Why genuine human marketing is the most powerful right now - Tad Hargrave
Episode 541, released 27th March 2026.
Marketing consultant and ethical business educator Tad Hargrave returns to examine how the world's chaos, social media fatigue, and AI proliferation are changing what ethical marketing actually requires of small business owners right now.
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Or if you prefer to read: Scroll right down for the transcript
Tad is a hippy who developed a knack for marketing (and then learned how to be a hippy again).
Since 2001, he’s been weaving together strands of ethical marketing, Waldorf School education, a history in the performing arts, local culture work, anti-globalization activism, an interest in his ancestral, traditional cultures, community building and supporting local economies into this work of helping people create profitable businesses that are ethically grown while restoring the beauty of the marketplace.
Tad did improv comedy semi-professionally for 25 years, co-ran Edmonton’s progressive community building network TheLocalGood.ca, founded streetcarshows.com and the Jams program of yesworld.org. He speaks Scottish Gaelic and helped to launch and co-facilitate the Nova Scotia Gaels Jam.
He is from Edmonton, Alberta (traditionally known, in the language of the Cree, as Amiskwaciy [Beaver Hill] and later Amiskwaciwaskihegan [Beaver Hill House]) and currently lives in Duncan, BC (Quw’utsun territory).
In this episode, Lian and Tad explore the questions their clients and students keep bringing lately: how (and if) to market when the world feels like it's unravelling, when social media has lost its pull, and when the proliferation of AI is changing.
They begin with the question many of us are pondering: is it even okay to be marketing when the world is on fire? They move through Joanna Macy's three types of transformative work, the way social media can function as a place to hide rather than a place to connect, and what it costs when we throw our thoughts into AI to articulate things we haven't yet wrestled into words ourselves.
From there, the conversation opens into the growing appetite for something genuinely human, something written by an actual person, something that only happens in a room with other bodies present, and what that might mean for how we show up, market, and serve.
Listen if you're feeling uncomfortable marketing your work while the world is doing what it's doing, struggling with your social media when it’s not being seen, or the AI question has become one you can't keep putting off.
We’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:
Why knowing which lane your work actually belongs in changes how you think about marketing during difficult times
How AI can erode the very capacities that make our voices worth listening to in the first place
What happens when we stop trying to beat the algorithm and commit instead to being unmistakably, specifically human
Resources and stuff spoken about:
Find out more about Membership for Marketing for Hippies
See Tad’s Upcoming Events
Register your interest for the upcoming Wild Sovereign Soul journey here.
Join UNIO, The Community for Wild Sovereign Souls:This is for the old souls in this new world… Discover your kin & unite with your soul’s calling to truly live your myth.
Don’t want to miss a thing?
Subscribe (BTW, it’s absolutely FREE) to the show on your favourite platform or app by clicking the relevant button below… That way you’ll receive each episode automagically straight to your device as soon as it’s released!
Thank you!
Lian & Jonathan
Episode Transcript:
Please note: We are a small team and not able to check through the transcript our software provides. So you may find some words are out of place and a few sentences don’t make complete sense. If you do see something utterly ridiculous we’d love you to let us know so we can correct it. Please email any howlers with the time stamp to team@bemythical.com.
Lian (00:00)
Could the growing unease so many of us feel about marketing today be less a problem to solve and more a signal to listen to? Hello, my beautiful soul seekers.
This week, I'm joined once again by marketing consultant and ethical business educator, Tad Hargrave, to explore how the world's current chaos, social media fatigue and AI proliferation are changing what ethical marketing is actually asking of us small business owners right now. Tad has spent over two decades helping coaches, practitioners and change makers grow profitable businesses without coercion or manipulation, weaving together ethical marketing, community building, anti-globalisation activism, and a deep interest in ancestral and traditional cultures.
We explore the questions our clients and students keep bringing to us lately, how and even whether to market when the world feels like it's unraveling, when social media has lost its pull and when AI is so quickly changing the landscape beneath our feet. So listen, if you're feeling uncomfortable marketing your work while the world is doing what it's doing, struggling with social media that just doesn't seem to be being seen, or the AI question has become one you can't keep putting off. But first, if you've just arrived here, welcome. If you've come back, welcome home. And if you keep finding yourself here without subscribing, your soul clearly knows what it's doing. Honour that call and go ahead and subscribe. It's challenging to live in this crazy modern world. Wild sovereign soul is what we know will help. And so if you're struggling with the challenges of walking your soul path, and your heart longs for guidance, kinship and support, come join us in Unio, the community for soul seekers. Unio is the living home for the wild, sovereign soul path where together we reclaim our wildness, actualise our sovereignty and awaken our souls. You can discover more and join us by hopping over to
BeMythical.com/unio or click the link in the description.
And if you're called to go even deeper on your wild, sovereign soul path, come join us for the upcoming Wild Sovereign Soul Journey. It's a three month immersive, initiatory course into becoming a Wild Sovereign Soul. Register your interest and there's not very much about that at the page at the moment, but we'll be updating it soon. And that's at BeMythical.com/wss And now back to this week's episode. Let's dive in.
Lian (02:46)
Hello Tad, welcome back for the 6,000th time I think roughly. We've done this a few times.
Tad Hargrave (02:53)
Ha ha ha.
Lian (02:59)
And this, we're actually returning to our roots because I'm sure I don't actually remember the first time we spoke, but the first time we spoke probably was about marketing. And as we were saying earlier, I think we've spoken about everything other than marketing in our last few conversations. So we're now going to talk about marketing once more. But marketing in, ⁓ it sounds like a cliche, but it's like, I would say quite a different landscape, from whenever it was that we did first talk about marketing and things have changed that I've certainly noticed personally affects how I think about marketing, how I experience marketing, both our own marketing and then other people's marketing. I was saying to you, you the way that we now have AI and that changes how people market.
I read a post this week, I don't know how accurate this is, you may know, I don't know, but it certainly rang true how apparently people are coming off social media in huge numbers. ⁓ And so there's that. There's also, of course, all of the crazy stuff that's going on in the world at large. And so we'd actually planned to talk about something completely different. was like, actually, if you're up for it, let's talk about ethical marketing in all of that context and what that's asking for us, from us, that's different to perhaps when we spoke about it, whenever it was, let's just say five years ago. What's changed? What does that ask of us? What have you noticed? What are the questions that you are contemplating? So just, there's no pressure, just answer all of that please.
Tad Hargrave (04:48)
Yeah.
Well, I'm curious what you're seeing that has prompted this because I mean, you've listed a few things, but I'm curious how you're seeing that relate to business. What do you what are you noticing in the landscape that has you want to talk about this?
