
In this episode, Tamas Hovanyecz joins us to explore how meaningful human conversations can reshape business for the better. Instead of the usual “What do you do?” we’ll dig into “Who are you?”—a subtle shift that sparks trust, vulnerability, and holistic solutions.
We’ll talk about creating the psychological safety needed for authentic dialogue and how entrepreneurs and Changemakers can hold space for deeper connection with their clients. We’ll also consider how “relational design” can help cultivate intentional spaces—online and offline—where real human exchanges lead to lasting impact.
If you’re ready to slow down and nurture conversations that truly matter, this episode is for you.
Here’s what we addressed in this episode:
- How slowing down and connecting on a human level leads to more effective, holistic solutions
- Shifting from “What do you do?” to “Who are you?” to foster authentic, meaningful conversations
- The importance of psychological safety in building trust and honest collaboration
- How small business owners can create deeper relationships with clients through dialogue and vulnerability
- Designing relational spaces—both online and offline—that encourage genuine human connection
- Exploring the concept of “relational design” to spark lasting change in organizations
- and so much more…
Tamas’ Resources
Sarah’s Resources
(FREE) Sarah’s One Page Marketing Plan
(FREE) The Humane Business Manifesto
(FREE) Gentle Confidence Mini-Course
Marketing Like We’re Human – Sarah’s book
Authentic & Fair Pricing Mini-Course
We use Descript to edit our episodes and it’s fantastic!
Email Sarah at sarah@sarahsantacroce.com
Thanks for listening!
After you listen, check out Humane Business Manifesto, an invitation to belong to a movement of people who do business the humane and gentle way and disrupt the current marketing paradigm. You can download it for free at this page. There’s no opt-in. Just an instant download.
Are you enjoying the podcast? The Humane Marketing show is listener-supported—I’d love for you to become an active supporter of the show and join the Humane Marketing Circle. You will be invited to a private monthly Q&A call with me and fellow Humane Marketers – a safe zone to hang out with like-minded conscious entrepreneurs and help each other build our business and grow our impact. — I’d love for you to join us! Learn more at humane.marketing/circle
Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Android to get notified for all my future shows. If you’d like to receive regular helpful emails from me, then download my 1-Page Marketing Plan based on the 7Ps of Humane Marketing.
Raise your hand and join the Humane Business Revolution.
Warmly,
Sarah
Imperfect Transcript of the show
We use and love Descript to edit our podcast and provide this free transcript of the episode. And yes, that’s an affiliate link.
How We Can Change The World With More Meaningful Human Conversations
Sarah: hello, humane marketers. welcome back to the humane marketing podcast, the place to be for the generation that cares. this is a show where we talk about running your business in a way that feels good to you, is aligned with your values, and also resonates with today’s conscious customers because it’s humane, ethical, and non pushy. i’m sarah zaneck rocha, your hippie turned conscious business coach for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs and change makers, mama bear of the humane marketing circle and renegade author of marketing like we’re human, selling like we’re human, and soon also my third book, business like we’re human. if after listening to the show for a while, you’re ready to move on to the next level and start implementing and would welcome a community of like minded, quietly rebellious entrepreneurs who discuss with transparency what works and what doesn’t work in business, then we’d love to welcome you in our humane marketing circle. if you’re picturing your typical facebook group, let me paint a new picture for you. this is a closed community of like minded entrepreneurs from all over the world who come together in two meetups per month to hold each other accountable and build their business in a conscious and sustainable way. we all share with transparency and vulnerability what works and what doesn’t work in our business so that you can figure out what works for you instead of keep throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. find out more at humane dot marketing forward slash circle. twice per year, i host my signature program, the marketing like we’re human, aka the client resonator program live in a deep dive into the seven p’s of the humane marketing mandala, you will learn to market from within. this program is for you if you want and need to get more clients, but want to share your message in an ethical and humane way. if you want to make a difference with your work. if you are just starting out or if you have been in business for a while, but haven’t really found the marketing activities that work for you. or also if you are pivoting your business from business as usual to your life’s work and want to radically change the way you get clients. find out more at humane dot marketing forward slash program. and finally, if you prefer one on one support from me, my humane business coaching could be just what you need, whether it’s for your marketing, sales, general business building, or help with your big idea like writing a book. i’d love to share my brain and my heart with you together with my almost twenty years business experience and help you grow a sustainable business that is joyful and sustainable. if you love this podcast, wait until i show you my mama bear qualities as my one on one client. find out more at humane dot marketing forward slash coaching.
