Partnering the Virgin Way with Jean Oelwang

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book, Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life, nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. In every episode, I bring you an inspiring leader or expert to help you lead your life and business on purpose. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

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I'm incredibly excited to welcome this week's special guest, Gene Owang. Gene is the founding CEO and president of Virgin Unite, an entrepreneurial foundation that builds collectives, incubates ideas and reinvents systems for a better world. Over the last 15 years, she has worked with partners to lead the incubation and startup of several global initiatives including the Elders, the B Team and the Carbon War Room. She has also played a key partner role in the incubation of many other initiatives such as the Audacious Project. As part of her work over the last three decades, Jean has helped corporations put the well being of people and the planet at their core, including working with over 25 Virgin businesses across 15 industries. Jean spent 18 years living and working on six continents and recently she has wrote the amazing book called Partnering. It's all about forging the deep connections that make great things happen. Please sit back and enjoy the show.

Gene, a massive welcome to the Lead On Purpose podcast.

Thank you James and thanks for all you're doing with this podcast.

I'm so glad to Connect with you. You're such an incredible human. You're continuing to do incredible things around the world. And I just. I want to spend today diving into to your amazing book and the work that you do at Unite, and also what got you to this point, but just to get the ball rolling, so to speak. When you think of leadership, what comes to mind?

Yeah, I think, James, we often mistakenly think both of leadership and purpose almost as a solo endeavor, when in reality, some of the best leaders I've ever seen, some of the most successful people, it's not about their skills or their experience, it's about their ability to partner. So I almost feel like we need to redefine partnership or redefine. I almost think we need to redefine leadership to be more about partnership, about collective, because I think the best leaders also have what I guess I would call shared humility or informed confidence where they realize that they don't have all the skills, they don't have all the experience. They need others to help work with them to fill those gaps, and so they go out and find those others, and they also lead from a point of service rather than control. And also, I would say some of the very, very best leaders are the ones that also use their voice to stand up for unacceptable issues. So they don't just sit back and watch what's happening. They stand and they leaned into it if there's something unacceptable happening. And I think what I've seen work brilliantly is when you get an amazing collective of leaders together, they kind of each take turns in that leadership role based where their strengths are. And, you know, if a collective of leaders sets the right kind of intoxicating purpose, the right set of incredible virtues, and also then just almost gets out of the way. I mean, we call our leadership the ctr, which is basically stands for Clearing the Runways. And so that we are there really to clear the runways for the great people that work in the Virgin UNITE team.

Wow. I love that CTR clearing their runways. That's really powerful.

Yeah, it's been amazing. And it just. It puts you in a different frame of mind when you're working with your team of thinking about, okay, it's not my job to do their job, it's my job to figure out what are the barriers they're facing, what are the things stopping them from doing their jobs, and how can we help break down those barriers so that they can fly and deliver and really have meaningful, purposeful work?

That's so powerful. And when I think of a collective of leaders Doing incredible things. I came across this maybe about five, six, seven years ago, the Elders. And I started to understand who the Elders were and what it was all about. So please tell me about your role with the Elders and your experiences of being around the Elders.

Yeah, and I firstly, I just feel so honored and privileged to have worked with them now coming on 18 years. And this was an idea that my boss, Richard Branson, and Peter Gabriel, the musician, had. And they came together and they went to Nelson Mandela and his amazing wife Grasse, who decided that they would found the Elders, which is a group of leaders, really, that came together to work on behalf of humanity with no other agenda. Humanity and the planet. And so they do things like work behind the scenes on conflict resolution. They stand up for unacceptable issues like ending child marriage or climate justice, or helping stop nuclear threats, or helping look at how we can address pandemics in a fair way, globally, for everyone. And so it started 18 years ago. And when we first started at James, we thought that each Elder would probably give like maybe a day or two their time per year. But what's been beautiful is to see the friendships form in this group. And there's usually somewhere between 12 to 15 elders. And in the beginning, it was people like, obviously Nelson Mandela and Grassa, but also Archbishop Tutu and Kofi Annan and President Carter and Mary Robinson is the incredible chair now. And with people like President Santos from Colombia, President Zedillo from Mexico, Banki Moon, who is the former Secretary General of the UN and it's just this extraordinary collective of friends who work together and in pairs to really stand up against unacceptable issues. And I feel so blessed to have had the chance to work with them.

It's amazing. Yeah. The work that they've done. And as you say, it's often in the background, it's silent. It's. It's just. They're not trying to shout from the rooftops. It's really incredible what they've achie achieved. It's phenomenal.

