sometimes be a validation of the experience. [00:15:16] Mm-hmm. You know, I was talking yesterday with a play therapist in Virginia and some of her keywords will be very obvious, like, Play therapy, Virginia, right? Like her specific town. Um, she's works specifically with adoptive families, so it's like play therapy for adoptive children. Um, so sometimes the keywords can be very clear, but we also tried to get to the empathy of it. [00:15:37] What are the problems that these children are exhibiting? That they're getting the calls from school saying Your child seems to have anxiety, or the preschooler is biting. What are those things that they, the, the parent doesn't know where to go. The parent doesn't know what to do next. Or the, they're, they're like, oh, my kid's [00:16:00] about to get kicked outta preschool cuz they're hitting and bit, what can I do to help them? [00:16:03] Right? Like when people have problems they go seeking solutions. And if you can be that port in the storm, that safe place to say, I know what to I'm, yeah, my kid bit too. I know how to help them work through that. I know how to help you as a parent, work through it with them. You're not alone, because just by the fact that this is showing up in those search results, it proves that I've been there. [00:16:30] Mm-hmm. And I can help you with it. There's a certain amount of connection that happens in just having your experience acknowledged. [00:16:38] Sarah: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. From there, you then, So, so now we're kind of, kind of learning, okay, to do keyword research, but coming from this place of empathy, right? Mm-hmm. So all of a sudden it doesn't just feel like this left brain analytical mm-hmm. [00:16:57] Uh, activity because we're bringing in the right brain [00:17:00] and actually thinking, well, what would they be searching for? How can I really show empathy and help them with their problem? So we're doing the research, uh, the keyword research. What's the next step? So how, or, or maybe already still like. You talked quickly before, volume and, uh, difficulty of, of competition and all that. [00:17:25] Tell us what we need to look for, uh, in these keywords. [00:17:29] Meg: Well, so let's define keyword research before we leap too much into sort of the strategy behind it. Right. So when we, keyword research is another one of those phrases that can feel overwhelming because people go, oh, that's a lot of spreadsheets. Um, keyword research is. [00:17:44] Figuring out what people are typing into Google. That's it. And those phrases that you sit down and you type in, or you know, most of us are doing it from our phones now sometimes us are speaking into Siri for it, right? But, [00:18:00] um, whatever you are asking, Google is your keyword. So it doesn't have to be one word, it can be a phrase, it can be a question, it can be a statement. [00:18:10] Um, anything that you can search is a keyword word. Now the next step, like you said, is to figure out for not necessarily every page on your website, but every page on your website can be found for different keywords. So it's not that you have to be found for, you know, humane business coach, and that is the only phrase and you have to put it on every page of your website so that people who are looking for that can find that one phrase and you have to put all your eggs in that basket. [00:18:42] Um, this is not the Lord of the Rings. There is no like one keyword to rule them all. This is an, and one of the reasons I love SEO and I feel like I can talk about this with you, is like it's an abundance mindset. Mm. Mm-hmm. This isn't a scarcity thing where like, I have to be found for SEO consultant or nobody [00:19:00] will ever find me. [00:19:01] This is what are all the different on-ramps to this highway that different people need at different points, but the destination is the same. Right. Yeah. So you can, you can be found for that one phrase of humane businesses or gentle marketing. Like you can have those sort of branded search terms where you have spent time to build a brand around the titles of your books and the titles of your business and the, you know, your community name. [00:19:30] Like those are branded search, but we also have search terms that are just like, what do people need from us? What questions do they ask and each of those concepts each, I call them keyword clusters, but each of those search intents can go to a different page of your website. It doesn't all have to filter in through your homepage. [00:19:56] Your copy doesn't have to convert all from right there. You have [00:20:00] the opportunity to create infinite number of entry points. So every podcast episode that you record can be found for a hundred different search terms. How cool is that? It's very cool. [00:20:14] Sarah: It's very cool if you, if you, if you know how to do that keyword research. [00:20:20] Mm-hmm. Because I think also maybe what you need to explain is this idea of, you know, the volume and the, the difficulty of actually ranking. Because 15 years ago when I started out, it was relatively okay. You know, you could rank. Highly, pretty not, I'm not gonna say easily, but it was definitely much easier than today. [00:20:44] Today we have so much content out there. You do have to have a certain knowledge about, you know, what do people search, how much do they search for that? And then also how much content does already exist. [00:21:00] That is. Optimized, I think you would say for that keyword word, right? [00:21:04] Meg: Yeah. You just nailed the, the three big things is what do people search for? [00:21:08] How many people search for it and how many other people have written about it. Um, and that's where some of those search metrics come into place is figuring out, not just like, what are people saying, but if I were to target this idea, could I actually show up for it? Right? And so sometimes people aim too high. [00:21:30] And they go, I'm gonna try to be found for online business without that recognition of, but why? Mm-hmm. I'm like, why that phrase? Oh cuz I'm an online business coach. Um, okay. Cool. But what do you, what do you help people with? What do you do differently? What are your what, how, what about your approaches different? [00:21:50] Um, we have a student right now in one of our programs who is, she calls herself a, a conscious business coach for changemakers, which is not a phrase that. [00:22:00] Anybody would know to look for, right? Um, but she does really well in a post that she has about why she doesn't do discovery calls and how you can run, uh, a more, um, streamlined and better feeling business if you have an alternative to discovery calls. [00:22:16] And the phrase that shows up is alternative to discovery calls. Hmm. [00:22:22] Sarah: Wow. Go figure. Yeah, [00:22:23] Meg: sometimes it doesn't have to be, you know, hundreds of thousands of people searching for a keyword. But those people who are going to Google after doing another discovery call that tanked, and they're going, oh, how do I stop doing discovery calls? [00:22:37] And they find her website. But [00:22:38] Sarah: here's the question. How did she come up? Like how did she think of. Using that as a keyword, or was that just a fluke? And then she noticed, and [00:22:49] Meg: sometimes it's a fluke, right? Sometimes you stumble into a phrase and you sudden, and you can use the metrics to figure out what that is. [00:22:58] I'd be happy to teach people how to go into their [00:23:00] Google search console and go, you know, there are ways to know exactly what every single phrase is that people find you for, but sometimes. In her case in particular for Caroline, it was like, I just know that people would come into that and then go to my contact form and then say, I found you through this blog post. [00:23:17] Nice. It doesn't always have to be this like automated user flow. What's the conversion rate from each landing page? It's important information. Yeah. But sometimes you can get the same information from a conversation. Yeah. [00:23:32] Sarah: So [00:23:33] Meg: nice. And then if you're trying to figure out what to create next that might attract those ideal clients, like listen to your ideal clients. [00:23:42] What else don't they like about what's happening in the online, in her case, in the online or your case too? Probably. Like what's, what are those things that they don't like? Okay. Create blog posts or podcast episodes about your unique approach to it, right? Yeah. [00:24:00] And your content can come either from, you know, the key being keyword driven. [00:24:07] Which is making sure that you know that exact phrase that people are looking for and then putting it when you're, when you're publishing the document for the first time, you can say, okay, I'll put this in my SEO title and my, my blog post title and my subheadings and my alt text. Like there's a way to do it that way, but I find that for a lot more of my kind of heart-centered marketers that I work with, it can be easier to create something. [00:24:33] Think about what would people search. If they needed this, include some of that thought process into the post and then hit publish and wait and see what happens. [00:24:45] Sarah: Hmm. Okay. [00:24:47] Meg: It doesn't always have to be driven from the keywords. It can be what resonates and then how can I optimize what's already working? [00:24:56] Sarah: Right. Yeah. So, so flipping it on its head [00:25:00] and starting. Instead of starting with the strategy, starting with the empathy, because you're writing content that your ideal clients, uh, will resonate with, and then seeing, okay, this works. This one doesn't. Let me take the one that works and make it even better and more optimized for the, the search [00:25:19] Meg: engine. [00:25:20] Exactly. And it can also, if you, if you, if, if that approach. Resonates with you, then it can also feel a lot more connected to the needs of your clients and take away some of that perfectionism. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there's absolutely a feeling when you have some sort of like, I'm gonna spend so much time writing these blog posts, and I wanna make sure that they show up and search results right away, and if I don't get it right, then what's the point? [00:25:49] Right. But if we're creating for our audience first and then optimizing for search second, then you know what it, [00:26:00] this is everything about marketing is the 80 20 rule, right? The Pareto principle, that 20% of your work creates 80% of your results. So if you publish things and you also send them out to your newsletter and you, you know, share them wherever your audience is and 20% of them bring in search traffic, then maybe that's. [00:26:21] That's actually very normal. Um, but then when people land on the pages that are working for search, then you can link to them to the other ones that are still valuable, that are still important, but are still part of your unique approach to things. And once people arrive on your website, then they can go explore that information. [00:26:40] We don't need to be found for every search result. We need to be introduced and then let your website tell your story. [00:26:49] Sarah: Basically what you're saying is you, you don't need every page or every block post to bring you, you know, all this traffic because if you just have one or [00:27:00] two or three or, or I know, obviously the more the better. [00:27:03] But if you just have a few that really work and. And they can really work. Like, they can really work. Some of them is like, oh my God, you know, all of a sudden you're like getting tons and tons of new signups to your, to your, uh, freebie or whatever. Mm-hmm. So, so yeah, that's enough, right? It's, and then like you said, you just link it to your other blog posts so that, um, so that people could still discover more, more content. [00:27:31] I guess that also leads us to this idea of. Cornerstone pages because that's another thing you mentioned when we, uh, exchanged by email. Um, so yeah, was what you described already, maybe an example of a cornerstone page where you linked to other. [00:27:49] Meg: Not, not quite. There is, there is what it is. Something relevant there, so. [00:27:53] Mm-hmm. Um, what we were talking about earlier with some of these metrics around, you know, there are certain amounts of keywords [00:28:00] that a lot of people are looking for, but other people have talked about, so it can be harder to rank for those terms. Right. Um, It can be really helpful if you're in that boat to create a longer piece of content that shares everything that you've created on a topic. [00:28:16] So you know, you might create a, a piece of cornerstone content called the Humane Approach to Online Business Marketing. The ultimate, well, you can almost think of these as like ultimate guides. Everything you need to know about this topic, humane marketing, one-on-one, whatever we wanna call that post, right, where you've talked about humane marketing on. [00:28:39] Every page of your website, right? Every single one. Well, maybe this is not maybe the right phrase for you because it is your domain name, so it'll go to your homepage. Well, we can talk about that. I'm, I'm spitballing here a little bit. Um, but let's, let's think about that core value that you have or that core idea, that category that you're talking about. [00:28:56] There. There can be a point where you can create an outline of what [00:29:00] are the, the framework, what are the principles that I'm talking about all the time, and what have I already created that supports this? Mm. And then you can create one ultimate guide that covers all of that. And if we're talking about a phrase like humane marketing, gentle marketing, ethical marketing, that's sprinkled throughout your website, Google doesn't always know like, what is the right page? [00:29:28] Mm-hmm. To share that information. Um, But if you have a guide on your website that's longer, that links to all those other things and that all those other places around the website where you've talked about that, it links back to that guide, that cornerstone content. Sometimes it's called silo content. I. [00:29:48] Then that is a clear indicator to Google that that is the place on your website for that term. And you can rank for terms that a lot of other people have talked about. If they haven't gone [00:30:00] into the level of detail that you have in that guide, then you can like, Jump up ahead of them in those search results because you've created something that is better quality that positions you as a, an authority on that topic, and that proves to Google that you know what you're talking about. [00:30:16] And so that's what we're talking about with cornerstone content. And I often talk to podcasters who are like, I have a hundred episodes talking about this particular topic. And I'm like, okay. Create, you know, an overview guide. Basically take take a, a. Piece of thread and tie a narrative through the most important things that you're talking about. [00:30:36] Mm-hmm. Um, for my podcast, we created a cornerstone guide called, um, mental Health, entrepreneurship and Social Media, because nobody's talking about those three pieces together. Right. Yeah, [00:30:49] Sarah: I love that. And so did you research whether there is search volume for mental health and social media? [00:30:57] Meg: Yeah, so it was conversations that I was having [00:31:00] on the podcast already with therapists and social workers and you know, like I was having those conversations already. [00:31:07] The content was already created. Mm-hmm. And I knew that it was a topic that we wanted to discuss more. And I was starting to see some of these keywords show up in our metrics around mental health and entrepreneurship or around social media. Anxiety was a phrase that we targeted for that particular page. [00:31:25] Um, And so we wrote a longer post that was just like, here are the entrepreneurs that we've interviewed who talked about anxiety. Here are the ones that, uh, and, and here are the mental health professionals that we've interviewed. And we took poll quotes from their episodes and then linked to those episodes. [00:31:41] So if people are looking for that, they, it's basically like, almost like a playlist, right, of what's already been created. But instead of just a list of hero, the things that we've created in this category, we're telling a story in that post. So here's what [00:31:56] Sarah: I just finished, um, is, uh, a hugely [00:32:00] long, uh, post about humane marketing words we love. [00:32:04] Ooh. And so it goes through all these wor words like abundance and intuition, integrity and conscious, like all of these words that I use all over the book. And then I linked, yeah, to. Podcasts or, or, or blog posts or so. So would that be an example of a, uh, cornerstone page? Totally. Even though there, there's probably no search volume for humane marketing words yet, right? [00:32:33] Meg: So ye yes and no. So the thing about cornerstone content is that it is a guide in one place. And in your case, it's almost like a thought leadership. Mm-hmm. Piece of cornerstone content so that when more people become aware of these terms, um, they can then, like Google will already know that it exists. [00:32:52] You're ahead of the curve, hopefully. Mm-hmm. Um, but the great thing about it is that. Now it exists. [00:33:00] Right. And sure, Google can find it and they can send you traffic for it, but it's still an incredibly powerful asset in your business, right? [00:33:08] Sarah: Yeah. It's thinking of using it like in the menu bar, um, like as a start here or [00:33:13] Meg: something like that. [00:33:14] Mm-hmm. I would say a start here button, I could say, I could see you calling it almost like a, a term glossary. Mm-hmm. Like a humane marketing term glossary. Like what? What is it? It's use that people might need from it. They might go, oh, what are all these terms? Like how would you define these things? [00:33:29] Right. Um, So you could include it on your homepage and say, come check out our humane dark marketing glossary. Mm-hmm. To give people that idea of what is that resource for them? Right? Yeah. Um, but then also every page on your website that is linked from that, that glossary, you can then link back to it. Mm mm-hmm. [00:33:51] So if somebody listens to your episode about abundance, And then goes to the show notes, and then checks out the glossary, and then [00:34:00] goes and listens to the one about, uh, consciousness. Right? Like it can be a, a piece of, sometimes they'll call it hub content, right? Yeah. That it doesn't have to just be there for Google. [00:34:11] It can be a really great navigation tool. Um, and maybe, I mean, maybe you wanna turn it into a downloadable PDF that people can have as a [00:34:20] Sarah: guide. Right. Yeah. That would be another option. Exactly. I saw that's that's what you have because it's so long. Right? It's like, well, well you want a PDF of [00:34:29] Meg: that? Yeah. [00:34:30] When people get to, we have a cornerstone guide on the Loveit first search website. No, I was talking about the podcast, um, cornerstone a minute ago. But we have one on our loveit first search site that is just like, here's our 15 step approach to creating a really search friendly website. Um, And the, the post itself is 7,500 words. [00:34:48] It is a short novel. Um, it's a novel. It's, it's a novel. It's a blog post novella. You don't have to write that much. I, this is what I do. Right? Like, this is what we do best. Um, yours does not. [00:35:00] Absolutely. It can be, it can be. I. 1500 words and still be considered cornerstone content. Right. So don't feel like that's the norm. [00:35:05] Mm-hmm. Um, this was a labor of love that we put together last year. It took me 50 hours to create That's not normal. Yeah, right. But knowing that it is a 7,500 word blog post, our calls to action on the cornerstone guide for the first third of it, for the first like 2000 words is like, Yeah, this is really long. [00:35:25] Do you just want me to email this to you? Do you want me to, to just, so we send it as a pdf d and then we send follow up emails that, you know, we turned it into an automated funnel to make, to break it down and make it feel more reasonable to consume, um, where we break it into a three, sort of like a three act process and then provide those. [00:35:45] Like resources in those documents and each one has a video. And so we created it into more of an opt-in guide. But that's not, not everyone has to go to that level of extreme. Right. But our, our opt-ins are insane on it. It's like, uh, our op, we get a [00:36:00] 7% opt-in rate when people land on that guide. Because it has value. [00:36:05] It doesn't always get surge traffic because there's so much on the internet about web design, but when people land on that page, they join my email list, they join my programs, like it converts very well for us, and it's. It tries to meet people at every stage of that process and let them choose where they are in that process and not feel like you have to start from step one. [00:36:26] So there's a lot of, you know, when you're creating a guide based on your approach or your framework, it can be hard to figure out how to organize it. But what you just said about having a glossary, like that's, that's a way of proving that you are using these terms and sharing where they fit on your website and allowing people to go exploring in a way that feels good. [00:36:48] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. No, I really like this idea of, of first helping your clients, but then also hopefully helping your, uh, helping the search engines, right. [00:37:00] Understanding, more learning about your unique approach. So, so yeah. That, that really feels good. Um, can you have more than one cornerstone content? Yeah. Or is that just like, you have to have one piece and that's it. [00:37:16] Meg: No, anytime that you have sort of a core idea mm-hmm. You can create cornerstone content around it. Um, some people, and again, this comes back to like, do you start from the keywords or do you start from the content, um, you know, the chicken or the egg of all of it. Some people who have been creating for a long time, they could go through, audit their content, maybe just kind of note like what are the, the themes that continue to show up? [00:37:41] Right. And come up with an idea for a cornerstone guide. Um, And then those people who already have all that content might then create an outline and say, you know, based on what's here, I can see the the gaps. I can go create more content, I can build this up. Right? And then there are gonna be the [00:38:00] folks who are like, I already know that I wanna talk about, you know, mental health and social media. [00:38:04] So here are the topics that I wanna talk about, and I'm gonna go create each of those. Podcast episodes. I'm gonna go seek out the guests that I need. I'm gonna create the guide in order. There's no right or wrong way to create these. It's just more of take the building blocks. And build a wall. Mm-hmm. [00:38:22] Sarah: Yeah. What I like most about talking with you just now is that you, you hand out these permission slips as well. It's like, no, you don't have to start with the keyword research because, um, before we started, Talking, I, I went on to Neil Patel again and saw all his videos and I'm like, I just, no, I can't go back there. [00:38:46] Like, it's [00:38:47] Meg: just, it's so prescriptive. It's so, it's so [00:38:50] Sarah: prescriptive and it's just like all this Yeah. Kind of masculine energy and Yeah. Spreadsheets and all. I'm like, it's just not for me. [00:39:00] But to hear you say, well, you can start it with the content and then start to optimize it. That, yeah, that feels really, really good. [00:39:08] So thanks for handing us, it's so [00:39:11] Meg: slip, it's so clear that I'm neuro divergent. Right. Like that there are all these rules and as, as an industry, it's very much a like linear approach to the way of doing things. And my brain is just not linear. Mm-hmm. And I don't want it to be linear. And there are a lot of rules out there that are like, Here, do this checklist, follow this plan, get these results, re improve on the results. [00:39:34] And I sit down to do the plan and I'm like, but I don't wanna, [00:39:38] Sarah: no, it's like, I'm a rebel. I don't wanna follow your, your silly [00:39:42] Meg: rules. Yeah. And like where is the space in that for inspiration? Where is the space in that? For intuition? Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes the best, the best content that you create is not the stuff that's in the plan. [00:39:53] It's the stuff that you stumble into because you're following your gut. Yeah. [00:39:59] Sarah: And we [00:40:00] talked earlier on, on your show about, you know, chat C p t and, and AI and all of that. Imagine now with how easy it is to just tell chat. C p t, write me a blog post St. Six steps for blah, blah, blah. And we're gonna have be bombarded while with all this like, inhumane, boring content that just feels like, you know, the same guy wrote it. [00:40:26] Um, and so imagine now, You showing up with your content. That starts from within. That starts from the heart, and sure. Once you posted it, you're gonna pay attention to some keywords, but it doesn't start with that. How different is that gonna feel? Right. To the reader? It's completely different. It really is. [00:40:47] Meg: Yeah. And that's what can set you apart, right? Yeah. That's where, that's where all of this empathy comes into play is right. You can sound like everyone else, but the thing that's going to set you [00:41:00] apart, the, and you, the thing that's going to make your quality matter more than someone else's quantity is your humanity, right? [00:41:10] Sarah: Yeah. Mm. That's a nice line, I think to end mic drop. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, this has been, this has been really joyful and fun. Thanks so much for hanging out. Please do tell people where they can get that really, really long. PDF that they need to download. [00:41:33] Meg: You don't have to go download it. You can just go browse around. [00:41:36] You don't have to. That's the other thing about me. I'm like, you don't have to do anything. I'm very like rebellious in nature. Um, if you would like to find out more, you can head over toLove@firstsearch.com. We have an SEO starter kit right there that can help you start to get at the I your head. [00:41:50] Wrapping around this idea of keyword research. You can check out our SEO website guide, which is that long. Forum guide of, you know, pop in wherever you are in the framework and [00:42:00] figure out where it makes sense to, uh, to optimize your website. Um, whether you're creating it from scratch or it's been up for years, there are steps in there that make sense based on where you are progressively. [00:42:11] Um, we also do have a podcast and you can come listen to Sarah on the podcast cause we just recorded that. Um, that is called the Social Slowdown Podcast, so you can find that on whatever podcast device you're listening to or social slowdown.com. [00:42:24] Sarah: Wonderful. I always have one last question, and that is, what are you grateful for today or this week? [00:42:30] Meg: I mean, today you and I had to push things around because my, my elder son has been struggling in school, and so the school actually brought in a clinically trained psychologist to observe him in class and help us come up with ways to support him both in the classroom and at home, and that's a really powerful thing. [00:42:50] Too. Now I'm getting a little choked up, but you know that feeling of, of. Having somebody that you care about, be seen and supported. Um, and for me, that's [00:43:00] a huge amount of gratitude of being, being supported as a parent and knowing that my kid's getting what he needs. [00:43:06] Sarah: Yeah. What a wonderful service that, yeah. [00:43:08] School is offering. [00:43:09] Meg: That's great. Yeah. And it turns out, um, it's occupational therapy. It's sensory, sensory inputs. So I'm like, okay, I guess we'll be doing more army crawls in the morning before you go to school. That's the answer to all of it. [00:43:22] Sarah: Thanks so much for sharing. Thanks for being here, Meg. And uh, yeah, we'll talk again, [00:43:27] Meg: I hope. [00:43:28] All right, talk to you soon, Sarah. Thank you so much. [00:43:32] Sarah: I hope you learned a lot in this episode, specifically how you can use empathy in our seo. I find that so empowering. Please have a look at me's work atLove@firstsearch.com, and check out me SEO starter Kit atLove@firstsearch.com slash. Start also check out Meg's podcast called The Social Slowdown, where I was a recent guest on and we [00:44:00] talked all things humane marketing. [00:44:02] If you are looking for others who think like you, then why not join us in the Humane Marketing Circle? You can find out more at humane.marketing/circle. You find the show notes of this episode@humane.marketing slash 1 63 on this beautiful page. You'll also find a series of free offers, such as my Saturday newsletter, the Humane Business Manifesto, and the free Gentle Confidence mini course, as well as my two books, marketing like we're Human and selling like we're human. [00:44:38] Thank you so much for listening and being part of a generation of marketers who cares. For yourself, your clients, and the planet. We are change makers before we are marketers. Now go be the change you want to see in the world. Speak soon.

