#69 Gemelli Consulting CEO James Stewart on being NZ's highest scoring B Corp

So five seconds from that. I'm joking.

I think that's going to be the opening. Hey, Jonah. Welcome to the latest episode of the Be Better podcast with me, Tim Jones, your host. Thank you to all our avid listeners. I've never really asked for this, but I'm going to ask for it today because I've been listening to some other podcasts. If you are a regular listener, please go and like and subscribe on whatever platform that you're listening on because the more likes and subscribes we get, clearly the better we'll do and maybe one day we might even get a sponsor. It's kind of, it's on the back of my mind, maybe we'll get there one day. So anyway.

Welcome to the latest episode and with me today, we have cheated James Stewart from Gamali. James Kia ora Shamai. How's it going?

I'm very good. Thank you for having me on. It's fantastic. Too fantastic to be here.

Excellent. Man, it's good to finally get you on the show. I've been. Yours has been one of. I really want to get James on the show. Really want to get you on the show because. Well, we won't get into the details of the B corp yet, but when, because when did you certify it would have been about a year ago.

Yeah, last year.

Yeah. Yeah. So you've been, you've been in the B corp world for a while now. So yeah, I was really, really keen to get you on. But yeah, just been busy and I've been busy and here we are. Yeah. So for people listening who don't know who you are, who are you? Cool.

So I'm James Stewart. Odatahi Proud and yeah, born and bred here. Have got an amazing wife, Robin. Two incredible young boys. Not young anymore. They're 13. Scary. Which makes me feel old. So let's just call them young so I don't feel old. Yeah. So awesome family and yeah, yeah, I run an awesome organization called Gemelli.

Nice. And what did Gemelli do?

So we help the purpose sector, whether it's community trusts or faith based groups or councils doing cool, fun, innovative stuff. We help them assess the financial feasibility or the commercial strategy around social and environmental projects. So it might be a business case, it might be a feasibility study. They might have an awesome idea that's going to change. But they want to know, do the numbers stack up? Would a bank or an investor jump on board with this? Is this going to lose money hand over fist once it started? So we help do the crystal ball financial modeling. But I think where our secret sauce lies is that where things don't quite stack up. We love to get creative and we love to find ways to make orange and red lights green.

Nice. Very cool. Before we go on the name Gemelli, where does that come from? Is it.

Ah, it's, it's Italian for twins back.

Like Gemini back in the day when.

I was setting up. Yeah. I was literally sitting at the, at the computer with the company's website open and needed to put a name in. I was like, well, James Stewart Consulting just sounds a bit naff and jumped on Google Translate and. And we just had twins and. And Jim the Italian was the coolest twin. Translates version out.

Love it. I love a really cool origin story for a name like that. That's so. That's so much better than. Well, grow Good's pretty. I think it's got a pretty cool origin story. My wife was like, you, you grow companies to be better, but you also do sales training which helps good companies do more good. So like you're kind of like growing good wherever you go. And I'm like, I quite like that. I'm gonna write that down. I think I might take that one. Thank you so much. So, yeah, shout out to the wife. She's the brain spike. Well everyone knows she's brains behind the outfit. Oh, that's super cool, Jamel. Yeah, I like it. So yeah, so let's try and get into the weeds a little bit of what you actually do. I am, I think fair to say, pretty numerically illiterate. And so whenever people involved in the world of finance and money and numbers. Yeah. But let's see if we can unpack it and if I can understand it then you can clearly claim some sort of bragging rights. But you see, maybe. Is there an example what's like maybe the biggest project that you've worked on that someone maybe particularly in New Zealand might have heard of. Obviously international listeners might be a little bit less connected to it. But yeah, just give us, give us an example maybe of something that you've, that you've done.

I'm trying to think of well known projects because a lot of our stuff's quite niche. But we might be working with a. It might be a community foundation or a charitable trust or a church. You might say have 3,000 square meters of land out the back of their building and they are amazing at doing the, the work that they do at the coalface in the community. But they might also have a passion for housing for Solo mums or for social housing or something like that. And they will, they will come to us and say, hey, we've got 3,000 square meters of dirt. We know we want to do something in there, but we just don't know where to start. And so what we can do is we work on what we call the Goldilocks approach. Because a number of lovely consultants will go out there and go, great, we can do a feasibility study and needs analysis and in depth feasibility assessment and it'll cost you 100 grand. And involve architects and QS's and where are the view going? No, no, let's just eat this elephant one bite at a time. And let's say, let's say we'll just do a short sharp piece of work. We'll look at the, the zoning of the site to figure out how much site coverage we could have. We could say let's go up two or three stories or one story and we'll figure out how many homes we could fit on there, figure out how much they would cost, figure out how much revenue would come in, figure out how much operating cost would be involved on an ongoing basis and then say with the money that they've got, it might just be the land value that they own and having to borrow the rest. Would a bank allow them to borrow the rest? So we sort of act as that translator between the financial system and the community sector. Because what we hate seeing is organizations that go and drop 100 grand on amazing architects and planners and QSS. And then they go, hey, here's a project, can you help us get big finance for it? And we look at it and there's just no way it stacks up.

Yeah.

Because it just doesn't have that balance between those twin objectives of social or environmental good, but also having to be financially sustainable. So we can help shape a project early before you've gone and spent 100 grand on architects to help you unlock those projects. So we get to work with amazing community housing providers, charitable trusts, faith based groups who are doing incredible mahi in their community.

Super cool. Super cool. All right, I get it. I completely understand it. So yeah, you've nailed it. Idiot proof description for, for me to be able to understand it. And so how did you get into this? So how did Jelli come about? Like you just walking down the street one day and you thought, hang on a minute, I think I can solve a problem here. I mean, how did you know that this problem existed? Yeah, how did you build it? How? Because how long and how long have you been going? I guess supplementary question. Sorry, throwing questions at you.

No, no, good question. So I've always been involved in the project finance side of things. So I spent the first decade of my career based in Christchurch, but working in developing countries, so east coast of Africa, Southeast Asia through the Pacific. And it was mainly, or it was all infrastructure and it was mainly energy and water projects, which was awesome.

And I was working for a big.

Firm or no small boutique consultancy called Bridgeway, an amazing guy called Richard McGeorge who started that up and was lucky enough to be able to jump under his wing as a 20 something and learn, learn the trade of crunching numbers and helping develop crystal balls so you could chuck a bunch of inputs in and a bunch of outputs came out and help people make great decisions. So did that for a decade. Then Patty and Finn, the twin boys came along 13 years ago. And me traveling 40% of the time to Africa and Asia didn't really work for being a good dad or a good husband. So I took a role with PwC up in Auckland doing exactly the same work but for the Kiwi electricity companies. And so that was all good and fun and it was, you know, big money and suits and corner offices and, you know, corporate, corporate, corporate. And that was kind of cool. But I remember driving on a Sunday morning across the Harbour Bridge with my wife and she said, you've lost your spark. And I said, what do you mean? And she said, like, you're not as excited about your work as you were. And I said, no, this is great. I'm on the partnership pathway and we're going to be earning all this money and all this sort of stuff. And she goes, that might be true, but you're not as excited about the actual nature of the work. And I remember sort of, you know, you'd go and work on a project in Tanzania and you'd be getting the electricity tariffs down or you'd be enabling a village of, you know, 50,000 people out in remote rural areas to become electrified so, you know, kids could have a light to do homework under and stuff like that. And that was really singing to my purpose over there. It was destroying poverty, which was awesome. But that here you'd work a 60 hour week for PwC and you'd do amazing work for an amazing organization, but you might add.06 cents to the share price of Genesis electricity.

Genesis.

