When Three Worlds (Buddhism, Neuroscience, and Marketing) Collided This Week…
Core Article: When Three Worlds (Buddhism, Neuroscience, and Marketing) Collided This Week…
Paragraph I’m Pondering: “The disciplined mind leads to happiness,” Buddha
Powerful Affirmations to Inspire: “My wealth serves…”
Book Review: When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
Cool Stuff: The only known mouse that…
AI Info & Resources: How AI is just like social media scrolling… hmmm
When Three Worlds (Buddhism, Neuroscience, and Marketing) Collided This Week…
Last week, I shared how recipes, whether for baking, storytelling, or even building Bots, can give you a place to start. A recipe gives you structure, yet it’s not ever the whole picture. What makes it work is when you make it yours. If you missed it, you can check it out here.
This week, I want to take you deeper. Cuz alignment isn’t just about tweaking a recipe, it’s about the bigger patterns that shape how you live, work, and show up in your life.
And that’s where this story begins…
Have you ever been at a crossroads with converging life and lived experiences? Almost like an explosion of ideas and experience that knocked you for a loop?
Well, that happened to me this week. I don’t know if it was the lack of sleep, the 18 hours of driving in a 72-hour period this past weekend, or the loads of podcasts we listened to in the car, The Happiness Lab, and Hidden Brain. Maybe it was finishing the book, Habits of a Happy Brain by Loretta Graziano Bruening, that unpacks how five chemicals, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins, and cortisol, shape how you feel, think, and act, which I will share more about in the coming weeks.
Or maybe it was the deep conversation with my Buddhist therapist about the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path… Yeah, that’s a lot of converging…
Whatever the cause, it was like maps from three different worlds — neuroscience, Buddhism, and marketing were suddenly laid on top of each other. And you could see the territory of this work more clearly than ever.
On the surface, these three fields appear to be unrelated. Brain chemistry is about biology. Buddhism is about spiritual wisdom. Marketing is about sharing our work with the world. And yet, they were all circling the same truths:
- When you live or work out of alignment with your values, you suffer.
- When your communication creates fear or pressure, you spread suffering.
- When your words, your work, and your way of showing up are aligned with truth and kindness, you create trust, safety, and connection.
That’s the core of Soulful Marketing.
As I’ve shared before, there are really only 2 more well-known ways to market your business. And I’ve created the third way.
- Traditional Marketing – Brand-first, logo-driven, recognition play. Think Coke, Apple, Nike.
- Direct Response Marketing – All about hype, pressure, and manipulation to get an immediate sale. That’s the “bro marketing” world I spent decades in.
- Soulful Marketing – The third way. The only way that fully aligns your marketing with your mission, vision, and values. It’s about building trust, genuine connection, and being your authentic self.
How is Soulful Marketing different from the other two ways?
It isn’t just about better tactics. It’s about alignment that changes everything in your body, energy, and your business. When your marketing is out of alignment with your mission and values, you feel it in your body, energy, and your results. Your stress spikes and cortisol floods your body. You second-guess yourself. And that creates suffering, not just for you, but it ripples to your clients.
When your marketing is aligned, it feels good. Your words release oxytocin, which builds trust and sparks a sense of belonging. You feel energized instead of drained. That’s serotonin and endorphins at work. And if you look at it through the lens of Buddhism, it is what’s called Right Speech, Right Intention, and Right Livelihood, choosing words, actions, and work that reduce suffering instead of creating it
It was like three maps suddenly overlapped, showing me the same territory.
Maybe you’ve felt it too. When the old ways of doing business leave you stressed, hollow, or second-guessing yourself… some part of you starts looking for a path that feels safer, more connected, and human.
That’s why I want to start breaking this down in more depth, because this isn’t about marketing tactics. It’s about creating less suffering, more connection, and greater alignment in every aspect of how you work, communicate, and live. When your marketing reflects that, you build genuine connections, trust, and it’s not about “selling” anything. You will stand out more in your market because you are marketing differently from the majority of people out there.
At the end of the day, this isn’t just about Buddhism or brain science alone. It’s about alignment.
When your marketing lines up with your mission, vision, and values, you’re not just running a business. You’re in alignment by living your truth. And that’s what people really respond to.
Here’s something you can try this week:
Before you write or share anything about your business, pause for 30 seconds. Ask yourself, ‘Is this in line with my values? Would I say this to a client I truly care about?’ That quick check can shift everything about how your message feels, both to you and to the person reading it.
