"I escaped a Tsunami & found my purpose." Find YOUR Purpose with Afdhel Aziz

I would start by reframing climate change as not being about saving the world. The world is going to be fine. It's saving humanity. Hey, if we are to be good ancestors to the— our children's children and their children, we need to start doing things now to change it.

Welcome to Driving Impact. Hello, Driving Impact Hive. Today I'm super excited to welcome our next guest. His name is Afdhel Aziz. He's the author of multiple books on purpose, and one of which I'm devouring with passion, which is called Good Is the New Cool. He's also, uh, he owns his own column in Forbes which is called "The Power of Purpose." He's written multiple books on purpose. He's also the co-founder of a consultancy that's focused on helping brands finding their brand purpose, but also driving social impact. I want to welcome— and he's the co-founder of Conspiracy of Love. In French, that probably would be "Nous conspirons pour l'amour." I want to welcome Afdhel Aziz to Driving Impact. Welcome.

Thank you for having me, Katheline Jean-Pierre. Everything sounds better in French, you know. That's what they say. That's what they say.

Then go try to live in Paris.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

So how are you doing today?

I'm really good, thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

I'm so excited to have you here. And I've been devouring your book. I feel like I'm learning so much, The Principles of Purpose. And it's so rich with insights, so rich with a different way to look at life. And I wanted to— you're Chief Purpose Officer, which is like you're the first Chief Purpose Officer that we welcome at Driving Impact. For me, something that's very important, and for our audience as well, is understanding what was your chrysalis moment or pivotal moment that helped you find your purpose in life. Can you tell us a little bit more about?

Sure, yeah. It's funny. The third book we're writing, Bobby and myself, my co-founder and partner in business, is about finding personal purpose. So we've actually been going back and looking at our journey. And there's a couple of moments, uh, you know, in that journey that really, um, have been catalysts to help me think about my purpose. So a little bit of background: I grew up in Sri Lanka. I left when I was 17 to study and work in London and New York, and I had a 20-year career in brand management and marketing. I worked for Procter Gamble and Nokia, back when there was a company called Nokia that was the biggest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. I worked for Heineken and Absolut Vodka in New York. And all throughout, I had a very kind of glamorous career doing pop culture marketing with Lady Gaga and the TED conferences and Coachella. But there were a couple of moments where I, as you call them, like those crucible moments that really made me think about the direction I was heading in. The first was in 2004 in Sri Lanka when I was back, you know, in my home country. And I was there at the time the Asian tsunami hit the country, and I miraculously survived. I should have been on a beach somewhere in the south coast, which is where my heart and my passion lies, but I wasn't And, and so I, I survived it, and that caused a tremendous amount of post-traumatic stress disorder in the form of survivor guilt, um, which is a very specific form of PTSD.

Yeah, that happens, you know.

And it made me think about, like, why did I survive? And, you know, I know that was a moment where I really started to think differently about what I was doing. And then another point was becoming a father. You know, I now have a 10-year-old son, and you know what that's like when you become a parent, right? You are no longer—

I'm guilty of being a helicopter mom. One of the guests have told me.

We can't help but do that, right, in this day and age. But it was also a moment where I realized, you know, I thought about two things. I thought about I thought about the role model I was setting for him, and I thought about the world I was helping create for him. And that was another moment where I realized I had to do something different from what I'd been doing before. And so in 2011, Bobby and myself, who had also become a father and also was going through that same questioning, we decided to start writing a book together, which is the first book called Good Is the New Cool: Market Like You Give a Damn. And it came out in 2016, and it was a message to our fellow marketers at that time saying, hey, you need to think about the good that your brands are doing, not just being cool.

Yeah.

And, um, that really was the point where I quit corporate life in 2017, started Conspiracy of Love, and, and that was the moment that, that really changed. So it's been a, a cumulative effect of different moments to help me find my purpose and now do the work I'm doing now.

This is first incredible story and it's very profound. I want to double-click on the tsunami. Where were you when the tsunami was happening in Sri Lanka?

I woke up in Colombo, the capital city, which was safe. It wasn't on the side of the island that the wave had hit. I just remember waking up and I was, you know, in my mom's house there and turning on the news and slowly starting to realize the magnitude of what had happened. And then like so many of my fellow Sri Lankans, tried to do everything we could to get food and, you know, clothing and supplies and help the people who've been hit. Tens of thousands of people died, hundreds of thousands of people lost their home. And, and so that was a real wake-up call for me. Yeah, you know, and then when I went back to London and I was kind of doing my job, it didn't feel meaningful in the same way. It felt meaningless because I was sitting there going, what, how, how does what I'm doing help people, you know? And, and I realized that was a real shift in my consciousness, you know, and, and So many of the people that we've interviewed for this third book about finding personal purpose have gone through some form of personal trauma, um, being in a natural disaster, almost dying, having somebody close to them die, going through catastrophic financial ruin. And I would not wish any of that to happen to people, but it does create a crack in the universe where people start thinking Oh, okay, maybe I shouldn't just kind of sleepwalk through life. Maybe I should really think about my purpose and what I'm doing here.

