Synopsis “The Meditating Entrepreneurs” – Creating Success from Inside Out
This is the 1-17-17 draft of the synopsis with Table of Contents of The Meditating Entrepreneurs – Creating Success from the Inside Out. Interested viewers can preview completed chapters
at chapter drafts.
I would appreciate any and all feedback.
Overview
What is this book about?
Many people believe they must choose between their spiritual and entrepreneurial aspirations. Twenty seekers dispel that myth sharing their stories of moving to Fairfield, Iowa for world peace and enlightenment and creating successful businesses.
For whom is the book?
It is for people committed to their own personal evolution and view successful entrepreneurship as part of that self-development process. It is the book I wish I read when I began my company.
Prologue and Introduction
“Move to Fairfield, Iowa, and be rewarded 10,000 times over spiritually and materially” Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1979
Several thousand idealistic, educated, non-business oriented young people including me, on a quest for self-realization and world peace, moved to rural, Fairfield, Iowa in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Subsequently, many of us started successful businesses ranging from one-person shops to publicly traded companies.
These successes came even though we had little expertise or capital. We operated from an agricultural town of 10,000 with modest underlying business infrastructure and before the Internet.
In each chapter, a Fairfield entrepreneur shares his story and wisdom. Three sections divide the chapters:
Journey – creating something from nothing, the story of how the business began and evolved
Wisdom – lessons learned along the way
Spirit – the essence of the entrepreneur’s success and wisdom
Each chapter ends with questions for the reader to Ponder, followed by Tweets — short summaries of ideas from the chapter.
Each story differs and stands alone. When read together, common themes emerge, knowledge increases, and inspiration grows.
Completed Drafts
Chapter 1: George Foster – Book Cover Designer
Journey: Starving Artist to Leading Book Cover Designer
Wisdom: Think Long Term
Spirit: Service and a Pure Heart
Chapter 2: Steven Winn – Serial Entrepreneur: Stamping your Intentions on the Infinite
Journey: Making and Losing Millions
Wisdom: Complement Your Strengths
Spirit: Business is Self-Referral
Chapter 3: Betsy Howland – Creating Community with Revelations Cafe and Bookstore
Journey: The Story of Revelations
Wisdom: Lead Like Mom — Firm, Consistent, Loving
Spirit: The Power of Thought
View Early Draft of Chapter
Chapter 4: Fred Gratzon – The Lazy Entrepreneur: From Ice Cream to Telecommunications
Journey: Creating America’s Best Ice Cream, Launching Public Telecom Company
Wisdom: Play, Commit, Collaborate
Spirit: Fun Brings Success, not Hard Work
Chapter 5: Ed Malloy – The Entrepreneurial Mayor of Fairfield
Journey: From Oil Broker to Mayor
Wisdom: Create a Vision and Know it will be Achieved
Spirit: Bring in the Light to Dispel the Darkness
Chapter 6: Ron Bovard – Bringing Heaven to Earth with Stained Glass
Journey: The Art, Science, and Business of Stained Glass
Wisdom: Love What You Do
Spirit: Bridging the Terrestrial and Celestial
Chapter 7: Jim Davis – Taking Photos at the Finish Line
Journey: Chronicling Personal Triumph with Pictures
Wisdom: Do What’s Right
Spirit: Gain the Support of Nature
Chapter 8: Francis Thicke – Soil Scientist, Organic Dairy Farmer, Politician
Journey: Radiance Dairy — Creating a Model for Organic, Sustainable Farming
Wisdom: Making Iowa Agriculture Great Again
Spirit: Learning from the Land, Listening to Intuition
Chapter 9: Hal Goldstein – Publishing Magazines about Mobile Computing
Journey: Dancing with Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, and Apple
Wisdom: Integrity, Money, Systems
Spirit: Commit, Persist, and Let Go
Chapters in Progress or to be Written
Chapter 10: Peter Huggins – Helping build $200 Million Company, Selling Oil Partnerships
Chapter 11: Monica Hadley – Accounting Services, Manufacturer, Radio Talk Host
Chapter 12: Walter Day – Twin Galaxies – Gaming World’s Hall of Fame Record Keeper
Chapter 13: Frank Wintroub – The Rose Company – Creating Displays for Department Stores
Chapter 14: Phyllis Khare – Social Media Expert Trainer
Chapter 15: Janet Attwood – Best Selling Author, Founder “The Passion Test”
Chapter 16: Eric Schwartz – Independent-Dealer Managing over $65 Billion
Chapter 17: Ken Ross – Identifying Genetically Modified Food
Chapter 18: Dean Draznin – Global P.R. Firm
Chapter 19: Troy Van Beek – From Navy Seal to Founding Solar Energy Company
Chapter 20: Marci Shimoff – Best-Selling Author, Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul, Happiness for No Reason
Chapters 21-xx: More stories and summaries
Chapter: Takeaway
Appendices — The Inner Journey
These appendices offer an explanation about how so many of us started and ran businesses without business backgrounds, an economic base, or the prevailing cultural mindset.
Appendix A: How Maharishi Created the Ground for Entrepreneurial Success
Maharishi provided the experience, knowledge, and inspiration that helped us be successful:
- The Transcendental Meditation program,
- The Science of Creative Intelligence – the intellectual understanding of the experience of meditation and its expression in life,
- Leadership.
Appendix B: Pure Consciousness – the Field of All Possibilities
Maharishi describes the stillness of Pure Consciousness that we experience in meditation as the field of all possibilities, the unlimited reservoir of energy, intelligence, and happiness.
We experienced those characteristics as persistence, clarity, and enthusiasm, the necessary qualities for entrepreneurial success.
We created businesses from nothing, from the field of all possibilities.
Appendix C: Unified Field Chart for Entrepreneurship
According to Maharishi, each knowledge discipline, be it physics, business, or literature, is an expression of Pure Consciousness experienced in meditation.
The Unified Field Chart (UFC) displays the most fundamental and comprehensive elements of a discipline as a one-page diagram. The diagram displays the manifestation of consciousness from silence
to subtle to gross using the vocabulary and concepts of the discipline.
Further, Maharishi explains that for any knowledge to be complete, it should be understood in terms of its three components — the known, the knower, the process of knowing. Western education focuses primarily on the objective element, the known, which is discerned through the scientific method. Maharishi would ask, who is it that knows? Who does science?
In the entrepreneurship chart, we examine the entrepreneur (knower), the business (known), and creating the business (process of knowing) as the business manifests from conception to launch, to operation, to completion.
