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Tired of fake, polished marketing that doesn’t connect? In this episode, Penelope Holt shares how spiritual principles like authenticity and alignment can unlock deeper success—for your business and yourself.
There are episodes that inform, and then there are episodes that transform—and this one is the latter. I am sitting down with Penelope Holt who shares deep insights in the world of emotional intelligence, storytelling, and purpose-driven business. Penelope is the author of Business Emotions at Work and she brings decades of experience as a ghostwriter and marketing expert for entrepreneurs who want to build meaningful brands.
Our conversation began with the big question we explore on this podcast: Can business and spirituality coexist? Penelope didn’t just say yes—she explained why they must. She introduces the idea of the “Tao of Entrepreneurship,” a path where aligning with the natural flow of the universe actually fuels your business growth. We talked about how people often chase success by focusing solely on tactics, metrics, and strategy—when in reality, it’s their emotional and spiritual grounding that determines whether they thrive or burn out.
One of the most powerful moments in this episode was when we reflected on loss, including my own experience with the Palisades Fire. Penelope’s take on what really sustains us during devastating moments brought me to tears. She believes—and I agree—that our greatest rewards come not from manipulating outcomes, but from showing up with generosity, honesty, and trust. We talked about what it means to give without expectation, to receive openly, and to live from a place of alignment rather than performance.
If you’ve ever wondered whether your spiritual values have a place in your business, or if you’re feeling called to build something deeper than just a profitable model, this episode is for you. Penelope’s voice is one of clarity and compassion, and she reminds us that authenticity is becoming the most valuable currency in the marketplace. After you listen, I encourage you to dive deeper into her work at PenelopeHolt.com—it’s a resource every conscious leader should know about.
Resources Mentioned: Website | Linkedin | Instagram
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Penelope Holt (00:00):
Hi. My name is Penelope Holt. I am the author
of "Business Emotions At Work (00:03):
A Personal Operating System for
Success in Business." I'm also afiction author. My recent book,
"The Angel Scroll" is aspiritual mystery and thriller.
You can reach me atpenelopeholt.com we had a great
conversation today talking aboutthe DAO of the entrepreneur,
(00:24):
which is the path that theentrepreneur can walk by
integrating spiritual principlesinto their business life so that
success comes to them no matterwhat. And
BEATE CHELETTE (00:34):
hello, fabulous person! Beate Chelette here. I
am the host of the BusinessGrowth Architect Show, and I
want to welcome you to today'sepisode where we discuss how to
navigate strategy andspirituality to achieve time and
financial freedom. Trulysuccessful people have learned
how to master both a clearintention and a strategy to
(00:55):
execute that in a spiritualpractice that will help them to
stay in alignment and onpurpose. Please enjoy the show
and listen to what our guesttoday has to say about this very
topic. And welcome back. BeateChelette here, the host of the
Business Growth Architect Show.
And today I am here with guestPenelope Holt, and we are going
to be talking about spiritualityand how to integrate
(01:19):
spirituality intoentrepreneurship. Because I
think it is safe to say that alot of people see spirituality
as the one thing, and then whatthey do in business as the other
thing. And you're here to tellus otherwise. Penelope, thank
you so much for being on theshow.
Penelope Holt (01:38):
Welcome. Thank you for inviting me. I'm looking
forward to it.
BEATE CHELETTE (01:41):
So for somebody who's not familiar with who you
are or what you do, would youtell us who you are, what you
do, and what do you solve foryour clients?
Penelope Holt (01:51):
Well, I was born and educated in England. I
always wanted to be a writer,storyteller. I did begin
creatively. It was easier tomake a living doing business,
writing and helpingentrepreneurs to tell the story
of their brand or to writebooks, because there's usually
an underlying story or principlethat are guiding business
(02:11):
people. They have a passion,they have a story that they want
to tell. So I've spent a lot ofmy career as a ghost writer, as
a business writer, as a speechwriter, telling the story of
brands, making them meaningfuland relevant. In fact, the great
brand builders that you lookback on the forwards with the
Hallmark Cards, for example, itcame from an individual's
passion. It wasn't concocted ina test tube. So there has to be
(02:33):
a degree of authenticity behindevery great brand and every
great entrepreneur. And my jobhas been to work with
entrepreneurs and help them findthat, and then to kind of
counsel them. And in the processof doing that, becoming somewhat
of a confidant and understandingthat the spiritual or the
emotional input is often theengine that will fuel the
(02:54):
mission, and not just thetextbooks or the theory that you
learn at business school, whichis really
BEATE CHELETTE (02:58):
exactly where I want to be today, one of the
things that I have noticed isthat when people are connected
to their purpose and theirpassion, they work better. They
have more fun. But a lot ofpeople don't know how to do
that, or they think they followthis old idea that you have to
have a boring, cold, terriblejob, and then you make a lot of
(03:21):
money, or you have a reallygreat job that you love, and
then you make no money. Yeah, isthat
Penelope Holt (03:26):
the truth? No. I mean, it's manifest in
nonprofits. We give peoplepermission in a nonprofit,
mission oriented business to bepurposeful, like that. But in
business, the idea is that it'srational, it's cold, it's it's
numbers, it's been counting,it's theory, and that's and
we're actually, we're actuallytaught that to separate. So I
(03:48):
wrote a book a couple of yearsago with a co author called
"Business Emotions At Work (03:52):
A Personal Operating System For
Business Success," which bringsemotion and spirituality into
the realm of work, because whenyou walk through the door of the
office, you don't just leave allof that behind. But there is a
self consciousness aboutacknowledging it, and about
actually using not only businessgood sound, business principles,
(04:14):
but good sound spiritualprinciples to guide you. And I
would I, especially forentrepreneurs, I would hazard
the bet that the spiritualprinciples are actually going to
fuel your success more, moreeven than the business
principles themselves. Because,like you said, it's the
underlying drivers, the passion,the purpose, that keeps us going
(04:37):
when, when, often the businesslooks like it can be going down.
It's the ones who keep going.
And the ones that keep going areusually motivated by some deeper
principles than just the balancesheet. So
BEATE CHELETTE (04:47):
you keep talking about those principles. So that
makes me believe that you havefigured out what these
principles are, because a lot ofpeople say, Well, what is
spirituality? How do I evenstart? Can you help us
understand let's say I'm curiousabout this, and I think a lot of
people really are. They knowthat they need a deeper meaning,
(05:07):
but they have no idea where tostart. They have no idea how to
even get into it. What are yougoing to tell them?
Penelope Holt (05:12):
Well, I think different people can. There's
perennial wisdom andspirituality out there, and it
speaks differently to differentpeople. People take very
different journeys. I'm alwaysvery interested and curious
about the spiritual technologiesthat people use and find that
speak to them, that they use astheir operating system. Back in
(05:34):
sixth century China, there was aChinese philosophy called the
DAO, the path. So I think thatshould be a DAO of
entrepreneurship, the path ofentrepreneurship, so on. In the
DAO of entrepreneurship, theseare five principles that that
speak to me and that I used, andif they're useful to other
people, if not, I would say, Beon the lookout for some of those
(05:55):
spiritual teachings that moveyou and integrate them into the
whole of your life, includingbusiness. So to begin with, in
Taoism, the belief is that ifyou align yourself with the
universe, with the naturalunderlying principles of the
universe, that you will live inharmony and peace and success.