So many people are sleepwalking through life. And I think what strikes me with your story of being in a tsunami and then helping people while you were there and feeling guilty about surviving and then going back at your desk and working, I can totally see how you would feel a survivor syndrome. Because there's a bunch of people just vanished and then you have to pretend that everything is okay. Yeah, right. And, and I think there's been a collective trauma at different personal moments for everybody in their lives, but that moment, yeah, must have been a big game changer.

It was. And, and what's really interesting is if you think about COVID that was a moment of trauma for the whole world for 2 years. So all of us had the same experience together where we were, you know, cut off from the people we loved and the things that we loved and, and trapped at home and, and forced to think about why we were here. And so I don't think it's a coincidence that there is now this explosion of people wanting to find their purpose in life because everybody had that moment of trauma to start thinking about why they were here as well.

It was kind of an echo chamber. I mean, personally, it was a big catalyst. I was a new mom and in a new city. Los Angeles was new as well. I was in San Francisco before. It's the isolation on top of the isolation and redefining yourself and trying to figure out who you are. And so I think those are very important moments. So thank you for sharing this story. And then you talked about becoming a father and you and Bobby— Bobby and I met this week, which is amazing. He's amazing. And you guys are like an amazing duo. And I want to hear more about how you write together and work together. But I think that other moment of being a father, when did that happen that you had a consciousness that you had a bigger role on this planet to play for?

Yeah, you know, I think we're in this moment where I think we're now as a species, conscious enough to understand how the things we've done, our actions, have caused harm to the planet. Um, and if you think about things like climate change, irreparable harm, or harm that's going to take a long time to repair, right? But we're not conscious enough to think about the solutions and our role in them as yet. Because something like climate change is so big, it doesn't fit into our normal model of things that can cause us harm. We know what harm is in the form of a lion trying to eat us, or yeah, somebody trying to steal something from us on the street.

But climate is like a slow burn of events and slow acceleration of events. But now there's actually— we crossed the 1.5 degrees Celsius, and now like Unless we do something and everybody raises their consciousness towards action, there's going to be more floods, more fires, more tornadoes, etc.

So the strange thing we need to do now is both prepare our children for adaptation, but also plant the seeds for their children's children to get out of it. So this is the really strange moment that we're in, where we have to exercise what we call our moral imagination. So not the creative imagination, the moral imagination to say, hey, if we are to be good ancestors to the— our children's children and their children, we need to start doing things now to change it. And we will not see the impacts of these in our lifetimes, but the choices we make today will ripple for the next 100 years. And so this is a new situation for humanity where we've never had to think in those terms.

No.

And that's why it's so hard to make change. So everyone thinks, oh, this little thing that I do is not gonna make a difference, but it does because there's hundreds of millions of us and those little actions ladder up to something big. But because we can't visualize the recipient of those actions, we can visualize our kids. And I really hope that that's where we use that love we have for our kids to catalyze us into action. But we need to think beyond them to future descendants and exercise love and kindness towards people that we won't ever know or ever meet. And so that's the really hard thing.

You're not going to meet them in flesh. I like the concept of moral imagination and thinking about future generations when we're— you and I are not alive anymore. So I really love this concept. We had a guest came and said that they can't change, they can't save the planet, so that's more for later, this can be reverted. So we'll see. But I think I want to hear a bit more about, um, you finding your purpose and then taking a big pivot in your life. Because many people who are listening to us are working in big corporations, and, and sometimes it's like the day-to-day, the rat race, don't have time to think about climate, don't have time to think about purpose. How did you make the move and the change? Because you said you were sitting at your desk and then you decided that I need to do something different. I need to launch Conspiracy of Love. How did you do that?

So Bobby and I were both very blessed to have a fantastic purpose coach called True Pettigrew who coached us in his methodology he invented called GPS to Purpose.

GPS?

GPS.

GPS to Purpose.

