Chris Pan, Founder of My Intent Project | Ex McKinsey, Ex Facebook, Success & Happiness Came After

Welcome to the success story podcast, I'm your host, Scott Clary. On this podcast, I have candid interviews with execs, celebrities, politicians, and other notable figures, all who have achieved success through both wins and losses, to learn more about their life, their ideas, and their insights. I sit down with leaders and mentors and unpack their story to help pass those lessons onto others through both experiences and practical strategy for business professionals, entrepreneurs, and everyone in between, with a further ado, another episode of the success story podcast. Thanks again for joining me today, I'm sitting down with Chris Pan. Now Chris Pan has accomplished an extraordinary amount for his age. He worked as a senior consultant at McKinsey & Co, followed by two years as a marketing director for PepsiCo. Then he spent four years working at Facebook and I found this little knowledge nugget while he was there, Mark Zuckerberg took an interest in learning Chinese and recruited Chris to help. Now Chris is the founder of my intent, he's on a mission to bring spiritual and emotional wellness to those who need it most with his jewelry line, my intent. Through high school and college, he led his youth group and was a motivational speaker. After college, he was led to pursue financial security and status, studying at Harvard Business School and then eventually working at Facebook for retired from there and started my intent. Very interesting, we're just chatting about your story, you ask me, why am I here, why am I on this show? It's because your story is all over the place in terms of your career, where you went, where you started, and now where you're at with my intent, with spiritually focused, positivity focused, jewelry line. So tell me, thank you first, thank you Chris for joining me, but tell me your story, tell me how you got to where you are today and what sort of guy did you hear? I think it's interesting, I just had an affection with my therapist and he shared the insight that it's more about failures or our greatest teachers and failures, it was really our guru and it's what builds us and it's our ability to be courageous and take risks and fail that we don't celebrate and we don't talk about. And so that really resonated a lot with me because as I look back, everything you mentioned were all the things that worked more or less, but there were a lot of things that didn't work and there were a lot of hard moments that I had to get up from and just pick myself back up or along the way I felt like each, every time there was a mountain peak, there was a valley right after it and then there was another mountain peak but it was a little bit higher and then another valley and my journey has been very up and down and I think that's typical of a lot of entrepreneurial journeys. I think for me, the insights I've got about myself is a lot of my drive has come from some pretty deep pain and some pretty deep trauma that I experienced as a kid. I was born in Taipei, Taiwan and then at four years old, my parents left me to go to the US and left me with my grandmother, my grandfather and they did that because they couldn't afford a babysitter. My dad was in grad school, my mom was working to pay the bills and so they didn't have enough funds to have a babysitter for me. So from four to seven, I think I repressed all that, you know, that happened to me inside but as I've been working on a lot of getting to know myself, that ended up being very traumatic for me and then at age seven, I got my green card moved to the US, landed in Cincinnati, Ohio where I didn't speak any English. I knew how to say hello and then on the plane I think I learned hello, my name is and I was it and my grandmother flew me over with me and then I landed and I'm in the school that was an inner city school. It was not the easiest place to be, I remember being picked on and I remember not fitting in. I mean, for probably good two years, I couldn't communicate with most of the kids. I did get put into an ESL program in English as second language for the first half of the day and in the second half I would take science and math with everyone else. But I think it was a really hard time and it was pretty lonely, I was pretty isolated and my parents, they were pretty busy. I mean, my dad did his best after work to take me and play soccer with me or get me to be physically more fit to fit in with other kids, but you know, my mom had just had my brother and she was pretty tied up with him, so I was kind of just blessed on my own. And I think it's out of that just isolation, loneliness that has led me also to start this project, which on the surface, it looks like a jewelry line, but it's really about connecting with people in a meaningful, deeper way. Now, can I ask you, because that makes sense to me, that makes sense to me, and I think that a lot of the things that you just, you just have conversations with your therapist are coming to light in this conversation, so I appreciate the authenticity and the honest, but you didn't jump into my intent right away, right? A lot of these things that you're mentioning were when you were younger, so you did the traditional career route. I did, and that was, I think my, and that was a lot of, because of the experience my parents had, my dad was an engineer for General Electric aircraft engines, and he was always under the threat of a layoff, even though he never got laid off over 25 plus years, but there was always that looming threat, and that was really drilled into me with economic security, you know, spending way below my means, just the saving for the future, and when I was, well, they've really pushed me to become a doctor, because they thought that was good for society, helping people prestigious, and lifetime economic security. And I went down that path as a pre-med student at a high school university, and then I got into med school, went there for three weeks, and then I just realized it wasn't my path, it wasn't my passion. I liked the idea of helping people, but I didn't get excited by the day-to-day work that it entailed, and my heart and my passion at that moment was in marketing, it was in business, it was in ideas, and that was the first dot-com wave, when I saw on the cover of probably like time, these two guys that started the globe, they were just at a Cornell 22, had on paper hundreds of millions of dollars, that all evaporated actually a year later, but at least it looked amazing, and I said, I want to be like that, I want to retire early, so I can go work on whatever I want to work on, I didn't know why, but I planted a seed just seeing that cover that I wanted to have freedom. I set a goal of being free by 30, I didn't achieve it till 35, but that was a goal I stepped for