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Live Lead Last is a weekly podcast hosted by leadership coach, nonprofit director, and entrepreneur James Duvall. Designed for growth-minded leaders, this show helps you live by design, lead with purpose, and leave a legacy that lasts.
Through honest conversations, practical tools, and real-life stories, James equips leaders to develop strong roots, sustainable influence, and lasting impact — both personally and professionally. Whether you're leading a team, a business, a ministry, or a family, this podcast will help you become the kind of leader others want to follow.
Phil Jackson: [00:00:00] our celebration of art and creativity in the modern sense is the acquisition of goods. For better or worse, like we, we only in the western sense see ourselves as creative When we go to buy something, oh, you want to be an artist, here's the paintbrush to buy. Oh, you want to be, uh, a dancer? Here's. The shoes.
James: Welcome to the Lively last podcast, where we help you live with intention, lead, with purpose, and leave a lasting impact. I'm James Duvall and I'm so glad you're joining me today. Before we dive in, I wanna remind you about the five day leadership reset at live lead last.com reset at live lead last.com reset.
If you've been feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or just ready for fresh clarity in your leadership, this reset will help you refocus, strengthen your priorities, and lead with renewed confidence. It's a simple, yet powerful step towards becoming [00:01:00] the leader you're called to be.
Today we're talking about a topic that shaping not just business, but culture itself, the intersection of culture and commerce.
Here's why this matters for leaders, whether you're in business ministry or the nonprofit space, research shows that over 60% of consumers under the age of 45 are shopping, not as an activity, but as an extension of their identity.
What people buy is becoming who they are, and that means leaders who understand culture's pool on commerce and commerce's influence on culture are better equipped to shape the future with integrity and impact. To guide us through this conversation, I'm joined by my good friend Philip Jackson.
Philip is the co-founder and CEO of future Commerce. He leads a media company that connects over a hundred thousand executives to the idea that commerce shapes culture through award-winning podcast research and experiences like the Vision Summit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, A two-time Adobe Image mc and four time Adobe Spotlight awardee. Philip has built digital [00:02:00] retail for global brands, including Harper's Bazaar, American Greetings, Nestle Health Sciences, and Mark Echo. Beyond business, he invests deeply in people. He chairs the board of 1909 and nonprofit. Accelerators supporting hundreds of entrepreneurs and he mentors founders in strategy, growth and storytelling. And if that's not enough, he's an ultra marathon runner, musician and family man with a mission to uplift others by fusing culture, commerce, creativity, and community. I can't wait for you to hear this conversation, so let's jump in.
Phil, man, it is so great to have you back on the Lively last podcast. Thanks for taking some time today. Uh, thanks for having me, James. Yeah, it's hard to believe that you were actually one of the, uh, first guests when we started the Lively last podcast way back in 2020, episode eight, and, uh, we talked about your, your health journey.
You had lost like 154 pounds. You become an avid runner. So, before we jump into future commerce and what you're doing today, give us a quick recap [00:03:00] on. How you're doing your health journey?
Phil Jackson: Yeah. Uh, well, I've kept the weight off and, uh, for over eight years now, which is, you know, kind of an incredible feat for me.
And, you know, go back and listen to that episode, uh, to sort of hear, you know, my backstory, uh, one of the. Amazing things is since that date, you know, that I ran 44 40, which was like my, uh, 40th birthday. I ran 40 miles. Since then, I've done multiple, uh, a hundred K races. That's amazing. Um, which are, you know, for, for those who, uh, use the Imperial system is, you know, 63 miles.
And trail races and whatnot. And I, I, I found, you know, I found a community in, uh, trail racing. Uh, I've also found, you know, my, not just my, not my physical limit necessarily, which I feel like I still have a lot left in me, uh, but I definitely found sort of the balance in my family limit. Yeah. It's like how much, uh, how much of, uh, you know, the physical endurance sport, you know, I can invest in at this point in my like career and my family life.
And I've also kind of realized. [00:04:00] Too that, uh, I have to do this for a long time. Mm-hmm. So five years since I'm like, uh, I wanna really make this the rest of my life.
James: Yeah.
Phil Jackson: Uh, and so yeah, I'm sort of finding that balance still of, you know, do I need to do two to three races a year or do is one enough? So I have a a 50 K race, uh, which is like 30, a little over 31 miles, and uh, that's at the end of the year in December.
Um, which I think is a healthier balance than. Two or three races a year, and I think it's a more reasonable distance, I guess, whatever reasonable is in, you know, yeah. A normal person's book. But yeah, it's, it's going
James: great. That's awesome. Yeah. I'm, um, you know, obviously an avid cyclist. I don't run a lot, but I have made it, yeah, a challenge for me this year to run the Palm Beach Marathon full marathon.
Hey. December, so I gotta start training, so I might need to get some training tips from you to, to know how to get in there. So, um, it's a
Phil Jackson: good one. It's, it's nice and flat.
James: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We're actually, we're actually partnering with, uh, uh, a 21 an organization [00:05:00] and they're bringing a big fundraising thing to that thing.
So I thought I'll jump into there and, and join 'em on that. So it should be fun.
Phil Jackson: Have you run that distance before?
James: No. No. No, you know, I've trained, I've trained a couple times for half marathons, and you know, back in 2015, I actually broke my hip while I was training for a half marathon. So I have three screws in my right hip now.
