Regenerative Marketing - The Goose That Thought it was a Chicken!

Summary

The Digital Marketing Podcast

Episode: Regenerative Marketing – The Goose That Thought it was a Chicken!

Hosts: Kieran Rogers & Daniel Rowles
Date: September 4, 2025

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Overview

This episode explores the concept of the "regenerative mindset" in marketing, inspired by Kieran’s experiences at a composting toilet workshop set amidst a permaculture paradise. Using anecdotes involving composting, nettles, creative chicken feeding, and a goose named Mr. Duck, the hosts extract profound analogies for digital marketing, leadership, and business strategy. The central theme: learning from natural, interconnected systems to create marketing approaches that are sustainable, efficient, and innovative.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction: Embracing the Unusual (00:00–03:00)

• Daniel introduces the episode as “the most Kieran-y” yet, referencing a lengthy, intriguing WhatsApp from Kieran about a goose who thinks it’s a chicken.
• Quote:
  • “I want you to embrace the madness for a moment.” — Daniel Rowles (00:22)

2. Composting Toilet Workshop & Permaculture Philosophy (03:00–05:44)

• Kieran recounts attending a composting toilet workshop at “Horticulture Island,” a self-sustaining retreat built on permaculture principles.
  • Key lesson: The value was less about toilets and more about systems-thinking rooted in nature.
  • Hosts draw parallels between permaculture (working with natural rhythms) and digital marketing (working with digital systems and data).
• Quote:
  • “You are designing systems that work with the natural rhythms of nature … nature works for you rather than against you.” — Kieran Rogers (03:49)

3. Profound Wisdom: "What Don’t I Have to Do?" (05:05–06:37)

• Gavin, the permaculture guide, says:
  • Quote: “I suppose what I’m most interested in is in what I don’t have to do.” — Gavin (as recounted by Kieran Rogers, 05:09)
  • The hosts discuss how this is not laziness, but system elegance—efficiency by design.
• Analogous application: Digital marketers should focus efforts on what brings the most value, and automate or discard the rest.

4. Regenerative Marketing Analogy: Nettles, Chickens, and Hidden Value (07:08–11:29)

• Kieran describes how Gavin turned nettles (an overlooked weed, rich in protein and calcium) into chicken feed by disguising nettle powder in mashed potatoes.
  • Analogy: Marketers often overlook unused data/resources, while always chasing new budgets and leads.
  • “What’s our digital marketing equivalent of mashed potatoes?” (10:11)
• Daniel mentions conversion rate optimization and the use of AI tools to extract more value from existing resources/data.

5. Waste vs. Value: Negative Audiences & Marginal Gains (10:33–12:24)

• Kieran discusses targeting “negative audiences”—people who click but do not convert—and proposes using this “waste data” constructively:
  • Exclusion audiences
  • Reverse lookalikes
• Daniel shares an example of engaging with online critics to convert them into advocates.
  • Quote: “By engaging with those people, I’ve turned some people that are very vocal … into advocates.” — Daniel Rowles (11:59)

6. Creativity, Observation, and the Goose Called Mr. Duck (12:31–16:53)

• Story: Mr. Duck (a goose) was raised by chickens and now acts as a chicken. He serves as an “observation project” to design better, more harmonious systems.
  • “Some things are far more valuable than protein, and knowledge is one of them.”
    — Gavin (as recounted by Kieran Rogers, 14:11)
• Takeaway: Everything doesn’t have to have immediate ROI—experimentation and observation can yield long-term, invaluable insights.

7. Business & Leadership Parallels: Start with What’s Already There (17:05–18:29)

• Kieran stresses the importance of:
  • Observing before acting.
  • Designing for harmony, not just output.
  • Avoiding hasty cuts (e.g., slashing entry-level jobs for short-term gains that hurt long-term talent pipelines).
  • Quote:
    • “Observe first, design for harmony, not just output.” — Kieran Rogers (18:29)

8. Regenerative Thinking Beyond Marketing (19:11–22:31)

• Transforming what is perceived as "waste" (e.g., humanure in composting) into something of high value ("black gold").
  • Large businesses should consider wisdom from “elite performers” in fields like permaculture, not just elite athletes.
  • The true breakthroughs often come from connecting unexpected dots—systems thinking.

