A Personal Note From Orion

Welcome, stellar listeners! We have a special guest, Richard Taubinger, who brings a wealth of wisdom on transforming marketing into a soulful and impactful practice. Richard, the founder of Conscious Marketer, shares his unique approach to marketing, which emphasizes authenticity, intention, and aligning with one’s highest values.

In this episode, we delve into the power of YouTube and how investing effort in marketing can attract the right audience and financial opportunities. Richard’s journey from an unfulfilling career in finance to finding his passion in conscious marketing offers incredible insights into making marketing a natural extension of your soul and values.

Join us as we discuss the importance of transparency, overcoming psychological blocks in self-promotion, and practical strategies for creating engaging and effective marketing content. Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, this episode is packed with valuable lessons on living authentically and pursuing your dreams. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the show!

In This Episode

• [07:17] – Orion welcomes Richard Taubinger, a phenomenal founder of Conscious Marketer. Richard discusses his transition from finance to marketing and entrepreneurship.
• [12:10] – Orion’s struggle with marketing her podcast and insights from Richard.
• [15:19] – Richard explains the five levels of marketing.
• [24:57] – Orion asks Richard’s perspective on the free archetype quiz for women and challenges with free content.
• [31:34] – Reframing marketing as a spiritual practice.
• [35:47] – Richard emphasizes the potential of YouTube and the importance of investing in marketing efforts.
• [41:06] – Richard offers top tips for living a stellar life.

Jump to Links and Resources

About Today’s Show

Hi, Richard. Welcome to the Stellar Life podcast. Thank you so much for being here.

Hi. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

Before we begin, can you share with me a really fantastic childhood memory?

Oh, a fantastic childhood memory. You didn’t prepare me for that one. That’s interesting. Well, I was raised in a military family, so I got to move around quite a bit. I’m not sure why I’m thinking of this, but I lived in Germany for a while, and my dad was in the Air Force, so I could ride my bike to the end of the flight line, and all kinds of planes would come in and I would be on my BMX bike with a bunch of other guys, and the planes would land in there. Living overseas and then moving around quite a bit helped me develop a spirit of adventure and different cultures and an appreciation for everybody and not being fixed on one place.

That’s amazing. How old were you?

I would have been in fifth and sixth grade when I lived in Germany. Those were like formative years when you were trying to figure things out. My dad transferred to California, where I spent junior high, high school, and college, so I went from there to California.

Yes. How did you become a conscious marketer? What is a conscious marketer?

Well, it’s always how far you rewind the story. It’s funny because I just read something called The Minimum Viable Backstory. The concept is if you want to tell just enough, I’m teaching a little bit of marketing here. If you’re going to do a video, you want to give enough context. Her name is Wes Kao. She says start right before you get eaten by the bear. You don’t tell, like when planning the trip or the car road. It’s right when you’re about to see the bear, and you get eaten. That’s where you start the story. 

View marketing as a spiritual practice. It's about channeling your higher self, managing your ego, and stabilizing your presence to serve the highest good. Share on X

I’m not exactly sure where I just about got eaten by the bear, but when I graduated from school, I had three sales jobs, and I really hated sales. I had a massive fear of rejection. I had concentrations in marketing and finance out of undergraduate school. I did a business undergrad and grad later. I liked marketing, but all the available jobs were in sales. There’s more backstory there that I don’t need to share. But I ran from that because the last thing I wanted to do was be a salesperson. I thought it was kind of slimy. I didn’t want to sell insurance or computers or the medical field. That was the other job that was on offer. I hated hospitals. I did finance.

I have been in finance for almost 12 years, but still love entrepreneurship and marketing. I found myself inside companies and always thinking about how they could market themselves better. I had a pivot. I did pretty well in that field. I managed my portfolio and then worked for a hedge fund. When I left that, I was like, “What do I do?” I kind of went through this pivot. I took a go-between job at Stanford University. I had just come from a job everybody wanted, like a hedge fund manager.

I felt like I had escaped. I remember looking at all the jobs that were on offer. Stanford Graduate School has some of the best jobs in the market right in the middle of Silicon Valley— some of the best nonprofit jobs. I wasn’t attracted to any of them. I felt like a lost soul. But for many years, I had been doing self-development and meditation work and reading therapy books and stuff that a trader really shouldn’t do, or it’s not like their main line. I realized that I was really interested in the inner transformation of people.

