Businessman Life Quotes

The type of person you are is usually reflected in your business. To improve your business, first improve yourself.

When you work on something that only has the capacity to make you 5 dollars, it does not matter how much harder you work – the most you will make is 5 dollars.

You have to work on the business first before it works for you.

The life of a writer is absolute hell compared to the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to work He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him...A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.

Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last 'trick', whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school. 'But how?' we ask. Then the voice says, 'They have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.' There they are. There *we* are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all clung to faith. My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.

If you don't believe it, go down to your local karaoke bar on a busy night. Wait until the third hour, when the drunk frat boys and gastropub waitresses with headshots are all done with Backstreet Boys and Alicia Keys and locate the slightly older Asian businessman standing patiently in line for his turn, his face warmly rouged on Crown or Japanese lager, and when he steps up and starts slaying "Country Roads," try not to laugh, or wink knowingly or clap a little too hard, because by the time he gets to "West Virginia, mountain mama," you're going to be singing along, and by the time he's done, you might understand why a seventy-seven-year-old guy from a tiny island in the Taiwan Strait who's been in a foreign country for two-thirds of his life can nail a song, note perfect, about wanting to go home.

The word courage is very interesting. It comes from a Latin root cor, which means “heart.” So to be courageous means to live with the heart. And weaklings, only weaklings, live with the head; afraid, they create a security of logic around themselves. Fearful, they close every window and door—with theology, concepts, words, theories—and inside those closed doors and windows, they hide. The way of the heart is the way of courage. It is to live in insecurity; it is to live in love, and trust; it is to move in the unknown. It is leaving the past and allowing the future to be. Courage is to move on dangerous paths. Life is dangerous, and only cowards can avoid the danger—but then, they are already dead. A person who is alive, really alive, vitally alive, will always move into the unknown. There is danger there, but he will take the risk. The heart is always ready to the the risk, the heart is a gambler. The head is a businessman. The head always calculates—it is cunning. The heart is noncalculating. This

A businessman is someone who buys at ten and is happy to get out at twelve. The other kind of man buys at ten, sees it rise to eighteen and does nothing. He is waiting for it to get to twenty. The beauty of numbers. When it drops to ten again he waits for it to get back to eighteen. When it drops to two he waits for it to get back to ten. Well, it gets back there. But he has wasted a quarter of his life. And all he's got out of his money is a little mathematical excitement.

He was one of those persons whom one loves not because of some lustrous streak of talent (this retired businessman possessed none), but because every moment spent with them fits exactly the gauge of one's life. There are friendships like circuses, waterfalls, libraries; there are others comparable to old dressing gowns. You found nothing especially attractive about Maximov's mind if you took it apart: his ideas were conservative, his tastes undistinguished: but somehow or other these dull components formed a wonderfully comfortable and harmonious whole.

Your path in life may not always be clear, but trust your instincts and take one step at a time.

I'm halfway through my life, and as far as I can tell, the real lesson of the past isn't that I made some mistakes, it's that I didn't make nearly enough of them. I doubt I'll be lying on my deathbed in forty or fifty years, congratulating myself on the fact that I never had sex in an airplane with a handsome Italian businessman, or patting myself on the back for all those years of involuntary celibacy I endured after my divorce. If recent experience is any guide, I'll probably be lying in that hospital bed with my body full of tubes, sneaking glances at the handsome young doctor, wishing that I hadn't been such a coward. Wishing I'd taken more risks, made more mistakes, and accumulated more regrets. Just wishing I'd lived when I had the chance.

Always remember that you are the observer and not the doer. Do not take life to be anything more than acting. Don’t identify yourself too much with the action. Whether you are a wife or husband, a businessman or client, don’t get too involved. Don’t lose yourself in it, for you are simply playing a role in the play. Keep outside of it, and within yourself. These are all necessary parts of life. You must go to work, it is necessary. The play is delightful if you see it as play, but it is fatal if you take it to be life. There is no reason so disrupt your life. You have to play the part that life has given you.

If I woke up one morning and realized that all I ever was going to be was a business man, I'd probably die. All my dreams would be shattered. Early in life I had many dreams. I dreamed of being a great basketball star. I dreamed of being a preacher. I dreamed of saving the world from war and racism. And I dreamed of being a great poet. Today, I dream only of writing.

The life of a writer is absolute hell compared with the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn’t go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him. If he is a writer of fiction he lives in a world of fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not. Two hours of writing fiction leaves this particular writer absolutely drained. For those two hours he has been miles away, he has been somewhere else, in a different place with totally different people, and the effort of swimming back into normal surroundings is very great. It is almost a shock. The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze… a person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.

Life curses some poor people with the love of luxury, while it blesses some with the very same thing.

Money Can make things better but a perfect relationship makes your life complete.

You are a manager nonetheless who you are. There is a business worth keeping and you are the manager of that business. Yes, the business of your life. There is a big asset worth managing. Yes, your choices. As a manager of your own life, your choices are your assets. They form the pivot for the doom or boom of the business of your life. Some will be great managers and others will collapse the business of their lives by their choices or stay in mediocrity with the business of their lives.

Marx wrote about finance and industry all his life but he only knew two people connected with financial and industrial processes. One was his uncle in Holland, Lion Philips, a successful businessman who created what eventually became the vast Philips Electric Company. Uncle Philips' views on the whole capitalist process would have been well-informed and interesting, had Marx troubled to explore them. But he only once consulted him, on a technical matter of high finance, and though he visited Philips four times, these concerned purely personal mattes of family money. The other knowledgeable man was Engels himself. But Marx declined Engel's invitation to accompany him on a visit to a cotton mill, and so far as we know Marx never set foot in a mill, factory, mine or other industrial workplace in the whole of his life.

I wanted to say that although you might be considered a good businessman, you’ve done it at the expense of being a terrible, verbally abusive father. And one day you’re going to look back on your life and regret the way you treated your children, and I hope it hurts you as much as you hurt them. So fuck you and fuck off.

Still, the fact remains: human productivity naturally drops in the afternoon. In TV, this is referred to as the Afternoon Depression Zone. Too late to get anything meaningful done; too early to go home. Doesn’t matter if you’re a homemaker, a fourth grader, a bricklayer, a businessman—no one is immune. Between the hours of one thirty-one and four forty-four p.m., productive life as we know it ceases to exist. It’s a virtual death zone.

Then my hair was loose and his hands were buried in it, and he was kissing me so deeply his fangs grazed my teeth and I tasted blood. I was acutely aware of every inch of my body that was touching every inch of his: his forearm grazing the side of my neck, his hands cradling my skull, his mouth so soft yet ” “hard, his powerful chest against the only part of me that wasn’t muscle, one of his thighs slipping between my legs, making my knees tremble and nearly buckle. He kissed like he did everything, with exquisite skill, passion, and one hundred percent focus. Here was where Ryodan shed his aloof businessman attire, his cool facade, and came to life with the heat and intensity of a thousand suns. And I realized that was what had so entranced me on Level 4—I’d seen him drop all his guards and fuck like a man on fire, with nothing held back. Open, unguarded, just like he’d been when we’d talked. Ryodan, controlled, is formidably fascinating. Ryodan, open, is indescribably addictive.

I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours and a fixed salary and very little original thinking to do. The life of a writer is absolute hell compared with the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn’t go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him. If he is a writer of fiction he lives in a world of fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not. Two hours of writing fiction leaves this particular writer absolutely drained. For those two hours he has been miles away, he has been somewhere else, in a different place with totally different people, and the effort of swimming back into normal surroundings is very great. It is almost a shock. The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith, hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.

We are the last generation that can experience true wilderness. Already the world has shrunk dramatically. To a Frenchman, the Pyrenees are “wild.” To a kid living in a New York City ghetto, Central Park is “wilderness,” the way Griffith Park in Burbank was to me when I was a kid. Even travelers in Patagonia forget that its giant, wild-looking estancias are really just overgrazed sheep farms. New Zealand and Scotland were once forested and populated with long-forgotten animals. The place in the lower forty-eight states that is farthest away from a road or habitation is at the headwaters of the Snake River in Wyoming, and it’s still only twenty-five miles. So if you define wilderness as a place that is more than a day’s walk from civilization, there is no true wilderness left in North America, except in parts of Alaska and Canada. In a true Earth-radical group, concern for wilderness preservation must be the keystone. The idea of wilderness, after all, is the most radical in human thought—more radical than Paine, than Marx, than Mao. Wilderness says: Human beings are not paramount, Earth is not for Homo sapiens alone, human life is but one life form on the planet and has no right to take exclusive possession. Yes, wilderness for its own sake, without any need to justify it for human benefit. Wilderness for wilderness. For bears and whales and titmice and rattlesnakes and stink bugs. And…wilderness for human beings…. Because it is home. —Dave Foreman, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior We need to protect these areas of unaltered wildness and diversity to have a baseline, so we never forget what the real world is like—in perfect balance, the way nature intended the earth to be. This is the model we need to keep in mind on our way toward sustainability.

