Episode 191: Practical Paths to Radical Impact with Bryan Papé, MiiR

Welcome to Skucast, the podcast for entrepreneurs in the promotional products industry. Skucast shines a light on our industry's best work, features maverick personalities, and discusses what's really involved in running a modern promotional products business. Skucast is the official podcast of Common Skew.

Summer is here, and I hope many of you are on the road right now traveling and exploring the world again. Since it's vacation season and so many of us are out and about, I thought today I would dig back into the interview archives from this year alone and play a conversation that never made it to the SkewCast. Now, we host numerous interviews with folks in the industry, not just through the SkewCast, but also through our events. And this year we've surely hit some kind of record given the number of interviews we've conducted. So we have plenty of rich conversations to choose from. And though I don't like to pick favorites, what I do prefer is to publish or replay a topic that deserves our attention. In April, we interviewed Brian Papé, founder of MIR, through a partnership with our friends at Gemline. And we had record attendance at that event. But sometimes these conversations are so rich, but they disappear so quickly into the ether before we even have a chance to process what we've learned and put into action. So we're bringing that chat back to you today. And if you weren't able to attend that event, then you're in for a real treat because Brian not only provides an aspirational example of how we can build purpose-driven brands, but he also provides plenty of practical tips along the way. If you're unfamiliar with Mira, let me introduce you. Brian Papé founded Mira in 2010 with a dream to create more beauty and generosity in the world. Having inherited his grandfather's entrepreneurial spirit, it wasn't until a life-or-death ski accident that Brian fully realized his vision to build a legacy of using business as a tool to positively impact the world. As he set out to build Mere, he recognized two important things. First, there was a gap in the marketplace for high-quality, uniquely designed water bottles. And second, that business and philanthropy can be a powerful combination. Today, Mere is a mission-driven drinkware company that empowers people for a better future. They've given over $1 million toward clean water, healthy environment, and stronger community initiatives. Brian and I chat about multiple topics, including how to get started as a purpose-driven brand, where to even begin. We talk about how philanthropy starts at home, connecting product with purpose, the network effect of partnering with other brands to amplify your mission, moving beyond rhetoric and beyond performative allyship to real change. And for us Enneagram fans, how they use the Enneagram in their business to cultivate understanding in their team. How to coach individuals through a mindset of mind, soul, body, and craft. Plus, one of the best pieces of business advice he's ever received on the topic of why a values-based approach to business is kind of an anemic model and how a practice-based approach creates real impact through company values. Now, before we hear from Brian, you've likely heard we launched preregistration for SKU Camp. SKU Camp is a bootcamp experience for entrepreneurs. It's a blast. It's fun, inspirational, challenging. It's also an event that brings together the brightest in the business to share and learn from each other. On October 27th through the 30th, we're returning to the original location in Palm Springs with not just a reboot, but with a fresh and original vision. We're doing things a little different this year. Since SKU Camp sells out so quickly, we opened pre-registration. Pre-registering will add you to the list to be notified 24 hours before tickets are made open to the public, giving you a chance to secure your seat before they sell out. Within 24 hours of launching skucamp.com, we had an overwhelming response. So I encourage you to pre-register to ensure that you know when when tickets go officially on sale. There's no cost to pre-register. There is a cost for the event, but not a cost to pre-register. Just go to skucamp.com to learn more and sign up. Today's episode is brought to you by CommonsQ, the work-from-anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more or to begin your free trial now, visit commonsq.com. Now here's my conversation with our good friend Brian Papé.

I think when people look at your business, You know, one of the things that I think they do is they see this million-dollar initiative and they, they, they laud that. They want that. They're conscientious entrepreneurs. They want to be a part of that experience. They want to create that themselves. You didn't leap to a million dollars. You had to start somewhere. So whether we're a new entrepreneur starting out or whether we just come out of COVID and we want to refocus and open our scope and really orient our business toward purpose-driven initiatives, How do you even know where to start?

Yeah, that's, that's a great question, Bobby. And I, you know, it's, uh, again, thanks for having me. It's good to see, uh, you and, and, uh, hopefully all the people tuning in. Uh, it's good to be with you all again a year later, or a year and a half. Wow. I wish we were all in Vegas together. Usually I don't say I wish I was in Vegas, but I wish I was. But, uh, you know, we certainly— yeah, it wasn't overnight, uh, to get to a million. We're about to cross 2 million in granting this year, which still just kind of blows my mind.