Like a GPS you see in a phone or a car, like a directional system, right? Um, and so by the time we'd finished writing the book, we knew that we wanted to do something different, but we didn't know what direction to go in. And working with True gave us clarity and gave us courage on what we wanted to do. Um, to really briefly explain GPS, it's a triangulation exercise for finding your purpose. Um, each of the letters stands for something. So the G stands for what are your gifts, What are your superpowers? The P stands for what are you passionate about solving in the world? Like, what's the problem you want to solve in the world? And the S is who can you be of service to with your gifts towards your passion? Um, Bobby went and did this work first, and he came back with clarity, and he was just glowing. And I was like, I want to get that clarity too. I did it with Chu, and that journey of self-awareness made me realize that My superpower is storytelling, and that's the thing I love doing in all forms—on stage, in books, and podcasts, and TV shows, or whatever else. I'm experiencing it in the book there as well. My newfound passion was about this idea of how to unlock business as a force for good. Like, it was such a giant problem to solve. That I, I felt like I could spend the rest of my life in this world trying to figure it out. And I realized I could be of service to people like me, people in corporate life, whether they were marketers or business leaders who are sitting there trying to figure out what to do and how to have a more meaningful career and, and how to unleash the power of these companies that they led. And so that And that realization led me to articulating my purpose, which is to inspire purpose in people and organizations.

Inspire purpose in people and organizations. Yeah. And then something that's interesting that you said is— and that's what I heard in my head, I hear totally different things— is we went from the Industrial Revolution to now a world and a concept that you talk in your book, which is conscious capitalism. Yes. Because a lot of people are sitting at their desk, whether in a small company or in a corporation where you have targets, you have goals. Yeah. And publicly traded companies need to generate more profits. There's a margin. And then private companies, if they're VC-founded, they need to generate multiples. And then there's SMBs. So how— like, tell us about the— this concept of conscious capitalism.

Sure. So conscious capitalism has been around for several decades now. There's a wonderful book about it written by John Mackey, I think, who is the CEO of Whole Foods. And, and it's an entire movement. So So it predated us by a long time. The path that Bobby and I kind of realized for the first time was a role of marketing within that. And that's what the first book was about. And it said, look, the word marketer comes from the ability to spot and create and serve markets. And we could see this market appearing before us in the form of millennials and Gen Z. Who were saying, I want more from the companies I buy. I want them to actually do something positive in the world. And so we would call them conscious consumers, and we realized that our fellow marketers had no idea how to talk to them. They were still using the same techniques they'd use for, you know, 30, 40 years. And so by writing a playbook and saying, hey, this is how you find your purpose Here's how you think about people as citizens, not consumers. How you solve problems from the everyday to the epic. How you back up the promise with the proof. Our first book created like a how-to guide for marketers to genuinely, authentically do something positive in the world and then reap the benefits of that— trial, loyalty, all those things from those consumers. And so that first wave of brands now finding purpose, Nike with Colin Kaepernick, you know, all the way across to misfires like Pepsi and Kendall Jenner, we were 2 years before that. We could see that coming.

Yeah, Kaepernick and Nike had a massive impact. Right? So that's a perfect mix of like purpose and then the bottom line grew tremendously by, associating themselves with a cause that was extremely important, but doing it really like we say, back up the promise with the proof, not just talking the talk, but walking the talk.

And so we set up Conspiracy of Love initially as a brand purpose consultancy to say, hey, let us help these companies that we're working with to navigate this and authentically do that. And we had some success with it, you know, like I think at last count we had helped these brands invest like $5 million in things like food insecurity, childhood education, partnering them with Feeding America, Thurgood Marshall College Fund, Boys and Girls Club. So that was kind of like the first wave of conspiracy. But then we spotted something bigger happening, which is around the idea of organizational purpose or corporate purpose, and which is why we wrote the second book, because that's a much bigger idea than just marketing. Yeah, right now we're thinking about the fact that there are now not just conscious consumers but, um, engaged employees who want to feel like their work matters, which is critical.

Critical employee engagement is, is like a critical—

right? Yeah, but now there's a new problem, which is I don't want to feel like my work just ladders up to a quarterly profit goal. So how do these companies help their employees understand that they're actually trying to do something positive in the world, right? Not to mention, at that point, the rise of impact investing. So from a shareholder perspective, at that point, ESG was rising as a metric to measure, um, you know, the integrity of a company in terms of its commitments for environmental, social governance goals. So you had consumers, employees, investors all looking at a company going, I want you to do more good. And again, we realized there wasn't a playbook for these companies to navigate this, right?

And people have a hard time even implementing ESG and making a real impact, not just doing greenwashing.

