Nothing is normal

Hi,

Nothing is normal and yet we are expected to act as if it is.

We are expected to continue our launches, our marketing, our sales pitches as if nothing is happening, and not even acknowledge the many crises facing us – from the climate collapse driven by capitalism, to wars and genocides and the rise of fascism… driven also by capitalism. We are expected to stay politely silent for fear of alienating our audience, or losing representation, of jeopardising our incomes, for fear of not knowing what to say, for fear of… being human.

We are also conditioned to think that there is no other way, that we have to do it this way, or else.

If you’re a human who cares deeply about the world, you feel like you are in the Matrix. You can no longer sustain the extreme compartmentalisation that’s required to keep up with the charade.

But what if we didn’t have to?

What if we said, “f*ck this, let’s imagine otherwise!”

(An aside / context: I have been deeply inspired by Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, New Zealand’s youngest MP, who went viral after performing a haka to protest a proposed law that would re-interpret New Zealand’s founding legal document, the Treaty of Waitangi. If you haven’t seen it, find the full clip. It’ll move you.)

This summer, I’m running an experimental container I’m calling F*ck ‘Business As Usual’ to explore the idea of doing business differently in these times of the polycrisis.

I do not claim to have all the answers. I don’t think there are one-size-fits-all answers.

I also believe in conversation, not instruction. A creative anarchy of ideas each of us will bring to the table to take us beyond what any single teacher / guru / leader can provide.

So I won’t be teaching a course.

What I will do, however, is guide our collective discussion by providing selected readings, prompts and reflections based on my own exploration of this topic over the past 18 months.

We will meet on Zoom every week for 6 weeks and interrogate what we think we know and challenge existing “wisdom” around marketing and running a business.

What can we take and repurpose for our own needs and what should we leave behind? We will get inspired by feminist, anti-capitalist, anarchist and indigenous thinkers such as Robin Wall Kimmerer, Kate Raworth, David Graeber, Naomi Klein, Jason Hickel, and others. We will seek out examples of businesses and artists doing things differently, and discuss what we could borrow to apply in our own businesses.

Let’s come together to be honest, to be in the soup of the uncertainty, the soup of creativity and imagination, to move from “what is” to “what if”.

For more details and to join, head over to my website.