#27 Working On Purpose with Dr Alise Cortez

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Hello Kia Ora and welcome to Purpose Fueled Performance with me, your host, Tim Jones, the Grow Good Guy.

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What's Working on Purpose Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want Working On Purpose. Now here's your host, Dr. Elise Cortez.

Welcome back to the Working On Purpose program. Thanks for tuning in again this week. I'm your host Dr. Elise Cortez, joining you live from Dallas, Texas, which is home base for me if you don't know me yet. I'm a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose, organizational logotherapist, inspirational speaker, social scientist and author. You you can learn more about me and how we can work together@elisecortez.com or gusto-now.com Let me thank my partner and sponsor, Work Proud. We are a perfect collaboration. Everyone wants to know they matter and that the work they do is meaningful and appreciated. Work Proud is a mobile platform built to encourage employees to share stories and recognize each other's contribution. Work Proud empowers HR and business leaders to help create company cultures where all employees are inspired to feel proud of their work and proud of their company. Learn more@workproud.com with us today is Tim Jones, aka the Good the Grow Good Guy who specializes in working with individuals and organizations to help them tap into their Purpose fueled performance, assisting them in the transition to becoming a force for good. His purpose focused consulting, coaching and training programs are specifically designed for those that want to use their skills to achieve meaningful goals in life and work. We'll be talking about his path to purpose, learn some benefits of personal and company purpose and then learn more about the B Corp. Certification process he helps steward with companies he joins today from New Zealand where it is the next day 10am so it's Wednesday, 10am, where it's Tuesday, 5pm for me in Dallas. I love it. I never get tired of this idea of the time chain, that the way that the world is connected. Tim, welcome to Working on Purpose.

Thank you for having me. And the weather's great tomorrow, right?

Exactly right. This is so great. You know, it should be like that, as Dr. Sue says, it should be like that. It should be just fun and connected, I reckon. I'm so happy to have you. And as we were talking about when we got on air together, I'm just so interested in catching your story, your path to purpose, as we were saying. It's. I suspect there is a difference between how women go about it and how men go about it. So let's dive into yours.

So today you're the grow good guy. That wasn't always the case. Right.

Your journey is fascinating and I want to talk about that. And it's just even the idea of starting out in life, going to a good school, you said in the uk, all boys, Ivy League. You're on a good track. Then what happened?

Well, I mean, the moment came for me. I was standing in an operating theater or, or operating room, as you guys on the other side of the ditch or pond like to call it. And the surgeon who I was working with, my job was to go into operating theaters, support the surgeons to make sure that they got the best outcome or the patients got the best outcome by, you know, using the equipment that my company had supplied. So the actual implant, the bit that goes inside the human. And the surgeon was being so particularly obnoxious that day. And I just thought, you know what? I'm done with this. And that was on the back of a lot of other things that I come to come to light for me over the last couple of years, seeing some of the, I guess the corruption, the lack of ethics in the wider medical device world. There's a really great movie, the Bleeding Edge, which summarizes pretty much this whole industry and where I got to, which you can watch on Netflix. And really I got. I asked myself, why am I here? Like, what am I doing this for? And when I started going down that journey of asking where, why, who, what, how, it all led me back to go, well, why did I end up here? Well, it started way, way back and it started with the type of school that I went to. I went to public school or private school. It always gets very confusing. Different countries call it different things, but basically my parents paid money for me to go to the school when you wore a blazer and a tie from the age of four. So you get some kind of impression of the school system and their, their whole thing wasn't, wasn't looking out for what was best for the kid. It was about how many of our kids get to go to Oxford or Cambridge or Harvard or whatever. And that for me was a really interesting thing to reflect on, was I'd been set on this path that wasn't my choosing. It was the path that my parents thought were doing the right thing for me. And it kind of makes intuitive sense like if we can afford to send our kid to a school that's going to give them potentially the best outcome and the best chance of getting into a really good university and getting a really good career, why wouldn't you do that? But this is what I call the authenticity gap. It's like it, it created a version of me that wasn't the true version of me. And it led me down a path of. One of the phrases I love to use is what, what should someone like you be doing? You know, you are of a certain age, a certain demographic, you live in a certain suburb. What is it that you're supposed to be doing? And, and that really was the life that I'd ended up in, was I was working as a medical device sales rep. It's, it's a well paid job, it's respectful. You're hanging out with orthopedic and neurosurgeons, you're learning quite a lot of complex medical information and working with these surgical teams and you get to travel the world and go to amazing conferences like I was, I was doing pretty good. For someone coming out of the school system that I've been through, probably not as good as some others. I mean a lot of other kids from my school, you know, they do go to Oxford and Cambridge. A large number of them go there and become high performing diplomats and scientists. And so in terms of the school, I'm probably a bit of a failure. But in terms of society, it's like, wow, this guy's doing really, really well. But I wasn't, I was having to be a different version of me. I was, I mean, if anyone knows orthopedic, and particularly orthopedic surgeons, there's the running joke in, in the hospital community is what's the difference between God and an orthopedic surgeon? God doesn't think he's an orthopedic surgeon. And you know, those are the kind of, you know, the alpha males. Typically there were no Female surgeons I was dealing with, there was a couple of female orthopedic surgeons, typically alpha males, who want the best. They want everything. They want it yesterday. And that combined with just, yeah, the, some dodgy ethics and moral decisions that were being made by surgeons and the companies that I represented, I'm like, I'm not this person. So what? But I am because I'm here. So what's going on here? How did I get here?

