THE SIZE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE: Life is good specializes in casual clothing, hats and other accessories, dog toys, and home goods — and spreading the power of optimism. The original char- acter, Jake, whose infectious grin launched the company, remains the face of the Life is good brand.
months ago, I had lunch with her and she graduated from col- lege and she’s adorable and smart and so grateful for every day.
event.We reach out to the musicians that we love the most and ask them to come and play, and everything that we do at that event raises money for the Foundation. This year was the first year we broke $1 million. Very much the reason why we’re not going public and we
don’t want to sell the company is that we think we can continue to do something special and really impact a lot of kids whose lives otherwise might not be going in the right direction.
How do you choose who benefits from your proceeds? Oneof the organizationswesupported for many years was Proj- ect Joy.Alot of nonprofitscome and go, but with Project Joy,we sawtwo things. One was that their work was really sustainable and scalable.We felt as though it was something we could get behind on a national level. It was a regional blossoming organ- ization like us, but we believed it had national and [even] global potential— and stilldo. Another attractive element of Project Joy was that what they did in many ways is what Life is good does. Project Joy pioneered a play-therapy program for chil- dren facing illnesses, violence, and poverty that has proven extremely effective. It’s all about celebrating with a child what’s right and teaching the child that whatever it is that took place around them—unthinkable things—that’s not the only way the world is and there’s a world filled with joy, that they need to engage it, and that they need not be afraid. In many ways it really parallels what our brand is about. We’ve merged Project Joy in with our Kids Foundation and
re-branded it into Life is good Playmakers.One-hundred percent of funds go directly towards those programs, to training child- care providers who will then go and work with these children. It has a tremendously broad reach.
What ever happened to Lindsey? Oh, that’s a great story. Lindsey was one of the lucky ones—and, who knows, maybe in part because of her wonderful attitude —who beat the odds and she’s 100-percent cancer-free. Two
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Did you growup in an optimistic environment, or is it something you had to cultivate? I think it was always part of us, to be honest with you.We were raised in a lower-middle-class household where—you know, when we were five years old we knew when payday was. We weren’t on skid row, butmydad spent his life working amachine shop and had six kids and mom raised the kids, but there wasn’t a lot of excess.We all shared bunk beds and never really went away on vacation and things like that. But my parents, and in particularmymother, was an extremely optimistic person. At the dinner table when we were kids she’d say, “Tell me something good that happened today.” A lot of times when she said that it was as crazy as any household that you can imagine. But she always was a glass-half-full type of person. In many ways, she was and is a great inspiration for the company and the brand.
What can Convening Leaders attendees expect you to talk about next month? I willtellour story in a chronologicalfashion, but the story has a lot of lessons in it—and really the whole thing with John and I is that we didn’t have any business acumen, we didn’t have any money, we didn’t have anything except this optimism and this optimistic message.That has carried us all along. It’s a story that is very applicable to any profession or lifestyle. I’ll [also talk about] an important part of our organization—
that we believe that you can build in an important social cause andweactually don’t think it has to be separate and distinct from your organization or business.We are very much about finding ways to blur the line between work and play and between what you want to do with your life and what you want to do with your career.Manypeople thinkthat I’mapersonwho really likedbusi- ness; okay, but that doesn’t mean that I think I was born for busi- ness. I think businesswas born for us. Business is a tool to be used for something greater, not just a tool to make a living or make money or whatever. You know, if that was the case, we would sell and get a pile of money and move on. But, we actually have this wonderful tool that [is] this busi-
ness we can do something with. I [expect to] instill some confi- dence in the audience that whatever they do for a living can also be a tool to help themreach their dreams or realize whatever it is that is most important in their lives.
Michelle Russell is editor in chief of Convene. www.pcma.org