July 25, 2025 • 47 mins
Are you chasing achievement but still feeling disconnected?
On this episode of Don’t Do That, Kelly Waltrich welcomes Chris Schembra, founder of 7:47, a company rooted in one simple but transformative concept: human connection through gratitude. Chris shares how a bowl of pasta and one powerful question sparked a global movement bringing people together in meaningful ways.
This conversation explores how marketers, leaders, and founders can ditch performative storytelling and instead build real community, uncover deeper “whys,” and lead with vulnerability. From emotional intelligence to overcoming burnout, this is a masterclass in building purpose-driven connections.
Kelly and Chris cover:
00:00 – What is 7:47 and how pasta sparked a movement
01:15 – From Broadway dreams to disillusionment and disconnection
03:30 – Loneliness, gratitude, and the birth of the first 7:47 dinner
06:45 – The life-changing question: “Who have you not thanked?”
10:00 – Kelly opens up about the unspoken support of her husband, Steve
18:00 – How brands uncover their “why” through story, not pitch
22:00 – Why community > content in the age of AI
24:00 – The three-act framework for building connection
31:00 – How to AI-proof your career: EQ, conflict resolution, and relationships
38:00 – “Man in the Hole”: Why your toughest moments create your best stories
45:00 – The real difference between being known and being worth knowing
Connect with Chris Schembra
About Our Guest:
Chris Schembra is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, keynote speaker, and one of the leading voices on the power of gratitude and human connection in the workplace.
In a world where over half the workforce feels lonely and nearly 8 out of 10 people are disengaged at work, Chris offers a radical but refreshingly simple idea: the key to thriving isn’t pushing people harder, it’s helping them feel seen, appreciated, and connected.
He’s the creator of the 7:47 Gratitude Experience™, a framework used by hundreds of companies like Google, Microsoft, IBM, Dell, Citi, and even the U.S. Navy to build trust, deepen relationships, and create cultures of belonging. Over the past decade, Chris has facilitated more than 750 transformative experiences, helping thousands of professionals slow down, reconnect, and rediscover what truly matters.
Known as “The Gratitude Guru” by USA Today, Chris is also the author of Gratitude and Pasta and Gratitude Through Hard Ti
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Schembra (00:02):
You look at the beginning, middle and end of my
life, whether I'm asleep orawake, whether I'm in the south
or I'm in the north, whether I'mblindfolded or not, my greatest
everything, right? Passion,skills, message on the heart. Ad
(00:23):
nauseam. Ad nauseam. My greatestgifts are activated when I'm
gathering people.
Kelly Waltrich (00:33):
Welcome to the don't do that podcast. I'm Kelly
Waltrich, CEO and co founder ofIntention.ly and like me, this
show is no fluff and no BS, justsmart advice to help you learn
from the best and level upfaster. So what are we not doing
today? Let's find out. Hieveryone, and welcome to the
don't do that podcast. I'm yourhost, Kelly Waltrich, and today
(00:56):
with me, I have Chris Schembra,founder of 747 now tell me what
is 747. Chris
Chris Schembra (01:03):
Kelly, thank you so much for having me on this
podcast. You know, first andforemost, I honor the great work
you're doing for the world. Joeis a dear friend of mine, and
when Joe said you got to meetKelly, off we go. I think that's
the beauty of relationships thatare built on trust. And so I'm
so excited to be here, you know,to share our story with your
(01:25):
audience. So thank you forhaving me. Course, I'm excited
to have you here. Well, Kelly,to answer the question of, what
is 747? I have to tell a story.
Please do if you don't mind,Hello to all of you out there.
My name is Chris. I I live inbeautiful New York City. It's
nice to meet you all. You knowthe story of 747, actually goes
(01:49):
back to July 15, 2015, 10 yearsand six days ago. If you looked
at my life back then, itprobably didn't look too
dissimilar from a lot of youlistening to this podcast right
(02:09):
now, just like you. I was a wasa marketing leader. I was, I was
a founder of a company. Lifelooked pretty good on paper. I
had a roof above my head. Theindustry said nice things about
me, life was good, but one day,I woke up and realized that just
because a life looks good onpaper doesn't mean it always
(02:32):
feels good in the heart, and youlisteners have probably felt
that from time to time. Thatmoment for me was in the middle
of 2015, I just come back to NewYork City after producing a
Broadway play in Rome, Italy,right? Producing this Broadway
(02:53):
play was somewhat of a childhooddream, and so I convinced myself
that accomplishing a childhooddream and feeling that type of
success would bring me ultimatefulfillment, right? The play
went great. We had a fun time.
Nice people flew in for it. Ithad a positive impact. I got
(03:18):
back to New York City andrealized, oops, that wasn't it.
Sometimes success doesn't,oftentimes equal fulfillment,
and you all know that. And soI'm sitting in my little at the
time, 350 square foot studioapartment on the Upper West Side
(03:39):
of Manhattan, and I'm realizingto myself that I feel four
things, little bit lonely,little bit anxious about the
future, completely disconnectedfrom my work and insecure. And I
don't know about y'all, but I'veI have a lifelong history with
(03:59):
non suicidal self injury,multiple stints in rehab,
lifelong depression, and I knewif I didn't change the way I
looked about my life quick, Iwas going to, you know, go down
a deep, dark path. And so in mylittle 350 square foot studio
apartment, I thought to myself,I asked myself, What was it
(04:23):
about my time in Rome thatchanged my perspective on
living? Was it how they walkeddown the street looking at art,
architecture and history? Was ithow they watched the sunsets on
Ponte Umberto looking at theVatican? No, it's how they ate
their food, quite simple, withtheir friends amongst community
(04:47):
to the wee hours of the morning.
You know, there was this onedinner that I hosted in Rome
three nights before we put onthe play, and I invited friends
and. Tina, and we ate and wedrank and we dined and we asked
each other questions, and wefelt what it truly means to be
alive, to be human in this crazyworld that we live in. And so I
(05:11):
said that that's the moment thatawoke me to this disconnect in
life. I should bring more ofthat feeling back to New York
City. So to answer your questionof, where does 747, come from,
here I am my 350 square footstudio apartment. And I think,
(05:32):
how do I recreate the magic ofRome? I go to my kitchen. I go
to my two burner stove in mykitchen, yes, and I accidentally
create a pasta sauce recipe. Andfolks, if you're only listening
to this on audio, I'm literallyholding up a can, a jar of pasta
sauce, simple red sauce. But Ithought it was pretty good. It
(05:59):
was pretty good recipe, so Idecided I should feed it to
people to see if it's reallygood or not. So I decided to
host a dinner party. July 15,2015, I invited 15 of my friends
that don't know each other,complete strangers to each
(06:19):
other. Over to my home for asimple bowl of pasta sauce.
6:30pm cocktails began. 8pm Iwanted dinner served, but at
7:47pm we put the pasta in thepot, and I delegated 11 specific
tasks to empower the attendeesto work together to create the
(06:43):
meal. We had a shared groupexperience. We served each
other. We sat down for dinner.
They loved the pasta sauce.
Unknown (06:57):
We had good wine.
Chris Schembra (07:00):
And halfway through the dinner Kelly, I
paused the entire dinner tableconversation, leaned in and
asked them a very simplequestion, if you could give
credit or thanks to one personin your life that you don't give
(07:22):
enough credit or thanks to orthat you've never thought to
thank who would that be? We wentaround the table,
Unknown (07:34):
popcorn style,
Chris Schembra (07:36):
each taken a few minutes to share our stories to
this gratitude question, thestories were amazing, and people
had never thought to thank theirparents, their grandparents,
their dog, their ex, bad boss,whatever it may be. And I want
you to think about your answeras you're listening to this
right now. Few people cried.
They loved the sauce. And Isaid, All right, I know what I'm
(08:05):
gonna do for the rest of mylife. And yeah, haven't stopped
since.
Kelly Waltrich (08:14):
Oh my gosh, that is amazing. Do you the pasta I
did not see coming. The pastasauce I did not see coming. So
do you sell this? Is it onshelves?
Chris Schembra (08:27):
The pasta sauce has had many renditions. What
started off as pasta sauce thatI used to feed my friends and
family, then became pasta saucethat we would bring out to our
corporate clients, to theirgatherings. And then when covid
hit and it took the dinner tableaway from us, we actually
(08:50):
bottled up 1000s of jars of oursauce to send to people all over
the world, just to give them,you know, a little bit of a
meaningful moment of humanconnection. And then our
distributor ruined a couple 1000jars of our sauce, and I haven't
had the heart to click thereprint button, so now it's just
for friends and family that cometo our home for a simple dinner.
(09:17):
Oh, I love
Kelly Waltrich (09:18):
that. I kind of want you to ask me who I am
thankful for. Well,
Unknown (09:25):
Kelly, yes,
Chris Schembra (09:29):
if you could give credit or thanks to one
person in your life that youdon't give enough credit or
thanks to, or that you've neverthought to thank who would that
be?
Kelly Waltrich (09:42):
Oh my gosh, you guys should all know too that
before we started this, he saidhe would probably make me cry.
