Building Ecosystems, Not Empires: Regeneration as a Growth Strategy - EP 060

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Are you ready to trade extractive business models for something more regenerative and aligned?

In this episode, I explore what it truly means to build a business rooted in integrity, reciprocity, and sustainable growth. I share my personal experiences with extractive business models and why so many of us are feeling called toward something different—something more nourishing, and more aligned. I discuss the ecosystem approach to entrepreneurship and share The EASE Method© as a framework for creating businesses that honor our values and support long-term fulfillment. Together, we look at how growth can become cyclical rather than linear, and why our pleasure, satisfaction, and community connections are essential parts of regenerative business.

My hope is that this conversation sparks a deeper understanding of how we can move forward in integrity—individually and collectively.

Episode Takeaways:

• Integrity and reciprocity are essential to sustainable business.
• Ecosystem-based models create nourishment rather than extraction.
• Integrity means acting from a place of wholeness and alignment.
• Many traditional business models rely on manipulation and scarcity.
• Shifting from empire to ecosystem is both strategic and soulful.
• The EASE Method offers a sustainable path for growth and leadership.
• Satisfaction is a core component of long-term success.
• Growth is cyclical—reflect, replenish, and rise again.
• Community, collaboration, and connection are foundational.
  

Key Insights:

“There's a deeper meaning to ‘integrity’ that I think is even more important and relevant to us in this community. And that is “the state of being whole and undivided.” Not just having strong principles, but living those principles, embodying those principles in everything that we do.”

“The call to action of this moment for us is to go deeper. It's to move beyond that pink packaging and the “girl boss” vibes and really embody that spirit of generosity and reciprocity and mutual nourishment and regeneration and to be in integrity, knowing in every single fiber of your being, that this is the way forward, that we are the leaders who are going to bring this to life and that we're going to do it together.” 

Resources I Mention:

• The Prosper Network
• Satisfaction Strategy Assessment
• Rochelle Schieck & Qoya Inspired Movement
• Carly Valancy

Question for Your Reflection:

Where in my business am I operating from obligation or extraction rather than reciprocity?

How can I embody greater integrity and alignment in the decisions I make?

Connect With Me:

• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @RachelAnzalone
• Facebook: Rachel.Anzalone
• LinkedIn: RachelAnzalone

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Remember: Your pleasure is your power. 💫

Ready to step into the pleasure revolution and transform how you do business? Let's explore how to maximize impact, profit, and pleasure in alignment with the new paradigm. Schedule a time to connect with me right here >>>

Episode Transcript

Hello and welcome to Pleasure and Profits. I'm your host, Rachel Anzalone. Today's episode is something a little bit different and I'm really excited to share it with you. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak on a summit about something that's been really central to my work lately — the difference between building empires and cultivating ecosystems and more specifically what it means to build a business with true integrity.

The response to this talk was so strong and the conversations that sparked were so rich that I knew I needed to share it here with you on the podcast. So what you're about to hear is the recording from that talk. It's about 25 minutes and in it, I share some personal stories about my early days as an entrepreneur, including a pretty wild experience I had with a program that promised feminine leadership, but was actually just pink packaging wrapped around an extractive business model.

I also talk about the waves of change that we've been moving through and how women are leading and building businesses and why I believe we're at a critical moment of choosing between the empire model and the ecosystem model, which I believe is our way forward. I introduce The EASE Method©, a framework for building a sole aligned, sustainable ecosystem based business that solves the problem that so many of us have been facing — having the desire that we want to do things differently, but lacking a model with which to do it. This framework, this method is how I believe it becomes possible to create impact in a sustainable and regenerative way. 

There's also a moment in the middle where I invite the audience into a brief embodied reflection. So if you're listening while you're driving or doing something else, don't worry, you can just keep doing what you're doing. It's very brief, but if you're in a space where you can pause and drop in for a moment, I definitely encourage you to do that. 