Yeah. And that's the beauty of all of them. You know, I. They completely changed my life because I remember when I first started helping incubate them because Virgin Unite, the not for profit of the Virgin Group, we helped to incubate the Elders with a whole group of extraordinary partners and then spin it out to become independent. So it has no other biases. But I remember sitting at the feet of these extraordinary leaders, and many of them were my heroes in life. So I was trying to find. Figure out how they became who they were in the world. And what became very clear very quickly is that they were who they were because of the incredible relationships they had shaped and nurtured around themselves. Whether it was with each other, whether it was with their friends, their family, the other people they worked with, they were who they were because of those partnerships. And they had that humility to understand that they needed one each other, they needed each other to really deliver. And you know, Archbishop Tutti used to always call it Ubuntu, which is this beautiful African word that means I am because you are. And I think as human beings, we've come so far away from Ubuntu because we've been pushed into this world of hyper individualism and we've lost that connection to one another. And working with the elders has reminded me of the importance of that and the importance of those partnerships and relationships for a meaningful, purposeful life.

So powerful. Now, Ubuntu, it's really interesting. A lot of sports teams, the Proteas are a great example. Actually, the South African cricket team really embraced the idea of Ubuntu when they went from the Springboks and changed their identity to the Proteas being all inclusive post apartheid. It's a beautiful concept. And I agree. I think more of us could be embracing that as cultures, communities, nations.

Yeah. And also as companies and in the organizations we shape. I think we've created these structures right now that have actually in our businesses, they incentivize us to hoard information. They incentivize us to be the one that has to win. In the company, they incentivize us on individual achievement. And it's the same thing like if you think about in school, you know, from the very time we are born, almost, we're taught we have to get the gold star, we have to be the one that wins, we have to be the superhero. And I can remember I spent much of my life in corporate America. And I remember my first very well intentioned boss gave me two books when I first started. The first one was Corp was the Art of War on how to survive in corporate America. And the second one, just in case I didn't make it in the war that was corporate America was the Joy of Cooking. So that I had this second path to become Betty Crocker if I didn't make it to corporate America. And this kind of set me on this trajectory that I was determined I was going to prove as a female that I could break through many glass ceilings and not have to use weapons of mass destruction or learn how to Cook. But I found, James, that the higher I got up, the more I felt less and less myself and more and more alone. And I had to almost relearn how to partner and how to collaborate. And I think that's true for many of us as individuals because we're pushed into this hyper individualism 100%.

And the whole idea of partnering is, to me, so crucial to a lot of the successes we've seen at geopolitics over the years. So Nelson Mandela, arguably one of the greatest at partnering. I would love to have met him. I've read a lot about Mandela. I think he's an incredible leader. But I think the partnerships that he formed pre Robben island, on Robben island, towards the end of his tenure, just before he got out, and then when he got out, the partnerships he formed really transformed the nation. And when I think of my own little country of Northern Ireland, he had a massive impact in our political scene there as well. So let's talk a little bit about partnering and what that means to you. What's the definition from your end when you think of partnering?

Yeah, I mean, for me, partnering is the path to a meaningful, purposeful life. And it is the richness that comes when two people or multiple people come together with often radically different skill sets to achieve something that's way bigger than themselves. And to me, that's the kind of ultimate definition of a successful partnership. And, you know, you talk about Mandela. I think one of the things he was beautiful at is he was A, he was very consistent, no matter who he was standing in front of and speaking to. B, he kind of always had, in the back of his mind, he had millions of partners because he always spoke on behalf of people at a village level. So he always lifted their voices. Rather than coming from a place of self interest, it was always about the people at the village level. So he had millions of partners constantly traveling with him. But see, I think one of the things that was just so beautiful about him, which is something I think, particularly living in America right now, is he had this ability to put himself in relationships that were uncomfortable. He had the ability to go out and find partners that unsettled him. But he knew if together, they could achieve something much, much, much greater. And I think, you know, one of the things that I find right now, particularly in America, is we. We've lost that ability to disagree without being disagreeable. And he mastered that. The ability to hold the space of respect, even though we had very different opinions and still work together to achieve an extraordinary outcome. And I think that's one of the things that's missing from our ability in the world right now to, to partner. I think that's one why we stop from partnering sometimes is we don't want to feel uncomfortable. We don't want to be in a position where we have to listen to someone else's opinion that may be radically different to ours. And therein we're losing out tremendously because we're not seeing things from different perspectives and thinking of third way solutions that may be way better than ours.

Yeah. So powerful. And I've got a little six year old boy, Finn, and I think about what are the lessons and the values I want to impart with that little rascal of mine. And partnering, I think is so important and him learning to work with others and through others. So how do you think we can start this idea and concept of really healthy partnering at a young age, right, with our kids?