And it didn't really float my boat in the same way. And, and so, yeah, lovely wives casting spotlights on, on the areas they do insanely well and we're very grateful for that. So it was, it was probably a month or so after that that I got a phone call. The Christchurch earthquakes had happened around about that time and I got a phone call back from my old boss saying, would you like to come back to Christchurch? We're living in Auckland at the time to help out with the rebuild on the infrastructure finance side of things. So did, did fairly four and a half years on that side of things. A three and a half billion dollar program of works that we had to provide the government and the taxpayers of New Zealand that we were getting value for money across that spend, which was a whole lot of challenging intellectual fun. And then had 18 months getting a development entity set up for the council and then basically just needed a break and stopped at the end of 2017 and just said actually this has been as we all had in Christchurch over those early 2000 and tens. It was a really intense time. And into 2017 I was just like, I just need a few months off and quit my job and just said actually I'm taking three months off. And I flicked an email out to my network and just said, hey, finishing up, but you know, if you came for a coffee or a glass of wine over summer, let us know, we'll explore opportunities in the new year. And these emails started coming in from people saying, hey, I know you want to take some time off but would you be able to help us out on this project before Christmas or We're, we're putting in a bit for a project next year. Do you want to be on the project team? And I remember sitting with my wife again, Wisdom on the beach criteria that summer and she said, it's like a little business is forming here and, and it was quite neat actually, seeing where I could add value in the market as opposed to just the things that I really wanted to do. And that was really the birth of Gemelli. You know, we started this we consultancy that was working with entities, you know, that we'd formed a team of people that had come from Big four background and there's a bunch of companies out there that can afford 600 bucks an hour for a Big Four consultancy. But there's also a bunch of companies and organizations out there that can't afford that. And then my reckoning is by default there's a bunch of projects that aren't going ahead because they don't have that early stage assurance. And so, so if we can help those companies at hourly rates, a heck of a lot less than that in our view. We're enabling projects to be assessed to see whether they are viable and should proceed and hopefully get some amazing social and environmental stuff done along the way. So that's the, I guess the three minute synopsis and summary of origin story.

So were you, because were you part of Skirt? Was that.

Yeah, so, yeah, so we, we were the government, one of the government partners in Skirt, which was that.

What did that stand for again?

Had the stronger Christchurch infrastructure rebuild. Yeah.

Because I think, I think you're, you might be about the third guest I've had on the podcast because at the time, because I was working for this company, Hampton Jones, which I always like to like to say no, and I'm not the Jones and the Jones, but I'm working on it. That was always my, my coaching reply. Yeah. Sort of similar to yourself. I kind of, yeah, we, we moved up to Auckland post quake. Wanted to get back to Auckland. I wanted to get a more meaningful role and I thought, yeah, being involved in the rebuild and it just seemed to be that everyone. There's a lot of people that I now know who seem to have a contract at Skirt and I felt like I was the only person who didn't get one. So I don't know. Clearly I was just too new to the industry. What does this guy know?

We'll just have to wait for the next earthquake.

Yeah. So, I mean, the rebuild of Christchurch, what are your thoughts on that? I guess we're getting a little bit niche for people outside of Christchurch, possibly and even outside of New Zealand. But yeah, Thoughts, thoughts. Looking back on that, was it, was it done? Well, there's a lot of people would still say, you know, we're not there. We don't have the stadium, we don't have the fitness and swimming pool center up yet. You know, we're still. What are we if 10, 12 years after the first quake? Yeah, general thoughts.

Yeah, I don't think we're done and.

I think the best is yet to come. I'm genuinely excited seeing the number of vacant lots decrease across the city, the number of new residential homes going into the central city, bringing that vibrancy, safety, all of the good stuff that comes with a thriving inner city population.

Yeah. You work in a half billion dollar stadium and you work in a $350 million swimming and sports complex. You know, there's a billion dollars of additional infrastructure that's just going to ramp up, plus all the workers and activation that goes around that one, it's operational. So it is phenomenal. I think as cantabrians we can. We're absolute frogs. Frogs and beakers. Is that city slowly and slowly getting and better and better. And it's hard to notice those incremental gains, but whenever we have clients or family come down from wherever out of town, it is amazing just to vibe off them and for them just to go. This place is incredible. Actually. I thought Christchurch was a, you know, a backward little agricultural service town, but it's epic because of this, this, this and this. And yeah, it's awesome to hear the external views.

Yep. Nice.

It sounds like we probably could have done with you involved in some of the rebuild with your program management and cost things. You didn't fancy getting involved with a stadium rebuild on the big.

The fifth Amendment. On those questions, if we could just move on. Okay.

So, yeah, pathway. I mean, I, I would say how many people who are on the pathway to partner at PwC start their own business, possibly, is that a fairly incongruent. You know, my impression, obviously, having never worked for a big consulting firm, but in general it's kind of, you know, if you're getting one of those consultant firms, you're a pretty steady type of person. You like being paid to turn up at 8 o' clock and work until 9 o' clock in the evening, obviously not the morning. Although I guess probably the more senior you get, maybe the closer to the one hour or in. In the medical device repping world, it used to be called the 40s, Tuesday to Thursday, 10 till 2. Don't, don't talk to me outside of those hours. But yes. What was the jump like? I mean, you, it didn't sound like you had a plan per se, to start your own business. So was that, was that an easy transition or were you kind of like, oh, I really don't know what I'm doing. It kind of sounds like, I mean, in terms of like a startup validation, having people email you saying, hey, could you do this for me? Like that's pretty strong buying signal from the market that there's something, you know. Yes, but what was that transition like? Was there trepidation or did you have enough cash in the bank to go. Actually, you know what, I can give this a go and I don't need to worry about it. And if I need to get a job, I go and get a job.

Yeah, we, yeah, there was absolutely an element of privilege in there. We had savings to, to give three months off, sort of to take a mini sabbatical.

Nice.

And I'm really conscious that a lot of people don't have that and don't want to assume that everyone does. So we tried to, I tried to take a three month break and yeah, as I said, sort of work sort of got in the way of that.

And so yeah, I stumbled into setting up my own company and social enterprise and entrepreneurship in that space there. So. And it was awesome to have market validate not I wasn't selling anything. People wanted to buy something which is amazing. Really a really important distinction in all areas of commerce is if selling people are skeptical. If someone wants to buy something from you, it's really empowering.

And yeah, we weren't out there selling anything. It was people going oh, James has got some capacity. I know James has worked on this, this and this, therefore it'll be really helpful. And after sort of three or six months there were some threads that were starting to weave through about the sort of things we were getting asked to do and we were growing a team over that time which was really, really awesome. An amazing group of people and yeah and then probably about 12 months in we made the gutsy call to go 100% for purpose so we would, we were doing other work. And I mean the first rule of consulting is you say yes.

That's how it rolls. Because saying yes enables work to happen and enables a business to become sustainable. And again, another place of privilege to be able to start saying no to work after about 12 months, after we'd figured out our niche and had enough critical mass to be able to say actually yep, we could do that work. But actually other people could do that work just as well and there's an opportunity cost. If we do that project we're probably going to run out of capacity to help people that are absolutely in our la, which we had, which we really wanted to focus on. So yeah, that was a really, that was probably the gutsy step given us stumbled into starting up a business that was probably the gutsy step. Going saying no to your first gig as a consultant is really scary. And especially with I guess the nature of what we do because we don't do 100k projects or anything like that. Our average consultancy fees probably, you know, 10 or 20 grand. So we're. What are we now? We start of October so we're, we're chocker for October and November say but we've got nothing. No, actually that's not true. We've got very little lined up for December and that's kind of scary if you're looking eight weeks out. Yeah, but it's been that way for six Years of Gemelli and a great, a great guy, great friend. Robbie said, it's almost like you need to get your confidence or your assurance by looking backwards instead of forwards. Because the universe, whatever it is, has always looked out for us. And having the right amount of work at the right time.

Yeah.

And because that's really scary when you've got small, chunky jobs. I mean, it's lovely. Every, every consultant wants that three year baseload client of 40% that pays, you know, 100% of market rate. And when they come around, you love them and appreciate them, but they don't come around all that often. So the hustle is real. It's an eat what you kill mentality. And so you're constantly feeding the hopper or the pipeline, putting stuff in, meeting people and having chats about where you can add value. And eventually some of that turns into work where you can add value to people's worlds.

Yeah, nice. Yeah. I probably needed you in my life eight years ago because I very much have been for the first, probably five or six years of my business, I was trying to sell B Corp to people. It's like, you need this thing, you should really have a look at it. People just like, yeah. And I think I'm pretty good now. Whereas now, yeah, it feels like if I started my business today, not eight years ago, but then, you know, you don't know what you know today, what you didn't know then, blah, blah, blah. So totally grateful for the journey. But yeah, it is interesting when you're not having to sell the thing to people and people just come to you saying, I want it. I just want to know whether you can help me. Yeah, I possibly can. Let's have a chat, find out. Yeah. So much better having those conversations rather.

Than, yeah, trying to. Uses the whole environment like consultants, you know, and quite rightly sometimes have got a bad rep around charging extortionate rates and adding very little value. That old cliche of give a consultant your watch and he'll tell you the time and there's no value at that one. Which pisses me off knowing.

Yeah.

And so, you know, shifting away from that sales mentality, it just diffuses a whole, a whole mindset. And probably the other thing that diffuses that whole mindset is that we set Gemelli up as a social enterprise. So we work with organizations that do good, but we're also a social enterprise in the sense that we donate 100 of our profits to kids can inhabit humanity.

