Meet Chris Hare

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chris Hare a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Chris, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

The path to finding my purpose has been a long and winding one marked by trial and error and a lot of suffering. From the time I was a little kid I’ve had a massive imagination. I think I drove my mom crazy because every day I had like five different things I wanted to be when I grew up and I wanted her to be equally excited about all of them. My creativity wasn’t recognized or honored as a kid and so I ended up going down a path that I thought would make other people happy.

This misguided people-please approach continued into my early 30s when I finally realized and owned the fact that I AM a creative and that is where I am gifted, where I am happiest, and where I can have the biggest impact on the world.

There is a lot of talk about “purpose” and “passion” these days and that conversation often smacks of privilege. When I talk to people about their passion, I call their attention to the Latin root word for “Passion,” which is “Passio” which means to suffer. And I love that because my passion is that thing I am willing to suffer for to see it come about, and for me I try to make sure my passion is centered on serving others.

Before I could get to my passion, I had to cross through a dark valley of suffering which, ironically, was at some of the companies that people believe will make their careers and help them create lasting wealth.

What I saw over and over again, from my mid-30s working in an ad agency as a copywriter to working at Amazon and Microsoft to transitioning into being an agency owner, was that it was very hard to bring about change within large enterprise companies. We would build things that would never see the light of day or try to move the needle and help clients achieve their goals. But because the underlying systems and processes and strategies and narratives were broken, it was just this world of rinse-wash-repeat where everyone was trying to hit their short term goals without regard for the long-term future of their companies or their customers. And my team and later my clients often lacked the position, power, and budget to truly affect change.

That short term focus, combined with the dysfunction and toxicity in the teams I worked in, created massive imbalance and stress that was generally driven by fear. This also made life really stressful for the creatives who worked with them. In my agency days and at Amazon, I was one of those creatives and this made me angry (often a good spark for passion). I wanted things to change, and I believed things could change, and eventually I came to believe it was my job and mission to change that.

When I started my agency, The Storied Future, I believed I could build a better agency where I created a culture that was much healthier and were creatives had a safe environment where they could thrive and grow and get paid as much as possible. At the same time, I believed I could bring some of the benefits of that culture to my clients.

That became core to my purpose: “to help creatives and business leaders understand their purpose, and have the knowledge, skills, and inspiration to bring that purpose to life.”

Problem was, my business model was the wrong business model. The sad part was that my business coach who had helped me define and refine my purpose gave me the book, Business Model Generation, but in my arrogance (thinking I was a special snowflake-unicorn-etc.) I never opened it. And that may be one of the single biggest mistakes in my journey.

Of course, there is never just one reason, but my business model was a big reason for the struggle. In seeking to try and be different and create a better work environment, I had the audacity to think that I could change things for my clients within the big enterprise companies I was serving, but that was a losing battle because my model flew in the face of their finance and procurement models. For example, they wanted a high volume and velocity of content at a low price but then always complained about the quality they got. I delivered high-quality content at a high price, and while I found some amazing clients who were true believers and paid those prices, it was unlikely I would ever be able to build a sustainable business in this space.

I ultimately ended up creating a business that was aligned with my purpose but that ultimately could not deliver on that purpose because my business model didn’t deliver the resources I needed to do that and because I am not an operator and was now running the same kind of machine that I had tried to escape.

When 2020 hit, and in the years after, things got progressively worse financially as the big tech companies I had relied on were suddenly slashing budgets.

But then something happened in the middle of all of this struggle. I had the opportunity to build a strategic narrative for a privately held mid-market paint distributor, helping them translate their business strategy into a narrative that would align everyone from the boardroom to the buyer around a shared vision of the future. Fast forward to today and that narrative is actually changing things, it’s being used to transform every part of the business. That was a major key to finding my purpose! “It is actually possible to bring about change, and I can do that through narrative!”

And that is where things started to shift, where I started to see the sun break through in my journey. In 2022, I launched my podcast, The Storied Future. In the show, I interview leaders who put a new narrative out into the world and then used that narrative to shift the future.

Initially there was still a focus on marketing, but something crazy happened. My superpower is getting people to tell that one story that they have never told before, the stories that changed everything for them—what I call Atomic Stories^TM. While I planned to talk about business transformation, and we did, business leaders wanted to talk about personal transformation. And the stories they told have been nothing short of remarkable. Transformative for me. Transformative for them. And transformative for my audience.

The Head of Global Communications at a $16 Billion company said my interview with their CEO was the best she’d ever heard on his leadership journey and she asked if she could make it part of employee onboarding. Another guest became Exec Chair at a midmarket company and then parachuted in as CEO with five-days notice. He used the podcast episode to earn trust with his board, leadership team, and employees. I then coached him on translating his business strategy into a narrative. He ended up turning them around, leading their most profitable quarter ever, leading a merger, and handing off to a new CEO–all inside of 6 months (You can hear his perspective here). Later when I recorded his testimonial, what really struck me wasn’t the business impact, but it was the fact that hearing his story after our interview was actually changing him, as a leader and as a human who wanted to make a difference in the world.

