Season 3, Episode 5: Amanda Brinkman
Purpose-Driven Marketing and Community Impact with Amanda Brinkman
In this episode of Jack Rants with Modern Bankers, host Jack Hubbard sits down with Amanda Brinkman, the visionary marketer, producer, and Chief Brand Officer behind Deluxe Corporation’s acclaimed Small Business Revolution series.
Amanda shares how purpose-driven marketing can transform not just brands—but entire communities. Drawing from her experience leading national campaigns and spotlighting small businesses across America, she discusses the importance of authenticity, storytelling, and aligning brand values with social impact.
Jack and Amanda also explore how community banks and financial institutions can elevate their marketing by focusing on human connection, local relationships, and genuine support for small business growth.
Click to Watch the VideoView Transcript
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Jack Hubbard: Amanda and I were talking offline before we got started. I met Amanda Brinkman in 2019 at the Deluxe Conference in Arizona. I was speaking out there, and I thought, well, I'm gonna just drop in, see a couple of keynotes, and
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Jack Hubbard: Amanda was one of them, Peyton Manning was there, and and
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Jack Hubbard: Gretchen Carlson was also there, she spoke that time, so it was really a star-studded event. And Gretchen and Peyton were great, but out comes this ball of energy, talking about all the great things that Deluxe is doing that we're gonna get into.
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Jack Hubbard: And I was just blown away, so I had to have Amanda Brinkman on this show, and I am thrilled, Amanda, that you're here today. Thank you so much for having me, and you have such a very good memory, and you've been so kind and generous with your praise sense. I appreciate it very much.
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Jack Hubbard: Well, we're going to dive into your history and your current situation, which is very exciting, but let's go back a little bit. You've got a great background in speaking and writing. Talk a little bit about your history that got you to this point in your life.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Yeah, so I started out in the marketing and advertising space. I worked at an amazing agency called Fallon, and had the opportunity to work on something called the BMW Films, which really kind of, started a new category of marketing, which was kind of in that branded entertainment place… space.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Instead of just thinking about product placement, how can you actually create the content that people want to watch? And so, I was lucky for that, because it came full circle later in my career, which we'll get to, but
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I just… I just grew up in my career thinking that brands were capable of really beautiful content and film and storytelling.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I then moved over to the corporate side, and had an opportunity to work at UnitedHealth Group for a handful of years, and then Allianz, and General Mills, and then I found myself at Deluxe. And so, I love that I had an opportunity to work in
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: healthcare, financial services, CPG, and then retail. I think as a marketer, there's different approaches to each of those categories, but just, it gave me such great insight into how each of those different, kind of, businesses or industries run, so I'm grateful that I got a chance to try each of them.
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Jack Hubbard: Well, you mentioned Deluxe, and, and
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Jack Hubbard: when I saw you on stage.
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Jack Hubbard: You had behind you all kinds of videos and people weeping and crying, and it was just in a good way.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: In a good way, yeah.
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Jack Hubbard: Because, because you were talking about the small business revolution.
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Jack Hubbard: So, Deluxe and you put together a program where you would give to a community $500,000 a year.
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Jack Hubbard: Ty Pennington and other famous people were involved in this, and your whole goal was to kind of help revitalize small business in the community, and you likely wouldn't say this, but you were nominated for an Emmy for this.
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Jack Hubbard: What an exciting endeavor. Talk… I'm sure we could do the whole hour on this.
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Jack Hubbard: Talk about the small business revolution, and all the great things you did for small business.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Yeah, I'm really proud of that work, and so proud that Deluxe invested in that kind of both storytelling, as well as
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: true community impact. So, when I joined the company, we were about to celebrate our 100th anniversary, and a centennial is a notable achievement for any business, but Deluxe is known for checks, you know, that was what we were originally founded on in 1915, and we really needed to use our centennial to talk about our future. I mean, the decline of checks had been predicted for 25 plus years before I joined.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And so Deluxe has started to diversify into other products and services, like things like fintech, and certainly a lot of services supporting small businesses beyond just moving their money, as we had for 100 years.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And so, we felt like it was an opportunity to talk about that, and… but how do you do that? And how do you do that in a way that honors our centennial, but also, you know, raises brand awareness with small businesses, especially for these new things?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And so, I, as a marketer, just love to spend time with customers. Whenever I start, and I mentioned I've been in different industries, it's such a great way to really understand. If you're trying to market and communicate to people and design products and services that fit their needs, there's nothing like that qualitative, almost anthropologic.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: learning you can get from actually spending time, you know, with them, and walking alongside them. So I spend a ton of time with small businesses, trying to think of how are we gonna, you know, again, use our 100th anniversary to reach more small businesses.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And I was out meeting with them, and I was just so moved.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: By their stories, you know, why they started their business, what was hard about running their business, what their kids were learning by watching them be entrepreneurs, and…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I thought, this is… this is it. I think, you know, after I met with each of them, I right away was texting or emailing friends and family, like, we gotta go back here and eat, or we gotta do all our Christmas shopping at this little retail store. Like, you wanna…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: support them, you know, when you meet a small business owner. And so, I had spent my whole career kind of thinking about
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: how can brands do well by doing good? And doing well by deluxe standards with whatever we did would mean raising brand awareness with small businesses. But the thing that we could do that would be good for them on our way to achieving those business results