Sarah: welcome back, humane marketers. happy twenty twenty five. i hope you had a good break. if you had one, i hope you did. welcome to another year of meaningful conversations around humane marketing and business building in order to create a business that contributes to making this world a better place. you may have noticed it already last year that there are fewer episodes than your typical podcast, but that’s actually intentional. because i really want to create less but more meaningful content. so i try to handpick my guests and bring you people who i really feel are doing things differently. so having fewer episodes also contributes to creating more spaciousness for both of us, which is one of my favorite words these days, spaciousness. and also a big theme in my upcoming business like we’re human book. talking about the book, i haven’t given you an update in a while because i’ve just been busy writing. and it’s now almost ready, but i’m doing things differently again and won’t make a big hoopla around a book launch and instead just do a slow launch over the whole year more or less. so on the podcast, i’ll be hosting some conversations with friends around topics that come up in the business like we’re human book. some of them, uh, are even mentioned in the book. and so, yeah, just thinking about that gets me really excited. and if you join us in the humane marketing circle before january twenty seventh, you also get the chance to participate and contribute to a beta round of four workshops following the four parts of the book that i’ll also be offering to the public when the book is live sometime later this year. and otherwise, as i said, you’ll get to listen to the conversations around these topics here on the podcast. so with that, let’s get started with the first episode of this year. today’s conversation fits under the p of people and partnership. if you’re a regular here, you know that i’m organizing the conversations around the seven p’s of the humane marketing mandala. and if this is your first time here, big warm welcome. you probably don’t know what i’m talking about, but you can download your one page marketing plan with the humane marketing version of the seven p’s of marketing at humane dot marketing forward slash one page. that’s the number one and the word page. and this comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these different p’s for your business. so today, i’m talking to thomas hovanyak about meaningful conversations. thomas energizes the role of a leadership coach, strategic facilitator, and breath work guide. he helps leaders and teams who become the most balanced versions of themselves to build innovative projects and organizations tackling complex social and environmental challenges globally. he’s the cofounder of who cards, a card game on a mission to transform social interactions to become more open, vulnerable, and authentic. and we’re actually using these questions in our community for the last few months and are just loving those conversations. thomas leads a truly nomadic lifestyle and can often be found balancing and walking on high lines, hundred to two hundred meters high in the mountains where birds fly by. so here’s what we addressed in today’s episode. we talked about how slowing down and connecting on a human level leads to more effective holistic solutions. how shifting from what do you do to who are you to foster authentic and meaningful conversations. we talked about the importance of psychological safety in building trust and honest collaboration. how small business owners can create deeper relationships with clients through dialogue and vulnerability. talked about also designing relational spaces, both online and offline, that encourage genuine human connection. and we explored the concept of relational design to spark lasting change in organizations and so much more. so i’d say without further ado, let’s dive in and listen to this conversation between thomas and i.
Sarah: hey, Tamas good to see you again.
Tamas: hey. good to see you again.
Sarah: we’re saying again because we’ve had this conversation before and it was amazing. and then the sound wasn’t so amazing. so we decided to record it again and it’s been a few months you’ve been traveling mountain climbing. and so, yeah, it’s it. i can’t say i’ve forgotten it because there was, you know, some things that are like really got me thinking, but it’s also good to have the conversation again. so we’re talking about meaningful conversations. so maybe you can start there. and just like in the last few months, you you told me you’ve been outdoors a lot. and tell us a little bit about that. have you taken were you the leader of these groups outdoors, or were you a participant on these outdoor, experiences? and how does the meaningful conversations fit into that experience?
