World Beautiful Business Forum - A Retrospective

I just got back from Athens, Greece. It was my fourth time at the House of Beautiful Business's World Beautiful Business Forum, this year celebrating its 10th anniversary. As usual it was a mind-opening, sometimes mind-blowing, experience.

I could write the usual post. The speakers/people/ideas. And there was plenty of all that.

But this time I want to talk about something I don't usually admit: The feeling of intimidation.

The people who attend this global forum are extraordinary: Professors. Founders. Philosophers. Artists. Activists. Nobel Prize winners. Ted Talkers. Brilliant 20-somethings who seem fully prepared to redesign the future.

This year I sought out Sharon Dolev and Emad Kiyaei, brilliant people I first met in Sintra, Portugal in 2023, at a previous House, to reconnect. They are founders of the Middle East Treaty Organization, working together, an Israeli and an Iranian, to advance nuclear disarmament in the Middle East. Sharon is the Israeli representative of ICAN, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize laureate organization. Emad co-founded a consortium on AI and existential risk.

Literally working to save the world.

And there I am: "Hi, I built a brand strategy tool."

In the days before the event, reading through the bios, I felt the pressure of it. I knew I belonged there, but how do I present myself in a room like that?

And then on day 2, I got an idea.

The Forum has a way of doing that: opening something up in you. My idea was this: what if I could take the values and philosophy of the House of Beautiful Business and weave them into the brand stories my tool generates? I spent half a day building a stripped-down version. Then scheduled a series of 15-minute meetings that produced fully baked brand stories after a short converstaion.

Watching my beta testers light up when they saw their results — the delight, the recognition, the "yes, that's exactly me/us!" (in 15 minutes!).  I remembered why I love this work, and why I’ve had so much reward in building Brand Story Machine. Thank you to Harbrinder S Kang, Lea Im Obersteg, and others!

My new tool isn't solving for peace in the Middle East. But I do believe, genuinely, that businesses with a clear north star, simply operate better. That when businesses thrive, so do their employees and their customers.

A friend reminded me of a relevant quote from Jack Kornfield:

"Tend to the part of the garden you can touch."

It means: don't become paralyzed by the enormity of the world. Create good where you can. In your home, your community, your work. That care ripples outward.

I may not be in the room where nuclear disarmament decisions get made. But I can be in the room (or the Zoom!) where a founder or small business owner finally finds the words for what they do and why it matters.

So. That’s my garden and I’ll attend my corner of it!