Favorite Takeaways From Roy Spence of The Purpose Institute & GSD&M Speaking at ABJ’s Face-2-Face AKA Straight From the Top

by Carrie Vanston on January 13, 2015

Roy Spence with Carrie Vanston after his Face-2-Face Interview

Roy Spence with Carrie Vanston after his Face-2-Face Interview

I had the pleaure of attending the Austin Business Journal’s Face-2-Face Breakfast last week at Whole Foods featuring the very funny and inspiring Roy Spence, Co-Founder and Chairman of GSD&M, a leading marketing communications and advertising company here in Austin. He is also Co-Founder and CEO of The Purpose Institute and author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For: Why Every Extraordinary Business is Driven by Purpose. He was interviewed by the always delightful Colin Pope, Editor of the Austin Business Journal, and host of F-2-F. Face-2-Face airs on Time Warner TV on Sunday mornings in Austin under the name “Straight From the Top.”

Here are my favorite takeaways from this great interview:

Roy’s mentor and customer Herb Kelleher, Founder of Southwest Airlines, taught him “Take the competition seriously, but not yourself.” He has also been greatly inspired by author Jim Collins’ book Built to Last.

Colin Pope, Austin Business Journal, interviews Roy Spence for Face-2-Face, also known as the TV show "Straight from the Top.

Colin Pope, Austin Business Journal, interviews Roy Spence for Face-2-Face, also known as TV show Straight from the Top

Roy calls the group that has taken on much of GSD&M’s day to day business responsibilities “The Eagles” because you should always be building a better nest. Eagles work first for customers, then company, then community, and then world. The Eagles carry out the vision and purpose that is set, but do so in the way THEY see fit.

Purpose is most important. Always have a purpose beyond making money. Your purpose is where your talents meet the needs of the underserved. Start with integrity and everything else can be taught. It’s all about engaging with integrity, honor, and respect.

GSD&M’s Purpose: Create visionary ideas that make a difference.

With their campaign “Don’t Mess with Texas,” GSD&M created a 76% drop in litter by appealing to pride not litter. It’s not the litter business, its the pride business.

With Southwest they found purpose was not about flying, it was about freedom.

You’re only as young as the new stuff you do. Roy’s mother always told him, “Be great at what you’re good at, don’t be average at what you’re bad at.” Play to your strengths and encourage your kids to do the same. “What do you love to do?”

Smallness can be a huge asset, embrace it. Transform yourself to be happy, not necessarily big. Aristotle stated “Where your talents and the needs of the world cross; there lies your vocation.” When starting out, your biggest asset is naivety because you are not already set in your way of perceiving things.

Roy wrote the book 10 Essential Hugs of Life to encourage fathers to hug their children and encourage people to embrace life. Some of the essential hugs are yourself, your family, your friends, your flag, your coach/teacher/mentor, your mind/heart/future, etc. Fully embrace your journey because the destination will get here faster than you think. Whenever you get lost, you’ll find yourself in the service of others.

You become what you look for. Roy hit the road and took a picture of something good every hour and found lots of good things! If you look for friends, you’ll find them, etc.

Politics is the business of freedom. If we can get the government to agree on a higher ground that we can do better at satisfying the purpose of our nation and not just coming up with tactics.

The purpose of business is to improve life. In visionary mode you do well and are liberated. In self mode, not so much. How does Roy make decisions? He tries to look around the corner. What postive impacts will a decison make? If negative impacts, he walks away.

Don’t reinvent or rebrand your company, it’s about transformational change. You keep or find your vision and purpose and keep that intact.

By creating value for all stakeholderrs, more value is created for shareholders. An alternate to the traditional business model of only maximizing profit for shareholders, Whole Foods has been very successful with what CEO John Mackey calls “conscious capitalism.” With Whole Foods great success, the new model is catching on as a movement.

GSD&M has “Correction of Errors” meetings. “Hug your mistakes.  The ‘failures’are the character flaws. Fess up when you mess up.”

Roy likes people who like him. His mother said there are honey people and vinagar people. He likes honey people.

Marry the dreamers and the doers. Look for people with shared values. It makes no sense to him when people say don’t be partners with friends. Who makes better partners? He loves people who enjoy winning – in a good way. Take the “Strengthfinder” test and look for your partners that complement you.

Thanks to ABJ, the sponsors, and Roy Spence for sharing this fun and insightful morning.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! Best wishes for a Happy New Year!!

Warmly,
Carrie

P.S. If you missed our home-made holiday card, check it out! We’ve been designing our own holiday cards for many years now around an interesting current event or trend.  This year’s celebrates the Philae robot landing on a comet. The verse is always by Our Chairman Dr. John Vanston, design by our Creative Director Helen Mary V. Marek. (Past cards are linked at the bottom of that page.)

 

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