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There’s a story about a family - a happily married couple with two fairly typical children: a girl, 7, and a boy, 6. One fine day their mother, in a moment of inspiration, decided to show them something about life. So she asked them to each plant a rose garden.

Since it was just the beginning of spring, the time was perfect for getting started. That first Saturday, Mom and her two children spent the morning preparing the beds while Dad mowed the lawn. Her son, Steve, wanted his roses next to the garage. On the other hand, her daughter Nancy liked a spot near the house.

Mother just smiled. “You choose your places all by yourselves. I’ll help you plant them, but you have to take care of them. I’ve shown you how. By the end of the summer, we’ll see who has the best rose garden.”

By the end of the day, both flowerbeds had been prepared and stocked with several rose plants each. Although tired from the hard work, it had been a beautiful day and the work was pleasant. It was a good start.

Over the next few weeks, both children were excited to see their rose bushes taking hold. In fact, they seemed to almost shoot up like missiles, while simultaneously leafing out in every direction. It wasn’t unusual for Mom and Dad to see both Steve and Nancy occasionally picking weeds from their gardens. Sometimes they even caught them checking out each other’s garden as well. Mom and Dad smiled at each other.

Before long, rosebuds began to form, and one day Nancy and Steve came charging in, bursting with the news. “We’re going to have lots of roses! I can’t wait!” they exclaimed enthusiastically, and promptly ran outside again to admire their handiwork.

Eventually the buds burst forth with bloom after rich bloom; the air filled with their perfume. Pink ones, red ones, yellow ones; it seemed as if a bright and lovely rainbow had landed in the back yard. All they needed was a pot of gold!

That afternoon as the whole family admired the children’s handiwork, their neighbor, old Mrs. Halbers, happened to walk by. “My, what beautiful roses!” she exclaimed. “You children have certainly done a wonderful job raising them!” This surprised all of them because, up until then, they’d never even spoken with her before (she was something of a recluse).

Steve ran over and grabbed a clipper, snipped off three of the biggest blooms from his own bushes, and gingerly handed them to her. “For you, Ma’am,” he said. “I hope you like them.”

She was surprised and very grateful, and as she turned away, she told him, “Why thank you, young man. I’ll put them in water right away and set them on my dinner table. They’ll certainly brighten the room up a bit.”

The next morning, and almost every day afterwards, roses appeared on their own dinner table as if by magic. Steve continued to give roses to anyone and everyone, even crotchety old Mr. Goober down the street. (That wasn’t his real name; the kids on the block called him that because he never smiled, and he seemed to spend most of his time eating peanuts, while sitting in a big wooden rocking chair on his front porch.)

Nancy, on the other hand, didn’t give any of her blooms away. She thought to herself, “If Steve keeps giving away all his roses, by the time summer’s over he won’t have any left, and my roses will be prettier!”

After only a few weeks, though, her bushes began to lose some of their beauty. Many roses had indeed bloomed - just like Steve’s - but then slowly died, leaving ugly brown lumps in their place. And so, while there were still plenty of blooms, there were also lots of dead ones as well. It looked terrible. She finally went to her mother.

“I don’t understand, Mom,” she almost cried. “Why aren’t my rose bushes pretty anymore? How come they look that way? What did I do?”

Her mother put her arm around Nancy and gave her a reassuring hug. “It’s like this, Sweetheart,” she began. “The best way to keep rose bushes happy is to give the roses away; it’s what they’re for. Roses like being admired.”

“But Mom, I admire them all the time! Why don’t they like me?”

“Oh, darling, it’s not that,” her mother hastened to assure her while stifling a laugh. “I’m sure they appreciate what you’ve done for them. After all, you helped them become what they are - incredibly beautiful roses. But the thing is, flowers like to be admired by everybody.”

Suddenly, Nancy’s eyes grew round and her face glowed with comprehension. “So that’s why Steve’s bushes look so much prettier than mine! He doesn’t have any dead roses on his bushes because he’s been giving them away all along!” She raced outside to grab her gloves and clippers.

For the rest of the summer, both Steve and Nancy could be seen walking up and down the street, giving roses to everybody on the block. Mrs. Halbers came over for tea at least once a week. Mr. Goober waved at them every time he saw them. (It turned out his real name was Finklestein, but when he found out they called him Mr. Goober, he laughed so hard he told everyone to keep calling him that. Most of the kids on the block played in his yard now… and he gave away a lot of peanuts.)

