September 4, 2025 • 26 mins
Far beyond a productivity hack or sustainability trend, the regenerative mindset offers marketers and leaders a framework to design work, creativity and impact that helps build value. You'll have to listen to find out about the Goose! Drawing from systems thinking and marketing strategy, Daniel and Ciaran challenge the “hustle at all costs” mentality and instead champion a more humane, resilient and adaptable approach to digital marketing. In This Episode: What is a Regenerative Mindset? Understand the key difference between sustainability and regeneration - why one aims to sustain the status quo and the other aims to restore, replenish, and grow. Rethinking Productivity and Growth Explore why traditional productivity models are failing marketers in the age of AI, information overload, and fragmented attention, and what to do instead. AI as a Regenerative Tool Rather than using AI to do more, faster, Daniel and Ciaran explore how AI can help reduce cognitive burden, fuel creativity, and foster experimentation when used mindfully. Designing Regenerative Marketing Systems Discover how regenerative principles, such as reciprocity, interdependence, and feedback loops, can help build more sustainable, and effective marketing strategies. Tools, Mindsets and Micro-practices From digital decluttering to reflective learning and systems thinking, the hosts share practical approaches to integrating regeneration into your professional life. Key Takeaways: Regeneration is not about working less, it’s about working in flow with better results and less burnout Marketers must go beyond campaign thinking and start designing ecosystems of value and renewal Rest, reflection and curiosity are not luxuries, they're strategic assets A regenerative mindset helps you lead through complexity and adapt with clarity The future of digital marketing isn’t just AI or data, it’s resilience, systems thinking, and human-centred creativity. 📥 Access the show notes, tools, and links at: 📩 Join the free newsletter for access to monthly live sessions:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ciaran (00:00):
Hello and welcome back to the Digital Marketing Podcast, brought
to you by target internet.com.
My name is Kieran Rogers
Daniel Rowles (00:07):
And I'm Daniel Rose.
Ciaran (00:09):
And today we are discussing regenerative mindset, the goose.
He thought he was a chicken.
Daniel Rowles (00:22):
If you are wondering what the heck is
going on you're in good company.
I had a text me.
Well, first of all, this is gonna bethe most kinny of all our podcasts
if the, if kinny can be a thing.
I received a text message, I thinkit was a WhatsApp from Kieran.
And we bounce ideas like we get randomstuff to each other all the time.
Have you seen this?
Look at this.
This is really interesting.
And I got a message from Kieran thatwas about 20 pages long, and I started
(00:44):
reading it thinking, what has he sent me?
Something about, you know, a websiteor what is it of the podcast?
And it was entitled The GooseThat thought it was a chicken.
And I was like, right, Ican't read this right now.
I'm gonna park this and come back to it.
And that evening I sat down.
I read this and I waslike, what madness is this?
And then I went on a journey and Ilearned, and that's what I want you to do.
(01:04):
Listeners, I want you to embracethe madness for a moment.
Don't switch us off just yet.
Listen, so tell us how this allstarted and this is what made
you go on a composting toiletworkshop in the first place.
And as I said, listeners, bear with me.
Bear with me.
Ciaran (01:19):
I went on a composting toilet course, like a half day course.
It was bought for me by a frienda friend of mine, Matt, who
I've worked with Matt for years.
He's a brilliant developer andMatt has had this long-term dream,
which has almost become my dream.
That Matt should like realize this dream.
He's had it that long.
His dream was he's alwayswanted to own his own woodland.
(01:42):
Right?
And actually last autumn, he.
He actually remortgaged the houseand bought a woodland on the ROI.
It's epic.
All sorts of like adventureshave ensued as a result of this.
But one of his problems is it'sliterally, it's just a wood.
And I saw that there's this amazingplace called Horticulture Island.
Run by Gavin and Lucy, like
Daniel Rowles (02:02):
He was on Ben Fog Show.
Wasn't it?
Ciaran (02:04):
on Ben Fog.
If you look up Ben Fogle's New Livesin the Wild and look up the episode
on the Isle of White, it was in themost recent series on channel five.
I think that
Daniel Rowles (02:12):
Yep, that's right.
Ciaran (02:12):
We can put a link to it in the show notes.
But I sent Matt a link to this 'causeI thought, oh, composting toilet, that
might be quite good for Matts wood.
Piss this out there, all the hours,clearing all the brush and what have you.
That could be fun.
And actually he thought it wasbrilliant and we were chatting about
it and I said, yeah I've alwaysfancied doing something like that.
'cause it, it just fascinates melike I am, I'm a big fan of green
(02:33):
technology, I suppose, and althoughwould never consider building a
composting toilet in my own garden.
It's just interesting.
Daniel Rowles (02:39):
Right.
I just love this.
I've got the show notesin front of me, right?
We have these goggles with the show notes.
I think this is even worse,publishing with a thing and it is
just this great, I love this line.
It's an expected toiletsgot a life lesson.
I think what a line that is, right.
Okay.
So what is it about thisworkshop that surprised you then?
Ciaran (02:54):
we went along together.
Matt bought us both a ticket and itwas on a Saturday afternoon, a really
sunny afternoon on this amazing place.
Horticultural island is like,
Daniel Rowles (03:04):
I.
Ciaran (03:04):
on a bit of land, like literally on the land slip.
And they've turned what it was unwantedland into this amazing Garden of Eden
where they grow all of their own food.
And they have holiday cottages that youcan let there and stuff, and people go
there for to just chill out and switchoff, actually an amazing place to do that.
But we.
We went along to learn aboutcomposting toilets, but I
(03:25):
literally got a life lesson.
What Gavin that runs this was chipping in.
Lucy was presenting and Gavinwas chipping in on the side.
You get the sense that he's reallywise, like he, he's not gone through
any of the traditional academic routes.
I think he was very much considered afailure at school, but he's brilliant at
what he does and he thinks really deeplyabout everything that he does, and he's
(03:46):
really interested in permaculture, right.
And the whole premise of permacultureis you are designing systems that work
with the natural rhythms of nature.
That's the whole premise.
'cause actually, if you design wellaround them, actually, then nature
works for you rather than against you.
Right?
So if you speak to Gavin about modernfarming practices like mass farming
(04:06):
practices who'll, you know, pointout how hugely wasteful they are and
how much huge amounts of energy goin when actually it doesn't need to.
So as we were going through the lessonson composting toilets and how they work
and I'm not gonna go too much into that.
'cause that wasn't the mostvaluable thing that I got out of it.
Interesting.
Although it was it was more the,their ethos and philosophy on and
(04:30):
design of systems that work doublyhard and they're all interconnect.
actually what it really mademe realize is actually that's
what we do as digital marketers.
the time, you know, whereas Gavin'sthinking about, you know, how would
different livestock integrate withthe plants that they're growing
and the outcomes that they want.
You know, we are often thinkingabout , keyword landscapes and
(04:51):
different bidding patterns on, onGoogle ads and social media algorithms.
And we are just, as much as Gavin isobserving the seasons, we're observing
the fruits of our labors and workingout how can I squeeze more out of
it, you know, that's the fun of it.
That's the fun of what we do.
Daniel Rowles (05:05):
There's a great quote here.
That's, well tell methis quote from Gavin.
'cause
Ciaran (05:09):
So,
Daniel Rowles (05:09):
I think it's brilliant.