And then after I recovered, I thought I would try to do that same mar half marathon again. So I trained, I was ready to do it, and they canceled it the week before. So I figured, you know, go big or go home, right? So a full marathon is what I'm doing in December. So it should be fun. I we
Phil Jackson: get like a little crew for you at the, at the finish line to be, you know, that'll be a, a big journey for you.
James: Yeah, it will be. It will be. I got the journey starts with one step, right? So I gotta actually get some running shoes and start running. So, hey, you know, it's 40,000 steps. It's a lot of steps. It is true. Um, it's always interesting to me when I watch the journey of people that I know and just [00:06:00] not surprised, but just like.
You know, the ti what time does in people's lives and decisions, and even like going back to that decision eight years ago to radically change your, your health journey. I, I know that's also been a radical change in even how you lead as a leader, as an entrepreneur, as a, as a business owner. And, um, so we've known each other for at least 20 years.
And so to watch your journey in, um, the last several years to reconnect again on a regular basis and just hear what you're doing and the scale of what you're doing is pretty cool because, you know, as I understand it, in this space of commerce and technology, and I mean, you're like a major player, like, you know, you're like.
You're up there. I mean, I like to think so. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And um, so you're doing a lot of stuff. It's not just about selling things, but you're actually, uh, kind of combining culture and [00:07:00] commerce. Right. So can you give us a kind of a recap of your journey of how you ended up, you know, merging this to studying commerce and culture and what led to future commerce?
Phil Jackson: Uh, well, just a little background. You know, I co-founded Future Commerce, uh, nine years ago. So, uh, we're coming up on our 10th anniversary and, um, you know, we began as a podcast, uh, a lot like this. Mm-hmm. We wanted to conversation almost a decade ago that wasn't being had in our ecosystem, which at the time was pure e-commerce, uh, you know, brands were getting online.
Um, which, you know, we were at that point almost. A little over a decade into the e-commerce ecosystem, eco e-commerce journey. Uh, e-commerce back then was more than just, you know, uh, the Amazon story. It was really just representing your brand online. And the biggest companies in the world were just figuring out how to go online for the very first time.
And I was working for a large digital agency who. You know, they had a [00:08:00] prestigious name in the software ecosystem in building those very large, like global brands, e-commerce websites. Uh, I was a well-known developer and, and sort of a, a, a highly sought after software developer in building teams that built those, you know, big branded sites.
So I was. Already sort of well known in, in the ecosystem for building teams and for giving really good advice. I, I had a bit of a speaking career prior to future commerce, uh, in the technology space, uh, around, um, a, a particular software stack that was aligned with the, uh, Adobe suite of software. And so I sort of came into future commerce with a built in audience.
One of the things that I realized though, is that there are behaviors sort of like, I don't know if you know what a cargo cult is. Hmm. Um, you never heard that term? No. Now this is a thing that, you know, has, uh, its roots in British colonial, um, sort of, uh, [00:09:00] era where in World War ii, uh, you had, uh, you know, British colonies and you had, uh.
You know, British troops that were being deployed all over the world to fight, you know, Nazi forces and, uh, you know, they were being deployed forward all over, uh, the world. They were going even into island nations that had never seen technology before. And, uh, there was a cult, uh, that was formed on one of these island nations where you had a, uh, the British would bring in their planes and they would bring their planes in, they would bring.
In and build a runway, they would bring in a air traffic control tower and with it came all sorts of resources. Right? And they came in, brought wealth and prosperity at the end of the war. You know, they pulled out and left and with it goes all the prosperity and with it goes all of the resources. Mm-hmm.
Well, if you're, you know, a [00:10:00] nation who's never seen that sort of a thing before, you think it's the runway and you think it's the air traffic control tower that brought those things with you. Mm. So, you know, a cargo call is a sort of a colloquial term that. People use to, that defines the thing that happened afterward.
What do the sort of island nations do? They build with bamboo a runway and they build with bamboo, a lookout tower and a air traffic control. And with bamboo, the sort of like headphones and they sort of coplay all day every day. The act of playing as if they were still in that war time to try to bring back all the prosperity back to their island and sort of this, the cult-like cultural behavior of these performative.
Acts that people have is something that I see all over the place. Mm. It happens in consumer industries, it happens even within business. And I see people with these cargo cult-like [00:11:00] behaviors. We do things all the time, especially in business. We don't know why we do them, and we think that they have an outcome or an effect, but we don't have any proof that they do.
And I started to see this after 10 plus years in our ecosystem, and I wanted to have a conversation about that, about the cultural behaviors of the commerce industry. And nobody was having that. Every conversation was about how to move the bottom line, and so future commerce was really. About trying to have a different conversation about, not technology necessarily, but about how the technological shifts and the changes that were happening would change those cultural behaviors.
And so that's what we started with. And today we are, uh, having I think, a, a very profound shift because our, you know, our subscribership, uh, is global. Uh, future commerce has, you know, over. You know, 180,000 executives that pay attention to our media, uh, all over the world. And, uh, you [00:12:00] know, that is today, newsletters, podcasts, research.
We have a thriving, uh, publication and print division, and we host, uh, summits and we have professional networking and, uh, we have enrichment and development through digital education and workshops. And, and so. Through all of that, we are helping executives, uh, and operators within retail and marketplaces and e-commerce businesses to see around the next corner.
James: Okay. So that was amazing. I never heard of that, um, cargo cult piece, but it totally makes sense because everybody's trying to find the next little thing. If we do social media ads, that's going to be the thing, but they don't have the, the theory or the the why behind it. So I, I'm interested, so like future commerce, it's connecting culture and commerce, but how do you actually do it?
