What is the "endgame" of Holistic Chambers?

I don't talk about this much but the other day an interviewer asked me about this point blank, so I told them.

Holistic Chambers of Commerce sit at a crucial historical crossroads. The old 1950s culture, based on hyper-consuming, was dead by at least the early 1970s. Yet 1950s culture was kept in place artificially by the Reagan-Clinton-Greenspan-Bush-Cheny era. Andre Codescu called this phenomena the "exquisite corpse."   Eclipses in late 2008 finally pulled the plug on the corpse people were pretending was still alive.

Holistic Chambers of Commerce, HCCs--any gatherings of holistic and green practitioners--are major catylsts now to create new healthy, sustainable, replacement culture.  Did you think Wall Street or GM or Washington, D.C. is going to lead the way to a green, sustainable future?

The endgame is self-supporting, sustainable--profitable--intentional communities. These will exist in both urban and rural areas. This practical focus on "New Habitat for Humanity" is needed and exciting now. We are finaly doing the work of replacing worn-out 1950s culture!

Q:  What will this endgame culture look like?

A:  You can find 30-40 years of articles and pictures of what such intentional communities look like and how they work at http://communities.ic.org  While the magazine peaked in the late 1970s, just about disappeared in the 1980s, Communities Magazine surged back to life in the late 1990s.

To get to effective and sustainable intentional communities, let's take one step back. Each has to have an "economic engine" bringing in cash.  Two main categories are manufacturing and healthcare. Manufacturing: electric cars, solar panels, landscaping, farms, garden tools; and, healthcare: specialized classes and residential training in practitioner modalities.

To get to these viable and thriving "economic engines," we have to motivate, inspire, energize and educate a generation of green, alternative, co-operative, holistic and spiritual entrepreneurs.

To get thriving holistic chambers set up and going requires individuals who are "done" with the talk stage of Progressive politics. People ready for action is what is needed. If you are ready for social action and investing in building healthy replacement culture, then WE WANT YOU.

Part II - Always use love, all ways

One of the most effective ways to herd cats is to always use love, all ways (John-Roger). When it comes up, and as appropriate, tell people you love them; tell them you are serving in your Chamber because of love. Don't oversell it but let them know Loving is a high value in your Chamber.

This is also insurance. Focus on the Loving is insurance that your Chamber does not slip backwards into a 1950s metaphysical-style group. Don't let the intellect take precedence over the heart. That's going backwards.

Q: How do you present the loving?

A:  This has much to do with whom you appoint, elect, or coral to be the "face" of your Chamber. Find people who have loving and professionalism as high values.

Second, keep the whole thing relaxed. This is your insurance the Chamber will not slip back into the stilted kind of socializing found in 1950s-style conventional chambers of commerce. Many of us are in a holistic chamber precisely because we did not find enuf of "our people" at events where you had to "dress for success" for every meeting.

Thirdly, go for intimacy in your speaker presentations. Avoid speakers who are brash and forceful. Choose speakers who know how to invite a crowd into their zig-zag journey to profitability, who can point out the personal treasures found on their way to success. You entrain them to your story, to your experience of success. The very best sales people I know, like Alexandria Brown, the Ezine Queen, do this.

Q: Sounds like you are talking about intimacy?  What role that does have? 

A: At conventional mainstream chambers, the majority are extraverts.  The majority of healers and coaches began as introverts. They had to learn how to act like extraverts.  

True extraverts like volume; true introverts like sincerity and going deeper. "Going deeper" is a selling key for the LOHAS consumer.  You can use in many contexts.  Our customers want it. The more weighted your local Chamber is towards health care and energetic healers, the higher your percentage of introverts.

Intimacy plays a second role in the role Holistic Chambers have in educating holistic practitioners how to play the Inner Game of Business better.  Your business mirrors your life.  It reflects your personal strengths and weaknesses.  The more introverted you are, the more you recognize your own reflection in your business strengths and weaknesses.  The Inner Game of business challenges us to ask:  How do you fix a problem in a mirror?

The mainstream tendency is to do what Norman Vincent Peale, T. Harv Ekker and virtually all internet hype has trained us to do: work smarter, promote smarter, be consistent in our behavior, follow-thru with integrity, etc. When this works it's great! When adding more and better products, marketing and promotion, build your biz--you feel good; the outer, the mirror, gives you back a closer picture of the abundance and prosperity you feel and know inside you inwardly.

But what about when all the outer tactics do not work?  You promote a new class or weekly ezine--and no one notices.  You are like a princess in a fairy tale, told to learn how to fix her own image in a mirror.

If your approach is sensory and outer--you can't change your own image in a mirror. If you tried investing more time, money & effort into outer salesmanship and got diminishing returns; then, you have an unresolved inner conflict. You have to switch to fixing things inside yourself FIRST--before the mirror can change; that's the inner approach the Inner Game of Business leads us to.

This is where effective biz coaches of all kinds are so useful. My Co-Chair quoted me some statistics: 5% of new business succeed. Of those 5% that succeed, 95% of them used some form of biz coaching or mentoring relationship. A good biz mentor helps you with outer actions that need to happen; and, if it's an Inner Game of Business problem, to connect the dots between your outer business ailments and your unresolved inner conflicts. I have been seeing a coach for my medical intuition biz every week or two for the last three years. I attribute most of my growing success to this smart investment.

If you wish to have a business coach or have any questions, please feel free to call me directly: 310-397-1597.  My Co-Chair and many other holistic chamber founders are also experienced with both the outer and Inner Game of Business and can show you how to play both better.