(06:16):
And so similarly, in business,if you align yourself with your
underlying spiritual goals.
You're going to go a lotfurther. You're going to go a
lot further. And there's asaying in Buddhism that the path
is the goal. So in business,we're always trying to get
somewhere. We're trying to getto the fundraising stage or the
revenue stage, or theacquisition stage, or cashing
(06:37):
out, or profitability is alwaysin the future. And what we don't
do is we don't understand thatit's actually going through the
whole entrepreneurial experiencethat is the goal, that is the
reward. Of course, the money andthe success and the status are
great, but really, really whatfeeds you is the learning. They
say that experience is what youget five minutes after you need
(06:59):
it. So the experience andreflecting on that experience is
what helps you grow in differentdimensions, particularly if your
intention is that you want tonot only grow your bank account,
but that you want to grow youremotional and your spiritual
self.
BEATE CHELETTE (07:18):
Is it fair to say that spirituality is so
challenging for people becauseit is such a non tangible thing.
Like, how do you address that?
Because people want tangibleideas, right? So if I say the
reward is the journey, which youdon't really understand until
(07:40):
you're older. Like, you can'ttell this 20 year old because
the 20 year old goes like, Nope,no, no, no, no, no, no, no. High
school was terrible. MiddleSchool, that's not even talk
about that. Now I'm in college.
There's nothing about this thatI find, you know, super
enjoyable. I just want to get tohave the money, buy the car, get
the house, you know, do whateverI want to do. What is it that is
(08:02):
so difficult about thesespiritual concepts, to
understand them or integratethem? You know, where I want to
go with this question is thelogical tangibility that people
always look for in strategiesand systems and executions,
KPIs. How do we handle this withspirituality? Well, I
Penelope Holt (08:20):
think it's a natural, natural evolution of
youth. They say that in thecourse of our lives, there are
three M's. There is mastery,meaning and mystery. And in the
beginning, when you're young,you're trying to master the the
moves. You're trying to learnhow to be an accountant or or an
MBA. And so you're very focusedon that you've learned in your
childhood. If you've been wellraised about, you know the
(08:42):
golden rule, that's the firstlesson in spirituality that we
get. The golden rule. We tellkids, you treat other people the
way you want to be treated. Ithink people carry that into
business, and then they get veryconfused, because they see a lot
of, there's a lot of badbehavior that happens in
business. There's a lot ofespecially right now, especially
right now, getting ahead ofother people's expense. And I
(09:03):
think for young people, it'seasier to think, Oh, my
goodness, if I sign up for thesemore spiritual, altruistic
means, then I'm some kind of aloser. I'm going to come in
last, right? The good guys comein last. So I think in the
beginning, as a young person,you're trying to take it all in.
You're trying to understand therules and to your point, no one
(09:23):
is standing what? Well, in somecompanies that are purposeful,
especially nonprofit, somecompanies that have visionary
leaders will introduce spiritualprinciples into the workplace,
but mostly what young people arelearning is rat race, dog eat
dog, get ahead all costs. Ithink it's very ironic that a
(09:45):
lot of businesses put theirmissions and their values into
these elaborate missionstatements, and then ironically,
you see people just violatingthem on a daily basis. That's
cognitive dissonance rightthere. If you're a young person
coming in and you see thesevalues. Values and mission
statements, you know, printed onthe website and on posters
around the corporate offices,and then see people behaving in
(10:07):
the exact opposite you have toget a little bit older and wiser
to understand that you're goingto play by the rules of your own
game, and that those rules aregoing to be spiritual rules,
because at the end of the day,these are what's going to
sustain you, enable you to livewith yourself, and enable you to
go sleep at night and reap therewards of friendship, harmony,
contentment, satisfaction,having enough. I mean,
(10:32):
especially now since sinceexecutive compensation has
changed, where you have theseimmense stock options, you know,
we just sort of see the greedrun riot. And we see this
concept of the Buddhist hungryghost of, you know, in the
Hungry Ghost in the hell realms,the hungry ghost has a thin,
thin neck and the swollen belly,and they have this voracious
(10:55):
appetite that they can neverfill because their necks are so
thin they can't get it down. Andso you see that the getting more
just begets more yearning formore. And I was listening to the
all in podcast talking about youget to the point where you
understand that the money isjust not going to cut it. You
know, the destination of tryingto get someplace and then
(11:17):
getting there, and then findingout that there's this concept of
novelty, right? Once the noveltyis worn off, we just like, fall
back into the same sort ofapathy. So if you're smart as a
young person, you'll figure thatout in your 20s. You won't wait
until your 40s and your
BEATE CHELETTE (11:35):
it's a lot more painful over here. Yes, when
this when this happens? Well, itsounds to me like what you're
saying is that there has to be arecognition that a lot of these
strategies and systems that thatare being put forward in
business right now are almostlike misleading. I call it the
(11:56):
matrix, yeah, for the lack of abetter word, and because I think
this work really hits it sohard, especially since I lost
everything in the fire where youwhere you're forced to take what
really matters and what sustainsus. I mean, obviously it's the
money that we made and theinsurance that we had in order
for us to continue and rebuild,but what sustains us, just
(12:17):
mentally, is our community andthe people that we build
relationships with. Would yousay that following spiritual
principles as a strategy takeslonger than using these
marketing techniques or theseproven get rich quick methods
(12:38):
that are being promoted? I
Penelope Holt (12:41):
think it's like anything else in life when you
do the right thing, whetheryou're losing weight or working
on your health, it's those smallday to day habits, practices.
The first thing I would say, Iwish someone had told me in my
20s, you absolutely shouldincorporate a spiritual set of
principles to guide you, becausewhen you go into business, no
(13:03):
one will tell you that. You mayhear it from your mom or your
family, but those you know it'syour peers or your older mentors
absolutely make it an imperativethat you are guided by spiritual
principles. Because even if youlose a job, you lose everything,
you go backwards in your career,you take less money than more.
(13:25):
Those spiritual principles willbe the soft place to land. They
will give your life meaning ifyou hit your wagon only to the
material rewards, measurablerewards. In business, there are
days when you will feelbankrupt. There are days when
you may be bankrupt, but if youfill up that bank account with
the fruits of those spiritualpractices, then no matter what
(13:48):
is happening in your businesslife, you're going to have a
sense of fulfillment and purposeand harmony and contentment and
gratitude. Said old joke thatnobody lies on their deathbed
and says, I wish I'd gone tothat business meeting. I wish I
hadn't missed that conferencecall two weeks from now, we
don't even remember what theproblem business problem du
jour. Find practices that workfor you. Find principles that
(14:11):
you can bring into the becausesometimes there's a conflict
between the business principleand the spiritual principle, and
there doesn't have to be.
There's a one of my the Buddhistexpression this being, so what
must I do? And in any situation,the good business rigor is to
say, you know, first principles,thinking, boil it down, don't
make assumptions. So those arevery logical and practical smart
(14:33):
applications of businessknowledge and business analysis.
At the same time, in the in theBuddhist realm, there's, there's
the eightfold path of beingskillful, which is, how do I
come to this spiritually? How doI come to the situation with the
proper intention, with theproper effort, to you may have
to fire people. You don't haveto hurt them in the process of
(14:56):
doing it, you may have to givepeople. Constructive feedback.