So you have all these, you know, newsletters and so forth, but what does that really look like for a business leader executive that's gonna, you know, reference your material? Do you like, does [00:13:00] a research. Research and put out the trends or what's that look like?
Phil Jackson: Sure. Uh, well, there's a number of ways that we do it.
I think there's, uh, the tangible piece is we perform research. Mm-hmm. Um, that is one way that we do it. So we have a research and insights division where we actually speak to a number of different types of audiences. Uh, so we will conduct our own primary research, which is rare by the way. Uh, a lot of organizations like ours, which would be either considered to be like.
News media outlets, um, independent media outlets or editorial outlets, they only republish other people's research and they add their own commentary to it. Okay? We actually perform original research, which means we have to come in with a hypothesis and a thesis, go test it. Um, survey development is its own art and science.
Very proud of us for having done that for the last five plus years. Um, so we'll go talk to consumers. Um, we'll develop consumer panels and studies and then we [00:14:00] synthesize or, you know, interpret the results. And that is a very laborious and expensive process that many, you know, organizations don't undergo.
And we go to market. With our partners to do that. So we will partner up with organizations who want to understand their customers, and that can be a software company, it could be a consumer brand, uh, it could be an apparel company. Um, it could be the world's largest, you know, luxury brands who want to understand what the future is going to look like.
Um, and this. In the, the term of art in this industry is called foresight. So insight is what's happening right now with your customers and foresight is, you know what's going to happen in the future. And we see ourselves as a sort of a former extension of foresight, uh, that isn't jaded by whatever is happening inside of the culture of your organization.
You can come to us and we're going to give you the perspective of. We speak to lots of people. Uh, we see lots of trends. We talk to lots of, uh, [00:15:00] other brands and we talk to lots of software companies who have lots of brand customers. And so we have a different perspective on the world. Um, so that is one way that we do it.
Uh, we also speak to business leaders, and I think that this is one of the real differentiators for us is that we host about 20. Uh, business leader focused salons a year where we get executives in a room for three to four hours and break bread with them and get them to network with each other. These people get to know each other and they create community together.
And this is one of the more powerful ways that we gather intelligence because business leaders, when they're sitting together and they're talking about their challenges. Are less guarded and more open and they're more ready to share what their actual issues are than when you're sitting on a survey development call.
Yeah. Uh, and to be honest with [00:16:00] you, much of the insights work and much of the foresight work that happens in this ecosystem requires compensation and, uh, so many of the times. You can't get an executive to answer a study or a survey unless you're giving them some sort of an incentive, they will come to dinner with you and speak for hours for free.
James: Hmm.
Phil Jackson: So, uh, we have found, uh, a number of ways to unlock our ability to sort of see into the future by hearing what's happening right now and seeing how business leaders, executives, at the world's most recognizable brands are thinking about the future. And then we take our unique perspective on. What I would say is like the humanities, like sociology, um, anthropology, philosophy, psychology.
And we take that and we sort of apply that into, uh, everything that we're hearing. And we sort of synthesize that. We use judicious use of ai, um, on all of our, uh, inputs and we. I, yeah, I, I feel like in our small team of 10, we have the impact of what [00:17:00] a large analyst firm of a hundred, 120 might have had a decade ago.
Um, so that, that's sort of what future commerce can do from like a strategic or a tactical perspective as like an output for a, uh, a customer of ours. But if you were to just come. To the website. We have free resources all day, every day from newsletters to podcasts. Yeah. And you can get access to those and get insight all day, every day, seven days a week.
James: Yeah. Uh, it's really fascinating. Um, have have a lot of things going around my mind right now that I love that. Going rabbit trails, but let me start here. Before we, um, started recording, you mentioned that you have some, like, recent data. So could you share like, some of that data that people would find from future commerce that you're bringing into the marketplace?
Phil Jackson: Oh, sure. Yeah. Uh, so we have a most recent redevelopment or refresh of a, um, annual. Study that we've been doing for the last few years, uh, what began as sort of, uh, [00:18:00] new attitudes around AI for the consumer? You'll remember that. AI was brand new in 2022. So, uh, I remember where I was. Uh, very few people will remember where they were when chat GPT came out.
I remember, uh, because it was at the tail end of an event that we threw at Art Basel Miami Beach when I got access to chat GPT. So it was November of 2022. And I remember the feeling of, I wonder if I can get it to play a game with me if I just define the rules. Hmm. So I made up a. A fictional card game.
I told it the rules and it played a game with me. And that was the thing that blew my mind was that I could tell it literally anything and it could keep a train of thought and do it with me. Yeah. And that was chat GPT-3. And that was what now? Three plus years ago. Yeah. That was the old days. Um, so we began, uh, a few years ago thinking about how [00:19:00] this might change the way that people buy and belong, uh, today.
Uh, so we pioneered a piece of research a couple years ago. One that piece of research that, uh, we're very proud of, uh, that we first came out with we a data point that. Made some headlines for us was that we found, um, that 91% of people in our study, uh, back in, uh, the end of 2023, were using AI in their workplace, even if they weren't allowed to.
Mm-hmm. Um, and so what we found were that in our study that the adoption rate of AI was if they, if they were using AI in their personal lives, they were using it at work almost. Nine outta 10 times. If you were using ai, you were using it for your job, even if your company told you you weren't allowed to.
