Category: Abundance and Prosperity

Looking at abundance as not necessarily monetary–how to get your needs met and desires fulfilled without necessarily needing money to do it.

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Frugality/Frugal Fun, General Commentary, People Helping People, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized

Millard Fuller founded Habitat for Humanity, was kicked out in a power struggle, and started another organization to continue the work.

In this powerful interview conducted by Cynthia Kersey, the best selling author of Unstoppable and Unstoppable Women, Fuller discusses his accomplishments and challenges and faith. He comes across as remarkably humble and extremely effective.

I’ve always believed that one person can always make a difference, but that difference is greatly magnified if that person finds others to work with. If you’re not convinced, you need to read this entire interview. If you are convinced, read it for inspiration.

Couple of excerpts:

We thought that the work of Habitat for Humanity would be exclusively in third world countries and in the rural south. And Habitat has grown in third world countries, it’s all over Africa, it’s all over Asia, it’s all over Central and South America. It’s all over the rural south, but Habitat today is in every province in Canada. It’s in a number of European countries. It’s in New Zealand, it’s in Australia.

It is in all of the places we expected it to be, plus a whole lot more. Incidentally, that goal that we wrote about in our minutes of our first meeting was achieved in August of 2005. We dedicated the 200,000th house for the 1,000,000th person in Knoxville, Tennessee in August of 2005.

CYNTHIA KERSEY: How many years is that? Twenty seven years?

MILLARD FULLER: We started in 1976, so just shy of 30 years. Currently, Habitat is building about 30,000 houses a year.

* * *

CYNTHIA KERSEY: How many communities took your challenge to eliminate poverty housing in that particular area? As a city wide, not so much just the affiliate, but the city said, “This is what we’re going to do.”

MILLARD FULLER: You mean accept the goal of trying to eliminate poverty housing?

CYNTHIA KERSEY: Yes, exactly.

MILLARD FULLER: That was done here in Americus, Georgia, where we live, with Habitat for Humanities headquarter and where now The Fuller Center for Housing is located. In 1992, I called together a community meeting in Americus; we have a community college here called Georgia Southwestern State University. I called together all of the leaders of this community and I said, “Let’s eliminate poverty housing in this town and in this county, because that’s what we advocate for the whole world, let’s just model it here locally.”

We created an organization called The Sumter County Initiative. We set a goal to end poverty housing by the year 2000. We got organized, we gridded the county. We knew what families lived in each little grid and we wrote all of that down and got a plan in place and systematically, grid by grid, we built every family a house that needed one in each grid, or in some cases renovated houses, or in other cases houses were too bad to be fixed up so they’d just be torn down.

On September 15th of the year 2000, I stood in front of the Thomas family house and we had a big sign out front that said, “Victory House.” I led 400 people singing an old southern gospel song, Victory in Jesus because that house symbolized our victory over substandard housing. We got rid of all of the slums, we got rid of all substandard housing, and we built 35 houses that week. In the last week, we put up the last 35 houses in five days.

CYNTHIA KERSEY: How did that impact the community?

MILLARD FULLER: It had a very, very positive impact, a huge impact. We saw crimes go down, children doing better in school, all of the indicators of what makes for a better community, improved. I might do a fast forward, Cynthia, and I think the people who are on this call would find this very interesting. In December of this past year, I went to the little town that I was raised up in, over in Alabama. It’s the little town of Lanett and Valley, Alabama, two small towns right on the Georgia border and in West Point, Georgia.

Those three towns, West Point, Georgia; Lanett and Valley, Alabama make up what is called the Chattahoochee Valley. Population wise, it’s about the same as here in Americus, Georgia. I was invited over there to meet with a group in December and I challenged them to do there what we did here. They accepted that challenge and they have now created the Chattahoochee Fuller Center Project. On March 16, we will kick off a 500 house build in my little hometown area.

Again, the article is at https://www.healthywealthynwise.com/article.asp?Article=5211.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Politics, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

Hey, Senator Edwards, if you think a haircut should cost $400, I’d be glad to give you some shopping lessons. After all, I’ve written books and operated websites on frugality for years. I’ll even give you a copy of my e-book, The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty with a Peasant’s Pocketbook. It’s got a whole chapter on frugal shopping.

Not only did you pay $400 each for two Beverly Hills haircuts, but you got your campaign to pay for it! Guess which campaign I’m NOT contributing to?

And the funny thing is, you’ve got hair any barber could manage. If you looked like, say, Cher, there might be some justification for spending $100 (though not for getting the campaign to pick up the tab).

BTW, I go to stylist, not a barber, and I get great haircuts. I get them two or three times a year, and pay $20 or $22 (I forget). I’d be glad to introduce you to my hair guy. He’s even a Democrat.