Well, and let's add in one other really, really important detail here that I think had to contribute to the eye opening element to that, and that was no less than eight patients had died on the operating table.

Yeah. So one company that I was working for, synthesis or syntase, depending if you're on the Swiss or the American side of the company, they launched a product called Norion. And this is all, I think I've referenced it in a couple of posts. I think it's in, it might be the Philadelphia Inquirer or something along those lines. But it's, it's in the paper. They've been, you know, held accountable for it, but they launched a product to market, I guess knowingly, too soon when they knew that there were risks of, of there being negative outcomes for the patients. And the only reason they did that was because in the medical device world, whoever is kind of first to market with the product wins market share, which means the shareholders are happy. And that really was the whole. And to this day, really it is. The ethos in the medical device world is, you know, let's, let's capitalize on the market opportunities that we've got for the shareholders rather than actually, let's take a step back and is this product going to be significantly better and provide better outcomes for patients at scale and even to the point where most of the, and this is like I say, physical medical devices, so nuts and bolts, screws and things like that, like, like proper metal and plastic implants. What most companies will do is, is they'll create a, let's say we'll pick up this, we'll say this pen is a medical device implant. They'll patent that, but they'll also patent that. And they'll patent that with the, the top on the other end and they'll, they'll ring fence the patent around one new product so that no other competitors can come up with anything vaguely close to it. Instead of kind of going, well, why don't we all get in a room, put all our smart people in the room and go, how do we radically alter the positive Outcomes for patients today it's all about let's ring fence ip, let's be first to markets. We capture market share so that shareholders win and if we lose a few patients on the way, well, it's kind of collateral damage. You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. That's kind of the mentality of the whole. And for me it's like, well, if this is the one industry in the world that should, this should be the most purpose driven industry. It's, it's all about helping other humans get better and survive. And actually it was all about making money. And that was the real like moment for me. It's like what hope is there in the finance world or you know, investment world or any other world when the people who should just care about fixing people actually just care about maximizing financial return.

Oh, this is amazing. Really quick. So I have to at this point interject Matthew Sayed, who is an author who wrote Black Box, Black Box, Black Box Thinking several years ago I read it and what he's essentially doing in that book is he's talking about what he's comparing and contrasting the healthcare industry and the airline industry and what the healthcare industry can learn from the, the airline industry because they do such, you know, methodical analysis into near crashes and crashes.

Y.

And why would that be? Why would they, why would they actually do that? Well, you know, in the airplane, if we're going to put people at risk, the pilot also goes down. And healthcare, if you're not on the table.

Yeah.

You don't have quite as much skin in the game. Right. So really, really interesting. Yeah. And by the way, listeners and viewers, Matthew side is probably coming on the show here in the next few weeks. So I can't wait to share his next book which is on Rebel thinking. But he's on my mind and that's a perfect application what you're talking about. So okay, so that does a whole lot to kind of, as you say, blow up your mindset. But then you mentioned a few other really key things that happen along the way. 2011, I think it was major earthquakes in New Zealand. Is that right? Tell us about that. How that sprinkled in some other thinking.

Yeah, yeah. So I guess, yeah, it was kind of 2007 ish to 2009, 2010. I'd started to see this stuff in the industry and they're really good at keeping you in. They call it the golden handcuffs. Like they pay you good money. The commissions are great. Here's your car. Here's your health insurance? Oh, you want to go to Davos next winter, you know, over December for a two week conference with your surgeons? Yeah, sure. Take your skis, you know. Fantastic. And it really was the earthquake. So we had a series of massive earthquakes here in Christchurch in the south island of New Zealand where I live. So 2010, 2011, we had a really big one September 2010, and then a big one February 2011 and then 2012. My wife and I had our daughter. And those three significant events essentially led to me having what's called a subconscious awakening. So your subconscious controls about 95% plus of your day to day actions. You know, it's like the autopilot that runs your system. And I think I'd had some, there'd been some challenges to that, but they weren't deep enough to really make me wake up. But a near death experience, the death of a loved one, or the birth of a child into your family are three well categorized methods of having what's called this subconscious awakening. So literally the whole thing is just shaken up and you get to see like reality for what it really is. There's a really cool movie going to have to. It's. It's like a really 80s classic movie where the guy has a pair of sunglasses and he gets to see all the advertising for what it really is. I think I've seen that, you know what I mean?

But it's like it was that kind of moment. It's like I suddenly put a pair of glasses on and I saw everything for what it really was. Like how corrupt the whole system was, how pointless. You know, you. This real moment of like what, what, what are we doing? Like why are we all. You, you don't like going to work. The person you're emailing the spreadsheet to doesn't like their work. Neither of you care, neither of your bosses care about the spreadsheet fundamentally, like what, why, why are we all doing this? And that was like the real moment when I had to start looking back and trying to work out what, what is the meaning of life and why don't I have it? You know, I'm 35, I'm earning good money, I'm married, I've got. Just had a new kid and I hate my life.

What's all that about?