And I thought that that was a really interesting insight. Yeah. Is that there was a lot of people that were a lot more productive than they used to be, even if their corporate policy didn't allow for it. Uh, to me, that also [00:20:00] told me something else, which was there were going to be people that. We're able to be more productive as sort of like an element of arbitrage in their, in their company.
And that would be a gap that would widen. You would have people that would very suddenly, for the next year or two in their organization, become extraordinarily valuable and possibly work themselves out of a job and go find something else. And that, to me, represented a new gap of. Productivity gap of someone who is powered by AI versus people who weren't.
Mm-hmm. So that meant that there was gonna be an adoption problem in the workplace. That's not a commerce thing, that was just people who are early adopters of technology versus people who are not. And this is the kind of thing that we found really early on. Uh, what we found is that AI also is. The most high, highly rapidly adopted technology that's ever existed.
Mm-hmm. Uh, mostly because it is prepackaged into everything. It just winds up into everything. It just gets in your phone. You didn't ask for it. Yeah. It winds up in Google. It's in Gmail. You didn't ask for it. [00:21:00] Uh, so it's sort of being thrust upon people. Um, so we've refreshed James this. Uh, study this week, which we'll be rolling out in the next, uh, couple weeks.
So, uh, I'm giving you a preview of it here, uh, which we're, uh, calling the New Modes. And what we found is that people now are. Using this specifically to assist with shopping, and they're using it specifically to get a leg up in their shopping journey. They're using it to find coupons that retailers didn't know still exist on their website.
They're using it to find better deals. They're using it to write sob stories for customer service. Uh, they're, they're using it. It to their advantage to make an autopilot their life to a better shopping experience. A few data points that have come out that I think are really powerful, two and three millennials right now live in a per a perpetual purchase consideration.
This is up. Uh, 30% year over year, so more millennials now [00:22:00] are living in constant consideration of purchase. We don't believe that that's AI driven. We believe that that is just attention economy driven.
James: Mm-hmm.
Phil Jackson: Another data point is for every boomer that is actively shopping two. Are existing in passive mode.
Um, and this is a huge generational gap from millennials to, uh, baby boomers, where, you know, millennials are constantly thinking about what to buy. Baby boomers have sort of retired out of that attitude. Another thing to think about too is that, uh, the majority of people under 45 think of shopping not as an activity, but as a form of their identity.
Hmm. I think that that is something that we. Uh, and again, this is a very western mentality. This is, uh, mostly US, Canada and, and a little bit of UK in our survey. This is something that we probably need to contend with as a society, is that what you buy is who you become.
James: Mm-hmm.
Phil Jackson: And, and in that way, when we say that we examine at future commerce the intersection of [00:23:00] culture and commerce, that means that the people in my audience are probably the most important people.
In culture because if they can shape what you buy, and it's all that anybody in this culture thinks about, especially the people with the most powerful, you know, uh, purchase power right now. It's all that they think about. And it's according to this study that we've pioneered the majority of people under a 45, uh, who, you know, by and large have children too, and they're starting to raise these children.
Uh, they think of shopping as an identity, if you can. Shape what those people buy. You're kind of shaping the culture writ large, and you're shaping the future generation. Wow. And that's why I think the job to be done is what I'm doing is. Trying to guide these leaders into better modes of thought.
James: That's amazing.
Yeah. There's so much there. I was thinking about that culture piece at the time of this, uh, conversation. There's a lot of controversy about an American Eagle ad that's out. I don't know if you've seen that with the Sweeney. She has good genes about that. [00:24:00] And you know, I was, think about that, how that plays into the identity thing of.
Of shopping and really, I mean, I saw that like their stock is up like 18% since that commercial came out and so forth. And people have really bought into that identity piece of connecting, you know, whether, I mean, there's a lot of backlash about it for some reason, but you can see how, um, you know, I think it's maybe the most aggressive clothing.
Ad that's been out lately that really ties to identity, so that, that's really interesting. Um, I was also thinking just about like the use of ai. I know one of the, the pieces that, uh, has been interesting to me is I work with a company called Giant and they've actually built an AI client that, you know, in the personality space that allows people to actually go onto their API and.
Say, Hey, I'm meeting with this person and this is their personality type. Help me know how to relate to them. And [00:25:00] uh, and so this identity piece is not just a commerce thing, it's like AI is really shaping the way that we interact as humans too, right? Oh, yeah.
Phil Jackson: Yeah. Uh, it's, I think that that is, uh, it's shaping how we interact as humans, and I think we're in the very first.
You know, pitches, uh, it's the first, you know, ball that's been thrown in the first inning of the game too. We're, we are in the first application of it. And I'm really interested to understand how that applies to the way that people might be able to proctor that sort of a relationship in the future to proactively tell people, I want to be spoken to this way.
Mm-hmm. Or I want to have a relationship. With this, with, with James this way, which today, you, you are being proactive to say, oh, I know this, you know, you know, maybe Giant has this, uh mm-hmm. This capability in the future. I believe that this [00:26:00] is the kind of, uh, lens of experience and this is how we're advising, uh, business leaders now.
We are not very far away from something that we are calling, uh, you know, the multiplayer brand where the customer. Who, by the way, believes that everything revolves around them, wants the brand to identify with them so heavily that they want the whole of the experience to wrap around the lens of their perspective.