That was a tremendous learning experience,” said McCarthy. “Never judge a book by its cover; open it up. If you treat a kid who is buying a $19.95 belt the same as a businessman buying a $1,995 Oxford suit, you will be successful. That kid might become a customer for life.

Have you ever thought about it? If somebody asks, “Who are you?” what do you answer? You say your name. The name is not yours, because you came into the world without a name. You came nameless; it is not your property, it has been given to you. And any name, A-B-C-D, would have been useful. It is arbitrary. It is not essential in any way. If you are called “Susan” good; if you are called “Harry” good, it makes no difference. Any name would have been as applicable to you as any other. It is just a label. A name is needed to call you by, but it has nothing to do with your being. Or you say, “I am a doctor” or you say, “I am an engineer”—or a businessman, or a painter, or this and that—but nothing says anything about you. When you say, “I am a doctor,” you say something about your profession, not about you. You say how you earn your living. You don’t say anything about life, you say something about your living. You may be earning your living as an engineer, or as a doctor, or as a businessman—it is irrelevant. It does not say anything about you. Or you say your father’s name, your mother’s name, you give your family tree—that too is irrelevant because that doesn’t define you. Your being born in a particular family is accidental; you could as well have been born in another family and you would not even have noticed the difference. These are just utilitarian tricks—and man becomes a “self.” This self is a pseudoself, a created, manufactured self, homemade. And your own real self remains deep down hidden in mist and mystery. I was reading:

That Seigo could go into geisha houses, accept luncheon invitations, drop in at the Club, see people off at Shimabashi, meet them at Yokohama, run out to Oiso to humor the elders—that he could put in his appearance at large gatherings from morning to evening without seeming either triumphant or dejected—this must be because he was thoroughly accustomed to this kind of life, thought Daisuke; it was probably like the jellyfish's floating in the sea and not finding it salty.

Opportunities pass by frequently, but people don’t always see them. Taking risks grants you an invisible set of glasses that reveal the many opportunities which surround you.

My role-options in life and career, I realized, were not limited to Businessman, Athlete, and Boneheaded Patriot.

We believe that this is ‘our’ home and ‘our’ family. No, it is a ‘shop’ for us to settle our karmas. It is like a customer-businessman relationship.

I am a businessman. To me, people only do things out of self-interest.

Eli was a good businessman precisely because he never took ‘no’ for an answer. He wasn’t about to start when it came to the most important deal of his life.

As far as self worth, I think it’s important to first be a value adder. But then – if you are a value adder, then you need to know your worth. Not arrogantly, but confidently and humbly.

You have probably worked your entire life to create a sense of identity around your job, your family, your hobbies, or your physical characteristics. But none of these is who you really are. You are not what you look like. You are not your family. You are not your job, income, or performance. You are not your current situation or the mistakes you have made. Mistakes are just locations on your journey; they have nothing to do with who you are, and neither does what you do or how successful you are. You are bigger than all those things. You are much more than just a businessman or a mom or a student. You are a divine, irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind, amazing, loving, eternal being, and your value comes from that fact alone. You come from God, who is love, which to me would mean - you are love too. You have to be. And if you are love then nothing you do or don’t do can change your value, because no matter what you do or how many mistakes you make, you are still YOU; you are still LOVE. You can’t help it. You cannot be anything else.

My father is a businessman trying to provide for his wife and children and those friends he might need someday in a time of trouble. He doesn’t accept the rules of the society we live in because those rules would have condemned him to a life not suitable to a man like himself, a man of extraordinary force and character. What you have to understand is that he considers himself the equal of all those great men like Presidents and Prime Ministers and Supreme Court Justices and Governors of the States. He refuses to live by rules set up by others, rules which condemn him to a defeated life. But his ultimate aim is to enter that society with a certain power since society doesn’t really protect its members who do not have their own individual power. In the meantime he operates on a code of ethics he considers far superior to the legal structures of society.

Doesn’t matter if you’re a homemaker, a fourth grader, a bricklayer, a businessman—no one is immune. Between the hours of one thirty-one and four forty-four p.m., productive life as we know it ceases to exist. It’s a virtual death zone.

The fifth planet was very strange. It was the smallest of all. There was just enough room on it for a street lamp and a lamp-lighter. The little prince was not able to reach any explanation of the use of a street lamp and a lamplighter, somewhere in the heavens, on a planet which had no people, and not one house. But he said to himself, nevertheless: "It may well be that this man is absurd. But he is not so absurd as the king, the conceited man, the businessman, and the tippler. For at least his work has some meaning. When he lights his street lamp, it is as if he brought one more star to life, or one flower. When he puts out his lamp, he sends the flower, or the star, to sleep. That is a beautiful occupation. And since it is beautiful, it is truly useful.

When a society is industrialized, a peasant becomes a worker, a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman. When classes rise or fall a man is employed or unemployed; when the rate of investment goes up or down, a man takes new heart of goes broke. When wars happen, an insurance salesman becomes a rocket launcher; a store clerk, a radar ma; a wife lives alone; a child grows up without a father. Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding other. - pg 3

It seems wrong to call it "business". It seems wrong to throw all those hectic days and sleepless nights, all those magnificent triumphs and desperate struggles, under that bland, generic banner: business. What we were doing felt like so much more. Each new day brought fifty new problems, fifty tough decisions that needed to be made, right now, and we were always acutely aware that one rash move, one wrong decision could be the end. The margin for error was forever getting narrower, while the stakes were forever creeping higher–and none of us wavered in the belief that "stakes" didn't mean "money". For some, I realize, business is the all-out pursuit of profits, period, full stop, but for use business was no more about making money than being human is about making blood. Yes, the human body needs blood. It needs to manufacture red and white cells and platelets and redistribute them evenly, smoothly, to all the right places, on time, or else. But that day-to-day of the human body isn't our mission as human beings. It's a basic process that enables our higher aims, and life always strives to transcend the basic processes of living–and at some point in the late 1970s, I did, too. I redefined winning, expanded it beyond my original definition of not losing, of merely staying alive. That was no longer enough to sustain me, or my company. We wanted, as all great business do, to create, to contribute, and we dared to say so aloud. When you make something, when you improve something, when you deliver something, when you add some new thing or service to the life of strangers, making them happier, or healthier, or safer, or better, and when you do it all crisply and efficiently, smartly, the way everything should be done but so seldom is–you're participating more fully in the whole grand human drama. More than simply alive, you're helping other to live more fully, and if that's business, all right, call me a businessman.

After every abortive escape attempt, he returned to his mother, doing so both after the separation from Verlaine and at the end of his life, when he had finally sacrificed his creative gifts by giving up his writing to become a businessman, thus indirectly fulfilling his mother’s expectations of him. Although Rimbaud spent the last days of his life in a hospital in Marseille, he had gone back to western France immediately before that, where he was looked after by his mother and sister. The quest for his mother’s love ended in the prison of childhood.

Life is a bunch of decisions. If your first bunch sucks and lands you in the shithouse, start making new decisions until you've gathered up a fresh bunch that brings you to a brighter place. All the mistakes you've made along the way weren't mistakes at all, but experiences. Lessons.

There are times when certain cards sit unclaimed in the common pile, when certain properties become available that will never be available again. A good businessman feels these moments like a fall in the barometric pressure. A great businessman is dumb enough to act on them even when he cannot afford to.

Have you ever thought about it? If somebody asks, “Who are you?” what do you answer? You say your name. The name is not yours, because you came into the world without a name. You came nameless; it is not your property, it has been given to you. And any name, A-B-C-D, would have been useful. It is arbitrary. It is not essential in any way. If you are called “Susan” good; if you are called “Harry” good, it makes no difference. Any name would have been as applicable to you as any other. It is just a label. A name is needed to call you by, but it has nothing to do with your being. Or you say, “I am a doctor” or you say, “I am an engineer”—or a businessman, or a painter, or this and that—but nothing says anything about you. When you say, “I am a doctor,” you say something about your profession, not about you. You say how you earn your living. You don’t say anything about life, you say something about your living. You may be earning your living as an engineer, or as a doctor, or as a businessman—it is irrelevant. It does not say anything about you. Or you say your father’s name, your mother’s name, you give your family tree—that too is irrelevant because that doesn’t define you. Your being born in a particular family is accidental; you could as well have been born in another family and you would not even have noticed the difference. These are just utilitarian tricks—and man becomes a “self.” This self is a pseudoself, a created, manufactured self, homemade. And your own real self remains deep down hidden in mist and

This extreme treatment was among the proliferating regimens developed in response to the stunning increase in nervous disorders diagnosed around the turn of the century. Commentators and clinicians cited a number of factors related to the stresses of modern civilization: the increased speed of communication facilitated by the telegraph and railroad; the “unmelodious” clamor of city life replacing the “rhythmical” sounds of nature; and the rise of the tabloid press that exploded “local horrors” into national news. These nervous diseases became an epidemic among “the ultracompetitive businessman and the socially active woman.