It was less about a specific religion or about saving the rainforest. It was more like if you could undergo a deep inner transformation. Or you opened your heart, and you just started to care for things and people that you wouldn’t have to force yourself to like, recycle, or do good things for people. You would just do it out of your good heart. I realized that inner transformation is a step. By that time, I  had a graduate degree from the  University of Chicago. I realized that helping a lot of the teachers who were helping others to do the inner transformation was something I liked.

I liked marketing. I kind of started to do that on the side. I was a couple of years in with a couple of clients. When somebody said, “How’s your agency going?” I was like, “What’s an agency?” I didn’t even know I was running a marketing agency at the time the name Conscious Marketer came through. I think it could be Conscious Marketer, but also Conscience Marketer, where it’s like marketing with a conscience. It’s conscious and has a conscience. 

From my experience in the marketing world, there are so many sharks and black hats, and they are sold in a sleazy way that I just don’t like. Let’s talk about the mindset of marketing for somebody like me. I’m sure when I say me, there’s a lot of people in the audience that are pretty much the same, where you don’t like to be too salty, you don’t like to push too much, and it also comes from, like, “Be a good girl, don’t be a bad girl, don’t ruffle anyone’s feathers.” What mindset should somebody like me have to market? I don’t do anything to market this podcast. I don’t do much on my social media. What do you think I should change in my perception in order to do so?

First of all, I wouldn’t tell you you should do anything. I will just give you some different views, and then you can decide. I’m not trying to convince you that marketing is good or bad.

No, I know it’s good. Logically, I know that it’s great, and I can spread my message more and reach more people. But there is some kind of a bizarre psychological block that prevents me from actually going out there. Well, I don’t want to. Like Tony Robbins said, “Don’t shoot all over yourself.” I don’t want to shoot all over myself. But there is a desire to be more out there and reach more people. I have to take action. I can’t just sit here and be like, “Meditate on it.” Maybe I can tap into the quantum and jump into a new timeline where it just happened. 

If you provide a lot of value and somebody makes a transformation in advance, they’ll trust you more and then buy more.

It’s interesting because I have been running the agency for a while. We’d run a couple of masterminds, and I remember a specific experience where I had a client, and we’d get on the call with her, and we’d say, “Okay, you’re going to do this and this.” The next week, she’d come back, and either she wouldn’t have done it, or she would have done the exact opposite. It was almost like we were the hedge, and she was paying us a lot of money. This went on for a few weeks, and then I finally caught on. I was like, “We set up a 911 meeting. What’s going on?” What I realized was that she thought we were the best of the worst.

It was like, “Okay, I’ve hired you because you’re the most acceptable.” But she kind of had this belief that marketing was manipulation and that marketing was beneath her and that if she could do it, if possible, she wouldn’t want anything to do with it. It was totally beneath her. This was a huge insight because, with that client, we gave most of her money back and just wasn’t a good client because if somebody’s not going to listen to you and doesn’t trust you, that’s a problem. But really, the underlying issue was that she thought marketing was just out to hurt and convince people to do things against their will. And that’s not how we frame it.

It’s not like marketing is beneath me; it’s more of a fear of rejection or fear of being too much or of being in people’s faces.

We have a way to share different ways to use marketing, and we call it the five levels of marketing that could probably help you. It’s really about raising the stakes about what it means for you and the people that you could impact in your life and then finding ways that are in alignment with your values. The good news is, in today’s world, so much is transparent. So much is out there that people can kind of sense who you are. The other thing is that even with AI, people like AI are going to replace it. But with you and I talking on video, you can kind of get a guess and get a sense of the person behind the voice. “Is this person real? Are they not? What’s their presence like?” Just intuitively, we know if somebody’s full of BS, if they know what they’re talking about, or if they’re on some script, you can just tell. 