Nina, Eileen, Colleen, and Zach join Caitlin to cover 2023's Cocaine Bear. Before you side eye... she's a mama bear. A MONSTROUS mama bear! So we're counting it for monstrous motherhood. A seamless shoehorn into the Plug It Up repertoire of the monstrous feminine! We look back at our favorite scenes, recount our fun theater experience, "tag" ourselves as characters, and touch on other animal-horror favs. Tangents include: grabbing Colleen, chips, showers, SSRIs, kids, MLMs, comfort TV shows, and drunk personalities.  I would be remiss if I didn't follow up: we found out that Zach DOES INDEED have a Capricorn moon. Colleen nailed it. The Zach/Colleen friendship was tested by both the Cocaine Bear movie and this episode recording, but they persevered. The Zach/Colleen leo/virgo alliance remains strong.

In this episode of Directed Life, Kap Chatfield sits down with Elizabeth Johnston, a homeschooling mother of 10, blogger, speaker, podcast host, and bestselling author. Elizabeth's activism and commentary have made her a thought leader on issues of importance to families and people of faith, and she has been featured on major media outlets such as Fox & Friends, The New York Times, and The Blaze. During the interview, Elizabeth shares her powerful story of fighting for faith, family, and freedom, and discusses the importance of creating positive media content for children that promotes good values. She also shares insights on how to prioritize faith over fame, and how to find the courage to speak up for what you believe in. Don't miss out on this powerful interview! Watch the full episode on Kap Chatfield's YouTube channel now, and be sure to pick up a copy of Elizabeth Johnston's book "Little Lives Matter." which includes fun activities and games to help families discuss the sanctity of human life. #DirectedLife #ElizabethJohnston #LittleLivesMatter #WatchNow #Faith #Family #Freedom Main Takeaways : 07:51 - 10:10 | This is a Kingdom War 8:30 - 10:30 | The Courageous Call to Protect Faith, Family, and Freedom 10:30 - 12:43 | A Home-Schooling Mom of 10 Tells Her Powerful Story 12:07 - 13:18 | Speak Up and Be Bold: Encouragement for Pursuing Passions Beyond Expectations Connect with Kap Chatfield  Directed Life ShowPage  Youtube Spotify Twitter LinkedIn Facebook TikTok Apple Reach out to Rveal Media: Rveal's Website

This week on Green Living with Tee, Tee welcomes Jenna Johnson for an informative conversation about how parents and individuals can begin to detoxify their everyday lives and take small steps towards a toxin-free lifestyle. Jenna and Tee discuss some of the practical first steps that any parent can take to protect their children from the overwhelming amount of toxic chemicals in our everyday products. Jenna brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to this talk to help anyone overwhelmed by questions about harmful chemicals and toxins to begin taking the critical first steps toward a healthier and happier way of living. Jenna is a mother of three and a retired special education teacher who took her passion for toxin-free living and turned it into a way to connect with other families on her social media platforms. Jenna began her journey almost 7 years ago when she was pregnant with her first child. Jenna had no idea that toxins were harmful to her developing baby and once she dove down that rabbit hole, there was no going back. Jenna started a Facebook group as a way to share resources and journal articles regarding the safety of ingredients and started bringing awareness to greenwashed brands. Jenna left teaching to pursue her passion for helping families ditch toxins. Now she is coming out with a new children's book, focusing on the harm of plastic. “We have to teach our children to do better” Jenna insists and of course, Tee could not agree more! In addition, Jenna writes blogs and articles for companies that share her passion. She has published a Home Detox Guide ebook with over 150 pages of toxin-free tips, DIY recipes, brand recommendations, and ways to decrease your chemical exposure on a daily basis. Jenna has more guides set to release this year. Jenna lives with her husband and three children in Texas. Connect with Jenna:  Website https://www.iammamabearliving.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nontoxicmamabear The Complete Home Detox Guide: https://mamabearliving.ck.page/products/the-complete-home-detox-guide?fbclid=IwAR2WSaMwxgq6ZynHXgH6NeT1F2aU3ruGjE6OVwMrsrFhpWQ6Hp9NzrRWnMQ Free Guide on Safe Laundry: https://mamabearliving.ck.page/a28b16dced _____________________________________________________ Follow Therese "Tee" Forton-Barnes and The Green Living Gurus: Tee's Organics - Therese's Healthy Products for You and Your Home: https://thegreenlivinggurus.com/shop-tees-organics/ The Green Living Gurus Website: https://thegreenlivinggurus.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greenlivinggurus/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW7_phs1GZUPzG21Zgjnqtw Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GreenLivingGurus Healthy Living Group on Facebook Tip the podcaster! Support Tee and the endless information that she provides: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheGreenLivingGurus Venmo: @Therese-Forton-Barnes last four digits of her cell are 8868 For further info contact Tee: Email: Tee@TheGreenLivingGurus.com Cell: 716-868-8868 DISCLAIMER: ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED HERE IS GENERAL GUIDANCE AND NOT MEANT TO BE USED FOR INDIVIDUAL TREATMENT. PLEASE CONTACT YOUR PROVIDER OR DOCTOR FOR MEDICAL ADVICE.

