#15 Let's Talk B Corps

Foreign.

And welcome to Purpose Fueled Performance with me, your host, Tim Jones, the grow good guy.

So in this episode I talk to the amazing Stephen Moe, who somehow fits in being a full time lawyer with also seemingly being a full time podcast host. And he runs a mightily successful podcast called Seeds, which I shall put a link to in the show notes where he interviews people doing cool stuff that is trying to make a difference in the world. And he's interviewed a lot of people and you will even notice that I've actually been on his show, I think three times. So I'm a recidist podcaster with, with Mr. Mo.

And this is pretty cool. And it was actually a very early interview that I did when I just sort of really started getting into the world of purpose and impact and B cores and what have you. But we cover quite a lot of content and hopefully you will find it informative and inspirational. We also touched a little bit on, I believe on my medieval history degree, which, you know, why not?

Welcome to the show. This is Stephen Moe speaking. Today we're going to be talking with Tim Jones about B Corp. Here's an excerpt from that conversation.

And basically, if you are solving social or environmental challenges in an impactful way, that is doing it in a really cool way that treats its suppliers and customers really friendly and equitably and looks after its staff, you're going to be the best business in the world. And that's what they're really pushing all businesses to start thinking about. How can I do a little bit better in my governance structure? How can I do a little bit better in my environmental impact? How can we involve our community a little bit more?

I learned a lot from my conversation with Tim and I'm sure you will too. If you find the content helpful, then please consider sharing it. Now let's dive into the full interview. All right, so it's great to welcome Tim Jones. Thank you for coming on the podcast, Tim.

Thank you for having me.

As you know, this podcast is all about purpose and impact. Before we get into that and what you're involved in now, I just wonder if you could go back and give us a little bit of your history, maybe tell us a bit about where you're from.

Sure. So originally from the UK, been over here since 2004. Spent most of my career selling medical devices to orthopaedic and neurosurgeons, which is such a random job to get into. It's a very niche industry that you do kind of get into and obviously my training for that Was I have a degree in medieval history, not medical history as some people think, I say. And did that and enjoyed that for, yeah, about 10, 10 or 12 years. And then, but just started, I guess, understanding more of the economics of healthcare and how, I guess a lot of the big companies, and even down to how some of the medical professionals operate globally, but also within New Zealand, it was all about the money, not the, not the outcome. And so that was like, that was the beginning of starting to question, I.

Suppose, if was that quite a gradual process or was it something that you kind of woke up one morning or how did it happen for you?

There were sort of two parts really. There was a gradual buildup of underlying evidence and data that I kept kind of coming across. But the real, I guess, epiphany for me was the birth of my daughter. And it's interesting, I've been doing some research just this last week on how the unconscious controls so much of your life. Like 95% of our decision making is made subconsciously. But there, and there are four kind of well known mechanisms of how to break your subconscious thought patterns.

Okay.

And one of them is a big life impact. And included in that is the birth of a child.

Right.

So this was, this was like that, that was like the, the moment when I remember I came home from work and I said to my wife, I can't do this anymore. I cannot work in this industry anymore. And for me it was, you know, the birth of my daughter and just sort of going, well, if I'm complicit in a lot of this stuff that's going on in this industry, I mean, I'm not actually actively doing it myself, but I'm giving it a level of agency just by being here. And I don't want to be doing what that's, you know, or involved with that. So that for me was like a real watershed moment, which it then took maybe another two years for me to kind of really understand what my real purpose was, what purpose meant. It was such a new topic. I think purpose in general, it's almost a trend. And I think that there's a danger to that. I think that there are lots of people and organizations that are seeing purpose as a trend. But for me it was very much like I say, a two year journey of, well, now that I've almost seen the world for what it is and what it can be, and I don't really like it and I don't want my daughter to have to put up with this. What's my part in that, and that was a really interesting journey.

Yeah, I can hear that. So. So you had the watershed moment. You had two years of exploring and then was there another moment when you said, right, I'm ready to launch out?

