You Can Start a Business or Have a Success After Age 50

A Couple of Brief History Lessons Lesson 1: People Who Started a Business After Age 50 Joseph Campbell – started Campbell's Soup at age 52 Ray Kroc – started McDonald's at age 52 Arianna Huffington – started the Huffington Post at age 54 Estée Lauder – founded Estée Lauder at age 54 Ferdinand Porsche – founded Porsche at age 56 Kawasaki Shozo – founded Kawasaki Heavy Industries at age 59 Amadeo Giannini – founded Bank of America at age 60 Charles Flint – started IBM at age 61 Wally Blume – started Denali Flavors at age 62 Col. Harlan Sanders…

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Building an Environment for Meaningful Work

Does your work allow you to alternate between tasks that use your hands and body and those that use your mind? Does your work allow you to experience many different jobs, never remaining in one position for too long? Can you alternate between solitary work, where you exercise personal responsibility and group work, where you share work responsibilities? Do you have enough responsibility and authority to effectively execute your work duties? Can you use your imagination and resources to solve your work challenges or are you forced to follow someone else's idea about the "best" way to do things? When…

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Finding Meaningful Work (craft as right livelihood business).

What’s Wrong With the Way We Think About Business?

It's Just Business. It's not Personal. Two sets of wishful thinking have thus far dominated trade and industry: The "free enterprise" practices of "pure" capitalism, including minimal regulation and private ownership of production, distribution, and exchange. The business school tropes of profit maximization, capital accumulation, and "free market" competition. I call these "wishful thinking" because they hide the true costs of unregulated business. These include Poverty. Environmental degradation. Crumbling infrastructure. Declining levels of education. Inadequate or expensive healthcare. Lower than fair compensation to workers. Accumulation of vast wealth into the hands of the few. When the wealth generated by the…

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Grapes of an abundant harvest.

Technology is not the focus.

Technology is not the focus. It's the connection the technology makes possible Human augmentation by technology is now available to everyone, everywhere. We can hold in our hands, immense computing power. We are connected, one to another, through the global network we variously call the Internet, Web, or Interweb. This communication and augmentation means that in today's world, business can be, and increasingly is, much more than "just business." This revolutionary change is an evolutionary shift. The revolution and evolution are of connection, not technology. Technology is not the focus. Technology is the facilitator making it all possible. More each…

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Business team meeting and working at office desk, hands top view, unrecognizable people, blank copy space

Right Livelihood Books

With Brief Annotations I thought I'd share the book lists with brief annotations that I've created for people aspiring to Right Livelihood. The lists cover the six primary areas of focus when it comes to using mindfulness to find meaningful work. Mindfulness Compassion at Work and in Life Relationships, Family, and Community Working for Yourself and Others Active Health Practices Inspiring Stories Each book in these lists has passed the test of time and many foresee the troubles of today 10, 20, or 30 years ago. The problems have increased in seriousness, but the tried and true solutions are as…

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Musings on Right Livelihood

Perhaps the most influential teacher about right livelihood, for me, is Tarthang Tulku, Rimpoche, a Tibetan Vajrayana teacher and lama who introduced the Nyingma school tradition of Tibetan Buddhism to the United States. He is a prolific author and, in my opinion, gifted the world with Skillful Means: Gentle Ways to Successful Work—one of the most practical handbooks on right livelihood I’ve encountered. Lately, I’ve been musing about time, time management, how much time I have left, what exactly we mean when we talk about “time.” I returned to Skillful Means for some inspirations and thought I’d share some notes…

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Hello Zelle. Goodbye Paypal, Venmo, and Your Cousins

Recently I was asked why I had drifted away from using Paypal, Venmo and similar payment services to collect payments from my clients. One simple reason: Zelle. Zelle is a money transfer service free to customers of participating banks. Zelle sends the recipient a text or email indicating there's a payment waiting for them, along with a link to accept it. If the recipient's bank is a participating partner, the recipient simply needs to register for the service through their bank's website or mobile app with an email address or phone number. Zelle payments are typically available within minutes. (The…

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Charlie Varon’s Year in Review (5783/2023)

The other day, I was looking at Charlie Varon's website for some inspiration (he frequently inspires me) and I encountered his "The Year Year in Review: 5783." That's 5783 on the Hebrew calendar which just ended on September 15, 2023 of the modern calendar. He and his collaborators created an inspiring review of the 12 months from September 2022 to September 2023. It is worldly and thoughtful and includes both good things and bad. I found it quite inspiring. You can find it at: https://www.charlievaron.com/yearinreview About CharlieSome of you have undoubtedly enjoyed performances by Charlie Varon. Charlie is an author,…

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Charlie Varon

People Don’t Buy Products or Services

That's right! People don't buy products or services. They buy a way to rid themselves of: a pain a problem a challenge Or they buy to fill: a desire a need. They want solutions. They also want Courtesy Friendliness Honesty If you give them these, they'll choose you every time over anyone who gives less. My old mentor Michael Phillips taught his apprentices that the whole transaction of the exchange of goods and services. should be the basic unit of observation. This is contrary to contemporary economic theory’s focus on the basic unit of observation as money (or its equivalent).…

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The Wisdom of C. West Churchman

A plan that emphasizes the parts may pay the cost of failing to consider the whole, and a plan that emphasizes the whole may pay the cost of failing to get down to the real depth with respect to the parts." C. West ChurchmanAmerican philosopher and systems scientist It's always wise to raise questions about the most obvious and simple assumption. C. West ChurchmanAmerican philosopher and systems scientist We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking, only to learn that it is God who is shaking them. C. West ChurchmanAmerican philosopher and systems scientist Knowledge resides in…

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C. West Churchman

B Corps and Patagonia’s new ownership model

Client Advice MESSAGE FROM XXXXX XXXXXXX ON 09/15/2022 Hi Claude, Dropping in for some input. I was thinking of sending a bulk message to my Men's team, but I'll start with you instead since you're as badass as their combined total anyway. The Biden administration recently allocated $350 billion dollars In federal loans and loan guarantees for energy and automotive projects and businesses. That money will be dispersed by the energy department. (Side note: Critics say this looks suspiciously like what happened to Solyndra, the energy company that borrowed $500 million from the Obama administration and then went bankrupt...) Of…

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Patagonia founder Chouinard