The Future of Business is Human

Crimson here!

We are now living in a post-AI business landscape: AI can write your newsletter, build your funnel, organize your calendar, summarize your yapping, ideate your launch strategy, and offer you a year’s worth of Instagram post ideas before you've finished your morning coffee.

And honestly? Some of that is useful (seriously no shade: work smarter not harder!)

But the problem is that when everyone is using the same tools to make things easier, these tools no longer give us a competitive edge. In other words, being efficient and prolific is no longer enough to bring you guaranteed success. Now, it’s merely the baseline.

My EROS Collective co-creatrix Emily and I have discussed this ad nauseum: Sure, AI can save us hours of drudge work by performing menial tasks (hello creating our podcast captions.) But it’s also a sure as hell way to disappear in a sea of sameness if we try to use it to replace the irreplaceable: our humanity. 

But alas, this is where so many businesses are finding themselves now…

Welcome to the Red Ocean

This concept comes from the book The Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne.

At its essence, a red ocean is a crowded market where everyone is fighting over the same customers. The water is red because it’s bloody AF from competition, price wars, visibility struggles, and endless attempts to be just a little bit better than the other folks in your industry.

In case it’s not obvious, as business owners we do not want to swim in a bloody red ocean. But that’s exactly where you’ll find yourself if you’re sourcing your ideas, messaging, and strategy from an artificial intelligence that literally amalgamates the average of what already exists. THIS is exactly why so many people are starting to disappear in a sea of sameness.

But if you’re reading this, I’d like to think you’re better than that. You’re ready to swim in a majestic, crystal blue ocean. Dive into the open water, baby!

This is where you don’t have to fight for attention or clients because you’ve created something so distinct and ownable that you don’t have direct competition. 

And because of that, you become a category of one.

Which is important when we remind ourselves of the essence of business: supply and demand. 

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, supply has EXPLODED!

The internet made it possible for more people to start businesses, social media gave everyone access to a global audience, cheap oversea production made it possible to produce products, and digital offerings made expertise infinitely distributable.

Now AI has made certain forms of creation almost frictionless. And like I said before: if it’s easy enough for you, it’s easy enough for everyone.

So now, the supply is enormous, but the demand hasn't become magically infinite.

So how do we maintain an abundant demand for our supply? And yes, as I reread that I recognize it sounds like I’m a drug dealer, so just consider your “supply” to be your products and offers.

Being Good Isn’t Enough

The answer isn’t necessarily to create more. It’s to create something only you—a supremely unique human—can create.

And here’s the thing: simply being good at what you do is no longer enough to be successful. In fact, from here on out, let’s just assume that to even be in the arena you need to be good at what you do. 

Let me illustrate this point. Let’s say there are five yoga studios in your town, and all five are “good at what they do.” Great teachers, beautiful spaces, enjoyable classes. Everyone is getting a solid yoga experience. Why would someone choose one over another?

I’ll tell you how: price and proximity. Because when you find yourself competing with other “good” but similar products, you become what we call a commodity. And when you become a commodity, it’s a race to the bottom. Like a gas station. Sure, there may be one that is subjectively better—maybe it’s cleaner and has some vibey music playing as you pump, but you’re not driving an extra 5 miles and paying an extra 10 cents a gallon for it.

Being “good” or “better” isn’t enough to escape the red ocean. So how do we escape to the blue ocean? Let’s return to our yoga studio example…

How can you make it so you’re not just another comparatively good yoga studio? Well, you gotta differentiate yourself from the rest.

Maybe you do yoga for a specific demographic like elders over 60. Or maybe you have a unique methodology like sensual tantric yoga or dance party black light yoga. Maybe you offer yoga therapy through Jungian psychology or private yoga experiences with barnyard animals. I’m not saying these are good ideas, I actually don’t even do yoga, but you get what I’m saying.

The point is, being better keeps you in the comparison game, but being different gets you out of the game and into your own category. 

Your Three V’s

Remember earlier I mentioned your irreplaceable humanity? I love how Emily has boiled it down to what she calls the three V’s: Values, Voice, and Vision. These are the things the robots can’t dictate.

Your values are what you believe. What do you stand for? This is where you are unwilling to compromise. Your values determine what you do, what you don't do, what you create, who you work with, how you treat people, and is ultimately the soul of your business.

Your voice is your perspective. It's the particular way you see things, the stories you've lived that nobody else has lived, the connections you make between seemingly unrelated ideas, and the things you notice that other people don't. It's your language, your humor, your references, your opinions. Here’s the thing: AI can imitate a tone. It can make something sound playful, sophisticated, irreverent, spiritual, edgy, warm… But it doesn't have a life. Your voice comes from having a life and something uniquely human to share about it.

And then there's vision. This might be the most important one when we're talking about luxuriating in a blue ocean. Vision is your ability to see beyond what already exists. AI is incredibly good at looking at what already exists and giving you more of it, but some of the most successful businesses are built by people who see something that doesn't exist yet.

Henry Ford is often attributed with saying that if he'd asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse. Who knows if he actually said that, but the point is that people can only ask for what they can imagine. 