Tamas: wow. such a great question. thank you so much. so the last couple of months, i’ve been mostly doing this, extreme activity called highlining, meaning that we put a a tightrope or a slackline in the mountains between two points that are currently not connected. and we go on an operation to set this thing up. and then once it’s it’s up there, we we get on it and we stand up and we balance and walk.
Sarah: and it’s i can just imagine it. yeah.
Tamas: and in the last, three months, i’ve been involved in a big project in greece. we set up one of these highlands, which was one kilometer long on the top of the vikos gorge, which is one of the deepest gorges of europe. and, you know, the beauty of of this is that a number of people come together and many of these people don’t know each other from earlier. and, they just have a common passion. and somehow this project team gets, to put together, with a very loose hierarchical structure. so i would say we’re more on a flat base. there’s not really one single leader. but there is a notion of, many people who know a lot, and we need to come together, and we need to find a way to put up this high line, in a safe manner. and we need to find ways of doing that so it’s fast, so it, you know, responds to weather conditions. and that at the end of the day, it’s safe to put our lives on. and i’m always super fascinated because, somehow this works out very naturally. and what i came to realize this last mission is that one of the reason why it happens is because we connect to each other human to human. and connecting to each other human to human kinda requires to have more than usual or more than normal conversations, meaning that we get to know each other. who are you? what is your story? what have you been, know, getting passionate about recently? what are your fears? what are your dreams? so we don’t just talk about highlights, but we start really connecting on this deeper sense where we we get to know each other, and we build that trust, and we build that psychological safety so that when someone makes a mistake during putting up these highlights or, when someone has a different opinion about some safety issues, we are able to go to each other and we are able to communicate. and then we are able to fall back into being human to human and friends with each other so that we can continue having fun together. yes. i’ve been having meaningful conversations and i’ve been using that in the other setting, probably in a much more important way than if i were to use it in a business or an organizational setting.
Sarah: yeah. because, because it’s attached to survival. right? so it’s like your survival depends on these conversations that you’re having with other humans, because i think the minute you can just picture it the minute the ego comes in there and interferes, and you know, someone comes in there and thinks he has, she has all the the answers, then then things can go wrong. so it really has to be a communal, decision making process, and that requires human to human conversations.
Tamas: yeah. very much so. mhmm. that’s a good point.
Sarah: that’s beautiful. yeah. yeah. and the other word you brought up is psychological safety. so i think that’s a really important thing. and you will explain as why, if you if we we want to have meaningful conversations, i think, especially in a setting where people don’t know each other. right?
Tamas: mhmm.
Sarah: tell us a bit more about psychological safety and what you feel is important there to, yeah, set the set the space maybe. mhmm. yeah.
Tamas: i mean, it’s such a such a topic these days in the organizational field or in the business field on how do we relate to psychological safety. and i think the angle i would like to bring in is that, is what i’ve been researching a lot around what are the boundaries of, us showing ourselves in different settings, and how does that contribute to psychological safety. because on the one hand, i do believe that we need to take off the masks. we need to take off the mask that our ego, our mind is putting up to protect ourselves from something. so, typically, if you go into, let’s say, to a workplace, you don’t wanna show yourself that you’re lacking something because you have a fear that it’s going to be used against you. so you are already hiding behind the mask, or maybe you don’t wanna talk about something that you love doing in your free time. maybe it deviates a little bit from the mainstream and from the norm. so suddenly there is another mask there. but at the same time, i do need to show something about myself to start building that trust that is the basics of the psychological safety. so many people, including me, are questioning that what is the healthy depth of sharing about myself in certain settings. and it’s the same for me. when i go into my highlighting setting with my friends and my peers, i’m able to share a lot more as opposed to if i go on a on a gala night at an embassy. and, and i need to be able to sense and feel what is this social field around me, and what kind of questions can i ask in this field that moves beyond the regular question, but still not challenging the people in that setting too much so that they are still comfortable giving an answer to that question, which will generate a meaningful conversation? and to me, this is the aspect that comes up with psychological safety the the most that whoever is in a position of bringing different relational connections, into that field, they need to be aware of what is the quality of that field. where are people? where is the audience in that field? and how can they be challenged so that they feel that discomfort of being challenged, but they still feel trusted and safe to start leaning into it. and from there, you can start building more depth because with that, you will start talking about norms, about agreements, and you start slowly creating a space where you can be more of who you are.