We just went out of a presidential election where I think you saw different sides to different things, and regardless of who you were for or against, there was a transparency factor about whether the person was transparent or not. Then, people made their choice. There are five ways that you can kind of reframe marketing so that it becomes more of something you love to do. Because the thing is, if you hate to do something, it’s going to be really difficult, but if you start to see that it’s powerful, then you’ll love it. The first thing is if you have the best widget or the best service or you can provide transformation, and nobody knows about you, then it doesn’t really matter. We have a teaching called the 33 Myths of Marketing, which explains all the blockages that people have. 

Many see marketing as manipulative, but when driven by authentic and values-driven intentions, it becomes a powerful tool for creating a positive impact. Share on X

One of the myths is that a good product or service will sell itself. What we find in today’s market is that’s actually not true. You have to get in front of the brand a little bit. The first role of marketing is just to create awareness for the results you create. The number one way you can do this is by sharing case studies and demonstrating how you transform people’s lives. There’s nothing scammy about that. There’s nothing egotistical about that. Our lower self wants to keep us safe. It wants to hide. It doesn’t want rejection. We think we’re being humble, but really, what we’re doing is we’re hiding, and we’re playing it safe. We lack the courage that it needs to do the things and to do the work that’s required to serve in a bigger way.

I’m humble, which is a way to hide behind fear.

It’s one of the ways. There are a lot of ways. But if you hear yourself saying, I want to be humble. I don’t need to be in front of the brand, or if you hear yourself saying, I’m just good with people referring me. All my business is referrals, and that’s how I get all my business. What it actually means is that you have probably hundreds, thousands, potentially millions of people you haven’t reached because you haven’t actually done the work required to really get the message out there.

Now that you said it, I feel a little pain here.

I’m sorry. That’s the first way. There are five different shifts. One is just to see that awareness is important. That’s the first role of marketing. I just want to let people know that if they need help, you’re there and that you have a solution. There are layers of awareness. That could be another podcast. The second thing is teaching. A lot of the teachers that I have represented, whether it’s a big spiritual author like Eckhart, Jack Kornfield or Caroline Myss, are like big transformational teachers. 

A lot of times what they’re doing is they’re just sharing their teachings, and then sometimes they invite people to join the program, and other times they just share the teachings, and then that goes viral, and then there’s a link to sign up for the email list or something else of value. What we normally do is we think there’s the marketing side here, and then there’s the teaching side here, and there’s this wall. As soon as we do the marketing, we have to become different people.

When somebody becomes a client, that’s when the work begins. But the truth is, you can start to transform people and create impact before they even become clients. The work you do begins with the work you put online. Rather than see it as marketing, just see it as an extension of what you’re already doing, whatever that is. Whether it’s therapy, relationship coaching or fitness training, you can start to create change in people’s lives. 

The myth that’s attached to that one is all intertwined. The myth attached to that one is if I give too much away, then nobody’s going to buy. But really, if you give a lot of value and somebody makes a transformation in advance, they’re going to trust you more and then they’re going to buy more. We don’t find that to be true. I mean, there’s a certain percentage of people that won’t buy, but you’re not going to influence them anyway.

Back in the days when Facebook was loose, and you could reach more people, I think I reached eventually within a few days. It was called the Awaken Your Inner Goddess 7-Day Challenge. It was a challenge for single women before Valentine’s Day, the week before Valentine’s Day, for them to do about 15 minutes each day of self-love. There was a God meditation; there was sensual movement. There were a lot of different little tips. Every day, they would get a text, an email and a video. Without any Facebook marketing or anything, just posting on groups, I ended up having 1200 women take that challenge from all over the world. It was amazing.

Reframe marketing as an opportunity to serve and uplift others. It's not just about sales; it's about making meaningful connections and changing lives. Share on X

You can still do that, by the way. It still works. The game’s a little more complicated, but you can still attract people through different media channels and other things like that.

It was like I worked like crazy for a few days. I was in conversations with people. It was really exciting. We opened a Facebook group, and women have made many breakthroughs. I got some great testimonials from that, but I didn’t plan. I’m an Aries, so it’s like a fire starter. “Let’s do things.” Then, “Oh, well, we started a party. Let’s go just chill on the side.” 

