Investor’s Business Daily Quote

In my “other” life, I work with large corporations to create cultures of innovation. My first book, 24/7 Innovation, has been out for over 4 years. But it still gets quoted. The latest quotes are in Monday November, 28th’s Investors Business Daily.

Get workers to focus on outcomes instead of specific tasks, says Stephen Shapiro, author of “24/7 Innovation.”Often, employees need “a better understanding of how their work contributes to the whole,” Shapiro said. Get them to “focus on what adds value rather than ticking things off a checklist.”

(And) make workers proactive. Workers can’t be passive receivers of information, Shapiro says. They need to “manipulate information, analyze it and use it to add value — by helping customers, improving operations and exploiting new opportunities.”

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The True Story of Thanksgiving

One of the Goal-Free Living secrets is “Want What You Have.” Therefore it is timely to share with you the true story of Thanksgiving as told by Ben Franklin.

Mark Skousen granted me permission to reprint the following story from his new book, The Compleated Autobiography, by Benjamin Franklin, due to be released next month.

THE REAL STORY OF THE FIRST THANKSGIVING by Benjamin Franklin (1785)

“There is a tradition that in the planting of New England, the first settlers met with many difficulties and hardships, as is generally the case when a civiliz’d people attempt to establish themselves in a wilderness country. Being so piously dispos’d, they sought relief from heaven by laying their wants and distresses before the Lord in frequent set days of fasting and prayer. Constant meditation and discourse on these subjects kept their minds gloomy and discontented, and like the children of Israel there were many dispos’d to return to the Egypt which persecution had induc’d them to abandon.

“At length, when it was proposed in the Assembly to proclaim another fast, a farmer of plain sense rose and remark’d that the inconveniences they suffer’d, and concerning which they had so often weary’d heaven with their complaints, were not so great as they might have expected, and were diminishing every day as the colony strengthen’d; that the earth began to reward their labour and furnish liberally for their subsistence; that their seas and rivers were full of fish, the air sweet, the climate healthy, and above all, they were in the full enjoyment of liberty, civil and religious.

“He therefore thought that reflecting and conversing on these subjects would be more comfortable and lead more to make them contented with their situation; and that it would be more becoming the gratitude they ow’d to the divine being, if instead of a fast they should proclaim a thanksgiving. His advice was taken, and from that day to this, they have in every year observ’d circumstances of public felicity sufficient to furnish employment for a Thanksgiving Day, which is therefore constantly ordered and religiously observed.”

–Benjamin Franklin, The Compleated Autobiography, compiled and edited by Mark Skousen (Regnery, 2006), pp. 331-333. Copyright 2006, by Mark Skousen. All rights reserved.

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The Secrets of Staying Young

Over Labor Day weekend I met a wonderful woman, Susan Silver, at a conference in California. Susan, a successful television writer for shows including the Mary Tyler Moore Show, the Bob Newhart Show, Maude, and many others, is now writing a column entitled “The Search for Mr. Adequate.” It is the entertaining chronicles of her search for the perfect – well, adequate – man. This week she talks about the secret to staying young. You may recognize one of the people mentioned in the article. Click here to enjoy this article.

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Salutation to the Dawn

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:

The bliss of growth
The glory of action
The splendour of beauty

For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow only a vision
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore to this day!
Such is the salutation to the dawn.

- Kalidasa, Indian Poet

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Second Wind Dreams Video

During my travels two years ago, I met some amazing people at Second Wind Dreams. This organization grants dreams to people in nursing homes. In the book I tell of the dreams granted to Mae Bailey. She wowed CNN and most of the nation as her dream of riding all the rollercoasters at Six Flags Over Georgia came true. Although blind, in a wheelchair, and on dialysis, in her mind there was no reason why she couldn’t enjoy a day at the amusement park she had visited many years before. Click here to watch the video of her day at the amusement park.

Be sure to check out the Second Wind Dreams website. Their stories are inspiring. And maybe there is a dream You can help someone fulfill.

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