1 hour 12 minute listen
Portsmouth, NH
On the latest episode of the Positive Enterprise Podcast my guest is Adeline Druart. Adeline is the President of Vermont Creamery, which is a part of the Land O'Lakes group of companies. Adeline has a fascinating story! After graduating from university in France, she came to Vermont Creamery as an intern, met the love of her life—both in her personal life and, actually I would say, in her professional life as well—and over time went from an employee at Vermont Creamery in the plant, to head of Operations, and ultimately President and Chief Executive Officer. What a story!
Listen to the interview here:
What I am Reading / Listening to
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (2014)
By Greg McKeown
Do you think of life as an accretion (of activities, relationships, and stuff); or as an unfoldment where new potential is revealed when you intentionally discard or take away?
In 2014, my friend and partner Rob MacLeod gave me an early copy of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. I liked this book in 2014 (with my usual highlights and notes), but by the fall of 2020 in the midst of the government mandated Quarantine, I loved it.
“Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.”
In our current mass culture of “Busy-Ness” and so-called multi-tasking (more precisely “rapid-switching” of attention or consciousness), I feel like this book won’t be for everyone. It’s easier to conform to the mass popular culture which this book definitely doesn’t represent.
At Bigelow, we held a “Bigelow Scholarship Night” about this book in the Fall of 2020 and made the decision to adopt the theme of Essentialism as our professional Strategic Focus for 2021. It’s working, I think.
Essentialism author Greg McKeown is the featured speaker for our Bigelow Connecters annual forum this month at the Portsmouth Music Hall. We will have a question and answer session with him which we will record and drop in the form of a podcast. We look forward to sharing that with you in a future PEV blog post.
Bigelow Connectors is an invitation-only community of expert advisors to Entrepreneur Owner-Managers.
Entrepreneur Owner-Manager Quote
“We trusted Bigelow with our life’s work, and it was trust well placed. This could not have happened without your guidance, support and understanding of both of us. We are most appreciative, not only from a business point of view, but also from a personal point of view, to have Bigelow with us as we cross this milestone in our lives.”
-Deb Grass, Former Owner of Astroseal Products Mfg. Corporation
