0:00:03 Amanda Stassen: Welcome to Purpose Power Brand, a podcast for leaders and brands transforming business into a force for good. I’m Amanda Stassen, business and brand strategist, entrepreneur and founder of BIZU Innovation Group. I’m speaking with leaders who are proving that not only does purpose drive profit, but the future of our world depends on it. If you want to outperform your market, grow your customers, build your employee culture, or attract investors, you’re going to want to lean in.

0:00:27 Amanda Stassen: Welcome everyone. Today I have the pleasure to be speaking with writer and author Esha Chhabra. Esha is a regular contributor to the Guardian, New York Times, Fast Company, Forbes, and many, many other publications. She’s also been awarded multiple grants from the Pulitzer center as well as the UN foundation. And today she’s going to talk with us about her latest book, working to restore harnessing the power of regenerative business to heal the world.

0:00:52 Amanda Stassen: Esha, welcome to the Purpose Power brand podcast. I’ve been absolutely loving reading, Working to Restore, and I’m super thrilled to have the opportunity to unpack the ideas and learnings with you today.

0:01:04 Esha Chhabra: It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

0:01:07 Amanda Stassen: Awesome. So before we dive in, I have to ask you, because I ask everyone who’s a guest, share in one word what best describes the purpose that powers you and the work you do. So was there a greater why that inspired and motivated you to write the book, for example?

0:01:26 Esha Chhabra: I mean, the word that I think about a lot in life is just empathy. And I think it drives so much of what I’ve done with my career and what I’ve done with this book. It’s really about helping people see different perspectives. I mean, that’s your job as journalist, but also to get the human stories out there, which is why we can talk about this further. But the book really is a series of stories and a series of case studies of entrepreneurs and businesses.

0:01:54 Esha Chhabra: And it’s not so much so theory and jargon, for the lack of a better word. It’s really meant to be easy to read and accessible. I mean, I want somebody who’s a young person at 16 and thinking about their career in college to read it and feel like, oh, look what I can do, but also somebody who works at a corporate company can dive in and find inspiration there. So it’s really meant to be an accessible read in that way.

0:02:22 Amanda Stassen: Yeah, I love that. And empathy is so important when you’re dealing with anything related to human beings. I mean, it actually brings me to this thought that I was having, like, in the dedication of your book, you wrote something; I’m someone who actually reads the dedications.

0:02:40 Esha Chhabra: God bless you, somebody does.

0:02:43 Amanda Stassen: I know. I just love it because I feel like that’s a place where the author kind of writes something that is so personal to them. Not to say that the whole book isn’t personal, but the dedication just often comes across at a different level. And you wrote something that I just absolutely love and I feel is so true. You wrote, “betterment is a process, an intentional act, that no one solution will be perfect for the challenges we face.” And I love it for two reasons.

0:03:11 Amanda Stassen: One, because making anything better isn’t a magical thing. It’s often a real intentionality, and it’s often small little actions that take time, and that really goes for just about anything in life. And then the second reason why I love it is that there really isn’t any silver bullet that’s going to fix all of the world’s problems. I’d love for you to elaborate more on this sentiment, why you wrote it. And is this something that you’ve found that business leaders today struggle with?

0:03:43 Esha Chhabra: Absolutely. I mean, I’ve been covering this space for about a decade now, and the language around it has evolved. Right? It’s gone from social entrepreneurship to corporate social responsibility to sustainability, and now to regenerative. And it’s a process. It’s a journey. We started with the models that were like, one for one, you buy a pair, we’ll donate. You buy a pair of socks, we’ll donate, that kind of thing.

0:04:09 Esha Chhabra: And now there’s a deeper understanding that perhaps that model doesn’t go far enough. And we need to dig deeper into our materials, our supply chain, everything. So it’s clearly an evolution, I mean, it’s an evolution for the business community to also understand their role in society, and now that we’re seeing the clear impact that it does have, not just on the environment, but also on people, there’s definitely far more awareness and realization that this is something that needs to be done, and it’s not going to happen overnight.

0:04:39 Esha Chhabra: The innovations are not there yet, sadly, in a lot of industries. So whether you’re looking at fuel for aviation or even cars, or you’re looking at packaging solutions to move away from plastics, some of these industries are going to need more years of R&D to figure out better solutions. So it’s certainly a process. And I think the key is, if you talk to all of these entrepreneurs, is that are you willing to go on that journey? Because you will never have the complete answer.

