Ian Schafer founded Kindred as an antidote of sorts. Exhausted after building agencies, he put his focus on building connections for people and companies trying to make positive impacts on the world. In this chat, we look at brand purpose, and makes impact and intent real. Ian has a clear point of view on how to generate action and motivate more to take part.

Kindred is kicking off with a conference and live event May of 2020 in San Diego, CA. More info on Kindred.live.

Listen here: https://specific.substack.com/p/doing-good-with-ian-schafer-of-kindred-429?r=n6j6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy

Transcript by Otter.ai

Adam Pierno 0:25
Alright, welcome back to another episode of the strategy inside everything. We are going to have a purposeful positive talk today, although the some of the pre chatter we maybe wasn’t so positive, but we had a couple laughs I am joined today by Mr. Ian Shaffer, who came from the agency world, and now has co founded and as the CEO of Kindred, which is a new kind of organization. When I started reading about it, I reached out to him right away and said, Hey, we want to talk to you about this, Ian welcome this morning. Thanks for having me, Adam. I really am appreciate you making time I know you’re trying to stand up this huge, this huge idea of yours. So I appreciate you making an hour and doing it.

Ian Schafer 1:08
No problem, go big or go home, as they say.

Adam Pierno 1:12
Tell me tell the audience for those who don’t know who you are, if you can give us just kind of background of how you got to this point in your career. And then we’ll then we’ll dive in and talk about how you came up with the idea for Kindred.

Ian Schafer 1:23
Sure. So I come I’m coming out of about a 20 year career in. It’s called media entertainment and advertising. So for the last 15 years, I was building, running, growing, and then eventually selling an agency called Deep Focus, which is sold in 2010 to the engine group, and stayed on until the global and kept growing it until I left in 2017. To, for lack of a better term figure shit out. It was it was it was like agency years are kind of or I don’t even know what kind of years they are. But they don’t feel like 365 days, they feel like a lot longer, especially in hindsight. And so, you know, I needed to figure out kind of all the powers that I accumulated through the years, whether it’s at the on the agency side, or in the movie studio side, which is what I was doing before that, you know, how can I make as big of a difference in the world as possible as just one person. And that’s that that was the kind of vision quest that I went on after, after I left that career behind them closed that chapter at least. And I honestly like had to figure out like, what what new chapter to open? And he did you time to figure that out?

Adam Pierno 2:50
Were you having those thoughts while you were at deep focus? And while you were at the engine group? Were you were you thinking that even then or not until you hit the wall and decided to take a break and recalibrate?

Ian Schafer 3:02
Um, yeah, I was. I mean, you know, this live, I turned 40. I had three kids not all at once. And technically, my wife was the one that had them.

Adam Pierno 3:13
She did most of the work there. Yeah, she

Ian Schafer 3:15
Yeah, and continues to do so. But um, you know, it is they were thoughts that any human being would have, right after doing something, there was a lot of fear attached to like thinking about leaving. There was also though, existential questions that I had about the industry. And, you know, there was so many changes happening inside the industry and also like, outside of the industry that affected the industry, that I actually wondered if I had another reinvention in me from a from an agency standpoint, like if I had the appetite for that, and if the upside would be worth it, because every time there was a reinvention, I felt invigorated and enthusiastic and motivated to, to actually reimagine the agency, what it does, what it did how it did it, and had successfully done that over the course, you know, 15 years, and it was gotten to the point where the next logical step might have actually been contraction. And no one wants to really hear that, like, that doesn’t excite people. And frankly, like, I just didn’t know if I had that in me. So I decided to, you know, move on, you know, get in some, like new blood new thinking, to help solve, you know, the challenges that we’re facing the entire industry, not just the agency, and and figure out what was next to me. And like I said, it was a very difficult decision, and one that I am not gonna lie like one that my mental health contributed to New York, I found myself, like, in a hoodie, like, on my couch with literally the hood pulled over my head, you know, trying to figure out how like, how do you not just extract yourself from a family, but from a career and from a reputation? And then the existential questions around like, am I even good at anything else? Like all these things added up? And eventually I just have to take that leap of faith? That

Adam Pierno 5:15
is a huge question for people that are, you know, so much of advertising, Twitter and and agency Twitter, you know, to encompass all the kinds of agencies are people that are having that same internal debate of, could if I get laid off, or if this place closes? Or if my if I have to close my place? Can I do something else? What would it be? And that really holds back both. I think that holds back the growth of the industry overall, because people are so afraid to shift from what they know has worked.

