A true romantic at heart with a deep passion for people, Amber Kelleher-Andrews lives her dream job as CEO of the global matchmaking firm Kelleher international. Under Amber's stewardship, Kelleher International is the leader in a booming singles industry and is responsible for thousands of marriages with 87% of their clients ending up in a long-term relationship or marriage. Amber's knowledge of human relationships combined with a healthy dose of intuition lends to her straightforward approach of listening and asking questions to get to the heart of each person.
In this week’s episode, Amber shares her matchmaking secrets and how she became the co-host of leadership gatherings with Sir. Richard Branson.
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https://thebadassceo.com/building-a-matchmaking-empire-with-the-amber-kelleher/
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A true romantic at heart with a deep passion for people, Amber Kelleher-Andrews lives her dream job as CEO of the global matchmaking firm Kelleher international. Under Amber's stewardship, Kelleher International is the leader in a booming singles industry and is responsible for thousands of marriages with 87% of their clients ending up in a long-term relationship or marriage. Amber's knowledge of human relationships combined with a healthy dose of intuition lends to her straightforward approach of listening and asking questions to get to the heart of each person.
In this week’s episode, Amber shares her matchmaking secrets and how she became the co-host of leadership gatherings with Sir. Richard Branson.
Please subscribe above to be notified of our new episodes.
I put together a Free Top 10 Checklist for Every Entrepreneur. Click here to get your copy:
https://thebadassceo.com/tips-for-every-entrepreneur/
To learn more about our podcast guest, click here:
https://thebadassceo.com/building-a-matchmaking-empire-with-the-amber-kelleher/
If you enjoy this podcast, please help support the the podcast by using the link to our sponsors and companies I use for my business. I receive a small percentage for each sale. Thank you so much for your support!!
http://thebadassceo.com/tools/
Follow us on Instagram at:
https://www.instagram.com/badass.ceo/
Mimi:
Welcome to the Badass CEO podcast. This is Mimi MacLean. I'm a mom of five, entrepreneur, Columbia Business School grad, CPA, and angel investor. And I'm here to share with you my passion for entrepreneurship. Throughout my career, I've met many incredible people who have started businesses, disrupted industries, persevered, and turned opportunity into success. Each episode we will discuss what it takes to become and continue to be a Badass CEO directly from the entrepreneurs who have made it happen. If you're new in your career, dreaming about starting your own business, or already an entrepreneur, the Badass CEO podcast is for you. I want to give you the drive and tools needed to succeed in following your dreams.
Mimi:
Before we get started today I wanted to tell you about a great company I found that takes the stress out of all the legal stuff we hate to do. CorpNet helps me out with all my incorporation documents, trademark searches and filings, and keeps me compliant for state and federal filings. CorpNet makes it super easy and is reasonably priced. I even have my own CorpNet representative to call on when I have questions. I wish I'd found this company sooner. I would have saved money and slept better knowing that I filed all the right forms for my company. To learn more, go to thebadassceo.com/corpnet.
Mimi:
Today we have on Amber Kelleher-Andrews, and she's the CEO of Kelleher International. A true romantic at heart with a deep passion for people, Amber Kelleher-Andrews lives her dream job as CEO of the global matchmaking firm Kelleher international. Under Amber's stewardship, Kelleher International is the leader in a booming singles industry and is responsible for thousands of marriages with 87% of their clients ending up in a long-term relationship or marriage. Kelleher is continuously expanding to meet the demands of busy successful singles and has been awarded back-to-back top global matchmaking awards since 2010. Amber's knowledge of human relationships combined with a healthy dose of intuition lends to her straightforward approach of listening and asking questions to get to the heart of each person.