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Would be drawing attention to the importance of supporting small businesses.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And so, from the beginning, my vision was to not just create a brand campaign, but to create a movement. And so, we called it the Small Business Revolution.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And, in our first year, we went across the country and shared the stories of 100 small businesses, and an intimate portrayal of what they did, why they were doing it, and it was all about… it was all about them.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And we rolled that out throughout our 100th year.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And the bet that I made when I stood in front of the board and said, I'm gonna take these limited…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Already limited paid media dollars, or what we would have called working dollars, and I'm gonna redirect it to these beautiful films, but I promise we'll reach just as many people.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: The bet that I was making is that I thought we'd reach more people, because of the organic nature of sharing stories and how these could resonate with people. And, and luckily for my employment, I was right. And we ended up reaching, actually, 14 times more people than we would have reached if we would have just done a paid advertising campaign about ourselves.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And so, again, that's that full circle moment. We… instead of creating an ad that interrupted what people wanted to be doing.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: we created the thing that small businesses wanted to spend time with. And so, it evolves, as you mentioned, into a television show, an unscripted reality show, where we went a step further in that next iteration, where we shared the stories of small businesses, but we also walked alongside them and helped them. It was essentially a small business makeover show.
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Jack Hubbard: Wow.
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Jack Hubbard: I gotta believe in the hundreds of small businesses that you talk to, and the many that you helped. There have to be some amazing stories. Any… any story
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Jack Hubbard: Stand out to you in your mind as, okay, this was really one where we changed some lives?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Yeah, you know, I… it's hard to pick, because over the six seasons the show was on, we've… all of the stories are just moving and compelling, but…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I think one of my favorites is from Season 1, from, we were in Wabash, Indiana, and it's a town of about nearly 10,000, about 8,000 to 10,000. It's, it's ranged over the years, and we were working with a woman named Lisa Downs, and she ran a place called Ellen's Dress and Bridal.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And she had always dreamed of going into the bridal industry, but someone along the way gave her the advice that she wouldn't make any money, and she should instead go into the legal industry. And so she became a paralegal and had a very successful career.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: However, at some point, you know, in midlife, she decided, that's enough of that, I want to do what I've always wanted to do. So she started this bridal shop.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: But you're talking about an addressable market of… I mean, you got 8,000 people in this town. How many brides are, you know, are getting married every year? And so we had to really work with her on thinking through her marketing, and how she was bringing people in. Could she band together with other businesses in town, make it a bridal, you know, a wedding planning destination, and go to the flower shop, and go to the beauty shop, and…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: all these other things, and to lift up the other businesses too, but also to bring people into Wabash.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: But in Season 1, Robert Hershevak from Shark Tank, was my co-host, and we were sitting down and we were looking through the numbers with Lisa, and we were… every… sorry, just a side note, every episode, we helped them with their marketing, their finances, we brought in an operational expert from the same industry, and then we would do a physical makeover to their space. And so in the financial discussion, we were, you know, breaking over the books.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And we could not believe the amount of inventory she was carrying, especially for the size of her business and the revenue she was bringing in.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: both Robert and I are not from the bridal industry, so we just started asking questions as you would, and we said.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: why? And then also… and she said, well, these dress manufacturers have purchased minimums, and I… in order to carry their dresses, I have to buy this kind of inventory, and we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars that she had to just have sitting on the books.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And we said.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Well, that's… well, that's crazy. She goes, oh, it's the same dress minimums of David's dress and bridal and all of the big ones.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And we thought, that's… that's crazy. I said, does it have to be that way? And she said, I've never thought to ask. And so she went back to these dress manufacturers and said, could we adjust these purchase minimums to something more, accurate, like our… our revenue addressable, market, anything else?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: She was getting some pushback, and so she took it upon herself to band together with other small-town bridal shops, and they all made a movement to continue to work with these dress manufacturers to lower the purchase minimum to something that was more appropriate for their size of business.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And they were successful.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: it, like, it still gives me goosebumps to this day, like, so we love the impact that we were able to make for Lisa, and the changes we were able to make to the health of her business through that particular move and other things we worked with her on, but what I love is that it had this ripple effect to all of these other communities and all of these other.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: bridal shops in small towns, because of just, you know, one question.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: you know, one kind of, you know, listening moment. And we have stories like that from all of the seasons, where it wasn't just the business that we were working with, it was, you know, the impact it had on their employees, and their employees' families, and…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: and the entire community. So, we're really proud of Lisa and how she took that moment. And you could actually see her posture as a business owner change, too, when she realized, you know, sometimes we feel like our businesses are happening to us.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And instead, it's like, how do you kind of sit in a space of control and ask these new questions, so…
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Jack Hubbard: Amazing.