A little warning for you, I do call out some of the problematic patterns that I've seen in the online business world over the last 16 years. If you've been around the coaching and course creation space for a while, this might feel familiar to you. And if you're newer to entrepreneurship, consider this your heads up about what to watch out for. 

This talk is really about integrity in its deepest sense, being whole and undivided, not just having principles, but embodying them in everything that we do.

I'm so honored to have been able to speak and share this message on this summit hosted by The Prosper Network. You'll hear my good friend, Melissa Camilleri, introduce me at the very beginning, and you'll hear a little commentary from her at the end as well. So I'm gonna stop talking now and let you listen to the full talk. I hope you enjoy it.

Melissa Camilleri: 

Rachel Anzalone is the founder of Ease and Acumen Consulting, Pleasure and Profits Advising and Mentoring and the creator of the Pleasure and Profits Podcast. As a sustainable growth advisor and satisfaction strategist, Rachel guides purpose-driven entrepreneurs to expand their impact and profitability without compromising their integrity or wellbeing. At the heart of her work is the Satisfaction Strategy, her signature framework that redefines success through the integration of impact, profit and pleasure. 

Drawing from over 25 years of diverse experience in entrepreneurship, corporate leadership, and digital marketing, along with deep roots in embodiment and holistic wellness, she's developed a distinctive approach that blends strategic excellence with soul-aligned satisfaction, helping leaders build world-changing businesses that stand the test of time. You can find out more about Rachel's work at rachelanzalone.com. Thank you for being here. My dear, dear friend, I can't wait to learn from you. 

Rachel Anzalone: 

Thank you so much, Melissa. These past three days have been so incredible. I'm sure you all have just had amazing experiences listening to all the speakers. There have been like 30 plus we've heard so far. I think maybe there's four or five of us left. And it just has been so amazing to hear all these brilliant women sharing their insights and their wisdom and their experience around what it means to live and work in a regenerative way.

And we've heard all these leaders share their vision of what the future can look like. And I had my talk prepared for you guys, and very late in the day yesterday, after listening to more and more talks, I thought, I think I have to change this. I think I have to do something different. And so what I am really excited to share with you today is another layer to the conversation, something to go a little bit deeper, something that I think will help us all come into a deeper state of alignment with this vision of a world and businesses built around reciprocity. Does that sound good to you guys? Thumbs up. Awesome. Okay. I'm going to do the zoom screen share and we'll see … make sure that all works. Okay, cool. And I can see you guys. Yay. I can see all of you. Yay. Okay. 

So what I want to talk about today is integrity. And when I told my husband, late yesterday afternoon that I was going to change my talk and start talking about integrity, he replied with a visceral response that was like, ewww… nobody wants to talk about that right now. And so I get that. Like, I know that when we look around out there, it might feel like that's the case that integrity is not something that is top of our culture right now.

But as we all know, the loudest voices don't necessarily represent the masses. And to me, integrity is everything. It is one of my core values. And when we often talk about integrity, usually sort of in casual conversation, we're talking about referring, we're talking about being like honest or having strong principles, being true to our word. But there's a deeper meaning to integrity that I think is even more important and relevant to us in this community.

And that is the state of being whole and undivided. So not just having strong principles, but living those principles, embodying those principles in everything that we do. On Monday, Melissa and Amina talked about this. They talked about what it means to embody this work. And they talked about the “Girl Boss Apology Tour,”  which I think is hysterical. And I know it's come up multiple times since then.

And I've seen so many women on this path, people that were leaders that have had huge impact, had contact with thousands, millions of women and influenced them in massive ways. And we say “Girl Boss Apology Tour” and it sounds kind of funny, but it's also kind of tragic, right? Because how many of us were influenced by that? How many of us were impacted by that?

How many of us looked at what they were doing and tried to do it and tried to keep up, even though it didn't feel quite right. It fell out of integrity. It felt exhausting. And then we ended up feeling like we were failing somehow because we couldn't do this thing that these successful women were doing. So what I've seen over the last 16 years is that a lot of these “girl bosses” and “boss babes,” they've been staking their claim as feminine leaders through their branding and through their messaging, sort of claiming that they're doing business differently and inviting all of us to come along for that journey and to learn from them in the way that they're teaching it. 

