INVEST IN KINDNESS
Printmaker & public artist Bryce McCloud created Bryce Bux, a new currency to stimulate the Nashville economy.
NASHVILLE TN
In September of 2016, I was driving across the US on a beta voyage with my rolling recording studio - now known as the Mobile Incubator. A friend told me to check out this printmaker guy named Bryce McCloud who runs a cool public art and printmaking business called Isle of Printing in Nashville.
I rolled up to his shop in the PieTown neighborhood and… Bryce wasn’t home. But I swore next time I made it to Nashville I’d look him up.
So two years later I got my chance. I was on a long route and I needed to fly back to Boston and Nashville was the cheapest place to do that. So I reached out to Bryce and said hey, ‘I want to interview you when I’m in town but right now… do you have a parking spot?’
He said yes, so I parked it and flew out literally that evening. And at this point, I still haven’t even met Bryce! Everyday he’s literally looking at the Mobile Incubator out the window of his shop, like who is this guy who drives a podcast studio back and forth across the US. But that didn’t stop Bryce from doing a kind deed for a stranger. Bryce grew up in a family that regularly helped transient musicians in Nashville, and now he was helping a transient podcaster!
What's the return on good deeds? Bryce invests in the relationships with the people around him, and the return on that is a community around him.
Bryce even created a new currency called Bryce Bux to stimulate the kindness economy of Nashville, Tennessee. You could trade kind acts (and secrets) to have more of the currency, which you can exchange for more good deeds. Can you get rich quick on kindness? What's the value of art & relationships?
So I was parked in Nashville I was still in Boston. One morning I got a text from Bryce. And it’s a photo of dude with a backward blue cap standing on in front of the Mobile Incubator. Bryce says “Hey small world, this is the guy you ordered your signs from”. And I look at the photo, and this dude’s stuntin hard in front of the Incubator, like leaning backward and putting his arms out to hold a small poster up to the camera. And I zoom in at the poster and you can barely see the details. But it looks like it’s a money bag, like one of those sacks of gold they used in old movie about bank heists with the big dollar sign on it. But instead of a big dollar sign, it just says “Invest in Kindness”.
So this episode is all about investing in relationships.
- Lucas Spivey, June 12, 2018
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DISCUSSION
Brand is often a nebulous thing, yet as a business we need to have an estimate of the goodwill and relationships we’ve built. Bryce says that “When your life is over and you look back on it, the interactions that you have with your community, your friends and family, that to me is the true measure of what we do.“
Q: How can you measure the impact of your relationships?
By creating a mobile currency exchange based on kindness, Bryce was declaring that kindness was a core part of his brand as a creative business, and something he personally invests in. “I decided my money would based on the idea of kindness. The value that art adds is a necessary component.”
Q: How can kindness be a return on investment for you?