Mark Agnew: Challenging the Buy-One-Give-One Social Business Model

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Mark Agnew’s life’s work was sparked by a brutal attack when he was mugged at the age of 26. He was hit in the face and permanently blinded in one eye. The 1987 attack planted the seed for a future in the eyeglass industry, but not right away.

First came a move to another city, a business degree, and a stint on Wall Street in a research capacity. But after 10 years, he realized he didn’t find the work interesting since he wasn’t having much of an impact on others. After looking into the eyewear industry, Mark recognized that the inefficiencies he discovered were causing people to pay far too much for eyewear. Another issue was product selection in most stores that was mediocre at best. This led to the creation of eyeglasses.com in 2000, one of the first online retailers to sell eyewear. Back then, Mark’s greatest challenge was convincing the general public that they could and should purchase eyeglasses online. But, as time went on and people became more comfortable with online shopping, business improved. 

PiWear: Eyewear With Purpose

This past July, Mark’s goal to help others through his business came to fruition through the launch of PiWear, a line of eyewear that gives back. For every pair of their glasses sold, PiWear provides eyesight-restoring surgery to a blind person in need. Mark describes this model of giving back as “version two” of the one-for-one giveback model — a step beyond the original version. The name, PiWear, is a nod to the line of eyewear as it features circular glasses. The line is constantly evolving, explains Mark, with new designs and colors continually added. 

 

Good Karma is Universal

PiWear’s charitable work is accomplished through the Sankara Eye Foundation in India. They’ve built 10 hospitals, with an additional two under construction. With PiWear’s help, they’ve performed over two million surgeries so far. Mark states that this model is so interesting that they are looking to expand it to other countries. When asked why he decided to help people in India and not his native United States, Mark makes an interesting point: He sees the world as a place where we are all linked together. So, giving someone the gift of sight in India, he explains, will come back to us in karmic benefit.

So when you help another person, whether they’re next to you or they’re across the world, it helps you, it helps them. And in the business context, it helps your company.

A second reason PiWear funds surgeries in India is that each cataract surgery costs roughly $30 to perform there. In the United States, that same surgery costs $3,000. Mark argues that it makes no sense for him to wait until he has sold 100 pairs of eyeglasses in order to only help one person in the U.S. He adds that this also wakes people up to the realities of the American medical system since the surgeries performed in India are identical to those performed in the United States, each only taking about 15 minutes. 

Help Others and Never Give Up

When PiWear helps a person in need, they don’t just help the person regaining their eyesight; they help those around them, too. Mark points out that the recipient’s community also feels the benefit of someone who can once again take care of themselves. They also feel inspired by the fact that a total stranger would be willing to give them the gift of sight. This is the prime directive Mark believes is at the base of every successful company — to help others and to never give up.

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Transcription of Interview (Transcribed by Otter.ai; there may be errors.)

Adam Force 0:13
Hey, what’s up and welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. Hope everybody is doing amazing. So this episode, we’re going to be talking to somebody who was a former Wall Street trader and financial analyst, and his name is Mark Agnew. He has now founded eyeglasses.com. And that is an antidote to optical stores and insurance companies that are known to overcharge customers for eyeglasses, prescriptions and sunglasses and things like that. He was really unhappy just with the state of the industry. And so he actually wrote a book called Eyeglasses Buying Guide, and that was published in 2019. And it covers basically 20 years of all his insights and tips for consumers to navigate eyecare products.

Now what’s interesting is he launched this new line called PiWear, and for each pair of those glasses that are sold, they’re offering eye surgery for somebody in rural India that actually cures blindness caused by cataracts. So he has a really interesting story. And he’s got a lot of experience in this space. And he’s challenging that one-for-one model with a new creative approach by offering this surgery instead. And this has been helping a lot of people with that problem. So pretty amazing stuff. And we’re going to learn more about that and how it works. If you didn’t catch the last episode, we spoke with Tom Kulzer. He’s the founder of AWeber and we talked about email marketing, and he has over 20 years of insights. So it’s a great conversation that we have about email marketing. So we want to step up the engagement and the growth of your email. There’s a lot of good little tips in there. So if you want to swing back and check out that discussion with Tom Kulzer.