0:05:09 Esha Chhabra: But if you’re willing to go on that journey and like genuinely be authentic to it. Really do think about your business, as not just a marketing tool, but this is something you really want to achieve, then I think it’s very much so commendable, and I think it’s needed that we all are honest about this journey.

0:05:28 Amanda Stassen: Yeah, and it really is a journey because there isn’t a start and end point for it. It’s like this continuous improvement, it’s this continuous quest for this betterment. And it kind of makes me want to ask about, was there like a catalyst or some genesis point for you writing this book? Or was it more just it was time to bring all of this learning together. Did you have a thesis going in?

0:05:58 Esha Chhabra: My thesis was actually to showcase these stories and make it easier for people to have examples that they can reference. I’d been doing this for ten years by the time I started writing this book. And in that space, I hadn’t really seen a book like this for the business sector. I’d seen a lot of books that were written by entrepreneurs themselves. I’d seen a lot of books that were written by policy folks and think tank folks, but I hadn’t seen something that was really written with a journalistic lens of here’s 20, 30 some companies, and they’re across industries, across the world, so you can draw from them no matter where you are, no matter what you’re working on, really.

0:06:39 Esha Chhabra: So that was the idea of the book. And then obviously the UN Sustainable Development goals have been a framework for much of this space. And so to show how you can hit multiple goals through businesses was another starting place. And that’s why the book is categorized into themes. So you have soil, you have fashion, you have plastics, you have health, finance, all of these things which do go back to those goals.

0:07:06 Amanda Stassen: And I actually, I love the way you describe business as a powerhouse that can steer the economy, consumer behavior, as well as impact the planet. But there was a time when we all looked to governments in nations to impact change in a society, but now people are looking more and more to business. From what you’ve learned over the last decade, when did this start to shift, in your opinion and why?

0:07:34 Esha Chhabra: I mean, I think, look, all three sectors are needed. It’s not as if one can sort of figure out all these answers on its own, but also we’ve seen since the 80’s and 90’s, this real rise in corporate structures, in corporate brands and in the consumerism that goes along with them. And so that I think has really now put business in people’s homes, in their closets, in front of them in a daily way, that’s different.

0:08:06 Esha Chhabra: America was really, for a long time, yes, there were always monopolies in America in certain industries, but it was a country that was really run by small businesses, too. And in the last 30, 40 years, we’ve really seen these corporate structures just grow globally. Globalization has contributed to that as well. And so business has become more and more powerful. I think the other thing is that we have, as individuals, started consuming more and more, and so you are interacting with these companies, maybe more so than you were 30, 40 years ago.

0:08:44 Esha Chhabra: So there’s a variety of kind of factors at play. And globalization has made supply chains, just, like what it says, global. And so the impact is now far reaching. It’s not about buying a cotton t shirt that was made in the united states using, you know, cotton from America, it’s grown in the south. It’s now a full global production. And so what are the implications of that? So there’s been the death of industries in the US as well, as a result. And so now you’re seeing that, okay, if we’re going to buy this for a fraction of the cost, where is it coming from? How is it being made? And what is the impact of all of that? So the way business has operated basically has also shifted in a far more global way.

0:09:33 Amanda Stassen: And you describe the businesses that you talk about in the book, in these case studies, as wanting to rewrite the rules of doing business. Dive into that a little bit more for me. What would you say is the biggest difference between these business entrepreneurs that you highlight in the book and say traditional entrepreneurs?

0:09:55 Esha Chhabra: They’re starting with a question of, what am I here to solve? I think that’s the biggest difference. They’re not starting with a question of, how do I sell you another pair of jeans or another candy bar or a cup of coffee, or whatever it is that you’re trying to sell - it could be a financial tool. It’s really a question of, what am I trying to solve? And their vehicle might be a consumer product or a service, but their goal and their ambition is really to create environmental or social impact. So, to give you an example, one of the companies featured in the book is Veja, a popular sneaker company that started in Paris over 20 years ago now, or I think just about 20 years ago now.