Sarah: yeah. yeah. i think there there really is different spaces that can be redefined how how they feel safe, right? like, for for example, i’m talking about a new business intimacy. and and that means that we can kind of question maybe our assumptions, how intimacy should look like in a business setting, and then redefine a new business intimacy that feels good for that group in that specific situations. and then in that setting, we can have meaningful conversations. but that might look different from one workplace to the other. and of course, it’s very different. you know, if you compare work compared to a friend setting, where where then it’s not business and intimacy, but friendship intimacy. so, yeah, i think i think it’s important to understand that. maybe another thing that we should bring up before we go more deeply into into this is is how do we define a meaningful conversation? right? like, what to you does that mean?
Tamas: wow. good question. and what comes to me straight away is that something that’s not cognitive. mhmm. something a a meaningful conversation would be for me something that when i’m engaging in that conversation, at the end of it or at some point in that conversation, i start feeling something warm in my body. i start feeling something a sense of kindness, a sense of tingly sensations knowing that this person in front of me went beyond the usual and shared something that maybe makes them feel vulnerable. or maybe i start seeing something about their authenticity. mhmm. so you can distill some stuff from that. but, again, it’s it’s different from person to person because maybe someone is happy to always overshare, and maybe someone is never sharing anything about themselves. and from that standpoint, they they ran beyond, and i could feel that in my body.
Sarah: and that
Tamas: is the meaningful conversation for me at this moment of life.
Sarah: yeah. so it’s an embodied feeling of what it, what it does to you as to, as to participant in this conversation.
Tamas: exactly. and and and that encourages me as a listener to also show more of myself
Sarah: mhmm. be
Tamas: a bit more vulnerable
Sarah: mhmm.
Tamas: or share something that has
Sarah: a
Tamas: deep importance to me, and that could be any topic. so it’s not like i wanna lock out certain topics, but maybe i talk about the usual topics from a very different angle.
Sarah: right. which, which makes me think. and, and i, i really feel that this is the case that we have kind of lost the art of having meaningful conversations, definitely in the workspace, but maybe also in in other spaces where it now seems like and i think that’s where your who cards come in. it now seems like we need certain people, role models, if you wanna call them that, who who’s some somehow facilitate or create that space to to have meaningful conversations. because otherwise, it’s much easier to just stay at the cognitive level all the time. mhmm. it feels easier because, yeah, because it’s not embodied and it doesn’t include so much emotions. and so it’s just, like, superficial and it feels easier. it doesn’t give you the same it doesn’t have the same risk, but it also doesn’t have the same benefits, of course. right. it doesn’t give you that warm, fuzzy feeling to just stay at the cognitive level. but yeah. is that what you noticed as well that maybe made you then start this project of of creating the the who cards, or or, yeah, holding more spaces where we can have these conversations.
Tamas: mhmm. definitely. and definitely, i’ve been you know, since the last conversations we had, i’ve been looking back into my professional life. and one thing that really stood out for me is that i always wanted to have have more real conversations in my workplace. and one thing that stood out for me is that i think people really loved being around me is because i was challenging the topics that we were discussing even at the workplace. and this also means that many of the conversations, from the field of investment banking to social innovation to the nonprofit road, these are the three major fields i’ve been involved. most of the time centering around what is that we can achieve together, what is that we do together, where are we traveling, and what type of goals we need to deliver to, a, make more profit, or, b, make higher social or environmental impact. and on the one hand, we are making more profit or at least a group of people are making more profit with this in, you know, in the cost of, you know, environmental and social degradation. and on the other hand, you can also see that the social and environmental movement in a way is failing the causes because we are not able to respond to the challenges with the speed and with the efficiency that we need to. so something needs to change. and, you know, when i got into this crazy project out of which the who cards were born, we were challenging the way how we connect when we come together and we start thinking about solving these bigger issues. and we were putting it out there, this idea that if you come to these retreats we were organizing, you were not able to you were not allowed to talk about what you do. you were not allowed to talk about how to solve these big issues before you talked about who you are. and we were talking about people from high level director level of corporates, politicians, artists, actors, social change makers, cleaners, people from all walks of lives. and every single of them were challenged by talking about who they are because we’re simply simply not used to it anymore.