Make sure you stop by changecreator.com, we’ve been putting out a ton of new content that you guys can check out, that will be super valuable. And you can get on the waitlist for the Captivate Method, there’s tons of opportunity in that program for people that are looking to take a social impact business and create a digital system that helps them become profitable. Okay? Guys, we’re on Facebook a lot. So if you’re not following on Facebook, you’re going to be missing out on stuff. So make sure that you catch us on Facebook. And we also have the group, the Profitable Digital Impact Entrepreneur. So if you want to get a little bit deeper and more intimate with learning and a network of like minded people, you want to get into the group. So just fill out a couple questions over there and we’ll get you in. We are selective about who comes in. So we appreciate you taking the time to check that out and answer those questions. And last but not least, please stop by and leave us a review in the iTunes Store. Those are very, very helpful and we always love hearing from you guys. Appreciate all the good feedback and the emails we get from everybody. It’s always great to see. Alright guys, let’s jump into this conversation.

Announcer 3:10
Okay, show me the heat.

Adam Force 3:15
Hey Mark, welcome to the Change Creator podcast show. How you doing today, man?

Mark Agnew 3:20
Doing great, Adam. Thanks for having me on today.

Adam Force 3:22
You got it. I appreciate you being here. I love talking about social impact business models, and it looks like you’re doing some cool stuff. So before we get into all the dirty details, could you tell us a little bit about what you got going on today? What’s going on in your world?

Mark Agnew 3:36
Well, the world of eyeglasses is I wouldn’t say the most exciting world out there. It’s an item that we have in our daily lives. And it’s been around a couple hundred years. But what we try to do here is to continually evolve our service product that we offer to people and give them more than they thought they were going to get when they come to our website.

Adam Force 4:05
Awesome and tell us a little bit about yourself. Like, what’s going on for you? How you feeling about things? What’s your goals these days? Any big wins for you?

Mark Agnew 4:13
You know, what I constantly try to do with this company I’ve been at it 20 years and it’s…there is no single mission; it’s an evolution. And so we started at one place and had been working at it and recently have started a new project which I’m very very excited about. We’ll talk about later — the the PiWear — and for us, it’s about how to give back more while doing it, you know, efficiently and profitably and so that we can stay in business and also be an example to others.

Adam Force 4:54
Awesome. I love it. Yeah, there is this constant evolution of things. And, you know, I guess fresh ideas come from previous ideas and we just keep iterating. Right? Just kind of like that lean process almost. Do you see a difference in the marketplace? How like, just what people are looking for from businesses today?

Mark Agnew 5:18
Yeah, the people expect more from the internet than they did; they’re much smarter and savvier and more educated than they’ve ever been. And this is something we’ve seen, year after year, it grows and it’s very much in our favor. So typically, what you see in the lifestyle of things is that a new shiny object will come up and everyone will get excited about it, and they’ll blast on social media. And then it’ll kind of wear off because they realized that that shiny new thing doesn’t have a lot of substance behind it or beneath it. And so that’s been very much a challenge that we’ve had. We are one of the first places that opened up online back in 2000. And about six years ago, seven years ago, we saw a ton of companies coming out with a very inexpensive eyeglasses on the internet. And the amount of customers for those places exploded. But those customers are now starting to look for a better quality product. They know how to do it online. And, and that’s helping us quite a bit.

Adam Force 6:46
Yep, yep. Yeah, so I guess you know, before we get into what you have going on, and let me know if I think you said PiWear, right? That’s how you pronounce that?

Mark Agnew 6:56
Yeah.