Who build homes in Nepal with those funds. So takes away that ethos that like the high pay consultants just gonna, you know, a new holiday house at the end of this year and take skiing in Aspen the year after and stuff like that, that's not our reality. And when you're working with charities and churches and things like that, who you know, have got a pastor or a GM for a trust on. On 70 grand or something, knowing that you're not living in a four million dollar house, driving a, you know, 300, 000 car is.

Yeah.

To go. Cool. We get it. We get your world. And actually we're here to help you, not help ourselves.

Nice. Yeah. 100. Yeah. One of our other clients, I won't name them but they, they said, oh, you're really refreshing as a consultant because you just came in and you did the shit that you said you're going to do. And she's like whisper and said, I can see two consultants in my office. They've both been here for six months and I don't know what they're doing. I'm like, yeah, I don't want to be that guy. Like we just want to get in, get out, do what we said we do and leave you get on with it. And if there's other stuff we think we can help you with, we'll let you know. But yeah, it's. Yeah. The murky world of consulting. Yeah. Yeah. But I guess you probably would have had some Smarts. You know, PwC and those kinds of organizations tend to not hire dumb people. So clearly, I mean you must have got some smarts and picked up some ideas as to what. And I guess you had your systems possibly from being a consultant or you know, for. In terms of, you know, utilization rates of the team and billable hours and working pro. All that kind of stuff that I try to get my head around when I was at Hampton Jones. I'm just like, you have, you have a utilization rate on a human. This sounds like a Victorian mill. It's like.

It'S like you really, you really just look at humans like a number, don't you? And two of the directors were like, yeah, pretty much. Okay, well that's good to know. I never, I don't forget I sat down with the CFO and she said, I'll just look at, looking at the profit loss for the, for the South Island. And she had me down as a liability. And I was like, well, I know I say a few things out of context every now and then, but I wouldn't call myself a liability. She was like, well, no, but you cost us money. I said, well, yes, but I'm also doing business development, so surely I'm an asset. I'd like to think I'm an asset. Anyway, she didn't really get my humor, so yeah, that was. Yeah, move on.

So the social enterprise piece, were you, were you part of the Social Enterprise world forum in 2017?

Yeah, yeah, no, I was lucky enough to. Lucky enough to go along and attend that and be part of that. That was phenomenal.

So was that before or after you started Jameli?

Like literally on the, on the cusp? I was, yeah. The throes of handing in my resignation and, and this thing was in front of me and yeah, it didn't. Yeah, all I was really looking forward to was three months off to take some time out. So I wasn't going.

Cool.

Let me soak in all this goodness. But I think some seeds were planted during that time that that sort of grew and were nurtured over the following three or six months for sure.

I guess for people who don't know what. So the Social Enterprise World Forum is an annual conference event that's hosted in all sorts of random places around the world where companies, organizations that are looking to create some kind of social and environmental impact kind of get together for a conference. And it was held in Christchurch, I can't remember. I think it was. Was it the Tyndall foundation and a key or Akina, I think, who got it here in 2017. It was really, looking back, it was really interesting timing I feel because we kind of gone through the earthquakes, we're kind of in that recovery phase, but they had. It just felt like it. That, that was, I guess almost like when those lightning rod ish moments where, you know, we. Out of. The number of B corps in. Is in. I think back in the day, like out of the first 10b corps in New Zealand, six or seven were in Christchurch. So we had six or sevenb corps in Christchurch. We had the Social Enterprise World Forum. There was a sort of groundswell movement of business for good impact purpose all, you know, I guess it was really. It was still almost like the, I don't know, the gases swirling around before the Big Bang moment. Not that I think we've actually had a Big Bang moment yet or maybe, maybe we ever will, but it just felt like there was staff kind of coalescing. So it's just interesting, you know, because I, I'd been in my business for just about a year at that point and so we were probably a B corp for just about A year at that point. So all of it was still quite nascent and people just try to work out what is this thing and what is it, how do we do it. So it's just, it's just interesting that that was part of that journey, at least at some level because had you, had you so, so yeah. Had you had the idea of being a, a kind of a not for profit, for profit business before or like how did you come up with the idea of actually I'm just going to give all my profit to a charity?

It's a great question.

Yeah.

I've never hadn't really thought about it at all. You know, it was, it was sort of that too, I guess. We're different because we're a two step social enterprise. Right. We, we focus our skills and time and talents on organizations that are having slightly change and addressing social justice issues.

But then on top of that we also give away our profits.

Yeah.

So it's sort of a twofer kind of deal there. We didn't start with that second bit of giving away our profits that we weren't making, you know.

Yeah.

For the first year sort of thing. Yeah. Which was a epic milestone to reach. And then when we started to have profits, you know, we're looking at just going, man, we, we're so privileged. Like we've got, we've got enough to pay the mortgage and to pay the staff and, and all that sort of stuff.

Why don't we just give away it all? Like, why don't we just, why don't we just set this thing up and sort of that principle of more than enough was sort of something that we were wrestling with and just going actually, you know, I think money's a, a really powerful force for good, but it can also corrupt.

Yep.

Personally, and the whole, excuse the pun, but keeping up with the Joneses thing I think is one of the most powerful forces in humanity. And you know, you, you've probably got people in your world and inside of the people listening, they probably got people in their world who maybe their journey where, you know, they've started off on 50 grand and, and they've gone, oh, we don't get to 70 grand. It's just going to be amazing. And then they get to 70 grand and they don't save anymore, but they've still got this expenditure and then 90, 100 and it just keeps going up and up and up and I think it's really dangerous and, and I think being, defining what's enough in our world is something that my Wife and I, Robyn, have taken really seriously. We sit at the start of each year, we sit and go, cool, what's our budget for the year? What do we need to live on? It's not a two minute noodle budget, but it's also not three, you know, trips to Europe a year type thing either. And we find what we think is a fair and sensible balance and that sets a household budget which informs, obviously the Gemelli budget.

Yeah.

And, and then any additional money that comes in, we just give it away. And because we've got enough and there's a bunch of people out there that don't have enough.

Nice.

And you know, being a numbers guy, I go, cool, if we have more than enough and some people have less than enough, let's just give away. It's, it's not rocket science.

It's literally basic maths. Yeah, yeah.

We can just preach you for it and charge you 20 grand, but, you know.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I think it's just, it's keeping privilege in check is, is super because it doesn't get kept in check. Escalates and grows.

Yeah. 100, mate. You should try being a Jones, keeping up with the rest of the Joneses. It's like family reunions. Yeah, you should see some of the Joneses out there, man. Yeah, it's totally true. It's, it's, you know, it's the hedonic treadmill. It's the. When I get this, then I'll be that.

Yeah.

But you, you never win it. There's always someone with a better, better phone, better car, better holiday, better house, whatever it is. You know, there's that one person who's got, who's probably winning it for 30 seconds before they get taken over by someone else. And, and there's a, there's also a bunch of research being done. I think it's. Well, there was a famous, I think he was a German industrialist who, at the beginning of the gfc, he, he lost like billions of his net wealth overnight, but he still had billions left and he jumped in front of a train because he was now like a lower caste billionaire compared to. And you sort of just go, what, what level of insanity must you be living in when you feel like you can't survive because you're down to a couple of billion. Down from like 10 billion.

Yeah. And it's that thing like you get used to the luxury that sits around you. Right?

Yeah.

And I think that luxury, you know, it's. Again, it's a privileged thing and it's hard to keep that in check. And it's just going cool. What sort of car do I need to Dr. You know, safe for the family, fuel efficient, all that sort of good stuff. But you know, shock horror, they put out new models every year. Like, do you, do you need a car that's five years old or, or three years old or whatever it is, or do you need the brand new one, like, or, you know, are you okay with a 7 year old car that's safe and has got enough bells and whistles to keep you safe?

Yeah. Which, which possibly might be the most environmentally friendly one too, because, you know, the one that you keep the longest that you can run into the ground is going to be doing less damage potentially overall, whether it's an EV or a petrol, blah, blah, blah. You can get into the weeds of that argument on a separate podcast. No doubt someone who knows more about that. But yeah, I think it's, it's a big part of the, the modern world we live in, this sort of.

Consumer capitalist society that it's all predicated on. We, you know, you, you know, humans are driven by fear or desire and the modern marketing world knows that we can prey on those fears or desires. And either if you don't get this, people are going to think you're ugly, or if you buy this, people are going to think you're the most attractive human in the world and therefore everyone will love you and want to, you know, come and hang out with you. And I think a lot of people think they know that, but they still fall for the trap because it's not included.

