Lessons From the Plant World on Growing a Business

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 farm, I grew up surrounded by small family farms and went to school with kids who lived on those farms. I didn’t realize they were teaching me many things that would serve me well as a non-farming entrepreneur.

I noticed that even though side-by-side farms endured the same weather conditions and shared the same soil, they didn’t necessarily produce the same results. The human factor had a great deal to do with a farm’s success or failure.

In most places in the Midwest, spring is for planting, summer is for growing and autumn is for harvesting.

So what does a farmer do when the crops are in the ground, but not ready to come out?

A smart farmer works on growing the business.

Your business may resemble a garden more than a farm, but here are some lessons gleaned from good farmers that will also work in a small garden.

Make business a daily practice. Eastern disciplines such as yoga and meditation talk about the power of daily practice.

Paul Hawken says, “Business is no different from learning to play the piano or to ride a surfboard. With most activities there is no presumption of excellence in the beginning, but many newcomers suppose that they should sit down at the desk on the first day and become Superbusinessperson, in full command of the situation.”

Even if you have not made the transition from employee to entrepreneur, having a regular time every day to move closer will bring big results over time. For instance, if social media is part of your activity, spend a few minutes every day rather than a big chunk of time posting once a week.

And if you are years into running a business, be diligent about cultivating new ideas. Complacency is the beginning of the end of even the best business ideas.

Get rid of the weeds. After a seminar I taught on thinking like an entrepreneur, I received an e-mail from one of the participants telling me that her first project after the seminar was to get her home office in order. That involved removing nine large bags of trash.

Even if the clutter’s gone, spend time every day pulling weed or two. Get rid of a self-limiting thought. Cancel a project that no longer excites you. Eliminate what you don’t want to make room for the things that matter.

You get the idea.

Build a Seed Bank. Like a regular bank, a Seed Bank is a physical place where you store ideas.

The best way I know to build such a collection is to constantly be on the lookout for ideas and write them down when they come. Cocktail napkins should only be temporary; your Seed Bank deserves its own special place.

Challenge yourself to see possibilities. If you faithfully did this for the next 90 days, you’d have more ideas than you could use in a year.

Don’t be afraid to get dirty. The Joyfully Jobless life is participatory, not a spectator sport. Try things. Be willing to do things badly. Reconfigure. Learn to find creative solutions.

Keep watering and nurturing. Staying inspired and creating an excellent business requires on-going attention. Know what inspires you and refresh yourself often.

Connect often with people who fan your own creative spirit. Once you’ve spent time with a group of creative thinkers, it’s a pleasure you’ll want to repeat. Accept invitations—and issue them, too.

As Goethe said, “To know someone, here or there, with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts unexpressed–that can make this earth a garden.”

 

9 Ways to Feed Your Entrepreneurial Spirit

 

My definition of job security is having a strong, healthy entrepreneurial spirit. That can only occur if you feed yours regularly with activities and thoughts that are nuturing. Here are some of my favorite ways to do just that.

°  Give yourself a change of scenery. It may be efficient for factories to standardize their production lines, but our creative selves thrive on variety.

Take a different route when running errands, take a sabbatical, take a vacation, take your laptop to the park. You can be productive without being routine.

°  Tithe your time. Don’t just send a check to support things you care about. Find ways to share your time.

When Joe started his own insurance agency he decided he’d spend 10% of his time doing volunteer work. Eventually, he worked his way up to 50% volunteer time. Did his business suffer? Not at all. He made so many contacts along the way that his insurance business grew naturally.

This is another way to back up your personal values with action.

°  Create a research project. What would you like to learn more about? Look for a way to fund your research.

Start by checking the grant directories at your local library. You may have a project that someone is eager to fund. Get clear about how this will enhance you personally and entrepreneurially.

You could  find yourself photographing  mosaics in Morocco or interviewing artisans in Ecuador. Use your imagination to come up with a fresh research project that excites you.

°  Share what you already know. Write a tip sheet and get it published—or publish it yourself and distribute it. Mentor a new entrepreneur or a kid. Put your experiences together and teach a seminar.

There’s no better confidence builder than sharing your unique insights and experiences.

°  Find  great entrepreneurial stories. On a flight, I read about a mother and her daughters who started a fascinating business called Junk Gypsies. I was so enchanted by their story that I logged onto their Web site the next day and became a customer.