Let me tell you about today's guest, Alexander Inchbald. Alexander is on a mission to help 10,000 changemakers to create their Masterpiece and become Rainmakers. He is the founder of the #Masterpiece Movement, a growing community of pioneers, changemakers, misfits and rebels. Together with other likeminded communities they are creating a system that will sustain humankind. Alexander is a global authority on creativity: how we master our mind and body during the act of creation so we create a Masterpiece. He has studied Masters from the worlds of art, science, religion and leadership, explored the cutting edge of psychology, neurology, physiology, epigenetics and metaphysics, and experimenting with creativity, painting in gale force, freezing conditions and blizzards all over the world. The story that has emerged will literally blow your mind. He is a bestselling author a few times over, has worked on all of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals and lives with his family above Lake Geneva In today's episode, Alex and I talk about: The story of money, from the industrial revolution until today What this means to us today WooWoo mountain, the feminine vicious cycle and why it prevents us from building business that make money Reclaim the artist as well as the art director How we can change our relationship to money The inner and outer game The role of creativity (and the right brain) in making money Why can can't neglect the left brain And so much more [00:00:00] Sarah: Hello, humane marketers. Welcome back to the Humane Marketing Podcast, the place to be for the generation of marketers that cares. This is a show where we talk about running your business in a way that feels good to you, is aligned with your values, and also resonates with today's conscious customers because it's humane, ethical, and non-pushy. [00:00:23] I'm Sarah z Croce, your hippie turn business coach for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs and marketing impact pioneers. Mama Bear of the Humane Marketing Circle. And renegade author of marketing like We're human and selling like we're human. If after listening to the show for a while, you are ready to move on to the next level and start implementing and would welcome a community of like-minded, quietly rebellious entrepreneurs who discuss with transparency what. [00:00:52] Works and what doesn't work in business, then we'd love to welcome you in our humane marketing circle. If you're picturing your [00:01:00] typical Facebook group, let me paint a new picture for you. This is a closed community of like-minded entrepreneurs from all over the world who come together once per month in a Zoom Circle workshop to hold each other accountable and build their business in a sustainable way. [00:01:16] We share with transparency and vulnerability what works for us and what doesn't work, so that you can figure out what works for you instead of keep throwing spaghetti. On the wall and seeing what sticks. Find out more at humane.marketing/circle, and if you prefer one-on-one support from me. My Humane Business Coaching could be just what you need, whether it's for your marketing, sales, general business building, or help with your big idea like writing a book. [00:01:47] I'd love to share my brain and my heart with you together with my almost 15 years business experience and help you grow a sustainable business that is joyful and sustainable. If you love this [00:02:00] podcast, wait until I show you my Mama Bear qualities as my one-on-one client can find out more at Humane Marketing slash coaching. [00:02:09] And finally, if you are a Marketing Impact pioneer and would like to bring Humane Marketing to your organization, have a look at my offers and workshops on my website@humane.marketing. [00:02:29] Hello, friends. Today I have another deep and intriguing conversation for you, and it falls under the P of pricing. It's more about money, but money has to do with pricing, right? If you're irregular here, you know that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven Ps of the Humane Marketing Mandala. If this is your first time here and you don't know what I'm talking about, you can download your one page marketing plan with the seven Ps of Humane [00:03:00] marketing@humane.marketing slash one page humane.marketing, not.com humane.marketing. [00:03:09] One page, the number one and the word page. And this comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these different piece for your business. So it's not a blueprint or a step-by-step or cookie cutter approach. It's, uh, not perspec prescriptive, but it really is, um, helping you to reflect on your seven Ps for humane marketing. [00:03:37] So today I'm speaking to my new friend, Alexander Ald, whom I, I've met in December at a lovely fondue afternoon with nine other beautiful human beings, and we somehow telepathically connected and he gifted me his book Masterpiece, which is truly a masterpiece. [00:04:00] And, uh, that's what we're gonna be talking about today. [00:04:03] And. Obviously, like I said, going to talk about money, pricing, and also this idea of the masculine and the feminine energy, but mainly the masculine because money has to do with masculine energy. Before, I'll tell you a little bit more about Alexander. I'll also invite you in the behind the scenes of my pricing journey with our community. [00:04:28] The Humane Marketing Circle. I started this community in late 2019. It has been kind of going already in a small group before, and for the first year, people could basically join for free as part of, uh, my book launch on Kickstarter, and they were free members for a full. And then obviously, you know what happened in 20 20 20, uh, and then whoever wanted to stay after 2020, [00:05:00] they, uh, paid 20 bucks per month. [00:05:03] Then I increased it to 37, uh, dollars per month and then to 47, and now it's back at 37. You know, economic circumstances and all of that. But meanwhile, more people joined. We added a second monthly call. We moved from, uh, tr a Trello board, which was very simplistic, and it worked for a while for us. But now we're kind of going pro onto a new online platform. [00:05:35] And now we have an engaged online component to the community, and we're hosting that on cajabi, which I kind of joke about. It's, it's very much like us, um, because Cajabi bought this new, um, platform just recently. And so it's a, it. Kind of the little sister of Mighty Networks. It has big dreams, and yet it's [00:06:00] not perfect yet. [00:06:00] And that kind of reminds me of ourselves as a quietly rebellious and, uh, heart-centered changemakers and marketers. You know, uh, we're not perfect. We we're, uh, doing our very best and that's what our online platform is like. And, and so yeah, people are loving it. And in January I hired a community facilitator, uh, Eddie, who's connecting men members amongst each other and really cry, creating this interconnectedness between members, which is so important in a community. [00:06:36] So together we have created something just beautiful and unique and. Totally ready for this new business paradigm that's very Aquarius oriented, you know, power to the people. Um, it's not a top down approach where I'm basically the guru and te teaching you how to do it. No, we're tapping [00:07:00] into our own personal powers and, and sharing what works for us and learning from everybody else what works for them so that we can then figure out, well, I'd like to do this in business and I, you know, this person shared this thing. [00:07:16] I wanna try that. And, and so it's, it is very much in this, uh, Aquarius energy. If, um, if any of you listening are into, um, astrology or kind of follow that even loosely. So yeah, we've really created something very beautiful and unique, I think, uh, together. And now it's time for me to bring in the masculine energy and walk my talk about creating sustainable businesses. [00:07:46] Um, I always share that with my clients and the, the marketing like we're human program. And even in this circle we talk about how just because we come from this place of giving and lots of empathy [00:08:00] and, you know, humane approach to business does not mean that we don't want to have a sustainable business. [00:08:07] We operate from this principle of maximum sustainable generosity, right? And this community has definitely been grown based on that principle, maximum sustainable generosity. And now has come the time where, um, I need to bring in that masculine energy and make it sustainable for me. Uh, beautiful things, good things take time to grow. [00:08:33] And we are at the point now where I feel like. This is just absolutely a gorgeous community. Uh, and now I do need to bring up the price because up till now it wasn't sustainable for me, and that's okay. Again, it takes time and uh, you can't charge the full price from day one. That just makes logical business sense, but now it's time. [00:08:56] So on May 5th, I'll be [00:09:00] introducing a new humane three-tier pricing that is, Conveying all the value you really get in this community and it's sustainable for the host and everyone else's work that needs to be paid fairly. I'm announcing this price increase not to use urgency to get you to sign up, but it wouldn't feel fair that I'm doubling the price overnight without giving you at least a last chance to sign up at the current rate. [00:09:29] You know, it has happened to me where I go to a website and offering, all of a sudden the price is like much higher and I'm like, well, I wish I knew about this. So that's kind of why I'm doing this. Um, now so. Again, um, if you've been playing with the idea of maybe joining us now is a good time, you'll still be kind of considered, I wouldn't say founding members because, um, again, I've been hosting this for over three years, so, [00:10:00] uh, it's not really a founding member rate anymore, but it's just kind of like this, um, you know, maybe a budding rate. [00:10:07] Like we. Add the verge of something that is going to grow. And, and, and if you get in now, uh, well, you get in at that $37 per month rate. The new rates will come into place on May 5th. Have a look@humane.marketing forward slash circle and see if, uh, this is a good fit for you. And we'd love to have you okay with that. [00:10:35] Um, and I hope Alexander is, is proud about me demonstrating my, uh, masculine energy here. So let me tell you a little bit about today's guest, Alexander ald. Um, Alexander is on a mission to help 10,000 change makers to create their masterpiece and become rainmakers. He's the founder of the Masterpiece Movement. [00:10:58] A growing community of [00:11:00] pioneers, changemakers, misfits, and rebels. Together with other like-minded communities, they are creating a system that will sustain human. Alexander is a global authority on creativity, how we master our mind embodied during the act of creation so we can create a masterpiece. He has studied masters from the worlds of art, science, religion, leadership, explored the cutting edge of psychology, neurology, psychology, epigenetics and metaphysics, and experimented with creativity, painting in gale force, freezing conditions and blizzards all over the world. [00:11:41] This story that has emerged will literally blow your mind. Alexander is a bestselling author a few times over and has worked on all of the United Nations, sustain sustainable development goals, and he lives with his family here in Switzerland above Lake Geneva. And [00:12:00] I've had the pleasure to, uh, be over at his house just recently with a beautiful view. [00:12:05] So in our time together, we speak about. The story of money from the Industrial Revolution until today. What this means to us today, uh, I get him to talk about woo woo mountain, the feminine vicious cycle, and why it prevents us from building a business that makes money, reclaim the artist as well as the art director. [00:12:30] How we can change our relationship to money, the inner and the outer game, the role of creativity, the right brain in making money. Why we can't neglect the left brain and so much more. Um, this is a deep conversation. It's a conversation where I use my. Um, left brain and Capricorn being to, um, you know, kind of ground and bring ourselves [00:13:00] back because, uh, Alexander can go really far into these concepts that I have to admit are, uh, sometimes even, uh, a bit far out for me. [00:13:10] So, um, it's a rainy conversation. So if you're ready for that, let's dive in. Hi Alexander. So good to see you speak to you today. [00:13:23] Alexander: Wonderful to be here. Sarah, thank you so much for having [00:13:25] Sarah: me. Yeah. Um, I was on a webinar with you last week. That was amazing. And then of course, uh, as I mentioned in the intro, we, uh, met in person, which is like so rare nowadays, right? [00:13:40] That you get to meet people in person. And we get to meet again actually, uh, tomorrow after this recording. So I'm looking forward to that. But, um, let's share with, uh, my listeners a little bit of the conversations that, uh, partly from your webinar, also from your book, [00:14:00] that you, um, so kindly shared with me and I entitled this, uh, conversation. [00:14:06] Can't remember the exact words, but something about money and masculine energy, because that's what I feel like. You bring to us, right? This kind of dance between the feminine and the masculine and what that has to do with money, uh, how art comes in as well, because you are an artist. So yeah. Let's, let's dive in. [00:14:30] Um, why don't you start with kind of like, um, an excerpt of the story that you sh shared in this webinar. Um, I was on last week, I think it was called, um, it was called The Path of Prosperity, right? That was the title. Yeah. So sh sh Start us out there. [00:14:49] Alexander: Wow. Um, you know, the Pathway of Prosperity is, is a model that emerged, uh, in Switzerland. [00:14:55] Last year I was working with a group of pioneers and one of my business partners, a guy called Peter [00:15:00] kk, and Peter looked at our relationship to money and has looked at it for the last thir 30, 40 years. Um, and he discovered some really, really interesting things when he looked at our relationship to money. [00:15:12] Um, And the modern conception of money was created and designed by some very conscious people 250 years ago, um, around the time of the Industrial Revolution. And the industrial Revolution kind of, um, represents the extreme of the masculine end of the pathway. So there's a feminine end to the pathway, and you'd have to go back 200,000 years really to the dawn of humankind, um, in the Great River Valley in Africa, or at least that's one history you could say. [00:15:43] And that was kind of all feminine energy. So what is feminine energy? Feminine energy is, is, is being in connection. And if you've ever been in a real state of flow, you feel that you're in connection with something, something greater, um, than yourself. And somehow the energy of creativity [00:16:00] flows through you. [00:16:00] So just go to a moment like that. Maybe it was a moment you. Deeply in love with somebody in front of you, or a moment that you, you know, you created a painting and it just hours flew by or, or you finished a report at that moment. Actually the mind isn't really very active. You, you're just kind of in a state of connection or in a state of communion. [00:16:20] And then the opposite end of that is, is the industrial age. Um, and the industrial age. We've gone from kind of being connected to all of it, um, to being a cog in a wheel. Um, and the pathway, we actually talk about the pathway all the way from this to this. But, um, that takes about an hour. So, so I'm not gonna do that in this conversation. [00:16:40] Let, let me start this end. Let's work our way back. So this is the pathway of separation, moving from being connected to, disconnected from being part of all of it, to being a cog, a cove machine. And so if we, if we look at the, the industrial age, what did we say? We said, well, [00:17:00] um, life expectancy was pretty short, kind of, uh, 30 to 50 years, um, in most advanced countries in the world. [00:17:07] Um, and how do we, how do we increase, increase our health? And so some very, very conscious people actually designed a system, a financial system, in order for that to happen. And it included things like interest rates. Um, but the externalities of that, according to Peter's research, are two things. Um, one is extraction of people, extraction of the resource of people. [00:17:30] In other words, led to the idea of the cog in the wheel. And the second is the extraction of raw materials. And those two externalities, at the beginning, they were okay, because if you look at the numbers, the numbers are incredible that life expectancy went up and quality of life went up. E extraordinarily. [00:17:49] Um, and num, those numbers don't lie. It's not like somebody's faked those numbers. I was looking at the work by hands roling the mind gap. You can go, go and see it, mind gapper.org. Um, [00:18:00] incredible. It literally shows how you increase the amount of earning and the life expectancy increases. In other words, there is a direct correlation between those two, right? [00:18:10] And yet that system also divided us. So it was a system of silos. Um, think of the traditional factory and even a factory today it divides things down into silos. And so that was the system two 50 years ago. And there's some organizations that still follow it today, the un not far from where you and I are sitting right now. [00:18:29] You know, it follows a silo-based mentality. Governments, they follow a, a silo-based mentality. Education, you know, in, in class we get taught maths very separate from science, and that's very separate from, you know, art and, and languages. And yet today when we look at the challenges we face there, They're horizontal challenges, not vertical challenges. [00:18:51] Right. And so that, that kind of model started to evolve. Um, and about a hundred years ago, it evolved from the silo based system, uh, which we call the [00:19:00] control system into the, the, the compete system when compete system, not just vertical lines. You add in the horizontal lines. So you see this in big business now, everything divided from, you know, the, the factory line into departments and teams. [00:19:18] Mm-hmm. And you, you kind of had groupings in organizations. And then what we started to see about 20, 30 years ago is, is a kind of emergence, um, of something which can be traced back way before this, but the, the role of the individual in the organization, um, and the philosophy shifted and the philosophy shifted from, from over here in this model, the control and the compete model. [00:19:42] It was all about what was good for the organization, was good for the individual. It's a very paternalistic top down. And this one started to become a little bit more feminine. It said, well, actually what's good for the individual is good for the organization. We started to see that in Silicon Valley. So, you know, the growth of Silicon Valley, um, [00:20:00] w was predicated on the idea of giving people time to do what they were passionate about. [00:20:05] Think, think of Google. They said one day a week, 20% of your time, you can do whatever you're passionate about. And that led to Gmail and Google Maps and Google Calendar, and 50% of the innovation and AdWords, 50% of the innovation from Google came from that 20% time. And yet, what we are getting to see now, 20, 30 years into, you know, the, the massive rise of the internet is the limits of that system. [00:20:33] And, and a new system has been emerging for, uh, 20, 30 years. Um, Behind the scenes. And what we're now seeing is these systems, which are all a variant, a different flavored, you know, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, let's say. And we're now seeing that actually ice cream isn't the answer. Um, [00:21:00] [00:21:00] Sarah: well I'm gonna interrupt you there then. [00:21:02] So if we continue this ice cream analogy, what is the answer though? Um, and also what does dad have to do with our money story? [00:21:15] Alexander: Yeah, great question. Um, well, I, I'm at risk of course, continuing the analogy and saying, well, we all get fat and get addicted to [00:21:24] Sarah: That's true. And if you, if, if you continue there, it's like, well, money makes you fat. [00:21:30] You know, it's like fat in terms of like too much. [00:21:34] Alexander: Well look exactly, and, and you, you are spot on because. What, what is really happening? Where is the money in the world? Mm-hmm. Well, it's in these three systems. So it's, it's in government bonds, it's in government treasury, it's in big business and it's in Silicon Valley. [00:21:53] And more money has been printed in the last 10 years than has ever been in existence [00:22:00] in the entire history of humankind. And 40% of that wealth, 40% of the world's wealth is owned by 10 men. Um, and I used to be able to get even more of my high horse in this and say 10 white men, but actually there are now two Indian gentlemen who are in the top 10 men. [00:22:19] Um, and despite that, all the other organizations in the top 10 were founded in Silicon Valley. So you've got this, you've got this lake, if you like, of wealth, and it sits. In these three systems, think of a dam, right? And you know, behind the dam you have, you have a lake and it, and it's, and it's actually held here. [00:22:41] Mm-hmm. And it's, it's being hoarded, right? Um, and, and the money is not flowing right. It's not flowing out of the dam. It's, it's jammed behind the dam. And that isn't very natural. Dams are [00:23:00] not natural things. You know, there are no natural dams in nature. There's no hoarding in nature. There's nothing in nature that actually hoards anything. [00:23:07] If you look in, okay, so bears hibernate, squirrels hibernate, but what they do is they store the food that they need to get through the winter. That's not hoarding, right? Storing is, okay, I'm gonna just keep enough that I need with me. Uh, and, and as nomads, we did the same. We, we just carried what we needed at that moment. [00:23:29] If you've ever, ever been backpacking, You know, the first day you go backpack and you're like, oh, damn, I was wondering whether I could swear that, uh, I'll, I've bought in like stuff, I don't need all this stuff. So then you kind of start throwing away stuff, right? And then you, you thin down your rug sucking like, this is what I need, this is all I need. [00:23:51] Sarah: So yeah. You're, you're saying basically the, the money is all held in behind that dam. The question I guess I have is [00:24:00] like, well, what do we, the people, um, what can we do as the people? Um, because you started to talk about this journey, right? And you showed, basically showed us history. So the question is, um, is the, is this history a linear path and things just kept, keep going worse and worse, or? [00:24:27] And I think, uh, I remember from the webinar, of course, it's not a linear path. Uh, it, it it's this shape of, um, the, the the figure eight, um, and the infinity sign. So tell us about the return of Yeah. Uh, you know, how, how it's gonna change, basically. [00:24:48] Alexander: Yeah. Well, it, it looks like it's linear. It, it really does. [00:24:51] It does. It looks like we're heading, heading towards complete collapse. And [00:24:54] Sarah: right now, uh, you know, most people are gonna tell you, well, Alexander, I don't know, [00:25:00] but right now it doesn't look like there's any return. [00:25:03] Alexander: Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't look good. I mean, you know, we are recording this, aren't we? Um, just after, you know, the second, uh, valley Bank has just collapsed, um, we're recording at the same time as, um, UBS is just made an offer to buy credit Suis. [00:25:19] Right. Um, we're recording at a time that. Uh, the Economist is saying that there's a hundred billion dollars in the US banking system missing. Wow. But that's, that's, um, an unwanted gap. And you know, I remember back in 2007, 2008, you know, the beginning of the financial crisis, um, and Lima's Brothers collapsing. [00:25:40] And, and I'm sure you do as well. And it kind of feels like we're, we're at a similar time. And yet I am less concerned about it than ever. And some people, you know, watching like, what you crazy? I'm like, no, actually thi this is, this is absolutely what is being called, uh, forward. [00:26:00] And so there is a world beyond this. [00:26:03] Um, and in fact it's incredibly exciting and amazing world. And everyone says, oh, the system's gonna collapse in Ajara Diamond's book. If you've ever read that about civilization collapse, uh, the whole thing is gonna fall down. Well, maybe, um, The dam actually, there are people standing on both sides of the dam. [00:26:25] So let's take it from the, the global to the specific. Let's take it from, from, you know, what's happening at a societal level and let's, let's focus it on an individual level because this one [00:26:37] Sarah: you are talking about. That's a great idea. Mm-hmm. Because I was just gonna say that cuz it's a bit out there, right? [00:26:43] And it's like, okay, it would be great if we can talk about, well, what does that mean to us? So yeah, take us there. [00:26:50] Alexander: Mm-hmm. So some of us are standing on this side of the dam and we've got big fat ca bank accounts and we're like, I'm scared of spending my [00:27:00] money because the collapse, you know, the collapse is coming. [00:27:04] If I read the, if I read the the papers, watch the news, read the Economist or whoever, the system's about to collapse. So I need to look after my money. In other words. We are hoarding more because we're, we're afraid. And then there are people on the other side of the dam who are, who are kind of looking at the dam going, oh, there's no money coming to me. [00:27:29] And so some of us, you know, some of us are on this side of the dam and we're like, the river's dried up. There's, there's a drought, there's no money flowing to me. Um, how do I, how do I avoid this? Well, maybe I need to climb back up and, and get this side and go back into this world. Maybe I need to go back into the world of business and get a job and just stop trying to create this new system, whatever this new system is. [00:27:58] Um, [00:28:00] and then those of us who are in it are like, am I gonna lose my job? So we've got these kind of two different mentalities going on and it, Peter puts it like this. There are someone, us who are unconsciously. Pushing money away, and some of us who are running after money unconsciously, so let me kind of unbundle that. [00:28:18] Mm-hmm. You can actually see this in your own life. Like either money's flowing, uh, there's money in your bank account or there's not money in your bank, in your bank account. You, you can literally look at it and you could diagnose what's going on by the health of your bank account. Now the secret here is about flow and you mentioned that this is an infinite loop. [00:28:40] The figure of eight turn on its side, it's actually an infinite loop. And the secret is very simple. The dam is actually a belief system held in mind. The dam is actually in our mind and it's an unconscious thing. You're like, no, no, no. It really exists. Like [00:29:00] 40% of the world's wealth help help buy 10 people. [00:29:02] They keep, you can't deny that you know that the money is all in here and it's not here. Well, actually that's not true because there are people over here I know. And we could talk about at length. And they have all the money they need flowing through them and flowing through their bank accounts, and they genuinely are creating a new world. [00:29:21] So what is the difference between those people and, and you and I now, why is the money flowing through their bank accounts and not through all of our bank accounts? And why is the money stuck here? And actually what we find is that most of us have part of ourselves here and part of ourselves here. So in fact, we're doing a little bit of both all the time. [00:29:45] We're, we're kind of hoarding onto the money that does come in, um, because we're afraid of the drought and we're looking at the money saying, when is the money gonna flow to us? And so the, a lot of the work we do is about helping people to break down [00:30:00] this, literally this mental barrier, this mental dam, um, so that the money flows again. [00:30:09] And so that ultimately prosperity flows, um, and the natural design of, of nature is everything in flow. Mm-hmm. It, it's not building downs, it's not building restrictions. [00:30:24] Sarah: Yes. I, I hear you Alexander, but my rational mind is still has a lot of questions because you just went through explaining, you know, the kind of system we are in right now. [00:30:39] Um, and you know that 10 men basically own 40% of the wealth and they are not the ones that I would say represent the feminine energy or even like dual energy. They're the patriarchical, um, kind of not the nicest people on [00:31:00] earth, I would say. And I don't care that they own, uh, that much. So the question is if you're saying, okay, it's just in our mind, well, it's not, it's a reality. [00:31:11] And so the, the thing is, what I want you to, um, talk about is, you know, kind of this concept of owning the masculine energy Yes. As well. And probably more like where we're headed, because clearly right now it's not the case, you know? Yes. Like, we're not at this point yet where we're money flows to everyone. [00:31:37] It's just Yes. You just showed it yourself. So Yes. Take us to, to owning these both energies and, and what, what that could look like. [00:31:47] Alexander: Look, that's such a good question. Um, and brilliantly put, and just to be clear, Um, I'm not saying that that the 10 white men or the eight white men and two Indian [00:32:00] men are in our mind. [00:32:01] I'm saying the dam is in our mind, right? Yes. Right. So the dam is what is in our mind. Mm-hmm. Which is blocking the flow. And you mentioned going into the fem energy. So let's look at it from this perspective. Yeah. Because it's easier to look from down here, looking up at the down. But if we go all the way into the feminine energy over here, we are not separate from the whole. [00:32:29] We are part of mother nature. We are, we are part of it. We are an integral part of it. We're not separate from it. The separation only happens in mind. So the only part of ourselves that can sense the separation is our mind, but our essence, whatever we call it, is not separate from the whole. It's an integral part of the whole. [00:32:52] Right. So if we look at it from this perspective, and then we look at these eight white men and two Indian [00:33:00] gentlemen, and we talk about the, the patriarchy as you just did. And then we, we have all this kind of stuff coming up inside ourselves and we're like, I really don't like those people. That she's the person in that system that you like the least think of that person, that leader, that that individual in that system. [00:33:22] Whether he's an entrepreneur, I'm gonna say he, because undoubtedly it's a man in, in a, in a right. So probably a, uh, a business leader, maybe a politician, but just bring to mind that person. It doesn't have to be, uh, in North America. It could be, it could be somewhere in Europe, it could be, it could be somewhere in Russia. [00:33:43] It could be somewhere in. Um, in the East, right? So just bring to mind that person, and then think of the, the, the thing that you like least about that person. What trait do you like least about that person? And is it, is it, it's, is it corruption? Is it, is it [00:34:00] bullying? Is it misogyny? Is it lying? Is it cheating? [00:34:03] Is it manipulating? Is it bullying? What is, what is it all? What is that trait All above? Yeah. Okay. All of the above. Right? And you can write a long, long list, right? Here's the scary thing. When you look at it from the feminine energy that is part of us. If we are part of the whole, they are also part of the whole, and they are part of us. [00:34:28] And this is a horrible, horrible thing, a horrible realization because mm-hmm. You're suddenly like, oh shit. What? Really? No, no, no, no. Because the mine will then go, no, no, no. That's ridiculous. I've done my work. I've done my own work. I, I, that's, that's how I got here. Don't be so ridiculous. I, I worked at my purpose five years ago, 10 years ago. [00:34:46] I've been doing spiritual development work. I've been doing personal development work. I've been doing all this work for the last 15, 20 years. My whole life has been dedicated to this work. Don't be so ridiculous as part of me stuck over here. Well, if we are on the planet right now, the bad news [00:35:00] is there is, there is an aspect of us that is holding this system in place, that's holding this dam here. [00:35:08] Mm-hmm. This dam in our mind. So what can we do about it? And this is where you're absolutely spot on, that actually we need to re-embrace this masculine energy over here. And, and, you know, Carl Young talked about this idea of the shadow. You know, what's held in the shadow. What's held in the collective consciousness of the planet right now is primarily masculinity. [00:35:35] Cuz this isn't been going on for 250 years. It's been going on for minimum 5,000 years, probably 10,000 years probably. You can trace it all the way back to the moment that, um, well, 5,000 years plus civilization in Suma, where we started to create hierarchies in cigarettes and money and all these things, or 10,000 years. [00:35:54] The moment that we settled down and we said, actually, we can cultivate crops and we can, we can [00:36:00] domestic animals, in other words, with a little bit above nature. Or you could trace it back 40,000 years and say, actually it was the moment that the prefrontal cortex, you know, mutated and gave us consciousness and the moment that the larynx gave us the ability to talk. [00:36:14] So each of these moments are kind of moments of separation along this journey. And now here we are at this, at this moment in history right now, the most amazing moment possibly ever in human history to be alive right now. And, and most of us still have this, they'll have this wall. The wall will dissolve. [00:36:36] It will, it's inevitable for some of us, and those of us who do will just go on this infinite cycle within this life. And for those of us who don't, will go on this cycle, not on this slide. Yeah, [00:36:54] Sarah: I like that. Um, I think, so you, you [00:37:00] kind of talked about the masculine energy and embracing that, um, I think in your book, but also in the webinar. [00:37:07] He also talk about the ego, right? And it's, um, it's part of that, those shadows, um, that, that we need to look at. And in some of the self-help, more self-development, uh, personal development, uh, um, things you hear while you just need to like go of the ego and you know, that's how you're coming to this feminine energy. [00:37:32] You instead say, well, don't let go of it. Uh, look at it and embrace it and, and, and, and yeah, commune with it in a way, right? And I think that's exactly what's happening now as well. Um, in, in on the bigger, um, scheme is all of that ego stuff is coming up and. And we're, yeah, we're having to look at it as a [00:38:00] society and, you know, the big, um, kind of, um, people that we talked about with all the wealth. [00:38:06] Well, that's really coming up for them, uh, specifically right now. And, and so what you're saying is not completely let go of it, but take I guess the good things from the ego with you so that you can then apply those. Let, let's kind of bring it to a business owner level because li my listeners are, are entrepreneurs, right? [00:38:30] And I do feel like a lot of, uh, you know, I'm talking to heart-centered entrepreneurs, so already that kind of says, well, there are a lot in the feminine energy, uh, which is great, right? Which is exactly what we need, uh, more of, so we're on this pathway back to the feminine energy. And what you are saying, and I'm saying it as well in different words because I talk about the doing and the being, um, the yin and the [00:39:00] yang, right? [00:39:00] We need both energies to be an entrepreneur and to, you know, stay ground and, and, and claim our worth. And, and, and yeah, do sell Right to sell. We need, uh, some of that, um, masculine energy as well. So yeah, tell us a bit more about the ego and, and what, what good parts are in the ego, right. That we can bring back to, to business. [00:39:26] Oh, [00:39:26] Alexander: beautiful. Great question. Um, well let, let's, let's take this model actually, and, and flip it up, right? So this, this figure of a, and let's flip it this way and, ok. So now [00:39:37] Sarah: let's, now standing straight, [00:39:38] Alexander: it's now standing straight, right? Yeah. And the base is the feminine and, and the, the top is, is the masculine. [00:39:45] Mm-hmm. And now let's imagine that's a tree. Right? Mm-hmm. And this is your tree and your, your business. Mm-hmm. And what you wanna do is you want to attract more trees into your forest, more trees into your community is [00:40:00] right. And the bigger, the bigger your forest grows, the more sustainable it becomes. So trees that grow in forest live far longer than trees that, um, that are isolated on their own, on hilltops. [00:40:13] So let's, let's assume that what you're trying to do is, is build a forest. A sustainable forest doesn't have to be the biggest forest in the world, but it's a sustainable forest. It's a heart-centered forest center. At the heart of this forest is the mother tree, your tree. Now if you think about that forest, and let's say, you know, it's, it's currently a cops or maybe it's a wood, but actually the potential is to grow to a forest. [00:40:36] Or maybe you are just starting out and you've literally just sewed the seed and it's, it's a seedling or a sapling. But you know, you know the potential of it is not just to grow into a tree. It's actually to grow into a forest. And of course what you go is do is you go through growing pain. So let's see if yours are sapling, you may be blown away, away, you know, around by the wind. [00:40:57] And what we often focus on is we try [00:41:00] and, you know, we try and grow the tree, right? You imagine this like you're a little seedling and you're, you're like, grow faster and you're like, let, you're trying to pull this more, more [00:41:08] Sarah: clients, more, [00:41:09] Alexander: yeah. More clients. More, more, more, more grow this way. Mm-hmm. And, and of course that doesn't work. [00:41:13] You'll literally just pull the seedling outta the ground or you'll pull the sapling outta the ground. Mm-hmm. So what stops you from doing this is, is the roots. And in fact, the height of the tree is dependent on the depth of the roots. Right? And don't worry, I'm gonna get to, to this thing about the ego, right? [00:41:28] Um, so let's assume that the roots is the feminine, the roots is in, is in connection with all of it. What, what we call the purpose. And that the, the tree is your mission. This is what you're growing towards and you want all the other trees to grow towards this, towards this mission. And that creates a microclimate underneath which sustains life because it's not too hot, it's not too cold. [00:41:52] It helps the, um, the, to conserve the water that all the trees need, the nutrients that all the trees need, the minerals [00:42:00] that all the trees need. And then they share this underneath. So the height of the tree is dependent on the depths of the roots. The sustainability of the forest is dependent on the consistency of the canopy, but what stops the roots from growing deeper are rocks. [00:42:18] Now, most people would tell you to remove rocks. When you see a block, you remove the block. When you see the dam, you take the dam out. [00:42:29] But what if the rocks had helped you to get here? See, if you were to remove all the rocks under a forest, the trees would become unstable. Mm-hmm. And then they'd fall over. But actually if, if the roots wrap around the rocks, then the tree becomes more stable. Yeah. And the whole forest becomes more stable. [00:42:53] Sarah: It reminds me of what we just said before, recording, no pain, no gain. Right? The rocks are the pain [00:43:00] here. The rocks are the dark nights of the soul. Um, so [00:43:04] Alexander: yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. And in our research we've identified all different types of, of pain. Pain around money, which we've just been talking about. We're either mentally hoarding it or we are mentally, um, you know, we're in a scarcity mindset. [00:43:23] Um, so we're pushing it away mentally or we're running after it power, relationship to power. So either we're standing at the top of the dam or we're standing at the bottom of the dam. And in order for somebody to be standing at the top, there has to be somebody standing at the door. In other words, in order for you to have, um, power over somebody, somebody unconsciously has to accept to have power over them. [00:43:46] Right. Oras, my partner, Jean Plip, puts it, um, obedience is the key to power. Mm-hmm. The third rock that we look at is, is love, because most of us were brought up in a world of fairy tales, Grims fairy [00:44:00] tales where, you know, the, the, the prince and the princess lived happily ever after. Uh, which implies that you are happy every after when you find your soulmate. [00:44:09] And so we've reinterpreted that, that modern myth is you can only be happy when you find your soulmate, which implies that love is outside of you. And of course, those of us who've done personal development work and a lot of it know that actually it's inside of us. And yet there's so remnants of that old model because it's so deeply embedded in society. [00:44:29] Mm-hmm. And then the fourth area is time. Um, that we, we constantly perceive we are running out of time and we've got to do things by this time. Um, and so these are, these are the four rocks or we procrastinate and these are the four rocks that we find underground. And what we've explored and examined is how you can embrace these different rocks. [00:44:56] Because in them is first of all the secret of how you [00:45:00] got here. Your tree grew, you grew cause the rock was there. And if you really embrace it consciously, and this is the difference, most of us are, uh, kind of embracing or resisting it unconsciously. And because we're embracing it unconsciously, we're not really embracing it. [00:45:21] We're pushing away from it. So if you take a, you know, you mentioned being very practical in business, let's say. Um, we are unconsciously pushing money, right? Let's come back to money. We are running a program around money. So we think money is bad, or money is our security, or money is our freedom. Um, and that, uh, in Carl's words is a projection. [00:45:51] So we're not seeing money as money. We're seeing money as a vehicle to something freedom or [00:46:00] away from something corruption. And when we actually embrace the freedom with or without money, we actually become truly free. Mm-hmm. [00:46:14] Sarah: But we can't, I think, I think in the book, yeah. Go on. Sorry. Yeah. I think in the book you mentioned surrender. [00:46:21] Right? And that I think is a big piece of that journey is to, you know, just surrender to. The rocks. And, and does that mean surrender to the ego as well? Because we started this track with the ego. So does that mean surrender to your ego, uh, as well? [00:46:43] Alexander: Yeah, great question. Um, I would say more surrender to the feminine. [00:46:48] Hmm. But in the surrender, what most of us forget is that the feminine to take the sea behind me. Right. [00:47:00] Um, but the canvas here, so this is a painting, it's a painting of, of, uh, M Blanc, um, painted a few years ago in black. And, um, it was pretty windy up there. Like it's what, 3000 meters? So 9,000 feet. Um, and it's pretty windy. [00:47:18] And you know, when the canvas is moving, it's very difficult for the feminine to feel like, uh, She can come out and play. So the feminine creates, mother nature creates, um, the divine. You know, a birth is normally through the feminine form, like, you know, new, new life comes onto the planet through the feminine form. [00:47:39] And so the, the, when the canvas is held, the feminine can come out to play. So the masculine is, is the easel and it's holding. And normally I tie with string from the corner so that the, the canvas is completely held. And if the canvas is held, then the feminine has the confidence to come out to play [00:48:00] so that the, the, the feminine aspect of this needs the masculine at a certain level of awareness, right? [00:48:09] It needs to be held in that way. And that's where most of us are right now. And most of us have, have observed masters and we're like, you know, look, look at Nelson Mandela or, or Mother Teresa, and we observe no ego, you know, look at, look at Eckhart. No ego. we're like, there's no ego there. Ego's gone. So we look at it and we go, oh, I know what I need to do. [00:48:33] I need to get rid of the ego. I need to get rid of the rocks. Right? But actually, that's like trying to climb a ladder by removing the runts. Mm-hmm. So if when you get to the top of the ladder, you don't need the ladder, but in order to get to the top of ladder, you needed the rungs in the ladder. So most of us look at that state and we think, well, what I need to do is I need to remove the ego in order to reach the top [00:49:00] of my mountain. [00:49:01] Actually, it's the inverse. The rungs of the ladder are embracing every aspect of ego and finding the gold in the rock, cuz there's gold in each of these rocks. And when you realize there's a benefit in, I dunno, security. And you find the conscious benefit in that, the gold dust in that you climb up a run and then you keep doing this. [00:49:27] It's, it's a, it's a very long ladder, by the way, really, really long ladder, you know? And like you, you can go on and on and on and on and on. Like, it's, it, it feels like it's infinite, right? Um, but at a certain point, you, you reach the top of the mountain, you're like, oh my God, I'm here. Then you don't need the ladder, but you do need the ladder to help other people get to the top of the mountain. [00:49:52] So this is when you build ladders for other people, right? [00:49:55] Sarah: So once you build your ladder, you can then help other people. Yeah. Yeah. [00:50:00] I, I see how you, yeah. How you tie in the, the rocks and the ego and that. The point is not to let go of the ego, but to embrace it. Because we need both of these energies, right? [00:50:15] Yes. Um, Maybe just to kind of bring it down again to the level of, uh, the individual, the entrepreneur. Um, what I see a lot in, um, uh, the entrepreneurs that I work with is that, um, and, and I think in your book, you call it the woowoo Mountain, right? And I have my WOOWOO prompts in, in, in the marketing, like we're human book. [00:50:39] So I think it's very much needed today that we can go into the woo and that we can, you know, embrace our feminine energy. But you and I both make the point also to say yes. And you do also need, uh, the masculine energy, um, to [00:51:00] build a business. There's just certain things, even in marketing, you know, you need to look at your numbers, like all of these kind of left brain things, those are the masculine energy, and we need those for building businesses, and we need those even for, um, Yeah. [00:51:17] It, it's a structure, like you said, the easel is the structure. It's kind of like, um, we need both. We need the roots, which you said was the feminine, and then we need some kind of system or, or structure. Um, I love that. Yeah. Thanks so much for, for taking on us on that journey. What I'm curious, uh, kind of to wrap up, what I'm curious, um, about is, is, is this return and. [00:51:45] You know, we, we kind of briefly touched upon it, the, the communion. Um, what you, um, mentioned also is the, you know, the, these different, um, business models. So we started with, uh, [00:52:00] industrial Revolution. Now we're kind of still in the big corporate systems. So where is this going? Uh, what do you see, uh, as a new paradigm in terms of business and, um, yeah, humans. [00:52:16] How, how are we [00:52:17] Alexander: evolving? Yeah, so the, the, the big leap beyond the dam, um, if we, if we kind of put the tree back and actually the other way around and, um, we have the infinite loop, then the big leap beyond, um, the, the dam is, is a leap into what is variously known as as a teal organization. Um, it's a kind of decentralized organization. [00:52:40] But most people have misunderstood the decentralized organization. Um, and they think we, we go into co creativity and we immediately jump to communion. There is a step in between, there's a rung in the ladder in between this current system, Silicon Valley system, which is still extracting wealth, um, and this new emergence [00:53:00] system before you get to communion. [00:53:02] So the future is communion, and that's one end of the cycle. And then there's the other. And really what you're looking for is a constant flow between them. So in order for that constant quote to happen, you'd have to reclaim these positives, as you said over here. So what's the positive of the control system? [00:53:18] Discipline structure. What's the, the positive of the, of the second system? Focus, like steely, focus on, on whatever you call that thing is your mission or the uniqueness. Your promise was the third thing. The third thing is about shifting our mindset. It's about unlocking our mindset and moving towards a mindset where things can grow. [00:53:39] But the real leap is here. This is the leap. This is the leap that's emergent. And it's, it's like it builds on all of these. We think it's linear, but actually it's like the Russian dolls. So this is an outer Russian doll, and then there's another Russian doll here. And this one, to get to this one, you have to accept all of these [00:54:00] phases. [00:54:01] And what that means is that it's not co-creation, that's delusional. Wbu Mountain stuff. That it occurs because somebody is holding the space. What my, my partner Peter calls the source, there's an easel there holding the canvas for everyone else. And so there's, there's this famous book by, uh, Fred Lulu. [00:54:22] Fred Lulu, um, called Reinventing Organization, which kicked up a whole creativity, co creativity movement, and became a cult classic in 2015. And when Peter interviewed Fred, cause he knows him very well, he said, Fred, you only interviewed sources, didn't you? And Fred's like, yes. In other words, he was observing the canvas, but not realizing the role that the sources, the people, the founders of the business were playing as the easel. [00:54:52] What does that mean? It means. The holding at this level without the, the, the masculine, strong [00:55:00] masculine energy nigro is, is a mapp like this with bubbles inside, without the arms holding the space. Without that discipline, without that focus, without that structure, the whole thing falls into a mess. And I, I launched a company, um, based on the idea of co-creation. [00:55:18] I was the source of it. I had some incredible partners, really, really impressive people. And it collapsed. We never made any money. There was never any flow in it. So in order to create this system, we have to embrace the shadow of the masculine and the shadow of the masculine is encompassed in the, in the worst of the people who we see running this system. [00:55:44] And so I am incredibly optimistic, but it's not even optimism. I know, I know that, um, some of us are already doing this. And I see what's been created and it is phenomenal. [00:56:00] Phenomenal what has been created. I mean, I was speaking with my friend Heath yesterday, what Heath is up to, unbelievable. I mean, I can't give any details out at the moment, but you can feel the energy of what he is doing. [00:56:14] I'll give you one example. So Carrie is 25 years in the un, has created a parallel organization to the UN called United Cities in Google it. She's now the source of a 13 billion fund to realize the SDGs, uh, the sustainable development goals. Her mission is 10,000 cities. By the end of decade, she will do it. [00:56:34] I know she will. She's operating from that level of awareness. That's just one example. But there are, let's [00:56:42] Sarah: go back to the, let's go back to the, uh, individuals, um, you know, the entrepreneurs who are listening, cuz that's kind of like a high level example. Um, because I, I do have to say, I'm like, well, here I am always talking about co-creation and collaboration, and you [00:57:00] just come in and say, well, that's not working. [00:57:02] So what's the alternative then? Because if the ultimate goal is communion, then what's the alternative? If not collaboration? [00:57:13] Alexander: So collaboration is key, but the key to get to the communion is to appreciate that each of us have a role in that collaboration and each of us are tapping in as a source into something greater, whatever we call that. [00:57:35] So the collaboration happens because each of us take a marriage. In a marriage, you have two people, and we talk about us as, as a, as a something, but actually each of us are independent, um, beings. And we, we used to say in the old system, we used to say, well, when you find your perfect partner, [00:58:00] you create perfect harmony, the beast with two bags. [00:58:03] But actually we know that doesn't work because when the person is not there, they miss the other person. Actually, what we're talking about here, true collaboration is this, both individuals become whole, complete and whole. And the dance between those individuals is to help each other become whole. And then what you get, of course, is an infinite loop and freedom in between. [00:58:25] Mm-hmm. And this is what true collaboration is. So each person sourcing what they're there to source and being really, really clear that one is playing the role of the easel. And holding the space, and the other is doing the creation in there. So it's a nuance of collaboration. It's not saying forget co-creation, forget collaboration. [00:58:47] It's a nuance to it that integrates the masculine world over here into the emergent world, because again, it's the matri dog. You don't embrace this world. [00:59:00] This world falls apart and it never actually grains the traction that it needs. So that's the distinction. So is it happening? Yes. What, what does practically that mean for an individual operating from this space? [00:59:14] It means practically actually looking back into the world that you might be in resistance to, and you might have rejected, and not throwing the baby out with the bathwater and seeing the gold dust in that. Um, and then accepting that gold dust, embracing that gold dust, reclaiming the strong summary, you know, that the masculine energy in you, in order to do that holding, knowing that beyond that is communion. [00:59:41] But you can't miss that rung on the ladder. You miss that rung on the ladder. You don't get to the top of the mountain, the whole thing falls apart, the tree falls over. Yeah. [00:59:50] Sarah: I, yeah, totally. I, I, I see you, you, you talk so beautifully and I just, I, it feels sometimes I'm kind of like the translator who [01:00:00] brings it down to the level of the, of, um, you know, kind of the ground 11. [01:00:05] I'm a Capricorn. Uh, and so I'm like, okay, you know, very, there's my daughter straightforward. And, and so in a way I can also make a parallel to my own journey. And, and I know you shared it in your book. Um, About your journey to the Woohoo mountain, right. And the artist and, and all of that. And then from there, coming back to the, yeah. [01:00:29] To the, the yang energy and, and, and I'm a Capricorn and a cancer rising. So I really have these both things. You know, the very, I call myself the mama bear of the, of the Humane Marketing circle. So I have this cancer energy, uh, that is very feminine, very woowoo, right? But. At the core, I'm at Capricorn, I'm very down to earth and structured and, and so it's almost like I wanted to get rid of those things and rid of the mind, and I'm like, no, no, no, I [01:01:00] have to, I don't be, you know, very meditative and in this state of Woo all the time. [01:01:05] Um, and yeah, it didn't work. Like, I'm like, no, this, you know, I need both. And that's what we're constantly talking about as well. And in humane marketing, you, you need both the doing and the being. So it's, uh, yeah, beautifully, beautifully said. You have, you have definitely a way with words and, and, and making this, uh, parallels that. [01:01:26] Yeah. It's just, it's such a journey, right? It's the journey of transformation basically, is what you're, you're talking about. And, and it's a journey of the money journey. But then of course, m you know, everything kind of goes back to money. And, and it's our journey as, as humans and as entrepreneurs. [01:01:48] Alexander: Yeah. [01:01:48] Yeah. It's exactly that. It's, it's those two being and doing. Right. And, um, the doing comes from a [01:02:00] state of being, right? [01:02:02] Sarah: Yeah. Which, which I know you, and that's why we need to start with the being. Right. We do [01:02:07] Alexander: need to start with the being. We do need to unlock this because we've been in a state of doing the way too long for too long. [01:02:13] Yeah. When we jump into the being, and it was, it was Einstein who said, let's call this the intuition, this the intellect. He said, um, you know, the, the intellect is a faithful servant, and the intuition is a sacred gift. And if we can understand that it's the gift that uses the intellect, that uses the mind, it's like a tool in the toolbox. [01:02:42] Mm-hmm. And when it uses it, Actually, you can create whatever you want, but most of the time it is the minds trying to suppress and forget this sacred gift. Yeah. And that really is the, the infinite journey [01:03:00] is realizing the gift, using the tool in order to create, and th this, this, this journey. It's, it's the journey of creation. [01:03:15] Yeah. It's the journey of humankind. It's, it's any painting, any masterpiece. That's the journey. Mm-hmm. [01:03:21] Sarah: Yeah. Thanks so much for being here and taking on us on this journey. Uh, Alexander, really appreciate it. Please do share where people, I think you run these webinars, uh, on a regular basis. So I think the best, uh, idea is probably for people to actually, uh, attend this webinar so they, they can see you in action and do share about that and the book and your website [01:03:48] Alexander: and all of that. [01:03:50] Yeah, sure. Well, um, we will be running another, uh, webinar on the 20th of April Arthur Prosperity, while we [01:04:00] begin into this little bit more detail. I dunno whether this episode comes up before then or not, but if it does, then great. Sign up and join us. Uh, you can also, uh, find my book, a free chapter of my book on, on my website, uh, Alex Alexander hable.com. [01:04:15] Um, and then, um, Yeah, there are, there, you know, we're just about to launch a community which you can join. Um, and then we'll have regular, uh, conversations on a monthly basis. And then we run a series of, of retreats, the Masterpiece retreats, which are online and offline, uh, which is up to Japan to, to run a retreat in Kyoto, which I'm pretty excited about. [01:04:38] We're doing first Men's retreat in May, um, in Morocco, which again, I'm really excited about. We'll be going up to see Kari, who I mentioned, um, earlier in, in Norway. Um, and then we'll be running something in Switzerland in October. Um, and then we do online retreats as well, um, called Masterpiece Tribes, and we're on the 11th Tribe, um, 12th Tribe [01:05:00] will be in June. [01:05:00] So lots of, lots of amazing things happening. Um, and if any of that speaks to you, then, um, you know, come along, get, get some of the free information. The, the, the, there are lots of videos on the site as well, and you can get lost in the videos and learn as much as you need to. Um, yeah. Thank you for having [01:05:19] Sarah: me. [01:05:19] Yeah, wonderful. Thanks so much for being here. I always have one last question and that is what are you grateful for today or this week? You. Thank you. I'm grateful for you too. Thank you. Thanks for creating masterpieces. [01:05:38] Alexander: Likewise. Thank you for creating your masterpiece. That's what I'm grateful for. Thank Youe marketing. [01:05:50] Sarah: I hope you enjoyed this conversation, a bit of a different approach to, uh, money and pricing, but ever so important. [01:06:00] In order to find out more about Alexander and his work, please go to alexander dash inch ball.com. Uh, the community can be found@themasterpiece.community, and Alexander also has a podcast called Insights From the at and uh, that is also on his website, alexander inal.com. [01:06:25] As I said in our conversation, I really enjoyed Alexander's. Called the Masterpiece, and you'll find out also on his website or on Amazon directly. Finally, if you're looking for others who think like you, who are deep thinkers as we demonstrated in this conversation, then why not join us in the Humane Marketing Circle? [01:06:47] You can find out more at Humane. Dot marketing slash circle. You'll find the show notes of this episode with all the links we mentioned here at Humane [01:07:00] Marketing slash H 16 two. Uh, this beautiful page also contains, uh, links to my free offers, such as my Saturday newsletter, the Humane Business Manifesto, and the free gentle Confidence mini course, as well as my two books, marketing like we're Human and Selling like we're human. [01:07:23] Uh, just a reminder also that marketing like We're human is now also available in audio format on Audible or anywhere else where you get your audiobooks. Thanks so much for listening and being part of a generation of marketers who cares for yourself, your clients, and the planet. We are change makers before we are marketers, so go be the change you want to see in the world. [01:07:49] Speak soon.[01:08:00]