So I'm I'm not gonna, I'm notgonna do that. I'm gonna try not
to do that. So my person wouldbe my husband. And I don't know
that he listens to all of thesepodcasts. I think he listens to
some of them. I hope he listensto this one. I. I feel like I
have the true story of I wouldnot be here if he wasn't so
(10:07):
willing to be the stable one, tolet me quit a job when I got
pissed off, to let me decide Iwas going to start a business,
to let me have two toddlers withthis business. And he also, you
know, he has his job, but heworks, you know, in the middle
of the night, some nights, tohelp me with my billing and my
invoicing and all that kind ofstuff. So I am truly
(10:29):
appreciative, and I absolutely100% do not say it enough. And
I'm also an intense person, asanybody that's listening to
this, my friends and industrypeers know I'm pretty intense
around my work that does alsoflow through to life. So as you
can imagine, intense people needa really solid, stable, even
(10:51):
keeled counterpart, and he, I amvery lucky to have all that in
him. So anyway, I hope he hearsthat.
Chris Schembra (10:59):
What's his name?
Thanks for asking Steve. Tell meabout the moment when you knew
that no matter what you weregoing to throw at the world,
that may not stick, that may betough, that he truly had your
Tell me about that, that momentyou knew he was there.
Kelly Waltrich (11:27):
Oh, man. Okay, so most of you know that my
first well known career momentwas at E money advisor, large,
grow, fast growing. We werecrushing it, and fidelity bought
the business, and a lot ofthings were changing. And I am
someone who has a list ofboundaries. I do. I talk about
(11:48):
it a lot. I have a list ofboundaries. They're in my phone.
It grows and it evolves, andit's changed over my career. And
you know, you change as aperson, whatever you want
different things. But I have alist of boundaries. And I just
kind of told myself my wholelife, like, these are it like,
when they get crossed, I moveon, or I change or evolve, but
we don't stay in situations thatwe don't like, like, I'm not
(12:09):
someone who's gonna do that.
It's like, you you have a shortlife, right? You gotta enjoy it.
Gotta love it. So I was just ina moment, and things were
changing fast, and self setboundaries were being crossed.
And keep in mind, we're at amoment in time where E money was
was the thing to chase. Like wewere killing it. We had a young,
awesome team. We had taken thebusiness from, I want to say,
(12:32):
like 20 million to almost 100million in for under four years,
like we just had an amazingthing going. But as acquisitions
caused change, this onecertainly did, and some things
were changing that I didn't likeor believe in, and boundaries
were crossed. And I said to him,so I have this list in my phone,
and it's telling me I shouldgive up this very amazing job.
(12:57):
And I just like, remember hisreaction being like, yeah, I get
it. Like, you'll, you'll, you'lldo better, even better in the
next time around. So what areyou gonna do next? And I just
like, now, I hope I haven'tabused that over the years.
Maybe I have a little bit. But Ijust remember thinking to
myself, like, Man, that waseasier than I thought. Like, I
(13:19):
gave myself a pep talk. I waslike, how am I gonna tell him
this? How am I gonna be like,Hey, I'm gonna blow up our
lives. We're here for a second.
But he was like, completelyunfazed. And was like, Yeah,
you'll sure whatever you donext, you'll do even better. And
I'm like, Oh man, I don't evenknow if I believe that about
myself, but if you do, let's go.
So that was the
Chris Schembra (13:37):
moment for sure.
What is it about you that hebelieves in the most, oh
Kelly Waltrich (13:41):
my gosh, that I'm like, relentless. I'm sure
about all things. I feel like,if He figures he can't win a
fight with me, then nobody can.
I don't know. I don't know. Justthat. I won't give up. Probably,
what drives that? Oh my gosh, isthis a therapy session? I I
didn't, I don't know. Am I? Mysister and I were actually
(14:06):
walking on the beach askingourselves that, like we're
trying to figure out, like, whatdid our parents do to us that
were very driven and we don'tknow. We don't. We don't know
this is just like a mystery tous. I think it was that, you
know, watching my parentsstruggle, not struggle, but like
manual labor, Job never, neitherof them ever went to college.
(14:28):
Like, I think that was just likea thing. Like they were always
like, we want better for youguys than we have for ourselves.
And so we were just kind oflike, okay, well, we're gonna
figure that out. So here we are.
I'm supposed to be interviewingyou, Chris, who's your person?
Chris Schembra (14:49):
First of all, thank you. Thanks for going
there. And by the way,regardless of what drives or
what call. Realized or whatcreated that drive that
relentless pursuit. I'm soexcited to see how you've
channeled that into your companyand into this community for so
(15:11):
many marketers and financialprofessionals around the world.
And what a cool thing to knowthat someone's relentless belief
in you, yeah, your husband'sbelief in you is what gave you
permission to unlock and unleashthis, this technology, this
community, this amazing group,you know, to the world. So I'm
(15:34):
excited to see that link.
Kelly Waltrich (15:36):
Well, I appreciate that. And you know,
as you were talking earlier, andyou said that it was just good
on paper. I don't feel that.
Like I I wake up every dayexcited. I've I wake up every
day excited, because I fuckinglove my team. I love my team.
These are people that have beenlike, Joe, I've been, we've been
friends for 20 years like, Ilove the people around me. I
(15:58):
love the challenge. I lovegetting knocked on my ass every
day by my clients and andlaughing it off and figuring out
how to how do we do better nexttime? Like, I love all of it. I
love this industry. I love whatit does for the investors it
serves. I don't feel that. Ifeel very, very lucky. Now. Is
it challenging some days, forsure, but like, I don't. I
(16:21):
generally do not have themoments where I'm like, this,
isn't it? This is my hobby too.
It's pretty good hobby. Yeah,right. If you can turn your
hobby into your job, I thinkthat's pretty cool. I don't
think everybody should searchfor that. That's really hard.
But yeah, if this is if you'redoing something that you would
do when you didn't have to. Ifeel like that's a good a good
(16:43):
sign, right?
Chris Schembra (16:44):
How do you help wake that up in your clients,
hearts and lives?
Kelly Waltrich (16:50):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. We serve a lot
of entrepreneurs, a lot ofstartup fintechs, a lot of firms
launching their RAS a lot offirms who are figuring out how
to hit their next phase ofgrowth, and marketing and growth
are really hard and sensitive,and I don't know it's a tough
unlock for a lot of firms. Andso I have lots of conversations
(17:11):
all day long where I feel likeI'm trying to help people
understand why they're trying toget to what they're trying to
get to more so than how they'retrying to get to. Oh yes, you
know, we had one this morningwith a client who's iterating on
his business for the third orfourth time over the last couple
years, really trying to get tothe right value prop, really
trying to get to the right mixof services, really trying to
(17:33):
figure out, like, what's goingto be meaningful for him. So I
love that, because once we canfigure that out, then, then it's
in math equation growth. Isn'tthat a math equation, right?
Like even figure out who you areand what you're trying to do and
what you're going to bring topeople, then the rest of it is
like numbers, in my opinion. SoI think we spend a lot of time.
I think my team would tell youtoo that they spend a lot of
time talking to our clientsabout the why more than what.
Chris Schembra (17:56):
It's interesting the why, not the what or how,
yeah, yeah. But what are, how itcan be figured out?
Kelly Waltrich (18:02):
It's a Yeah, after that, like there's a
playbook, you know, why is your
Chris Schembra (18:06):
unique value proposition your The why is how
you differentiate yourselvesfrom others? Yeah? And in this
crazy, commoditized world whereeverybody's got the ability to
share their their how and theirwhat. It's truly the why. That's
the differentiator
Kelly Waltrich (18:25):
it is. And you know, story, this is a wild
industry where that's like hardto pull out. Sometimes you work
in this industry, you've workedwith lots of firms, financial
services firms, generally,especially the bigger they get,
it's hard to pull out howthey're really different, or
how, because things get so, Idon't know, so dry and so
(18:46):
compliance driven, and so I'mjust trying to be as good as the
firm next to me. So I alwaystell people, I'm like, if you
can come to us with ainteresting story, like we can
turn that into something, but ifyou're gonna come with what
everybody else is coming with,we're not going to make it up
for you. We could, don't get mewrong, but we're not going to.
Chris Schembra (19:08):
It's interesting. Actually, someone
comes to you with not the beststory to tell. The question is,
how do you not make up the storyfor them? But how do you help
them live, live enough touncover the hidden insights and
the story that they're sittingon. Yeah, comes from throwing
them out into the field andpicking apart all these
(19:30):
different journeys andadventures and being like, hey,
those five things, that's theConnect. That's the dot look at
all that I've just observed youdoing these things. Boom,
there's the link right there.
It's pretty cool. It's veryexperiential, exactly.
Kelly Waltrich (19:44):
And so for any marketer that's listening,
you've all been in a situationwhere, like, the product wasn't
done yet, and you had to marketit anyway, or it didn't work as
well as it should have, and youhad to market it anyway, or it
wasn't competitive, but you hadto market it anyway. And
marketers are real good. And.
Making things sound and lookamazing, but that only that only
lasts for so long, right? Like,I have figured out over a long
(20:07):
career that it gets you a littlebit of the way, and then it
comes back to haunt you. So Ifeel like that's not the vibe
I'm trying to create itintentionally. We're not going
to, like, make up. We're not
Chris Schembra (20:20):
going to make it up. Like, yeah, the seat the
sea. We're word that you usedearlier that sticks out to me so
well, is the word community.
When people think of marketing,they think of content. They
think of saying things to acrowd to attract them. I think
community is that a little bitlower down in the funnel,
customers, prospects, investors,vendors, partners, whatever it
is that ecosystem that you'retrying to rally, a team that
(20:43):
you're trying to rally,community is the bottom of the
funnel of marketing. It's peoplethat believe in you, that want
to spend time with you, thatadvocate for you, that refer
you, that buy more, promote moreand demonstrate more loyalty.