Mimi:
One of her most rewarding endeavors to date is co-hosting leadership gatherings with Sir Richard Branson, benefiting organizations like Virgin Unite and WildAid. The gatherings are intimate groups curated to include the world's most influential thought leaders, field experts, entrepreneurs and changemakers, all in one place to collaborate and make a positive impact on the world. Not only are these gatherings responsible for raising millions of dollars for charity, but they are encouraging businesses as a force for good globally, becoming incredible idea and partnership incubators. Amber is married to her husband for over 20 years and she lives in Montecito with her three children. If you are looking to find her website, you can look at Kelleher-international.com.
Mimi:
To get your top 10 tips every entrepreneur should know, go to thebadassceo.com/tips.
Mimi:
Amber, thank you so much for coming on today. I'm excited because I actually haven't interviewed anybody like your type of company before. So I'm excited about that and then who you've actually worked with and joint ventured with. I'm excited to also talk about that. So welcome.
Amber:
I'm really excited to be here. I love the title, so...
Mimi:
Oh, thank you. So I would love to know how you got started, and then how you started your own company, Kelleher International.
Amber:
Well, I'm lucky enough to be the daughter of a pioneer. My mother's Jill Kelleher, and she really deserves the credit for seeing something way ahead in the future because back in the '80s the only way you could meet people was what I recall as a teenager hearing that it was a meat market, and that was either the gym or a bar. And there were starting to be singles parties, but they had a bad connotation right from the start. It was like, "Oh, I don't want to go to a singles party."
Amber:
And so she thought, "Well, where do people go that are discerning, that want to maybe remain a little bit confidential in terms of their net worth? And then again with celebrities and successful entrepreneurs that might be notable, where do they go? They're not going to go to a bar or a meat market." So she started Kelleher back in the '80s, and it was face-to-face old-fashioned matchmaking, and it has stayed the test of time because three-and-a-half decades later, even in the red ocean of dating apps, we seem to be the answer because it's slowed down, it's very personalized, and there's a lot of thought put into it.
Mimi:
That's great. And now have you been doing it ever since you were of working age?
Amber:
Yes. As a teenager, I helped my mom, and then into my 20s I was somebody that would make the phone calls and set the appointments for her. And then at about 28, I left the entertainment business, went full-time working with my mom, and within about a year, because I was doing a lot of the PR and I was doing television shows that were national shows like Entertainment Tonight or Extra, and so we were getting inquiries, not only out of California where we were based, but suddenly it was across the country.
Amber:
So I became the CEO and my goal was to open up offices to mirror what we were doing in San Francisco and LA, but all over the country. So, New York was next and then Arizona and then Texas, and then it just kept going. We were the first, but we were also the largest privately-owned matchmaking firm in the country, and so I've had fun for over 20 years running this business. And I think this year is probably the most exciting year with the most growth and potential. So I'm looking at it as a start-up in a 33-year-old brand, which is exciting.
Mimi:
That's great. Talk to me a little bit more about that. So what does that entail when you say, "Okay, now I'm looking at it as a start-up." How are you handling it differently?
Amber:
Well, this is why I love being the CEO, or at least being able to lead, and my mom is so wonderful because she's involved in the day-to-day, but she allows me to have the vision and to take it to places. So, the way that this has been structured for all these years is that other matchmaking firms have come and gone. Some have lasted. Others... People get the idea, "Oh, I want to be a matchmaker," and they'll open up and they realize that you have to have a revolving door of people and you can't take money from somebody if you actually don't have a pool of individuals to match them with. So there are a few people that are obviously doing what we do and doing a great job at it.
Amber:
For me, it's like, "Okay, what's next? What else can we do to continue to lead this industry? It's now a $4 billion industry. So what's the next move?" And for me with Kelleher, and in particular with the caliber of people that we've been working with for all these years, which are like the top 1% that are really, truly picky and don't want to settle in their dating find on their own, I realized what we are is a social club. We have people that are changing the world, that are meeting all over the world where we're gathering together for foundations, we're gathering together to come up with ideas collectively that we can't do on our own.