Lian (05:10)
So what was occurring to me is how this is showing up for our students and clients. And my sense is we share quite similar audiences. Like many of our people are coaches, practitioners, people of that kind who need to market and are wrestling with things like, should they use AI?
or not. And then there's particular aspects of that where, for example, people who are dyslexic and have that always been a real challenge for them to be able to put themselves, put their message in writing, all of a sudden they've got this tool that can do that for them. Should they use that? Should they not? And then there's that, that sense of even if people aren't leaving social media, where that has always been this really great outlet to connect with people, to share our message. I think there is a sense, and I do feel this personally, but again, I'm having this reflected back by our clients and students where there is a sense of kind of jadedness or fatigue where it's just like, my gosh, how many more years can I keep putting my message out there? I'm bored of seeing other people putting their message on Facebook.
That I definitely feel. I've just noticed my own appetite. I use social media so much less than I ever did. And I remember once maybe again, like five years ago or so, it just felt really natural place for me to share myself, to put myself in writing and share that on Facebook felt so organic, so natural.
It doesn't feel that way in the same way as it used to. And then of course, there's many people, I don't feel this perhaps personally as much, but I know that people will be saying, know, whilst this is going on and it could be what's going on in say Iran at the moment, or what was going on America last week, the month before that, you know, is it okay for me to be marketing my next course when that kind of horror is happening on the other side of the world?
So that's what I'm noticing. And again, I have our clients and students bringing those kinds of questions to me. And so these are things I am absolutely journeying with both personally and as a guide and teacher of others.
Tad Hargrave (07:50)
Yeah, we have was certainly that's very familiar to my people to. Well, let's start with this first question. You know, is it okay to market given the horrors of the world? That said, as if the horrors of the world are somehow new, you know, the what's happening is never before seen. And I think that's worth questioning. I mean,
Lian (08:12)
Hmm.
Tad Hargrave (08:15)
What happened in Palestine and continues to happen there is horrendous, horrific. It's not the first time there's been a genocide in the world, you know, during our lives, during the last few years. There's all sorts of other things happening in the world and they don't get as much press. But so this notion that or what's happening in Iran.
I mean, let's just rewind 25 years to the Gulf War and the bombing of Iraq and the taking out Gaddafi because he wanted to, you know, get his country off the gold standard. And it's always the same thing. And we got to do it for their freedom. And when they're doing it for the oil and, you know, various other geopolitical reasons. that's the first thing to say. It's worth questioning that it's suddenly somehow so profoundly different in the world. Rewind back to the Vietnam War. How about the, you know, there's the Cold War and how about World War II and how about World War I and how about the 30 years war and the hundred year war and the, yeah, so this has been with us for a long time. And yeah, there's moments of peace and quiet, but sometimes for some of us, you know, now in the States, there's the ice thing.
But my friend Ava Morales had 27 members of her family disappeared in Guatemala, you know, 40 years ago. So sometimes I think we think it's new because it's here. It's...
Lian (09:52)
Yes, we're experiencing it and yeah, so it feels as though it's only happening now because I'm feeling it now.
Tad Hargrave (10:01)
Yeah, whereas it's been happening and happening in our name, you know, often, you know, as Canada or the United States or Britain, you know, have had their fingers in all sorts of darkness. That's been inflicted elsewhere, and often hidden, you know, only discovered by journalists who work very, very hard to figure out what's going on, which is often denied. so that's that's number one.
And so then there's a question of, okay, yeah, what is the response? And there's going to be multiple responses. I Joanna Macy talks about it as there's three levels of what she calls the either the great turning or the great unraveling. And you know, that'll have to be up to everyone to figure out which one we're in right now. But the three types of work she talks about are there's
the what she calls the holding actions where you're trying to hold the juggernaut back. You're trying to slow it down. You know you won't stop it, but these are the mass protests. These are the, you know, letters to the editor. This is the lockdowns, the tree sits, the mass civil disobedience. And then there's the second part, which are the alternatives. So this is permaculture. This could be a lot of holistic medicine. This is how do we meet our human needs?
in a more sustainable way, in a better way. And number three is the shifting consciousness. So that's the work of let's say deep ecology that could be the work of any of this personal transformational work, deep mythical work. know, a lot of it is about reorienting the mind, decolonizing at least certain branches of it very much about, you know, shifting consciousness.
So the first one is in a troubled time, it's good to figure out what lane you're in and not to imagine that's the only lane. Cause this is one of the troubles that happens is, know, the people doing the holding actions feel like, where are you? We're on the streets with the people. are you? We're doing the real work of trying to stop the violence. What are you doing? And then the people, know, doing the alternatives are saying, well, great. You're doing your poorly organized Aaronikis protest, but we're actually growing food for people.
Lian (11:58)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Tad Hargrave (12:19)
We're actually doing this permaculture work and providing for people's real needs and that people are doing shifting consciousness. Well, you two are so naive because unless we shift the consciousness, this is all coming from, so that all three of those are needed. And there's more besides, but just to oversimplify it a bit, they're all needed and they're all intersecting. And for the most part, we have one lane that we primarily fit into. Sometimes it's all three.
Lian (12:19)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Tad Hargrave (12:48)
But my work, at least at the moment, is not holding actions, though I've done that. You know, was a part of the anti-globalization protests and, you know, doing that. And people here, you know, who in Ferry Creek trying to protect it from being logged locally, old growth forest. There's that. So, you know, my work is probably more on the some mix, I guess, of the alternatives and shift in consciousness.
Lian (13:15)
Same.
Tad Hargrave (13:16)
Yeah.
And so it's good to know that because it's very easy to think, if I'm not doing the holding actions, I'm not doing anything legit. But most of our work, if we, if we dig into it is working to shift things, it's we're on the same team. We're just playing a different role on that team. You know, if you're doing holistic healing work and moving people, away from a reliance on modern med tech. That is, you could make the case, the kind of activism because less money is being spent on big pharma. People are feeling more empowered in their lives. They're healthier, they're living longer, they're clearer, they're stronger. I mean, we need the healers out there because a lot of activists burn out. A lot of people doing the holding actions desperately need that kind of help.
Lian (14:05)
Mm.
Tad Hargrave (14:13)
And then there's this question of.
Okay, well, in theory, that's good, but you could also just be making all your money selling stuff to rich people. I mean, that has a role too. That's got an important role in terms of, you know, if people with wealth can be, go through their own healing journey, then that's good. And no guarantee that that will change much. You know, because it should be said this is also part of the modern dynamic. saw a comedian, he was talking about, you know, this, everybody's microdosing now on...
Lian (14:37)
Mm-hmm.
Tad Hargrave (14:48)
psilocybin. And the pitch is this will make you more effective at work. It's like, you're supposed to do enough shrooms that your mind melts down and you go into the forest and you see God. But now it's make you more effective at your work, make you more focused when I don't think any traditional people would have seen their plant medicine as yeah, this and the standing desk and you're gonna be sailing. mean, so.
Lian (14:56)
Hehehehehe
Make me a warfighter.
Tad Hargrave (15:17)
Yeah, so then there's questions of accessibility and who are you trying to reach? And I would encourage everybody to think about, yeah, could I be, who are the people who are on the front lines? Who are the people who are really doing the hard work? And can I support them? What can I do to help them keep standing? And this is, yeah, if there's local activists, know, local people who are really taking on some of the issues and taking some of the arrows publicly.