They want the whole of the brand's experience to wrap around their lens and viewpoint of the world. Mm-hmm. And that to me feels like something you carry around as a token of your identity that you share with a brand. And in that way it's highly, highly, highly personalized. And so we're, we couldn't have done that three years ago, but it seems like we're very close to being able to do that today.
In fact, I am working with a startup right now who, uh, just [00:27:00] raised a, a second round of funding. They, their whole job is to create a website from when you click on an ad on Instagram, they create a website within a millisecond. That only exists for you to shop on, that was created based on the creative that you clicked on, on the ad, on Instagram, and that website does not exist after you check out.
It only exists from the moment you click on the ad on, on Instagram and it it's purpose built for you. That ad is the thing that generates that website and that website only exists for you, purpose-built for you, so that it's perfectly engineered for you. So that you check out James, oh wow. Purpose built one of one for you, powered by ai.
And that means it's powerful for you, but it also means you can't share that experience with anyone else. Right? You can't send that to anyone else so that they also have that experience. So it's, um, it's sort of fraught and I think that, that we're, we're gonna have some bumps along the way.
James: [00:28:00] Yeah. That's really, really fascinating.
Um, I, I love to jump into kind of the leadership space a bit because you do interact with a lot of business leaders, executives from a lot of different spaces, mostly in the commerce space. But what are some of the things that you personally have experienced, maybe even in your own leadership that have kind of been the differentiators between, um, success and struggling in leadership?
Phil Jackson: Let me, uh. I'll start with my own experience. A clear definition between success and struggle for me has been watching, well, first of all, learning from, you know, other people's mistakes and, and you know, having watched other. Folks failures, I think, uh, learning from failures and being well read on those and, uh, learning from case studies, learning from other people's, um, and being in community with other people and hearing them being honest about, um, their trials.
That to me has been a tremendous. And very valuable [00:29:00] part of my growth. I've had some really great mentorship in that regard. So the, you know, the owners of the agency that I, I work for, I were incredible mentors to me, and they did nothing for eight years, but tell me everything they've ever done wrong. Mm.
And I. To me, you know, I think the, the meta lesson there is being able to admit and recognize your own failure failings and your own shortcomings. I think that we live in an age right now, especially social media fueled age, where, you know, I don't know if it's pride, I'm not sure what it is. We are sort of goaded by the algorithm every day to.
Put on an air of arrogance and haughtiness that, you know, we have to front all day every day about how awesome we are. Hmm. In fact, ai, going back to the AI conversation, it bigs me up, tells me how awesome I am, and I think that we, in reality, you know, I look at myself and I self-examine and I'm pretty much nothing but [00:30:00] shortcomings.
I feel like I fall short a lot. Um, so effective leaders I've found, you know, learn a lot from. Uh, and delegate a lot to people who are experts. They hire people better than themselves. Uh, they, you know, are humble in that way and recognizing that they're, you know, they can only go so far. Something that you said to me many years ago I've taken with me, which is, uh, you'd said, uh, you know, maybe I'm paraphrasing here, but, uh.
You know, your mission was to make your ceiling someone else's floor. Mm-hmm. Something to that effect. Yeah. Um, I've sort of adopted that for myself as well, is that I have a limit. There's a point at which I will not exceed, and there's a point at which I won't be able to grow anymore.
James: Mm-hmm.
Phil Jackson: I will continue to try to push beyond that point, but.
I should also be able to recognize that there are people that start at that point. Why not surround myself and go in search of people like that? Because that's how I'm going to be able to go much further. And so I think [00:31:00] from, from a leadership team perspective, you know, I've seen really, really excellent teams who have a lot of uh, uh, folks who.
Cover their gaps and, uh, who are not ashamed to say so. Yeah. Um, so I think that that's sort of the three or four qualities that I've seen quite a bit. Um, and it's, it's represented over and over and over and over again on, uh, effective teams. Also, uh, one other thing I'll say. Effective teams tend to stay together.
They move with each other from organization to organization. That is a very interesting quality, um, that I've seen over the last 20 years, is that when one team member goes, they tend to all, eventually all wind up at the next place together too. They like working with each other.
James: Yeah.
Phil Jackson: And that's, I think, a rare quality, but uh, you see it in very, very large enterprise.
Is that. Uh, it's almost like a, a SWAT team. Like these were elite armed forces. These people have been in the trenches together. Yeah. They trust each other. They know their roles, [00:32:00] and they go everywhere together. And I think that that's a pretty. Underutilized quality in the business world.
James: Yeah, I love that.
I mean, a lot there, uh, that idea of, that your ceiling becomes somebody else's floor. You know, I don't know if you find this, but I, for myself, I really had to be very intentional to continue to raise my ceiling and I think, um, sometimes. We leaders can get so entrenched in the minutia and the work and the chaos and the whirlwind of running a business and so forth that they forget the greatest asset to a business is actually them as a leader.
And they, you know, I think it's, I found that the, the more I raised in leadership responsibility or authority or level. I had to be more and more intentional of continuing to develop myself because nobody else is developing me at that point, right? Like very few people can actually speak into your life as [00:33:00] a CEO or an executive or a business owner.
Um, and so it. You know, if you're not surrounding yourself with people that are gonna push you and shape you, and then also doing the, the self work to continue to raise that ceiling. Well, with AI and these things we've already talked about a lot of young leaders, their floor starting out, you know, education or know-how knowledge is already gonna be higher than a lot of.