Um, yeah.

Wow. I think the important thing is just being vulnerable and also just being open about my experience early on. I got to be honest. So we started giving from day one, and there were times where I thought, gosh, how vain and self-righteous is this to think that a $5,000 check here, a $10,000 check here is really going to move the needle when we were really small. And I thought, gosh, if I had stayed in corporate America or kind of gone a different path and just kind of saved some money and gave it away, that might have been it. Might have been a better avenue, but I just heads down, kept going, kept going. 11 years later, here we are at about $2 million. And so I think the most important thing that I kind of observed from my family was that you just have to start because if we were here now at the scale at which Mira is, to think that we would be like, oh yeah, we're just going to go ahead and carve off 3% of our revenue and start giving, people would kind of be like, what about this? And what about that? It doesn't have to be 3%. It could be whatever kind of makes you slightly uncomfortable. That's kind of what we talk about is not what makes you comfortable, but just kind of right there at the edge. But just starting, whether it's today, whether you're starting your company or you want to kick off some new initiatives, the important thing is just to start because it'll start to build up over time and over time and you make that commitment every day. Now we don't even think about it, not from the fact we don't think about impact, but we don't even look at it and go, oh, what about if we took this and we did some more marketing initiatives or, you know, went to some more trade shows. It's just, we just know that those dollars are going to go straight to some amazing nonprofits and we love it. So, uh, yeah, encouragement is just to start. You know, you're not going to get to a million dollars overnight, or maybe you are, that'd be great. Um, but for us it took a long, long time. And, um, you know, I always share, um, people have shared great, um, wisdom with me. And Dennis Madsen, who is one of the former CEOs of REI, kind of scaled from one store to about 100 stores you know, a young entrepreneur at 24, started my company, was just, you know, tons of energy, tons of passion. And Dennis is like, Brian, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Right.

Well, one of the things you said to me, unfortunately, there's a lot of heartbreak in the world. There's plenty of places for us to start where we can start contributing. But sometimes as entrepreneurs, we're overwhelmed by where to start. There's so many causes, there's so many things we can do. One comment you made to me is to start in a couple of areas. One was think about what breaks your heart. I think that'll get closer. And so if you and your team are trying to figure out where we go, what we start with, that's a great dialogue to have with your team. But second, one of the things that you said too was to closely align your product with your mission if you can. And how does that amplify what you're doing both on the business side as well as your contributions to the community?

Yeah, definitely. You know, so I think the first piece there You know, when people are going, gosh, I want to do something good, I don't know what to, you know, give back to or to be a part of, I always encourage people to look within your company first. You know, a lot of people think it's about what you give out to the community. And while that's important, you know, there's a lot of shoring up to do with, you know, benefits. You know, I think it was 2020, you know, we shored up our own benefits and extended medical care, you know, across, you know, our employees to their spouses, to their kids, like full medical coverage. We have a whole bunch of benefits that we just, you know, we said, hey, it's going to cost us a lot of money, but it's really important we take care of our people throughout COVID and into the future. So, you know, there's some people don't think of that as impact, but I do. You know, I think taking care of your people is super important. So you can look internally before you look externally. And then if you're looking externally and you're kind of drawing some blanks or you want to know what to really dive into, Andy Stanley, who's a great leader on the East Coast, says, you know, what breaks your heart? And it's, you know, that question cuts so quickly to things that just, you just, you get, you get bummed out, you want to help out.. And, and for my wife and I in 20— 2009, when we first started working on Mere, we had seen an ad for Charity: Water and saw that close to a billion people lacked access to clean water, something that we've always had our entire lives. And so that just, you know, I got goosebumps thinking, gosh, this is— hey, I didn't know it was this big of an issue. And B, I just, I want to solve this. I want to help however I can because it's such a— water's such a fundamental element of living. And so that question I think is just great. You know, it could be community-driven, it could be, you know, getting kids onto bicycles, it could, it could be a whole host of things. And I think that question also gets you really motivated, at least for me. So that's, yeah, go ahead.