For my friend Fong,” he says, and begins singing John Denver. If you didn’t know it already, now you do: old dudes from rural Taiwan are comfortable with their karaoke and when they do karaoke for some reason they love no one like they love John Denver. Maybe it’s the dream of the open highway. The romantic myth of the West. A reminder that these funny little Orientals have actually been Americans longer than you have. Know something about this country that you haven’t yet figured out. If you don’t believe it, go down to your local karaoke bar on a busy night. Wait until the third hour, when the drunk frat boys and gastropub waitresses with headshots are all done with Backstreet Boys and Alicia Keys and locate the slightly older Asian businessman standing patiently in line for his turn, his face warmly rouged on Crown or Japanese lager, and when he steps up and starts slaying “Country Roads,” try not to laugh, or wink knowingly or clap a little too hard, because by the time he gets to “West Virginia, mountain mama,” you’re going to be singing along, and by the time he’s done, you might understand why a seventy-seven-year-old guy from a tiny island in the Taiwan Strait who’s been in a foreign country for two-thirds of his life can nail a song, note perfect, about wanting to go home.

For some, I realize, business is the all-out pursuit of profits, period, full stop, but for us business was no more about making money than being human is about making blood. Yes, the human body needs blood. It needs to manufacture red and white cells and platelets and redistribute them evenly, smoothly, to all the right places, on time, or else. But that day-to-day business of the human body isn’t our mission as human beings. It’s a basic process that enables our higher aims, and life always strives to transcend the basic processes of living—and at some point in the late 1970s, I did, too. I redefined winning, expanded it beyond my original definition of not losing, of merely staying alive. That was no longer enough to sustain me, or my company. We wanted, as all great businesses do, to create, to contribute, and we dared to say so aloud. When you make something, when you improve something, when you deliver something, when you add some new thing or service to the lives of strangers, making them happier, or healthier, or safer, or better, and when you do it all crisply and efficiently, smartly, the way everything should be done but so seldom is—you’re participating more fully in the whole grand human drama. More than simply alive, you’re helping others to live more fully, and if that’s business, all right, call me a businessman. Maybe it will grow on me. THERE

There’s another bonus when you’re willing to expand your comfort zone. When you push through fear and take action in some areas of your life, you’ll develop confidence in other areas, as well. It’s true! As I became more comfortable as a speaker, I also became a better salesman … a better businessman … a better listener … the list goes on and on.

I know. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought it was a book about a nice college girl interviewing a businessman until contracts start to be talked of and kisses happen in elevators. Then before you know it,” Grams wings her hands in the air freely, “penises are flying about and tampons are being pulled out.” Fanning herself, she continues, “I’ve been quite educated.

or creed.” These rights included: The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation; The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living; The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; The right of every family to a decent home; The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; The right to a good education. Roosevelt

A very poor Greek man once applied for a job as a janitor in a bank in Athens. “Can you write?” demanded the discriminating head of employment. “Only my name,” said the fellow. He didn’t get the job—so he borrowed the money required to travel steerage to the United States and followed his dreams to the “land of opportunity.” Many years later, an important Greek businessman held a press conference in his beautiful Wall Street offices. At the conclusion, an enterprising reporter said, “One day you should write your memoirs.” The gentleman smiled. “Impossible,” he said. “I cannot write.” The reporter was astounded. “Just think,” he remarked, “how much further you would have gone if you could write.” The Greek shook his head and said, “If I could write, I’d be a janitor.

I got a lousy proposition for you,” I said, and paused until each asked me to go on. “By the time we get off the phone, you’re going to think I’m a lousy businessman. You’re going to think I can’t budget or plan. You’re going to think Chris Voss is a big talker. His first big project ever out of the FBI, he screws it up completely. He doesn’t know how to run an operation. And he might even have lied to me.

Mr. Parker, a businessman, is leaving on a trip and stops by his office on the way to the airport, around midnight. The night watchman, Paul stops him and says, “Mr. Parker, please don’t take that flight. I had a dream last night, a little after midnight,  that your plane would crash and everyone would die!” The business man cancels his trip and sure enough, the plane crashes, no survivors. Mr. Parker gives Paul a $20,000 reward for saving his life, then fires him. Why? Give

Human beings the world over are so used to being pursued for the commitment “yes” as a condition to find out more that they have become masters at giving the counterfeit “yes.” That’s what the people facing Joe Businessman are doing, dangling the counterfeit “yes” so they can hear more. Whether you call it “buy-in” or “engagement” or something else, good negotiators know that their job isn’t to put on a great performance but to gently guide their counterpart to discover their goal as his own.

Montaigne was neither one of the academics of the Sorbonne nor a professional man of letters, and he was not these things on two planes. First, he was a doer; he had been a magistrate, a businessman, and the mayor of Bordeaux before he retired to mull over his life and, mostly, his own knowledge. Second, he was an antidogmatist: he was a skeptic with charm, a fallible, noncommittal, personal, introspective writer, and, primarily, someone who, in the great classical tradition, wanted to be a man.

I wanted to say that although you might be considered a good businessman, you’ve done it at the expense of being a terrible, verbally abusive father. And one day you’re going to look back on your life and regret the way you treated your children, and I hope it hurts you as much as you hurt them. So fuck you and fuck off.”  I swivel on my heel and catch Martha staring at me with a big grin and a thumbs-up. I’m sure to blow her a kiss on my way out the door while using my other hand to give Seth Kane the middle finger.

Fifteen years ago, a business manager from the United States came to Plum Village to visit me. His conscience was troubled because he was the head of a firm that designed atomic bombs. I listened as he expressed his concerns. I knew if I advised him to quit his job, another person would only replace him. If he were to quit, he might help himself, but he would not help his company, society, or country. I urged him to remain the director of his firm, to bring mindfulness into his daily work, and to use his position to communicate his concerns and doubts about the production of atomic bombs. In the Sutra on Happiness, the Buddha says it is great fortune to have an occupation that allows us to be happy, to help others, and to generate compassion and understanding in this world. Those in the helping professions have occupations that give them this wonderful opportunity. Yet many social workers, physicians, and therapists work in a way that does not cultivate their compassion, instead doing their job only to earn money. If the bomb designer practises and does his work with mindfulness, his job can still nourish his compassion and in some way allow him to help others. He can still influence his government and fellow citizens by bringing greater awareness to the situation. He can give the whole nation an opportunity to question the necessity of bomb production. Many people who are wealthy, powerful, and important in business, politics, and entertainment are not happy. They are seeking empty things - wealth, fame, power, sex - and in the process they are destroying themselves and those around them. In Plum Village, we have organised retreats for businesspeople. We see that they have many problems and suffer just as others do, sometimes even more. We see that their wealth allows them to live in comfortable conditions, yet they still suffer a great deal. Some businesspeople, even those who have persuaded themselves that their work is very important, feel empty in their occupation. They provide employment to many people in their factories, newspapers, insurance firms, and supermarket chains, yet their financial success is an empty happiness because it is not motivated by understanding or compassion. Caught up in their small world of profit and loss, they are unaware of the suffering and poverty in the world. When we are not int ouch with this larger reality, we will lack the compassion we need to nourish and guide us to happiness. Once you begin to realise your interconnectedness with others, your interbeing, you begin to see how your actions affect you and all other life. You begin to question your way of living, to look with new eyes at the quality of your relationships and the way you work. You begin to see, 'I have to earn a living, yes, but I want to earn a living mindfully. I want to try to select a vocation not harmful to others and to the natural world, one that does not misuse resources.' Entire companies can also adopt this way of thinking. Companies have the right to pursue economic growth, but not at the expense of other life. They should respect the life and integrity of people, animals, plants and minerals. Do not invest your time or money in companies that deprive others of their lives, that operate in a way that exploits people or animals, and destroys nature. Businesspeople who visit Plum Village often find that getting in touch with the suffering of others and cultivating understanding brings them happiness. They practise like Anathapindika, a successful businessman who lived at the time of the Buddha, who with the practise of mindfulness throughout his life did everything he could to help the poor and sick people in his homeland.