9. Mindset Reset: Application to Global Systems (22:42–24:26)

• Permaculture offers a regenerative, observational, and self-sustaining model for business, government, and communities.
  • “It’s not survival in spite of the system… it’s survival because of the systems.” — Kieran Rogers (23:31)
  • Daniel and Kieran encourage marketers to step back, observe, and ask, “What don’t I have to do?” as a route to innovation and efficiency.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|----------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 05:09 | Gavin (via Kieran) | “I suppose what I’m most interested in is in what I don’t have to do.” | | 09:31 | Kieran Rogers | “That value is really often hidden behind what we overlook and discard.” | | 14:11 | Gavin (via Kieran) | “Some things are far more valuable than protein, and knowledge is one of them.” | | 18:29 | Kieran Rogers | “Observe first, design for harmony, not just output. And in an agentic world, that is massively important.” | | 23:31 | Kieran Rogers | “It’s not survival in spite of the system, which is where I think we’re all at the moment, it’s survival because of the systems.” | | 24:13 | Daniel Rowles | “It’s not just the course that you went on, it’s a mindset reset.” | | 24:26 | Kieran Rogers | “If you observe properly and listen well, you’ll leave with something more valuable than just the course content.” |

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Key Takeaways & Practical Applications

• Regenerative marketing means creating systems and strategies that are sustainable, self-reinforcing, and produce value with less intervention.
• Value is often hidden in what is discarded (old data, underused content, “negative audiences”).
• Before chasing new strategies, marketers should “observe first”—optimize, automate, and repurpose what is already working.
• Experimentation and observation—even without a clear commercial objective—can produce powerful long-term results.
• True innovation often comes from crossing disciplines and applying wisdom from unexpected places—like permaculture to marketing.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–03:00: Intro & Kieran’s composting adventure
• 03:00–05:44: Lessons from permaculture, philosophy of systems
• 05:05–06:37: “What don’t I have to do?”—efficiency by design
• 07:08–11:29: Nettles, chickens, and hidden value
• 10:33–12:24: Turning “waste data” into marketing gold, negative audiences
• 12:31–16:53: The goose called Mr. Duck & value of observation
• 17:05–18:29: Leadership, pipeline, and observing before acting
• 19:11–22:31: Regenerative thinking on a broader scale
• 22:42–24:26: Global systems, mindset shift for business
• 24:13–25:09: Mindset reset & the value of outside perspectives

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Final Thoughts

The episode closes by inviting feedback from listeners who apply these ideas, with Kieran eager to hear about tangible impacts and even do a follow-up episode. The meta-message: True breakthroughs come when we observe, learn from different worlds, and focus on building regenerative systems—whether in marketing, business, or life.

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Transcript

[Kieran Rogers]

Hello and welcome back to the digital marketing podcast brought to you by targetinternet.com My name is Kieran Rogers.

[Daniel Rolls]

And I'm Daniel Rolls.

[Kieran Rogers]

And today we are discussing regenerative mindset. The Goose who Thought He Was a Chicken.

[Daniel Rolls]

If you're wondering what the heck is going on, you're in good company. I had a text. First of all, this is going to be the most Kieran y of all our podcasts. If. If Kieran can be a thing. I received a text message. I think it was a WhatsApp from Kieran. And we bounce ideas like we get random stuff to each other all the time. Have you seen this? Look at this. This is really interesting. And I got a message from Kieran that was about 20 pages long and I started reading it, thinking he sent me something about, you know, a website or of the podcast and it was entitled the Goose that Thought It Was a Chicken. And I was like, right, I can't read this right now. I'm going to park this and come back to it. And that evening I sat down and I read this and I was like, what madness is this? And then I went on a journey and I learned. And that's what I want you to do, listeners. I want you to embrace the madness for a moment. Don't switch us off just yet, unless it. So tell us how this all started. And this is what made you go on a composting toilet workshop in the first place. And as I said, listeners, bear with me, bear with me.