0:10:33 Esha Chhabra: And they started with the intention of, how do we regenerate forests in the Amazon? How do we regenerate soils in Brazil? How do we employ people that are considered unemployable? How do we challenge the fashion industry by manufacturing everything in one country, which wasn’t happening, especially in sneakers. So their goals were far bigger. The tool to do that was fashion. And interestingly enough, the two founders didn’t come from a fashion background. They didn’t necessarily have that expertise, but they saw that there was an alternative model and they wanted to go off of that.

0:11:09 Esha Chhabra: So their intention was very different. I think that’s the difference with a lot of these regenerative businesses. And so the question that I often get is, can a large global company become regenerative, or is this really more for medium sized companies who are designing from the get go with regenerative in mind? I think the global companies can adopt some of these frameworks and mindsets, for sure. And now you’re beginning to see some of these companies use this language and pursue these projects.

0:11:41 Esha Chhabra: But it’s much harder transition for them because they didn’t start with the intention of how do we create environmental and social impact for the good. They started with a question of how do we maximize profit, which is very different.

0:11:54 Amanda Stassen: Yeah, it’s interesting that you say that, because a lot of the work that we do focuses on this notion of what problem are you solving and for who? And often times that problem is described as, well, we want to cut cost here, or we want to make a little bit more money, to your point. But there are challenges that are being posed in big corporate brand circles that are things like, what real problem are you solving for the customer that you say you care about?

0:12:32 Amanda Stassen: Is there a need that you’re filling? And what you’re challenging is, well, what’s even the bigger challenge that you are tackling with this work that you’re doing? So it’s not just about creating that cup of coffee that tastes better or has adaptogens in it, Right, because now you’re solving a problem for the customer of maybe wakefulness or whatever. So that’s a real problem for them, but can you solve a greater problem for the world around you?

0:13:03 Amanda Stassen: Can you look broader to have a bigger impact to the bigger problems that the world is facing? So I think what the book is really challenging is; most businesses are businesses because they solve a problem. If they don’t solve a problem, they wouldn’t have a business. That’s just a fact. That’s just the economy, the economics of the thing. But what I think you’re challenging is, can you do better? Can you do good? Can you actually solve some of the things that the world is struggling with and use your profits in a different way?

0:13:38 Esha Chhabra: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Even if you go off of this example of the coffee, right. So if you want a better coffee, like a better tasting coffee, and you want to be sure that you’re going to have a coffee supply chain ten years from now, 20 years from now, you have to invest in the farmers. Like they’re the reason why you have that coffee cup, right. And so sometimes, are we focusing maybe too much on the consumer? Perhaps. We need to also think about what issues are you addressing and solving for the greater good.

0:14:09 Esha Chhabra: Is that simply a moral obligation? Yes and no. I mean, as a business, you are also interacting with people in your supply chain. You’re also interacting with environmental resources. You’re interacting with the natural world and with the humans that are involved in that. So it’s also a part of business practice as to how you do business with them. Do you want to have good business practices or do you want to have exploitative business practices to get to that great cup of coffee?

0:14:39 Esha Chhabra: And I don’t think businesses today can avoid this anymore. The kind of connected world that we live in, the scrutiny is far higher, the demand is much more coming from different angles, whether it’s consumers, media, social media, industry, and now regulation, which is coming up.

0:14:58 Amanda Stassen: Yeah. And it makes me think of how even the business model and calculating, how do you calculate profit is being challenged, because there are so many things that go into, as you were describing, things like the supply chain, but even natural resources that we don’t necessarily pay for, they don’t have a place on the calculation of the cost of goods that you almost ignore them. I did a podcast that talked about honey and honey production.

0:15:35 Amanda Stassen: Well, there isn’t a direct payment that’s being made to these bees who are creating this honey, or what about the soil or the earth? But if there was a way to factor in that cost that is just not, we just take for granted, would we think about it differently? Would it be a different lens that we’d start to appreciate all the elements of the creation of the product or the service that we’re doing in a different way that might have us considering what real profit is?

0:16:07 Amanda Stassen: It definitely makes me wonder.

0:16:08 Esha Chhabra: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, several of the companies that I have interviewed, especially in the food and fiber space, because you’re very much so connected to what you’re using. They’ve said this for many, many years. Right. So even the fair trade prices, even the organic prices, any kind of certification you want to use. Many of the companies feel like the certifications are a good starting place, but they’re not the end all, be all when it comes to determining the cost of a product, because there are so many negative externalities. And what we’ve done is we’ve focused more on how do we get products cheaply, that we’ve ignored these externalities for many, many years. And so now we’re at a point where we’re seeing the impact of that.