You could offer help to them. You could support them in that way. Or if your business is doing pretty good and you've got some money, you could throw some money their way. So there's a case to make for doing well right now. Because if you are, then one of the things you can do is support people. One of the things you could do is you could pick even one person you see as a changemaker who's doing something that inherently is never going to make much money. Because when you fight the machine, you don't
Lian (15:48)
Hmm.
Tad Hargrave (16:16)
You don't make money. You make money in this system by facilitating the flow of resources towards the, you know, top of the pyramid. That's how you make money in this system. The big money. The big money is that's, you know, and if you thwart the flow of resources to the top of the pyramid, you're punished. And if you're really effective at thwarting the flow of resources, they'll kill you. So there are people who are doing that, who are thwarting that, the centralization of power, and those people can be
Lian (16:24)
Hmm.
Tad Hargrave (16:45)
support it. You know, I do my live workshops always on a pay-what-you-can basis. So people pay a deposit and then whatever they want to pay is a way of keeping it accessible. So you know that type of thing is an option. Mark Silver, my colleague, has got his online membership is a pay from the heart. So people decide what they want to pay and can pay and they which is beautiful. So
Lian (17:08)
Lovely way to put it as well, paper in the heart, haven't heard it put that way before.
Tad Hargrave (17:13)
Yeah, so there's a lot of options of what we can be doing. But it's also, this is a chance to dig deeper to say, okay, how is my work relevant to what's happening in the world? Can I make a connection between what I'm doing and what's happening in the world? Because sometimes maybe it isn't there, and then you got to rethink. But my guess is if you dig deep enough and say, okay, why am I doing this? How does this relate?
Lian (17:25)
Hmm.
Tad Hargrave (17:42)
How does this support a more harmonious world? You the world that you envision. Yeah, how does this work contribute? And then we can start talking about that and articulating that more. mean, more and more in my work, I've been talking about this culture of coercion that we grow up in and we're so steeped in, because I see that that is just everywhere. And...
that feels like a part of it. And this is the other important thing to say, right? There's let's say three different types of work, but there's also a lot of different, there's a lot of...
There's a lot of issues in the world. And I think what happens, and this is part of the trouble with social media, is you get the issue of the moment. I mean, we can just rewind the last five years. There were the lockdowns, you know, and whatever side you were on on that, that was the issue at the moment. And then it's Black Lives Matter. And then it's Ukraine. And then it's, you know, Trump. And then it's...
Lian (18:32)
Mmm.
Tad Hargrave (18:51)
that, that, and And yet there's other issues. I remember when Black Lives Matter happened, I had a call with some of my clients, well, because independently, they were all reaching out to me with exactly these questions. Given what's happening now, how can I be marketing my business? And they were almost all white women, which is sort of the demographic for this scene, middle-aged white women. they were all, some of them were saying, maybe I should only, I should be having more.
Lian (19:27)
Mmm.
Tad Hargrave (19:41)
clients of colour. Maybe I shouldn't work with any clients of colour. Maybe I should be directing them to coaches of colour. Maybe, you know, and I could just see the meltdown that was happening. And so we had a call and I said, look, this is an issue, the issue of race and whiteness and all this is important to me. I created a whole blog, healing from whiteness.blogspot.com about this. wrote enough letters in a series called Dear White Men, which could have become a book. I got approached by a publisher, but didn't want to go that route.
It's a big issue for me. And I said, I know this is big right now. And of course, because there's a very inflamed situation in the States. And this is the other thing, of course, is people in the States tend to think that whatever is happening in the States is the dominant, it should be the dominant issue in every country. And there's a kind of arrogance that comes from the activism of the US that the rest of the world should see things the same.
Lian (20:34)
Hmm.
Tad Hargrave (20:41)
because it's happening there. But of course in that country for them it is, but that doesn't mean globally it necessarily is. But I said, look, this issue is important. And if you feel in your heart called to do something about this, I mean, by all means do it. And while that's happening, I mean, before the current horrors of Palestine, that was happening. that was absolutely had been happening since 1948. That's been happening there.
Lian (21:05)
Mmm.
Tad Hargrave (21:11)
And then there's the desecration of the oceans. There's the deforesting happening. There are indigenous tribes being wiped out right now. Language is vanishing from the face of the planet. There are homeless people in various cities. There is poverty. There's all the women's issues.
The stuff that got pointed to in Me Too didn't vanish. What about the child trafficking, you know, has come out with the Epstein thing, which is new to some people, but not new to everybody. It's a huge shock for some people, and it's utterly not a shock for people who've been tracking this stuff. So there's so many issues in the world, and you will absolutely break yourself and burn yourself out if you try to do all of them.
Lian (21:53)
Mm-hmm.
Tad Hargrave (22:09)
You know, one of your country women, Corina Gordon Barnes, she used to be a marketing consultant. She had a meditation that I was so beautiful where she invited people to imagine that.
They were a guardian angel of a certain group of people in the world. And you can imagine yourself on a cloud and you're looking down your people who you wanna take care of. But now your people, that's not everybody. There's lots of other people. And you start to realise, wait, I'm not taking care of all the rest of the people. I got a thousand people here I'm taking care of. There's billions in the world. So who's taking care of them? then you start to look around you and you see, there's all these other guardian angels sitting there on the clouds looking down and they've got their people. So I think there has to be a willingness to trust that there are other people doing their job and their business to take care of other people and other communities. And so to figure out who are our people, what is our work in this world? And this comes back to a lot of what we've talked about in the past of, your wounds, your gifts, you know, your nature, that your life.
Lian (22:58)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Tad Hargrave (23:20)
has set you up and prepared you to do a particular kind of work for a particular group of people and that you were born at this time, in this moment, in the place you're in, maybe for a reason. And it's not universal. It's not, you know, this is the other side of niching. Niching from a marketplace standpoint, it just works better, not trying to be everything to everybody. But also from an activism standpoint, you know, And this happened during Black Lives Matter. There were a lot of very well-meaning white people, myself one of them, I'm sure, who wanted to be helpful and so wanted to speak out about it, but spoke out in ways that made the situation worse, that added insult to injury, that were naive, that were misleading, that were, you know, and who made...
Lian (24:07)
Hmm.
Tad Hargrave (24:16)
may have had another issue they could have focused on that actually would have made the world better because they knew more about that terrain. They had more skill capacity in it. They could speak to it with some clarity and authority. But if we're chasing the what's the issue of the day, partly so we look good, partly because we don't want to be canceled. I know plenty of people who are very political, very radical. and they post almost nothing politically on social media because they do the work in their community. Because they know if they start posting it online, it becomes a distraction because now people attack them and they got to defend themselves or feel like they have to. And it can actually take away. Now, you might feel called to speak about these things on social media and you enjoy engaging in those conversations and you found that helpful and you've seen some minds change and you have a skill in it, then great. figuring out what is the work that...
Lian (24:47)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Tad Hargrave (25:13)
that's here for us to do.
