"You can only make money by being right about something that most people think is wrong.
Editor’s note: This is the best business book I’ve read in a year or more. Mr. Sinek uses simple, if sometimes repetitive language and tangible examples to support the concept that great businesses are centered on “why” they exist rather than “what” and “how”. Sinek teaches forming your “why” and also how to use your “what” and “how” to maintain and build that “why”. He also tells of those who found their “why” then lost it. He thinks, and I quite agree that people prefer buying from and working for organizations with a clear purpose beyond making widgets.
Editor’s Note: Alright, picture me at 19 years old still in the college angst of “what’s the meaning of my life?” The song will make more sense that way as I can still remember singing along with my friend, Bobby Jackson, on the deck of our apartment when it was playing. I’m a pure child of the 60s electronic rock and roll and as such I loved Edgar and Johnny Winter as much or more than their more famous brethren. This song features a simple, haunting keyboard and strings behind Edgar’s bluesy, pleading voice – yep I’m a sucker.
Dennis is a guy I met a few years ago. Our first work together was a failed attempt at establishing a walk-in health care center for the poor in our little town.
Editor’s Note: Because I read a lot of books and articles on philanthropy, I assumed this would be another dull but earnest attempt to improve the world of charitable giving, but Dan Palotta makes a pretty compelling case for the need to move towards a free-market system (e.g. investment in marketing, tolerance for risk, competitive pay) in order to win the war against poverty and disease. Dan will be coming to Cleveland on April 10th to the Cleveland Social Venture Partners' (CSVP) second annual bigBANG! event. Go to http://bigbang.csvp.org/ for more information.
Editor’s Note: I’m not Lennon’s biggest fan but I love the thought “nothing’s going change my world”.
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
After twenty years of thinking about it, I’m finally writing my first book.