Leaders who are running businesses because of just mm-hmm. As a 54-year-old guy, you know, you know, I look at my 20-year-old daughter who is gonna have a lot more advantages already of knowledge and so forth. I mean, so I think that is a real challenge for, for leaders. I, I was thinking about this too, with future commerce.
I think a lot of the times. And um, and maybe this isn't true in every space, but like the creative voice [00:34:00] is oftentimes not heard in the business plan or the business movement. Yeah. And I think it's genius what future commerce is doing is you guys are really becoming kind of the creative voice with legitimacy and, you know, um, weight behind you that other companies can actually come and have that voice represented.
In a very high level of that innovation, that kind of future radar of like early warning system of like, here's what's coming. You need to know this. Yeah. So I think that just even for a leader to surround themselves with knowledge of. Even like what Future Commerce does is gonna help raise that lid of leadership.
Right. Oh, thank you.
Phil Jackson: Yeah. Well, something Jackie had said to me some time ago, we've been married 21 years now, and um, uh, and she's wiser than me, uh, by a long way, aren't they? All She had, uh, I mean, we, we've all out
James: kicked our
Phil Jackson: coverage, right? Yeah. For, yeah, she, she, she'd asked me last [00:35:00] year, and I, I, I took this to heart and I, I use this.
Now, I, I ask other leaders this, um, especially because other people are coming to me now and asking me for advice a lot, but she had put something into language that I had felt like, man, I, I wish I had had the way to articulate this years ago, but she asked me last year when I was going through something.
She says, are you in stress? Are you in or are you in distress? And, and I, I was, I was sort of a mess. I was like, is there a difference? She's like, stress increases your capacity. Right. If you can handle it, distress decreases your capacity.
James: Right,
Phil Jackson: right. And. She, she, she's like, I know you. And like you thrive in sort of stress, like you can handle stress.
Mm-hmm. You take it on willingly and you grow through it, distress, you shut down. Mm-hmm. And she's like, which one is it? [00:36:00] And to me, I had never had language for that. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs in particular, I work with a lot of entrepreneurs through a nonprofit. And we, we do a lot of mentorship of entrepreneurs and I think a lot of entrepreneurs spend a lot of time in distress.
James: Mm-hmm.
Phil Jackson: Um, and I don't think that we've had a lot of language up to this point of sort of sussing out which one is which. Mm-hmm. Um, I think a lot of. You know, a lot of us need to realize, uh, which ones are the ones that increase our capacity, which, which is the, which are the things that decrease our capacity?
And I would say a lot of mistakes that we make in leadership capacity are taking on too many of the things that are the ones that decrease our capacity for growth.
James: Yeah, that's really good. So I recently saw a LinkedIn post from Patrick Lencioni where he wrote, CEOs need to declare for themselves and the people they lead, that their marriages and families are more important than their businesses. And he's absolutely right. [00:37:00] Leaders who are faithful at home are more grounded, trustworthy, and effective in the workplace.
That's why we created the Five Voices for Marriage Chorus. In it, you and your spouse will discover your natural leadership voices. Learn how to communicate with deep understanding and build a stronger foundation for both your family and your future. Because strong marriages create strong leaders and strong leaders build strong organizations. So start your journey today@liveleadlast.com reset at live lead last.com marriage course.
I wanna turn the corner to your creative side because Hmm. A few. Years ago you started creating these annual journals that, uh, yeah. Future Commerce puts out, and I want you to talk a little bit about the concept behind why you do it and what they're for, and then tell us a little bit about your new one Lore.
Phil Jackson: So, okay. The why for me seems pretty was a strategic move. We, in 2022, [00:38:00] we're looking around and there was this, uh. Thought leadership like Maxim that was going around in our industry, uh, because there was a company that had raised, uh, I wanna say it was 80 or a hundred million dollars, uh, to give everybody on Planet Earth and Newsletter.
It was, you know, it was a company called substack. And, uh, the, the idea was everybody needs to launch a paid newsletter. And at that point in time, a lot of, uh, journalists from very well known. Like actual journalistic publications from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and uh, other magazines were peeling off from actual journalistic outlets and taking a readership with them.
And people were going and paying, not for an entire magazine, but they were paying five, seven, $12 a month for a single writer's, you know, once a day, 200, 300 word musing.
James: Yeah.
Phil Jackson: And to me. That [00:39:00] marked a wild turning point in a bunch of things. The attention economy, the subscription economy. I am drowning in newsletter content already in my inbox.
Yeah, I don't know about you. There is so much great thought that exists in the world and 95% of it goes missing in my inbox. And I have every great intention of looking at most of it, but I'm never gonna look at almost any of it. I don't have time. I also spend a good amount of time looking at my inbox and some things I will queue and leave on red.
For weeks, if not a month at a time, hoping to get to it because it looks super interesting. I'll open it, I'll click it, I'll leave it in a tab. I have even James printed things out. Mm-hmm. And left it on my desk because I really intend to take a look at it. But it only exists in digital form. And I thought very deeply about how often, you know, putting out a newsletter myself two to three times a week at that point, writing two and 3000 [00:40:00] word missives.
How many people must be missing things that I'm writing.
James: Yeah.
Phil Jackson: I have a background in, in, uh, in print layout and publication, um, from 15 years prior to that. And I thought, do you know, it is so easy for people to fire up a newsletter now, and it's so easy for people to write, especially with ai.
James: Mm-hmm.
Phil Jackson: Do you know how hard it is to make a physical piece of print with atoms?