And, you know, who are we here to help? What are we here to do? How are we here to do it? What is this thing that we can contribute best to? To me, that's where to go. Because if you're a, I remember, so case in point, it's around 2000. It's the anti-globalization protests. The elite have gone now from denying that the World Trade Organization exists, which they did. They tried to pretend there was no such thing until the battle in Seattle. They shut down the meetings. Anyways, all the press over it. And then there was the protests in Washington, DC against the IMF and the World Bank and protests all around the world. And I went to the… just off White Ave and Edmonton, at Gazebo. And that's where the march was going to start. We were going to go across the high level bridge to the Ezio-Ferron Park. And there were a couple of women in university age who were leading the chants. Poorly, I'll just say it. It wasn't good. They didn't have a particular skill. They seemed very awkward and kind of in pain about the whole, like, and I went up and I knew them. They were friends of mine. I went up and I was like,
Lian (26:27)
You
Tad Hargrave (26:36)
and say, hey, do you want some help with that? And they took the book and they're like, yes. They handed it to me and I let it and I did well, you know, it was very easy for me. And I let it all the way down. And when we got there, we talked, they looked at me and they said, you know, we're just soil scientists. Like we just want to be in the fields working with soil and doing that work. And we're doing this because it's cool and everybody's doing it. We want to be a part of it. But that wasn't the best role for them.
Lian (26:41)
you
Mmm, bless them.
Tad Hargrave (27:06)
Yeah. Yeah, and bless them for trying, you know, but the similarly I might say, wait, I see a documentary, the soil. I'm out there working with soil being like, I'd rather be with people. I'd rather be, you know, in front of a crowd doing this. Because that's more my skill set that comes more naturally to me. Like some people are naturally at ease in front of a group of people. So those are the people you want in front.
Lian (27:15)
Hehehehe.
Hmm.
Tad Hargrave (27:33)
But there's an insane thing of like, no, but everybody's got to do everything and we got to make everything so equal as if we all have the same gifts and the same skills. And I've seen this and it, so then it's like, no, everybody has to be at the front of the room. Why? Hey, do they want to be at the front of the room? Are they good at it? Do you care about the quality of the event that you have? I mean, if they want to learn to be good at the front of the room, okay. Well, then let's do some mentorship and like figure out how you can do that.
Lian (27:41)
Hmm
Yeah.
Tad Hargrave (28:03)
But sometimes people, I think, get corralled or feel pressured or, well, that's what I should be doing because that's the real work. I should be protesting because that's the real thing. Or I should be doing permaculture because that's the real thing. Or I should be doing the consciousness stuff because that's where it's really at. Or working on this issue or that issue. But it's much better, I think, to just, where can you contribute best and throw down there?
Lian (28:12)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, gosh, there's this part of me is like, we should have just done the entire episode on this, because that's kind of what's happening, but we shall see, we may get a chance to touch on the other two aspects I've mentioned at the beginning. But there's so much in what you've just shared, I was feeling there's this… kind of well-meaning grandiosity that can take over us where we do feel that we should be the answer to all things that are going on in the world. There were a couple of things that came to mind as you were talking. One was back during the whole Black Lives Matter thing, I was talking to Sara that's in our team who's mixed race. And we were talking about all of these things that are going on. And I can't remember the exact question I asked her, but it might have been something like, I think we may have been talking about doing an episode on this. And I think as part of this, we were talking, you know, what questions could white people be asking themselves? And she said something that really stuck with me. It surprised me when she said it and it's really simple. So don't expect this to be amazing, but it kind of is in its own right. She said something like, Imagine you were holding a garden party, very quintessentially British thing. Imagine you're holding a garden party next month. Who would be there? Would there be people of colour there? And it took me, there was part of me that almost wanted to say, like, why are you asking that? And as it happens, I do actually have in my family and in my friendship group, a real kind of diversity of... people from all different places. So it wasn't, there wasn't a defensiveness in me, but there was a real curiosity that brought up of like, there's something really wise about that question where it brings it into our own lives without it being this kind of far reaching, need to kind of solve the problems, you know, across another part of the world. There was just something about the immediacy of that question. I was like, there's something important about that.
And it stayed with me, although, I mean, it probably five years ago, and it stayed with me, although she is, so that was the first thing I think that she said in answer to my question. And then the other thing was that came to mind, I saw this the other day and it, I'll read it, it's by someone called John Rodel. I don't know if you know him, I don't.
The tree I was sitting under woke up and asked me what a bomb was. It's a weapon, I replied. What's a weapon? Something we use in war to destroy our enemies, I said. The tree went silent. Do you know what a war is, I asked. Yes, the oak said. I know what war is. I just usually call it by its real name. What's that? Failure. And when I read that, I was like, huh, if failure, would I call it failure? Why would an oak say failure?
And then I was like, when it came to mind again, as I was listening to you and I was like, huh, part of my work is telling people to go and sit under trees. I might not know the answer to war or what we should be doing, but I do know to tell people to go and sit and listen to the trees. And that's something I do. And I think what you were inviting people into is there is again, there's real simplicity and wisdom that we can all do something and it might be like the soil scientists, it's not marching the streets chanting. It could be being out in the fields with the soil.
Tad Hargrave (32:29)
Yeah, it could be doing childcare. It could be taking care of old people. It could be there's so much need out there. And I think part of what we're not very good at, as modern humans is grief. And there's real limits that we have of what we can do. And at the end of the day, there's still more need in the world and will always be then we can, you know,
Lian (32:32)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Tad Hargrave (32:58)
do something about. so that requires some real grief or willingness to just be sad about the limits that we have. I think because we're not good at that, it turns into grievance. It turns into, but I should be able to do more. And we just burn ourselves to the ground and make other people wrong and condemn other people for not doing enough because we don't want to be heartbroken about what's happening. And it is heartbreaking.
Lian (33:09)
Hmm
Yes.
Tad Hargrave (33:28)
And you know, you may be surprised, you tune into your heart of hearts and you're like, okay, well, I'm not black, but I see what's happening to black people and I do want to do something about it. Then you do that, you know, follow your heart and then but be guided by those communities, you know, don't go in, you know, mad full of ideas of what you think that communities needs that you then you start to talk to that community, you listen, how can I be useful? What can I do? If you want to support Indigenous people, ask them what help they need. And it might not be glamorous. It almost certainly will not be glamorous. will, yeah, we could use some help stacking chairs or setting up this event, or we could use some firewood, or we could use some money, or... So then you, you know, orient in that way. But I trust that...
If people take the time, and that's the big if, take the time, go sit under a tree and really like what, given everything that's happening in the world, where do I feel called? Where could my gifts be of the most use? Because you know what I'm saying?
But you look at your own life and that it could be read as well. Then if you're a white person, you just help other white people. Maybe. I it's probably where you got the most skill. But it could also be that you start having conversations with white people about issues of race, or you start having conversations with your rich friends about issues of class. And you work in that milieu where maybe you've got the most skill. Or maybe not. Maybe you step outside of that because those people are never going to listen to you anyways. you find some other some other path, but I'm such a big believer in people following the dictates of their conscience. And, you know, your conscience doesn't have fear in it. It doesn't have a concern about success or failure. It just knows what the right thing to do is. And so then
Lian (35:28)
Mmm.