Ciaran (05:11):
somebody asked Gavin a question and he, the answer he gave was really
profound and it hit me like a shovel inthe head, he just, he gazed down into
the distance in answering this question.
He said, I suppose what I'm mostinterested in in what I don't have to do.
Like just let that sink in.
Like that is a radical idea andI got really excited about it.
(05:34):
Like that's not laziness.
That's elegance.
systems that thrive with lessintervention, This is, and
this is what where permaculturereally comes into, right?
It's totally about leveragingthe forces that are there in
your favor rather than fighting
Daniel Rowles (05:50):
Right.
I immediately had a thought aboutthat from a digital marketing
point of view, which is that we'dspent so much time going, oh, we
need to do this type of place.
We need to do some TikTok stuff.
We need to do this video,we need to do that.
We need to, and they go, actually,what are we doing that works?
The podcast, right?
It's the podcast that, that'swhat people like, right?
So let's just double down on that.
Do more podcasts.
Try and get in to do different things.
(06:11):
They experiment with differentformats, but then use the podcast.
To become the short video post, to becomethe video clips, to become the transcript.
Well, what works is that, and thenactually you could get people to
subscribe to a newsletter who's alreadyinterested and if they subscribe to the
newsletter, you get 'em to come to a livewebinar 'cause they like you already.
And they come to live webinar, theymight sign up for the product and we
(06:31):
suddenly went, oh, that's our funnel.
Ciaran (06:33):
Yeah,
Daniel Rowles (06:34):
And our funnel is much more naturally easy than the
other stuff we were trying to do.
Ciaran (06:37):
it's like a whole new marketing strategy like
Marketing.
I, yes, I'd have to come upwith something better than that.
But you get the meaning of it, right?
It's kind of, it's really interesting.
So like I, I just became obsessed and Iwas explaining to Daniel, for me, when
something profound like that hits me, it'sa feeling I don't really understand it.
I just have a feeling, and thenI need to spend quite a bit of
time processing what that means.
(06:59):
Like, so what does this change?
How does this and actually the longerI was there, more of these little
nuggets of joy started coming out.
Daniel Rowles (07:08):
Right.
So talk to us about nettles and chickens.
I mean, this is where it startsgetting pretty out there.
Ciaran (07:12):
Yeah.
Right.
Daniel Rowles (07:13):
you thought it was out there already, you just bet.
Hold on Tight.
Ciaran (07:15):
We, as part of the course, we were all invited into their house
where they have this incrediblecomposting toilet, which was
built before the house was right.
So it's got like two massivepits, where the waste goes.
And I think it, it took them 12 yearsto fill the first pit and then now
on the second and what they'll do isthey'll harvest the first pit after
like about 18 months when it's kindof all broken down and ready to use.
(07:37):
And that will like.
Their crops and do all sortsof clever stuff, right?
So, so that's going on.
But their house isn't huge andthey can only take three people
into the bathroom at any one time.
So whilst we were waiting, we werestood by their chicken run that
they've got, and they've got this bigarea where the chickens roam freely.
And there was a really interestingsign on the door of the shed
(07:59):
where they kind of look after alltheir chicken feed and stuff and.
It was a breakdown of nettle powder itscomponents like how much protein and zero
rice, and it compared it to other things.
And actually it out that nettles,which are abundant and wild, very high
in protein and really calcium rich,
(08:20):
Do you know that?
Okay, learn something every day.
so Gavin, being the mastercraftsman of the years has actually
been sneaking nettle powder intofamily meals like you see takes.
Wild nettles that grow everywhere.
He dries them and then hegrinds 'em into a powder.
'Cause it's highly nutritiousand hugely beneficial.
And actually high protein and calcium.
That's really good when you knoweverything that they grow, they eat
(08:43):
they're self-sufficient, But theydon't keep cows or goats, right?
So this is a really usefulsource of calcium for them.
But it occurred to Gavin that she calciumand protein are what chickens need,
He was like, right, I needto get the chickens to eat.
Nettles.
The problem is chickens donot wanna eat nettles, right?
They're not into that at all.
Be 'em fresh or dried,they're not into it.
But he did know that chickensloved mashed potatoes,
Daniel Rowles (09:05):
Who doesn't?
Ciaran (09:06):
He doesn't and they have a lot of potatoes, so abundant crop, right?
So that's what he started doing,is feeding the nettle powder in
mashed potato form to the chickens.
And what he created was a reallyhigh protein zero waste feed
from undervalued ingredients.
He literally, Daniel, heturned base nettle into gold.
Daniel Rowles (09:25):
Oh, I like that little play on words there.
I like it.
I like it.
Well, so what's the lesson from this then?
Ciaran (09:31):
So I think, here's the thing that I took away from it that,
that value is really often hiddenbehind what we overlook and discard.
You know, and we don't think about it.
We're too busy, like, we'reterrible in marketing.
Let's just get bigger budgets.
Let's get more meat on thetable and then we'll succeed.
Right?
No.
When do we last go down the drainsand do a bit of an efficiency drive?
(09:52):
What are we wasting that we don't use?
I bet all of you, if you were to thinkabout this and spend some time digging
into it, you're sat on vast data troves.
valuable stuff.
You just need to work out what'sin there and how can we use
it and how can we process it.
Like what's our digital marketingequivalent of mashed potatoes?
Daniel Rowles (10:12):
I was gonna say here that you've got conversion rate optimization,
which we've already got loads of traffic.
How can we convert a bit more of it?
Right.
And then actually what we've suddenlygot now is AI tools that can analyze data
that was quite hard to analyze before.
Ciaran (10:23):
Yep.
Daniel Rowles (10:23):
So if I start looking for themes and patterns of people traveling
from my website and then saying,
Ciaran (10:27):
Yeah.
Daniel Rowles (10:28):
would be worth testing?
Could I do some testing with that stuff?
And rather than focus on more traffic,just get more of it to convert.
Ciaran (10:33):
Massively.
I've become obsessed with what Iterm negative audiences, right?
Every organization has these are poolsof people that are the wrong type of
customer, And you get an automaticclicks and leads and stuff from them,
and we tend to discard that as wasteWorkNet, and that's hugely expensive.
A bit of data actually.
When you think about all the costper clicks that go into, you know,
(10:55):
getting leads from the wrong peoplethat they're never gonna buy.
How about we, we turn that aroundand create a really effective like,
live updated, ongoing audience thatwe use to exclude with our campaigns.
How about we,
Daniel Rowles (11:07):
Right.
Ciaran (11:08):
with creating a lookalike audience of these people?
And it may or may not work, dependingwhat, there's all sorts of ways when
you start digging into this, you know,like combining both these things.
I'm most interested inwhat I don't have to do.
And actually, if we really thinkabout the amount of waste within
Daniel Rowles (11:24):
right.
Ciaran (11:25):
how much could we literally turn base metal into gold
Daniel Rowles (11:30):
Well, what could we stop doing as well?
Right?
And I think
Ciaran (11:32):
That's
Daniel Rowles (11:32):
I've got a big feeling about a lot of social media is that,
Ciaran (11:35):
biggest thing that marketers say to us all the time, isn't it?
Oh, if only there weremore hours in the day.
Well actually there is, if you stopdoing some of the stuff that's not.
Generating reward.