But what I've also seen is that … and I've seen this from every angle, I've seen it as a customer, as a student, from behind the scenes, as an advisor and a mentor, is that sometimes you start to peel back those layers and what you find is that it's just pink packaging around a business model that is very extractive, very manipulative, exclusionary.Sometimes even, I have seen it be abusive and destructive for people. 

And so not every case is this extreme. I think sometimes it's just shallow. Sometimes it's somebody who has a really big platform who's teaching something that they know like this teeny tiny much about, something they just learned. But because they have a huge audience, they're able to get out there and share that message in a way that some of us who have been like working for decades and really doing the work are like, well, what about me?

I've been doing this and talking about it forever. And you just learned this last week and the week before that you were telling me to hustle, right? And so there's layers of this and not every version of it is the same. And sometimes it's people speaking and teaching and preaching these philosophies while what's happening behind the scenes is, you know, paying their team low wages, poor working conditions, or they just can't actually fulfill on the promises that they're making to their customers. 

And so first I just want to stop here and say that this is one of the things like Melissa said, like this is what we were looking for was a community that was not that. We were looking for people like us. And it's one of the things that I absolutely love the most about The Prosper Network is that every woman that I've met here is experienced, has wisdom to share, has depth, has real expertise and they might not be the loudest or the shiniest, but that's because they're actually focused on doing the work and doing it well and not just getting famous or making a quick buck off of people. 

So I had an experience in my early days of entrepreneurship, this was about 15 or 16 years ago, that I would describe as the antithesis of regenerative business. I joined a program that was called How to Build Your Online Empire and it was, I was looking to grow my business, there were a few courses out there. There weren't many. It was the very early days. And this course, all of the messaging and the branding and everything around it were very feminine, very like, goddessy, very luxurious queen kind of vibes. And it felt really different from most of what else I was seeing out there, which was like very masculine, very like hard driving. Let's get it done. That sort of bro marketing vibe. 

And I wanted to build an online empire. I wanted to build an empire. I wanted like what I had seen … I had left the corporate world… I’d worked in all these environments where it was like “the boss” and he was the one making all the money and the rest of us were working our butts off to make money for that guy. And I was like, I want to be that guy. I want to be the one at the top. I want to be the one… if I'm working this hard, I want to be the one who's making the money, right? And so I jumped in. I was like, yes, let's build an empire.

And what I found very quickly once I got inside that program was that underneath that soft, feminine, benevolent queen sort of branding was a highly extractive pyramid model of business. There were a group of people paying a lot of money to the woman at the top in order to get platformed in front of a very large group of people who paid just a few thousand dollars in order to learn from that woman at the top, but what was actually happening was that every week they were just getting a sales pitch from one of these higher paying customers on the next level thing they could buy — the $5,000 offer, the $10,000 offer, and all of these things they were being told they needed in order to build this online empire. 

But the thing that was shadiest about it was that the woman who was leading the program didn't have any of these things in place herself. So we're sitting in a class learning about building your your website, your home, this is your home that demonstrates your business. And then I like, I'm like, well, where's her website? It doesn't exist. And so the whole thing felt super shady and uncomfortable to me. And the final straw for me was that about halfway through the program, I got a call from the woman, from the coach, the leader, like her name showed up on my caller ID. And I was like, well, she's calling me. Wow.

And it started out as like a check-in to see how I was doing. And then it very quickly turned into a high pressure sales pitch to try to get me to spend $10,000 to go have a weekend with her, a luxury weekend where there was no curriculum, there was no agenda, there was nothing in particular we were gonna learn, but that somehow investing and having this experience was going to up-level my energy and make me abundant.