Ian Schafer 5:47
Yeah, and my advice for anyone that my advice for anyone who’s thinking about that is, and maybe more of a pep talk, but it’s like you’ve got the some of the most transferable skills of any career period. So, you know, don’t be afraid to look at kind of making a left turn in your career, but still being able to use all the skills and talent that you’ve accumulated, including being a good if not great communicator. Yeah. Because those those are that skills in such short supply, that there’s just, you know, so much value that can be drawn for that how to succeed in a meritocracy, for example, right? To handle adversity, stuff like that.

Adam Pierno 6:28
Yeah, also urgency, you know, taking someone from an ad agency, you know, at a high performing agency, and putting them in most enterprise organizations, they will maybe not outperform in terms of work product, but out drive. Most people around them just with the sense of urgency that they have that when there’s an assignment, we’re going to focus on it and work on it in a way with a real passion behind it.

Ian Schafer 6:54
Yeah, and how to use a short attention span to your advantage, right.

Adam Pierno 6:58
I’m still trying to master that. Well, so how far into your I’m gonna call it a sabbatical. But yeah, you can call it whatever. How far into it? were you when you got the idea for Kindred? And feel free to explain what Kindred is at this at this point, so people can

Ian Schafer 7:16
get a sense for sure. I was probably about a year in I mean, it wasn’t it. Literally, I wanted to actually do a sabbatical, it didn’t happen. Again, that’s probably because of the short attention span. But I got a little closer to some of the investments that I’ve made through the years, I did some more investing, both as an angel and into some funds. And, and Lena Dunham advising, a little bit stop short of doing actual consulting. Because I feel like once you start, it’s hard to stop. And I just didn’t know if I necessarily wanted to do that. In the short, it’s not long term. So but I would say that the DF for this had been growing, it turns out for years, I just didn’t realize it. It’s kind of a slow hunch, as Steven Johnson would call it, that that build, build built up over the course of several years. noted, mostly by like some of the work that I was doing inside of the agency, we’d created a division of the agency called Deep Impact. One of the few deep focus funds that I actually liked, and that was focused on working with nonprofits. And as luck would have it, one of the initiatives that we had wound up becoming, you know, working crew had us working closely with the Obama White House. And it was an incredibly rewarding experience around elevating the conversation around criminal justice reform. And it was it kind of gave, like, I got my groove back with that a little bit. And I thought about, like, how can I do more of this. And so I spent more time working with nonprofits working with, you know, with companies that were really just like trying to make more of a positive impact on the world. And then I kind of realized what drew me to advertising at the time I was drawn to it in the first place, which is that kind of the, the, the advent of all this new technology and connectedness and social media and all the things that go around with it. Yeah, there are, there are a lot of negatives that we now know about, in hindsight, but it enables every single person in the world to potentially become a force multiplier.

Adam Pierno 9:30
There’s a lot of there’s a lot of good, we just choose to focus on what’s in front of us. And a lot of that is junk.

Ian Schafer 9:36
Yeah, yeah. And like, you know, the echo chamber, the nature of social media that we all, you know, think about as the bad I mean, often does the good. I mean, like, you could literally do, like a really wonderful case study on, you know, great, a Thunderbird, you know, 16 year old girl from Sweden organizing a global walkout for climate change. You know, yesterday, you know, story that, you know, New York is going to let kids walk out of school, on the 23rd. I mean, and that is like, that is momentum that is movement building that is old school community organizing, updated, you know, for a modern world.