Adam Force 6:56
Okay. Before we get into those details, and how we’re kind of shifting that one-for-one model with what you’re doing, what got you into eyeglasses? Can you tell us that story?

Mark Agnew 7:08
Sure. So, and you mentioned at the beginning, that companies do things that are based on their interests or their…something that’s really affected them in a forceful way. And that’s exactly how eyeglasses.com started, although I didn’t know it. Back in 1987, when I was 26 years old, I was mugged and hit in the eye with a stick and permanently blinded in one eye. And at that time, it shocked me into changing my life, but I was still a long way away from starting an eyeglasses company. So I changed my job. I moved to another city. Couple years later, I got a business degree, came back. I went back to working on Wall Street in a research capacity this time. I moved from sales to research, I learned over 10 years at Bear Stearns Lehman Brothers how to analyze companies and businesses.

And then after about 10 years of that, I realized that it just wasn’t that interesting because I wasn’t doing anything for people. So I really wanted to have more of an impact. So I started looking around at businesses to research and I looked at a lot of different things, but I kept coming back to the vision industry because being blind in one either there are certain experiences you have seeing the doctor and eye operations and going and getting eyeglasses. So I started looking at it and I realized that there was tremendous inefficiencies in the eyewear business, which was causing people to pay way too much for eyeglasses and being forced to buy from a very small choice in most stores. And the internet was a perfect way to fix some of those problems and that’s how it all got started.

Adam Force 9:09
Wow, that’s pretty cool. I mean your story ties right in. I think it’s actually good that you kind of stuck with the eyeglass space because it makes…it just kind of aligns to your history and there’s a good reason for you doing what you’re doing now.

Mark Agnew 9:21
Yeah, and it’s funny how a person’s personal passion or personal experience translates into a passion to help others.

Adam Force 9:34
Yeah, I love it. And we always say that you know, it’s not just the product that brings the value; it’s the intention that it was created with. It’s the meaning — the story — that’s behind it that really can give it value for people and I love your quick story that you gave us behind this. And it sounds like it’s gone down a really interesting path because, you know, you talk about let’s actually tee up PiWear and what you’re doing because we talked about kind of challenging the existing one-to-one model. Now, we’ve interviewed Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS and we had that conversation. So, people who listen to our show, I’d love to hear kind of like your take on the evolution of this business model and what you’re trying to do with PiWear, so maybe a little background there would be good.

Mark Agnew 10:18
Sure, the one-to-one model is definitely very inspirational to me. And you know, I’ve listened to his story and obviously very familiar with Warby Parker, and, you know, Pura Vida, and you know, there’s a number of stories out there that…The Sock Company…And and it’s just really inspiring to hear how those companies have taken the one-for-one model and inspire people to think differently about how they consume, when they consume, and why they consume. So that was very inspirational to me. But I couldn’t figure out a way to translate this into our business. So in the first, say 12 years before Warby Parker came along we would do things like give free eyeglasses to local homeless shelters and get them eye exams and when people had real problems we hooked them up with doctors who would give them free eye surgeries and things like that. And that was great. But it wasn’t, like, it wasn’t enough.

So then you’ve got these one-for-one models and that’s great, too. But I think we’re kind of getting beyond that model, call that the version one. And I’m kind of looking at version two of the give-back and putting all that together and trying to get people in really truly inspired to take another look at the giveback value proposition. I came up with a new eyewear line which we call PiWear because they’re circular glasses, symbol pie. And when you buy a pair of these glasses, we donate a surgery so that blind people can see again, which is just so powerful to me because, you know, seeing again is a luxury I don’t have from an operation but many people do. So, yeah, so that evolved.

Adam Force 12:47
I mean, it’s interesting. And as I hear that, I’m thinking about your experience and you know, the immediate thing is like, well buy one get one. I mean, great, so we can evolve that and it could be yeah, you buy something from us and now we’re donating this surgery to somebody and it’s not just about helping people who can’t see well see better; it’s about helping someone who can’t see at all see: a very different dynamic and it leads me to…I kind of want to ask about your experience personally, meaning when you lost you know, your vision in the one eye, what was the most difficult part about that for you?