Sarah: mhmm. yeah. yeah. in a way, it’s it sounds a little bit like a paradox that we need to slow down to speed up. that’s what i understood from what you just said. right?
Tamas: yes. and it is a huge paradox and it’s very difficult for the mind to comprehend this paradox.
Sarah: right.
Tamas: we need to slow down and we need to start paying attention.
Sarah: right.
Tamas: what’s in the room and who’s in the room?
Sarah: right.
Tamas: what are the stories that they are telling and how does that inform how i need to, how i should, or how i can connect to this other person? and from that connection, what can naturally emerge? and i’m not saying
Sarah: so tell me more about that. what why do we need to slow down and and create these human connections? how does that help us then speed up?
Tamas: mhmm. i came to believe specifically the last half a year, but this journey has been leading up to this point, is that when we start with the question of what do you do, we really or what can we achieve together, we really start operating from the rational mind, the analytical mind, and this is only half of our intelligence. when we start connecting to each other and we when we challenge ourselves to ask questions like who you are, what makes you smile, are you afraid of death, we start unlocking a deeper sense of this other human in front of me. and with that, we start understanding maybe their underlying emotional road, maybe their underlying intuitive road. and through that, we are creating connections that is not solely relying on the rational mind anymore. it starts stepping into also this other side of our intelligence, which is more, non logical, nonlinear, which considers that we are angry, we are sad, we are afraid of climate change. and the potential solutions, the potential collaborations, the potential outcomes that that comes from those spaces are gonna be more holistic. and i really like this, word from one of my teachers, nikola siani, holistic intelligence. we need to start tapping into that type of intelligence if we want to try to tackle these challenges. simply speaking, because the rationale has not worked out. so we have a chance to tap into something deeper and see what happens. will it work out? i don’t think it’s guaranteed. and i cannot say with a hundred percent, conviction that it will, but it is a direction that i’m fully convinced that we need to try tapping into.
Sarah: mhmm. yeah. it it feels like we’re tapping into the unseen. and so, obviously, if it’s the if it’s the unseen, it’s unknown whether it will work out or not. but it’s kinda like, you know, the mushrooms with with all the little roots. what we see is just a mushroom, but what’s underneath is actually the real liaison between, you know, the other mushrooms and trees and and the whole forest, really. and so maybe that’s what we’re tapping into by asking the question, who are you instead of what do you do? so the connection between the humans is much more solid than just, you know, at the at the surface level. yeah. yeah. it’s trusting the unseen. right?
Tamas: yeah. and and i the reason why i like that you’re bringing in the mushrooms is because we’re, you know, we’re talking about systems change and and behind that systems thinking here. and i really buy into what this weird yet profound german philosopher, has been exploring. his name is nicholas luhmann. and he said that what we really need to change is the quality of communication between the actors within the system if we wanna really see the systems changing. we can’t change the actor themselves. they can only work on themselves on their own, and through that, they can change how they relate to each other. and the who cards and the who are you related questions are really focusing on enhancing this quality. so in itself, we are shifting the system around us just by communicating with each other from a different source and a different place.