And I believe that community isthe newest form of authority
leadership, right? It's gettingmore expensive to advertise
(21:04):
places you know, the return onad spend is lower than ever.
Before anybody can chunk out AIdriven ads now. So like content
isn't necessarily putting outthe best content is not
necessarily the best use case oflike your skills as a marketer,
but building community filledwith connection, emotion, shared
(21:27):
energy. Yeah, I
Kelly Waltrich (21:32):
just listened to a podcast today with the CMO of
HubSpot, and he was talkingabout the AI unlock and how he
believes that he himself is 10times faster and more effective,
and he gave all the areas inwhich that's true, and as he
was, as he was doing that, I wastracking against it, and I
totally thought to myself, whatyou just said could not be more
true. In person, events andcommunity are going to be the
(21:55):
winners going forward, becauseeverybody is going to be given
such a low cost ability to dothese other things
Chris Schembra (22:01):
to me, life, you know, number 19 on my rules for
life is that life is one greatbig and not an or so what you
just said, you know, that fancyfella from HubSpot was saying,
AI is helping them go superfast. And right? So the greatest
marketers help ideas spread withpassion and precision at
(22:25):
lightning speed around theworld, to attract some kind of
base. And the greatest marketerscreate moments of slowness to
allow for the richness of humanconnection, community of
curiosity, to let good ideascatch up to a crowd that kind of
stuff, right? Remember,marketing is not about saying
(22:47):
your idea to another person toprove them that you're right.
It's about helping anotherperson come to the answer
themselves, so that then theycome to you to say, I need what
you do right force marketing atpeople. You got to let them come
to it themselves. That's wisdom,and wisdom only comes through
(23:10):
slow moments. Yep, you're right,moments of surrender and pause
and questions
Kelly Waltrich (23:18):
silence. I feel like I interviewed a friend of
mine, Jack sherry. If you listento any of the don't do that
podcast. That should be that oneChris, because he very much
talked about listening so hardthat you burn calories, you
know, and listening more than,yeah, really. I mean,
Chris Schembra (23:38):
I just said it on a call today, the greatest
courage in life is not sharing avulnerable story or having a
brave answer. The greatestcourage in life is to ask the
question that needs to be askedright when you can, as a
marketer, when you can ask theright questions based on what's
(24:00):
not being said, you uncoverhidden insights, and you can
challenge assumptions. You getthe greatest stuff out of the
people that you serve. That'show you grow in your career.
Unknown (24:12):
Sure, it's how you lead great companies. You
all right, I have some questionsfor you.
Kelly Waltrich (24:26):
Your color coded books in the background? Yes. So
I watch the home edit every nowand then. So I have two
toddlers, I don't get to watchthat much TV, so when I do it
has to be something brainless.
So I watch that home edit showwhere they do everything by
Rainbow. Did this inspire yourbook set up behind you? No,
Chris Schembra (24:46):
just me being a psycho. Virgo, what's your
favorite color up there?
Kelly Waltrich (24:56):
Ooh, so the intentionally blue I am. On to
but I also like pink. The pink?
Is it pink? Is it
Chris Schembra (25:03):
red? Wait, which is the blue? So I've asked that
question to a great deal of fineindividuals through the last
three years. I've had that as mybackdrop. 99% I could say, maybe
even over 100% of people choosethis color blue. Wow, is their
(25:25):
favorite color up there,
Kelly Waltrich (25:27):
huh?
Chris Schembra (25:29):
So if you're watching this, folks, right? If
you're a founder looking towrite a book about your founding
journey, if you're a marketer,looking to write a book about
your thought leadership on thefuture of pasta sauce. Write it
using this color, folks. Iliterally just talked to this
with my friend kasley Kellum 10minutes ago, prior to this
(25:51):
podcast.
Kelly Waltrich (25:53):
Well, isn't that funny that that's our brand
color. Love it amazing. Okay,
Unknown (25:59):
a match made in heaven.
Kelly, it is
Kelly Waltrich (26:02):
Chris, all right. So tell me, before we get
into our don't do that. Tell mea little bit more about the
gratitude experience. I wanteverybody listening to
understand what you what you dofor firms. Well,
Chris Schembra (26:16):
thank you for asking. Thank you for holding
that space for such a sacredendeavor. Look at the beginning,
middle and end of my life,whether I'm asleep or awake,
whether I'm in the south or I'min the north, whether I'm
blindfolded or not. My greatesteverything, passion, skills,
(26:41):
message on the heart. Adnauseam. Ad nauseam. My greatest
gifts are activated when I'mgathering people. Okay, I
somehow have figured out whetherit was a at a young age, growing
up in Hilton Head Island, SouthCarolina, or it was in my
(27:02):
multiple stints in rehab or jailor early career in New York
City, in the world of theater,whatever, I've been blessed at a
very young age to find somethingthat I am exceptional at
bringing diverse groups ofpeople that do or do not know
(27:22):
each other into some kind of agroup experience, whether it's
20 people or 1000 and leavefeeling the comfort of family,
like family, With the drama andall. Yeah, I bet that kind of
(27:43):
messy type of connection,beautiful yearning, savoring,
silencing, questioning, filledwith full bellies and carbs,
type of connection, whether it'sstarted around the dinner table
with a bowl of pasta sauce, itmorphed into a variety of
different vehicles, and ourexperiences usually follow
(28:07):
regardless of what we'reproducing, whether it's given
1000 person Keynote or It'sfacilitating a 20 person
executive team, whatever everyexperience we produce follows a
three act framework. First Actis about getting people to come
(28:29):
into the present, to connect.
Second Act is about diving theminto the past, using gratitude.
The third act is about lookingahead to the future, inspired,
wiser, lighter, grateful,connected, happy, joy, etc, etc.
And so what started off as apassion project every week, once
(28:49):
a week for free in our home,right when we start hosting
those dinners, we did it everyweek in our home for free for a
year, I'm talking about foldingup the Murphy bed, borrowing
chairs from my mentor, PapaTony, because I was only making
800 bucks a week and I couldn'tafford chairs, taking tables off
(29:09):
the streets in New York, doingthose kind of dinners. Did 54
dinners in those first 52 weeks,feeding 808, people for free in
our home. And then the phonestarted ringing, people,
marketers, founders, CEOs fromall over the planet calling us
up, hey, I see you're good atgetting groups together to
(29:31):
connect. Why don't you come dothat for a group of our clients?
Why don't you come do that forour teams? Why don't you go do
it on a boat, do it on a plane,do it in a firehouse, whatever.
And so these experiences, wejust dedicate our entire life to
(29:51):
it. There's just something magicseeing a room full of people get
vulnerable and. To tell greatstories and learn new skills and
challenge each other and dreamup better things for the future,
whether that's at a two day offsite for a company or it's a
freaking dinner party in my homefor friends and family, and we
(30:12):
are absolutely obsessed with it.
You know, in in life, greatcompany named workday, great
leader in the HR space, foundthat to AI proof your career
folks that are listening rightto make yourself irreplaceable
(30:33):
in the age of AI, to get aheadcareer promotion and job growth,
you need three buckets ofskills, human relationships and
networking, emotionalintelligence and empathy,
conflict resolution andnegotiation, and our dinner
table and our pasta sauce, ourgatherings as a whole is our way
(30:57):
of teaching those three bucketsall together at once.
Unknown (31:01):
I love that. Yeah,
Kelly Waltrich (31:04):
so intentionally, we have 30 people
were spread across the country.
What would that look like for acompany like mine?
Chris Schembra (31:13):
So everybody's remote.
Kelly Waltrich (31:16):
I have a core group that's local, but, but we
do have people all over thecountry.
Chris Schembra (31:21):
Well, I'd say getting people together virtual
or in person and in person,yeah, helping them come into the
present to connect around whythey're there, diving back into
the past. Ask them somequestions, tell them some
stories, whatever, to get themback there, talking about what's
(31:45):
going right, what's not goingright, whatever the thing is,
and then help them look ahead tothe future. What are we going to
do tomorrow, together stronger?
So whether it's a 60 minutekeynote, 75 minute interactive
keynote, a 90 minute experience,a two and a half to three hour
workshop, a half day off site,full day, whatever my question
to you is, if you could waveyour magic wand and have your
(32:10):
people feel a certain type ofway, yeah, at the end of a multi
hour program, how would you wantyour people that got your back
to feel
Kelly Waltrich (32:26):
my gosh, so many things. One, I want them to feel
the realness around which Ithink about them all, 24/7 and
their well being and theirfamilies and what this business
is built to support, because Ido, and I want them to feel
(32:47):
pride around the like phenomenallevel of work that can sometimes
feel daunting, because we dodemand a high caliber of work,
but what it's bringing topeople, and I want them to feel
pride in that, and I want themto feel like we can do anything,
(33:08):
like we have such a smart,phenomenal, connected group of
people that really our biggestproblem is, what direction do we
go? What direction do we gonext? And I I hope that they all
feel that?
Unknown (33:22):
But I don't know. I love it. What
Chris Schembra (33:25):
you're saying is bring them into the present to
help them realize they're notalone, and they're fighting the
good fight, and they're withother people that believe in
them, and they believe in Yep,and they matter. Act One. Act
Two is about diving back intothe past, talking about what's
working, celebrating what'sbeen, shifting into that
(33:47):
positive mental attitude, havingpride in each other and in our
work and where we've gone right.