You don't have to humiliate themin the process. You may be in
situations where your things aregoing wrong and you're angry,
you don't have to lose yourtemper. These spiritual ideas of
right action can influence andshape your day to day behavior,
which in turn is what's going towin you friends and help you
(15:18):
influence people. And that's notsomething that you can make up
or fake. You have to really,really practice that stuff.
Yeah, and it
BEATE CHELETTE (15:27):
takes time. It just takes time. Just takes
time. Yeah, yes. I mean, I feelthat the most humbling
experience in what I've beengoing through, and a lot of our
friends that have gone throughthe same catastrophic event, is
(15:49):
the community that showed up,and people showed up for us,
some of whom we know, some ofwhom we don't know. I remember I
had people from the SamaritansPurse, which is an organization
that helps catastrophic eventvictims to dig through the
rubble and find things. Thosewere people that left New Jersey
(16:14):
and flew here, left theirfamilies to fly for six hours
from New Jersey to Los Angelesto dig for one week that they
did not get paid for, to providea service out of humanity. And I
(16:35):
get emotional talking aboutthis, because in this moment,
you realize that you do theright thing for so long, but you
don't get the reward, and simplybecause you choose to live that
particular way, and then in amoment like this, everything
(16:57):
I've Ever done came back to me1000 times, yeah, in generosity.
Is there a principle behindthis? Back to business and
internet market? I think a lotof people manipulate this
concept. Can you dive into thisa little bit? Because I think
this is a really, reallycritical part of the people need
(17:18):
to understand. Yes, you canprobably manipulate this
principle, Yeah, but how do youdo this? Right?
Penelope Holt (17:26):
Well, in marketing, there is a belief
that the thing that drives themarket is that market always
rewards value if you have agenuine solution that someone is
going I remember when my kidswere little and you couldn't go
to the bathroom for a two yearold, and then you'd have to go
for a haircut. You've got anunruly toddler, and I remember
going to this one hairdresserwhere she set up this little
station for the kids to playvideos and eat cookies, and it
(17:48):
was just this extra benefit thatshe had targeted busy, harried
moms. And so I would forego anyfancy salon just to go to that
place where she was deliveringthat right amount of value. And
so there is authenticity ingenuine value. And a true
marketer, everyone has equity.
Everyone has somethingworthwhile and worth offering.
(18:10):
And any good product hasinherent equity. And the
marketing then becomes abouttelling the story of that. If
you've got some quick get quick,rich quick scheme that's not
adding any value. It's thechances it's not going to work,
but it's like anything else. Ifit's valid, if it's authentic,
if it's true, equity, the marketor your community is going to
(18:32):
reward it. And talk going backto your story about losing
everything in the fire, I thinkit's important to remember that
nature abhors a vacuum. We thinkthe House is burnt down and the
world has stopped, and there'sthis just this huge vacuum.
There's just this huge charredspace where your life used to
be. But nature abhors a vacuum,so things rush in to fill it,
(18:55):
and typically it's a clarioncall to the good people of the
world that will fly across thecountry to help you and restore
your faith in in life itself, inthe there is a point of going
on. There's goodness. You know,I may have lost all of these
things over here, but you seethe value of what's happening
(19:17):
before your eyes. I mean, I'vecome out of business situations
really, really beat up, whereI'm this far away from thinking
that, where are the decentpeople? You know, it's just dog
eat dog. And then someone hascome into my life. They get the
joy out of being in thecommunity, being of service,
living by the golden rule,helping someone when they're
(19:40):
down on LinkedIn. I don't knowif you noticed, but sometimes
when people leave a company, ifthey're downsized or they're
fired, it's sort of like, it'slike a disease that nobody wants
to catch, and so they don'treach out. And I always make a
point, if someone leaves thecompany, just reaching out,
staying. In touch with them,letting them know that I'm here
(20:01):
to help. I've been on thereceiving end where all of the
people drop you, like thirdperiod French, but then you get
that rare person that will reachout and say, Hey, I'm here for
you. It's not transactional.
Relationships can be sotransactional, but actually, the
most business success I've everhad is by forging long term
(20:22):
relationships over many yearswith people they say that, you
know, COVID wrote that book, TheSpeed of Trust, that business
moves at the speed of trust andthe want. The people that we
partner with, that we can go thelongest with, are the ones that
we can trust, and that are havethe credibility and the trust to
be with us, and it takes, ittakes time to forge those
(20:45):
relationships. And if you wantthose kind of people in your
life, then you have to show upas that kind of person in their
life. Yeah,
BEATE CHELETTE (20:52):
and that takes decades. In my moments of
despair, I wondered, why do Ifeel compelled to give so much
and information that I probablycould charge for. But when the
information comes through, itcomes through. I always thought
it was kind of hokey to say,Well, no, I just got a download
(21:13):
for you, but here's the invoiceyou have to pay me to tell you,
I feel, if something comesthrough in a particular moment
that it is designed for me toshare that with that person for
whatever reason that is, andthat might be just to get them
to a particular point. They maynever work with me. They may
work with me in the future. Butwhat would you say about the
giving and the expectation of areturn in these spiritual
(21:35):
concepts? Because here's and thereason I ask this is because I
think that there's amisconception here as well. I
don't think it's just aboutgiving. I think it's also about
asking and receiving. What'syour take on this?
Penelope Holt (21:49):
Well, I used to have an old coach who would say
that one expectation is toomany, and the Buddhists have a
teaching that say drive allblames to self. It's just the
idea that if you riskrelationships that work best are
reciprocal, right? It's just anebb and a flow. It's not
transactional, a quid pro quo. Idid something for you. You did
something for me, and I justwanted to circle back to the
(22:11):
point that you made about thingsnot being tangible, right? So
you have to listen you. That'sone of the other things that you
have to do. You have to sort ofget to know yourself inside and
the voices that are speaking toyou. So when this intangible
voice says to Hey, B don'tcharge for this, give this as a
gift, right? And you know totrust that, and then you give it
(22:32):
to someone, and it's givengenuinely, with a good heart,
and it's received that way. Andso then that's the beginnings of
reciprocity. I'm touched by whatyou've done for me. I want, I
want to repay you. And that isthe best kind of engine that
drives sort of mutual but Ithink if you having
expectations, can be a realkiller, because with expectation
(22:55):
comes when they don't comethrough, can come anger and
resentment. So and again, we'regetting back to being
transactional. So instead ofworking on being transactional,
work on this notion ofreciprocity, where you listen
and you give when you're movedto give you honor that and you
give. And, I mean, you'll giveto some people who will never
(23:16):
return. You just never know whenit's going to come back to you.
I mean, I've had friendshipswhere I've done many things for
people, and they've disappointedme, if I've allowed myself to
have the expectation that theywould in some way pay me back,
and then how the other peoplehave come into my life, like the
people from New Jersey, Shondapad of the blue and and given
(23:36):
you a gift, which is a reward, areward for your good, goodness.
But it doesn't always. The pointis, it doesn't always come
BEATE CHELETTE (23:44):
from the same spot, from places that we expect
Penelope Holt (23:47):
it to, nor should we expect it to, because we'll
be in probably, but to know thatthere is goodness out there that
people and, you know, it's likethese conversations, to know in
business, this is sort of peopledon't talk about this stuff.
It's almost for bone, right?
Yeah, but the world goes around,kind of, it's driven by
spiritual people and to haveconfidence that they're out
(24:10):
there and they're going to showup, and it's, it is, sort of the
silent engine that's makingthings work for the good?