Well, I was gonna say, one of the, I love your advice about starting at home because it's easy to get that backwards, isn't it? It's easy to start out and be giving over here, but then sort of leave this weakened infrastructure, if you will. Something you mentioned to me was that when you started inside, that began to scale your efforts. So it wasn't just you pulling everybody along by making sure first that you started at home, that helped scale your efforts and everyone got behind the mission. Is that part of your story?

Yeah, yeah, certainly. So for us, you know, when I started just, you know, kind of a solo entrepreneur, it was definitely about, you know, you know, this, you know, this cup helps provide somebody with clean water, and, and it was very much external. So our mission is to empower people for a better future, and, and that was definitely external at the start. And then as we kind of grew, uh, you know, it's one of those things where it was like, again, Dennis Madsen, we were, you know, we were given, you know, a lot of money away and it was awesome, and, and yet we weren't really paying our own team. I wasn't paying myself and we weren't paying our team you know, necessarily, uh, the wages we should have been, um, uh, from like, you know, market-based in Seattle, you know. And so he said, if you don't take care of your people, you're not going to have a business to take care of others. And I thought— so it really struck us, you know. So we kind of adjusted our model, um, you know, elevated, elevated wages, and we had to make the business sustainable outside of us, you know, choosing to give money away. Um, and then for us, you know, we're kind of linked to, you know, drinkware is, is sustainable in and of itself, meaning it's not single-use. You don't use it and throw it away. And so this idea that like we want to have something that's sustainable, um, and the product in and of itself is sustainable, so there we have a very common link between that and then also the, the philanthropy side of us choosing to be generous and to grant money. Um, you know, I think the more you can correlate your products to your purpose the more of this kind of virtuous circle, this virtuous cycle that you will get. It can be hard, you know, a lot of consultants or service-oriented companies struggle and say, how am I, you know, how am I going to do this? But I think there are so many great examples out there. And I think especially when you look at, uh, when you look at employees or, or where you're sourcing talent or labor, that can be a huge, uh, potential for service and for impact. You know, I think of Dave's Killer Bread. It's kind of a West Coast-ish brand that they might be national now, but Dave, who had been prison for a variety of things, you know, their business employs a whole host— I can't remember what percentage, it's a very high percentage of their labor is actually people who have transitioned out of prison. So they're very passionate about giving people a chance and employing them. So their mission is, is bread, it's tasty, it's good, it's, it's organic. Um, but that's not the story. The story is this, the second chance story. And I think, you know, oftentimes we think it's about, you know, giving bread away to somebody, and, and that could be a great model, um, potentially. But I think we oftentimes forget about the people element.

Speaking of that full circle, you partner with some great companies, Starbucks and Cotopaxi, just to name a few. In what ways has linking with other companies actually helped fuel the mission?

Yeah, it's been incredible for us from a variety of perspectives. You know, when I started the brand in 2009, launched in 2010, you know, we didn't have a massive marketing budget, you know, to go end consumer, although we started kind of on Facebook. And this is, you know, this is Dayton Me and Dayton Facebook, but we would post content in on our Facebook page and 100% of it went to the newsfeed. So our click-through rate was through the roof. You know, it was, it was very, um, you know, we were having some good success on Facebook. Um, but as soon as we started this brand partnership model of working with Starbucks and Cotopaxi and Herschel and, you know, some of these really great brands, we had this amplification or network effect is kind of what we call it of, you know, they're telling our story, we're telling their story. Um, we're getting circulation and now, you know, Mirror is sold in 49 countries, um, around the world, which still to this day just kind of, it kind of blows my mind. But, um, travel all over Asia, Europe, and we're in some of the most premium coffee shops in the world. And so you get this network effect where it's not just MIR in and of itself doing this thing, it's MIR and Cotopaxi. You know, we come together and do co-granting together, which is just— I think that's really special. We've done it with Starbucks as well. We did a beautiful project in Honduras with Starbucks Foundation partnered with our dollars. So you get this, again, amplification that's just— it usually doesn't happen in just traditional, traditional retail environments.

Do you remember the first time that it really awakened your heart where you just went, oh wow? Well, as a young entrepreneur, what was that first sort of moment where you decided, we're going to commit to doing this, it's going to be a little bit, and we're going to see what happens? Do you recall what the first sort of oh wow moment was when you made an impact?