Yeah, I mean, one of the other, I guess, parts of that journey. When I quit selling medical devices, I kind of thought, I don't really know what I want to do. I know that I don't want to do that. And I think I was still very much in a very, I guess, business as usual paradigm. It's like, well, I'll try a different industry in a different role. So I ended up in the, in the world of commercial property, working for a firm of surveyors and engineers and very quickly sort of establish, okay, it wasn't just the medical industry. It seems to be that business has some challenges around just how it operates and how it interacts with individuals and the world around it. And I actually was doing some research, trying to find a bit of a cultural fix for the company I was working for, because there was some interesting behaviors being exhibited in the business. And through that I literally just googled, you know, HR culture fix program. And B Core was the thing that popped up. And this, this was like, I suppose the, I guess this was the light at the end of the tunnel. This was the, okay, there's something here. This, this is beginning to make sense. Yeah. I discovered bcorn. Okay. This is more than just, you know, human interaction and working with employees. This is, you know, how does your business operate in terms of its community impact, its environmental impact, you know, what's holistically, how is it operating and impacting on the world? And I was like, wow, this is something. This, like this, this makes a lot of sense. And so initially I thought, wow, this could be really good. I bet there isn't one in New Zealand. Maybe this company could be the first one. And I went on, looked at the B Core website, like, oh, there's one in New Zealand already. And then I looked again, oh, there's two in New Zealand. Hang on a minute. One of them's in Christchurch. So I thought, well, I'll give this guy a call and see what he knows. So Steve Arda, who's the CEO of Eagle Consumables, the first B corps in New Zealand. The biggest B corps in New Zealand. I just sent him an email and said, hey, this B core stuff looks interesting. Can I have a chat? And I think we booked an initial sort of 30 to 45 minute coffee, catch up at his office. And then about two and a half hours later I left his office with my head just completely expanded but equally confused and okay, like there's so much good stuff here to unpack. Now I don't know where to start. So I kind of went on a bit of a journey of sort of meandering and wondering to sort of find, okay, what's missing, what is the thing that I need in my life. And then I kind of discovered it was this purpose thing. And there is a, there is a movement, there's other people that have kind of like, you know, there's a few people I've had conversations with recently. One lady in particular, she just moved back to Christchurch. She's been working for a B Corps in Melbourne for a few years and she's like, I can't even the thought of getting a job in a normal company, I can't imagine it. And this is the thing, once you find purpose, there is no going back. And so yeah, this was like the beginning of that journey to me, really understanding what purpose was. And then that two year pathway was, well, like, you know, I'm a sales guy. What? Salespeople aren't going to save the world. That was my kind of initial. You know, I'm not an engineer. I'm not going to invent some widget or some amazing transformational technology that is going to cure all of man's ills and diseases or anything overnight. But then I started digging deeper and going, well, hang on a minute. We've got all these businesses that are impact driven, that are trying to make change the world and actually how do we change the world? Will we change the world by convincing people and persuading people to think a different way and well, hang on a minute, that's what sales is. Sales is working with people to understand what they want to achieve and then position whatever it is you're selling as a mechanism that's going to help them achieve their goals or minimize the risk of them not meeting their goals. That's basically sales.

So it was like a process, if you like, of unpacking what B Corp was, what purpose was.

Yes.

And working out how what you brought to the table from your previous life, totally how that would be used. Potentially. Totally going forward.

Exactly.

And it sounds like that B Corp is a really big part of your journey. Was that in that sort of end of the two year period, is that when you discovered it or was that quite early on?

It was probably about halfway through that, that two year period and the company I was working for at the time you know, I presented it to the directors and said, look, I think this is quite, this is just a cool thing. I think this is something worth looking at as a business. But there wasn't the interest. And then I then moved to a different company and again I, you know, hey look, this B core stuff, I think it's fabulous. It's, it's everything. It's culture, environment, impact, community. And again there was, you know, the values of the business were kind of aligned to B core, but there just wasn't the deep enough buy in.

Yeah.

And in the end I just sort of felt, well look, if you really believe in what this B core thing's all about, then perhaps it's time, instead of trying to convince someone who you're working for, then why don't you just start your own one?

So talk us through that a little bit. You know, you've been working for years for other people. How do you make that decision to leave the study paycheck, presumably and dive in to start your own venture? What was that going on in your mind?

There are all sorts of words, scared.

Mainly negative words. You know, the lizard brain in our brain, you know, the amygdala is very, very good at highlighting all the things that will go wrong even though they haven't gone wrong, you know, totally. You know, my wife wasn't fully back to work yet. You know, we still had a two, three year old child. So we, you know, we, I guess we'd been used to living on two incomes and two pretty good incomes. Gone down to one income with a child and then suddenly we're down to sort of half an income and then slowly crawled back up to one income. It wasn't, I guess, a decision that was taken likely, but I suppose being in sales and business development, you had to back yourself to be able to sell your own self or a business, you know, idea. And I think fundamentally I'd always known that I was actually unemployable in an organization. I was always the sort of the person who'd go, yeah, but hang on a minute. Our company values state this and yet you just done that. Could someone explain? Like I'm just being naive here, I'm not trying to be, I'm just, this is what we've been told to believe in, but we're not doing that. Yeah, like I'd always been that person in a company.

That person in the meeting, yeah, raised their hand and said, wait a minute, what are we doing? Why are we doing it?

And there'd always be, you Know, a couple of people kind of go, oh no, did he just say that? Others sort of going, watch this. Yeah. And I think that working for myself in a purpose driven organization has led that real authenticity to come out and shine. And I think that's, that's part of what I want to help other people work out is, you know, so many people are living confined lives, constrained in organizations where, you know, they just tolerate their potentially 40, 50, 60, 80 hour week where they know it's actually killing them, it's probably killing their family and potentially killing the world and planet and the environment around them. And we kind of get sold that that's okay and that's normal. So yeah, it definitely wasn't taken lightly.

But and just talk us through, let's just dive a little bit deeper there. Like just the negative emotions were there, but presumably you also saw that great potential. How was it those first few weeks or those first few months when you were actually, gosh, I'm launching out here, I'm trying something new.

Yeah, you know, definitely, you know, the fear is there, but equally the excitement. And there's also a little bit of that, hey, it's Monday morning, I don't need to be in any meetings because it's my business and I don't want meetings. That's quite cool. But you kind of have to, I guess also remember that, well, look, I need to have some structure here because I am trying to build a business. So there was definitely some benefits there. One of the real big benefits for me was, was actually being able to spend time with my, with my young family. You know, when I was working for this commercial property company, you had to be in the office at 8 or 8:30 and everyone's sitting there at 4:55 looking at their watches, kind of going, oh, who's going to break first? Just be able to go, well actually I've done enough today and I can finish at 2:30 and go and pick my daughter up from preschool and go and hang out in the park. So there are definite massive upsides.