And act three is about lookingahead to the future,
unstoppable. What direction arewe going? What now? So what?
What if, what Sun said, askingall those kind of beautiful
questions to uncover, which wayare we not looking at the
(34:10):
future, which we should betogether? Oh, yeah, you, you?
That's the framework this,right? No, but that's the
framework of which you canarchitect a year's journey, a
two day journey, yeah, threehour journey, or 90 minute
right? And so it's justdepending on how many stories
(34:33):
you tell, how many questions youask, how much you facilitate,
what you teach, all that kind ofstuff is interchangeable, but
you just shared a three actplay. Get them to come into the
present and realize they matter.
And I see you and I'm grateful.
Take them into the past touncover the positive shift from
negative to positive, right? Weall have a negative memory by
(34:54):
all you marketers, founders andCEOs that are listening to this,
you likely. Have a negativememory bias, right? I mean,
sorry, we all have a negativememory bias. We take in nine
bits of POS negative for everyone bit of positive. It's what
kept us alive when we werecavemen. It's just what is,
yeah, right. But in order to getour best work done, we need
(35:16):
shift into the positive, right?
It's it. We have better ideas,and we build better
relationships, and we survivebetter when we're optimistic
about the future and we realizewe're doing more good than bad.
Yeah, so helping people go moreright, rather than helping them
(35:39):
fix what's wrong is our that'sour formula.
Kelly Waltrich (35:44):
I totally gravitate towards people who
look for the positives first,because I'm I'm someone that
like comes in every day with asmile and a new start no matter
what happened the day before. SoI definitely gravitate towards
that. And I I feel like we'reall trained to think work has to
be crappy, and like, you have tohave drama, and you have to talk
(36:04):
about each other, and you haveto not like your clients. And I
try to, like, tell my team allthe time, what if, what if we
throw all that out the window?
And what if this can bebeautiful and can be fun, and
you can respect everyone aroundyou, and you can like your
clients, maybe not all of them,that's okay, and you can have
some balance and like, can wejust start with the mindset
that, like, we don't have tolook at work as, like, this
(36:28):
terrible thing, you know what,
Chris Schembra (36:32):
no matter what you're going through, first of
all, I'm going to literally tellyou a model and then give An
example. So I don't know ify'all can see this. It's a
curve, and I'll just say it forall the audio listeners. I'm
holding a curve on a piece ofpaper in my hand. It's the
(36:55):
story, and you all know thisstory. It's the story of a man
or a woman who's walking downthe street, life's good, minding
their own business, and all of asudden they fall into a hole and
oops, they learn some Things.
Oops, they meet some people.
(37:19):
Oops. Shits tough. But you knowwhat? They figure out how to
climb out of that hole, and theykeep climbing, and they keep
climbing, and pretty soon wherethey are now is better than
where they began,
Unknown (37:37):
right?
Chris Schembra (37:38):
Okay, so folks that is called the man in the
hole. It's a concept that wasinvented by a writer by the name
of Kurt Vonnegut, a sciencefiction author back in the 50s
and 60s. And he found that allstories have shapes, every
movie, book, play, film, orentrepreneurs journey, etc, has
(38:04):
shapes you got the boy meetsgirl. Shape you got the rags to
riches. Shape you got all theCinderella story shape. But he
found that the most successfulstories of all time are stories
that follow the man in the wholearc. Number one movie on
(38:24):
imdb.com. Number one ratedmovie. Shawshank Redemption
follows the man in the wholearc. I won't give away the plot,
by the way, go watch the movie.
Phenomenal. So if you'rewatching this, you're an
entrepreneur, you're a founder,you're a marketer. Think, how do
I not tell the story during thegood times? How do I tell the
(38:49):
story of what I learned in thehard times? That's the purpose
of this podcast.
Kelly Waltrich (38:56):
I was just kind of saying this,
Chris Schembra (38:59):
yeah, but so, but so when the protagonist can
get a little vulnerable and canshare a story of when they fell
and how it felt and what theylearned and how they got out and
why they're better off for it,and they can give gratitude to
that Hard time. Y'all now yougot a story that you can go to
(39:24):
the bank with, that you canrally a community around. And
the good news is life can befilled with absolute shit, and
you can still find thosepositive benefits in the hole. I
mean, just in November. Oh,gosh, that was a long time ago.
(39:45):
But one of our clients inNovember, they do, they a small,
little company. They do $94billion a year, annual revenue.
They were down 54% net profitthan. That quarter stock was
tanking, agriculture space,that's all I'll say. And we went
(40:06):
in to work with their seniorexecutive team, 10 of them in
Chicago, Illinois, and we didn'tgo in there to fix their
processes, fix their systems,fix their market strategy, fix
any of that stuff. I didn'tsugarcoat it, but we helped them
(40:26):
identify the positive benefitsin the shit that they were going
through. As a result, we got toshift their mindset, and as a
result, they returned back totheir teams with a little bit of
different way of looking atproblem solving, right? They
return, wiser, lighter,inspired, more creative, willing
(40:51):
to connect in a cross functionalcapacity with teams at their
worst, all that kind of stuff.
Right? Their stock is stilltanking, but at least they have
the right mindsets, and theyactually have a good culture,
and they still get 1000s ofapplicants that want to join
their company, even as the shiptheir their ship is falling for
(41:11):
market, a global change inconsumer behavior that has
nothing to do With the productsthat they put out to market,
right?
Kelly Waltrich (41:25):
That's amazing.
All right. Well, Chris, I feellike you teed up the premise of
this podcast, and we took thewhole time before even getting
to our don't do that. But I'mgoing to ask you anyway, what do
we what are we telling peoplenot to do today? What did you
What did you step in? What didyou learn the hard way? What was
your What was your man in thewhole moment?
Chris Schembra (41:46):
You know, before I got into pasta sauce, I used
to be in in the world oftheater, okay? And I was a
producer, and my my businesspartner was the actor, director,
writer, he was the star and oneof the things he was 74 and I
(42:08):
was 24 I was just a baby. Imoved here with no job, no
college degree, one suitcase,living on my buddy's couch in
Brooklyn, and I met an old dudewho took an interest in my
development. I got hired for myfirst job in New York City
because he got to watch the wayI asked questions to a rock. But
(42:32):
that's a story for another
Unknown (42:33):
day. Forgot to do that again, just again sometimes. So
we're
Chris Schembra (42:37):
doing theater.
They're having a fun time. Andone of the productions that we
used to put on was a one manplay about Fiorello La Guardia,
the former mayor of New YorkCity. La Guardia Airport, three
term mayor, seven termcongressman, spoke eight
languages, had sevensecretaries. He was a Firebug.
He was a man of and for thepeople. Well, in the play, which
(43:01):
takes place on his last day inoffice as mayor of New York City
in 1945 he's nostalgicallylooking at a picture of his two
kids, Eric and gene, and helooks out at the audience, and
he says, kids don't worry aboutpeople knowing you make yourself
(43:25):
worth knowing. And what we weretrying to teach the audience is
that chasing accolade or chasingachievement for achievement
sake, or, you know, paying for aPR hit, or paying to hit a best
seller list, or paying forwhatever will never, never get
(43:49):
you as far, nor be as fulfillingas just putting your head down
through hard times and doing thework and getting the good job
done and having a positiveimpact on the world while you do
it. Yeah, maybe people won't payattention to you in the
(44:12):
beginning, and some of y'all areprobably in that beginning
journey right now. And Iunderstand it must be pretty
tough, and you're probablylooking around saying, Why isn't
anybody looking at us?
Unknown (44:28):
Just keep going.
Chris Schembra (44:30):
Just do your part each and every day.
Surround yourself with goodpeople like Kelly and her team
and do the work. And prettysoon, one day, y'all are gonna
wake up and the whole world'sgonna be watching. And I cut
those corners a couple of timesin my career, and it cost me a
lot of money, and I think it setme back a few steps. And I could
(44:53):
have used that time, energy andeffort, you know, that scarcity
mindset of needing to be known.
I could have used. Used all ofthose resources for good to do
the knowing,
Unknown (45:04):
Chris, I really appreciate you. This is one last
question. Oh, you do all right.
Lay it on. What would have madeyou cry earlier?
Kelly Waltrich (45:15):
Oh, I don't know. I only cry about movies. I
No, I don't know. I feel likethe only thing that gets me, um,
emotional is talk about talkabout my kids. That's really the
only thing that gets meemotional, because I, I am very
(45:36):
career oriented, and thatcreates trade offs now and
again, which I try to keep agood balance of, but you do have
to have trade offs. And the onlything I get emotional about is
my kids.
Chris Schembra (45:49):
Well, you talked about your husband earlier on
the call. If there's one thingthat you could say to your kids
right now to lock it in in timeforever, that they listened to
when they grew up, what wouldthat be?
Kelly Waltrich (46:01):
Oh my gosh. I don't know that this is like,
life shattering or eloquent, butI feel like, find something that
you love. I feel like we're herefor such a short amount of time,
and you have to find a way towork and make money and do the
things. So it needs to besomething that you're excited to
(46:21):
wake up every day for. I thinkyou've clearly figured that out.
I've figured that out, and Ithink there are a lot of people
that aren't that lucky.