And it was just so wild and shocking. It's like the first time you hear something like that, you're like, you don't even know what to say. It just feels so insane. And this was around 15 years ago. It was the very early days of sort of the wild, wild west of the online business world. And it seems like it was so long ago. And yet there are people still doing this. Like this is happening all over the place right now. 

And what I would have to say is that it feels, thankfully, like it's starting to come to an end. Or at the very least, there seems to be a separation happening of the people who are drawn to that and the people who are not. And the people who are showing up in spaces like this because they want something different. And what we, the people in this room, need to be most careful about is not being fooled by or drawn into those promises that come from like the shiny marketing and the FOMO and the quick fix promises wrapped up in this “divine feminine” packaging when what's underneath is not aligned, not in integrity with that. 

So the question then is where are we headed and how are we going to get there? So I'm going to talk about the how in a minute, but first let's start with where we're headed. 

So if I can make a connection here between what's happened and what's happened and what's happening in the business world and what's happening in the women's movement in general,  it's like we've moved from this kind of third wave feminine leadership and business that was very focused on self, on succeeding, on individual experiences. This was like women climbing the corporate ladder. This is what I grew up in. I was growing up in the 80s, but I was pretty young. By the time I was getting jobs, it was like 1992, 1993, and this was what was going on, it was like...

You know, I used to sort of joke at this, like, there's no crying in baseball. Like I used to say that about my job. I was like, you do not show your emotions. You show up, you perform like the men in order to be treated equally. And it was all about getting yourself ahead. It was very focused on keeping up with the guys and then everything that goes along with that. And then what came next was this fourth wave, which was sort of spurred by this “girl boss” movement in 2014. 

And, um, that this I feel like I was a little older than most of the women who were jumping on this girl boss vibe and to me a 90s check I was like, “girl”? We've been fighting for a decade to not be called “girl,” we’re women you know so it always felt kind of weird to me but that was like that's what was picking up momentum and it was leaning more towards this intersectionality and inclusivity where it's like we're going to do things differently we're going to do things our way we're going to do things “the girls” way but it was still coming from this place of like, we don't actually know how to do that. 

Like there is no example of how to get that done. And so often I think what that meant, what that ended up looking like was that sort of pink packaging around an old story, an old structure, the very structure we were trying to rebel against. And so many of us knew that it just didn't quite feel right. And so I think that, you know, when I look back on that time 15 years ago, where I was like, this doesn't feel right and why am I not getting the like, is this not working for me? It felt very much I can see now that it was just out of integrity for me and probably for so many other people as well. 

And so what I think is happening right now is the birth, the emergence of this fifth wave. And the fifth wave is about the collective. It's about the greater good. It's about dismantling systems and building from scratch and leaning on these traditional wisdom… the traditional wisdom that includes so many of the principles that Carole was talking about on Monday and her talk about Serviceberry and this idea of love and coherence as a path to healing and finding the wisdom in nature and incorporating that into everything that we do. And so it's about building ecosystems instead of those old empire models. 

And this wave, this movement that we're in right now, the one that is the reason that all of us are here in this room together, it is because we feel aligned with this vision and it requires something different from us than has ever been demanded or expected before. What it requires is integrity. It requires integrity at that deeper level, that state of being whole and undivided. It requires us to fully embody those principles that we've been talking about and to fully integrate them into our lives and into our businesses, and into our way of being. And this is how we transform from extraction to regeneration. 

So in the spirit of embodying that message, I'm going to invite you right now to just close your eyes for a moment.

Take a deep breath in through your nose.

And just feel for a moment what it feels like to be here in community with so many leaders and so many peers who share your desire to live and to learn and to grow in the spirit of generosity, of reciprocity, of regeneration, and of expansion.

Feel the sensation of what that feels like in your body, in your heart, and just take a moment to savor it.

And when you're ready, open your eyes.

So as I shared my experience for so many years was that many of us, like my peers, my clients, myself included, had this knowing that things could be done differently and this desire to do things differently. But we were really struggling with how to actually bring those beliefs to life and how to integrate them into our businesses in an effective way. 