And what was it that you actually started when you had this sort of revelation of oh, there's a different way of doing things, you'd export it for two years. And then looking into B Corp, what was it that you dove into first or were trying?

So my main. So the company initially that I was running with the branding was called Sales Operative and very much focused on just providing sales training for other B corps and other impact driven businesses. You know, from a marketing perspective that's quite a Cool. It's a good pitch, but it's genuinely what I want to do and what I believe in. It's not. It's not a gimmick. Because I think there's a risk of a lot of businesses creating this kind of gimmick. This, hey, we understand purpose, we like B calls, we want to help you, but they're actually just doing it as a marketing gimmick. Whereas, you know, like I say, for me, it's. It's genuine. Like, there's so much change I want to see in the world, I think is going to benefit so many more people. And if I can work with an organization that's working, you know, one of those streams on one of those little bits of change, and I can help that business be more effective, and so it literally beats its business as usual competitor that's potentially causing that damage, then that is. Yeah.

And I think I hear. What I hear from your story is that there was actually a moment, you know, the birth of your daughter.

Yes.

That was really important in making that decision and deciding. Actually, I want to explore doing something differently. So there's kind of a Cause I see this as a danger as well, that people start using labels to sell more stuff.

Yes.

And that, oh, of course, we're a social enterprise, but you dig a little bit deeper and get beyond the surface and you think, well, really, is this what's going. Have you noticed that as well?

Totally. And I think I'd probably say even within the B core movement, within a lot of this, you know, purpose in general, I'd say I'm more fundamentalist in terms of my thoughts and opinions. You know, there are globally, there are certain. Some companies that are B cores that you just go, yes, but the product you're selling is part of the problem. You know, fundamentally, your existence is at odds with the survival of us as a species, potentially. Because you are basically, you know, causing climate change or you're causing poverty or you're, you know. Yes, it's great to say, well, we give back to a community that we're extracting from, but there's still an element of extraction.

Right.

And I think this is my ultimate vision. How I would like to see the world is that. Is that actually, you know, every. Every business, every entity is only here for positive contribution. You know, I look at, I don't know, like, Coca Cola, it's diabetes in a can that is there to raise money for its shareholders. That's. That's all it does. Do we need Coca Cola in the world? No. You know, all it does is takes water. We taking water out of the, out of the system to create a drink that we don't need that kills you. If they were a B core, would that, does that suddenly make them okay? In my opinion, I kind of go, well, no. I just think that's a product that we just don't need.

What are some of the key things that you would look for for a company? And if you're helping them actually, you know, if someone comes to you and says, well, I'm already running a small enterprise and you know, I want to understand this B Corp stuff, I want to understand what purposes, what would you break down if you had a elevator pitch type thing, if you had a minute to talk to them, what are the key elements that you think actually you can look at a company and say, yeah, you do have purpose.

Yep. I think, I mean, the first thing is for me would be to benchmark, well, what are you doing? What good are you doing? And it's interesting, I was talking to some of the team at Arkino this week and there's a lot of big companies that are actually doing a lot of good stuff. It's just they haven't recognized that what they're doing is kind of like social enterprise Y or it would mean that actually they're on their way to potentially being a B corp in terms of how they're actually thinking or operating. So the first thing I'd say is just check what are you actually doing? What's, what's good and what's bad. And then the second thing, and this is the key is why, why do you want to do good? All the stats are there. If you, if you want to be more profitable and earn more money, then purpose is. Will help you earn more money. But if you're just doing it to earn money on so many levels, on a personal level, on a human level, on the fundamentally, on the long term, it's not going to be, you know, the real reason for you wanting to do something. So for me, that has to be, you know, the individual has to know what their purpose is. Like if every CEO in New Zealand tonight, if we could convince the NZX50 that tomorrow morning all of their CEOs suddenly have an epiphany tonight and change their businesses to be having a positive impact in New Zealand or in the world, like that makes a lot of difference rather than just going, well, look, there's a shareholder meeting in three months. We have to have a profit. Instinctively, everyone wants to do good in the World. It's just that it gets. It kind of gets covered and distorted through our subconscious and what we've been taught, how we've been brought up, the mainstream narrative of it's just all about making money and money will make you happy. Look at every advertising hoarding in the world. There's not a single one that says, stop meditate, go for a walk in the forest. We're not selling you anything. The whole world is driven around us being sold more stuff to make more money for shareholders, ultimately. And so, yeah, I think it's breaking that down and getting people to realize, well, why am I here? What is my legacy?

Some of those are, like you say, they're kind of fundamental points, aren't they?

Thinking beyond just how much money can I make from this deal or how much can we return to the shareholders? Totally. Let's go back a little bit. You mentioned you'd started the company. How did it go at the beginning? I'm just curious in terms of, you know, difficult times that you came across, because I think we can learn from failure. We can learn from experiences that don't go the way that we expect them to. And I'm just really interested in anything that stands out to you.

