How can you challenge yourself as a leader to embrace empathy and think bigger, not just about success, but about significance?
Joining me today is Mark Mears, a visionary business leader, best-selling author, keynote speaker, consultant, and visionary business leader. He has a significant track record of building stakeholder value, driving innovation, and profitable growth among world-class, high-profile brands such as PepsiCo/Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Frito-Lay, JCPenney, NBCUniversal, and The Cheesecake Factory. He is currently the founder and Chief Growth Officer for LEAF Growth Ventures, LLC, where he inspires leaders and organizations to grow with purpose.
Mark shares insights from his powerful new book, The Purposeful Growth Revolution: 4 Ways to Grow from Leader to Legacy Builder. We’ll dive into how empathy fuels meaningful growth, not only in business outcomes but people, teams, and culture. Mark believes that when leaders operate with purpose and put people first, they don’t just build companies—they build legacies. He shares why “culture” is not the right word, how to stop managing to the org chart, the four brands you need to consider within your organization, how to build your legacy starting today, and how to think about inner diversity as much as organizational diversity. He also shares powerful stories from his past Fortune 500 mentors that you will love.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- True success comes from building communities where people belong, not just cultures where they merely exist.
- Leadership is a role to be earned daily through empathy and self-awareness, not just a title like “boss.”
- Empathy fuels performance, proving that compassion and results go hand-in-hand.
- Recognition and fulfillment drive engagement, motivation, and lasting impact in organizations.
- Purpose must be lived through four interconnected brands: personal, internal, external, and employer.
“I never let anyone call me a boss. I said, if you want to refer to me as your leader, that’s a title I have to earn every day by how I show up.” — Mark Mears
About Mark Mears, Founder & Chief Growth Officer, LEAF Growth Ventures: Mark A. Mears is a #1 best-selling author, keynote speaker, consultant, and visionary business leader. He has a significant track record of building stakeholder value—driving innovation and profitable growth among world-class, high-profile brands such as PepsiCo/Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Frito-Lay, JCPenney, NBCUniversal, and The Cheesecake Factory.
Today, Mark serves as Founder and Chief Growth Officer for LEAF Growth Ventures, LLC—a consulting firm inspiring individuals, teams, and organizations to find purpose in fulfilling their true growth potential while making a positive, lasting difference in the world.
Mark has just released his new book titled The Purposeful Growth Revolution: 4 Ways to Grow from Leader to Legacy Builder.
Mark is also a member of the Senior Leader Network within Conscious Capitalism, Inc., a global organization whose mission he shares: Elevating Humanity Through Business.
Connect with Mark Mears:
Website: LEAF Growth Ventures LLC – https://www.MarkAMears.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markamears/
Book: The Purposeful Growth Revolution: https://www.amazon.com/Purposeful-Growth-Revolution-Leader-Builder/dp/1636182135
Free Purposeful Growth Self-Assessment: https://www.MarkAMears.com
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Get Maria’s books on empathy: Red-Slice.com/books
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Hire Maria to speak: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. How can you challenge yourself as a leader to embrace empathy and think bigger, not just about success, but about significance? Joining me today is Mark Mears, a visionary business leader, Best Selling Author, keynote speaker, consultant. He has a significant track record of building stakeholder value, driving innovation and profitable growth among world class high profile brands such as PepsiCo Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Frito Lay, JC Penny, NBC Universal and the Cheesecake Factory. He’s currently the founder and chief growth officer for leaf growth ventures, where he inspires leaders and organizations to grow with purpose. Mark shares insights from his powerful new book, The purposeful growth revolution, four ways to grow from leader to legacy builder. We’ll dive into how empathy fuels meaningful growth, not only in business outcomes, but in people, teams and culture. Mark believes that when leaders operate with purpose and put people first, they don’t just build companies. They build legacies. He shares why culture is not the right word, how to stop managing to the org chart, the four brands you need to consider within your organization how you can build your legacy starting today, and how to think about inner diversity as much as organizational diversity. He also shares some powerful stories from his past fortune, 500 mentors that you will love and don’t want to miss. If you’re ready to lead with impact, inspire others and elevate humanity through your work. Take a listen. Welcome. Mark Mears to the empathy edge podcast. I am so excited to have this conversation. I think we could have talked for an hour before we even started recording, and we’ve got a lot in common, and I can’t wait to hear more about your book and your work and helping move people from being simply leaders to being legacy builders. I absolutely love that phrase. So welcome to the podcast.