There are thousands of inspiring stories out there. Make it your hobby to find them. After all, it’s your tribal history.

°  Offer praise. Master the art of writing the exquisite fan letter. Let other people know that you noticed.

After I read Monica Wood’s breathtaking novel Any Bitter Thing, I began planning a review for my local library Web site as well as Amazon. And the author deserves a letter of thanks as well, I decided, to know that her writing has touched her reader.

Catch others doing something good and let them know you noticed. It’s good for them and good for your soul.

°  Learn how to synthesize ideas. We should have learned how to do this in school, but I fear many of us haven’t.

For instance, I was reading Jim Miller’s Savvy Senior column in my local paper. He was asked by a reader how to find a reliable handyman. He offered dozens of suggestions.

As I read what he had to say, I thought that anyone wanting to have such a business could find some great suggestions for marketing themselves using the suggestions in Miller’s article.

It’s equally important to look at enterprises that are nothing like yours and figure out what you can adapt from their way of doing things or their overall philosophy.

° Attend with a friend. I always like to see pairs of people showing up together in seminars. I realize that sometimes a friend comes along hoping to discourage their companion from doing anything foolish.

However, sharing a learning experience with an entrepreneurial friend can be a great way to extend and deepen the lessons learned. There’s nothing like building dreams with someone who gets it.

° Record your journey. Keep an illustrated journal of your entrepreneurial life. Don’t just include the big events; do a photo essay of an ordinary day in the life of your business.

The sooner you begin this, the better. It might become your grandchildren’s favorite storybook. Even more importantly, when we record and acknowledge our own lives, it raises our self-worth.

 

Oh, the People You’ll Meet

Make sure if your story ever gets into someone’s book that it’s used as an example and not as a warning. ~ Jim Rohn

It was still hours until daylight when the airport shuttle picked me up at my hotel. The driver apologized for being late and assured me that he wouldn’t speed since he’d been a policeman for eighteen years and had enough of fast cars.

We drove to an apartment complex that looked like a charming village to fetch the next passenger. He was chatty, too, and introduced himself as Rueben. I commented that his neighborhood looked nice.

“Oh,” he scoffed, “it’s like living in prison.” He gave us a long list of his complaints including the fact that the management had no tolerance for bounced checks.

He told us he’d always lived in houses in California and this was his first apartment experience. “What brought you to Dallas?” I innocently asked.

“A mistake,” he snapped back. I decided he was a professional malcontent and ceased listening.

At the next stop, a younger man bounced into the van and plunked down beside me. “Hi,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Grant.”

When I asked him what brought him to Dallas he told us he was starting a new Internet business and had come for a meeting and training. Grant lived in Maui where he’d relocated from Washington.

“What brought you to Maui?” I asked. (Okay, it hadn’t worked with Rueben, but I really wanted to know.)

Grant said he’d gone there on vacation, fell in love with the place, had gone home and liquidated his business in Washington and then set up a new one in Hawaii.

Rueben then told us that he’d lived in Hawaii for a time himself, “Before they ruined it,” he pointed out.

By this time, I was far more interested in hearing what the cheerful Grant had to say. “So you’re an entrepreneur,” I said.

“Yup,” he replied. “I’ve had employees since I was 23. But I really want to get this new business running and I’ll be a one-person enterprise. No employees is my goal.”

“Ah, a man after my own heart,” I said. “I have a one-person business too.”

At this point, Rueben joined the conversation again telling us how lazy people are and how hard it is to get decent employees. Rueben wasn’t about to be left out of this conversation since he, too, owned his own business.

I couldn’t imagine being locked up with him for an entire day, but was polite enough not to point out that the problem might not be with the people he hired—who all seemed to quit rather quickly.

On the flight home, I pondered the Ruebens of this world. Do they not notice, I wondered, that their critical behavior is influencing the outcomes they receive?

I’m certain that Rueben is convinced that the way he sees things is the way things are. On the other hand, Grant is open, excited and receptive, exploring as he goes.

Care to predict whose life will be filled with success?

 

What Rick Steves Can Teach Us About Business

I get excited about small businesses that are run with

passion so that’s what I recommend in my guidebooks.

Rick Steves

Thanks to Rick Steves, there’s a collection of micro-mosaics that I got  to see when I was in  London. Thanks to him, I’ve stayed in some delightful little hotels in Europe. I’ve also instigated plenty of conversations with fellow travelers who happened to be carrying a Rick Steves guidebook.