Yeah, well, that's about the time period that, that I called my early onset midlife crisis hit me. I was 33 or so, so about a similar age, same kind of circumstances, you know, same thing. So there's something interesting about that. Okay, well then I know you go on and get a job as a GM at an engineering company and something happened there.

Yep. So I, I kind of realized, you know, all this came to a head. It's like I'm out of medical. Like literally that, that a moment I recounted when we opened this conversation. I walked out of the OR or the operating theater that day. I lived about 2 kilometers from the hospital. I walked home and I said to my wife, I'm done. And we'd moved from Christchurch to Auckland. So Auckland's the sort of the big city at the top of the north island in, in New Zealand. And we had our daughter because we wanted to get, get away from all the earthquakes to sort of start a family. And so we'd had our daughter, we wanted to move back to Christchurch and I wanted to get out of medical. And I thought, Look, I'm mid-30s, I should probably get a leadership role if I can. So I applied for about 60 different jobs. It's like I just want to get out of medical. The medical world is such a sort of incestuous group of companies. People just bounce around companies. You're selling to a surgeon. It's like a really weird industry. So I thought I'm just going to go and apply for anything and everything and just see what comes out. And I ended up getting employed as general manager for the south island for a firm of basically surveyors and engineers. And I just thought, well, it's going to be interesting because the types of clients we dealt with were in multiple different industries. So I kind of thought if I don't like this industry, I'm going to network and meet a whole lot of people from a whole lot of different worlds and I'll kind of find something. And I kind of thought, you know, orthopedic surgeons were the height of, you know, money and greed and sort of self entitlement. And then I met commercial property developers and in the, in the rebuild of Christchurch, so crush the CBD of Christchurch or the central city of Christchurch was basically decimated. The whole thing was pulled down. And so part of the thing that attracted me to the role was like, well, if I can play a really small role in the rebuild of this city, like that's, that's going to be cool. I'm not, I'm no good at designing the building or building it, but if I can help facilitate some stuff around that. And the whole like they canvass the city in terms of the population, like what do you want? We're going to Rebuild this city. What do you want to see? And overwhelmingly people wanted a green, sustainable city that was easy to navigate. We're flat, we're absolutely pancake flat city, you know, so they wanted bike infrastructure, they wanted to be really easy to navigate, child friendly, family friendly. What we got was basically cheap concrete monoliths. You know, Stalin would be so proud if you, if you willed him out of the grave. Like, look, oh, look at this, another gray concrete box. Oh, you've done so well. You know, I did, I wrote an essay on this. We post quake. This would have been about 2014ish. We only had four buildings in Christchurch that were made out of timber frame buildings. And now if you're listening here, tuning in from California, you know, you have a lot of timber frame buildings because they're very earthquake resilient. Well, we've just been through two massive earthquakes and what, what are we doing? We're building concrete buildings which are environmentally disastrous. They're cold in winter, hot in summer and they don't survive earthquakes very well. So the whole industry was, again, it's like, we just want to rebuild the city as cheaply and quickly as we can for maximum profit for the, you know, for the realtors, for the, for the builders and the developers. And it was just like, what is going on with the world? Like, I thought, I kind of thought the medical was going to be an isolated incident, but it turned out that no, it just seemed to be endemic in business because all the other people were bumping up against a lot of finance, a lot of banks, a lot of, you know, that kind of world in terms of property, commercial property, everyone just cared about the money. That's all they cared about. And so that just led me to like an even deeper pit of despair. It's like, is this all I've got for the next 40 years? I've just got to sit here literally working for the man, making sure that they and the people that they're helping make as much money as they can. And I'm going to get a little bit of that on the way through. And it was through that. Plus there was also some real cultural challenges in the organization. There were just a lot of bad behaviors going on internally at a leadership level, which was challenging for me as a new leader. And through that I kind of just, I thought, I'm going to try and find it. Let's take control of what I can. Let's try and fix the culture in the company. And so doing that, I kind of googled HR program, fix Toxic culture. And somehow how during that search, this little thing over here, try and get my camera right. B Corp turned up as an option. And I was like, oh, this is interesting. And I was like, okay, so this is more than just culture. This is sort of employees. This is environment, it's community. Oh, it's like how you treat a customer. Oh yeah, this is interesting. So I had a quick look at it and I thought, I bet there isn't one in New Zealand because you know, New Zealand's normally late to the party for a lot of this stuff. So I had a quick look on their listings like, damn it, there's two in New Zealand. So I bet there isn't one in Christchurch. Damn it, there's one in Christchurch. I sailed it for a couple of weeks and thought, oh, maybe I should just email this guy. So I emailed Steve Arda, who's CEO of Eagle Protect, who are now also based in California. And I was like, hey, I kind of just stumbled across this B Corp thing. Could I just come and have a chat and see what it's about? He's like, yeah, sure, come over. Sat down with him. We had like a 45 minute meeting booked in the calendar. He showed me around his, his facility and then sat down. We started talking B Corp. And I think I left about two and a half hours later with my mind just.

There is a whole, you know, at the time there was maybe a thousand or two thousand B corporations globally. And it's like there's a global movement of businesses who realize that the way we've been running the show is not great and there is a better way to do it. It's like I found my tribe and that really, I guess on my kind of archetypal journey, I've gone into the shadow, I've got into the depths of despair. And now it's like, oh, here we go. There's, there's light at the end of the tunnel. And so that's really where my kind of, of passion and commitment around the B Corp started. And then since then it's just, yeah, not, not look back.