[Kieran Rogers]

I went on a composting toilet course. So like a half day course. It was bought for me by, by a friend, a friend of mine, Matt, who I worked with Matt for years. He's a brilliant developer. And Matt has had this long term dream which has almost become my dream, that Matt should like realize this dream. He's had it that long. His dream was he's always wanted to own his own woodland. And actually last autumn he, he actually remortgaged the house and bought a woodland on the other one. It's epic. All sorts of like, adventures have ensued as a result of this. But one of his problems is literally, it's just a wood. And I saw that there's this amazing place called Horticulture island run by Gavin and Lucy, my husband.

[Daniel Rolls]

It was on Ben Fogel Show.

[Kieran Rogers]

Yeah, they were on Ben Fogels. If you look up Ben Fogle's New Lives in the Wild and look up the episode on the Isle of Wight. It was in the most recent series on Channel 5, I think that Is.

[Daniel Rolls]

Yeah, that's right.

[Kieran Rogers]

We can put a link to it in the show notes. But I sent Matt a link to this because I thought, oh, composting toilet. That might be quite good for Matt's wood because he's out there all the hours clearing all the brush and what have you, that could be fun. And actually he thought it was brilliant. And we were chatting about it, I said, yeah, I've always fancied doing something like that because it. It just fascinates me. Like, I'm. I'm a big fan of green technology, I suppose, and although I would never consider building a composting toilet in my own garden, it's just interesting.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right, right.

[Daniel Rolls]

I just love this. I've got the show notes in front of me, Right. We have these coggles, all the show notes. I think this is even worth publishing with a thing. And it is just this great. I love this line. It's an expected toilets. Got a life lesson, I think, what a line that is. Right, okay. So what was it about this workshop that surprised you, then?

[Kieran Rogers]

Well, we went along together. Matt bought us both a ticket and it was on a Saturday afternoon, a really sunny afternoon on this amazing place. Horticultural island is like. It's on a bit of cliffland, like literally on the land slip, and they've turned what it was, unwanted land, into this amazing Garden of Eden where they grow all of their own food and they have holiday cottages that you can let there and stuff people go there for, to just chill out and switch off. Actually an amazing place to do that. But we. We went along to learn about composting toilets. But I literally got a life lesson. What Gavin that runs this was chipping at. Lucy was presenting and Gavin was chipping in on the side. You get the sense that he's really wise, like, he. He's not gone through any of the traditional academic routes. I think he was very much considered a failure at school, but he's brilliant at what he does and he thinks really deeply about everything that he does. And he's really interested in permaculture.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

And the whole premise of permaculture is you are designing systems that work with the natural rhythms of nature. That's the whole premise. Because actually, if you design well around them, actually, then nature works for you rather than against you.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

So if you speak to Gavin about modern farming practices, like mass farming practices, he'll, you know, point out how hugely wasteful they are and how much huge amounts of energy go in when actually it doesn't need to. So as we were going through the lessons on composting toilets and how they work. And I'm not going to go too much into that because that wasn't the most valuable thing that I got out of it. Interesting. Although it was. It was more the their ethos and philosophy on observation and design of systems that work doubly hard and they're all interconnect. Because actually, what it really made me realize is actually that's what we do as digital marketers all the time. You know, whereas Gavin's thinking about, you know, how would different livestock integrate with the plants that they're growing and the outcomes that they want. You know, we're often thinking about keyword landscapes and different bidding patterns on Google Ads and social media algorithms. And we are just as much as Gavin is observing the seasons, we're observing the fruits of our labors and working out, how can I squeeze more out of it? You know, that's the fun of it. That's the fun of what we do.

[Daniel Rolls]

There's a great quote here that's still. Tell me this quote from Gavin.

