Life is dramatically getting better. In previous posts, I’ve expressed this view: Enlightenment as an Exponential Technology and I’m Optimistic about Our Future – Here’s Why.
Recently, articles from well-respected publications agree.
Last week the New York Times published an article entitled “Why 2017 Was the Best Year in Human History.”
MONICA HADLEY has launched and run over a half dozen businesses and non-profits in manufacturing, accounting, SEO, fruit distribution, Iowa justice, and radio.
Customers and employees aren’t always right, but we can make them feel right.
I have complete control over my attitude and am responsible for my happiness.
Until you quit, you haven’t failed. [Read more…]
I’ve written twelve chapters in my book The Meditating Entrepreneurs. Each chapter is a wonderful, inspiring story about creating a business from nothing. It is told from the point of view of a Fairfield, Iowa meditating entrepreneur.
I believe that anyone with both an entrepreneurial and spiritual bent will benefit from the wisdom imparted in each chapter. I wish I could have read these stories before I started my business. It would have affirmed my sensibilities about running a business, which would have given me more confidence. [Read more…]
Steven Winn
One of the chapters in my book, The Meditating Entrepreneurs, chronicles the journey and wisdom of Steven Winn, who has made, lost, and made again millions of dollars in various enterprises. Here is an excerpt from that chapter.
Business is phenomenal for evolution and for developing the self-referral process. In business, we learn to focus and go deep within to make decisions. In the quiet, we ask and get results. Daily meditation cultures that silence.
Business appears to take place during day-to-day operations. Yet, business really happens in the quiet moments when we stamp our intentions on the infinite. When we go within, our infinite potentiality shows up again and again. [Read more…]
CHRISTOPHER KUFNER, a sublime and prolific artist, founded Crest Jewel of Fairfield and the first health food store in Des Moines. He invented the Tuscan Leveling System and runs and owns Americus Diamond jewelry store.
“In business, you can evolve quickly. Every day you have the opportunity to choose between what is right and the expedient thing for more money.“
“I treat everyone with the same attention and care no matter how much money they plan to spend. I help whoever comes in first.”
“When creating things, if you are close to the Creator, it is easier to create.” [Read more…]
PETER HUGGINS helped build a company that sold for $380 million dollars before starting his oil and gas business. He attributes his ongoing success to his ability to connect with even the most difficult of people.
“You have to figure out what you’re passionate about. You can’t fake it.”
“Hire people smarter than you.”
“If I am considering a job, I ask the people working within the organization, ‘How does your supervisor treat you? Do you feel an appreciated part of the organization? Is your work respected?” [Read more…]
EVA NORLYK SMITH cofounded YogaUOnline while creating the Healthy Back Healthy Body Program and other therapeutic yoga courses. Eva’s work facilitates healthy aging by restoring core integrity and posture balance.
“Anything is possible.”
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
“Do things 200%.”
“The difference between a professional and non-professional is that a professional does things to perfection.” [Read more…]
JIM 
BELILOVE in 1988 founded Creative Edge Master Shop to design and fabricate one-of-a-kind, artistic architectural stone flooring using computer-controlled waterjet technology. While running Creative Edge, Jim helped develop Sunnybrook Assisted Living facilities in Iowa.
“A business runs efficiently when it creates systems and methods for other people to follow.”
“Leap before you look.”
“Progress happens when you successfully divvy out tasks rather than trying to do it all yourself”
“God wants there to be entrepreneurs. He just doesn’t let us know what it’s going to take.”
“Follow your fascination and make it a reality” [Read more…]
Rita and I have been married 32 years.
In Fall 1984, we married and quit our jobs. We honeymooned with a leisurely drive from Palo Alto, California to Fairfield, Iowa.
Adventurous and idealistic, we moved to Fairfield in response to Maharishi’s call for practitioners of the Transcendental Meditation technique to move to Fairfield and meditate together for world peace.