Let me tell you a joke, Rora said. Mujo wakes up one day, after a long night of drinking, and asks himself what the meaning of life is. He goes to work, but realizes that is not what life is or should be. He decides to read some philosophy and for years studies everything from the old Greeks onward, but can't find the meaning of life. Maybe it's the family, he thinks, so he spends time with his wife, Fata, and the kids, but finds no meaning in that and so he leaves them. He thinks, Maybe helping others is the meaning of life, so he goes to medical school, graduates with flying colors, goes to Africa to cure malaria and transplants hearts, but cannot discover the meaning of life. He thinks, maybe it's the wealth, so he becomes a businessman, starts making money hand over fist, millions of dollars, buys everything there is to buy, but that is not what life is about. Then he turns to poverty and humility and such, so he gives everything away and begs on the streets, but still he cannot see what life is. He thinks maybe it is literature: he writes novel upon novel, but the more he writes the more obscure the meaning of life becomes. He turns to God, lives the life of a dervish, reads and contemplates the Holy Book of Islam - still, nothing. He studies Christianity, then Judaism, then Buddhism, then everything else - no meaning of life there. Finally, he hears about a guru living high up in the mountains somewhere in the East. The guru, they say, knows what the meaning of life is. So Mujo goes east, travels for years, walks roads, climbs the mountain, finds the stairs that lead up to the guru. He ascends the stairs, tens of thousands of them, nearly dies getting up there. At the top, there are millions of pilgrims, he has to wait for months to get to the guru. Eventually it is his turn, he goes to a place under a big tree, and there sits the naked guru, his legs crossed, his eyes closed, meditating, perfectly peaceful - he surely knows the meaning of life, Mujo says: I have dedicated my life to discovering the meaning of life and I have failed, so I have come to ask you humbly, O Master, to divulge the secret to me. The guru opens his eyes, looks at Mujo, and calmly says, My friend, life is a river. Mujo stares at him for a long time, cannot believe what he heard. What's life again? Mujo asks. Life is a river, the guru says. Mujo nods and says, You turd of turds, you goddamn stupid piece of shit, you motherfucking cocksucking asshole. I have wasted my life and come all this way for you to tell me that life is a fucking river. A river? Are you kidding me? That is the stupidest, emptiest fucking thing I have ever heard. Is that what you spent your life figuring out? And the guru says, What? It is not a river? Are you saying it is not a river?

A well expected question here is why to live such a tough life and why bear so much. The answer is if you have decided to become a saint, why to leverage anything. You should not become saint to live in Ashramas which have palace like amenities, being served by ladies and even spending nights with them. You should not enjoy a variety of food, when even a single diet is not available to lots of poor people. You should not charge people to help them with their problems. If a saint or a monk does this and prefer enjoying his life with all these earnings he make of it, this means he is more into the profession and he must be considered a businessman. And no businessman deserves the respect like a Saint or a Monk does.

Questioner: With all the contradictions in oneself, how is it possible to be and to do simultaneously? Krishnamurti: Do you know what self-contradiction is? If I want to do a particular thing in life and at the same time I want to please my parents, who would like me to do something else, there is in me a conflict, a contradiction. Suppose you want to study painting because to paint is the joy of your life, and your father says that you must become a lawyer or a businessman, otherwise he will cut you off and not pay for your education; there is then a contradiction in you, is there not? Now, how are you to remove that inner contradiction, to be free of the struggle and the pain of it? As long as you are caught in self-contradiction you cannot think; so you must remove the contradiction, you must do one thing or the other. Which will it be? Will you yield to your father? If you do, it means that you have put away your joy, you have wed something which you do not love; and will that resolve the contradiction? Whereas, if you withstand your father, if you say, “Sorry, I don’t care if I have to beg, starve, I am going to paint,” then there is no contradiction; then being and doing are simultaneous, because you know what you want to do and you do it with your whole heart. But if you become a lawyer or a businessman while inside you are burning to be a painter, then for the rest of your life you will be a dull, weary human being living in torment, in frustration, in misery, being destroyed and destroying others. If you find out what it is you love to do and give your whole life to it, then there is no contradiction, and in that state your being is your doing.

The existence of the corporation, as we have it with us today, was never dreamed of by the fathers . . .The corporation of today has invaded every department of business, and it’s powerful but invisible hand is felt in almost all activities of life . . . The effect of this change upon the American people is radical and rapid. The individual is fast disappearing as a business factor and in his stead is this new device, the modern corporation . . . The influence of this change upon character cannot be overestimated. The businessman at one time gave his individuality, stamped his mental and moral characteristics upon the business he conducted . . . Today the business once transacted by individuals in every community is in the control of corporations, and many of the men who once conducted an independent business are gathered into the organization, and all personal identity, and all individualities lost.

A businessman buys a business and tries to operate it. He does everything that he knows how to do but just cannot make it go. Year after year the ledger shows red, and he is not making a profit. He borrows what he can, has a little spirit and a little hope, but that spirit and hope die and he goes broke. Finally, he sells out, hopelessly in debt, and is left a failure in the business world. A woman is educated to be a teacher but just cannot get along with the other teachers. Something in her constitution or temperament will not allow her to get along with children or young people. So after being shuttled from one school to another, she finally gives up, goes somewhere and takes a job running a stapling machine. She just cannot teach and is a failure in the education world. I have known ministers who thought they were called to preach. They prayed and studied and learned Greek and Hebrew, but somehow they just could not make the public want to listen to them. They just couldn’t do it. They were failures in the congregational world. It is possible to be a Christian and yet be a failure. This is the same as Israel in the desert, wandering around. The Israelites were God’s people, protected and fed, but they were failures. They were not where God meant them to be. They compromised. They were halfway between where they used to be and where they ought to be. And that describes many of the Lord’s people. They live and die spiritual failures. I am glad God is good and kind. Failures can crawl into God’s arms, relax and say, “Father, I made a mess of it. I’m a spiritual failure. I haven’t been out doing evil things exactly, but here I am, Father, and I’m old and ready to go and I’m a failure.” Our kind and gracious heavenly Father will not say to that person, “Depart from me—I never knew you,” because that person has believed and does believe in Jesus Christ. The individual has simply been a failure all of his life. He is ready for death and ready for heaven. I wonder if that is what Paul, the man of God, meant when he said: [No] other foundation can [any] man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he should receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire (1 Cor. 3:11-15). I think that’s what it means, all right. We ought to be the kind of Christian that cannot only save our souls but also save our lives. When Lot left Sodom, he had nothing but the garments on his back. Thank God, he got out. But how much better it would have been if he had said farewell at the gate and had camels loaded with his goods. He could have gone out with his head up, chin out, saying good riddance to old Sodom. How much better he could have marched away from there with his family. And when he settled in a new place, he could have had “an abundant entrance” (see 2 Pet. 1:11). Thank God, you are going to make it. But do you want to make it in the way you have been acting lately? Wandering, roaming aimlessly? When there is a place where Jesus will pour “the oil of gladness” on our heads, a place sweeter than any other in the entire world, the blood-bought mercy seat (Ps. 45:7; Heb. 1:9)? It is the will of God that you should enter the holy of holies, live under the shadow of the mercy seat, and go out from there and always come back to be renewed and recharged and re-fed. It is the will of God that you live by the mercy seat, living a separated, clean, holy, sacrificial life—a life of continual spiritual difference. Wouldn’t that be better than the way you are doing it now?

Revolution is a very difficult task. It is beyond the power of any man to make a revolution. Neither can it be brought about on any appointed date. It is brought can it be brought about on an appointed date. It is brought about by special environments, social and economic. The function of an organized party is to utilise an such opportunity offered by these circumstances. And to prepare the masses and organize the forces for the revolution is a very difficult task. And that required a very great sacrifice on the part of the revolutionary workers. Let me make it clear that if you are a businessman or an established worldly or family man, please don't play with fire. As a leader you are of no use to the party. We have already very many such leaders who spare some evening hours for delivering speeches. They are useless. We require — to use the term so dear to Lenin — the "professional revolutionaries". The whole-time workers who have no other ambitions or life-work except the revolution. The greater the number of such workers organized into a party, the great the chances of your success.

It's always "I love you" but never "I can give you death." This primitive country has picked you clean. It has shackled you in permanent exile. Every room you enter, every hat you are forced to wear....the stern landlord, the deferential businessman, the loyal son...all these roles you conform to and none of them your true nature. What rage you must feel as you choke on your sorrow. The first time I laid eyes on you, your beautiful face, I saw that sorrow. I did not know how it got there or why it was so voluminous. I can take away that sorrow, Louis. I can give you the death you begged your feeble, blind, degenerate, nonexistent god for. But I can do it....joyfully. I can swap this life of shame, swap it out for a dark gift and a power you can't begin to imagine. You just have to ask me for it. You just have to nod your beautiful head.... and say yes. I love you, Louis. You are loved. I send my love to you, and you send it back round to me. And this circle, this home we barely had a glimpse of how it frightens me as much as it does you. Be my companion, Louis. Be all the beautiful thing you are, and be them without apology. For all eternity.