Amber:
With the resources that these individuals bring, a lot of things are happening and very fast. So we're opening up the social club starting in January, and we've already been doing it. We've been meeting all over the world, making a difference, but now people will know this when they're coming in. You're not just joining for a match, you're going to meet interesting people with passion projects and you might end up meeting someone that way as well.
Mimi:
Has your business model changed at all through the years?
Amber:
It has changed. I mean, we still do what we do. We talk to someone on the phone and we tell them who we think that they should meet, but it's changed in so many ways. I mean, right now with COVID, obviously we left our offices and it really helped us because now we can hire anybody, anywhere in the world, that can actually be in the cities where our clients reside. We started that way in the beginning. My mom was in San Francisco. I was in LA. Then I went to New York, then I went to Texas, and we opened up those offices. But over the years we realized we weren't in the real estate business, right? We were in matchmaking.
Amber:
So we focused most of our hires in Northern California where we had a 10,000 square foot office space and about 30 people. But with COVID, we realized this is the time to make the reinvention of Kelleher. So we restaffed, we hired all over the world. We have a more holistic approach where we have a relationship manager, as well as a coach and a scout for every client that comes in, and it's really a focused search within their community. So it's changing and tweaking, but it's getting better, and it's more towards what the client's journey is.
Mimi:
What mistakes do you feel your competitors that have not lasted have made?
Amber:
I think that they feel that because they are matching their friends and they love it, that they can do that for other people. This is a business, and it's a very serious business and it's a very personal business. You have to have the utmost ethics and you have to be able to say no to someone that's handing you a check for even six figures, or it could be anywhere from a thousand to a million dollars, anywhere in there. You have to be able to say, "I'm sorry, I actually don't have a match for you," or, "I don't think you're ready for matchmaking. I think you still need to get out there and date a little bit, or maybe you're still heartbroken. Maybe you need coaching."
Amber:
And I think that's really hard for people because they want to start something, they're really excited about matching, and then they forget that this is actually a business and it's a business of the heart. That's where my mom, I think, always did very well. She never franchised, she never gave the name away so that we could control who comes in and who doesn't. And we're just very selective because the more matchable our clientele are coming in, the easier it is to be successful with them. We're picky so that they don't have to worry about who we're going to introduce them to that. Is that right? That's what they're paying us for, is to screen everybody. [crosstalk 00:09:42]
Mimi:
Yeah. I saw you had an 87% rate of people having it work out. That seems very high. I don't even know what the norm is for the industry.
Amber:
Well, it is very high. It's not marriages because a lot of our clients have already been married, maybe even twice, some three times. I mean, nowadays we're living so long, they keep getting married. So for us, it's maybe even a little bit higher than that. We're looking at success as, has somebody come in, contracted us to find them the love of their life, or at least the love that they are excited about, and when they no longer need our services, we consider that successful. Now, whether or not they get married or have children, or just live together or have multiple homes, that's the hard thing to track.
Amber:
And it's funny, because back in the '80s, people, they got married. And in the '90s, they still got married. And then they stopped getting married. And now it's like, "I don't really need to get married. It's too complicated. I have too much net worth, and I just want to find the person." And so that success rate reflects the percentage of people that come in and find what they're looking for in terms of love.
Mimi:
Do most of your clients... Are they on the younger side and this is their first relationship or first marriage? Or is it more on the older side and they're getting remarried or looking for a second relationship?
Amber:
It's really... We start around 28. We do get people in their younger 20s, but usually this is a little bit too serious. We think people in their young 20s are probably having more fun on the apps and are at least building their education. So we like to say, "This is after you've graduated from Tinder." This is when you've realized that there's a lot of misrepresentation online. Men are lying about their marital status and they're lying about their income. And, of course, men complain that the women lie about their weight and their age, and they show the wrong photos. I mean, that's kind of a joke, what's going on out there because there's no vetting and screening.