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Jack Hubbard: Well, you work with all these small businesses as a corporate citizen, and along the way, 2022 comes along, and you say, you know, I've been working with all these businesses, I think I'm gonna go out on my own, and you start Sunshine Studios. Talk about that evolution, and talk about what Sunshine Studios does.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Yeah, so I was at a space in my career where I wanted a little more time affluence. We have a one and only daughter, and we're… the number of years we ever left in the home is starting to dwindle as it does.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And I just started to realize that while I had loved my corporate career and the climb that I had been on and was proud of it, I was just ready, yes, for a change, but I saw how effective the small business revolution was for Deluxe as a marketing tool, and again, going all the way back to the BMW films, I felt like, could I create a production studio that helps other brands do work like this? And that is what Sunshine Studios does. We work
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: With brands and large nonprofits to create these beautiful long-form storytelling pieces. So whether it's an unscripted or scripted show, a documentary, a docu-series, things that just let you, create something, again, that the people you're trying to reach actually want to spend time with.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And so that was great. So that was my ambition, was to start that, and to spend more time speaking. I really had spent my career and gave a TED talk on the concept of how
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: companies can do well by doing good, and the small business revolution was a beautiful, pure case study of that. And so I was out speaking on that topic, and Sunshine Studios was going well, but
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I found myself kind of in this almost kind of personal…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: identity crisis a bit, because I had thought my whole career about brand purpose, but I hadn't really stopped to think about personal purpose, and how that starts to show up in our work, and when I made a big pivot like that, it just shook everything up.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And especially because the small business revolution was so purpose-based, I felt like I had left my purpose there. And…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: my mojo in a certain way. And so, I just remember that first cocktail party I went to, and, you know, people ask you that classic question, what do you do?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And I had a good answer, and I just kind of couldn't get the elevator speech out, because it's a portfolio career, I'm doing some speaking, I'm doing some film, and I just couldn't quite get it out, and I just remember this moment of, like, white noise and hot tears behind my eyes, like, I don't know.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I don't know what I do. I don't know who I am anymore. And so, that started this whole journey of research around what does it mean to have personal purpose in our work and in our lives, and now, years later, I've turned that into
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: a talk and many other things, but I… I wanted to share with others, because I really saw other people struggling with that, too, is kind of how do we find personal purpose in our work and in our lives?
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Jack Hubbard: Yeah, and I've seen Amanda speak personally, seen a lot of videos of her in preparation for this.
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Jack Hubbard: And, she's a keynote's keynote. You want a great keynote, you gotta, you gotta hire this lady. But you design something based on a lot of research, and based on your own experience, called the Purpose Pursuit.
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Jack Hubbard: And I wanna… I wanna talk about all three layers of that, which is your… your speaking.
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Jack Hubbard: You have an online course, which is phenomenal, and then you have a program you do every September where you kind of wrap up your year of research and you talk about purpose. But let's get to the high level. You know, purpose sounds like a great concept.
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Jack Hubbard: But a lot of people don't understand it. Talk about what purpose is, what it means.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Yeah, so in my research, I mean, I… especially when I was kind of having that personal identity crisis moment, and it wasn't a moment, it was about a year and a half, I… I would read any book I could get my hands on, listen to podcasts, I went on yoga retreats in the desert, I looked inside, I looked outside, like, and…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: everything I would find that talked about purpose would always use the word finding in front of it, and it used it like a verb, meaning or implying, that you had to take some sort of specific action
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And that you didn't yet have it. Finding means you don't… you're looking for it, and that… and it's like, you have to find some sort of mystical, magical path to discover it.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And I started to just realize, like, but if we keep giving purpose this big capital P, and think about it as this thing that's way out there that we don't yet have, that we somehow need to find.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: then we could actually be sleepwalking through our actual lives. And I just started to believe that I think purpose instead has a lowercase p. I think purpose is much more about thin-slicing our life
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And thinking about it moment to moment, and interaction to interaction, conversation to conversation. And we have an opportunity to not think about purpose as something that you find, but something that you live in.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And so, I'm on a mission to… you know, I love that we talk about our why, and knowing your why. I love that that's part of our lexicon now.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: but I'm kind of advocating for people knowing their how. You know, how do you move through the world? How do you treat other people? How do you do your work and approach it? Because I think that is actually your life. In accumulation, those moments is your legacy.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And so, for me, as soon as I started to kind of have that realization, I'm like, I gotta tell other people. I gotta tell people we have maybe gotten the concept of purpose a bit wrong, and we're…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I just was talking to so many people that were almost in, like, purpose paralysis. They were like, I don't know what to do next, I don't know when my purpose is gonna find me, or I'm gonna find it.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And we're just missing this opportunity to be in service to the people around us right now.
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Jack Hubbard: That's so interesting.
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Jack Hubbard: I was thinking about this, talking to my wife about this, because as you know, we just celebrated our 53rd wedding anniversary.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Ugh, really awesome.
