Shann Jones is a wife, a mother and a grandmother who brings together entrepreneurship, family life and her deep love of nature to challenge conventional thinking about leadership, resilience and what it really means to build something that lasts.
Originally from the States, this former journalist and radio talk show host fell for a Welsh farmer and settled their beautiful blended family on his hillside farm overlooking the Irish Sea. A series of health issues close to home led her to discover the healing power of kefir, made from their excess goat's milk. And the rest is history.
Shann became the founder and CEO of Chuckling Goat, building the business from her kitchen table into an international award-winning natural health brand serving more than 300,000 customers.
In this episode, Shann shares the extraordinary story of building a business from nothing while raising a large blended family and the crisis that changed everything: when her husband Rich developed a life threatening MRSA infection and doctors told her there was nothing more they could do. What followed was a desperate, instinctive experiment rooted in nature rather than medicine, and a philosophy about leadership, business and living systems that she has carried ever since.
💡 "You don't need to know the whole path. You just need to take the next step. If you can take that next step, then you will learn and adapt and improvise and survive. That's the way living systems move, one tiny step at a time." - Shann Jones MBE
In this conversation, we explore:
✨ How a goat, bought on a whim to help their son's chronic illness, led to an overproduction of milk and, eventually, the accidental discovery of kefir through a chance radio programme
✨ The reality of building a business from absolute poverty, selling soap and kefir at farmers markets for cash to buy pony carrots because they could not afford the good ones
✨ The devastating moment Rich developed a life threatening MRSA infection following major surgery, and the surgeon's verdict that there was nothing more medicine could do
✨ Why Shann rejected the language of war and battle used throughout medical literature on antibiotic resistant infections, and the radical reframe that led her to think in terms of allies rather than enemies
✨ The concept of living systems, nodes, edges and emergent behaviour, and how covering Rich in kefir instead of more antibiotics became the desperate, instinctive experiment that ultimately saved his life
✨ Why Shann believes women in business need to start before they feel ready, and why no business plan could ever teach what the journey itself teaches
✨ Bringing her children and their partners into the business as it grew, building them houses on the farm, and why she considers this the single best decision they have ever made
✨ The difference between controlling a business from the top down and creating the conditions under which a team, like any living system, can become more intelligent and function without her at the centre
✨ The concept of the map gap, the widening distance between the map we make of reality and reality itself, and why we so often defend our maps rather than updating them
✨ Why living systems, whether a coral reef, the internet, a family or a business, never argue with a slug, and what that teaches us about working with reality rather than against it
About the Guest:
Shann Jones MBE is the founder and CEO of Chuckling Goat, an international award-winning natural health brand serving over 300,000 customers worldwide. Combining cutting-edge microbiome science with practical, compassionate leadership, she has built her business from a kitchen table into a thriving family enterprise run alongside her husband, children and their partners on their farm overlooking the Irish Sea. She is the author of several books on health and wellbeing and is currently writing The CEO in the Garden. Shann is a wife, mother and grandmother whose life, by her own account, truly began after forty.
You can connect with Shann on LinkedIn and find out everything you need to know about kefir and gut health on the Chuckling Goat website.
About The Host:
I’m Victoria Phipps – a Mum of two, analogue family photographer, personal brand photographer, educator, charity co-founder, marketer and now podcaster! 🎙️
I was raised by a nurturing Mother and an entrepreneurial Father and have inherited traits from both, so the tension between ambition and motherhood is one I grapple with on a daily basis!
I’m fascinated to hear the stories of other women on a similar path, who are striving to build thriving businesses whilst being present for their children. It's a tough juggle, but I hope the conversations shared on this podcast help Mums in business feel less alone and inspired to keep going in pursuit of their dreams.
Head to the Mum Means Business Podcast website for full show notes.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics discussed in this conversation, so please do let me know on Instagram where I'm @victoriaphippsmbe or @mummeansbusinesspodcast.
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