And, and this is why it's so hard, because no company is perfect, just like no human being is perfect. And any company that we work with, you can point to them and go, here's a thousand things you could be doing better. But if no one is working with the leaders inside these companies to help them evolve them, then we are leaving the collective firepower of these companies on the table in terms of their ability to invest in solving problems. So that's what we do now with Conspiracy. We help these companies like Adidas, Sephora, The Gap, Coca-Cola— all these companies find a way to grow through making a positive impact. It seems like a big—

like a behemoth to move. Yeah, companies— I can't stop thinking about like the coal industry, Industrial Revolution, all this, the rush to industrialize and to make profit. And now suddenly we're like, oops, actually the planet is not going to be still present and alive, planet Earth, if we don't drastically make some change. And then there's profit but there's also like the humanity. So there's a quote I really like that I want to— from your book that I want to— you talk about coaching C-levels to be able to drive impact. Here we go. And I feel like it's a beautiful promise, but I want to hear how you do it. A great CEO should have the brain of a CFO, the heart of a storyteller, and the soul of an activist.

Yeah, how do you—

because that's a massive aspiration. Sure. Yeah, how are you able to coach C-levels to be that?

So I'll start by saying yes, it is a massive behemoth of a problem we're trying to solve, right? Capitalism in its current form has been around for 400 years. It's not going to change in a hurry. It's very well established in terms of its incentives and, you know, So trying to change it or even trying to change a company is trying to, like trying to change an ocean liner, the direction of it. The way we try and do it is by pointing out the opportunity on the other side of it, right? These are corporations, they understand profit. And so by pointing out to them that one of the biggest pathways to growth is through solving social and environmental problems, Solving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals will unlock— I think it's like $3 or $4 trillion in wealth, 380 million jobs. And so if we can help align a company with a problem and say, the more you fix this problem, the more profitable you will be, and the more you will be able to then fix the problem—

because it's a huge opportunity. It is for humanity, but also for the bottom line.

Exactly, matching those two things, right? Um, Paul Polman, who's the CEO of Unilever, who very kindly gave us a blurb for this book, um, he said, purpose is the growth story of the 21st century. Digital was the growth story of the 20th century, but purpose and companies finding a way to grow through solving problems is this century's massive opportunity.

And that goes back to purposes Purpose is the new digital.

Purpose is the new digital. That's what we preach, right? So when we go into a company, we have to help the CEO do several things. Number one, make the business case for purpose and say this is the financial pathway to growth. Number two, tell that story to all of her or his stakeholders, internal employees, partners, everybody in a way that's inspiring and that galvanizes action, right? That's what we mean by you need to be a great storyteller. But both of those things are inauthentic if we can't light a fire inside people to make them really want to make change in the world, make positive change in the world. And that's why personal purpose is key.

So that's why the third book is coming. It's like a trifecta. First book on marketing, Brand Purpose, and then Brand Purpose, this one about marketing, and then third one about personal purpose. Yes. So when is the new book gonna be launched?

Yes, so, um, the— we always— Bobby and I always had in mind this trilogy called the Purpose Trilogy, the Purpose Flywheel Trilogy. Book 1, Brand Purpose. Book 2, Corporate Purpose. Book 3, Personal Purpose. And the three of those intersect, right? So our theory of change is if we can inspire enough people inside companies, leaders and people at every level, to find their purpose, and then if we can give clarity to those organizations about what their purpose is and what problems they can solve, and if we can unleash the people inside these companies to take control and kind of move these companies towards doing more good, that is the ripple effect that changes it. Without the people, it's not going to work.

Yeah, without the people, there's no movement.

No. As we like to say, it's only a movement when it moves without you. Otherwise, it's not a movement, right? And so that's why we're writing this third book. It's going to be due out in the fall. We're publishing it with Wiley, who's a very respected 215-year-old publisher. Yeah. And it's taking everything we know about this topic of personal purpose, all the work that we've done inside these Fortune 500 companies training employees, taking GPS to Purpose, and then distilling it down into the simplest, most accessible guide. Um, the full title is The Good Is in You: A Cool Guide to Personal Purpose. How to design a meaningful and prosperous career.

So how to design a meaningful and purposeful and prosperous career.

And prosperous career. Yeah. If it's not prosperous, then it's a hobby. Then no, if it's not prosperous, it's— we always say to people, like, you know, if you want to find meaning, don't quit your job and go and dig wells in the Sahara. There's much better well diggers in the Sahara, right? Imagine if you could stay in exactly where you are with all of your resources, experiences, knowledge, but bring purpose into it, bring meaning into the work you're doing.