Mark Mears 02:50
Well, thanks, Maria. It’s a pleasure and honor to be with you today, and I’m looking forward to our conversation.
Maria Ross 02:55
So tell us before we dive into the content, as I do with all my guests, tell us a little bit about your story and how you got to this work and what drives the passion for
Mark Mears 03:04
it. It’s been a journey, literally and figuratively, as we were kind of touching base before the call, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. I went to the University of Kansas to become a lawyer, but you can’t major in pre law. I had a wonderful mentor, and I got into the school of journalism, which KU has one of the top schools of journalism. And as I asked around, what would best prepare me for law school, they said, You can do a lot of reading, a lot of writing, a lot of research, a lot of critical thinking, a lot of presentations. And I said, Great, what will prepare me? And they said, Well, you should look at the School of Journalism. So that’s how backhanded I got into studying strategic marketing communications. And that Professor saw something in me I didn’t see in myself, and said, Are you sure you want to be a lawyer? And I said, Well, yeah, sure, I’m just doing this to, you know, prepare me. And he said, Well, you really have a lot of talent in marketing communications. You have a good understanding of psychology and the way to connect with people. Have you thought about grad school, and I hadn’t at the time, and I went around and I said, Well, maybe I should check and I had some fraternity brothers who were in law school. Some were out. I knew some people that actually had their name on the door. And everyone I talked to, nobody was encouraging. And so I went back to Dr Bankston, who later I created a DR Bankston J school faculty mentor award in his name and his honor, because he literally changed my life. And he said you should go to Northwestern and get your Masters. And I went to Northwestern and learned at the feet of Dr Don Schultz, who created the concept of integrated marketing communications before IMC was cool, right? And so now it’s become this thing that I’ve used as my kind of lamp post to guide me through all of my branding and marketing career. And so I’ve had these wonderful mentors, and I got to thinking as one of the darkest days of. My life was when I was president of a half billion dollar casual dining chain that was owned by Bob Evans farms, which you were talking about Columbus, Ohio. It’s been, oh yeah, with Ohio, and was recruited from being the Chief Marketing Officer for the Cheesecake Factory to come and be president of Mimi’s cafe. And it had was in 24 states, 150 locations, and turned a brand around, put a new concept in play, new brand positioning and a new kind of concept that parent company, which was publicly traded, could, you know, earn the right to capital? My team and I did that all in two years. And instead of getting the right to capital, we had this whole program to refresh our restaurants, re image, and our test restaurant was doing really well. And instead of giving us that, I got a call from the CEO, and they said, Well, we’ve decided. The board has decided to move in different direction. I need to put you up for sale, but don’t worry, you’re going to lead the process. And I’m sure whoever buys you, if someone buys you, we’ll keep you and your team, because you’ve done such a fantastic job. Well, fast forward to February 21 2013 and it’s a Monday morning. We had a new buyer who we’re really excited about. Have a meeting with the CEO eight o’clock to plot our new future together. 805 I’m out the door.
Mark Mears 06:19
Decided to move in a different direction.
Maria Ross 06:22
Yeah, yeah. I’ve been there.