Adam Pierno 10:12
Yeah. How to scale it.

Ian Schafer 10:14
Yeah. And it’s just fascinating to me, I’m, like, we spent all these years at an agency trying to get more people to like a Facebook page, you know, that sells, you know, chips. And not, I mean, there’s stuff some stuff wrong with that, but not that there’s anything wrong with that. But when you realize, like, if you could put that same energy towards actually pushing not just profits to the bottom line, but impact to the bottom line, we really could, like have a network effect on on positive change in society. And so companies can play a really great role in that, as does culture. And so, you know, as I was thinking about, like, what, what what makes, you know, for a modern movement, I think, in many ways, that is the participation between like public and private partnerships, it is, is, you know, certainly companies, your brand’s however you want to call them, your nonprofits and influential culture creators, or however you want to describe, you know, people who leave that kind of mark on the world, you know, and activists all working together to make change happen and holding themselves and each other accountable for it, because if they don’t, the press, and society will, that’s just how things are. And yes, sometimes it gets visceral, and you get caught up getting, you know, cancelled in culture, as Jesus Mary would say, like, it is like that sometimes short lived, cancellation, but

Adam Pierno 11:38
it’s more like a pause and a full.

Ian Schafer 11:41
They described it as like, like Super Mario becoming regular Mario. Like, you know, that that is, that’s what happens. And so, you know, there’s a lot of upside to those parties working together. And I think the best experiences that I’ve had in my career and the best outcomes I’ve had, we’re because of unexpected collaborations. And we see that happening in fashion, we’ve always seen that happening in music. And I think the same thing can happen in the world of impact. And so, you know, the unexpected collaboration that we’re trying to make happen, is doing it through this annual event that we’re building up to, which is Kindred 2020. It’s happening may 11, to the 14th, at the San Diego Convention Center. And it’s more than a conference. You know, the idea is we want to get the leaders of business, you know, who are now fighting over, in some ways, this kind of territory inside their organizations and companies to get better working together, in the same way that those companies had to get better working together, when they were going through the digital transformation era. But I think now we’re in a purpose led business transformation era. And they’ve got to figure this out, and they got to figure out and you know, how to work better with nonprofits, because they’re the true experts in actually making making us and, and culture.

Adam Pierno 12:56
Yeah, that’s where that’s where brands, companies, I don’t brands that brands are the mouthpiece, but companies lose their way and lose credibility when they slap a logo of an organization on there and donate cash and feel like, Oh, yeah, consumers are going to buy this because they want to participate in this without consulting the experts in that nonprofit space, or not even nonprofit, but working with experts to actually drive change, or make impact as opposed to just, you know, logo, slapping it and just saying, okay, we’re putting money in there. And we don’t really know where it goes after that.

Ian Schafer 13:33
Right? Yeah, I mean, the the kind of check writing part of this is like, while good and helpful, because every nonprofits existential crisis is money and fundraising. And without that, they can’t do the great work that they do in the field. But that’s not a force multiplier effect, right? Like that is that’s incremental, it’s not exponential. And so I think there can, like great exponential things can happen. You know, with all with all these parties working together, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a very optimistic view. There are a lot of pessimistic views out there. I mean, you know, the, there have been books very recently, you know, written about, like, how you can’t trust the business to operate, you know, for people because inherently operates for profit. You know, so like, Milton Friedman School of Economics, and I, which is fine, if you want to believe that, but I happen to think that, you know, companies are not just entities, they’re made of people when people can make right and wrong decisions. And I’m optimistic that the future done or generation of leaders, you know, that will have grown up in a time where there, they’ll be making more as

Adam Pierno 14:42
well, and any and just like people, corporations are made up of decision makers, who some of them can be part of this system, that are that are building in this way that are is for good, with a focus to amplify good. And some of them are legacy companies, or even new companies that we’ll be founded in the future, that are not going to play in that space and can’t do it.

