#Inbound13 and the Culture of Caring

I have really got to get out of the house more often.

I was honored to have had the chance to offer a “Bold Talk” this week at the 2013 Hubspot Inbound Conference. Hubspot is a company that provides marketing software to small businesses and this year there were over 5500 attendees at the event, about twice as many as last year. Seth Godin, Arianna Huffington, and Nate Silver delivered keynotes. There were over 150 speakers making presentations during this three-day event that had the excitement and joie de vivre of SXSW in 1993 (when I lived in Austin).

My topic was “Mindful Communication.” I have given many talks in my life, but this one had me extremely nervous.

Usually, to prepare, I think about the topic, read about it, sleep on it, and then show up in the space about an hour early and the talk “appears.” I have no idea how this process happens but I’ve tried many times to plan what I want to say in advance and it has never worked out. I end up abandoning whatever I’d planned. (Believe me, I wish I could do it another way because this “way” is extremely nerve wracking.)

But I had to figure out something different for the Hubspot talk. I had 18 minutes. There would be 600+ people. It would be in the context of a marketing event. All of these were new variables and I didn’t know what to expect. Plus, I really respect and adore the person who invited me, so I wanted to do a good job.

When they emailed to ask for my slides, I was taken aback. Slides? What slides?! I have no slides!! Everyone else will have slides. I am slide-less. Their slides are going to punch my no-slides in the face. When I open my slide-less pie-hole to talk, no one is going to understand what I have to say. Mindful, shmindful. Opening, relationships, authenticity, courage, creative flow, feeling, compassion, blah, blah: the things that I usually talk about would fall on deaf ears. How to contextualize for the aggressive world of business? How to convince people who are on a mission that slowing down is the fastest way to get there?

I wrote eight different talks that sucked in eight different ways. I could not find the voice.

Then I went to the talk that opened the conference: Seth Godin’s keynote. 5500+ people sat there quietly, smartphones, tablets, laptops at the ready to take notes. I was half excited (because I love Seth) and half terrified (because I felt intimidated by everything).

Then he started talking about generosity as the path to success. Caring as a business strategy. Being human, making everything personal, taking risks and being fearless. Making art.

Generosity, creativity, compassion, authenticity, fearlessness: these are all expressions of mindfulness and are at the root of powerful communication. To me, Seth was giving a dharma talk. I began to relax.

The next day was my talk. That morning, Arianna Huffington gave her dharma talk keynote address. She talked about the importance of quiet and inwardness as the source of innovation, creativity, and leadership.

As I sat listening to her, this phrase popped to mind: “culture of caring.” These people are creating a culture of caring, I thought to myself, whereupon my own talk downloaded itself.

I realized that I was at home. I could use my own voice.

I was blown away by this event. There was so much heart, so much inspiration, and so much intelligence. But this is what gave me the greatest thrill of all: this could change the world.

I know that sounds impossibly, well, bold. But our world is not governed by politics or media as much as it is governed by consumerism. If caring, kindness, generosity, and creativity begin to mix in with the culture of consumerism, that could be…big.

The way things used to be marketed was one to many. The primary relationships were with the middlemen–wholesalers, retailers, and media. They were the customers and we built our products for them. The way to be powerful was to offer or withhold money or access. Whoever was most financially coercive or, in some rare instances, purely great, would dominate. Advertising sold product. Endcaps sold product. It was all about deals and positioning.

Now, our primary relationships are with actual people and we build our products for individuals. The way to be powerful is to be human and offer from the heart. Community creates customers. Meaning sells product. Now it is all about openness.

It is all personal.

In my professional life, there was only one dirty word that you could ever utter at a business meeting: feelings. But feelings are what make things personal and suddenly, feelings are important because when our businesses are driven by direct connections, we are overlaying the personal onto the professional. When our companies are run according to values, we are situating the personal within the corporate. When our success is predicated on connecting with people, we have to look at our relationship skills, not just our technical, logistical, or financial proficiencies. This is very exciting.

I believe that as we go forward, we will see that success belongs, not to the cleverest or the most charismatic, but to those who know how to care. To feel. To extend themselves open heartedly and connect genuinely. Thus your ability to communicate is not so much about what you say. It is about who you are.

PS Pictured above are the notes I jotted down for my talk a few hours before I gave it. I clutched this paper as if it was the one lifeline that could save me. When I got home, I smoothed it out to make notes to use should I have the opportunity to give this talk again. This is what it looked like.

Guess I’ll have to start all over again. Again.

categorized in: meditation, relationships