Chris Schembra (46:29):
Well, thank you for that. Thank you for helping
so many of our your listenersfind that for themselves and
rediscover their why and realizethat in this new crazy world
that we live in. All you got todo is step into your authentic
story and communicate thataround your business model, and
you're going to do pretty greatthings for others,
Kelly Waltrich (46:49):
yes, and eat some pasta sauce while you're
doing it. All right, Chris, it'sbeen a pleasure. I imagine that
we're going to do this againsometime. So thank you very much
for your time today. It waswonderful getting to know
Chris Schembra (47:02):
you. Thanks for having me.
Kelly Waltrich (47:05):
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed
today's show, subscribe to benotified when new episodes
become available, and pleaseconsider giving us a five star
review on Apple or Spotify. Thispodcast is sponsored by
intentionally a financialservices growth engine, design
consultancy and agency. If youwant to learn more, please email
(47:26):
me at Kelly, at growintentionally.com, thank you
again for listening and checkback to hear what we're not
doing next.
Unknown (47:34):
The information covered and posted represents the views
and opinions of the guest anddoes not necessarily represent
the views or opinions of KellyWaltrich. The content has been
made available for informationaland educational purposes only.
You.
You look at the beginning, middle and end of my
life, whether I'm asleep orawake, whether I'm in the south
or I'm in the north, whether I'mblindfolded or not, my greatest
everything, right? Passion,skills, message on the heart. Ad
(00:23):
nauseam. Ad nauseam. My greatestgifts are activated when I'm
gathering people.
Kelly Waltrich (00:33):
Welcome to the don't do that podcast. I'm Kelly
Waltrich, CEO and co founder ofIntention.ly and like me, this
show is no fluff and no BS, justsmart advice to help you learn
from the best and level upfaster. So what are we not doing
today? Let's find out. Hieveryone, and welcome to the
don't do that podcast. I'm yourhost, Kelly Waltrich, and today
(00:56):
with me, I have Chris Schembra,founder of 747 now tell me what
is 747. Chris
Chris Schembra (01:03):
Kelly, thank you so much for having me on this
podcast. You know, first andforemost, I honor the great work
you're doing for the world. Joeis a dear friend of mine, and
when Joe said you got to meetKelly, off we go. I think that's
the beauty of relationships thatare built on trust. And so I'm
so excited to be here, you know,to share our story with your
(01:25):
audience. So thank you forhaving me. Course, I'm excited
to have you here. Well, Kelly,to answer the question of, what
is 747? I have to tell a story.
Please do if you don't mind,Hello to all of you out there.
My name is Chris. I I live inbeautiful New York City. It's
nice to meet you all. You knowthe story of 747, actually goes
(01:49):
back to July 15, 2015, 10 yearsand six days ago. If you looked
at my life back then, itprobably didn't look too
dissimilar from a lot of youlistening to this podcast right
(02:09):
now, just like you. I was a wasa marketing leader. I was, I was
a founder of a company. Lifelooked pretty good on paper. I
had a roof above my head. Theindustry said nice things about
me, life was good, but one day,I woke up and realized that just
because a life looks good onpaper doesn't mean it always
(02:32):
feels good in the heart, and youlisteners have probably felt
that from time to time. Thatmoment for me was in the middle
of 2015, I just come back to NewYork City after producing a
Broadway play in Rome, Italy,right? Producing this Broadway
(02:53):
play was somewhat of a childhooddream, and so I convinced myself
that accomplishing a childhooddream and feeling that type of
success would bring me ultimatefulfillment, right? The play
went great. We had a fun time.
Nice people flew in for it. Ithad a positive impact. I got
(03:18):
back to New York City andrealized, oops, that wasn't it.
Sometimes success doesn't,oftentimes equal fulfillment,
and you all know that. And soI'm sitting in my little at the
time, 350 square foot studioapartment on the Upper West Side
(03:39):
of Manhattan, and I'm realizingto myself that I feel four
things, little bit lonely,little bit anxious about the
future, completely disconnectedfrom my work and insecure. And I
don't know about y'all, but I'veI have a lifelong history with
(03:59):
non suicidal self injury,multiple stints in rehab,
lifelong depression, and I knewif I didn't change the way I
looked about my life quick, Iwas going to, you know, go down
a deep, dark path. And so in mylittle 350 square foot studio
apartment, I thought to myself,I asked myself, What was it
(04:23):
about my time in Rome thatchanged my perspective on
living? Was it how they walkeddown the street looking at art,
architecture and history? Was ithow they watched the sunsets on
Ponte Umberto looking at theVatican? No, it's how they ate
their food, quite simple, withtheir friends amongst community
(04:47):
to the wee hours of the morning.
You know, there was this onedinner that I hosted in Rome
three nights before we put onthe play, and I invited friends
and. Tina, and we ate and wedrank and we dined and we asked
each other questions, and wefelt what it truly means to be
alive, to be human in this crazyworld that we live in. And so I
(05:11):
said that that's the moment thatawoke me to this disconnect in
life. I should bring more ofthat feeling back to New York
City. So to answer your questionof, where does 747, come from,
here I am my 350 square footstudio apartment. And I think,
(05:32):
how do I recreate the magic ofRome? I go to my kitchen. I go
to my two burner stove in mykitchen, yes, and I accidentally
create a pasta sauce recipe. Andfolks, if you're only listening
to this on audio, I'm literallyholding up a can, a jar of pasta
sauce, simple red sauce. But Ithought it was pretty good. It
(05:59):
was pretty good recipe, so Idecided I should feed it to
people to see if it's reallygood or not. So I decided to
host a dinner party. July 15,2015, I invited 15 of my friends
that don't know each other,complete strangers to each
(06:19):
other. Over to my home for asimple bowl of pasta sauce.
6:30pm cocktails began. 8pm Iwanted dinner served, but at
7:47pm we put the pasta in thepot, and I delegated 11 specific
tasks to empower the attendeesto work together to create the
(06:43):
meal. We had a shared groupexperience. We served each
other. We sat down for dinner.
They loved the pasta sauce.
Unknown (06:57):
We had good wine.
Chris Schembra (07:00):
And halfway through the dinner Kelly, I
paused the entire dinner tableconversation, leaned in and
asked them a very simplequestion, if you could give
credit or thanks to one personin your life that you don't give
(07:22):
enough credit or thanks to orthat you've never thought to
thank who would that be? We wentaround the table,
Unknown (07:34):
popcorn style,
Chris Schembra (07:36):
each taken a few minutes to share our stories to
this gratitude question, thestories were amazing, and people
had never thought to thank theirparents, their grandparents,
their dog, their ex, bad boss,whatever it may be. And I want
you to think about your answeras you're listening to this
right now. Few people cried.
They loved the sauce. And Isaid, All right, I know what I'm
(08:05):
gonna do for the rest of mylife. And yeah, haven't stopped
since.
Kelly Waltrich (08:14):
Oh my gosh, that is amazing. Do you the pasta I
did not see coming. The pastasauce I did not see coming. So
do you sell this? Is it onshelves?
Chris Schembra (08:27):
The pasta sauce has had many renditions. What
started off as pasta sauce thatI used to feed my friends and
family, then became pasta saucethat we would bring out to our
corporate clients, to theirgatherings. And then when covid
hit and it took the dinner tableaway from us, we actually
(08:50):
bottled up 1000s of jars of oursauce to send to people all over
the world, just to give them,you know, a little bit of a
meaningful moment of humanconnection. And then our
distributor ruined a couple 1000jars of our sauce, and I haven't
had the heart to click thereprint button, so now it's just
for friends and family that cometo our home for a simple dinner.
(09:17):
Oh, I love
Kelly Waltrich (09:18):
that. I kind of want you to ask me who I am
thankful for. Well,
Unknown (09:25):
Kelly, yes,
Chris Schembra (09:29):
if you could give credit or thanks to one
person in your life that youdon't give enough credit or
thanks to, or that you've neverthought to thank who would that
be?
Kelly Waltrich (09:42):
Oh my gosh, you guys should all know too that
before we started this, he saidhe would probably make me cry.
So I'm I'm not gonna, I'm notgonna do that. I'm gonna try not
to do that. So my person wouldbe my husband. And I don't know
that he listens to all of thesepodcasts. I think he listens to
some of them. I hope he listensto this one. I. I feel like I
have the true story of I wouldnot be here if he wasn't so
(10:07):
willing to be the stable one, tolet me quit a job when I got
pissed off, to let me decide Iwas going to start a business,
to let me have two toddlers withthis business. And he also, you
know, he has his job, but heworks, you know, in the middle
of the night, some nights, tohelp me with my billing and my
invoicing and all that kind ofstuff. So I am truly
(10:29):
appreciative, and I absolutely100% do not say it enough. And
I'm also an intense person, asanybody that's listening to
this, my friends and industrypeers know I'm pretty intense
around my work that does alsoflow through to life. So as you
can imagine, intense people needa really solid, stable, even
(10:51):
keeled counterpart, and he, I amvery lucky to have all that in
him. So anyway, I hope he hearsthat.
Chris Schembra (10:59):
What's his name?
Thanks for asking Steve. Tell meabout the moment when you knew
that no matter what you weregoing to throw at the world,
that may not stick, that may betough, that he truly had your
Tell me about that, that momentyou knew he was there.
Kelly Waltrich (11:27):
Oh, man. Okay, so most of you know that my
first well known career momentwas at E money advisor, large,
grow, fast growing. We werecrushing it, and fidelity bought
the business, and a lot ofthings were changing. And I am
someone who has a list ofboundaries. I do. I talk about
(11:48):
it a lot. I have a list ofboundaries. They're in my phone.