Ian Schafer 15:04
Yeah. And then there are like their gold standard companies that are doing this forever, like Ben and Jerry’s, you know, CEO will be speaking at our event. You know, they’re the kind of OG like, activist, brand activist company. They’ve been like that from day one. And you know, even like, the pessimists, after like, a Unilever acquisition would say, well, there goes that, but like, they’ve continued to do it. You know, on on April 20, this year, their most successful social media posts in history was, you know, opposed to the marijuana, but that said, Hey, like, we know, you’re going to have, like, probably gonna have a good time today. But just remember that the people getting wealthy off of this now that it’s becoming legal, and a lot of places are just wealthier, white men, and you know, 80% of the people that are behind bars for low level drug offenses are African American men. And so like, think about that, right. And like that, I don’t know if that sounds nice thing, or he’s got clothes probably doesn’t necessarily sell ice cream. But when you add it all up, that’s a company that you want to buy more ice cream from. And I don’t think purpose is the filter by which people make their initial purchasing decisions. But it is the intangible that keeps them loyal to a company or brand and gets them advocate for it more so

Adam Pierno 16:16
and more to spend more money with. And so Kindred give me a sense of of how you’re trying to make, I’m assuming where you’re trying to just create the conditions for more potential ways that for profit enterprises can contribute to what I call net positive. Yeah, it did this tricky. Part of that is always like, well, which cause a company could say a cause is they’re contributing to they feel as a positive and the the people out in the world consumers could say, well, I don’t agree with that, you know, there are people right here against marijuana, and could say that Ben and Jerry’s is now I don’t like them, because they are aligned with that cause?

Ian Schafer 16:59
Correct?

That would surprise me from

Adam Pierno 17:04
the audience. It was very tight. Yeah, for sure.

Ian Schafer 17:08
But But yeah, I mean, we are you said it Well, I mean, we’re trying to create these conditions, right conditions for collaboration. So in bringing those, you know, brands, nonprofits and craters, together with the ecosystem that serves and supports them, I mean, we are creating a marketplace, it’s a marketplace of ideas, it’s also a marketplace, you know, for doing better business with one another, and people who feel better about doing business with, which is kind of, you know, it just feels good to do that kind of business. And so, you know, in addition to, you know, the kind of the standard conference fair, where, you know, we get to hear, you know, how to do things better, right how to, you know, deal with culture, how to, you know, build a new life purpose led organization, and how to actually make an impact and, you know, measure that in terms of, you know, return on your investment in that area, you know, there’ll be a ton of programming focused on that, we’re also doing very special things to make action happen. So, you know, the least of which is just facilitating and curating meetings between, you know, brands, and, you know, influential creators and culture who are aligned on a sense of purpose, and can do great work together. And that great work can lead to more business together. But there’s also, you know, putting those brands and companies together with companies who can enable them on that purpose journey. So whether that’s, you know, improving the welfare of their employees, or, you know, finding like plant plays, plant based ink, and, you know, sustainable packaging, and, you know, closing the loop on recycling, you know, we’re just, we’re, it could be ad tech, you know, it, but it’s an ad tech company, who actually, like cares about the same things that the company wants to do business with does, whether that’s the data and privacy or employing veterans, right? Like, these are kinds of things that people should know about each other. That helps them feel better about doing business. But so we’re trying to make those synapses fire between good companies more often. But the kind of other and maybe more unique aspect of what we’re doing is we’re doing five concurrent, I guess, what I would call a cultural hackathons, at the event, where we’re bringing, you know, 50 to 60, influential creators, about half a dozen nonprofits, and a brand for each of five areas of impact, to figure out how to make difficult conversations about those complicated issues easier for millions of people to participate in. And then the volume of those conversations too loud for institutions to ignore, and whether those institutions or companies or society or government, you know, we know that certain institutions need to change and even if that’s just a belief system, you know, to make it easier for policies to pass or for, you know, people to, you know, speak in Kinder words about things to make it easier for the people that suffer from certain conditions, for example. So the areas of impact we’re focused on include, you know, mental health, climate change and sustainability. criminal justice reform, justice reform, prefer to call it and nutritional access so they can have, you know, access to nutritional food and communities who just don’t have that it’s easier to get, for example, like a Big Mac, then fresh vegetables. So like, that’s, that’s a problem.