Right. Like myself included, stupid peanut brain human. And you know, you walk past a Coke advertisement and you're like, come on.

Totally.

It's not going to make you happy. But we're still, we're still flawed humans.

Semi advanced chimpanzees spinning on a disc in the middle of infinite universes. What do we actually know? Not very much.

Yeah, we have, but it's really on a disc. Should we delve into your desk?

Yeah, it's flat, isn't it? Every nice.

Come on.

Yeah, it's, yeah, we're funny. It's just, it's funny how, yeah, we kind of know all this stuff here. We don't know all this stuff. Yeah, but one of my favorite ads I ever saw was actually at Christchurch airport. It was for a luxury car brand, a German luxury car brand. And it was just a picture of the car on like this alpine road. And it was a close up of the driver who was a Middle aged guy, you know, silver fox, graying, slightly graying hair, but still looking good for it. And it just had the two words underneath it. Success driven. And you just go, actually that is genius because what you're saying is for you to get this car you need to be driven by success. But if you are successful, you will get this car. And this car is a great. It's just like in two words, like, yeah, you just wonder how many hundreds of thousands of dollars went into creating that advert where they knew that that is just going to trigger your typical middle aged bloke to go, I'm gonna go and buy a BMW 7 Series.

Yeah, yeah.

And you got quite a few thousand people did it.

Yeah, totally. And if that's 140 grand a pop, you go, to me, the thing that gets me right is you go, you know, resources finite to an extent and you go, great. Imagine if that person took that 140 grand and bought a 70 grand secondhand Beamer.

Yeah.

And then, and then went and bought three. What are we left with? Sort of 23, 24 grand cars for struggling families who are two grand car, but it's costing them five grand a year in maintenance. They can't get job reliably. Imagine, imagine the impact that that 140 grand could have was broken up into chunks. And to me that's the thing. Just going, yeah, but if we're on this ladder of keeping up with Barry, who's going to the pub with us on a Friday night and I'm going to park my brand new one next to his old one or vice versa, it's just going, who is and.

What else can we do with the resource and the privilege?

So how do we get more people to think like that? Then two questions. Why do you think that way and what, what's led you to think that way? Because it's not normal. Most people would go, here's. If someone said here's 140 grand, you get to spend it on as many cars and do whatever you want with them, most people would still either buy one car for themselves or go, great, I'll buy three cars for myself. I think very few people would actually go, okay, actually yeah, what do I need? And I'm gonna go buy forecasts for some people that need them. So how do we get more people to think like that? Why do you already think like that? Where did that come from?

I reckon there's a couple of bits to it. I had one encounter when I was in Sydney and my little 20 year old brain thought that because I was from middle class Christchurch, I was middle class globally, right. And had a encounter with someone who just flicked on a light bulb for me and just completely, just challenged that with data and said, you know, you're in the top 3% of the global population with, with wealth, right? And I didn't until that point in time. And, and I was like, wow, that's, that's a responsibility, like it's a healthy burden was what I felt and going, okay, so some cosmic roll of the dice happened when I was born 42 years ago and somehow I ended up being born in St. George's Hospital in Christchurch and I could have easily been born in a field in Uganda or in, in a, in a lower decile part of this part of the country, but I wasn't, I was somehow dropped into a white middle class family and looking at that and going, I guess my revelation was that if I was born in a field in Uganda and I met myself today, what would I say to myself? What would I say with the time, the talent, the privilege that I've got should be done? And, and it wouldn't be sitting in a bog standard corporate job trying to earn as much money, trying to pay off the mortgage as quick as possible so I can buy a batch and waihee, it wouldn't be doing that. And so to me that was the burden of, of privilege and going, what, what should we do with our privilege? What's the right thing globally to do given that I've done nothing to earn my place in the world that I came into? It was just luck, a roll of the dice. What should I do there? And so that was the start of a journey for me. And I think personally, you know, it's a faith thing for me, you know, as a Christian, it's part of my ethos just to go, actually we're, we're called to look after the widows, the orphans and the poor with our time and talents. That's success from a Christian. And, and I know Christianity can get a horrible rat from, from megachurches and smoke machines and projectors.

Let's not go down that rabbit hole because that'll be a four hour podcast.

But we'll do that, we'll do the extended bonus version around that.

Yeah. But yeah, there's definitely something about my spirituality and my faith that keeps me grounded.

That all the, all the crap is just crap. It's all. And I guess once you've got an eternal view on life, you go, actually, do I need the New iPhone or can I wait six months to get, to get the next one or whatever it's going to be. It keeps things in check, keeps things in balance. And it's not perfect.

No.

So I'm not perfect. It doesn't work perfectly for me because I'm not a perfect human. So I keep dropping them, but it's just going cool. How can we continually be better and keep important things important?

Yeah, totally agree. I think, yeah, interesting. I think, yeah, it's typically there's a, there's a moment where you have, you have a moment. An epiphany. Yeah. It's like ah, I didn't know that. And I think, yeah, just I think for me that there's, there's many people who are dis eased, you know, they are dis at ease. They are sitting. One of my favorite statistics because it's so awful. It was from a YouGov survey the British government did. I think it was about 2018, around about 30% of the British population said that their job gave them no meaning and was more than likely contributing to destroying the planet. And then we wonder why there's a mental health crisis globally and we wonder why people are struggling yet those same people are more than likely then self medicating on the weekend, going out, getting drunk, binge buying, binge drinking, binge eating to try and satiate the desire that they have for meaning and purpose. Yeah. And so I think it is really the million dollar question is like, how do we get more people? And I wonder whether you can. I think, you know, there's that famous quote, you know, people, people only change when they're sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I think most people need to get to that moment of oh, this is actually really not working for me. Instead of having that more positive moment of ah, okay, because yours is quite a positive moment in many ways. It's like you didn't, you didn't go through any big challenging trauma or you know, any, any big. Which, which is quite often the path for people to have their moment. It was more of a, hey, do you realize? And so I think, yeah, curiosity, it's something as well. I think people, a lot of companies need to think about. It's like, well actually just go and have a look at how does your company operate. Like are you part of the problem? Go and have a look because someone's part of the problem, you know, so could be. You be aware of it. So yeah, so be curious. Constantly learning. Yeah, super interesting. So, so with that so you were, you've always been a person of faith, like family.

I was brought up around it. I went across college and we went to Chapman three times a week and all that sort of stuff, it wasn't packaged in a way that was relevant to me at all. And I just thought it was stuff that could be explained by science before science existed. Right, right. And so I, I'd sort of just written it off as a lovely series of traditions and stuff like that. But yeah, in, in my early 20s, it became a lot more real and, and figured out that in my view there was something there to explore. And yeah, that was just the start of that sort of journey in the second half of my time.

Nice. And so that sense of purpose and contribution, has that always been there or do you. I mean, it certainly seems like you've gone from, you know, a corporate route obviously, but again, with that lens of doing good and I think we need to unpack. There's got to be some cool stories from East Africa or some crazy places doing some insane projects. But yeah, like there does seem to be an undercurrent of that desire to do good. So where is that always been part of James Stewart or was again was that kind of instilled by parents or do you think that's just naturally who you are and you've been. Because I think it's going back to your whole, you know, people want the, you know, here's some money, go and buy a car. Instinctively, deep down, people are designed to give and contribute and, and that is for me the ultimate meaning of life. It's to know that you have been the most authentic version of you contributing to the highest level that you can. And that, that for me is the essence of true meaning and purpose on a. Not without some. Without maybe the spiritual layer on top of that. I think that's possibly connected but, but separate. I think the idea of transcendence and this is bigger than me that that links into it.

But yeah, you seem to have had that, that path all the way through. Yeah. So just trying to unpack that a little bit. So where does that come from?

Yeah, I mean I was just standard poxy kid and poxy. So there's definitely. I wasn't, I wasn't volunteering for the, for the Blind Dog association at age 4 and stuff like that. I was a self absorbed brat and it was really. Until I had that encounter I was in Sydney with a mate and, and realized that I wasn't middle class globally if I was. And so that, that was My light bulb moment at sort of 20, 20, 21.

Yeah.

And then I was like, wow, okay, so what sort of a life do I want to live? What sort of life do I want to look back on and be proud of at the end of my time? What sort of life would a Ugandan born James Stewart want a Christchurch born James Stewart to live with the opportunities that he has? So, yeah, it was, it was definitely not something from the outset, you know, in a really overt way, but it was. It's something that's definitely been fostered through. Yeah. The international development work and being around people doing that earthquake recovery work, you know, Sarah definitely wasn't perfect. Cerea wasn't perfect. But everyone there was there for the right reasons and wanted to make a difference. Yeah. So being around people and that's what I love about the social enterprise space with Jameli, is that, you know, we just don't get to work with dickheads. Like, you just don't get to that want to do community development work and see, you know, community facilities and stuff like that bubble up around them. So it's, it's a lovely filter.