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Jack Hubbard: On that trip that I took with her, we talked about our life.
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Jack Hubbard: And how it has changed so much.
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Jack Hubbard: I gotta believe that in your research, and in your speeches, and just in normal common sense life.
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Jack Hubbard: Your purpose would change over time.
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Jack Hubbard: How do you help people…
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Jack Hubbard: migrate from, okay, my purpose is to be a husband now. Oh, now I'm a father. No, now I'm a grandfather. How do you help people migrate? Because that whole purpose has got to change depending on your life transitions.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Well, I think… I think how you apply your purpose does change throughout each of those life changes, or seasons of life, seasons of career, but I think it's about recognizing that you've had your purpose all along, and it's been, again, how you've been applying.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: your superpowers, and your journey, and the ripple effect you're able to have on the people around you. So, I do think the way someone is a good father is different based on who you are.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And I think… I think to… to think that, it…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Things that you applied to being a great father?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Or spouse, or co-worker.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: was just in those moments is to lose a little bit of sight of the fact that you are gifted with certain talents and instincts, and… and again, I call them superpowers. Like, usually people don't know what their superpowers are, because they come so naturally to them. Like, I always say to people, like, are you someone who can, like.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: For example, like, are you someone who can walk into a room full of people you do not know, and go up and make friends, and just start walking in?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: That terrifies most people. Can you be sitting in a meeting and just sense that someone has something to say, and be the one to
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: to recognize it, and call it out, and encourage them to speak up. And that might be the first time they've ever talked in a meeting of that caliber, and you just help them find their voice. Or, can you be someone who hears about a huge project and both see the vision of where it can go, but also the steps that need to happen in order to bring it to fruition?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: that most new projects overwhelm people. And so, oftentimes, our superpowers are these things that we've overlooked, and when we look back at seasons of our life.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I think the reason we were successful in them, I think we've told ourselves the muscle memory is because we hustled, and we showed up, and we did the hard work, and that's partially true, but it's also because in moments where we were truly…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: clicking. It was because we were doing something we were good at, and we are meant to feel good at what we do.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I think we've gotten that a bit wrong about work and service, that… that it should feel hard, or it's just this thing you do for… it's a means to an end. And instead, I think we are, as humans, designed to feel good at what we do. You feel the best when you're using your unique skills and talents and perspective.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: and journey, In order to be most effective in that moment of service.
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Jack Hubbard: That's very true. Now, let's take that into… so, for me, as an individual.
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Jack Hubbard: okay, I can… you can help me identify my superpower. I can live my personal purpose.
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Jack Hubbard: But let's take it over into the business side.
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Jack Hubbard: My sense is, from reading about what you've written and what you've said, there are a lot of business leaders who avoid
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Jack Hubbard: Talking about purpose and meaning and things like that.
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Jack Hubbard: Why are some business leaders kind of putting that to the background?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I think because historically, we've thought about purpose as too soft in the business world. Like, that's something you figure out at home, that's not a business term.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: However, I think it's…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: imperative when we think about all of this noise around quiet quitting. I just heard the term quiet cracking the other day, which means people are just at this breaking point. When we talk about the ever-elusive employee engagement, we've always been trying to figure out how do we help employees feel like owners and show up in that way.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: when people can see purpose in their work, they will be engaged, and it is both a beautiful gift you could give that human, but it is also good for your business.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: If people feel engaged and feel like what they're doing matters, they're gonna work harder for you, their solutions are gonna be more effective, it's just good for business to make sure that purpose is identified for people individually.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I feel like we started to, especially, like, around the pandemic, this term, like, or this phrase, people are bringing their whole selves to work, like, emerged, and that's great, because it means we're having more realization of something that was always happening. Like, people were always bringing their whole selves to work. They're human beings.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: However.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: How are we… now that we have… our eyes have been opened to the fact that that's a real… that is what's happening, how are we tapping into that in a way that helps them feel fulfilled in their work?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And when companies bring me in to speak, or they purchase the course for their employees for a learning and development program, they will often
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: they'll often kind of try and almost make the correlation. I mean, when people can actually see that
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: purpose… I mean, Oftentimes, I'll… Leave them with the…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: realization that they do not need to quit their job. That there is incredible purpose within what they're doing now. And I think that's incredibly powerful, because if every employee is thinking about where else they should be, or what nonprofit they should start in order to find purpose outside of your walls.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: you've got a retention problem. And so, to help people see that there's purpose right now in the chair they're in, in the role they're in, not when they get the promotion, not when they go to that other company.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: then you can just retain and engage people in a way that's going to be truly effective for your business. So, I like to help people see that there's purpose in what they're already doing.
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Jack Hubbard: And you do, and when you go into a company, you work with leaders and you work with individuals to help them understand purpose and meaning and things like that, but you go away.