Adam Pierno 20:26
That’s more it’s more like the food desert situation.

Unknown Speaker 20:30
Exactly. So those are just there’s so much urgency, frankly, around those areas that we felt like there’s, you know, those problems won’t be necessarily solved with better communication, but the urgency around them can be raised for it. And so how do those cohorts working together, actually get something done that achieves that that sense of urgency, that sense of understanding that sense of empathy, that can get more people involved?

Adam Pierno 20:56
And those those those hackathons? Ian? Are those are happening at Kindred 2020 in May, is that are you kind of are you facilitating through Kindred those same five areas in the marketplace? there? You’re creating on an ongoing basis? Or? Or what’s the model? What’s the business model of Kindred? on a on a day to day? Is it building up a list of creators who want to have a point of view on these issues? And I shouldn’t say issues on these topics. And then a list of brands, you know, is it bringing together the three groups for each topic and conversation and just trying to match make.

Unknown Speaker 21:31
So so short term, the business model is a is a successful event, I we need to be we need to build, the best way to build a reputation for bringing the right parties together is by executing this event in a big way. And making sure that you know that the right corporate culture and nonprofit leaders are all there working together. And creating great outcomes, like for me like that is that’s what this organization does, the company puts on this event, you know, we’ll be finding all kinds of exciting ways to give back as well. I think they simply by bringing people together and making great action happen like that force multiplier effect is one of our ways of giving back. But we’ll find other creative ways to do that, too. In the long term, which I can’t think about too much. Because you can’t underestimate how much work goes into creating an event that goes from zero people to 2000 people in a few months,

Adam Pierno 22:35
I have executed much smaller events, and they are it’s a whole other thing.

Unknown Speaker 22:40
Just as much work. Yeah, so it’s, um, so we’re, like firing on all cylinders for that. But in the long term, I think, you know, for me, like the the, the lens that I’d apply to everything is what are the things that we can do to make that force multiplier effect happen more often, that could be in content, it could be in more frequently gatherings. We could be doing these quests, which is what we’re calling those hackathons. Throughout the year, we’ve already done a couple of them as experiments. So we did one that work with our partners at HBO on producing on, on ending mental health stigmas. Back in June, just following Mental Health Awareness Month, so I you know, there’s, we’ve, we’ve done stuff in market already. I wouldn’t say like everything that we do after Kindred 2020 will necessarily be an event, there are lots of like, adjacent possibilities for the kinds of things that we can and will be doing. And some of those conversations are even happening right now. But, you know, for the sake of our day to day operations, we are 100% right now focused on, you know, producing that event and making that kind of like the tractor beam for people who just want to have a greater impact in their professional and personal lives, right? Yeah, this is great, as

Adam Pierno 23:57
I’m looking at the events, really impressed by the group of speakers that you’ve already got, or I don’t want to say speakers, I think they’re presented as speakers. But thought leaders feels like an under an under promise of who you’ve got already lined up. So it’ll be very impressive to see this collection of people together.

Ian Schafer 24:16
Yeah, I mean, if we’re looking at and whoever’s listening, listening to this, can you just go to kindle dot live, you know, and see an updated list of who’s going to be there at any given moment, where we’ll probably by the end of September will have, I would say, like, over 50 speakers announced, there will be some really exciting kind of high profile folks that, that we’re going to be announcing in the coming weeks, that are more I would say, like in the cultural world, even though they may not be that obvious, but they do have a leg in or at least a foot in the business world as well. You know, which is exciting, because, like, in the old days, like the when you when you were a celebrity what you wanted to be like kind of the next leveling up from celebrities mobile. And I think now, people are realizing that that’s a pretty shallow ambition. And I think they’ve, you know, I think their their ambition above celebrity is actually like, kind of making as big of an impact as possible.

