In January, a tattered paperback fell off the shelf in Powell’s bookstore. Since then, I’ve inhaled a genre of books with a zeal I can’t explain. Thus, while researching my presentation, Creative Value-Added Marketing for the Tilth Producers of Washington conference my heart kept saying, "Tell the truth."

What’s this? In my workshops I always encourage the audience to be caring and "mindful of each step," as Bob Griffiths puts it. But this was different. My heart was telling me I could no longer pass off what I was learning, as messages meant only for me.

On one hand, Gandhi, Dr. Wayne Dyer and others* were whispering, "Don't hold back, Marion." Yet their wisdom flies in the face of what we accept as moral business practices; tactics that cause dividedness, not unity; doubt, not fear; anger, not love. And we wonder why we still go to war.

It began with the section highlighting one of my favorite words: Lagniappe.

Here’s what I shared with this group of organic farmers from Washington, Oregon and Idaho:

You like to think your customers are happy when they leave your store, website, or farm, right? Yet when asked about doing business with you, if all they can say is, “I was treated fairly,” that’s not the kind of word-of-mouth advertising you want on the street, says Roy H. Williams, Chairman of the Wizard Academy.

To use Roy’s fruit stand analogy, let’s say Bob owns a produce stand. He’s been in business for 10 years and his apples are certified organic. His competitor, Mike, also sells organic apples and his prices are a little higher. But the main reason people shop at Mike’s is the delight factor. Ask for 10 pounds of apples and Mike will fill the bag until the scale reads “10.” Then, with a smile, he’ll hand you a juicy plum and exclaim, “Lagniappe!”

Lagniappe is a Cajun word which means “a little bit extra.” We’re only talking 10 pounds of apples here, Roy reminds us. Bob has chosen to sell produce at a lower price, assuring him of a predictable customer base. Mike, however, will enjoy more positive world-of-mouth advertising than Bob. Yet there is a more subtle difference: Everyone who leaves Mike’s stand, walks out with more than expected, and with a feeling of delight. That’s Lagniappe.

Lagniappe, (the mint on your pillow, a hand-written thank you note, a juicy plum) is all about appealing to the emotions, rather than the intellect. And the delight factor is a powerful thing. To hold up a mirror: If Bob and Mike were in your town, where would you buy your produce?

If Lagniappe is all about appealing to the emotions, not the left-brain intellect, what’s wrong with cuddling up to the intellect? I’ll tell you.

In business, we try to categorize by applying too many numbers and too much science to our marketing efforts. For example, we’re told to believe the mantra; The secret to advertising, public relations or whatever you want to call it, is to reach the right people.

Roy Williams says, “It’s not who you reach, but what you say.”

Again, “It’s not who you reach, but what you say.”

The problem? Marketing is not scientific, though companies spend millions of dollars trying to make it so. Here’s a case in point: If you go to the website for LOHAS (an acronym for Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) you’ll find the LOHAS Market Research Review, based on research compiled by the Natural Marketing Institute (NMI).

As posted on the site, (read slowly, lest your brain stumble): “The data is based on an annual, nationally-projectile, consumer research study, which allows the NMI to generate a unique perspective on the evolution of consumer attitudes, and more specifically, how marketers can better understand these consumers, identify them, and communicate with them.”

Whew. Are you still with me? Breathe from your belly.

Keep in mind that LOHAS is a “market segment focused on health and fitness, the environment, personal development, sustainable living, and social justice.” On their site you’ll find lots of charts and diagrams, based on NMI’s “proprietary LOHAS consumer segmentation modeling.”

For example, you have a category called the Nomadics, which represent 38 percent of the population. They are defined as “less resolute in their LOHAS attitudes, though still show moderate levels of related concern and select LOHAS behaviors (such as recycling, among others).”

Then you have the Centrists (17 percent of the population) and finally, the Indifferents, representing 12 percent of the population based on their attitudes and buyer patterns.

No doubt LOHAS spent a lot of money to obtain and crunch these numbers into a report which they hope you will purchase. So why do I get heartburn over an organization that professes to be all about health and wellness?

To answer this, I turn to bestselling author Dr. Wayne Dyer, who explains things much better than I do:

“The process of putting ourselves and others into neat little compartments on the basis of any label and then making judgments about everyone on the basis of those labels is as non-spiritual and dehumanizing as experience as I can imagine. Yet it is done all the time. For example, our government asks us to fill out census reports and to neatly compartmentalize ourselves racially. Funding is allotted on the basis of these distinctions and prejudices and judgments run rampant based on what we see with our eyes, rather than feel with our hearts.”

It’s not how we’re different, it’s how we’re the same.

The differences between us -- hair color, age, habits, economic status, clothes, points of view -- all those things the media conditions us to focus on, account for only one percent of who we really are; the similarities for ninety-nine.

It’s when we identify with our separateness, believe in our category, belong to a group while putting another one down, that we feel fear, anger, resentment and blame. We need, says Wayne Dyer, “to make every effort to remove the labeling process from our lives.”

When we realize that all people are essentially the same everywhere, the boundaries that seem to separate us from the rest of the world disappear. Then, and only then, will we know true freedom.

Albert Einstein must have glimpsed this when he wrote:

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Throughout his writings, Eknath Easwaran emphasizes one great truth among all religions, that “When you discover your real nature, you discover simultaneously that you and others are one.”

With that inner knowing, you can walk in another person’s shoes and see things as they do; you can leap right across supposed barriers of age, sex, nationality. You live in everybody, and everybody lives in you. Call it enlightenment, Self-realization, or the Kingdom of Heaven within, Eknath reminds us that “Attaining this state of consciousness is the highest goal we can have in life.”



 
An Autobiography: The Story of my experiments with truth, by M. K. Gandhi

The Success Principles, by Jack Canfield

Roy Williams’ MondayMorningMemo:
Thousands of people are starting their workweeks with smiles of invigoration as they log on to their computers to find their Monday Morning Memo just waiting to be devoured. Straight from the middle-of-the-night keystrokes of the Wizard himself, the MMMemo is an insightful and provocative series of well-crafted thoughts about the life of business and the business of life.

Wisdom of the Ages, by Wayne Dyer

The Power of Intention, by Wayne Dyer

Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda

Meditation: An Eight Point Program, by Eknath Easwaran

Love Never Faileth (on St. Francis, St. Paul, St. Augustine & Mother Teresa), by Eknath Easwaran

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, by Deepak Chopra

Ode Magazine, “For Intelligent Optimists”

Hope, Human and Wild, by Bill McKibben (author of The End of Nature)