[Kieran Rogers]

Yeah. So somebody asked Gavin a question and the answer he gave was really profound. And it hit me like a shovel in the head. He just, he gazed out into the distance. In answering this question, he said, I suppose what I'm most interested in is in what I don't have to do. Like, just let that sink in. Like, that is radical idea. And I got really excited about it. Like, that's not laziness, that's elegance. Like systems that thrive with less intervention.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

This is. And this is what, where permaculture really comes into this.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

It's totally about leveraging the forces that are there in your favor rather than fighting against.

[Daniel Rolls]

Right. I immediately had a thought about that for digital marketing. Yeah, go on. Which is that we'd spent so much time going, oh, we need to do this top post. We need to do some tick tock stuff. We need to do this video. We need to do that. We need to. And they go, actually, what are we doing that works? The podcast. Right, the podcast. That's what people like, right?

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah.

[Daniel Rolls]

So let's just double down on that. Do more podcasts, try and get in to do different things. They experiment with different formats, but then use the podcast to become the short video post, to become the video clips, to become the transcript. Well, what works is that. And then actually you could get people to subscribe to a newsletter because they're already interested. And if they subscribe to the newsletter, you get them to Come to a live webinar because they like you already. And they come to live webinar, they might sign up for the product. And we suddenly went, oh, that's our funnel.

[Kieran Rogers]

Yeah.

[Daniel Rolls]

And our funnel was much more naturally easy than the other stuff we were trying to do.

[Kieran Rogers]

It's like a whole new marketing strategy. Like, per marketing, I have to come up with something better than that. But you get the meaning of it, right? It's kind of actually really interesting. So, like, I just became obsessed. And I was explaining to Danny. For me, when something profound like that hits me, I. It's a feeling. I don't really understand it. I just have a feeling. And then I need to spend quite a bit of time processing what that means. Like, so what does this change? How does it. And actually, the longer I was there, more of these little nuggets of joy started coming out.

[Daniel Rolls]

So talk to us about nettles and chickens. I mean, this is where it starts getting pretty out there.

[Kieran Rogers]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Daniel Rolls]

So if you thought it was out there already, you just bet. Hold on tight.

[Kieran Rogers]

We, as part of the course, we were all invited into their house where they have this incredible composting toilet which was built before the house was.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

So it's got like two massive pits where the waste goes. And I think it took them 12 years to fill the first pit and they're now on the second. And what they'll do is they'll harvest the first pit after like about 18 months when it's kind of all broken down and ready to use. And that will, like, further their crops and do all sorts of clever stuff. Right. So that's going on. But their house isn't huge and they can only take three people into the bathroom at any one time. So whilst we were waiting, we were stood by their chicken run that they've got. And they've got this big area where the chickens roam freely. And there was a really interesting sign on the door of the shed where they kind of look after all the chicken feed and stuff. And it was a breakdown of nettle powder and its components, like how much protein and zero. And it compared it to other things. And actually it turns out that nettles, which are abundant and wild, are very high in protein and really calcium rich.

[Daniel Rolls]

Do you know that? Okay, learn something every day.

[Kieran Rogers]

So Gavin, being the master craftsman years, has actually been sneaking nettle powder into family meals. Like, he takes wild nettles that grow everywhere. He dries them and then he grinds them into a powder. Cause it's highly nutritious. And hugely beneficial. And actually the high protein and calcium, that's really good when you know everything that they grow, they eat, they're self sufficient.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

But they don't keep cows or goats.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

So this is a really useful source of calcium for them. But it occurred to Gavin that actually calcium and protein are what chickens need. He was like, right, I need to get the chickens to eat nettles. Problem is, chickens do not want to eat nettles. They're not into that at all. Be them fresh or dried, they're not into it. But he did know that chickens loved mashed potatoes.

[Daniel Rolls]

Who doesn't?

[Kieran Rogers]

Who doesn't? They have a lot of potatoes, it's an abundant crop. So that's what he started doing, was feeding the nettle powder in mashed potato form to the chickens. And what he created was a really high protein zero waste feed from undervalued ingredients. He literally, Daniel, he turned base nettle into gold.