It grows and it evolves, andit's changed over my career. And
you know, you change as aperson, whatever you want
different things. But I have alist of boundaries. And I just
kind of told myself my wholelife, like, these are it like,
when they get crossed, I moveon, or I change or evolve, but
we don't stay in situations thatwe don't like, like, I'm not
(12:09):
someone who's gonna do that.
It's like, you you have a shortlife, right? You gotta enjoy it.
Gotta love it. So I was just ina moment, and things were
changing fast, and self setboundaries were being crossed.
And keep in mind, we're at amoment in time where E money was
was the thing to chase. Like wewere killing it. We had a young,
awesome team. We had taken thebusiness from, I want to say,
(12:32):
like 20 million to almost 100million in for under four years,
like we just had an amazingthing going. But as acquisitions
caused change, this onecertainly did, and some things
were changing that I didn't likeor believe in, and boundaries
were crossed. And I said to him,so I have this list in my phone,
and it's telling me I shouldgive up this very amazing job.
(12:57):
And I just like, remember hisreaction being like, yeah, I get
it. Like, you'll, you'll, you'lldo better, even better in the
next time around. So what areyou gonna do next? And I just
like, now, I hope I haven'tabused that over the years.
Maybe I have a little bit. But Ijust remember thinking to
myself, like, Man, that waseasier than I thought. Like, I
(13:19):
gave myself a pep talk. I waslike, how am I gonna tell him
this? How am I gonna be like,Hey, I'm gonna blow up our
lives. We're here for a second.
But he was like, completelyunfazed. And was like, Yeah,
you'll sure whatever you donext, you'll do even better. And
I'm like, Oh man, I don't evenknow if I believe that about
myself, but if you do, let's go.
So that was the
Chris Schembra (13:37):
moment for sure.
What is it about you that hebelieves in the most, oh
Kelly Waltrich (13:41):
my gosh, that I'm like, relentless. I'm sure
about all things. I feel like,if He figures he can't win a
fight with me, then nobody can.
I don't know. I don't know. Justthat. I won't give up. Probably,
what drives that? Oh my gosh, isthis a therapy session? I I
didn't, I don't know. Am I? Mysister and I were actually
(14:06):
walking on the beach askingourselves that, like we're
trying to figure out, like, whatdid our parents do to us that
were very driven and we don'tknow. We don't. We don't know
this is just like a mystery tous. I think it was that, you
know, watching my parentsstruggle, not struggle, but like
manual labor, Job never, neitherof them ever went to college.
(14:28):
Like, I think that was just likea thing. Like they were always
like, we want better for youguys than we have for ourselves.
And so we were just kind oflike, okay, well, we're gonna
figure that out. So here we are.
I'm supposed to be interviewingyou, Chris, who's your person?
Chris Schembra (14:49):
First of all, thank you. Thanks for going
there. And by the way,regardless of what drives or
what call. Realized or whatcreated that drive that
relentless pursuit. I'm soexcited to see how you've
channeled that into your companyand into this community for so
(15:11):
many marketers and financialprofessionals around the world.
And what a cool thing to knowthat someone's relentless belief
in you, yeah, your husband'sbelief in you is what gave you
permission to unlock and unleashthis, this technology, this
community, this amazing group,you know, to the world. So I'm
(15:34):
excited to see that link.
Kelly Waltrich (15:36):
Well, I appreciate that. And you know,
as you were talking earlier, andyou said that it was just good
on paper. I don't feel that.
Like I I wake up every dayexcited. I've I wake up every
day excited, because I fuckinglove my team. I love my team.
These are people that have beenlike, Joe, I've been, we've been
friends for 20 years like, Ilove the people around me. I
(15:58):
love the challenge. I lovegetting knocked on my ass every
day by my clients and andlaughing it off and figuring out
how to how do we do better nexttime? Like, I love all of it. I
love this industry. I love whatit does for the investors it
serves. I don't feel that. Ifeel very, very lucky. Now. Is
it challenging some days, forsure, but like, I don't. I
(16:21):
generally do not have themoments where I'm like, this,
isn't it? This is my hobby too.
It's pretty good hobby. Yeah,right. If you can turn your
hobby into your job, I thinkthat's pretty cool. I don't
think everybody should searchfor that. That's really hard.
But yeah, if this is if you'redoing something that you would
do when you didn't have to. Ifeel like that's a good a good
(16:43):
sign, right?
Chris Schembra (16:44):
How do you help wake that up in your clients,
hearts and lives?
Kelly Waltrich (16:50):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. We serve a lot
of entrepreneurs, a lot ofstartup fintechs, a lot of firms
launching their RAS a lot offirms who are figuring out how
to hit their next phase ofgrowth, and marketing and growth
are really hard and sensitive,and I don't know it's a tough
unlock for a lot of firms. Andso I have lots of conversations
(17:11):
all day long where I feel likeI'm trying to help people
understand why they're trying toget to what they're trying to
get to more so than how they'retrying to get to. Oh yes, you
know, we had one this morningwith a client who's iterating on
his business for the third orfourth time over the last couple
years, really trying to get tothe right value prop, really
trying to get to the right mixof services, really trying to
(17:33):
figure out, like, what's goingto be meaningful for him. So I
love that, because once we canfigure that out, then, then it's
in math equation growth. Isn'tthat a math equation, right?
Like even figure out who you areand what you're trying to do and
what you're going to bring topeople, then the rest of it is
like numbers, in my opinion. SoI think we spend a lot of time.
I think my team would tell youtoo that they spend a lot of
time talking to our clientsabout the why more than what.
Chris Schembra (17:56):
It's interesting the why, not the what or how,
yeah, yeah. But what are, how itcan be figured out?
Kelly Waltrich (18:02):
It's a Yeah, after that, like there's a
playbook, you know, why is your
Chris Schembra (18:06):
unique value proposition your The why is how
you differentiate yourselvesfrom others? Yeah? And in this
crazy, commoditized world whereeverybody's got the ability to
share their their how and theirwhat. It's truly the why. That's
the differentiator
Kelly Waltrich (18:25):
it is. And you know, story, this is a wild
industry where that's like hardto pull out. Sometimes you work
in this industry, you've workedwith lots of firms, financial
services firms, generally,especially the bigger they get,
it's hard to pull out howthey're really different, or
how, because things get so, Idon't know, so dry and so
(18:46):
compliance driven, and so I'mjust trying to be as good as the
firm next to me. So I alwaystell people, I'm like, if you
can come to us with ainteresting story, like we can
turn that into something, but ifyou're gonna come with what
everybody else is coming with,we're not going to make it up
for you. We could, don't get mewrong, but we're not going to.
Chris Schembra (19:08):
It's interesting. Actually, someone
comes to you with not the beststory to tell. The question is,
how do you not make up the storyfor them? But how do you help
them live, live enough touncover the hidden insights and
the story that they're sittingon. Yeah, comes from throwing
them out into the field andpicking apart all these
(19:30):
different journeys andadventures and being like, hey,
those five things, that's theConnect. That's the dot look at
all that I've just observed youdoing these things. Boom,
there's the link right there.
It's pretty cool. It's veryexperiential, exactly.
Kelly Waltrich (19:44):
And so for any marketer that's listening,
you've all been in a situationwhere, like, the product wasn't
done yet, and you had to marketit anyway, or it didn't work as
well as it should have, and youhad to market it anyway, or it
wasn't competitive, but you hadto market it anyway. And
marketers are real good. And.
Making things sound and lookamazing, but that only that only
lasts for so long, right? Like,I have figured out over a long
(20:07):
career that it gets you a littlebit of the way, and then it
comes back to haunt you. So Ifeel like that's not the vibe
I'm trying to create itintentionally. We're not going
to, like, make up. We're not
Chris Schembra (20:20):
going to make it up. Like, yeah, the seat the
sea. We're word that you usedearlier that sticks out to me so
well, is the word community.
When people think of marketing,they think of content. They
think of saying things to acrowd to attract them. I think
community is that a little bitlower down in the funnel,
customers, prospects, investors,vendors, partners, whatever it
is that ecosystem that you'retrying to rally, a team that
(20:43):
you're trying to rally,community is the bottom of the
funnel of marketing. It's peoplethat believe in you, that want
to spend time with you, thatadvocate for you, that refer
you, that buy more, promote moreand demonstrate more loyalty.
And I believe that community isthe newest form of authority
leadership, right? It's gettingmore expensive to advertise
(21:04):
places you know, the return onad spend is lower than ever.
Before anybody can chunk out AIdriven ads now. So like content
isn't necessarily putting outthe best content is not
necessarily the best use case oflike your skills as a marketer,
but building community filledwith connection, emotion, shared
(21:27):
energy. Yeah, I
Kelly Waltrich (21:32):
just listened to a podcast today with the CMO of
HubSpot, and he was talkingabout the AI unlock and how he
believes that he himself is 10times faster and more effective,
and he gave all the areas inwhich that's true, and as he
was, as he was doing that, I wastracking against it, and I
totally thought to myself, whatyou just said could not be more
true. In person, events andcommunity are going to be the
(21:55):
winners going forward, becauseeverybody is going to be given
such a low cost ability to dothese other things
Chris Schembra (22:01):
to me, life, you know, number 19 on my rules for
life is that life is one greatbig and not an or so what you
just said, you know, that fancyfella from HubSpot was saying,
AI is helping them go superfast. And right? So the greatest
marketers help ideas spread withpassion and precision at
(22:25):
lightning speed around theworld, to attract some kind of
base. And the greatest marketerscreate moments of slowness to
allow for the richness of humanconnection, community of
curiosity, to let good ideascatch up to a crowd that kind of
stuff, right? Remember,marketing is not about saying
(22:47):
your idea to another person toprove them that you're right.