I’m sure this could have been the potential for something amazing because there’s a big crowd for somebody who has never done that before. There was a landing page that led to a webinar. But I didn’t sell anything at the end. It was just like a gathering. I didn’t monetize it. I guess it goes back to the same block that you said where it’s like, “I want to hide. What if this is going to be too much? What if?”

Well, I think you were probably doing a lot of things right. I want to give you credit there. But a lot of times, people go into challenges, and they don’t understand how to lead people to an invitation to a deeper level challenge. If you have a challenge, you often want to have the first 20% of the transformation and then invite people into the rest of the 80%. A lot of that is even just the type of community you serve. People want community, and they want to meet in person. There are things you probably could have done right after that, but you have to embed that right before. As you design the challenge, you embed that so that it’s just natural and not scammy. Does that make sense? So you’re not trying to force people at the end.

Maybe I’ll do it again. It was a good challenge. I need to figure out where I’m going instead of just like, “Oh, let’s run.”

One of the premises of everything we do is to work from the transformation backward.

It sounds like a strategy thing. I’m a Leo star sign, so I’ve worked with a lot of Aries, and once you know where to go, you just get it done. The main thing is to have a little bit of strategy so that you know where you’re going.

What would you have done differently, for example, for that challenge?

Well, one of the premises of everything we do is to work from the transformation backward. You might say, “Okay, what’s the deepest transformation I could provide somebody? What’s the paid program? How does a challenge lead to that? How do we get people part of the way there so they actually sit?”

And think about it.

I made that mistake, too. It’s not always so obvious. I remember getting a call from somebody who had done a quiz. It was a big company, and I had told them to do this quiz, and I thought they were going to hire me to do it. Then they didn’t. It was super funny because a couple of months later, I got this phone call. I think it was on the beach or something in Southern California, where I was living at the time. 

The person’s like, “I got a problem.” By then, they had hired me as a consultant, but they were kind of doing some stuff on the side. I’m like, “What’s the problem? We have a big problem.” I was like, “Well, we did that quiz thing that you told us to do, and we opted in 200,000 people in the last three weeks.” I was like, “Holy crap, what did you pay per opt-in?” This person was like, “15 cents per opt-in at the time.” I was like, “Oh, my God, that’s amazing.” I said, “Well, what’s the problem?” He’s like, “We never decided what we were going to sell them. I have this list that I don’t know what to do with.”

Oh, that’s not a big problem. That’s a great problem.

Well, it kind of is. The problem with quitting-like challenges is that you get the kind of action-takers who want to go. The problem with quizzes and summits is that you get a lot of people who just want information and never want to do anything.

Do you think the challenges should be paid or quizzes should be paid?

It depends on the situation. We have an archetype quiz on our homepage, and I’ve worked with a few typing systems where you pay $97 or $297 or whatever. Myers-Briggs or Process Communication Model or Genius Test. There are different tests. Sometimes, it’s paid. If it’s just a general quiz, then normally those are free, but then people don’t value them, and it’s less good to opt in if they don’t pay. So, there are use cases for both. It just depends.

I’m designing my new website, and it’s going to be amazing because my website is so old. I already wrote a quiz, and it is actually an archetype quiz, but it’s for women. It’s based on the young archetypes, the mother, the queen, and the maiden, just to know which stage in life they are in and what some action steps are. It’s beautiful. It’s going to be amazing.

Typically, those are free, but you could try to charge for them too.

No, it’s probably going to be free. But they say when you pay, you pay attention. If you get people used to paying for things, they value things more, and they expect that your programs are going to be paid programs. I made that mistake where I was just like, “I just want to help the world and give everything I got and be spiritual and kind,” and then you end up with people who don’t value you or your content as much, or they’re just like, “Oh, wow, that changed my life. Thanks, bye.”

Well, I think providing teaching and providing value is the second way that you can start to think through where it’s less marketing and find some things you like to do. The third way to shift is to actually think of your marketing more as art and beauty. It’s kind of been a new one.

That resonates with me. If somebody had come to me years ago and said, “Your marketing is art and beauty,” I would have said, “Oh, I like that.”

Providing teaching and providing value is the second way that you can start to think through where it’s less marketing and find some things you like to do.