myself, and I think a lot of the drive I had throughout college, McKinsey, Pepsico, was to some extent a need to prove myself, to be special, because I felt as a kid I was pretty not picked for the soccer team, or not picked for the dodgeball team, whatever, and so I figured, hey, if I'm excelling at career, then people would like me, and I was very focused and very diligent, and I think I have somewhat of a risk taking personality, and I can be very focused on what I want to be, to some extent an unhealthy point, because when I get into something, I really get into it at the cost of maybe my social life or my family life or what not, but I chased that goal and tried to start a company several times throughout the decade and a half before I finally landed at Facebook, and ended up having a nice exit and achieving it, but that was the journey to McKinsey, I went there, because actually I'll take a step back, McKinsey, I went because they had a great track record of sending people to Harvard Business School, and I had always dreamed of going to Harvard Business School since 8th grade, because my dad had brought home a copy of the Seven Habits that highly affected people, which I was really curious, well, I want to be effective, and what are the Seven Habits, looks like you have it on yourself. That wasn't on purpose. Yeah, so when people ask me what's the one book, other than maybe the Bible's had a big influence as well, but the most important secular book in my life, it's probably that one, read it early, and then I noticed in the cover that he, Stephen Covey, had gone to Harvard Business School, so it planted a seed that's something I might want to do. So McKinsey, then, you know, I knew I would get, you know, they kind of, it was, in my mind, kind of like the Navy Steel Training of the Business World, right? Yeah. The most elite consultants, and I knew I would get trained there, I would get, then, you know, hopefully recommendations to go to Harvard. I also had turned down McKinsey, so I got the offer from a bunch of places including McKinsey, and then I had this idea, I was going to start my own company, this was back in January of 2000, so then I defer, I turned down my offer, and then six months later after the market crash, and I realized I don't think I have what it takes to start a company, I then called them up, and they were very gracious to take me back, so I've been also very fortunate along the way to have, there's been a lot of grace in my life that, you know, I've turned things down, and then it's still there, even though I've turned it down, so that's really cool. I ended up at McKinsey a year and a half, two years, and then the Harvard was amazing time to learn a ton, you know, the networking, and then it went back to McKinsey for a year, and then I realized I just, it wasn't for me, and then at that point I had an offer to go be probably one of the youngest marketing directors at PepsiCo for China, which was the second biggest market to run digital marketing, they wanted to bring in someone fairly young and forward-thinking, and kind of out of the box, not trained in TV advertising, because that was most of the marketing directors, so I was brought in to do digital marketing, I renamed it to interactive marketing, I wanted marketing that was more engaging, was also very influenced by this idea of, tell me I forget, show me I remember, and involve me, I understand, and I think that was probably a curvy principle, or it was in the beginning chapters of the Seven Habits, and that always stuck with me, so I said, you know, most of traditional marketing was one-way broadcast marketing, you create a cool ad, you stir up some emotions, and you get people to buy, that was, you know, marketing, you know, PNG, PepsiCo, they kind of invented that style, marketing the future, especially with digital, it was going to be more interactive, and so when I was at PepsiCo, I developed campaigns where we had a big one that invited consumers to submit a story that involved the biggest celebrity, one of the biggest celebrities in Asia, where he would be the main star of it, but you get to, it would be the equivalent of you writing a script for Justin Timberlake, or for Beyonce, you know, like, we had the star that was going to be in there, you get to create a story, so we put it out there, and then we had the equivalent of like a $100,000 Pride, I think that it would be like, and Rem and Bee, it was like $10,000, there's a lot of money, and so we did a very interactive campaign, and then the person that ended up winning was a school teacher, and because it involved both a cool idea, and then there was voting, and I guess he somehow mobilized his entire school to vote on it, and so we were trying to create all his buzz, and it was a cute little story, we had him, I think we flew him in, he got to watch the whole filming of it, and then we aired it, it was kind of like a strategic airing, it was cool, it was just this whole campaign that we ran for a summer to get the script, and then we kind of involved people in the process, so we kind of gave him a peek under the hood of how we developed a campaign for PepsiCo, and that was really cool, the fall of that year actually winner, my boss did a retreat for all of us, it was meant to inspire us, and there was a lot of Steve Jobs quotes, a lot of, you know, change the world ethos, and I got really inspired so much so that I actually, over the winner break that year, I came to the realization that as much as my goal to go to PepsiCo was to learn the skill of storytelling, using entertainment to market something, but then I started having guilt about, you know, in the end we were mostly pushing sugar water that most of us in the office weren't even drinking our own products, and that was something that bothered me, and over that winner break I came to the conclusion that I didn't feel good about what I was doing, and I wanted to, it was like a mini awakening, if you will, and so January I came back and I resigned, very boldly, I thought I was like, oh, I have freedom, and I spent the next three months in bliss, exploring all sorts of, and change the world and make a difference, et cetera, and then I hit a rock bottom by May of that year, May of 2007, when I realized none of these ideas were probably going to pan out any time soon, and I was in China, not really Chinese, even though I look at it, but I speak Chinese, but I'm not well versed in the culture really in the written parts, and to be an entrepreneur is already difficult, but then to have the language barrier on top of that was yet another level. You were raised in the States, that's why. Yeah, pretty Americanized for the most part, and so that was a big moment when I had the shift from my dreams, now I started having to go find a job again. And that was a big shift, and I ended up going through