Gosh, there— well, there's, there's— I mean, there's, there's— I've been lucky. There's, there's a lot of career, um, kind of highlights for me so far. And, and, you know, certainly the first trip My wife and I went to Liberia, Africa in 2011 and did some of our first grantmaking to an incredible nonprofit of locals in Buchanan, kind of near the coast, just doing clean water projects in their own community. So, you know, community citizens who are connected through a church that got connected to us, we're doing water projects in the small region and, you know, meeting these people and their passion for serving their community. And, you know, it's interesting thinking back to that time, what's even more special than that is it was so genuine from that community and those people who were helping their other people. These people weren't, you know, wealthy people had flown in, you know, while we had flown in to see it and assist it and see how we could help additionally. The folks doing the work on the ground were just compassionate about helping their own people. And there wasn't social media, there wasn't this grandstanding of, look at us, look at this. They were just doing it because they knew it was the right thing to do. And I'll never forget that, you know, the generosity of them hosting us. We stayed in their houses and their huts, and it was just like, it was a really, really special moment. You know, I think on the brand momentum side, one of the kind of craziest things that happened was 2013, this company called Patagonia emailed us and out of the blue, and just because we didn't have a phone number on our website at the time, you know, and then we did, we just never answered because we were too busy shipping packages and working on the business. But, um, you know, Patagonia had reached out and said, hey, we love your mission, we'd love to talk with you about partnering. And so I got to fly down and meet with the team and meet with Yvonne. I've had some, some really funny conversations with him over the years, and those are moments where you kind of have to pinch yourself, where you're, you know, you're sitting in, you know, Yvonne's office talking about product innovation and business and hard times. And so those kind of moments are certainly really, really impactful.

You know, for companies starting today, I think sustainability, giving back to causes in our community, being eco-conscious, inclusive, all of those are critically important. And they're table stakes now. I mean, this is a conscious choice, but it's something that is sort of entry level for an entrepreneur today. Is it a choice anymore? I mean, do you see these as sacrifice, obligation, or opportunity?

Yeah, I mean, that's a really good question. I hope people don't think this is a sacrifice to choose this model or even kind of I have to do this. I mean, in a weird way, it's nice that people feels that they have to do it so that there's kind of this momentum that builds for the world to be better. I do think that, at least from our experience, that for us to basically, you know, kind of really for it to be genuine, you know, I think there's a whole, I'm trying to think like it's table stakes, And yet people shy away because they go, oh, well, it's not going to impact my customers. You know, I think people think instantly that it has to be like TOMS or it has to be this like consumer product company. Great point. And I don't think that's true. I think, again, kind of going back to, you know, kind of looking at yourself internally of how am I, how am I caring for my stakeholders, right? So my employees, my vendors, you know, as an example. So we invite everybody throughout our supply chain into this model of generosity. As an example, We now have a baseline for any supplier that we work with, whether it's locally for, for screen printing or international, any of our, any of our manufacturers, that if they want to work with us, they now have to grant additionally to with us, meaning that they have to put up $50,000 to start that model of generosity within their own community. And so, you know, they've never seen this before. You know, they're making product for Yeti and Hydro and all these, and every time Mere comes to the table, they're like really excited because they're like, Hey, check out this work we did at this local school, you know, and then they're fired up about it. And so we feel like there's this opportunity to kind of change the model a bit where others are kind of just going about their normal day-to-day lives of whatever that may be. But, you know, it doesn't always have to be forward-facing. It can be supply chain oriented. It could be tapping into your employees. It could be giving your employees time to volunteer during work hours. You know, there's so many ways that you can really get your team involved. But it is becoming table stakes. And I think the reason why Part of it is, as we see a shoring up of talent in the marketplace, that companies have to get better, right? And I think we're seeing this in the promo space, that, you know, the quality of products, especially for those who are willing to buy, um, kind of at the higher level, they want to treat their clients and their employees with nicer products. I think similarly, when you recruit talent, you have to be able to say, we want to allow people to take time off to volunteer, or we give our own team Right now we start at $1,000. So every Mira employee has $1,000 that they can direct to any 501(c)(3) in the US. So we want our, we want our, even our own employees to think about generosity of like, hey, where would I direct this money? You know, and the range of nonprofits is really cool.