Yeah. It's kind of the same with it in general, with the B corp world, it's like you've passed, you've passed the dickhead test. It's like you're clearly thinking outside yourself. So I guess. Yes, yes. That's super cool that you kind of. I guess you realize that you had this muscle that you could flex that you didn't know and sort of increasingly over time you've kind of gone, oh, hang on a minute, I can do a few more curls with this one. Oh, hang on a minute. I can now do both arms. I can do good with the work out and, and I can do good. So that's. It's kind of cool. It'd almost be interesting for you to sort of. Yeah. Just map out that, that, that journey of doing good that you've done. Yeah. Super, super cool.

Made a really good point though. That's something. And just to unpack that, though, around, you know, around. Because, you know, you talked about how, you know, X percent of people are working in jobs that they don't, don't love and aren't doing good and stuff like that. And I think there is. We're on an amazing panel with a few legends yesterday. One of them was Bridget Williams.

Yep.

And she talked about how she had gone down a path that had made her, in her words, miserable. And it wasn't until she jumped back on a path that was creative, which was her DNA and her CO p that she came alive and started loving that sort of stuff. So I think, I think the point you made is 100. Right. Right. And again, it takes a certain level of privilege to be able to have. Take that leap of faith and just quit your job and go and do the startup hustle. And I think that's an epic argument for universal basic income without, you know, getting into politics and promoting Top Vote top.

I wouldn't want to go down the angle because it's just not.

Can a political party sponsor a podcast? I'm open to offers.

This podcast is brought to you by.

But yeah, I think the underlying thing is, is that I think we're all, we've all been wired up differently. We've all got skills and passions that we are, you know, able and designed to use. And I think part of life is figuring out what that is and, and figuring out if you get stuck in a rut, how to get yourself out of there.

Well, that's, that's why I have the, the model of the rebus behind me, which is the, the symbol of Mercury, which is the golden, flitting, fleeting ideal of who you could be that's guarded by the dragon of Chaos. And to defeat the dragon of Chaos, you must combine the masculine, the feminine, the dark and the light to become the best version of you, to then, you know, give what you can give to the world. You know, that, that is why Harry Potter sold a billion copies of books. That's why Star Wars, Star Trek, like all of it, is based on that. Joseph Campbell, hero Smith, you know, but the journey to go on is the journey of self discovery. Who. Who could you be? Which is what it says, you know, basically become. Imagine who you could be and become the best possible version of that. That's, that is the journey of life, as far as I can understand it. But I think, I think it's interesting because there's this privilege, but also I see the other side. I've said this story a few times that there's a guy I know in town in Christchurch, you know, on his 16th birthday, the dad was like, great, get your gumboots on because you're working on the farm from now. You don't need to go to school anymore. And he's like, well, no, I want to stay at school because I want to go to university and do design and media. And the dad's like, well, not in this family or not. I need you on the farm. And so, you know, there's I think there's. There's. But equally, there's. There's. You know, I guess Bridget is a great example. Well, I don't know whether she was, because I don't think either of her parents were lawyers. But it's quite often, you know, there's a family tradition of lawyers, accountants, doctors. Okay. You know, you are the 10th generation of stewards to be a. To be a doctor. Therefore, you shall go to medical school. And so I think it can happen at either end of the spectrum where it's. It's what I call the tribalization process. Like, whatever your tribe tells you about who you should be, like, oh, people from this family don't do that, or people from this family have to go and do that. And all of a sudden, you're down the rabbit hole of that journey, and then you. And that was my journey. It's like, why am I here? Like, I didn't. This is not my rabbit hole. I should have been in a different one. Like, realistically, I probably should have started my first business when I was 16 because I'm fundamentally unemployable in a large company. But I was sent down this path of, you know, get a good job and do this and do that. And so, yeah, I kind of. And. And the. The universal basic income is a really interesting idea. I kind of. One theory I've had is. Is like, a group of smart people should go, right, let's. Let's just take a week, pause the world for a week. Everyone take a holiday for a week. And at the end of the week, there'll be a little note that gets pushed under everyone's letterbox that says, this is now your. Your new job. Because this is the job that we know from having you undertaken, like maybe a quick psychometric test and personality test and looked at, you know, who you should be. This is your new role. This is how much you get paid. Like, everything's just kind of been reordered and redone so that everyone gets what they. What they should be doing, but then is part of the. The excitement and journey of life, actually the fact that you need to go on that journey of discovery, which you don't get. You don't get. You know, that's where the growth is. You know, by fight. Fighting the dragon and becoming a better person and knowing, okay, send the next dragon. Like, I'm ready.

Yeah, I think you're 100. Right? And that. I think that is part of the journey. And it's. That's the thing that gives me hope. With the current generation or the current society that we're living in. As you look back at the data from, you know, 50 years ago, about the average duration of a, of a job that you were at, you know, it might have been 30, 40, 50 years, right. You, you went and worked at the pipe factory or you were a chartered accountant and you stuck at that for your life. Whereas now like the average duration, you know, I don't know, the data might be around 10 years.

Yeah.

And, and people have side hustles and some of those side hustles can take off and, and it's, it's that constant change and reinventing like you said, with the poster behind to be the best version of yourself because life is about seasons and we have different seasons to go through and you might need a good solid corporate job while the kids are, you know, there to pay the mortgage. And that's cool because the kids might be the focus. But then when they leave home and the mortgage is paid down and you don't have as much need for discretionary income, you might be able to drop to four days a week and do something else and, and do the hustle. And so that is the thing that does give me hope around society and well being is that people.

More fluid in their employment and therefore I think there's a greater chance that people will, you know, do what they love. And that's always been one of my guiding mantras is saying, you know, work a job that you love. Oh, you know, do a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life. And I feel insanely privileged to be able to, you know, on Sunday night I come into the office, have a glass of whiskey and figure out what we're going to achieve over the week and just sort of get, get all the ducks in a row and make sure the plates are lined up, spin. And I just, I just fizz like going to sleep on a Sunday night. I'm just, I'm just genuinely excited about what we're going to achieve as a team and what opportunities we're going to work on. So yeah, I'd love for everyone to be able to have that. And so yeah, the more people pushing.

The boat that way, just, just don't put your ducks on the plates because they.

Show.

Yeah, it definitely feels, I mean Bridget's a great example. You know, she, she had her first sort of side hustle. I was a men of hers when she was at uni, the 85k entree competition, the, the number of younger people as we say us middle aged blokes, the number of younger people that like you say either have a side hustle or at, you know, at university or at school. I mean as I'll give a shout out to Ewen. She's the founder of a charity. She started off by running a conference for youth by youth. She hired out the art center in Christchurch, booked a bunch of speakers. One of the best run conferences I've ever. I am seed. It was like absolutely faultless. And I was like you who's run this? Like you're just a bunch of school kids. And they were like yeah, we've just done it all ourselves. Right. I could barely tie my shoelaces when I was at school as a 16 year old. This group of 16 year olds had created a two day conference which is now in, I think it's maybe its fifth year. You know that just was not a thing. You know, it was like do you think we can go and get some cigarettes from a shop and do you think they'll ask us for id? It's like the height of entrepreneurial spirits for a teenage boy at a similar all boys school in the uk. I think my school was actually. It's like a, a brother school of Christ College. They have a program between the two for teachers and stuff. Yeah. So yeah, the future's bright hopefully. I think the, the next generation do they clear get it and they seem to be an all around more purpose driven bunch than us. So yeah, interesting to see.

I mean we're not sure what challenges are we as society environmentally and social challenges. We need to be equipping the generation of leaders and the generation of followers because we need both to understand their passions and their talents and to have those great mentors around them and to be equipped that they can follow the path of what they're. What they're stoked about was. Yeah. Imagine if we had 5 million people across the country waking up each Monday absolutely stoked about what was going to be on their plate. In general terms there's always tough times.

Yeah, totally.

Box of fluffies. But you know what that would do if everyone had harnessed what they, what they're called to do, what their passion is. It's just insanely exciting.

Yeah, what a crazy idea. It might catch on. We're trying our best. We're trying our best people.

So I guess that that kind of leads a little bit into the B corp conversation. So obviously very purpose driven from the get go. 2017. Yeah. When did, when did you first hear about B Corp.

I think B Corp was something that was sort of an underlying current.