Oh, that's. It's splendid and divine. And we're going to learn more about B Corpse a little bit later in the show. But let's grab our first break now. I'm Elise Cortez, your host. We are on the air with Tim Jones, AKA the Grow Good Guy, who specializes in working with individuals and organizations to help them tap into their purpose fueled performance, assisting them in the transition to becoming a force for good. We've been talking a bit about his path to purpose. After the break, we're going to hear about some gifts of purpose. Stay with us, we'll be right back.

Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and authority, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please Visit her@elisecortez.com Let's talk about how to get your employees working on Purpose.

This is Working on purpose with Dr. Elise Cortez. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise A L I s e leasecourtez.com now back to Working on Purpose.

Thanks for staying with us and welcome back to Working on Purpose. As we've been watching the pandemic continue to unfold, we look for ways to help companies support their employees handle the anxiety, stress, depression and feeling disconnected while also helping to lift and inspire them with ongoing professional development. So we now offer a well being webinar series called Grab your gusto vital well being from the inside out. You can learn more about it by emailing me@elise cortez.com or going to the website.com. check me out there. If you're just joining the program, my guest today is Tim Jones, AKA the grow good guy who specializes in working with individuals and organizations to help them tap into their purpose fueled performance. Assisting them to the transition to becoming a force for good is calling in from Church Christ New Zealand. I'm your host Dr. Elise Cortez. So we got to hear about your, your path to purpose which was fascinating. I never tired of hearing those stories as you can well imagine. Now I want to get into and this is so important listeners and viewers, when you really get access to your purpose and you can articulate it as a statement which is a way to really socialize yourself well, it's incredibly powerful. I love yours Tim. Can you share your purpose statement with us?

Totally. So I guess it's to co create a world where we can all thrive in a manner that's regenerative to this planet. And it's, that's all really for me it's about and this was like having my daughter or our daughter coming to the world was the thing. It's like what, what is the world I'm leaving for her like is it, is it a world that she's going to thrive in? That the planet's doing well. And back in 2012 and even maybe now in 2021, you kind of, like.

Not so convinced.

Exactly. And so crisp. Tim, what you've created is so crisp. And it's important. It's so important because it's. There's. There's power in declaration, there's power in language. And so listeners and viewers, that's a great example of a purpose statement. So just love it. Never tire of it. Okay, so now I want to get into a few more of the actual gifts of purpose, because you, in your talks and in your ebooks, do a brilliant job of talking about this and teaching about it. Tim, I learned a lot from you, so thank you for that.

Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome. So one of the things that I thought was really interesting that I don't think I've ever heard anybody say before, is you say that we have a biological need for purpose and contribution and are handsomely rewarded when exercising it and get a return of a perfect trifecta. Oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin. The part that I've never heard before is that purpose is a biological need. That's fascinating. Say more about that.

So I actually got that. Have you had Zach Mercurio's orio? Yes, that's where. That's where I learned that one from. From. From his work. It just seems to be, you know, we're looking for that. Always looking for that. Dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin kind of hit, you know, the good chemicals that keep us going. And from the research that was done, I believe that was from Stanford. I think we have to fact check that one and put it in the, in the, in the notes. But one of the big US colleges, they basically have done this research and we need oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine for us to be that those are like the positive drugs. So oxytocin is all about your connection, bond. But, you know, which is why it's like the mother's drug that when. During the birth process, oxytocin is the drug that, you know, is kind of induced or was used to induce birth, and it has massively high levels during that birthing process. And then serotonin and dopamine are kind of like your motivation and your. And your reward drugs. And when you are on purpose, which is why I kind of. I refer to it as being on purpose because it kind of is like a drug, once you get into it, it's like, give me this over Anything else. When you get into purpose, and for me that the overarching definition of purpose is contributions. When you're doing something that's meaningful for you, for others bigger than you, you get massive doses of those drugs and it's like, well, why would you not want to have those happiness drugs kind of in you as much as you can? I mean, obviously I think there is a risk that people kind of go, I'm going to be happy all the time. And I'm looking for happiness. And I think it's, there's some big conversations around the happiness, ver purpose and contentment, being different. Like you're not going to be happy all the time, but by being on purpose and, and living a life true to yourself and contributing and being the most authentic version of you, you're generally going to be more content than the person who's doing the complete opposite.

Yeah, yeah. And I, I, I firmly believe from through the work that I've done that that purpose is a perfect antidote to depression. Perfect antidote.

There's Sebastian Junger. I just have come across his work. He's an anthropologist and journalist and he has spent a lot of time books called Tribe or one of his books is called Tribe. And he has spent a lot of time as a journalist embedded with US troops, trying to work out like what, what is it that creates that cohesiveness, that tribal element amongst typically a group of guys doing something severely dangerous and physical in nature. And yeah, that, that need to serve and be part of a community is from his researches. It's like it's what we need. And as he says, it's hard to be depressed when you're helping someone else. And he references the Blitz in the uk, in London, sorry, in Britain during the Second World War, where they were expecting during the Blitz for there to be a massive psychological challenge with mental health going through the roof. But because everyone was so focused on helping everyone else, actually mental health got better. And this is the thing, it's really hard to be depressed when you're trying to help somebody else. It's purpose is, for me, it's like this, which is why I call it purpose fuel performance. It's, it's like this super fuel that is untapped everywhere in the world. The, well, not everyone, I guess in the modern Western democratized world we seem to have really lost our, our connection with it. Whereas in, maybe in, still in indigenous tribes and areas where you have that sense of community and connection and you see how you can help other people really quickly locally Yeah, I think we've really, we're missing a lot here.