Yeah. And this is a question I posed to myself when. And one of the most important things actually is what you're doing right now is parenting and partnering with your children and their growth. But I pose this question to myself when I watch the Elders was how do we build these deep connections in our own lives that are going to make us the very best possible version of ourselves and allow us to have impact, positive impact on others? And so what I did some 15 years ago, because I knew I didn't have the answer to that question, so I sat at the feet of 65 of some of the world's greatest partnerships, all kinds, friends, romantic business, family partnerships. And what was super beautiful is what I started to see almost immediately, from the time I started to interview these partnerships was these beautiful patterns emerged and they were consistent no matter what type of partnership they were. And within this group, they had about 1500 years of partnership experience, which is way greater than mine. So this, this wisdom is really theirs. But we created out of their wisdom, we coded all the transcripts. And I used to drive my husband crazy because he'd come home and I had all these things all over the walls. But what we created, these six degrees of connection that were really clear, it was, you know, in your partnerships having that something bigger, that intoxicating purpose. And it didn't need to be necessarily always a shared purpose. It could be with your partner helping each other toward their, their individual purpose, but then creating these, this beautiful concept of how you go all in, how you have each other's backs 100% of the time and how you do that by creating this Ecosystem of virtues and very similar virtues came out in these interviews as well, with respect, equality, belief at the very top. But then the two things that I hadn't did that were really interesting. One was what we ended up calling magnetic moments, which was really thoughtful. Rituals and traditions. Like with your son right now, Finn, you know, thinking about what, what are you doing each. Each day, each year? What are the daily practices that he's going to remember for years and years to come? Like I can remember with my father, you know, he took me. He was a lobster fisherman part time, and he took me in the boat every night. And, you know, those are memories that I'll never forget. But what are those rituals and daily practices that keep you. And then the other one, which is so important because I can guarantee everyone that is listening to this right now has had some type of friction in their relationships. And what these partnerships figured out how to do is celebrate friction, to turn those moments into something that wasn't. Wasn't something that depleted you, but was something that, what they call the sparkles helped you learn something new about yourself. And then this concept of how do you ladder these deep connections into collective connections?

Those principles are timeless. And what I love about that is that you looked at it across so many different sectors, you know, with intimate relationships and partnerships to business, to philanthropy. It's incredible that you've seen all these patterns emerge across all different types of partnership.

Yeah. And that was. That's a super interesting thing, James, because I think that we often, we often box ourselves into, this is a friendship, this is a romantic relationship, this is a business relationship. And we don't realize that it's actually the same tools, the same practices, the same skills that make all of those relationships successful in our lives or not successful. And so I think we've been pointed in this direction to think that the like, I remember, you know, when I was working in corporate America, people saying to me, you can't be friends with the people you work with. You have to keep a distance. You have to. You know, that is so outdated now. You can see how old I am. But I still see that sometimes in companies right now where people are feeling like they have to be the boss, they have to be the one that dictates everything to everyone. When the real richness comes, when you allow yourself to build those deep connections with the people that you work with, no matter where they sit in the organization, and that's where you're going to learn, you know, it's like a mirror to yourself as well. On what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong. And a lot of the times, it's my teammates that are the ones that show me what I'm doing very wrong and that can have that honesty discussion with me rather than my peers or someone that's my boss.

I love it. And in terms of your experience there at Virgin, so you're at Virgin Unite, and you run the Virgin Unite ship right now. But where did your Virgin experience begin?

Hey, James here. I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about something. Look, I get asked to deliver keynotes and workshops for teams and companies all over the world, from London to Antarctica, from America to Australasia, from armies to small businesses to large corporates to sports teams. But I go in and deliver keynotes around the mindset of high performers, around the habits of high performers, about how we navigate change. If you would like me to come and speak to your team or speak at your conference or deliver a bespoke workshop, please get in touch with my team. Carolinejlochlan.com will be able to help. I'll also make sure that we put that in the show notes.

Yeah. So I. I spent much of the first 18 years of my career helping build and start up mobile phone companies in different countries. So I was actually in Australia working for a company called Optus, a telecommunications company. And then I left because I wanted to work for the National Parks and Wildlife. So I was working for the National Parks and Wildlife, and I got a call from Virgin saying, would you come and help us start up a mobile phone? So I did that for a few years. And then I happened. Richard Branson, my boss now, was on my board in Australia, and I happened to be in a car. He never came to any board meetings, by the way. I can't remember why not sitting in a board meeting, not once.

So I love it.

Board meetings. But I did. I was traveling with him once and I overheard him in the car saying, oh, I'm trying to think about how I can do more from an impact perspective and thinking of creating a foundation. And so I scurried home and built a plan. Because my kind of passion has always been, how do you change the way business not for profit and government work together? So I built this plan, and one of my great board members, Gordon McCollum, sent it to him with me. And then I got a call from Richard, and I'll never forget standing in my house in. In Roselle in Sydney, and we went through the plan, and at the end he said, let's do this. And I hung up the phone and I did a massive dance around the house. And then within, you know, a few months, I was moving to London and we were starting Virginia. And that 18 years ago now, that is so inspiring.