0:16:54 Esha Chhabra: And if you want to shift the needle, the hard thing is that we do have consumers that are very used to inexpensive prices for fashion, for food. And how do you shift that mindset so that somebody is ready to pay a little bit more? That said, there are companies that are doing regenerative organic cotton, regenerative organic coffee, all of these things. It’s not that big of a price difference, frankly. Yes, there is a little bit of a premium for the raw material, but it’s also a question of where do you want to put your money as a company.

0:17:31 Esha Chhabra: So, for example, with Veja, they pay, I forget what the exact amount is, but I want to say four or five times the usual prices, the market prices for their raw materials. And they’ve decided as a company early on that they were not going to spend a lot of money on marketing. So traditionally, sneaker companies would always have a budget to spend loads of money on athletes or fashion people, influencers to wear their shoes.

0:17:57 Esha Chhabra: Instead, they decided as a company that, look, we’re going to put that money back into the supply chain. So yes, the materials will cost a little more, but we will feel better about the product that we’re producing. And we’re building long term relationships with these communities. So we want them to be engaged with us and actually doing the work at the grassroots level. It’s also then basically, where do you want to prioritize your funds?

0:18:21 Esha Chhabra: And in the book, there’s a chapter where I look at, not necessarily like CEO compensation, but I look at models of employee ownership, and it starts to ask this question of - companies oftentimes do have enough money, but the money is being sent to a select few, which is typically at the top, and can we shift some of that money around, and therefore there would be more money to pay for other things. And so some companies, they’ve been doing this since the 80’s, 90’s, perhaps even earlier, saying that the person at the top is only going to make five x what the person at the lowest rung is making.

0:19:04 Esha Chhabra: They’ve created these guidelines to keep all of this in check. So when people say, oh, it’s expensive, but we can’t afford to do this sometimes, but sometimes I would also say it’s a question of where do your priorities lie.

0:19:20 Amanda Stassen: Yeah. And how are you thinking about your business holistically? When I think about the way that you’ve laid out the book, as you mentioned, it dives into sort of these stories. It’s a very storytelling case study approach, and there’s the nine categories - soil, waste, supply chains, workforce, women, travel, health, energy, and finance. And I just want to take a minute and dive into a couple of maybe specific businesses.

0:19:50 Amanda Stassen: Of the nine categories, was there one that you were the most surprised by in terms of their level of innovation advancement? You started off by saying, we don’t have the innovations, that we’re not really there yet, but was there one category that stood apart for you where advancements have been made that have been greater in terms of how they’re reinventing business in that space? And then could you share an example of a business from that area?

0:20:20 Esha Chhabra: Yeah, absolutely. There’s some industries where the innovations are not there yet, but there’s certain industries where people have been doing this long before it was trendy and long before it was a buzz word. Even social entrepreneurship was a buzz word. And so it’s not that it hasn’t been done. I think one chapter that’s interesting is healthcare, and sometimes it doesn’t get, I feel like as much. You know, there’s an example in the book there of a well known case study. If you have studied social entrepreneurship or if you have spent time in this field, you’ll have heard of them. It’s called Aravind eye care, and they’re a healthcare company out of India.

0:21:02 Esha Chhabra: And the model is, how do we do low cost healthcare? How do we bring the cost down so that more people can be treated? And their specific issue is eye related. So cataracts is primarily what they’re working on. But the gentleman who started that, he started that when he was in his late fifty’s, I believe, or early sixty’s, and he’d been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and it was affecting even his wrists and his hands and his arms. And so he had resigned from work, he’d retired from work, but he decided that he would set up in a schoolhouse, like a community kind of school, this eye camp that people could come to and get eye treatments for free of cost. And when he did it a few times for free, he realized, gosh, the need was there to help so many people, but how are we going to be able to afford this? And he came up with a cost shifting model so when you go into Aravind eye care centers in India, and there’s multiple ones now, they have three different price points. I mean, they’re not going to turn anybody away. So if you don’t make any money and you can’t afford anything, they will see you.

