Business Like We're Human

The Humane Marketing Show. A podcast for a generation of marketers who care.

Welcome to another episode, this time with an exclusive update on the forthcoming "Business Like We're Human" book!

I’m spilling the beans about the outline of my new and upcoming book: WAKE UP, REIMAGINE, RECALIBRATE, and INTEGRATE.

Listen now to dive deep into the essence of "Business Like We're Human" and join the conversation about what it means to you!

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Ep 189 audio solo episode

Sarah: [00:00:00] Hello, Humane Marketers. Welcome back to another episode on the Humane Marketing Podcast. This time it's just me because I wanted to give you a, an update about the Business Like We're Human book. Sometime last year, I promised I'd share some updates along the way as I'm writing book number three.

business like we're human. And I've been in planning phase pretty much since last fall. So in November, I hosted the Business Book Alchemist program for the first time. So that's a small group program to help renegade authors who write about change and I helped them plan and write their book. And then of course, I focused on my own book.

There were five of us and everyone really loved the program and we worked on our outlines and yeah, really quite got a lot of progress. And after the program, I suggested [00:01:00] that we continue this small group in an accountability group where we talk Take turns hosting a catch up call once per month.

And we've had three of those calls so far. And we also have a Google spreadsheet where we track when we're writing, which is super helpful with accountability. So that's what has been going on. And if I look back to this year, so I'm recording this end of April. January was just really a bust for me.

I just didn't feel. anything, like nothing came. I still didn't know that direction of the book. And sometimes I felt like I was writing two books. I couldn't really focus on, well, what is my message? So instead I just started booking conversations with friends and past clients and asked them the question, what comes up?

for you when [00:02:00] you hear business like we're human. And I transcribed those conversations and started to see a pattern emerge. And then all of a sudden, end of January exactly when Pluto, the planet Pluto finally left my sign of Capricorn and moved into Aquarius, which is If you are into astrology, you kind of know what that means.

It just basically means for the last 20 years, Pluto was kind of this heavy, difficult planet in, in my sign, which is Capricorn, and it finally moved out of my sign. And it started to come all together. And I, Alefsa knew what people wanted to hear from me, but I also knew what I wanted to write and what I think they need to hear from me.

So, that's why there was this confusion with thinking, okay, I'm, I'm writing two different books and now I. [00:03:00] I realized in January, Oh, okay. So it's just basically the same old marketing thing. Give them what they want and then sorry, sell them what they want and then give them what they need. So that's that all started to be clear for me.

And so I basically am now. I started to write, I got the four parts of the book together actually with a visual because you might remember the labyrinth from the Marketing Like We're Human book. And I really found that visual representation of the different sections of a journey is really helpful.

So I wanted to find another one. And it was sitting right in front of me on my desk in the form of a lovely card from my friend and past client Miriam Martinez, and it was in the form of a peace sign. So it was just, Perfect, because the whole point of running a business like We're Human [00:04:00] is to find inner peace so that we can create outer change.

So without further ado, some drum roll please. The four parts of the Business Like We're Human book are Most likely, for now, at least, gonna be wake up, reimagine, recalibrate, and integrate. And let me read the intro now where I describe these four stages of the journey to a humane business. Anxiety versus peace.

Anxiety free marketing, that was the very first name I came up with before gentle marketing and then humane marketing. Because in all my research, people kept telling me how marketing created anxiety for them. And it's not just marketing. I think it's the toxic online business environment in general. The constant hustle and [00:05:00] tendency to compare and keep up with what everyone else is doing.

In a recent conversation with Ann Raju, a Virtual Assistant and Peaceful Productivity Mentor, she asked me my opinion about a new service she was going to offer around launching. And I shared how in my experience, just the word launch brings up anxiety in a lot of people because it's a word from the big guys with their massive launches.

So even just going in, we feel like we're not good enough and we'll never achieve a successful launch. I added that I also felt that all this talk about launching has created a very false idea about it. Think about the word. To launch means to set something in motion. But in a rather speedy fashion, like a rocket or a missile.

So no wonder this gives us anxiety. We're told to create a product, program, or online community, and then create a big [00:06:00] launch campaign. Think funnels, ads, and webinars, except that now they're being called masterclasses. And voila, that's the recipe for a six figure launch. Except that not only does it. Not work for most people.

It also creates huge amounts of anxiety and pressure. And then when no one signs up, instead of lifting us up, it drops us to the ground and leaves us in a puddle of anxiety and share. Anne and I agreed that launching also needs to reset in order to fit into doing business like we're human. I'll bring this example back in part three, when we talk about recalibrating our business systems.

Inner peace. I'm a big believer that change starts from within. That's the main change I introduced with Humane Marketing. Starting from within, looking at who we are, and then bringing more of us to our marketing. [00:07:00] So I was delighted to come across the Inner Development Goals, a new framework and a global open source initiative that aims to help us develop the skills we need in order to Accelerate the work towards the UN's global sustainable development goals.