BEATE CHELETTE (24:21):
Do you believe there's been a much larger
awakening with conscious leadersthan we've seen in the past?
Penelope Holt (24:30):
I do be and I've got a theory as to why I think
the world is becoming so chaoticbecause of the downside of
interconnectedness. It is. Maybethese are just sort of the
adolescent temper tantrums of ofa new era in technology. But
there's so much negativity,there's so much lying. There's
(24:52):
just completely differentperspectives that are in
opposition, and people arethey're end. Chris in endocrine
systems are waxed. People aredriven more and more by anger
and outrage. I mean, it'sactually a hormonal, you know,
it's sort of an addiction tooutrage. Renals are shut so I
(25:14):
think the bottom line for me isI'm praying more because the I'm
not getting answers from theworld. You know, usually you
turn on the news, you thinkyou've got a source of truth.
You go here. You go there, whenyou see so much chaos around
you, and it's not exclusivelychaotic. I mean, there's great
voices in the wilderness. Ithink more people are turning to
prayer. They're turning to thetranscendent. They're turning to
(25:35):
some higher power that is abovethis chaos and this mayhem.
They're back to Taoism. They'relooking for the universal order,
for the good. I think that iskind of a calling to
spirituality that people arejust burning out on modern
society, the way we'recommunicating, the way we're
behaving with each other, thelack of trust. But people need
(25:56):
that there's a God shaped hole.
Prescal said, in all of ourhearts, we try to find God in
the day to day. I think more andmore people are sort of looking
up and reaching out to find aGod of their a higher power, God
of their own. Understanding.
There are quite a few reasons,but I think that is one reason
why people are becoming morespiritual, because they're
having to, because their currentsources of wisdom and truth are
(26:18):
just not
BEATE CHELETTE (26:20):
I just not paying off. I love that. I think
that's a beautiful way to putthis. Because, you know, in the
law of polarity, we believe thatwhat exists on one side must
exist on the other side. So ifthere's so much chaos on the one
side, we already know that theopposite of that must exist on
the other side. But because thechaos is so loud, we cannot hear
(26:45):
the solution, because thesolution is in process. I mean,
the chaos is in action, so thesolution must be in action. I
like your way of looking at thisand saying to turn to prayer. So
finally, I want to just talk toyou about you run a marketing
company, and you also, you know,do your your personal business
and your writing. How do youimplement this, these principle
(27:08):
in your marketing agency?
Because for most people, this isthe paradox. I was like, How can
I market and follow theseprinciples? Isn't marketing all
about persuasion.
Penelope Holt (27:18):
Well, for me, personally, I work with people
in companies that I believe in.
I work primarily with people andI've, I will stay the course
with a client. I've worked withclients who've said, I can't pay
you three months. Is that okay?
Because I've been on a missionwith them. I believed in what
they're doing. And listen, weall need money. We've all got to
(27:41):
survive, but it's more importantto me to be involved with
something that is creative andworthwhile, is giving value to
the market. I tried to bringthat kind of authenticity. We
know that with the Gen Z and theGen alpha, traditional
advertising is not reaching themanymore. There's this influencer
marketing that is going on, andthere's a lot of duplicity in
(28:04):
that, but people are more andmore moved by authenticity.
They're tired of mass marketing,and we're creating trust
circles, democratizedinformation, so you can go on
Yelp, you can go on trust pilot,and so all of those voices,
those so we develop these trustcircles of people that we trust
(28:26):
for their opinion, and I thinkthat, in turn, is forcing
marketers into greaterauthenticity and hopefully
shaking out some of the moresort of bogus strategies and
products. It's driving more toauthenticity versus
manipulation, because thattraditional advertising is just
not working on young peopleanymore. It's
BEATE CHELETTE (28:47):
not working on anybody anymore. I mean, even,
even stuff that you and I wereseeing two years ago where we
went, Wow, that's really good.
It's not working anymore. Andnow in the first copy of AI, we
thought, wow, that's reallygood. And now we go, oh my god,
here's another one with AI.
Technology was originally meantto help people solve problems.
Now technology is being used tomanipulate people, and that's
(29:10):
why the systems are failing,because it's been misused. And
so therefore, in a way, we needto be glad, and I don't think we
can interfere with the breaking,I think, to your point, go back
to the principles, yeah.
Penelope Holt (29:26):
And if you think about the old market economy,
people would go to their localmarket, and they would see their
friends, and they would buy fishfrom the fish, the fish lady.
And there was intimacy, andthere was relationship and there
was connection, and of course,with mass market marketing, that
(29:47):
went away. It became sort ofanonymous, it became
manipulative. And I think thatwith the interconnectedness of
the internet, one of thebenefits is we're kind of
getting back to that intimacy.
Okay, and it just astounds methe kind of content that people
are consuming online. It's realpeople. We're very voyeuristic.
We're we're we don't want these,we used to call it in
(30:09):
advertising, the beauty box. Youknow, it would be the polished,
the Polish they take. Take thatlike a food that you see that's
curated. Very often it'sartificial, or it's, you know,
jacked up
BEATE CHELETTE (30:22):
with projected.
Yes, it's like
Penelope Holt (30:25):
a, you know, facade, and so people don't want
that facade. One good thing thatis coming out is all the content
creators is you're finding verygenuine and authentic people
speaking with a true voice. Andit's fascinating what people are
watching and how they're andsome of these micro influencers,
you know, we think of theKardashians and the people with
the big, big followings, but alot of the research is saying
(30:48):
that some of these microinfluencers, the more real
people. They may not have as biga following, but they're just
sort of more authentic. Theauthenticity is going to become
a real, cherished commodity aswe move forward. Because if
everybody can write abrilliantly crafted marketing
piece or flyer, people are gonnawe're starting to see through
that. And so we're crave. We'recrave, craving, you know,
(31:11):
leadership, yeah, thoughtleadership and authenticity and
stuff original and
BEATE CHELETTE (31:16):
original idea. I think that's exactly right,
because everything sounds sogeneric and and the same that it
becomes, becomes really, really,really, really boring. I like
where we went with thisinterview. This was very, very
fun. So for somebody who nowwants to know more about you,
potentially wants to work withyou, where are we sending them?
Penelope Holt (31:37):
Well, I prefer to send people to penelopeholt.com
which is my author site. It'sgot my book, "Emotional
Intelligence At Work," which iskind of a pun, because it's
emotional intelligence at work.
And there's some of my fictionon there. I wrote a book called
"The Angel Scroll," a novelabout a about three miraculous
paintings. And we live in thisworld where we think we can go
and open a book, or we can goand ask an expert it we forget
(31:58):
that we can, we can actually askthe universe, and nine times out
of 10, we will get an answer,
BEATE CHELETTE (32:08):
yes. I certainly hope so. I mean, the whole
experience taken us to reallydouble down on a lot of the
meaning and the purpose onwhat's behind everything. You
can put a strategy behindanything, but you gotta be happy
first.
Penelope Holt (32:23):
Yeah. And you know they say in business,
culture eats strategy for lunch.
Well,
BEATE CHELETTE (32:28):
that certainly is not the truth right now. It's
the exact opposite. It's thedismantling of the culture,
which is why I really believe inthe founders of the future, we
building now for the future, notfor now. And that's really
something I've been wanting toget across with this show is to
say, yes, it's hard right now,no question. And it's a
(32:49):
difficult environment, and it isbrutal to watch, and you want to
step in and you want to tellpeople that are doing this
irreparable harm, you're hurtingpeople, but at the same time, we
cannot interfere, because thisis it's written that this is
happening and it must happenbecause there's something that
comes after, there you go, andthat's where we are at. Thank
(33:11):
you for being on the show, andthat's it for us for today.