Then your positioning is instead of going far away finding your purpose, you stay right where you are and bring purpose to your day-to-day. Yes. Have you— so you're an example of that. Yeah, right. You've done what you were doing in corporations, but you created your own company, and that's— and you're going deep into what you used to do but under the Conspiracy of Love umbrella. So you encourage everybody in humanity to do the same in terms of like, stay where you are, do the GPS exercise, yeah, and figure out what is your passion, what can be paid for, and your compass, and find your compass in life.

100%. You know, when people say, what is the Conspiracy of Love? It's not just us, it's all those people inside those companies.

What does it mean, Conspiracy of Love?

Is it? Yeah. So it's a—

I would think conspiracy of purpose, but no, it's Conspiracy of Love.

Well, I'll tell you a secret. Like, it actually was going to be like a music project. And so I had bought the URL and then my tax accountant was like, what do you want to call the company? And I said, uh, let's call it Conspiracy of Love. And then I realized it was accidentally perfect as a name. Are you a musician? I am a musicianist. I'm trying to make music. But I say, when people say, what has love got to do with business? I say it has everything to do with business. Don't you want people to say, I love this brand? And don't you want your employees to say, I love working for this company? Well, the secret is you can't get love without giving love. Companies are not very good at giving love. We give perks. You give perks, you give beanbags, free lunches. Advertising isn't love, it's trying to seduce, you know, people into loving you. But if you can genuinely show up as a company with love and love your employees, love the communities that you're part of, love, you know, society then you can earn that love back again, you know. And so the conspiracy of love, I always say, is, is the people inside all of these companies who are our clients working within them, trying to change them from the inside out. And our job is to give them the data, the strategy, the story, the insights, the ammunition, the support to help them change these companies from the inside out.

It's— it must be such an interesting experiment when you go into a company and you have a different set of stakeholders. I'm just curious to hear how many people are like, I care about purpose, and how many people are like, I don't care about purpose. My assumption would be that people like, I care about purpose, but—

yeah, but there's a but. I go back to the analogy with digital is really useful to think about. In the beginning, there were only a tiny amount of companies who were embracing digital, right? And now you can't think of a company that doesn't have digital embedded into it at every single level, right? It runs your CRM, your supply chain, your comms, your everything, right?

You know, digital transformation integration. Yes.

Yeah. As advanced. And so if you think about all the things that have come before purpose, Um, those are all different manifestations of it that have been around for a while. So sustainability is a manifestation of purpose towards the environment. Um, CSR, corporate social responsibility, is a manifestation of purpose towards the communities that your company serves. DEI is a manifestation of purpose towards your employees, helping them feel like they belong and feel like included, right?

And they're choosing equitably, equitably, equitably, right?

And so all of these things are now well established in companies, but our theory is just like they used to be in digital social media over here, CRM over there, supply chain over there, and they just all formed into one thing called digital now. That's the same thing happening with purpose. And so we are our clients are really Fortune 500 companies who by now have very well-established sustainability, CSR, DEI goals. Our job is to help them orchestrate all of those around a common purpose. That's when you really unleash the power of it. Instead of all these things just working in different directions, yeah, it's distilling it down.

Listen, D&I— diversity, equity, and inclusion, oftentimes it's a check-the-box exercise, some targets, and— but people don't feel the sense of belonging. Yeah, people don't feel appreciated, they don't feel psychologically safe if we look at the Pyramid of Maslow. So sometimes, like, it's not a lived experience of all these goals that are on papers. Same with ESG. Yeah. So my question to you is, where does purpose lie in the organizations? Where do you think it belongs? When you're coaching these people in these organizations, so to really impact change?

So I'll talk about the process that we, we take our clients on at Conspiracy. We call it like a purpose transformation journey. There's 3 stages. Stage 1 is discovering and articulating purpose, vision, values. That's the core. It's a starting point, being really clear and saying, Sephora, your purpose is around inclusion and beauty. You know, we work with Coca-Cola's water brands, and it's around creating a water-positive future. So once you align on that clarity, then you have what we call a distinction between your sword and a shield that you— we need to help companies go to. That's phase 2, and saying, look, you have all of these things that you could all these causes you could get involved in. What is your sword? What is the thing that if you solve this, it's a path to profitability, right? Give us an example of a sword. Um, well, we work with Adidas, um, a few years ago, and their purpose statement is around— it says, through sport, we have the power to change lives. And we realized that nobody had ever said, well, which lives are you changing and how? And so we embarked on this 8-month project with them, and we realized that the people who didn't have access to sport were primarily women and girls and people of color. So if you look at the billion people on the planet who don't have any access to sport, um, we asked the question, what happens if you, as Adidas, as a brand, said, that's our sport, we're gonna give these folks access to sport. Um, take girls for example. Girls drop out of sport faster than boys. They stop playing it, and they do it for a bunch of reasons— cultural taboos, lack of access to facilities, lack of funding.

You know, stories I've heard, um, I think one of my friends, or they were living in Singapore and Asian, from Asian origins, and some of the moms were like, no, no, we're not gonna send our girls play soccer because they're gonna be in the sun and we don't want them to become dark.

We want them to— there you go.

So that's one. I remember I stopped competitive swimming because my hair was falling off.

There you go, right?

And I was like, I don't want to be bald at 16, and literally it was falling off, so I shaved my head. Yeah. So I think it's like, it's very interesting to see that women drop out of sports. So did Adidas Take It On, helping girls get back into sports.

So that was a strategy that we helped them construct, right? It was called, um, the idea that what if, for example, Adidas ran ads in Muslim countries showing girls wearing hijabs while playing sport and breaking their cultural taboo? That is a barrier that gets taken down. What if it could work with sporting agencies around the world to fund access to girls' facilities and locker rooms and soccer clubs and programs so that girls had the same access to sport, right? What if their product innovation could help girls play when they have their period and remove the stigma around doing that?

That happens one week out of four. That happens.

And just think about this, that's half the world's population who is not playing sport at the level the other half is. So the value of a brand like Adidas saying, let us help you, empower you, help support you, that creates a whole new bunch of customers. Because what do those people need when they start playing sport? Need shoes. And they need apparel. Yeah. And which brand do you think they'll probably have top of mind that's been there with them on that entire journey? Adidas, right? The one that, like, the, the brand that is remembered is the brand that is bought, that is, that has helped them on their journey as well, right? So it's not rocket science, but this is where we, you know, we call it like an inclusive growth strategy. And that's taking DE&I from an internally focused checkbox, as you said, to say, well, what if we make it a growth strategy? What if we go out there and find underserved population and we find a way to innovate for them and find a way to bring them into our brand? That's when you can draw the line and saying, oh, these are a billion consumers for the next 10 years. You can bring them into your franchise and that is your pathway to growth. Instead of fighting over the same narrow sliver of people, selling them the same things you've always sold them, 'Look at this giant chunk of people that you're not even talking about that you can reach as well.' It's super interesting because at LinkedIn we talk about the 95/5.

So the 95/5 is 95% of the population is not in the mindset to buy when they're exposed to your brand. So marketers tend to disregard them, right? And I think this example is a good one because they might not be thinking of the brand, but if you've been there in the journey when they're struggling or not even thinking about like I could have stayed in sports if they did something, gave me a shampoo so my hair didn't fall, or this person who has, uh, was wearing a hijab, or somebody has periods. So I think people who help us in our journey, people who help us overcome challenges, so people and brands who do that, then they can get— show them love. Yeah, that's—

give love to get love.

I think it's so— I think it's a beautiful story. There's a quote that I love that's coming from a quote that you have in your book is— and I thought it was very profound— is customers said they wouldn't care if 77% of brands disappeared. And then you keep on saying companies are needed now more than ever to help support the well-being of humanity and our planet. I thought it was like, wow, almost 80% don't care if most brands disappear. And it's kind of like, if you're only a utility, then there's no love and there's there's no profound reason to believe, there's no profound purpose. Yeah. So tell me more about what does— does it resonate to you in terms of like hearing that most people don't care about brands?

Yeah, you, you— this is a survival of the fittest situation, you know. And one of the people in the book, Jonathan Milton Hall, who we interviewed, he said something very profound. He said In the beginning, brands just had to have share of mind, and that was primarily through a product feature. Hey, this wash is whiter than this brand. That's enough, right? And then everybody had the same product quality and efficacy.

It tastes better when we do a taste test.

It tastes better. It tastes— but today it's really hard to have a proper product differentiation in most categories like washing powder or buy whatever else. They're kind of competitive. It's competitive. Yeah. Right. And then the next era was about storytelling and adding an emotional layer to a brand that was advertising-driven. Hey, look, this brand is making me cry. Like, I'm watching a TV ad about an airline or a Hallmark card. I'm like, oh, now it's moving me to have an emotional attachment and a loyalty to a brand. A, then every brand started doing that, and B, consumers got fed up with advertising and they were like, I don't want to have ads in my face. I'm going to get a Netflix subscription and there's no ads. I'm going to get an ad blocker on my phone. And so that's where today, to be one of those brands or companies that make it through, that aren't the 77% that are going to disappear, You not only need to have a great product and a great story, you need to have a great purpose, right? Jonathan summed it up perfectly. He said it's not just share of mind, it's not just share of heart, it's share of spirit. Like, you have to admire this company for what it does. Think, think about Patagonia, for example, right? You admire the company, but if it had terrible products, you'd be like, I don't care, right?