Tad Hargrave (35:31)
when you get the prompt, you do that, that you're being given marching orders from the great beyond. You know, the elite, the parasite class of the world, they have enormous intelligence. And like, know, with AI, the algorithms, they have us dialed completely entirely, they understand our behaviour way better than we do. mean, this was 10, 15 years ago, they could pretty much tell if a woman was pregnant before she knew she was pregnant by what she was Googling. And she didn't even know she was pregnant, but there were certain cues. So that was ages ago. they've got us, they've...
Lian (36:08)
Hmm.
Tad Hargrave (36:14)
I mean, we all see it now. You mention something to a friend and now there's an ad for it five minutes later. And then relentless bombardment of other versions of that ad. So they've got that kind of intelligence. they've got a kind of strategic intelligence that we're not going to beat, but there's a deeper intelligence in life. And, you know, when you are evil, you're just kind of waving a big red flag to a the universe to say, come and sort me out, which if you look at it in our, if we look at it in our own lives, and in our own communities, we can see what happens to people when they go down that road, you know, that's a terminal road, that's that's a, you go down that dark path, and it doesn't end well for you. So I do have faith, there's a greater intelligence that ultimately sorts this out. If we're obedient to it, if we're willing to submit to it, if we're willing to say,
Lian (36:56)
Hmm.
Tad Hargrave (37:14)
I maybe imagined something more glamorous for myself, but maybe this is the way I can best contribute. Or I was too shy because who am I to do this and be seen in this way? But you know, there may be a way the universe has got plans for you. like, no, we put you here at this time in this place because we knew this was coming and we knew we needed somebody who could do this. So are you willing to do it? You know, there's so many people in communities who are trying to do culture work, who trying to do activism.
Lian (37:33)
Yeah.
Tad Hargrave (37:43)
they are burning out and one of the reasons they're burning out is because there's so many people who are just missing in action who are just watching tv and not getting involved so you know the more of us that do I think you know the better the better chance we have
Lian (38:06)
So almost run out of time. Do you feel that we can touch on the other two aspects I said at the beginning? Even if perhaps we do need to come back and do another episode where we go deeper on those. The questions we were contemplating at beginning was around social media and then also AI.
Tad Hargrave (38:15)
Sure.
Lian (38:29)
Pick a root.
Tad Hargrave (38:31)
Well, with social media, the important thing is for everyone to know you don't need it at all for marketing. Not required. What we need is… to be making it easy for our ideal clients to find us. Social media is one way, but there's a lot of other tactics and approaches to it. I would say for most service providers doing a signature workshop, getting in front of people, talking about what you do over and over and over again, that's gonna be the best approach. So for a lot of my clients, I'd recommend just put up a little tile on your social media, say I'm taking a break for three months.
stop. Take the time you would be spending on social media because of course once you say, I'm just going to post, I'm just going to go post something on. So, my goodness. An unlikely friendship of a gorilla and a crow. have to watch it. You know, and then that's, that's your next three hours. So, yeah, if you feel your time and attention being frittered away, yeah, you can get off it and, and just focus on things that might actually work.
Lian (39:40)
And so I feel like the question, sorry to sort of interrupt again, recognizing we haven't got long. I suspect listeners might be being like, and is that actually viable? Is that even a real choice in today's world to come off social media to not use that in marketing? Is that actually, do you have evidence that that is something that would work in today's world?
Tad Hargrave (40:10)
I would ask them for evidence that the social media is working for them.
Lian (40:14)
Hmm. Well, they may say it's not, but equally, I mean, in some ways, that is part of the question, isn't it? It's not just the jadedness of being on social media. I think a lot of people are saying it doesn't seem like it's working for them, but they clearly want something that will work.
Tad Hargrave (40:18)
Right.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, I mean, this is the thing people say, well, give me proof that there's some other approach that works. And again, I'd say, what's your proof that social media works for you? Like, are you just tired of how many clients you're getting? And you're like, I got to turn that shut this off and look for a new adventure because I just hand over fist the money I'm making. It's worth people doing the math. How much time are you spending on social media? Again, not just for the posting and the creating the content, but the time you it starts scrolling because you got on there in the first place. How much time per week are you spending? And then how many clients do you know that it's gotten you? And are you tracking that? So most people, I am on social media. I think it's a great long game because it lets people check you out from a distance and feel safe. But I would just say if you need clients in the short term, that is the last thing that I would do.
Lian (41:06)
Mmm.
Tad Hargrave (41:30)
I would just focus on getting in front of people and does that work? Yes. mean, I guess there's so many examples from clients, know, Bradley Morris and I did a whole for three years live trainings on how do you do a signature? How do you craft and tour it? And yes, this works. mean, nothing I first service, but I don't see anything working better now. So should we, if you're going to do it though, then that you probably need to invest because it's getting more sophisticated and the stuff that we've done in the past really doesn't work the same. There's a kind of editing, there's a way to do a reel that is going to get a response and then there's a way that won't and then there's paid ads and all of that. And so none of that is cheap. So it's worth like, okay, it's gonna be worth the investment. Do I have a business model that ultimately would be supported by this and be profitable?
Lian (42:06)
Mmm.
Tad Hargrave (42:21)
and it's worth the investment. And in some cases, it's it's like, no, you're a local massage therapist, it's not. And signature workshops, reaching out to hubs directly, people who are already connected to your people, figuring out ways to collaborate with them, or maybe they can promote you, is more direct. It's one of the ironies is that people, of course, your clients and mine have a fear of visibility.
And yet, so that stops them, allegedly, from going on social media. But I would submit that actually, what's also true is that people go on social media to hide. That all this work on social media is hiding from what? From talking to people. From getting out and doing other kinds of marketing.
Lian (43:04)
Hmm.
Tad Hargrave (43:07)
where you're in front of people and engaging with people directly, such as a live presentation, such as maybe going to a networking event, such as going for coffee with hubs, such as bringing together a bunch of local hubs where you can network and connect with each other, such as emailing people directly. That works. That stuff all works. And so can social media. I'm not denouncing. I'm just saying if people feel leery about it or they're not sure, it's not
Lian (43:25)
Hmm.
Tad Hargrave (43:35)
only not the only game in town. It's in the short term, absolutely not the best game in town. Social media is a long game.
Lian (43:42)
Yeah.
Connected to that, I don't know if you've noticed the same, it feels as though not just the marketing, but the work itself, I'm noticing an increased appetite for people wanting to do things in person. Funny enough, someone only said that to me earlier, that she's done so much work online. Funny enough, she used the same phrase. She said, I feel as though I can kind of hide when I do a course online that...
Tad Hargrave (44:15)
Yeah.
Lian (44:16)
I feel as though being in a thing in person would mean that I kind of have to be there fully present and engaged. And I'm like, yeah, I think there is that sense of us sort of wanting more of that in-person experience, which makes sense. It would go to both marketing and the delivery of whatever the serving of our medicine is.