If you think of even great ads that we love or great products like the beauty and certain products or the exquisiteness of a spa service or a pampering, if you think of how those things are marketed or even something like just do it or something a little more Aries-based, there’s art in it, when we build our campaigns for spiritual teachers or authors. We’re not always in a spiritual niche. Sometimes, we’re in conscious business and other areas. We even had a hedge fund as a firm sometimes. But we’re always like, “How do we match the presentation so that it’s something beautiful?” It’s something that somebody goes, “Oh, wow, that’s really well done.” Then we obsess over it.

What’s the button color? What’s the background? Online, there are a lot of different factors in art and beauty, so it’s frictionless. Then how do people move through? What does the experience look like? As I move through, there’s a certain beauty when somebody does it really well. They’re like, “Wow, I’m so glad I found this community. I’m so glad I found this quiz. It’s changed my life,” or whatever it is. There’s a certain beauty to that.

Well, you give me hope because I’ve been obsessing about my new design for a while now, and my website should have gone live a long time ago. But I like aesthetics, and I like it when something looks exactly as I want it to look. Maybe it’s like me being a perfectionist, but I like that because they say the devil is in the details. I just don’t love this expression. I think God is in the details.

I think it’s okay to obsess, and then there’s a point where there’s over-obsession, you gotta pause. Then, the last two are actually my favorite in terms of shifting. But if you start to look at what you do, not so much as marketing, but as medicine, the people you’re reaching, you start to empathize with them, and you start to see that they’re having challenges in their different lives. I guess the traditional marketing lingo is like people having pain points. There was a teacher that you mentioned earlier that had a phrase in one of his emails that was like, “Twist the knife,” which I thought was a terrible use of terms. I won’t mention the teacher’s name.

For my very empathetic self, I like hearing stuff like twisting a knife and talking about their pain points.

You don’t want to hear that. But if it’s medicine, if it’s things that help people get out of deep pain, then one of my teachers, Thomas Schuble, said, “I feel you feeling me.” If they feel you feel what they feel, you have a connection. You do that by sharing stories of transformation and letting people know that you know what they’re going through. It’s kind of like if you have a medicine cabinet that heals an illness, many of which are terminal. 

If you think about what a spiritual practice is, you want to channel more of God-self into you.

We work with a lot of professionals in the therapy field, and they’re saving people from bad relationships, from suicide, from PTSD, from traumas, like some of the deepest, worst things that you could even see. Sometimes it’s family-based, sometimes it’s war-based, sometimes it’s a natural disaster, sometimes it’s society-based. These are things where people’s lives are basically on the line if you have that medicine.

You just gave me goosebumps.

If you’re so selfish, you’re like, “I’m worried about my small little ego, and I’m not going to get on YouTube because I’m worried about a little rejection,” you must almost be okay with it. You’re not reaching those people for whom you have that medicine. It seems a little harsh, but it’s also the reality that your work and the listener’s work here are likely to save a life or two at some point. For many of you, it might be many hundreds or thousands of lives. Or even if it’s not saving a life, it’s helping people get out of that ongoing suffering that they’re living with every day. 

In whatever area you help finance, fitness, relationships, or spiritual areas, it’s a great obligation if you’ve been given the gift to help those people. Some of the greatest marketers have been spiritual teachers. Whether it’s like Eckhart Tolle talking about the pain body or Mother Teresa in the streets of Calcutta helping people that are really struggling and raising money for those people, you can look all the way around and see that they had deep compassion for the human spirit. That’s kind of what drove them. They did whatever they needed to get their message and teachings in front of people because they knew it would matter in their lives.

It’s beautiful. What’s the last one?

The last one is my favorite. It asks if you can start seeing your marketing as a spiritual practice, which is really powerful.

Wow, I’m so happy we’re having this conversation because I’m getting aha moments. I think you’re this new reframe, which is phenomenal.

Well, it helps you shift your relationship with marketing forever. But if you think about what a spiritual practice is, you want to channel more of your higher self or oversoul or whatever your word is, or the God self into you. You’re not trying to kill the ego, but you’re trying to manage it better and have those parts trying to keep you safe and play defensive. The parts that are keeping your shadow hidden or the inner child that’s sabotaging everything are the parts that you’re working with.

