Tomorrow (Tue, 5/2) I'm going to post a review here of the new book "The Miracle of a Definite Chief Aim."
Would you do me a favor? Click on the above link, go to your favorite bookstore or library, or in some other way get your hands on the book, then call me or send me your thoughts about it, ok?
I read Mitch Horowitz' One Simple Idea and had great respect for the quality of the research, he writing style, and most of all his debunking of the Law of Attraction.
This new book is much different.
Please let me know what you think here, on Facebook, with a telephone call, I'll let you know what I think in part today on our SBCC IDEA Cafe Twitter Chat at 10 a.m. MDT, 11 a.m. Central (where I am now, visiting family in Houston.) Join there in a few minutes for the live chat or post any time, see http://Twitter.com/IDEACafeChat
John
Houston, Texas
Friday, April 28, 2017
What do you think?
Labels:
Law of Attraction . Mitch Horowitz,
Napoleon Hill,
One Simple Idea,
positive thinking,
small business,
Small Business Administration
Denver, Colorado USA
Houston, TX, USA
University of Denver, BA'69 MBA'80
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
2-12-14 "How to start a new group." SBCC Meetup
About SBA and SCORE
Why the SBA and It’s SCORE Program Should Be Renamed.
by John S. Wren, MBA+
by John S. Wren, MBA+
I’ve been interested in how businesses really start, especially the role of the Small Business Administration and it’s many offshoots, for decades.
I studied in the graduate business school at the University of Denver on-campus 1974-5. My research methods paper was a survey of the literature and an index to the advice available for people starting a small business. This was before Inc Magazine and before DU or, as far as I know any college, offered a class about startup or entrepreneurship.
Where I learned the most about how small businesses start, aside from the 20+ years working with my father and his small business owner friends, was in my first job after graduate school.
I had the very good fortune to be hired as Assistant-to-the-President of Outdoor Sports Industries by OSI’s founder and President Richard Olson. It was a chance to be the bosses son again.
One of the very best parts of working with Mr. Olson (we met every week for breakfast to review the projects I was working on such as creating a newsletter for board members, the annual report and board meeting, creating a management training program for our top managers, etc.) was the opportunity to meet and have conversations with people I’d probably never have had a chance to talk with otherwise and to learn some lessons from their direct experience.
Some of the people I got to learn from, aside from our own managers, especially the former owners of the small sporting goods companies OSI had purchased, included: former Governor of Colorado John Love, then President of Ideal Basic Industries, one of the top firms in the country at the time; Supreme Court Justice Byron White who played squash frequently with Mr. Olson; Joe Coors; Astronaut Wally Shira; and on and on.
It was a long list, and at the top of the list was Aksel Nielsen. He was a friend of Mr. Olson and Chancellor Maurice Mitchell who was on the OSI board with him. Aksel Nielsen had been a close friend and financial adviser to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aksel_Nielsen
It was a long list, and at the top of the list was Aksel Nielsen. He was a friend of Mr. Olson and Chancellor Maurice Mitchell who was on the OSI board with him. Aksel Nielsen had been a close friend and financial adviser to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aksel_Nielsen
Since working for OSI I’ve worked with hundreds of business founders as a consultant or as an employee, and that experience led me to start a workshop for people who wanted to start a new business in the early 90’s. Back then we called it The IDEA Association and it’s meetings were announced each week in the Denver Post, the Rocky Mountain News, Westword, the Colorado Statesman, and the Denver Business Journal.
After meeting with a spiritual director at Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House in Sedalia, Colorado for years, I wrote a little booklet about startup. This is to me the key section:
The world needs your new business!
To understand my system for starting your new business, it is necessary to first appreciate the nature of business in a capitalistic, free market economy.
The world will always have government, big-business, and big-labor.
Government for those things individuals cannot do for themselves. Big-business and big-labor because of certain efficiencies of scale. Unfortunately, the large scale of these three forms of bureaucratic operations leads to problems:
Government for those things individuals cannot do for themselves. Big-business and big-labor because of certain efficiencies of scale. Unfortunately, the large scale of these three forms of bureaucratic operations leads to problems:
1) Efficiency comes at the expense of intelligence and creativity. The large organization has a tendency to get better and better at doing what eventually is the wrong thing.
2) Power corrupts. Governmental corruption is kept in check by our process of representative democracy. Big-business corruption is kept in check to the extent that the free market is allowed to operate. That is why big business hates competition.
The worldview of the bureaucrat is necessarily different from that of the entrepreneur. The steps recommended here for starting a new business will not make sense to most bureaucrats.
If you decide to work with a business mentor, it is important that you work with someone who subscribes to the following philosophy of business. This person almost always will be an independent business owner.
Beware of seminars about how to start a new business; the most deadly advice for entrepreneurs comes from bureaucrats, public or private, active or retired.
From my little booklet on startup, “Daring Mighty Things— The Simplest Way to Start Your First (or Next) New Business” available on Amazon (click.)
Tomorrow: Part II, Why the SBA and SCORE Should Be Renamed.
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Do you have a topic for this morning's chat?
Join us each weekday morning for our IDEA Cafe Chat. Follow us (click) then Tweet with #IDEACafeChat
Monday, April 17, 2017
Today! Startup Show at noon MDT (11am P, 2pm E.)
Startup Show is now on Monday's at noon.
To be a guest on the show just click on
the link and join in!
Today's topic: business and politics, do
they mix? And what can we expect in the
2018 Colorado Caucus?
Willing to share your startup experience on a Startup Show
Special Edition? To schedule a date call 1-855-854-2554
To be a guest on the show just click on
the link and join in!
Today's topic: business and politics, do
they mix? And what can we expect in the
2018 Colorado Caucus?
Willing to share your startup experience on a Startup Show
Special Edition? To schedule a date call 1-855-854-2554
Live! IDEA Cafe Chat on Twitter.
New! IDEA Cafe Chat at 10 a.m. MDT (9PDT) is now
only on Twitter #IDEACafeChat
Live chat at 10, you can post at any time.
Check it out:
www.Twitter.com/IDEACafeChat
only on Twitter #IDEACafeChat
Live chat at 10, you can post at any time.
Check it out:
www.Twitter.com/IDEACafeChat
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Startup Show: Flash Franklin Circles.
Today: New! Flash Franklin Circles.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Live: IDEA Chat, 10 a.m. each weekday. "How to start."
See post below for more about NYT column today.
We'll talk about it today on our IDEA Chat:
We'll talk about it today on our IDEA Chat:
JohnWren.com Practices of Imagine, Think, Learn to; Start, Grow, and Flourish. +AMDG+: On Women and Work. Intl Women's Day.
JohnWren.com Practices of Imagine, Think, Learn to; Start, Grow, and Flourish. +AMDG+: On Women and Work. Intl Women's Day.: March 8, 2017, International Women’s Day On Women and Work. by John S. Wren Denver— I have three adult daughters, lots of friends who are wo...
What do you think?
Monday, April 10, 2017
SBCC IDEA Cafe Chat
IDEA Cafe Live Chat at 10 a.m. today (Monday, 4/10) Join us!
We are testing our IDEA Cafe Chat on YouTube today.
Please join us at 10 a.m. MDT (Mountain Daylight Time, noon Eastern)
Please join us at 10 a.m. MDT (Mountain Daylight Time, noon Eastern)
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