It's electrons are easy, atoms are hard, and I thought it would be extraordinarily defining in my space to create not a tiny little book. Not something that you can do a little web to print something. Not a cheap little newsprint throw away, not a zine, an actual. Large format journal, like eight by 11, 250 pages.
Yeah. And so we, we set out to do that and I thought it would be a, you know, an annual journal from a lot of these, like larger institutions is a thing that exists. [00:41:00] Especially in like the scientific orgs, what if we did it in our space and what if we did it in the most creative way possible? Um, we commissioned a lot of photography for that particular event and uh, uh, we explored the, like union archetypes, but through our own lens, uh, which is we always have our own creative Ben on something.
We called it Archetypes. You can check it out. It's archetypes journal.com. Uh, we did it in partnership with Adobe. We had an event at Art Basel to celebrate it. We, that event sort of celebrated the archetypes in modern dance, which was. Wild because try to get e-commerce people to come to a modern dance event.
They won't, so you don't tell them that you're gonna do that. Um, and um, that journal we went really, really hard on. We, you know. I'm a design and print nerd. We, uh, had like four different, you know, paper types in the print. I, I, I won't go too heavy on sort of the details of it, but it is an extraordinarily like, heavy amount of investment and, uh, an incredible amount of work to put something like that together.
It, it [00:42:00] culminates like six months of work to create something like that. Mm-hmm. And. You know, you can create physical dyes to make the, you know, the cover and those things get used once. Mm-hmm. And so anyway, we made that and it blew people's minds. And they said, why doesn't this say volume one on it? Like, where's volume two?
And that's when I knew we had something. That's cool. And so, uh, that was year one. Uh, we created. People thought, well, they've created archetypes. That's the name of their journal. And I said, no. I want people to continue to, to guess what we're always up to. I'm not gonna be put into a box and I have no, like, my ability to continue to ideate and create is unbounded.
I am not done creating. Archetypes is just one thing. That's one thing to explore. I have plenty of frameworks to explore. So for Art Basel 2023, we created Muses, which was our next journal. A whole shelf of these up here. Uh, on, on the camera. Yeah. If you, uh, where, [00:43:00] see it? They're beautiful pieces of art too.
Yeah. So we have the, the next one was Muses. And, and that, uh, you know, the nine muses of, uh, of Greek mythology was, you know, that was a celebration of creativity. Um, what would the modern muses be through a, a commercial lens? And, you know, again, this is maybe a little cynical, but, uh, if the Greek muses were a celebration of art and, and creativity, I actually believe that.
Uh, our celebration of art and creativity in the modern sense is the acquisition of goods. For better or worse, like we, we only in the western sense see ourselves as creative When we go to buy something, oh, you want to be an artist, here's the paintbrush to buy. Oh, you want to be, uh, a dancer? Here's. The shoes.
Right? And that is, uh, an unfortunate reality. So it's actually a fair bit of criticism in, in this piece that we wrote. And, you know, we had people like the creative director of Five Below, who is a MFA, um, and a graduate from, uh, with a, a degree in [00:44:00] ceramics, who was so moved by this piece. Um, and a subject of the study in, in our writeup there that he left his job at five below and went and created a company around ceramics called a Hava Memorials.
Today, which today, uh, is a death care company that puts people's ashes into, uh, ceramics and memorializes them. So the, like, the impact that we have on creating pieces like this is like truly incredible. And this year our annual journal, uh, very proud of it. It's called Lore. I'll hold it up on the screen.
Yeah. And, uh, this is the stories that we've. We ask the, the question, you can see it here, emblazon on the ribbon. It says, do you write the story or is it already written? And, uh, for the theology nerds, yes, I'm having a crisis of, uh, free will. Um, my question here really is, um, how much of the consumer culture, uh, are we really in control of?
And how much are brands really. Able to, uh, convince us to part with, in our resources. Are consumers in control at all? Uh, are you able to make free will choices of what you [00:45:00] like? Uh, I don't know that that's true. I, I've seen now over 20 years how much we're able to shape what people buy, what, what we're able to part with from a monetary perspective and what we like.
And I believe today, now more than ever, that consumers are able to be programmed and actually, uh. Brands, uh, conversely, uh, their histories and their stories and the way that we remember them are also able to be programmed from the community. And so I think there's this really interesting tension between the consumer and the brand and the stories that we tell about each other.
And that's what this, uh, 202. 80 page Journal is about this year. It's a hardcover and it's, uh, available at uh, future commerce.com. Yeah, I'm gonna
James: follow those links to each one of those in the show notes. It is actually a beautiful, I mean, it's a beautiful book. It's a great content, but you can tell the art artistry of it.
Two, um, in each one of the books. So, um, so cool. So talk to me just a bit, you talked a, a few minutes about multiplayer, like [00:46:00] what's, what's the future of, what's the future of future commerce? What's come, what's on the radar?
Phil Jackson: Yeah, so, uh, the future of future commerce. Well, you know, we, we do have, uh, so many working.
Theories. So beyond just the, the work that we do, you know, to think about the future, we have to have theories about the future. Um, so we, you know, we put some of those into, into writing. Um, we do think that the world is becoming more multiplayer. So like, just look at what happens in youth trends. Um, more kids spend more time in video games.
Um, now, especially as a communication medium, when my kids do their homework, uh, in the Florida public school system, they communicate through things like Google Slides, um, mm-hmm. They build projects together in Google Slides as a collaboration medium. They are in Google Docs together. They are multiplayer by default, and, uh, they hang out in Roblox.