Sarah: yeah. yeah. it all comes back on to the, the inner work and, you know, figuring out who we are. and, and that’s what, you know, my seven p’s of humane marketing are all about as well as like, well, because i think it’s the same thing. it’s also we’re also a player in a system if we are marketing our services and if we are the seller and there’s buyers out there. well, if we work on ourselves and we know who we are and we bring that out into the marketplace in quotation marks, and then we’re being a different player. and so, therefore, the relationships with our clients and suppliers, etcetera, changes as well, because it’s not in that same typical system anymore where i’m the seller and you’re the buyer, but we’re all of the sudden kind of like on the same playing field, because i come to this buyer seller equation from a different perspective, from a more holistic perspective. so i think i think i, yeah, i hear what you’re saying. it’s like it’s not the it’s not the system that you need to change. it’s the humans in the system that will then impact the system. and therefore the, yeah, that the meaningful conversations play play a big role. yeah. so i think what we did last time is i just picked up a card. and then we had a conversation around that card. so i’m gonna do that again. and last time it was dancing. so that was fun because we got to dance. this time, it’s something else. so, yeah. so the question is, what is a topic that is difficult for you to talk about at the moment? not the easiest question. right? so we can both still decide. okay. well, we can have this meaningful conversation just one on one, or we can have it on the podcast. but, yeah, let you decide that.
Tamas: yeah. and then and you can also invite in, an idea of how how deep, you know, i want to share, how deep you wanna share to this question because then the responsibility really really sits with the person who receives the question.
Sarah: right.
Tamas: and i myself am happy to answer this question with what’s true to me at the moment. you know, i’ve been i’ve been a butterfly for the last ten years. i’ve been leading a fairly nomadic lifestyle, living in new zealand, in hungary, in switzerland, in taiwan, and then in many other places. and on the one hand, i really enjoy living an adventurous lifestyle. and on the other hand, i just very recently, i had to really realize that, i have a deep fear in me to ground and to settle down because i’m fearing to face the discomfort that comes with living a life that, you know, from time to time has boredom in it.
Sarah: mhmm.
Tamas: and boredom makes humans and makes me realize that, often i’m alone or often things maybe don’t have any meaning or, yeah, maybe there is some sort of a sadness there that i haven’t truly allowed myself to feel. mhmm. and it has been difficult to discuss this topic, and and it just been coming up very strongly. and, you know, what i’m learning now is that once i’m allowing myself to feel whatever is below this topic, suddenly, there is a sense of release. and with that comes a sense of space, which then grounds me more in my purpose to do this kind of work, which is not an easy work. because our mind is often cannot see the imagination that a different way of living or a different world is possible.
Sarah: mhmm.
Tamas: and i’m happy you asked this question because i’ve been on this journey, and now it feels like that suddenly it’s becoming lighter to talk about this. mhmm. so maybe there’s a sense of shift happening in there.
Sarah: yeah. that makes sense. well, thank you for sharing.
Tamas: thanks for listening. yeah. how about you?
Sarah: mhmm. yeah. there’s there’s several small things that i’m thinking about, what’s very present right now. and and i haven’t, you know, talked about it to too many people or or it’s kind of like this intimacy thing, that i explained earlier. it’s like, well, it’s a topic that i talk about with, you know, friends and family, but not necessarily like on a podcast or or with my clients, etcetera. but we just, went through this journey with my with my with our son, our eldest, who, we knew for a while now that he’s probably on the autistic spectrum. and and he’s twenty one. and he he wanted to get a diagnosis because he just felt like it would help him to know. and so we just gone through that, this week and it was it was quite emotional. it was like at the same time, we really wanted it to hear it, that it’s clear for him. and at, and at the same time, it’s like, who, what a relief as parents also to know why maybe has been quite challenging, because there was, you know, there’s just something wired differently in him and always has been. and and for us parents, yeah, it was not easy because we didn’t know all these years. so, just just yeah. kind of my husband and i gave each other a big hug and high five and say, wow. look at look at us. we we did that. right? we somehow managed. and, you know, he’s he’s grown into a a very smart adult and and and it’s it’s like helpful for him to have this diagnosis now because he feels like, oh, i understand myself more. right? this is this is what we’re talking about here. knowing who we are is really helpful to us. and and and i think the younger generation, they start way earlier for for i was joking with my husband in the car. it’s like our my parents, they’re in their seventies. and i feel like just right now, they’re finally understanding who they are. and then our generation, i feel like i started probably understanding who i was when i was forty. and the this generation, young the young ones today, they’re starting at twenty. right? and good for them because it’s yeah. it really makes makes life much easier if you don’t have to mask, everywhere. so, yeah, that’s what’s present for me right now.