[Daniel Rolls]

Oh, I like that little words there. I like it, I like it.

[Kieran Rogers]

I know.

[Daniel Rolls]

Right, well, what's that, what's the lesson from this then?

[Kieran Rogers]

So I think here's the thing that I took away from it, that that value is really often hidden behind what we overlook and discard. You know, we don't think about it, we're too busy, we're terrible in marketing. Let's just get bigger budgets, get more meat on the table and then we'll succeed.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

No, when do we last go down the drains and do a bit of an efficiency drive? What are we wasting that we don't use? I bet all of you, if you were to think about this and spend some time digging into it, you're sat on vast data troves of really valuable stuff. You just need to work out what's in there and how can we use it and how can we process it. Like what's our digital marketing equivalent of mashed potatoes?

[Daniel Rolls]

Well, I was going to say here that you've got conversion rate optimization, which we've already got loads of traffic. How can we convert a bit more of it? Yeah.

[Kieran Rogers]

Right.

[Daniel Rolls]

And then actually what we've suddenly got now is AI tools that can analyze data that was quite hard to analyze before.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah.

[Daniel Rolls]

So if I start looking for themes and patterns of people traveling through my website and then saying, yeah, what would be worth testing? Could I do some testing with that stuff and rather than focus on more traffic, just get more of it to convert massively.

[Kieran Rogers]

I've become obsessed with what I term negative audiences. Every organization has. These are pools of people that are the wrong type of customer.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

And you get an order amount of clicks and leads and stuff from them and we tend to discard that as wasteful on that. And that's hugely expensive bit of data, actually, when you think about all the cost per clicks that go into, you know, getting leads from the wrong people that are never going to buy. How about we, we turn that around and create a really effective, like live updated, ongoing audience that we use to exclude with our campaigns. How about we experiment with creating a lookalike audience of these people? It may or may not work, depending on what. There's all sorts of ways when you start digging into this, you know, like combining both these things. I'm most interested in what I don't have to do. And actually, if we really think about the amount of waste within our pipeline, how much could we literally turn base metal into gold?

[Daniel Rolls]

Well, what could we stop doing as well? Right. And I think I've got a big feeling about a lot of social media.

[Kieran Rogers]

Well, that's the biggest thing that marketers say to us all the time, isn't it? Ah, if only there were more hours in the day. Well, actually there is. If you stop doing some of the stuff that's not generating a reward. Now, Gavin would never put a whole load of effort into a crop that's not going to give him multiple benefits. Why would he, when there are crops that do? And actually what he's done is taken nettles. I mean, these things are a nuisance normally, but actually they grow everywhere where.

[Daniel Rolls]

He is on the under to that point as well. I found the bigger that we've got and the more people engage with socially, the more haters you get. Right. You get people saying negative stuff. They just pile onto anything you say and to say. Well. And actually by engaging with those people, I found I've turned some people that are very vocal and like to post a lot online into advocates.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah.

[Daniel Rolls]

And that's actually taking something that's been a bit difficult and turning into something that's really gold.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah. Right.

[Daniel Rolls]

So I think there's. Yeah, there's a brilliant lesson in there. All right, the next one. Okay, I have a lot of questions about this. So you met a goose called Mr. Duck?

[Kieran Rogers]

I did.

[Daniel Rolls]

Who thinks he's a chicken. Yeah, it's a goose. It's called Mr. Duck. I do thinks he's a chicken.