And I believe that that's because we were trying to incorporate these ecosystem based principles like mutual respect and co-creation and intuition and emergence into empire-based structures. And it just does not work that way because it's out of integrity. It's like saying, “I believe in equality for everyone as long as it doesn't affect my bottom line.” It's a kind of lip service that's like putting that pink packaging around something that's actually doing a lot of harm. And in doing that, sometimes it makes us feel good in the moment, like we're saying the thing and maybe we believe it, but at the end of the day, that break in integrity, ultimately turns into a breakdown in what it is that we're trying to create. 

So often what I've seen is that for those of us who feel intuitively that we don't want to do business in the old way, that there's this inclination to sort of throw everything out that's structured and to live in this world that is like nebulous, free flowing creativity. And if that works for you, because it does work for some people. If that works for you, then like, please, please, please keep doing it. Like you are a magical unicorn and I want to learn from you. Please keep doing it. If it's working for you. 

I'm not here to try to convince you to do something different, but if you're somebody who feels like those old structures don't work and also this thing that like of me just not having any plan and it feeling very nebulous, that's not working either. Then my invitation is for you to consider it that maybe there's a mix, a unique mix of these elements of structure and a flow that allow for some flexibility and some creativity and emergence within a structure that's going to support you to grow your business in a meaningful way. 

So what I want to share with you right now are two things. The first is a tool to help you identify what that unique mix is for you. And it's called The Satisfaction Strategy©. It's the sweet spot where you're able to integrate the goals that you have around impact, and what you want to do in the world, the meaning of your work, the desire that you have to live like a healthy, whole, nourishing lifestyle, and to incorporate the things that you value most into that, and the profitability that's required for you to get there. So, and not just any profitability. It's not just about making money. It's about profitability that's created through an aligned business model and a growth strategy that supports those other two elements.

So the sweet spot where these three intersect is what creates that soul-aligned satisfaction. And that is the way to create a business that's sustainable for the long term. Because if it's not sustainable, it's most definitely not regenerative, right? It has to be sustainable first in order for it to become and to be and serve in this regenerative economy that we want to build. And what that sweet spot looks like is unique to everybody. There's no blueprint. You're the only person who knows what that looks like for you.

There is a tool that I'll share, it's in the digital swag, there's a tool in there that I created that's going to help you to evaluate your own state of impact, profit, and pleasure, and then give you some guidance on how to focus your energy right now in this next phase for yourself. So I wanted to share that idea first because it's the foundation for everything else that I'm going to share right now. 

So the second thing I want to share is this framework around building regenerative ecosystem based business. And before I do that, let's talk for a minute about what differentiates an ecosystem based business from an empire business. So we talked about empire, this empire idea of like this top down, one winner, everything serves the top of the pyramid. It's very extracted from the people at the bottom. 

The difference when we're talking about an ecosystem based model, it's really something completely different, right? It's based on mutual nourishment, where growth happens through relationships, where every element feeds and is fed by other elements. And so in business, you can think about and identify, what does your nourishment network look like? How does that relationship work with your clients, with your team, with your collaborators, with the community, with yourself? And what's giving you energy back? And how are you providing energy to others? 

The second piece is the cyclical flow. So growth in an ecosystem isn't linear. It's like nature. It has seasons of expansion and rest. And we need to build around this. We need to build rhythms that allow for us to rest and regenerate in between those seasons of growth. And this is how you prevent burnout and how you maintain alignment through the entire process. 

And the third thing is a regenerative structure. So ecosystems have a regenerative structure that's built around sustainability. So your systems, your operations, your marketing, your finance, it should all be circulating energy and not just collecting it or not bottlenecking it. So you can ask yourself what part of your business is giving back to you right now and what parts of your business might be depleting you. 