Together, they're in Minecraft building together. I think the multiplayer dynamic, um, today as we're recording, I don't want to timestamp this, but [00:47:00] yeah. Figma, uh, is a design, um, tool. Just went live on, uh, on the, this New York Stock Exchange in a IPO. They were the very first like multiplayer design tool.
Mm-hmm. Like the world is becoming multiplayer. That is just true. And I, I think commerce is also becoming multiplayer. That's, that's something that we're seeing and contending with the, the truth though is that the multiplayer isn't just humans, it's also AI agents and ai I agents are working in hoards and in droves to.
Work on behalf of a singular person to, you know, buy things, research things, and brands are gonna have to contend with the fact that, you know, most of the traffic on the internet is not human in the next two to three years. And that's okay. I think like you have to appeal to a bot so that the human eventually gets the bot to buy a thing for you.
You have a new type of a customer. It's scary, but that's just the [00:48:00] future. Yeah. We talk about those sorts of things at, uh, a, an annual event series that I sort of think of as like Ted for Culture, and that's called Visions. That's our, you know, big, uh, summit platform. We do it every year at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
And we had a big, you know, sellout event was awesome. And we have, you know, cultural analysts, uh, ethnographers, you know, experts from every region of society, from architecture and, um, to, uh, human behavior, to, uh, you know, people who are experts in, uh. You know, uh, like spirituality, um, like wild facets of spirituality, um, to, uh, we had the world's most for foremost leading expert on, uh, ficto sexuality.
Uh, which is, you know, folks who, you know, develop, uh, amorous relationships with things inanimate, uh, you know, characters like anime characters and, uh, and you know. [00:49:00] That sort of thing. We need to understand these wild waves and swings in culture, not just from a brand leader perspective so that we can react to them, but I think the human condition is more varied and more complex than we really realize.
And that's something that we, that we need to take stock of. So I'm helping this, uh, generation of leaders navigate that and I think that that's also causing a bit of a crisis of conscience. For a lot of people who feel responsible for having led many people into it. Yeah. And so we're trying to figure out how to navigate through it.
James: You know, it's really interesting, uh, thinking about that Visions conference and so forth, you know? There's probably a lot of listeners in the faith space on this podcast, pastors, ministry leaders, nonprofit leaders, but sometimes they might disconnect commerce from what's going on in the faith space. But all those things you just said there and you said it multiple times, culture actually drives commerce.
And so even from a faith space, [00:50:00] understanding what's going on. And the commerce space actually helps ministry leaders so forth to be able to communicate more to the people that they're trying to influence you. Because really I'm in a sense. You know, um, faith is kind of a sales thing, right? You're trying to sell the, the greatest truth there is.
So it just, it just hit me like the connection there also between the faith space and commerce would be really powerful.
Phil Jackson: And it's something to hold over to is just think about if you, if you do any sort of, uh, counseling work whatsoever, how much of your. Time is spent reconciling with the, the reality that a lot of our modern issues stem from the things that, uh.
We're exposed to through messages that come through social media messages and, and, uh, the challenges that are brought through. Uh, you know, the, you know, things from, uh, modern dating Yeah. Brands, you know, uh, not having enough, uh, you know, the lack or, or the what to spend money on gambling. Yeah. [00:51:00] Uh, the amount of gambling that's happening in our culture at the moment.
Yeah. Um, addiction, you know, sex addiction, there's, from every. Facet of what we're talking about has an element of commercial motive behind it. Yeah. And that is just the truth. That's good. Yeah. And, and every part of that, by the way, has some sort of like marketing team behind it and is working at scale to grab someone's attention.
And now army of AI bots. Helping you do it so well that's the Yeah, and that's the other challenge too, right? It's like, uh, it used to be limited only by people's, you know, human capabilities and we're no longer limited by that. Yeah.
James: Well man, Phil, this has been really fascinating and every time I'm with you, you just kind of blow my mind.
We might need to have you back on and have another conversation down the space 'cause there's a lot more stuff I wanted to get through but we didn't get to. But thank you so much for being on the podcast. I'm gonna put all the links to how to connect with you, future commerce. All your journals in our show notes so people can check all that stuff out.
Appreciate it. Thank you, James.
I'm so thankful for Philip sharing his wisdom, [00:52:00] creativity, and big picture perspective with us today. I'm reminded again that leadership isn't just about building organizations, it's about shaping culture, and that requires both courage and foresight.
Okay, one key takeaway for me is this, leaders who understand the forces shaping culture will be better positioned to influence it with integrity. So whether you lead a company, a team, or a community, the choices you make ripple far beyond your bottom line. They impact identity values in the future. We're all building together.
So if you'd like to go deeper into Philips work, you can check out future commerce@futurecommerce.com. And don't miss his stunning annual journals like lore, archetypes, and Muses. I'll link everything in the show notes so you can explore it for yourself.
Don't forget to experience the five day leadership reset at live lead last.com reset at live lead last.com reset to get more clarity and momentum in your leadership. You can also sign up for Rooted our weekly email by texting Grow GROW to 6 6 8 6 [00:53:00] 6, let's connect. Follow me at the James Deval On Instagram or LinkedIn. I love to hear how this conversation is shaping your leadership. And finally, if this episode encouraged you, would you take 30 seconds to rate, review and share it? Your feedback helps more leaders discover the show.
Remember how you live is how you lead. So this week go live with intention, lead with courage, and make your life count.