Thank you so much for listeningor watching this episode of the
Business Growth Architect Show.
If you know someone who wants toimplement spiritual principles,
or is spiritually curious, thatwould be a great episode to
share with them. Go ahead andsend them the link a review, a
five star review, is alwaysappreciated and until next time
(33:33):
and GOODBYE. So appreciate youbeing here. Thank you so much
for listening to the entireepisode. Please subscribe to the
podcast. Give us a five star,review, a comment and share this
episode with one more person, sothat you can help us help more
people. Thank you again, untilnext time. Goodbye.
Hi. My name is Penelope Holt. I am the author
of "Business Emotions At Work (00:03):
A Personal Operating System for
Success in Business." I'm also afiction author. My recent book,
"The Angel Scroll" is aspiritual mystery and thriller.
You can reach me atpenelopeholt.com we had a great
conversation today talking aboutthe DAO of the entrepreneur,
(00:24):
which is the path that theentrepreneur can walk by
integrating spiritual principlesinto their business life so that
success comes to them no matterwhat. And
BEATE CHELETTE (00:34):
hello, fabulous person! Beate Chelette here. I
am the host of the BusinessGrowth Architect Show, and I
want to welcome you to today'sepisode where we discuss how to
navigate strategy andspirituality to achieve time and
financial freedom. Trulysuccessful people have learned
how to master both a clearintention and a strategy to
(00:55):
execute that in a spiritualpractice that will help them to
stay in alignment and onpurpose. Please enjoy the show
and listen to what our guesttoday has to say about this very
topic. And welcome back. BeateChelette here, the host of the
Business Growth Architect Show.
And today I am here with guestPenelope Holt, and we are going
to be talking about spiritualityand how to integrate
(01:19):
spirituality intoentrepreneurship. Because I
think it is safe to say that alot of people see spirituality
as the one thing, and then whatthey do in business as the other
thing. And you're here to tellus otherwise. Penelope, thank
you so much for being on theshow.
Penelope Holt (01:38):
Welcome. Thank you for inviting me. I'm looking
forward to it.
BEATE CHELETTE (01:41):
So for somebody who's not familiar with who you
are or what you do, would youtell us who you are, what you
do, and what do you solve foryour clients?
Penelope Holt (01:51):
Well, I was born and educated in England. I
always wanted to be a writer,storyteller. I did begin
creatively. It was easier tomake a living doing business,
writing and helpingentrepreneurs to tell the story
of their brand or to writebooks, because there's usually
an underlying story or principlethat are guiding business
(02:11):
people. They have a passion,they have a story that they want
to tell. So I've spent a lot ofmy career as a ghost writer, as
a business writer, as a speechwriter, telling the story of
brands, making them meaningfuland relevant. In fact, the great
brand builders that you lookback on the forwards with the
Hallmark Cards, for example, itcame from an individual's
passion. It wasn't concocted ina test tube. So there has to be
(02:33):
a degree of authenticity behindevery great brand and every
great entrepreneur. And my jobhas been to work with
entrepreneurs and help them findthat, and then to kind of
counsel them. And in the processof doing that, becoming somewhat
of a confidant and understandingthat the spiritual or the
emotional input is often theengine that will fuel the
(02:54):
mission, and not just thetextbooks or the theory that you
learn at business school, whichis really
BEATE CHELETTE (02:58):
exactly where I want to be today, one of the
things that I have noticed isthat when people are connected
to their purpose and theirpassion, they work better. They
have more fun. But a lot ofpeople don't know how to do
that, or they think they followthis old idea that you have to
have a boring, cold, terriblejob, and then you make a lot of
(03:21):
money, or you have a reallygreat job that you love, and
then you make no money. Yeah, isthat
Penelope Holt (03:26):
the truth? No. I mean, it's manifest in
nonprofits. We give peoplepermission in a nonprofit,
mission oriented business to bepurposeful, like that. But in
business, the idea is that it'srational, it's cold, it's it's
numbers, it's been counting,it's theory, and that's and
we're actually, we're actuallytaught that to separate. So I
(03:48):
wrote a book a couple of yearsago with a co author called
"Business Emotions At Work (03:52):
A Personal Operating System For
Business Success," which bringsemotion and spirituality into
the realm of work, because whenyou walk through the door of the
office, you don't just leave allof that behind. But there is a
self consciousness aboutacknowledging it, and about
actually using not only businessgood sound, business principles,
(04:14):
but good sound spiritualprinciples to guide you. And I
would I, especially forentrepreneurs, I would hazard
the bet that the spiritualprinciples are actually going to
fuel your success more, moreeven than the business
principles themselves. Because,like you said, it's the
underlying drivers, the passion,the purpose, that keeps us going
(04:37):
when, when, often the businesslooks like it can be going down.
It's the ones who keep going.
And the ones that keep going areusually motivated by some deeper
principles than just the balancesheet. So
BEATE CHELETTE (04:47):
you keep talking about those principles. So that
makes me believe that you havefigured out what these
principles are, because a lot ofpeople say, Well, what is
spirituality? How do I evenstart? Can you help us
understand let's say I'm curiousabout this, and I think a lot of
people really are. They knowthat they need a deeper meaning,
(05:07):
but they have no idea where tostart. They have no idea how to
even get into it. What are yougoing to tell them?
Penelope Holt (05:12):
Well, I think different people can. There's
perennial wisdom andspirituality out there, and it
speaks differently to differentpeople. People take very
different journeys. I'm alwaysvery interested and curious
about the spiritual technologiesthat people use and find that
speak to them, that they use astheir operating system. Back in
(05:34):
sixth century China, there was aChinese philosophy called the
DAO, the path. So I think thatshould be a DAO of
entrepreneurship, the path ofentrepreneurship, so on. In the
DAO of entrepreneurship, theseare five principles that that
speak to me and that I used, andif they're useful to other
people, if not, I would say, Beon the lookout for some of those
(05:55):
spiritual teachings that moveyou and integrate them into the
whole of your life, includingbusiness. So to begin with, in
Taoism, the belief is that ifyou align yourself with the
universe, with the naturalunderlying principles of the
universe, that you will live inharmony and peace and success.
(06:16):
And so similarly, in business,if you align yourself with your
underlying spiritual goals.
You're going to go a lotfurther. You're going to go a
lot further. And there's asaying in Buddhism that the path
is the goal. So in business,we're always trying to get
somewhere. We're trying to getto the fundraising stage or the
revenue stage, or theacquisition stage, or cashing
(06:37):
out, or profitability is alwaysin the future. And what we don't
do is we don't understand thatit's actually going through the
whole entrepreneurial experiencethat is the goal, that is the
reward. Of course, the money andthe success and the status are
great, but really, really whatfeeds you is the learning. They
say that experience is what youget five minutes after you need
(06:59):
it. So the experience andreflecting on that experience is
what helps you grow in differentdimensions, particularly if your
intention is that you want tonot only grow your bank account,
but that you want to grow youremotional and your spiritual
self.
BEATE CHELETTE (07:18):
Is it fair to say that spirituality is so
challenging for people becauseit is such a non tangible thing.