Yeah. Over the last probably five or six years. Obviously got to know you at a few events and things like that. And for us.

I guess, I guess we, we knew we're on the path, but we didn't know how to accelerate ourselves along that path, if that's a way of framing it. And, and what, what going on the B Corp dance did for us was give us that roadmap of, Yep, there's a bunch of stuff we're doing. Tick, tick, tick. That's awesome. Here's a number. That's fantastic. It's great to have a scoring system and things like that, but to me, I guess the two most important things was going great. Well, that's lovely for where we are, but let's, let's not stop doing good stuff. What more could we do? So mapping out a roadmap of where we could go in the future was really, really cool. And then I think the second powerful thing with doing the B Corp dance was actually, it was a really, really, really good tool for inviting the team into the running of the business. So not just working on projects and stuff like that, but just going, cool, this is how it's worked out and, and this is where this thing works and this is how this thing happens. And you know, we've got a bunch of younger people on the team who were really excited about environmental stuff. And so it was just going cool. What are we doing about battery recycling? What are we doing about this? What are we doing about this? How do we know that? How are we measuring this? How do we know that what we're doing is making a difference, pay rates and relativity scales and all that sort of stuff. It was just an awesome, open, transparent exercise that absolutely pulled the team together and gave the team greater levels of buy in. So, yeah, multi, multi good.

And so it's fair to say that B Lab. So for those people who don't understand how it works, I'm pretty sure I've probably explained it on a previous episode, but we'll go anyway. So James's company is a certified B Corp. My company is a certified B Corp Corp. The companies that become B Corps are certified by an organization called B Lab. Now, it's fair to say that B Lab do not like companies talking about big. The first, the biggest, the best, what have you. However, it is fair to note because I think it, it is true to the authenticity of, of you demonstrating the good that you're doing on your two for Model. We do good with good clients and we do good internally as a business that you are, I believe, still the highest scoring B Corp in New Zealand. And Your score was 146, I think, or something. 146. Something around there which, you know, even on a global level is astounding. You know, the, the highest score you can get is 200. There is no 200 Point B Corp. I think the highest in the world is about 186. And I would suggest that it's not completely linear. Like as you get higher up it's, it is harder to lemon squeeze points at that top end. So yeah, I would say, yeah, you do it except clearly you do it exceptionally well. And I think, yeah, it was just proof, true demonstration of the good that you're doing on both sides. So go you.

That was cool process to go through and yeah, lovely to get. I mean, numbers. Just a number. But yeah, I guess it confirms and puts a bit of evidence around some of the cool stuff you're doing.

100 and of course, so I mean, because we work with you and I think what was good, again, you had your whole team come in and I think you're a smaller, smaller team, but we've had two clients we've worked with, yourself and Genora. Genora had a team of maybe about 20, 25. They again had the whole company come and do this, do the sessions and just the amount that you get out of that as a team and for the, for the, you know, you had a couple of. Well, I think you had one relatively new employee at the time and you know, for her just to be able to go, oh, okay, so this is actually, you know, the kimono is. Okay. The kimono is now off. I'm seeing everything. Okay, this is cool. And to be able to say, well, okay, what is that? And can we do this? And yeah, it's a great approach.

Yeah, yeah, it is. It's great for openness, transparency, accountability, team buy in induction, like you said. So, yeah, if anyone's considering it, absolutely dump those benefits into the hopper as well. That's fantastic.

100%. One question I actually had got for you that was just simmering in the back of my mind. So it's obviously you. You give all your profits to two not for profits. So how did you go about choosing which those not for profits are? And is it just a straight cash donation or. Because obviously with the. We can get into the weeds of B Corp a little bit. So one of the, one of the sections is the Community section and where you scored or opened up an impact business model is on this one called Designed to give. Where basically your business model is we give our profits to charity. So yeah, you just give straight cash or do you do any in kind of. And have you ever thought of. So three questions. How did you choose the charities? What do you do for them? And lastly, have you considered the option of giving ownership in the business to a charity which is one of the options around that design to give or have or even having your own foundation.

Lovely Questions how we chose them. We jumped on board with Habitat for Humanity first. A good friend of mine, Israel Cooper who runs home construction Home foundation in Kai Ora Kanga Maha. Sorry he, he had had and still has a long standing partnership with Habitat for Humanity. He was talking about the work that they do in Nepal and they can build a home with you know, couple of a couple of bedrooms, a living room and a standalone kitchen for three and a half grand with plumbed water and electricity. Wow. And that to me is an insane number because you know I remember not me and my wife having a conversation going oh outdoor furniture is looking a bit ready. Should we have a look? And you know maybe it's time for some new stuff. And then, and then all of a sudden we go wow, three and a half grand, that could build someone a home. And it just, it gives you, gives you data points to make good decisions. I'm not saying don't go and buy a new outdoor furniture thing or drive a, drive a thousand dollar car if you if that's not safe and good but get data points to inform your decisions and what's the opportunity cost of where that money could go. And so we, we joined a build team over in Nepal for a fortnight and got to help out with the build. It's an amazing pros project and process pre covered and hopefully joining another team next year as that opens up again. So that was that really got the heart going of the impact and being able to see the direct impact and I think it's one of sort of building on one of those points before around what can we do to be less materialistic and stuff like that and less keeping up with the Joneses. One of the easiest ways is to get out of town like literally get out of your suburb. Right. You know drive, drive through a lower decile suburb and see how other people live and see what the stuff that you take for granted actually is. That's amazing. Or you know when you go to Fiji for your via resort holiday hire A car for a day and cruise around the real Fiji and see what village's like and see what a difference some generosity into that world could, could look like in sharing some wealth. So, so that was how we jump on board with Habitat and then Kids can was a family connection. My sister is a media person and, and works with Kids can and through conversations with her got exposed to the amazing work and you know, hearing stories about. In winter a family sends one of their kids to school every alternate day because they've got one pair of shoes.

Wow.

And you, you literally sit there and you go for 20 bucks down at the warehouse to buy a second pair of shoes. You could double the educational outcomes of a household. Like something is broken if I can't get the 20 bucks that's sitting in my wallet to their family. And the thing that fixes that broken system is Kids Can. They are the ones that provide shoes, jackets, bags and a meal each day to kids who would often either not be at school because they don't have the kit or sitting at school with a, with a hungry belly. And my wife will tell you when I'm hungry, I'm a prick.

Just, just, just when you're hungry.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I know that I'm not my best self when I'm hungry. And so, so if we can, if we can spend a few bucks and, and give kids a breakfast of weet Bix and a lunch of eggs at school to help unlock the education outcomes that are billions of dollars worth of investment across the country. Why not? It was a real no brainer on that one there. So that was how we picked them. What was yours? What was number two and three?

So what, what do you give is it. It's a cash donation, I'm guessing because it's on the profit. Because they're probably. Yeah, it's probably not, not so much in your wheelhouse for the projects. Although I suppose Habitat for Humanity possibly they might need some advice every now and then on, on a project maybe.

With Habitat New Zealand and, and the Auckland and, and other branches and we discount our rates like we've got a full commercial charge out. Right. And we just them discount them based on their capacity and ability to pay.

Really nice. And the last question was, have you ever thought about setting up your own foundation to, to do your own stuff for you or. Yeah. Pretty. I mean that's looking, I look at like Brianne from Atique, you know, before she stepped down as CEO, they created the, the Etique Foundation. So they're just instead of them giving their money to a charity. They've got their own foundation now, so I guess they're a bit more in control as the. But I mean they're a bigger beast I guess.

And it's sort of effectively what we're doing with, with I guess a simpler structure. Like, you know, we couldn't give away a share in Gemelli because Gemelli's because of how we've designed it, we make zero profits. So it has zero value.

Right.

So it actually has. No, that's what I love about running a business that has a zero dollar value.

And so yeah, so effectively we've got a pseudo foundation inside. But yeah, at the moment we're, you know, X size, relatively small and tight. If we grew and scaled then yeah, maybe donating to a foundation and having a separate board. If that's a problem that we have in the future, I'd be delighted.

Do you make use of an accountant who gets purpose of impact? Just actually, were they kind of like, james, what are you doing? Why is this zero? Like.

What are these donations going out? You know?

Yeah.

You know the new, the new VWT ones just come in.

Yeah. You could get like five of them.

Yeah.

Was that, was that conversation you have to have or do you.

Yeah, we do. The amazing Lisa Mead at Social Currency. Who, who donates 10 of every dollar that comes in.

She gets it.

She gets it. She lives in Brisa. It's.

