Regenerative Business: How to Align Your Business with Nature for More Abundance, Fulfillment, and Impact

By Samantha Garcia

What kind of impact could your business make if you integrated the most powerful systems on Earth: THE SYSTEMS OF NATURE?

Since the Industrial Revolution, much of human history has revolved around conquering Nature. But just as species have been hunted to extinction and forests have been leveled to create farml

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dirty Alchemy Inc
• Release date: May 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798988393306

Samantha Garcia

Sam Garcia is the founder of Dirty Alchemy, the marketing agency & consulting firm for spiritual entrepreneurs, coaches & course creators.Sam hosts the Business As A Magical Practice podcast, and helps ambitious online business owners to grow their revenue and visibility while actually having a life outside of business in the Alchemical Business Accelerator.Sam graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelors in Physics and a minor in Environmental Science, and went on to get a Permaculture Design Certification before moving to Maui in 2013. She co-founded the regenerative agriculture business, Living Earth Systems, with her now husband Eddy Garcia in 2015, on the side of growing her marketing business.Sam & Eddy work and live off-grid on their regenerative farm in Olowalu with their 2 dogs, 7 cats, 5 salamanders, chickens, peacocks, cows, sheep, and wild boar.

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COPYRIGHT © 2023 DIRTY ALCHEMY INC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email [e-mail].

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Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher.

Regenerative Business / Samantha Garcia – 1st ed.

ISBN: 979-8-9883933-0-6

Disclaimer

The information in this book is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. This book is not intended to be a substitute for legal, medical, psychological, accounting, or financial advice of a professional. The author and publisher are not offering professional services advice. Additionally, this book is not intended to serve as the basis for any financial or business decisions. You should seek the services of a competent professional, especially if you need expert assistance for your specific situation.

Success stories and results shared are not typical and do not guarantee future results or performance. While best efforts have been made in preparing this book, the author and publisher make no warranty, representation, or guarantee with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the information contained herein.

The author and publisher assume no responsibility for your actions and specifically disclaim responsibility for any liability, loss, risk, or any physical, psychological, emotional, financial, or commercial damages, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.

Dedication

To Eddy.

My partner, lover, friend, and greatest inspiration.

Foreword

When I first held this book in my hands, I was overwhelmed with emotion, nearly to the brink of tears. Just reading the introduction felt like an answer to a silent prayer I didn’t even know I had.

As I read all the way through, it felt like my spirit was receiving a rich shower of life-giving rain after many, many years of drought.

And you might soon be feeling that way, too.

Many people in the business world feel that something has gone very wrong. Exhaustion, hustle, and loneliness are epidemics amongst entrepreneurs.

I have seen countless peers struggle to make a viable living with their passions and gifts. Even those who do don’t necessarily feel like they’re living the promised fantasy of a life of freedom and abundance. In fact, many instead feel trapped by the very businesses they built to escape the confines of corporate life.

And they are not sure where to begin to fix it. And the more they try, the more they feel caught in the endless cycle of personal development consumerism, where they come out the other end with lighter wallets, but not a lighter spirit.

The truth is, we have lost our way. That’s easy enough to see in the wider world. There is more wealth in the hands of billionaires than ever before, and more inequality, polarization and an epidemic of loneliness than ever.

But I grieved to see that this way of doing business has also thoroughly shaped the world of smaller, boutique businesses. These businesses are run by individuals who say they are concerned with healing and developing human potential, but find themselves caught in the same trap of unsustainable and extractive commerce.

As a hypnotist, tarot reader and coach who turned into a marketing teacher operating a multi-7-figure online business, I found myself struggling for years to find the wisdom that would help me to avoid turning personal growth into yet another capitalistic commodity, and to build a business that functions as a responsible cornerstone of community.

Regenerative Business is a treasure trove of such wisdom. I only wish I had it years ago, but I am so glad you have it now.

Sam’s central thesis is this: nature is the best guide for how we ought to conduct our businesses. Not the nature we section off, control, cultivate, and deplete for capitalistic ends. But the wild, awe-inspiring, terrible fecundity, diversity, and beauty of nature that humbles us, teaches us, and endlessly nourishes—that is, as long as we are willing to respect it as our home.

How can human intelligence and ingenuity operate in harmony with the rhythms and order of nature in order to sustain our needs in an increasingly complex society?