Yeah, I love that. This ties really well into our business because you and I talked about John Mackey's Conscious Capitalism and he talked about the entire ecosystem. Promocares is an organization within our industry that connects suppliers and distributors with causes. And I can see distributors making those conscientious choices race is too. I think in our world, distributors are going to make more decisions based on supplier and partner selection with some of the criteria you've talked about today. I had one question about something recently in the wake of the, the just horrific hate and xenophobia against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the US. You and your team did something I thought was wise for all of us to consider. You didn't immediately react. You did respond very thoughtfully with the donation to the AAPI communities and causes. One statement that really that stood out to me was a phrase that you wrote in a post or press release. You said, "We're not interested in performative allyship." Can you explain what you mean by that?

Yeah, yeah, it's a great— gosh, it's a hot topic these days. And, you know, I don't know if we're getting it right, but we're trying our best to be authentic and to do it, you know, how we view it. It's interesting through social media these days that, you know, the benefit is that we're exposed and we all have cameras and we can kind of film, you know, all the things that are happening, good and bad. And sometimes it feels like more bad than good these days on social media. You know, it's interesting, we took time internally. And so, so one of our ELT members, our executive team members, Tiffany, she's part of the, you know, Asian American community. She leads our impact process. And, you know, as we're kind of scrolling through social media, you know, companies are very quickly making statements. You know, nothing wrong with making statements very quickly. And I checked in with a couple companies I know, I said, hey, that's awesome, making statements. What are you, what are you doing for your team? And what are you doing for your community? And they were like, we haven't figured that out yet. And it really, it kind of gave me pause. And the reason it gave me pause is that we're so quick to talk about the things that we want to do or what we're against. And we challenge ourselves to say, hey, what are we for? You know, of course we're against racism. Of course we're for that, right? Just speaking that we're against racism does not solve racism, you know. And while it can help spread awareness, We really took the time and said, hey, you know what, let's check in with our team, you know. And Tiffany was really passionate about this. And so that whole week, you know, she was concerned. She had parents in the Bay Area, um, you know, and for her, she wanted to check in with her family. So she checked in, um, you know, the, the Asian American community within Mears is, is quite strong. And Tiffany checked in with that entire group and just said, hey, if you need to take time, awesome. My executive coach is available for resource. We do Enneagram. And so there's a very tight-knit community. We said, we have to resource our team first, then let's figure out who we're going to grant to and why, and what is that going to look like, and let's invite our team in, and then we're going to go to social media and say, hey, here is what we have done, and here's what we're going to continue to do. But we got a lot of flak for it. I'll be honest, the instant reaction from some of our team members, and interestingly enough, it was white people saying, well, we haven't made a statement about Asian hate, Does that mean we don't care? And it was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's let— so we kind of had to reset the standard of saying, hey, we don't necessarily move at the speed of like instant Instagram. We want— and how vain is it? And we had an all-company about this. How vain is it to go out and post before you take care of your own people, you know? And so often I think about performative allyship, of, of people are so quick to post so that they don't see— so they're not being seen as racist or that they don't care. And I don't know, we're really questioning how do we go about actual change. And for us, we fundamentally believe take care of our own people. Let's invite that actual people group into the conversation for a grant, because who am I to say like the money should go here? I'm not Asian, you know. And so I think that was, you know, a really, a really interesting moment of time of communicating to our company as to why we're not posting like day of and taking our time to really think through how we want to be intentional. About moving forward and not just doing it because everybody else is doing it, you know? And it seems like social media is that way these days. Well, everybody's doing it, so we have to do it, right? Yeah.

I would love how you looked inward to your team for that advice, that it wasn't Brian driving this. And also that I think we do have to respond rather than react because it's really, it's just so difficult, as you said. One of the things that you did this past year was, speaking of your team, you mentioned that philanthropy should start at home. And you have seemed to have taken this focus back to your team over the past year pretty intensely. Intensely. Lisa Picard from the amazing company EQ Office helped you and your team navigate through this ambiguous world of values. And, and what I love about this is that she came up with something far more practical and tactical to impact your team and your world called practices. Can you explain the shift that— what that means, but then the shift that occurred within you and your leadership team as you went from values-based organization to taking this into a practices approach?