Adam Pierno 25:18
And then the definition of impact has changed, you know, I want to own a record label and, you know, have a fractional ownership of a sports team to, oh, I can use this platform to solve problems in the world.

Ian Schafer 25:32
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, like, it’s, it’s come under a lot of scrutiny lately. But, you know, but but like, you know, what, Jay and, and Meek Mill done, like, and ben jones, Michael Rubin, and Robert Kraft and like, talk about, like, a bunch of like, big personalities, you know, kind of coming together, do the reform Alliance, you know, really did send the signal to people that says, like, you can, like, forces coming together can in fact, create change. I mean, I think in that case, it doesn’t just have to be, you know, a bunch of wealthy people, even if they have, like, different, like maybe political leanings, that there is common ground to be had, which is like, kind of a nice, I don’t know, it’s a nice story. You know, but there are there were these amazing people that, you know, are now like activists who are becoming celebrities, because they’re activists, and there were a few of them that happened, you know, within like the 60s. And before that, where people became well known for being activists, I just think now, there are that you can’t necessarily, and this is an interesting act of reconciliation that will have to happen is that when you’re an activist, and you want to make change, like how do you actually work with the business world? Right, like, knowing that you have to eat so otherwise, we just have like a bunch of wealthy activists. Right. That’s it.

Adam Pierno 26:47
And how do you did the automatic assumption what you’ve referenced the, the Jay Z and the NFL partnership, the immediate reception of that was like, Oh, I can’t believe he sold out. You know, that was what the dominant new I saw. And then over the next week, it was like, Oh, no, they’re actually going to do things. Wow, I can’t believe what they’re doing. The impact is going to be amazing of what they’re doing. But but the the initial reaction was from, and it’s from Twitter. So it’s stilted, was, whoa, this, this feels like he’s selling out or he did something wrong. But I think people are just so skeptical of, of companies and brands that maybe people?

Ian Schafer 27:29
Yeah, I think I think at this point, we’re going to judge that by the actions and the outcome, right? I mean, I feel like people are judging every step along the way, and they’re able to do that, that’s fine. I mean, you do that. And obviously, like a platform, like Twitter makes that really easy, also makes it easy to pile on, I’m kind of reserving judgment on the whole thing. And I, as a longtime Jay Z fan, I’m willing to give like benefit of the doubt everywhere. And so he’s made a lot of great, like, calculated business decisions. And if you want to treat, making an impact, with the same kind of respect, as you have, as a growing a business, I applaud that too. Because, you know, at the end of the day, like we should be, if someone says they’re going to do something, we should hold them accountable for doing that, whether that’s, you know, hit making your quarterly earnings or, you know, reducing, you know, carbon footprint,

Adam Pierno 28:17
totally, and how we reported along the way. So, as you said, we as, as outsiders, I don’t like the word consumers, but as, as people that are just watching the announcement of the thing, we have to draw a conclusion, and then we may not hear anything, some of these programs are, if we’re talking about sustainability and climate change, I may never see an impact to that, ever. Oh, right. It might be some micro impact that gets made, but how it’s reported back to show progresses is part of what I what I think needs to be improved.

Ian Schafer 28:47
And there are generally two things that got a company to change. One is money, right? people’s wallets, you know, with your wallet, right, then, you know, but the other is cultural pressure, which is also kind of closely tied to the fear of losing money. You know, but like, do you expect, like the NFL to change on its own? Definitely. Right. I mean, it is, like, almost a literal definition of an institution. They’re celebrating their hundredth anniversary this year. So it’s like, you know, there’s, there is, there’s a lot of momentum and muscle memory there. That, frankly, does need to change. And, you know, it’s, it’s not, and this isn’t just about changing the NFL is the other thing that I think about, I think, you know, Jays involvement and again, speculation, but it’s probably about changing the culture to Yeah, culture of the league and changing the culture of, you know, the path of people that wind up playing for the league and improving the lives of the people in the culture who watched,

Adam Pierno 29:51
that’s it, it has to serve all three of those for to have any impact. And and when when purpose is executed at an organization, correct? It does that it makes sense. In a in an elevator description, I understand why this company wants to work with this purpose. And it lifts all three of those audiences.

