Upcycled Love

A conscious business is one that follows your unique approach to life and work. It serves to create a better world in some way, whether that’s through a big vision or a small service.

It differs from the conventional sense of business in that it is imbued with conscious values and rests on your purpose and vision. It can serve as a vehicle for carrying out your life purpose, or it can be of service to a collective vision.

There is also an evolutionary aspect to conscious businesses, adapting along with the collective digital ecosystem.

The core elements of a conscious business form the foundation: the heart, mind, and soul. The foundation provides a framework for operating your business always with integrity and love, which naturally creates and grows a community of people who resonate on that level. This type of community is more likely to stick around and continue to work with you, building sustainable relationships and returning clients.

It is also designed to take care of your personal needs for holistic health. Feel free to have fun and take time off – this is important in fueling your creativity and inspiration.

Even if your business is focused on selling a physical product, you can create a more cohesive community by expressing your vision, values, and purpose.

What are these core elements?

1. Vision + Purpose

A business with a clear vision and purpose is less likely to fall for someone else’s vision and purpose. It is more likely to withstand fleeting trends and ephemeral desires. Instead, it caters to a heartfelt purpose that is timeless and is shared on a deep level by many people.

Your ultimate life vision is your own organic evolutionary creation. What it looks like today may differ in a year or even as quickly as a few months. Your business vision may differ from your life vision, but ultimately your business serves to support your life vision in making it a reality.

Your life purpose may also differ from your business purpose, but ultimately they should be mutually supportive and enriching. Your business should not take away from your life purpose.

Having a clear vision and purpose allows you to transcend the everyday ups and downs of conventional businesses, because you are focused on a more long-term goal, so it is more important for you to build a community that resonates with your vision and purpose than chase down the highest traffic numbers. Quality over quantity.

2. Empowered Mindset

Mindset is incredibly important as an entrepreneur. You may frequently succumb to fears of unworthiness, inadequacy, or outright failure. As a conscious entrepreneur, you are really baring your heart and soul through your business. It’s a vulnerable place to be, so it’s important to have a daily practice of empowerment. Practices like radical self-love, mindfulness, affirmations, and a support network are all tools for boosting your sense of empowerment and confidence.

If the conventional business person is salesy, arrogant, aggressive, and without concern for people or planet, then you who are concerned with our collective well-being deserve to be promoted and heard.

3. Core Beliefs & Values

Are you clear on your core beliefs and values? If you aren’t, you may be following someone else’s core beliefs and values. In situations where you find confusion or personal dissonance, take some time to contemplate the source of that dissonance – did you speak and act from your inner truth? Did you agree with something you don’t really agree with inside? Practicing continual self-reflection and mindfulness of your words and actions will help you see your beliefs and values more clearly.

It can be challenging to connect your core beliefs and values with your actions and behaviors. But if you’ve acted out of alignment, you’ll feel that dissonance inside. This is a signal to look within and understand the source of that tension.

4. Transformational Product or Service

A conscious business purposefully enhances our collective well-being, whether that’s through an eco-friendly product or a heartfelt, empowering service. What you sell must benefit the greater good in some way. It may be small, it may be indirect, but it cannot be solely for profit, and it cannot be destructive or harmful to living systems: people or planet.

I believe that each of us, by the simple fact of being alive, deserve to enjoy the comforts of life. Perhaps there’s an ecological limit to the convenience of our lifestyles, but aside from that, there are no limits.

You deserve to be paid well for doing transformational work. That’s a fact in my book.

5. Commitment

Truly committing to your vision is also committing to your life’s purpose. This deep level of commitment can seem intimidating, but it is simply a reminder to continually walk your own path. There will be times that you feel out of alignment with your core, and that is okay. The important thing is to bring awareness to this discord and continually move in the direction of true alignment.

With this framework in place, you can analyze whether or not your business and marketing practices aligns with these elements. All of these can evolve over time, but they provide a foundation to work from.

They also allow you to differentiate yourself from the noise. Because you are grounded in your vision and values, you place yourself in an entirely different world than those who embrace conventional business and marketing practices, which are mostly focused on strategy and traffic generation rather than self-sufficiency and true transformation.

When the conventional business model feels constricting, you may want to find one that’s more custom fit for you. If you choose this path, then you can expect to do a lot of soul-searching and soul-digging to uncover the real truths within.

Conscious business is often tied to spiritual growth because the pursuit of alignment will require you to be perpetually self-reflective, self-aware, highly adaptive, non-judgmental, compassionate, deeply committed and yet totally detached, and truly confident in yourself and your work. Additionally, a strong connection to Spirit is an incredible source of personal power.

These are the basic elements I work through in my coaching. I also talk about applying Permaculture Principles and an Ecosystem approach to business, which is powerful because it aligns you with the forces of nature. The Internet is a human ecosystem in itself, so it will somewhat follow the rules of ecological succession. This is a good perspective to see where your business role lies dependent on the market (community ecology).