Connection vs extraction in business (and how this impacts your results, and your feminine heart)

The traditional business world often pulls us into believing that if we can just find the right strategy, then we will be successful in our businesses. That there are certain tactics and formulas that we need to implement, in order to create the right results.

Now, of course there is nothing wrong with wanting to create a certain amount of money in our businesses, and seeking out ways to help us do this more effectively.

Yet as feminine beings in business, allowing our focus to be pulled too heavily this way can draw us into a way of approaching business that becomes extractive, rather than connective.

What this means, is that instead of being fuelled by heart-based connection (to our service, to our creativity, to ourselves, to God), we subtly veer towards a mind-focused ‘I need to do this, so I can get that’ way of interacting with our business.

A simple example- giving away something free (eg an ebook, a video, a mini-course) with the intent that “I am going to convert such-and-such amount of people into paying customers through this free resource” is an extractive mindset.

Whereas giving away something for free with the mindset, ‘This will help my potential clients and customers deepen into my work, get to know me better, and decide if my work is right for them- all while offering them something valuable to take away, even if they never become paying customers’ is a connective mindset.

The action is exactly the same, but the energy and heart of it is completely different. In the first instance, we are seeking to extract, in the second, we are seeking connect.

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Extraction has a distinct energy to it that feels like tightness, clenching and control. It makes us feel very attached to outcomes and results and can leave us feeling disheartened (and sometimes even resentful) if we do not see the results that we were hoping for from a certain action or strategy.

When we extract, we are closed off to possibility, and remain tethered to our results happening in a certain way.

Whereas when we connect, we are open to results occurring in our business in a multitude of different ways- ways that we never could have strategised.

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If you’d like to read on, the full piece of writing now lives in the Gentle Creation ebook.

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