It's about helping anotherperson come to the answer
themselves, so that then theycome to you to say, I need what
you do right force marketing atpeople. You got to let them come
to it themselves. That's wisdom,and wisdom only comes through
(23:10):
slow moments. Yep, you're right,moments of surrender and pause
and questions
Kelly Waltrich (23:18):
silence. I feel like I interviewed a friend of
mine, Jack sherry. If you listento any of the don't do that
podcast. That should be that oneChris, because he very much
talked about listening so hardthat you burn calories, you
know, and listening more than,yeah, really. I mean,
Chris Schembra (23:38):
I just said it on a call today, the greatest
courage in life is not sharing avulnerable story or having a
brave answer. The greatestcourage in life is to ask the
question that needs to be askedright when you can, as a
marketer, when you can ask theright questions based on what's
(24:00):
not being said, you uncoverhidden insights, and you can
challenge assumptions. You getthe greatest stuff out of the
people that you serve. That'show you grow in your career.
Unknown (24:12):
Sure, it's how you lead great companies. You
all right, I have some questionsfor you.
Kelly Waltrich (24:26):
Your color coded books in the background? Yes. So
I watch the home edit every nowand then. So I have two
toddlers, I don't get to watchthat much TV, so when I do it
has to be something brainless.
So I watch that home edit showwhere they do everything by
Rainbow. Did this inspire yourbook set up behind you? No,
Chris Schembra (24:46):
just me being a psycho. Virgo, what's your
favorite color up there?
Kelly Waltrich (24:56):
Ooh, so the intentionally blue I am. On to
but I also like pink. The pink?
Is it pink? Is it
Chris Schembra (25:03):
red? Wait, which is the blue? So I've asked that
question to a great deal of fineindividuals through the last
three years. I've had that as mybackdrop. 99% I could say, maybe
even over 100% of people choosethis color blue. Wow, is their
(25:25):
favorite color up there,
Kelly Waltrich (25:27):
huh?
Chris Schembra (25:29):
So if you're watching this, folks, right? If
you're a founder looking towrite a book about your founding
journey, if you're a marketer,looking to write a book about
your thought leadership on thefuture of pasta sauce. Write it
using this color, folks. Iliterally just talked to this
with my friend kasley Kellum 10minutes ago, prior to this
(25:51):
podcast.
Kelly Waltrich (25:53):
Well, isn't that funny that that's our brand
color. Love it amazing. Okay,
Unknown (25:59):
a match made in heaven.
Kelly, it is
Kelly Waltrich (26:02):
Chris, all right. So tell me, before we get
into our don't do that. Tell mea little bit more about the
gratitude experience. I wanteverybody listening to
understand what you what you dofor firms. Well,
Chris Schembra (26:16):
thank you for asking. Thank you for holding
that space for such a sacredendeavor. Look at the beginning,
middle and end of my life,whether I'm asleep or awake,
whether I'm in the south or I'min the north, whether I'm
blindfolded or not. My greatesteverything, passion, skills,
(26:41):
message on the heart. Adnauseam. Ad nauseam. My greatest
gifts are activated when I'mgathering people. Okay, I
somehow have figured out whetherit was a at a young age, growing
up in Hilton Head Island, SouthCarolina, or it was in my
(27:02):
multiple stints in rehab or jailor early career in New York
City, in the world of theater,whatever, I've been blessed at a
very young age to find somethingthat I am exceptional at
bringing diverse groups ofpeople that do or do not know
(27:22):
each other into some kind of agroup experience, whether it's
20 people or 1000 and leavefeeling the comfort of family,
like family, With the drama andall. Yeah, I bet that kind of
(27:43):
messy type of connection,beautiful yearning, savoring,
silencing, questioning, filledwith full bellies and carbs,
type of connection, whether it'sstarted around the dinner table
with a bowl of pasta sauce, itmorphed into a variety of
different vehicles, and ourexperiences usually follow
(28:07):
regardless of what we'reproducing, whether it's given
1000 person Keynote or It'sfacilitating a 20 person
executive team, whatever everyexperience we produce follows a
three act framework. First Actis about getting people to come
(28:29):
into the present, to connect.
Second Act is about diving theminto the past, using gratitude.
The third act is about lookingahead to the future, inspired,
wiser, lighter, grateful,connected, happy, joy, etc, etc.
And so what started off as apassion project every week, once
(28:49):
a week for free in our home,right when we start hosting
those dinners, we did it everyweek in our home for free for a
year, I'm talking about foldingup the Murphy bed, borrowing
chairs from my mentor, PapaTony, because I was only making
800 bucks a week and I couldn'tafford chairs, taking tables off
(29:09):
the streets in New York, doingthose kind of dinners. Did 54
dinners in those first 52 weeks,feeding 808, people for free in
our home. And then the phonestarted ringing, people,
marketers, founders, CEOs fromall over the planet calling us
up, hey, I see you're good atgetting groups together to
(29:31):
connect. Why don't you come dothat for a group of our clients?
Why don't you come do that forour teams? Why don't you go do
it on a boat, do it on a plane,do it in a firehouse, whatever.
And so these experiences, wejust dedicate our entire life to
(29:51):
it. There's just something magicseeing a room full of people get
vulnerable and. To tell greatstories and learn new skills and
challenge each other and dreamup better things for the future,
whether that's at a two day offsite for a company or it's a
freaking dinner party in my homefor friends and family, and we
(30:12):
are absolutely obsessed with it.
You know, in in life, greatcompany named workday, great
leader in the HR space, foundthat to AI proof your career
folks that are listening rightto make yourself irreplaceable
(30:33):
in the age of AI, to get aheadcareer promotion and job growth,
you need three buckets ofskills, human relationships and
networking, emotionalintelligence and empathy,
conflict resolution andnegotiation, and our dinner
table and our pasta sauce, ourgatherings as a whole is our way
(30:57):
of teaching those three bucketsall together at once.
Unknown (31:01):
I love that. Yeah,
Kelly Waltrich (31:04):
so intentionally, we have 30 people
were spread across the country.
What would that look like for acompany like mine?
Chris Schembra (31:13):
So everybody's remote.
Kelly Waltrich (31:16):
I have a core group that's local, but, but we
do have people all over thecountry.
Chris Schembra (31:21):
Well, I'd say getting people together virtual
or in person and in person,yeah, helping them come into the
present to connect around whythey're there, diving back into
the past. Ask them somequestions, tell them some
stories, whatever, to get themback there, talking about what's
(31:45):
going right, what's not goingright, whatever the thing is,
and then help them look ahead tothe future. What are we going to
do tomorrow, together stronger?
So whether it's a 60 minutekeynote, 75 minute interactive
keynote, a 90 minute experience,a two and a half to three hour
workshop, a half day off site,full day, whatever my question
to you is, if you could waveyour magic wand and have your
(32:10):
people feel a certain type ofway, yeah, at the end of a multi
hour program, how would you wantyour people that got your back
to feel
Kelly Waltrich (32:26):
my gosh, so many things. One, I want them to feel
the realness around which Ithink about them all, 24/7 and
their well being and theirfamilies and what this business
is built to support, because Ido, and I want them to feel
(32:47):
pride around the like phenomenallevel of work that can sometimes
feel daunting, because we dodemand a high caliber of work,
but what it's bringing topeople, and I want them to feel
pride in that, and I want themto feel like we can do anything,
(33:08):
like we have such a smart,phenomenal, connected group of
people that really our biggestproblem is, what direction do we
go? What direction do we gonext? And I I hope that they all
feel that?
Unknown (33:22):
But I don't know. I love it. What
Chris Schembra (33:25):
you're saying is bring them into the present to
help them realize they're notalone, and they're fighting the
good fight, and they're withother people that believe in
them, and they believe in Yep,and they matter. Act One. Act
Two is about diving back intothe past, talking about what's
working, celebrating what'sbeen, shifting into that
(33:47):
positive mental attitude, havingpride in each other and in our
work and where we've gone right.
And act three is about lookingahead to the future,
unstoppable. What direction arewe going? What now? So what?
What if, what Sun said, askingall those kind of beautiful
questions to uncover, which wayare we not looking at the
(34:10):
future, which we should betogether? Oh, yeah, you, you?
That's the framework this,right? No, but that's the
framework of which you canarchitect a year's journey, a
two day journey, yeah, threehour journey, or 90 minute
right? And so it's justdepending on how many stories
(34:33):
you tell, how many questions youask, how much you facilitate,
what you teach, all that kind ofstuff is interchangeable, but
you just shared a three actplay. Get them to come into the
present and realize they matter.
And I see you and I'm grateful.
Take them into the past touncover the positive shift from
negative to positive, right? Weall have a negative memory by
(34:54):
all you marketers, founders andCEOs that are listening to this,
you likely. Have a negativememory bias, right? I mean,
sorry, we all have a negativememory bias. We take in nine
bits of POS negative for everyone bit of positive. It's what
kept us alive when we werecavemen. It's just what is,
yeah, right. But in order to getour best work done, we need
(35:16):
shift into the positive, right?