As I became older, I was given many masks to wear. I could be a laborer laying railroad tracks across the continent, with long hair in a queue to be pulled by pranksters; a gardener trimming the shrubs while secretly planting a bomb; a saboteur before the day of infamy at Pearl Harbor, signaling the Imperial Fleet; a kamikaze pilot donning his headband somberly, screaming 'Banzai' on my way to my death; a peasant with a broad-brimmed straw hat in a rice paddy on the other side of the world, stooped over to toil in the water; an obedient servant in the parlor, a houseboy too dignified for my own good; a washerman in the basement laundry, removing stains using an ancient secret; a tyrant intent on imposing my despotism on the democratic world, opposed by the free and the brave; a party cadre alongside many others, all of us clad in coordinated Mao jackets; a sniper camouflaged in the trees of the jungle, training my gunsights on G.I. Joe; a child running with a body burning from napalm, captured in an unforgettable photo; an enemy shot in the head or slaughtered by the villageful; one of the grooms in a mass wedding of couples, having met my mate the day before through our cult leader; an orphan in the last airlift out of a collapsed capital, ready to be adopted into the good life; a black belt martial artist breaking cinderblocks with his head, in an advertisement for Ginsu brand knives with the slogan 'but wait--there's more' as the commercial segued to show another free gift; a chef serving up dog stew, a trick on the unsuspecting diner; a bad driver swerving into the next lane, exactly as could be expected; a horny exchange student here for a year, eager to date the blonde cheerleader; a tourist visiting, clicking away with his camera, posing my family in front of the monuments and statues; a ping pong champion, wearing white tube socks pulled up too high and batting the ball with a wicked spin; a violin prodigy impressing the audience at Carnegie Hall, before taking a polite bow; a teen computer scientist, ready to make millions on an initial public offering before the company stock crashes; a gangster in sunglasses and a tight suit, embroiled in a turf war with the Sicilian mob; an urban greengrocer selling lunch by the pound, rudely returning change over the counter to the black patrons; a businessman with a briefcase of cash bribing a congressman, a corrupting influence on the electoral process; a salaryman on my way to work, crammed into the commuter train and loyal to the company; a shady doctor, trained in a foreign tradition with anatomical diagrams of the human body mapping the flow of life energy through a multitude of colored points; a calculus graduate student with thick glasses and a bad haircut, serving as a teaching assistant with an incomprehensible accent, scribbling on the chalkboard; an automobile enthusiast who customizes an imported car with a supercharged engine and Japanese decals in the rear window, cruising the boulevard looking for a drag race; a illegal alien crowded into the cargo hold of a smuggler's ship, defying death only to crowd into a New York City tenement and work as a slave in a sweatshop. My mother and my girl cousins were Madame Butterfly from the mail order bride catalog, dying in their service to the masculinity of the West, and the dragon lady in a kimono, taking vengeance for her sisters. They became the television newscaster, look-alikes with their flawlessly permed hair. Through these indelible images, I grew up. But when I looked in the mirror, I could not believe my own reflection because it was not like what I saw around me. Over the years, the world opened up. It has become a dizzying kaleidoscope of cultural fragments, arranged and rearranged without plan or order.

If there are costs to becoming legal, there are also bound to be costs to remaining outside the law. We found that operating outside the world of legal work and business was surprisingly expensive. In Peru, for example, the cost of operating a business extralegally includes paying 10 to 15 per cent of its annual income in bribes and commissions to authorities. Add to such payoffs the costs of avoiding penalties, making transfers outside legal channels and operating from dispersed locations and without credit, and the life of the extralegal entrepreneur turns out to be far more costly and full of daily hassles than that of the legal businessman. Perhaps the most significant cost was caused by the absence of institutions that create incentives for people to seize economic and social opportunities to specialize within the market place. We found that people who could not operate within the law also could not hold property efficiently or enforce contracts through the courts; nor could they reduce uncertainty through limited liability systems and insurance policies, or create stock companies to attract additional capital and share risk. Being unable to raise money for investment, they could not achieve economies of scale or protect their innovations through royalties and patents.

The stone is not a plaything for little girls, Camille.” He hardened his stare. She tried to keep her eyes equally fierce. “The path to the stone is said to be riddled with traps, endless holes in the earth where you fall forever. Deep caves shelter a species of enormous beasts that protect the stone. Men who set out to find it are usually never seen again.” She sat back, surprised by his intensity and passion. “Well, then,” she said, and watched him puff out his chest victoriously. “I do hope you set out to find it.” He glowered at her. “Oh, I most certainly will. The map and stone will be mine.” Camille stood, pushing her chair back. “It looks like you have some competition, then. I won’t give up until I’ve brought my father back to life.” McGreenery flashed his white smile and roared with laughter. “Bring him back? Oh yes, you would actually use the stone.” She lifted her chin. “And you wouldn’t?” He laughed at her again. “Dear child, you don’t know a thing about it, do you? You don’t have the faintest clue how the stone will work. If you think this is some short journey without risks or sacrifices, you should sail home right now. The magic of that stone is but a fraction of the everlasting power it leads to. A clever businessman would sell that power to the highest bidder.

After more than twenty years as a transactional trader and businessman in what I called the “strange profession,” I tried what one calls an academic career. And I have something to report—actually that was the driver behind this idea of antifragility in life and the dichotomy between the natural and the alienation of the unnatural. Commerce is fun, thrilling, lively, and natural; academia as currently professionalized is none of these. And for those who think that academia is “quieter” and an emotionally relaxing transition after the volatile and risk-taking business life, a surprise: when in action, new problems and scares emerge every day to displace and eliminate the previous day’s headaches, resentments, and conflicts. A nail displaces another nail, with astonishing variety. But academics (particularly in social science) seem to distrust each other; they live in petty obsessions, envy, and icy-cold hatreds, with small snubs developing into grudges, fossilized over time in the loneliness of the transaction with a computer screen and the immutability of their environment. Not to mention a level of envy I have almost never seen in business. … My experience is that money and transactions purify relations; ideas and abstract matters like “recognition” and “credit” warp them, creating an atmosphere of perpetual rivalry. I grew to find people greedy for credentials nauseating, repulsive, and untrustworthy.

A second element in the creation of commercial value is scarcity, the separation of people from whatever they might want or need. In artificial environments, where humans are separated from the sources of their survival, everything obtains a condition of relative scarcity and therefore value. There is the old story of the native living on a Pacific island, relaxing in a house on the beach, picking fruit from the tree and spearing fish in the water. A businessman arrives on the island, buys all the land, cuts down the trees and builds a factory. Then he hires the native to work in it for money so that someday the native can afford canned fruit and fish from the mainland, a nice little cinder-block house near the beach with a view of the water, and weekends off to enjoy it. The moment people move off land which has directly supported them, the necessities of life are removed from individual control. The things people could formerly produce for their survival must now be paid for. You may be living on the exact spot where a fruit tree once fed people. Now the fruit comes from five hundred miles away and costs thirty-five cents apiece. It is in the separation that the opportunity for profit resides. When the basic necessities are not scarce—in those places where food is still wild and abundant, for example—economic value can only be applied to new items. Candy bars, bottled or chemical milk, canned tuna, electrical appliances and CocaCola have all been intensively marketed in countries new to the market system. Because these products hadn’t existed in those places before, they are automatically relatively scarce and potentially valuable.

