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 Six — Reverence (The Sacred)
Week Five of 365 Acts of Affection invites us to widen the lens — to remember that nothing begins with us. Reverence is not about ritual. It’s about attention. Week 6 of 365 Acts of Affection invites us to pause, breathe, and treat the ordinary as meaningful.
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
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
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
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.
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.
What the Network Forgot
Zoe Scaman mapped the new world order — power through infrastructure and code.
This is the companion map: one that remembers the soul beneath the system, and the quiet architecture of affection that could hold it all together.
The Affection Advantage: Why This Work Is Told in Five Acts
Affection isn’t a process; it’s a rhythm. The Affection Advantage unfolds across five Acts — Clarity, Care, Courage, Consistency, and Contribution — each mirroring the natural rhythm of transformation. This isn’t a framework to follow but a way of living and leading with heart, turning values into systems and systems back into story.
Empathy Sustains. Affection Regenerates.
Empathy sustains us through understanding, but affection takes us further. It’s the regenerative force that rebuilds trust, community, and care after empathy has done its listening. This piece explores the evolution from empathy to affection as a new way of leading, healing, and creating systems that renew rather than exhaust.
The Affection Economy: Toward a Co-Design of What Comes Next
Something’s shifting.
In just a few months, The Indian Express and Psychology Today have both written about what I call The Affection Economy — a movement I’ve been shaping for years.
Their words signal that affection, belonging, and care are no longer soft ideas. They’re becoming the strategy for a new kind of prosperity — one built on trust, reciprocity, and growth without compromise.
This piece explores how we can co-design what comes next.
Affection Isn’t Soft: Defending the Innocent Without Harm
Affection isn’t soft — it’s grit with grace.
Like the Noble Eightfold Path, it’s a compass for action: guiding us to defend humanity with courage, clarity, and compassion.
Affection Is a Cultural Shift, Not Just a Movement
Affection isn’t just a movement, it’s a cultural shift. As our old stories of growth unravel, affection offers a new way to measure meaning, connection, and belonging.
When Everything Aligns: Finding My Way Back Through Values
Three very different platforms — a national magazine, a podcast, a live stage — found me telling the same story. In each moment, I returned to a single truth: when we align with our deepest values, everything else begins to fall into place. This is what The Affection Economy looks like when it’s lived, not just written about.
Why I Chose Sanskrit to Anchor the 30 Values in The Affection Economy
Each value in The Affection Economy begins with a Sanskrit word — chosen not for effect, but to bring us home to what matters. Here’s why.
What If Business Had a Beating Heart?
What if business had a beating heart?
Jet Swain’s upcoming book The Affection Economy explores values-led leadership, conscious growth, and how affection can shift the way we live, lead, and belong — without compromising people, profit, or planet.
What We Really Mean by Affection
Affection isn’t romantic or weak — it’s a leadership choice. In this post, Jet Swain unpacks why affection is the bold foundation of a values-first future.
Welcome to The Affection Economy
A movement for those who believe business can be kind, leadership can be human, and change starts with us.