It's it. We have better ideas,and we build better
relationships, and we survivebetter when we're optimistic
about the future and we realizewe're doing more good than bad.
Yeah, so helping people go moreright, rather than helping them
(35:39):
fix what's wrong is our that'sour formula.
Kelly Waltrich (35:44):
I totally gravitate towards people who
look for the positives first,because I'm I'm someone that
like comes in every day with asmile and a new start no matter
what happened the day before. SoI definitely gravitate towards
that. And I I feel like we'reall trained to think work has to
be crappy, and like, you have tohave drama, and you have to talk
(36:04):
about each other, and you haveto not like your clients. And I
try to, like, tell my team allthe time, what if, what if we
throw all that out the window?
And what if this can bebeautiful and can be fun, and
you can respect everyone aroundyou, and you can like your
clients, maybe not all of them,that's okay, and you can have
some balance and like, can wejust start with the mindset
that, like, we don't have tolook at work as, like, this
(36:28):
terrible thing, you know what,
Chris Schembra (36:32):
no matter what you're going through, first of
all, I'm going to literally tellyou a model and then give An
example. So I don't know ify'all can see this. It's a
curve, and I'll just say it forall the audio listeners. I'm
holding a curve on a piece ofpaper in my hand. It's the
(36:55):
story, and you all know thisstory. It's the story of a man
or a woman who's walking downthe street, life's good, minding
their own business, and all of asudden they fall into a hole and
oops, they learn some Things.
Oops, they meet some people.
(37:19):
Oops. Shits tough. But you knowwhat? They figure out how to
climb out of that hole, and theykeep climbing, and they keep
climbing, and pretty soon wherethey are now is better than
where they began,
Unknown (37:37):
right?
Chris Schembra (37:38):
Okay, so folks that is called the man in the
hole. It's a concept that wasinvented by a writer by the name
of Kurt Vonnegut, a sciencefiction author back in the 50s
and 60s. And he found that allstories have shapes, every
movie, book, play, film, orentrepreneurs journey, etc, has
(38:04):
shapes you got the boy meetsgirl. Shape you got the rags to
riches. Shape you got all theCinderella story shape. But he
found that the most successfulstories of all time are stories
that follow the man in the wholearc. Number one movie on
(38:24):
imdb.com. Number one ratedmovie. Shawshank Redemption
follows the man in the wholearc. I won't give away the plot,
by the way, go watch the movie.
Phenomenal. So if you'rewatching this, you're an
entrepreneur, you're a founder,you're a marketer. Think, how do
I not tell the story during thegood times? How do I tell the
(38:49):
story of what I learned in thehard times? That's the purpose
of this podcast.
Kelly Waltrich (38:56):
I was just kind of saying this,
Chris Schembra (38:59):
yeah, but so, but so when the protagonist can
get a little vulnerable and canshare a story of when they fell
and how it felt and what theylearned and how they got out and
why they're better off for it,and they can give gratitude to
that Hard time. Y'all now yougot a story that you can go to
(39:24):
the bank with, that you canrally a community around. And
the good news is life can befilled with absolute shit, and
you can still find thosepositive benefits in the hole. I
mean, just in November. Oh,gosh, that was a long time ago.
(39:45):
But one of our clients inNovember, they do, they a small,
little company. They do $94billion a year, annual revenue.
They were down 54% net profitthan. That quarter stock was
tanking, agriculture space,that's all I'll say. And we went
(40:06):
in to work with their seniorexecutive team, 10 of them in
Chicago, Illinois, and we didn'tgo in there to fix their
processes, fix their systems,fix their market strategy, fix
any of that stuff. I didn'tsugarcoat it, but we helped them
(40:26):
identify the positive benefitsin the shit that they were going
through. As a result, we got toshift their mindset, and as a
result, they returned back totheir teams with a little bit of
different way of looking atproblem solving, right? They
return, wiser, lighter,inspired, more creative, willing
(40:51):
to connect in a cross functionalcapacity with teams at their
worst, all that kind of stuff.
Right? Their stock is stilltanking, but at least they have
the right mindsets, and theyactually have a good culture,
and they still get 1000s ofapplicants that want to join
their company, even as the shiptheir their ship is falling for
(41:11):
market, a global change inconsumer behavior that has
nothing to do With the productsthat they put out to market,
right?
Kelly Waltrich (41:25):
That's amazing.
All right. Well, Chris, I feellike you teed up the premise of
this podcast, and we took thewhole time before even getting
to our don't do that. But I'mgoing to ask you anyway, what do
we what are we telling peoplenot to do today? What did you
What did you step in? What didyou learn the hard way? What was
your What was your man in thewhole moment?
Chris Schembra (41:46):
You know, before I got into pasta sauce, I used
to be in in the world oftheater, okay? And I was a
producer, and my my businesspartner was the actor, director,
writer, he was the star and oneof the things he was 74 and I
(42:08):
was 24 I was just a baby. Imoved here with no job, no
college degree, one suitcase,living on my buddy's couch in
Brooklyn, and I met an old dudewho took an interest in my
development. I got hired for myfirst job in New York City
because he got to watch the wayI asked questions to a rock. But
(42:32):
that's a story for another
Unknown (42:33):
day. Forgot to do that again, just again sometimes. So
we're
Chris Schembra (42:37):
doing theater.
They're having a fun time. Andone of the productions that we
used to put on was a one manplay about Fiorello La Guardia,
the former mayor of New YorkCity. La Guardia Airport, three
term mayor, seven termcongressman, spoke eight
languages, had sevensecretaries. He was a Firebug.
He was a man of and for thepeople. Well, in the play, which
(43:01):
takes place on his last day inoffice as mayor of New York City
in 1945 he's nostalgicallylooking at a picture of his two
kids, Eric and gene, and helooks out at the audience, and
he says, kids don't worry aboutpeople knowing you make yourself
(43:25):
worth knowing. And what we weretrying to teach the audience is
that chasing accolade or chasingachievement for achievement
sake, or, you know, paying for aPR hit, or paying to hit a best
seller list, or paying forwhatever will never, never get
(43:49):
you as far, nor be as fulfillingas just putting your head down
through hard times and doing thework and getting the good job
done and having a positiveimpact on the world while you do
it. Yeah, maybe people won't payattention to you in the
(44:12):
beginning, and some of y'all areprobably in that beginning
journey right now. And Iunderstand it must be pretty
tough, and you're probablylooking around saying, Why isn't
anybody looking at us?
Unknown (44:28):
Just keep going.
Chris Schembra (44:30):
Just do your part each and every day.
Surround yourself with goodpeople like Kelly and her team
and do the work. And prettysoon, one day, y'all are gonna
wake up and the whole world'sgonna be watching. And I cut
those corners a couple of timesin my career, and it cost me a
lot of money, and I think it setme back a few steps. And I could
(44:53):
have used that time, energy andeffort, you know, that scarcity
mindset of needing to be known.
I could have used. Used all ofthose resources for good to do
the knowing,
Unknown (45:04):
Chris, I really appreciate you. This is one last
question. Oh, you do all right.
Lay it on. What would have madeyou cry earlier?
Kelly Waltrich (45:15):
Oh, I don't know. I only cry about movies. I
No, I don't know. I feel likethe only thing that gets me, um,
emotional is talk about talkabout my kids. That's really the
only thing that gets meemotional, because I, I am very
(45:36):
career oriented, and thatcreates trade offs now and
again, which I try to keep agood balance of, but you do have
to have trade offs. And the onlything I get emotional about is
my kids.
Chris Schembra (45:49):
Well, you talked about your husband earlier on
the call. If there's one thingthat you could say to your kids
right now to lock it in in timeforever, that they listened to
when they grew up, what wouldthat be?
Kelly Waltrich (46:01):
Oh my gosh. I don't know that this is like,
life shattering or eloquent, butI feel like, find something that
you love. I feel like we're herefor such a short amount of time,
and you have to find a way towork and make money and do the
things. So it needs to besomething that you're excited to
(46:21):
wake up every day for. I thinkyou've clearly figured that out.
I've figured that out, and Ithink there are a lot of people
that aren't that lucky.
Chris Schembra (46:29):
Well, thank you for that. Thank you for helping
so many of our your listenersfind that for themselves and
rediscover their why and realizethat in this new crazy world
that we live in. All you got todo is step into your authentic
story and communicate thataround your business model, and
you're going to do pretty greatthings for others,
Kelly Waltrich (46:49):
yes, and eat some pasta sauce while you're
doing it. All right, Chris, it'sbeen a pleasure. I imagine that
we're going to do this againsometime. So thank you very much
for your time today. It waswonderful getting to know
Chris Schembra (47:02):
you. Thanks for having me.
Kelly Waltrich (47:05):
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed
today's show, subscribe to benotified when new episodes
become available, and pleaseconsider giving us a five star
review on Apple or Spotify. Thispodcast is sponsored by
intentionally a financialservices growth engine, design
consultancy and agency. If youwant to learn more, please email
(47:26):
me at Kelly, at growintentionally.com, thank you
again for listening and checkback to hear what we're not
doing next.
Unknown (47:34):
The information covered and posted represents the views
and opinions of the guest anddoes not necessarily represent
the views or opinions of KellyWaltrich. The content has been
made available for informationaland educational purposes only.
You.
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