So yeah, if you're looking for an accountant who is A, just a legend and B does good stuff and C gets good stuff, Lisa Mead at Social Currency is definitely someone nice.

Well, as I said, Lisa, we're looking for podcast sponsors. Just said we'll get one one day. We haven't really pushed it but I, I would like to get a sponsor one day so we can just push it out to more people. I had another question for you but I've of forgotten it now. You were talking about charities, foundations, N. It's. I think it's gone. It'll possibly come back in a second. Cool. So yeah, B Corp journey, you clearly nailed it. Knocked it out the park. High scoring B Corp. Any, Any surprises or highlights? I mean other than the team. But yeah, was it, was there anything good, bad, ugly?

Talked about the benefits of it. Yeah, we've talked about the benefits of it and there are many and I definitely encourage people to, to have it with someone like yourself. We'll do some research about it. You know, it, it is an involved process. I'm not, I'm not going to jump away with that. I, I don't, I genuinely don't think we would have got there if it wasn't for you, Tim. And I'm not just saying that because you gave me a hundred bucks to say it, but I'm saying it because it, it is a lot of work. And having Tim there to be able to just go, hey, they're asking for this. What does that mean? And for you to be a translator and go, oh yeah, they're asking for this. And here's a template that 90% of the work's been done. You can just fill this in and customize it to make it your own. Took the, took the workload and shuffled it down to something way more manageable. So I'd be. I wouldn't recommend anyone do that journey on their own. I would absolutely recommend having a chat to a B Corp consultant who might have a really good podcast to help them on the journey. And whether you need this much help or this much help would be revealed through the process anyway. So, yeah, definitely worth a quarter over time to. To figure out what looks like.

Appreciate it. Money's on its way. Thank you. So. Yes. What does being a B corp mean to you now? Did it. Yeah. Does it. Do you still feel. Feel part of the community? Was it. Yeah. Did it. Was it a bit of a cherry on top? I feel like it's kind of. Like I said, it was a bit of a validation. It's like we've been, we've been talking about all this good stuff that we do, but actually.

Yeah, I think that's a big comment.

Like.

Was more of a validation of what we're doing and then a roadmap for what we could do more as opposed to a great big eureka moment for us. Because I think we were without something, Dick. We were living out quite a bit of that stuff anyway.

Yeah.

So it's just capturing it and, and chucking it into a form that could be assessed. Yeah. As opposed to changing a massive amount. We definitely did get some stuff that we could grow on in the short term through the process, but then provided that medium term roadmap was really helpful too.

Nice. And so you kind of mentioned already that you, you had. I think, I think that, you know, the balancing, doing good and making money is something that you've been navigating very well. I, I'd say. And you already mentioned about that one, that first moment when you said, actually, you know, we, we don't need your money. But yeah. Do you still have any challenges balancing purpose and profit or it feels like you've got it pretty well balanced. But yeah, how does that crop up? What are the sort of challenges that you face?

Yeah, it's absolutely a challenge.

Yeah.

I mean, I mean we, we give away 100 of our profits but let's not beat around the bush. I could pay myself 800 grand and not have any profit to give away.

Exactly.

And buy the new VWT one times a few.

Right.

So, so I could game the system and, and that's where it came back to, you know, that point of each, each year, at the start of each year, my wife and I have a really real honest chat about what we genuinely need. And, and, and you know, we, we have a sensible budget, not a grandiose budget but not a, a ramen noodles budget. And to us that's, that's where the tension sits on a personal level which feeds into, into the, into the business side of things. You know, our interest rate like everyone else's has done and, and we didn't need as much money before as we do now and we're going, what does that mean? How, you know, how does that work? So we've had to have some tough conversations around purpose and impact and profit around that and, and yeah, it's, it's, it's always a challenging one. You know, when we're writing a proposal for someone who's a charity, how do we, how, you know, because we know that they're on a bare bones budget as well. Likely. So how, how far do we discount our rates?

Yep.

Because every, you know, in order to make. Because every dollar we charge is taking a dollar from their kitty. Yeah, but every dollar we don't charge is taking a dollar from kids can and habitats kitty. So there is absolutely attention here.

And so it's, it's, it's, it's a really interesting one. I haven't got an eloquent answer. I think it comes down to a feel for what's right, what is fair. We've still got to run a business at the end of the day it's still got to be financially sustainable. We've still got to pay our staff well and recognize that they aren't charities, that they want to do good work. But you know, we don't want to destroy poverty with our clients and also have our staff working for minimum wage when they are worth a lot more than that and are adding a lot more value than that. So there are, yeah, it's, it's a really, it's a constant assessment of trade offs that we Just keep waiting our way through having wise counsel around us to bounce these things off. That's where the Bight community is. Cool. Because you've got a bunch of people facing the same issues and you're going, yeah, how do you, how do you done this? Yeah, yeah.

It sounds like you've got a good balance though between, because you're obviously clearly very data numbers driven human but you've got that counterbalance of the literal, the spiritual metaphysical purpose which, which I think is a very rare combination because I think people typically are either very data driven, which I would say more so, which is where the modern world sits. It's about data science, rational, you know, do, just do the thing that looks like it makes the most sense and we've quite, we're quite disconnected from that spiritual metaphysical gut feeling. It's the right thing to do. And I think you're a great example of how actually you can put, you can put the two together and, and dare I say it, you know, with the model behind us, we need that too at, you know, atonement, at one month, we need that to be together. So we go, well yeah, there's a rational component to it but humans are not rational beings. You know, we, we, we're driven by emotion but we defend on logic. So. But we seem to be told to make all our decisions on logic and don't think about the, the woo, woo, you know, feeling side of it.

It.

And dare I say, I think that that's possibly where business over the last hundred years has increasingly lost its way because it's, it's just. What are the numbers say? What do the numbers say? A bloke with an MBA with a spreadsheet, put it at this price, sell that many, we're all doing great. Instead of. Yeah, but what does that mean to the people who are buying it or what does it mean to the people who are making it? And yeah, that's why we're here.

Yeah, no, it's, it's a really, it's a really valid point. I mean to me my faith is, it's a, it's an everyday thing. And so you know, just, just being guided and, and knowing what the right thing to do is, getting a sense of what the right thing to do is can balance. You know, you've got, you've got wisdom on one hand and you've got faith on the other and it's, and it's figuring out where they interact and how they interplay. Yeah, it's a delicate balance. I don't get it right all the time. But it's trying to be.

No, it does. I mean it's an interesting, I guess with the, the overarching kind of culture wars that seems to be more hitting America, I'd say than perhaps New Zealand and maybe even the uk Although with an election coming up in the next, well, 10 days less than that.

I'd say traditionally most people would see Christian people as typically more right leaning people, conservative, with both a big C and a little C. It's about maintenance of tradition and belief in higher authority, bit of hierarchy. And then the left I guess is increasingly, you know, you just do you and you, you literally be whoever you want to be. But I, I do wonder whether there is a middle ground of this spiritual almost like spiritual based capitalism because sometimes it feels with the, with the, and I would say I've generally been a more left leaning person more recently, but it does feel that there's some instances where we are maybe getting too captured with ideology that is unfounded in really anything. And I do wonder. It's an interesting journey that I'm kind of going on just to sort of work out. I think the more you go on the purpose journey, the more you come to the realization that there possibly has to be a bigger force that you don't understand as you just connect to more of this crazy stuff. And I just, yeah, I think it's interesting because I think it would be interesting to poll the global B corp community and see how many identify as being religious, spiritual or you know, faith based. Because I, I, I know that. I've spoken to you. I know Daniel from Gravity Labs, a very faith based guy. That's how he kind of very similar journey to you, like worked in East Africa. You guys should, I should connect you two guys if you're not already connected. Very, very similar backgrounds. Like the, the idea of doing good is a core part of who you, who you kind of now are. It would be interesting to sort of poll the global B corp community and see what their beliefs are around religions because I would suggest it's, it's minority. But it's interesting that two very high scoring B corps are run by faith based guys. Yeah, it's just like interesting just trying to work out just oh, how does this all come together? Like what, what is it? What does almost like, like I guess in my mind it's like what does the perfect business CEO, what do they need to look like for them to maximize the good that they can do? And it's like, well it's Interesting. Two very high scoring B corps, both faith based white guys.

Yeah.

Well, you know, is that a thing or, you know, I don't know. Just. It's just curious.

Yeah. And it would be, it would be really interesting overlay to Chuck political leaning over that as well.

Yeah, yeah.