Now Gavin would never put a wholeload of effort into a crop that's
not gonna give him multiple benefits.
Why would he?
When there are crops that do, and actuallywhat he's done, he's taken nettles.
(11:55):
I mean, these things area nuisance normally, but
actually they grow everywhere.
Where he is on the
Daniel Rowles (11:59):
well to that point as well I found the bigger that we've got.
And the more people that engagesocially, the more haters you get, right?
You get people saying negative stuff,they just pile onto anything you say
and to say, well, blah, blah, blah.
Just you.
And actually, by engaging with thosepeople, I've found I've turned some
people that are very vocal and liketo post a lot online into advocates.
Ciaran (12:19):
Yeah.
Daniel Rowles (12:20):
And that's actually taking something that's been a bit difficult and
turning into something that's really gold,
Ciaran (12:23):
Yeah,
Daniel Rowles (12:24):
right?
So I think there's, yeah, there'sa brilliant lesson in there.
All right.
The next one.
Okay.
I have a lot of questions about this.
So you met a goose called Mr.Duck, who thinks he's a chicken.
Ciaran (12:33):
yeah,
Daniel Rowles (12:34):
So Goose called Mr. Duck
Ciaran (12:36):
I
Daniel Rowles (12:36):
that thinks he's a chicken.
Just process that.
Ciaran (12:38):
I absolutely adored him.
So we've got the chickens.
We've been having adiscussion about nettles.
My mind's on fire at this point.
Like all my synapses are firing on so manydifferent levels, and I'm feeling a little
bit giddy from the whole effect of it.
And then Gavin introduces us to Mr.
Duck.
he's called Mr. Duck because previouslythey've been keeping ducks, right?
(13:02):
And the ducks were in with the chickens.
And actually he's more like a duck thana chicken because they had lots of ducks.
He.
Like the name stuck or was Mr.Duck is kind of, 'cause he's in,
they don't have the ducks anymore.
They've got chickens and they'vegot Mr. Duck, but he's a goose.
Now the story goes that the gooseegg, they've got some friends
who keep geese these friends gavethem three goose eggs as a gift.
(13:24):
The intention was for themto eat the goose eggs, right?
But immediately they asked,look, are the eggs viable?
Well, yeah, they are.
And Lucy was like.
Well, I'm hatching some chicken eggs.
And she put 'em straight into theincubator and one of them hatched, right?
And that was the goose now named Mr. Duck.
But what's interesting is that Mr. Duckactually thinks he's a chicken, right?
(13:47):
Because he's beenbrought up with chickens.
Like he was literally raised withwolves, you know, as the story goes.
But not in this instance.
He was raised with chickens.
So it is very likely he doesactually think he's a chicken.
I mean, he is a lot biggerthan the chickens, but he runs
around, he's part of their.
Their flock as it were.
And you know, they've raised him as ifhe will, one of their, one of their own.
And somebody asked Gavin soare you raising him for food?
(14:10):
Right?
And he looked, they actually lookedquite horrified and went, do you know
some things are far more valuable thanprotein and knowledge is one of them.
And he explained that Mr.Duck's role to be observed.
'cause what Gavin does is he buildsthese permaculture systems, right?
So, you know, by observing Mr. Duck,he's trying to understand what does a
(14:33):
goose need so he can build systems aroundother geese and not just one of them.
So Mr. Duck is a research project in thatway, and he's really trying to understand
what are all the needs and inputs thatMr. Duck needs to thrive, and how would
we integrate that with all the othersystems and things that were going on.
(14:53):
He's looking for a commercialadvantage, and for me, this was
another mind blowing moment.
Like not everything to have a commercialor consumable outcome to have huge value.
This is about taking astep back and observing
Daniel Rowles (15:11):
Right.
I think there's something importantin here as we get to agent
based AI and that kind of stuff.
There's loads of people just going,let's cut this, let's cut that role.
Let's make it more efficient.
There's, let's automate it.
And if you're not careful, what you removeis imagination and insight out of things.
And.
Saying actually, if we just, youknow, I really like this idea
of creativity, experimentation.
(15:33):
Let's just try someaccounts, see what happens.
Let's try a new format of the podcast.
Let's, it's not that I think it'sgonna make us any more money, but I
just kind of wanna understand it andthen go, what could we do with that?
Ciaran (15:42):
We do this all the time actually, we,
Daniel Rowles (15:44):
Right?
Ciaran (15:44):
of things that we've just trialed out.
Daniel Rowles (15:47):
Like this episode,
Ciaran (15:49):
but back in the
Daniel Rowles (15:50):
there's no commercial value.
Ciaran (15:52):
you and I wrote a number one bestselling Amazon book
on search engine optimization.
Daniel Rowles (15:57):
I think you wrote
Ciaran (15:58):
well,
Daniel Rowles (15:58):
an awful lot of that.
Ciaran (15:59):
And, but you contributed to it and you helped me like test it out.
And the sole purpose of thatwas to work out are, do these
techniques we've read about
Daniel Rowles (16:09):
Yeah.
Can you game the Kindle storelike people say you can.
Ciaran (16:12):
do they actually work?
And actually the outcomewas yes, they did.
I would argue that wholeexperience was the seed that
started your kind of success.
We'd never published a book bookbefore And actually after that
you got a publisher and you'vebeen writing books ever since.
And that's been let's be honest,that's been quite lucrative.
(16:34):
Source in many ways.
Not just from the commercialoutcomes of the books, but
all the opportunities that's
Daniel Rowles (16:38):
It's the brand that comes off the back of it.
Yeah.
It's completely that as well.
So that by the way, people, that wasKieran claiming, you know, responsibility
for my entire publishing career.
I'm quite impressed by that as well.
Yeah.
Ciaran (16:48):
You know, you weren't expecting that, but yeah.
I'll take,
Daniel Rowles (16:50):
Well you did write that SEO but was entirely you.
Ciaran (16:53):
I just love the craziness of it, like a goose that, that's called Mr.
Duck that thinks he's a chicken nut's.
It's like, what the hell,what's going on there?
But yeah, actually there Ilearned a lot from Mr. Duck
Daniel Rowles (17:05):
Well, to connect us all back, where does all this link back to
business and leadership a bit as well?
Ciaran (17:09):
I think what I'm saying is look, guys, start with
what's already there, right?
We're always, so searching for the newthing, and I know all of you love our
like tips and tricks episode 'cause Oh newshiny toys and we love them too, right?
But actually start with what you'vealready got and observe first.
And as Daniel was saying,reflecting on where AI is going and
(17:32):
agents and how people are gonna.
I know.
Leap on that and not be wise, like,not think about the outcomes of what
they're doing before they implement them.
And you know, you don't needto be a genius to work out.
Actually, if we stop recruitingassistance, then we are cutting our
organization off the knees becausewho's gonna replace us when we retire?
(17:53):
Right.
Who's gonna like climb up the ladder and
Daniel Rowles (17:56):
Where's the talent pipeline?
Right?
Ciaran (17:58):
Exactly that.
Exactly that.
I'm not really thinking about this now.
Somebody like Gavin.
never bring in a flock of geeseand just see what happens.
Like he's doing it gradually andcarefully and he's thinking it
Daniel Rowles (18:10):
Right,
Ciaran (18:11):
because this is life critical.