This all got me thinking that THIS is where I needed to focus, where I could find the right intersection of

Through numerous other interviews, coaching, experimentation, and a lot of writing, I finally got to my purpose. With a lot more trial and error and a lot more suffering. Fast forward to today and I finally have a clear purpose with what I believe to be a very compelling strategic narrative. The purpose that I believe will carry me from today to the day I die:

My purpose is to help CEOs get to the finish line and be celebrated not only for what they’ve accomplished, but for how they accomplished it, who they took with them, and who they became in the process.

I accomplish through helping them use storytelling and narrative design to increase their effectiveness, transform their companies, and transform themselves. And now, I have a new business model that I believe will enable me to continue bringing my purpose to life in a way that is sustainable and profitable for the long-term.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’m a natural-born storyteller who helps people tell their stories ways that transform them, transform others, and shift the future. I primarily do this in two realms: 1) I advise CEOs and founders and help them clearly communicate where they’re heading, how they’re going to get there, and why people should follow them there; 2) I lead storytelling and create short films pro bono for The Bar X Project, a nonprofit that serves combat-wounded Marines and promotes healing through fly fishing and coaching. I’m also a husband, a dad, a writer, a filmmaker, a fly-fisherman, and a wannabe standup comic.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Think Big, Start Small: It can be incredibly powerful to have a big, world-changing purpose, mission, and vision in the context of work (not that you have to though, but that is a conversation for another day). But that is overwhelming for most people you’ll run into and they will often respond in fear or attempt to shut you down or sabotage you. My recommendation, and I’ve learned this the hard way, is to figure out what that big vision is and then figure out what that one small thing is that will enable you to test your hypothesis and prove that what you are proposing works, or could work. Then, after you’ve done this, communicate about it regularly with your stakeholders so you can bring them along on the journey with you. Better yet, get their input from the beginning into what the biggest problems are that they are trying to solve, and what small changes will make their lives better. This will help you earn their trust and demonstrate that you are working with them to create the future they already want. That’s not to say there aren’t instances where people won’t believe in what you are doing and you just need to forge ahead. But that is part of the trial and error and learning process. But when you pursue this with a learner’s mindset, over time you’ll acquire the wisdom you need to decipher the right time to involve people and the right time to go it alone.
Curiosity: In my opinion, there is no domain or industry that is 100% boring all the time. There is a lot of advice out there encouraging people to follow their hear and find something that lights them up. I don’t think this is good advice, especially early in your career. I recommend seeking opportunities to learn and be curious rather than seeking to be happy and entertained.I used to think that work was all about making a dent in the universe. But there is something to be said for recognizing the beauty in the mundane and finding ways to bring life and excitement to it. I have done this repeatedly by finding the human story in every industry I have worked in. One practical way to be curious is to meet customers and ask them about their world, what lights them up, what challenges they are facing. Then start to identify problems that you believe you can solve. Also, introduce yourself to strangers and seek to find out where they are heading and how you can help. I have repeatedly been gifted life-changing business and career opportunities by introducing myself to strangers. The real adventure, and the place where you find purpose, is meeting people, building relationships that mean something, and helping make life better for them.
I would caution against bailing early on a role to find something that fits your “passions” (defining passion here as the thing that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy) as it is your job to bring curiosity to work and figure out how you can become a better version of yourself in that environment, create more value, and make the world a better place by doing your job to the best of your ability, no matter how mundane (yes this was a run-on sentence but it was worth it, right?). As someone who has had many a bad and/or boring job, I can tell you that I am only able to do what I do now and am likely only considered an expert in what I do because I put in the hard work, got curious, and stuck with it. Because when your goal is learning and not happiness, the happiness tends to come with it. Not to say there aren’t a ton of times where you should absolutely bail on a job, BUT I think people tend to skip out just when the learning is about to begin. And in my experience, when I have skipped out too early, those unlearned lessons have tended to follow me to the next job because they know I need to learn them.

Be creative. Challenge your definition of creativity. It’s not always about some big ad campaign, making a film, or traveling the world and vlogging about it. It won’t always warm your heart, the world around you might not ever see it, and it can be lonely. But it’s worth it! Creativity at its core is solving problems. If you can become a person who people come to help them solve problems, you will become what Seth Godin calls a linchpin (check out his book on this). Another great book on creativity is Twyla Tharp’s Creative Habit.

Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
CEOs and ultra-high-net worth founders who want to find a greater sense of purpose and tell their stories—the stories of who they are, not just what they’ve accomplished—in a way that transforms them, transforms others, and changes the world. They are often navigating a transition or transformation (digital transformation, energy transformation, M&A, succession) and understand the importance of a well-designed narrative and storytelling to make their vision of the future come to life. They don’t just care about effectiveness though. They care equally about having strong, human-centered values and skills and want to get to the finish line and be proud of what they’ve built, how they built it, who they took with them, and who they became in the process.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Oliver Ludlow

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