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Jack Hubbard: You leave, and now the company is left with, okay, now I gotta do what Amanda taught me. What are some skills? If I'm a leader of the company, what are some skills that I need
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Jack Hubbard: to help me live my purpose so that I can help the company and the employees live theirs.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Oh, I love this question. Yes, well, and that is exactly why I created the Purpose Pursuit into a course, was because that's what I was being asked, is.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: great, you've come in, we had an all-employee meeting or a client event, and your keynote was great, we were inspired, we were motivated, and I loved that feedback, but they're like, but how do we keep the momentum going, to your point, how do we keep this discussion alive, and how do I demonstrate it as a leader? And so the course was designed to
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: to keep that going, and so within it.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: We talk a lot about,
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: there's, like, a facilitator's guide that leaders can use if they're using it in team meetings, or if they're using it amongst a leadership team. And we have all these different prompts that… that kind of force the facilitator to also answer these questions, so that you're having a vulnerable discussion with your team. And it isn't even…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: It's only vulnerable in the way that it's…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Personal, and you have to kind of have some self-awareness and talk about yourself in a way that, again, maybe historically we haven't always in the workplace.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And so, it's really about, I think, as a leader, demonstrating that you see that you feel purpose in the way you show up to a meeting. I mean, I get that question all the time, like, well, how can my purpose be sitting in a Teams call all day? Like, that's… that can't be my calling. And it's like, but there…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: is a… how are you showing up in those meetings? How are you listening? How are you engaging? How do you write that follow-up? Are you encouraging your coworkers? Like, there's all these moments to live in your purpose in your work interactions, and so for… for a lot of the leaders, I just…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: really encourage them to demonstrate how they're doing that in their communications, and to help people identify that and to recognize their ripple effect within it, and then to spend the time really laddering back up again to the brand purpose. So.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Oftentimes, in every organization I've been in, it's real easy for the marketing team to feel the heartbeat of this work. We're close to the customers, we're talking about the…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: the fuzzy parts… And…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: how does someone in accounting, or operations, or in the call center feel that same sense of brand purpose? And I think it's up to our leadership teams to help kind of dissect that. I love helping break down, you know, if you work at a…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: If you work at a company that does cleaning for large corporate buildings, there is purpose in everybody who is making that happen, and helping people really, you know, tie their job and their role to that piece of it as well. And then, again, showing them how they're using their skills
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And can be using those with their, kind of, little p purpose, moment to moment.
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Jack Hubbard: If this sounds difficult, it is. It's a challenge. But let me add another layer of a problem to this. So, we're all on a team.
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Jack Hubbard: Either we're all salespeople, we're all in marketing, we could come from different disciplines, and we're on a multidisciplinary kind of team. We all have our own personal purpose.
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Jack Hubbard: The manager is there, and the manager is facilitating this group, and he or she has their own purpose. The company has its own purpose. This gets pretty complicated, Amanda. How do you work within teams
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Jack Hubbard: To help people respect The other person's purpose
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Jack Hubbard: And still trying to drive forward to the business purpose. There's a tough question for.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: That is a tough one, I love it, I love it, keep them coming. Well, first of all, I love that oftentimes the course is layered on top of an existing learning and development platform. I've used them in every organization I've been in, too, so we've got Insights, we've got, you know, Strength Finders, you've got, Color Code, there's, I mean, the Myers-Briggs, the list goes on. There's a lot of them. So almost any large corporation already has something in place where they've been
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And trying to identify Most of these either address people's individual communication styles, skill sets.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: working styles, like, they're trying… they're already maybe having… they have some sort of kind of base layer, so oftentimes they try to help companies see how this ticks and ties to that, because I know all of those learning platforms from my own, corporate experience. But also.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: we literally create charts, you know? It's like, you know, think about your personal purpose and how that aligns to your job, and then you see that in your coworkers and in your leaders, and then you ladder it up to the brand purpose. And I think, when we think about brand purpose, that's a little bit more of a…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Again, kind of the mission and vision of the company.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: But when we talk about your personal purpose, it's about how you treat other people, and how you do your work, and how you use your skills, and how you can see that every interaction is a moment to be in service. And we talk about that a lot in this work, is that
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: we think about… we've historically just thought about service as something you do when you volunteer, but you can be in service to other people in every interaction. And once you start to see that there's a choice in that, and that that is how you can see every interaction, I think there's incredible power in that. And so, you don't necessarily even…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: have to know someone else's purpose in order to be living in yours, but I think it's helpful, to see that and recognize that, so you can help celebrate it with each other.
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Jack Hubbard: Yeah, no doubt. And it is a skill that you have. It is a behavior that you have. It is a value that you have.
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Jack Hubbard: But it can also be taught, and to be brought out, and help you take it to the next level, which is what the Purpose Pursuit Course is all about. It's 8 lessons.