Like his family won't eat he
Daniel Rowles (18:16):
right.
Ciaran (18:16):
Right.
Right.
no different from what you guys are alldoing for your businesses right now.
It is life critical.
You know, you drive the lifeblood,of the whole organization.
Daniel Rowles (18:27):
Well, we need our jobs.
We need our businesses.
Right.
Ciaran (18:29):
Yeah.
So we take some missteps here,like could be jammed today
and starvation, 3, 4, 5 years
Daniel Rowles (18:37):
Right.
Ciaran (18:37):
Like it's, there's some really big fundamental questions
that I think we're all facing here.
So, observe first, forharmony, not just output.
And in a, an a agentic worldthat is massively important.
How are we observing how thisall fits into the bigger picture
Before we race in and start?
Slashing all the cropsand only growing nettles.
(18:59):
the equivalent of whatI think we, we all do.
And that is not the method, thatis not the way, you know, that,
that is, that is craziness.
That's modern farming methodsactually let's just go for the profit.
And we've seen where that's
Daniel Rowles (19:10):
And destroy the soil and the process and everything else.
Yeah.
Ciaran (19:13):
of that.
All of that.
And like, there are really big questionsI think we should be asking in business.
Like what do we think is waste andwhat might actually be valuable is
to go back to composting toilets.
They're literally taking human wasteand turning it into black gold.
Something that's extremely valuablefor them that, that massively
increases their output doingit in some really clever ways.
(19:36):
You know, are we justdefaulting to effort?
And budgets when actually smartersystems would totally set us free.
And why are we chasing protein the time?
Actually, we don't chase protein, do we?
We chase profit.
But actually with that, I think we missout on some really valuable insights.
(19:57):
there are things that you do need todo and you do need to test out that
might not directly result in profit,but actually when connected up, when you
start joining the dot dots in a reallysmart way, when you become a systems
thinker, you properly think this through.
Actually the gains could be astronomical.
And
Not commercial advantagein this line of thinking.
(20:18):
Like, I don't know where it, whereelse you'd find it like this I just
think there's something in this.
What I love is it's come fromtaking time out and looking at
something completely different.
And it, it, honestly, it hitme like a shovel in the head.
It's like, whoa, no one'sreally thinking about it.
No one's really talking about this.
And actually, off the back of this,I spent oh, a good five, six hours
(20:39):
discussing this with chat GPT.
And actually what came out of thiswas a really in depth medium article.
I
Daniel Rowles (20:47):
Which we'll link through to in the show notes.
Ciaran (20:49):
I'd love for, I'd love to get your feedback
Daniel Rowles (20:50):
you also made a comparison to elite athletes.
Just explore that a little bit for us.
Ciaran (20:54):
I think this is the thing, like big business hire from elite sports a lot.
I've been to so many like sessionsand seminars and things where
you'll have a really famous
Daniel Rowles (21:05):
So the keynotes, yeah.
Ciaran (21:06):
yeah.
But what it got me thinkingis actually there are other
kinds of elite performance.
If permaculture were an Olympicsport, Gavin and Lucy from
Permaculture Island would be goldmedalists, no doubt about it.
Like they train daily, not ingyms, but in their gardens.
You know, their metrics are soil health,community resilience, closed loops and
clean loops and it's a really high leveloperating system for sustainable life.
(21:32):
Why isn't businesseslooking to people like that?
I, the level of intelligence there andthe level of wisdom that, that I was
able to tap into that just helped meleapfrog in terms of my thinking was like
I. Like nothing I've experienced before.
If businesses are really serious aboutcreating sustainable operating systems for
(21:56):
their businesses, they should be talkingto people like, like Gavin and Lucy.
For sure.
Check out Permaculture Island.
Like they do run these courses.
I would love it if from all over the worldpeople started flying into Southampton
just to go and meet with Gavin and Lucy.
I'll tell you, you won't be disappointed.
They're a real breath of fresh air,really inspirational but do something
completely different and see.
(22:18):
you can reflect on thatwithin your own operations.
'cause I think that could, veryoften, massive breakthroughs are made
when you start connecting the dots.
No one else has done, and this isdefinitely, this is a source for sure.
Daniel Rowles (22:31):
So, yeah, by the time I'd got to this very long WhatsApp
message, as you can tell from thispodcast I kind of realized it wasn't
about toilets and chickens really.
So any last kind of thingsin terms of what this is
really about?
Ciaran (22:42):
Yeah I mean, I, it's just a way of thinking, right?
That's the big thing I think I took awayfrom this, and actually I got to start
thinking about global systems as well.
Permaculture offers avery different model.
It's regenerative, it's observational,it's self-sustaining right
now, you could apply that forsure to your business, right?
(23:03):
That's got, that has got.
slash profit in all over, isn't it?
Regenerative, observational,and self-sustaining.
That's actually what we're all after.
but actually, let's think bigger.
This could be applied not just atboardroom level, at parliamentary
level or at a neighborhood level.
Like the kind of, I guess the line is it'snot survival in spite of the system, which
(23:27):
is where I think we're all at the moment.
It's survival because of the systems.
Daniel Rowles (23:31):
Yeah, and I think in an environment where we're overwhelmed in
marketing anyway, 'cause we've got toomuch to do, we're overwhelmed 'cause of
the AI stuff that's happening, actuallytaking that little lean back and thinking
in these contexts and maybe taking anexternal view is a good thing to do.
Ciaran (23:44):
just, what don't I have to do?
I'm most interested, that's what
Daniel Rowles (23:48):
Yeah.
Ciaran (23:49):
most interested in what I don't have to do is, that's got
superpowers written all over it.
Like, and I'd encourage all of you tospend a bit of time thinking about that.
How could that transformyour current marketing?
Actually, if you are observationaland you look at the outputs and you
test out a few of your theories onthis, you will gain big from that.
Daniel Rowles (24:13):
And I, I just love the last thing you put into the show notes,
which is like, it's not just the coursethat you went on, it's a mindset reset.
So we'll put a link into the shownotes to the course itself as well.
And that either you've said here,if you observe properly and listen
well, you'll leave with something morevaluable than just the course content.
Ciaran (24:26):
Definitely.
Daniel Rowles (24:27):
And I think that's a, it's why we go to conferences, right?
It's why we go, I need to takea different perspective on this.
I need to take a stepout of my day by day.
And actually the busier we get, the morefrantic we get and the more fast paced.
'cause the ai, everything is the,maybe the less we're doing that.
And it, I think it's a very good point.
It doesn't just have tobe digital marketing.
Like I don't just listen todigital marketing podcasts.
I try and listen to a broaderset of things and you are doing
(24:50):
things that are even more.
Further afield as well, very clearly.
So hopefully there's some insights nowand we hope you like this kind of format.
Let us know.
Always up for your feedback as well.
All of the links willbe in the show notes.
Target internet have gone forwardslash podcast and we hope to see you
again on the Digital marketing podcastor on a toilet composting workshop.
Ciaran (25:09):
I just a personal plea from me on this, like I'm, as you can
see, I'm really excited about it.
I'm really honored to get theopportunity to share this with you.
All right.
I would really love feedback from anybodythat actually gets something else.
I'd love to know whathave you done with this?
Like, what kind of differences it made?
What opportunities did it open up for you?