0:22:09 Esha Chhabra: But they perhaps might put you in a room with 30 or 40 other people while you’re recovering, right? You won’t get your own bed and all of that. But then they have a middle of the tier and then they have a higher end. And even the higher end is not like luxury or anything, but that allows for people at the very bottom to be seen and treated, and also the way they’ve innovated with their doctors going in and tending to each patient in smaller increments of time. So the nurses do a lot of prep, and the doctors therefore only need to spend perhaps 10 to 20 minutes with a patient, and they just do the procedure that’s needed.

0:22:48 Esha Chhabra: That cuts down on the doctor time, which means it cuts down on the doctor’s cost as well. For an organization, these are small, interesting innovations as to how to run an organization more efficiently. It’s a very lean operation, there are fewer frills, but it shows that you can serve a large number of people with decent, quality health care, and I would say good quality health care for the particular issue.

0:23:17 Esha Chhabra: They’ve tried to bring that model, I think, in the past to the US, and it hasn’t happened. And is the reason for that simply our healthcare system and the regulations and all of that that are involved that prohibit this from happening. But models like that exist. And in healthcare, you actually find a lot of interesting examples of innovations with low cost prosthetics that are made for a fraction of the price of what it would cost here in the US.

0:23:45 Esha Chhabra: Then there’s also an example of a doctor in that chapter that I love that is based here in the US. She started her program in Pennsylvania, where she was seeing patients who had diabetes, predominantly type two diabetes. And yes, she could have put them on medication immediately, but she also started a food pharmacy at the hospital and said, how can we get them healthy foods and change their lifestyle and reduce their dependence on meds?

0:24:15 Esha Chhabra: You don’t want to demean the ideas in the sense that they’re not rocket science, but at the same time, they’re clever solutions that do exist out there. The innovations are out there. It’s a matter of, is there a will and desire at the top of the organization to implement it, to give it the financial support it needs, perhaps in the beginning especially, and help execute and pilot these programs.

0:24:41 Amanda Stassen: I love that you use those specific examples, because often when people think about innovation, they think about some sexy technology. But often the best innovation is the common sense betterment of something. It’s a way to do things that is ingenious because it was staring you right in the face the whole time and you didn’t need an app for it. I think we’ve gotten used to thinking that innovation is just some Silicon Valley app or technology that someone is going to create in a lab, versus this simple idea of how to distribute medicines to remote villages.

0:25:26 Amanda Stassen: And realizing that this is a different example that I often use in innovation workshops, and realize that the best distribution that’s in these african villages happens to be the coke distributors, and actually piggybacking on those to get the medicine to the villages, that’s not a technological app, that’s observing. That’s the empathy that you started out by describing as your word, that is your purpose, that drives you. Empathy and just even observing how people do things is becoming, I would have to say, like a lost art.

0:26:02 Amanda Stassen: Just watching how do people do things? What is it that they’re doing, and how can we make what they’re doing better, is a really simple, common sense approach to innovation that I think is overlooked many times by brands and businesses.

0:26:17 Esha Chhabra: Correct. It’s empathy. It’s giving it time. It’s also spending a lot of time in these communities so you understand what life is like and what day to day needs are like. That was the criticism when I came out. I went to Georgetown for undergrad and graduated in 2007. And I remember at the time, there was a lot of buzz around global development. And one of the major criticisms that I kept hearing from those in the industry was that you would get these great ideas that would come from startups or well intentioned graduate students, but they were often in the US, and then they were going to India or Africa, South America, and they were trying to implement them in communities where it didn’t know, or it was some kind of basic cultural perhaps, or gender based issue that they just hadn’t thought about.

0:27:10 Esha Chhabra: So I think having empathy, spending a lot of time in these communities, engaging with people who live and breathe this stuff daily, and that’s where it’s not a quick fix. You can’t sort of conjure this up in a boardroom and then say, go implement. You have to really invest time and energy in it. And the people who do that often do succeed. It just takes time, I think in the book, in the finance chapter, there’s an investor that talks about even, like, flyover investing. You know, in Africa, there was this trend for a while of people coming in and shooting in know, dropping loads of money. And then did that really result in the kind of impact that they had hoped for? Perhaps not.