As you start to get online, the other part of spiritual practice is stabilizing your nervous system. If you have a dysregulated nervous system, it basically means you’re stressed and anxious because of coffee, lack of sleep, and traumas that you haven’t looked at. Then, you’re getting online and expecting everything to go smoothly. It’s probably not going to go so well.

You have to do a lot of inner work. As you move your stuff online, it puts everything right up in front of you. It puts rejection in front of you, and it puts courage in front of you. It says, “Who am I to do this?” A lot of times, people get overwhelmed with social media. That’s because their nervous system’s a little bit frazzled. Maybe they don’t have a meditation practice, or sometimes a physical practice is just as good, whether it’s running or whatever your thing is. So marketing as a spiritual practice is something you can start to see on one side; it’s a spiritual practice for you. On the other hand, it’s as if you get online and help other people. I mean, that’s kind of the gist of most.

Every piece of information you put out there has an intent, and it changes consciousness in the field.

I don’t know if religion is the right word, but the path to enlightenment in most religions is figuring out ways to help others. First, you help yourself, and then you help other people. Well, you help other people by getting whatever your God’s gift is in. Instead of having your lower self and all these parts that probably aren’t working too well together help you, you’re bringing more of your higher self and more love and compassion and connection and joy and confidence and conviction, and you’re bringing more of that self with a big S in. When you get on camera, you can bring people into fear or hope. You can be on camera with your lower self, worrying about what people think or doing it for fame and fortune. I’m not against money, by the way.

Or you can be doing it from a place of intention to serve the highest good. What’s yours to do to help other people? If you come in with that intention, then your marketing and the work you do online, there’s no differentiation between that and praying or meditating or doing yoga or chanting or whatever your thing is. Suppose you start to see that the work you do online is changing consciousness. Every piece of information you put out there has an intent, and it changes consciousness in the field. The more of us that go online with a higher intention to do good in the world, the more we change the collective consciousness.

That’s amazing. When I look at the viral shorts, I don’t see a lot of people straight-up talking about spirituality. It’s always like something needs to be really catchy and really fast for people to actually stop and see. Attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. If I had made a video I didn’t know six years ago and it was just a simple video, it would have gotten a lot of attention. Now, a simple video is not good enough. 

You have to have a B roll and bells and whistles, and I don’t know, people start holding, I don’t know, a cleaning material just to catch your attention. What are your tips for those videos in order for them to go viral? What do we need to do? Because if I’m doing all that, and I’m stepping up, and I’m doing those videos, and then I get three likes, I’m like, “Why am I even doing it? It’s not. Why bother?”

Well, video marketing is a big subject. It probably could be another podcast. But what I would say is that there’s definitely something about going through proper training if you’re going to do YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or whatever it is.

Do you do those trainings? Which trainings do you do?

Perennial content is a video that might stand the test of time. YouTube’s really great for that.

We have something called the Soul Syndicate, a monthly membership site, and we have a week dedicated to video. Sometimes, I teach it, and sometimes, we bring in other experts because I’m pretty good at certain things and other things. I. It’s changing so fast. So what I would say is that although one of the ideas is that shorts are the most important piece of content, I think the most important piece of content is your anchor content, which is more than five or seven-minute videos. 

They’re regular YouTube videos, and you can differentiate between expiring content and perennial content. Perennial content is a video that might stand the test of time. YouTube’s really great for that. If you know your market, you know the top questions in your market, and you have a unique solution and a unique positioning, then you can produce videos around that topic that will last for many years. Often, they won’t catch on to a viral video, but over time, they’ll drive your channel views. You can get a video with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of views. I would say that the longer form content, the bigger issue for most people is that they just aren’t consistent.

If you post a video every week for the next three years, and you start to look at what people are looking for and how you can serve them, and you go in with the intent. Then it used to be that back in the day, keyword research was a little more difficult, editing was difficult, and creating thumbnails is difficult now. They’re really best practices. I can now go on Canva and have a thumbnail that matches any of the best creators out there, and you make it yours. But I can do that in about 10 minutes, even not as a graphic person. I think you have to kind of go back to the art. If you have the best medicine, then put your creativity and intention in there and look at the thumbnails and art.