'cause actually, I think if we getenough feedback, it'd be lovely to do
(25:30):
a, like a follow up episode on this, on,on how that kind of line of thinking.
You know, what difference does it make?
You know, as marketers, we're alwaysgoing, well, so what, you know, I'm
kind of doing that with this content.
Really.
It would be really lovely to know whatdid you guys do for, maybe you didn't,
maybe you just thought it was ridiculous.
Which is fine.
You know, I don't mind, I knoweverybody's gonna get something outta
this, but I'd love to know either way.
(25:51):
So yeah, please get in touch.
Daniel Rowles (25:53):
And if you do get nothing out of it and you've listened to the end,
then we'd love to hear from you as well.
'cause why did you stay onlistening to the end as well?
Thanks for listening to theDigital Marketing Podcast,
and we'll see you next time.
For more episodes, resources toleave a review or to get in contact,
go to target internet.com/podcast.
Hello and welcome back to the Digital Marketing Podcast, brought
to you by target internet.com.
My name is Kieran Rogers
Daniel Rowles (00:07):
And I'm Daniel Rose.
Ciaran (00:09):
And today we are discussing regenerative mindset, the goose.
He thought he was a chicken.
Daniel Rowles (00:22):
If you are wondering what the heck is
going on you're in good company.
I had a text me.
Well, first of all, this is gonna bethe most kinny of all our podcasts
if the, if kinny can be a thing.
I received a text message, I thinkit was a WhatsApp from Kieran.
And we bounce ideas like we get randomstuff to each other all the time.
Have you seen this?
Look at this.
This is really interesting.
And I got a message from Kieran thatwas about 20 pages long, and I started
(00:44):
reading it thinking, what has he sent me?
Something about, you know, a websiteor what is it of the podcast?
And it was entitled The GooseThat thought it was a chicken.
And I was like, right, Ican't read this right now.
I'm gonna park this and come back to it.
And that evening I sat down.
I read this and I waslike, what madness is this?
And then I went on a journey and Ilearned, and that's what I want you to do.
(01:04):
Listeners, I want you to embracethe madness for a moment.
Don't switch us off just yet.
Listen, so tell us how this allstarted and this is what made
you go on a composting toiletworkshop in the first place.
And as I said, listeners, bear with me.
Bear with me.
Ciaran (01:19):
I went on a composting toilet course, like a half day course.
It was bought for me by a frienda friend of mine, Matt, who
I've worked with Matt for years.
He's a brilliant developer andMatt has had this long-term dream,
which has almost become my dream.
That Matt should like realize this dream.
He's had it that long.
His dream was he's alwayswanted to own his own woodland.
(01:42):
Right?
And actually last autumn, he.
He actually remortgaged the houseand bought a woodland on the ROI.
It's epic.
All sorts of like adventureshave ensued as a result of this.
But one of his problems is it'sliterally, it's just a wood.
And I saw that there's this amazingplace called Horticulture Island.
Run by Gavin and Lucy, like
Daniel Rowles (02:02):
He was on Ben Fog Show.
Wasn't it?
Ciaran (02:04):
on Ben Fog.
If you look up Ben Fogle's New Livesin the Wild and look up the episode
on the Isle of White, it was in themost recent series on channel five.
I think that
Daniel Rowles (02:12):
Yep, that's right.
Ciaran (02:12):
We can put a link to it in the show notes.
But I sent Matt a link to this 'causeI thought, oh, composting toilet, that
might be quite good for Matts wood.
Piss this out there, all the hours,clearing all the brush and what have you.
That could be fun.
And actually he thought it wasbrilliant and we were chatting about
it and I said, yeah I've alwaysfancied doing something like that.
'cause it, it just fascinates melike I am, I'm a big fan of green
(02:33):
technology, I suppose, and althoughwould never consider building a
composting toilet in my own garden.
It's just interesting.
Daniel Rowles (02:39):
Right.
I just love this.
I've got the show notesin front of me, right?
We have these goggles with the show notes.
I think this is even worse,publishing with a thing and it is
just this great, I love this line.
It's an expected toiletsgot a life lesson.
I think what a line that is, right.
Okay.
So what is it about thisworkshop that surprised you then?
Ciaran (02:54):
we went along together.
Matt bought us both a ticket and itwas on a Saturday afternoon, a really
sunny afternoon on this amazing place.
Horticultural island is like,
Daniel Rowles (03:04):
I.
Ciaran (03:04):
on a bit of land, like literally on the land slip.
And they've turned what it was unwantedland into this amazing Garden of Eden
where they grow all of their own food.
And they have holiday cottages that youcan let there and stuff, and people go
there for to just chill out and switchoff, actually an amazing place to do that.
But we.
We went along to learn aboutcomposting toilets, but I
(03:25):
literally got a life lesson.
What Gavin that runs this was chipping in.
Lucy was presenting and Gavinwas chipping in on the side.
You get the sense that he's reallywise, like he, he's not gone through
any of the traditional academic routes.
I think he was very much considered afailure at school, but he's brilliant at
what he does and he thinks really deeplyabout everything that he does, and he's
(03:46):
really interested in permaculture, right.
And the whole premise of permacultureis you are designing systems that work
with the natural rhythms of nature.
That's the whole premise.
'cause actually, if you design wellaround them, actually, then nature
works for you rather than against you.
Right?
So if you speak to Gavin about modernfarming practices like mass farming
(04:06):
practices who'll, you know, pointout how hugely wasteful they are and
how much huge amounts of energy goin when actually it doesn't need to.
So as we were going through the lessonson composting toilets and how they work
and I'm not gonna go too much into that.
'cause that wasn't the mostvaluable thing that I got out of it.
Interesting.
Although it was it was more the,their ethos and philosophy on and
(04:30):
design of systems that work doublyhard and they're all interconnect.
actually what it really mademe realize is actually that's
what we do as digital marketers.
the time, you know, whereas Gavin'sthinking about, you know, how would
different livestock integrate withthe plants that they're growing
and the outcomes that they want.
You know, we are often thinkingabout , keyword landscapes and
(04:51):
different bidding patterns on, onGoogle ads and social media algorithms.
And we are just, as much as Gavin isobserving the seasons, we're observing
the fruits of our labors and workingout how can I squeeze more out of
it, you know, that's the fun of it.
That's the fun of what we do.
Daniel Rowles (05:05):
There's a great quote here.
That's, well tell methis quote from Gavin.
'cause
Ciaran (05:09):
So,
Daniel Rowles (05:09):
I think it's brilliant.
Ciaran (05:11):
somebody asked Gavin a question and he, the answer he gave was really
profound and it hit me like a shovel inthe head, he just, he gazed down into
the distance in answering this question.
He said, I suppose what I'm mostinterested in in what I don't have to do.
Like just let that sink in.
Like that is a radical idea andI got really excited about it.
(05:34):
Like that's not laziness.
That's elegance.
systems that thrive with lessintervention, This is, and
this is what where permaculturereally comes into, right?
It's totally about leveragingthe forces that are there in
your favor rather than fighting
Daniel Rowles (05:50):
Right.
I immediately had a thought aboutthat from a digital marketing
point of view, which is that we'dspent so much time going, oh, we
need to do this type of place.
We need to do some TikTok stuff.
We need to do this video,we need to do that.
We need to, and they go, actually,what are we doing that works?