[Kieran Rogers]

He's amazing. I absolutely adored him. So we've got the chickens. We've been having a discussion about nettles. My mind's on Fire. At this point, like, all my synapses are firing on so many different levels and I'm feeling a little bit giddy from the whole effect of it. And then Gavin introduces us to Mr. Duck, right? So he's called Mr. Duck because previously they've been keeping ducks, right? And the ducks were in with the chickens. And actually he's more like a duck net chicken. And because they had lots of ducks, he like, the name stuck. Oh, it was. Mr. Duck is kind of. Cause he's in. They don't have the ducks anymore, but they've got chickens and they've got Mr. Duck, but he's a goose. Now the story goes that the goose egg, they've got some friends who keep geese. And these friends gave them three goose eggs as a gift. The intention was for them to eat the goose eggs, but immediately they asked, look, are the eggs viable? Well, yeah, they are. And Lucy was like, well, I'm hatching some chicken eggs. And she put them straight into the incubator and one of them hatched, right? And that was the goose now named Mr. Duck, right? But what's interesting is that Mr. Duck actually thinks he's a chicken, right? Because he's been brought up with chickens. Like he was literally raised with wolves, you know, as the story goes. But not in this instance, he was raised with chickens. So it's very likely he does actually think he's a chicken. I mean, he's a lot bigger than the chickens, but he runs around. He's part of their, their flock, as it were. And you know, they've raised him as if he were one of their, one of their own. And somebody asked Gavin, so are you raising him for food?

[Interviewer/Host]

Right?

[Kieran Rogers]

And he looked, I actually looked quite horrified and went, do you know, some things are far more valuable than protein, and knowledge is one of them, Right. And he explained that Mr. Duck's role is to be observed because what Gavin does is he builds these permaculture systems, right? So, you know, by observing Mr. Duck, he's trying to understand what does a goose need so he can build systems around other geese and not just one of them, right? So Mr. Duck is a research project in a way, and he's really trying to understand what are all the needs and inputs that Mr. Duck needs to thrive and how would we integrate that with all the other systems and things that were going on. He's looking for a commercial advantage. And for me, this was another mind blowing moment. Like not everything needs to have a commercial or consumable outcome to have huge Value. This is about taking a step back and observing. Right.

[Daniel Rolls]

I think there's something important here as we get to agent based AI and that kind of stuff. There's loads of people just going, let's cut this, let's cut that role, let's make it more efficient. There's automate it. And if you're not careful, what you remove is imagination and insight out of things.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah.

[Daniel Rolls]

And saying, actually if we just, you know, I really like this idea of creativity experimentation. Let's just try something out and see what happens. Let's try a new format of the podcast. Let's. It's not that I think it's going to make any more money, but I just kind of want to understand it and then go, what could we do with that?

[Kieran Rogers]

We do this all the time. Actually. There's all sorts of things that we've just trialed out, like this episode back in the day.

[Daniel Rolls]

There's no commercial value.

[Kieran Rogers]

You and I wrote a number one best selling Amazon book on search engine optimization.

[Daniel Rolls]

I think you wrote.

[Kieran Rogers]

Well, I wrote an awful lot of that and. But you contributed to it and you helped me like test it out. And the sole purpose of that was to work out do these techniques we've.

[Daniel Rolls]

Read about to can you game the Kindle Store?

[Kieran Rogers]

Game the Kindle Store, do they actually work? And actually the outcome was yes, they did. But I would argue that whole experience was the seed that started your kind of publishing success. We'd never published a book before and actually after that you got a publisher and you've been writing books ever since. And that's been, let's be honest, that's been quite a lucrative source in many ways. Not just from the commercial outcomes of the books, but all the opportunities that's provided.

[Daniel Rolls]

It's the brand that comes off the back of it. Yeah, it's completely that as well. So that, by the way, people, that was Kieran claiming, you know, responsibility for my entire publishing career.

[Kieran Rogers]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

You know, you weren't expecting that. But yeah, I'll tell you, you did.

[Daniel Rolls]

Write that SEO, but was entirely you.

[Kieran Rogers]

I just love the craziness of it. Like a goose that. That's called Mr. Duck that thinks it's a chicken. It's like, what the hell? What's going on there? But yeah, actually I learned a lot from Mr. Duck.

[Daniel Rolls]

Well, it's connect us all about where does all this link back to business and leadership a bit as well.

