Last fall, my newly graduated daughter moved to NYC to pursue a career in acting and singing. Like many young people following this dream, they pile on jobs to support themselves like layers of long underwear and sensible sweaters from a Minnesota winter (where she was moving from). 

In no time, she cobbled together catering gigs, nannying jobs and a part-time position at Soul Cycle where she commiserated with fellow actors, singers and dancers, working for minimum wage and riding for free after their shift, while serving the elite clientele of a NYC Soul Cycle studio.  

She loved her co-workers. It was there, during the long, dark winter months, after she got up at 5 am to open at 5:30 or 6, that the staff would share audition stories once the Soul Cycle moms, celebs and devotees were checked into their classes. Once the crush of morning riders’ needs and demands were met – beyond their $42 class, $10 juice or space on the tiny rack for the pile of $1000 Canada Goose down coats –  the young women and men in their cheerful yellow t-shirts and lycra would hustle to make each rider, class, and studio community experience deliver far beyond the endorphine-driven mission of physical fitness. The company itself promises to help followers to ‘find your soul.’ Who doesn’t want that? You can almost hear Jerry Maguire whispering at the end of a sweaty, darkened studio ride, “you complete me.”  

Soul Cycle certainly delivered on it’s brand promise  to be ‘more than a workout’ last week when members and employees alike where shocked and horrified to learn that one of their investors, Stephen Ross, was hosting a Trump fund-raiser in the Hamptons for a mere $250,000 a plate. Now, coupled with the brand identity of finding their soul, the community of Soul Cycle was faced with whether or not to listen to their newly found  souls screaming, ‘Alert! Alert! Alert!’ 

It seems my daughter listened, and quit just a few days after.  The fallout from cancelled memberships and quitting employees continues. But what does this mean for Soul Cycle or other brands with values-based promises and darker underbellies of owners who don’t share those values? Does ‘eating your cake and having it too’ come to mind? Essentially, we can’t get those endorphine-loaded, true-identity, perfect brand values for no trade off. Everything we buy, and I mean everything, has a trade off. 

I was fortunate to work for some of the early adopters of genuinely progressive businesses before the mega-corporations started to buy their ‘value’ and the millions of consumers who followed them religiously. But one by one, the biggest brands in the world gobbled up these organic, fair trade, sustainable, values-based brands with the hope that you wouldn’t notice. If the Soul Cycle parable teaches us anything, it’s about the ride – where are you going, with whom, and for what? As long as you are clear, you won’t be disappointed. 

Like any brand whose followers are quick to pile on positive brand attributes and values imbued with their own identities, the Soul Cycle community got carried away. As consumers, it’s our jobs to vote with our wallets, to walk our talks whether vegan, fair trade, sustainably-sourced, LGBTQ –friendly or downright decent.  It’s a tricky world out there, and we’re all implicit in supporting things that have darker under-bellies than we realize. But when the light shines on the truth, that’s the moment that matters. Do we buy, not buy, support, endorse, patronize or walk? 

Although my daughter walked away from Soul Cycle, she will continue to  cobble gigs together, but she’ll be fine. My husband and I have worked in social impact work with brands, companies and NGOs our entire careers, so she has some knowledge. But the Trump fundraiser last week, and so many other truths that have come to light, make the knowledge easier for all of us to access, and to ask our souls, is it really worth it? I hope not.