0:27:54 Amanda Stassen: Yeah, exactly. One of my favorite case studies, actually, is in your supply chain section, and it’s about the company, Seven Virtues. And they’re not just my favorite, because they’re a canadian perfume company, but that’s a shout out to canadian innovators, which is awesome. But I loved it because it speaks to an entrepreneur taking on seriously big challenges. And one of the lines that really jumped out at me from that story was this idea of using ‘business as a pathway to peace’ as retail activism. It was described as.

0:28:30 Amanda Stassen: I was hoping that you might talk about that for a little bit.

0:28:33 Esha Chhabra: Yeah, I mean, Barb is just. The founder of seven virtues is just an incredible woman, just force of nature. I think it takes somebody like her with so much energy and enthusiasm and empathy also to do this. Her concept as a company came about from having seen one of her friends serve in Afghanistan and understand the issues in Afghanistan that were happening at the time when the war was raging at its peak. And there’s so many farmers that were looking for supply chains to sell their raw materials. And if they didn’t get those opportunities, it was more lucrative or it was more enticing to grow opium.

0:29:17 Esha Chhabra: And so she said, can we create a supply chain for some of these farmers? And they did that with a couple of the ingredients. The orange blossoms, if I remember correctly, were one of their hero products. And it’s also an example, like in full transparency, that got all of these ideas will perhaps pan out, and there will be times that it will be very difficult. And Barb is now very open to talking about it, is that when the Taliban did take over in Afghanistan recently, it’s affected their supply chain, and it’s affected their ability to source those ingredients. So they’ve done whatever they can to support those farmers.

0:30:01 Esha Chhabra: But there may come a time when, as a business, where you say, okay, this is not working, but for ten years, she was able to source those ingredients and support those farmers and give them more of a livelihood that they would have had otherwise. That’s her specific case. And then she took that idea and also implemented it with communities around the world that were growing essential oils or other ingredients that could go into fragrance.

0:30:32 Esha Chhabra: It’s a really difficult thing to do business in a conflict zone. I think anybody who’s tried can talk about more things that have gone wrong than right. There’s a chocolate company up in the Pacific Northwest in Seattle called Theo’s chocolate, and they were sourcing chocolate. This was a long time ago from the Congo. And I remember talking to the founder about that, and he, you know, said just the logistics of getting this out of there is difficult.

0:30:59 Esha Chhabra: So it is a risk when you decide to do work in a conflict zone, and it may or may not pan out. But the fact that you’re saying that, you know what - We’re going to invest in these communities because they really do need us. There’s another company that’s not in the book, but it has a very similar story, like 7 virtues. It’s called Rumi Spice, and it was actually started by three american veterans who served in the war.

0:31:24 Esha Chhabra: And they felt like, how do we give back to the afghan people? And so they sourced spices. They started with saffron, and now they’ve expanded to cumin and others. But it’s being used in restaurants in the United States. It’s being sold directly to customers. You can go on their website and buy it, but it’s, again, an Afghanistan based supply chain, and they’re continuing to work there despite the regime change.

0:31:50 Esha Chhabra: So if you’re willing to take a risk and you’re willing to be in it for the long haul, you can pursue some of these ideas.

0:31:59 Amanda Stassen: If you have the passion, if you have the heart, but more importantly, if you have the purpose that drives you, if you have a real reason for why you’re building this business, it really speaks to the fact that human beings want to solve problems. They want to help one another. And so I love that these stories are not just practical, they’re also inspiring. I’m so sad we’re almost at the end of our time together, Esha. But I’ve absolutely loved listening and learning from you.

0:32:32 Amanda Stassen: Before I let you go, I want you to share with our listeners two practical, purpose led tips that they can apply today to grow their business or brand. What two tips would you share?

0:32:45 Esha Chhabra: Oh, gosh. How do we distill it down to two tips? I would say one of the things is that carbon offsetting has become really trendy, and a lot of companies have pursued carbon credits. I would say before you go down the road of carbon offsetting, consider carbon insetting, especially if you do have a supply chain where it could be relevant. And honestly, now it’s far more expansive, whether you’re working with farms, you’re working with places that have any kind of deforestation or need of rebuilding wildlife and systems around that, even marine life, all of it. So I would say, look at carbon insetting before you turn to carbon offsetting.