[Kieran Rogers]

So I think what I'm saying is, look, guys, start with what's already there, right? We're always so searching for the new thing. And I know all of you love our like, tips and tricks episode because all new shiny toys and we love them too.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

But actually start with what you've already got and observe first. And as Daniel was saying, reflecting on where AI is going and agents and how people are going to, I know, leap on that and not be wise, like, not think about the outcomes of what they're doing before they implement them. And, you know, you don't need to be a genius to work out. Actually, if we stop recruiting assistants, then we are cutting our organization off at the knees. Because who's going to replace us when we retire?

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

Who's going to, like, climb up the ladder and learn?

[Daniel Rolls]

Where's the talent pipeline?

[Kieran Rogers]

Where's exactly that? Exactly that? I'm not really thinking about this now. Somebody like Gavin would never bring in a flock of geese and just see what happens. Like, he's doing it gradually and carefully and he's stinking it through.

[Daniel Rolls]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

Because this is life critical. Like, his family won't eat if he doesn't get this.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right. Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

That's no different from what you guys are all doing for your businesses right now. It is life critical. You know, you drive the lifeblood of the whole organization.

[Daniel Rolls]

We need our jobs, we need our business.

[Kieran Rogers]

Right? Yeah. So we take some missteps here. Like, could be jam today and starvation three, four, five years down the line. Like, there's some really big fundamental questions that I think we're all facing here. So observe first, design for harmony, not just output. And in an agentic world, that is massively important. How are we observing how this all fits into the bigger picture before we race in and start slashing all the crops and only growing nettles? But that's the equivalent of what I think we all do. And that is not the method. That is not the way. That is craziness. That's modern farming methods. Actually, let's just go for the profit. And we've seen where that's put us.

[Daniel Rolls]

Destroy the soil in the process and.

[Kieran Rogers]

Everything else, all of that. And there are really big questions I think we should be asking in business. What do we think is waste? And what might actually be valuable is to go back to composting toilets. They're literally taking human waste and turning it into black gold. Something that's extremely valuable for them, that. That massively increases their output. And they're doing it in some really clever ways. You know, are we just defaulting to effort and budgets when actually smarter systems would totally set us free. And why are we chasing protein all the time? Actually we don't chase protein, do we? We chase profit. But actually with that I think we miss out on some really valuable insights. Sometimes there are things that you do need to do and you do need to test out that might not directly result in profit but actually when connected up, when you start joining the dots in a really smart way, when you become a systems thinker, you properly think this through. Actually the gains could be astronomical. It's not commercial advantage in this line of thinking. Like I don't know where, where else you'd find it. Like I just think there's something in this. What I love is it's come from taking time out and looking at something completely different. And it honestly it hit me like a shovel in the head. It's like, wow, no one's really thinking about it, no one's really talking about this. And actually off the back of this I, I spent a good 5, 6 hours discussing this with chat GPT and actually what came out of this was a really in depth medium article I.

[Daniel Rolls]

Published a link through to.

[Kieran Rogers]

Yeah, I'd love for, I'd love to get your feedback.

[Daniel Rolls]

I mean you also made a comparison to elite athletes. Just explore that a little bit.

[Kieran Rogers]

Yeah, I think this is the thing, like big business hire from elite sports a lot. Like I've been to so many like sessions and seminars and things where you have a really famous Olympic.

[Daniel Rolls]

So the keynotes.

[Kieran Rogers]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what you've got me thinking is actually there are other kinds of elite performance. If permaculture were an Olympic sport, Gavin and Lucy from Permaculture island would be gold medalists, no doubt about it. Like they train daily, not in gyms but in their gardens. You know their metrics are soil health, community resilience, closed loops and clean loos. And it's a really high level operating system for sustainable life. Why isn't businesses looking to people like that stay up the level of intelligence there and the level of wisdom that I was able to tap into that just helped me leapfrog in terms of my thinking was like nothing I've experienced before. If businesses are really serious about creating sustainable operating systems for their businesses, they should be talking to people like Gavin and Lucy. Yeah, for sure. Check out Permaculture island. Like they do run these courses. I would love it if from all over the world people started flying into Southampton just to go and meet with Gavin and Lucy. I'll tell you, you won't be disappointed. They're a real breath of fresh air, really inspirational. But do something completely different and see how you can reflect on that within your own operations. Because I think that could very often massive breakthroughs are made when you start connecting the dots. No one else has done. And this is definitely. This is a source for sure.