I’ve been a Rick Steves fan since long before he was so well known so when he landed in my part of the world as part of his public television promotion, I was eager to spend an evening listening to him talk.

During the question period, I raised my hand and said, “You spend 100 days a year in Europe, you manage a staff of 60, and you have a wife and two kids. How do you get all that writing done?”

He looked thoughtful and said, “Well, you’ll notice that none of my guidebooks mention night life.” He went on to explain that even when he’s on the road, he spends four hours a night writing.  In addition to the guidebooks that get updated annually, he also writes the scripts for his popular television series.

This is all impressive, but I’ve been studying his Europe Through The Back Door business and think there are also some great lessons to be learned from this entrepreneurial expert.

In the competitive field of travel writing, how has he managed to build his enterprise?  There are some obvious and some not-so-obvious things that Rick Steves does right.

* Was willing to start small. You can learn the entire evolution of his business on his terrific Web site (www.ricksteves.com). Here’s how it started:

“Throughout the late 1970s I traveled lots and taught my European Travel Cheap class at the University of Washington’s Experimental College in Seattle. Realizing a teacher needs a textbook, I put the lectures on paper, compiled my favorite discoveries, and in 1980 wrote the first edition of Europe Through the Back Door.

“Through my travel classes, I sold all those first editions of Europe Through the Back Door. In 1981, I got a bit more professional with the second edition, taking out the personal poems and the lists of most dangerous airlines. The third edition, even though typeset now, still looked so simple and amateurish that reviewers and talk show hosts repeatedly mistook it for a pre-publication edition.

“Throughout the 1970s I was a piano teacher. By about 1982, my recital hall was becoming a travel lecture classroom, and I needed to choose Europe or music. I chose teaching travel over piano, let my students go, and began building Europe Through the Back Door. “

* Passionate. It’s hard to develop any level of mastery—or success—if we’re lukewarm. Not only does passion keep us growing, it’s also highly contagious, which is a terrific marketing tool.

It’s apparent that Rick Steves loves what he does. He says there was a moment when he knew that Europe was going to be his playground.  “When I’m in Europe,” he wrote, “I’m breathing pure oxygen.”

That passion keeps him coming up with new recommendations and discoveries.

* Makes it look easy. My daughter said she was watching him one day and thought the reason he’s so successful is that he seems so ordinary and unsophisticated. “I  think people watch him and think if he can do it , they can too.”

Like all good experts, he has the ability to give people confidence. His easy going style makes him a great teacher and his sense of humor adds to the fun.

* Understands multiple profit centers. Today ETBD is a business with plenty of diversity. In addition to the twenty-plus books that Rick has written, the company also has a booming tour business, as well as a mail order company that sells travel gear along with books, videos and DVDs. And, of course, there’s that television gig.

* Has a clearly articulated philosophy. Every issue of the free ETBD newsletter contains that philosophy which is carried out in all aspects of his business. There’s a particular kind of traveler that is his customer and they don’t waste time trying to attract folks who lack an independent spirit. His customers are folks who appreciate a Less is More approach.

* Creates a loyal customer base. One popular features of the Web site and newsletter is a section called Road Scholars which shares travel tips from fellow ETBD fans. They also have events for alumni of their tours to meet and swap travel tales. There’s a sense of personal involvement with the company.

If you’re in the business of packaging information of any kind, Rick Steves is a fellow entrepreneur that is worth learning about and worth learning from.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Want to see Rick at work? Here’s a short video of him updating his guidebooks.

 

Change One Thing

Have you ever had the experience of working hard to make a change only to discover that once you had done so, other things seemed to change all by themselves?

I thought of this mysterious phenomenon last week when I got the following message from fellow traveler Alice Barry.

In January I felt a real slump in my energy and felt like I was constantly battling my digestion and feeling awful all the time…really in pain. It was affecting my ability to take on work, focus and feel creative.

I joined a holistic health class to get some support and ended up kicking gluten out of my diet completely. Things changed instantly.

One of the biggest changes, besides clear thinking and great digestion with no pain, is that I am now actually losing weight naturally. I’m down 2 inches on my waist and my pants are falling off!

The other benefit is that after mucking through 2010 with not a single new idea for myself, I feel like the flood gates have opened.

