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


Feb 1, 2019

Welcome to the 9th muse on the Introvert Biz Growth podcast, the show where I talk to introverts who grow their business and make a difference.

I’m Sarah Santacroce, your host. If you’re new here, then I want you to know that this is not the usual format of my regular episodes.

I post a new show every other Friday, and it’s always a conversation with a fellow introverted entrepreneur who uses his or her introverted superpowers to make a difference.

These shows are edited by Tim, my professional podcast editors who also creates amazing shownotes pages.

 

But today’s episode is a muse, unedited, raw content. No intro music. No bells and whistles.

I share these muses to make you think, to inspire you, to break the rules and to eventually invite you to the Gentle Business Revolution, when it’s ready.

Today I thought I’d share the story about how I found my WHY. Or maybe how it found me. With the Beta-Group participants of the AF Marketing group we’re talking a lot about meaning, purpose, why we do what we do. And let’s be honest for a minute, it’s not the same for everyone. Some people are very clear about their WHY, their mission. Others it takes them a bit more time. I was part of the others.

For 10 years, my business was just a means to an end. I started it because I wanted a flexible solution, so that I could also spend time with my boys, see them grow up. Then when I turned 40, 3 years ago, I read Simon Sinek’s book, and this question about the WHY started to come up more and more. That’s also when I started this podcast. It definitely gave me meaning. But it was more of a hobby. I still considered my LinkedIn Business as the breadwinner, and the work I did with Introverts more of a side-hustle. I thought that in my case my WHY was probably outside of work hours.

In parallel I did a lot of inner work, first with a therapist, then with a coach. And I dug up a lot of old stories. And then one day it hit me: I got this very clear message that I was supposed to reserve the domain name thegentlebusinessrevolution.com. I couldn’t believe that it was available.

Let me explain. Doing this inner work a lot of the paths led me to my dad, who is and was a very important person in my life. Duh, he’s my dad, right? But not only in a healthy way. My dad is a very smart, discreet, somewhat intimidating person. For all of his life he was a leader in socialist movements. He was representing the workers, fighting for justice, of course in a non-violent way. So entrepreneurs, business owners were somehow the enemy when growing up. So when journaling about all this, I realized two things:

  1. What had kept my business to the next level, was this feeling of betraying my dad by allying myself with the other side, with the business owners.
  2. And, I also realized that that’s exactly my mission, my WHY: bring more kindness & empathy to the business world. And representing his number one value which is social justice. Doing business in a way that is fair, where all parties win, where we can make a difference.

So there you have it. That’s how I found my WHY, or how it found me.

And again, if you had asked me 18 months ago I wouldn’t have had a good answer… So if you don’t know your WHY yet, I’d say don’t stress out about it. I know that Simon Sinek has a course about finding your WHY. But quite honestly I don’t know if you can just take a course about it. At least not if you’re also doing the inner work at the same time. This stuff is usually hidden deep inside us.

As I mentioned before, we’re working on this in the Anxiety-Free Marketing program because I truly believe that that’s where we need to start if we want to market with authenticity.

I’ll keep you posted when the program is ready for the public.

For now just allow and be open. You’re exactly where you need to be at this moment

 

Thanks for listening !

Thanks so much for listening to this muse.

That’s it for this episode

Wishing you a wonderful week