The answer is found in regenerative agriculture. This is a form of farming that may not be too familiar to those of us who haven’t, well, been near much farming (that would be me, a city girl through and through). But it is, essentially, an antidote to environmentally destructive monoculture-based farming.

It much more closely resembles the order of nature, and the way Indigenous cultures have been farming for eons. And it is a miraculously illuminating metaphor for how we can conduct our lives and businesses.

A regenerative business is one that allows us to make our mark on the world without having to fix anything about our messy and dark human nature because, after all, nature, too, contains messes and darkness.

It teaches us how to reflect the cycles and seasons of nature in our businesses so that we have sustainable access to our deepest creativity.

And perhaps most importantly, it teaches us how to recognize and turn all the forms of wealth at our fingertips into a resource that truly nourishes ourselves, our communities, and the Earth.

This book conveys these ideas with the ease and flow of an intimate conversation between good friends.

You will follow with fascination as Sam relays moving stories from her life, a life that is both humble and extraordinary, which starts in the woods and ponds of Michigan and takes us all the way to the sacred waters and lands of Maui.

And the spiritual insights revealed along the way are accompanied by simple, tangible, and actionable steps you can take to change your life, business, and the Earth today.

Regenerative Business is a balm to the spirit, as much as it is a revolutionary call to action. And that, together, is a truly rare thing.

May this book serve as a faithful companion in your steps, and may your journey forward be blessed with the extravagant abundance of nature.

—Simone Seol,

Author, Coach, Philanthropist, Host of the I Am Your Korean Mom podcast

Introduction

You already know that the way things are is pretty fucked.

Probably not the best way to start a book, huh?

But let’s start with that truth so we can transmute it.

This book is for all you spiritual weirdo entrepreneurs and creatives who know the power of magic. You know you have the power to craft your life but are low-level disgusted by all the manifestation teachers on the Internet who are slinging designer bags and luxury cars.

You want it all. But NOT that.

This is for those of you who are dreaming of buying acres of land to live on, who can afford to buy everything on the menu at conscious farm-to-table restaurants, and pay your assistant an enviable rate.

You’re not vying for that next flight to Mars because you know that we’re perfectly made to live on this beautiful planet. It’s our time to heal ourselves and reverse the destruction that’s making this planet look pretty uninhabitable.

I myself am a businesswoman, environmental activist, artist, marketer, scientist, witch, and neurodivergent human.

This book isn’t linear. It’s like my brain. It weaves and is knitted together. It’s a mix of science and musings. Stats and poetry. I wrote it over an eight-month period on an off-grid farm on Maui, where I live with my husband and dogs.

I invite you on this journey with me. And yes, it is a journey. We’ll be learning a lot from Nature and from ourselves.

* *

Dirty Alchemy

I named my business Dirty Alchemy. But what is Dirty Alchemy?

It’s the magic of diving into the taboo. The rejected, the once sacred. It’s revealing the parts of yourself that are hidden from yourself. And healing through the acceptance and celebration of that which is stuffed down, locked away, and starved.

Did you really think that stuffing, locking, and starving would work?

Dirty alchemy is recognizing that the most important things to us may be off-putting to society.

Look at dirt. It’s a basic need for life on this planet. We need it to grow food. So are the millions of organisms and microorganisms in it that support growth and farming.

Dirt is sacred. But dirty is profane. We use it to mark inappropriate language and perversions:

You’re not allowed into the house because you’re too dirty.

Your dirty talk is kept in the bedroom with open-minded partners.

Something so sacred—the fertile soil that sustains us—is described to us as, and manipulated to be, a thing to stay away from, avoid, and wash off.

Dirty alchemy is taking back what’s sacred. (And realizing that everything in life is sacred.) Everything in us is sacred.

It’s relaxing into opening up to those hidden bits of our psyches that hold pure gold.

We’ve lost 70% of the topsoil we originally had on the planet—flushing it away through erosion and runoff, bad agriculture, and pure disrespect.¹

As we label parts of life—parts of ourselves—as profane, as shame-worthy, we flush it away. And we drastically limit our capacity to grow and flourish.

It’s when we open up to the messy bits—our fucked-upness—that we become our whole selves. And our whole selves are the selves that will bring us the most pleasurable life. Our whole selves will attract the customers we want, the people we want to work with, and the opportunities and experiences we’re looking for.