Yeah. So from, from the logotherapeutic perspective, Tim, we talk about that as self transcendence. So you literally transcending yourself. And there is, there's, there's elevation in that and that's why it works so well. So another way of, another way of looking at that. So, as if we didn't need really more reasons to believe in this purpose stuff. But I, I want to still give you the opportunity to talk about this because you do this beautifully in your ebooks. But you talk about there are, there are seven guaranteed things that come with purpose. Can you share at least a few of them with us?

Yep. Well, I'll give you the seven really quick. So I call it focus, Health, hope, meaning motivation, resilience, but more importantly, legacy.

I mean, this is. There's some really good data on Brandon Peel, who, I don't know if. Has he been on the program?

He's been on the program, you bet. Love him.

So Brandon has. He has been like a, an absolute legend in curating a lot of the broad evidence. And this is the thing, like there is, I'm yet to see the study or the paper that says having purpose is detrimental to your life in any way. It's like, it's a tsunami of evidence. It's like if you even get 10 of purpose nailed, you're going to be a better human and have a better life.

That's right.

I think that the two that really stick out for me is the sort of the resilience one. So I get people to do this in my workshops. I asked them, right, everyone just start doing that with your hands. And some people actively resist it. Some people will start doing it. And I go, cool, who's bored of doing this already? And a lot of people go, yep. And I go, cool. Well, what if we just worked out that us doing this is actually pumping oxygen into the neonatal unit of the local hospital? Who would go a little bit longer now? And most people are like, yeah, I'll go a little bit longer. Cool. And that's just a really easy example of if something is worthy, is contributing to a really high level and has meaning for you. You're going to do it for longer. You're just going to keep on the task. You're not going to quit. Because as opposed to, hey, Elise, I need you to go and do these 20. I always pick on spreadsheets because I hate spreadsheets because I'm a real visual person, so. And I like picking on like accountants, people that like, and engineers who like spreadsheets. But if I said, hey Lisa, I need you to go and just fill out a whole lot of spreadsheets for me and you don't like doing them and you don't know why you're doing it, it's kind of like, yeah. And I think this is, when you look at the work environment, one of my most. It's fantastic in how awful it is. It was a YouGov survey from the British government and it's somewhere in the mid 40% of British employees surveyed felt that their job provided them with no meaning. And in fact they considered that their role was more than likely contributing to destroying the planet. And then we wonder why there's a mental health crisis and depression and people are self medicating and doing all the good stuff. It's like, yeah, so purpose is like the, the complete antidote. And, and for me that the place to start is maybe not have a complete career change, but try and understand the meaning in the role that you actually do do because there should be, you should be able to find some meaning there, there should be ideally some positive benefit to someone or something in what you're doing. So just connect to that and understand what is good for you. But I think that the big one for me, particularly coming from the, the medical and then this or the commercial business world is the whole thing about legacy and the lowest level. You know, if everyone was just a good husband, partner, parent, you know, dad, mum, son, daughter, we solve quite a lot of problems because quite a lot of the world's problems are on, you know, people not feeling loved or welcomed or you know, having some shadow work that they need to get on the do. So even just on a small, you know, on the small level, being a good parent and raising a good child, like that's a pretty good legacy because a lot of people not even doing that. But a question I like to ask in a lot of my workshops is in terms of like true legacy. Because most people who I'm working with on this transition to be a force for good, you know, it's still, it's all about the money. That's what the business has been focused on or the individual is focused on, you know, maximizing financial return. So the three questions I asked him is great. Who was the richest person in America in 1969? And you normally get, you know, Rockefeller, you get, you know, some people say Bill Gates still, even though he probably wasn't even vaguely born. But no one Knows that the answer, the answer that I could find was Robert Wood Johnson. He came up consistently more than any others. And he was one of the founding brothers of Johnson Johnson ironically company I started working for.

Isn't that interesting? Yes.

So then, then I asked people, great, well, who was the richest person in the world ever? When you adjust for inflation and currency and all the rest of it, nobody knows. The answer is Mansa Musa, who was the emperor of Mali in the late 12th 1200s. And then I flip it and go, cool. Can anyone give me the name of a gentleman in America in 1969 who wrote in the. Delivered a speech about having a dream for a group of. Group of people. And they all go, Martin Luther King. Well, fancy that. It's like you don't remember what people had. You remember what people did and how they did it. Yet we're so focused in the modern world on the what did I have versus what did they have. So one of the big things I say is as a Jones, I release you from having to keep up with us because we're full of rubbish. We don't have everything. It's all a ruse. We're all. We're making it up as much as the next person. So those would be the two, the two big ones that I would pick on.

I love it that only you could really say that statement, Tim Jones. Only you could really say that. That's so great.

Exactly.

