Regenerative Business Podcast Series Ep 1
Episode 1
Why take a regenerative approach to your online business
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EPISODE SUMMARY
Welcome to the Beyond Business Summer Podcast Series! In this first episode, we challenge the traditional, profit-focussed approache to online business, often rooted in outdated industrial-era mindsets. We explore how these linear models, which prioritise efficiency and profit at the expense of people and the planet, have become internalised in many of the ways of working we see today.
Drawing inspiration from nature, we look at a regenerative business framework that is cyclical and purpose-driven, akin to the self-sustaining nature of a forest ecosystem. This approach fosters collaboration, sustainability, and genuine connection, benefiting not just individuals but entire communities and the environment.
Join me every Friday over the Summer for fresh insights and resources to transform the way we approach online business by putting values and sustainability at the core of what we do and how we do it.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
00:02 - Debbie (Host)
Hello and a very warm welcome to the Beyond Business Summer Podcast Series here. Over the course of six main episodes, we'll be challenging the mainstream approach to building a business online and instead creating a regenerative framework inspired by nature that takes your online business from sporadic action to sustainable results. If you would like to use the starter kit that goes along with the series, then head over to www.debbielee.co.uk/starter-kit and download your copy now. That way, you can work along with the episodes week by week and, at the end, have a one-page framework that gives your business the springboard that you need to take action in a way that feels good and gets results. Hello, welcome to episode one in the series.
01:02
Today we're kicking off by looking at why we should even consider taking a regenerative approach to online business, and I want to start by setting a little bit of context as to how this all evolved for me. What I began to understand from what I was reading and what I was saying myself in my own experience is that many of the mainstream business practices that we see all around us today are founded on using time, energy and physical or material resources to maximise profit for large corporations. Profit for large corporations. So many of these have their roots or their foundations back in the industrial era, where there was this very much extract make waste mentality, and what it means is that these ways of working I guess they don't really hold any regard for the well-being of the people that they rely on within the workforce or the planet that they rely on, and that's why we see such degradation, I would say, of the earth's resources these days at a really large and really rapid and like quite shocking and worrying scale. So, like I said, these approaches, they take, I would say, a linear approach. We can think of it as a straight line that goes from A to B, if you like, where either physical resources, if you're making a product, or the resources of people, so people's time, energy, attention, skills, passion, all of those things are the input and they're used to make something, so to create a product or a service that is then sold, and this thing then generates profit. So profit you can think of as the output. And so, when we're using this linear model, profit and any efficiencies that can be employed to maximise profit become the key areas of focus and, most notably, the measure of success. And there are some industries, if we look around us where this way of working is really like super apparent. So the car manufacturing industries or the tech industries have both really spearheaded this approach, and that's where many of the lean startup and agile working approaches that we see today originate from. So they're sort of like the next evolution, if you like, of this, this way of working.
03:57
But I would say that even on the online world, and even when we take it back to us as solopreneurs, maybe it's not immediately apparent how those ways of working apply to us, because often many of us have purposely chosen, or intentionally chosen, to step outside of large corporations or particular industries, for example, but what I see is that we have, even if we're not directly implementing those ways of working. We've internalised a lot of the mindset behind these approaches, which is why then, we see things like sales funnels that replace authentic connection and human to human conversations, or we see this six figure dream heralded above the impact that your business is actually having on the people that you want to help, like these. Yeah, it's still. Profit becomes a measure of success for us, even if the ethos or the values by which we run our business is something quite different, and so, for me, this is where a regenerative approach comes in that both those external narratives and also those internal narratives within us, that sort of demand, if you like, that we are always putting in more, more effort, more time, more attention in order to see results, because it's not good for us and our own personal well-being and our own sustainability, and it's not good for the planet and it's also not great for the people that we work with either. So, instead of running your business as a funnel that maximizes profit, if you like, this regenerative way of working takes a more cyclical approach and puts your purpose and your values really at the centre of everything that you do, and in this way, it takes your business from being a single entity if you like that is, a standalone thing in competition with everyone around you alone thing in competition with everyone around you to being part of a wider ecosystem where everyone thrives and build these two-way connections with everyone around them.
06:37
And I like to think of a forest as a really good analogy for this, where, when you think of a forest, there's so many different parts to it. There's the trees, there's the soil, there's the shrubs, there's the animals, there's the rain and that goes into it. There's the sunlight, so there's all these different component parts, but each one of those has its role and all of those things work together to add up to something much bigger and there's very much a reciprocal relationship there. Where the leaves fall off the trees, they can be decomposed to make soil. While they're doing that, they create homes for the wildlife and then the nutrient-rich soil creates I don't new life springs from there, like a mushroom, for example, and the tree scatters its seeds and over time a new tree will grow and so in that way, the, the forest becomes self-sustaining, if you like.
07:42
And I like to think that within business we can all operate in this way, where we can have that real interconnectedness and community feel to it, and while we're all taking different roles and have different parts to play, all of those roles are very complementary to one another. So that's maybe like a little bit arm-wavy for some of you who are listening. So maybe, if I put it into slightly more practical terms, I think that what this approach does, is it like I said, it takes you away from that competitive mindset and brings a more collaborative approach. So instead of having to feel like you need to shout the loudest and force yourself to put on this big personality in order to be heard or in order to be noticed in this very crowded space of running an online business. It gives you a different way to root deeper into yourself, I would say, to get to know yourself better and really use this inside out approach to business so that your nervous system is really on board with everything that you do, and this is because you're taking a slower and steadier approach to progress, in a way that feels good and allows these small actions to add up into something much bigger.
09:29
And maybe what this looks like is instead of this traditional model of putting in lots of like, big bursts of activity and followed by then doing nothing at all. I know that what I see happen so often is we I myself put in a lot of effort and time and attention into these big grand plans, but then it feels really it feels big, and at the end of it then I feel so depleted that there is this period then of having to like, do nothing. My nervous system is a bit shot, if you like, whereas instead, if we're able to take a smaller version of that and integrate what we learn and then try the same thing over again, using a slightly different approach. This way it adds up to something much bigger and I also like to think it adds up to a better quality output at the end. So if this sounds like an approach that you would like to find out more of, then this is episode one of a six-part series all about regenerative business, and the subsequent episodes are going to take you through a framework style approach so that at the end you will have a one page regenerative framework that gives your business a bit of a springboard to take action in a way that feels good and get results that feel really good for you.
11:05
There'll be a new episode released every Friday, so if you would like to be kept in the loop, then follow the links in the show notes to sign up to my newsletter, or follow me on Instagram at beyondbusinesscollective. Or if you would like to use the starter kit that is a bit of a workbook if you like that goes along with the series, then head over to www.debbielee.co.uk/starter-kit