in difficult times even more than ordinary ones — break the habit of separation and are a powerful reminder of our interconnectedness. Let us “be the change we wish to see in the world,” as the famous Gandhi quote goes. 4. This is an opportunity to go inside. When you can’t go outside, go inside. With the coming of corona, many of us have moved into a state of involuntary retreat. People have new-found pockets of time that were previously filled with rush and business. Despite Netflix, now it is a little harder to find distractions and avoidances. It is harder to run away from yourself. We are presented with a unique opportunity to stop, look at our lives,... posted on Apr 5 2020 (64,585 reads)

a significant widening of what is known as the Overton Window: the range of public policies that the mainstream population is prepared to consider at a given time. This is an unprecedented opportunity to rethink how our beliefs, values, and institutions shape our relationships. While there is an almost universal desire to move rapidly beyond the COVID emergency, the spectrum of what we want post-pandemic is broadening. Many are articulating that they do not want to simply return to business as usual. In the United States, for example, we see the need for: A system of health care accessible to everyone regardless of income or documentation; Just compensation and job securit... posted on May 2 2020 (7,931 reads)

precisely the people who have this ability to change, when something does not work, they simply change it. We know how to do teamwork. Then, when something does not work, it is because it’s flawed. It’s what great entrepreneurs do. It’s what Henry Ford did. The microcredits that Yunus devised work. But, obviously, you have to adapt your application to each place.  There is much talk about the changes that capitalism is undergoing. This summer, big businessmen from the United States signed a declaration in which they promised to work for the good not only of their shareholders, as they have done so far, but for that of consumers and workers. Wha... posted on Jul 29 2020 (3,710 reads)

past, many didn’t mind that decent outcomes were reserved for the fortunate. In a delightful twist, however, the seeking-out of new approaches—done in the spirit of correction—tends to surface bold new alternatives that don’t only serve marginalized people better. Bold new alternatives serve everyone better. In the middle of some of the most massive demographic shifts we’ve ever experienced (both globally and locally), not only is there the moral and business case against monocultural, homogenous views and policies. There is the strategic case. We do this or we die. We can either demonstrate a lot of bluster (the hare) by throwing more and more... posted on Sep 15 2020 (6,129 reads)

we identify is “Business as Usual,” by which we mean the growth economy, or global corporate capitalism. We hear this marching order from virtually every voice in government, publicly traded corporations, the military, and corporate-controlled media. The second is called “The Great Unraveling”: an ongoing collapse of living structures. This is what happens when ecological, biological, and social systems are commodified through an industrial growth society or “business as usual” frame. I like the term “unraveling,” because systems don’t just fall over dead, they fray, progressively losing their coherence, integrity, and memory. Th... posted on Oct 1 2020 (20,703 reads)

himself to Deo in French. His name was Muhammad. He said he came from Senegal. Muhammad asked Deo the agents’ questions and also some questions of his own. For the agents, he asked Deo, “Where are you coming from?” When Deo said he had come from Burundi, Muhammad made a pained face and said to him in French, “How did you get out?” There was no time even to attempt an answer. The agents were asking another question: Deo’s visa said he was here on business. What business? Selling coffee beans, Deo told them through Muhammad. Just keep smiling, Deo told himself. He could tell them anything they wanted to know about Burundian coffee. But they ... posted on Oct 8 2020 (4,518 reads)

and, like, what a terrible thing it is for non-Indigenous people in Australia that they don’t get to feel that and be a part of it. That’s how I understood two-way strong. I understood when you said it more as belonging to one another, that I can belong to you and you can belong to me and that we do that by staying in conversation with one another in real time. It’s both and. It’s on the everyday plain and then on the spiritual plane. So I’m at the frontline of business and industry. And I actually think even racist people and people in the fossil fuel industry and all kinds of people who are in all kinds of head spaces and heart spaces, if we were to watch ... posted on Dec 19 2020 (4,366 reads)

like, I could understand why they’re saying this.” And looking over the fence through his lenses, ‘cause we all have our lenses, what he thought he saw was that most of the early writers who wrote about indigenous people in what we now call the United States were English aristocratic men. What he saw was that these guys up until the age of five in their culture were allowed to sing, dance, play, pretend, et cetera. But at the age of five it was time to get down to the serious business of being an educated man. At that point, all these other activities could be hobbies, but the primary activity became the honing of the intellect. And that’s how it pretty much remained... posted on Jul 27 2021 (4,157 reads)

tools to communities in need, including at-risk youth, prisoners, veterans, and those in developing countries. If you’d like to learn more or feel inspired to become a supporter, please visit SoundsTrueFoundation.org. You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today my guest is Paul Hawken. Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, an entrepreneur, author, and an activist, who has dedicated his life to environmental sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment. Paul Hawken is the founder of Project Drawdown, a nonprofit dedicated to researching when and how global warming can be reversed. He’s written eight books, includin... posted on Sep 29 2021 (3,034 reads)

