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Increasingly, the quest for success is not the same as the quest for status and money. The definition has broadened to include contributing something to the world and living and working on one’s own terms.
They teach that having a story may be the most important part of your new venture; that fear can be useful; that having vast resources is not as critical as you might think; that simplicity is a core goal in successful enterprises; that trust is the most important quality you bring to your company; and, finally, that giving may be the best investment you’ll ever make.
When you have a memorable story about who you are and what your mission is, your success no longer depends on how experienced you are or how many degrees you have or who you know. A good story transcends boundaries, breaks barriers, and opens doors. It is a key not only to starting a business but also to clarifying your own personal identity and choices.
A story evokes emotion, and emotion forges a connection.
“Facts are neutral until human beings add their own meaning to those facts. People make their decisions based on what the facts mean to them, not on the facts themselves. The meaning they add to facts depends on their current story … facts are not terribly useful to influencing others. People don’t need new facts—they need a new story.”
Facts are important, but the story matters. Poorly presented facts can even get in the way of the story’s impact.
Conscious capitalism is about more than simply making money—although it’s about that too.
It’s about creating a successful business that also connects supporters to something that matters to them and that has great impact in the world.
If you did not have to worry about money, what would you do with your time? What kind of work would you want to do? What cause would you serve?
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Fear is much more common than most people realize. That’s because we live in a society where fear isn’t something we like to talk about; as a rule, we’re much more impressed by boldness.
Fear happens when we feel anxious or apprehensive about a possible situation or event—in other words, something that hasn’t even happened yet.
Fear also gives us a hormonal jolt that allows us to deal with urgent situations—the so-called “fight-or-flight” response, designed to launch us into action.
Fear is one of our most powerful emotions, and the more we focus on it, the more it grows and distorts our behavior.
NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, WIN, LOSE, OR DRAW, NEVER FORGET THAT LIFE GOES ON
When fears stay stuck inside your head, your imagination can go wild, torturing you with all the various negative possibilities and outcomes. But when you write them down, you clarify exactly what you are afraid of, and soon the power they hold over you will fade.
Remember, once you become successful, life can become a little dry—the adventure and danger are reduced. So when a younger version of an entrepreneur comes along, his or her mentor gets to live vicariously through that person’s start-up phase—and play a role in the success of a new project.
Falling Whistles is a nonprofit organization that campaigns for peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was started in 2009 by a young man named Sean Carasso,
(The name comes from Sean’s conversation with a former child soldier who told him of children sent into battle armed with whistles.)
Read The 4-Hour Workweek
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You can find an updated version of this list at www.StartSomethingThatMatters.com
he invented the website DonorsChoose.org. There, public-school teachers make requests for specific items they need for their classrooms, from pencils to musical instruments,
DonorsChoose has raised more than $73 million and helped more than three million students in 35,000 public schools across the country.
Complicated lives and heaps of possessions don’t necessarily bring happiness; in fact, they can bring the opposite.
You can’t motivate someone by giving him or her the position but not the power to do the job or to voice input.
the Chinese thinker and politician Chanakya wrote that “the leader shall consider as good not what pleases him but what pleases his subjects.
Then, in 2004, when she was twenty, Lauren had her epiphany: She could join the two ideas together by designing a fashion item that stood for more than fashion—namely, she would create a non-gender-specific, eco-friendly bag that would guarantee a child in a developing country a free year of school lunches for every bag sold.
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived— This is to have succeeded.