Mark Mears 06:24
I’m out. They clean all of us out, and they moved our headquarters from Southern California to their Dallas location. So everything they said they wouldn’t do, they did. Next morning, I get up early after a pitful night of sleep, I take the dog out back. And this is in Southern California. So February 21 is at the time we see first signs spring. So I took the dog out back to do his business, and we had a fig tree in our backyard that was barren from the five or six weeks of winter that we do get, but Maria there on the end of one branch as the sun was coming over. The wall in our backyard was this little, tiny green sprig of a leaf just starting to bud. And it was in that moment I got this epiphany that a leaf is a symbol of growth and rebirth. And I got to thinking further about it. I took the dog inside, went to my office, and kind of started banging out a treatment for this. And then I realized that it’s more than just a symbol of growth and rebirth. All growth happens through the leaf of a tree, through the magic of photosynthesis, as we all learn in middle school, right? Well, it got me thinking that I was managing with the rule of threes. We’ve all heard about the rule of threes. If you focus on three things, you’ll be more effective, and then people be more focused. My three things were leadership, engagement and accountability. So I wrote it down on this piece of paper, as I’m kind of going through this whole thought process, I said, What did I do wrong? And it was there I got the second epiphany, that what was missing was the film. I wrote fulfillment down, and then as I stood and I watched those words, I saw an acronym called leaf emerge. That’s how I created this whole leaf growth model, leader, wow, accountability and fulfillment, which are four interwoven elements, all revolving. Think of it as a four circle Venn diagram, all revolving around purposeful growth. That fig tree only knows how to be a fig tree. That’s its purpose. Is to grow fig leaves so it can grow tall and strong, but also to bear fig fruit, that fruit has seeds in it that can be scattered. That’s how I got this notion of this revolutionary concept all around purposeful growth leaders, and helps them grow into legacy builders.
Maria Ross 08:38
I love that. And just to remind people, the book is called the purposeful growth revolution. So tell us again what the leaf acronym stands for. I want to make sure people get
Mark Mears 08:47
that leadership, engagement, accountability and fulfillment. So think about that fig tree. Leadership represents the seed in the root system. And you have to have a strong root system for any plant to survive. But if you have that, then engagement represents the trunk, the branches, and the system of nourishment, which I learned is called Savia, which in Spanish, translates to English as life blood. What’s the lifeblood of any organization? It’s people, right? And then that leads to accountability, which is all around achievement. And again, that fig tree’s accountability is to grow strong and tall, but also bearing fig fruit that leads us to fulfillment, which is the ecosystem, the soil, the sun, the rain, that environment that creates the best habitat for that fig tree to grow up into its purpose, much like the culture of an organization, which we’ll talk about, because I prefer a better word than culture.
Maria Ross 09:45
So let me dig into that. Why do you not prefer the word culture? You know,
Mark Mears 09:49
I don’t have very many gifts Maria, but one of them is vision, and it’s the ability to take and look at something and twist it like a prism and see a different light pattern, or a kaleidoscope that you could look through. Different things. It’s the same kaleidoscope, but if you twist it, you can see something different. Yeah, well, I think words matter, and that coming back to my journalism, back preach, I’m all about that we throw words out indiscriminately, and we just assume people know what they mean. And so I look at the word culture, and I think that’s just a place someone may feel merely a part of. That’s not bad, but I prefer the word community. A community is a place someone feels they belong in. Notice the difference. More emphasis on the word feels. I go back to the great poet, late great poet, Maya Angelou, who said, I’ve learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what they did or you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. And I don’t care what vocation you’re in, what industry sector you’re in, I believe we’re all in the people business, at least until the robots or zombies are away. But if you’re in the people business, to be successful, you have to be in the feelings business. So when you’re in a community where you truly belong, that is where the magic happens. There’s a lot of hue and cry about dei right now. Well, diversity gets us in the door. That’s good. Equity gives us an equal voice. Better yet, inclusion gets us a seat at the table. Holy cow. Now we’re cooking with gas, but if we don’t feel we belong, we are likely not going to feel psychologically safe, to be vulnerable enough to give our very best, like the quote from Hamilton, we’re going to just be happy to be in the room where it happens. The best out of that person, right? That will likely happen is they’ll leave over time, right? Oh, Maria, you know, had such a great interview, and we thought she was going to be really good for us, but she doesn’t really speak up in meetings, maybe because we didn’t make Maria feel that she belong in that room.