Amber:
So when you're tired of the riffraff, or if you just have no patience for it in the first place and you just don't even want to try it, especially some celebrities that won't even get on, this is the answer. This is when you want to have somebody sitting across the table from you that you know you're going to have a lot in common with, you're going to align with interests and you're going to have a wonderful evening with this person, whether or not there's actual sexual chemistry. That's, of course, the key to finding the one, but you'll always sit down with somebody that is a fascinating individual that's hand-selected for you to meet.
Mimi:
That's great. It's so true. And then, so, I think most people would aspire to be in that 1% that you're in, right? So how do you maintain that, especially when you go into a new territory or if you go into a new city, how do you find those people?
Amber:
Every decade it changes. So in the beginning, my mom started off in the San Francisco Chronicle and she actually looked a lot like Linda Evans. She was Linda Evans' stand-in back when, the days of Dynasty, if you remember that. And so when she had her photograph in the paper, everyone thought it was Linda Evans and they would pass by and they'd go, "Why is Linda Evans in the paper?" And you'd turn around, you go, "Oh, wait, that's not her." So at first we would find people in general, maybe not the high net worth individuals, but you find people in general through advertising. I did the same thing in Los Angeles. I think I was in LA Magazine probably 15 years. Every single week or month you'd turn in there, there would be my ad.
Amber:
So, there was recognition. Then in the '90s, we were asked to go into the airlines, and I think that's probably the best partnership we've ever had. I don't think there's anybody that's flown in American or United that can't say that they haven't opened up the magazine and seen Jill and Amber in the photograph, or me by myself. That's always fun. I'll go to the TED conferences and United flies in, it's their hub. And I have my photograph around me when you walk around, because that's what you need to have. They give you your badge and it has to have your picture and everything for ID. And everybody recognizes me. They go, "Oh, I know who you are." And I couldn't figure it out at first.
Amber:
I'm like, "Well, none of these people do matchmaking. Why is everybody coming up to me?" And then I realized, I'm in the airplane as they're flying in, so it's great recognition. But you asked a really good question. "How do you go to the high net worth individuals?" Most of it is word-of-mouth. It's a lot of referrals. I'm on the cover of the Yacht Magazine for the Cannes Film Festival. We are asked to join certain publications.
Amber:
I've been on the cover of CEO Magazine and in Europe I think three times. So those go to family offices. Those magazines have a distribution to high net worth individuals. And then people are discerning. When they're really busy, they're traveling around, they don't have time to date, they're going to seek out a matchmaking firm. And when they do that, they usually do their due diligence and they realized who we are, and that's when we get the phone call.
Mimi:
That's great. I mean, your brand is so high-end. You must have a very select process to make sure that the people are who they say they are, and that... Are you also involved at all with the first date to make sure it goes the way you... They get right, or you would want it to?
Amber:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, we're happy to have anybody and everybody of all economic tiers in our files. When we work with a client, that individual usually is a high net worth individual because they're paying for the service. But they could say, "I want to school teacher," or, "I want to meet somebody who's an artist." We're not only matching wealthy people with wealthy people. We just provide a service for individuals that match.com is everybody, right? Well, we are everybody, too. It's just the people that pay for us to search for them pay us a certain figure. And the reason why we charge a... It's not a lot, we're the same as most matchmaking firms in the country, but the reason why there is a fee is because we'd rather work with maybe 10 people each month than 100.
Amber:
And so, it's really just a matter of, how do you personalize a service because we are a staff and if we're going to have X amount of matchmakers and we're going to have X amount of clients, you can't take on 100 clients in a month. You'll fall apart as a company. So who do we take on? So the vetting process is, we usually get about 20,000 unique visits every single month to our website. And a lot of people bounce, as they say, because they look at it and they go, "Oh, this is a little bit too serious." Or, "Oh, maybe I'm not ready for this," or, "This is expensive." So, just naturally they go away. But 1,000 people say, "Hey, I'm interested. This is for me."