Ian Schafer 30:09
Yeah, but you have to be willing to participate in the conversation. Right? And so not to get too wonky about this, just one particular thing, but like, you know, yeah, like Eric Reid, who’s been, you know, side by side with Kaepernick, you know, this entire thing, you know, has something to say about it, it’s probably worth having and making sure that there’s a conversation that happens, right, because, you know, even with the best of intentions, people are going to scrutinize, you know, all the steps that are taken along the way, it’s just going to happen.

Adam Pierno 30:33
And if you’re a CPG brand, and you’re talking about sustainability, but you make, you know, a lot of plastic bottles, they I’m sure I’m certain they expect some pushback when they talk about sustainability, and they have to be thoughtful about not from a PR, let’s protect ourselves, but from if we really believe in this, how are we approaching this perspective? And who are we having conversations with to help improve the situation?

Ian Schafer 30:56
Yeah, and change is awkward, it’s inevitable, but it’s also awkward. I mean, we’ve all gone through puberty. It’s a very awkward years, especially for me. So you know that that is that thing. And so like, as these companies get off their reliance, for example, and single use plastics, it’s like that’s kind of supply chain, those supply chain decisions take years, if not decades to unwind. And so most companies are on that on the right journey. And even if they were still producing those plastics, I mean, they’re going to be under tremendous pressure. reduce them, from governments, from society, from culture, it’s happening, and there’s plenty of companies who are building there, there are plenty of people who are building companies to actually profit off of that. And I think that’s great. Yep. Like profit off of like enabling these companies to reduce their reliance upon single use plastics. Wonderful.

Adam Pierno 31:51
So do you think that purpose based organizations are in their puberty phase, their their awkward gorky teenager phase?

Ian Schafer 32:02
I think the reality is, companies are always like, in perpetual puberty and are just like, different levels of comfort with it. You know, because you think about it, like, we all get older. And, you know, kind of like, as the really morbid way of looking at it is, like, when you’re born, you start dying, just like an agency world, that, that you when a client is the day you start losing it, right. It’s just, yeah, so it’s like, you know, I think a lot of these companies are, there they are, it’s a journey, it is a journey, there’s no end, there’s no like championship here. You know, it’s like a constant quest, to, you know, make people money. So you can pay people what they’re worth, and leave the world a better place. You know, every year they operate in it. And I think like that, that should be like, if, if every company did that, if every company did those three things, we would all be better for it. challenges that they also done all the things before that, without without regard for maybe any of those three things, other than, you know, profits. And so the the first awkward stage is unlearning that, you know, which again, like is probably the most awkward thing. But then it’s like, you know, doing the right thing like those, those are not difficult decisions to make. Yeah, just getting comfortable with making them regularly. and managing the expectations of people who are scrutinizing every other decision that you make and, and your quarterly if not annual reports. Totally

Adam Pierno 33:33
BN thank you so much for making time the the event is Kindred dot live, go there and check it out. I’ll have links in the show notes. And I’ll

Ian Schafer 33:41
also add one thing Adam like you are if you are a decision maker, this is how important I feel about making sure the right people are there. If you are a decision maker in a brand. Or if you’re a influential content creator, you can go to Kindred for free. So free ticket free hope hotel, subsidized air travel. So we want you there, we need you there. We’re going to do this right. And so definitely go to kindergarten live and you can apply for that. Those those free, everything.

Adam Pierno 34:12
That’s really great. There’s some people I’m going to connect you with when we get off of this and I think would be valuable for you. Great, thank you valuable for them to be honest.

Ian Schafer 34:21
Yeah, I hope so.

Adam Pierno 34:22
Alright, I appreciate Ian Schafer for making time today. It was really great talking to you. Thanks so much. All right.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai