I bought the domain name MerakiTribeCollective.com around six years ago and have had the vision to create an online space for healers and wisdom keepers to share their gifts and support one another for some time now. I read the book Design Is A Job back in 2015 and the above quote really landed with me. I really started looking at my digital design agency and feeling as if I needed to change society's smarmy approach to marketing and advertising.

Originally, I tried to create something with various partners and friends … but something just kept getting in the way. Something wasn't right … just yet. I've learned some incredibly painful, yet valuable, lessons over the past few years and I finally have arrived in a space where I see the lesson the universe has been trying to teach me and I am ready to step out on faith and trust that all those in alignment will show up to support the vision and make it a reality.

My vision is to create an online and off-line community of like-minded souls who come together in cooperation versus competition, and who are committed to shifting the paradigm of how we do business and marketing in this day and age.

So much of what we are taught in marketing is deceptive and manipulative and yet we are ok with these practices - because they work! But at the end of the day, it still feels smarmy and out of integrity. There's nothing that frustrates me more than to see a "life coach" out there marketing their promises to "forever break you free of your scarcity mindset …. just sign up today BUT hurry the cart closes in 1 hour and if you don't act now you'll never know the secret!! Offer limited to the first 50 people that sign up only!" They are using fear and feeding the scarcity mindset in the very marketing they are promising to break this pattern. It's incongruent.

So how do I know this? Because I went to college and graduated in 1992 with a double bachelor's degree in Psychology AND Advertising. I have spent my entire career working in these fields - 30 years!! I became extremely skilled in using psychology in marketing to manipulate people to buy - every detail carefully considered to hit the right triggers to spur people to act on their fears and consume, consume, consume.

And for most of my life, I was totally ok with it… because using manipulative practices is perfectly acceptable in our society of 'every person out for themselves.' Success, winning at whatever cost, is applauded in our culture. Lack of integrity in business is dismissed by the "it's not personal. It's just business" mindset. This competitive mindset is not serving humanity and I feel deeply committed to shifting it to a new way of thinking that will help bring humanity back to a space of cooperation and transparency.

I've enjoyed a lot of "success" and periods of financial abundance. I've received many accolades and awards in business and I use to pride myself on how competitive I was. I wore my competitive Type A Driver nature and Achiever Enneagram as a badge of honor... until a few years ago when I made some major changes in my lifestyle and started to experience a true "awakening" of sorts.

It began with yoga teacher training and learning the 8 limbs of yoga, which started cracking me open and out of my extremely conservative closed-minded thinking. At the same time, I was dealing with a life-threatening autoimmune disease. Symptomatic for 20+ years and diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematous for 15 years, my health was failing. I had a heart attack in 2012 at the age of 42 and was basically in liver failure by early 2017. I was on so many medications and Western Allopathic medicine was not helping. I was getting desperate. Through a synchronistic turn of events, I ended up in an Ayahuasca/San Pedro ceremony weekend which ultimately lead me to Kambo and profound healing. I have been off all pharmaceuticals since that first ceremony and symptom-free now for 5+ years. (Free of medications I had taken for 15+ years and was completely dependent on.)

At the time that I first discovered plant medicines, I didn't even know that psychedelics like magic mushrooms and ayahuasca existed as a thing on this planet. I have hardly ever drank alcohol in my life, I have never done any type of illicit drug nor ever had any desire to, I do not smoke marijuana (still don't), and was very anti-street drugs. (Still am.) Plant medicines however saved my life.

Initially, I turned to plant medicines for physical healing of my body which I soon came to know happened through healing and releasing my deep emotional wounding and trauma which created the space for physical healing. Now I sit with plant medicines for spiritual guidance and connection as the ancients and indigenous tribes have been doing for thousands of years. My wish is to educate and introduce others in need of healing and desperate for answers to these alternative and ancient healing modalities, so they might possibly experience the profound healing that I have been blessed to experience.

Through my journeys with these medicines, I began to receive downloads. I felt convicted about all the manipulation used to get people to buy and it triggered something deep within me to come up with a way to be part of shifting the paradigm. The idea really started catching fire after sitting with Ayahuasca and having a very clear vision as to what my role was to be on this planet. I was told that I am meant to be working with conscious businesses and shifting the paradigms around marketing and business. I am the bridge. Additionally, my role is to aid those seeking healing and higher consciousness (wisdom seekers) to easily find and connect with resources, healers, modalities, and educational resources to support them in their evolutionary process.

I began cherry-picking my clients and made the decision in 2017 to only work with conscious businesses so I started weeding out my clients. The challenge I found was corporate 3d "Matrixy" clients pay really well because they are super money-driven and I found that many conscious businesses don't have money, struggle with a scarcity mindset, and have no idea how to establish value or a proper energy exchange for their services - particularly for healers who struggle with charging for their services - because as conscious beings they don't want to profit off peoples pain yet they still live in a 3D world based on monetary exchange. They get to learn how to offer their services with integrity, transparency and get paid a fair energy exchange, and embrace an abundance mindset.

As a result, I've spent the past few years deeply entrenched in a scarcity mindset struggling with this very challenge - which drove me to get really creative to come up with solutions. It also showed me a deep empathy and understanding of the challenges conscious businesses and entrepreneurs face.

I wanted to come up with a platform that gave them a space to create an audience and connect with like-minded souls and also teach them how to shift their mindset, and establish their value while marketing their services with integrity and transparency. I call it evolutionary empowerment marketing.

Shortly after discovering plant medicines, I discovered Gene Keys. This wisdom teaching instantly resonated deeply with my soul, and as I contemplated the teachings in Gene Keys along with my personal Hologenetic Profile, the philosophy and how-to behind Meraki became clear.

In 2020, after the single most profound experience of my life - 4 journeys with Iboga that lead to the final pieces of my healing, I met my Co-Founder - divine counterpart, partner of destiny, great love - all fitting descriptions - but mostly my evolutionary and visionary partner in business and in life - William Bombardier, who added the "we" to this endeavor for me and had some of the missing elements I needed to make Meraki a reality. The synchronicities in our healing journey and our shared visions were mind-blowing. Our meeting was unexpected, magical, and nothing short of divinely orchestrated, and he held the missing keys to getting Meraki ready for the world.
And here we are ready to launch a mindful marketplace featuring a directory for conscious businesses and services, chock full of simple-to-use tools for not so techy but deeply passionate wisdom keepers with powerful medicine and knowledge to share, combined with a private social platform intended to bring together the wisdom seekers with wisdom keepers to connect, engage, collaborate, educate, and inspire and facilitate REAL conversations that lead to REAL transformations. A space where digital freedom is celebrated and members are encouraged to share from their souls, in a safe and respectful container dedicated to healing and higher consciousness.

We feel deeply in our souls this is what we are being called to create and are trusting the universe to continue to guide us as it evolves. If any of this resonates with you, we invite you to join us, to take up this cause with us, and let's co-create a conscious economy that allows us all to reclaim our birthright of abundance, to shift the old paradigms that no longer serve humanity and create a world where we can all thrive!

We have factored in programs to create win-win situations for all our members, to give them a sense of ownership in the platform, and lots of ways to flourish and prosper as we come together in the spirit of collaboration and abundance for all.
We are waiting for you!

xoxo - Lois Duncan, Meraki Co-Founder