We use our three V’s to build blue ocean businesses that have yet to be imagined—by others in your industry or the robots.

Stop Niching Down. Start Getting Specific.

I want to challenge the obsession with niching. Though I do believe the catchy saying “there are riches in the niches”, the answer isn’t to keep narrowing your niche until you're offering yoga classes for the three vegan people in town who like reggaeton and puppies. Instead, it’s about getting specific.

There's a difference.

You can have a broad skill and still have a highly specific point of view. Yoga is a skill. Astrology is a skill. Carpentry is a skill. Photography is a skill. Coaching is a skill. But the skill itself isn't necessarily what makes your business unique. It's what you do with the skill.

I’ll use myself as an example. I recently started offering astrology readings, but I don’t just offer general astrology readings. I specifically do natal chart readings for solopreneurs and small business owners to clarify their uniquely ownable and magnetic brand world. Astrology is a skill, but how I use it to specifically serve and offer transformation is my non-commodified business.

Once you start looking at your business this way, you may realize you've been sitting on a very ownable combination this entire time: your skills, your interests, your weird obsessions, your professional experience, your life experience, your beliefs, your aesthetics, your bizarre rabbit holes... All of it can be alchemized to become a category of one.

Find Your Lens

One of the simplest questions you can ask yourself is “What do I do, and through what lens do I do it?”

I’ll use myself again, this time using my trademarked modality Esoeroticism. Esoeroticism is erotic dance through the lens of ritualistic magick. Emily guides feminine leadership through the lens of sensual embodiment. Other examples are home construction through the lens of 18th century artisanry, organizational services through the lens of autism, interior design through the lens of sacred geometry and feng shui (I just came up with all of these on the fly, steal them as you please.)

You aren't necessarily inventing a new skill, you're combining things in a way that creates an uncommon offer.

I suspect many of us already have the raw materials for our own blue ocean, we just have to put the pieces together and be bold enough to pioneer something people may not initially understand. This is why we include embodiment practices in the EROS Collective: because our nervous system is what allows us to move through discomfort so understand. It’s vulnerable (there’s another “V”), but this is why we do embodiment work in the we can grow and expand our capacity for success.

The Inspiration May Be Outside Your Industry

Here’s a tip: don’t look to your competitors for inspiration.

I know how it goes: we follow others in our industry to understand our competition. As we should—I would never suggest being ignorant of what others are doing in your realm!

But if you’re just looking at others in your industry for inspiration, you are going to start converging in that sea of sameness: the same language, offers, visual trends, and overdone “hot takes”.

Instead, explore elsewhere.

Look at architecture, fashion, music, mythology, film, food, art, history. If you’re a chef, see what’s happening in online gaming. If you’re in online gaming, see what’s going on in… I dunno… cross stitch circles.

Remember: you have to create something that doesn’t yet exist within your industry that gets you out of that bloody red ocean.

Your No's Clarify your Yes’s

Keep in mind, your blue ocean is also created by what you don't do.

Along with who you don't serve, what you don't care about, and how you're unwilling to compromise.

Because your no's clarify your yes’s.

If you offer everything to everyone, there's nothing particularly distinct about your business. And I know this can be uncomfortable, because we all feel like our work could truly help anyone and everyone. One of my favorite sayings is “if you’re not offending someone, you’re boring everyone.” It’s okay to not be all of the things to all of the people. And I’ll argue if you try to do that, you’re back at being a commodified people-pleasing robot.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. There's authority in being able to say, “I don't do that. I’m not for everyone.”

That's the specificity that keeps us swimming in our crystalline sea.

The Advantage Is You

For a long time, being the work horse was a legitimate competitive advantage. More hours, more content, more launches, more emails, more platforms, more, more, more, MORE!

But now, AI can work faster than anyone. It can produce more and is available twenty-four hours a day without needing to take a bathroom break. So if your entire business strategy has hinged on being the hardest-working person in the room, you are probably already noticing that it’s no longer a super power.

The advantage is shifting toward discernment, creativity, lived expertise, perspective, relationship, intimacy, embodiment, and self-knowledge.

And I’m not saying quality and strategy doesn’t matter! You still need good offers, supportive systems, thoughtful sales and marketing, financial awareness, and business intelligence. 

But those things are infrastructure, and building infrastructure is fairly searchable and accessible. As I said earlier, your strategic advantage is now being a uniquely and distinctly human.

Know Thyself

That's the real invitation here: not to become more robotically efficient, but to become more deeply and humanly yourself.

Whenever I guide a mentorship call in the EROS Collective I start with the reminder that the essence of magick is to “Know Thyself.”

Know your values, your voice, your vision, your perspective, your obsessions, the weird combination of interests you've been collecting throughout your life. And then use ‘em.

The blue ocean isn't somewhere to be found, it's something to create. 

And ultimately, I find this new paradigm business shift refreshing. As the bros drown in their red oceans of optimized efficiency, the feminine is floating in their blue oceans, fully felt and expressed as unique, distinct, and magnificently imperfect humans!

Thanks for reading! And if you want to immerse with a group of real humans creating soul-led, blue ocean businesses, join us in the Collective!