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Jack Hubbard: Dive into this a little bit, talk about the course.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Yeah, oh, well, thank you. So, what I've done is kind of taken the elements of the… of the keynote in my library of content that I have found resonates the most, and have broken it into these 8
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: lessons, so that we can really spend time diving into each of them. So, one of them is really diving into
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: how I think about purpose, and that it isn't this thing that you find, but that you live in. Episode 1, I share my story and my background, and the research and the things that it took to kind of, you know, get me to this point. I think I've heard that hearing someone's personal story is
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: has been…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Something that just helps you connect with who you're going to then be learning from. Episode 2 is really about, kind of.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: really thinking through how we maybe have gotten the concept of purpose wrong, and some of the ahas I learned along the way. The next episode goes into understanding and being able to see your ripple effect within the work, and we give some leadership examples, you know, things like the way in which you even, communicate
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: either changes within the organization, or even something like performance feedback, that that goes all the way home, and that there's an incredible purpose, or an opportunity to live in purpose.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: By the way in which you deliver that news, and so we talk a lot about that.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Another episode talks about your superpowers, and again, how to identify them, how to articulate them, how to feel like you're using them in your role. We've got another one that helps you kind of think about the things you want to be spending time on, and how you can see that already existing, and it goes on and on. But each of them have, like, this…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: some journal prompts, an exercise that you do. I talk a lot about the power of having a gratitude practice, which is about as woo-woo as it gets. So, here's the thing, like, after doing all this research, I feel like I speak pretty fluent
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: woo-woo, and I mean that in an affectionate way, I mean that in terms of just all these ways in which we can be thinking about being mindful and the people around us, but I speak super fluent corporate, and so…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I love that I can kind of marry these two, you know, worlds together, and again, create almost a new lexicon or set of words and phrases that I think there are so many principles that I've found within this research
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: that corporate needs. And a lot of people have said, you know.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I can't believe you're working at the corporate, you left corporate. And I said, I have such a heart.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: For the corporate environment. Like, I loved my, A, I loved my time and opportunities there, but also there's so many amazing people there, and if everybody who wants to pursue purpose feels like they have to leave corporate in order to find it, we're gonna end up with these shells of businesses that are not making good decisions based on community or the humans that they serve.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And so we need people to see purpose in their work and continue to work at these big companies, and I think it's very, very possible through work like this.
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Jack Hubbard: No doubt. And so, we've talked about your keynotes. You gotta hire Amanda. We talked about your Purpose Pursuit course, and it's incredibly affordable. And one of the nice things you mentioned
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Jack Hubbard: Is that it overlays on any other training that you've done, or if you've done no training, it's perfect for you, and you have pricing for both individuals and teams.
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Jack Hubbard: The third thing you do is just fascinating to me, and I think these live events
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Jack Hubbard: that you do when you invite people, you bring people to a central location, and you talk about a certain topic, it's so powerful. So, recently, you had a program in Minneapolis where you kind of updated people on your research and the purpose pursuit.
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Jack Hubbard: You also talked about contentment, and I want to hone in on that a little bit, because if you look at what's going on in the world, we're very divided, there's a lot of bad stuff going on. Contentment is a word that I think is a challenge for some people.
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Jack Hubbard: Talk about the event, and talk about contentment.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Yeah, I really… the live event came from, you know, I was out speaking at companies and conferences, and individuals would say, well, how can I hear your talk? How can I see it? And unless they were in all of these different cities at the conferences, or worked for those companies, they really kind of couldn't.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: So, I… someone said, you should have your own event, and it's one of those ideas that now is, like, you look back, and what a blessing that one encouragement was, because I went ahead and did that. And it… last year, it went so well, people loved it, and I felt like what I…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: what I'll do every year is what you mentioned, is I'll share the core beliefs I have about purpose, and then I'll share things that I've learned in the last year, both
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: through being on the road talking to other people about purpose, and then also things I'm still wrestling with or thinking about. And so this year's theme, as you mentioned, was around contentment, and I… I shared how I've been thinking about that I think
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Contentment should be the goal. Like, here I've built this beautiful life, this portfolio career, I… I feel incredible and immense purpose in what I'm doing right now.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: But I just still have that driver thing in me, that striver thing, where it's like.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: When are we exactly pausing and enjoying and recognizing these beautiful lives we've been blessed with and have built?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And I thought, if I'm struggling with this, maybe other people are too, and I started asking around on my listening tour, and people were. And so I started digging into it, and I think we talk a lot about the concept of happiness, and the pursuit of happiness.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And happiness is actually an emotion, which is a byproduct of a mental state, which is contentment. When you feel happy, it's because in that moment, you are feeling content. So shouldn't our actual goal be to seek contentment?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I think when we think about anything in our life, and we think about what we think it should be, so it might be weight we need to lose, or the new house we need to get, or the remodel to finish, or the child to get off to college, or whatever it is, we keep telling ourselves we'll be happy when.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And we all have historical data to show us that that's not true, right? We used to hear numbers of salaries that we said, if I ever made that amount of money, I'd never ask for another dime. And we blew past that 10 years ago, and we're still striving to the next tier. And I think we need to learn from that, and realize if we…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I'm not… when I talk about contentment, I'm certainly not talking about complacency.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I think we should have goals and drive and want to grow, but I am saying I don't think we should hold ourselves hostage until we get to there, because we're just gonna move the goal line. We know this, we do it all the time. And so…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: we spent a lot of time talking about how do you do that, then? How do you sit in contentment? What are some tools you can use to recognize and realize that these lives that you have now are enough and are beautiful? And sure, more one day in whatever category you're thinking of is fine, but… but don't think you're…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Can't be happy until you get to there.