three months of depression, trying to find a job, because it felt really hopeless, it felt, you know, I was a marketing director at 29, 30, and that's typically someone that's like 35, 40, you know, I skipped a system brand manager, brand manager, system marketing director, marketing director, and so all the other jobs I was being concerted for was like a system brand manager, a brand manager, it was like at least a 50% pay cut, three levels of emotion, because they didn't necessarily have a digital marketing director role, but they were like, oh, if you want to come in as a system brand manager, we might consider you for that. I didn't, I consider going back to McKinsey, I looked at consulting gigs, but then I wasn't excited about that, and it was really, really hard, and then I said to myself, you know, what does my heart really want, like what's the place that I'm most excited about, and it's actually been true most of my life is, you know, even with Harvard, if we were relying a little bit, I applied the Harvard Stanford and Kellogg back then, and I spent probably 80, 90% of my effort on the Harvard application, and I'd just copy a patient for the other two, and of course, like I ended up getting denied by Kellogg and wait listed at Stanford, but then I actually got in Harvard right away. And so it was interesting, it's like whatever my heart was set on, like I actually, if it was meant to be, I was actually able to push through. And then, so at that point, I said, you know, my heart really is at Facebook, because I love the product. I had met Mark Zuckerberg back when we were both at Harvard. I was in the business school. He was in the undergrad. I had another couple of friends that were working there, so I called, and I texted all of them. I messaged them and said, hey, I would love to work for Facebook. I have a bunch of ideas. Maybe I can help you get into China. I can help you with this. And they all said, right now, thank you, but we don't know what to do with China yet. We're not ready for that. We don't have something for you. And then I didn't give up. I kept just an eye on what was going on. And I remember one morning I woke up and TechCrunch had a blog post that said, Facebook hires Chimoff Palpatia as the VP of product marketing and charge of monetization platform Bulbaugh. And I said, oh, let me try him, even though I didn't know him. So I looked up his email address at his former VC firm where he was leaving, but he still had access to it. So ChimoffatMafield.com. So I emailed him there, and I wrote a very succinct email. I still remember I still have it, because that's the email that really changed my life. It was just three sentences on, here's who I am, and then like three sentences on, here's how I can help you. And I said, you know, I have a digital marketing background. I consulted with a friendster. I had done a deal at McKinsey that results in the acquisition of another major social network. And I think I can help you monetize. And within a couple of hours, I got a response back. He said, great. He said, put your thoughts in a presentation and send it to me. So then I was like, oh, game on, but then the stress was really up, because I was like, holy cow, I have, and it was open ended. It was like, do I take a week? Do I take two weeks? How long do I take? Like, I really want to impress them. And so that was a really stressful time of like, holy cow, like, how can I really wow him with my, you know, my thinking? I think I took two, three, two, three weeks and put together a presentation. And finally, I had like maybe six ideas that I put in there of how Facebook can monetize. And I sent it to him. We did a phone call and he, it was only a 10 minute call, maybe 15 minutes, it was very brief. And I think that's the nature of working with a lot of high-power people, executives, is you just got to know your shit. And they don't have a lot of time to, you know, Billy and Billy Daddy. But it was him and this guy Tim Kendall, they were on the call. They both liked it. And they said, okay, we want to fly you out and get to know you. So then I think a week later, I was in Palo Alto, did a full day of interviews with the team. And then got an offer and I flew back to Shanghai, packed my bags, was negotiating my offer. I was negotiating even though I had already packed up my apartment. I knew it was going to take about still trying to get a little bit more, you know, in the package, a little bit more equity, which ended up being a huge deal. And then started my journey at Facebook for four and a half years. And that was, to me, the equivalent of being like a part of the Chicago Bulls when Michael Jordan was there. I mean, it was the greatest rush. I can imagine of being an entrepreneur in training because Mark always said, you know, most of you will leave. I mean, there's still a few people that are still there from the beginning. But most people leave, but even like, you know, different places you go to and they're known for different things like you go to P&G if you want to be a great marketer, right? And he's like, I want Facebook to be a place known to train entrepreneurs, you know, because we're very entrepreneurial. And I remember when I was at PepsiCo, I was the more progressive, the rebel, the crazy one. If you will, and all the other folks were more conservative and traditional. When I got to Facebook, I had to unlearn everything I learned at McKinsey and PepsiCo. I was now the conservative one. You know, when I got there and there were 50 million users, I remember the executive team, they were like planning for what this Facebook looked like when there's a billion users. And I was like, can we just get the 60 million or maybe a hundred million? I know my space was at a hundred million at that point. And so that was already the next target. But they're already planning for half a billion, like big, big plans. And so that was a learning for me to adapt to that culture. And at 30 was when I started, I was the gray hair in the room, even though I was like the elder person in the room. Most of my peers at the time were probably mid, early mid 20s. That was a huge shift from going to PepsiCo to McKinsey and PepsiCo to Facebook. And then I had a few different chapters there. One was figuring out why growth had slowed at one point and the truth is in the data. I took it upon myself to learn SQL, pulled a bunch of data through data against like 200 different charts. You know, because at McKinsey, one of the things we learned was looked at the data. There's a lot of assumptions and hypothesis on why things aren't working. But it was in the data and it turned out that people that had users that had friends stayed and users that didn't have friends didn't stay. A lot of the users that we were acquiring that were not in college, a lot of the post college users came on. They didn't