18 Oct Ripples Of Impact: A New Form of ROI.

Ripples Of Impact: A New Form of ROI.

As a for-profit entrepreneur, I spent the first half of my life focused on Return on Investment (ROI). Now, I’m spending the second half of my life focused on a different form of ROI: Ripples of Impact. I love this phrase coined by our MEA faculty member Justin Michael Williams and mindfulness teacher and author Shelly Tygielski.

When you drop a pebble in a pond, it creates a series of ripples that cascade out over the water. In our relationships, our emotions can create positive or negative ripples. The same is true in our businesses. The choices we make on where we purchase, how we build our company culture, and how we affect our community make a profound difference—sending energy into the world that will create positive or negative ripples. The choice is ours. I’ll never forget the look on the face of one of our new Joie de Vivre General Managers when we told him that one of the metrics that would define his performance was how much money he’d spent in serving discounted or free non-profit groups in our hotel. He clearly wasn’t used to our brand of “karmic capitalism” and our deeply held belief that “what goes around comes around.”

Today, my primary Ripple of Impact is the Modern Elder Academy. I am humbled to see the ripples of our work in the 1,500 (and growing) alums who are dedicating themselves to repurposing their lives with new meaning, developing their “encore career,” and perhaps, most beautifully, finding new and exciting ways to serve their friends, families, and communities. The beautiful thing about ripples—you never know how far one will go.

What is your ripple, and how will you share it with the world?

– Chip Conley

First appeared in Chip Conley’s Wisdom Well blog