We are knee deep in the Free to Be You and Me month and are so excited to be covering the movie Anything's Possible. It stars Eva Reign as Kelsa a transgender girl trying to navigate her last year of high school when she meets Khal, played by Abubakr Ali and they become a modern pair of star crossed lovers but with slightly less doom. In this episode we: share our parents origin stories (which include smelly fingers and settling), Google Abubakr's age to make sure it's ok to objectify him, and ponder whether Corinne's mom Barbara single handedly took down the clothing store Clothestime over a coupon. We are loving the diversity and acceptance in this movie and want more, More, MORE.

(Video available on our YouTube channel “SKULLBELLZTV”) Crystal Sikes a ketogenic bodybuilder, lifter, owner and operator of Lady Savage LLC, co-founder of Keto Brick™ LLC, lifestyle coach, and proud mother! Crystal's Website: https://www.ladysavage.com/ To purchase KETO BRICKS™ https://www.ketobrick.com/?platform=grin&link_id=1374450&token=CKTvtpGXX3mf8UXjC0RERQCUaKxxOdaF&contact_id=30c3d3c0-7559-4ccc-b0de-f0b0c2ae9390&attribution_window=30 Colt's interview with the inventor Robert Sikes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CDYQe3ej4g&feature=youtu.be TIME STAMPS: 02:21 THE LADY SAVAGE is POWER-LIFTING!!! 06:12 Challenges of making time for yourself as a mom. 10:01 Why you do NOT need carbohydrates to be STRONG! 15:05 The joy of the “newborn stage!” 20:02 PROTECTIVE “mama-bear:” surprising feelings of being a new mom! 24:42 Protein and fat are ESSENTIAL; carbohydrates are NOT. 28:13 Keto-Con recap with Robert & new Keto Brick™ recipes! 32:30 Upcoming Keto Brick™ updates and plans! 34:41 Crystal's information, media outlets and coaching!

Sara Cunningham is an author, activist, and founder of the non-profit organization Free Mom Hugs. Her journey is a surprising one that began in conservative Oklahoma when her son, Parker, came out as gay. As a woman of faith, Sara wrestled with the news until she began to study, research, and reconcile the two worlds. This journey resulted in her book How We Sleep at Night. She found herself on a journey “from the church to the Pride parade,” falling in love with the LGBTQIA+ community. The mission of Free Mom Hugs began in the wake of beautiful glitter-covered hugs and heart-breaking horror stories. Simple acts of love and acceptance turned into a viral sensation, and Sara knew she had the opportunity to lead impactful change. Free Mom Hugs is now a movement across the country and the world. Sara goes Beyond the Hug to educate and advocate organizations of all types, including schools and businesses striving for safe and protected spaces. She has often appeared with her son Parker, on the Today Show and The RuPaul Show and spoke at the 2019 GLAAD Awards. She also has been featured in many national publications, including The Washington Post, Woman's Day magazine, and People magazine. Sara is currently in partnership with Jamie Lee Curtis, who has purchased the rights to her book and will release a movie based on her story. An upcoming documentary about the Mama Bears movement by award-winning director Daresha Kyi also features Sara and the Free Mom Hugs movement. Sara's passion is to change the perspective of the outside world toward this beautiful part of our community so that we, as a society, not only learn to affirm but, more importantly, celebrate. Her goal is to help parents, and children have authentic relationships and understanding for each other using her own experience and education as a guide. Sara is passionate about connecting with faith, civic, and business leaders in efforts to make the world a kinder, safer place for our LGBTQIA+ family. She is gifted at inspiring others to join her in this movement that is sweeping the nation and the world.