Amazingly, by the end of the summer, the children’s rose bushes - the ones by the garage and the ones by the house - were absolutely stunning! Tall, broad, green, and full of rich blossoms of every color, they completely changed the nature of the yard - just as they had changed the neighborhood.

As the family admired them once again, the lesson wasn’t lost on either Steve or Nancy:

Giving away beauty makes you beautiful.

(Photo credit: Roses, by ** Mary **)

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This story was inspired by my friend, Liz Strauss, who give away more than anybody I know, and has no idea how far her gifts go - and doesn’t care! A tip o’ the hat to ya, Liz! Y’all drop on by and say “Howdy!”

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

Things getting a bit backed up for ya? Is there too much “noise” going on in your life? If you could just take a few minutes for yourself… would you?

Back in 1970, my family and I spent the spring and summer in Europe as a side benefit of my Dad’s work assignment to The Hague in the Netherlands. Suffice it to say we spent a lot of time on weekends doing the usual tourist thing. (One nice thing about Europe - everything is conveniently close, compared to driving around the U.S.!)

However, this trip was different - we were on our way to Italy! My dad had taken a couple of weeks off, and we drove from Den Haag down to Rome and back in a marathon do-it-yourself tour of central Europe. Naturally, we tried to hit as many of the typical tourist spots as we could, of course, but every now and then we found a little, out-of-the-way gem that made the extra stop worthwhile.

Therefore, I have no idea where we were at the time (I think it might have been somewhere in Germany), but there was this one place we stopped…

The Quietest Place on Earth

I remember how beautiful the weather was. Blue sky with a few clouds, temperature in the mid-70s (°F), and a light, warm breeze caressing us. We’d stopped pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but I have no idea why - maybe my Dad just wanted to stretch his legs. It felt good to get out of the car for a few minutes.

Stretching out beside us was a huge, grassy field, sloping gently upwards to the top of a low hill nearby. The grass seemed to be a nearly uniform 3 feet high or so, and I recall it being very green (actually, the grass looked nothing like the photo above; it’s just the best one I could find that conveys the sense of it); it almost made me think of, well, green fur. The breeze caused the long slender blades to sway gently, creating a very gentle, low-level shushing sound that sortof tickled the senses in some indefinably pleasant fashion.

Since there were no fences, I strolled away from the road and wandered into the grass. (Isn’t it funny how, as a kid, we’ll pretty much go anywhere without giving it a second thought? All we’re interested in is adventure. However, as an *ahem* responsible adult, I’d probably lose a lot of time wondering what I couldn’t see: bugs? snakes? alligators? mole people?)

Heedless of any potential catastrophe, I started up the hill to, like the chicken who crossed the road, “see what there was to see”. At the top, though, was simply more grass, stretching into the distance. I could see the ground rolled gently, like a loose blanket on a bed, creating little depressions, folds, and other green-clad but otherwise mundane features.

In fact, directly in front of me was a small depression, forming a shallow bowl about, oh, maybe 50 feet in diameter and about 10 or so feet deep. Totally unconcerned for my personal well-being (no thought of, for instance, giant ants, bottomless pits or quicksand), I wandered down to the low spot, and almost immediately noticed it:

Silence… complete and utter silence.

I’m tellin’ ya, it was downright spooky. Because of the raised edge of the hill (it was sorta like being in the middle of a giant, soft green donut), the breeze didn’t even stir the grass at the bottom. Everything was completely and totally silent - no blades stirring; nothin’.

It’s amazing how much background noise there is - when you can no longer hear it! On top of the hill, there was the breeze, the grass rustling, an occasional passing auto, and other assorted noises. But here, there were none whatsoever. You could practically hear your hair grow. (Come to think of it, it was like - the cone of silence!)

I walked back to the top of the hill and called the rest of my family to join me, and together we descended back into the hollow. It was really weird; although we spoke in completely normal conversational tones, we could hear each other clearly, no matter where we were in the space.

So what did we do? Why had lunch, of course! My sister and I immediately headed for the car and fetched the picnic basket, and together we ate lunch in the Quietest Place on Earth. After an hour or so of eating, relaxing, and generally just enjoying ourselves, we got back in the car and resumed our trek; surprisingly refreshed beyond measure.

Talk about a restful, peaceful place - I’ve never found any place like it since. Quite the experience, I’ll tell ya! Over the years, I’ve come to value those times when I can, well, isolate myself from the world, even for a short time.