Mark Agnew 13:23
Oh, it was definitely the emotional part. The physical part wasn’t that dramatic but the emotions that you go through in losing vision is really devastating. That first month or two months was very, very difficult to function at all. Because we are so kind of trained to assume that our vision is there and will never go away. It’s like the ability to lift a glass to your mouth and take a drink of water and the ability to you know, pick up a fork with some food. We take it for granted. Just, you know, looking out a window with the trees — we take that for granted. And so when that is kind of being taken away from you in the space of about two hours every fear in your life kind of comes home to roost and interrupts all your basic functions for a while.

Adam Force 14:36
Yeah, I mean, I can close one eye and I feel like I’m a blurry mess. You know, it’s like a whole other world.

Mark Agnew 14:43
Yeah, yeah.

Adam Force 14:44
I can imagine the the emotional stress and the difficulty of just adapting to that and I guess just personally accepting it, right? So here you are, you know, you’ve had this experience and now I can see obviously why it kind of led you to help people cure blindness who could be cured versus just giving people who can already see glasses, right? So why did you decide that you were helping people in rural India? What’s the reason for that location?

Mark Agnew 15:13
You know, the concept of charity is interesting because every one of us has a finite number of amount of resources that we can give. So, you know, between the guys in the street that are asking for money and the emails that you get from your friends asking for money and the things you do in companies that you might work for and the things then businesses that you might create, to give back — all of these things require resources from us. And we have a finite amount of resources so we can’t give to everything. You know, the richest man in the world can’t give to every everything. So there has to be a — each person has to create like a personal, you know, boundary around what they’re going to do and why they’re going to do it. And so this is why I think you see so many people starting businesses around a personal passion, because that’s the boundary they have erected to pursue. It’s something that comes from the heart and that truth is what fires up the business.

Adam Force 16:24
100%. It makes it meaningful for them to wake up every day and you know, it has, I guess, a connection for them and, and that is felt by the people who become their advocates. Right? So I mean, it’s great when you hear someone’s story about what they’re doing and why just like you’ve shared today because when you see that, you can see they’re genuine. You see where they’re coming from, and we all know there’s something in it for the business owner, like what’s in it for you? Well, the story is a great representation of you know, your intention. So to me, it’s just — it’s a good feeling and you know you’re getting behind something that you can be proud of.

Mark Agnew 17:03
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There has to be, I mean, we have to do certain things. You know, we have to buy eyeglasses, we have to buy socks. And so the question is, where do we do that? And what things in our life do we want to support? So if you’re going to buy a pair of socks or a pair of eyeglasses, why not do it with a company that has the intention of, you know, putting a portion of their profits to help people who need help?

Adam Force 17:34
Yeah, exactly, exactly. I mean, it is..and that’s the thing I love. And this is what Change Creator’s all about is really trying to flip the script on how we…the intention we have behind business, because obviously there’s people who have bad, not bad intentions, but intentions that don’t serve the world. Right? Now, that happens all the time. And so we’re trying to like change the way we think about this approach to business and, you know, seeing people like yourself. You’re right, we got to buy all this stuff every day. Let’s get it from someone who has good intentions and they are considering, you know, the bigger picture of the people, the planet, and not just the bottom line as they classically say, right?

Mark Agnew 18:13
Yeah, I think it’s fascinating that big business is now moving away from the Milton Friedman model of profit as the, you know, the great denominator and are starting to look at soft benefits such as you know, employee happiness and you know, betterment of the world and you know, improving things in the community. It’s happening not only at the small company level like ours but also in big business.

Adam Force 18:47
And what makes you say it’s happening in big business?

