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The Value Creators Podcast Episode #68. Bliss, Love, Empathy, and Business: Human-Centered Marketing with Stephen Sakach

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How do you design a company—and an AI—that leads with empathy?

In this episode of The Value Creators Podcast, Hunter Hastings speaks with Stephen Sakach, founder and CEO of The Zero Company and creator of aiCMO, an AI-powered marketing platform built to scale human connection. Stephen shares his journey through digital media, consciousness studies, and systems design to develop a framework where love, purpose, and empathy drive business performance.

He calls it BLISS—Build Love Into Scalable Systems.

Key insights include:

  • How empathy can become the foundation for scalable marketing systems
  • Why companies must audit their operations through the lens of purpose
  • What it takes to align AI development with emotional intelligence and ethical goals

This is a visionary, practical conversation for anyone building the future—consciously.

Resources:

➡️ Learn What They Didn’t Teach You In Business School: The Value Creators Online Business Course

Learn more about Zero Company Performance Marketing

Learn more about aiCMO.io

Connect with Stephen Sakach on LinkedIn

Connect with Hunter Hastings on LinkedIn

Subscribe to The Value Creators on Substack

Knowledge Capsule

1. Empathy Is a Business Skill, Not Just a Trait

  • Empathy can be taught, practiced, and systematized.
  • It’s essential for customer connection and employee satisfaction.
  • It’s the foundation for authentic, resonant marketing.

2. Purpose Must Be Lived, Not Posted

  • A purpose statement on a wall is meaningless without alignment.
  • Companies should audit all systems and decisions through their stated purpose.
  • Real purpose inspires internal motivation and external advocacy.

3. Emotional Connection Drives Lifetime Value

  • Customers emotionally connected to a brand are 300% more valuable.
  • Emotional resonance leads to referrals, reviews, and loyalty.
  • Purposeful storytelling creates deeper brand relationships.

4. Empathy Can—and Should—Scale

  • Sakach’s BLISS model embeds love into systems, not just culture.
  • Businesses can design processes that prompt consistent compassion.
  • Empathy isn’t random—it can be engineered into experience.

5. Marketing AI Needs Empathic Guardrails

  • AI without humanistic intention optimizes only for profit.
  • Guardrails like purpose and values steer AI toward constructive outcomes.
  • aiCMO prompts businesses to consider people, not just metrics.

6. Data and Emotion Are Not Mutually Exclusive

  • Empathetic insights can be reflected in metrics like retention or sentiment.
  • Tools like aiCMO help identify “empathy signals” across customer journeys.
  • Qualitative outcomes can be modeled and scaled with care.

7. The Entrepreneur as Empath

  • Entrepreneurs create value by understanding felt needs.
  • Emotional intelligence is essential to discovering and delivering value.
  • Internal entrepreneurship thrives in self-managed, purpose-led cultures.

8. Self-Management Unlocks Innovation

  • Zero Company is structured as networked pods with independent decision-making panels.
  • Employees take ownership and pursue passion within structure.
  • This autonomy fosters creativity and accountability at scale.

9. Conscious Culture Attracts Conscious Talent

  • Younger generations seek purpose-driven work, even at lower pay.
  • Companies that embody empathy have a strategic advantage in hiring.
  • Culture grounded in values is magnetic and sustainable.

10. AI Must Reflect Human Values

  • Training AI on empathy-centric data reshapes outputs.
  • Tools like aiCMO evaluate customer emotion at every journey stage.
  • Experience design must optimize for positive emotional outcomes.

11. ROI Meets ROL—Return on Love

  • Empathy improves retention, reduces churn, and builds advocacy.
  • Trust, gratitude, and surprise-and-delight are measurable business assets.
  • Marketing that feels good performs better over time.

12. The Shift Toward Conscious Business Is Inevitable

  • Systems will evolve toward purpose and emotional intelligence.
  • Businesses that resist empathy will lose relevance and talent.
  • The future belongs to companies who build with love.

The Value Creators Podcast Episode #62. Choose the Handle That Holds. Stoic Leadership and Everyday Integrity: A Conversation with Becky Schmooke

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Listen to the episode here:

How we lead is who we are.

