As I was starting my business, I read a small Ken Blanchard and Norman Vincent Peale book titled The Power of Ethical Management. The lesson I remember most from the book is to treat each associate as if they are a bank account, that is, to consider each interaction with that other person as either a deposit or a withdrawal.

So if you have ever thought to yourself – if I only had the resources, I would [do this great thing] to change the world for the better – now is your chance to unleash your entrepreneurial spirit and do as Gandhi said, “Be the change you hope to see in the world.”

“Life is difficult.” This was the first sentence of Scott Peck’s seminal book, “The Road Less Travelled.” Dr. Peck had not come up with a great revelation.

The malapropism used in the headline is courtesy of my brother, Terry, who uses hundreds of such phrases to keep himself entertained and throw his siblings and friends off their boring centers. Thanks, Terry.

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.

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:

When I would tell my Mom that “my friends are doing it,” she would say “If your friends all jumped in the lake, should you?”

The program director at an entrepreneurial class I taught recently said, “no one speaks to us so frankly about failure.” I then had fun with a colleague discussing that thought and it made me decide to postpone the second of three “Dear Reader” blogs regarding “empty abundance.”

Your responses to my request in last month’s blog for input on my book are astounding.