The podcast, right?
It's the podcast that, that'swhat people like, right?
So let's just double down on that.
Do more podcasts.
Try and get in to do different things.
(06:11):
They experiment with differentformats, but then use the podcast.
To become the short video post, to becomethe video clips, to become the transcript.
Well, what works is that, and thenactually you could get people to
subscribe to a newsletter who's alreadyinterested and if they subscribe to the
newsletter, you get 'em to come to a livewebinar 'cause they like you already.
And they come to live webinar, theymight sign up for the product and we
(06:31):
suddenly went, oh, that's our funnel.
Ciaran (06:33):
Yeah,
Daniel Rowles (06:34):
And our funnel is much more naturally easy than the
other stuff we were trying to do.
Ciaran (06:37):
it's like a whole new marketing strategy like
Marketing.
I, yes, I'd have to come upwith something better than that.
But you get the meaning of it, right?
It's kind of, it's really interesting.
So like I, I just became obsessed and Iwas explaining to Daniel, for me, when
something profound like that hits me, it'sa feeling I don't really understand it.
I just have a feeling, and thenI need to spend quite a bit of
time processing what that means.
(06:59):
Like, so what does this change?
How does this and actually the longerI was there, more of these little
nuggets of joy started coming out.
Daniel Rowles (07:08):
Right.
So talk to us about nettles and chickens.
I mean, this is where it startsgetting pretty out there.
Ciaran (07:12):
Yeah.
Right.
Daniel Rowles (07:13):
you thought it was out there already, you just bet.
Hold on Tight.
Ciaran (07:15):
We, as part of the course, we were all invited into their house
where they have this incrediblecomposting toilet, which was
built before the house was right.
So it's got like two massivepits, where the waste goes.
And I think it, it took them 12 yearsto fill the first pit and then now
on the second and what they'll do isthey'll harvest the first pit after
like about 18 months when it's kindof all broken down and ready to use.
(07:37):
And that will like.
Their crops and do all sortsof clever stuff, right?
So, so that's going on.
But their house isn't huge andthey can only take three people
into the bathroom at any one time.
So whilst we were waiting, we werestood by their chicken run that
they've got, and they've got this bigarea where the chickens roam freely.
And there was a really interestingsign on the door of the shed
(07:59):
where they kind of look after alltheir chicken feed and stuff and.
It was a breakdown of nettle powder itscomponents like how much protein and zero
rice, and it compared it to other things.
And actually it out that nettles,which are abundant and wild, very high
in protein and really calcium rich,
(08:20):
Do you know that?
Okay, learn something every day.
so Gavin, being the mastercraftsman of the years has actually
been sneaking nettle powder intofamily meals like you see takes.
Wild nettles that grow everywhere.
He dries them and then hegrinds 'em into a powder.
'Cause it's highly nutritiousand hugely beneficial.
And actually high protein and calcium.
That's really good when you knoweverything that they grow, they eat
(08:43):
they're self-sufficient, But theydon't keep cows or goats, right?
So this is a really usefulsource of calcium for them.
But it occurred to Gavin that she calciumand protein are what chickens need,
He was like, right, I needto get the chickens to eat.
Nettles.
The problem is chickens donot wanna eat nettles, right?
They're not into that at all.
Be 'em fresh or dried,they're not into it.
But he did know that chickensloved mashed potatoes,
Daniel Rowles (09:05):
Who doesn't?
Ciaran (09:06):
He doesn't and they have a lot of potatoes, so abundant crop, right?
So that's what he started doing,is feeding the nettle powder in
mashed potato form to the chickens.
And what he created was a reallyhigh protein zero waste feed
from undervalued ingredients.
He literally, Daniel, heturned base nettle into gold.
Daniel Rowles (09:25):
Oh, I like that little play on words there.
I like it.
I like it.
Well, so what's the lesson from this then?
Ciaran (09:31):
So I think, here's the thing that I took away from it that,
that value is really often hiddenbehind what we overlook and discard.
You know, and we don't think about it.
We're too busy, like, we'reterrible in marketing.
Let's just get bigger budgets.
Let's get more meat on thetable and then we'll succeed.
Right?
No.
When do we last go down the drainsand do a bit of an efficiency drive?
(09:52):
What are we wasting that we don't use?
I bet all of you, if you were to thinkabout this and spend some time digging
into it, you're sat on vast data troves.
valuable stuff.
You just need to work out what'sin there and how can we use
it and how can we process it.
Like what's our digital marketingequivalent of mashed potatoes?
Daniel Rowles (10:12):
I was gonna say here that you've got conversion rate optimization,
which we've already got loads of traffic.
How can we convert a bit more of it?
Right.
And then actually what we've suddenlygot now is AI tools that can analyze data
that was quite hard to analyze before.
Ciaran (10:23):
Yep.
Daniel Rowles (10:23):
So if I start looking for themes and patterns of people traveling
from my website and then saying,
Ciaran (10:27):
Yeah.
Daniel Rowles (10:28):
would be worth testing?
Could I do some testing with that stuff?
And rather than focus on more traffic,just get more of it to convert.
Ciaran (10:33):
Massively.
I've become obsessed with what Iterm negative audiences, right?
Every organization has these are poolsof people that are the wrong type of
customer, And you get an automaticclicks and leads and stuff from them,
and we tend to discard that as wasteWorkNet, and that's hugely expensive.
A bit of data actually.
When you think about all the costper clicks that go into, you know,
(10:55):
getting leads from the wrong peoplethat they're never gonna buy.
How about we, we turn that aroundand create a really effective like,
live updated, ongoing audience thatwe use to exclude with our campaigns.
How about we,
Daniel Rowles (11:07):
Right.
Ciaran (11:08):
with creating a lookalike audience of these people?
And it may or may not work, dependingwhat, there's all sorts of ways when
you start digging into this, you know,like combining both these things.
I'm most interested inwhat I don't have to do.
And actually, if we really thinkabout the amount of waste within
Daniel Rowles (11:24):
right.
Ciaran (11:25):
how much could we literally turn base metal into gold
Daniel Rowles (11:30):
Well, what could we stop doing as well?
Right?
And I think
Ciaran (11:32):
That's
Daniel Rowles (11:32):
I've got a big feeling about a lot of social media is that,
Ciaran (11:35):
biggest thing that marketers say to us all the time, isn't it?
Oh, if only there weremore hours in the day.
Well actually there is, if you stopdoing some of the stuff that's not.
Generating reward.
Now Gavin would never put a wholeload of effort into a crop that's
not gonna give him multiple benefits.
Why would he?
When there are crops that do, and actuallywhat he's done, he's taken nettles.
(11:55):
I mean, these things area nuisance normally, but
actually they grow everywhere.
Where he is on the
Daniel Rowles (11:59):
well to that point as well I found the bigger that we've got.
And the more people that engagesocially, the more haters you get, right?
You get people saying negative stuff,they just pile onto anything you say
and to say, well, blah, blah, blah.
Just you.
And actually, by engaging with thosepeople, I've found I've turned some
people that are very vocal and liketo post a lot online into advocates.
Ciaran (12:19):
Yeah.
Daniel Rowles (12:20):
And that's actually taking something that's been a bit difficult and
turning into something that's really gold,
Ciaran (12:23):
Yeah,
Daniel Rowles (12:24):
right?
