Responsible Power: Aligning Your Business Impact with Your Values
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I’m rounding out this series of exploring the four tenets of Mindful Marketing with the final one — Responsible Power. (You may read about the other three tenets here: Flexible Consistency, Embodied Wealth, Connected Individualism.)
As I sat down to write this one, I started in the way I often do, with actual pen and paper to allow my brain to fully focus on the core ideas of what I want to say without the distractions of the computer. And as I reflected on the essence of the three previous tenets, I stumbled upon this synchronistic synthesis that felt especially helpful to distill it all down into something more palatable.
When distilled down to their core essence, we could describe the four tenets of Mindful Marketing in the following way:
Flexible Consistency = Structure
It is all about creating a structure that supports YOU, the human behind the business. It is an honoring of the Self and the marketing strategy that is in service to the very real and human needs of the Self.
Embodied Wealth = Success
This examines (and encourages you to expand!) your definition of success so that profit is no longer your only metric.
Connected Individualism = Support
While we are distinctly creating something that is uniquely ours, this tenet reminds us that nobody has ever achieved anything fully on their own. It opens us up to receiving and giving support, which in turn helps us feel a deeper sense of belonging.
Responsible Power = System
So then when we take all of these individual components into account, we create a larger whole, an entire ecosystem, that yields the impact we wish based on our intentions. This larger whole is comprised of the small decisions we make every day.
If you haven’t yet figured it out, I love alliteration, so the fact that this distillation resulted in four S’s made me positively giddy. (It’s the small wins, amiright?)
But in all seriousness, what we cannot ignore when we look to operating our businesses is that we all have influence. Whether our work reaches 10 people or 10 million, what we do matters. It’s imperative that we recognize this and subsequently examine all the ways in which we can adjust our actions so that they more clearly align with our purpose and our intentions.
From a marketing perspective, take a look at the things you are creating and putting out into the world and ask these questions:
Who is this for?
Who am I not considering?
How do I want to shift (if at all) to be more inclusive?
Do I feel resolute in my decisions for who this is and is not for?
Instead of a more traditional one-way conversation as my marketing strategy, how can I create more of a dialogue?
When I look at my overall marketing strategy, is it in support of my values that I espouse?
How might I be perpetuating capitalistic ideals that seek to disassociate and oppress?
Ultimately, why am I creating this?
What impact does my work have on the planet?
What impact does my business have on the people who support me, including my contractors, customers, and those in my supply chain?
How can my work align more completely with my values and the influence I want to have in the world?
How might this look in practice? It could mean allowing folx to opt-out of promotional emails, adjusting your language to be more inclusive, building a philanthropic arm into your business, being conscious of and doing appropriate due diligence regarding where and how you source your supplies, etc.
The key to Responsible Power is the recognition that what we do has an impact. And when we make conscious decisions, ones that we feel equipped to fully stand behind, that is how we begin to build a brand, business, and influence that is purposefully aligned.
Embracing this sense of Responsible Power requires us to directly combat the status quo we’ve inherited from capitalism and dream up a whole new way of working and existing. To me, that’s the beauty of it. We can start fresh and actively build the world we wish to see.
And of course, the shadow side of that can be the overwhelm that often comes hand-in-hand with a blank slate. So I encourage you to take it slow. There will be moments in which we miss the mark, and that’s when we have the opportunity to make repair. Those mistakes or failures can be a proper blow to the ego, yet when we can take them to be the learning opportunities that they are, we have the chance to strengthen connections and make lasting change.
Responsible Power can be infused into every part of your business, and it can be helpful to see this as an ongoing practice and process rather than a massive one-and-done project. It’s something to be conscious of as you grow your business and make decisions, moving forward.
Your business—and your life—will have an effect on the world whether you’re aware of it or not, and Responsible Power is about creating systems to remain conscious of and in integrity with those effects. It’s about asking yourself the right questions so you align your business systems with your truest values.
Let it become part of your process as you nurture your business into something that beautifully enacts the change and impact you wish to have in the world.
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Photo credit: Creating Light Studio