Everything and Nothing* There was no one inside him; behind his face (which even in the bad paintings of the time resembles no other) and his words (which were multitudinous, and of a fantastical and agitated turn) there was no more than a slight chill, a dream someone had failed to dream. At first he thought that everyone was like him, but the surprise and bewilderment of an acquaintance to whom he began to describe that hollowness showed him his error, and also let him know, forever after, that an individual ought not to differ from its species. He thought at one point that books might hold some remedy for his condition, and so he learned the "little Latin and less Greek" that a contemporary would later mention. Then he reflected that what he was looking for might be found in the performance of an elemental ritual of humanity, and so he allowed himself to be initiated by Anne Hathaway one long evening in June. At twenty-something he went off to London. Instinctively, he had already trained himself to the habit of feigning that he was somebody, so that his "nobodiness" might not be discovered. In London he found the calling he had been predestined to; he became an actor, that person who stands upon a stage and plays at being another person, for an audience of people who play at taking him for that person. The work of a thespian held out a remarkable happiness to him—the first, perhaps, he had ever known; but when the last line was delivered and the last dead man applauded off the stage, the hated taste of unreality would assail him. He would cease being Ferrex or Tamerlane and return to being nobody. Haunted, hounded, he began imagining other heroes, other tragic fables. Thus while his body, in whorehouses and taverns around London, lived its life as body, the soul that lived inside it would be Cassar, who ignores the admonition of the sibyl, and Juliet, who hates the lark, and Macbeth, who speaks on the moor with the witches who are also the Fates, the Three Weird Sisters. No one was as many men as that man—that man whose repertoire, like that of the Egyptian Proteus, was all the appearances of being. From time to time he would leave a confession in one corner or another of the work, certain that it would not be deciphered; Richard says that inside himself, he plays the part of many, and Iago says, with curious words, I am not what I am. The fundamental identity of living, dreaming, and performing inspired him to famous passages. For twenty years he inhabited that guided and directed hallucination, but one morning he was overwhelmed with the surfeit and horror of being so many kings that die by the sword and so many unrequited lovers who come together, separate, and melodiously expire. That very day, he decided to sell his theater. Within a week he had returned to his birthplace, where he recovered the trees and the river of his childhood and did not associate them with those others, fabled with mythological allusion and Latin words, that his muse had celebrated. He had to be somebody; he became a retired businessman who'd made a fortune and had an interest in loans, lawsuits, and petty usury. It was in that role that he dictated the arid last will and testament that we know today, from which he deliberately banished every trace of sentiment or literature. Friends from London would visit his re-treat, and he would once again play the role of poet for them. History adds that before or after he died, he discovered himself standing before God, and said to Him: I , who have been so many men in vain, wish to be one, to be myself. God's voice answered him out of a whirlwind: I, too, am not I; I dreamed the world as you, Shakespeare, dreamed your own work, and among the forms of my dream are you, who like me, are many, yet no one.

It seems wrong to call it “business.” It seems wrong to throw all those hectic days and sleepless nights, all those magnificent triumphs and desperate struggles, under that bland, generic banner: business. What we were doing felt like so much more. Each new day brought fifty new problems, fifty tough decisions that needed to be made, right now, and we were always acutely aware that one rash move, one wrong decision could be the end. The margin for error was forever getting narrower, while the stakes were forever creeping higher—and none of us wavered in the belief that “stakes” didn’t mean “money.” For some, I realize, business is the all-out pursuit of profits, period, full stop, but for us business was no more about making money than being human is about making blood. Yes, the human body needs blood. It needs to manufacture red and white cells and platelets and redistribute them evenly, smoothly, to all the right places, on time, or else. But that day-to-day business of the human body isn’t our mission as human beings. It’s a basic process that enables our higher aims, and life always strives to transcend the basic processes of living—and at some point in the late 1970s, I did, too. I redefined winning, expanded it beyond my original definition of not losing, of merely staying alive. That was no longer enough to sustain me, or my company. We wanted, as all great businesses do, to create, to contribute, and we dared to say so aloud. When you make something, when you improve something, when you deliver something, when you add some new thing or service to the lives of strangers, making them happier, or healthier, or safer, or better, and when you do it all crisply and efficiently, smartly, the way everything should be done but so seldom is—you’re participating more fully in the whole grand human drama. More than simply alive, you’re helping others to live more fully, and if that’s business, all right, call me a businessman. Maybe it will grow on me.

A circle of trust is a group of people who know how to sit quietly "in the woods" with each other and wait for the shy soul to show up. The relationships in such a group are not pushy but patient; they are not confrontational but compassionate; they are filled not with expectations and demands but with abiding faith in the reality of the inner teacher and in each person's capacity to learn from it. The poet Rumi captures the essence of this way of being together: "A circle of lovely, quiet people / becomes the ring on my finger."6 Few of us have experienced large-scale communities that possess these qualities, but we may have had one-on-one relationships that do. By reflecting on the dynamics of these small-scale circles of trust, we can sharpen our sense of what a larger community of solitudes might look like-and remind ourselves that two people who create safe space for the soul can support each other's inner journey. Think, for example, about someone who helped you grow toward true self. When I think about such a person, it is my father who first comes to mind. Though he was himself a hardworking and successful businessman, he did not press me toward goals that were his rather than mine. Instead, he made space for me to grow into my own selfhood. Throughout high school, I got mediocre grades-every one of which I earned-although I always did quite well on standardized intelligence tests. I look back with amazement on the fact that not once did my father demand that I "live up to my potential." He trusted that if I had a gift for academic life, it would flower in its own time, as it did when I went to college. The people who help us grow toward true self offer unconditional love, neither judging us to be deficient nor trying to force us to change but accepting us exactly as we are. And yet this unconditional love does not lead us to rest on our laurels. Instead, it surrounds us with a charged force field that makes us want to grow from the inside out -a force field that is safe enough to take the risks and endure the failures that growth requires.

Right,” he said, “As you well know, humans are biologically programmed to sleep twice a day—a siesta in the afternoon, then eight hours of sleep at night.” She nodded. “Except most of us skip the siesta because our jobs demand it. And when I say most of us, I really just mean Americans. Mexico doesn’t have this problem, nor does France or Italy or any of those other countries that drink even more than we do at lunch. Still, the fact remains: human productivity naturally drops in the afternoon. In TV, this is referred to as the Afternoon Depression Zone. Too late to get anything meaningful done; too early to go home. Doesn’t matter if you’re a homemaker, a fourth grader, a bricklayer, a businessman—no one is immune. Between the hours of one thirty-one and four forty-four p.m., productive life as we know it ceases to exist. It’s a virtual death zone.” Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “And although I said it affects everyone,” he continued, “it’s an especially dangerous time for the homemaker. Because unlike a fourth grader who can put off her homework, or a businessman who can pretend to be listening, the homemaker must force herself to keep going. She has to get the kids down for a nap because if she doesn’t, the evening will be hell. She has to mop the floor because if she doesn’t, someone could slip on the spilled milk. She has to run to the store because if she doesn’t, there will be nothing to eat. By the way,” he said, pausing, “have you ever noticed how women always say they need to run to the store? Not walk, not go, not stop by. Run. That’s what I mean. The homemaker is operating at an insane level of hyperproductivity. And even though she’s in way over her head, she still has to make dinner. It’s not sustainable, Elizabeth. She’s going to have a heart attack or a stroke, or at the very least be in a foul mood. And it’s all because she can’t procrastinate like her fourth grader or pretend to be doing something like her husband. She’s forced to be productive despite the fact that she’s in a potentially fatal time zone—the Afternoon Depression Zone.” “It’s classic neurogenic deprivation,” Elizabeth said, nodding.

An American businessman took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctor’s orders. Unable to sleep after an urgent phone call from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to clear his head. A small boat with just one fisherman had docked, and inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish. “How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked. “Only a little while,” the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English. “Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American then asked. “I have enough to support my family and give a few to friends,” the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket. “But… What do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican looked up and smiled. “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, señor.” The American laughed and stood tall. “Sir, I’m a Harvard M.B.A. and can help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In no time, you could buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.” He continued, “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually to New York City, where you could run your expanded enterprise with proper management. The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, señor, how long will all this take?” To which the American replied, “15-20 years, 25 tops.” “But what then, señor?” The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.” “Millions señor? Then what?" “Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll in to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.

businessman by imagining yourself doing what you long to do, and possessing the things you long to possess. Become imaginative; mentally participate in the reality of the successful state. Make a habit of it. Go to sleep feeling successful every night, and perfectly satisfied, and you will eventually succeed in implanting the idea of success in your subconscious mind. Believe you were born to succeed, and wonders will happen as you pray! Profitable Pointers 1. Success means successful living. When you are peaceful, happy, joyous, and doing what you love to do, you are successful. 2. Find out what you love to do, and then do it. If you don’t know your true expression, ask for guidance, and the lead will come. 3. Specialize in your particular field and try to know more about it than anyone else. 4. A successful man is not selfish. His main desire in life is to serve humanity. 5. There is no true success without peace of mind. 6. A successful man possesses great psychological and spiritual understanding. 7. If you imagine an objective clearly, you will be provided with the necessities through the wonder-working power of your subconscious mind. 8. Your thought fused with feeling becomes a subjective belief, and according to your belief is it done unto you. 9. The power of sustained imagination draws forth the miracle-working powers of your subconscious mind. 10. If you are seeking promotion in your work, imagine your employer, supervisor, or loved one congratulating you on your promotion. Make the picture vivid and real. Hear the voice, see the gestures, and feel the reality of it all. Continue to do this frequently, and through frequent occupancy of your mind, you will experience the joy of the answered prayer. 11. Your subconscious mind is a storehouse of memory. For a perfect memory, affirm frequently: “The infinite intelligence of my subconscious mind reveals to me everything I need to know at all times, everywhere.” 12. If you wish to sell a home or property of any kind, affirm slowly, quietly, and feelingly as follows: “Infinite intelligence attracts to me the buyer for this house or property, who wants it, and who prospers in it.” Sustain this awareness, and the deeper currents of your subconscious mind will bring it to pass. 13. The idea of success contains all the elements of success. Repeat the word, “success,” to yourself frequently with faith and conviction, and you will be under a subconscious compulsion to succeed.