So I think there's, yeah, there'sa brilliant lesson in there.
All right.
The next one.
Okay.
I have a lot of questions about this.
So you met a goose called Mr.Duck, who thinks he's a chicken.
Ciaran (12:33):
yeah,
Daniel Rowles (12:34):
So Goose called Mr. Duck
Ciaran (12:36):
I
Daniel Rowles (12:36):
that thinks he's a chicken.
Just process that.
Ciaran (12:38):
I absolutely adored him.
So we've got the chickens.
We've been having adiscussion about nettles.
My mind's on fire at this point.
Like all my synapses are firing on so manydifferent levels, and I'm feeling a little
bit giddy from the whole effect of it.
And then Gavin introduces us to Mr.
Duck.
he's called Mr. Duck because previouslythey've been keeping ducks, right?
(13:02):
And the ducks were in with the chickens.
And actually he's more like a duck thana chicken because they had lots of ducks.
He.
Like the name stuck or was Mr.Duck is kind of, 'cause he's in,
they don't have the ducks anymore.
They've got chickens and they'vegot Mr. Duck, but he's a goose.
Now the story goes that the gooseegg, they've got some friends
who keep geese these friends gavethem three goose eggs as a gift.
(13:24):
The intention was for themto eat the goose eggs, right?
But immediately they asked,look, are the eggs viable?
Well, yeah, they are.
And Lucy was like.
Well, I'm hatching some chicken eggs.
And she put 'em straight into theincubator and one of them hatched, right?
And that was the goose now named Mr. Duck.
But what's interesting is that Mr. Duckactually thinks he's a chicken, right?
(13:47):
Because he's beenbrought up with chickens.
Like he was literally raised withwolves, you know, as the story goes.
But not in this instance.
He was raised with chickens.
So it is very likely he doesactually think he's a chicken.
I mean, he is a lot biggerthan the chickens, but he runs
around, he's part of their.
Their flock as it were.
And you know, they've raised him as ifhe will, one of their, one of their own.
And somebody asked Gavin soare you raising him for food?
(14:10):
Right?
And he looked, they actually lookedquite horrified and went, do you know
some things are far more valuable thanprotein and knowledge is one of them.
And he explained that Mr.Duck's role to be observed.
'cause what Gavin does is he buildsthese permaculture systems, right?
So, you know, by observing Mr. Duck,he's trying to understand what does a
(14:33):
goose need so he can build systems aroundother geese and not just one of them.
So Mr. Duck is a research project in thatway, and he's really trying to understand
what are all the needs and inputs thatMr. Duck needs to thrive, and how would
we integrate that with all the othersystems and things that were going on.
(14:53):
He's looking for a commercialadvantage, and for me, this was
another mind blowing moment.
Like not everything to have a commercialor consumable outcome to have huge value.
This is about taking astep back and observing
Daniel Rowles (15:11):
Right.
I think there's something importantin here as we get to agent
based AI and that kind of stuff.
There's loads of people just going,let's cut this, let's cut that role.
Let's make it more efficient.
There's, let's automate it.
And if you're not careful, what you removeis imagination and insight out of things.
And.
Saying actually, if we just, youknow, I really like this idea
of creativity, experimentation.
(15:33):
Let's just try someaccounts, see what happens.
Let's try a new format of the podcast.
Let's, it's not that I think it'sgonna make us any more money, but I
just kind of wanna understand it andthen go, what could we do with that?
Ciaran (15:42):
We do this all the time actually, we,
Daniel Rowles (15:44):
Right?
Ciaran (15:44):
of things that we've just trialed out.
Daniel Rowles (15:47):
Like this episode,
Ciaran (15:49):
but back in the
Daniel Rowles (15:50):
there's no commercial value.
Ciaran (15:52):
you and I wrote a number one bestselling Amazon book
on search engine optimization.
Daniel Rowles (15:57):
I think you wrote
Ciaran (15:58):
well,
Daniel Rowles (15:58):
an awful lot of that.
Ciaran (15:59):
And, but you contributed to it and you helped me like test it out.
And the sole purpose of thatwas to work out are, do these
techniques we've read about
Daniel Rowles (16:09):
Yeah.
Can you game the Kindle storelike people say you can.
Ciaran (16:12):
do they actually work?
And actually the outcomewas yes, they did.
I would argue that wholeexperience was the seed that
started your kind of success.
We'd never published a book bookbefore And actually after that
you got a publisher and you'vebeen writing books ever since.
And that's been let's be honest,that's been quite lucrative.
(16:34):
Source in many ways.
Not just from the commercialoutcomes of the books, but
all the opportunities that's
Daniel Rowles (16:38):
It's the brand that comes off the back of it.
Yeah.
It's completely that as well.
So that by the way, people, that wasKieran claiming, you know, responsibility
for my entire publishing career.
I'm quite impressed by that as well.
Yeah.
Ciaran (16:48):
You know, you weren't expecting that, but yeah.
I'll take,
Daniel Rowles (16:50):
Well you did write that SEO but was entirely you.
Ciaran (16:53):
I just love the craziness of it, like a goose that, that's called Mr.
Duck that thinks he's a chicken nut's.
It's like, what the hell,what's going on there?
But yeah, actually there Ilearned a lot from Mr. Duck
Daniel Rowles (17:05):
Well, to connect us all back, where does all this link back to
business and leadership a bit as well?
Ciaran (17:09):
I think what I'm saying is look, guys, start with
what's already there, right?
We're always, so searching for the newthing, and I know all of you love our
like tips and tricks episode 'cause Oh newshiny toys and we love them too, right?
But actually start with what you'vealready got and observe first.
And as Daniel was saying,reflecting on where AI is going and
(17:32):
agents and how people are gonna.
I know.
Leap on that and not be wise, like,not think about the outcomes of what
they're doing before they implement them.
And you know, you don't needto be a genius to work out.
Actually, if we stop recruitingassistance, then we are cutting our
organization off the knees becausewho's gonna replace us when we retire?
(17:53):
Right.
Who's gonna like climb up the ladder and
Daniel Rowles (17:56):
Where's the talent pipeline?
Right?
Ciaran (17:58):
Exactly that.
Exactly that.
I'm not really thinking about this now.
Somebody like Gavin.
never bring in a flock of geeseand just see what happens.
Like he's doing it gradually andcarefully and he's thinking it
Daniel Rowles (18:10):
Right,
Ciaran (18:11):
because this is life critical.
Like his family won't eat he
Daniel Rowles (18:16):
right.
Ciaran (18:16):
Right.
Right.
no different from what you guys are alldoing for your businesses right now.
It is life critical.
You know, you drive the lifeblood,of the whole organization.
Daniel Rowles (18:27):
Well, we need our jobs.
We need our businesses.
Right.
Ciaran (18:29):
Yeah.
So we take some missteps here,like could be jammed today
and starvation, 3, 4, 5 years
Daniel Rowles (18:37):
Right.
Ciaran (18:37):
Like it's, there's some really big fundamental questions
that I think we're all facing here.
So, observe first, forharmony, not just output.
And in a, an a agentic worldthat is massively important.
How are we observing how thisall fits into the bigger picture
Before we race in and start?
Slashing all the cropsand only growing nettles.
(18:59):
the equivalent of whatI think we, we all do.