Now, not everyone would have heard that conversation of him saying, I want to make more of an impact. And they would have went and been inspired to take action. Where did that come from? What led you to be that person who hears something, the spark lights, and you just take action?

Yeah, I think, James, by that time, I had such a fire in my belly because I had, during my career, kind of taken what I would call disruptive detours. And so when I was working for a television company in America, I left and became a domestic Peace Corps volunteer in something called vista, working with homeless teens in Chicago. And I remember working with these young folks and just A, firstly, just being outraged that thousands of young people were living homeless on the streets, like as young as 13 years old. But B, thinking, my God, how broken our systems are. Government, business, not for profit, that we're letting all these children fall through the cracks. So that was kind of the start of my obsession with how do we fix the way we approach problems in the world. And then I remember in South Africa, we were there building a mobile phone company, and we launched prepaid services. We were one of the first prepaid companies in 1995. And I remember our sales. We made our annual sales target in one month. And I remember going into the townships and seeing all this, like, unbelievable brilliance of entrepreneurship. People were selling phones out of trailers. They were selling phones out of briefcase or selling calls out of briefcases, cases because of the prepaid tool. And so both of those things have put a fire in my belly thinking, okay, business has some solutions to how we lift people out of poverty. We're not doing this right as government, not for profits and businesses. And we're seeing all these social issues repeat all around the world. So how do we all come together? So by the time I overheard Richard talking about wanting to start a foundation in the car, my belly was so on fire about how we change those systems that I couldn't not, not, not do it, if that makes sense. I went home and I was like, I have to. This is like the thing that I live for and dream about every day. And for the last 18 years, I've got up every morning with that fire in my belly still. And I just again, feel so blessed that I did go home and build that plan. So anyone that's watching Right now, A, eavesdropping is fantastic. Learn a lot from it. So. So don't miss those moments. But B, when you hear something that lights your soul on fire, just do it. Just take the chance. And the worst thing can happen is that it doesn't happen, but then you try again.

It's incredible. And just to think, I guess, for a moment about Richard, what is it like to have someone like that as your boss or your mentor and imagine a friend as well. What impact does he have on your mindset and the way that you operate in your work world?

Yeah. And firstly, I just want to say a big thanks to him because he had belief in me back then, you know, 18. Well, 22 years ago when I came into his mobile phone company, but 18 years ago, and he really trusted me to get this thing off the ground, and I will forever be thankful for that. And so, again, anyone that's listening right now that's in a position where they can help lift someone. Yeah. Think about it and think about how you can do that every day in your career. Careers. And he. He's been an amazing, amazing boss and partner to me over the years. And, you know, some of the things I've learned from him I'll never forget. The first thing I learned from him was when we first launched Virgin Mobile in Australia. You know, I was marketing director at the time we launched. And so we had him there to help us do the launch. And so we were sitting in this big boardroom after the launch, waiting for him to come into the room, and he never showed up.

Up.

And so we were like, where did he go? You know, what happened to him? And so then we eventually found him sitting in the customer service team with a headset on, listening to customer calls and talking to the customer service reps. And then eventually he came into the room with us and he had a list of 10 things that we had done wrong that we needed to fix. And they were informed by the customers and by our customer service reps. So the first. First lesson I learned very quickly was how to deeply listen and listen to the right people, not the ones that we think we should be listening to. And probably a second thing I learned from in my life is just to go big, you know? You know, people joke because we're both people that say yes all the time now. And I definitely learned that from him and that nothing's impossible and you need to make sure that you take those opportunities in those moments and don't listen to the word no. You know, think about, okay Is there a better way that we can get around this? Is there an entrepreneurial lens that we can put on on this? And I think thirdly, probably one of the biggest things he's taught me is the importance of joy. And I can remember James, when I first started working for Richard, I'd come from corporate America and besides my little stint with the national parks and wildlife and Neon street, and I thought, you know, to be productive you have to start at, you know, 8:00am in the morning and go all the way through to the evening and be productive every minute. And I remember the first gathering we did, he just took my little agenda and ripped it up into pieces and he said, no way. He said, you know, we're going to work from 9am to noon, but then we're going to play the rest of the day. And, you know, I learned that lesson from him right away that the richness and the depth of connection happens in those moments of moments of play and connection with people. And it was one of the most important lessons that I learned.

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It's funny, as soon as you said that, I had this feeling inside me like, I want more of that. I want more play in life. You know, business can sometimes get very serious and sometimes, you know, very almost stale. But to have play involved in business, it's just. It makes it so much richer.

Yeah, I think I agree with you right now. I think the world is lacking in joy and play and lightness and love, and we don't think of those things often associated with business. But I can tell you from my experience over the last 22 years, having those things weave throughout makes people way more productive because they love work, then they want to come in every day they feel part of something that's bringing them life and joy rather than feeling part of, you know, like a number on a spreadsheet. And that joy and holding that space for joy. Now, that doesn't mean that people aren't accountable and they don't have to deliver, but it means you can do it with a sense of happiness and a sense of loving what you do rather than dreading coming in on a Monday morning.