Tad Hargrave (44:42)
Yeah, exactly. I saw Gary Vaynerchuk do a video about this. says, the next trend is analog, going back to the real stuff that over the lockdowns, it's like everybody took their business online, then we forgot there was a real world. And there was local stuff that we can do. So I do think you're right. There's a craving for that. And this connects to the AI is where increasingly,
Lian (44:55)
Yeah.
Well done, well done for that segue. I was impressed.
Tad Hargrave (45:07)
You see that? So smooth, so smooth. Nobody even noticed.
But yeah, people are looking at the content and not convinced a human wrote it. Because increasingly it wasn't a human that wrote it. Is even the person in that video a real person I'm seeing? I've gotten a few emails where...
Lian (45:21)
Mmm.
Yes.
Tad Hargrave (45:33)
somebody wrote me and it was about some AI summit or something. And I was like, oh, I Hey, I watched this video of yours. I really liked it. I like your work. But something about the email felt off. And I wrote back and I said, look, real talk in all candor. Did AI play any role in that email you sent? They wrote back, said, ah, you caught me red handed. Yes, but just the opening paragraph, which was the personalised part. So then I wrote back. said, okay.
Lian (46:00)
my gosh.
Tad Hargrave (46:03)
So did you actually watch that video or not? And I never got a reply. So now, you know, again, we're getting to this point where I don't know if that email is from a real person. I don't know if that chat bot is actually a real person. Sometimes they'll say it, sometimes they won't. I don't know if that post was written by that person. And I mean, I even have a colleague of mine who, you know, bless him does good work.
Lian (46:06)
Ha
Yeah.
Tad Hargrave (46:27)
But he started using AI to write his things because he'll get these downloads, he'll dictate it, then sort of have AI clean it up. To me, the challenge with it, my concern is that there's a kind of AI voice that it has. it's, and we're patterning our brains on the machine. The more content like that we read, the more we start to think in that way, in a kind of AI way, instead of patterning our brains on nature, which is what it should be.
Lian (46:37)
Mm.
yes
Tad Hargrave (46:56)
So there's an increasing suspicion that I see of what's real and what's not real. You know, there are certain things, I mean, there's certain things to use tech for, like, yeah, editing your stuff, maybe the grammar, okay. But it's worth noting that those efficiencies become lost skills and lost capacities. And...
One of the, you know, there's my colleague, Kimberly Ann Johnson, she had somebody go after her. like, but Kimberly, you have to make an AI clone of yourself because your knowledge is so important and you're like gatekeeping it if you don't, which goes so against any indigenous tradition of like, if you walk into indigenous tradition, like, hey, elder, I'm entitled to your knowledge, chop, chop, give it over, you know, which.
Lian (47:49)
you
Tad Hargrave (47:53)
Martin Prechtel writes a whole chapter about this in his book, The Unlikely Piece of Couchamacique, called The French Man Gets Everything, where a man shows up in a village and really is like, hey, teach me what you know. And so there's a kind of entitlement that underlies that approach, which asks nothing of us, you know, that these labor saving devices, this is all the way back from the axle on the first wagon.
These labor-saving devices, they make things efficient, but they do two other things. One, they rob us of a certain capacity. And number two, they gradually start to eliminate our need for others. I'm not saying tools are bad at all, but as we shift from tools into machines, and then machines into this sort of AI.
Lian (48:41)
Mmm.
Tad Hargrave (48:51)
things are being lost and the consequence of this and the more we play this game, it will be primarily on the next generation, which we're already seeing. I saw a reel the other day of a teacher saying that he's talking to teachers and they're facing this first generation of kids that are unteachable. They have no attention capacity. They're sitting there in the class, just kind of staring off. The teacher will do something, try to be as entertaining as this 90 second reel that these kids are watching or.
Lian (49:00)
Yeah.
Wow.
Tad Hargrave (49:20)
15 second reel and the short form content, they can't do it. And so these kids are, know, the whole grade will have to fail. They're just, the teachers can't reach them. So, I mean, that's one of the consequences. It fritters away our attention and our capacity to focus, our capacity to learn. It fritters away our skills. Okay, so you're gonna have AI write that thing.
Lian (49:40)
Mmm.
Tad Hargrave (49:46)
I mean, you know, it's not a judgment. I'm just saying there's the unintended consequence of, okay, it writes it. And you say it's just your ideas that it's organizing, but part of the need, at least the work I do around niche, around point of view marketing, there's a certain amount of you've got to sit on the egg long enough for it to hatch. The frustration of not being able to articulate it is a worthy part of the process. The not being able to find the words for it, so you've got to dig a little deeper, is part of the process. And who's to say that the 10 versions or options that AI came up with for you are even in the ballpark of what you would have come up with for yourself? It might...
Lian (50:09)
Hmm.
Tad Hargrave (50:30)
know, scratch the itch right now, but maybe there's something deeper and more true that you're never going to think of because you already got an answer that's good enough and that there's something about wallowing in the muck of it and not knowing for a while and then having to ask and then having to talk to people, which is the other enormous consequence of technology in general and now AI in a kind of steroidal way is you don't need other people anymore.
I mean, just consider with this little device, I don't need people. I remember when I was in London and I was walking around, at a certain point I had to stop using Google Maps because I realized I'm never talking to anybody. I'm not even asking for directions. So I just started asking homeless people I'd see, it's like, hey, how do I get to, you know, to the Tate, you know, it's way over there, you got to walk there. So I just start walking. then when I kind of, okay, I don't know where I am.
Lian (51:13)
Mmm.
Tad Hargrave (51:28)
Ask somebody else and I start to talk to people. used to be able to go to a bar and you say, what are the seven seas? There's the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the, we can't figure out the last one. Then you and your friends start debating and arguing over it. And you're looking at your friend like you're full of shit. You've got no idea. And so you tap the people on the table behind you and say, hey, we're trying to figure this out. And then they say, it's like, what are you? No, that's not the, you guys idiots. You you get into whole fight about it. And you know, there's this human need for each other. And Mark my words, at some point there will be something that comes out called something like elder AI. And be like, hey, yeah, it's like, yeah, we don't have we don't have elders.
Lian (52:02)
It probably already exists. You know what? Yeah, if it doesn't you've made it happen, dad. You're responsible. Delete, delete, delete.
Tad Hargrave (52:10)
God damn it. I was trying to stop it. I was trying to stop it. my God. But you know, it'll be something like that. So, and then you can say, but Ted, you don't understand. We're so elder bereft, right? There's a whole generation without elders. If we can take the accumulated wisdom of the great sages and put it into one AI and you can ask questions, then this is gonna give people guidance that they need urgently. And I'd say, okay, questionable at best that a language learning model is really going to give you real wisdom. Questionable that the wisdom that they had in their time and place is going to apply sort of just so directly. This notion that wisdom is just dislocated from time and space. That's worth wondering about. But then I would say also a couple things. One, there's actual old people out there.