0:33:27 Esha Chhabra: And the second thing I would say is, really spend a lot of time on your workplace culture. I mean, it’s not something we talked about as much, but many of the entrepreneurs that I interviewed who have been doing this for more than 10-15 years, they said that they have lower turnover because people at work feel fulfilled on various levels. They’re working towards something that they feel like is having a positive impact on the planet. But also because when you’re building a regenerative business, you’re not just thinking about your supply chain, but you’re also thinking about your people at the headquarters.

0:34:03 Esha Chhabra: They feel like they’re looked after. And that is an important thing because HR is hard. People will tell you in business that finding good people and keeping them around is so important and integral to the success of a company. So I would say really invest in the people that you are employing. And there’s various ways you can do that, obviously, from four day work weeks to providing really good parental care, to just asking them what their needs are, to having unlimited time off or flexible time off.

0:34:39 Esha Chhabra: But I think all of that has a payback that sometimes you don’t see immediately. But it does result in an ROI, so to say, sometimes many years down the road.

0:34:51 Amanda Stassen: Yeah, absolutely. No, we didn’t get a chance to dive into sort of the impact of creating a culture where you are more involved in stakeholders than you are in the shareholders and what that actually means. But you’re so right. And it actually makes me think of even the way you ended the book, which, considering that I started this podcast by quoting you on the dedication, it only makes sense for me to kind of round things up and take it to the last paragraph.

0:35:22 Amanda Stassen: But it’s so poignant and it’s so true because it really talks about that. You said you cannot take the riches with you, whether it’s in the thousands, millions or billions, but individuals and businesses can create a legacy of restoration, respect and dignity for the people who worked in them and for the earth’s environment, which enables it all. And it’s so well said, it’s so true, and it’s so in contrast with what we probably have all grown up with, Milton Friedman’s theory that the responsibility of business is to increase shareholder profits.

0:35:56 Amanda Stassen: And I think the big takeaway from me in your book is, yes, we know that in order for businesses to survive, they do need to have profit. The question is how much profit is enough, and can the profits be channeled differently, and how can we create a legacy that sows into people’s lives? So I absolutely love it. I love this book. So where can people find and connect with you or buy ‘Working to restore’.

0:36:26 Amanda Stassen: What media handles do you have?

0:36:29 Esha Chhabra: Sure. So working to restore. Thank you for that. I mean, this question of how much is enough is the big takeaway from the book, to be honest. You ask yourself that personally, but you also ask yourself that as a business leader. The book is available through the usual channels. So if you are in North America, you can get it through bookshop, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, of course, and it’s available globally. So you can certainly find it. If you have difficulty finding it in your region, send me a note. Find me on LinkedIn. Send me a note. We’ll figure out how to get it to you. But it is available globally. It’s also been released by Penguin India in India, so it’s very widely available there in South Asia as well.

0:37:07 Esha Chhabra: And you can find me on Instagram. My Instagram handle is eshatravels and my LinkedIn profile, those are the two that I’m usually pretty responsive on. And of course, you can just google my name and I’ve got a website. There’s also a paperback edition that’ll be out next year. So if you’re looking for something a little bit more affordable, it’ll be out in paperback next. I mean, I hope that people who read it do drop me a note. It’s so nice to hear from people what they think of it, because as authors, as writers, we’re often sitting behind a computer for many months writing it by ourselves. And so it’s fun to hear what people make of it and if they find it helpful.

0:37:49 Amanda Stassen: Well, I for one, found it very inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing your work, your learnings, and your passion. I do believe the book ‘working to restore’ is inspiring and so, so important for today’s day and age that we live in. Thank you for living your purpose, Esha. The world is made better because of you and the work you’re doing. Thank you again.

0:38:14 Esha Chhabra: That’s very kind of you. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me on.

0:38:20 Amanda Stassen: Hey, thanks for listening to the Purpose power brand podcast. I’m Amanda Stassen. If you liked what you heard, be sure to share and subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We’d also love to hear what resonated with you or if you have a guest suggestion, drop us a line at Info at Bizu Co. Special thanks to Mark Salam for original music and lead podcasting for production. Lastly, if you’re ready to purpose power your brand to grow, win, and impact at scale, let’s talk.

0:38:46 Amanda Stassen: Visit www.bizu.co. That’s www.bizu.co. Bye for now.