find friends fast enough and then obviously there's a really lonely experience and then they left the platform. And there was a whole bunch of efforts that then got kicked off based on this one tiny insight. But it ended up changing the course of the project and it was based on analysis that had done. But it was interesting that it didn't even occur to me when I pulled the data how big of an insight that was. I was just like, oh, that was just, but I didn't, but then I showed it to Timoth and Zuckin and they like immediately realized it. And so it was just interesting. Like I was part of the process, but it wasn't like I was, you know, just genius or whatever. But I did pull the data out. I did know where to look. Well, you don't always have to be don't have the answer to a problem like that isn't always very complex either showing that right now. It's just a very simple, but you know, you had the insight to look in the right spot. It's very, very cool. It's very cool. I like them. Thank you for the story. It's a very cool story. Very, very fun. Yeah. And I would say, you know, if you're a business person, I think a lot of times we have all these assumptions and just make sure, you know, assistance in time of the data. I think it's a mix of both the gut, but also, you know, the data showed a lot of correlations. And then there was one that seemed more like a causation and then the causation ended up unlocking. But of course, the insight alone wouldn't have done anything. Then Zuck pivoted like crazy, you know, took all the engineers off of ads, which was actually what I was hired to do. And I was frustrating because we went from a team of 10 down a team of two, but then put all the engineers onto growth and fixing all the issues that, you know, would help people find friends. So that was one really interesting project. And then the other one was obviously when Mark wanted to learn Mandarin and the first year he hired a tutor and worked with her a couple of times a week and you know, got himself to a pretty good spot, went to China and then he realized he couldn't understand anyone's actions other than the tutors because he had only heard one person. So then the next year he came back and he said, hey, can someone help me organize to have, you know, at that point, we probably had a hundred engineers that are Chinese and native speakers and can someone help me organize and kind of help me actually have conversations with different, with people with different actions. You know, from North of China to South of China, just like in America, we have different, or North America, we have different actions. So I did that and I got to spend a couple of hours with him every week and I was just so inspiring to be with someone of that, like talent and focus and discipline and curiosity and he was very humble with just, you know, he was like, and just learning. And then kind of the pinnacle of that was, I remember November of that year, we had a group visiting from China called the China Entrepreneur Club, which collectively was like the CEOs of 20 of the biggest companies in China that collectively represented 4% of China's GDP and Zuck did the entire Q&A by himself, you know, relatively simple, basic questions. I think I helped him on two questions I leaned in and just gave, just helped him on two questions, but he did the whole hour by himself and I have a photo that someone took where I'm kind of standing behind him and it was a really cool moment for me to just witness like holy cow like that was quite a progression. So you had a very, a very impactful time on your career and your learnings at Facebook, not only with you helping the company, but I'm sure it also had a reciprocal effect on yourself and what you chose to do going forward after Facebook. Now I'm curious, you were very successful there. I'm sure there was a lot of other projects and stories that were like that, but these are incredible stories. What made you at 35 want to leave and do your own thing because it sounded like you had a really good thing going there, right? It's not like Facebook has slowed down by any means since you left. Well, to be honest, my career had slowed down there. I think those projects all made sense, but I wasn't getting promoted. I was going to at this level and I realized that, you know, I just wasn't getting promoted. I wasn't getting offered the next level, like getting promoted director or whatnot. And so I was looking around and I was like, okay, what's going on? I realized there was something that needed to change inside me. Like I had sort of maxed out on my own. And I had learned that my boss, Tim Kendall, I really admired his leadership and his ability to be present with people and just who he was as a person and people loved him. And I said, Tim, like, what's your secret? And he said, you know, I've been working with this executive coach that had made a big difference. So that planted a seed, but independent of that, I just realized, and also, you know, Facebook, they give you stock and tranches. And I had a big nice initial tranche that was a four-year investing cycle. And then I had vested in my subsequent, you know, tranches weren't as exciting. It was relatively small relative to the first one. And so that invested. And so I was like, well, financially there wasn't that much upside. I wasn't, you know, and then I looked around the company. I was like, is there any other parts of the company that, you know, I hadn't worked on platform at that point, but there wasn't anything that interesting. I looked around a little bit more. And then I think in my heart, I just knew it was time for something else. It was time for another venture. And I was getting pinged by VC firms and other social networks and other, just other players that did want to make me like a VP of strategy or, you know, maybe a partner at a VC firm. So I said, you know, let me pull the rip cord. I'd made, I'd met my financial goals for what my financial freedom looked like. So I pulled the rip cord and left and started traveling with my then girlfriend. After two months of being on the road, we ended up fighting a lot. And I think traveling together around the world being nomadic is a great test for relationship. Either you make it or you break it. And at that point, we'd been together for four years and it was either we're going to get married or go the other way. And actually in Paris was the place where we actually left where we broke up. And that sent me through a pretty dark time after that breakup. My identity, like, you know, who I was. And then I was getting recruited for a company called Viddy. And as part of they wanted me to be a COO and eventually probably a CO. And as part of that, I negotiated a coaching package, an executive coach that was very expensive package. But they're very gracious to offer me that package. But then