I mean, in some ways, I. Whether it was, you know, luck or. I mean, I personally consider myself lucky. And if you consider yourself lucky, statistically, you're more likely to recognize opportunities. There's some good evidence around that I was lucky that I picked up a couple of contracts pretty quickly. There was one company, so actually after I left the property world, I got into being working for a sales training company. And there was a client from there who actually rang me when they saw my LinkedIn profile had changed. And they're like, hey, what's. What's going on here? Like, you know, we really liked you as a trainer. We'd like to get you come down and do some more training. And I said, well, that's okay, because, yeah, I've just left, you know, the business, but you've called me. So there's no restraint of trade, because you've called me. So I. I picked up a couple of clients. I was pretty fortunate. And that gave me a bit of Runway, really, to get. This was sort of September, October 2015. So that kind of got me through into early 2016. The biggest challenge I faced last year was actually. So, like I said, I'm originally from the uk. My father was still in the uk and he got diagnosed with cancer in. Well, he got diagnosed in about September 2015. But he didn't tell me until maybe January 2016 and so forth. For the best part of, well, the first half of 2016, it was, I guess, trying to understand like, okay, well how severe is this? Like is it, is there a cure here or is it just a timeline? And then, yeah, sort of July, August, September, he started to deteriorate pretty badly. And it was basically, it was pretty obvious that he wasn't, you know, here for much longer. And so that was the, like the biggest disruption on so many levels. You know, emotional, spiritually, physically, you know, three and financially. And I had to do three trips back to the UK in sort of July, September, November.

Just it's one thing to be a global citizen, isn't it? But then when something happens, when the reality hits of and you realize, oh, I've got to get back. Yeah, I mean I have the same situation. My wife is from the UK as well and you know, she had someone she was very close to pass away last year and so we were like, well, we gotta, she has to be at the funeral. Yeah, there's just, it's one of those, I don't care how much it costs, she will be there. And you know, you're right, it does throw up lots of things. So, so that was the main challenge that you basically kind of trying to start the business but then having all these other things happen.

I mean it was literally last year for me ended up being survival. It was. And it's interesting, like I have, I've engaged the services of coaches to coach me and I was doing some work with one of them today actually and talking to him last week and when I was telling him the story of, you know, where my business is at and what I want to take it to and so on, he was like, you know, dude, the fact that you kept your business going last year is amazing. And I think that's when you're self employed or you know, an entrepreneur on a startup business, you actually don't celebrate the milestones. And I think that would be my biggest advice would be like your first client, take your family out for dinner and celebrate that. You know, your first prospect emails back to says they're interested in a meeting, go and get yourself a coffee or whatever you do like you got to. And that was something I didn't do well enough because I think I was so focused on survival.

But yeah, you can be so driven that you're waiting for the big fish to land that you forget that actually I've had five wins in the last three weeks. Like this is good.

Totally, totally. Like getting your first paycheck, you know, someone has paid me money to tell them stuff that I take as common knowledge. That's amazing. Yeah. And I think you really celebrate that.

Celebrate not just the big stuff, but the small stuff and enjoy it. Totally going as that.

I've got my website life. Have a party. Like just get into that, you know, again, it's that subconscious, you know, we're, I guess we're perhaps not really taught to celebrate. I think particularly in a western European culture, you know, your birthday and Christmas, fantastic. But other than that, you know, we're not really taught. Whereas I think in America perhaps they perhaps over celebrate. It's like, yay, we got some mail today. Let's all have a body, you know, gross overgeneralization. But I think in general we could. If you're working for yourself and you're working in social enterprise where you're trying to change the world, you got to celebrate those small wins because it's, it's quite, it's very easy to get on that negative.

Well, that was the thing I was thinking of. The opposite of celebrating is the negative spiral, which is why hasn't anybody emailed me in two days and nobody. Yeah, I thought that that meeting that I had went really well, but now they're not returning my call. What's going on here? And you can kind of focus on the negative, can't you?

So easy. And you're conditioned to focus on negative, which is why the media, you know, is so focused on negative because it switches our brain on. We get, I can't remember what the chemical is, but you know, our biochemistry is wired to seek the negative. And I guess it's from, you know, when we were running around and having animals chasing after us. You know, if you, if you're not aware of a negative or the downside, you're going to be the one who gets, gets eaten first. So the brain is conditioned to seek negative. So you've got to be, you've got to be hyper aware of that. And I think for me resilience and optimism are two key things. If you're, if you're in a startup business or in life in general. And the really cool thing is the more resilient you are, the more optimistic you get. And the more optimistic you get, the more resilient you get. They're so interlinked. So if you just start working on one then you know, you get more, you get so much more out of life.

Yeah. So it's Like a spiral that keeps going upward. Spiral. This is good. This is good.

Yes, exactly. They leverage off each other.

Yeah. And then since then, what sort of things have you involved in? So B Corp is dear to your heart. I hear that. And that really comes, goes way back to the beginning. Is that something that you're still involved in and advocating for?

Yeah, totally. So there's, I think there's two or three of us now who are B Core ambassadors for New Zealand. So I'm one of those. And so, you know, I will regularly just reach out to businesses and say, hey, look, I love what you're doing. You clearly get this. Can I just have a chat to you about B Corp and if it's a framework that could maybe help you and, you know, be part of this community.

I know a bit about B Corp, but I just wonder if you could go to the basics of it. Let's just look at it. If someone had never heard of it, what is it that you would tell them? What does B even stand for?