Yeah, there's nothing worse. I think we've all been in positions where Sunday evening or afternoon, we're starting to feel that anxious belly.

Yeah. And I mean, you must just love what you do because you get to talk to so many different people and listen and learn from them. And I think it's. It's finding those spots like you've obviously found what you love in life. And I think that's another thing with people. They sometimes think they have to sit in this position because they need the job, they need the income. But creatively thinking about either in that role or figuring out something that makes your heart sing because, you know, we spend 30% of our time at work. And right now, the latest Gallup poll shows that 79% of people at work are miserable or unhappy in their work. So that means that only 21% of us come into work happy. And so that's not only an obvious unhappiness and loss for 79% of the world's population, it's also a massive loss for the world. Because can you imagine if we flip that upside down and 80% of people came into work that was purposeful, meaningful, joyful, what a different world we would live in. Because I think that's one of the problems, why have so many of these issues like inequality, the climate crisis, is because we're not actually leveraging 79% of the population that could have impact through their work.

It's so important to have that conversation. And I think that's where great leaders will come in and help people. You know, Simon Sinek, I've seen that you connected with Simon recently and he's just an amazing human at helping people uncover what purpose looks like and how to follow that and how to really live by that. So in your experience as a leader, how do you help your people and your team really find their purpose within their work?

Yeah, I think the first thing is treating them as partners and as equals and treating them with the dignity and respect and the trust and trusting them. And once you hold that space of trust, then they're going to feel much more open to share with you what's in their heart and what their desires are and what they want from their lives. Lives. And I think if you don't have that as a starting point in a grant, you know, almost like a framework and a foundation, it's really hard for people to be honest with you about what they want beyond their day to day work. And then once you have those conversations with them and figure out how you can help them get to that point, and that may be in the work, so it may be helping them find that purpose through what they're doing every single day. We're very lucky at Virgin Unite that, you know, the work we do every day is get. We get a chance to make a difference as much as we possibly can in whatever small way. And so we're very fortunate that that's kind of embedded what we do. But you can do that in every single company you can think about. You know, maybe it's someone's purpose. Like my dad's purpose was to bring joy and opportunity into every person's life he connected with. So what is that for understanding and listening to what their purpose is and then finding a pathway either within your company or them. For example, it may be that they want to do something more in their community. So is there a way you can help them carve out time? Like we had this amazing woman in our team who was from Ukraine when the war started and so we helped her carve out time so she Wasn't working full time for a while so that she could step in. And she did amazing work volunteering on the ground in Ukraine. So I think it's being flexible and kind of understanding that that person is a human and a whole human, rather than just the bit that you see at work and figuring out how you build around that. And I can guarantee those people will then be even more committed to what your purpose is as an organization. And I think the last thing that I found really clearly in these interviews that I did is really communicating that intoxicating purpose in a beautiful way that people want to run behind. And, you know, we saw that with Mandela, with ending apartheid. We saw that with the community that protected the ozone layer, or the community that ended smallpox in India. And we see that in our companies. You know, if you like, when we were building the Elders, we had. We were all so deeply. We had such a strong belief, we were so deeply into it. And we, you know, just wanted to run into work to make sure that we got this thing into the world. So I think it's thinking about how you communicate and how you shape those purposes as well.

And I've never heard anyone use that word, that intoxicating vision. To me, that's just so compelling and exciting. So at Virgin Unite, what is that intoxicating vision that really inspires you and your team? What are you working towards?

Yeah, so our intoxicating purpose is really to never accept. Sorry. Our intoxicating purpose is to never accept the unacceptable and make sure that we're changing unacceptable issues and systems for good. And we wanted to have a broad intoxicating purpose like that, because we're not about the what, we're about the how. So we're about how we entrepreneurially tackle systemic issues. So that means that one day we may be working on an unacceptable issue. Like in America, it's atrocious that we still have the death penalty. So how do we end the death penalty in America the next day? It may be that we're fighting for helping protect the planet. So it's not about one particular issue, it's about how we do that and stand up against the unacceptable. So that's our broad intoxicating purpose. And then for each project, we have a. A very clear purpose on what we want to bring into the world. Like, for example, we recently had the really good fortune to work with Caribbean political leaders because they wanted to make the Caribbean the world's first beacon for a climate smart zone. And that's an intoxicating purpose. You Know, how do you get business, government, not for profits, behind working towards making the Caribbean a climate smart zone? Which is again, something that just drove everyone to want to get behind that.

Absolutely. And tell me for a moment, what is a climate smart zone?