Yeah, absolutely. And this, you know, this is, this is probably one of my favorite and best pieces of advice that I've had in my entire career, and one that I'll take and then I constantly give out because it's so, it's so easy. And it's so practical and useful. And so this is probably 5 or 6 years ago, we kind of were clarifying our values. And, you know, it was a whole, it was a whole, you know, 2-day, 3-day offsite with this, you know, consultant, and it was great. We ran out, we landed on some really great values.. And about a year or so later, you know, we're having this conversation with Lisa and she was talking about, you know, really values are something that kind of sit on your, you know, sit on your wall and they collect dust. Because if they're not living and breathing, they're just words, right? And I think the famous example is Enron had integrity as a value and Enron clearly did not have integrity, right? The great irony there. And so, you know, so there was this kind of flip in the switch of making sure that your values are actual practices.. And so at Mira, you know, you can hear, like, if you were to tap into the Zoom calls or tap into the phone calls or the text message or the chats or the emails, you would hear our team communicator practices, which is find a way, start with yes, enjoy the ride, and be open. And so you'll hear our team members, you'll hear a salesperson call a sales ops person and say, hey, you know, Megan, I really appreciate you finding a way to get this for my customer. And, you know, I'm sure Gemline hears it, you know, when they interact with our sales team of, hey, thanks for being open to our idea, or concept. And so it's so simple. Like when Lisa said it, it was like, this makes so much sense. And it takes time. You know, we reward and measure performance management against those practices. You know, so we highlight every 6 months when we sit down and do our performance reviews with our team members, hey, really saw you lean into, you know, being open, and here's the example, right? And over 2020, we noticed that you know, not many people were enjoying the ride. It was, it was a brutal year. And so there are a whole host of things that we did internally. You know, we developed this, you know, 2020, and, you know, apart from, you know, the death and the, the business destruction and all the horrible things that have happened, 2020 was one of my favorite years. And the reason I say that is because there was so much opportunity for growth—personal growth, business growth, leadership development growth. And I spent a tremendous amount of time researching, reading, you know, as there was downtime, to really shore up and think about how our culture interacts and how we can basically empower our own team. Again, thinking about our team, you know, so we empower people for a better future. It's not just the stakeholders or the nonprofits, it's also our own team. And so we developed, you know, through working with Pete Carroll at the Seahawks and some others, that there's this belief that we've come up with that there's 4 things that you can coach an individual, and it's mind, soul, body, and craft. And I'll say it again, mind, soul, body, and craft. Sometimes we will add in heart, you know, but for us, we developed what we call the quadrant. And so each one of those quadrants, there's a touchpoint or a training exercise or coaching opportunity for our team. And so, you know, we weren't paying for an office this year. Our leases ended, unfortunately, in April of 2020. And so we said, let's pause. Let's put those dollars towards leadership development. My executive coach and the consultant that we work with, runs a program called Managing with Heart and Mind. And so it's this idea that the mind and the heart are inextricably connected. And the more you can bring that connective tissue together and then lead with those connective tissues, you're going to have more empathy, you have better communication, better feedback. And so everybody in the entire company, 5-day intensive course, not 5 days in a row, we kind of did like every other Friday, went through this whole Managing with Heart and Mind, really shoring up some of our leaders and their capacity to lead. We do Enneagrams. Our executive leadership team has done Enneagram for about 3 years now.

I was going to ask you about that.

Sam Cates is going to love this, but keep going. So, you know, we do Enneagram as a company. And at first, my executive coach who leads that for our team was kind of like, gosh, the whole company, like, yeah, we've never done that before. But he had, you know, he has, he's been trained in South Africa through an institute there. And it's really, really smart, really, really sharp guy. And he goes, let's, let's give it a try. And so our team has just devoured it. I mean, they love it. You know, it provides this common language, this understanding, um, you know, builds. And I think the thing that's great about, um, Enneagram is, is there's this belief that you have to build trust, but before you become vulnerable, and the science is actually showing us the opposite. And so at Mere, I have to constantly focus on being vulnerable, whether I make a mistake, um, being open and transparent about decisions that I made or, or, or didn't make. Um, you know, so our conversations about, you know, um, you know, anti-Asian hate, stuff like that, being vulnerable leads to trust, not trying to build trust to then be vulnerable. And so similarly, Enneagram gives that opportunity because people have to kind of talk about why they're, you know, they might be this number and how they're going to shore up, you know, what a healthy 3 looks like.