Just to go, cool, where do we sit? Because yeah, the, the noisy Christians politically are absolutely right. Leaning right. You know, they're very conservative and they make a lot of noise, but increasing. We're not even increasingly. But definitely the people of faith that are surrounding me are absolutely far more concerned about the poor and the environment and social justice. And they're not the ones that are jumping up and down the table about our freedoms being taken away. They're going, well, there's a bunch of people that have had their freedoms being taken away. Let's go and make sure the needs of the widows, the orphans and the poor and the environment that we're meant to be stewarding, that's all looked after. But I think that's a smaller. It's almost like an underground movement in the sense there's people just doing their thing.

They're not proselytizing all the time and trying to ram religion down your throat. They're just doing the thing that they're called to do, that they love to do. And to me, that is super exciting and super dangerous knowing that these little weapons, you know, doing epic stuff in their community and just doing things for the right reasons. It's super cool.

Was it, I think Naomi Klein described. It's a word or phrase she used. The non mainstream masses. It's just such a cool descriptor. It's like there is this mass of people that are not mainstream, that aren't on the news, that aren't. Yeah. In your Twitter feed or Facebook feed or Twitter book, whatever it is that you're on, who are just getting on and changing the world. Yeah, that's.

Yeah, I think that is the thing that will, you know, I mean, a lot of people are going, cool, you know, because I'd love to love, I'd love to be able to have a right wing view. Right. You know, I'd love to be able to believe that neoliberalism. Neoliberalism actually works when there's no data that says it does. Right. And please send me data if you can show that it works. If things actually trickle down, because there isn't any that I've seen. I'd love to view that. But you know, I think it's one of those things where.

You know, it's, it's. People are saying, well, what's going to replace capitalism with what's coming after that? And I, I genuinely don't think that there is something that's going to replace capitalism. I think capitalism is the most efficient mechanism to allocate goods and services for, for a profit. I think what we need to do is refine and redefine what profit is. It's not just a financial return, it's also a social and an environmental and a cultural return. Because when we start thinking about return as being more than financial return in a business and also as a personal consumer, then actually we are going to buy the hand wash that actually donates to this environmental cause or doesn't use this sort of supply chain thing or as a B corp, you know, or we're going to, you know, use the, these, this paper in our photocopy at work and stuff like that. So I think it's, I think it's, it's the rise of the conscious consumer, which I'm genuinely excited about, is people being able to vote with their dollar. And if people haven't read Daniel Flynn's book, Chapter one for your. Thank you. To me, that's the. Yeah, he's an awesome guy with an epic faith who came up with a creative idea to do stuff different and created a movement. To me, that's the, that's how we're going to transform society is voting with our wallets, letting the free market dictate whether they want to just be a driven entity or they actually want to create good in their worlds.

Yeah, I think that that profit, the profit versus profiteering, I kind of feel that that's sort of like differentiation. It's like, well, yes, you need to make a profit to pay everyone. But, but yeah, I think that this is where you get down the rabbit hole of, you know, the stock market shares. And then I've just been started watching the, the documentary about Bernie Madoff and how, you know, you know, the literal Ponzi schemes. You can see how.

Well I've got the intention of writing a book around, you know, purpose in business. And having got a degree in history, wouldn't call myself an historian, although technically I could have got a degree in it. I always like to go, well, where's this thing come from? And it's interesting because when you read Adam Smith's original texts, you know, and he talks about the baker, the candlestick maker, you know, yes, they're providing a service, but the service was actually very purposeful. It's like if the candlestick maker doesn't make the candles, then people don't have light at night time to be able to eat and communicate and sit around and do stuff or walk out to the toilet, which undoubtedly would have been in the, in the back garden. Whereas now we have things like the pooch selfie and various other products that they're just trying to make you buy the thing. And there is no innate purpose. So yeah, I think the, the, the origins of capitalism and mercantilism and, and trading what was, was way more noble, I think, than what we've ended up with. And I think it's, yeah, it's, it's. And I think we're all part of this movement of trying to make that go well, hang on a minute. Actually, you can do good and do well. You can do well and do good, you know, at the same time. And, and you don't actually need to have 10 VW Tig ones. Whatever it is we're buying when we go shopping later on, it's all a lie. James and I are actually going to go blow the rest of his profit this year on a couple of really flash Beamers.

But yeah, I think this is all part of the thing that we're, you know, and I don't think like. You think. Yeah, I don't think anyone really knows what this, what the next iteration is going to look like. But I think the B corp movement is all a part of that. Doing good. And you know, you could almost argue the Gemelli experiment of what happens if we give away all our profit, you know. Well, you've proven that a small consulting firm based at the bottom of the planet can do that. And you're doing okay, your team's doing okay. Okay, well, so is that now, should that now be the model that PwC and all those companies should adopt? Clearly they could, you know, 100.

Yeah. And so what's, what's stopping them, I guess is the question whether you're a small, medium or large enterprise.

Yeah.

You know, it's always a bit trickier when you've got an existing shareholding structure in there because you know, you can't, I mean, but yeah, I mean, to me it's one of those things. It's far easier to start up with a blank bit of paper.

Yeah.

Turn into a billion dollar unicorn later on. All of a sudden you've got the framework that's there. That doesn't change whether you turned over ten grand or a billion. You know, you've got the foundations There. So I think that's where the opportunity is to get the new disruptors in.

Nice. So, last couple of questions then, finishing up. So looking into the future, 10 years into the future, what do you think the, what does the B corp movement look like for you?

I'd love it to be normal. I'd love it to just be. Oh cool.

Are you saying we're not normal?

No, we're completely abnormal.

I think it's fair to say we're probably both a little bit abnormal, but I'm cool with that. Yeah. Nobody know what you mean.

Yeah, yeah, it would be, it would be lovely if it was, you know, if it was just. The dumb thing is that you got your accreditation and there was just expected of you. Your employees were demanding it, your suppliers and customers were demanding it and you as a business owner knew that it was the right thing to do. So yeah, normal would be lovely.

Nice. It, definitely it, I mean it. The trend certainly feels like it's heading in that direction. Yeah. So yeah, no, I tend to agree. And what's, what's coming up in the future for Gemelli? Anything new and exciting? Any cool projects? Yeah. What does the future look like for you? Just more of the same, doing more good. Maybe becoming a 180 point B corp. Who knows?

Maybe.

Yeah, no, we're just, yeah, we've. We've just got a really cool cluster of clients on at the moment, doing a lot of work around, you know, feasibility studies for community centers and things like that across the country. Which is, which is just great. You know, community housing is still going strong across the country, so still a lot of feasibility work there and doing a lot of work in the impact investment fund design space as well. And that's really used taking capital and dedicating that capital to doing good stuff. And typically around housing in the young impact investment sector that we have, so there's a lot of great impact investment funds doing social housing work. No one's doing anything in the affordable housing, whether it's affordable rentals or progressive homeownership, getting people into, into their own homes and that requires capital. And so we're working with a couple of great. One main community housing provider that's a leader in the space about giving them some bandwidth and capital to basically put their work on steroids and give a homeownership journey to hundreds and hundreds of people across the country.

Man, if you just have that done by Tuesday, that'd be great.

Man. I. Super cool. You know, you're genuinely just a stellar company doing really cool stuff and it's been great to get to know you more over the last couple of years. Yeah, I would because when I first came across Jim Elliott I was kind of like is this guy, is this guy real? It just, I just get the fit, you know, I kind of, I just feel like you're probably just charging lots of money to do some stuff with numbers. But yeah, get. Getting to know you and getting to literally see under the business and just, just you know, you don't become the, the highest scoring B corp. Not allowed to say it. You don't become the highest scoring B corp in a country without generally doing some good. So massive thanks to you, to the mahi you're doing. You're genuinely just a beacon, you know like I say, because you're a small business. Like if, if you, if a small business can do it, there's no excuse for big businesses that have got. Because big businesses have got time, they've got money, they've got resource, they've got people, they've got. You know, you're a small business and, and you're doing it. So yeah, no, and I think you'll look back with a big glass of whiskey in 20 years time and go, yeah, that was a pretty decent ride and I think we did some pretty cool stuff. So yeah man, go you.

I look forward to sharing that glass of whiskey with you in 20 years time.

Sounds like a plan on Mars probably.

I don't want to go to Mars. Cool. All right, mate, well thank you so much for your time. We'll. Well, we should, we should catch up for a whiskey soon. It's been too long. Right mate, Pleasure. See ya.

Hey, it's Tim here, that B Corp bloke from Grow Good. If you want more content on purpose, B Corp. How to do more good in the world as an individual or a business, then you know the drill. Hit the like and subscribe. Check out some of our other videos. They're probably floating around here somewhere. You know how it works. Thank you so much. See you next time.