Rita left an excellent position in health care. My fellow Hewlett Packard engineers thought I was nuts to leave prestigious HP for a world peace project in the middle of nowhere. [Read more…]
When someone asks me about their business idea, I ask about the product, the customer, and the connection between the two.
First, is the product or service a ‘wow?’ [Read more…]
I always preferred selling targeted, higher priced, high-value products that had little competition. That way I could focus on making terrific products rather than operations efficiency. Someone wisely said, “the riches are in the niches.” Appealing to the passion of a small group of people, going deep, is the perfect launching pad for many entrepreneurs.
We started our company in 1985 with a 6-issue, $55 per year newsletter about the new HP 110 Portable laptop. Then through the years, we created a number of products with profit margins between $50 and $300. It was great if we could sell, say, 500 copies of a product with a $200 margin. If we sold 50, that would be OK too. [Read more…]
There’s something mystical and magical about the life of a business. An entrepreneurial venture, born of passion and nurtured in its infancy, develops a life of its own. That life expresses the consciousness of its owners, employees, customers, investors, suppliers, and community.
Often I would walk into our business, witness its vibrancy, and be in awe. Even though I was involved in its creation and activities, the business had its own character, survival mechanism, and ability to find purpose.
In December 1985, my seven-month-old company published its first newsletter about the new, ground-breaking, Hewlett Packard laptop. Not knowing anything about publishing or business, it took a determined focus through a maze of obstacles and ignorance to finish, print and mail the issue .
Fortunately, both our customers and Hewlett-Packard liked the first issue a lot. Unfortunately, even given our incredible 20% of 2000 direct mail response, not enough new owners sent in registration cards to sustain our business. Somehow, in the pre-Internet, pre-Social Media 1980’s, we had to reach more HP Portable users.
Before moving to Fairfield, I worked at HP. My last position was with the customer support team, so I knew management and the phone help staff. My thought was to send a direct mail solicitation to the thousands of people who called HP technical support about their Portable. [Read more…]
Jim Bagnola is an international speaker, executive coach, and corporate educator. He is an expert in the field of leadership and body-mind management, focusing on the influence of thinking patterns on health, happiness, success, and the capacity to lead.
“Your intention is where the seed is planted. Your attention makes it grow, and then you let go; which is No Tension.”
“Love what you do or change it.”
“Self forgiveness is the slayer of all demons.” [Read more…]
We are in the midst of a profound material and spiritual transformation. Materially, powerful technologies that are expanding exponentially can bring abundance to the planet. Spiritually, there is an awakening of human consciousness.
The implication of exponential growth can be understood from the story of the king who asked the inventor of chess what reward he wanted. The inventor said that all he wanted was one grain of wheat to be placed on the first chessboard square, two on the second, four on the third, and so on, doubling the number of grains on each subsequent square. The king was surprised at the modest request, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 … grains of wheat seemed like nothing. However, math reveals a payment was eighteen quintillion … 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains.
Early stages of exponential growth show minuscule results. Yet, once in full swing, the impact of exponential growth is almost unfathomable to the linear-thinking human mind. The expansion of computing power, presented in 1965 and known as Moore’s Law, is the most well-known example of an exponential technology. Roughly it states that the processing power for computers doubles every two years. Apple’s 2014 iPhone 6 is 1 million times more powerful than an IBM computer from 1975 — which took up an entire room. The Texas Instruments processor that powers the navigation system in a car from Ford is nearly 1.8 million times more powerful than the Launch Vehicle Digital Computer that helped astronauts navigate their way to the moon in 1969. [Read more…]
Full from a late lunch, I thought I’d pass up dinner, and just sit with my wife, Rita, as she ate. After a few minutes, I made myself a nacho snack of chips, cheese, and salsa.
When done, I was not happy with myself for eating or for my food choice.
Over the years, I have become much less self-critical and more self-accepting. Even so, I was not pleased.