Right. Okay. So this is, this is. I just have to go to this because this is for those people who are still not convinced the purpose is good. Then you actually throw in some other really compelling, interesting stats that I think people will find interesting that have to do with the colorful aspects of life. So what are those stats?

Which ones are those you mentioned?

So I'm talking about, you know, increases sexual pleasure.

Life satisfaction. Those kind of stats that I think people are listening for.

It's amazing. Yeah, I'm. I think it's like 32 increase in sexual attraction or something. I think round about that number, you know, And I think it's true. Like you, you see like someone who is on purpose, they just have a glow. They have a. There's just like. You sense them when they come into the room. As opposed to the mildly depressed person who really hates their job, is not happy in life and is just a bit of a negative Nigel or a negative Nancy. It's like, well, you're not going to really fill that room up. You know, it's like there's just something magnetic about people who are on purpose. You can kind of sense them. The other one is they've done the research and stronger DNA, which leads to stronger cells, which could lead to an extra seven years of life for people who are genuinely connected and on purpose. So again, yeah, check out this scienceofpurpose.org it, it's overwhelming that there is not, I, I can't see how there is, how they could even, how there even could be any evidence to the contrary to suggest, you know, around purpose. It's just, it's so obvious when you think about it.

Yeah, I don't want to do this purpose thing. I just am not convinced I'm not doing it. Yeah, yeah.

I'll just sit here and be, be angry and resentful and hate my life and do what other people want me to do.

Yeah, yeah, I, it sounds good. Right? Hard to get behind this, but okay. On that note, let's grab our last break. I'm Elise Cortez, your host. We're on the air with Tim Jones, AKA the grow good guy, who specializes in working with individuals and organizations to help them tap into their purpose fueled performance, assisting them in the transition to building, becoming a force for good. We've been talking about the benefits, the gifts of purpose. After the break, we're going to talk about B corpse and why they're good for business. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please Visit her@elisecortez.com Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose.

This is Working on purpose with Dr. Elise Cortez. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise A L I s e leasecourtez.com now back to Working on Purpose.

Thanks for staying with us and welcome back to Working on Purpose. I mentioned after the first break about the Grab your gusto wellbeing podcast learning series. The content of this program is adapted from part one of my recently published book called Purpose how inspiring leaders ignite passion and elevate cause, now available on Amazon. And I wrote that book to awaken readers to their passion and purpose and help transform them into inspirational leaders who enliven the workplace and elevate the contribution of business to all of its stakeholders. So that's why it's out there, that's where the content came from. I am very excited to have it out in the world. If you're just joining us, my guest is Tim Jones. We call him the grow good guy who specializes in working with individuals and organizations to help them tap into their purpose fueled performance. He joins us today from Christchurch, New Zealand. I'm your host, Dr. Elise Cortez. Okay, so for this last bit here, this is where we want to roll up our sleeves and hear more about this whole notion of B corps and why they're good, why they're important and some of the work you do to help people get there. So first, you know what I love about how you describe them just basically is that they're a kind of business that prove they effectively balance purpose and profit. So say more about this whole B Corp business.

Yeah, so that's, that's the whole plan behind them. It's probably useful I, I call it in Maori culture here. So Maori is all the indigenous people here before European settlers. The, you know and a lot of indigenous cultures have a creation myth story. So how do they come about? You know that sort of Maui, the God who created the land and you know all that kind of stuff. And um, B Corp came about from it was the co founder of a basketball apparel brand called and one which many listeners will probably know in the US And Jay, he is interesting. He had his kind of existential moment in after the 2001 Twin Towers event where his sister almost died. She was luckily pulled out one of the survivors. But that was the beginning of him kind of going hey, what am I doing? Like what is life all about? Life short. Fast forward to 2006 he's looking to or 2005 he's looking to sell the business. And I guess for a lot of people listening in the US in New Zealand when I explained to people in New Zealand that hey, if you're working for a company in the US you might not actually get a lot of annual leave. You probably don't have a. Access to, well you don't have access to government, you know, funded health care. You might not get any parental leave, certainly not if you're a dad. There's a lot of, you know, benefits that we get perhaps in a New Zealand or Australia or the UK that you don't get too much or readily in in the US and what was different about and one is that they built a real culture in the business so they gave employees extra benefits as employees. They let them have time off during work hours to go and contribute to their local community. They were working with their supply chain to, you know, be as good as they could. They were looking at their environmental impact. And when it came to selling the business, the Wall street guys were basically, hey, your business is really unprofitable because you're giving away all this equity. So before we sell it, you need to strip all that stuff back and think about the profits. So having gone through that sale process, he actually got. It was Bart Houlihan, who was one of his colleagues and one. And he got Andrew Cassowary, who was one of the Wall street guys together and over some whiskeys because they're quite proof of whiskey drinkers. They sort of came together and said, look, why don't we. Why don't we come together and build a new business and this time we'll keep all this good stuff in it. And then from that, I guess, over a few more whiskies, they thought, well, what if we actually create a movement of businesses that aim to include all stakeholders and not just concentrate on the shareholder primacy, just maximizing the fit. And so that was 2006. The idea of B Corporation came about and it's. There's kind of two. Two levels to the name. So obviously you have C corporations in the US Is my understanding. So B corporation is better than the C corporation, but more so it's about the idea of being a benefit corporation, which ties in really nicely with this idea of purpose that I hold of, like, what's your contribution? It's like, well, what benefit does your company bring to the world? And I guess one of the other taglines that's been used with B Corpse over the year is be the best for the world, not best in the world. And so it's really this again. And it links really well to the individual concept of purpose. It's like, how do you shift your. Your mindset from, you know, profit maximization, it's all about the money, to actually, what good am I doing? And why is that meaningful for me? So that's kind of B Corpse in a. In a snapshot.