Like, how do you address that?
Because people want tangibleideas, right? So if I say the
reward is the journey, which youdon't really understand until
(07:40):
you're older. Like, you can'ttell this 20 year old because
the 20 year old goes like, Nope,no, no, no, no, no, no, no. High
school was terrible. MiddleSchool, that's not even talk
about that. Now I'm in college.
There's nothing about this thatI find, you know, super
enjoyable. I just want to get tohave the money, buy the car, get
the house, you know, do whateverI want to do. What is it that is
(08:02):
so difficult about thesespiritual concepts, to
understand them or integratethem? You know, where I want to
go with this question is thelogical tangibility that people
always look for in strategiesand systems and executions,
KPIs. How do we handle this withspirituality? Well, I
Penelope Holt (08:20):
think it's a natural, natural evolution of
youth. They say that in thecourse of our lives, there are
three M's. There is mastery,meaning and mystery. And in the
beginning, when you're young,you're trying to master the the
moves. You're trying to learnhow to be an accountant or or an
MBA. And so you're very focusedon that you've learned in your
childhood. If you've been wellraised about, you know the
(08:42):
golden rule, that's the firstlesson in spirituality that we
get. The golden rule. We tellkids, you treat other people the
way you want to be treated. Ithink people carry that into
business, and then they get veryconfused, because they see a lot
of, there's a lot of badbehavior that happens in
business. There's a lot ofespecially right now, especially
right now, getting ahead ofother people's expense. And I
(09:03):
think for young people, it'seasier to think, Oh, my
goodness, if I sign up for thesemore spiritual, altruistic
means, then I'm some kind of aloser. I'm going to come in
last, right? The good guys comein last. So I think in the
beginning, as a young person,you're trying to take it all in.
You're trying to understand therules and to your point, no one
(09:23):
is standing what? Well, in somecompanies that are purposeful,
especially nonprofit, somecompanies that have visionary
leaders will introduce spiritualprinciples into the workplace,
but mostly what young people arelearning is rat race, dog eat
dog, get ahead all costs. Ithink it's very ironic that a
(09:45):
lot of businesses put theirmissions and their values into
these elaborate missionstatements, and then ironically,
you see people just violatingthem on a daily basis. That's
cognitive dissonance rightthere. If you're a young person
coming in and you see thesevalues. Values and mission
statements, you know, printed onthe website and on posters
around the corporate offices,and then see people behaving in
(10:07):
the exact opposite you have toget a little bit older and wiser
to understand that you're goingto play by the rules of your own
game, and that those rules aregoing to be spiritual rules,
because at the end of the day,these are what's going to
sustain you, enable you to livewith yourself, and enable you to
go sleep at night and reap therewards of friendship, harmony,
contentment, satisfaction,having enough. I mean,
(10:32):
especially now since sinceexecutive compensation has
changed, where you have theseimmense stock options, you know,
we just sort of see the greedrun riot. And we see this
concept of the Buddhist hungryghost of, you know, in the
Hungry Ghost in the hell realms,the hungry ghost has a thin,
thin neck and the swollen belly,and they have this voracious
(10:55):
appetite that they can neverfill because their necks are so
thin they can't get it down. Andso you see that the getting more
just begets more yearning formore. And I was listening to the
all in podcast talking about youget to the point where you
understand that the money isjust not going to cut it. You
know, the destination of tryingto get someplace and then
(11:17):
getting there, and then findingout that there's this concept of
novelty, right? Once the noveltyis worn off, we just like, fall
back into the same sort ofapathy. So if you're smart as a
young person, you'll figure thatout in your 20s. You won't wait
until your 40s and your
BEATE CHELETTE (11:35):
it's a lot more painful over here. Yes, when
this when this happens? Well, itsounds to me like what you're
saying is that there has to be arecognition that a lot of these
strategies and systems that thatare being put forward in
business right now are almostlike misleading. I call it the
(11:56):
matrix, yeah, for the lack of abetter word, and because I think
this work really hits it sohard, especially since I lost
everything in the fire where youwhere you're forced to take what
really matters and what sustainsus. I mean, obviously it's the
money that we made and theinsurance that we had in order
for us to continue and rebuild,but what sustains us, just
(12:17):
mentally, is our community andthe people that we build
relationships with. Would yousay that following spiritual
principles as a strategy takeslonger than using these
marketing techniques or theseproven get rich quick methods
(12:38):
that are being promoted? I
Penelope Holt (12:41):
think it's like anything else in life when you
do the right thing, whetheryou're losing weight or working
on your health, it's those smallday to day habits, practices.
The first thing I would say, Iwish someone had told me in my
20s, you absolutely shouldincorporate a spiritual set of
principles to guide you, becausewhen you go into business, no
(13:03):
one will tell you that. You mayhear it from your mom or your
family, but those you know it'syour peers or your older mentors
absolutely make it an imperativethat you are guided by spiritual
principles. Because even if youlose a job, you lose everything,
you go backwards in your career,you take less money than more.
(13:25):
Those spiritual principles willbe the soft place to land. They
will give your life meaning ifyou hit your wagon only to the
material rewards, measurablerewards. In business, there are
days when you will feelbankrupt. There are days when
you may be bankrupt, but if youfill up that bank account with
the fruits of those spiritualpractices, then no matter what
(13:48):
is happening in your businesslife, you're going to have a
sense of fulfillment and purposeand harmony and contentment and
gratitude. Said old joke thatnobody lies on their deathbed
and says, I wish I'd gone tothat business meeting. I wish I
hadn't missed that conferencecall two weeks from now, we
don't even remember what theproblem business problem du
jour. Find practices that workfor you. Find principles that
(14:11):
you can bring into the becausesometimes there's a conflict
between the business principleand the spiritual principle, and
there doesn't have to be.
There's a one of my the Buddhistexpression this being, so what
must I do? And in any situation,the good business rigor is to
say, you know, first principles,thinking, boil it down, don't
make assumptions. So those arevery logical and practical smart
(14:33):
applications of businessknowledge and business analysis.
At the same time, in the in theBuddhist realm, there's, there's
the eightfold path of beingskillful, which is, how do I
come to this spiritually? How doI come to the situation with the
proper intention, with theproper effort, to you may have
to fire people. You don't haveto hurt them in the process of
(14:56):
doing it, you may have to givepeople. Constructive feedback.
You don't have to humiliate themin the process. You may be in
situations where your things aregoing wrong and you're angry,
you don't have to lose yourtemper. These spiritual ideas of
right action can influence andshape your day to day behavior,
which in turn is what's going towin you friends and help you
(15:18):
influence people. And that's notsomething that you can make up
or fake. You have to really,really practice that stuff.
Yeah, and it
BEATE CHELETTE (15:27):
takes time. It just takes time. Just takes
time. Yeah, yes. I mean, I feelthat the most humbling
experience in what I've beengoing through, and a lot of our
friends that have gone throughthe same catastrophic event, is
(15:49):
the community that showed up,and people showed up for us,
some of whom we know, some ofwhom we don't know. I remember I
had people from the SamaritansPurse, which is an organization
that helps catastrophic eventvictims to dig through the
rubble and find things. Thosewere people that left New Jersey
(16:14):
and flew here, left theirfamilies to fly for six hours
from New Jersey to Los Angelesto dig for one week that they
did not get paid for, to providea service out of humanity. And I
(16:35):
get emotional talking aboutthis, because in this moment,
you realize that you do theright thing for so long, but you
don't get the reward, and simplybecause you choose to live that
particular way, and then in amoment like this, everything
(16:57):
I've Ever done came back to me1000 times, yeah, in generosity.