Amber:
We look at 1,000 of those leads every single month, and we probably call 100 of them, but the 900 that we don't call, they're in our files and they might get married through us because they've submitted their information and we have that in our algorithms, and we have that as part of our search. We call them participating members. And if and when we do think that they are a match with one of our actual clients, then we will call them. We will vet them. We will do a background check and we'll find out and meet them in person, and we'll find out if they are indeed a match for the client. Out of the 100 that we speak to, we usually narrow it down to about 25 people per month. And it just kind of works out. They're the 25 that are excited to join.
Amber:
I mean, we're not going to talk anybody into this. We don't do mailers. We wait for people to call us, so they have to be emotionally ready. Some people are checking it out. They're not quite divorced yet. They're kind of a little ahead of themselves, going, "I just want to see what this is like." So we say, "Well, call us when you're ready." And we also do coaching. We've coached a lot of people to stay in their relationship. They call us thinking it's eye candy and they're going to be able to find their next wife. And we say, "Actually, you need to focus on yourself and your relationship." And I've had people say that we've saved their relationships. We're not looking for anybody to-
Mimi:
Oh, that's nice.
Amber:
... to come on board just because they're excited to meet a bunch of people. We really have to make sure that it's the right fit.
Mimi:
Right. So, as an entrepreneur and CEO, what would you say your biggest challenge is right now?
Amber:
My biggest challenge was getting the staff to have the right culture so that we could support the vision and the direction that I wanted to go to. And during COVID, we were fortunate enough to hire a wonderful gentleman named John Berg, who was a friend of a friend who was retired, but we pulled him out, and he implemented a value system and we were able to restaff with the vision and the new values and the direction of the future. And we had an all-company meeting on Monday of this week, just two days ago.
Amber:
And I have to say, almost brought tears to my eyes, it's worked. We have a tremendous infusion of excitement, trust, values. All the girls were saying how much they love their job. It's reflecting in our bottom line. We have nobody complaining because people complain about their love life all the time, and you can imagine the things that we would hear. People are happy now. We were never perfect, but if we wanted to get to a place where we were very happy with the results, as well as the people that are coming on board, we're in it right now. It's a great time for this company, and I'm just so grateful that someone like John Berg would come in and bring that new energy. It's what we needed. And so I'm really happy right now.
Mimi:
Would you mind talking just a little bit about that value system? Because I think it's really important, because I do think that is one of the biggest struggles a lot of CEOs have, is building that culture, having a team that reflects what you want, and keeping them all on the same vision.
Amber:
Yeah. I think it's really hard for a CEO to have that team mentality when they are kind of, in a way, on their own. So in the past I would walk into the office and I felt that the person that was running the office kind of was in charge of the culture. And I would come in and it was like, "Oh, there she is," or, "Oh, she's the one on the magazine," or, "Oh, she's the one in the airlines." But I was their coworker, right? I was their boss. I saw us as a team, but I felt that it wasn't really quite that way for them. And so I had to remove the person that was keeping that boundary between me and them, because that's how it used to be. You close the door and the executives are in the team and everybody looks and goes, "Oh, I wonder if anybody's getting fired. I wonder what's going on."
Amber:
And so I think the difference, and where we've really been able to excel is, you open up that door and you share what these conversations are. And so, he was protecting me and it didn't do me any favors because my own group didn't know what was going on. They were there to do their job in his mind. So when we removed that person, I was able to get on the Zoom calls, because it was also COVID, and really share and be totally transparent. You know, "We're having a good month, we're having a bad month. We've got a complaint. We have a marriage." It didn't matter what it was. They now were part of my brain, and so now everyone's like, "Oh, I'm really enthusiastic and I really love where we're headed. And I heard you mention this, and now all of a sudden we're there and it's actually working and it's happening."
Amber:
So I believe that the more the company knows about the executives and about what we're doing, I think they join you and champion you, and they feel like they're part of the changes, as opposed to handed a change on a piece of paper, which is the old model that we got rid of. I mean, obviously, for 25 years or whatever, we've been a wonderful organization, but I'm excited now to have this new leadership and this new way of doing business.
