Hello, I'm Mary Portis and this is The Kindness Economy, a podcast that looks at the new values driving the businesses of tomorrow.

People, planet and profit in that order.

It's the future.

Are you ready for better?

Pandemic aside, there's been a lot to get people talking this year.

From the new space race to the COP 26, the government slees, does it ever stop? There's been much to unpick and react to. And much of this talking is done in private, you know, across kitchen tables, on the street, in offices or on Zoom calls, we're constantly and collectively sifting through and reacting

to events around us. As businesses, we can find out what people are saying by tapping

into the more public conversation on social media and opinion polls and the press. And while

Boris might be sticking his big fat, blonde head in the sand, Bezos and Branson, jetting off

into space, lots of bees there, I can

think of another one. The collective mood is being revealed all around us. Well, here at Portus,

we call these threads of collective conversation cultural frequencies. They show us the path into tomorrow. The values and

emotions are driving fundamental change. As businesses, it's our job to listen to them. We need to

understand what's making people dream and also what's switching them off. Now, I've been in business practically 40 years and the one

thing I can tell you is that experience, feeling gives you context. You've been there, you've done it

in many different ways. And I've often been told that the cultural noise won't change big business.

Well, what I know from experience, however, is that the large businesses that think they're impervious to it are often the most vulnerable, kneecapped from behind by a newer company that delivers on the same needs, but better, because they tapped into the overall cultural frequency, the mood.

We cannot be complacent when it comes to the cultural noise and vibrations that say so much about how people want to live.

Today, the cultural mood is pragmatic, grounded and experience-led. We're yearning

for a different kind of hope, one that provides an antidote to the anxious uncertainty we're

battling in the here and now. Innovation, betterment, progress. This is what so many people want in so many ways.

All around us, they're telling us this.

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