Extractive vs. Regenerative Business: Why You Can’t Save the World By Becoming a $1 Hamburger

I had a big revelation recently. It involves food insecurity, $1 hamburgers, and all of the ways that we, as business owners who care about changing the world, try to right the wrongs of capitalism and end up almost destroying ourselves.

If you’ve ever felt an obligation to offer your work at the lowest price possible so as many people as possible can benefit, then this post is for you.

From food insecurity to testifying before Congress

Eighteen years ago, when I was pregnant with my son and my husband was on active duty in the Navy, we were on food assistance. I was working a full-time job, had a business I was running from home, was in grad school… and we were very broke. 

Thankfully, we eventually found our way out of that situation, and in 2015, I started working for an organic farm. I became a huge geek about it – going to organic farming and regenerative farming conferences and just being all about that life. Local food and food systems became very important to me. 

But I hadn’t put two and two together yet.

I had always felt like our situation with food insecurity was a fluke, and I was really ashamed of it. Then, when I finally shared what we had been through, I realized military hunger was absolutely not unique to my family. I found myself testifying before congress in January of 2016, and now I serve on our county’s Food Policy Council.

Through all of this, I became incredibly passionate about food justice activism and food access. Remember this, because we’ll come back to it in a moment.

An extractive business tips the scales out of your favor

In business, when we talk about accessibility, we often mean accessible pricing. 

I’ve hesitated to discuss this in the past because I worried people would say, “Well Erika, you say you want to help people, but your prices say that you’re greedy, exclusive, and that you truly don’t care.”

And it’s easy for people like me and my clients – folks who really do care – to take up the mantle of savior and try to serve everyone in every way possible. We’re concerned with financial accessibility because we know people need what we have to offer.

But in our quest to help people with our gifts, we have created a commodity market that is based on extraction of ourselves. And that’s not good. 

Here’s what I mean, specifically:

Imagine a set of scales with you on one side and your services or offerings on the other side. 

We can say that the world is fucked up, that capitalism is fucked up, and that things are inequitable. We decide that's a good reason for charging less for our services and therefore increasing financial accessibility. 

But when we take on direct client work at a too-low rate, we are trying to right the system by turning the swords of capitalism on ourselves. We are tipping the scales out of our favor, where the value of our time and energy becomes far less important than the need to get our good stuff out into the world. 

In a bid to be a helper, we end up extracting our own labor for not enough compensation… and then we end up frustrated and burnt out. This imbalance feeds resentment, which can look like:

• We might not show up fully in our work, because we feel we’re not being fairly compensated.

• We might procrastinate.

• We might grumble before hopping on a call, and really just not enjoy our work life.

That’s an extractive system.

Those feelings are your body's indicators telling you that you are extracting too much of yourself for unfair compensation. The scales have tipped out of your favor. You seem weightless (or worthless) and your offerings are literally dragging you down. 

It is important that we bring this back into balance so that we can have regeneration in our business.

A regenerative system is one that puts resources back into itself to keep it flourishing, versus always extracting resources from it. 

You are not a $1 hamburger: why it feels so shitty when we undercharge 

So, why did I start this post by talking about food justice? It’s because, in our capitalist, extractive system, we’ve turned ourselves into $1 hamburgers, which (excuse the pun) just end up feeding into the same extractive system.

Recently, I was watching David Chang's new series, “The Next Thing You Eat” (It's very, very good). 

In the first episode, he talks about the unseen cost of cheap hamburgers. And even though this is something that I'm intimately aware of, because of all my nerdery around food and farming, it still hit me like a bolt of fucking lightning:

A $1 hamburger needs to be accessible to as many people as possible. But the systems that make the $1 hamburger possible? They’re horrific. We know some of the gory details of beef farming – the feedlots of cattle, the impact on the climate crisis – but what gets left out of the conversation is the human cost. 

There are people – usually brown-skinned, undocumented people – working low-paying, dangerous, inhumane jobs, where they have no rights to advocate for themselves, for the improvement of their working conditions, or for paid time off. 

And it’s not by accident that we don't see this publicly.