A Prescription for Personal Peace

You know, isn’t it amazing how much “background noise” fills our lives? We all get so busy, sometimes just finding the time to relax becomes a major effort. Even then, there’s still that “background noise”, coming from all over.

Well, maybe… maybe you should do what we did: Find a way to get completely isolated for a time (and I do mean isolated - no cell phone, no Blackberry, no email… well, you know the drill). It doesn’t have to be long - anything from a few minutes to a few hours will do. More, if you can spare it. You might be surprised how refreshing it can really be!

How long has it been since you totally relaxed? No, I mean really relaxed? Well, neighbor; that’s just too long!

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Funny thing; I don’t recall being all that tired BEFORE we stopped to have lunch. But once we got to that spot, everything else seemed to just melt away for awhile. We ate, relaxed, lay around in the grass for a few minutes… basically just isolated ourselves from the world. It was truly the most refreshing time we had on the whole trip.

But by the time we pulled the car away and headed on down the road, I’m tellin’ ya, we were ready for anything! Even had Godzilla chosen that particular moment to invade the Earth in a flying saucer, to raze the countryside with his giant feet and radioactive breath!

So here’s my question for ya: When was the last time you completely… and utterly… relaxed?

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

[A Note To Readers of Middle Zone Musings: If you’ve been dropping by for any length of time now, some of you may be thinking to yourself, “Gee, does anything normal ever happen to this guy?” Hey, it’s OK; sooner or later that thought occurs to everybody we know. Well, I’m almost positive something normal happened just last week. But hey, who wants to go there? The abby-normal* stuff is a lot more fun to talk about!]

Anyway, yesterday’s post reminded me of yet another, er, odd thing that happened while we were in Charlotte that I just had to share.

When we picked up the rental car at the airport, everything seemed to go well. We had a fairly decent choice: a Porsche 911 Targa, a Tesla Electric Roadster, a Lamborghini Murcielago - oh, and a pokey ol’ Ferrari 430 Scuderia (sound of alarm clock going off - huh? Oh, sorry - must have been dreaming there for a minute.)

Um, yeah -

Well, we had our choice of compact cars, so we picked… something tiny (can’t remember what it was exactly), got our paperwork, and headed to the car lot. Upon opening the trunk, though, we were surprised to find, not a clean, spic-and-span place to put our bags, but a pile of smelly trash! Yuk!

I called the service manager over and he was properly apologetic and all, and immediately endeared himself to me by offering a different, upgraded vehicle - a “mid size”. (It’s hard not to laugh at vehicle descriptions these days. What used to be called “mid sized” is now pretty much a “subcompact” today. *sigh*) So anyway, good for him; obviously keeping the customer happy was important to him (since all I had to do otherwise was move to the next counter).

So now we had this… slightly bigger car, our luggage was safely ensconced in the trunk (or “boot”, as you charming folk across the pond refer to it), and we headed off to our hotel. Or at least that was the plan.

Before we had even made the first 100 yards, the steering wheel started to shimmy, keeping remarkably good time with the entire front end of the car! I stopped and examined the wheels, and sure enough, the right front wheel was canted at a, well, rather creative angle. I assumed someone had forgotten to put the lug nuts on when changing the tire; that’s what it felt like.

Luckily, we hadn’t gotten too far, so I hiked back to the very same service manager and told him the news. I wish you could have seen his face - definitely a Kodak moment. But he recovered nicely and immediately had someone bring us something “full sized”. (I don’t know; that almost sounds like a euphemism for something, doesn’t it?) But what the hey - all we wanted was a working set of wheels here!

Back on our way again (we managed to make it out of the parking lot this time), we headed for the hotel, about three miles away. And we almost made it too.

Yep; you guessed it - about ¼ mile from the hotel, the engine started wheezing and coughing, and suddenly just - died! Drat! But we managed to coast into the parking lot on the last of the car’s available kinetic energy. Whew!

After checking in, I called the rental place again, asking for that same service manager. “You’re not going to believe this,” I began in my best ironic tone, but he managed to finish it for me: “Don’t tell me; your car broke down, didn’t it?”

Once again, he outdid himself. “Don’t worry,” he told me. “If you’ll just hold on, in about a half an hour I’ll have the best car we have on the lot at your hotel. Oh, and thanks for sticking with us!”

True to his word, exactly 32.7 minutes later an agent from the rental desk pulled up in a huge white Cadillac (this was back when a Cadillac was a genuine ‘land yacht’)! She got out, cheerily handed me the keys, and said, “Sorry ‘bout the trouble, folks, have a great stay in Charlotte!” Another car pulled up beside her, she got in, and they drove off, waving.