Mimi:
So does that mean now you have weekly calls like every Monday morning and you didn't have that before?
Amber:
Well, before, most of us were in one office, so we were not having that. And I think this makes us even closer. The way that we're structured now is, the executives do have a call once a week because we need to talk about things financially and things that are just not necessary to get involved in-
Mimi:
The details, yeah, the weeds.
Amber:
... yeah, really boring stuff. But then we have an all-company call on Tuesday and the all-company call, we always have a challenge. We spin the wheel and we acknowledge somebody for maybe a fantastic match that they did, so there's always a little bit of fun, like who's going to get the wheel spun. We have a challenging question asked. We go around to everybody. But then we also have, all the matchmakers have, a weekly meeting. All of the market directors have a weekly meeting. All of our scouts have a weekly meeting. All of our coaches have a weekly meeting. And then all of the pods, which are the territories, have a weekly meeting.
Amber:
So now we feel like we're part of the big company, but also we have our own territory. So I'm in Southern California. I'm the [inaudible 00:22:11] of Southern California. So I have my market director, I have the coach, I have the relationship manager who's really the matchmaker, and then you have the person that's the recruiter. So we have our own conversations about all the new clients that have come in in our territory. But then, when they break off, the matchmakers, and when they get together, they can talk about, "Well, maybe my client in Los Angeles would be a great match for your client in New York." That's why you get all the matchmakers together. And then when the girls are doing the recruiting, they can recruit from anywhere in the world, and so they're sharing that high-level search that might be a global search.
Amber:
So, these teams are really coming together and it's so exciting, and that's why the matchmaking now, I think we've tripled the matchmaking. I think we raised the efficiency, we were looking at the numbers, by 200%. We're having a record-breaking month. We've never seen this amount of people that we've wanted to work with that are wanting to join at the same time. I think we've doubled our revenue. I mean, everything's just kind of exploding right now. And I think it really, truly has to do with changing the culture.
Mimi:
And how long did it take for you to see the difference in the culture? How many meetings... You sit down and say, "Hey, we have a new culture." You laid it out and...
Amber:
Yes, I think it took a year for it all to hum. I mean, six months ago we noticed the difference. Prior to that, it was talk, right? You had to implement it. So you have to have a vision. You have to have the right leadership team. You have to have the buy-in from your group. And then you have to have the trust that they know that you're going to follow up with what you said you're going to do. And so six months in, you can start to see things, but a year later it's all working, it's all happening. So, now, as a CEO, I'm so excited because my focus can go to podcasts, writing books, doing my philanthropy, because I'm creating the social club, which is really a philanthropic-based club, and I can continue to be the face and do the PR knowing that the company itself, which I used to have to run, is humming and running better than ever under John Berg's leadership.
Mimi:
That's great. And then do you feel like, when you hire new people, that process has changed because of this? Are you asking different questions? Are you already sharing your value ladder, however you're calling your culture, with them as you're hiring them?
Amber:
Yes. We're definitely sharing that. And we're just able to hire now people that live in different cities. We can hire different ages. We can hire a different race and ethnicities because we have more options now. When you have an office in one place, you're looking at the commute, you're looking at whether or not they're going to be able to do a nine-to-five job. And we had a lot of single moms working for us. They had to leave to go pick up their kids. They had to be home, and now people are working from home, so there's flexibility. You have a certain amount of clients that you're going to match, and if you have a certain amount of clients that you have to match, it might not be sitting at a desk nine-to-five, but instead you're doing it remotely.
Amber:
So we're just much more efficient as a firm, and when we hire, we have more flexibility. We're not looking at, "Well, how far are you from the San Francisco office? And can you get here five days a week?" That was our big question before, and now it's, "Let's look at where you were educated. Let's look at if you have experience. If you have maybe a background in psychology. If you've worked in hospitality." I love bringing people from hospitality in because we are truly of service. How can we be of service to our clients? We look at people from different walks of professional backgrounds now, which is really fun.