Maria Ross 11:54
First of all, yes to everything you’ve just said, and that is like, completely what this podcast is all about. Many of my guests have talked about different facets of that over time, but, you know, talk a little bit more about the missing link of fulfillment, because versus, you know, merely getting paid to perform a job. You know, we hear that a lot of like, you don’t need to be fulfilled. You just need to do what I tell you to do, so I can give you a paycheck, kind of an attitude of certain leaders, right? And just like I always equate the work I do a lot to parenting, just because I’m in it. I have an 11 year old, you know? And it’s sort of like saying, Just do what I say, because you’re my kid and you have to, and then there’s no growth for that person. There’s no engagement, there’s no contribution, there’s no ability to feel that they can relax and take a risk and be creative and try new things and fail and learn and try new things again. So can you talk a little bit specifically about your past experiences? You know you’ve worked with some really big brands, McDonald’s, Universal Studios, the Cheesecake Factory, as you mentioned, where have you seen either good or bad examples of fulfillment being present in order to get the best out of people to maximize results, if you will?
Mark Mears 13:15
Yeah, I think a couple, and they go back to a couple of mentors of mine throughout my career. I mentioned a few of them in academia, but David Novak, when I worked for him at Pizza Hut, when it was owned by PepsiCo, his kind of attitude was, work hard, play harder. And he created this competitive environment, but it was all a healthy competition. Kind of be that rising tide that lifts all boats. And he later became the co founder and chairman of yum brands and retired a few years ago, and he’s still very active, and he’s written books and doing all sorts of leadership stuff, because he’s easily the best leader I’ve ever worked for. And I say the word leader because words matter. Yep, the word boss. Unless you truly are a boss, and you are, you’re probably not going to be in that position very long, because I’m not going to name the company, but I did work directly for president, who was a boss, and it was about just getting the work done. Keep your nose to grindstone. Don’t bring that weak shit in here. I don’t want to hear about your personal life, you know, keep that at home and just get the work done and do as I say. And he had a bit of a Napoleonic complex
Maria Ross 14:22
Well, and, you know, and you look back at experiences like that, and, you know, I do too, and I go, I did not do my best work there because I didn’t want to. I wasn’t incented to contribute in a way that made me feel that that would be appreciated, that that would be, you know, listened to. And so think of all the ideas and the insights we lose out on because we treat people in that way.
Mark Mears 14:48
Yeah, it’s fear and intimidation, and it’s what I refer to as the old command and control. Man and control exactly. It no longer serves us. You know, it did for a long time, because it. Emanated, based on my research from GIS, who came back from World War Two and got into the workforce, and that was how they were trained to go to combat and survive and protect each other, was by following a chain of command. So we look at org charts that are all boxes of people in a hierarchy, right? And if you manage that way, then people are going to feel that they’re at the lower end of that. Then their voice doesn’t matter, and they may have a lot to contribute, because it has to go up the chain. You have to tell your boss, who has to tell their boss, who has to then clear it with their boss, filter and water down, and you don’t have the ability to shine. Now, on the other hand, the example I would give at Pizza Hut. I was a young marketing executive, had opportunity to make a huge stamp on that business, and actually won what was called the silver pan award that was given out by David each month at a monthly meeting for someone that lives out the values of Pizza Hut and has made a significant difference. And so he was a big believer in reward and recognition. When he was the CEO of yum brands, in his office in Louisville, Kentucky, the yum headquarters, he had pictures of everybody that won different awards. For pizza had been morphed into the cheese head award, KFC, it was a rubber chicken award and sauce packet award, and he would take pictures with those who want it, and he would put it on the walls in his office. When he didn’t have any more room on the walls, he put it on the ceiling. Oh, my goodness, more room on the ceiling. He put it outside his office, down the hall, and everybody who came to his office knew that he stood for recognition and reward based on performance, and that’s really important. As we’re talking about empathy and leading with love, you still have to perform.