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Jack Hubbard: That's a… that's so brilliant.
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Jack Hubbard: And, you know, it's interesting, you weren't on our anniversary trip with us, but we did talk about contentment a lot, and I think as you get… I mean, you've been married a while, and…
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Jack Hubbard: You go through the different stages of your marriage.
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Jack Hubbard: And it's, you know, early on is one thing, and then you get to the kids, and etc, etc.
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Jack Hubbard: I think if… if you can say after 53 years that you're very content
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Jack Hubbard: That doesn't mean you're status quo, you'll still… we're still growing as a couple, but I think that's really powerful, and that's fascinating. How many people come to these programs?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Well, next year, we're already looking at a bigger venue. So the venue we've been at the last two years, fits 250 people, and then we sold out right… we sold out last year, too, but this year we sold out right away. So we added 24 seats, and that's max of what we can do for a fire code.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: So, and those sold out, too. So, so next year we're gonna move to a bigger venue, and…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: The theme next year, I'm really excited about it. We're gonna talk about how to learn from other generations. I'm already starting to do the research and work and listening on this topic, but
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I think when we think about things like, if you're familiar with Arthur Brooks' work around, the… how our… how our brains work around our intelligence curves, he talks a lot about how we have two curves to our intelligence, fluid.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Intelligence when we're in our 20s, 30s, and 40s, and then crystallized intelligence, which is much more about taking what we've learned and applying it in a space of learning and teaching and wisdom that happens kind of in our 40s into our 60s and beyond.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And that when we make that transition, if we're not aware of the fact that that's just how our brains are designed to work, you can start… that's why we have things like midlife
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: what we should call chrysalises, midlife chrysalis, as Chip Conley says, but instead, it's…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: we've had people have midlife crisis because they think their brain isn't working the same way. In your fluid intelligence stage, you're thinking a lot about your building, you're growing, you're going, you're hustling, you're just the next thing, and you've got endless, boundless…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Energy and ideas. And when that starts to shift in a person, they start to think something's wrong with them, or they've lost their mojo.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And when you instead think, no, this is how I'm supposed… I'm designed to move into a phase of wisdom and teaching from a space of building.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: You then suddenly find great purpose in that, and can see that
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I mean, you spend a lot of time sharing your incredible insights from your illustrious career with other people. I mean, you're very generous with that, and that's incredibly purposeful. And so next year's theme is going to be all about learning from other generations, and I'm going to encourage people, bring your mentor or bring your mentee, bring your mother or your daughter or your father, your son, like, bring these people that you're, you know, that you're actively
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: passing intelligence onto. I mean, I can learn from the generation coming behind me, and I can also learn so much from the generation that just went before me.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And I don't know that we always celebrate that, especially in the workplace, you know? And so I think it's… I think it's gonna be a meaty one to talk about this generational wisdom sharing, and the opportunity we have, and what great purpose we can see in it.
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Jack Hubbard: That's so interesting. I was teaching at a banking school.
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Jack Hubbard: And, a couple of kids… they're all kids, they're younger than I am, Walked in, and they said.
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Jack Hubbard: Under their… kind of under their breath, but I hear, oh, we're gonna hear from Grandpa Sales today. And I told a colleague about that at lunch, and he said, well, didn't that bother you? I said, bother me, I think it's fabulous. That's why I'm there. I have the knowledge of 52 years in banking.
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Jack Hubbard: to be able to share, and that's exactly why I'm at school. And you've shared a tremendous amount with us today, Amanda. Thanks so much.
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Jack Hubbard: So, I would love to get Amanda as my keynote. I want more information on the Purpose Pursuit Course, and I'd love to be invited to next September. How does somebody get ahold of you, Amanda?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Well, they can go to my website, and they can find all of that there, so it's Amanda K. Brinkman, the K is important, so Amanda K. Brinkman.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And yeah, there's a link to the course there, you could sign up for emails. I don't do a regular newsletter, as of yet, but that is where I first notify people who are on my email list about the event, and people who are either in Minneapolis or want to come to Minneapolis, we would just love to have them.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: It's a really wonderful afternoon with other people who are seeking and thinking about this kind of growth, and and yes, all my keynote information is on my website, too. So, Amanda K. Brinkman.
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Jack Hubbard: Amanda Energy, that's how I view you. And now knowing more about what you do with the Purpose Pursuit, it's even… it's doubly exciting. Congratulations on your great career, all you've done for our society, and all you will do going forward with your business. Thanks for having us, enlightening us, Amanda, and thanks for being with me today.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Thank you for the invitation.