Mimi:
That's great. So to finish up, what advice would you give to any other woman that is looking to start a business? Or they're in the throes of growing a business and being an entrepreneur?
Amber:
Well, I believe that if you really, truly love something, that you can create anything nowadays. So I would say, sky's the limit in terms of what's possible. I believe that you do need to find the right people, like I said, to support you. My mother did it in the beginning. She had her daughter and her family and friends. We are a family business. There's about less than 10 of us still that are working. But this is a family business, even though there's about 40 people that are outside of the family. So I think family businesses work really well.
Amber:
I think friends coming on and being in a passion project with you work, but it will come down to, find what your values are, find your one-year plan, your five-year plan. Where do you want to take it in the end? What's the point of your mission? You know what I mean? Do you want to make it your legacy, or are you doing this to make a lot of money? Do you have an exit plan? Richard Branson taught me, if you get up every single day and do what you really truly want to do, that's your legacy. It's not about selling a company and making a lot of money. It's about changing the world, touching people and making a difference every day. If you can implement that into your value system with your company, then I think you're going to have a great business.
Mimi:
I love that. I know I lied. I said one last question, but you made me think of something when you mentioned Richard Branson. I would love for you to just touch on that relationship that you've had with him, and how you've joint-ventured with him as well.
Amber:
In 2013 I was fortunate enough to meet Sir Richard Branson on his island in the BVIs, and I loved it. The book that he's written, which is Screw Business As Usual, and the way that he looks at it is, people aren't going to change the world. Companies can change it much faster because companies employ people. Companies have thousands of employees, and if you can change the bottom line of a company and add people and planet to their profit, that company itself can help change the world. So everything from carbon emissions to wages and how you treat people. So he knew that I had contact with the people that owned the biggest companies in the world just by having the Kelleher brand.
Amber:
And so he asked me if I would curate a group of 25 to 30 people every single year that are some of the biggest names in business, and bring them to his island so that he could inspire them and infuse the concept of people and planet alongside of profit. So I did my first one in 2014. Actually, we did two back-to-back, and they were so successful that we continued. Together we've raised, I think, close to $5 million for charity, which is Virgin Unite. I'm on the board of Virgin Unite. It's a wonderful foundation that he founded, and we've changed about 72 companies. It's really just about the ripple effect. When you come to the event that Richard and I do together, and then you leave, your life has changed.
Amber:
You see business differently, you see partnerships differently, and you really do see that it's all about loving your job. It's all about loving the people that you're with. It's all about loving why you do what you do. And if you can get all of those things in line, and you're not harming the environment or harming people along the way, what you are creating is a beautiful thing and it will be a legacy and it should continue. That's why they're successful. That's why Richard is as successful as he is. He absolutely loves what he does. He treats all of his employees with the utmost respect and care, and he gets them behind him and they all champion him. He's their leader. If you want to be a great Badass CEO, you have to be a great leader and that's how you do it.
Mimi:
That's great. Now, do any of those companies that you have brought to this summit, have they converted to being a B Corp? Or do they tend to just do it on their own type of...
Amber:
It's both. It's both. But it's mostly do it on their own. And I've had people say, "You know what, Amber? I have my philanthropy, I have my friends, I have a great business. I'm going to go because I want to spend five days with you because as my matchmaker, I think that you should know me in this way." So they'll come with me. And what's fun is afterwards, they go, "I'm changing my friends, I'm changing my philanthropy, and I'm restructuring my business." And you kind of look and you smile and you go, "Yeah, I figured you probably would." There's just so much more that we can do that we just don't tap into, unless you're surrounded by people that are at the highest level of thought consciousness and it becomes this amazing think tank and you're so inspired.
