Friday Flowers: This Friday, I want to send a heartfelt thank you to a very special group of people: the incredibly dedicated speaking agents, managers and bureaus, who have supported me on my journey over the last decade.
When I started speaking in 2016, I never dreamt that it would take me around the world, from North America to Europe, Asia, South America and the Middle East.
(This clip of me is on stage in Dubai last year - a place to which I’m sending a lot of love right now in these troubled times).
Thanks to the belief of these wonderful folks, speaking has helped me spread my message of Purpose, love and courage, of inspiration, innovation and impact.
It’s helped me meet so many incredible people around the world, and it’s given me a chance to make a living (and a life), by letting my values drive my value.
Thanks for the last ten years - and here’s to the next ten!
Thank you to @speakersdotca@utaspeakers@leadingauthorities@gdaspeakers@bigspeak_speakers_bureau@gothamspeakers@allamericanspeakertoastmasters and many more.
#goodisthenewcool
#conspiracyoflove
#thepowerofpurpose
#makenosmallplans
Get ready for Jayaflava’s Crab Curry episode! Come with us to Jaffna to learn how to cook this iconic dish, and experience the beauty of the Jaffna Kite Festival. Catch up with the amazing chef Dharshan Munidasa from Ministry of Crab, and go hunting for mud-crabs in the Gangewadiya.
Find us on National Geographic India Friday nights at 8pm and Sundays at 1pm and on NatGeo India YouTube.
#jayaflava
#celebratingsrilanka #goodisthenewcool
How are we solving the Hope Gap? By making docuseries like ‘The Solutionaries’, focusing on the game-changing entrepreneurs tackling climate change with audacious innovation. People like Dr Lisa Dyson from @airprotein - making food from air.
Interested to bring this conversation to your team or event? Tap the link in bio for speaking inquiries.
#StoriesThatFillTheHopeGap #MakeNoSmallPlans #GoodIsTheNewCool #KeynoteSpeaker
Thank you, Sunday Times UK, for highlighting 8 Leyn Baan Street as one of the chicest places to stay in Galle Fort. Make sure you follow us over at @8leynbaan for the latest.
New York showed up for hope. 🧡
Last week, more than 230 people came together for GOODCon NYC, our Festival of Hope and Storytelling — a room full of brand leaders, creators, philanthropists, storytellers, entrepreneurs, and changemakers asking how stories can build more hope, not more noise.
From Sesame Workshop and children’s media to mental health, inclusive growth, democracy, conservation, climate innovation, play, public art, and bold new models for backing change, the day reminded us how powerful storytelling becomes when it is paired with action.
But what people keep talking about isn’t just the ideas.
It’s the feeling.
The honesty in the conversations.
The energy in the room.
The reminder that hope is not naive when it is practical, creative, and shared.
Thank you to every speaker, performer, partner, and attendee who brought so much heart to the day.
And deep gratitude to the partners who helped bring GOODCon NYC to life: The @utafoundation , @elevateprize , @landolakesktchn , @pmi_org , Goodstack, @planet.haus , @goodloophq , @socialimpactfund , @davidprizenyc , and Intuitive Communications.
More highlights coming soon. ✨
#GOODCon #HopeGap #StoriesThatFillTheHopeGap #GoodIsTheNewCool #HopeGap #GOODcon #MakeNoSmallplans #NYC
This is my friend @_murugiah . He’s an amazing Sri Lankan artist who’s debut show is opening at the Quentin Blake Gallery soon (see second image for the poster). Please check it out!
GoodCon New York City: Where do I start?
Two hundred people walked into a room this week — artists, founders, organizers, executives, dreamers with spreadsheets, builders with manifestos — and for one day, the noise of the world went quiet.
What filled the silence was something rarer than optimism. It was evidence. Proof that the people stitching the future back together are already among us, already at work, already winning more than the headlines let on.
Ten years ago, Good is the New Cool was an idea with a question mark at the end of it. Could purpose and culture share a stage? Could doing good and being cool stop pretending to be strangers? A decade later, we have our answer.
What unfolded inside that room defied any single description.
Broadway voices that pulled the air out of the room — and gave it back richer. A red, furry sage named Elmo, reminding a room full of adults what we’d forgotten about kindness. Voices from the frontlines of mental health, climate, equity, and community — not pitching, but witnessing. A rock-paper-scissors tournament that turned 200 strangers into one laughing organism. Hip-hop as healing practice. The Kiki ballroom scene — that radiant, defiant inheritance of Black and brown queer and trans genius — turning the floor into church. And the good folks from PlanetHAUS building a Gifting Garden of sustainable products for everyone to sample.
Culture and commerce, sitting at the same table for once. Creativity and conscience, holding hands instead of arm-wrestling.
It was the kind of day you don’t summarize. You metabolize. And I’m still metabolizing it now.
Thank you to my partners in purpose Bobby Jones Lucia Slezakova Jasmine Them India Woolmington Kelly Vogt Campbell Julia Collins Jake Siegler and the whole Neuehouse NYC team.
Thank you to our generous sponsors UTA FOUNDATION Land O’Lakes, Inc. Project Management Institute Social Impact Fund Elevate Prize Foundation Goodstack Good-Loop The David Prize Intuitive Communications LLC.
#GoodCon #GoodIsTheNewCool #FillTheHopeGap #PurposeDriven #CultureChange ForcesForGood
Friday Flowers: a huge bouquet of thanks to my dear friend Julia Collins and her awesome team for pulling off an incredible San Francisco climate week event at sweat PlanetHAUS. A mind blowing experience of seeing an entire lifestyle of products that were sustainable ethical and super cool, coupled with inspiring talks on stage. Thanks for letting me be part of it!
#goodisthenewcool
#planethaus
#thepowerofpurpose
#makenosmallplans
In 1992, Eddie Murphy played Marcus Graham — a sharp, ambitious Black ad executive who owned every room he walked into.
In real life, those rooms were almost impossible to get into.
Lincoln Stephens decided to change that. In 2007 he co-founded the @mgproject (Marcus Graham Project) — a bootcamp that took young Black and brown creatives and put them inside real client work, with real stakes, from day one. Over a thousand alumni later, they're at Nike, Spotify, Disney, Wieden+Kennedy.
Now, with new grad unemployment at its highest since 2020 and the industry shedding entry-level jobs, Stephens is asking a harder question — not just how do you train the talent, but where does it go? His answer is Locomotus: an on-demand platform that deploys MGP-trained creative teams directly to brands and businesses, including the 194,000 Black-owned businesses generating $212 billion in revenue that the industry has never properly served.
To read @afdhel 's latest story tap the link in the bio.
#StoriesThaTFillTheHopeGap #GoodIsTheNewCool #MarcusGrajamProject
#MakeNoSmallPlans
Image courtesy: Marcus Graham Project, Dallas Mavericks