Mark Agnew 18:51
Well, the Council of CEOs recently, you know, changed their kind of their edict or their mantra away from the Milton Friedman model to one that’s, I believe it’s there’s five different, you know, qualities of what a company should be doing and profit is not among them.

Adam Force 19:19
That’s interesting. Where does someone find that kind of information?

Mark Agnew 19:24
I can show you the link after the podcast.

Adam Force 19:27
Yeah, that would be cool. I’d like to share that and see it. I’m always looking for big business and seeing like is the demand of people and what the attitudes of people have about this stuff? Is it changing the behaviors of big business and you know, I love hearing what you’re saying and I love even more to see what you’re talking about, but then actually see it in action. Right. They know that it’s good business to talk about it just like you have the cow on a milk carton, in a grassy field. But, you know, behind the scenes, it’s a very different world sometimes.

Mark Agnew 20:05
Yeah, absolutely and maximizing profit is so deeply ingrained in our legal system and in our stock market, that it’s an evolutionary process, not a revolutionary one. But it’s, it has to [unintelligible] somewhere.

Adam Force 20:21
Exactly.

Mark Agnew 20:23
And hopefully what you’re doing, what I’m doing, what other companies are doing, smaller companies will facilitate that change. Also, if you look at what our kids are learning in schools…I have three kids or two kids in college, one out of college, and they’ve been learning for 20 years to do community service, to protect the environment. And that whole, you know, all those kids in their teens and 20s in 10 or 20 years are going to be you know, largely running this country. So I love to see the progress of that moving into industry.

Adam Force 21:02
Me too. I love that. And you know, it starts in those early years. So if good schools are picking up those types of, you know, educational behaviors and stuff like that, that is a beautiful thing. And you do see it, right? I mean, I don’t know how much I trust this data anymore, whether it’s Nielsen and Pew and all these guys, Gallup but, you know, you see these trends where you go from the boomers to Gen X to millennials, and then as you get down to Gen Z, they, the younger you get, the more their value, their attitudes and behavior shift towards exactly what you’re saying, you know, protect the environment, put values into business, you know. Buy things that are ethical and sustainable. It gets stronger and stronger with the younger generations.

Mark Agnew 21:46
Yes, yes. It’s great to see that.

Adam Force 21:49
And you’re right. It’s like an evolution. I mean, you know, your business and all these other people who are out there with this intention behind the business and they’re thinking big picture. This is the transition. Like, we always talk about how there’s a major transition happening. It’s like old school of thought fighting with this new school of thought. And, you know, it’s going to take a while because it’s like, like you said, so many years of profit first mentality. It’s going to take time for that to dissipate.

Mark Agnew 22:18
You know, it’s going to take time, and there’s going to be, you know, different versions of things happening. That’s why I refer to the buy-one-give-one as version one, and what I’m trying to do with PiWear as kind of version two, where people are connected to really a massive change of another human being. And, you know, a question that should be addressed if I was going to start asking the questions here…

Adam Force 22:48
Go for it! Flip it around.

Mark Agnew 22:51
…is because I’ve heard this question from people and at first it kind of stunned me, but I think it’s important to ask. People are asking me, “You know, that’s great that you’re helping people in India. But why don’t you help people in the United States?”

Adam Force 23:06
Yeah.

Mark Agnew 23:08
So I think that’s kind of a key question. And the way I solve for that is in a couple ways. First of all, I see the world as a place in which everyone is linked together. So even though we’re helping people in India, the gift that I’m giving to them, that our customers are giving to them, is helping us. Even if nobody knows about it, even if you come and buy a pair of PiWear and don’t tell anybody about it, that gift that’s going to an anonymous person in India is providing psychic benefit to you or karmic benefit, if you like, to you and it’s something that everyone should focus on doing more because when we help others, that immediately comes back to us in some form. So that’s that’s one answer. The other is that it kind of is a backhanded way of me pointing out that a cataract surgery in India costs $30.