Miriam Schulman, my guest today, is an artist, author and host of The Inspiration Place podcast. She's helped thousands of creatives around the world develop their skill sets and create more time and freedom to do what they love. Her signature coaching program, The Artist Incubator, teaches artists go from so-so sales to sold-out collections. After witnessing 9/11, Miriam abandoned a lucrative hedge fund to become a full-time thriving working artist. Featured in major publications including Forbes, The New York Times, Where Women Create, Art of Man, and Art Journaling magazine. Her artwork has also been featured on NBC's “Parenthood” and the Amazon series “Hunters” with Al Pacino. NOW, Her book with HarperCollins Leadership, Artpreneur, has been released in JANUARY 2023. In today's episode, Miriam and I talk about: The definition of art Why creative artists struggle most with marketing How embracing your inner weirdo and honoring what comes easy for you Why talking about the problem doesn't work for artists About Miriam's love for email marketing Why art matters And so much more [00:00:00] Sarah: Hello, humane marketers. Welcome back to the Humane Marketing Podcast, the place to be for the generation of marketers that cares. This is a show where we talk about running your business in a way that feels good to you, is aligned with your values, and also resonates with today's conscious customers because it's humane, ethical, and non-pushy. [00:00:23] I'm Sarah z Croce, your hippie turn business coach for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs and marketing impact by. Mama Bear of the Humane Marketing Circle and renegade author of marketing like we're human and selling like we're human. If after listening to the show for a while, you're ready to move on to the next level and start implementing and would welcome a community of like-minded, quietly rebellious entrepreneurs who discuss with transparency. [00:00:52] Works and what doesn't work in business, then we'd love to welcome you in our humane marketing circle. If you're picturing your [00:01:00] typical Facebook group, let me paint a new picture for you. This is a closed community of like-minded entrepreneurs from all over the world who come together once per month in a Zoom circle workshop to hold each other accountable and build their business. [00:01:15] Sustainable way we share with transparency and vulnerability, what works for us and what doesn't work, so that you can figure out what works for you instead of keep throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. Find out more at humane.marketing/circle, and if you prefer one-on-one support from me. [00:01:37] My humane business Coaching could be just what you need, whether it's for your marketing, sales, general, business building, or help. Idea like writing a book. I'd love to share my brain and my heart with you together with my almost 15 years business experience and help you grow a sustainable business that is joyful and sustainable. [00:01:58] If you love this [00:02:00] podcast, wait until I show you my mama bear qualities as my one-on-one client can find out more@humane.marketing slash. And finally, if you are a Marketing Impact pioneer and would like to bring Humane Marketing to your organization, have a look at my offers and workshops on my website@humane.marketing. [00:02:31] Hi, friends. Welcome back. Happy Spring. Today's conversation fits under the P of product, and if you're irregular here, as always, you know that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven Ps of the Humane Marketing Mandala. And if you're new here, big warm, welcome. Uh, you probably don't know what I'm talking about, but you can download your one. [00:02:53] Marketing plan with the humane marketing version of the seven Ps of [00:03:00] marketing@humane.marketing slash one page. That's the number one and the word page. And this comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these different PS for your business. It's kind of the foundation of your business and your market. [00:03:17] So today I'm talking to New York based Miriam Schulman about making art your product. I'll tell you more about Miriam in just a second, but first I want to give you an update about the Humane Marketing Circle, our community. Um, I wanna tell you that bringing in in a young community facilitator was one of the best moves I've ever made. [00:03:40] You know how it is. You have to invest in something in order for it to grow, but investing at the stage where you know the income is just not there yet. It is always scary, but. My gut was telling me, you know, this is the right thing to do and I'm just so excited to [00:04:00] be working with Eddie now, um, who's our community facilitator and, and carer and, uh, net weaver, that's how he, uh, refers, um, to himself as. [00:04:11] So besides adding a second monthly call that's hosted by three of our ambassadors, we, uh, have also transitioned in January to a new online platform. Uh, it's on Cajabi not Mighty Network, and we're really loving it. It feels like Cajabi is kind. You know, is, is one of us, it feels like us, not perfect, but very playful and kind. [00:04:39] It's kind of like, I think of it as the little sister of Mighty Networks with big dreams. And so after every call, Eddie, um, is giving us a challenge to complete. So either something that deepens our connection with other members. Because that's a big priority for us, is [00:05:00] that members are interconnected. [00:05:02] That's the definition of a community, right. So, uh, Eddie helps us with that and puts a challenge up on our, uh, cajabi. We call it our water hole, our place, you know. Kind of nicer image than just a water cooler. So we call it our water hole. Uh, the place where animals in Africa get together in the morning and drink. [00:05:24] So, um, he puts a challenge up there and helps us, uh, connect with each other. Or it might also be a, a challenge that helps us with our marketing and our. Business. So, um, yeah, if you've been thinking about joining for a while now is really a good time because it's time. In May I'll be doubling the monthly rates. [00:05:47] Uh, besides the monthly calls and the active online community, you also get one live 90 minute workshop on a marketing or business topic, as well as all the recording. And we will soon [00:06:00] also probably be, be adding a third call per month. So yeah, I feel like stepping into my personal power and it's, it's time to raise the, the rates, but there is still time to join us at the current monthly rate, which is $37 per month. [00:06:17] So have a look at the details at humane.marketing/circle and also look for the circle inaction link, uh, on that page. On that circle in action page, you'll see some excerpts from our calls and testimonials and all of that, um, kind of real behind the scenes info. Thanks so much for checking that out. All right, Miriam Schulman. [00:06:44] My guest today is an artist, author, and host of the Inspiration Place podcast. She's helped thousands of creatives around the world develop their skill sets and create more time and freedom to do what they love. Her [00:07:00] signature coaching program, the artist incubator teaches artists to go from so, so sales to sold out collections. [00:07:09] After witnessing nine 11, Miriam abandoned a lucrative hedge fund to become a full-time thriving working artist featured in major publications including Forbes, the New York Times where women create Art of man and art Journaling. Her artwork has also been featured on NBC's Parenthood ND Amazon Series, hunter Hunters with Al Pacino, and now her book with Harper Collins Leadership Art Printer has been released in January, 2023. [00:07:42] In this episode, we talk about the definition of art and how art may not just be what we think it is, uh, why creative artists struggle most with marketing and what to do about it, how embracing your inner weirdo [00:08:00] and honoring what comes easy for you. Frees you up and actually lets you do the marketing, uh, that is aligned with you. [00:08:09] Why talking about the problem doesn't work for artists and what to do instead about Miriam's love for email marketing, why art matters and so much more. So let's dive in and talk to Miriam about making art your product. [00:08:28] Hey, Miriam, so good to speak to you today. I can't wait for this conversation about art. [00:08:35] Miriam: Well, thanks so much for having me, Sarah. It's, it's an honor to [00:08:38] Sarah: be here. Thank you. So I was just, we were just recording an episode for your podcast and, and now, um, you know, I'm on the other side of the mic and I'm excited to Yeah. [00:08:50] To kind of pick your brain, uh, around art and entrepreneurship because as we just discussed offline, they have a lot to do with each other and it really [00:09:00] depends how you define art. And so I think maybe that's a good place for us to start. Why don't you. Tell our listeners how you define art. Yeah, that's [00:09:11] Miriam: a, that's a great question. [00:09:13] Um, so my book is Entrepreneur, but the truth is, in the way we're gonna define art, every entrepreneur is an art preneur and vice versa. So, when I started writing the book, it's not, it was very, it had to be very clear. This is not just for visual. And it's not. And then we made the definition very broad. [00:09:35] Could be your art, could be writing, it could be um, music, it could be dance, it can be ceramics, it can be fashion. But once you make that definition, definition so broad, your art really is whatever product that you're producing. And so all I'm doing in this book is teaching people who cons. Don't believe that [00:10:00] business lessons apply to them. [00:10:01] I'm showing them. Mm, yes, they do. But the thing is, there's a lot of people who don't define themselves as artists who maybe look at marketing advice and they're sitting there if their arms crossing, oh, that doesn't work in my industry, or, that doesn't apply to me when actually it does. [00:10:16] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. I I I was just gonna say, like, what, when I was thinking, when I, I was preparing for the episode and I'm like, well, art and marketing. [00:10:27] It's not usually a good marriage, right? People are who are artists, they're like, yeah, that's not for me. Or, or maybe they do wonder, well how do I sell my art? But what they see out there, they always feel like that doesn't apply to me. And so you're saying the same thing. That's what you're seeing usually [00:10:49] Miriam intro: from artists. [00:10:50] Why is that? Well, you know what, I, I get a lot of pushback cuz I, I like to say, you know, anybody. With a, who wants this can do it. [00:11:00] Anyone with a dream can do it. And so what the pushback I get is, yeah, but what about talent? Mm-hmm. And here's the truth, Sarah. Marketing trump's talent every single time we've all seen, um, not so good artists. [00:11:17] Succeed or you know, ones where like, huh, you know, we all seen that. And the same thing is true in, in business marketing is gonna trump every single time. Like the, you know, if you don't, people don't know about you, they can't buy your product or service. [00:11:34] Sarah: Right. It's, it's that just saying, you know, you stay the best kept secret. [00:11:39] It's like, yeah, you're really good, but nobody knows about [00:11:41] Miriam: you. Exactly. Exactly. So, and there's a lot of examples in the art world. So there's this, uh, American artist. Is he, he may not be American. Damien Hurst, is he American or is he from London? Okay. You don't, it doesn't matter cuz you don't know who he is. [00:11:56] It's fine. Um, he sold [00:12:00] a shark in formaldehyde for like a million dollars. Now is that talent? You know, it's like, I don't think so. So that is just a marketing stunt and people who are creating, um, like NFTs, like there was this guy who made this huge gold cube and put it in, uh, central Park to sell as an N F T. [00:12:22] Was, is that talent? No. It's a big marketing stunt, right? So, [00:12:29] Sarah: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why do you think then that creative entrepreneurs struggle most with, uh, um, marketing or, or what part of the marketing do they struggle with? [00:12:42] Miriam: Yeah. A a lot of it is is the mythology for artists in particular. There is that whole idea of they, they're taught you can't sell out or like, you're not a true artist if you are trying to market, which is complete BS because we have a [00:13:00] history going back to Michelangelo, where he was very much interested in the commercial side of things. [00:13:06] I mean, he's not just pa uh, sculpting and painting whatever he felt like. He didn't wanna paint the Sistine Chapel, but the Pope said, yes you do. Here's the money I'm gonna pay you. So he, he did projects for monetary reasons, so it's not a sellout to create art that's marketable that the, the market wants. [00:13:26] So that is a big thing that holds people back. But I also see. And Sarah, tell me if you see this too for, for women in particular who are socialized and, and I don't mean only some women are socialized this way. I think all of us women are socialized this way. We're socialized to play small, to not desire money, sex and power. [00:13:50] I think it's, that's probably more true in the US with the, because of the tradition of Puritanism, this is how our country was founded by. Though [00:14:00] that very conservative religion, so Right. Um, not to play small, and whether you're looking at images of thin women, the, the message that women are getting is not to take up space. [00:14:13] Mm-hmm. And that it's wrong to want money. So that plays a significant role because people will continue to sabotage themselves if they don't believe that it's okay. To desire money and success and to play role a bit a role and be visible and be big. So that is gonna sabotage people if they're trying to stay quiet and small when they have, and, and also be visible at the same time. [00:14:43] It just, they don't work together. [00:14:45] Sarah: Yeah, I hear you. That I'm sure there's a, there's something on that belief level, right? Um, I also think it's like, so. Right. Like I often talk about the right brain and the left brain. So I really [00:15:00] also think like creative's brains are wired differently and they're, um, you know, there's so much in the creativity that when they are then seeing, uh, you know, marketing advice that is very structured and follow steps and, and they're like, this is how you do it. [00:15:19] That's when they get turned off. They're like, no, but I wanna. Me, I just wanna, you know, it's kind of like almost rebellious, maybe. Artists seem to be more [00:15:29] Miriam: rebellious in a way. Yeah, I I, I can see why you would say that. I think for, for, at least for me personally, I found a lot of the marketing advice out there, a turnoff, because it was coming f like it was very bro marketer. [00:15:43] It was like, okay. Right. Exactly. You know, these very. Um, hustle style, whereas the best marketing in the world is being your true, authentic sell, right? [00:15:54] Sarah: Yeah. So not in your book, you have this line, embrace your inner weirdo, right? [00:16:00] Yeah. So tell us more about that. What you, what you mean by that. Okay, [00:16:04] Miriam: so the word weird, the original definition comes from Scotland, and it meant fate or destiny. [00:16:11] And then you may recall in Macbeth there were the three witches who were called the weird sisters. So then the meaning meant something associated more with faith, the supernatural. And as time went on and the supernatural became vilified, The word weird took on that negative connotation. So to be weird is really to embrace your destiny. [00:16:39] To embrace what's really special about you. So I, I say love your inner weirdo and be a weirdo in the most affectionate way possible. [00:16:48] Sarah: Hmm, yeah. You also say, um, like one of the examples you mentioned in that chapter is share your values and. You know, that's a [00:17:00] huge part of humane marketing as well. It's like, share your worldview. [00:17:04] Share what matters to you. People don't typically see that as marketing. They always think, maybe especially artists, they think, oh, you have to talk about, you know, this art piece or this book. I've written a book and now I have to constantly talk about this book. Not true. If you share your worldview and your values, that is part of your marketing. [00:17:28] Miriam: Oh, for sure. So there are a lot of artists who are afraid of speaking out. So I live in the US we have very divisive politics, and they're worried of losing business if they have. One point of view and they express a view that me, other people might get them upset. So for me, I'm very progressive. I have a lot of liberal views. [00:17:55] I'm not worried about alienating people who are [00:18:00] conservative. Yeah, I may alienate some people. There are some diehard conservatives though, who like I've had some words with and they're still following me. But people respect that more. And what happens if you don't share your values, they're gonna assume. [00:18:15] So right before we hit record, Sarah was asking me, so you just had an election, what do you think? And I don't know if you were like trying to see where I was at on that political [00:18:25] Sarah: No, I knew from reading the book, I knew. Okay, right. [00:18:27] Miriam: You read my book. But, but let's pretend you didn't now. And I said, oh, I, you know, and I gave a very witchy, rashy response. [00:18:34] You, you may as assume, you might assume that I don't care about politics when, meanwhile, I care very deeply about the unraveling of, of women's rights and what I see happening. So it's important to dive deep into that. I was very impressed Billy Eilish, um, went on record, uh, on Instagram, telling people to vote and why this was important. [00:18:58] Yeah. Other people [00:19:00] say vote, but only if you agree with me. You know? But, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's really nice to see some people who have big platforms not being afraid of alienating people and the ones who are very big on all parts of the political spectrum. Are not afraid of being polarizing because you can love me or hate me, but there is, when you're in business, there is no money in the middle, and when you're trying to please everyone, you're just striving for mediocrity. [00:19:34] Right. [00:19:35] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting. Um, I just, I, I follow Guy Kawasaki, uh, you see who he is. Um, he's, he's kind of the, you know, past Apple and then Canva. Um, he's just a spokesperson now, pretty much. And he just really shares his political views and just, I think before the elections he put, he's active on LinkedIn or that's [00:20:00] where I see him. [00:20:00] And he, he was saying, you know, Uh, your influencers, what are they saying right now? Are they saying, you know, go vote and, you know, here's what's really happening because go vote. That's kind of an easy out as well, because that doesn't really share your worldview. That's correct. Um, so he was, you know, being more specific, um, or so, so artie's influencers telling you who to vote for and why it. [00:20:27] Or are they telling you the latest car they bought or you know, which mansion they're staying at and all of that kind of stuff that we're so used to from the bro influencers. Right? Yeah. And I thought that made a lot of sense. That's exactly the worldview that we're interested in and we're not so interested in, you know, the latest car you bought and all of. [00:20:49] Miriam: Yeah. Yeah. And there's actually a very significant, um, population that the data shows, they're called the conscious consumers that they do shop with. They do vote with [00:21:00] their pocketbooks. Of course. Yeah. So they're checking, you know, you know, and they don't all have the same causes that they care about. You know, some people care more about sustainability of a brand when they're shopping, some care more. [00:21:12] Inclusion. I know that when I receive a clothing catalog, if it's all white women, I throw it out now like I'm, you know, they don't care enough to show, have diversity in the catalog. Um, I, I don't shop there. So there is a, a, a large percentage of people who. This is their values matter. And what matters is that the brands are doing it in an authentic way. [00:21:36] Not like, oh, so this is gay Pride week and here's your rainbow smoothie, or whatever, because they people can see through that. It's how you're showing up all year long. That's gonna matter. [00:21:47] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. And the, the reason again, we're bringing this up is, Oftentimes creatives don't realize that that's part of marketing. [00:21:57] Um, that's right. Yeah. And it's, it's not just the, [00:22:00] you know, follow these three steps to market your art. It's, it, it, it's. A whole package. That's the other thing that you mentioned in your book, um, is honor What Comes Easy for You. And I love that. That's kind of like my motto for life, right? Um, and so you have a, a funny gardening story in there. [00:22:19] Uh, would you mind sharing that? I think that's such a good example of, of how that works. Yes, yes. [00:22:25] Miriam: Okay. So I, I live in New York City. I'm staring at a brick wall right now, but we do have a, a farmhouse two hours away. It's in the Catskills in New York. And my husband started a garden, um, when we first moved there, and we, he went to the nursery and he spent. [00:22:42] Oh, I don't know, a couple hundred dollars on plants, like these starter plants. And then when we were at the counter, he just grabbed a couple of seed packets. So the seed packets, we just scattered in the plants. You know, it made a mess in the back of my car with the dirt. I wasn't happy about [00:23:00] that. And we spent a good back breaking afternoon, putting in these starter plants. [00:23:07] Well, a couple, whatever, whatever the time span was later. The seeds were doing really well. It was like Jack and the bean sprout, like all these, like these stalk came up and we had beautiful string beads. The starter plants on the other hands, like all the bugs ate them. So it was like, here's a situation where. [00:23:27] The seed packets were the easy way to go and they actually were the easier the, the best result, whereas this harder, more expensive thing didn't work out as good for as well for us. But we do this a lot in our business where we try to make things so hard and we have something that comes easy for us and we think that couldn't be as valuable. [00:23:46] Right. [00:23:47] Sarah: Yeah. I just love that story, I guess, because I, I also, I'm not a big fan of gardening, but my husband is, and yeah, I would just totally throw some seeds [00:23:56] Miriam: out there. That's right. Well, it was like the sunflowers came from seeds. [00:24:00] The green beans came from seeds. Um, we tried something else this year. I forget what it was, and it was like, yay [00:24:06] Sarah: seeds. [00:24:07] Yeah, exactly. And it's funny how we often. You know, it's kind of a metaphor. Plant a seed, and I love that also for marketing, where you might just have a conversation and you're not actually pushing it and trying to sell them something, but in your head, you know, I just planted a seed, and this might turn into something bigger that you weren't even expecting. [00:24:33] I love the metaphor of seeds as well, so yeah, that's a beautiful metaphor [00:24:38] Miriam: that you, the way you just [00:24:39] Sarah: used it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, another thing that I know that you love is email marketing. So it seems like you really built your business based on email marketing, so, Maybe you, because right now I feel like people are still understanding. [00:24:57] Okay. Yes. Uh, email [00:25:00] marketing is a good strategy, especially with all the talk about social media going down the tubes and Twitter disappearing and all of that. So how does one start an email list today? Um, you know, starting out as a creative, how do you actually get people's attention? Because I do feel like. [00:25:22] A lot out there. And I know that my people, they're like, yeah, but there's so much also crap out there that I feel like I give my email and I get this one pager that is not even valuable. Um, so what would you say, what would you tell creatives how to get started? [00:25:40] Miriam: Well, let me just start with that last example you gave just because you had a, you meaning the listener had a bad experience with somebody's Jan. [00:25:49] Email doesn't mean you have to emulate that. Right. You be that bright spot in someone's email where they look forward to opening your emails or they love the [00:26:00] freebies that you're sending them. You, you be, you, you make a, you can, you're the one who has control over that and can make a difference. Right. [00:26:07] One thing I like to tell my clients, or what I talk about in the book is emails are really love letters to your audience. Mm-hmm. And that is the best way to nurture a relationship. [00:26:18] Sarah: Right, so, so when you work with clients, when they ask you, well, so how, what do I create? You have some great examples of what creatives created as a download, as a free [00:26:33] Miriam: Yes. [00:26:34] This, this was a very important chapter for my audience because there is so much advice out there for people who are weight loss coaches. You just give them a cheat sheet or a menu and they like, I have no idea what it is that they want, and they come up with things. That really have nothing to do with what they're ultimately selling. [00:26:55] Like I'll see artists have screensavers or something. It's like, yeah, but you're not [00:27:00] selling that. So that is not, and also people don't want your screensaver. They want their kitty as their screensaver or their kid or their doc. So, The, the things are pe again, this is where people make it way too hard for themselves. [00:27:13] So for, for my audience who are selling products, one of the best things to give away is just early access. So you don't even have to create something. And this does work. So a good example of this is in, in April when the war first br, when the war first broke out in March and then Easter in April that year. [00:27:34] Uh, Stanski eggs, which are Ukrainian eggs, I don't know if you you've seen them, but they're very intricate, intricately painted eggs. This was cut out of the preview book that you got, by the way. I think we put it back in for the final version. It doesn't [00:27:51] Sarah: be, you see? Yeah. So there, I thought you were tricking me, but No, [00:27:54] Miriam: no, no, no. [00:27:55] Yeah, so we, we had it in, we cut it out, we put it back in. [00:28:00] So there, there was this artist creating eggs and she sells them for over $200. And they're, they're absolutely gorgeous. These very intricate, and they're made by, um, using I think like a toothpick and putting boutique on to make these fine lines and doing these, the dipping process. [00:28:21] So she was completely sold out at these prices. Now people are gonna wanna join her email list just to find out when they come back in stock. Wow. So people who are creating one of a kind things, this is something that is a reason. If you're selling a service like a class, it's re, it's a reason enough that people wanna be on the wait list when, when it opens up. [00:28:44] So that's like the easiest place to go. Uh, if for, for the visual artists out there, I love the giving them a post, people, giving people a postcard with your art on it. That does require. The person giving you their email [00:29:00] address to also give their postal address, which is more of a commitment, but that means they're more serious about your art. [00:29:06] And again, everything that you're giving as your lead magnet needs to be a free taste of whatever it is that they're ultimately gonna buy. Hmm. So that's why I said a screensaver doesn't work. Um, artists who give away coloring pages, that only works if you're selling a coloring book if you're trying to sell something else. [00:29:26] Not a great idea. Yeah. [00:29:28] Sarah: Yeah. Okay. Um, I'm just trying to figure out how, you know, the, the Etsy website, how does that play into the whole I'm an artist and I'm selling my art because Etsy, it's, its stand. Website and I see a lot of creatives putting their art up there, but, but then how would they, yeah. How would. [00:29:53] Still build an email list and then say, yes, absolutely. It's now available on Etsy. Yes. Something like that. Okay. [00:29:58] Miriam: Yeah, so that, [00:30:00] that is why I encourage clients to build their own website because if you're gonna have to drive traffic anyway, you might as well drive it to your own site. Yeah. The artists who do well in Etsy are driving traffic fair. [00:30:16] Yeah. And then Sarah, do you want me to circle back to the lead magnet thing? Because we can also discuss what lead magnets work? Well, if you're not a visual artist, like what I use in my own business, please. Okay. Yep. Let's do that. So, of course there's the free masterclass, but one thing that I, I've done that works really well is transcribing the masterclass and turning that into an e. [00:30:37] Without the sales pitch, but basically giving the same exact content. So think about all the different content that you're giving them. How can you repackage it and give the same experience? Whether that is a masterclass, some people prefer to read the book, right? You know, like whether it's Terry Potter or the movie. [00:30:55] Like some people rather read the book than see the movie. Right. So, [00:31:00] yeah, to give them different experiences. Yeah, [00:31:03] Sarah: I like that. And then I guess, you know, for. I don't know if you've set that up, but the free chapter for the book is usually what you do when you have a book. Have you set that up? I haven't [00:31:15] Miriam: set that up yet, but I probably should. [00:31:16] You should. Yeah. I know I probably should. I have to talk to my, uh, yeah, my [00:31:21] Sarah: publisher about that. Yeah. I, I feel like people, you know, they, they like, uh, uh, free down download of the first chapter and then decide of course on Amazon. Usually you can kind of see the first couple of pages, but it's not, it's not the whole chapter usually. [00:31:36] Yeah, so it's helpful too. You [00:31:38] Miriam: wanna hook them in. So yeah. What is it that you can give away that will hook them in and want more of what you got? [00:31:43] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Now, uh, just yesterday in, in my Humane Marketing Circle community, we talked about actually having freebies without getting people's email, there seems to be a trend [00:32:00] of. [00:32:01] B, because people kind of feel like, well, it's not really free if I have to give my email. And so my people, they're like, oh, I want them in my world, but I don't. I want to have options. I want to have maybe one thing that they can just download for free and then come back for more. What do you think about this strategy? [00:32:24] Miriam intro: Well, you're taking a big chance that they're not gonna ever come back again. It's kind of like a one night stand. [00:32:31] Sarah: Yes. Like it, but it could be, you're so good on this one night stand since we're going with this example, that they wanna come back. Right. Because [00:32:41] Miriam: they're like, they're really, that's the problem that I see with, with TikTok. [00:32:45] It's like the death of and, and reels on Instagram too, but, but we'll just talk about TikTok. It's the death of the scroll. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, and I know entrepreneurs are spending a tremendous amount of time creating content for. [00:33:00] TikTok, social media and social. But, but especially those videos, they take a lot of time. [00:33:04] Now, if you've been on the consuming end of those videos, you know that before you get to that end of that video, they're already making you push up to the next thing. Mm-hmm. So I found that I can have thousands of views on, on a reel with nobody going to my profile. And I had an artist who created a viral reel. [00:33:24] She got 45 thou, 45,000 views without. Um, like maybe a couple followers, but nobody going to our website cuz you can see the stats. Now with TikTok, the followers there are completely meaningless. You can have, um, you can follow someone and never ever see their content ever again. So somebody who has millions of followers, that's not a relationship with millions of people. [00:33:48] It's kind of a meaningless metric, right? I would be very wary of trying to build a relationship where you can't, you're not in [00:34:00] control of getting in touch with them ever again. Hmm. Yeah. [00:34:03] Sarah: Okay. It's interesting, uh, and I totally agree with the, with social media, people spend so much time on there and oftentimes entrepreneurs are exhausted and, and, you know, to go back to the do what's easy, well, social media nowadays is not easy anymore. [00:34:21] No. It's not really want to get something out of it. So, um, I think it's important to, to say that not enough people. You know, say the truth, how it is, and it's not easy to build a following or, or nevermind a following, just a business, uh, on social media today. So in your opinion then, what's the best way, where would a, a creative, uh, an artist, an entrepreneur start when they're just starting out their. [00:34:51] Miriam: Well, bill, bill, that email list, and I wanna circle back to a question you did ask, but I don't think I really answered. It's like, well, how and where do you start? Mm-hmm. [00:35:00] And there are only three ways to build your audience. There is what I call your universe. So your universe is anyone you come into contact with, whether it's in person or online. [00:35:13] Then there are other people's univers. So that could be like what we're doing now. Sarah, I'm on your podcast. You came on mine. Right. So that's basically, other people call it earned press, earned publicity. Mm-hmm. And then, which is free. And the third category is paid publicity. Mm-hmm. Or paid platform. So those are, there's, those are the three ways. [00:35:39] And they're really, I don't think there is any other way other than those three areas your platform. Other people's platforms and rented platforms. Mm. Yeah. [00:35:49] Sarah: I, I like that. It, I mean, I know that, but it, explaining it this way, it feels like, okay, if you're just starting out, You gotta start in your [00:36:00] own universe. [00:36:01] Yes. Cause you don't have the credibility yet to go, or you can start with the paid, but that's also correct. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but you don't really have the credibility yet to go out there and say, okay, can I be on your podcast? Or can that co Or not just credibility, but maybe also confidence. [00:36:19] Miriam intro: Well, actually, let me. [00:36:21] Circle back so you can get, um, free, free press. And I did that even in the very beginning. But you need to start local. Local. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So you can't jump, jump the ladder. It's like, it'd be great to be on Oprah. Right. But yeah, there's different levels. Exactly. Like there's things like, you know, I would love Brene Brown to invite me to her podcast, but you know, [00:36:45] Sarah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:36:46] It, yeah, it just kind of goes the same with anything in life. It's like, oh, am I on this level or Yeah. Am I evolving to future levels? Yeah. [00:36:56] Miriam intro: And, and that's why we should talk about something, which I don't think I talk about in the book at all, but [00:37:00] who knows? Maybe if I write another book, who knows. Um, so that's why I spend so much time building what I call relationship capital, because the way to get the. [00:37:12] To expand outside of your universe and get some of those earned opportunities is by building relationships, which is why joining communities like yours, Sarah, is so important. Like those relationships, yeah. Can help you. And I never have regretted investing in paid programs, paid masterminds, because those networks have been hugely. [00:37:36] Yeah, [00:37:37] Sarah: don't you agree? Oh yeah, totally. So much so that, you know, the partnership is the seventh p of the Humane Marketing Mandala. Uh, because I really think partnership is the way to, to market and, and, you know, collaborate with others. And, and what you just said as well is there's different levels within partnerships as. [00:37:59] [00:38:00] There's the free levels, which is peers, and then there's the paid levels, which is mentors and coaches, which again, it's just like these unwritten rules. You probably can't go to, you know, ask, uh, Brene Brown if she would, you know, feature you or something because there hasn't been a paid relationship for some things. [00:38:21] There just needs to be a paid relationship for them to pay attention to you. You know, they have so many people they could be paying attention to. [00:38:30] Miriam: Yeah. And, and one thing that I think is very important, especially now with um, let's just say it like it is the demise of, of easy social media, right? Is I think it is a very important to have your own platform because it's one thing to, uh, to, to get media. [00:38:49] But it's much better if you are the media. Mm-hmm. Yeah. If you have a YouTube channel, if you have a podcast, and by the way, blogs are coming back. I have been reading people's [00:39:00] blogs posted on in. LinkedIn. That seems to be the new thing. Have you noticed that too? That trend? Everyone's like running to LinkedIn lately. [00:39:06] Sarah: Oh yeah. No. I've been on LinkedIn for, for years like that. [00:39:11] Miriam: I've been there, but I haven't been like consuming the way I started to. It's like, well that's a good article. Like as people are actually putting some quality things there. Yeah, so that's be be the media. If you want opportunities, give opportunities. [00:39:25] Mm-hmm. People like, if you are one of Sarah's coaching clients, invite her to your platform. Right. Am I putting you on the spot? Is this gonna be edited? [00:39:37] Sarah: N no, no, this is all good. No, we're not editing the, well, we are editing the, but I'm not cutting anything out. Okay. Cause this is, this is a Cuban conversation, so, yeah. [00:39:47] Yeah. No. [00:39:48] Miriam: So lemme, instead of putting you on a spot, I'll just talk about myself. So when I joined Masterminds and I started a podcast, I had my, my first guess was my business coach, right? Then I [00:40:00] could say to my business coach's friends who were like, kind of jumping a level here. Mm-hmm. You know, they weren't my level, they were my business coach's level. [00:40:07] Right. Hey, Jason Van Orden was a guest on my show and I'd love to have you on as well. So now this is already giving me credibility because my business coach. Said yes to me on my podcast, which was an easy yes for me. So now somebody says, oh, well if Jason was on it, I'll do on it. And then I went to the third person, Hey, Jason was on it and such and such was on it. [00:40:29] Would you like to come on it too? So it's like, this is how we build that ladder of credibility is starting with your own network, starting with peers. And then you can add, just go up those, uh, go up that ladder with baby steps. Yeah, [00:40:45] Sarah: that's so. I feel like you, you just said blogs are coming back and I, I was also thinking art is come, coming back. [00:40:55] I really feel like, you know? Yeah. So, so maybe the question would [00:41:00] be like, why does art matter now more than ever going forward? [00:41:06] Miriam: Yeah. Well, because we're going through such an existential crisis in the world, and art is what gives us meaning. [00:41:13] Sarah: Mm-hmm. So good. And, and, and that would've been a nice ending, but I wanna come back to that, to that one point you made when I was on your show about the, you know, in marketing we always talk about these pain points and Oh yeah. [00:41:29] And you have such a good point about. Well, I'll let you explain [00:41:33] Miriam: it. Okay. So this is like, it's not that marketing doesn't apply to creatives. It just may be the way you've been taught. It's not the right way. So we're talking about the bro marketers and a lot of them also they say find the pain point and twist that night. [00:41:49] Exactly. Like if you heard it, that's what, but that's what they say. Yeah. All right. So, but the problem is when you're, when you're selling something that gives people pleasure, like [00:42:00] let's say, I'm the producer of Harry Potter. I'm not gonna market the movie by saying, well, their pain point is their bored. [00:42:08] Watch Harry Potter. It alleviates boredom. You don't do that, right? So, or, or, or what's, what's the pain point of the Oreo cookie? Nothing. We just want it cuz it tastes good. Right? So, And that doesn't mean that your art has to be all rainbows and daisies. Cause there's plenty of art that is dark and goth and emo, and people get a lot of pleasure from that. [00:42:31] But instead of worrying about what people's night sweats are, what their pain points are, what's keeping them up at night, you gotta think what are their wet dreams? What is it that they, they really want, what they really desire? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And sell that pleasure. [00:42:49] Sarah: Mm. Yeah. And, and that ties in with why art and pleasure is so important right now is because, you know, who wants to open their email and, and, you [00:43:00] know, Find out how much they suck and how much their life is miserable and because they're not this and that, and not enough. [00:43:07] No. Like, like you said, we're living in a crisis, so we, we want positive reinforcement, not negative reinforcement. And I think all the right brainers, that's what they're bringing to society right now. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, do you tell people where they can find your book in, in your website, and all of. [00:43:30] Miriam: Okay, so if you like this conversation, you will also love. Sarah on my podcast, the inspiration plates. I'm not sure who, I don't remember who is coming out first. Me neither. But yeah. But you can find the inspiration plates if I'm, if she's not there yet, just hit that plus sign or the follow sign and you'll get it very soon. [00:43:50] Cuz we had an amazing conversation, which was completely different, I think, than what we talked about today. Mm-hmm. And my book Art is available. There's a lot of [00:44:00] pre-order goodies, so I hope you'll check that out. Art. Dot com. [00:44:05] Sarah: Wonderful. Entrepreneur book all in one word. [00:44:08] Miriam: Yeah, that's, that's the website to, to get the book Or just search Entrepreneur. [00:44:13] But you get bonuses when you go to my page, so there you go. It's all about the, it's all about the freebies. [00:44:19] Sarah: I always have one last question, and that is, what are you grateful for today, Miriam? More this week? Oh, [00:44:25] Miriam: that is such a beautiful question. Did you tell me ahead of time? I would have to answer. [00:44:29] Sarah: No, I did not. [00:44:31] I put you on the spot because we all have to have something that we're [00:44:35] Miriam: grateful for. I, I am very grateful for my family right now. Um, I'm grateful that I have a husband who lets me be weird. Um, I'm grateful for, for my children who don't give me too much angst. They're adults, by the way. And, uh, yeah, I'm very grateful for my family. [00:44:52] Wonderful. [00:44:53] Sarah: Awesome. Thank you so much for [00:44:55] Miriam intro: being. And I'm grateful for, for this opportunity too. Let's just, let's [00:45:00] just say that too. [00:45:01] Sarah: Thank you. If you're an artist or a creative mind, I bet this conversation resonated with you. So do take some time to find out more about Miriam and her work@schulmanart.com and check out her book called The Art Printer. [00:45:19] Wherever you get your books, if you go to schulman art.com/prophet, you'll find, uh, Miriam's, uh, free download. It's called the Artist Profit Plan Guide, and it helps you dig deep to go beyond the starving artist mindset to uncover what's really sabotaging your success. So again, go to schulman art.com/. [00:45:45] And finally, you can also look up her podcast. It's called The Inspiration Place. And if you look for episode 239, that's the uh, show where I talk to Miriam about humane marketing. So again, [00:46:00] look for the Inspiration Place podcast. And if you wanna hear me on her show, that's episode 239. And if you're looking for others who think like you, then why not join us in the Humane Marketing Circle? [00:46:15] You can find out more at humane.marketing/circle. You find the show notes on this episode@humane.marketing slash 16 one, and on this beautiful page, you'll also find a series of free offers. It is my Saturday newsletter, the Humane Business Manifesto, and the free gentle mini confidence mini course, as well as my two books. [00:46:41] Marketing like we're human and selling like we're human. Thank you so much for being part of a generation of marketers who cares for yourself, your clients, and the planet. We are change makers before we are marketers. So now go be the change you [00:47:00] want to see in the. Speak soon.[