We need to first change ourselves, create more inner peace so that we can go out there and create outer change. As a flower child from the eighties, obtaining peace is my number one motivator, inner peace and peace on earth. That's why when I was thinking about this book and a visual to represent the four stages of transformation, the peace sign came to mind.

Well, actually it was staring right at me, sitting on my desk in the form of a beautiful self painted card by my friend and past client, Miriam Martinez. Yes, that felt right. Doing business like we're human is a journey to inner peace that leads to outer change. The peace sign and the four [00:08:00] stages that lead to inner peace.

Close your eyes for a moment and visualize the peace sign in front of your mind's eye. Got it? Good. Let me explain the four stages and equivalent parts of this book. Wake up. We start in the upper right corner of the peace circle. Are you visualizing it? Good. In case you closed your eyes to do so, open them again.

Because this is the eye opening stage, our collective wake up call, where we realize that we're on the verge of something new and big. We'll go back in time to see how we created those myths that need updating. We'll rumble with our history that idealized work, and a decade by decade, and a decade by decade.

And, and decade by decade made us put work first and being human last by the end of part one, we'll have understood that we have created a collective myth that in order to run a business, we need to be business [00:09:00] people and that running a business requires you to be a full time working bee with no spaciousness to be human.

Picking up the peace sign again, you are now moving to the bottom right corner of the three smaller segments of the symbol. Imagine. Imagine all the people, living life in peace. You, you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one. Of course you recognize John Lennon's anthem for unity and peace.

In his song, John envisioned a world without divisions, without borders, possessions, religion, and greed. He shared his dream of a society focused on human connection and harmony. Sound familiar? Isn't that what we want as well? Together we'll get curious and go back in time to moments of our lives, our childhood, and our human [00:10:00] history, ancient Greece and the Renaissance, where imagination was celebrated and encouraged.

I'll also share an in depth account of my experience with a future life progression therapy session and explain how this deep dive into the unconscious mind can help us create the future we want. We'll end part two by reimagining your work and life. Part three. Recalibrate. Close your eyes again and take a few steps to the left.

You now find yourself in the recalibration area of the peace symbol. Quite a few people I talked to found this to be an interesting word choice. Isn't that usually used for machines, they asked. Yes, it's not the most humane of words, but I really wanted to keep it because it's a word that I'm Our left brain understands after having used our right, right hemispheres and reimagined how doing business like where you human [00:11:00] would look like for us.

We need to step into action mode and turn our on our left brains to enact the changes needed. This is the pragmatic part of the book that includes us changing to an Ubuntu mindset. Integrating an authentic relationship culture that encompasses our personal wellbeing, connection to others, and even adjusting our services so that they are aligned with this new culture.

Then we'll focus on recalibrating our business foundations to create more spaciousness for being human, your marketing and sales, your systems and your support team. Don't worry, no hiring required. Integrate. You've almost come full circle, literally and figuratively speaking. Integration is the last segment of the peace symbol in the top left corner of the circle, and also the homestretch of our journey to inner [00:12:00] peace that leads to other change.

Yes, there will be some challenges and hurdles to overcome, but I'll equip you with rituals, practices, cognitive and embodied ones and other support to navigate this transition to more humane business practices that always put the human first. Are you ready to begin this journey? So that's the introduction to, to kind of like give you a little idea of yeah, what I'm working on, what I'm writing about, like my last two books.

This is not your typical how to grow your business book. It's a how to be more human and also run a business book. But it's more than that. It's really a radical new way to think about business and work. One where we have the spaciousness to be more human and actually learn again what it means to be human when we're not working.

I read a lot about going [00:13:00] pro from people I appreciate, but going pro doesn't mean working more or being less human. Going pro to me means being really good at what you do and recalibrating your business so that your systems run smoothly with very little human maintenance. This frees up so much time for you to spend time on your authentic relationship culture.

Again, that's one of the topics of the recalibration part. So anyways, that just gives you kind of a glimpse. I as you can probably tell, I could keep on talking about this. I, when I write a book, I really truly get immersed in these topics. I'll update you again. So for now I'm wrapping this up.

I'd love to hear from you what Business Like We're Human means to you. I'm collecting stories from people in my community. But also would love to hear from you and [00:14:00] you can leave me a voice memo at humane. marketing. com forward slash ask. So A S K. It's only 90 seconds, so it needs to be rather quick.

Enter your name and email so I can get in touch and ask follow up questions and maybe again, I'll even feature your answer in the book. Again, you can go to humane. marketing. com forward slash ask and leave me a voice. Memo, or you can also get in touch with me on LinkedIn or send me an email at sarahathumane.

marketing. Again, the question is what does business like we're human mean to you? How does this resonate? What comes up for you? Thank you so much for listening to this first Muse about business like we're human, I look forward to hearing from you, take care.