In the United States, it costs $3,000. So it, it really makes no sense for me to, you know, to wait until I’ve sold 100 pairs of glasses in order to provide an eye surgery here. It just isn’t enough leverage in that and it kind of wakes people up to the concept of how crazy our medical system has become because the surgeries going on in India are exactly the same process. It takes 15 minutes. It’s the same amount of expertise. They’re probably better at it than we are. So that’s going on and…you know that those are really the two main ways that I would answer that question. I do want to help people in the US, but at the moment in the context of my mission, it makes a lot more sense to do it this way.

Adam Force 25:16
Yeah. I mean, you know, being close to the industry, I kind of take that for granted. And, you know, I was asking you like, why India and stuff like that, and I think that your answers are perfect, because, yeah, we have a for profit health care system in the US. And it’s like, seven times more expensive than anywhere else in the world, if not more, right? So it’s very difficult to contribute in these ways in the US, so you know. But I also look at around the world where people have more, you know, there’s people with a lot of need, and I agree with you, it’s like, you know, we are all…it’s like a wave who’s part of an ocean, right? Like, it’s all connected in that way. And so you’re helping a human being, period. And people are so wrapped up in this idea of thinking with borders and being patriotic that they think it’s better to help one person who lives closer to them versus another person who doesn’t, which is kind of crazy.

Mark Agnew 26:07
Yeah, yeah, it is crazy.

Adam Force 26:12
That’s another thing too. It’s just long term…I guess, you know, just the way we were taught and what we were taught to believe. I always found borders and things like that a little bit crazy. And I don’t wanna get too off topic, but, you know, when you mentioned that, it kind of rung a bell for me as well. And I think the same way as you. It’s funny, I think people in the social impact space, many of them think this way, you know?

Mark Agnew 26:36
Yeah, yeah. And also, the other thing that I’m conscious of is not just the person that receives the gift, but that person and that — and this goes for, you know, the US or anywhere else — every person that is struggling in that way. When when they’re helped, they’re being supported by a community. So the community feels the, you know, the impact of someone who’s not able to take care of themselves. And if you’re able to take someone from a position of, you know, really not being able to function at all for themselves in a productive way and bringing them back into society, the whole community feels the benefit of that and feels the inspiration of that, that a total stranger would make that gift.

Adam Force 27:29
Yes, yes. Yeah. No, it’s a beautiful thing. I love that. I do love that. So what is the I guess next 12 months for for PiWear? Is that relatively a new project for you? Or has that been…I see you have like a nice part of the eyeglasses.com website for PiWear. How long have you been active with this?

Mark Agnew 27:53
We launched it early this summer in July. And no, it’s an evolving vision. We started with really just one model of round metal eyeglasses and then I’m continually adding to it with different designs, different shapes, colors, etc., to broaden that and make it appealing to the largest possible audience.

Adam Force 28:21
Interesting. Okay. I’m curious what…and I know you probably have teams for this. But you know, as you started originally eyeglasses.com and things like that, how did you start getting things off the ground, getting out there? I mean, eyeglasses, I mean, I would consider it a saturated market, right? So what do you think contributed to you getting traction in that?

Mark Agnew 28:40
In eyeglasses.com?

Adam Force 28:42
Yeah, yeah, let’s start there.

Mark Agnew 28:44
Well, back in 2000, there was nothing; there wasn’t anybody else doing it. Maybe a couple of companies, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that nobody considered buying eyeglasses on the internet. It was hard enough to sell books on the internet back then. But eyeglasses was so far afield that our biggest problem was just to educate people that they could and should buy eyeglasses online. As time went by, things got better. And then with Warby spending $300 million in advertising and marketing and all the other companies selling super cheap, low quality eyeglasses, you know, you’ve now got millions of people that are aware of the benefits of buying eyeglasses online. And so we’ve actually hugely benefited from all those activities that our competitors are doing.