That’s one side of the scale.

And on the other side, there are families who, because of wealth inequality, have to survive on $1 hamburgers. They have to feed their kids from the value menu. I’m not villainizing the people who buy the $1 hamburgers – it’s the only option available to them, because the system sucks.

This is why it feels so shitty when we undercharge.

This is why we cannot dismantle the white Christian cis-het ableist patriarchy.

Because by extracting from ourselves, we have created a paradigm where we have become $1 hamburgers.

We cannot fuck ourselves over to try and right the system

When we extract our own humanity, our own energy, our own time, and our own resources, in the name of accessibility, we are not fixing the system. 

It's not a regenerative system, because what ends up happening is we deplete ourselves to the point where we help nobody. 

This is not me saying, “Go out there and triple your prices, and fuck everyone. Too bad, so sad, but I'm only here to help the rich get richer.” 

What I AM saying is that when we show up with high-value content that is free to the end user, it's never free for us. 

Take my podcast, for example. It’s free to my listeners, but it takes time, energy, and money for my team to produce it. I love doing it, because I know it’s high value, and I know that someone who legitimately cannot afford to work with me can listen to all of my content and still have success. 

But if I try to make my one-on-one coaching financially accessible to everyone (which is impossible, honestly, because there will always be someone who needs what you have but can’t afford it), I undervalue the years of experience that I bring and I extract everything I have from myself.

I have seen this again and again in my clients, and I have felt it again and again in myself. If you keep offering your services for free, or for really cheap, you’re not going to be able to continue to show up and serve. You won’t have the energy for it.

I had to get very honest with myself. Am I trying to be a savior to the masses? Or can I be brilliant for the people who are already poised to get the most out of working with me?

And by “poised” I don’t mean that they desire to work with me so much that they choose my coaching over paying their bills. No. I mean those who have the means to invest in me and are in a position to get the greatest return on their investment. And in turn, they’ll earn even more money, and they will be able to help even more people.

That’s the ripple effect I want – for my clients to be able to show up differently in their businesses, to give a higher level of service, and to be less likely to burn out. 

Now, instead of burning out trying to save everyone, I have more to give.

Now I can go to organizations that are already teaching people how to run their businesses, that already have the systems, the structures, the resources, everything in place to serve small business owners who truly cannot afford my one-on-one coaching and guidance, and know that they can be served. 

The alternative is that, in a bid to be accessible or affordable, I make my services and programs lower cost, water down the offerings, and risk not delivering the transformations that matter.

What does a regenerative business look like?

You have to start by asking yourself, “Where can I do the most good?” 

For me, it’s giving my heart and soul to my clients and making my work with them as great as it can possibly be, so that they can turn around and make world-changing wealth. And I can make world-changing wealth, too. Then, rather than spreading ourselves too thin and extracting from ourselves, we can go to the places that are already doing the good work and say, “Hey, here's ten grand!” 

I'm not saying that my way is the right way or the only way. I’m not running a non-profit. I only have so much time and energy to give, so I want to give it where I can do the most good. 

The systems we swim in are fucked. I know that we have big hearts. And I know that we want to make a difference.

Driving ourselves to burnout is not the way.

It’s kind of like choosing not to use plastic bags or plastic straws. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with changing out your lightbulbs. Do it! 

But know that individuals taking on the responsibility and bending over backward to stop climate change will never have a huge impact so long as the corporations that are causing most of the harm refuse to step up.

As individuals, we cannot right all of the wrongs of corporate capitalism. We cannot put that burden on our small businesses.

Because that is of no use to anyone. That is not regenerative. It's extractive. 

I will not be a $1 hamburger. I do not want you to be a $1 hamburger. I'm never going to tell any of my clients to be a $1 hamburger. 

Here’s what a regenerative business can look like:

• You can give from the overflow. 

• You have support and you can be supportive without depleting your resources.

• You can pay people really well.

• You can be generous with others and with yourself.

In this world full of fucked up systems, we have to make sure we’re caring for ourselves… and that can start with building a business that’s regenerative rather than extractive.