Amber:
It's like, if Elon Musk goes to Mars, he's not going to stop. He's going to go, "Where can I go from here?" Right? And these are the types of people that are... Oprah Winfrey doesn't sit and go, "I'm done." She's probably sitting going, "Well, now I want to do this." That's the type of leadership quality it gets. You accomplish a goal, but it's the journey that's so much fun. It's not really even getting to the goal. It's the journey. The journey is so exciting, and so you can just continue to implement, and that's why the journey of Kelleher has been so wonderful because, yeah, we do what we do and we're the best at it, but what else can we do? Where else are we going? Let's get people ready for love. Let's help them get their best foot forward.
Amber:
Let's inspire them to show up who they are, not who they aspire to be later, but let's get who they are now, the very best version of themselves. And then let's put the right person in their path so that together they can go off and have a lifetime of joy. Dating services and apps are just looking for chemistry and then you've got to figure out, "Oh, do we want kids? And this guy is not ready, and..." And then their values don't line up and religion's not there, and you just don't have the same type of fun and energy that you can have. If we're looking, we're back engineering it, we're looking at all of the values and we're looking at the lifestyle. We're doing all that so that when you show up with that person and you feel confident in who you are and they do the same and that chemistry is there, that's why the marriages are so frequent.
Mimi:
Yeah. That's where the magic happens. You brought up a point that I've talked a lot with my daughter about, and I would love just to get your take on it. And it goes back to the song from Hamilton about... You know the song Satisfied? About how being, like, are you satisfied? How Hamilton was never satisfied, right? And so it's kind of like... Because I'm one of those people that's like "never satisfied." I'm that person that, I hit a goal and then I'm like, "Okay, what's next? What's next?" And so my daughter's like, "You're just never satisfied. Why can't you just be happy with where you got and just stop, and just... That's it. Just enjoy it and not worry about where you want to go next."
Mimi:
And so I was like, "Because then, what's the point?" I don't know. I just was trying to explain to her, right? And so I think there's a two-way... Is there something bad about wanting to always want more? But, I mean, of course, being grateful with where you're at and [crosstalk 00:32:10]
Amber:
That's why you want that. Let's say there's both. You just answered it, I believe, not to cut you off, but if you are grateful for where you are, you are naturally inclined to want more. And so we are here, I believe, for expansion. The universe is expanding and we are beings and we are expanding as well. And the only way we're going to think about going to the moon or Richard creating a rocket the other day, I was in New Mexico with him, watched him go up to outer space. The only way he's going to do that is because he's going to desire to do it first. And so we evolve as a human race.
Amber:
The world evolves. The university evolves. Because thought comes to people like you and you expand the possibilities. If he didn't have a dream to go to the moon, he wouldn't have done it and we won't be having passengers go up to outer space. So it is your job and your obligation to expand. And when you do that, next time you can tell your daughter that that's the whole point. And if she's happy where she is, then that's wonderful. But there are some people that are designed to create the next thing for the world and for the universe. And thoughts become things.
Amber:
You have to have the thought, and you don't usually have the thought unless you're in a really good place and you're really happy. And that's when inspiration happens. That's why Necker works. We're really happy. We're in paradise. That's when inspiration happens, and we come out with ideas that we just couldn't have thought up on our own.
Mimi:
That's great. I love that. Thank you for all that you do. You're doing so many exciting things, and I wish you the best of luck with everything as you continue to grow all your initiatives and your charitable and your company. So thank you very much.
Amber:
Thank you so much. Oh, yeah, I love being on your show. Your podcast is wonderful.
Mimi:
Thank you.
Amber:
Thank you. Okay. Take care.
Mimi:
Thank you for joining us on the Badass CEO. To get your copy of the top 10 tips every entrepreneur should know, go to thebadassceo.com/tips. Also, please leave a review as it helps others find us. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I would love to hear them. So email me at Mimi@thebadassceo.com. See you next week and thank you for listening.