* *

My wish for you is to use this book to grow your business to the next level. To connect with your wildness and creativity. To clearly see your path forward.

My wish for you is to make so much money that you have a seat at the table. That you can afford the best, circulate money, and pay the people who support you and your business extremely well.

My wish for you is to deepen your relationship with Nature and the Earth. To experience the ecstasy of life. To do your part.

My wish for you is a life of meaning. A life you’re proud of. One you’re excited to wake up for. One you’ll tell your grandchildren about.

Let’s open this portal with an invocation. If you’re open to it, say the following aloud:

* *

With this book, I claim my desire to have abundance, to be fulfilled, and to make an impact.

I open up to my power and all the support available to me to fulfill my mission on this Earth.

I am here to leave a legacy. I am here to change the world. I am committed to the work needed to be done, and I will do my part.

As resistance comes up, I give myself compassion and presence.

As I align myself and my business with Nature, the path becomes more clear, and I have so much more fun.

CHAPTER 1

What One Fears, One Destroys

If you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them you will not know them and what you do not know, you will fear. What one fears, one destroys.

—Chief Dan George, Tsleil-Waututh Nation

We stepped away from Nature to try to gain control over Nature. We wanted to become gods.

And this is totally understandable.

When I was in college at the University of Michigan, one of the classes I took (after waking up to my environmental fervor) was on environmental ethics.

We started out by reading the accounts of the English pioneers who ended up in Michigan. These settlers talked about the trees—the endless acres of white pines. And they talked about their fear.

We all carry this fear of the wild, this fear of power, this fear of what can’t be controlled.

It is oh so human.

So much of humanity’s recent history is about conquering Nature. And in some ways, we’ve succeeded. We now live in controlled environments. We have light whenever we need it. We have that perfect temperature in our homes.

But in conquering Nature, we’ve squashed fertility. Because what is Nature if not life?

"Many scientists have identified the birth of the Industrial Revolution as one of the tipping points for increased extinctions on land. Desirable species were hunted to extinction. Demand for lumber and expanding farmlands and factories meant leveling forest habitats. Pollution and other factors killed other animals.

"Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, many biologically classified species have gone extinct: 83 species of mammals, 113 species of birds, 23 species of amphibians and reptiles, 23 species of fish, about 100 species of invertebrates, and over 350 species of plants.

Scientists can only estimate the number of unclassified species that have gone extinct. Using various methods of extrapolation, biologists estimate that in 1991, between 4,000 and 50,000 unclassified species became extinct, mainly in the tropics, due to human activities. This rate of extinction is some 1,000 to 10,000 times greater than the natural rate of species extinction (2 to 10 species per year) before the human agricultural and industrial revolutions."²

The interesting bit about those Michigan settlers is that they thought the endless white pines would last forever. The forest was described as an inexhaustible resource. (And approximately 95 percent of Michigan was forested before the Euro-American settlement.³ But then, within 60 years (between 1850 and 1910), most of the white pines were cut down. Most of it happened in a period of 20 years.

Today there are 49 acres left of old-growth forest in Michigan. That’s 59 million acres to 49.

From fear, they destroyed the wilderness.

If you feel that twisting feeling in your stomach from reading that, if tears are welling up in your eyes too, HELLO, FRIEND!

HELLO, WILD ONE!

You already have a sense that your wildness breeds your fertility. Your creativity. Your prolific ideas. Your truest life.

Wild plants are often called weeds. They’re hard to kill. They weasel between concrete and into manicured lawns.

If you’re afraid of revealing your wildness, that’s understandable. We’ve been taught it’s unsafe.

They clear-cut the impenetrable wall of wilderness. So what will they do to us?

But we need your wildness, now more than ever.

And this book will not only help you get in touch with your wildest, truest self. It will also help you use the Principles of Nature to realign your business with your unique essence for all the abundance, fulfillment, and impact you crave.

* *

When I moved to Maui, it was the first time I’d interacted with the ocean in any real way. My previous ocean experience consisted of annual visits to my grandma’s beachfront condo in Florida.

Then I met my

Reviews for Regenerative Business

[Andrea W. · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Truly brilliant. A great read for purpose driven entrepreneurs seeking more knowledge around how to do business in ways that are more ethical and equity centered.