Adam Force 29:44
That’s interesting. So they helped educate the market for you.

Mark Agnew 29:48
Exactly. Only 3% of the eyewear industry is online now, compared to what about 15% for most apparel — [unintelligible] category? So we have a long way to go just to get, you know, get to parity that way.

Adam Force 30:16
Yeah, yeah. I mean it’s a pretty big marketplace, right, so I think there’s…sounds like there’s room for all players here.

Mark Agnew 30:23
Absolutely. Yeah, we all do something a little bit different. And you know, if you take any of the top 10 players, everyone has their own little niche they’re going after. So there’s plenty of business to go around.

Adam Force 30:40
Awesome. How important has your story and your, you know, the story including your background, like your intention, the surgeries that you’re offering, like how does that play with your audience as they learn about you?

Mark Agnew 30:56
It’s kind of a new thing because up until this year, we really didn’t do much with that story. I mean, it’s you know, the whole concept of storytelling — although it’s well known in social circles — is not something we really paid much attention to.

Adam Force 31:14
Hmm, interesting. Yeah.

Mark Agnew 31:16
But I kept getting…people kept saying, you know, you should talk about this. This is really interesting. So that’s what we’re trying to do now.

Adam Force 31:25
Awesome. Yeah, I mean, you donate to….How do you pronounce this: Sankara Eye Foundation, as well?

Mark Agnew 31:32
Yeah, well, that’s how we do the gift.

Adam Force 31:36
That’s how you do that. Oh, and they do that. I got it. I see. Okay, I got…Yeah, I got you.

Mark Agnew 31:39
They organize it. They’ve built an incredible system of 10 hospitals, two under construction, so they’re going up to 12. And they do…just in…I don’t know how many surgeries they’ve done. But you know, a couple million surgeries so far, and they’re growing every year. The model is so interesting that they’re looking at expanding it to other countries.

Adam Force 32:09
Very cool. Very cool. I love that. Amazing. Well, listen, we’re going to wrap it up here in a minute. And I’m going to ask my final question. So, you know, we talked about a lot of interesting things here regarding the business, but also just like how the business models are evolving, and how people feel about these things. And just, you know, I love the conversation about how we’re all in this together kind of thing, right? And what I’d like to understand, you know, if you could just speak from your heart and what you would want to share with the world. So if you had one…if you had the ear of the world right now, and everybody could hear you, what is the one most important message that you would take your chance to share right now?

Mark Agnew 32:47
Yeah, that’s a great question. And it’s really, what I said earlier that I truly believe that every person in the world is linked into one ecosystem. So when you help another person, whether they’re next to you or they’re across the world, it helps you, it helps them. And in the business context, it helps your company. Every successful company I can think of functions on that model. And the companies that fail, they fail when they lose sight of that Prime Directive, which is: Help others and never give up.

Adam Force 33:24
Perfect. I love it. Awesome. We’re going to close on that beautiful message to the world. And Mark, thank you for your time and sharing your story. And thanks for doing what you’re doing.

Mark Agnew 33:33
Absolutely. Thank you.

Adam Force 33:36
One last thing actually, let’s not forget to get people to give you a shout out to your website. So listen, lots of people need glasses. And guys, what a great place to get it done. So Mark, where do they find you?

Mark Agnew 33:46
Eyeglasses.com.

Adam Force 33:48
It doesn’t get any easier than that. Eyeglasses.com. You guys could check them out. They have a beautiful website. And yeah, if you’re going to get glasses, you might as well do it with some good intention. All right, Mark, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

Mark Agnew 34:00
Alright, thanks Adam. Have a great day.

Announcer 34:01
That’s all for this episode. Your next step is to join the Change Creator revolution by downloading our interactive digital magazine app for premium content, exclusive interviews and more ways to stay on top of your game available now on iTunes and Google Play or visit changecreatormag.com. We’ll see you next time where money and meaning intersect right here at the Change Creator podcast.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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