I don't care. No, I think they have a quality, but also stand that they take in society is huge. They're giving back. So that's— it's bigger than, than the brand.

It's bigger than the brand. So it's got great products, great story, great give back to humanity. That's the new bar that consumers want, that employees want, that investors want. So how do you get to that?

How— so I was going to ask you. So it's a high bar because The world of today, where I mean, I've worked in multiple corporations, like they come and they go. The hit company of the moment, 30 years later is obsolete, right? So it's— and that's why I love the skills economy, because you build skills in different industries or an industry, and then you can pour them somewhere else. But I do think that the brands that will last are the brands with the deeper purpose, but also that are able to evolve over time and meet us. Yeah, because the share of spirit, it's kind of a big deal because your spirit is supposed to be with you, your family, and the things you're passionate about.

We'll take Dove, for example, is a great example, you know, case study that we often use. So 20 years ago, Dove decided to stop talking about soap and ingredients and start talking about the dangers of false perceptions of what beauty was and really pull apart all of the fakery in the advertising business and started the Dove campaign for real beauty, which is the brand platform that now, 20 years later, is still talking about that same topic, but now updating it for 2024 by looking at the problem of, for example, selfies and filters and the impact that has on young girls' mental health. Yeah. When they have, you know, these, you know, um, means that you're not beautiful at your natural state.

You need to get the right angle and the right light and the right filter and the right filter.

So same problem, but over 20 years this brand has been talking about it and trying to help people think about it differently. They had the Dove Self-Esteem Project. They put $100 million young people through it. That brand is now generating €6 billion a year in turnover for Unilever, right? It's, it's—

listen, it's a big deal because I was— when I was giving that conference on Monday, one of the examples, because like the question was how do we stand out with LinkedIn? Yeah. And I said, well, we have specific programs where we think outside of the typical. And one of them is— I remember my— I'm a Black woman, obviously, and I went on the feed and then I saw the black hair and it's about the Crown campaign. Yeah. And then I would see a black woman half with natural hair and half with straight hair and I was like, what is going on? Yeah. And that campaign gave me chills because I could relate. Yeah. And I saw myself in— and to this day I'm still talking about it. I'm not paid to talk about it, but I'm still talking about it because it's profound. It's as if the the veil was removed. Did it touch your spirit? Yeah, there you go. It really touched my spirit because it was like all over, and I, I just vividly still experience it.

It found a way to take— seen, you felt seen. Um, it was a profound thought, and you remembered the brand who brought it to you. And think about it now, they took that topic and found a way to make it relevant to employees and leaders of color on LinkedIn. Yeah, right.

And because this is the story, the hashtag is #BlackHairIsProfessional, and the message is black hair is not professional. Yeah, because if I go— when I go with an afro, it's a whole ordeal. There you go. The day that I went with a big afro at work, everybody wanted to touch, everybody's like, wow, you look so different. And I was like, comfortable but uncomfortable. But that's the reality, is do I want everybody touching my hair and my business? Not necessarily, I just want to work. And so this campaign really resonated for me because I felt like, okay, somebody knows about the Black woman's experience.

Exactly. So it's very hard to do this because, again, I go back to the fact that no company is perfect, right? So you could admire Dove for doing all of that stuff, but go, Dove, where is your strategy to move away from plastic? What is your camp? What is your approach to dealing with the millions of tons of plastic?

Well, that's important because only 9% of plastic gets recycled. Like, there's a company that we invited at Driving Impact who's like plastic-free, right? 99% and sustainable. So I think that's when— and then the founder was talking about when big corporations really start doing what we did, and they did it. There's a small company from New York, and they, they found a way to do it.

And there's disruptors in every category disrupting, you know, with sustainability and inclusivity. And so that's where you could say, well, why are you working with these companies? If they're not perfect. And our job isn't to make them perfect, it's just to move them forward.

Yeah, right, to help them transform into purpose and also become more sustainable and helps save the planet.

Because their scale is what makes a difference, right? The sheer size of what they're doing, their leadership positions in the market, and the ability to affect the rest of the market. If Dove suddenly said, hey, we're going to only use 100% recycled plastic, and by 2027 we're gonna go to 100% compostable, biodegradable, or 100% like aluminum that's easier to recycle, whatever it is. By virtue of their size, they would change the market economics for recycled plastic or biodegradability and make it cheaper for everybody else in the category to adopt it.

