Years ago a mentor of mine explained that the world, like an orchard, was divided into two groups: planters and pickers.
The planters, he said, see something that doesn’t exist and go to work cultivating thesoil, putting in seeds and plants, …
When I moved to Minneapolis in late summer of 1986, I rented a third floor apartment that had a nice little balcony. The following spring, I decided to see if I could grow a plant or two out there.
Before …
“Too much money, not too little, is a bigger problem for most small businesses,” says Paul Hawken. “In a business, money does not create anything at all, much less ideas and initiative. Money goes where those qualities already are. Money …
Ever since I read Paul Hawken’s marvelous Growing a Business, I have looked for metaphors in the plant world to help me solve problems and find better ways of growing my business.
Even though I never lived on a …
I can honestly say that I have never gone into any business purely to make money. If that is the sole motive, you are better off not doing it. A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, …
My niece Gretchen is about to give birth to her first child. During her pregnancy, her husband Tony has been reading to their unborn baby. Currently, he’s working his way through Don Quixote.
In my family, this is considered …
Several months ago, there was a big Twitter event in Los Angeles that was live streamed. Since there were several speakers scheduled that I was eager to hear, I planned to check in throughout the day.
On the morning of …
For half a century, Andy Rooney has been an outspoken and opinionated journalist. For most of that time, his stories were written on his beloved manual typewriter.
It is only in the past few years that he’s relented and switched …
Before I started my first business in 1974, I went looking for all the information I could find. I haunted my local library trying to find something that could help me start the kind of business I envisioned: small, at …
Every time my UPS driver delivers another case of Making a Living Without a Job books, I am reminded that this idea almost didn’t happen. In fact, I was downright clueless about how big an idea it was.
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