I started working with this coach, Janet, who started teaching me some basic things like just, you know, how to like, how to work with my own emotions, how to be present, I listen, you know, and these certain skills that I didn't have, the role didn't work out. The company ended up going under and I just didn't fit. But I think, you know, it's interesting how life, Tony Robbins has a quote that says, sometimes what you come for is not why you came. You know, and so many times in my life, I would think I went in for one thing. You know, I thought I went in to be the COO of this company that on paper was going to be worth a lot and blah, blah. And I was going to make another fortune. But actually, like when I went into Viddy, I ended up meeting this executive coach who ended up teaching me the value of inner work. And she herself went to Naropa and highly skilled executive coach. She coaches at Pinterest, Facebook, et cetera. But she also started telling me stories of, you know, these monks who could meditate, you know, in the cold, right? Like on the mount top with, you know, crazy winds that they could put a blanket on these monks. And the monk by through meditation could generate enough heat to create steam off of the blankets. I don't know if you ever heard anything like that. No, no, I haven't. No, that's incredible, though. And this is a true story as well. This is like an actual snack. Yeah, these are stories you can look up on YouTube. And also, if you look at, have you heard of Wim Hof? Yes, yeah, I have. If you look at Wim Hof, right, he will take a group of people, train them and hike a mountain in just shorts. And it's snow everywhere. You know, what otherwise people would be bundled up in, you know, down coats, they would do the whole hike, but it's through the power of the breath and the power of the mind and the power of the body. Like, that's sort of fascinating me. And it set me off on a whole new path of like, oh, this is my new fascination. Let me go explore what this is all about. So you left, you left Facebook. You, you had this not, not life-changing, but I guess career, career-defining life-defining moment through some of the interactions with this life coach. When I look at, when I look at my intent, was this one of the first ventures that you, that you delved into post-facebook or were there other things that you had done in your career in your life before my intent really came to fruition? So the story of my intent begins January of 2013. At rock bottom, I find up for the thing called the Hoffman process. It's a seven-day retreat where you really go inside and find out who you are and find out who I am, you know. And I only learned about this thing because of the CEO that recruited me to Vity, which ended up, we ended up party ways. But it's so interesting, right? Because of him, this guy, Brett O'Brien, I ended up learning about the Hoffman and then having an executive coach. So I'm very grateful to him even though our business relationship ended after three weeks, but that was a pretty big pivot into my journey. And at the Hoffman, they teach these very basic concepts like I statements, which is all about a lot of times we speak in you and in general, like we speak on behalf of the world sometimes. Or, you know, that is the idea where we don't talk about sports, politics, you don't talk about what you do. So all the conversations are around feelings. And what are you feeling in the moment? What's really going on inside you? What do you really care about? What I care about? So, you know, there's all about I statements. They had this idea of no cross-talking. But that to me was huge, because I grew up in a family where active listening was not really practiced. Culturally, it just wasn't part of my culture, my family. And I felt so heard for the first time where, you know, cross-talking would be like, let's say if I asked you like, what's your favorite food, right? You tell me it's sushi. And then I obviously cut in and be like, oh, well, you know, my best friend loves sushi too. And I don't let you finish like why you like sushi or, you know, that's the idea of cross-talking, these basic skills. So I learned those skills and I just felt seen and heard and supported and the teachers were so loving and caring. I felt like for the first time they weren't judging me. And I remember like the last day of the of the process, I said, God, I really want to bring this magic of being seen and heard to the every day. Like how cool would it be if I didn't have to go to a seven-day retreat, but like this cap and just every Sunday or, you know, and it's an expensive process. It's $5,000. So it tends to be, and they have some scholarships, but, you know, it's not accessible to a lot of people. And so I said, how can we bring some more people? So that was the intention back in January of 13. I started doing a lot of inner work, a lot of like improv, singing, just different workshops. And at one point, then I started hosting gatherings where I would invite people to come and we would do yoga together. We would, you know, meditate on my birthday, on my 36th birthday. I hosted a similar gathering. And then I had friends say, if you have a talent or gift you want to share, just tell me what it is. And I'll put you in the schedule. So one friend said, I want to come and make intention bracelets for people. And that's how I learned how to make intention bracelets. So very simple idea. You pick one word that you want to set as an intention, something you want to remind yourself of to be your best. And then she would stamp it for you, for the guest on this little immediate back then, they were like jewelry washers or tokens, you know. And then there'd be a little letter stamping kit. So it's just, it's like a typewriter. It's like a little stencil, no stencils, but like little typesets, like letter stamps. We call them letter stamps. Have a hammer and you just pound in one letter of time on a little token and then you take a piece of yarn or twine or string and you tie it on your wrist. And then the idea then was when it was time to fall off, it would fall off. And you were done with that intention. You move on to the next one. So she made it for me. The first word I chose was word impact because I wanted to make a difference with my life and made it for some other folks at the gathering. And this gathering was beautiful. It was, there's no alcohol is my birthday. And but everyone fell really uplifted. It was my test of can I bring people together with a little bit of a 45 minute program where we sang and moved and danced, but, but not your usual, you know, birthday party where you got wasted and then you, yeah, yeah, hang over the next day. So the next morning woke up so energized. Everyone's so happy. Like I was like, wow, that was amazing. And then we, my friend Ingrid and I, we met up a