Let’s Do Something Exciting this Year. Let’s Change the World.

A blog for business leaders who want to live a more purpose-driven life.

On this first day of 2018, I feel compelled to make a major commitment. I am blessed to be the CEO of a pretty special company; however, on a personal level there’s this voice in my head that keeps saying I have such a long way to go toward my overall goal of living a purpose-driven life!

At MegaFood our higher purpose is to nourish a world in nutritional crisis. We envision a world without nutritional poverty, a planet where everyone is truly nourished and we work hard & take bold action to ensure that vision becomes a reality in our lifetime.

I’ll have more to say about MegaFood down the road, but this blog isn’t about MegaFood or even the natural products industry of which we are a part. It’s about this motivated CEO’s journey to use business to change the world for the better. If this sounds ambitious or even egotistical, let me assure you I’m coming from a very different place. The first thing you should know about me is that I am a raging idealist. In other words, I have an unshakable belief that a better world is possible.

As an idealist, I believe big time in the power of individual initiative, but I also know I want to be a piece of a larger project that draws from the creativity and energy of many other people. I’m convinced we are living at a time when the business community, particularly through its leadership, offers the world’s best hope for improving people’s lives; be it with with healthier foods, planet-friendly practices or people-focused businesses aiming to do good. After all, businesses employ millions of people, which means that business leaders who want to effect positive change in the world have a very broad canvas for doing so.

(And let’s face it, right now politics do not offer a way to solve our problems. Politics are a “rigged” game that favors polarization at the expense of the reasonableness and compromise that are essential to getting things done to help people.)

This is why I am putting myself “out there” by using this space to write about people and for people who are using or want to use business to do much more than post profits. Who knows, if there are enough of us we might just deliver that tipping point that Malcolm Gladwell talks about — a tipping point where conscious companies truly lead the effort to solve the world’s ills.

How about you? Is there an idealist lurking somewhere inside you that wants to be heard or, perhaps, has already spoken loudly and clearly to you? Are you in?

If so, we’ve got some work to do in the coming months and years.

The beautiful thing about joining the Change the World CEO “tribe” is that there is no formula to follow. Each of the people I’ve admired over the years, including Doug Rauch, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Eric Hudson, Robbie Vitrano, Ron Shaich, Walter Robb, Nikhil Arora/Alex Velez, Steve Jobs, Bill Whyte, Sheryl Sandberg, Yvon Chouinard, Marcell Haywood, Gary Hirshberg, Sara Robb O’Hagan, Jerry Greenfield/Ben Cohen, and so many others, have been motivated to change the world by completely different things and they have gone about it in completely different ways.

As for myself, when you grow up in the South as I did, family and faith mean everything to you. I’ll never forget the time my dad, Lewis Craven, told me I could be anything I wanted in life. “If you can dream it, son, you can have it — but only if you want it bad enough,” were my dad’s exact words. These thoughts have steered me through the ups and downs of leading organizations and living my life.

So far, I’m pretty proud of what we’ve done at MegaFood. We’ve set up programs to help our staff learn how to eat better and exercise more despite the fast-paced work environment we all face every day. We provide employees with shares to local CSAs and help them buy fitness equipment to use at home as well as memberships to health and wellness centers. We pay all our employees to volunteer at non-profits that mean something to them. We are constantly seeking to improve how we serve our employees, recently adding new ‘care & concern’ and extended parental leaves. We understand that our first commitment, in terms of improving lives and the world, starts at home with our employees.

We’re also members of influential industry initiatives whose purpose is to ensure supplements are available to those in need and I truly appreciate my place in the growing Conscious Capitalism movement.

Doing all of this is incredibly exciting and rewarding on a personal level. But here’s the kicker: in a lot of ways, I feel like we at MegaFood are still just getting started. I really do.

I’m betting and hoping that you feel the same way about the organization and life that you lead: that something in your past has made you feel, no, really know that you were put on this planet for a reason and to make a difference. Maybe, you have already set about changing the world in your organization or community and want a platform on which to share your ideas and initiatives? Or, you may be a budding idealist who’s still in the pre-activation stage of change?

In either case, you and I belong to the same tribe.

I’ll have tons more to share with you in this space in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you. What are you reading, listening to and talking about with your colleagues and friends? What are you doing today that you would consider best practice that you would be willing to share? What would you like to learn more about as it relates to “how” inspirational CEOs use their positions to improve lives, communities and do big things?

I have been on a quest to learn how to become a strong Change the World CEO for many years — I am committing today that it is time to get serious about taking this to the next level. Won’t you join me?

Sincerely,

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All credit to my ghostwriting partner, Dave Moore, who is instrumental in getting my thoughts out in a coherent manner & into these blogs. Thanks Dave!