Cultivate Spiritual Allies One of the most significant things you learn from the life of Paul is that the self-made man is incomplete. Paul believed that mature manhood was forged in the body of Christ In his letters, Paul talks often about the people he was serving and being served by in the body of Christ. As you live in the body of Christ, you should be intentional about cultivating at least three key relationships based on Paul’s example: 1. Paul: You need a mentor, a coach, or shepherd who is further along in their walk with Christ. You need the accountability and counsel of more mature men. Unfortunately, this is often easier said than done. Typically there’s more demand than supply for mentors. Some churches try to meet this need with complicated mentoring matchmaker type programs. Typically, you can find a mentor more naturally than that. Think of who is already in your life. Is there an elder, a pastor, a professor, a businessman, or other person that you already respect? Seek that man out; let him know that you respect the way he lives his life and ask if you can take him out for coffee or lunch to ask him some questions — and then see where it goes from there. Don’t be surprised if that one person isn’t able to mentor you in everything. While he may be a great spiritual mentor, you may need other mentors in the areas of marriage, fathering, money, and so on. 2. Timothy: You need to be a Paul to another man (or men). God calls us to make disciples (Matthew 28:19). The books of 1st and 2nd Timothy demonstrate some of the investment that Paul made in Timothy as a younger brother (and rising leader) in the faith. It’s your job to reproduce in others the things you learn from the Paul(s) in your life. This kind of relationship should also be organic. You don’t need to approach strangers to offer your mentoring services. As you lead and serve in your spheres of influence, you’ll attract other men who want your input. Don’t be surprised if they don’t quite know what to ask of you. One practical way to engage with someone who asks for your input is to suggest that they come up with three questions that you can answer over coffee or lunch and then see where it goes from there. 3. Barnabas: You need a go-to friend who is a peer. One of Paul’s most faithful ministry companions was named Barnabas. Acts 4:36 tells us that Barnabas’s name means “son of encouragement.” Have you found an encouraging companion in your walk with Christ? Don’t take that friendship for granted. Enjoy the blessing of friendship, of someone to walk through life with. Make it a priority to build each other up in the faith. Be a source of sharpening iron (Proverbs 27:17) and friendly wounds (Proverbs 27:6) for each other. But also look for ways to work together to be disruptive — in the good sense of that word. Challenge each other in breaking the patterns of the world around you in order to interrupt it with the Gospel. Consider all the risky situations Paul and Barnabas got themselves into and ask each other, “what are we doing that’s risky for the Gospel?

A man decides to be a lawyer and spends years studying law and finally puts out his shingle. He soon finds something in his temperament that makes it impossible for him to make good as a lawyer. He is a complete failure. He is 50 years old, was admitted to the bar when he was 30, and 20 years later, he has not been able to make a living as a lawyer. As a lawyer, he is a failure. A businessman buys a business and tries to operate it. He does everything that he knows how to do but just cannot make it go. Year after year the ledger shows red, and he is not making a profit. He borrows what he can, has a little spirit and a little hope, but that spirit and hope die and he goes broke. Finally, he sells out, hopelessly in debt, and is left a failure in the business world. A woman is educated to be a teacher but just cannot get along with the other teachers. Something in her constitution or temperament will not allow her to get along with children or young people. So after being shuttled from one school to another, she finally gives up, goes somewhere and takes a job running a stapling machine. She just cannot teach and is a failure in the education world. I have known ministers who thought they were called to preach. They prayed and studied and learned Greek and Hebrew, but somehow they just could not make the public want to listen to them. They just couldn’t do it. They were failures in the congregational world. It is possible to be a Christian and yet be a failure. This is the same as Israel in the desert, wandering around. The Israelites were God’s people, protected and fed, but they were failures. They were not where God meant them to be. They compromised. They were halfway between where they used to be and where they ought to be. And that describes many of the Lord’s people. They live and die spiritual failures. I am glad God is good and kind. Failures can crawl into God’s arms, relax and say, “Father, I made a mess of it. I’m a spiritual failure. I haven’t been out doing evil things exactly, but here I am, Father, and I’m old and ready to go and I’m a failure.” Our kind and gracious heavenly Father will not say to that person, “Depart from me—I never knew you,” because that person has believed and does believe in Jesus Christ. The individual has simply been a failure all of his life. He is ready for death and ready for heaven. I wonder if that is what Paul, the man of God, meant when he said: [No] other foundation can [any] man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he should receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire (1 Cor. 3:11-15). I think that’s what it means, all right. We ought to be the kind of Christian that cannot only save our souls but also save our lives. When Lot left Sodom, he had nothing but the garments on his back. Thank God, he got out. But how much better it would have been if he had said farewell at the gate and had camels loaded with his goods. He could have gone out with his head up, chin out, saying good riddance to old Sodom. How much better he could have marched away from there with his family. And when he settled in a new place, he could have had “an abundant entrance

Anyone can be a businessman; never give up.

business is a part of my life,business is my stairway to heaven, I will be the successful businessman

Everybody knows that a businessman who has been ruined is better off so far as material comforts are concerned than a man who has never been rich enough to have the chance of being ruined. What people mean, therefore, by the struggle for life is really the struggle for success. What people fear when they engage in the struggle is not that they will fail to get their breakfast next morning, but that they will fail to outshine their neighbours.

The young man making a hash of his visit to the Garden of Allah that December evening was a mess of contradictions. He was a cofounder of one of the most successful startups ever, but he didn’t want to be seen as a businessman. He craved the advice of mentors, and yet resented those in power. He dropped acid, walked barefoot, wore scraggly jeans, and liked the idea of living in a commune, yet he also loved nothing more than speeding down the highway in a finely crafted German sports car. He had a vague desire to support good causes, but he hated the inefficiency of most charities. He was impatient as hell and knew that the only problems worth solving were ones that would take years to tackle. He was a practicing Buddhist and an unrepentant capitalist. He was an overbearing know-it-all berating people who were wiser and immensely more experienced, and yet he was absolutely right about their fundamental marketing naïveté. He could be aggressively rude and then truly contrite. He was intransigent, and yet eager to learn. He walked away, and he walked back in to apologize. At the Garden of Allah he displayed all the brash, ugly behavior that became an entrenched part of the Steve Jobs myth. And he showed a softer side that would go less recognized over the years. To truly understand Steve and the incredible journey he was about to undergo, the full transformation that he would experience over his rich life, you have to recognize, accept, and try to reconcile both sides of the man.

Francis Schaeffer wrote, “A ministry such as teaching the Bible in a college is no higher calling intrinsically than being a businessman or doing something else.

Age: 11 Height: 5’5 Favourite animal: Wolf   Chris loves to learn. When he’s not reading books explaining how planes work or discovering what lives at the bottom of the ocean, he’s watching the Discovery Channel on TV to learn about all the world’s animal and plant life. How things work is one of Chris’ main interests, and for this reason he has a special appreciation for electrical and mechanical things, everything from computers to trains. He considers himself a train expert and one day dreams of riding on famous trains, such as the Orient Express and the Trans-Siberian Railway.   Chris dreams of one day being a great engineer, like Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He knows this will involve going to university, so he studies hard at school. Beatrix is his study partner, and when they aren’t solving mysteries in the Cluefinders Club they can be found in the garden poring over text books. Like Ben, he loves to read comic books, and his favourite super-hero is Iron Man, who is a genius engineer and businessman. Chris says, “One day I’ll invent a new form of transport that will revolutionise world travel!”    

Do you think the businessman who found the pearl was sweating over its cost? An obviously ridiculous question! What about the one who found the treasure in the field—perhaps crude oil or gold? No. Of course not. The only thing these people were sweating about was whether they would “get the deal.” Now that is the soul of the disciple.

As Grandpa McCoy, Brennan’s energetic hobble personified his indomitable reaction to hardship. Fans always asked Crenna if Brennan actually limped. “No, that was acting,” Crenna replied. “Off the set, Walter was like a Boston businessman. He was a very tall, erect, very proper kind of guy. But when he got into the character of Grandpa McCoy, no other actor could do that kind of character better.” Before taking on the role, Brennan went through entire wardrobes, rejecting many outfits, shoes, and hats, until he found the right long underwear and overalls. “Then he WAS Grandpa McCoy,” Crenna concluded. “You could say that it was his style of method acting.