And so anyway, by the way, what's your— everyone's going to want to know, Brian, what's your number? I'm a type 5.

I'm a 4. What are you? Oh, I'm a hardcore 3. I love being achieving, you know, speaking in front of people, you know. But, you know, it's a very, 3 of the very close, 7 right behind it on the scoring.

So I am sorry to interrupt you. I'll let you get back to Enneagram, Quad. How did all of that continue to, to really develop your leadership team? I love, by the way, one comment about Quad is I love this. That gives you a framework as a leader. Instead of just saying generally, how's our team doing? You now have a framework to say, how are they doing in these 4 areas?

Totally, totally. Yeah. So it's, you know, we do a, we have a mindfulness and meditation coach. We have a spring semester and a fall semester. And so, it's an hour and a half every Friday for 8 weeks, both spring and fall. And that part's optional. If people think it's too woo-woo, that's fine. But I personally, I love it. We use Made For, which is Blake Mycoskie's new venture. And so, it's a habit-forming of 10 habits, 10 core habits like eating, drinking, sleep, gratitude, mindfulness. And so, that one's optional as well. Really resourcing our teams because if somebody can bring their whole self to work, they're going to perform better, but it's also going to be a much more enjoyable experience. So in kind of service to our practice, enjoy the ride, we want to resource our people. And we believe that all of our people are leaders. And so what we look at internally is leadership of self, leadership of others, and then leadership of company. And so, you know, when somebody is like, hey, I really want to be on a leadership team, or I want to eventually become like a leader of people, that's Awesome. We love that. We want everybody to be a leadership of a leader of themselves. Excuse me. And then we resource them to be able to do that. So everybody has, you know, the availability to work on Enneagram one-on-one with our Enneagram coach. So that's, those are, those are kind of some things that came out of 2020 and I don't think would have happened if we hadn't had 2020. So in a weird way, I, I'm, I'm a big fan.

A couple of questions from community. Danny Rosen, whom we're all big fans of here, is how is Mere taking its amazing physical products and connecting them to community giving strategies in the digital world?

Does that make sense?

Gosh, in the digital world, like, what, like, yeah, I think just how are you translating your sales through digital experiences and give back? Is there any component related to this? I mean, how are you equating what happens in the digital world the physical world.

Definitely. My Starbucks mug is full of coffee, but there's basically— there's a give code on— there's a number on the bottom of this cup. And I'm really excited about the future here because again, 2020, a lot— like, you go to Asia, QR codes everywhere. In America, pre-2020, people are like, what do I do with a QR code? Now everyone knows how to use a QR code. We've been working on this, but we have some of our new product that's coming out has a QR code on the bottom of every vessel.. And so we've had a gift code, gosh, since 2011. And this code is an invitation to our model of generosity. So what's really great is, you know, we have millions of units going out a year and people are able to come and register that code on our website and look at our grant-making process. We're opening up our entire supply chain over the next couple of years as far as like, here are the standards, BSCI certified, fair trade, whatever factory has the pieces. We want to expose that to our customers and let them see where did our factories grant, you know, in China, what are they doing? Because it's so, it's so cool. So we have this really unique opportunity to connect all customers, whether somebody buys it from Gemline and then sells it to Staples and then sells it to Facebook. That Facebook end consumer has the opportunity to come back and actually see, you know, the grant that we did to Seattle Bike Works to help get kids onto bicycles. So that's kind of like the digital component for Mira that we love.

I love it. You just shared— what a brilliant idea. Thank you for sharing that. You just shared that with several hundred people that are selling millions of mugs. So that idea is probably going to proliferate as we go along. Brian, I can't tell you how much we appreciate you showing up again, not only just to talk about what Mira is doing, but to be vulnerable enough to share the transition and challenges and struggles you've had with you in your leadership and how you've shifted.

Man, thank you so much for joining us. Us today. Absolutely. No, thanks, thanks for having me, and hopefully there were some tidbits for folks to take away. We love working with everybody in this industry and wish we could be in person, but thanks for having me. It's always fun to share what we're going through.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of SkuCast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SkuCast on iTunes or to our blog at community.skucast.com. Comandskew.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.