.fusion-imageframe.imageframe-1{ margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-imageframe.imageframe-1 img{aspect-ratio:1 / 1;object-position:19% 32%;}Laurie Wintonick is the current CEO of JI Elite Coaching. Laurie has extensive experience in strategic planning and event planning. Throughout her life, she has had a passion for helping and supporting others and is now helping individuals find balance in all aspects of their lives. Laurie discusses what it means to her to be ‘boringly consistent' in her journey to making herself a priority. Brett Gilliland: Welcome to The Circuit of Success. I am your host, Brett Gilliland. Today I've got Laurie Wintonick with me. Laurie, how you doing?  Laurie Wintonick: I'm doing great, Brett. How are you?  Brett Gilliland: I'm doing great. You're in New Jersey. What part of New Jersey? I didn't ask that part. Laurie Wintonick: Yeah, I'm actually, you know, central, northern New Jersey. It's really northern New Jersey cuz you know, there's the argument whether Central Jersey, central Jersey exists or not. But I am in, um, the northern part of central Jersey in Colonia, um, about half hour, 45 minutes from New York City, half an hour from the beach, an hour from the mountains and yes.  Brett Gilliland: Beautiful. You got anybody in the uh, Super Bowl we may be rooting for this weekend? Laurie Wintonick: Not really. Not really. I was kind of, I mean, I'm a Giants fan. I, I Jersey, I'm a Giants fan, uh, sorry Jets. But, um, I was really hoping that the, the Chargers were gonna make it in this year. Um, yes, Kyle Vannoy is a, is a, um, a. Someone that I've worked with and I was really hoping for him and his team to get in. So I was kind of bummed when that didn't happen. Brett Gilliland: Yeah. Yep. They had a good season but didn't, didn't get, uh, quite far enough. So you are the CEO of JI Elite Coaching, uh, which is Jesse Itzler. Uh, which for those of you that are on social media, Jesse is a phenomenal follow and, uh, but you run his coaching program. Uh, which we'll talk about. And, uh, but you've been an executive before and, and you, what'd you, what I see you called yourself a, an avid uh, no, a serial volunteer. Uh, loving to do all that stuff, but, uh, but really helping tons of people with the coaching that you all do out of the JI uh, Elite Coaching program. But before we dive into that, Laurie, if you could just kind of give us a lay of the land on what's made you, the woman you are today. Laurie Wintonick: Really strong foundation of family really is what is, is where I'm gonna start. So I grew up, um, in a decent sized Italian family, you know, one of four children. Family dinners were super important to us. We were always very close. I could have been anything I wanted to, my mother always said growing up and all I wanted to do was be a mom. That was my major focus. Went through, um, high school, basically doing everything I could from, you know, cheerleading, the student council, and, um, all the programs. I was on the, you know, debate team, science club, all of it. And, went to college, was gonna be a chemistry major in college to be a high school chemistry teacher. And cuz I wanted to have the summers off cuz I wanted to be a mom and you know, got outta college and kind of was trying to figure out what to do. Started working and, um, Just always loved helping people. It was really in my kind of DNA, um, that, you know, "Mama Bear" they call me and, and I like to just always be around helping people get whatever they need and, and do whatever they need and just better themselves. I took that through college into afterwards. I started working. I got married. I've been married, it'll be 23 years this year. I have two beautiful children, um, who are both in college now and are amazing, amazing young women. And you know, all through that. Every time, you know, serial volunteer, every time somebody needs something done, they call me or I'm in a room. My mother used to say, used to get that,

What are the best ways to take care of your bottom after you have a baby? This episode includes the best tips from labor nurses and moms who can help you understand what your new bathroom routine will look like. Todays guest is Ashley Pipp. Ashley is a mama, traveling labor nurse and birth consultant who is passionate about helping other mamas have a positive and empowered hospital birth. Website- https://www.projectmamabear.com Tiktok- https://www.tiktok.com/@projectmamabear This episode was inspired by my post on postpartum comforts. Big thanks to our sponsor The Online Prenatal Class for Couples -- if you're looking to get prepared for your upcoming delivery it's the course for you! In this episode How you can prepare your perineum for your delivery What you'll do to take care of your bottom after baby Products you might want for your bottom after baby Other things that might interest you My other postpartum posts: https://www.pullingcurls.com/category/pregnancy/postpartum-care/ The Pregnancy Nurse's postpartum posts: https://pregnurse.com/category/postpartum/ My video on taking care of your bottom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm0s0NLQzH0&t=3s Producer: Drew Erickson

Recorded Live at the 2023 Institute Summit, shop owner turned coach Jennifer Hulbert discusses the value of joining a coaching group. Find out what it's like to be in a coaching group with the Institute, and why she is passionate about celebrating other people's accomplishments. Jennifer Hulbert, Service Plus Automotive, Calcium, NY. Facilitator for the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. Show Notes Has 3 coaching clients- discovering finances, gross profit, structuring segments of business, increasing billable hours, and implementing a parts matrix. Facilitating- a group usually consists of 18 to 20 shop owners. They are assigned a partner, they have an individual accountability partner along with access to their facilitator coach. Have three in-person meetings a year. Part of those in-person meetings is to evaluate the whole shop. Go in,  do a full evaluation of the shop, and give the owner feedback on areas for improvement. The other time is spent with training, and reviewing financial numbers, because if you don't know your numbers, you're never going to grow your business. In between, they have a couple of Zoom meetings as an entire group, and then the facilitator does reach out individually once a month.  Never be the smartest person in the room If you're not learning, you're not growing Celebrate other people's accomplishments Joining a coaching company- understand profits, understand the structure of a business, understand your numbers, and structure your finances to make a profit.  “Mama Bear of the Team”- Jennifer wants to see individual employees and their families succeed. Ensuring whatever decision you are making about the company is going to benefit your employees Women can do anything that a man can do Read the book “Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business”- communicate clear goals, build a leadership team, and hold each other accountable. Increased sales by 38%  Thanks to our Partner, NAPA AUTO CARE