Great question. B stands for benefit. So the true name is a benefit corporation. So the essence is to make business use business as a force for good in the world. That's the sort of the tagline for B Corp. And essentially the B core certification process looks at your business and holds you to higher levels of transparency and accountability as a business. And so it essentially looks like, how are you operating and what, what literally, what is the impact? You know, when we talk about an impact driven or, you know, impact driven business, it's literally like, what is your footprint on the world? Like, how do you treat your workers, how do you treat your local community, how do you treat the environment? You know, who are your customers and how are you serving them? And the whole concept is, you know, I kind of refer to it as the self sourcing chocolate cake of goodness. Like if you're a B core, you get more points if you have B cores in your supply chain and if you serve B cores. So it's kind of like each, each B core is working to try and I guess create a little mini ecosystem of other B cores. It can service and work with each of them having, you know, higher levels of accountability as a business as to how they operate and how they treat their staff and customers and suppliers. And it's, it's really like a new benchmark for business. That's the basic.

And it really is all about purpose when you, when you come down to it, it's the benefit and the purpose. And so just practically speaking, I think the way it works is that there's many questions that people go through.

Yes.

And then you get ranked depending on the answer, and if you satisfy the answer to one question, you get 0.8 of a point and etc. And then it all adds up to final number. And the final number is either over or under the threshold.

Is that correct? Yes. You need to get 80 out of 200 points. And like, even to get 80, a lot of. Again, this is that. That negative sort of failure loop, doom loop in the back of my. Oh, I've only got 80. If you get, if you get, if you get 80. If you sneak in on 80, your business is already outperforming all its peers and competitors, who are probably like most businesses if they went and took the impact assessment probably at like 30, which basically means you, you know, compared to this new standard, your business is actually not performing very well. So they even get 80 is actually a phenomenal task. And most B Corps certifying for the first time hit somewhere between 80 and 85. So it's like, I have a level of intent. I know I'm doing some good stuff, but there's a heap of room for improvement.

The thing I find interesting is that people have used the word, you know, triple bottom line.

Yep.

And this, in a way, it goes even a step beyond, doesn't it? Because it's, it's looking at, well, what's your recycling policy and what's your use of electricity? You know, that environmental side of things. But then it's also like, where do your employees come from? Which part of society? How much do you pay them, how much parental leave do they get? Like, it gets into lots of detail.

Very much so. I mean, the backstory to B Corps that the three founding guys, they used to run a basketball apparel company called and One, which apparently was the number one selling apparel basketball apparel company in New Zealand. So there's some B core link there already. And they, like, for those of you who haven't worked in a company in the States, like, if you are an employee in the States, you get very few rights. You know, holidays, good luck, you know, health insurance, good luck. I need a week off because I got a sick child, good luck. You don't get a lot of the stuff we take for granted in New Zealand. You just don't get. And they started incorporating a lot of these ideals and principles into their business, you know, and the business went really well. It became more profitable. But then it got to the point where they needed to try and scale and get some investment in. And the investors are like, well, hey, your business is like really unprofitable because you're giving all this stuff to your employees. Like, we need to get rid of all that. And you know, the end point really for them was they left and won. And well, hang on a minute. Why don't we do this again? Because we had a ton of fun and the employees loved it and we actually stood for something and that kind of, you know, kind of really had a good vibe to it. And then they're like, well, hang on a minute. What if we create a movement of businesses that operated like that? And bingo. That was the genesis of B Corp. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's not just your environmental footprint. Exactly that. It's, you know, you get points if you let employees come and sit on the board meetings. You get points if you have an employee representative on your board, you get more points. If you're a worker owned cooperative, you get top points. So it's basically, I guess they've taken the benchmark, like what would the most perfect business in the world be? And basically, if you are solving social or environmental challenges in an impactful way that is doing it in a really cool way that treats its suppliers and customers really friendly and equitably and looks after its staff, you're going to be the best business in the world. And that's what they're really pushing all businesses to start thinking about. Okay, well, how can I do a little bit better in my governance structure? How can I do a little bit better in my environmental impact? How can we involve our community a little bit more? Whereas I think at the minute I'd say the historically New Zealand we have what I call like lazy purpose. We'll have a sausage sizzle and we'll give some money to the Sally's. That's great. But fundamentally your business is still causing climate change or inequality or poverty or hunger or whatever. It's like, let's, if we can pivot every business. That's my dream is every business is for positive impact. And we can, we can do that. It doesn't take much to change that.

Yeah. And it's really a mindset change is what I'm hearing. Is that a bit like you, you know, birth of your daughter? What, what am I doing? What's the value here? What's my purpose? And then actually moving forward in a new way. So I just want to, let's move away from B Corp. And I'm just thinking about you personally, just thinking, where do you get your inspiration from, in terms of how, you know, it must be hard to keep going. What is it that you use personally to get inspiration from? What is it that helps you keep going, keep motivated?

That's a very good question. And totally, I mean even a couple of weeks ago I just, I had a bit of a bad week, you know, that they haven't got back to me. I thought that was a surefire, you know, proposal hit and it's tough, you know, and, but that's, that's life, you know, there's going to be, whether it's in business or any part of your life, you're going to have those moments. For me, I mean, inspiration. Muhammad Yunus was certainly a big one when he came and gave a talk about what he's been doing with terms of microfinance finance in Bangladesh and one of the quotes that really hit home was, you know, no one needs to have a job. Everyone should be an entrepreneur. That was basically his, one of the take home messages, I'm paraphrasing it badly there, but that was basically what he was saying is like, quit your job, start a business that will change the world. And you kind of think, yeah, like that. Hearing guys like that who've I guess been trailblazing on that and I guess.