And that is not the method, thatis not the way, you know, that,
that is, that is craziness.
That's modern farming methodsactually let's just go for the profit.
And we've seen where that's
Daniel Rowles (19:10):
And destroy the soil and the process and everything else.
Yeah.
Ciaran (19:13):
of that.
All of that.
And like, there are really big questionsI think we should be asking in business.
Like what do we think is waste andwhat might actually be valuable is
to go back to composting toilets.
They're literally taking human wasteand turning it into black gold.
Something that's extremely valuablefor them that, that massively
increases their output doingit in some really clever ways.
(19:36):
You know, are we justdefaulting to effort?
And budgets when actually smartersystems would totally set us free.
And why are we chasing protein the time?
Actually, we don't chase protein, do we?
We chase profit.
But actually with that, I think we missout on some really valuable insights.
(19:57):
there are things that you do need todo and you do need to test out that
might not directly result in profit,but actually when connected up, when you
start joining the dot dots in a reallysmart way, when you become a systems
thinker, you properly think this through.
Actually the gains could be astronomical.
And
Not commercial advantagein this line of thinking.
(20:18):
Like, I don't know where it, whereelse you'd find it like this I just
think there's something in this.
What I love is it's come fromtaking time out and looking at
something completely different.
And it, it, honestly, it hitme like a shovel in the head.
It's like, whoa, no one'sreally thinking about it.
No one's really talking about this.
And actually, off the back of this,I spent oh, a good five, six hours
(20:39):
discussing this with chat GPT.
And actually what came out of thiswas a really in depth medium article.
I
Daniel Rowles (20:47):
Which we'll link through to in the show notes.
Ciaran (20:49):
I'd love for, I'd love to get your feedback
Daniel Rowles (20:50):
you also made a comparison to elite athletes.
Just explore that a little bit for us.
Ciaran (20:54):
I think this is the thing, like big business hire from elite sports a lot.
I've been to so many like sessionsand seminars and things where
you'll have a really famous
Daniel Rowles (21:05):
So the keynotes, yeah.
Ciaran (21:06):
yeah.
But what it got me thinkingis actually there are other
kinds of elite performance.
If permaculture were an Olympicsport, Gavin and Lucy from
Permaculture Island would be goldmedalists, no doubt about it.
Like they train daily, not ingyms, but in their gardens.
You know, their metrics are soil health,community resilience, closed loops and
clean loops and it's a really high leveloperating system for sustainable life.
(21:32):
Why isn't businesseslooking to people like that?
I, the level of intelligence there andthe level of wisdom that, that I was
able to tap into that just helped meleapfrog in terms of my thinking was like
I. Like nothing I've experienced before.
If businesses are really serious aboutcreating sustainable operating systems for
(21:56):
their businesses, they should be talkingto people like, like Gavin and Lucy.
For sure.
Check out Permaculture Island.
Like they do run these courses.
I would love it if from all over the worldpeople started flying into Southampton
just to go and meet with Gavin and Lucy.
I'll tell you, you won't be disappointed.
They're a real breath of fresh air,really inspirational but do something
completely different and see.
(22:18):
you can reflect on thatwithin your own operations.
'cause I think that could, veryoften, massive breakthroughs are made
when you start connecting the dots.
No one else has done, and this isdefinitely, this is a source for sure.
Daniel Rowles (22:31):
So, yeah, by the time I'd got to this very long WhatsApp
message, as you can tell from thispodcast I kind of realized it wasn't
about toilets and chickens really.
So any last kind of thingsin terms of what this is
really about?
Ciaran (22:42):
Yeah I mean, I, it's just a way of thinking, right?
That's the big thing I think I took awayfrom this, and actually I got to start
thinking about global systems as well.
Permaculture offers avery different model.
It's regenerative, it's observational,it's self-sustaining right
now, you could apply that forsure to your business, right?
(23:03):
That's got, that has got.
slash profit in all over, isn't it?
Regenerative, observational,and self-sustaining.
That's actually what we're all after.
but actually, let's think bigger.
This could be applied not just atboardroom level, at parliamentary
level or at a neighborhood level.
Like the kind of, I guess the line is it'snot survival in spite of the system, which
(23:27):
is where I think we're all at the moment.
It's survival because of the systems.
Daniel Rowles (23:31):
Yeah, and I think in an environment where we're overwhelmed in
marketing anyway, 'cause we've got toomuch to do, we're overwhelmed 'cause of
the AI stuff that's happening, actuallytaking that little lean back and thinking
in these contexts and maybe taking anexternal view is a good thing to do.
Ciaran (23:44):
just, what don't I have to do?
I'm most interested, that's what
Daniel Rowles (23:48):
Yeah.
Ciaran (23:49):
most interested in what I don't have to do is, that's got
superpowers written all over it.
Like, and I'd encourage all of you tospend a bit of time thinking about that.
How could that transformyour current marketing?
Actually, if you are observationaland you look at the outputs and you
test out a few of your theories onthis, you will gain big from that.
Daniel Rowles (24:13):
And I, I just love the last thing you put into the show notes,
which is like, it's not just the coursethat you went on, it's a mindset reset.
So we'll put a link into the shownotes to the course itself as well.
And that either you've said here,if you observe properly and listen
well, you'll leave with something morevaluable than just the course content.
Ciaran (24:26):
Definitely.
Daniel Rowles (24:27):
And I think that's a, it's why we go to conferences, right?
It's why we go, I need to takea different perspective on this.
I need to take a stepout of my day by day.
And actually the busier we get, the morefrantic we get and the more fast paced.
'cause the ai, everything is the,maybe the less we're doing that.
And it, I think it's a very good point.
It doesn't just have tobe digital marketing.
Like I don't just listen todigital marketing podcasts.
I try and listen to a broaderset of things and you are doing
(24:50):
things that are even more.
Further afield as well, very clearly.
So hopefully there's some insights nowand we hope you like this kind of format.
Let us know.
Always up for your feedback as well.
All of the links willbe in the show notes.
Target internet have gone forwardslash podcast and we hope to see you
again on the Digital marketing podcastor on a toilet composting workshop.
Ciaran (25:09):
I just a personal plea from me on this, like I'm, as you can
see, I'm really excited about it.
I'm really honored to get theopportunity to share this with you.
All right.
I would really love feedback from anybodythat actually gets something else.
I'd love to know whathave you done with this?
Like, what kind of differences it made?
What opportunities did it open up for you?
'cause actually, I think if we getenough feedback, it'd be lovely to do
(25:30):
a, like a follow up episode on this, on,on how that kind of line of thinking.
You know, what difference does it make?
You know, as marketers, we're alwaysgoing, well, so what, you know, I'm
kind of doing that with this content.
Really.
It would be really lovely to know whatdid you guys do for, maybe you didn't,
maybe you just thought it was ridiculous.
Which is fine.
You know, I don't mind, I knoweverybody's gonna get something outta
this, but I'd love to know either way.
(25:51):
So yeah, please get in touch.
Daniel Rowles (25:53):
And if you do get nothing out of it and you've listened to the end,
then we'd love to hear from you as well.
'cause why did you stay onlistening to the end as well?
Thanks for listening to theDigital Marketing Podcast,
and we'll see you next time.
For more episodes, resources toleave a review or to get in contact,
go to target internet.com/podcast.
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