Yeah, and everybody— that would be a race. Everybody would, would follow the lead versus when it's only the small company that do that.

Exactly. So that's where it's important to have the disruptors, the smaller companies who are innovating and pushing the bigger companies to really rethink what they're doing. And you need the bigger companies because they have the scale. And so if you can merge those two things, take the innovation and, you know, the disruption the smaller companies are doing in sustainability things like that, but applied at scale, that's how you transform them. That's how you drive impact. I love it.

So I want to go into a statement that you have in your books, that purpose should measure what you treasure. Yeah, I'm gonna say it again because I thought it was profound. Purpose should measure what you treasure. Yeah.

So let's— so we talk a lot about the ROI of purpose and how to measure impact. Right. And this is where, um, what we try and do is help companies develop like a, a really multi-dimensional way to actually measure impact, right? So let's take the Dove example we were just talking about. 6 billion euros in turnover, fantastic, contributing to Unilever's growth, contributing to Unilever's share price. Contributing to employee engagement at Unilever. Employees feel proud to work for a company that's doing work like Dove. That leads to better recruitment. You're getting the best talent saying, I want to work for that company. Longer, lower turnover. So people saying, yeah, I feel loyal to this company. I'm not going to leave. And cause disruption in trying to find somebody else to fill my position. It leads to a social license to operate that gives the company better relationships with government and regulators.

And so— Increase longevity as well, because we talked about the 77%, then potentially this brand could have longevity over time.

So that one Dove campaign for real beauty, if you expand out and look at all of the ripple effects of what it's causing, That to us is the true measure of purpose. If you're accurately looking at all of the different stakeholders and saying this thing had this ripple effect, then it's— 6 billion, by the way, is fantastic, but it's much bigger.

I see, like, I visualize like a purpose dashboard, a purpose CEO dashboard, and you have all the metrics lining up. Yeah. So thank you so much for being here today. I, I want to ask you some profound existential questions before you go. Let's go for it. And the question that I like to ask at Driving Impact is, I mean, we talked about climate change and, and how there's an acceleration of like catastrophes in the world, and I want to know from your perspective, do you think we can save the world?

I would start by reframing climate change as not being about saving the world. The world is going to be fine. It's saving humanity. There's a very disruptive group called Extinction Rebellion. You know, they're the ones who like stop traffic and stop concerts, and their name is actually the best description of what's happening because it's human extinction. We shouldn't call it climate change, we should call it human extinction. Because what's happening is the planet is going to go through a period of massive change which will make it horrible for us as human beings to live on it. But if it kills us off, the planet's just going to return back to normality.

And what I'm hearing as well, you're not saying, but the dinosaurs were gone but the planet is still here, which means that humans might be gone but the planet is still going to be here. Toss with Plastic and all that.

So we, so we got to reframe it around humans. We are the virus that's causing the sickness, right? And so we have a choice. Can we evolve to be in symbiosis with the planet? And specifically with regard to business and capitalism, can we evolve to an economy that is decarbonized, regenerative, um, you know, climate neutral or carbon neutral, inclusive. If we can evolve this system, I almost think about it like a spaceship. On a spaceship, you keep recycling the same things over and over again, right? There's no recycle the air, there's no a way to throw stuff. So if we can evolve to this spaceship thinking and saying, okay, yeah, we— there's going to be 10 billion humans, we're going to need clothes, we're going to need food, we're going to need shampoo.

One single ship It's one ship.

And if we can figure out a way of continuously reusing all these things, then capitalism can survive, humanity can survive. But to get there, we're going to have to change everything. I love it. And that's where— that's the hard thing that we're going to have to realize sooner rather than later. Thank you so much.

And my last question to close is for the future generation of people who want follow your pathway? And what are the top 3 career tips that you would give to people who want to drive impact in their career and in the world?

Read our book about how to find your purpose. That's coming up. That's coming out through— finding your purpose and being clear about it is number 1. Number 2 is we would say find your allies, find your fellow employees and people who may be feeling the same thing as you do.

It's like find your tribe, almost. Find your tribe.

Community. Find your tribe about people who are like feeling the same thing, because everybody's feeling the same thing. And then number 3, find an organization where their purpose is in sync with your purpose, um, and it will never feel like a job. It will always feel like something meaningful that you can do.

Thank you so much for all of your wisdom. I'm like overjoyed by our conversation.

Thank you for having me.

And I'm excited about your next book. So please keep me in mind for the pre-readers. Yes. And excited about what you're going to create in the world. Thank you, Katheline Jean-Pierre.

Thanks for having me. Thank you.