I’ve started to talk out loud about my desire to learn voice over — something I’ve always dreamed of but allowed my theater professor’s discouragement to steer me away from so many years ago.

Last week, in a class I’m taking, I started brainstorming ways I could start applying my voice to the small business and entrepreneurial clients I have right now. Here’s where it gets good.

Three days later a contact of mine called me out of the blue and asked if I would be someone who could do the voice over work for a promotional video she had recently shot to promote her speaking engagements! Naturally, I accepted. Then I asked a friend of mine who does voice over here to record me and coach me on it and he agreed without hesitation.

All this plus I have a full schedule of clients…about half business coaching and half naming and branding.

After spending 2009 giving every dime I made to my lawyer to break away from my former business partner, I can say that I have now far surpassed that pay out and am actually in the flow once again—but beyond where I’ve ever been before.

Barbara, every day I’m so honored to pass along to my clients all the insights I’ve learned from you about creating a business that’s right for them. It’s stunning how the smallest tweaks to their thinking push them forward in big ways.

And I’m so aware right now of the foundation you helped me build for how I want to work, the fun I want to have and how beneficial that has been to me. Especially when I see and hear from so many others who are struggling against what’s good for them and what they think they’re supposed to do to build a business.

One thing I think that is so key here is that A.) I have a good foundation of entrepreneurial thinking from absorbing myself in it for years — a foundation that is for working and for living, and B.) therefore making that one change was much easier and felt worth trying even if it wasn’t the answer.

Instead of wallowing in feeling bad or not making progress and isolating myself from people, I started asking questions and telling people how I felt. That landed me in front of the right resource at the right time.

I know have a whole new understanding of how the food we eat affects our energy and the energy we have affects our businesses both in what we can bring in and what we can put out. Changing my energy and my health has directly contributed to my new successes.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of getting to know Alice Barry yourself, pay a visit to her Website  Entertaining the Idea. And if you’re in the area, join Alice and me on May 12 & 13 in Minneapolis for two days of Energize Your Entrepreneurial Spirit.

 

Using Your Imagination More and Your Pocketbook Less

It was spring break last week for my granddaughter Zoe so she decided to spend some time with me. It was a busy visit.

Several months ago, she had agreed to barter one of her handmade books for a custom made headband from my sister Margaret. The project had been neglected for too long so she was determined to finish her end of the deal.

Zoe had begun writing her story, Finnegan and Chico Get Lost, a fictional tale about Margaret’s rescued dogs, but forgot her original manuscript at home. I suggested she start over and, as so often happens, her second attempt produced a better story.

The transaction took place at our Winter Family Sunday Dinner. The book was adorable and the headband gorgeous. Both parties walked away happy.

It was also a fine reminder of using alternative currencies.

Bartering gets high marks with creative entrepreneurs since it allows you to trade services and products without money being exchanged.

The tricky part of this is figuring out what’s an even exchange. That’s where barter clubs come in allowing you to accumulate credits. (Do an Internet  search to track down a club that suits your needs.)

A man who attended a seminar of mine in Atlanta told me that he had lived for three and a half years totally on bartering. Many people, especially new business owners, find that bartering allows them to get all sorts of things they can use without having to spend cash.

From time to time, I’ve done a bit of bartering myself. One of my favorite experiences was helping a talented photographer launch his business in exchange for a photo shoot.

Recently I heard from Karen Clare, a Facebook friend whose primary business is called A Doll a Day. She was delighted by a transaction she’d just made. Here’s what happened:

I have a friend who needed some help with his eBay sales. He’d been bugging me to give him a call.

I seized the opportunity to explain that what we really needed to do was to spend an hour together where in I would show him the tips and tricks of creating great listings. But since my expertise was valuable, I wasn’t going to do it for free.

I remembered that he was a former hair stylist (who is now on disability) and I needed a cut. So I traded out an hour and a half of my time for a great hair cut.

I am finally starting to think in new and creative ways about monetizing all of my skills, even those I used to share “freely” (no pun intended), with friends. In this instance a trade was an ideal way to go.

Have you used barter in your business? If so, I’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment and share your experience.

 

Planting More Fun

One Thanksgiving, I accepted an invitation to have dinner with a group of relatives I didn’t know very well. The host was my cousin Ray who had followed in his family’s tradition of owning and operating a farm in southern Minnesota that raised corn and soybeans.