Today's conversation fits under the P of People If you're a regular here, you know that I'm organizing the conversations around the 7Ps of the Humane Marketing Mandala. (If you're new here and don't know what I'm talking about you can download your 1page marketing plan with the Humane Marketing version of the 7 Ps of Marketing at humane.marketing/1page. It comes with 7 email prompts to really help you reflect on these different Ps). So, we're talking about the P of people or H of Humans. Only 5 years ago, if I said ‘People' you probably pictured a room full of people, or you and your clients or you and your friends going for a walk. Today, in the business context, a lot of the People stuff happens online, on Zoom. I've been working online for many years before the pandemic, so it wasn't a big change for me. I remember putting up a bonus free webinar to help teachers get acquinted with Zoom in the early months of the pandemic. Well, now everyone is Zooming. But not everyone does it well. Just the other week I watched a really quite uncomfortable Zoom call (or a teams call in that case) in a corporate setting where only the manager who was talking was on video, everyone else was hiding behind the screen. When he asked questions, there were long uncomfortable silences. I've myself had to really learn and still learning how facilitate groups on Zoom like our Humane Marketing Circle while giving everyone a chance to speak, and still keep the intimacy in breakout rooms. That's why I'm really excited to be able to learn from today's guest, Robbie Samuels. Robbie has been recognized as a networking expert by NPR, PCMA, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Inc, and as an expert in virtual event design by JDC Events. As a virtual event design consultant and executive Zoom producer, he helps organizations bring their events online with less stress and greater participant engagement. He is the author of three books, including his latest, ​​"Break Out of Boredom: Low-Tech Solutions for Highly Engaging Zoom Events.” Since 2016, he has hosted the On the Schmooze podcast and, since March 2020, #NoMoreBadZoom Virtual Happy Hour. In today's episode, Robbie and I talk about: How to host virtual events that feel like we're human How to facilitate bigger groups Create valuable breakout rooms How to make sure everyone gets a turn to speak How to create a feeling of community between participants Best practices to make calls engaging and fun And so much more Thanks for listening!   After you listen, check out Humane Business Manifesto, an invitation to belong to a movement of people who do business the humane and gentle way and disrupt the current marketing paradigm. You can download it for free at this page. There's no opt-in. Just an instant download. Are you enjoying the podcast?  The Humane Marketing show is listener-supported—I'd love for you to become an active supporter of the show and join the Humane Marketing Circle. You will be invited to a private monthly Q&A call with me and fellow Humane Marketers -  a safe zone to hang out with like-minded conscious entrepreneurs and help each other build our business and grow our impact.  — I'd love for you to join us! Learn more at humane.marketing/circle Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Android to get notified for all my future shows and why not sign up for my weekly(ish) "Sarah Suggests Saturdays", a round-up of best practices, tools I use, books I read, podcasts, and other resources. Raise your hand and join the Humane Business Revolution. Warmly, Sarah Imperfect Transcript of the show We use and love Descript to edit our podcast and provide this free transcript of the episode. And yes, that's an affiliate link. Ep 160 Ep 160 [00:00:00] Sarah: Hello, humane marketers. Welcome back to the Humane Marketing Podcast, the place to be for the generation of marketers that cares. This is a show where we talk about running your business in a way that feels good to you, is aligned with your values, and also resonates with today's conscious customers because it's humane, ethical, and non-pushy. [00:00:23] I'm Sarah z Croce, your hippie turn business coach for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs and marketing impact by. Mama Bear of the Humane Marketing Circle and renegade author of marketing like we're human and selling like we're human. If after listening to the show for a while, you are ready to move on to the next level and start implementing and would welcome a community of like-minded, quietly rebellious entrepreneurs who discuss with transparency. [00:00:52] Works and what doesn't work in business, then we'd love to welcome you in our humane marketing circle. If you're picturing your [00:01:00] typical Facebook group, let me paint a new picture for you. This is a closed community of like-minded entrepreneurs from all over the world who come together once per month in a Zoom circle workshop to hold each other accountable and build their business. [00:01:15] Sustainable way we share with transparency and vulnerability, what works for us and what doesn't work, so that you can figure out what works for you instead of keep throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. Find out more at humane.marketing/circle, and if you prefer one-on-one support from me. [00:01:37] My humane business Coaching could be just what you need, whether it's for your marketing, sales, general, business building, or help. Idea like writing a book. I'd love to share my brain and my heart with you together with my almost 15 years business experience and help you grow a sustainable business that is joyful and sustainable. [00:01:58] If you love this [00:02:00] podcast, wait until I show you my mama bear qualities as my one-on-one client can find out more@humane.marketing slash. And finally, if you are a Marketing Impact pioneer and would like to bring Humane Marketing to your organization, have a look at my offers and workshops on my website@humane.marketing. [00:02:33] Hi, friends. Welcome back. Today's conversation fits under the P of people. If you're a regular here, you know that I'm appreciating you and that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven Ps. Of the Humane Marketing Mandala, and if you're new here, I appreciate you just as much, and maybe you don't know what I'm talking about, but you can download your one page marketing plan with the [00:03:00] humane marketing version of the seven Ps of marketing@humane.marketing slash. [00:03:06] One page, the number one, then the word page, and this comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these different Ps and kind of question all your assumptions around them. So we're talking about the P of people or the. Age of humans today, and you know, only five years ago if I said people, you probably pictured their room full of people or you and your clients, or you and your friends going for a walk. [00:03:38] But today, in the business context, a lot of the people stuff happens online on Zoom right now, I've been working online for many. Before the pandemic, so it wasn't a big change for me, but I remember putting up a bonus free webinar to help teachers get acquainted with Zoom in the early months of the pandemic because [00:04:00] none of the teachers knew how to use Zoom. [00:04:02] Of course. So everyone is zooming today, but not everyone does it well. Um, just the other week I watched a really quite uncomfortable zoom call or a teams call in that case, in a corporate setting where. Only the manager who was talking was on video, and everyone else was kind of hiding behind the screen. [00:04:25] And when he asked questions, there were like these long, uncomfortable silences and nobody answered. Not saying that silence is bad, silence is good, but in this case, if everybody's hidden behind their camera, then the poor manager obviously doesn't know what they're doing if they're even still there. So anyway. [00:04:46] Had to really learn, and I'm still learning myself how to facilitate groups on Zoom, like the ones in our humane marketing circle, while giving everyone a chance to speak [00:05:00] and still keep the intimacy in breakout rooms. So, yeah, I learned a lot over the last two years and that's why I'm super excited to be able to learn even more from today's guest, Robbie Samuels. [00:05:14] Robbie is a recognized networking expert and an expert in virtual event design. As a virtual event design consultant and executive Zoom producer, he helps organizations bring their events online with less stress and greater per participant engagement. He's the author of three books, including his latest. [00:05:36] Break out of boredom, low tech solutions for highly engaging Zoom events. Since 2016, he has hosted the Amish Schmooze Podcast and since March, 2020, the no more bad Zoom virtual happy hour. . So in this episode with Robbie, we talked about how to host virtual events that feel like we're [00:06:00] human, how to facilitate bigger groups, how to create valuable breakout rooms, how to make sure everyone gets a turn to speak, how to create a feeling of community between participants. [00:06:14] Best practices to make calls engaging and fun and so much more. As you will probably be able to tell, I really took this kind of like a, a mini coaching session for myself, and again, we're really applying this in our humane marketing circle. It's intimate, it's engaging everybody. Uh, turn or a chance to speak. [00:06:39] So if that's something you are curious about, do have a look at humane.marketing/circle. It's our community of humane marketers or entrepreneurs who want to market their business their way. We meet twice per month in an online setting. Right now it's Zoom, but [00:07:00] we'll actually change over to our own private live room on k. [00:07:05] Have a look at the details at humane.marketing/circle. And with that, let's welcome Robbie. Hey Robbie. So good to see you speak to you today. Yeah, thanks for having me here. Yeah, I'm excited. Uh, it's one of those topics, right, that five years ago we probably wouldn't be sitting on a call together, or at least not for that. [00:07:29] Probably more for networking, uh, because that's, that was your thing in the past or probably still is, but, but yeah, you kind of pivoted with the, with the pandemic and all. But yeah, I, I kind of. Dove right into it. So welcome to the Humane Marketing Podcast. I love you. You, I love to have you here. Why don't you take us a little bit into the past, but not too much, because we really wanna talk about, you know, zoom calls, group calls, [00:08:00] facilitation online, and all of that, which is the topic of your latest book as well. [00:08:05] So take us a little bit to the past and then to, to the. [00:08:09] Robbie: Well, Sarah, um, I spent over 10 years before the pandemic working to be recognized as a networking expert with a focus on networking at conferences, and that included writing a, my first book, launching a podcast. , um, creating a group coaching program, writing for Howard Business Review, doing a TEDx talk. [00:08:28] I was poised to be an overnight success 10 years in the making. Uh, my TEDx talk came out January, 2020, and by March, 2020 nobody cared. , it was sort of a, uh, not a very relevant topic to be an expert in around in-person networking because all in-person conferences and events really, Vanished. So I was trying to figure out how to show up and add value, and I wrote nine Ways to Network in a Pandemic as a, as a blog post on March 12th, 2020. [00:08:57] And one of those ways was to host [00:09:00] a virtual happy hour, which I did on March 13th. Unbeknownst to me that really launched a whole new thriving six figure business, uh, with all kinds of new revenue streams and really impacted a lot of other people's. I mean, it impacted my life, but the ripple effect is, has been extraordinary. [00:09:17] And by the end of the year, I was supporting organizations of bringing their events online with less stress and greater participant engagement. And as you mentioned, I am about to release on the three anniversary of that first virtual Happy hour, my third book, which is Break Out of Boredom, low Tech Solutions for Highly Engaging Zoom Event. [00:09:37] Sarah: Wonderful. Wow, what a comeback. Kudos to you. It must have been quite a dark night of the soul. I, I imagine that just kind of like realizing, oh my God, now what? [00:09:49] Robbie: Well, I mean, I, I accepted what was happening on March 9th because I had been paying attention to the news and mm-hmm. sort of was watching this come starting. [00:09:57] You saw this probably in January, just kinda like, [00:10:00] yeah. I was watching it kind of, kind of encroach our, our shores mm-hmm. and get closer and closer, so, I think I came to terms with it, uh, but I didn't know what to do next, and I don't like feeling that, I mean, I, I'm a person of action, so that feeling of being stuck. [00:10:14] But I was very fortunate because on uh, that Wednesday of that week, which is the 11th, I met with my peer mastermind and they gave me a kick in the pants and said, you don't think of networking as something that only happens in person. You have been building a global network for five years, virtually. [00:10:31] Why don't you go help people? And that got me outta my own way, and that's what led me to. Um, basically that night I started working on the nine ways list and, uh, published it the next day it got, you know, a good response cause it was very timely and I said, okay, I need to do one of these things. And I just looked at the list and it was 8:00 PM on a Thursday night , which is why the event is held five o'clock on a Friday cuz it was the next open spot that I could imagine calling a happy [00:11:00] hour. [00:11:00] And I didn't intend it to be a global network. A global event, but 36 countries have been represented amongst the members. Nice. Who attended I, and I'm still hosting it. Right? I'm still hosting that event. No more bad. zoom.com. Three years later. [00:11:13] Sarah: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's really it. It kind of demonstrates this idea of that you are not. [00:11:21] You know, you're, you're not kind of pushed into a niche, and that's where you are stuck for the rest of your life. There's a common thread to your message, right? And whether it is networking in person or now networking online and doing online meetings, Your concept or your approach to it is still the same? [00:11:41] Uh, it reminds me of my dark night of the soul where I got, you know, into a trademark mess where someone, um, was basically blocking me of using gentle marketing, which was the term I used before. And for like about two weeks, I was stuck a bit longer, Robbie, for about two weeks. I was like, well, now what? [00:11:59] [00:12:00] You know, how, how do I get out of this? And everything, everything I built, the books I published and, and two years of work and all of that. But then I realized, people told me as well, it's, well, it's not about a word. You know, you still have the community, you still have the concept, and, and so it's just mm-hmm. [00:12:17] It's great to hear those stories, I think. Right. For listeners as well to realize, well, you know, you can rebound. and, and start something new and it's still gonna be you and it's still giving you your approach, but, you know, just slightly different topic. So, so yeah, let's talk about this slightly different topic because, uh, as you, I think, uh, in one of the videos I watched from you, you said, you know, at the beginning you didn't even know you had breakout rooms, came with your free Zoom account. [00:12:48] And so yeah, that's how we all felt at the beginning of the pandemic. Been working online for years and years. So I knew Zoom, but it's true that a lot of people had like no idea [00:13:00] how to, you know, for me as well, breakout rooms was not a thing that I was using. So nowadays obviously everybody is zooming or, or teams or whatever they're using. [00:13:10] So how do you s how have you seen this evolve? Like what would you say in general? is the kind of the state of the online meetings now. Mm-hmm. . Do most people use them to their advantage and you know that it's really great. All these Zoom meetings we have, or do you hear kind of the opposite? [00:13:33] Robbie: Well, just to go back to your earlier point, the through line for me is that events are about content and connection. [00:13:39] Right. People were leaving their house and getting on planes to travel to conferences, not just for the information they would learn, but for the people they would meet. Right. And so when events became synonymous with the virtual events, I knew we needed to figure out a way to make that possible virtually. [00:13:57] Now, prior to the pandemic, An [00:14:00] online program, which was typically a webinar platform where you couldn't see participants and participants couldn't see each other. Right. It was 45 minutes of death by PowerPoint, followed by ineffectual Q and A on moderating chat . Oh God. Yeah. So I think we've come a long way in what our expectations are, but I also think it depends on the industry. [00:14:19] Because I still know, you know, I've, I've been invited to do some programming virtually for the employee resource group of like a bank or a law firm or financial sector. And like, they tend to be blown away by what I'm doing because they're using it in a very, Minimalist approach to how they use whatever platform they're using. [00:14:42] They're just like turning on their camera and that's it. And [00:14:46] Sarah: if that, because I've assisted to some of the meetings my husband has to kind of survive through and yeah, nobody is on camera like. . [00:14:55] Robbie: That's just it. So, so I think that it really is a range. I can't answer like one way, but I [00:15:00] also don't focus personally on corporate space or the workforce. [00:15:03] Mm-hmm. , I'm my book and my approach is really focusing on the presenters who have between 60 and 90 minutes to offer value to a one-time audience. now, and a lot of this can be therefore applied if you are teaching, uh, a course or a class, this is, you know, or even like a, a weekly team meeting, you can apply a lot of this to that. [00:15:25] But I think there's, there's a few more restrictions. So, for instance, I don't recommend using third party. Tools like Mentee Meter and Jamboard, which I love. But if you only have 60, 75, 90 minutes, you might lose people because if they don't, if they're not familiar and you don't know if they're familiar cuz you don't know the audience super well, you might lose them. [00:15:45] And, and if, if it's about engagement, you're gonna get 70 to 90% of people to responding to a Zoom poll. And you might get 30 to 50% actually answering. , one of these third party polls. Mm-hmm. . And so [00:16:00] yes, it's fancy, yes, it's cool , but if the end result is fewer people actually taking action and people feeling a little bit confused about something, that's not where we want people to be. [00:16:11] So I also, I really focus a lot in the book and in the work that I do on some principles around purpose first design and also quality facilitation. So I'm, I'm specifically focusing on the Zoom. As far as the technology, but those other pieces around facilitation and purpose first design are applicable to any medium, including in person. [00:16:36] Mm-hmm. . So I think there's a strong Venn diagram because I also do in-person event design consulting, and I've been doing that a long time. And then back to doing that again now that people are backed in person. So to me there's a big overlap. How you design an in-person workshop or presentation for 90 minutes and online, but then there's the outliers that you have to consider for both. [00:16:58] So I think that there's a lot of [00:17:00] potential. I've done incredible programming. I've got some great stories in the book about some really cool outcomes we've achieved by bringing people together across geographies to have really in depth conversations about important topics. . I also think that people's tolerance for the sort of boring approach, , is they really don't have any, like, I think people are zoomed out and zoom fatigue. [00:17:24] That's why I call it breakout of boredom. And, and by, by the way, breakout rooms, I went from not knowing I had access to, you know, , I dunno, my book's like 60 some odd thousand words and like 10,000 words. Almost 20% is about breakout rooms. So, [00:17:40] Sarah: yeah. So let's go there. Um, I, I wanna really have you walk us through kind of some of these, you know, yes, they're technicalities, but I think the way you explain them is always comes back to purpose. [00:17:54] You know, like what is. , what's the common [00:18:00] purpose for, uh, us to be on this call? That's how I understood it, um, when I went through this checklist that you'll share with us at the end. So let's start with the waiting room, right? Um, that's usually our first experience when we go on to a Zoom meeting. So how, if we are, if my listeners are hosting a group, uh, zoom. [00:18:24] what are some of the things that can be done? Let's just take Zoom as an example, can be done to already kind of give people this feeling of I belong, or this is, I'm a, I'm on in the right group here. Sure. Like what [00:18:39] Robbie: can we do? Well, for starters, if you're having a group meeting, stop using your personal meeting room because, uh, you, if you write, if you create a meeting, a specific meeting for. [00:18:53] Group, then the name of that meeting will be what appears in the waiting room. Um, so that'll assure people. But you can [00:19:00] also have different settings. So if you use a different link, you could set it so that participants are muted upon entry. Mm-hmm. . Now for why one-on-one calls, I do use my personal meeting ID and I don't mute people because if it's just two of us, I, I don't need you to be muted. [00:19:18] It's actually kind of an inconvenience for you to be. Right, because people start talking and I have to point out to them like, don't forget to unmute . Yeah, the usual, you're muted . Yeah. So then the other thing I would say for waiting rooms, you can customize it beyond that. And there's a bunch of different options. [00:19:33] A lot of what I'm gonna be sharing is under zoom.us, and then you go to settings, which is on the left side menu, and you can just start from the top. And actually really close to the top is waiting rooms. So there's some really cool customi customization, uh, including you can embed a video, you can put an image, you can put text. [00:19:50] Um, I sometimes have texts just says, , take a breath. You know, like, yeah. Take a, take a moment to yourself. Mm-hmm. before you come in. Yeah. But you need [00:20:00] to know that whatever you put for your customization will be what people see for all of your meetings. For that one account. So Okay. If you make a special video for like a big event you're doing, you have to then remember, put a note on your calendar to switch it back to whatever. [00:20:14] You're more general, so you can [00:20:16] Sarah: customized each waiting room separately for each meeting. It's just one you [00:20:21] Robbie: can, but you'd have to like keep going back in and remembering to switch it on and off. Right. [00:20:25] Sarah: Okay. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. Okay, great. So, uh, one question. Can people chat already in the waiting room? [00:20:33] I don't think so. Right. [00:20:35] Robbie: Uh, they can't, uh, right now the host can communicate with people in the waiting room. Uh, and I think that they're gonna come out with a feature where the waiting room can then respond back to the host individually. Okay. Um, they, you cannot change your name, for instance, in the waiting. [00:20:53] but the host can change your name. So there's some new features that are coming out. Okay. Um, but I also wanna go back to, [00:21:00] you mentioned purpose first design, and I, I address it as well. So I want you to think about, as people are coming into your session, they're going to be thinking, feeling, and you're doing. [00:21:11] one thing. At the end of their time together, they're gonna be thinking, feeling, and or doing something else. And then in between is the transformation, right? So if you really spend some time thinking about where they're starting and where you want them to end up, that will help you decide. The structure flow, what exercises, what kind of content, how much time to spend on things, what to put in the waiting room, whether or not to have a breakout room. [00:21:38] If so, what kind of question? What kind of, what is the goal of, even for a breakout room, like what's the purpose of a breakout room? Is it around networking? Is it for them to discuss something? Is it for them to share? Is for them to feel like they belong. Like once you understand the sort of really primary focus of each piece of it and how it fits in with that overall goal, it's gonna help you design a much better [00:22:00] quality experience for your participants. [00:22:02] So that's the purpose first design piece. And then the facilitation is just to stop confusing people by saying the incorrect thing. Like go ahead and raise your hand in chat. Never been a raised hand button in chat. I've heard that phrase a lot. Or pointing down and like pointing, uh, pointing here and saying, go to reactions when that's not where it is. [00:22:28] Reactions on your side is on he over here. So if I, if I go to tell you like, um, oh, go ahead and go ahead and, uh, go to the top right of your screen and click. I'm not pointing at the right side of your screen. . This is the right side of your screen. So that's cold mirroring . Mm-hmm. And if you were on a stage physically, you would, you would know that, right? [00:22:51] Like you would know that if you pointed to your left, they're gonna see it on the right. But when we're doing this virtually, people kind of forgot all about that. So that just [00:23:00] hurts our brains. It makes our brains work a little extra hard. And that's part of that zoom fatigue is confusing instructions. [00:23:07] Um, The person who spends a lot of time saying, um, all right, let's see. I'm gonna try to share my slides. Let's see. Oh, the file's not open. And then they like, share their desktop. And you watch them like go through everything on their desktop. You're like, uhhuh, as they like narrate every step. That's, we can all get 5% better every time we zoom. [00:23:30] Yeah. Whether we're participating, whether we're hosting, whether we're speaking. Just aim to get that little bit better. . [00:23:37] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. There's so many small details that we need to learn, right? That, that now it's this extra layer. And actually in some of the videos you, you mentioned it's really helpful to a first, have an extra, um, screen that you can, you know, have one just dedicated screen for your PowerPoint presentation, for example. [00:23:58] Mm-hmm. , uh, [00:24:00] and even, uh, an extra person, like someone who helps you, you know, read through their questions in a q and a setting, or, yeah, just like there's so many things that we have to manage that, or we haven't even started talking about breakout rooms. But yeah, there's a lot of things going on that it, it really is sometimes helpful to have a, an extra person. [00:24:22] Robbie: Mm-hmm. , I think if, um, if you have more than 20 people, , I think it's, it starts to be a, for most people, that's where it makes sense to start thinking about having a second person. Right. But that second person, um, could be like a fellow. Uh, I, I know for instance, I know speakers who sh who support each other. [00:24:42] Right. Will they take turns? Like one will moderate chat for one person's program and then the other one will go back and moderate chat for the other person's program? Yeah. Awesome. You can train an assistant or, uh, an. or you know, a VA or even a member of your community to manage chat and manage the q and a [00:25:00] and manage, you know, all of that. [00:25:01] So yeah, it, it, it, and then, but it scales up because, you know, I, I train people on to be Zoom producers, and so Zoom producer would do all the tech, not just the chat. They would handle any technical issues that. You know, community has getting in, getting their sound to work. And then they would also, uh, manage breakout rooms and sharing slides if you need them to, any, anything needed. [00:25:27] Uh, as well as managing chat. And then there's the executive sort of, uh, event design, virtual event design that I do where I'm really providing the strategy ahead of time, training the speakers and how to look good, all that stuff. So it, there's layer. . But I would say starting with having a. Understanding of what does a good Q and A even look like? [00:25:50] Mm-hmm. , and then what kind of support you might need to pull that off. If you've only got six or seven people in a room, I think you're, you're fine on your own. Fine. Yeah. But you still have to know that [00:26:00] while I'm doing my best to look at the camera, there's something happening in chat. So I have sort of techniques where I ask people to write their question and chat, but to write the word question in all caps before their question. [00:26:13] So I'm more likely to. To see it. I also increase the font size by to 150% of the original font size in chat, which makes it a lot easier to catch when things are happening, um, off to side. So these are all little things that over time one thing becomes easier. Then you add on something else. So I'm not saying everyone has to do everything all at once. [00:26:36] That's the 5% part. Um, so I actually have a, a program called The 5% Advantage, and it's the, I launched it in May of 2020 and um, my wife was like, why would anyone wanna get 5% better ? And I said, no, no, every time it's about like continual improvement. , it's, it, it's amazing, like how much faster you will improve if you aim to just [00:27:00] keep getting a little bit better each time. [00:27:03] Sarah: I like that. Um, I do wanna ask you about breakout rooms cuz that's I think one of the things that Yeah, a lot of, uh, these. Programs, um, now include right now that we've gotten used to being on camera on Zoom, where it's not just like a webinar style anymore. And so one of the things you mentioned, um, is this idea of having clear instructions and, and I think I. [00:27:28] Really, I probably get better 5% every time I do it, but it's true that it's so essential to give clear instructions before sending people off into breakout rooms. Cuz you, you explained, you know the situation where people find themselves in the breakout room and they're like, Uh, anyone know what we have to do? [00:27:48] And, you know, they just start chatting about who they are and, and all of that. So, what's kind of like best practices about giving clear instructions, uh, for these breakout [00:27:58] Robbie: rooms? So start back [00:28:00] with the purpose first design. What is the goal of the session? The, the breakout part of this session? Um, if it's a quick icebreaker, then you can do either two people for five minutes or three for six. [00:28:11] If you can open more. I don't know, 10, 15 rooms. I would say three for. minutes is better cuz it's less likely that someone's gonna get stuck in a room by themself because of the internet. Um, failing one person. Um, but that would be like a quick icebreaker question. So they're just, they're literally just going around for a moment to say hello to each other. [00:28:30] Uh, you might do three or four people for 10 minutes. To similarities, how people go around and answer a question. Um, each person gets a couple of minutes and then that goes all the way up to, you know, a discussion where people might get, you know, it might be five or six people for 15 minutes where people really all answer a quick question, but then they dive into. [00:28:49] thoughts about that question a little bit more. So what happens is that if you just sort of throw people in a room without any clear question, uh, someone will [00:29:00] eventually unmute. Like at first they're all gonna like, look at each other. Like, what do we do here? The person who's most comfortable, um, most privileged , uh, probably has been around this community the longest is, is gonna be the one who unmutes and they may not relinquish the microphone and it might become just a. [00:29:19] A whole session of one person talking and now you're in the main room and you're like, awesome People are engaged. They're having so much fun. But that's, that's like checkbox engagement. Like in reality, one person had the mic for the whole time. So what I wanted to say is intentional engagement is that we provide not only a question that is specific, one question, not lots, don't ask the choose from three and all that, but you also provide an answer. [00:29:46] So you say, , you know, what's your biggest win of the week? Here's mine to get you thinking. Here's mine that you then put the question that you just said as the prompt in chat, and you say, if you need [00:30:00] to, you can open up chat and see the question. And let's go alphabetically. Let's go alphabetically by last name. [00:30:07] So if your last name's closest to a, you'll go first. We'll go in that order. And if you don't have a last name showing, go ahead and add it. Or you're going first. Hmm. And that way they get in their brains have already been thinking about the question. , when you tell your answer, you're sharing a story and stories ignite stories in other people's brains. [00:30:27] Mm-hmm. . So when I tell you my big win of the week, you start thinking about, well, what's my big win of the week? Mm-hmm. . So you're already a little bit primed to participate, and then you find out the order and you realize. . Ooh, there's a good chance I'm gonna be going first. , like my last name's close to a, and you're like, oh. [00:30:43] So you really are mentally repaired to unmute and jump in. Now some people get kind of cutesy about the order and they do like longest and short hair or colors of shirts or birthdays. All of those are kind of distracting. Take some time to discuss. [00:31:00] Leading. I mean I've been in so many sessions like that, that we end up talking about horoscopes cuz we were asked to like go in the order of our birthdays, right? [00:31:09] So I generally, I say like alphabetical or, or reverse alphabetical by, um, first name or last name. And if you really think a particular order would be helpful, for instance, maybe people for most experience at least experience with something you can say when you get into the breakout rooms, go to chat and put in the. [00:31:27] Of years you have with this, and we'll use that to organize, you know, most experienced, at least experience. But, um, but all that structure is actually, um, it helps people feel like they belong. And I actually think that thoughtful structure is about inclusion. It's about people feeling not just invited, but welcomed into a conversation. [00:31:49] It tells shy people and introverted people and newcomer. and people who maybe you speak a language that's different than the dominant language being used, it tells [00:32:00] them exactly what the rules are. There's no like in crowd knows how to ask questions or how to unmute. Everybody knows everything. So I think we, we, um, we as hosts and facilitators sometime like relinquish our role by saying, you all figure it out, but just like an in-person event, like people thrown together at a bar. [00:32:24] Often find the people they wanna meet. But when you structure an event at a bar and you've got name tags and people who are welcoming, you've got activities, you have people in, you know, interacting and engaging with each other. , that little bit of structure is what leads people to find each other, not just the randomness. [00:32:41] And I think online we need the similar structure to help people really find value in those breakout room discussions and wanna stay in touch. Everybody wants to find their people. Nobody wants to feel like they're the only one in the room having this challenged problem, identity, whatever it is. So I, I love [00:33:00] breakout rooms for that reason. [00:33:00] I think it provides so much community building. and then you bring them back. And I think an important part of, of breakout rooms is thinking about what kind of debrief. And by default, a lot of times the debrief is just how people use the raised hand feature. Um, or worse, worse than that would be go ahead and unmute if you have anything to say. [00:33:20] I'm like in person. You would never be like, all right folks, just start talking . It's just so weird that we do that online all the time. Um, so I would say alternate between sometimes having people raise their hand, which is self nominat. Sometimes have people write things in chat sometimes, uh, have them write things in chat, but wait to hit enter until you tell them. [00:33:39] I call that a, uh, waterfall debrief. Um, sometimes I have people nominate someone in chat mm-hmm. . So like, who shared a really great win, nominate them and let's, uh, get them to share with all of us. Um, there's just so many ways. To bring lots of voices in, not always the same. Like I'm an outgoing extrovert. [00:33:56] I, Sarah, I will raise my hand, answer a question, not knowing what the question [00:34:00] even was. , like, I'm like, sure. Mm-hmm. . But then you have people like me dominated in conversations the whole time. So the structure allows someone else to grab the mic or to be invited to grab the mic if they choose. [00:34:12] Sarah: Yeah. Thank you. [00:34:13] I'm grabbing the, I'm grabbing the mic. I'm the introvert in the room. . Um, yeah. So many good things. Two, no, I'm just gonna kind of reiterate the main takeaways for me. So first of all, yeah, the clear instructions when you send people into the breakout room and, and also what I really loved is, and what we haven't been doing in my Humane Marketing Circle community is defining ahead of time who goes first. [00:34:43] I think that is a big aha for me to really say. . Yeah. Take away that awkwardness like, you know, do you wanna go first? No, you go first. So it's like, okay. It's already clear who goes first. What my community recently asked me is actually to have two [00:35:00] minutes of reflection before they go into a breakout room so that they can. [00:35:05] Kind of think about because we kind of go deep into the, in, in the breakout rooms. But the other thing I learned right now from you is to, for them to already have my answer, um, so that it, like you said, it's a story, right? So they come in with a story, um, And I love that. One thing you didn't mention, uh, that I'm doing, and you'll tell me what you think about that is. [00:35:30] So I usually, for now, I don't go into the breakout rooms just because I, I don't have another person to help me manage it. So I'm the one sending the messages into the breakout rooms saying, okay, it's time to switch next person, you know. The three or four minutes to talk. Do you use that? Is that a good practice or do you [00:35:50] Robbie: Yeah, so, um, there's a couple things that I didn't, I didn't mention that. [00:35:54] Made me think about. One is there's a, there's a setting when you, there's an option when you set up the breakout [00:36:00] rooms that will put a countdown clock on the top. Right? Right. So it's really helpful to turn that on Uhhuh because then when everyone gets in, they know they have 10 minutes and they know how much time is remaining. [00:36:10] Um, helps 'em divide the time up equally. It helps them. Wrap their conversation up and at the end of that 10 minutes, my recommendation is to change. To be a 15 second countdown clock is default. 60 minutes. 60 seconds. Mm-hmm. But if you're watching the time countdown, and then suddenly you have a minute, there's this moment of almost walk awkward walk. [00:36:29] Awkward is when you say a big goodbye to someone at a restaurant and then discover we're both going in the same direction to your cars . That's. in person, but similarly, like you get to this point where everyone's like, all right, great, see you. Oh, 60 seconds. And then some people leave. Some people are like, oh, I have a whole nother thing. [00:36:47] I think I can squeeze in 60. Like it just, you know. So you're the [00:36:51] Sarah: countdown. It's better to have less time [00:36:53] Robbie: actually. Like Yeah, just get like, okay, we're wrapping up, we're coming back like we had, you got your 10 minutes, [00:37:00] then come back. Or to tell people, I mean, I guess if you wanted 'em to keep the 60 seconds, you can say, It's gonna be, you know, I guess just give people clear instructions. [00:37:08] Yeah. Um, and then, yes, there's a couple of ways to broadcast into the rooms. One is text only, and I, that's like walking by with a sign. Like if you were at an in-person event, you'd be walking by with a sign that said two minutes. You know, and you wouldn't say anything. You would just walk by and try to catch. [00:37:24] Not everyone would see it. You might be holding the sign behind some people's heads. Right. It's a very small font at the top. Then they have broadcast. and that is a lot more jarring if you wanted to use it. I think you need to tell people in advance, um, that you're going to say switch because it's a voice [00:37:42] Sarah: outta nowhere. [00:37:42] I never used it cuz I thought like, that is so odd if all of a sudden [00:37:46] Robbie: they hear my voice. Now, if you only had two people and it was very clearly like, you know, pairing and then switch, I could see cuz again would you in person like ring a bell and call out. Okay folks switch like [00:38:00] if you would. Think about like, yes, it's disruptive. [00:38:04] Now the problem is if you, if you have three people you don't know when they switched, like it's not as exact as science. And then there's also a way to broadcast an image, a video, or um, like a slides, like anything you can put on your screen, you can broadcast that. , um, that would be interesting to do if you had facilitators in the rooms and you wanted everyone to go through this content at the same pace. [00:38:26] You would be advancing the slides based on a certain increment of time. Facilitators would then be sort of taking questions, um, and. You would know that all the rooms were kind of moving through the content at the same pace, at the same amount of time for q and a at the end, and you'd be managing that. [00:38:44] They wouldn't be able to forward it, they wouldn't be able to annotate on it. But it is a way to like share the question. Again, it's disruptive in the sense that suddenly there's this thing on their screen mm-hmm. , um, that's, that's blocking some of them. Although they're, it's funny because the people are gonna be, uh, actually [00:39:00] over here in the image over here if they have a side by side set up. [00:39:03] So, but, um, but generally, yeah, the broadcast messaging, I would say like a two minute warning is usually really useful, like a halfway through two minutes left. But, um, the countdown clock up here is, is really, really helpful for most. . [00:39:17] Sarah: Yeah, I'll start using that. I haven't used that. I didn't know it existed. [00:39:20] And, and so thanks to your checklist, I now know where it is. So, so, um, yeah, we're coming to the end and, and so let's not forget to mention your checklist, but we started with the beginning. We went through the, you know, breakout rooms and all of that. And you said in the design, it's so important to also think. [00:39:40] you know, how are we gonna end this? So what is a good ending? What is, do you use any rituals or, um, yeah. You mentioned pictures, I think in one of the tips as well where you kind of take a screenshot of everybody. What are some good ideas for ending [00:39:56] Robbie: calls? Well, I think a lot of times calls end [00:40:00] with, well, we don't really have any time for anymore questions. [00:40:04] Like, and that's it. So if it's a presentation, I think it's really smart to. like two minutes. The end where you say, you know, oh, okay. Let me just, um, you know, those were great questions. Lemme just share some closing thoughts and then you have like the reiteration of your main point. Not, not new information, but like, it could be a reiteration of your main point. [00:40:26] It could be call to action or here are some next steps, or Here's what's coming up. , but you make sure that the, you know, if you're hosting, you give the mic back to the speaker, you thank them, you let them have two minutes, and then you take it back and say like, thank you. Here's what's happening next. So we just, you wanna think about having kind of a close, um, that isn't just, you know, wa wa we're out of time and, um, and, and gets people thinking about what do they do with this next, I, I like to do something I call calendaring, connecting, collaborating, and I do this both [00:41:00] in person. [00:41:01] as well as online when I design calendaring. Connecting, collaborating. So calendaring is you ask everyone to take a minute to think about one thing they can do in the next two weeks that they will help them move forward on this topic. And you say, great, now that you have that idea, open your calendar on your phone and find a time in the next two weeks that you're gonna be able to do that. [00:41:22] And like, look at your notes from today and. Connecting is if you're not quite sure what to do or you need some help, uh, look around to the people that you've been meeting with today and in breakout rooms and me and other. Here are some other people and resources. These are the people that you can sup, get support from. [00:41:39] Write down their names. Make sure that in those two weeks you also reach out to some of them and say hello and build a connection or deepen a connection. And then collaboration is that we're not doing any of this alone. I'd love to know. What happens next? Um, you know, lean into each other together. We're gonna build great things. [00:41:56] So, you know, this is your community. And I think that [00:42:00] particularly if, if your goal is to move people from inspiration to action, having that kind of ritualistic closure is helpful because, You know, some people will take tons of notes, but it's, it's useless without a plan. And others are just listening and not taking notes and so they, they also don't have a plan. [00:42:17] And so building some time in, and that could be 10 minutes, that could be a, a, you can really draw that out if you wanted to, or it could be something you do kind of quickly. [00:42:26] Sarah: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I love that. And I love that. , you know, we allow ourselves to have time for that. Uh, and that really needs to be planned into the whole Yes. [00:42:37] Uh, meeting. Right. Oftentimes, like you said, you kind of find yourself just rushed at the end and it's just like, [00:42:43] Robbie: okay, bye. Best content is more. Yeah. I think too often we try to cram a lot in, I wrote my first book in order to stop doing two hour programs. Mm-hmm. , like I had been doing this two hour talk for years and years and years, and I thought if I had a book, , I could say, oh, and you [00:43:00] can read more about that in my book and not have to say every single word. [00:43:04] And so similarly today, like we're not, I haven't, I mean, literally, I almost, you know, 20% of the book is on breakout Ri, so we, we scratch the surface of it, but it gets people the information to realize that there is a new way and then they can go investigate and DIY on their own or seek out support if they need it. [00:43:22] But yeah, I, I, there's a lot of. [00:43:25] Sarah: Yeah. And since you said less content is more. Right. I think also, uh, a point you made is like, don't, don't hide behind the slides. Mm-hmm. , especially if, if we're talking about community calls and, and not, you know, some kind of corporate settings. So definitely, yeah. That's one big one for me. [00:43:46] It's like yeah, the, whenever you can show up on the camera and not behind the slide. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Wonderful. Well, please do share, uh, again, the name of your [00:44:00] book and that, uh, p d f that people can download and look at your videos to go and dive deeper. [00:44:07] Robbie: Yeah. So, um, the book is called Break Out of Boredom, low Tech Solutions for Highly Engaging Zoom Events. [00:44:14] Uh, it is gonna be published, uh, later this week. So I'm gonna just tell you if you go to breakout of boredom.com. , um, after March 5th or sixth, the, the link will be live and ready to go. Um, building a huge launch team right now, so reach out. If you're interested in being part of that, I'd love a review and the videos that you're mentioning, it sounds like you've done a good job diving into them. [00:44:38] they're available@robbiesamuels.com slash videos, and they're also some of the bonus content. So the book has a lot of free bonus content and the videos, which are 30. Strategy videos and my no more bad zoom settings checklist. Those are, um, one of, I think 10 or 11 resources that are, um, sort of bonus content [00:45:00] that goes with the book, though, all that's available at the breakout of boredom.com. [00:45:05] Sarah: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Robbie. I always have one last question that I ask all my gifts and that is, what are you grateful for today or [00:45:13] Robbie: this. , my wife , she's amazing. Uh, she actually recently got laid off and wasn't feeling well. And yet, despite both those challenges, has been an incredible support. [00:45:24] I've had a very busy, uh, couple of months getting ready for this book, writing and launching at the same time. Um, and she holds our family together and our house together. And she, when we got married, said, you know, , you have higher earning potential than I do cuz you're entrepreneurial. And I said you may regret them saying that [00:45:44] And here we are. Um, it's true. I I am, I've got a business cuz I had someone who really believed in me and makes space for what I'm trying to create. So it's, you all need to thank her because I've been able to do a lot of good for a lot of people, [00:46:00] uh, because there's someone in my life who believes in, what's her name, Robbie. [00:46:03] Sarah: Her name is. Hi Jess. I hope you're listening to this . Wonderful. Thank you so much for taking the time to to meet here. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. So much you could I info this conversation right? I hope you took some notes. Uh, please find out more about Robbie and his work@robbiesamuels.com. And if you didn't take notes, go over to uh, find his checklist@robbiesamuels.com slash videos for his 30 plus Zoom strategy videos and checklists. [00:46:37] Uh, his podcast where I'll be a guest on soon as well, I is called on the schmooze, and you can find it on the schmooze.com. And his book, uh, again, is called Break Out of Boredom, low Tech Solutions for Highly Engaging Zoom Events. And if you're looking for others who think like you, then why not join us in the Humane Marketing Circle? [00:46:58] Find out more [00:47:00] at humane.marketing/circle. As I mentioned before, we meet twice monthly on Zoom right now, and our calls are definitely non boring and highly engaging because everyone is heard and seen. So again, humane.marketing. Circle. You find the show notes of this episode@humane.marketing slash 60 and 60 episodes. [00:47:27] Wow, I can't believe it. On this beautiful page, you'll also find a series of free offers, such as my Saturday newsletter, the Humane Business Manifesto, and the free gentle confidence mini course, as well as my two books, marketing like we're human and selling like we're human, and. Audiobook fan. Uh, this is just a reminder that marketing like we're human is now also available in audio format on Audible or anywhere else where you get your audiobooks. [00:47:58] Of course, read by [00:48:00] yours. Truly. Thank you so much for listening and being part of a generation of marketers who cares for yourself, your clients, and the planet. We are change makers before we are marketers, so go be the change you want to see in the. Speak soon.