Love it. I absolutely love it. Okay, so the other thing that I wanted to talk about to help our listeners understand this better, which is interesting, is I know that B Corps, in order to. To qualify, you have to have verified higher levels of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. So how does that work?

So the whole B Corp. Certification process looks like this. So you. You take an initial self assessment, and the assessment looks at your business across, I call them the five pillars. So you have your governance structure. So who owns your business? Do you have, you know, 50 shell companies with the last one in the, in the Bahamas or the British Virgin Islands and no one knows who owns you and you're not paying taxes anywhere. How accountable is your business? How transparent is it in terms of financial reporting? Do the staff get to see what's happening with the numbers or is it, you know, closed books? That's kind of like your governance stuff. You, then you have your workers, so how much extra benefits beyond what is state mandated? Do your, do your employees get in holiday leave, entitlements around parental leave, opportunity for professional developments in their role, so on and so forth. Then you have your community pillar, which is basically how do you interact with your local community? Are you providing opportunities for employment within your community? Are your corporate offices situated within a certain distance of the communities that you serve and sell into? There's questions around diversity and inclusivity on the community aspects as well, like what's the representation of your company in terms of ethnic diversity and diversity of gender. Then you've got your environment pillar, which looks at your, essentially your carbon footprint, your water usage and your energy usage. I'll talk about that. And then you have your customers. So I guess, you know, do you have customer, you know, complaint procedures in place? What data do you hold on your clients that you tell them that you're holding? All that kind of GDPR stuff. And this is what I really, really like about it, because in New Zealand at the minute, there's a big push from a lot of large corporates to go all in on being carbon zero. And look, that's cool, you know, you're addressing some of the issues that you're having. You haven't fundamentally got to the fact that your product that you're selling maybe not actually be needed. And that's still creating carbon, although it's been offset. It's not, you know, you're still making the carbon, but at the same time, some of these companies are laying off lots of stuff and are doing, you know, and so that's why I think B Corp, I kind of call it like the Google of certifications, because it's all encompassing. You know, you, you have to be doing well socially and environmentally and, and you have to meet the minimum threshold of a score of 80 out of 200 points for you to be eligible for the certification. So you do an initial self assessment. Once you're, you're confident you've got over 80 points, you click submit and then you get into a queue to have a, basically an audit call with one of the team from B Lab, which is the non profit organization that runs the certification program. Yeah, they then audit it and see whether you've actually met the criteria.

That's awesome. What I appreciate about it, Tim, among many other things, is I appreciate, you know, if you don't reach to be better as an individual, as a human being, as a, as a leader, as a company, you're not going to get there. So what I really appreciate about B Corp is you're reaching to get better. And I really, really applaud that. And then of course I appreciate the idea of a movement. So I want to talk numbers. I think you say that There are what, 4,000 B Corps in 71 countries? Do I have that right?

Yep. We literally maybe like two or three weeks ago tipped over the 4,000 point. So 4,000 business, which, you know, it's, it's, it's still a relatively small number globally, but there's some really big hitters. You know, Patagonia is possibly the most well known globally. Ben and Jerry's is a B Corp. I'm trying to think US specific. Natura, which is a South American based massive company, like billions and billions of dollars. They own the body shop. They are a B corp. They're kind of getting into. And this is what's really cool is it's like pretty much any industry, any geography, any location, any size, like I'm a B corp and it's me, like this is me. I'm, I am the business. Patagonia employees, I imagine hundreds if not thousands of employees. They're a B Corp. It's, it's not about what you do and how you do it so much. It's about your mindset and exactly what you said, like the, the intent of wanting to be better. And that's what's really cool about the assessment. Because when I consult with people and help them go through, I kind of like help people take the exam. It's basically part of one of the things I do. It's like year one, just get to 80, because even getting to 80, you're outperforming the market because most businesses that take the assessment for the first time will score between 40 and 50 points. So to even get to 80, you're doing kind of exponentially better than the market or your, or your peers. Then you can use the assessment tool. There's, there's some little tips and tricks with the, with the actual tool that you can use to set to use it as an impact guide to say, right, we've got to recertify in three years. Where and how are we going to be better in 3 years time? What are we going to focus on to raise our game in which are the pillars and how are we going to do it? And it's a really useful engagement tool for businesses because if you get your. Typically the way I work with people is we say, right, we'll nominate one person in the company as queen or king be. So they are the person who kind of owns the B Corp assessment and is the guardian for it. And they go and make sure that all the information that they require is got. But then you have a team of beekeepers who represent each of the pillars and depending on the size of the company, you might have one to five, you know, for a really large company and it's their job to keep that enthusiasm and connection and, and bring the strategy to life in terms of. Hey yeah. Oh what We've just thought about this new program. How do we actually include some of the B Corp ideals in this program so that in three years time we can show that we've actually met a higher standard under our community. So it's a really cool tool of baking in sort of purpose and the ideas of the B corp on an operational level and getting that team engagement.