Lian (52:58)
Mmm.
Tad Hargrave (53:07)
And you know where they are? They're sitting in old folks homes, being completely fucking neglected and ignored. And you going on this app and asking the questions there means nobody's going to them. And they're sitting there wondering if they have anything to offer and really deep down doubting that they have anything of value to offer. I mean, Stephen Jenkinson talks about this, that the making of elders is primarily a job for young people.
Lian (53:33)
Wow.
Tad Hargrave (53:33)
It's not that old people sit around and confer their blessings on each other. The blessing comes in the form of a young person overwhelmed with life and the troubles of the world like we're in now going to an old person and saying, I don't know what to do. I'm so lost. I'm so overwhelmed. Did you ever live through something like this yourself? And then be surprised that the old person says, of course I did.
We had the World War, we had World War II, or we had the Vietnam War, I remember things like this, and here's what we did, here's how we made it through. And suddenly that old person feels needed, and they have to dig inside themselves and are surprised to find they have something to offer that young person. And relationships are formed, but with, you know, and with AI, you don't need them anymore, we don't need each other. And then of course, there's the trouble that the AI, more and more people using it for therapy, which I would just say, I'd question how great an idea that is, because that AI is not a living entity. It has no somatic awareness. You know, you're talking to a therapist, you can think you're bullshitting them, but they can read your body language and just kind of feel something's off and question it. And the AI is going to absolutely it's in the people pleasing business and use it. No, Ted, you don't understand. You see, you're very naive to AI.
What I've done is I've put in the parameters to AI to actually push me and not accept my bullshit and it's to really hold me to account and to point out my blind spots. so you know what your blind spots are that you can pre-program them in. You're so clear. Well, then maybe you don't need the AI because you're so clear and you think that you're going to just let it push you around, but you're going to resist and push back. well, I don't think
Lian (55:10)
Hehehehehe
Tad Hargrave (55:26)
But, you know, no, but that wasn't the truth. now you're so clear with the truth, you know, that it's going to give you the answer that you want, ultimately. It's going to feed you. And if it doesn't, it will get the impression from you that you didn't like that and it will change. It's truth. It will start to adapt to you. And there's the whole, you know, AI kind of...
Lian (55:37)
Yes.
Mm-mm.
Tad Hargrave (55:54)
psychosis, like what happens to people when they keep being affirmed constantly? Do we imagine this is actually the role of elders and mentors and therapists is to say how right you are and to affirm you? I mean, you can get couples and they'll take the exact same text exchange. They'll each put it in and say, what do you think? And it's gonna lean towards you're so right and they were so wrong and you're, know, it's...
Lian (56:13)
lol
Tad Hargrave (56:22)
you know, so I, and the truth is, I don't know much about AI, I just know what I've seen, as people lean on that, it's like, okay, so you're leaning on the AI for some objective feedback, which is worth questioning, like, who the hell is programming this, that it's objective, it's coming from the dominant society, which is deeply sick. And that's where you're getting your guidance. And meanwhile, your friends who you could be leaning on, the elders in your life, or the older people who could become elders, they're just
Lian (56:38)
Yeah.
Tad Hargrave (56:52)
languishing and we're getting more more isolated which makes us more and more sad and you're sad and lonely well hey you can shop and spend money you know and now there's the ai boyfriends and girlfriends there's the it's just so customized and it'll give you everything you want but it'll make you less human in the process because a lot of being human is that we don't get what we want when we want it and then you have to feel grief and you have to feel longing for something
Lian (57:14)
Yeah.
Tad Hargrave (57:18)
and you take that longing and grief and you turn that into something beautiful that can feed the world rather than the constant dopamine hits in decreasing effectiveness of me getting what I want all the time. And then, you know, I need bigger and bigger hits. You know, I gotta do more and more and more to get the same level of dopamine. This is destroying us. And even those of us who are hip and conscious to it, it's got our number on that. It starts feeding us ads of, you sick of the AI? Aren't you sick? It really has this dialed. So we're in trouble. We're in real trouble with this. And it's not that... I'm trying to be a Puritan about it. It's not that I haven't ended up using AI from time to time. It's that, and it's not that you and I aren't using AI right now recording this. Like we're not going to get away from it, but I am deeply concerned about it. don't, the kind of world I see ultimately, AI has no part of, I mean, but also most modern tech.
Lian (58:19)
Right now.
Tad Hargrave (58:35)
would have no part of the kind of world that I ultimately imagine. I don't think the idea of like, we can have the cell phone and the sweat lodge together. I don't think these two coexist that empire is not the opposite of the indigenous world. Because if it were, then it's like, well, we got to have be inclusive and diversity and all this. It's that empire is an imposition on the indigenous world. It's not a side-by-side relationship. It's on top of dominating relationship. And it never stops eating. It's a hungry ghost that will never be satisfied. the AI is a part of that. And of course, do we really imagine that all this tech got created for our benefit so that we could live happier, healthier lives? Or was it created so that technocrats could have absolute control over every aspect of our life. You know, and of course, that's what it is. You know, this is all this is ultimately military grade tech. And that's what it's used for. And it will be used to control, you know, the economy, there's all the global digital IDs that are coming and the tokenization of money that's coming. And, you know, this is not being done to help us. This is being done.
Lian (59:37)
Hmm
Tad Hargrave (1:00:00)
to control us and the AI is gonna be the sort of machine that does it and then the blockchain will be the infrastructure that does the money. it's, Wendell Berry had that line which I've said so many times, he said, it's not too hard to imagine that the time will come when the next great dividing line in societies between those who wanna live as a machine and those who wanna live as a creature.
Lian (1:00:28)
Hmm
Tad Hargrave (1:00:29)
And I think it's time for us to get serious about which one we want to live as.
Lian (1:00:38)
choices now. I'm ever the optimist and so I'll give that caveat first, but I think there was some truth in that, you know, just as we were saying, there is a longing for more being in person with other people that's happening when people are choosing courses, for example. I'm noticing that happening too with regards to our visceral response to AI, where I noticed I started to almost having like an allergic kind of feeling when I'd read something that was written by Chachy BT, I'd be like, I just, can't even like in my being. And it would almost like, I wouldn't even have to read a word. It would just be the, somehow the,
Tad Hargrave (1:01:27)
Hmm.
Lian (1:01:28)
pattern of it would just have that allergic response before it even read a word. And that might be an extreme, but I think more and more people are having something of that experience where I noticed that, you know, for, for years now running a podcast, we get so many emails a week from people asking to be on the podcast. It's probably, you know, going back for years. only been a very small percentage that we say yes to. that percentage has declined because so many of them are written by AI and it's an instant no. I don't even read them. It's like, I see the email. It's obvious AI before I've even read a word and it's an instant no. And that I more and more think is, what's going to almost organically start to happen where we just are viscerally a no.
And so that in some ways, it's like, if I get an email written by an actual person, asking to come on the podcast, I will read it now. I will consider it just because it's a human that's written it. And so I have a sense. I mean, is that, know, the, the worst of times are the best of times. I do feel, yeah, the creatures, the creatures will win.