Shortly after dinner was over, he came over to visit with me. Two years earlier he had turned several acres of his farm into a vineyard, a rather unusual crop in that part of the world.

Of course, I was curious about how he’d decided to do so. He told me he’d spent a couple of years doing his homework, talking to other vineyard owners, traveling to seminars and consulting with the University of Minnesota.

In his second year of production, his crop outperformed all expectations. He was excited about selling his grapes to a vintner, but said he had plans to eventually produce his own wine and, perhaps, build a tasting room that would also be a place for weddings and other community events.

On my drive home that day, I could stop thinking about Ray’s passion. New visions, new learnings, new adventures have a way of awakening creativity and enthusiasm.

I made several visits to Winterhaven Vineyards before I moved from Minnesota. Ray was always delighted to share his progress. The vineyards were beautiful and Ray seemed proud and a little surprised to see what he was bringing to life.

A mere six years later, the vision that Ray shared with me on that Thanksgiving day has come to life. The winery is buzzing with activity and has, as my sister Margaret said, breathed new life into the little town whence I come. There’s live music, a restaurant, class reunions, and other lively gatherings.

Ray has created a collection of profit centers all rooted in his new passion.

Last week, they were awarded the Farm Family of the Year for their county. Their California relatives were jumping for joy at the news.

Watching Ray’s vision come to life has been a powerful reminder that when we are going down a new path that excites us, our imagination awakens in ways that can surprise and delight us.

He also reminds me that we can make money without the fun, as he did all those years growing corn and soybeans.

Happily, he discovered that money without the fun is only a partial payment.

 

 

 

Need a Laugh?

Shortly after I met my friend Chris Utterback, I found myself having an especially challenging day. I decided to give her a call and when she answered the phone I didn’t say hello. “Make me laugh,” I demanded.

“Just a minute,” she said. “I have to get my joke folder.” Joke folder?

When she got back to the phone she explained that she kept a file folder of cartoons and stories that she found funny. She promptly began reading me her favorites and before long we were giggling like second graders.

By the time I hung up the phone, the world was looking considerably brighter again.

Ever since, I’ve kept my own Make Me Laugh folders, along with other emergency supplies for moments when I need a dose of hilarity.

If you’d like to expand the amount of laughter in your life, here are some ideas that can help.

* Memorize this quote. Ernest Hemingway said, “The seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who can laugh in life the seeds are covered with better soil and a higher grade of manure.”

* Take a laughter class. If your local adult ed program has such a class, sign up at once. If you can’t find such a class, get a set of CDs or tapes from your favorite comedian and play them in the car. I’m especially fond of Prairie Home Companion’s Pretty Good Joke Show CDs.

* Meet my friend Karyn Ruth. The most hilarious trip I ever took was the London adventure I shared with Karyn Ruth White. We both recall it as a week of nonstop laughter. I always look forward to seeing her on my trips to Denver, where she lives, and know that our phone chats will be filled with noisy laughter.

If she’s not available to accompany you on a trip, order her Kiss My Botox CD, her Laughing in the Face of Stress DVD or her book Your Seventh Sense that will help you polish your own funny bone. They’re all available at KarynRuthWhite.com.

* Read something funny. There aren’t a lot of authors that make me laugh out loud, but one who does is Bill Bryson. His travel books are especially hilarious. I’m especially fond of Neither Here Nor There, although any of his books is bound to produce a giggle or guffaw.

You don’t have to be a Minnesotan to find the Pretty Good Joke Book from Prairie Home Companion pretty darn funny.

* Meet Annette Goodheart. The first laughter therapist I ever heard of was Dr. Goodheart whose adult ed classes in her hometown of Santa Barbara had long waiting lists.

Dr. Goodheart calls laughter ‘Portable Therapy’ and points out that its benefits include: strengthens your immune system, helps you think more clearly, replenishes creativity, releases emotional pain, and it’s free.

See for yourself at teehee.com and laughtercoach.com.

* Join a Laughing Club. The movement started by The Laughing Clubs of India is spreading throughout the world. You may have a local branch or you might want to start one yourself.

The concept is simple: get a group together and laugh for half an hour first thing in the morning. They claim all sorts of amazing cures among their members.

Or let John Cleese show you the benefits of Laughter Yoga on this video.

Don’t ever forget that laughter is a medicine that doesn’t require a prescription. Dose frequently. It’s good for you and equally good for your business.