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Jack Hubbard: Okay, we're done. How was that for you?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Oh, amazing! Thank you! Oh, good. That was great!
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Jack Hubbard: Good, good, good.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Okay, so in The Purpose Pursuit, I talk about… I do reference one of my gratitude practices. Have I shared this with you, what I… what I do?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Okay, so anytime I'm driving to, like, a meeting, or I'm about to step on a stage, or I'm about to get on a plane, or anything, coffee, I'll just say, how did I get to this moment? How do I know this person? How did I… whatever. And I love that when I look back and try to trace it.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: how connected things are, and I feel like when you meet people along the way, it's like these little stars have illuminated, and at the time you might realize why, and at the time you might not even… it might not have even been on your radar. And then you look back.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: In a moment like that, where you're saying, how did… how is this all connected? And you see that all these stars are connected.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: In this beautiful constellation, which is your life. And I feel like, it's important that we thank our stars, because, especially for me, who I struggle with, like, is this the moment I'm supposed to be making something happen, or letting something come to me?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And I feel like in that gratitude practice, it recognizes that both things are true. You both… you need to both show up in those moments.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And… and,
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: deliver on stage, or whatever it is, or show up in that meeting, having done your research, but the way in which people come into your lives is… you have no control over. So, anyway, I just want to thank you for being one of my stars. So I had to show up that moment at the Deluxe Exchange, but the way in which you came to be in that room, I had nothing to do with, so I'm grateful.
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Jack Hubbard: Life is so serendipitous, it's amazing. I mean, you can try to make things happen, and you need to, but as you go in life, you just… you touch people.
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Jack Hubbard: And, when I got this podcast, one of the things I harkened back to was my time at Deluxe, and I really enjoyed it, and you just jumped out at me as somebody that was
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Jack Hubbard: so good, and so thank you for doing this, it's great. How's Sunshine Studios doing?
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: It's good. We're… my goal is to always just be working on one really meaty project. I don't… If anything, I'm spending more of my time in…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: anything growth-related to the purpose pursuit? Because now it's just, like, it's becoming so diversified, like, it can either be the keynote, the course, or the live event, and those are all very different operational and business development models.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Which I don't usually use that term about them, but you know what I mean.
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Jack Hubbard: Yep, I agree.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And, and so I'm probably spending more growth energy on that, and then I just want to always be working on one fun thing from a film perspective, because I just love it, and I think it rounds out my story to still be a producer and still be in the storytelling space. So we're working on some work right now for, Children's Miracle Network.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Which is pretty fantastic. And we feel like that's gonna be the path forward. We didn't intend to work with large nonprofits, but we worked with American Cancer Society last year on a docuseries.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: And then now this work with CMN,
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: I think if we can prove this model that… so they might be taking dollars that would be typically fundraised for mission, but then direct it to
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: content, but if that content then can yield this ROI that the fundraising original dollars wouldn't have had… so, if they can invest that same million dollars in this film, and then the film has a call to action, and that raises $5 million, so now we're starting to see a model that might be repeatable for other large nonprofits, and not just for our work, but because
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: as you know, nonprofits are just struggling with the fundraising model. Going back to the same company foundations year over year is just… it's not sustainable. So…
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Anyway, it'd be kind of fun if we could disrupt the model a bit with this work.
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Jack Hubbard: Yeah, it's great. And you're so smart, and you either fell into it or planned it. Either one is great. You know, you start with the keynotes.
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Jack Hubbard: and you know you're good on stage, and people respond to you, and then you say, gee, I want to help more people, and build more revenue, nothing wrong with that, and you do the course, and now you've got the September thing.
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Jack Hubbard: And each will continue to feed on each other. I bet you, within a couple of years, there's a book coming out.
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Jack Hubbard: you're gonna have to do it. That continues the process, so good for you. I'm excited to see you grow, and this program…
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Jack Hubbard: will be on, just so that you know, and I'll give you some logistics around that.
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Jack Hubbard: October 15th. So, I'm gonna do some editing on it, you know, over the weekend. I'll get it to our team. We'll send you the full link.
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Jack Hubbard: a couple of days before the… about a week before the program goes on, we'll get you, like, marketing stuff. You're welcome to use it any way you want, etc, etc. I do little shorts from the program, so I'll… I'll put them on LinkedIn, and I'll tag you.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Perfect. And then you can invite as many people you want to the show and things like that, and certainly.
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Jack Hubbard: If there's anything else I can do, I'm… I'm happy to do it.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: You're generous, you're generous, I appreciate you immensely, and
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: That was a fun conversation. I just love… I like spending time with you. You're awesome.
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Jack Hubbard: Yeah, well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. My dad gave me his superpower. He never met a stranger, and he was very comfortable in talking to people, and so I inherited that. So, thanks again for your time, good to see you.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Yeah, good to see you too. Thank you.
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Jack Hubbard: Hi, Amanda.
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Amanda Brinkman, @amandakbrinkman: Okay, bye.
