Editor’s note: This article is not only important because it represents good research, but also because it gets to (what we’ve learned) is the heart of the matter. The disconnect between private enterprise and social enterprise is the lack of acceptance that a few years of losses inevitably precedes any real success or sustainability. It is anathema to me that business people don’t apply the same rules to social innovation that we do to our own businesses. That is, that to gain one must lose…for a while.
Editor’s note: As so many of the Brothers songs, the words to this song moved me to making it the last quote in my book, Empty Abundance. See favorite lyrics to read the “almost” final words from the book.
Editor’s note: Part of the research for my own book is to buy any book that promises to discuss life’s “meaning.” Learning other perspectives and avoiding repetition is my goal. The first chapter alone, where Lamott asks and provides her answers to life’s eternal question make the book worth reading. The book’s overall premise is that our lives are the quilt stitched together from our experiences, including such catastrophes as her designer curtains being ripped to shreds by her dog, then stitched back together by her friend. Humor and depth is a hard combination to achieve and this woman has it. It is a short and easy (if not, light) read and I recommend to all searchers.
My involvement in the foundation’s for-profit businesses is now “from a distance.” And I’m amazed by what that distance lends for perspective I can use to help my partners and the people they manage. The quality of my input seems better.
Editor’s note: Thanks to Vistage Chair Artie Isaac for pointing me toward the concept of “polarities.” I’ve spent a life stumped trying to “solve” them and research proves I’m on the wrong track. Dr. Johnson gets a little abstract for me but the fundamental points made are real eye-openers for me. He connects things that have confused me eternally in a manner I can mostly understand. He also reassures me that in business, just as in life the right thing to do is also the most successful for all involved.
Editor’s Note: Another gift from my lovely daughter, this song is easy to listen to and also makes a good point. It’s especially poignant for she and I who are often “lost in our minds.”
Editor’s Note: I’ve been a Godin fan since “Permission Marketing” which was published many years ago as I was ramping a permission marketing business. Another favorite is “Purple Cow” but anything Seth writes, including his blog is usually very good. In “The Dip,” Seth takes on the idea that it can be smart to power through tough times as you master something, but smart people also choose when to quit on certain things. Cool idea, a little off center and yet lots of common sense which is back to why I admire Seth.
“All empty souls tend to extreme opinion. It is only in those who have built up a rich world of memories and habits of thought that extreme opinions affront the sense of probability.”
In pondering what lessons I’ve learned in 2013, it became clear to me –once again– that solutions to complex problems are frequently simple. Although I have discovered this many times in my life and career, it seems I rarely remember this fact until pain presides. And yet consider: many truths seem counter intuitive:
