The art of letter writing is something I’ve noticed leaders do very well. I’ve read two letters to shareholders in the last couple of weeks….one short, one very long. Jeff Bezos ends his final letter as CEO at Amazon in the way only he can. And Jamie Dimon has the sharpest vision I’ve seen.
Godin on Investment and Expenses.
Love and Friendship from the Center for Action and Contemplation.
Red Bird Explains Himself by Mary Oliver.
Since 1990, Fred Kofman has designed and facilitated programs on leadership, personal mastery, team learning, organizational effectiveness and coaching for thousands of executives, and consultants worldwide.
His book, Conscious Business, has been translated to more than ten languages and received numerous awards. Conscious Business was recently named by Sheryl Sandberg in her New York Times interview as “the business book every executive should read” http://nyti.ms/Z1Kory (page 2).
After completing a Ph.D. in economics from Berkeley, California, Fred taught Management Accounting and Control Systems at the Sloan School of Management where in 1992 was named “Professor of the Year”. During his time at MIT, Fred worked alongside Peter Senge as a senior researcher at the Center for Organizational Learning.
His approach to leadership has little to do with the standard practices taught in business school and traditional books. Bringing together economics and business theory, communications and conflict resolution, family counseling and mindfulness meditation, Kofman argues in The Meaning Revolution that our most deep-seated, unspoken, and universal anxiety stems from our fear that our life is being wasted–that the end of life will overtake us when our song is still unsung.
After serving as VP of Executive Development for LinkedIn from 2013-2018, Fred has recently taken his work to Google where he is now an advisor for Leadership Development.
You can stream this episode and all other episodes of Good / True / & Beautiful in iTunes or at AshtonGustafson.com.
In 2005, Shawn Askinosie left a successful career as a criminal defense lawyer to start a bean to bar chocolate factory and never looked back.
Askinosie Chocolate is a small batch, award winning chocolate factory located in Springfield, Missouri, sourcing 100% of their beans directly from farmers. The only chocolate maker working directly with cocoa farmers on four continents, Shawn travels to regions of Ecuador, the Philippines and Tanzania to source cocoa beans for his chocolate. This allows the chocolate to be traced to the source and labeled authentic single origin. It also enables Askinosie Chocolate to profit share with the farmers, giving them a “Stake In the Outcome,” a principle he learned from author/entrepreneur Jack Stack.
Recently named by Forbes “One of the 25 Best Small Companies in America”, Askinosie Chocolate has also been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, on Bloomberg, MSNBC, and numerous other national and international media outlets.
The Askinosie Chocolate mission is to serve their farmers, their neighborhood, their customers and each other, sharing the Askinosie Chocolate experience by leaving the world a better place than they found it. The company is currently sustainably feeding over 1,600 students per day in Tanzania and the Philippines, without any donations. Founded at the forefront of the American craft chocolate revolution and regarded by many as a vanguard in the industry, Askinosie Chocolate sets the standard: they are one of the few chocolate makers in the world who press their own cocoa butter (to make their chocolate truly single origin) and the only American craft chocolate maker to produce a natural cocoa powder; they were the first American craft chocolate makers to create white chocolate, as well as a chocolate hazelnut spread (says The New York Times: “one spoonful of Askinosie’s Chocolate Hazelnut Spread and all memory of Nutella is gone”).
Shawn was named by O, The Oprah Magazine “One of 15 Guys Who Are Saving the World.” They said, “Why we’re fans: The philanthropically-minded chocolate entrepreneur aims to get students thinking about business ethics in a way that could have ripple effects for generations.” For his efforts in “Advancing food standards… by creating social, economic, and environmental impact”, Shawn was awarded Top Business Leader of the Year in 2013 by the Specialty Food Association. Shawn has been awarded honorary doctorates from University of Missouri-Columbia and Missouri State University. In 2015, Askinosie Chocolate was awarded a complimentary membership to the Clinton Global Initiative for the company’s social efforts around the world. Seth Godin, entrepreneur and author, recently praised the company’s model: “[Shawn] has built a practice of creating a worthwhile luxury good that directly benefits people. Not sort of. Not a little. But directly.”
Askinosie Chocolate has received 3 Good Food Awards, considered to be the Oscars of food; 6 silver awards from the Specialty Food Association; and 7 International Chocolate Awards, including the Gold World Award for the Dark Chocolate + Licorice bar. The small team at Askinosie works directly with all of their retailers and sells their chocolate into specialty food stores, luxury boutiques, and high-end grocery chains throughout the US in nearly all fifty states and across the globe.
Shawn’s book, recently released, co-written with his daughter Lawren, published by Penguin titled “Meaningful Work: The Quest To Do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul” is an Amazon #1 New Release. Read Seth Godin’s review of the book here.
He is a Family Brother at Assumption Abbey, a Trappist monastery near Ava, Missouri and the co-founder of Lost & Found, a grief center serving children and families in Southwest Missouri.
You stream or download this conversation at AshtonGustafson.com, iTunes, and Stitcher.
Good morning.
With only 1,440 minutes available for you today, it’s best if we keep this short.
We typically are found in the realms of what is hidden and unseen.
Many call the avenues that lead to us boring and lacking with any entertainment value. Unless, of course, you understand the beauty of the human experience. If so, you’ll find our music, poems, and metaphors quite liberating.
Spamming your way to us looks like an effective approach. Trust us, it isn’t.
You won’t find us where everyone is. We hang out on the fringes where one can actually see the forest for the trees.
There’s a few things we love: seasons, humanity, sustainability, rest, connection, unity, art, friendship, and simplicity. We hope you’ll learn to love them too.
The few that have found us will always share what they feel, what they felt, and what they have found. But they won’t shout it aloud. Sharing and shouting never have danced well together. Hint…hearing starts in your eyes.
So don’t forget to ask others about us along the way.
Remember to seek beauty, flavor, meaning, love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control.
Knock on many doors and know who you are so you can answer ‘Who’s there?”.
And always onnect with contribution and consistently sow with the seeds of generosity.
We hope to see you soon.
Truly yours,
Success – Satisfaction – Fulfillment – Wonder – Awe
Contract work is being replaced with connection creation.
Logic is melting into love.
Mathematics is losing press to meaning.
Deals are becoming points of delight.
And the best…
“What’s your poem?” > “What’s your point?”
You won’t believe the name they’re going to have for the most savvy business and thought leader(s) of the future….
Human.
Ashton.Gustafson 