In this episode of the Value Creators Podcast, Hunter Hastings speaks with Becky Schmooke—entrepreneur, leadership coach, and author of Choose the Handle That Holds. Becky shares how the system of philosophy we label as Stoic generates practical tools for leadership, self-awareness, and resilience. Rather than hierarchical leadership vested with titles and administrative control, Becky proposes a more human vision of leadership: grounded in personal values, emotional clarity, and active participation.

Key themes include:

  • Why authority and leadership are not the same—and how leadership is a lifestyle, not a position.
  • How Stoicism reframes control, responsibility, and purpose in business and life.
  • What it means to “choose the handle that holds”—and how to build emotional intelligence through action, not theory.

This conversation is a guide for anyone who wants to lead with clarity, build resilient organizations, and live aligned with their deepest values.

Resources:

➡️ Learn What They Didn’t Teach You In Business School: The Value Creators Online Business Course

Buy Becky’s book: Choose The Handle That Holds

Learn more about Becky Schmooke

Connect with Becky Schmooke on LinkedIn

Connect with Hunter Hastings on LinkedIn

Subscribe to The Value Creators on Substack

Knowledge Capsule:

1. Leadership is Who You Are, Not your position or title

  • Leadership is often misdefined as authority or power tied to position.
  • True leadership is available to everyone, regardless of rank or role.
  • It’s who you are and how you turn up every day
  • Great leaders are also great followers—engaged, empathetic, and collaborative.

2. Teams Should Be Made of Leaders

  • Hierarchical models miss the value of shared leadership and active participation.
  • Individuals in high-performing teams, like Olympic athletes, take turns leading based on context.
  • “Followership” is powerful when it means knowing when to support and when to step up.

3. Choose the Handle That Holds

  • As described by the stoic philosopher Epictetus, each situation has two “handles”—ways to approach it.
  • The “handle that holds” is integrity, courage, and ownership—not blame or denial.
  • Leaders who choose the right handle foster resilience and long-term trust.

4. Integrity Requires Personal Definition

  • Integrity isn’t one-size-fits-all; it depends on your individual values.
  • Defining what matters helps guide decision-making under pressure.
  • Businesses without this clarity often chase hollow definitions of success.

5. The Four Stoic Virtues are Practical Anchors

  • Wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance shape steady, resilient action.
  • These values ground behavior and decision-making amid external chaos.
  • For example, temperance (moderation) keeps us focused on long-term process over short-term wins.

6. Values-Driven Business Builds Market Trust

  • Living your values builds credibility with customers, employees, and partners.
  • Consumers reward integrity and are more forgiving of missteps when trust is earned.
  • Purposeful entrepreneurs create subjective value that the market recognizes.

7. Control is Internal, Not External

  • Stoicism teaches us to distinguish between what we can and cannot control.
  • In business, focusing too much on outcomes breeds anxiety and inefficiency.
  • Small, consistent actions aligned with values are more impactful than rigid plans.

8. Planning Must Be Flexible and Purpose-Driven

  • Plans aren’t inherently bad, but rigid ones can trap organizations.
  • Stoic-inspired planning involves adaptation, feedback, and clear purpose.
  • The real test is knowing when to stay the course—and when to shift it.

9. Purpose Should Anchor Personal and Business Life

  • Individual purpose must be discovered and aligned with everyday actions.
  • Companies can also have purpose—if it’s lived, not just printed on a wall.
  • Purpose sustains integrity under pressure and fuels long-term innovation.

10. Hierarchies Can Work—If Culture is Right

  • Flat organizations are inspiring but hard to scale; hierarchy isn’t inherently bad.
  • What matters is cultural leadership at every level—ownership, not obedience.
  • Debriefs, shared accountability, and transparency help flatten behaviorally, if not structurally.

11. Stoicism is Emotional, Not Emotionless

  • Big-S Stoicism engages deeply with emotions—it doesn’t suppress them.
  • Emotions are data; curiosity is the default reflex for emotional intelligence.
  • A “leadership reflex” (like the parenting car-arm) pauses reaction and invites insight.

12. Unshakable Purpose is the Supreme Aspiration

  • Seneca said it best: our longing is to be “not shaken” by events.
  • That inner steadiness is the outcome of living Stoic values every day.
  • Leaders who cultivate this internal strength create enduring impact in uncertain environments.