Tamas: thanks for sharing.
Sarah: thank you. yeah.
Tamas: and you know, what what comes to me just as a quick reflection is that this work and and these questions are definitely travelling on two dimensions, and one is the self awareness and then the relational awareness. and i think it’s eric frome who said in the art of loving that, paradoxically, you need to start loving being alone and looking inside to be able to start loving each other, meaning that to be able to start connecting to each other. yeah. that’s beautiful.
Sarah: so to get back to maybe kind of, like, the business setting or even the yeah, let’s let’s call it the business setting. like, what’s two things? what’s your aspiration with, you know, bringing these conversations into the business world? and then after that, maybe we can because my audience, they’re small business owners. right? they’re not they’re usually not working in the corporate setting. how can small business owners be these role models maybe and have more of these meaningful conversations with their clients or with their peers or things like that? mhmm.
Tamas: so, yeah, our aspirations are quite large at the moment. so we we’re super happy that families and friends are buying these cars from us, and then we’re going beyond that as well. so we’re predominantly looking at the moment, working with events and conferences, to turn their, gatherings more human. this is something that keeps coming up over and over again. and, also, what keeps coming up is that even if the promise is there that this conference is going to be more human, there is something lacking in delivery. and so we’re looking at these, places to actually show people, leaders, businessmen, organizational humans, that there is a sense of quality and profit or a return on investment when you start having these meaningful conversations and give them a taster so they can then decide, is this something for my organization? am i ready to have more authentic connections? because a lot of organizations are not, and that is okay, but many are. and so we wanna find those organizations, those leaders to work with to really bringing into their cultural dna once they get a bit of a taster in a conference or in an event. so that’s for us, and that’s an exciting journey because we are building, you know, a team based on human connections. we’ve been working on this for seven years. we are in for the long game, and, we are taking it slow. but as we go along, our human connections are so beautifully flourishing, and so many nice mindset shifting moments are happening to us that, i think each of us in the team are appreciating to be doing business in such a way.
Sarah: mhmm.
Tamas: and then for small business owners, you know, when you ask this question, what came back to me is this moment when i used to work for the cognitive science level of greenpeace, and we were doing a massive audience understanding in buenos aires. and, you know, these amazing campaigners were working on campaigns for urban people to change their way of being and way of living to become more sustainable, and they never talked on the ground with people. and i remember this morning when i have just asked them to go out without their phones and just look around, just see and sense from a different perspectives. and they were all coming back saying, like, wow. i’ve seen so many things in my own city that i have never seen before. and from that, the invitation was that to start having different kind of conversations with the people of buenos aires. and that really struck me of how these questions, these human to human connections can be used in understanding your audience, understanding your customers, and building a different kind of relationships to them. almost like, you know, when i think about small businesses, i i think about a lot of community type of business emerging. so how can we start looking at customers more like our community
Sarah: or
Tamas: more like our ambassadors? so all our customers of the who cards, we think about them more as, like, the people who want this vision to happen in the road, and we engage with them in human to human connections so that they can start feeling that they’re not just consuming here. and we’re shifting that narrative around buyer and seller, but they are becoming an active cocreator of this new reality that we wanna see. and i think small and medium sized businesses are a potential power powerhouse to start doing things differently, and i can totally see how meaningful conversations can, you know, start initiating this mindset shift both from the ownership perspective, but also from the customer perspective.
Sarah: yeah. i love that. makes so much sense. beautiful. well, i think everybody wants to set of those cards now. so please tell people where they can, find out more about the cards and your work and how they can connect with you?
Tamas: yeah. they can come to the who cards dot c c web page, which we probably put into the show show descriptions.