What is that about the passage of time? MS. PARKER:I sometimes think about aging. That as we’re born, everything is new. So we have all of this experiences we have to go through to begin to have some idea of about what’s going on. So you have all these learning years, and in your teens, you’re beginning to learn about relationships with other people, and emotions, and all that that leads to. Then you’re 20 to 50 — maybe 20 to 60, you are so caught up in the business of living, in the business of being a parent, in the business of being a teacher, or whatever your occupation is, that you don’t have time to look at it as a whole. And it seems to me, ... posted on Oct 24 2021 (3,647 reads)

growth. FII provides practical tools to get families started. These include: Access to some capital, earned through FII for contributing data, meeting regularly to share stories, and helping the effort expand; and a laptop that allows families to report on their progress through FII’s online data-tracking system. Family clusters meet in person each month to review their progress and help each other in a myriad of practical ways. These meetings are part social, part business. Each family is responsible for using the laptop each month to share their progress using a short questionnaire designed by FII. Each family is also responsible for committing to a longer-ter... posted on Feb 23 2022 (2,387 reads)

about yourself. Everything's about your salary. Everything's about your small world. Whereas wisdom looks to the future, looks to future generations. What is life going to be like for our children's children's children at the rate we're going, in terms of climate change, destruction of forest and soil and oceans and rivers? And of course species are going extinct at never before levels. Last time it was this bad was 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs went out of business. And yet we have a whole political party in America that's in official denial about climate change. I mean, and we tolerate it. In fact, they win elections. And it's amazing. What ... posted on Sep 8 2022 (3,239 reads)

quality. Once an unseen, unheard resident of a poor, black neighborhood, Gordon—now 63—has become a visible insider, someone who wields influence in the quest to improve the area’s environmental health and, ultimately, the health of its residents.     Photo by Talking Eyes Media / Copyright Civic Ventures Allan Barsema Community Collaborations Inc. Rockford, Ill. Allan Barsema’s alcoholism cost him his marriage, house and real estate business. With his parents’ support, he sobered up, started a new construction company and remarried. But, over time, Barsema found that he wanted to do more for others who were down on their lu... posted on Dec 5 2010 (6,124 reads)

months later, after biking to Santa Barbara from Pennsylvania Dutch Country, he has a greater idea of what his goals are and how far he hopes to carry his message of peace -- he hopes to ride around the world.   Mr. Bornstein, 34, told the the News-Press he is an adopted child who was raised in Lancaster, Pa., and joined the Navy at 18. For four years he served on the USS Independence in Yokosuka, Japan.   After his Navy stint, he moved to Arizona, but two marriages, a couple of business ventures and part of a bachelor's degree later, "I decided to drop everything," he said.   He found himself in Hawi, Hawaii, but life in the Aloha State soon plateaued. &nbs... posted on Apr 5 2011 (7,870 reads)

you borrow, rent and share stuff within your neighborhood or group of friends * * * For more on the culture of shared resources, do watch Rachel Botsman’s excellent TEDxSyndney talk. Her forthcoming book, What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, hits bookstores in two weeks and is an absolute must-read. UPDATE: Botsman’s book, What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, is now out and landed promptly on our best books in business, life and mind shortlist for 2010. ... posted on Aug 11 2011 (92,227 reads)

JOHN HART — State Journal Meghan Blake-Horst and her children, Dylan, left, and Harper read a book found in the Little Library in their front yard on Few Street. Blake-Horst also sponsored a Little Library on the bike path near her East Side business, Absolutely Art. Bigger than a breadbox, homier than a newspaper box and more surprising than a bookmobile, the Little Library is popping up all over town.  On bike paths. Outside coffee shops. In the front yards of private homes.  "They're sprouting up all over," said Meghan Blake-Horst, owner of Absolutely Art, who install... posted on Aug 12 2011 (18,206 reads)

a little surprised when children do their homework without parental micro-management, but also because these two 8th graders made collaboration look like child's play.   And yet that's not always our experience in the office. Rather than the free-wheeling interchange of ideas and labor we anticipate — we're grown-ups after all — working together is typically everything but easy.   Why is teamwork so difficult?   Because collaboration is actually a pretty risky business. Perhaps, like me, you are generally of the mindset that two heads are better than one. But because your ideas frequently get co-opted, there's a risk-reward imbalance that makes you reluctan... posted on Sep 27 2011 (13,932 reads)

doing small acts of kindness, seeking internal clarity through any number of awareness-building practices (such as introspection, prayer, or meditation). The opportunities literally are unending. It is a bit of a paradox, but the end result of all this "internal change" is in fact of greatest service to the world. Imagine a system proposed by someone who deeply cultivated thinking only about others for their whole life. Imagine an incentive system, or a business model, born of the same process. In a world where most everything is 'self-oriented', these options would be breaths of fresh air. Systems do need shifting, and incentives can certain... posted on Oct 29 2011 (31,135 reads)

Business Simplicity. Simplicity means a new kind of economy is growing in the world, with healthy and sustainable products and services of all kinds (such as home-building materials, energy systems, food production and transportation systems). As the need for a sustainable infrastructure in developing nations is combined with the need to retrofit and redesign the homes, cities, workplaces and transportation systems of developed nations, it is generating an enormous wave of green business innovation and employment. Civic Simplicity. Simplicity means living more lightly and sustainably on the earth, and this requires, in turn, changes in many areas of public life -- f... posted on Nov 10 2011 (19,188 reads)

the West African nation of Gabon is a poster child for globalization's accelerated reach for resources, its president says he is committed to increasing support for national parks. Taking on the mantle of pressing the government to implement that commitment is a non-governmental organization financed out of the modest salary of an activist who runs a cleaning business on the side. Guest columnist Daniel Glick reports: "A group of nine dwarves lived here, and one day a dwarf dropped his ax in the water," says Ladislas Désiré Ndembet, standing on the shore of Lac Blue, or Blue Lake (pictured above), in Gabon's southern province of Ngounié. According t... posted on Dec 12 2011 (9,047 reads)