Editor's Note: Anyone interested in creating scalable, positive social impact while conserving resources through a disciplined approach to social entrepreneurship should read The Social Entrepreneur’s Playbook. SEA Change, a social enterprise accelerator our foundation supports, uses the book's framework and "Tough Love Tests" at the end of each chapter to help participating social entrepreneurs test their ideas and validate their products.

Editor’s Note: I was surprised when I searched the 100 songs I’ve made song of the month on this website and this cut wasn’t there. It’s easily one of my favorites, all-time. Mostly it’s the music, a grand combination of relaxation and excitement. It’s been a favorite background to my work since its release in 1971. Feels like an early fusion, progression of jazz to electric rock and roll. Still, each lyric that leads to the title (noted below) has a point to remember.

Editor’s note: Sometimes I just need a lift. This book by a local newspaper writer who I’ve met and I admire qualifies. She’s also a good writer having been finalist for Pulitzer and sold millions of copies of her “God Never Blinks.” Brett’s goal seems to be to share stories she’s aware of and written about to see if one might motivate us to get off our butts and do something. I’m motivated.

Editor’s Note: I’ve been assigned by my meditation teacher to consider my "essential self." In his words, that means to try to picture who I was before I experienced the things that created my "social self”, “business self”, “family self” and the many roles we all take on to survive and prosper. In my case, I’ve gotten as far as seeing fairly clearly my six year old self, identifying how I viewed the world around me and what seemed to be characteristics that I can still identify with even after years of amending. That’s what Mayer sings about in this fairly lively tune – who he was in 1983, when he was six.

Editors Note: Heading for bed in a hotel in Austin, TX, I asked the front desk if he had any books and the young man gave me this short read about the life of Stieg Larrson, highly acclaimed author of the Millennium trilogy crime series (“The Girl With/Who”…). It is a brief and fascinating book by Larrson’s business partner about the author who died of a heart attack a month before the first of the books was published. Larrson was an extremist and his books somewhat parallel his life lived obsessively fighting right-wing extremism, anti-Semetism and neo-Nazi organizations in Sweden. If mystery interests you, as it does me, this book is a good read.

Editor’s note: There are probably many reasons this became the theme of a generation and perhaps asking my sixties friends I’d find a few more. But to me, this song always simply said to me “keep on moving.” And if you don’t know any other song by the Grateful Dead, it’s likely you’ve heard this if only because of its catchy tune. Enjoy.

Editor’s note: My friend, Glen Warner, suggested I’d like this book and I did. Since it was written in the 1920’s and the writer’s style is unique, it was a little hard to get into. But its parabolic teaching engaged me by the end. The moral of the story is typical serving something greater than our self but there’s more – the book suggests by doing so we become capable of greater achievements ourselves and that further, if we insist on confidence in our giving then the one to whom we’ve given becomes more likely to pass such “personality” on to others.

Editors note. This song by Bob Dylan was first released on The Band's first album Big Pink and has been covered by many since then. My love for it comes from listening to my son Kevin cover it at some of his gigs over the years. Enjoy a great roots rock song.

Editor’s note: I’m a little skittish about self-help books anymore, especially from an associate of “Dr. Oz” and so before reading “Wise Mind Living,” Dr. Olivo’s 200 page advice to moody people like me, I tried this little 19 pager to see what she’s like.  Everything here is known and has been written before elsewhere, as I’d suspected but it really was helpful to me to see how Olivo suggests I process my emotions, including my triggers and the after effects of the eight key areas she accounts for – six negative and two positive.  My twenty years of mindfulness practice keeps me noticing my emotions more but it will be pretty interesting to see if understanding the process helps me “name the emotion” before I let it go.  

Editors Note: My still-dear friend, John Zingg, and I played and sang this song (and many others) for spending cash in college and so it has always had a special place in my heart. But it became more when I learned recently that McCartney actually wrote it as a metaphor for the African-American struggle that was gaining ground at the time he wrote this in the late 1960s. The words now make the simple, lovely guitar even more beautiful.