Now, I wish I could tell you the name of the rental car company, because I’d love to recommend them to you should you ever need to rent a car in Charlotte, North Carolina. Alas, it’s been well over mumblemumble years now, and I’m afraid that particular information belongs to brain cells that have apparently already taken early retirement.

Nevertheless, there’s no reason we can’t learn a few lessons from it anyway, right? (Chorus of “rights” from the audience.) So here goes:

• Attitude (Part 1) - One of the things that impressed us the most was the service manager’s attitude about the whole thing. Not once did he attempt to dodge any responsibility, or brush it off as a minor issue - not even the trash in the trunk. It was a big deal to him, and he demonstrated it in no uncertain terms! It was obvious he appreciated our business, and was going to keep it if it was the last thing he did. To you sir, wherever you are, I applaud and thank you! I truly wish I could do more.

• Attitude (Part 2) - ‘Course, I didn’t go screaming at the guy, either, or get angry about the inconvenience, or otherwise engage in a tantrum. Stop and think about it - such a course of action always results in more trouble, not less, and rarely provides a solution that will satisfy anyone. It immediately puts the other party on the defensive (and they’re already there anyway), it shuts down most communication except the very worst kind, and raises the blood pressure of anyone within hearing. Definitely not good. It just so happens I’m a rather calm fellow anyway, but for those of you who aren’t - well, my advice is, BEFORE you react, take a deep breath, count to ten, or do whatever it takes to get past the moment. THEN do what you need to do.

• Perspective - Y’know, when everything is said and done, there is usually more said than done, there really weren’t any seriously catastrophic consequences here. I mean, we weren’t time-constrained, we arrived at the hotel just fine, and still ended up with a dependable (although admittedly very nice car). But even so, if you step back far enough and look at the situation “from the outside”, so to speak - well, it just really wasn’t anything to get upset about. I think you’ll find that, given the right perspective, probably lots of things we get all worked up about really turn out to be no big deal in the long run. At least, that’s been my experience.

Y’know; when stuff like this happens, there are really only two ways you can handle it: fight it, or roll with it. I don’t know about you, but speaking from experience here, rolling with it is so much better. Save your energy for the things that really matter. Like so much else in life, it all boils down to choice.

OK; now it’s your turn. And whatever you choose - try not to be too abby-normal!

* ‘abby-normal’ is a reference from the movie Young Frankenstein, starring Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, and a whole cast of well-known stars. If you’re in need a good belly laugh or three, then stop what you’re doing right now and run, don’t walk, to your nearest movie source and rent the thing.

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

Y’know; lately I can’t seem to get the word can’t out of my mind (not even when I use my best Sam Kinnison impression: Get out! Get out! Get Oooouuuuuttttt!)

For instance, when I was a kid, I heard it all the time (”Hey, you can’t do that; you’re just a kid!) As a teenager, it was practically non-stop (”You can’t do that; you’re just a teenager!”) So by the time I was finally an adult (18 or 21 years, depending on the state you live in - and the State of Insanity doesn’t count), I’d heard it so many times I thought it was my middle name!

As a child in grade school, I used to play imaginary games of space exploration and adventure. My friends, when they discovered that, used to tell me, “You can’t do that! Nobody goes to space!” ‘Course, in 1961, Yuri Gagarin proved them all wrong.

I also made little toy models of moon rockets, lunar exploration vehicles, and habitats because I wanted to go live on the moon. My friends said, “You can’t do that! Nobody goes to the moon!” But in 1969, somebody did.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. The process of growing up necessitates the testing our environment, searching for boundaries. Hey, we all did it.

But sometimes I think all those can’t’s (?), if there’s enough of ‘em, eventually get to the point where they solidify in our brains like - well, like those little particles of sediment in the ocean. Given time, they make their way into the deepest, darkest places, piling thicker and thicker; turning into a thick layer of goo that eventually solidifies into rock-hardness for time immemorial.

So I guess it’s only natural for you to hear the word can’t when it comes to doing something outside of your normal experience. I mean, it’s what you’ve heard all your life, right?

Allow me to introduce you to Team Hoyt.

We heard Dick Hoyt speak for the first time at our Ignite (Eek! He mentioned it again!) convention last weekend. During his talk, they showed their DVD “It’s only a Mountain”, and I’m tellin’ ya; it was absolutely riveting!

