The Affection Economy
Because affection isn’t soft.
It’s a strategy.
What if every decision you made led with care, connection, and courage? The Affection Economy is a movement. The Affection Advantage is how you bring it into action.
What the Affection Economy means?
Created by Jet Swain, the Affection Economy is more than a philosophy — it’s a movement and a practice. It’s for people, leaders, organizations, and communities who believe that kindness, courage, and inclusion are not optional extras — they’re essential to how we build the world.
When systems are built without care, they break trust. The Affection Economy helps you center connection over metrics, belonging over output, and ensures growth is coupled with integrity.
Affection Economy
Manifesto
We believe affection is not soft; it’s a strategy.
It belongs in boardrooms, classrooms, lounge rooms, and lunch breaks.
It’s in how we lead teams and how we raise children.
In how we build businesses and how we speak to strangers.
Every decision is a chance to lead with heart.
When we centre kindness, courage, equity and connection, we shift the systems we live in.
And when we act in alignment with our values, even in the smallest ways, we help shape a world where humanity thrives.
From Philosophy to Practice
We’re bringing the movement alive through tools, experiences, and experiences that move people from intention to impact.
The Affection Advantage Retreat
Women’s natural strengths of care, compassion, and courage aren’t “soft” — they’re leadership superpowers. This retreat is where we reclaim them as strategy. Over three days, you’ll realign, reset, and return with the agency and power the world urgently needs.
The Values Compass
(Course)
Most people don’t live in alignment with their true values — and it costs them clarity, courage, and connection. This self-paced program helps you rediscover your inner compass and gives you practical tools to live and lead with conviction.
The Affection Advantage (eBook)
Your entry point into the movement. This guide reveals the authority gaps most people and organisations don’t even know they’re carrying — and shows you how to close them. In under an hour, you’ll learn how to realign with your values and start leading without compromise.
Future Tools & Experiences
From Affection Value Cards to workshops, journals, and programs, these tools are designed to make affection practical — embedding care, clarity, and connection into the way your teams, communities, and organisations actually work.
How to be part of the
Affection Economy.
The Affection Economy is the movement.
The Affection Advantage is how you put it into action.
It’s not just about believing in empathy, connection, and courage — it’s about building systems, choices, and cultures where those values drive outcomes. This is where affection stops being dismissed as “soft” and becomes the strategic lever for growth, belonging, and change.
For organisations: it means embedding care and connection into how you lead, design, hire, and measure success — creating loyalty, sparking innovation, and building resilience.
For individuals: it means living in alignment with your values, using tools like the Values Compass to find clarity and courage in everyday choices.
For communities: it means leading with shared purpose, where affection strengthens trust and transforms systems.
Every action — a conversation, a decision, a policy — becomes more than a transaction. It becomes a chance to close blind spots, build trust, and co-create change.
The Affection Economy names the future we need.
The Affection Advantage gives you the framework to live it, lead it, and scale it — today.
What if every decision became a chance to lead with care — and a system to make it stick?
“We who follow the way are permitted to defend the innocent.”
— Buddhist teaching
This isn’t about violence. It’s about wisdom.
It’s about the courage to act when silence would cause harm — and the clarity to put humanity at the centre of every decision.
Affection isn’t soft. It’s courageous compassion in action.
It protects. It defends. It leads with care — without causing harm.
Values are the heart of the movement
The Affection Economy is built on 30 core values.
The following are our five core values that guide how we live, lead, and design.
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![Two young girls walk arm in arm on a city street with their backs to the camera, one in a black dress with floral pattern and the other in a white dress with colorful pattern, during daytime.]()
Kindness
The quiet superpower.
It softens rooms, strengthens relationships, and sparks real change.Kindness softens rooms, strengthens relationships, sparks change.
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![Child in black hoodie and yellow headphones performing a backflip on wet pavement in a park with green grass and concrete steps, overcast sky.]()
Courage
Truth in motion.
It’s the choice to show up, speak out, and lead from the heart.Courage is truth in motion; speaking when silence would harm.
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![Two elderly people looking out from a house window, speaking to a woman standing outside, with colorful green and orange window trims and a colorful exterior wall.]()
Connection
The root of belonging.
It’s where trust grows, ideas land, and empathy turns to action.With connection, trust deepens intention; people become allies.
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![Colourful decorated sign with the words "You belong" surrounded by green leaves and plants.]()
Equity
Justice with a pulse.
It ensures everyone is seen, heard, and valued—without exception.Equity levels the field so every voice is heard, every person has agency.
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![Person with blond hair wearing a black hoodie with the words 'irresistible empathy' on the back, standing on a city street with parked cars and residential buildings under a cloudy sky.]()
Integrity
Walking your values.
It’s what happens when your words, choices, and actions align.Integrity is the cornerstone of trust; doing what’s right, even when it costs.
Let’s rebuild business and belonging with the affection advantage.
Whether you’re a founder, a changemaker, a creative, or someone quietly rewriting the rules—there’s a place for you here.
The Affection Advantage isn’t theory; it’s a practice. Start by reconnecting with your values. Lead with courage, clarity, and care.