Is there a principle behindthis? Back to business and
internet market? I think a lotof people manipulate this
concept. Can you dive into thisa little bit? Because I think
this is a really, reallycritical part of the people need
(17:18):
to understand. Yes, you canprobably manipulate this
principle, Yeah, but how do youdo this? Right?
Penelope Holt (17:26):
Well, in marketing, there is a belief
that the thing that drives themarket is that market always
rewards value if you have agenuine solution that someone is
going I remember when my kidswere little and you couldn't go
to the bathroom for a two yearold, and then you'd have to go
for a haircut. You've got anunruly toddler, and I remember
going to this one hairdresserwhere she set up this little
station for the kids to playvideos and eat cookies, and it
(17:48):
was just this extra benefit thatshe had targeted busy, harried
moms. And so I would forego anyfancy salon just to go to that
place where she was deliveringthat right amount of value. And
so there is authenticity ingenuine value. And a true
marketer, everyone has equity.
Everyone has somethingworthwhile and worth offering.
(18:10):
And any good product hasinherent equity. And the
marketing then becomes abouttelling the story of that. If
you've got some quick get quick,rich quick scheme that's not
adding any value. It's thechances it's not going to work,
but it's like anything else. Ifit's valid, if it's authentic,
if it's true, equity, the marketor your community is going to
(18:32):
reward it. And talk going backto your story about losing
everything in the fire, I thinkit's important to remember that
nature abhors a vacuum. We thinkthe House is burnt down and the
world has stopped, and there'sthis just this huge vacuum.
There's just this huge charredspace where your life used to
be. But nature abhors a vacuum,so things rush in to fill it,
(18:55):
and typically it's a clarioncall to the good people of the
world that will fly across thecountry to help you and restore
your faith in in life itself, inthe there is a point of going
on. There's goodness. You know,I may have lost all of these
things over here, but you seethe value of what's happening
(19:17):
before your eyes. I mean, I'vecome out of business situations
really, really beat up, whereI'm this far away from thinking
that, where are the decentpeople? You know, it's just dog
eat dog. And then someone hascome into my life. They get the
joy out of being in thecommunity, being of service,
living by the golden rule,helping someone when they're
(19:40):
down on LinkedIn. I don't knowif you noticed, but sometimes
when people leave a company, ifthey're downsized or they're
fired, it's sort of like, it'slike a disease that nobody wants
to catch, and so they don'treach out. And I always make a
point, if someone leaves thecompany, just reaching out,
staying. In touch with them,letting them know that I'm here
(20:01):
to help. I've been on thereceiving end where all of the
people drop you, like thirdperiod French, but then you get
that rare person that will reachout and say, Hey, I'm here for
you. It's not transactional.
Relationships can be sotransactional, but actually, the
most business success I've everhad is by forging long term
(20:22):
relationships over many yearswith people they say that, you
know, COVID wrote that book, TheSpeed of Trust, that business
moves at the speed of trust andthe want. The people that we
partner with, that we can go thelongest with, are the ones that
we can trust, and that are havethe credibility and the trust to
be with us, and it takes, ittakes time to forge those
(20:45):
relationships. And if you wantthose kind of people in your
life, then you have to show upas that kind of person in their
life. Yeah,
BEATE CHELETTE (20:52):
and that takes decades. In my moments of
despair, I wondered, why do Ifeel compelled to give so much
and information that I probablycould charge for. But when the
information comes through, itcomes through. I always thought
it was kind of hokey to say,Well, no, I just got a download
(21:13):
for you, but here's the invoiceyou have to pay me to tell you,
I feel, if something comesthrough in a particular moment
that it is designed for me toshare that with that person for
whatever reason that is, andthat might be just to get them
to a particular point. They maynever work with me. They may
work with me in the future. Butwhat would you say about the
giving and the expectation of areturn in these spiritual
(21:35):
concepts? Because here's and thereason I ask this is because I
think that there's amisconception here as well. I
don't think it's just aboutgiving. I think it's also about
asking and receiving. What'syour take on this?
Penelope Holt (21:49):
Well, I used to have an old coach who would say
that one expectation is toomany, and the Buddhists have a
teaching that say drive allblames to self. It's just the
idea that if you riskrelationships that work best are
reciprocal, right? It's just anebb and a flow. It's not
transactional, a quid pro quo. Idid something for you. You did
something for me, and I justwanted to circle back to the
(22:11):
point that you made about thingsnot being tangible, right? So
you have to listen you. That'sone of the other things that you
have to do. You have to sort ofget to know yourself inside and
the voices that are speaking toyou. So when this intangible
voice says to Hey, B don'tcharge for this, give this as a
gift, right? And you know totrust that, and then you give it
(22:32):
to someone, and it's givengenuinely, with a good heart,
and it's received that way. Andso then that's the beginnings of
reciprocity. I'm touched by whatyou've done for me. I want, I
want to repay you. And that isthe best kind of engine that
drives sort of mutual but Ithink if you having
expectations, can be a realkiller, because with expectation
(22:55):
comes when they don't comethrough, can come anger and
resentment. So and again, we'regetting back to being
transactional. So instead ofworking on being transactional,
work on this notion ofreciprocity, where you listen
and you give when you're movedto give you honor that and you
give. And, I mean, you'll giveto some people who will never
(23:16):
return. You just never know whenit's going to come back to you.
I mean, I've had friendshipswhere I've done many things for
people, and they've disappointedme, if I've allowed myself to
have the expectation that theywould in some way pay me back,
and then how the other peoplehave come into my life, like the
people from New Jersey, Shondapad of the blue and and given
(23:36):
you a gift, which is a reward, areward for your good, goodness.
But it doesn't always. The pointis, it doesn't always come
BEATE CHELETTE (23:44):
from the same spot, from places that we expect
Penelope Holt (23:47):
it to, nor should we expect it to, because we'll
be in probably, but to know thatthere is goodness out there that
people and, you know, it's likethese conversations, to know in
business, this is sort of peopledon't talk about this stuff.
It's almost for bone, right?
Yeah, but the world goes around,kind of, it's driven by
spiritual people and to haveconfidence that they're out
(24:10):
there and they're going to showup, and it's, it is, sort of the
silent engine that's makingthings work for the good?
BEATE CHELETTE (24:21):
Do you believe there's been a much larger
awakening with conscious leadersthan we've seen in the past?
Penelope Holt (24:30):
I do be and I've got a theory as to why I think
the world is becoming so chaoticbecause of the downside of
interconnectedness. It is. Maybethese are just sort of the
adolescent temper tantrums of ofa new era in technology. But
there's so much negativity,there's so much lying. There's
(24:52):
just completely differentperspectives that are in
opposition, and people arethey're end. Chris in endocrine
systems are waxed. People aredriven more and more by anger
and outrage. I mean, it'sactually a hormonal, you know,
it's sort of an addiction tooutrage. Renals are shut so I
(25:14):
think the bottom line for me isI'm praying more because the I'm
not getting answers from theworld. You know, usually you
turn on the news, you thinkyou've got a source of truth.