[Daniel Rolls]

So, yeah, by the time I'd got to this very long WhatsApp message, as you can tell from this podcast, I kind of realized it wasn't about toilets and chickens, really. So any last kind of things in terms of what this is really about?

[Kieran Rogers]

Yeah, I mean, it's just a way of thinking.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

That's the big thing I think I took away from this. And actually I got to start thinking about global systems as well. Permaculture offers a very different model. It's regenerative, it's observational, it's self sustaining. Right now you could apply that for sure to your business. That has got protein profit written all over it, isn't it? Regenerative, observational and self sustaining. That's actually what we're all after. But actually, let's think bigger. This could be applied not just at boardroom level, but at parliamentary level or a neighborhood level. Like the kind of, I guess the line is, it's not survival in spite of the system, which is where I think we're all at the moment, it's survival because of the systems.

[Daniel Rolls]

Yeah. And I think in an environment where we're overwhelmed in marketing anyway because we've got too much to do, we're overwhelmed because of the AI stuff that's happening. Actually taking that little lean back and thinking in these contexts and maybe taking an external view is a good thing to do.

[Kieran Rogers]

Just what don't I have to do? I'm most interested. That's what Gavin said. I'm most interested in what I don't have to do. That is that's got superpowers written all over it, like. And I'd encourage all of you to spend a bit of time thinking about that. How could that transform your current marketing? Actually, if you're observational and you look at the outputs and you test out a few of your theories on this, you will gain big from that.

[Daniel Rolls]

And I just love the last thing you put into the show notes, which is like, it's not just the course that you went on, it's a mindset reset. So we'll put a link into the show notes for the course itself as well. And that idea you've said here, if you observe properly and listen well, you'll Leave with something more valuable than just the course content.

[Kieran Rogers]

Definitely.

[Daniel Rolls]

And I think that's a. It's why we go to conferences. Right? It's why we go. I need to take a different perspective on this. I need to take a step out of my day by day and actually the busier we get, the more frantic we get and the more fast paced because the AI everything is, the maybe the less we're doing that. And I think it's a very good point. It doesn't just have to be digital marketing. Like I don't just listen to digital marketing podcasts. I try and listen to a broader set of things and you're doing things that are even more further afield as well, very clearly. So hopefully there's some insights there and we hope you like this kind of format. Let us know. We're always up for your feedback as well. All of the links will be in the show notes Target Internet podcast and we hope to see you again on the digital marketing podcast or on a toilet composting workshop.

[Kieran Rogers]

I just a personal plea from me on this. Like I'm, as you can see, I'm really excited about it. I'm really honored to get the opportunity to share this with you.

[Interviewer/Host]

All right.

[Kieran Rogers]

I would really love feedback from anybody that actually gets something out. I'd love to know what have you done with this? What kind of difference has it made? What opportunities did it open up for you? Because actually I think if we get enough feedback, it'd be lovely to do a, like a follow up episode on this. On, on how that kind of line of thinking, you know, what difference does it make? You know, as marketers we're always going, well, so what, you know, I'm kind of doing that with this content. Really, it'd be really lovely to know what did you guys do for. Maybe you didn't, maybe you just thought it was ridiculous. Which is fine. You know, I don't mind. Everybody's going to get something out of this, but I'd love to know either way. So yeah, please get in touch.

[Daniel Rolls]

And if you do get nothing out of it and you've listened to the end, then we'd love to hear from you as well. Because why did you say you're listening to the end as well? Thanks for listening to the digital marketing podcast and we'll see you next time. For more episodes resources to leave a review or to get in contact, go to targetinternet.com podcast.