If you do it well, I like it. I like it a lot. Okay, well, let's talk roi. So I'm sure people are listening to this going, it sounds like a lot of work. How much, how much do we have to invest here and what's in it for me? So what's the ROI of this stuff?

So I guess the cost of it initially, it's all based on your revenue as an organization. So the bigger you are, the more money you're making, the more you pay on a certification fee. And it's on a sliding scale with pretty regular boundaries. So check out the B Corporation. It's B Corporation.net in the US if you're on this side of the planet, it's a B corporation dot com. But if you search B Corp, you'll, you'll find it in terms of the roi. This is, this is a really cool thing if you just care about making more money. If you're, if you're being pretty cynical about this kind of do good purpose movement and, but you've been vaguely convinced, well, maybe my staff might be happier and they'll work harder because they're more resilient and more engaged. Maybe we should do this well, in terms of B Corp, there's sort of two major, I guess, papers or studies that I've seen. One of them was from the UK in a publication called the Grocer. And they looked at retail B corporations, so organizations that had a storefront essentially in the UK and what they found in the year that they surveyed this was essentially b corps grew 28 times faster than UK GDP over a 12 month period. So yeah, the. And they also found that they'd attracted more staff and more customers. So 35% of them said they'd attracted new customers and 48% of them said that they'd attracted better staff specifically because they were a B corp. So you know, particularly in a Covid world where talent can't fly around the world so readily, you know, talent retention and talent attraction is a really, really big thing. And then there's a study from the University of Ghent where they did like a basically a data set of financial data of European B Corps between 2012 and 2018 and empirically showed the B Corp certification positively impacts the turnover rate one year pre versus one year post. So if you just care about making money, you should be a B Corp. If you're actually vaguely concerned about saving the planet or humanity, then you should definitely do it. So it's like this is what I love about it. It's like whichever way you're coming to this, whether it's from the sort of the personal perspective you're looking for, you know, talent investment, you're looking for customers, you should do it. But if you just want to make more money, you should do it.

I'm convinced. I actually have been looking down this for a while now. I mean you've got one, you've got one convert here. No, no, I actually wrote about this also in my chapter nine of my book in Purpose Ignited. It's about conscious capitalism. I talk about B corpse and I mentioned just capital, many of the other ones that are out there to really contribute to this movement that I certainly believe in. So. Well, here we are, Tim. We managed to to get through pretty much the whole end of the show. We've come to the end of it. I want to give you a chance to close. You know, this show is listening to people by across all over the world and they really come to be able to try to create a workplace where people actually want to come. We create inspirational leaders that bring out their best and we do business that betters the world. What shall we leave the listeners with?

Wow, that's a tough one. Where to Just start. You know, I've just been working with a cohort of businesses here, so 43 businesses being sponsored by one of our government departments here to help them go through the process. And the one thing that they were all scared about was, was starting the journey. It's, it's. We're not good enough. We're not there yet and no, no one's there yet. You know, Dr. Elise Cortez is going to become a more purposeful human throughout the rest of your journey. I'm gonna, you're all going to be getting to a higher level of purpose. So if, if you don't start today, I think it's Warren Miller, the Warren Miller Ski films. If you don't do it today, you'll be one day older when you do do it. It's like if you're not, if you haven't started the journey, just start. Because.

You'Ll be, you'll be so much better and so much happier for doing it.

Yeah. And it's worth, it's worth the journey to, as we say, step on that path to try to get better. It's always good to aspire. So that's why to me, it's a no brainer.

Exactly. That's meaning. There's meaning and purpose in you just being better.

Exactly, exactly. We've already elevated ourselves, so, yeah. Tim, I'm so grateful to have you on the show. I'm thankful that you're in the community. I think you're in the, in the global purpose leaders community as well, which is how we got connected. Thanks to Brandon Peel, Holly woods and a few others who've been on the show before. Susan Lucci, Bia Balandro. I mean, just, you guys are just rock stars. And so we're out, we are out trying to make the world a better place. So I am thrilled that you joined us. Thank you, Tim, for coming on.

Thanks for having me. And it feels, I feel like a massive imposter when you reel off some of those names, yourself included.

We're all in this together, darling. Listeners and viewers, I know you want to learn more about this man and the work that he's doing. The best way to find him is to go to growgood Co, growgood Co. And thanks again to our partnering sponsor, Work Proud, which helps companies build a platform where your workforce receives meaningful feedback. And thanks for their work from people across your company. Last week, if you missed the live show, you can always catch it. We recorded podcast. We were on the air with Charles Antis, the founder and CEO of antis roofing and waterproofing, talking about how purpose and philanthropy have become essential in today's business world. Next week we'll be on the air with Ken Banks, technologist, anthropologist and Head of Social Purpose at Yodi, talking about his extraordinary life of purpose creating technology to serve nonprofits in developing countries, among other adventures. See you there. Remember that work is at least a third of our lives, so let's Work on Purpose.

We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune in to Working on Purpose, featuring your host, Dr. Elise Cortez each week on W4CY. Together, we'll create a world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires and passion performance, and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there. Let's Work on Purpose.

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 or drop me a line by email timrogood 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 field performance in your life.