So the beautiful thing is, and this all started after that horrible, you remember that horrible hurricane, Hurricane Irma that just mashed the Caribbean. And I remember, you know, even though Richard's home was completely obliterated, the first thing he did was go to Washington, sit at the feet of the Caribbean leaders and say, how can we help? What can we do to support, support you? Because this is the first of many of what's going to happen in the future. And so what the Caribbean leaders came up with is this vision where they looked at, okay, how can we actually move our countries to renewable energy? How can we start building natural coastal, like mangroves, like reefs to protect our islands? How can we be the first ones to look at how we can make sure that solar is prevalent, to make sure that we are working towards solar, towards wind energy rather than depending. Because right now the Caribbean actually mainly imports fossil fuels. So how can we move more rapidly towards those things in the world right now? And so they, they've come together and also how can we clean up the pollution that's in our oceans? How can we make sure that the oceans are still, you know, rich with sea life, rich with reefs? That will also be helpful for us from a tourism perspective, but will keep our people fed. How can we look towards sustainable agriculture? So it's at, at absolutely everything across daily life and across how they run their economies to figure out how they can do it, that's clean, that's green, that's going to be much healthier for their people with less pollution.

That's seriously fascinating. And I think a small nation like New Zealand, where we're based, we could do with a little bit of that thinking. And also when I think of the beautiful South Pacific islands right beside us, they're facing some of those similar issues that the Caribbean countries are with climate change. So I certainly think what's happening there could be replicated, done in this part of the world.

And that's the beauty about island nations, is that an island nation could do something incredibly powerful and then scale it and be a beacon for the world. And I know your incredible government in New Zealand, I know they worked with this incredible group of scientists, Johan Rockstrom, on the planetary boundaries model. And actually the New Zealand government helped embed that planetary boundaries, which looks at not just climate change but also looks at biodiversity loss, land use, fertilizer runoff, and they embedded that in some of the work that they're doing as a government. So they were one of the first governments to do that.

Yeah. So critical and needs to be led from the front 100% now, governance. I'd love to ask you a little bit about governance, because I know you sit across many boards and you're an advisor to many, many great organizations. So how important is it in selecting a great board of advisors for your organization?

I think it's one of the most fundamentally important things that you need to get right. And I think it's really interesting, James, because when we think about boards, we do all these master lists and we think about skills, experience, diversity, and we get all these long lists of people to put on a board. But what we often forget is we forget to look at the deep connections between the board members. And some of the boards that I've seen be most successful is when you have at least one or two or three or four people that have deep connection with one another already, because then they come in and they're already practicing kind of those deep virtues of respect, of trust, of belief in one another. So it's almost a good contagious with the rest of the board. And you see the board more rapidly build the connective tissue that it needs to really do its job really well. And we saw that with the elders, because you had Archbishop Tutu, Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela, President Carter, who all had these deep connections before they formed the elders board. So then when they became the board, they were so much more successful because they trusted one another already and they had that deep respect. And I think it's one of the fundamental things we forget when we're creating boards is to look for those deep connections. And then obviously, from a governance perspective, you do need to make sure that you have the right mix of diversity so that you're not getting into group think on a board that I've seen happen so many times, and that you have people on that board that are going to challenge that thinking and stand up and really be morally courageous and get that right mix of skills where you have people that understand the finance side, the legal side, so that you're getting that strong advice.

Really great advice. Thank you. And I think that's a lot of organizations struggle to find the right balance with boards. And you're right. It's. It's about the challenge. It's not about the cheerleading. It's about how can you challenge thinking and Stimulate creative thought.

Yeah. That's probably one of the most fundamental skills, is asking the right questions at a board level and not stepping in to do the team's work. Being there as a supporter, but also as a healthy challenger and obviously being there as a connector. Because I think that sometimes, especially in a startup, as you well know from all the people that you've spoken with over the years, it's such hard work. The last thing you need is your board, like, meddling into the business every single day. So it's making sure that you have a board that trusts and respects you as a team as well, 100%.

And if we talk about partnering, I'd love to, if you're open to it. Just to chat about your partnership with your amazing partner at home and how that shaped you in business and in life. How is that personal partnership with your husband shaped everything?

Yeah. And I think. But I. I have the most amazing husband. He's. His name is Chris Waddell. He was a Paralympian athlete for most of his career, a mono skier, downhill monoskier. And we happened to meet now some 10 years ago at a conference where we were both speaking, actually. And, you know, I think about before that moment, I had started this interview process with all these other partnerships, and that process completely changed who I. I was, because I think, you know, before I met Chris and before I started this process of interviewing, I think I was so focused on end goals and on breaking the next glass ceiling that I wasn't pausing to build relationships that were truly relational and not transactional. So I think this process of interviewing these incredible leaders who I'm continuing to learn from every day, helped me become more focused on the hard, hard work it takes to build a meaningful, deep relationship. So by the time I met Chris at that conference, I was already in that mode. And so we ended up becoming. Becoming dear friends and then became romantic when I invited him, actually to one of our gatherings to speak. And.