Maria Ross 16:51
Still have to perform. This is it’s not. I always talk about both and leadership. It’s not either or we don’t become empathetic leaders at the cost of not meeting our objectives or not increasing our growth or having the impact we want to have. We enable that to happen through empathetic leadership. It’s a catalyst. It’s not a seesaw where you have to choose one side or the other. Yeah, it’s
Mark Mears 17:16
when you’re in a community where you feel like you belong and you are working with, not for I never said anyone worked for me. I never let anyone call me a boss. I said, if you want to refer me as your leader, because that’s a title I have to earn every day by how I show up. And I learned a long time ago as a young leader that people are watching your every move. You’re in a fishbowl. Whatever you say, whatever you do is getting filed away, and they’re shaping their view of how you lead. And if you’re not self aware, you may miss a lot of cues that otherwise could make you a better, more effective, more empathetic leader.
Maria Ross 17:56
Well, and that’s the key right curiosity is the number one trait of empathic people, of empathic leaders, and it’s knowing that you don’t have the all the answers, that other people can contribute ideas from their unique life experiences, from their perspective on the customer or the product or the issue that you’re facing. And it’s so funny that you talk about this, because I just want to share a quick story with you, because my husband just started a new job. He’s a chief marketing officer at he just started a new job, and his first week is devoted to not only sharing with his team some values and principles of how he hopes that they get work done together, which completely supports my clarity pillar in the empathy dilemma. But then he spoke about having those one on one conversations with every single member of the team and finding out, how are things going for you? What do you think is going well? What do you think needs to be improved? And it was such a stark contrast to, I have to say, a very psychologically abusive boss that I had earlier in my career. And I don’t use that term lightly, yeah. And this person came into the vice president role and talked to everyone else in the organization, but the people on their team, they didn’t check in with us at all. They were too busy trying to find out what everyone else thought about the team and how everyone else thought things were going and then basically just came back and shamed and blamed us for everything. Yeah. And I was like, What a difference in leadership, what a difference in legacy. That is to just really understand that you’re there for the people that report to you. You’re there to enable them. You’re there to empower them. And if you do that, it’s sort of like, trust me, they’ll make you look good,
Mark Mears 19:41
well and similar in some ways, to abusive relationships, some people, that’s where they came from, and that’s exactly you weren’t trained, right? And they thought, well, that’s just the way it is. And I’m just transferring that to now, when it’s my turn to lead. So yeah, for me, this dovetails perfectly into. So the next book that I’m working on right now, so the first book is the purposeful growth revolution well,
Maria Ross 20:06
and before we go to the new book, I really quickly just want to touch on the current book. So we talked a little bit about the model, about the leaf model, and then in that book, are you providing sort of a framework or a roadmap for leaders to embrace each of those pillars.
Mark Mears 20:22
It is exactly that, okay, it is a step by step road map that has, well, when I say four ways to grow from leader to legacy builder, there are four different sections of the book, and they’re all related to this idea of nature. Again, twisting that prism or that kaleidoscope, I’m able to see that we can learn a lot from the world around us if we just keep our eyes open. Uh huh. So, for example, leadership has four different CS. And so instead of the rule of threes, I’ve come up with this higher power of fours. You think about it, there are four directions, not three. There are four, you know, elements to an atom, the source of all life, not three. There’s four seasons, right? Not three, and there are four chambers to the human heart, not three. And I could go on and on with this foreplay, but you get the idea, right? And again, this model of a four circle Venn diagram you’ll see throughout the book, because I don’t believe life is linear. I don’t believe anything’s really linear. And I think it’s all connected and all revolving around purposeful growth, not just growth, but purposeful growth. And we were talking about the and before, I’m a big believer in purpose, as you can imagine, but I’m a growth junkie, and I don’t think they’re separate. It’s purpose and growth and profit that will help that organization. So the first section of the book is really about setting the stage, and it’s cultivating your field for purposeful growth. I live in Kansas City. I grew up in Wichita. Kansas is a very agrarian part of the country, right? We don’t just rush out and plant seeds. You got to cultivate the field first, get it ready for growth. So there I built the business case for the power of purpose and this whole idea of growth across different dimensions, we look into ourselves in the second phase, which is, you know, all about self growth, right? And how we can look at ourselves in those four different ways. And then the third one is what we’re kind of talking about. The meat of the book is growing you forward for purposeful work. That’s the leaf model, leadership, engagement, accountability and fulfillment. And then finally, it’s scattering your seeds for purposeful life. And so it follows, step by step by step, through a curated reading experience, which is what I tried to create. And like use the phrase paying it backward when I talk about mentors, when I go to Starbucks, I pay for the car behind me in the drive through. Uh huh. I go up to the counter the window and I’ll say, I’d like to pay for the car behind me. They say, Oh, that’s nice. And I said, Just do me a favor and tell them, God bless you. Your debt has been paid. And I drive away, and I say a silent for that person. They don’t know me, and I gotta believe in that moment they felt valued, yeah, seen, and to me, that’s really important. And I’ve been told that oftentimes there’s something called the rule of the law of reciprocity, which states that when someone does something nice for you, you feel a deep seated urge to do something nice for someone else, right? And I’ve been told that the car behind me maybe pays for the car behind them and the car behind them, behind them, yeah, and that’s what I mean by legacy. We talk about being a leader that people look up to. That’s great, but when you are the leader, they want to not only follow, but lead like, if not better, when it’s their turn to lead. Now, as however many direct reports you have, you’re creating a ripple of that, multiple ripple of that. And so to me, that’s really important, but that core of that model is leadership, engagement, accountability and fulfillment, right? I’ll just pick on one, because we don’t have time to go through all four. But leadership, it’s four C’s, it’s clarity, who you are, what you stand for, your vision, mission values, it’s connection. It’s connecting that brand architecture to how you make money and do business, right? Because, if not, you’re just going to have a bunch of posters on a wall and empty platitudes, yep. And then it’s communicate. And I often say that CEO as an acronym should be changed from Chief Executive Officer to communication executive officer, because now you’re communicating to all your constituents, up, down in the sideways and then it’s now about getting people committed their heart, head, hands and habits to make that whole vision come to life. So imagine, leadership leads to alignment, engagement leads to empowerment, accountability leads to achievement, and fulfillment leads to the environment that, again, creates that ecosystem. So that’s the model that you’ll see, and it’s step by step by step throughout the book, connecting.
Maria Ross 24:54
So I want to just go back real quick in the time we have left you put so much emphasis on purpose and fulfillment. Film in I’m wondering, I’m curious, about the larger brands you’ve worked for, right Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Frito, lay JCPenney, the Cheesecake Factory, Universal Studios at that scale, which of the larger companies that you worked for really did well when it came to clarity of purpose?
Mark Mears 25:20
Yeah, they all did in different ways. But the key, when I look at purpose, as I look at the brand, is actually four brands, and you’re a brand expert, so you this may be old habit to you, but for a lot of it blows people’s mind. Like four brands, isn’t there just one? Isn’t it Frito Lay and it’s Cheetos, or isn’t it Pizza Hut and it’s, yeah, there’s the personal brand, which asks and answers the question, Who am I? Which we used to not care about, as we talked about command and control, right? But now there’s the internal brand, which is the collective we. What do we that leads to the external brand, which most people think is the brand because it’s guest or consumer facing, that answers the question, what value is exchanged here? Because I believe all marketing and sales is about a value exchange. What do I get for? What do I pay? But most importantly, how do I feel about it? Right? That then leads to the employer brand, which asks and answers the question, Do I belong here? So when you have like, a four circle Venn diagram all revolving around purposeful growth. You’ve got people coming in and being who they are and feeling comfortable being who they are, and that’s the personal brand, but then melding together as a team all around our shared values that gets us to the internal brand, that leads to being able to deliver the promise to the end user, right internal brand then attracts new and better people to come into the organization, which is the employer brand, right? So I would say, I don’t want to leave anybody out, because wonderful. Here’s an example, the Cheesecake Factory, known for being an immersive over the top dining
Maria Ross 26:55
experience, known for the ginormous menu. Yeah.
Mark Mears 27:00
So David Overton, who was another mentor of mine, the founder and still CEO of the Cheesecake Factory, he is a hospitality expert, not just a restaurant tour. He wants people to share a wonderful dining experience. So I picked up on that word share. And he would often say that portions are large because he wants people to share with each other. So picked up on that whole idea. We created this whole calendar around the word share and what that meant. And the first quarter tied kind of to Valentine’s Day in the season of love, was share the love. And we did this wonderful cheesecake recipe contest that ultimately led to the selection of Stephanie’s ultimate red velvet cake cheesecake. And so we allowed our fans, our guests, to be able to participate in this idea. And we narrowed it down to five, and went on Facebook, America voted, and that’s what it won. Then later that summer, during National cheesecake day, which is July 30. I’m sure you have it circled on your calendar. We do now, yeah, and we featured that. We then did a tie in with Feeding America, which is the nation’s largest food bank network. And so we donated 25 cents a slice for that cheesecake throughout the year and raised money. But we also took it on the road in September, which is Hunger Action month. And we took this old milk truck that we revamped and rebranded and called it the drive out hunger tour. So we started in LA at our headquarters, and we went 30 days of September to a different cheesecake restaurant all across the country, till we ended up on September 30 in Washington, DC, our nation’s capital. And there we unveiled the number of cans of soup that were able to contribute to Feeding America the dollar amount. And we unveiled this huge can structure, 30,000 cans of soup that were in the shape of, you guessed it, the Stephanie’s ultimate red velvet cake cheesecake, right? So showing how we were able to not only enlist the hearts of our teammates in the restaurants, but our guests to participate, right? That was a win win for everybody,
Maria Ross 29:18
but all but kind of, the important point here is all going back to a shared purpose, value of sharing,
Mark Mears 29:25
sharing, right? We’re sharing the love, the love the Cheesecake Factory. We’re sharing the love of our team members. We’re sharing the love of our guests in our communities who were motivated to come. You know, before the restaurant opened, each day, we had radio remotes, and we gave them a free slice of this cheesecake, if they donated two cans of soup, let them take their picture in a green screen and then put it up on the website that every day, all those pictures were updated and pixelated. The final day revealed what that. That pixelated, you know, group of photos represented, and it was the Stephanie’s ultimate Red Velvet, right? Everything hung together in a tight story, right? This notion of sharing the love with one, right, right?
Maria Ross 30:16
Oh, I love it. Okay, so we’re out of time, but we will definitely have all your links in the show notes so folks can check out the new book. I know we teased that you have a new book coming out that puts the human back in human resources, and we’ll have you on again to talk about that book whenever it’s ready. But I just really want to encourage folks to check out the new book, a purposeful growth revolution and Mark it’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing your insights and your stories with us today. For anyone that’s on the go, where’s the best place they can get in touch with you or find out more about you?
Mark Mears 30:49
Yeah, excellent. Thank you, Maria. People want to connect with me on LinkedIn and subscribe to my newsletter. That’s the best way to do so, and that way we can get connected and I can learn from you. Again, I’m a growth junkie. I don’t have all the answers. I love learning. And also, you can go to my website at mark a Mears, M, E, A, R, S, don’t forget the A, mark a mears.com and there you’ll find a purposeful growth self assessment. It’s free, and it takes about 567, minutes to fill out, but it’ll give you kind of a benchmark on Where are you with this concept of purpose in both your life and your work? That’s really my goal, is to meld the two together where people can find purpose in their work and not just outside of work. I love
Maria Ross 31:32
it, and we’ll put the link to that purposeful growth self assessment as well. But as Mark said, Folks, you can find it at mark a mirrors.com We’ll have that link in the show notes too. Mark. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you Maria. Been a pleasure for me as well. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review and share with a friend or a colleague. And until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events, please follow me on Instagram at Red slice. Maria, never forget, empathy is your super power. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
