I work almost exclusively with CEO’s and Founders transforming their businesses for rapid growth, profitability, and sustainability. I believe we have the choice to make the experience of life better, which is central in my agency’s practice helping good companies do better.The red thread woven through my career is an understanding of how humans form lasting relationships. I started my career as an NCAA Division One Sailing Coach. Winning the first of three National Championships was the springboard to understanding what motivates people’s actions. I then launched a theater production company, built another business around an interpersonal skills based training program, and then landed a position with my all-time favorite brand, Patagonia, where I developed their multi-channel business strategy based on a seminal consumer behavior study, forming the first truly multi-disciplinary marketing organization, growing the direct to consumer channel from $2M to $100M.Since leaving Patagonia in 2006, I’ve evolved and refined a model consulting with over 60 different brands. What has emerged for the first time is a fusing of qualitative and quantitative insights that predict what consumers will do based on what type of experience they have interacting with a brand.In 2015, I published my first book, The Compass and the Nail as a “self-help” manifesto linking the concept of creating fierce brand loyalty to a company’s brand DNA and purpose. The text focuses on the development of a systematic path for businesses to secure growth. The narrative is one of cultural empathy and thought disruption critical to the new global economy. Illuminating the phenomenon of “following,” and how it can be applied to a larger context, I believe is the linchpin in the next great cultural leap our global society is poised to make, evolving humanity beyond nationalistic interests, religious divides, beyond fear, and beyond lack, to the creation ultimately of an “empathic civilization.”