Our Book Is Almost Finished!

For almost two years, I have been co-writing a book on entrepreneurship. When I began the process, I had no idea that writing a book would take so much time, thought and energy.

The main author, Ed McLaughlin, wanted to share the knowledge he had gained from quitting the corporate world and starting two businesses in the midst of a recession. One business was a failure, but the other one was a roaring success. Ed grew the successful one, USI, into an Inc. 500 company and sold it to a Fortune 100 company. He learned plenty along the journey.

Long before Ed approached me to write the book with him, I had been longing to take the knowledge I have gained from working with entrepreneurs and put it in a book. I wanted to help entrepreneurs and want-trepreneurs to know the process they needed to go through to build a sustainable business. The problem was how to differentiate the book from everything else in the market. How to cut through the clutter. Enter Ed.

In the book, we take you, the reader, along on Ed's entrepreneurial journey. As his story unfolds, you will learn the process of creating, growing and selling a business. You'll discover essential principles of running a successful business. And you'll read about the real life of a real entrepreneur -- all the ups, downs, and anxiety.

The book is titled: The Purpose Is Profit: Secrets of a Successful Entrepreneur from Startup to Exit. Like all good authors, we've created a website for the book -- www.thepurporseisprofit.com, and we are blogging regularly to share our knowledge freely with anyone who is on the fence about starting up or who needs to know more about the mechanics of starting and growing a business. Read the blog at: http://www.thepurposeisprofit.com/blog-page/.

We are currently offering a preview of Section 1: The Pull to Become an Entrepreneur. It's available as a download on our website. Just click on the offer.

I'll be posting more on what it's like to write and publish a book in the near future. Follow along on the journey. I haven't been posting much on this blog because I've been so busy with the book and the book's blog and social media.

The Purpose Is Profit has just entered the editing stage. The design stage is next. Stay tuned.

How to Relax and Enjoy Summer

I was just outside putting the cover on the grill. I looked up and saw the gibbous moon. And I just totally stopped and relaxed and heard the crickets and looked at the fireflies in my garden and then back at the moon. And I felt complete peace. It was wonderful. 

We need to grab these moments of peacefulness.

Out of Poverty Via Small Business Ownership

I have a new appreciation for the term "bricks and mortar." Early this month (January 2014), I traveled to the Dominican Republic with members of my church (The First Congregational Church of Darien) to build houses with Habitat for Humanity. We didn't build houses for the poor. We built with them. This was quite a meaningful revelation to me. I found myself to be overjoyed as I toiled side-by-side with my fellow church members, Habitat building experts, and the families who would benefit from the manual labor we were all doing together. The kids were on a school break, so even kids were digging foundations and mixing mortar. They were dying to help us.

These people were dirt poor, but they had a work ethic. They had clean clothes (which really amazed me). But most of all, they had wonderful, open, friendly personalities. In one site, we were building bathrooms for families who lived literally in tin and wood shacks. The mom in one of the houses had been a widow for five years, but she did laundry and cleaning for others so she could feed her family. She occasionally sold mangoes from the tree in her yard. Habitat was subsidizing the construction of a bathroom for her family who, up until now, had been using an open-air pit near their home that was screened off by sheets of tin and cloth.


At another site, we dug the foundation, laid the cinder blocks, and applied the mortar to build a small house for a family with no home. The family would also own the land the house sat on -- right by beautiful yucca and bean fields. Their livelihood came from their own small business -- a stand they set up in town selling freshly grilled sandwiches and fruit juice at lunchtime. The business provided enough income so that they could afford to make payments to Habitat for their home financing. If the family's income grew, they could add onto the house, as it was designed to be expandable.

All over the Dominican Republic I saw evidence of people with small businesses working hard to eek out a living. The experience got me thinking that small enterprise, entrepreneurship, and micro-finance (including micro-finance for housing) were the best paths out of poverty for much of the world.

I'm curious what others of you think.