Sarah: i know.
Tamas: they can read about us. they can order a set of cards, or they they can also play it online for free because we don’t want money to be a barrier for more meaningful conversations.
Sarah: yeah. it’s wonderful. you can just go on on the website and and then there’ll be the question of the day. so it’s, yeah, i use it with, my community now. last time we talked, it was a few months ago, you asked me, so are you using them? and i’m like, not yet, but i will. and so now we started using them in the humane marketing circle. and yeah, it’s really great to have the the website because the commute, the community calls are led by ambassadors of the community. and so they don’t each have a set of the cards. but so they just go on the website, before the call and they pick the two questions. and so we always have these conversations in breakout rooms, with those two questions. and and i think, yeah, it just creates such a deeper quality of the call, which then the second half is still marketing and business related. but to have this foundation of, yeah, understanding each other as human beings. it makes everything different. so thank you so much. i have one last. yeah, i have one last question about the future. like, yeah, what kind of future trends do you see? how how this could change in in companies, for example? does it have to do with creating actual spaces? mhmm. or does it have to do with the management? like yeah. how do you see this changing in in in companies, for example?
Tamas: that’s a very, very timely question. we’ve been doing a lot of research the last couple of months for our b two b offerings. and just yesterday, we came to this beautiful description called the relational design agency. and what we see is that there is a need for more spaces, whether that’s online or offline for people to connect. this is the number one challenge for remote or remote first companies that that the employees are not able to connect with each other. right. but every organization, every conference, every gathering has their own culture, their own dna. so while we can support them with really interesting questions, we are realizing that there’s a need to support them how to bring that into their own culture setting
Sarah: right.
Tamas: to really meet, where the audiences are. so i see a trend coming up, and and we want to put this expression on the market, relational design. it’s somewhere already there, but not so strongly. but we see that, you know, technology and speed it up life is changing how we connect. so we need to start designing these spaces with more awareness and with more consciousness.
Sarah: yeah. that’s really good. yeah. it’s kinda like this, you know, we’re saying that with ai developing there’s bill, there’ll be all these jobs lost, which is partially true. but there also be new jobs related. so maybe, you know, this title of relation, what did you call it? relational?
Tamas: relational design.
Sarah: yeah, relational designer, you’re gonna have, you know, yeah, you have to really design the space for it. like what’s happening in switzerland right now is, to me, it’s crazy. the companies are bringing people back to, you know, from remote back to to to the office, which you could say, okay, that will help communication. but, obviously, people are not happy about it. but they’re bringing them back, and they’re putting them in open space. and so people are even less happy about that. so there there is a need for a new design, right? like, however that looks like, i don’t know yet, but we can’t just go back to the old and think that will solve the the problem. so, yeah, i think i think it’s very much needed to to have these conversations around, well, how how it’s it’s great to have the questions, but we need to create the space for it and the time for it as well. right?
Tamas: exactly. exactly.
Sarah: great. well, thank you. wonderful. thanks so much for being here and, sharing your perspective and all the good work you do.
Tamas: thank you so much for having me.
Sarah: thanks, Tamas
Sarah: i hope you got some great value from listening to this episode and feel encouraged to hold the space for more meaningful conversations, whether it’s in your personal life or in your business. find out more about thomas and the who cards at who cards dot c c. you can order a card set there or use the online version for free. that’s what we’re doing in the humane marketing circle. and if you are looking for meaningful conversations around life, marketing, and business, then why not join us in the humane marketing circle? you can find out more at humane dot marketing forward slash circle. we always have a seven dollar trial where you can just check us out for fourteen days. you find the show notes of this episode at humane dot marketing forward slash h m two zero one. two hundred and one episodes. on this beautiful page, you’ll also find a series of free offers, the humane business manifesto, as well as my two books, marketing like we’re human and selling like we’re human. thanks so much for listening and being part of a generation of marketers who cares for yourself, your clients, and the planet. we are change makers before we are marketers, and it’s really time to step up and be brave to create that change. so go be the change you want to see in the world. speak soon.