Give and Take

Today, a wise business partner said she has a book for me. Great! I love book recommendations. When someone actually hands me a book, that's even better! The book is Give and Take by Adam Grant.

From the back, i read "in today's dramatically reconfigured world, success is increasingly dependent on how we interact with others."

I can't wait to dig into this.

Another business partner (his name starts with a B, and rhymes with "lake") handed me this book: The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results.

I'm half-way done reading The ONE Thing, and I have to say that it goes to the heart of many of my issues with managing all my competing priorities, and managing a mind that's typically full of ideas about how to add value and innovate. I think this will help me.

Collecting Good Ideas and Supporting Good Causes

If I had a magic wand...

It's time to get a magic wand, wave it around and add all those magical things to life that one keeps dismissing as impossible. Here's advice to myself: Detach from the concerns of how to make it happen. One's brain will work it out as one sleeps.

I would add more entrepreneurship, world travel and philanthropy to my life. I'd like those things to go hand in hand.

1. I'd like to travel around the world and find out what amazing things are being done by good people to make the world a better place, and I'd find ways to help them. That includes forming self-sustaining business models for those causes.

2. I would like to set up and do annual "learning expeditions" - or in other words, some sort of glorified field trip for adults, so I can get way out of my usual stream of experience to learn and grow in ways not possible otherwise. My inspiration for this came from WDHB, an organization who does this professionally.

One of the trips I'd like to do soon is a humanitarian trip to Kampala, Uganda. I'm working with Garth Iorg on funding a multi-family farm north of Kampala.

Another trip I'd like to do is in London to visit the facility of Parkour Generations, which is an inner-city program that teaches parkour, along with positive values and personal discipline. If that sounds intriguing, check out some of their parkour videos.

I'd like to return to Chennai, India and visit the campus of Rising Star Outreach, a campus that brings medical care and education to the leprosy-affected families in Southeastern India. My first visit there was in the first half of 2015. They've partnered with the Marriott family and other amazing leaders to create a literal oasis in the midst of chaos to enhance the lives of women and children, particularly.

If course, there are many domestic needs and amazing causes happening, too. I look forward to learning more about philanthropy happening all around us, and sharing what I've learned about them.

If you've encountered something amazing, I'd love to hear about it. I need my people network to educate me on what's happening out there. I get energy and optimism from hearing about the good things happening in the world.

Cheers, Bill.