The Story Maker
Insights from the Affection Economy:
where values are lived, not told.
Values-led leadership, cultural change, and human connection.
Welcome to The Story Maker — Jet Swain’s blog exploring how we live, lead, and belong through the lens of The Affection Economy.
Here you’ll find reflections, case studies, and practical strategies for leaders, teams, and communities ready to build trust, lead with kindness, and create meaningful change.
Week Fourteen — Empathy (The Heart)
Empathy is a practice, not a personality trait. This week explores how small, deliberate acts — listening fully, considering context, and choosing curiosity — strengthen leadership, improve decisions, and build trust.
Week Thirteen — Clarity (The Self)
Clarity is created, not found. This week explores how small, deliberate acts of simplification — defining priorities, communicating clearly, and closing open loops — lead to better decisions, stronger leadership, and more focused work.
Week Twelve — Meaning (The Sacred)
Meaning isn’t something we find at the end. It’s something we notice along the way — in how we begin, what we pay attention to, and what we choose to hold as significant.
Week Eleven — Stewardship (The Lineage)
Agency in leadership begins with small decisions — speaking up, taking responsibility, and acting in alignment with your values. Week 10 of the 365 Acts of Affection explores how agency builds trust, credibility and cultural change.
Week Ten — Agency (The Flame)
Agency in leadership begins with small decisions — speaking up, taking responsibility, and acting in alignment with your values. Week 10 of the 365 Acts of Affection explores how agency builds trust, credibility and cultural change.
Week Nine — Stability (The Roots)
Stability is built through small, steady acts. Week Nine explores how order, consistency, and reliability quietly earn trust and confidence over time.
Week Eight — Compassion (The Heart)
Compassion is strength expressed through care. Week Eight explores how patience, grace, and staying open shape trust, culture, and connection.
Week Seven — Self-Awareness (The Self)
Week Seven of 365 Acts of Affection is Self-awareness.
Self-awareness is the discipline of noticing — how you feel, how you react, and the tone you set inward. Week Seven explores why alignment begins within.
Week Six — Reverence (The Sacred)
Reverence in leadership means choosing presence over reaction. Week Six explores how stillness, intention, and gentle endings shape culture and trust.
Week Five — Continuity (The Lineage)
Week Five of 365 Acts of Affection invites us to widen the lens — to remember that nothing begins with us. Continuity is about recognising what shaped us, honouring whose work we build on, and acting with care for what comes next. It’s not about nostalgia, but responsibility. Not urgency, but lineage.
Week Four — Courage (The Flame)
Courage doesn’t arrive as force or volume.
This week, it showed up as honesty, alignment, and the quiet act of standing with what’s true.
Week Three — Grounding (The Roots)
Grounding isn’t about stopping — it’s about creating enough steadiness to move with care.
In Week Three of 365 Acts of Affection, we slowed the pace, honoured boundaries, and remembered that support grows stronger when it’s seen.
When values are declared — and how we help people actually live them
What happens when values are beautifully articulated — but not fully felt?
I came across an agency culture page that stopped me in my tracks. Its values were simple, human and quietly ambitious: Imagine. Grow. Respect. Perform. Enjoy.
And yet, I’ve spent years listening to people who want to live values like these — without always being given the conditions to do so.
This piece explores the quiet gap between stated values and lived experience, and why values aren’t slogans at all — they’re creative infrastructure.
Week Two — Connection (The Heart)
Connection isn’t something we manufacture. It’s something we allow — through presence, warmth, and attention that doesn’t rush to fix or fill the space. In Week Two of 365 Acts of Affection, we explore how small, relational moments quietly reshape how we meet one another.
Week One — Presence (The Self)
Week one we begin with Presence, within the theme The Self.
Before change, before action, before connection with others, we come home to ourselves.
Presence asks us to notice where our attention goes — and to practise returning. Not perfectly, not constantly, but gently. Again and again.
These acts are small by design. They don’t ask for more time, only more attention.
Begin where you are. Miss a day. Return. This is a practice.
365 Acts of Affection: A Practice, Not a Performance
365 Acts of Affection is a daily practice — one small act each day — designed to be lived rather than performed. Grounded in the Affection Economy, these acts translate values into behaviour through presence, care, and attention. Not a challenge or a checklist, but a rhythm to return to. One moment. One act. One day at a time.
Quiet Quitting or Conscious Recalibration?
A reflection on the growing conversation around women “quietly quitting” their marriages — not as resignation, but as recalibration. Through the lens of The Affection Economy, this piece explores midlife agency, emotional labour and the quiet courage of choosing yourself.
The Little Right-Hand Turns That Lead Us Back to Ourselves
A return to therapy this week led me back to a simple truth: every small decision nudges us closer to, or further from, our values. When my therapist handed me a novel — one I never would’ve chosen myself — it opened a deeper reflection on bias, trust, lineage, and the women whose names history forgot. This piece is about those tiny right-hand turns that guide us home.
Introducing the Six Themes of ‘The Affection Economy’
What began as 30 values has evolved into 36 — grouped into six interconnected themes that mirror the rhythm of human experience. The Affection Economy is a circular framework for living, leading, and belonging with integrity, care, and courage at the centre. Each theme opens with a Sanskrit word — a breath-sized reminder that wisdom isn’t new; it’s remembered.
The Rise of the Community Leader (and the Fall of the Influencer)
The influencer model is fading. The future belongs to community leaders — those who build circles, not audiences. Here’s how the Group 7 TikTok trend proves it.