He'S such a beautiful human, where he teaches me to be the better version of myself every day. And he does it in such a way that's so graceful and authentic. But he truly challenges me where if I'm doing something that perhaps is not the right partnership approach, he has that honest conversation with me. And we can do it in a way that we both feel safe and we're learning from each other rather than it exploding into some type of argument. And we had to learn how to do that. We had to learn how to get to that point where we lifted above the drama. And we had tools that allowed us to listen to one another. And a lot of those tools came from the. The partnerships. Like they. One of them that Chris and I tried to do now every day when we're traveling, which is a lot, is we have these five points of gratitude that we share with each other, even if it's over a quick email every day. And, you know, it's easy to do three, but then when you have to think about the fourth and the fifth, you start to really learn more depth about one another, about what you saw in that day that brought you a light or love or gratitude. But then, you know, some of the partnerships, like Bertrand and Andre, who did the world's first solar imp impulse flight, taught us a lot about, you know, just pausing and coming to an argument with the question, maybe the other person's right.

And then you come from a space of openness rather than defensiveness. And coming into each discussion or disagreement with, okay, maybe there's a third way here. Maybe there's a third way that neither of us is thinking about that could solve for this. And really, over the years, getting to know one each other, and when I say all of this, I'm still learning. You know, I'm not. Every day I'm learning how to be better as a partner, but, you know, just thinking about maybe the why, like, why is Chris coming from that place and I'm coming from this place and taking a moment of pause. But one of the ones I love the most was Derek and Beverly Gilbert, who work with big cats in Africa. They had this beautiful thing they called the 99 other things. The 99 other things that you love about someone, even when you're super pissed off about that one thing. And they talked about how they always thought about those 99 things. And then they thought about if they were writing a memoir when they're 99, would this be in that memoir? Is it that important? Or should they just be letting it go?

That's so powerful. I think we could all use that at times, for sure. That's really amazing. And I love. There's a deep sense of curiosity when I speak to you. I feel like when you mentioned a moment ago, like, I'm not the finished product. And when it comes to partnering and professionally, I love that you're committed to constantly growing, asking questions, challenging the staff status quo.

Yeah. And I think. I think you've talked. I've listened to a couple of your other podcasts, too, and I think one of the consistent themes is this sense of Curiosity. And I think, you know, people that live meaningful lives, live successful lives, have this deep sense of curiosity and they know that they will never be a perfectly shaped human being. And that part of the beauty and part of the journey that I have gone on over the last 15 years is just watching how these parts, partnerships became these human beings through each other. And you know, I think we very often, and this is particularly, I think in America, we often get lost in our own belly button because we're so focused on finding ourselves that we don't lift ourselves up out of that and realize that the way we really find ourselves is through others. And you obviously have to do your own work. And like, I would never disregard, that's one of the most important, important things is starting from understanding yourself and trusting yourself, but then making sure you lift your head up and you actually learn from others. And that's what really helps you evolve at a more rapid pace.

So spot on. That's just seriously gold. It's interesting, it makes me think of a friend of mine who plays professional rugby for the New Zealand rugby team. And he was once interviewed and asked, hey, what's your purpose? And he's of Polynesian descent. And he said, what do you mean what's my purpose? Well, what's your personal purpose? I've never thought of that. And the reporter was like, you must have, you're an all black, you play the national team. He's like, no, he's like, my purpose is to figure out how I serve my tribe, my family, my community, and in this case, my team. Whatever I do, it's got to help lift the team up, their well being, their outcomes. So I think it's very interesting that in America, America, in the western world of New Zealand, Australia, the uk, often this idea of personal purpose is really put up on a pedestal. But actually when we go back and we look at where we came from, it was all about collective purpose, what we can do to help each other survive and our own well being.

It's such an important point, James, because I think we've lost that thread of wisdom that flows through most indigenous cultures where it is all about the community. It's all about how I serve not just other people, but also the planets. And you know, I also really believe that we've lost that partnership with the planet. We've turned it into one of extraction. And I, I also feel strongly that when we lose the wonder around us, we lose the wonder within us and we're killing that wonder, the planetary wonder, and we're Also killing the human wonder through this fear and division, again, very, very prevalent in the United States right now. And so I think the other thing we can learn from indigenous leaders is, is that connection with the planet and Mother Nature. And I remember I had the beautiful opportunity to travel with this amazing woman, Jane Vadavalu, who runs Children's ground in Australia, up to Alice Springs to sleep out in this uniquely Australian invention that's the cross between a sleeping bag and a tent called a swag. And I remember sleeping under the stars and there was all these Aboriginal female elders sleeping around, around me. And I remember listening to their conversation all night, and they were just laughing and crying and talking about their lives and their community. And then when I reflected on it, not one time did they use the word I. Not one time, all night, they just used the word we. And I think we have been so pushed. And, you know, people ask me all the time, like, what is one of the fundamental reasons why we're in this mess as human beings? I really believe that a big part of it is because we have pushed ourselves into hyper individualism. And now we need to figure out how we extract ourselves into that and how we become hyper connected again. And your point, that story was just beautiful about the rugby player, because I think it is all about going back to indigenous wisdom as well, and listening and learning from their millions of years of wisdom.