And in the coming weeks, I’ll be breaking down this bigger map of brain science (The 5 core brain chemicals that affect your behavior), Buddhist wisdom, and the Soulful Marketing approach into simple pieces you can apply in your own business. For now, just notice where stress spikes and second-guessing show up. Those are your clues to where alignment is missing, and where you can start making small changes.
Paragraph I’m Pondering
“Whether our action is wholesome or unwholesome depends on whether that action or deed arises from a disciplined or undisciplined state of mind. It is felt that a disciplined mind leads to happiness and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering, and in fact it is said that bringing about discipline within one’s mind is the essence of the Buddha’s teaching.” – Dalai Lama XIV
Powerful Affirmations to Inspire
- Clients who value my genius find me and joyfully invest in my services.
- My wealth serves a greater purpose and uplifts the world.
- I move through life with grace, patience, and compassion.
Book Review
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice For Difficult Times
by Pema Chodron
Cool Stuff
- Why is the tool that prys things open called a “crowbar”?
- Yep, you heard it here first – meet the only mouse that actually howls at the moon.
- The world’s longest tunnel fug for a railroad track has just been completed, called the Brenner Pass in the Alps. It will run from Austria’s town of Tulfes through Innsbruck to the region of Trentino Alto Adige, reducing commuting time between Munich and Verona by 2.5 hours.
AI Info and Resources
- I knew they were doing this – Chatbots are acting just like social media scrolling, getting us to stay on their app longer, exchange more messages, and increasing engagement. So when ChatGPT, at the end of your conversation, asks you if you want to….. just stop and say no! 🙂
- Interesting, Microsoft has a new “Publisher Content Marketplace,” where it’s aiming to compensate AI content creators and publishers. Hmmmm
- How AI is changing the future of how grocery retailers will buy, source, and manage products.
Weekly Photos
Here are some pics from our travels from Northern CA to Southern CA. What’s so interesting to me is the vast difference between the two climates. You can see the grapevines, bigger mountain ranges, and cooler weather. Then, getting into L.A., it’s much warmer, flatter, yet still surrounded by mountain ranges in the periphery. Forgive some of the blurry pics. I love challenging my phone camera to see what pics will come out as we’re driving 75 MPH. 🙂
- Somewhere on I-5 south, right before we headed into the infamous “Grapevine” section of the highway, where sadly lots of workers died digging a road through the mountain pass.
- Here you can see a bit blurry pic of actual grapevines, hence the name of the highway section.
- Have you ever heard of Pyramid Lake? This is one of the lakes that’s alongside the Grapevine section of I-5.
- Had to throw an oldy pic of Emma here. I sure missed her on this trip. She loved hanging out on our laps as we drove, and every once in a while hanging her head out the window.
- The clouds in our neighborhood this fall just don’t disappoint.
- Here’s L.A. from the car window on a bit cloudy and dreary afternoon.
- This pic was way down the road from my first pic. I really liked the close-up framing of the fence and the reflection of the clouds on the mountains. Yeah, that’s me, the photo geek. 🙂 As an aside, I realized that cuz I’m trained to see life in pictures, when I see one, or more, it gives me a quick dopamine-satisfying rush. And then another when I get to share the pics with you!
NEW: P.S. This is me being bold and giving you an invitation. 🙂 I’m going to run the Soulful Marketing Accelerator Cohort again. If you’re longing for like-minded community and ready to move through your fears to grow a purpose-driven business rooted in authenticity and aligned with your dream clients… Welllll. Go here to be first in line when I reopen the doors again. Would love to have you.
P.S.S. Whenever You’re Ready: Here are 3 Ways I can make an impact on creating greater success in your business using marketing that’s aligned with your mission and values without feeling like you’re selling your soul.
1. Make Money Now Sheet – It’s one of the bonuses in my 7-Step Soulful Marketing System. I wanted to give it to you for free to help you create more success.
2. Love Books Like I Do? – I’m always reviewing the best nonfiction books – Where Buddha Meets Business.
3. Get my proven 7-Step Soulful Marketing System. It gives you the framework you need to implement authentic and connected marketing using online customer experiences and launching your products, services, or courses. It will help you create greater success.
It’s a simple system, especially if you love to read like me. There’s no video or audio. Plus, you get my proven templates, tools, and worksheets, all with tremendous value. And I’m pricing it incredibly low so it can be more accessible to more people. 🙂
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I appreciate your sharing. Thank you!
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