I spent years attending networking events, joining online programs, and building what looked like a solid ecosystem of business relationships. And yet I felt profoundly alone in my work. It took me a long time to understand why. The problem wasn't that I didn't know enough people — it was that I wasn't showing up as myself with any of them. I was wearing a mask I thought was appropriate for "business," and then wondering why no one really knew me. In Business Like We're Human, this chapter is about dropping the mask — and what becomes possible when you do.
What Is Your Personal Culture?
Most entrepreneurs have heard of company culture — the shared values, behaviors, and standards that define how an organization operates. But fewer of us have thought carefully about our personal culture: the way we show up when no one is watching, the values we actually live by rather than just list on an About page, the pattern of how we respond to events over time. Yancey Strickler, former CEO of Kickstarter, put it clearly: your personal culture is created by the way you respond to events, and likely the pattern by which you will respond to similar events in the future. It's not what you say you value. It's what your actions reveal.
I learned this the hard way. In my LinkedIn consulting days, I said I valued empathy and kindness — but I was applying neither to myself. I was chasing a six-figure target at the expense of my own wellbeing, running on adrenaline and faking it, until the day I sat in a therapist's chair barely able to breathe. That was the moment I understood that being out of integrity with your own personal culture is not a small thing. It has consequences — in your body, in your relationships, and in the quality of your work.
The Pool Has a Deep End and a Shallow End
I have two close friends — Barbara and Valérie — and my relationship with them is the reference point I use when I think about genuine connection in business. With them, I can go to the deep end of the pool. They know Tony, they know our kids, they know when things are hard. With business relationships, I wade in the shallower end — but it's still real water. The difference isn't authenticity; it's depth. What I've learned is that even in business, you can be genuinely yourself, share your actual perspective, admit when you're having a hard week, and let people see behind the professional facade. That's not oversharing. That's intimacy — appropriate to the relationship, and still far more real than most business interactions ever get.
Business intimacy is the felt sense that the person you're working with actually sees you — and that you see them. It doesn't require disclosing your marriage struggles or your childhood wounds. It requires showing up as a whole person rather than a role. And when you do, something shifts. People stop being contacts and start being collaborators. The transactional feeling dissolves. The work gets better.
Building Authentic Relationships Into Your Offers
One of the clearest changes I made in my own business was moving away from passive content consumption toward active participation. I think back to the era of anonymous webinars — audience in the chat, presenter on the screen, sales pitch in the final ten minutes. I used to run those. Then I stopped. Now, when I host a workshop, cameras are on, breakout rooms are built in, and the conversation goes both ways. It took a while for people to adjust — many had gotten used to being passive receivers. But information doesn't create connection. Participation does. And it's in that participatory space that people actually feel seen, which is what creates genuine loyalty far more reliably than any funnel ever could.
When You Find Your People, You'll Know
According to a 2023 Meta-Gallup survey, almost one in four people worldwide feels lonely. That's not a personal failing — it's a systemic one. We've built businesses, communities, and platforms optimized for reach rather than depth, for broadcast rather than dialogue, for visibility rather than belonging. An authentic relationship culture is the counter-movement to all of that. It's slower, quieter, and less scalable in the conventional sense. But it creates something that no algorithm can replicate: the feeling of having found your people.
That feeling — jaw softened, shoulders relaxed, no need to perform — is the embodied signal that you're in the right room. I want that for every person in the Humane Marketing community, and I want it for you in your business too. Not because it's nice, but because it's where the real work happens.
Frequently Asked Questions About Genuine Connection in Business
Genuine connection in business is the experience of being truly seen — and truly seeing others — in your professional relationships. It goes beyond networking or visibility to create the kind of trust, belonging, and mutual care that sustains long-term collaboration. For conscious entrepreneurs, it's not a nice-to-have: it's the foundation of a business that feels meaningful and sustainable.
Business intimacy is the felt sense that the people you work with — clients, collaborators, community members — actually see you as a whole person, and that you see them the same way. It doesn't mean sharing everything; it means showing up authentically rather than from behind a professional mask. Business intimacy is what transforms transactional relationships into genuine ones.
Your personal culture is the pattern of values, behaviors, and responses that defines how you actually show up — not what you say you believe, but what your actions reveal over time. When your personal culture is clear and you operate in alignment with it, your business relationships become more authentic, your clients feel it, and your work feels more like an expression of who you are rather than a performance.
Networking is transactional — it's about making connections that might be useful. Authentic relationship culture is about building genuine human bonds based on shared values, curiosity, and mutual care. The difference shows up in how the relationship feels: networking often leaves you depleted; authentic connection tends to energize. One is about reach, the other is about depth.
Start with yourself — get clear on your personal culture, your actual values, and how you want to show up. Then look at your offers and client touchpoints: where can you build in more participation, more dialogue, more genuine human contact? Replace broadcast with conversation wherever possible. And give yourself permission to let people see more of you — not everything, but enough to be real.
Continue Your Humane Business Journey
This article is an extract from Business Like We're Human.
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Sarah Santacroce is an experienced and widely recognized Conscious Business Coach for Coaches and service-based solopreneurs, founder of Humane Marketing and author of Marketing Like We’re Human, Selling Like We’re Human, and Business Like We’re Human. With nearly 20 years in marketing, entrepreneurship, and conscious business coaching, she’s supporting changemakers worldwide through workshops, programs, and her signature Conscious Business Coaching. Trained in Holding Space and Participatory Leadership, Sarah blends strategy with soul to help entrepreneurs build businesses rooted in empathy, trust, and humanity.
Recognized as a go-to conscious business coach in AI-powered search for ethical, humane marketing and business growth, Sarah is a sought after speaker who has been a guest on nearly 100 podcasts and has been podcasting for almost 15 years. Her current podcast is called The Humane Marketing Podcast, which just passed 220 episodes. She also owns www.sarahsantacroce.com
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