Dick’s son Rick was severely handicapped due to an accident at birth, and he’s pretty much confined to a wheelchair for life. Now, I’ll bet here’s a couple of guys who’ve heard the word can’t all their lives! But, amazingly enough, it hasn’t stopped them from making an impact on the world.

Together, these guys have participated in, let’s see - at last count it was 938 track & field events, including (among a host of other events):

• 65 marathons, including 25 Boston Marathons
• 224 Triathalons
• Biked/ran across the U.S. (3,745 miles in 45 consecutive days)

In addition to that, they now travel the world, creating awareness of the issues the disabled face every day, while actively helping the disabled to participate in activities that would otherwise be inaccessible to them.

Rick communicates with the world through a special computer interface that prints his thoughts on the screen. It’s slow, of course, but it reveals an uncommonly sharp mind, hidden inside the misshapen body.

The video ended with a few of Rick’s computer-generated words summing up his experiences. In the foreground, you can see his computer screen displaying the letter “C”. As he continues to talk, the letter “A” appears. Finally, the last letter becomes visible:

C…. A…. N….

I couldn’t have said it better!

(top photo: Absolutely Nothing is Allowed here, by Vickie and Chuck Rogers - Best Friends)

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

[Note from the Proprietor: Speaking of the book, The Age of Conversation, yesterday I mentioned the chapter I contributed. Well, just to prove to you I really can write concisely and within ridiculously tight restrictions (400 words, on the money!), here’s it is. If you have yet to purchase the book (and why are you waiting?), well, you’re missing out on some amazing insights from 102 other folks.]

The Age of Conversation makes me think of… bridges.

Consider: We all know about bridges, right? You’ve seen and crossed hundreds, even thousands of them in your lifetime. Have you ever thought about what a bridge does? And while you’re pondering that, just exactly how do bridges relate to conversations, anyway?

A bridge, in terms of its function, connects or reduces the distance between two points. In other words, it makes it easier for you to get from here to there. Sounds reasonable, don’t you think? But what I find most interesting is the word applies equally to physical and non-physical worlds.

Now, before we go on, let’s consider the term conversation. Think of it as the use of speech for the informal exchange of views, ideas or information. You’ll note it’s also defined in terms of function.

For example, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco links together two points of land, effectively and dramatically reducing the travel distance between them. A barrier (the water) has been bridged.

In the same way, two people, even with wildly differing views on a particular subject, can bridge those differences with a single conversation, resulting in common understanding. Again, a barrier (differing viewpoints) has been bridged.

In a sense, then, the conversation is the bridge.

It has been rightly said that the secret to good blogging can be found in the art of conversation. What’s more, the proliferation of the World Wide Web has made it possible to conduct multiple conversations with folks anywhere there’s an appropriate computer and internet connection. And that’s exactly what makes it so powerful.

Conversation, when employed wisely, can easily become an effective tool for bridging geographical, political, and ideological barriers. I talk to you; you talk to me – but watch out! You’re in a construction zone; a bridge is being built!

Distance? What’s distance to an electron traveling at the speed of light? Geography? No problem; all physical boundaries are irrelevant. Well, then what about political boundaries? Countries, cultures and/or ideologies can often be formidable boundaries. But here’s where the true power of conversation begins to shine forth for all to see.

Herein lies the danger – and also the exhilaration. With every post, a bridge magically springs forth that can span any conceivable barrier that could possibly be thrown in its way. Step across, if you dare.

The choice is yours.

(Photo courtesy of Zoey Bluesky)

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

Very old joke:

Two ants are running across the top of a tissue box, and one of them asks the other, “Hey, why are we running so fast?”

The other one points down and says in exasperation, “Can’t you read? It says right here: ‘Tear Across Dotted Line’”

Consider… the Ant

(Oh sure; it’s a strange thought for a beautiful Christmas morning. But believe it or not, I’m going somewhere with this line of thought. Bear with me just a bit, if you would.)

Wouldn’t it be interesting to be able to really understand ants? Just think; you could discover first-hand how they work together, how they live, how they get from place to place. You’d finally know why ants always seem to walk single-file, how they can carry 10 times their own weight, and most importantly, how exactly can they find their way into just about anything! Just how do they do those crazy ant things they do so very well?

But wait a minute. How could you really understand an ant, anyway? I mean, how would you communicate with them – or even get their attention? And how would they know you wanted to talk? By what means would a human being really understand something so small, so… insignificant.

