relationships and community on Entrepreneurship

In A Life Worth Living , C.A. Roberts tells of meeting W.C. Coleman, founder of the Coleman Lantern Company. At eighty-four, Coleman recalled how he went from pauper to millionaire overnight. ...

[A] rock-star preaches capitalism. Wow. Sometimes I hear myself and I just can’t believe it. But commerce is real. . . . Aid is just a stopgap. Commerce—entrepreneurial capitalism—takes more people ou...

A common trait of human beings is a fear of failure. Most of us find ways of coping with it, but whenever failure rears its ugly head, it’s difficult not to experience the sting of feeling like we are...

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

What’s the difference between an employee and a partner? In one word — ownership. One of my first jobs was as a barista at this place called Coffee People. It was the anti-Starbucks of the late ’90s. ...

Stewardship means to consciously take up our cultural power, investing it intentionally among the seemingly powerless, putting our power at their disposal to enable them to cultivate and create.

Success is handing the baton to those who come behind us and cheering them on as they run farther and faster than we did.

Leaders can hold onto busyness like a weapon of protection.

A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader, a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.

Everything significant starts with relationship. At the end of the day, your faith, your family, your work, and your leadership are all based on who you relate to and how you relate. Your life is moti...

In a knowledge-based economy, the way we make ourselves seen and even validated is through more work. Busyness shows us that we’re valuable, contributing members to society. So whether we can’t stop c...

Make all you can, save all you can, so that you can give away all you can. Actual quote: "Having, First, gained all you can, and, Secondly, saved all you can, Then, 'give all you can.'&qu...

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better or worse as his portion; that though ...

Hospitality means opening our lives, and our homes, to those who believe differently than we do.

Hospitality, therefore, means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space ...

First and foremost, work is not about economic exchange, financial remuneration, or a pathway to the American Dream, but about God-honoring human creativity and contribution. Our work, whatever it is,...

Entitlement is a hot topic today. The root word entitled means exactly what it says—to give someone a title or a right. It used to be reserved for the wealthy and the privileged, based upon economics ...

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give./n

In Redeeming Productivity , Reagan Rose tells his own story to illustrate the two ways in which the idea that “it’s my life” leads to two very different and disordered outlooks on productivity. When ...

Leadership is often a matter of failing people’s expectations at a rate they can stand.

Read any study on human satisfaction and you will see the paramount role of relationships with others. And yet, so many of us readily exchange friendship and community for success and achievement, onl...

Bruce had served as the most successful CEO in the history of Alaska Airlines. In less than ten years on the job, he matured the company from an obscure, regional carrier to the nationwide brand it is...

People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all themselves. But in fact they are invariably the benefici...

There's no need to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any business from there.

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain u...

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

In his book, The Joy Model, former management consultant Jeff Spafadora describes the moment that lead him to change careers: One spring break Michelle and I took the kids to Disney World. My mom an...

In the fall of 2009, I was invited to go on a month-long speaking tour throughout Africa. During the trip, a CEO from South Africa named Salim took me to Soweto, a township just outside of Johannesbur...

In More Give to Live, Dr. Douglas Lawson provides evidence that the urge toward generosity begins early in life. He describes a continuum that he calls the “Giving Path.” This path begins with parents...