 

Everyday Abundance

My  friend Chris and I loved an old cartoon in which Ziggy declared, “My idea of prosperity is a checking account with commas.” We promptly adopted that as our prosperity symbol.

Feeling prosperous is a highly individual thing and each of us has a different notion of what constitutes prosperity. For many people, alas, prosperity means having more than whatever they currently have.

It’s much healthier to find small reminders that we are creating abundance in our own lives. Here are a few of my personal favorites.

* You use up your deposit slips faster than you use your check blanks. (This may not count if you bank online.)

* You don’t have any bills because you pay them as soon as they arrive and don’t let them accumulate.

* You’re always looking for ways to maximize and utilize what you’ve already got rather than noticing what you don’t have.

* You notice and acknowledge your surplus. As Sondra Ray points out if you have even a few coins in your purse, you have a surplus, yet almost nobody gives themselves credit for that.

As Ray also reminds us, whatever you focus on expands. Focus on scarcity and guess what you get more of.

* You say thank you a lot. Gratitude is not only a sign of prosperity—it’s the way to attract even more.

* You refine your taste by noticing the things you find beautiful and by uncluttering your life to get rid of things that are taking up space but don’t bring you joy. You’re not afraid to create a vacuum.

* You can appreciate the prosperity of others without being envious.

* You keep creating  projects that are both fun and profitable. Here are a few suggestions to add to your portfolio of Money for Fun Ideas.

Start a new collection. Whether it’s Mickey Mouse, antique advertising art or memorabilia from the Nineties, putting together a collection makes everyday life a treasure hunt. And, of course, there’s the possibility that you’re creating a new profit center.

One collector of old books on coins and paper money picked up a stack of books for 50¢ apiece in a bookshop. He later sold one of them for $300 and another for $400. This is the kind of  hobby that pays.

When you collect, you also start building expertise which can lead to other opportunities.

Create a project for which you’ll need a passport. Thinking globally can stretch your imagination and help you discard limiting ideas. If you don’t have a current passport, apply for one now so you are ready to go.

Involve your friends. Invite your entrepreneurial friends to help you with a boring job such as putting out a large mailing. Offer to cook dinner in exchange for an evening’s help. Look how much work got done at quilting bees. Same idea here.

Master the $100 Hour. Begin by making a pact with yourself that you will set aside time daily, if possible, for the purpose of finding an idea that will bring you $100. You’ll find  numerous suggestions for doing just that in the chapter on Getting Ideas in Making a Living Without a Job.

 

The Joy Factor

Years ago when I lived in Santa Barbara, I observed a weekly ritual—the Friday migration north which was followed by the Sunday migration south. I’ve often wondered if such traffic jams inspired Loverboy’s Working for the Weekend.

For too many of us, work and fun have occupied separate territories.  In my family, there was a frequently quoted German adage that translated to “first you work, then you play.” The implication was that never the twain shall meet.

No adults I knew growing up suggested that I should discover what brought me joy before I began to think about choosing a career—and I certainly didn’t see many folks who seemed to be having a great time going about their work.

When I realized that I would be spending a huge amount of time working, an occasional fun weekend didn’t seem a fair tradeoff for days of drudgery. Although it was done in private, I began my own Joy Quest to see if I could get paid to have fun.

Along the way, I heard Moneylove author Jerry Gilles say, “Anything worth having is worth having fun getting.” It seemed like an idea worth testing. I decided to go for joy all along the way.

Some of the things I discovered were downright startling. I found that as my own boss, with a new vision to create, I could tackle things on behalf of building my own business that would have driven me crazy had I been doing them as part of a job.

Working with joy seemed to spill over to activities I might previously have dreaded. For instance, if someone had handed me thousands of newsletters to label and stamp, I’d have tensed right up, but when that pile is Winning Ways, and I’ve put it together myself, I can’t wait to share it with my subscribers.

When our work is also a source of joy and fun, it leads us to become more creative, more engaged, more masterful. Those rewards are much harder to obtain when we’re only working for money.

So during March, we’ll be exploring the theme of Money for Fun. I’d love to hear your stories about the most fun you’ve ever had earning money. Since I made that request in the last Joyfully Jobless News, people have been sending me delightful examples which I’m going to be sharing throughout the month, but I’d love more inspiring tales.

As poet David Whyte reminds us, “Anyone or anything that does not bring you alive is too small for you.”

I’m pretty sure that includes work.