Upon reflection, I realized that I had not decided to lose weight and eat healthily. Rather, I operated under unstated warring ideas: I should eat healthily, and I should be able to eat what I want when I want to.
These two contradicting unstated beliefs created inner conflict.
Business, like life, is about choice. When running a business, you must make scores of decisions each day.
Should we hire her? When should we release the product? Should we serve bagels for the staff? How can we get better numbers from accounting? Should we advertise? Should I tweet this? Should I call a meeting? How should I respond to this customer?
Decision making can be frustrating and exhausting. It also can be incredibly consequential for you and all those affected.
The past is an imperfect predictor of the future. There is never enough information to choose perfectly.
[tweet_box design=”default”]How do you make the right decision? How do you avoid getting stuck, frozen, unable to act? [/tweet_box] Here are ten suggestions.
Inaction happens when you are afraid to make a mistake. Learning any skill is about “failing.” A child learns to walk by falling, adjusting, and trying again.
As a business owner, you wear many hats, and you must continually learn new skills. Like the child, you must pick yourself up again and again, adjusting, making use of outer feedback and your inner compass. Through this natural learning process, you become adroit in your decision-making about sales, accounting, hiring, firing, running meetings, and so on. [Read more…]
In March 2014, I decided to write The Meditating Entrepreneurs. It is about the journey of fellow Transcendental Meditators who moved to Fairfield, Iowa, to help create world peace, and who ended up starting successful businesses.
Shortly afterward I decided, I discovered Michael Hyatt. His book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World along with his blogs, and his podcasts made it clear that if significant numbers were going to read my book, I had to create a platform and attract a following.
Studying Michael and others, I changed my focus. Before, I viewed writing the book as the way to share my message. After studying Hyatt, I realize in today’s interconnected, multimedia world, it is my entire platform (website, book, blog, social media, podcast, videos) that will allow me to most effectively share the stories of Fairfield meditating entrepreneurs living 200% of life, 100% material, 100% spiritual.
I particularly like and identify Michael Hyatt because of his practicality, his geekiness with online tools, and his value-driven spirituality. (Michael and most of his guests share a non-evangelizing Christian-orientation. I am Jewish, and this site’s foundation is based on the knowledge and practice of the Transcendental Meditation program with its origins in the Vedic Tradition. Michael and his guests through their actions, values, and information, communicate in ways that resonate with me. Truth and Ultimate Reality can be expressed in many ways. The uniqueness of the TM technique is that it provides the experience of our essential nature. Any deep understanding of reality, whatever the form, is enriched by that experience.)
When Maharishi Mahesh Yogi brought Transcendental Meditation (T.M.) to the West, he knew he needed to speak in the language of the most practical, knowledgeable and progressive people. That language is science. Although T.M. has its roots in ancient Vedic wisdom, he was able to speak in terms of science, since the human ability to transcend thought and experience Pure Consciousness is universal. Maharishi encouraged the use of the scientific method to verify the effects of Transcendental Meditation and the use of objective language to describe the experience.
In the 1960’s Maharishi wrote Science of Being and Art of Living: Transcendental Meditation describing the practical effects in society of the Transcendental Meditation program. In the early 1970’s he created a 33 lesson lecture series called, “The Science of Creative Intelligence” (SCI), about the experience and expression of Pure Consciousness.
SCI became the foundation for the academics of Maharishi International University (now Maharishi University of Management). According to Maharishi, all knowledge is an expression of Pure Consciousness, the Pure Field of Creative Intelligence. Each branch of human knowledge, whether it be mathematics, physics or literature, expresses Creative Intelligence, using its own vocabulary. Students who experience Pure Consciousness in T.M. and have the understanding The Science of Creative Intelligence feel at home with any branch of knowledge.
A simple yet still profound expression of SCI is taught at the Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment, K-12, as sixteen principles.
Past The Successful Entrepreneur students of mine, Dustin Garlow and Gde Brawiswara Putra have been volunteering helping me with this site. Together we have brainstormed the application of these sixteen principles to business. Here is what we have come up with so far. (Your input is most welcome.)
Business principle:
For a business to survive and thrive, it must always progress.
Key question to ask about your business:
Do you have a dashboard of all key markers for growth? [Read more…]
The dictionary defines luck as “success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions.”
Luck plays a central role in business success. An entrepreneur might experience good luck as an upswing in the economy, bumping into the right person at the right time, hiring someone who blossoms, or good weather. An entrepreneur’s bad luck might be a heat wave, slanderous comments on social media, a key supplier failing to deliver, a major customer going bankrupt. A young business with little capital is particularly susceptible to chance happenings.
As business owners, do we live at the whim of forces beyond our control?
Yes and no.
Yes, in that ultimately the future is unfathomable, the forces around us interact in unpredictable ways, and anything is possible.
On the other hand, there are definitely things we can do to dramatically increase good luck.
We can’t will ourselves to sleep. Instead, we can create the comfort, quiet, and ambiance that allows sleep to happen. [Read more…]
JIM DAVIS started a photography business in college in 1974. Jim and his partners sold it in 2007, and the business is now the established leader in commencement and race photography.“Have fun, make people happy, do excellent work, and the money will flow naturally.
“No matter how much money is involved, do what you know to be right.”
“At difficult moments in the business cycle, survive through equanimity.” [Read more…]
Gloom and doom from the religious and scientificMany scientists share the pessimistic, even apocalyptic worldview of fundamentalist Christians, Jews. and Muslims. The media reinforces this negativity with a depressing drumbeat of stories about climate change, drought, damaged food supply, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, political dysfunction, crumbling infrastructure, the wealth/poverty gap, asteroids striking the Earth… the list goes on and on.
Yes! Others with spiritual and material worldviews are quite optimistic. It’s not that they don’t see potential catastrophes. It’s just that they also conceive of outside-the-box solutions. [Read more…]
We like to think that we make rational, proactive decisions based on facts. Yet, any good salesperson or marketer will tell you that people decide based on emotion, on the subjective. Only after our initial impulse does the rational mind kick in to justify the choice.
That emotional decision is often based on pre-programmed propensities and cultural norms with each of us having our own filters.
In my college days in the 1960’s, I trusted long-hairs not crew-cuts, and blue genes not suits. Today, that differs.
Yet, if we go deeper, if we are able to listen to our inner voice, inevitable subjective decision-making can be powerful and effective.
When running a business, we make scores of choices each day — whether it be [Read more…]
… and why you should start now even if you think you can’t afford it.Donating regularly not only does good, but it helps you and your business grow. It is one of the most powerful techniques to release the baggage that most of us have about money.
Many years ago, I read and resonated with Catherine Ponder’s recommendation in The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity to donate regularly. In it she referred to the Old Testament code in which farmers were to leave corners of their fields unharvested for the poor. Inspired, and starting in my 20’s, I have continued to donate monthly for forty years. I believe this habit played a critical role in my later success.
Wholeness: A business is conceived in passion, nurtured in love, and sustained by vision. “Generally, the people in the world, for the success of their actions, count upon their ability of performance of an action, and they count upon their intelligence, their creative mind, and their energy. But all these factors are of a secondary importance. The main factor for success and production of results is the purity of the doer. (Maharishi – Science of Being and Art of Living)”
This site and book tell stories of men and women who moved to Fairfield, Iowa home of Maharishi University of Management (MUM) to practice Transcendental Meditation as part of an ongoing world peace project. To stay in Fairfield, many, with little experience or know-how, began and ran successful businesses.
On a part time basis, one of those entrepreneurs, Hal Goldstein, created this website and from this website an upcoming book, The Meditating Entrepreneurs – Creating Success from the Inside Out. All proceeds from the book will be donated to MUM. If you would like to help on the website or book, read this and contact Hal.