Yes, it’s a legitimate campaign function to look properly groomed. But using other people’s money for a $400 haircut, twice, is shameful. Let the campaign pay the first $20 or $30 of each–and you should reimburse for the balance.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Marketing Trends/News, Publishing, Uncategorized

I’m quoting a short bit from Adam Sutton’s article in Mequoda Daily, an often-provocative marketing newsletter emphasizing fairly advanced concepts and products. I have felt this for many years but they articulate it so smoothly and well:

Supporters are law-abiding citizens that pay for products because
they love the company and want it to prosper.
Samplers get free products from Supporters or other Samplers. They
do not immediately buy a product, because they are unsure of the
product’s worth or do not have enough money. Samplers typically get a
free product, and if they like it, pay for others when cash is
available.
Thieves will happily pirate products and break DRM systems forever.
They consciously never pay for products and have no desire to support
artists. This group is best ignored because their will to circumvent
DRM–or any copyright protection–is unbreakable.

If you’re a Sampler who found this worth while, the link above to the full article presents the option to subscribe, no charge.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Politics, Uncategorized

In the ‘who would’ve thunk it’ department. George W. Bush’s Crawford ranch turns out to be a model of environmental sustainability. And the surprisingly modest structure was built since he bought the property.

I must say I was pleasantly shocked to read that the Bushes employ such forward-thinking technologies as geothermal heating and cooling, landscaping designed to keep the house cool in summer and warm in winter, even graywater recycling.

Under a gravel border around the house, a concrete gutter channels the water into a 25,000-gallon cistern for irrigation. In hot weather, a terrace directly above the cistern is a little cooler than the surrounding area.

Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into purifying tanks underground — one tank for water from showers and bathroom sinks, which is so-called “gray water,” and one tank for “black water” from the kitchen sink and toilets. The purified water is funneled to the cistern with the rainwater. It is used to irrigate flower gardens, newly planted trees and a larger flower and herb garden behind the two-bedroom guesthouse. Water for the house comes from a well.

.

Oh yes, and the funniest line in the whole article: a quote from the home’s architect, David Heymann:

“We’ve got a lot of economies in the house,” he says, noting the Bushes may be wealthy, but they are “frugal people.”

It takes a lot to get me to say Bravo to George W. Bush–but this house deserves a whole round of Bravos. And it deserves to be a model for the rest of the country; why is he keeping it such a secret?

So…my question for Mr. Bush–if in your own private personal life you make such great choices, if you’re aware that the earth’s own technologies can provide all our energy needs–why is your own energy policy such an unmitigated disaster? You’re pushing disastrous technologies like nuclear, fossil fuels that get us into wars…and meanwhile you’ve quite properly created a private dwelling that uses only a tiny fraction of that used by a conventional house. In other words, you know from your own experience that all the green technologies you’ve been dissing and dismissing actually work.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business Ethics, Energy & Sustainability, Uncategorized

Sunil Paul has a great blog entry about how he chose to get involved with environmental technology companies first and foremost to help “green” the world, and only secondarily to make profit. The profits, of course, followed.

My favorite paragraph:

But it doesn’t have to be a choice between social and economic goals. Clean energy is like the love child of John Muir and Adam Smith. It joins environmentalism with capitalism. Cleantech companies have great value not captured by the price of the good or service. Their entire business model generates excess social return. In addition, the energy market is huge, and is ripe for change – and so the opportunity for profits is tremendous.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business Ethics, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Publishing, Uncategorized

My sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, challenges a lot of my assumptions in 12 years as a professional book promoter. Librarians respond positively to it in a 1:1 interaction, but not so much to fliers, etc. (I was quite pleased to discover last month that Denver Public Library stocks both Principled Profit and my earlier Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World, since I had dropped in on the librarian on my previous visit). The mainstream media show very little interest, yet e-zine editors seem to love it. Bookstores don’t want to know it exists, but actual *readers* literally grab it out of my hands and buy it on the spot (it’s happened over and over again). It’s been much-blurbed (78 at last count) and much-reviewed.

If I can “go mystical” for a moment–here’s some speculation.

Thinking about it today, I’m wondering if the universe in some subtle ways responds to the content of books. One of several key principles in Principled Profit is marketing by building ongoing relationships, and another is that marketing is something much deeper and more powerful than the techniques discussed in most marketing books (including my own Grassroots Marketing). Principled Profit does really well when people meet me and see it.

Another principle in the book is the idea of abundance coming back to you when you are open to it. And I can trace a number of ways that has worked for me with this book:

  • Almost immediately, I started attracting a better class of client–including several who have gone on to have me shepherd their books from manuscript through production (at least two of my book packaging clients specifically cited the ethics approach as why they chose me)
  • * I have begun to attract well-paying speaking gigs on this topic
  • I became a regular columnist for a year and a half for Business Ethics magazine, which paid me to appear before my key core audience
  • I’ve just gotten my first assignment for Success magazine, about business ethics, and if they like my work, they’ve promised more

    • By contrast, The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty with a Peasant’s Pocketbook got phenomenal media attention (Reader’s Digest, three mentions in Woman’s Day, Bottom Line, home pages of MSN, Paypal, and AOL, among many others)–but it was a slow seller. The content of that book was all about how to afford all sorts of great lifestyle stuff without having to buy it. And just maybe the universe was saying to me, “ok, if that’s how you want to be about it…”

    The idea that the universe manifests the type of energy (and results) that you feed it is certainly not new; it’s in dozens if not hundreds of books, and is the key principle of the movie “The Secret.” But it was only this morning that I put it into focus in terms of the sales results with my own books.