I have a concept I call the second hook. Everybody’s like, “What’s the hook of the video?” I’m always, “Okay, you get somebody there.” But then, “What’s the hook in the first 30 seconds?” The second hook that really makes people watch the whole video. You have to go in with an act of love to really go in. MrBeast is the number one video creator on YouTube. You can Google him.

If you watch an interview, the question is, “How do you go viral?” His answer is always the same. He’s like, “I obsess over making great videos that people want.” If you do that in your market and then put a little research into, like, “What a good thumbnail looks like and how to put a hook in,” and then maybe your lighting is decent, and your mic is decent, you can play the game. I think it’s possible, especially since the game is actually just beginning. I think YouTube is an amazing opportunity. If you can do it on YouTube, then there’s an Instagram version a Facebook version, and different markets serve different people. 

TikTok has a younger audience, so there’s a lot of potential for any brand. Whether you’re a professional or a therapist, a fitness person, a mom, or whatever your thing is, or a spiritual person, the opportunities are still there. It’s just whether you’re willing to do the work and go all in. If you think coming back to marketing is manipulation, if you’re like, “Oh, my God, this is so much work, and I hate marketing.” But if you start to see it as an extension of your teaching, artwork, and legacy, then it’s not something you have to do.

It’s something you start to obsess over. You’re like, “I’m going to create videos that help attract the perfect person.” Then, the money just comes as a byproduct. Because people want to work with you, they get who you are. They get your heart energy, or actually, they get your soul energy at that point, which is even stronger than the heart energy.

Wow, that’s a beautiful way of looking at it. What would you say your genius is?

TikTok has a younger audience, so there’s a lot of potential for any brand.

Well, I’m always trying to find a way to bring more soul into marketing. In some ways, I’m like, meditate, then market, and then market, and then go back to meditation or pray. I didn’t come in here with a script. I’m just here to find ways to serve your audience. If I can help one or two of your people, I would kind of make peace with marketing. I think part of that is if your deepest self is coming through with the values that you care about the most, and you’re taking a stand for something that you care passionately about in the world, and then your soul is going to be in the marketing. 

Then it just dissolves, and it’s just you being you, and then it’s not marketing or business or sales. It’s just you being you. Then, it’s just an extension of a higher level of consciousness that gets into the world. I don’t know if that’s my unique genius, but I would say that I’m a guide to help people do that, mainly to get a lot of the obstacles out of the way. So that can just happen naturally. Then, it’s always up to the person to do the work. I can do the work for you. That’s beautiful.

What are your three top tips for living a stellar life?

Well, one of the first principles that I follow is just to do what’s in the highest good. I’m always asking, is taking this client for the highest good? Is it in the best interest to do this now? Is it in the best interest of you to invest in this or not? I kind of think of it as a karma-free life where you’re just operating in what’s the highest good. The other is operating from a place of your deepest truth. The truth is sometimes tricky, but a lot of times, that’s just about transparency. I can’t tell you the number of people who have an outward life and then have an inward life. They have who they are, present themselves to everybody, and have a spiritual side. Often, there are these two lives.

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Yeah, I know some of those.

I work in the corporate world, but I am really interested in this other thing, and I don’t share it with anybody because I’m afraid of what people will think of me. I think there’s something about truth and transparency. The more you can, the more I think there are different arenas where you have to have different values. That’s another discussion. But I think the more you can just be transparent and merge most of who you are. I’m a competitive person, and I like big challenges and stuff like that. I don’t bring that into my relationship. With my wife as an example, there are certain values that should stay in certain arenas.

That’s the caveat there. That would be the second thing. Then it’s kind of a cliche, but I think it’s kind of a combination of we mostly underestimate what we’re capable of. Think of all the things that you think are just out of your reach and know that somebody with less ability, less money, and fewer resources is going to do it. You could probably do it, too. Then normally, when we go for the things that are kind of like that, they light us up because there’s excitement, and there’s like, we don’t. It’s like a 5050 probability if we’re going to make it happen. Like this month, my thing is I’m running or not running. I’m walking a million steps.

Do the thing that’s outside of your reach.