week later and she ended up giving me a kit and she's like, here's a kit as a gift. If you're moving to LLA, if you want, make some of these for your friends in LLA. So I moved LLA. I started hosting weekly gatherings. I called it spirit lab. It was a place where we'd come and do things that felt good for the spirit. It was hands-on, experimental. It was like playtime. It was fun for adults. But very intentional in terms of, you know, we weren't drinking. There was no, you know, it was just very like uplifting. It was like my Sunday church kind of experience. But there was no preaching. And I thought that was the other thing that I really enjoyed about the Hoffman was they asked a lot of questions and they did a lot of visuals, like a lot of guided experiences. It was highly experiential and it was up to each of us to find our own answers for whatever question was being prompted. And there was no like, you have to believe this, you have to do that. It was really just up to us to find our own path. And so that was the inspiration and model for how I did these weekly gatherings. And then for my intent, that started because at my gatherings we would make each other a bracelet. So usually in the living room or we'd set up a table somewhere like on the coffee table as soon as you come in, you would hear this hammer going off and be like, what's going on? Why are there like someone pounding over there and you walk over and somebody would, I would get my friends to volunteer at the table. And someone would ask you, oh, what's your word? And I'd have them sign up in like half hour hour shifts. And then all of a sudden people would get their first, like it was almost like you're part of a member's club, you know, people around town started having these little little wristbands, like these little bracelets. And it's like they would meet each other and they'd be like, oh, you go to spirit lab too, like there was this thing, you know. And so it became a thing. It was always for free, you know. And then in April of 2014, I had a friend who said, hey, I have a fundraiser to raise money for orphans with HIV in Africa. Will you come and make some bracelets and we can take donations. I was like, sure, why not? Got three friends together. The four of us, you know, three hours raised $2,500. So that was a big aha moment. I was like, up until then I'd never even thought about charging for these. And we gave all the money 100% of it back to the foundation because it was just time and material costs and material costs. I was happy to just absorb. And so that was thy opening. And then that summer ended up some friends wanted a job, wanted to make some money. I was like, well, here, here's a maker kid I gave him the materials and I set them off to make it. And then one guy, the guy James, he ended up building a website. You know, he was trying to also, it was all in the spirit of helping people. It was like an accidental business, if you will. But I did love the idea of, you know, bringing this to the world. And of course, like I think for me, I felt good because every time I made a bracelet for someone, there was always a huge amount of appreciation and a big hug usually, you know, pre-COVID. Sometimes people would cry. You know, they're oftentimes people would have tears and, you know, they felt really moved that, that somebody listened to them. You know, sorry. No, I just wanted to say, and I want you to keep going. The story makes sense when you start to bring out now that makes a lot more sense. I was, it's very hard to understand all this going into the interview. So I appreciate you laying it out like this because it's a complex story that's led to where my intent is today. I think what I want to understand is, and maybe you'll get to this as well. But the story of how you made, how you got to my intent, how, how you went on a spiritual journey to an extent of self-awareness and that led you to wanting to replicate that for others because you did have it, you've achieved this point in your life where you were comfortable. That's, that's, that's great. And, and I respect it completely. What my question, and, and I guess I want to understand more of the impact on the people that are part of this program, have, for example, how do you as a, or who is your target customer, who is your target, who is your target individual that wants to partake in this, that wants to better themselves? Is it, is it a, is it an, an executive? Is it a student? Is it somebody who has a lot of free time on their hands? What is, what are you, what are you trying to help people with exactly? Is it inclusivity? Is it impact? Like, I guess, I guess I'm trying to clear the ambiguity as to, as to how I understand, without speaking to you that this is something that I want to partake in. That's what I want to, that's what I want to understand because, you know, our world, if, if you're not retired, is absolutely nuts. You have kids, you have family, you have work, you have, you know, bills, you have all these stressors. So I would love to look into things that are relaxing, calming, make me feel good about myself that aren't just getting drunk at a, at somebody's house on, on the weekend. But how does somebody find you? How does, how does somebody, you know, focus on something like this? I just want to take a moment to pause and thank the sponsor of today's episode, Canva. Very excited when Canva approached me because I've been using Canva for all my graphic design needs for years and they have never sponsored me before. So I'm very excited to champion a brand that I personally believe in support and I use. Now, if you don't know what Canva is, Canva is the online platform that makes graphic design, designing anything really easy for you and your team. They have pre-loaded templates all professionally made, all very high quality. 