Why humans need true community, what it actually is and how to create it - Tad Hargrave

This week's show is with Tad Hargrave. Tad is a hippy who developed a knack for marketing (and then learned how to be a hippy again).

Despite years in the non-profit and activist world, he finally had to admit he was a marketing nerd and, in the end, he became a marketing coach for hippies. Maybe it was because he couldn’t stand seeing his hippy friends struggle to promote their amazing, green and holistic projects. Maybe it was because he couldn’t keep a 9-5 job to save his life.

Whatever the reason, for almost a decade, he has been touring his marketing workshops around Canada, bringing refreshing and unorthodox ideas to conscious entrepreneurs and green businesses that help them grow their organizations and businesses (without selling their souls).  He has also offered most of his workshops on a modified pay what you can basis (a small deposit to attend and then people choose the amount they want to pay at the very end).

This all feels like a minor miracle as Tad spent his early marketing days learning and applying some very inauthentic, high pressure, extremely gross and pushy marketing approaches. This has made him suuuuper allergic to these kinds of approaches because he discovered they made him feel slimy (even in personal friendships), he didn’t sleep well and he’s very sorry to all those people he spoke with back in the day. After a decade of unlearning and unpacking that whole scene – he now feels ready and able to help other people find ways to market that feel wonderful.

In this show, we spoke about community - true community and online communities, and the stark contrast between them, how we can go about creating them consciously, and then how this might link to us creating community with our business, and in the particular form of memberships. This turned out to be a deep and luscious conversation - and actually a really important one for our time.

I’d love to know what YOU think about this week's show. Let’s carry on the conversation… please leave a comment below.

What you'll learn from this episode:

• We have a surplus of humans around us, and yet, we're lonelier than ever... true community needs to include the local land, other beings and Spirit
• Online community can't replace true community, but what if we can create it consciously as a path back to creating true community?
• Whether you're a business owner or not, notice where you're putting your time and why, and whether there's a way of spending that time that's more aligned, especially when it comes to you living a whole life held in true community

Resources and stuff that we spoke about:

• https://marketingforhippies.com/

Thank you for listening!

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Thank you!
Lian & Jonathan