What if building a great business mattered more than building a big one? In this episode, Jean Moncrieff shares hard-won lessons from entrepreneurship, Small Giants, and purpose-driven leadership—revealing how values, people, and intentional growth create long-term success without burnout.
🔑 Key Topics Covered
- Why chasing revenue alone leads to burnout and stalled growth
- Purpose-driven leadership vs. survival-mode entrepreneurship
- Small Giants principles: values, people-first culture, intentional growth
- How leadership growth must match business growth
- Early warning signs founders are stuck in fear, firefighting, or plateau
- Redefining success beyond profit, scale, and vanity metrics
If you’re a founder, executive, or leader feeling stuck, exhausted, or disconnected from your original mission—this conversation offers a powerful reframe: profit is the outcome, not the purpose. Flourishing starts with people, values, and leadership from the inside out.
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Transcript
Ashish Kothari:
It’s so lovely to have you, my friend, on our Flourishing Edge podcast.
Jean Moncrieff:
Ashish, great to see you. I’m so glad we actually got to pull this together and excited for today. Let’s do it.
Ashish Kothari:
You and I had a chance to meet almost three or four weeks ago now, Jean, and what a coincidence that you were here for a Small Giants event. We met and immediately realized we were singing off the same sheet of music. I’ve just loved getting to know you.
I want to start with this question. In your journey—from starting a business to running one—was there a particular moment when you realized that building a great business meant something very different than simply building a big business?
Jean Moncrieff:
I’m not sure there was one single moment, but there was a time when it was just about chasing revenue. I absolutely love the work Richard Branson does, and I think I got confused between “screw it, let’s do it” and “let’s just chase the number.”
The wake-up call came when I realized I’d built something generating around $20 million in revenue with about 200 people, and I thought it was time to sell. Then I realized it wasn’t worth what I thought it was worth. That was probably the beginning of my journey.
f different businesses around:That experience woke me up. When I started my business, I was deeply connected to purpose—making a difference in South Africa after growing up during apartheid. My best friend couldn’t ride the same bus as me, use the same toilet, or go to the beach. I committed myself to making a difference. Somewhere along the way, I lost that purpose and started chasing outputs instead. It took something to wake me up.
Ashish Kothari:
That happens to so many founders. They start with a mission and lose sight of it, chasing metrics—revenue, growth, followers—forgetting why they started.
Beyond chasing revenue, what other pitfalls or survival modes have you seen founders fall into?
Jean Moncrieff:
Leadership is the biggest one. If you’re going to grow intentionally, you need people around you who are better than you.
A friend of mine, Richard Bryan from Denver, told me a story about taking over his family business. He said he realized he was the smartest person in the boardroom—and that was the problem. Only when he became the dumbest person in the room did the business truly start to change.
Founders often try to be the center of everything. You have to build a great leadership team around you. I’ve seen businesses crash twice in my own life because of this.
I came out of school and started an internet business with no formal training. Money was being thrown at us, we were worth ridiculous amounts, and then it all collapsed. That pattern repeated later. I realized the core issue was leadership—me, or a team that couldn’t work cohesively.
Ashish Kothari:
How do you attract leaders better than you when you’re small and money is tight?
Jean Moncrieff:
Purpose attracts talent. When the mission is bigger than money, people are drawn to it.
A friend of mine built a company focused on sustainability and attracted a team that stayed even after funding ran out. People invested their own time and energy because they believed in the mission.
When you’re small, purpose is actually your advantage. Problems arise when momentum slows and you start chasing money instead of purpose.
Ashish Kothari:
Let’s talk about Small Giants. What is the core mission and why does it matter for small and medium businesses?
Jean Moncrieff:
The core purpose is to connect like-hearted leaders and help them grow as leaders. These are purpose-driven, values-led businesses deeply rooted in their communities.
They don’t chase traditional exits or hyper-scaling. They think differently—about ownership, community, and long-term impact.
iscovered Small Giants around:Ashish Kothari:
One core tenant is prioritizing purpose over growth. How do you operationalize that?
Jean Moncrieff:
Growth and profit are outputs. Purpose is the internal driver.
Paul Spiegelman described a “circle of growth”: clear purpose leads to revenue, revenue is reinvested in people, strong people build better customer relationships, which creates higher margins, which are reinvested again.
There are countless examples of this working. Businesses that put people first grow more intentionally and sustainably.
During COVID, Tom Walter of Tasty Catering shared how his team took pay cuts together to keep people employed. That commitment created innovation and loyalty. These values carry companies through downturns.
Ashish Kothari:
This resonates deeply with me. I left a 25-year career to democratize flourishing because work has become one of the biggest sources of suffering.
Many leaders are disconnected from frontline suffering—food insecurity, wage gaps, unstable schedules. There’s a cognitive dissonance between leadership decisions and human impact.
Jean Moncrieff:
It’s a leadership problem. Attrition isn’t a people problem—it’s an operating system problem.
Ashish Kothari:
Exactly. And when leaders are in survival mode, so are their businesses. The business is a projection of the founder.
If you’re exhausted, anxious, and fearful, the business will mirror that. You don’t need to look at the financials—look at how you feel.
Flourishing leaders create flourishing businesses.
Jean Moncrieff:
I completely agree. Chasing outputs without fundamentals leads to chaos. When health, relationships, and values collapse, you know something’s wrong.
Ashish Kothari:
Let’s bring this full circle. If you could advise your younger self 20 years ago, what would you say?
Jean Moncrieff:
Be more intentional. I equated entrepreneurship with freedom but wasn’t clear about what I was building.
Be true to your values. Stay curious. Learn constantly. Focus instead of chasing shiny objects.
Define success for yourself—not based on Instagram or society—and pull yourself toward that vision.
Ashish Kothari:
Beautifully said. Thank you, my friend.
Jean Moncrieff:
Thank you. I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity.