I started out like, “Okay, that’s 33,000 steps a day.” As of today, I’m probably up to 700,000 with 10 days left.” I’m going to definitely hit it. But I’ll probably hit more like 1.5 million steps. Most people would go, “You’re just crazy.” I was thinking of getting a hat that said crazy mofo. Do you want to figure out that thing that’s a little on the edge? Do the thing that’s outside of your reach. Some people are wired more for harmony, and they don’t operate that way. 

Different people are going to have different ways of approaching it. But the thing is to find the thing that motivates you. What motivates me may not motivate you. If you can identify whatever your unique motivation is, and a lot of times it’s just outside of what you think is possible if you can find the motivation, then you’re excited to do it every day. Nobody has to force you to get on video or to force you to create the program or to, I don’t know, find the sourcing in China to develop the product you want to develop. It’s like the expression of your divine self. I believe we’re here to create.

We’re these infinite creators. Most people aren’t tapping into that for a lot of different reasons. Again, that’s another podcast. But this third thing is to tap into that beyond the possible that’s connected with the thing that brings you joy. Joseph Campbell always said, “Find your joy, your bliss.” He never explains how to do that. If you know you can do something or you’ve done something before, normally, it’s not your bliss. It’s normally like writing a book that you’ve never written, and you’re not a writer, learning an instrument, learning a language, traveling, or, you know, it’s normally something.

I believe we’re here to create. We’re these infinite creators.

Sometimes it’s just for you, and sometimes it’s to serve others. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong. My belief is it’s important for me to find those things because if I’m doing those things every day, then I know I’m growing. I think Steve Jobs had that thing when he was. He’d look in the mirror, and if he thought of his day and he started to get regretful or weak, if it was like more than one day, if it was like one day, he’s like, “Okay, I gotta get this financial stuff done.” It’s okay. But if it’s like multiple days, he’s like, “Okay, I’ve got to change some things in my life because I’m not living what I’m meant to be doing.” I’m sure somebody could look that up. But he has a whole thing to say about that. I think it’s pretty powerful.

Thank you so much. You kept saying, “Well, that’s for another podcast, and that’s for another podcast.” I was like, God, I don’t want to listen. Anytime you want to come back, you are so welcome. You have so much knowledge, and you’re so kind and wise in your sharing. I enjoy this very much.

Thanks for having me on. I’m excited to see you get back online with your own brand and get your work out into the world. It’s probably time for you. 

Yeah, it’s time. Thank you so much, listeners. Remember to do what is in the highest good. Operate from your deepest truth. Remember that you can reach further than you think with your creation and have a stellar life. This is Orion till next time.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

{✓}Make sure your marketing efforts aim to serve the highest good. Acting with integrity can create positive karma and build meaningful connections.

{✓}Consistency between your public and private lives builds trust. Be truthful and open to foster genuine relationships with your audience.

{✓}Challenge yourself to go beyond perceived boundaries. Ambitious goals stimulate growth and innovation, enriching your marketing impact.

{✓}Integrate your soul and values into marketing. Let it be a natural reflection of who you are, not a forced task.

{✓}Address internal obstacles that hinder self-promotion. Marketing can be a spiritual practice that stabilizes your nervous system and aligns with higher intentions.

{✓}Don’t fear giving too much away for free. Providing significant value builds trust and can lead to increased sales and loyalty.

{✓}Always have a clear strategy, especially with challenges or quizzes. Plan how to guide participants to further engagement or purchases.

{✓}Stay consistent with video content creation. Create “anchor content” with engaging and timeless value to keep your audience hooked.

{✓}Use stories to connect emotionally. Understanding your audience’s pain points and offering solutions creates a deeper bond and positions you as a problem-solver.

{✓}Visit Richard Taubinger’s website, consciousmarketer.com, to stay updated about his latest projects and insights.

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About Richard Taubinger

Richard Taubinger is the Founder of Peaceful.com and Conscious Marketer, an agency that works with high-profile authors, therapists, and professionals. He has managed 250+ launches for clients such as Sounds True, Eckhart Tolle, Thomas Hubl, and Gabor Mate. His specialty is helping emerging creators overcome obstacles to building an online presence.