if we do not allow our businesses to speak clearly as direct representations of our personal values, ideas and passions, the marketing that speaks for our companies will never be direct, and our relationship with our customers will never be truly intimate.

Influence has to be earned. It comes only when we have four essential ingredients: 1. a vision 2. a voice 3. connections 4. values

Crowding our customers with too many confusing choices, too much hyped-up balderdash, or screaming at them with blaring sales letters or loud adverts is disempowering.

How do we maintain Connection to Self and our business when we are part of (or head of) a large corporation with possibly tens of thousand of employees? It starts first and foremost with the owner or CEO, who must be highly self-aware and whose values must be in alignment with the business. Without this congruity, the rest of the 'Self' will lack

Scarcity cannot arise unless there is a 'human need or want' driving it. In other words, Scarcity is not so much a 'thing' as it is the ephemeral result of our own desires. There can be no Scarcity unless we have the belief that we need something.

Similarly, marketing is the carrier of what we 'feed' society (and under the word 'marketing' I include any media responsible for the dissemination of ideas).

Disconnection is at the root of all the subsequent 'Deadly Sins'

Marketing is the act of communicating we have something of value to share. If marketing is an act, we will understand that it begins and ends with us, and requires our full attention and conscience If marketing is communication, we will focus not only on what we are saying, but on what consumers are saying to us If marketing is about value, we

If marketers help start the process of healing by ceasing to operate from a mechanistic view of humanity, and learn how to speak to the higher levels of who we really are, that will at least be a good start.