We are excited that our local ice cream places are opening back up and we enjoyed Mr. Goodies this week. Join us for all our laughable mama bear moments and the lessons we have learned about advocating for our kids.

On today's episode we have an protective mama bear, a sister gets slut shamed, a father doesn't want to do father-daughter dates anymore, an addition to the pilot story we did with Laura, and this will be a first but we are going to hop into the Patreon submitted stories, then come back we will close out the show with a listener submitted story. I am leaving it to the very end because it is extremely traumatic and I know some people will want to skip it. For the Patreon exclusive stories we have a father who disapproves of his daughter's job, and we have an OP who tells a co-worker to smile! Support Ya Boys: Become a Patreon for ad-free episodes and bonus AITA stories every week as well as exclusive content: Cultiv8 Patreon Sean's Venmo Our Links: Instagram TikTok Discord Subreddit Store Website Submission Timeline & Links: (00:00) - Intro (05:36) - Mama Bear  (14:14) - Sister Gets Shamed  (22:35) - Pilot Story Addon  (28:43) - No Father-Daughter Dates  (40:45) - Disapproving Father  (50:52) - Telling Co-Worker To Smile  (01:01:37) - Listener Refuses To Take Care of Mom (01:16:06) - Outro Copyright 2023 Cultiv8 Podcast Network Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We don't have to choose between our faith and fully affirming the LGBTQ+ community. Today, Liz Dyer shares her journey to embracing an affirming theology, from studying scripture to talking with other Christians. Liz is the founder of Mama Bears, an organization dedicated to supporting, educating and empowering parents of LGBTQ kids. Episode Recap: “The only thing that matters is living out your faith through love” (0:15) Small acts of kindness can change lives in the LGBTQ+ community (2:09) The journey to embracing an affirming theology (6:25) Jesus said we would know people by their fruits (15:06) God is only love (19:57) Non-affirming theology brings separation from God (27:03) Resources: Learn more about GracePointe Check out our schedule of upcoming events Follow GracePointe on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook Mama Bears Website

The Junkies review Cocaine Bear, and recall how fun it was to see it together. Shauna enjoyed rooting for the bear, Nicole lauded Elizabeth Banks and her directorial skills, and Hayley enjoyed the reunion of cast members from her favorite show, The Americans. In other viewing news, Both Hayley and Shauna are on a Pedro Pascal binge while Nicole is finally, finally, a fan of Only Murders in the Building. Speaking of Selena Gomez, The Junkies break down the Hailey Bieber/Kylie Jenner/Selena feud that was/is choking our social media feeds, and everyone is grateful they haven't (yet!) reached the level of fame that makes people say hateful things in DMs and comment sections.We have a Patreon! To support our podcast and get access to exclusive content, click here.Apple Podcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pop-culture-junkie/id1536737728Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/7k2pUxzNDBXNCHzFM7EL8WWebsite: www.popculturejunkie.comFacebook: PopCultureJunkiePodcastTwitter: @PopJunkiesInstagram: @pop.culturejunkiesEmail: junkies@popculturejunkie.comHayley on Instagram: @thirtynerdythrivingHayley on TikTok: @thirtynerdythrivingNicole on Instagram: @nicole_eldridgeNicole on Twitter: @naeldridge14Nicole on TikTok: @nicole_eldridgeShauna on Instagram: @shaunatrinidadShauna on TikTok: @shaunatrinidad

Gay or trans kids are at infinitely higher risk of harm if rejected by the adults around them. In ultra-conservative churches that condemn LGBTQ+ identities, parents often have to decide between their child and their church community. But a group of women that call themselves the Mama Bears is seeking to change that. Filmmaker Daresha Kyi joined us to talk about the power of Mama Bear love.

Michael speaks with Stay Home Pet Sitting Founder, Stephanie Castro about fear around pets and strategies on how to make them your friend.Hi, my name is Stephanie and I am a huge animal lover with lots of animal experience. I am crazy about my four-legged baby, Canelo! When it comes to his well-being, I am a Mama-Bear who will make sure he is safe, happy, and healthy. I know I take good care of him, but what happens if I need to work long hours or go out of town? Traditional kenneling is not acceptable for me – caging up my animals and exposing them to other pets' illnesses will never be a solution for my furry family. This is when I realized that pet owners need a solid reliable pet sitter (overnights included) that could take their worries away. On June of 2014, I decided to dedicate my time to my passion of animals - this is when Stay Home Pet Sitting was born. Find out more @ https://www.stayhomepetsitting.com/About the Crushing Your Fear Podcast Bio Michael Power is a #1 Best Selling Author, Speaker and the Host of the Crushing Your Fear Podcast. He is also an Entrepreneur who has started multiple revenue generating companies both in the US and Europe. He has learned to conquer Fear through leaving the past behind, learning from it and adopting Gratitude and a Positive outlook for the future. On his Crushing Your Fear Podcast, Michael explains "We live in a Society of Fear. Everywhere we turn, fear is there. Most people we know are affected by fear in one form or another. We ourselves are consumed by fear - we can't move forward - we won't take chances – we 'fear' what others may ‘think' of us - and on and on and on. Enough! There is another way. We explore different areas in society, flush out the manipulation and empower you to overcome fear. Our guests are experts and give you the insight and tools needed to identify and conquer fear. So join us and Crush Your Fear!" Michael PowerHostCrushing Your Fear Podcastmichael@crushingyourfear.com Website: http://www.crushingyourfear.com/ Instagram: @crushingyourfear Facebook: @crushingyourfear Twitter: @crushingfear Tik Tok: @crushingyourfear Twitter: @michaelpower100 Subscribe to our Podcast! iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crushing-your-fear/id1465751659 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/craft-beer-storm/crushing-your-fear Blog: https://medium.com/@the_real_michael_power