And so for the second question of how do we actually bring this to life, this is the framework I wanna share with you. It's called The EASE Method© and it's designed to help you bring these principles into life, all the principles that we've been talking about for the last three days in a way that will actually help you to grow your business in a sustainable and a supportive way. 

So the first element of this is Embodiment. And what I'm talking about here is rooting your business in satisfaction, in purpose, in those sustainable success principles. And it's the way that's unique to you by crafting your own satisfaction strategy and holding it as the foundation for everything else that you do. 

The second thing is Alignment, and that is clarifying your vision. It's translating it into focused initiatives and priorities. And the most important thing is that then communicating that in a way that brings all of the stakeholders together. So your team knows what the mission is. You're all aligned in the vision. Your customers, your clients, everything that you do is communicated in a way that brings everybody together to fulfill that mission that you have. 

The third piece is Structure. And this means building systems and plans and processes that bring order and ease and momentum. And I know some people have so much resistance to this structure piece. And I think it's because they haven't done the alignment or the embodiment work yet. And so if you just are like, OK, I have to build a system and the system's not attached to anything meaningful to you, then it just feels like you're being put in a cage and there's no room for you. There's no room for you in there. And so doing those other pieces first is critical. 

And then the last piece is Execution. So it's showing up with integrity. It's doing the work that you're here to do in a way that is whole and undivided. 

Later today, you're going to hear from Rochelle Schieck, who is one of my teachers, one of my mentors for the last 13 or 14 years. And she's going to talk about how to embody regenerative leadership, how to learn to sense in your body when you're in reciprocity, when you're in integrity. 

And I think it's so important because I really believe that the call to action of this moment for us is to go deeper. It's to move beyond that pink packaging and the “girl boss” vibes and really embody that spirit of generosity and reciprocity and mutual nourishment and regeneration and to be in integrity, knowing that every single fiber of your being, that this is the way forward, that we are the leaders who are going to bring this to life and that we're going to do it together. 

And I could not be happier than to be here with all of you doing this work together. So, thank you for being here and thank you for listening to me. And thank you for everything that you're contributing to this summit and to each other, to The Prosper Network and to the world with your work. 

Melissa Camilleri: 

Rachel, Rachel, my friend, you are just a light. Thank you so much. It was incredible. I don't know if you saw in the chat, but there were lots of people saying, “I came here not expecting to cry today.” And I think that the tears are just the emotion that's bubbling up and flowing out our eyes because there's so much that I think many of us have been harmed by the system, that we thought we had to be a certain way, something so out of integrity in order to succeed. And your talk gives us permission to really tap back into who we are and to recognize that it is possible to be whole and undivided and move forward, but it requires all of us together. 

Something that one of our on-demand sessions on from Monday, it was called “The Unignorable Email” by Carly Valancy. And if you haven't had a chance to check that out, I encourage you to do so. She has a quote in her talk that “the opposite of a hierarchy is a network.” You showed that that, you know, empire model, that really struck me because we have a visual in The Prosper Network of the triangle versus the circle of success top down or success rippling out. 

And that's what it reminds me of is like that there's a hierarchy and then there's a network of interconnectedness. And I think that is a hundred percent what it takes in order for us to move forward in this new way. And something you said was, it's going to require something different than we've ever been required of, you know, that we've ever required of ourselves before. And it's all of us showing up and, oh my gosh, I have so much to think about. 

Thank you. Thank you for the talk. Thank you so much, Rachel. Incredible.

Rachel Anzalone: 

Thank you so much for listening. I would love to hear how it landed for you. I would love to know, what came up for you as you listened? Where do you see the gap between the empire and ecosystem models showing up in your own business or in the business world around you? 

You can always find me on Instagram or LinkedIn. I'm at Rachel Anzalone at both locations and send me a DM. I would love to continue this conversation. And if this talk resonated with you, I would be so grateful if you'd share it with someone who needs to hear it. These ideas spread through relationship and through reciprocity, which feels very aligned with the whole ecosystem model we just talked about. 

Until next time, remember that your pleasure is your power. Take care.