Conservative elites first turned to populism as a political strategy thanks to Richard Nixon. His festering resentment of the Establishment’s clubby exclusivity prepared him emotionally to reach out to the “silent majority,” with whom he shared that hostility. Nixon excoriated “our leadership class, the ministers, the college professors, and other teachers… the business leadership class… they have all really let down and become soft.” He looked forward to a new party of independent conservatism resting on a defense of traditional cultural and social norms governing race and religion and the family. It would include elements of blue-collar America estranged from their customary home in the Democratic Party. Proceeding in fits and starts, this strategic experiment proved its viability during the Reagan era, just when the businessman as populist hero was first flexing his spiritual muscles. Claiming common ground with the folkways of the “good ole boy” working class fell within the comfort zone of a rising milieu of movers and shakers and their political enablers. It was a “politics of recognition”—a rediscovery of the “forgotten man”—or what might be termed identity politics from above. Soon enough, Bill Clinton perfected the art of the faux Bubba. By that time we were living in the age of the Bubba wannabe—Ross Perot as the “simple country billionaire.” The most improbable members of the “new tycoonery” by then had mastered the art of pandering to populist sentiment. Citibank’s chairman Walter Wriston, who did yeoman work to eviscerate public oversight of the financial sector, proclaimed, “Markets are voting machines; they function by taking referenda” and gave “power to the people.” His bank plastered New York City with clever broadsides linking finance to every material craving, while simultaneously implying that such seductions were unworthy of the people and that the bank knew it. Its $1 billion “Live Richly” ad campaign included folksy homilies: what was then the world’s largest bank invited us to “open a craving account” and pointed out that “money can’t buy you happiness. But it can buy you marshmallows, which are kinda the same thing.” Cuter still and brimming with down-home family values, Citibank’s ads also reminded everybody, “He who dies with the most toys is still dead,” and that “the best table in the city is still the one with your family around it.” Yale preppie George W. Bush, in real life a man with distinctly subpar instincts for the life of the daredevil businessman, was “eating pork rinds and playing horseshoes.” His friends, maverick capitalists all, drove Range Rovers and pickup trucks, donning bib overalls as a kind of political camouflage.

I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man!” Why

There is a famous parable about a man who lived in a cottage by the sea. Every morning, the man went fishing and caught just enough fish for the day. Afterward, he would spend time playing with his son, take a siesta, and enjoy lunch with his family. In the evening, he and his wife would meet friends at a local bar, where they would tell stories, play music, and dance the night away. One day, a tourist saw the fisherman and his meager catch and asked, “Why do you only catch three or four fish?” “That is all my family needs for today,” the fisherman replied. But the tourist had gone to business school and could not help but offer advice: “You know, if you catch a few more fish and sell them at the market, you could make some extra money.” “Why would I want to do that?” the fisherman asked. “With the extra money you could save up and buy a boat. Then, you could catch even more fish, and make even more money, which you could use to buy an entire fleet of boats!” “Why would I need so many boats?” queried the fisherman. “Don’t you see? With a fleet of boats, you could sell more fish, and with the extra money, you could move to New York, run an international business and sell fish all over the world!” “And how long would this take?” the fisherman asked. “Maybe 10 or 20 years,” the businessman said. “Then what?” the fisherman said. “Then you could sell your company for millions, retire, buy a cottage by the sea, go fishing every morning, take a siesta every afternoon, enjoy lunch with your family, and spend the evenings with friends, playing music and dancing!” How many of us today are like this businessman, blindly chasing what has been in front of us all along?

You’ve probably heard of the “butterfly effect.” This is a famous proposition of chaos theory, which says that when a butterfly flaps its wings in South America, it can set off a chain of events that ends up causing a typhoon in Southeast Asia. The truth is, you create your own butterfly effect, whether you know it or not, and you do it all the time. One of my favorite butterfly-effect stories is the film It’s a Wonderful Life. A small-town businessman named George Bailey reaches the edge of despair, and decides his life has no meaning and makes no difference. On the brink of suicide, he’s visited by an angel improbably named Clarence, who walks George through an experience of what the world would look like if he had never been born. (Which is exactly why we quoted a great line of Clarence’s for the epigraph of the last chapter, “The Ripple Effect.”) George gets quite an eyeful. And so would you, if you had a Clarence come along and take you on the same tour of your life. But outside Hollywood, there’s no Clarence to provide that clarity. It’s something we need to learn to see with our own eyes.

Nicholas issued over six hundred anti-Jewish decrees designed to disrupt Jewish life. These included censoring Yiddish and Hebrew books, stifling religious education, mass expulsions, and the conscription of young boys into the army for periods of up to twenty-five years. Jews remained barred from the professions, barred from holding land, barred from living outside the Pale of Settlement. His son, the reformer Alexander I, reduced compulsory military service to five years, allowed Jews into some universities, and allowed Jewish businessman to travel to parts of Russia that had been off-limits. They were still not allowed to own land, enter the professions, or live outside the Pale. Nonetheless, the winds of change were blowing, even into the deepest recesses of the backward empire.

[I]t doesn’t require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? Such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.6 Reagan

We passed a building ad with a Japanese businessman who had a huge white cat's face poking out from behind his head, and a slogan written in Japanese that looked very happy based on the pink-and-red coloring of the letters. Hold up. Excuse me? "What's that ad for?" I asked. Uncle Masa said, "It's a political ad. That man is running for parliament." "Why the cat?" I approved, obviously, but it made no sense. Emiko said, "Cats are revered in Japan. You will see many shops with cat figurines on display. They're called maneki-neko, or 'beckoning cats.' They're considered good luck." I didn't like all their rules, but a country that revered cats had potential.

People are the best customer. A Swamiji does his business by promising to change your karma. A businessman does his business by promising to change your fate. A politician does his business by promising to change your life. Crazy people, crazy world

Did the businessman owe his current employer loyalty? Not in his view. The businessman didn’t invent capitalism, and he didn’t create its rules. He simply played within the rules. His employers wouldn’t have hesitated to fire him at the drop of a hat for any reason that fit their business needs. He simply followed their example.

Greed, scientist, politicians and business people. They are going to kill us one day.

at Berkshire Hathaway headquarters are dressed. His predictable white shirt sits low on the neck, its undersize collar bulging away from his tie, looking left over from his days as a young businessman, as if he had forgotten to check

It's weird that some people are famous overnight, and others have to wait several years.

Do not get bogged down in right or wrong and quantitative evaluation. Look at what pertains to today. How do you define who is the robber, who is the businessman and who is the tycoon? Consider these examples. In the first case, a robber robs one person for a $1000, so the total of $1000 increases in value in a very crude way. In the second case, a business man employs 1000 workers and extracts $100 from each worker and makes $100K. In the third case, a business tycoon reaches millions of people and steals a dollar from each and makes millions, he is the tycoon.

The military-industrial complex came about as a result of government’s power to use stick-and-carrot methods to rule business (which was just one part of the politicians’ efforts to rule everyone). For a stick, the politicians use anti-trust laws, interstate commerce laws, pure food and drug laws, licensing laws, and a whole host of other prohibitions and regulatory legislation. Many years ago, the government succeeded in making regulatory legislation so complex, contradictory, vague, and all-encompassing that the bureaucrats could fine and imprison any businessman and destroy his business, regardless of what he did or how hard he tried to obey the law. This legal chicanery gives the bureaucrats life-and-death control over the whole business community, a control which they can and do exercise on any whim, and against which their victims have very little defense. For a carrot, the politicians hold out large and lucrative governmental contracts. By crippling the economy with regulations and bleeding it by taxation, the government has drastically cut the number of large and profitable contracts available from the private sector, which forces many businessmen to get such contracts from the government or do without them. To stay in business, businessmen must make profits, and many of them have simply accepted government contracts, either without bothering to delve into the ethical questions or with the comforting thought that they were being patriotic. Government’s stick-and-carrot control of business has been going on for so long that most businessmen accept it as normal and necessary (just as most people accept taxes as normal and necessary).

Thomas A. Edison had been part promoter, part inventor, and part businessman, but never much of a father.

He was a popular villain on the boulevard, but of course he was just a regular businessman trying to make a profit, which would be the actual point of business.

Watchman’s Dream Mr. Parker, a businessman, is leaving on a trip and stops by his office on the way to the airport, around midnight. The night watchman, Paul stops him and says, “Mr. Parker, please don’t take that flight. I had a dream last night, a little after midnight,  that your plane would crash and everyone would die!” The business man cancels his trip and sure enough, the plane crashes, no survivors. Mr. Parker gives Paul a $20,000 reward for saving his life, then fires him.