I was trying so hard to be hyper-focused on wrapping up loose ends for the day when I noticed a note in my inbox from Jan Norton. She was inviting me to attend a luncheon in Fort Worth with a speaker who leads a capital investment firm.
My initial reaction was, Thanks, but no thanks.
I don’t have the time to drive an hour to hear a talk about investing. Especially a man, who sees business as all about the money, and is hyper-focused on what he can get out of out. In my mind I said, Focus! Focus! Focus! I’ve gotta stay focused on building the business.
Of course, I didn’t stay focused.
I was intrigued when I noticed Sunny Vanderbeck had given a TEDx talk in Austin. I thought, I’ll just listen while I finish these last two emails. . .
Exactly 16 minutes later, with a damp kleenex in my hand, and fingers exhausted from frantically taking notes, I was sitting there stunned by what I’d heard. How could this talk have been from 2011, a year before I decided to quit my j.o.b. to start HeartStories?
Why was I was just now seeing it in 2015?
Here’a a quoted excerpt from Sunny’s talk:
Start a business with the idea of purpose, be led by purpose. (Purpose = non-financial reason for existence)
Prioritize enduring value over short-term profit.
Capitalism is about love. It’s about pursuing passions and fulfilling dreams.
I didn’t start it to make money. I started it because I had to. Because I was full of passion for what we were doing. The money came. That’s fine
Capitalism is about love and passion.
It’s also about innovation. Creation.
If you were to start with a purpose AND thought about profit AND thought about your stakeholders, your business would be in balance. We call this sustainability or conscious capitalism. You’d be focused on creating authentic, enduring value.
We also think this is how businesses in the 21st century have to behave.
This is not a soft concept, these businesses perform better.
A strong sense of mission and purpose not only get you performance, but it gets you a larger circle of stakeholders, people who want to see you successful.
Sustainability = profitability + resilience.
This is how a healthy business works and we think it’s the best way to do business.
Satori is about the feeling of the moment of ‘aha’. Our aha moment was the day we realized we were not alone in this mindset.
Conscious capitalism is a proven competitive advantage.
Capitalism is the most powerful force in the world. So if you’d like to change the world, change capitalism.
Make choices to do business with companies who behave this way.
The time for enlightened companies is right now. The time for sustainable business is right now.
The time for conscious capitalism is right now.
He had me at love, he hooked me at ‘aha’, and he buoyed my heart with changing the world through changing capitalism.
If you know my story, you know that I grew up, right out of college at Southwest Airlines, the LUV airline. And if you know the story of HeartStories, you know that I left a great career in medical device sales to do this because I couldn’t not do it.
HeartStories has been led by our purpose since day one.
Everything we do is about love; loving yourself well, loving others, and changing the world through business that creates more love in the world.
One thing you probably don’t know, is that Michelle, my coach in the earliest days, taught me the value of the ‘aha’ moment. The moment new information is revealed that aligns with something you intuitiely already knew.
We talked a lot about ‘aha’ moments.
Most of all, she taught me that if I led with my heart, purpose and passion, the money would come.
She taught me to trust the process.
You also might not know that over the last few years, I’ve been introduced to multiple investors and prepared data, that my heart just wasn’t in. I’ve stumbled and sweat bullets over trying to create business plans to impress them, instead of trusting the process I believed in.
The timing was exactly right.
Two and a half years ago, I had no idea that today, our focus would be on supporting social entrepreneurs. If you’d have told me then, that we would be passionately focused on changing the way women shop and supporting women-led businesses all over the world, I might have given you a blank stare for a minute.
If you added that our long-term vision would be to build a vibrant community for these women, who feel so alone doing this kind of good work in the world, I would have been a little perplexed.
But not yesterday.
Yesterday my heart was ready to hear that message.
I needed that reassurance that it still makes sense. I needed to hear it from a well-respected man who understands the competitive advantage leading with love brings to the table.
It was like a warm blanket around my heart.
Thank you Sunny. Thanks for that talk you did two years ago. It means more than you could know.
What’s the take away for you today?
It’s the power of your choice.
With every purchase you make, you are choosing to invest in someone. You’re to choosing invest in something that has an impact on the world.
It’s up to you to decide who and what.
To more love,
Crystal
P.S. If you’re a woman who is considering starting a business that makes a positive impact on the world, please reach out. We’d love to connect you with resources.
P.S.S. If you’re ready to make more loving investments with your purchases, keep an eye on our shop, we have more great stories and products on the way! You can also sign up here to get updates as they’re added.
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