Ep 144: POV: The Future of Capitalism—and How to Make the Most of It
Episode Summary
What if capitalism isn’t the problem—but the story we’ve been told about it is?
Many women entrepreneurs feel torn between values and the pursuit of financial success—but with the historical and forward-thinking evidence in this episode, you’ll be able to rethink that internal conflict. This episode explores how outdated beliefs around capitalism may be limiting your growth and reveals what’s coming next for capitalist societies so that you can not only position yourself for growth but feel great about it.
In this episode you will:
1) Discover a future-forward vision of capitalism that aligns with both your values and your ambition—changing everything about how you show up in business.
2) Learn how money flows create more value, not less
3) See how evolved thinking—not hustle—drives true wealth
Hit play now to unlock a radically empowering vision of business that honors your genius and expands your impact.
Episodes Mentioned:
Ep #42: Time and Money: When to Dial It Back
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This podcast dives into the challenges of leadership, decision making, and delegation, helping women business owners and mompreneurs overcome overwhelm, decision fatigue, and the guilt of working less. Learn to build powerful habits, embrace smarter working, and master time management by streamlining tasks, implementing business systems, and even prioritising self-care. We explore efficiency, productivity, and automation to create passive income, reduce overworking, and finally take time off—without the fear or shame. Say goodbye to imposter syndrome and people pleasing while running a small business: It's time to shift your mindset, reclaim your work-life balance, and thrive!
Full Episode Transcript:
Jenna Harrison: [00:00:00] In this episode I'll show you why capitalism doesn't have to clash with your values and how rethinking it can unlock more profit. Impact and peace of mind in your business. Welcome to the show that helps women entrepreneurs run profitable, meaningful businesses in just three days a week without stress, guilt, or sacrificing growth. I'm your host, Jenna Harrison, sharing practical strategies, mindset, hacks, and even some woo, to help you work smarter, lead boldly, and find true balance. Let's dive in. Welcome, welcome back to the three Day Work Week. Today I wanna introduce you to a vision of the future and of capitalism specifically.
That you might not have considered, because when you know where you're going, it changes everything about how you get there. If your vision of the future feels bright and certain, you'll show up enthusiastically and with conviction, but if not, there will be an invisible anchor weighing you down. Whether you realize it or not, you've been raised with a lot of [00:01:00] negative associations about both money and capitalism.
And I've found that these interfere significantly with women in business in both obvious and unnoticed ways. If you haven't yet, you have got to check out episode 1 34 called 15 Data Backed Reasons Only 2% of Women owned Businesses Reach $1 million in revenue. We'll link to it, of course. Now my aim here is not to brush aside any of your probably valid critiques of capitalism past or present, but just to present a way forward that lets you coexist with both your integrity and your pragmatism, and maybe even to garner your partnership in creating this vision.
Because the more of us who are daring to do differently, the better. In this episode, you will discover a future forward vision of capitalism that aligns with both your values and your ambition. Changing everything about how you show up in business. You'll learn how [00:02:00] money flows, create more value, not less, and you'll see how evolved thinking not hustle drives true wealth.
Before we dive in, how's the audio? I've finally moved into my new house and before building a big old pillow fort around me like I used to for acoustics and our rental. I thought I'd just give it a try this way. I was testing it out on a Clarity Accelerator call the other day, and they told me it sounded great through Zoom.
And I mean, I am staring at a mountain of rugs and linens 'cause we've just dumped them all here in my office while we try to figure out what to do with everything. So maybe that'll cancel any echo. We'll see. So why this episode and why now? Well, A, it helps you get to know more about what we're really doing here at the Uncommon way.
And if you wanna be a part of this movement. B, there are public figures in the news who are prioritizing money over other things that many [00:03:00] of us hold dear, and that can bring up a lot for us. Maybe you start wondering, hmm, maybe money does corrupt people, or at least make them really out of touch. Maybe capitalism by its nature, conflicts with ethical behavior and the big one.
Am I heading down the same path each time I try to make a profit? Some people think about these things a lot and some only briefly in passing, but if it's there, let's surface it and talk about it. It's actually really healthy to ask these questions of ourselves and have a gut check. The part of you doing so is protecting you from becoming someone you don't wanna be.
The problem is when that protectiveness is dialed up to a 10 rather than a three, that's when it becomes self-sabotaging rather than constructive. What if the headlines told a different story, one where people leaned into their zones of genius [00:04:00] and created extraordinary services or products that the others wanted to pay for and vice versa.
But instead of the old barter system where I'd directly trade my pine nuts for your wine, we exchange via money because it's more durable and universal. These people are much more connected to what they're creating, and that helps them value what other people create. Like I see such a difference between how I consume content and how my husband consumes content, and I know it's because I myself am a content creator and he's not.
I happily pay for my favorite content sometimes with my money and sometimes with my time via reviews or likes or comments. But Ben doesn't. He gets angry when things aren't true and he's a lurker. He is. He'll admit it in the same way. It can be challenging for people who aren't really putting themselves out there or sharing their true genius with the world to appreciate other people's genius.
I. So [00:05:00] in these imaginary headlines, people are really deeply in flow and they're channeling their best work. They're really appreciating others doing the same, and they're exchanging money. And guess what? That exchange expands the size of the economy. So in turn, there's more for everyone. Are you going?
Well, if they're just exchanging money back and forth, then don't they all just have the same amount? That is where the multiplier effect comes in. This is a widely studied economic principle that shows the ripple effect of change, including a change in spending. So for instance, when Henry Ford started paying his line workers more so they could afford to buy cars.
They then also bought auto accessories and spent money after taking a drive somewhere and all sorts of other things. Then the recipients of that money turned around and made investments, paid employees who then spent money on other things as well. And the total amount [00:06:00] generated in that micro economy.
Let, let's say it was Detroit, the net effect of economic activity was not just equal to the total amount of wages paid to the line workers. I. It was much more because of this multiplier effect, the flow of money creates more money and economists can chart the exact amount of the multiplier of different types of spending in different locations.
So the government of Ghana, if they decide to build a freeway and they pay their citizens to build it, that will have a different multiplier effect than when the United States builds a freeway. All this to say that these headlines, these imaginary headlines, are painting a positive and inviting picture of what it would be like to have a business.
How differently would you feel about selling, about promoting yourself and even about your role in the world about now? You [00:07:00] might find yourself thinking, but Jenna, is that really possible? After everything we've witnessed throughout the centuries with capitalism gone wrong, where's all this hope coming from?
I touched on this earlier in episode one 40. We tend to think of capitalism as being a system based around the accumulation of money and the prioritization of money. But the word itself actually had a very nebulous beginning with no consensus at all about what it actually meant. It rose in usage throughout the last millennia, first capital, then capitalists, and finally capitalism.
But the word capital actually comes from the Latin adjective, capitalis, which is based on the name for head kaput. So capital was of the head, which is so interesting, right. Ever since the meanings of capital and capitalism have evolved, [00:08:00] Oxford now defines capital as wealth in the form of money or other assets.
Owned by a person or organization or available for a purpose such as starting a company or investing emphasis on or other assets. I believe your greatest asset is your brain. I also think it's interesting that Adam Smith often referred to as the father of modern economics, said that people act not necessarily to accumulate money, but they act in regard to their own self-interest.
That changes things because your self-interest could be money, but it could also be something else, which means it's about the person, not the system. This actually jives with the data. Economists have found over and over. The people don't always make decisions based solely on money. So a few centuries ago, the concept of utility was introduced, hypothesizing that people [00:09:00] actually act in accordance with their personal satisfaction.
Rather than monetary interests, which would help explain why some people with the same disposable income buy $4 bottles of wine and others buy $40 bottles of wine. Both bottles are made from grape juice, but one person receives higher satisfaction or utility from the more expensive wine. The concept of utility has been refined over the years, but it was groundbreaking in proving that people value things differently, and so the actions they take to maximize self-interest will also be different.
I believe that as our consciousness evolves, our interests change, our decisions change. I have a podcast on when to scale back that talks about how it's totally okay for you to prioritize whatever you want to prioritize. In your business and life, we'll link to it. So has business activity resulted [00:10:00] in sweatshops and environmental degradation and a whole host of other problems?
Yes, but I'm arguing that this is due to an unevolved psychology rather than a specific system or even the nature of money. Like recently, we had a situation where I received a call supposedly from the electric company. Saying they were giving us a lower rate. If I agreed, I said, great. I'd talk to our attorney.
'cause it turns out the property attorney set up your utilities here. Go figure. But the woman told me, no, no, the offer is only for today for our newest clients. So I smelled something fishy and I hung up. The next thing you know, we're receiving a notice that our electricity distributor has changed. And sure enough, we had to get our attorney involved to unwind it.
And I'm thinking, who is the owner of this company? Or the sales executive or the sales person who goes to sleep at night thinking this is okay, it's [00:11:00] unevolved thinking. But there are many examples of entrepreneurs who've made profits while making ethical decisions. And also examples of four purpose businesses that choose to purposely reduce profits.
Look at Patagonia with the environment, or a tech company called 37 Signals. It used to be Base Camp. It prioritizes the wellbeing and work-life balance of its workers intentionally limiting its growth to do so. And when Anita Roddick started the Body Shop, she said business is a force for good and distributed wealth throughout the supply chain and reduced company profit.
Not that ethics and profit are mutually exclusive. I'm just providing examples to help reinforce the point that there are all sorts of ways to do business and you get to choose. I think it sells us short to say money corrupts. That assumes we lack the agency to stay true to ourselves as we grow, which [00:12:00] just isn't true.
Decisions are choices for better or for worse, and we always have the power to choose my friend. You and I are doing the inner work to make clear, conscious, aligned decisions. We are running businesses we're proud of, and showing our neighbors what's possible and creating momentum for our planet to continue to move in this direction.
We're evolving capitalism, we're moving it forward. Capitalism isn't inherently corrupt. It evolves when we do. That's why the way we live and work is so important too. The younger generations are watching carefully and every time we act like we're in a sweatshop burning the midnight oil. Treating ourselves like machines and living in grind and hustle because we are mistakenly like linking hours and how hard something feels to the [00:13:00] profit our businesses can create.
We're living out legacy beliefs that no longer serve us or serve the rest of the world. We aren't working a farm with primitive machinery that requires our hands six days of the week. As entrepreneurs, the value we create comes from the milestones you meet, not the hours you keep. As one of my clients brilliantly said.
In the creative economy, creating wealth means you've created something valuable and something valuable doesn't require hustle or grind or lots of time. And wealth can mean many things. Monetary wealth is a one form of wealth, a very wonderful one that I think all women should experience. But I also think we should experience having a wealth of time, of health, of joy, and of creativity.
Because after all, if your greatest asset is your brain, then your creative capacity is the [00:14:00] primary capital you trade. If capital really comes from of the head, then capitalism is just the centering of our creative capacity instead of our productive capacity. What this new way of thinking requires is greater intentionality at every stage, not just going along with how things have been.
For instance, maybe you were taught that money is scarce and you need to prioritize it above your time, above your health, above your enjoyment. But when you start questioning things, you're like, wait. Even the richest companies spend down capital or issue debt in the form of bonds because they realize that time is more valuable than money.
If they can invest the money now rather than waiting, they'll corner the market now and make more in the long run, not less. Hmm. I didn't even see that when I was busy scrimping and saving all my pennies. Maybe I could [00:15:00] think of money, not like a pie that I have to fight for, but a current I can step into, redirect and expand by contributing something meaningful.
The real question to ask yourself is how do I want this to look? How do I want my business to look? How do I wanna show up? And then, then how am I gonna make that happen? At first, you might think, I don't see how it's possible, but I encourage you to keep going, keep digging. If you can't come up with an answer, talk with someone or some people who can help you get outside your own brain and don't stop until you've created the solutions that you set out to create.
Because that solution, whether it's a change in mindset, strategy, systems, whatever, is usually the one you needed in order to get to your next level of profitability anyway, it pays to be an innovative [00:16:00] thinker and find your uncommon way. Now, you might be thinking, Jenna, how can you say all this about evolution when it feels like the world is regressing?
It's because history is non-linear. In the course of evolution, there are adjustments back and forth, but if you chart the trajectory over time, you see an upward trend. I've been alive for many decades now, and the shift in cultural norms and business practices is tremendous. Besides, I've had some successes with seeing trends before they materialize.
People thought I was off my rocker when I said telecommuting was the way of the future. Now look at how normal that is. So if you are up for rethinking how business can look and create value on your terms, I'd love to hear what shifts for you after this episode. Come share with me. You can do so by leaving a review.
Definitely the most helpful way for the [00:17:00] longevity of this podcast, or if you're on my email list by responding to anything I send you, I'll write back. Personally, I. Remember training your mind to think uncommonly always unlocks a whole new level of impact and possibility. Let's talk again on Tuesday.
Thanks for joining us here at the Uncommon Way. If you want more tips and resources for developing clarity in your business and life. Including the clarity first strategy for growing and scaling your business. Visit the uncommon way.com. See you next time.
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