Who'D been in the trenches and tried things and it's been successful. He was fascinating, wasn't he? Because he's been doing it for decades.

Totally, like way ahead of his time. Yeah. So I think there's, there's certainly people like that and you know, there are places, Facebook or wherever you can go and dip in and see people that are doing great things. But it was really interesting how to coach. I had a coaching session this morning and actually the biggest motivator for me is anger, which is something that I've had to work on. And today has been like the real, the real moment. It's like, and this is something, I think for a lot of social entrepreneurs we are very, you know, huggy. Like, yeah, we want everyone to be all inclusive and that's great. But anger is actually the biggest motivator for you to get out and go and change the world. Like get angry that there's inequality. Get angry that there are people in the world who don't think in a way of purpose. And that is, that's like I said, the last couple of weeks that's been something I've kind of just been chewing away on. And today has been the call. Today it's just like, I get it. Yeah, because anger is an emotion that gives you so much power. It's just that.

You know, we traditionally are used to seeing anger exhibited in a way that is negative, but actually, if you channel that anger to a greater cause and a greater purpose, that is a hugely powerful motivator, and it's.

Channeling it towards something that's beyond you.

Totally.

Yeah.

Yeah. And there's something really interesting a lot of people might have heard of, like, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And I think there's five that are traditionally kind of tabled, with self actualization being the top one. But he actually had an unpublished version before he died, and he had. He had another triangle at the top, which was transcendental purpose. And that's really interesting. And this is the thing, like, if you can be. Get angry enough about something that's going on in the world, but use that to create change that is above and beyond yourself and for a much bigger purpose. That, for me, is the sweet spot that I want to try and get every individual to. Because if. If everyone was living a life of transcendental purpose, there would be no poverty, there would be no inequality, there would be no hunger, there would be no climate change, because collectively, we would not allow it to happen because we wouldn't want our fellow humans to be suffering. But, you know, mostly we're trapped somewhere on the middle parts of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, where we're just thinking about our ego and our success and money, and we're kind of kept in that little bubble by advertising agencies making us want to, you know, drink Corona because it's from where you'd rather be or, you know, BMW driven to success. It's like all these little messages, and those are real ones that are stuck in the back of my mind. But I think I've kind of got this filter that I now put up where I see it for what it really is, and it's part of my mission is to help other people go, okay, actually, yeah. There's more to life than me just earning more money to get a bigger house for me to see less of my family, which is where I see a lot of people.

That's fascinating. Yeah. And I guess it's, you know, your vision. What you're outlining is something that I'm guessing, you know, you're hoping in five or 10 years, it's something that's actually achievable, isn't it?

Totally.

That people grasp that vision and change.

This is another interesting idea that I need to do a blog or a vision around is if you're in social enterprise, your business, if your business plan is longer than five years, then you don't have a business. Because in my mind, we need to, we need to be getting people working on challenges that we can solve. And once you're solved, your business is done. It's like, yeah, sure, you pivot at five years, you go, hey, look, we've learned a ton of stuff in the last five years. Solving this challenge. Cool. What's next? That's, that's the mindset. Like if every, instead of, you know, a lot of businesses and dare I say a lot of charities, and if you've had a charity that's been here for 100, 200 years, that's fantastic. But why do we still have this problem that you're trying to solve? Like, if we actually get everyone going, like, what is the thing I really care about? Is it climate change? Is it inequality? Whatever it is, what can I do to stop it?

We will solve everything overnight. It's that simple.

So actually having the mindset of a minute to change things and then it's actually going to get better.

Totally.

And so I need to move on to the next thing. I need to disrupt my own business model and be ready and willing to try something new.

Totally. And I think, I think for any business in general, I think that's, that's proving to be the case. You know, all these new digital based businesses, you know, your Ubers, your Airbnb, you know, they are proving that businesses will be disrupted rapidly and it won't be long before there's a new, better version of Uber or Airbnb. I mean, one idea that I planted with a, with an Uber driver recently was what if you guys set up Uber 2.0 or call it Uber or Booer or whatever, but you set it up as a worker owned cooperative where all you cabbies actually own the business and you will take a cut. Like, how cool would that be? That solves a whole lot of challenges, you know, because we know that perhaps some of these tax companies don't pay their staff.

So it's a different, different mindset, different way of thinking. That's what you're encouraging.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's really, yeah, that's really good. So let's just thinking about your life, you know, you've been here a while, just thinking, if you had a time machine, if you could go back, talk to your younger self, what would be some of the things that you'd, you'd say to yourself, maybe let's think like before you got into your career, you're studying medieval history and you bump into yourself, what would be the things that you'd wish that you could have known back then?

That's a really interesting question. And part of me, you know, I think about this kind of topic quite often. You know, how do we get to people at an earlier age to, to try and tell them that, you know, they're on the wrong path or then there is a better way of doing things. But I genuinely think partly you have to have the bad experience, you have to go through that, that bad time to then to get to that point of recognition to go, this isn't working for me.