    “‘Tis a puzzlement,” as the King of Siam would say.

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    By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, General Commentary, Uncategorized

    I’m writing this from Guanajuato, Mexico; we’ve been traveling and studying Spanish since December 26. My wife and I were also here 22 years ago for an extended trip, and I notice differences in the business world since then.

    The most obvious is how much more advanced the infrastructure has become. A few examples:

    Making a long-distance call within Mexico had been rather an ordeal. In 1984 and 1985, a person would contact the operator, you’d get a call back in an hour or two when the line became available, and the sound quality was iffy. These days, just buy a phone card, slide it in, and dial, and usually get a good clear signal. However, you may have to try two or three phones before you find one that likes your card. And everybody that we met had a cell phone; many also have land lines. In the old days, most people had no phone at all.

    Intercity bus travel has become a joy (other than the constant barrage of poorly chosen TV and movies). Luxurious seats, immaculate restrooms, even a snack.

    Banking has been computerized, and transactions such as changing travelers checks that used to take half an hour or more now take only a few minutes.

    Purified water is common, and a healthfood consciousness has begun to be felt in the culture. A few examples–even Wonder offers packaged whole wheat tortillas…natural foods stores, though small, are easy to find…a few restaurants and cafes proclaim that they use organic ingredients.

    However, there are some less attractive changes as well.

    It seems that the strong local traditional culture is harder to find. Norteamericano fashion boutiques have replaced many of the traditional clothing vendors, and we saw almost no one wearing Mexican styles. And, like so many other parts of the world, some of the U.S.’s worst cultural exports have begun to crowd out local stores. We saw several Wal-Marts, McDonald’s, and–in picturesque downtown Guanajuato–even a Domino Pizza. And despite the wonderful varieties of Mexican soda and beer, Coke is enormously popular.

    Worse, Coke owns at least a few of the brands of bottled water, and that could be a dangerous trend. I believe firmly that water rights and water privatization will be major focal points for the struggle for economic justice, increasing in intensity to the point that water may be the oil of 2020 and beyond. And it should not be yanked out from under the local populace by multinational corporations.

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    By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business Ethics, Politics, Uncategorized

    Most American investors think that socially responsible mutual funds contribute to better corporate behavior, according to a new major investor survey conducted by Calvert [https://www.calvert.com]. Knowing that a company is rated higher in terms of their social performance would make 71 percent of Americans more likely to invest in that company and 77 percent would purchase more of their products and services.

    Going through email that was not a priority when it arrived, I found the above tidbit in David Batstone’s WAG newsletter (from last April, I confess).

    Those are remarkable statistics. Over 2/3 use social responsibility as an investment screen, and over 3/4 as a factor in making a purchase.

    So why do we still have so much unresponsive, focused-only-on-financial-bottom-line, and downright nasty corporate behavior? Because people don’t realize that good corporate behavior is a direct path to better profitability. If you’d like to educate a corporate friend on this, I recommend my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First–it outlines exactly how and why companies succeed better by doing the right thing.

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    By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Uncategorized

    Andrew Bourland, founder of ClickZ and a very successful entrepreneur, did a wonderful blog post on how proud he was of his competitors, and how their strategy of offering great information all year round made their expensive conference a very easy sell.

    So chances are good that they are one of the resources you would have turned to, along with Business Blog Consulting, for information and guidance on business blogging. You might have bookmarked us both in your list of RSS feeds you check regularly, and if you haven’t already, you should.

    But something may have happened around mid-August or September when you were reading all those great articles that Teresa, Steve, DL and our very own Dave Taylor regularly write: you might have noticed they had a conference coming up.

    And then as time progressed, you might have thought you ought to go… and then, if you were one of the smart and fortunate ones who wisely reserved a seat at their conference this past week

    This is something I’ve been writing and talking about for many years, especially in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.

    Disclosure: I “know” Andy virtually because we were both active participants for many years on the now-defunct (and sorely missed) Internet Sales Discussion List.

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    By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Marketing Trends/News, Uncategorized

    Tellman Knudson is conducting an experiment in list building and traffic building. He’s asking people to comment on at least one post per day on this one of his blogs, and to link back to each of our comments over a five day period. My first comment is to the post, Seminar Dos and Don’ts, where I added two tactics that have been successful for me in seminar networking.

    This post will grow a bit over the next few days, as I will simply edit in new links.

    Since tomorrow will be my try-to-be-weekly day off the computer, I’ve done two today. The second was on his post about long-term relationships with your list members–something I’m a big believer in.

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