See, the problem is, not only are you unimaginably bigger than they are, but you don’t have much in common with them. Their lives are so much different from yours; I mean, it’s pretty much impossible to grasp.

How Could You Understand An Ant?

So what’s the best way for you to really understand ants? Well… there is one way I can think of: you could become an ant yourself!

Now, I’m not talking about just shrinking down to the size and shape of an ant. See, without changing who or what you are, your essence, if you will… well, that wouldn’t do at all. Not only would you miss out on a genuine ant’s point-of-view, but they’d know you weren’t really an ant – even if you had the outward appearance of one.

No, I mean actually becoming one; to somehow live life as an ant. You have to be able to experience exactly what the ant is going through firsthand, for only then could you hope to get a true ant’s perspective on things. Only then could you understand them. Only then could you communicate with them.

And only then could they truly understand and communicate with you.

Consider… God

A lot of people don’t really understand Christmas. I guess that comes as no surprise, considering how much glitz and hoopla fills the air for months ahead of the actual day. But all that, well, stuff, really does is make it easy to miss the real Christmas. C’mon, you know what I mean: the actual human birth of Jesus Christ.

That’s the thing folks have a hard time with. I mean, the very idea that God would send His own son, Jesus, to be born as a man, live as a man, and die as a man… well, it just doesn’t seem to make any sense.

But in fact, there was simply no other way for God to get our attention. There was no other way for us to know that God himself really wanted to talk to us; to have a relationship with us.

And there was no other way for Him to tell us – and even more importantly, for us to truly understand – that He loved us.

Today is Christmas Day; the day we Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, all over the world, and across virtually all cultures.

Isn’t it amazing? To think that even today, and for many people, that was just a seemingly insignificant event that happened long ago. But in truth, the implications of that day somehow transcend time and space, and can still touch us as powerfully today – if we’ll just allow it to.

If you’re interested in a relationship with the God of the Universe, then there’s where it starts – at the manger in Bethlehem.

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I would like to thank all who have, by accident or design, visited Middle Zone Musings this year. I hope you’ll drop by again, or even drop by regularly.

And I especially wish you all a very merry Christmas!

(Image “01nativita” by francesyan)

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

Kudos to my buddy and multiple WILF participant GL Hoffman over at What Would Dad Say with what may be THE definitive Entrepreneur’s list of all time (well, at least up until now, GL): A Complete List of 100 Attributes of People Who Start Companies: How You Can Be One of America’s Entrepreneurs.

[UPDATE: Thanks to a timely comment from my friend Karin, I should mention that I MEANT to say it was the “definitive list of Entrepreneurial Attributes of all time”. - Thanks for keeping me on my toes, my friend!]

Although he admits up front it’s probably not necessarily, as advertised, “complete” – still, ya gotta admire this thing as a true labor of love.

And now, just for the fun of it, he’s tacked on a challenge to anyone and everyone: The Entrepreneur’s Meme!

Here are the details, straight from the post:

The Entrepreneur Meme: Deadline, Friday, December 28, 2007.

Step 1. Write a post “Another characteristic or attribute of an entrepreneur…” You can make it a short burst or comment on one of my characteristics (there are 100 of them, you must agree on at least one!!), write one yourself that I missed (lots of them) or relate a personal story that illustrates how an entrepreneur did something great. For example, when you read through my list did you think about to a specific similar thing that happened to you. Tell us about it.

Step 2. Tell your visitors what you are doing. Please put a link back to this post so they can see what you are doing. Or email me at gl@jobdig.com to let me know you have participated.

Step 3. For every link I get back, I will donate $1 to charity, up to $500. If there are not 500 links, I will round up to the nearest 100 and donate that amount.

Step 4. Tell all your friends too. Put links to them at the bottom of your posting, maybe they will join in this cause to help entrepreneurs and a charity too. Email them this posting and your own so they know what we are doing and that it is for two good causes.

___________________

To make it easier to peruse the list, I copied the entire thing to a Word file. I’m warnin’ ya now, it’s a bit long (16 pages!) so be prepared to spend some time reading through it. But believe me, it’s worth it! Even if you’re not interested in entrepreneurship, these are great skills to have or develop.

I’ve already narrowed my choices down to about three or four, and will choose one and write a *cough*cough* witty and brilliant illustration “real soon now”. But in the meantime, I invite you to join the party – and don’t forget to tell your friends, too!

Pssst; by the way, GL; it sure sounds like the makings of a really terrific e-book (hint, hint).

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!