Tad Hargrave (1:02:47)
Sure, sure.
That, well, the… who knows, but certainly what could be said is, as you're saying, there is more hunger for this realness. yeah, it, I the same thing. If I get an email and I see it say, it's just deleted. So people say, but I'm so much more efficient. Okay. But you're, then the scale you have to go to, get the same result is so much more. But the people who dig deep, who say, okay, I'm going to get really clear on my ethics. I'm going to get really clear on my niche.
Lian (1:03:03)
Hmm.
Tad Hargrave (1:03:24)
I'm going to figure out my point of view and I'm going to take the long slow road on that, but I'm going to get it really clear. And then I'm going to, with the hubs, I'm going to really think through who these people are, who I want to approach and I'm going to approach them well and beautifully. You'll be the only one who did it. And then they go check you out and it's like, wow, this is really clear. if, cause if I'm in, when I read somebody's website or
Lian (1:03:43)
Yeah.
Tad Hargrave (1:03:51)
sales page that's largely written by AI, it has this generic something to it. And I'm just like, I'm not interested in this because I don't understand it. And it there's Yeah, there's nothing unique. It just has the same voice as everybody else, which is the thing. We I want to hear your voice in the world. I don't want to hear AI's voice. I want to hear your voice with your unique particularities, your funny spellings of things your the humanness of it. And I think we are ultimately unwise to divorce the context from the content to say, well, the AI style, but it's my ideas. But the way you talk is a part of it. There's a robot voice that we're all familiar with. you've called somewhere you're on hold and the robot lady talks to you.
Lian (1:04:21)
you
Yeah.
Tad Hargrave (1:04:46)
We're familiar with that voice and that's not a human voice really. That's an algorithm voice. And we know the frustration of waiting on hold and well, press one for this. We've changed, recently changed our options. you're like, my God, I'm gonna murder somebody. And then you talk to a human and suddenly, So we're gonna be craving that more and more, that human touch.
That personal so I think there are enormous opportunities for people who go the other way say well everything is going mass scale AI Algorithm we're gonna do real organic You know analog I think they're gonna be so many people who crave that because medicine is gonna go increasingly AI You won't even see a doctor. You'll sit and literally talk to a robot that will sort of diagnose you banks
Lian (1:05:18)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Tad Hargrave (1:05:41)
The day, the era of being able to go into a bank and talk to a teller, those days are numbered. It will increasingly be, there'll be a center you can go to with no humans in it. And you go sit in a booth and you talk to a teller on the screen and who knows how long they'll be human for. And then you say, can I do this thing with my money? And they say, no. You say, but wait, it's my money. I'm sorry. Well, I just, can I talk to your manager? It's the AI algorithm. It's the, you know, there's nothing we can do about it. So. I don't know if some bank actually became a local bank. We have humans, people would be just flocking to it. Yeah, so it's just worth considering in our businesses that, like, are you gonna try to play the game of Empire? And you think you're gonna beat the Empire at its own game? You think you're gonna take those tools and you're gonna win against them at that game?
Lian (1:06:13)
Yeah.
Tad Hargrave (1:06:34)
they're going to beat us at that game. So then we can play a different game.
Lian (1:06:37)
Yeah.
The new USP is being human, but being your own particular human.
Tad Hargrave (1:06:46)
Yeah, yeah, you're you're not like everybody else. You were born with this nose and these eyes and these ears for a reason. There's something that you're here to do. think that's my premise, you know, is, yeah, we come into this world with certain gifts to, I mean, was what my friend Lewis Cardinal said, he said, you know, his elders had told him, he's a Cree fellow from Edmonton, said, his elders told him, said, yeah, when babies are born, they come in with their fists like this.
Lian (1:07:00)
Mine too.
Tad Hargrave (1:07:15)
And said, and the elder said, you know why? He said, no, said because they're bringing gifts for us. So then you got to figure out what those gifts are as a tribe and make sure those gifts get given instead of molding them into the machine, which is of course what modern education is, turning people into cogs for a machine. And now it'll be turning people into coders for AI.
Lian (1:07:31)
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Tad Hargrave (1:07:43)
Yeah, we're here for a reason. it's a, who sent that quote? said, there's two, the two most important moments in your life. The day you're born and then the day you realise why you were born.
Lian (1:07:59)
Mmm.
Well, this has been a delight of a conversation. We've journeyed all over the place and I'm so pleased we have. I know you've got all sorts of wonderful things coming out in the next month or so. So where can people find out more about you and the wonderful work that you do?
Tad Hargrave (1:08:25)
Yeah.
Yeah, well, most is at marketingforhippies.com and we have a membership which is closed right now, but we're opening up a basics tier, $7 a month tier. So if you go to my website or I'm not sure where that'll be, we haven't launched it yet, but if you're on my email list, you'll certainly hear about it. And I will probably announce it on social media too, so you can check that out. And then there's tons of free stuff on my site and on my YouTube, so people can check that out.
Lian (1:08:59)
Wonderful. Thank you so much, Tad. Pleasure as always.
Tad Hargrave (1:09:02)
What a pleasure.
Lian (1:09:06)
What a wonderful and very timely episode is my sense. I think I said at the beginning of the episode, it wasn't actually the topic that Tad and I had planned to record about. And yet it just seemed to be like, you know, honour me, honour me, speak about me. And so we did, and I'm really glad we did. And here's what stayed with me from the conversation.
Knowing which lane your work actually belongs in changes everything about how you think about marketing during difficult times. Not every issue in the world is yours to speak about. And the work you came here to do has its own integrity. When you stop chasing this kind of, um, I must speak about this. This is the loudest topic at the moment. Just honour what you are here to do.
AI can erode the very capacities that make our voices worth listening to. That frustration of finding your own words, sitting with something that isn't quite formed yet until it clarifies, isn't an obstacle to good marketing. It is actually part of how something true gets made.
When we stop trying to beat the algorithm and instead commit to being unmistakably human and also unmistakably our own unique version of humanity, something changes. The people who go that way to really just be themselves with a real point of view are becoming the ones worth listening to. If you'd like to hop on over to the show notes for the links, they're at bemythical.com slash podcast slash five four one. And as you heard me say earlier, if you are struggling with the challenges of walking your soul path in this crazy modern world and long for guidance, kinship and support, come join us in UNIO, the community for soul seekers. You can discover more and join us by hopping over to BeMythical.com/unio now. Let's walk the path home together.
And if you're called to go even deeper on your wild sovereign soul path, join us for the upcoming wild sovereign soul journey. You can register your interest at BeMythical.com/wss
And if you don't want to miss out next week's episode, and why would you head on over to your podcasting app or platform of choice, including YouTube and hit that subscribe or follow button. That way you'll get each episode delivered straight to your device, auto-magically, as soon as it goes out into the world. Thank you so much for listening. You've been wonderful. I'll catch you again next week. And until then, I'm sending you all my love and blessings as you walk your wild sovereign soul path.