You're absolutely right, and it was interesting. Another personal experience. We moved house just a few weekends ago and we don't often go to the rubbish tip. Often we put our rubbish in our bins, it gets collected, it gets taken away. But we had moved house, so we're kind of looking, what do we need to get rid of? What are we not using? And we went to this rubbish tip and both Caroline and I looked at each other in shock and we both felt a little disgusted. And in fact, I think one of us said, this is disgusting what we do as humans. The amount of just rubbish that was getting thrown away way. And it may have only been used for a year or at most three years. And we just consume. And it is a very personal focus. We buy things, we collect things, we hoard things. And I think there's an opportunity here. And I always say, where there's a problem, there's always an opportunity. There's an opportunity for a big shift. And it takes great leaders like yourself and Unite and Richard Branson to really change people's mindsets around what it means to interact as humans.

Yeah. And I think you're Spot on, too, though, about the opportunities. Like, when I look at that planetary boundaries model that Johan Rockstrom's created, I see this, like, unbelievable map of entrepreneurial opportunities. Because where we have gone over a boundary, whether that's in things like biodiversity or land use or fertilizer, we have an opportunity to create entrepreneurial solutions to solve those issues. And so people that are thinking about that are going to be way ahead of the curve. And I think one of the most beautiful stories of people that I interviewed over the last 15 years, I tried to talk to everyone that was part of protecting the ozone layer. And it was beautiful, because what was very clear to me is it wasn't a single superhero, wasn't even two superheroes. It was this collection of friends that actually made that great human achievement happen. But whenever I look at what they did, they went industry by industry and worked with competitors to create new business solutions to pull us back into a safe space for humanity. And that's what allows us to go out into the beautiful sunshine every day. If it hadn't been for that incredible group of friends, we would not even be able to open the door without immediately being sunburned. And, you know, also we wouldn't have food crops. They would have been decimated by the heat. So we wouldn't have been able. It would have crushed humanity. But it was this incredible collection of friends that discovered there was a problem and then worked together to make it happen. And they did it so humbly and humbly that I've walked in that I've spoken to thousands of people over the last year, and I talk about this story. And only two people have ever been able to name anyone that was part of that collective. And those two people were actually both in Australia this week. But it's this incredible story of collective human achievement, and we don't celebrate it because we're so focused on that superhero myth.

You're right. And that's Disney has a lot of good things, but Disney has a lot to answer to as well.

I love it. So in terms of the book, I'm going to make sure I'm putting the link on the show notes here for people to go and buy the book. I know that every listener listening right now will be thinking, I want to partner better for myself, for my community, my company, for the planet. So I'll make sure and put that in the show notes and people can go ahead over to Amazon and get a copy for themselves. And if any companies are listening, it might be great. It's coming up to Christmas, get all of your staff members a copy as well. That would be fantastic. Fantastic. But just from your own perspective, I'd love to ask you if we were to fast forward into the future and it's your last day here on earth and you knew it was your last day, and a very young person in your family would come up to you and say, hey, Gene, how can I lead my life on purpose? Purpose. What advice would you have for them?

I'd say the number one thing is be really careful about who you surround yourself with and who you invest your time in. Really thoughtfully think about the relationships and the deep connections that you nurture in your life and really make sure that you do the hard work and you take the time to build those deep connections that will make you who you are in this world. And they will also be the ones that actually give you that path to better purpose in your life. And find that thing that lights your belly on fire and just keep on going, running towards it. And don't think it has to be a perfect, you know, perfectly articulated everything purpose because it's something that should evolve in your life and grow in your life, but go for it with everything that you have.

So beautiful. Thank you. I know there'll be many listeners taking note of that right now. And it's very helpful to get insights to someone like you who I truly think feel that you're in your Dharma. And I guess I mean by like you're in flow that you're doing what you do and you love doing what you do and you make a difference doing it. Monday mornings, it's like, high five, let's go. I can just get that sense.

Yeah. No, I feel so fortunate every day when I wake up and you can feel your in your dharma as well, that you love what you're doing. And so, yeah, it's been an honor to be here in this conversation today.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time and I look forward to crossing paths in person at some point in the the future.

Yeah, that would be absolutely lovely.

Well, thank you so much, Jean.

Thanks, James.

Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button. And I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks and leaders. It's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.