The contra to that though is what, you know, that's within like a relative boundary that we currently have. Well, what if being hugely purpose driven and transcendental in your thoughts and ideals and doings was actually our new baseline? Like what is the, what is the level 10 above that that we have no idea of because we've never even got to that level. So there's a little part of me that would obviously go back and just go, you're about to waste 10 years of your life working for big multinational corporations who all they care about is making more money at the expense of you, their patients and the hospitals that they serve. Is that really what you want? But I think as a 22 year old I would have just gone, well, yeah, but they're going to give me a company car, a credit card, health insurance and I get to fly around the world. What's wrong with that? Yeah, and I think this is, yeah, it's a really interesting one that there's a gentleman, Daniel Batten, who I did some coaching with last year and he is really like, we're talking, we're thinking about how do we get into schools, how do we, how do we start getting purpose, how do we start getting kids to be thinking on a higher level? You know, how do we normalize a lot of this conversation that, you know, it's taking adults a long time to get because it's not in their subconscious. You have from, from birth till the age of seven is when your subconscious is formed. So if we can get, if you can get into a kid's mind between zero to seven and normalize this, we'll have like transformational change for future generations. But still this little part of me is like, actually, do we need them to have some insight to what bad is with my sales hat on? If you, if I come to you, Steve, and say, hey, Look, I can help you sell your legal services. How does that sound to you? There's a level, there's a potential level of motivation. If I, however, show to you the downside of you not selling enough of your services and I really paint that picture and then show you how I can stop that from happening, There is a 400% increase in motivation for you to change. So a little part of me is like, you need to have people see the bad to show them how. Otherwise you end up in like this McDonald's, Starbucks World of everything being conformally rubbish. Like, you go to a fast food outlet and you know it's going to taste the same every time you go. Whereas if you go to that boutique food cart, you might have a bad one one day, but the next day you have this amazing one and you kind of, I think in life we've lost that art of, you know, I delve into some of my work on like the stoics. You know, you need to suffer. If you don't suffer, then you don't know what, what pleasure is. Otherwise you have this.

Yeah, that's a good answer. I mean, I think you're right. You have to go through things to understand what the alternatives are, don't you?

Yes. I mean, you need a reference point.

You need a reference point and you need to have an awareness of, well, there's this other way of doing things and I'm, I'm making a conscious choice that I'm going to act with purpose and I'm going to do things differently. Yep. And, and that, sure, you can say that and you can do that for a short term, but to actually have it be, you know, in a marathon, you need to have a lot of drive and something that's going to keep you motivated, keep you going. And if you haven't got that reference point point to look back and say.

Oh, I can't believe I did that.

Yeah, I can't believe I did that.

That's how I used to be.

Yeah.

I mean there's also neurologically, there's a gentleman, Nathan Wallace, I think his name is, he does a lot of sort of neuro work on child development. And as he says, you know, the male brain, the prefrontal cortex is sometimes not developed until the mid-20s. And that's why we have a lot, you know, increasing. I guess it's more likely that if you have a teenage or 20 year old son that they are sitting on your couch playing video games because their brain does, they do not know what they want to do they haven't worked it out yet. It's because neurologically their brain is not developed enough. So in some ways I kind of almost feel there's an argument for putting all 18 to 25 year old boys on some big island somewhere and just.

Letting them just get on, get on.

With it and be crazy.

Lord of the Flies. Yeah.

Which is I guess really what in some ways university is about. You know, boys just kind of go off and play sport and you know, don't perhaps apply themselves as. Maybe I'm speaking too much for myself here, but you know what I mean. I think there's a lot, particularly the males, we don't think consciously perhaps as much as females do.

Now I have a question about that. Just younger generation coming up. What I'm noticing is that many of them do have this sense of purpose. They do sort of almost inherently they're coming out of university and they're saying, well actually it's not all about the money. I'm here interviewing for a job, but tell me about your purpose, what are your values? And so I think there is a mindset shift. Where do you think that's coming from? Is that just a generational thing or is it because it's something that I'm noticing, particularly people that I'm meeting, you know, in their 20s and they just seem to have like inherently that they want to reject the way things were done, you know, the excesses of the past and looking for new ways.

Totally. I think that there's probably, there's a few things I think, I think a lot of them have seen their parents going to work, you know, six, seven days a week and maybe them not being there and they've kind of gone, well, that didn't work out so well for me. I'd actually like to have seen my mum and dad a bit more. So I think there's, there's partly that. I think, let's face it, you know, we in New Zealand, you look at the housing affordability, you know, you look at inequality in general, environmental destruction that we're seeing, you know, across New Zealand through what industry is doing. I think these kids have somehow slipped through and have gone actually, I don't want to be a part of that. Like, I don't. I'd rather not work for a big company that is causing those for more money. I'd rather actually fix the problem. So I guess that's for them, I guess probably easier access to information, you know. You know, when I was at school it was whatever the geography teacher Told you that's. That's all you knew about climate change or whatever. It wasn't. It's not on your newsfeed 24, seven hours a day. It's not on Facebook. You can't. I think perhaps also this generation are probably better taught in terms of that level of research. Like, you know, for me, I look back, make myself feel really old now. Like, you know, at school there was the library with some books. You know, the Internet hadn't been invented when I was at school, so you couldn't just go online and go, well, you know, I think you're, I mean, a man of mine, Chris Clay, he used to be a teacher and this was quite famous in New Zealand. He got his class to basically debunk, I think was Ribena had this claim that they had more vitamin C than oranges. Well, you know, his class of, I think they might have been like 10 year olds. Debunked it by researching it on the Internet. That wouldn't have happened in 1980, whatever. When I was at school, you just go, okay, that's good to know.

