posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Jul 24
Ben Casnocha wrote an interesting post at his blog. It asks a question from a perspective that I have never thought of - Do only Negative Emotions count for Depth?
It’s a good excuse to reflect on your life and your reactions to the events that have shaped it.
Enjoy!
posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Apr 21
Here’s something interesting: Small Business Week coincides with Earth Day. I don’t know if that is the case every year, but in 2007, here we are.
President Bush has praised small business owners in the days preceding Small Business Week, but he has not latched on to the opportunity these shared celebrations present. If you would like to read the full text of the President’s proclamation, click here (HTML) or here (PDF).
Here’s the thing: we all know that the environment is in dire straights. We’ve heard the hullabaloo about Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (both a book [aff]
So what is to be done? Bush missed a BEAUTIFUL opportunity to link Earth Day with Small Business Week. According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), small business represents 50% of the United States’ private, non-farm gross domestic product (GDP). In fact, small business ranged from 18 to 85 percent of each sector of the US economy!
Imagine what could happen if there was a strong call for small business to usher in a “green revolution!” What if all small businesses began to run in an environmentally-friendly (even an environmentally-enhancing) way! How great would it be if the ideas laid out in books like Green to Gold [aff]
Now think about what WILL happen if no small businesses think about the environment. Nothing will change. We’ll continue on exactly the same path we are already on - and, as we entrepreneurs know, avoiding change is not an option. The status quo is a death knell for business. In this case, the death knell would only warn us of the impending doom from climate change. It may not end things, but it would DRASTICALLY change life as we know it.
So if President Bush won’t do it, I will. I (and Aviation of Business) challenge all small business to try to think “outside their box” and “think globally while acting locally.” And putting the clichés aside, I truly do believe that small business is up to the challenge of redefining what business can be. I believe that small business, with its ability to change quickly and with its creativity and ability to mitigate risk (even though it can never be completely eliminated) is more likely to cause the environmental revolution than big, bumbling, slow conglomorates that slog through committees and make tiny, incremental changes so as not to misstep and (god forbid) make a mistake! </rant> Small business entrepreneurs know that mistakes are lessons, and that “incremental” actually means “slow and scared.”
So take the challenge, please! Find any and every way you can make your business “green.” Then let ‘er rip! Leave a comment telling us how you currently “green” your business, and come back and add to the list if you hear about or think of a new, creative way to increase the “greenness” of your company!
Fair Winds,
Andrew
posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Apr 12
This past weekend, my grandmother, Mimi, passed away. She was 86. We buried her yesterday, April 11th, 2007. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done, and I was kind of surprised by it.
I was surprised not because it is ever easy when someone passes away, but because I firmly believe in reincarnation and the idea that family and good friends tend to “cluster” in groups no matter what life they are living (read Many Lives, Many Masters, by Brian Weiss - buy it here [aff]
I know all of this, but I also know that I cried when I had to say goodbye for the last time. After the service, I placed a handkerchief in Mimi’s pocket. She had saved it for about twenty-five years. It was the same handkerchief that I had cried into as a baby once. As Mimi told the story, I cried and cried and wiped my eyes on the handkerchief until it was soaked with my tears… she gave it to me when her husband, Gran, died. I thought she would want it back - she saved it for so long it obviously meant a lot to her. Once I placed it in the casket, I cried. It was the first time since I found out she had passed away that I cried. And I hated it. And I loved it. And it felt right.
But the universe works in mysterious ways - my friend whom I have never met, Verna Wilder, wrote in her blog - Out of the Cube - that there are so many things we don’t know. And that it is okay - perhaps even good. And that life is, maybe, a lesson to teach us how to accept not knowing, and that death, possibly, is knowing (after all those years of ignorance). And Verna posted a beautiful poem, which reminded me of the poem that Mimi loved because it was so reminiscent of HER family (Mimi was the only sister of seven siblings):
We are Seven by William Wordsworth
A simple child, dear brother Jim,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?I met a little cottage girl,
She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That cluster’d round her head.She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad;
Her eyes were fair, and very fair,
–Her beauty made me glad.“Sisters and brothers, little maid,
How many may you be?”
“How many? seven in all,” she said,
And wondering looked at me.“And where are they, I pray you tell?”
She answered, “Seven are we,
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.”“Two of us in the church-yard lie,
My sister and my brother,
And in the church-yard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother.”“You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,
Yet you are seven; I pray you tell
Sweet Maid, how this may be?”Then did the little Maid reply,
“Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
Beneath the church-yard tree.”“You run about, my little maid,
Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the church-yard laid,
Then ye are only five.”“Their graves are green, they may be seen,”
The little Maid replied,
“Twelve steps or more from my mother’s door,
And they are side by side.”“My stockings there I often knit,
My ‘kerchief there I hem;
And there upon the ground I sit–
I sit and sing to them.”“And often after sunset, Sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.”“The first that died was little Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,
Till God released her of her pain,
And then she went away.”“So in the church-yard she was laid,
And all the summer dry,
Together round her grave we played,
My brother John and I.”“And when the ground was white with snow,
And I could run and slide,
My brother John was forced to go,
And he lies by her side.”“How many are you then,” said I,
“If they two are in Heaven?”
The little Maiden did reply,
“O Master! we are seven.”“But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!”
‘Twas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,
And said, “Nay, we are seven!”
You are seven, Mimi. You and all of your siblings. And those of us left here in this life still count you among us, and we are many. And we miss you already. And we’ll all see you soon. We love you.
Fair Winds,
Andrew