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In terms of who is our customer, my original customer was my original person I wanted to help with someone who maybe doesn't have time to do inner work, and this is sort of a quick little pause, a quick invitation to just take a moment and just have a mini retreat. I often lead one-hour workshops where I consider a micro retreat. Most people don't have seven days to go away and go really deep. You mentioned that. That's true. Can I give someone a five minute, like a mini back massage? I think of it as the back massage you get at the mall. Maybe you don't have to go to a spa for a full hour and a half treatment, but a 15 minute back rub. I think of it as a little emotional spiritual support. I've had so many stories of people where in a moment of crisis and a moment of despair, they looked down on their wrist and that word is there, whatever it is that they had to end up supporting them through that tough time. That was who I wanted to serve because I realized there's a lot of, and I've been one of them being a busy executive who just never made time for inner work until then I had a lot of time. During my time at PepsiCo, during my time at Facebook, it was just work, and then I had a couple of distractions and they're clubbies, but I never really meditated. I never just prioritized it. I was hoping this would be a way to serve folks like that in a fun way because this is something that can totally be done at a brunch or at a picnic or at a fundraiser where you went in for one thing, you went in for a fundraiser and then you ended up having a connection with like what's most important to you. It's like the unexpected, but it's there to help you. We have over 50,000 people that have bought maker kits. We offer the tools for people to make their own for their friends and family because I didn't want me to, like, it doesn't scale with just me having the tools. It's in the same way my friend gave me a set of tools. I was like, well, I can't give away 50,000 sets, but I'll make it really nicely designed. My dad is an aircraft engineer and he ended up designing some of the pieces so they fit. We have seven-year-olds making these. So it's super easy. Most of these 50,000 folks, a lot of them are, most of them are women who they want to make a difference. They're commuabilers, but we actually have a men, women, they're folks who somehow, some people, they get it to do with their kids. As a family activity, they do it as fundraisers. We've had a boy make it for the first lady, actually. So we had that happen. It's a child who's at a hospital in the hospital purchased a maker kit to do as an activity for the kids, and that was one of the most moving interviews I did. We had no idea. All of a sudden we saw pictures of the first lady receiving a bracelet from a kid from Africa. He was at the NIH National Institute of Health with a disease that is very rare. So they make bracelets for the kids that are there to give them something to do and give them some hope. She says the reason I like to do these bracelets is it makes the intangible tangible. So a concept like hope or faith or strength or courage, when someone's going through a really hard time, how do you remind them that they have their faith and there's hope that they can anchor on. When I think about our world today, I think about how much turbulence there is. This is an anchor to who you are as a strong spiritual being to weather the storm. I think of it as an anchor. I think of this as a lighthouse. This is also guiding us to our path. It's like my intention to be kind or to be compassionate or to be resilient. In moments when I don't feel resilient, it's a reminder of that decision I made of who I am. And I think that no one will ever debate the efficacy, the effectiveness of self-development. But like you mentioned, that seven-day course is a lot. It's a lot of time invested. A lot of people don't go that far. So I love that you've really broken it down to these micro moments, micro sessions, regardless of whether or not there's an actual meeting or if it's just even like given as a gift. It's a small commitment. It's a micro commitment that is hopefully for that person impactful. But I'm curious as to your experience when people take part in my intent, there's these physical little bracelets, these little items that carry this word. But there's also sessions that you host that are the smaller sessions. Do you notice like people's lives improve substantially when they start to focus on self-development eating that? We've had breakthroughs that come after an hour. We've had people say, you know, we've had people that have been doing, we've been running basically a summer camp for the last seven weeks. And we're taking a pause for August. But we have 10 hours of programming, 10 hours of sessions every day. All different sessions. Some of it is coaching, some of it is dancing, cooking, like, intentional cooking, all different curriculum on there. And we've gotten the most beautiful stories back about how it's, especially right now, uplifted folks out of despair, loneliness, and giving them real tools to go forward and to make a difference. So yeah, I mean, and we're reconfiguring a lot of it to be, we'll still have some live ones in the future. But we're going to also do a lot more evergreen content for people to enjoy. So people, you know, check out my intent.org. And it's always changing. But, you know, there's many ways to participate. One is, you know, find your word, you know, our own website. We have a word finder. So you help you find your word, order a bracelet, order a maker kit. We also have these question cards. So we curated 30 questions that we think are the easiest or most powerful to help someone find their intention. And that's going to be, oh, sorry, no, I was going to say that was going to be my next question. It was this business almost, this business almost happened accidentally. Where do you want to take it? You know, you were retired. And now, and now you're building out, you're building a live courses. You have bracelets. You're, you know, you're giving, you're giving 50,000 kits out. Now you have a program. You're making evergreen content. So what is the, what is the angle for you? The angle is actually my own happiness and peace and my own growth. And I've learned so much in building this. And I've made, you know, like I sort of started that thing with, you know, I've made a lot of, quote, unquote, mistakes or there's been failures. There's been, you know, it hasn't been a smooth ride. It's been up and down and up and down. And I've learned a lot. I think the future is in transitioning it to, to really, to really focus more, less on the jewelry to continue being, you know, because I was never about the jewelry. And I even, from day one, I put in the mission statement that this is not a jewelry company. It's a service project because people confuse us with a, oh, you started a jewelry company. How cute. And exactly, people would be like the last guy. I'm sorry. Yeah. They're like, you're not even wear jewelry. The last guy to start a jewelry thing. And I'm like, but it's really not. It's a, it's an educational, it's an educational initiative on inner work. It's about, you know, how to listen, how to be present, how to care for other people. And then I think of, you know, maybe we'll end with this is, Mary and Williamson often talks about a book called A Course in Miracles. I'm just going to explain that one. And I don't know that book actually. I've only read the first, really page. So I have a lot of books that I have maybe only read, you know, bits and pieces of a bit. The very first page in A Course in Miracles says, this is a required course. The only option is when you choose to take it. And I think about, you know, us as human beings on this planet, you know, like, what are we