You go here. You go there, whenyou see so much chaos around
you, and it's not exclusivelychaotic. I mean, there's great
voices in the wilderness. Ithink more people are turning to
prayer. They're turning to thetranscendent. They're turning to
(25:35):
some higher power that is abovethis chaos and this mayhem.
They're back to Taoism. They'relooking for the universal order,
for the good. I think that iskind of a calling to
spirituality that people arejust burning out on modern
society, the way we'recommunicating, the way we're
behaving with each other, thelack of trust. But people need
(25:56):
that there's a God shaped hole.
Prescal said, in all of ourhearts, we try to find God in
the day to day. I think more andmore people are sort of looking
up and reaching out to find aGod of their a higher power, God
of their own. Understanding.
There are quite a few reasons,but I think that is one reason
why people are becoming morespiritual, because they're
having to, because their currentsources of wisdom and truth are
(26:18):
just not
BEATE CHELETTE (26:20):
I just not paying off. I love that. I think
that's a beautiful way to putthis. Because, you know, in the
law of polarity, we believe thatwhat exists on one side must
exist on the other side. So ifthere's so much chaos on the one
side, we already know that theopposite of that must exist on
the other side. But because thechaos is so loud, we cannot hear
(26:45):
the solution, because thesolution is in process. I mean,
the chaos is in action, so thesolution must be in action. I
like your way of looking at thisand saying to turn to prayer. So
finally, I want to just talk toyou about you run a marketing
company, and you also, you know,do your your personal business
and your writing. How do youimplement this, these principle
(27:08):
in your marketing agency?
Because for most people, this isthe paradox. I was like, How can
I market and follow theseprinciples? Isn't marketing all
about persuasion.
Penelope Holt (27:18):
Well, for me, personally, I work with people
in companies that I believe in.
I work primarily with people andI've, I will stay the course
with a client. I've worked withclients who've said, I can't pay
you three months. Is that okay?
Because I've been on a missionwith them. I believed in what
they're doing. And listen, weall need money. We've all got to
(27:41):
survive, but it's more importantto me to be involved with
something that is creative andworthwhile, is giving value to
the market. I tried to bringthat kind of authenticity. We
know that with the Gen Z and theGen alpha, traditional
advertising is not reaching themanymore. There's this influencer
marketing that is going on, andthere's a lot of duplicity in
(28:04):
that, but people are more andmore moved by authenticity.
They're tired of mass marketing,and we're creating trust
circles, democratizedinformation, so you can go on
Yelp, you can go on trust pilot,and so all of those voices,
those so we develop these trustcircles of people that we trust
(28:26):
for their opinion, and I thinkthat, in turn, is forcing
marketers into greaterauthenticity and hopefully
shaking out some of the moresort of bogus strategies and
products. It's driving more toauthenticity versus
manipulation, because thattraditional advertising is just
not working on young peopleanymore. It's
BEATE CHELETTE (28:47):
not working on anybody anymore. I mean, even,
even stuff that you and I wereseeing two years ago where we
went, Wow, that's really good.
It's not working anymore. Andnow in the first copy of AI, we
thought, wow, that's reallygood. And now we go, oh my god,
here's another one with AI.
Technology was originally meantto help people solve problems.
Now technology is being used tomanipulate people, and that's
(29:10):
why the systems are failing,because it's been misused. And
so therefore, in a way, we needto be glad, and I don't think we
can interfere with the breaking,I think, to your point, go back
to the principles, yeah.
Penelope Holt (29:26):
And if you think about the old market economy,
people would go to their localmarket, and they would see their
friends, and they would buy fishfrom the fish, the fish lady.
And there was intimacy, andthere was relationship and there
was connection, and of course,with mass market marketing, that
(29:47):
went away. It became sort ofanonymous, it became
manipulative. And I think thatwith the interconnectedness of
the internet, one of thebenefits is we're kind of
getting back to that intimacy.
Okay, and it just astounds methe kind of content that people
are consuming online. It's realpeople. We're very voyeuristic.
We're we're we don't want these,we used to call it in
(30:09):
advertising, the beauty box. Youknow, it would be the polished,
the Polish they take. Take thatlike a food that you see that's
curated. Very often it'sartificial, or it's, you know,
jacked up
BEATE CHELETTE (30:22):
with projected.
Yes, it's like
Penelope Holt (30:25):
a, you know, facade, and so people don't want
that facade. One good thing thatis coming out is all the content
creators is you're finding verygenuine and authentic people
speaking with a true voice. Andit's fascinating what people are
watching and how they're andsome of these micro influencers,
you know, we think of theKardashians and the people with
the big, big followings, but alot of the research is saying
(30:48):
that some of these microinfluencers, the more real
people. They may not have as biga following, but they're just
sort of more authentic. Theauthenticity is going to become
a real, cherished commodity aswe move forward. Because if
everybody can write abrilliantly crafted marketing
piece or flyer, people are gonnawe're starting to see through
that. And so we're crave. We'recrave, craving, you know,
(31:11):
leadership, yeah, thoughtleadership and authenticity and
stuff original and
BEATE CHELETTE (31:16):
original idea. I think that's exactly right,
because everything sounds sogeneric and and the same that it
becomes, becomes really, really,really, really boring. I like
where we went with thisinterview. This was very, very
fun. So for somebody who nowwants to know more about you,
potentially wants to work withyou, where are we sending them?
Penelope Holt (31:37):
Well, I prefer to send people to penelopeholt.com
which is my author site. It'sgot my book, "Emotional
Intelligence At Work," which iskind of a pun, because it's
emotional intelligence at work.
And there's some of my fictionon there. I wrote a book called
"The Angel Scroll," a novelabout a about three miraculous
paintings. And we live in thisworld where we think we can go
and open a book, or we can goand ask an expert it we forget
(31:58):
that we can, we can actually askthe universe, and nine times out
of 10, we will get an answer,
BEATE CHELETTE (32:08):
yes. I certainly hope so. I mean, the whole
experience taken us to reallydouble down on a lot of the
meaning and the purpose onwhat's behind everything. You
can put a strategy behindanything, but you gotta be happy
first.
Penelope Holt (32:23):
Yeah. And you know they say in business,
culture eats strategy for lunch.
Well,
BEATE CHELETTE (32:28):
that certainly is not the truth right now. It's
the exact opposite. It's thedismantling of the culture,
which is why I really believe inthe founders of the future, we
building now for the future, notfor now. And that's really
something I've been wanting toget across with this show is to
say, yes, it's hard right now,no question. And it's a
(32:49):
difficult environment, and it isbrutal to watch, and you want to
step in and you want to tellpeople that are doing this
irreparable harm, you're hurtingpeople, but at the same time, we
cannot interfere, because thisis it's written that this is
happening and it must happenbecause there's something that
comes after, there you go, andthat's where we are at. Thank
(33:11):
you for being on the show, andthat's it for us for today.
Thank you so much for listeningor watching this episode of the
Business Growth Architect Show.
If you know someone who wants toimplement spiritual principles,
or is spiritually curious, thatwould be a great episode to
share with them. Go ahead andsend them the link a review, a
five star review, is alwaysappreciated and until next time
(33:33):
and GOODBYE. So appreciate youbeing here. Thank you so much
for listening to the entireepisode. Please subscribe to the
podcast. Give us a five star,review, a comment and share this
episode with one more person, sothat you can help us help more
people. Thank you again, untilnext time. Goodbye.
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