I was giving a presentation yesterday and talking to the people in the room and just saying, who remembers encyclopedias? You know. Yeah, but this was something, you know, in our house, I remember it was called the World Book and it was like A, B, C. And you wanted to look up volcano. Oh, I'll get the V out. And oh, there's a. Oh, that's what a volcano is. Whereas now, you know, like you say smartphone, Google.

Yep.

And yeah, it's a, it's a different level of information.

Yeah, information and connectivity. And I think lastly for me, I gave a talk actually at a local school to some. It was really interesting giving a talk to like 5 to 9 year olds. And you know, kids get it. Like they understand, like I asked them, you know, what makes you happy? Oh, hanging out with my pet, hanging out with my brother, hanging out with my friends, hanging out with my family. Fantastic. Not one of you said money because you don't know what money is yet. But even if you didn't, like, you kind of do know what money is. But you've realized that actually the importance to you is not money. So I think, yeah, it's at some point, maybe historically that I don't know, where does that, where does it shift? Yeah, what does it shift? And I think. But I think, yeah, it's happened almost. Who cares why? But it has. And I think that's what we need to celebrate. And I think this is, you know, you See, a lot of businesses go, these millennials are, they're ruining our business. And it's like, well, if your business is not relevant to the next wave of consumers, then that's kind of how capitalism is supposed to work. You know, you evolve or you die. So I think it's just really promising that. And I think what we actually need to do is get more older guys like us who, I think we're probably the outliers, we kind of get it, we understand purpose. But there's a lot of people in, you know, parents, but also in positions of responsibility in business who, who have, I think, have hidden their own authenticity and purpose for the sake of working for the man and working for the money who, where we have high rates of depression and anxiety. And you know, there's a lovely little picture I've got on my computer at home of these two Buddhist monks, one saying to the hey, do you think it's time we gave this up for a life of rampant consumerism? Like, you never see anyone going from being a Buddhist monk to be going all about money and things. You always see burnt out CEOs going, it wasn't worth it. I've now find spirituality where I found God or I found Buddhism, or I found something and I've realized that my life was a complete waste of time and energy and I now don't have a family and friends and all the rest of it.

It's a no brainer for me. It was similar to you, kind of that paradigm shift. It was actually more the opposite end. I was thinking, you know, at the end of my life, like, what am I going to look back on? And you know, I know others have said this, but what am I going to look back on? Am I going to wish that I'd spent more time working, you know, wish that I'd had a better car, wish that my house had a bigger yard or whatever it is. You know, exactly. It's that mindset of we each have a limited time on earth, we're here and what do we do with that time? How do we.

So, yeah, but, and this is so right, you look at the, you know, the top five regrets of the dying is exactly that. And I guess humans are really bad though. Like, we'll go out tonight and you know, you're going to have a few glasses of wine and dinner out and you might have a few more beers and you get a bit of a hangover and you kind of know that's going to happen, but you still do it and it's for us to even envisage tomorrow and the impact of our actions today to tomorrow. We're really good at diminishing that impact. For us to kind of go, you know, 50, 60, even 20 years time, like, what am I doing today? Like, we're really bad as humans at thinking like that. But then equally, you know, $500 billion a year is spent globally by advertising to make you not think how you want to think. That's their job. Their job is to persuade you to believe and buy into their narrative that having the bigger house, having the bigger car, and then, you know, we fall into that, and then we see our neighbors, and then we go, oh, wow, Stephen's just got a new car. Maybe I should get a new car. Whereas actually, we're all sitting there not thinking about what our neighbors are driving and all the rest of it, but we're told to think that way. And so it's. It's almost like we need this. You know, it's like we're on this nuclear proliferation arms race of buying stuff to make us feel good, but it's documented on so many levels that it just doesn't work for you. You know, you're better off, you know, taking two hours off your work every day to earn less money to go meditate for two hours or do yoga or pray for two hours. You'd have more insight, focus, clarity, contentment, happiness than you would from that time at work. Yeah, but we're not, you know, there's no advertising for that. It's all about, buy this stuff. It'll make you happier.

Well, it's a fascinating topic, and I think just thinking about purpose and impact, it's just been really interesting to hear your story. What got you, you know, started on that journey and some of the challenges that you faced along the way. If people want to connect with you, where can they do that? Is there a website or some other way that they can reach out to you?

Yeah, sure. Yes. My business is called Grow Good, and the website is just www.growgood.co and, yeah, find me there. Or just Google Grow Good. And I think it comes up pretty quick. Find me on Facebook, whatever, and always happy. You know, if people want to know more about purpose, want to know more about what, you know, what they can do on an individual level or on a business level, I'm really keen to connect and start making a difference.

Yeah, great. Well, thank you so much for coming and having this chat. I think it's been really helpful. It's helpful for me and I hope it's helpful for our listeners as well. So thanks very much.

Thanks for having me.

And that's a wrap. Hey thank you so much for listening into my podcast. I hope you found it informative and inspirational. I'd love to know where you are on your purpose journey and if you have any specific questions or people you'd like me to interview to help you on that journey, please do let me know. Also feel free to connect with me on other social media platforms. You can check out all those links in the Show Notes below. And if you want to see how I might be able to help you specifically on your purpose journey, you can go and check out my website www.growgood.co or drop me a line by email timogrowgood co. All those links will also be in the show notes. I would genuinely love to hear from you. But anyway until next time go well and keep seeking that purpose. Fuel performance in your life.