really here for? You know, like, yeah, we're here to make money. We have to make money. We got to pay the bills. And you know, once you, once you get past the basic necessities, it's like, while it's over here. And I think my answer to that is, you know, we're, we have an opportunity to learn compassion and learn faith and learn trust and learn hope. These are the more, you know, we're, these are the spiritual concepts that we're here to learn. You know, that aren't taught in schools per se, but maybe they are taught in churches or in the gogs or tables, if, you know, if we go to those, but in general, I think of humanity, you know, like a constantly forgiveness, you know, compassion, like how, how desperately needed is that in our world right now? They're very, very happening, right? And empathy, listening each other. And so if this is the curriculum, you know, somebody actually, it wasn't me that said it, but we made a video back when the project first started. And we interviewed the people, the people that were making the bracelets, and we said, what is this about? What does this project mean to you? And somebody said, you know, life is just a series of intentions. And that really stuck with me. And I was like, yeah, you know, if you think about the spiritual curriculum that we're all here to learn, it's a series of concepts like empathy, like trust and faith and hope. And as we think about our current environment today, you know, I think about it's really hard to learn faith and trust when times are certain. You know, but it's only when you go through the waves are crazy. That's when, you know, these muscles get built. It's only in our, through our challenges that we build strength and purpose, you know, resilience. So, so, you know, I know it's hard for a lot of people going through COVID right now. There's, you know, this global pandemic and all that. But and for myself, I've had quite the roller coaster. And I just encourage all of us to take a moment to think about, you know, what's what, what can we learn from this despite the challenges in the hard, you know, the hard times? I appreciate that. I think that that's a lesson that we should definitely all consider. And sort of focus on focus on taking time away from the negativity that you see on the news and on social media and focus on on like we've, we've spoken with this before the, we started recording but just like betterment of humanity and starts with it starts with learning all those traits. You just mentioned to the finding ways to sort of exemplify those and to, and to lead with intent in those types of actions. And I think that that's something that, you know, just be mindful of and maybe use tools like my intent to, to optimize the way you can be all of those things purposefully. And I think if everybody did that, we, you know, we'd be in a better world than we are right now. But I really, that's a, it's a beautiful story. I had, I had no idea that's how my intent, not the jewelry line, but my intent, the, the concept came to be. So thank you very much. I appreciate that. Can I, is it, if you have a hard stop, I'll get your information, but if you don't, can I ask a couple of rapid-fire questions from, or do you have to go? I have, yeah, I have another clock for like how fast is it? Like two minutes? I can be a couple minutes later to the call. It's not long. It's really, it's really, really not long. Yeah, let's do. Okay. All right, because you've got, you've gone through a lot and I want to just get like your experience, your insight. So first, first one, where do you go to learn? Could be a book or resource a person that you'd recommend to somebody else. I mean, the quote that comes to mind is when the student is ready to teach will appear. And, and the second quote that appears is we teach what we need to learn. So just pay attention to what's coming up in that sense. Online YouTube is beautiful. I mean, and just friends and I think, yeah, I think being curious, I think it's the attitude of curiosity. And just asking questions, just asking, having good conversations, I think we'll, you know, we'll guide people there. Great question though. That's a good, good answer. A lesson you would tell your younger self. A lesson. I mean, I mean, I, you know, I guess if there was one thing, I wish I would have maybe started my inner work earlier. You know, I kind of paused on all of that, you know, when I started my corporate career. So I was just focused on corporate success. And I think it could have entirely been possible to also do this curriculum that I'm speaking of inner work along the way. It is what it is, but I certainly could have. And I think my life would be quite different, but who knows? I mean, it is what it is, right? And so, yeah. Good. And what does success mean to you? You've alluded to it, but I'm just a summarize. I think success is ultimately just happiness and fulfillment and inner peace. And I think success is an inside job. I think, you know, the word intent has the word in and intent. It's not out you know, and it's like really connecting with our true intention. And you know, there's things that were motivated by because, you know, maybe we want success because we have insecurities. You know, there's a joke that when I worked at McKinsey, you know, the joke was, oh, McKinsey's literally the full of the most insecure people. Because that's what gives you the drive. There's that, I mean, I think drive comes from different places, but that tends to come from a lot of insecurity. And I certainly had plenty of insecurity growing up. I'm not saying it's 100% the case, but that often comes in. And I think, you know, success is going to secure. You know, and it, yeah. And no, in the last question, you mentioned the website before, but where can listeners go to connect to do online your website? Myintent.org. And then if you want to drop me a note personally, I'm Chris at myintent.org or Instagram, I'm Chris, the HRIS, and then PAN, Chris Pan. We'd love to get feedback. You know, if you enjoyed the thoughts, it always was very helpful to hear what resonated for you based on our conversation. That's all for today. Thanks again for joining me on another episode of the success story podcast. You can download or stream this podcast wherever podcasts are available, including iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, I Heart Radio, and many others. You can also watch this podcast on YouTube. If you haven't already, please subscribe and share this podcast with your friends, family, co-workers, and peers. Please leave us a rating on iTunes. It takes about 30 seconds as it allows other people to find our podcasts and lets our amazing guests reach even more people with their message. And remember, any rating is fine as long as it contains five stars. I'm Scott Clary from the success story podcast, signing off.