A year ago this past summer, an extraordinary student enrolled in one of my entrepreneurship courses. Sean Harry, it turned out, was also an outstanding teacher—and the founder of an unusual career coaching company.

Sean’s no ordinary career coach. He was a full-time professional minister for 20 years before making his own midlife transition to lifework equally nourishing to body and spirit. So he knows a thing or two about soul satisfaction.

I asked Sean to share some thoughts with readers who, amid today’s uncertain economic climate, may be considering career transitions in 2009 and beyond. Here, from his client portfolio, is a true story that illustrates two simple steps anyone can take toward achieving greater satisfaction at work.

“Chris had been a successful Madison Avenue advertising executive for more than 15 years. When he came to see me he told the following story:

A year ago I found myself sitting in an airport bar with some fellow “road warriors” bemoaning the fact that it was my son’s second birthday—and I was missing it. The group offered no sympathy. One by one, around the table, they told their own versions of the same story. One had to leave a family vacation three days early to attend an important meeting on the West Coast. Another had missed his daughter’s high school graduation due to a work conflict. On and on the stories went. Looking around the table, I started thinking to myself, ‘I don’t want to be that guy.’ Then, suddenly, with a shiver of horror, I realized the truth: I already was that guy.

“Chris quit his job and relocated with his wife and family so they could live closer to the childrens’ grandparents. He’d made a big move toward a major career transition, but was unsure about next steps.

“As we started our coaching sessions, Chris vacillated between taking a lower stress, advertising-related job to advance his career—something he didn’t really want to do—and exploring his real passion: painting. He kept saying, ‘what I really want to do is unreasonable. You can’t make a living as an artist.’

“I listened and agreed. It is tough to make a living as an artist.

“So I posed a simple question. ‘If you were going to become an artist, what would you do first?‘

“Chris answered easily. ‘I’d set up a little studio in my basement. Maybe rent a booth at the local artist’s market and try to sell something.’

“‘Yes, making a living as an artist is tough,’ I replied, ‘but setting up a studio doesn’t mean you have to stop working to make a living, does it? Would you be willing to take that small step and see where it leads?’

“That’s the key: Take a small step toward your ‘unreasonable’ goal. I find clients almost always have a plan in mind—they simply need ‘permission’, as it were, to act on it. That’s Step One.

“So Chris set up his studio. He made a few paintings. He rented a space at the Saturday Market and at a Christmas Bazaar. And he sold enough to pay for materials and booths, though not enough to live on. To make ends meet, he took on work enabled by his advertising background, but more in line with his interests in art.

“But Chris still didn’t consider himself ‘an artist.’ That meant he was ready for Step Two. Using the Career Crossroads methodology, I gradually helped Chris overcome his fear of identifying himself as an artist.

“Last month Chris was asked to participate in a gallery exhibition. He has half a dozen pieces on display, and is much happier now. He’s able to spend far more time with his wife and kids. He paints and sells his work at local galleries and art shows, and travels little.

“Chris isn’t rich, but he’s happy. He began by taking a small step toward his ‘unreasonable’ goal: Setting up a studio and buying some art supplies. Next, he mustered the courage to call himself an artist. Which he is.

“Now he’s moving in the direction of living his passion—not in huge jumps, but in small, deliberate, courageous steps. That’s the two-step method toward a soul-satisfying career transition.”

Thanks, Sean. Readers, here’s the takeaway:

Step One: Take a small step toward your ‘unreasonable’ goal

Step Two: Identify yourself as what you aspire to be

You may also enjoy:

“Opting Out of the Deferred Life Plan“

“Fixing a Broken Work Model”

“Time For Everything“

“The time has come, God knows, for us to examine ourselves, but we can only do this if we are willing to free ourselves of the myth of America and try to find out what is really happening here.”–James Baldwin

An essential regard for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness lies at the root of the ongoing discussion here on Soul Shelter. Our search for — and our readers’ search for — ways to “balance fortune and fulfillment” is really a continuing inquiry into those ideal humanist values that seeded the American founders’ dream in Philadelphia some 230 years ago.

Now, in a mere eight days, we contemporary Americans will cast our ballots in the most suspenseful and consequential election in generations. It is, as I think we all recognize, a decisive historical moment. As such, it requires each of us to fulfill our duty as reasonable, informed, and free U.S. citizens, and weigh the merits and demerits of both presidential candidates in a manner beyond whatever our political reflex may be, beyond party lines — and beyond the influence of partisan case-making (in this instance, too, it is every bit as important to weigh the merits and demerits of the vice-presidential candidates). I believe if we do this, the better leader is sure to win, and despite the crises confronting us, our country is sure to benefit from his presence in the White House.

Unlearned views … are perhaps the more confident in proportion as they are less enlightened.

So cautioned Thomas Jefferson back in 1807. Heeding his warning, I’ve aimed to be a well-informed voter and not merely a smugly confident one. I cannot let Election Day pass without sharing several good resources I’m consulting in an effort to mark my ballot with the most reasoned and responsible vote for my country.

As prologue, here’s a quick summary of how I will employ the following resources to make my decision. My vote will favor the presidential ticket that has: a) the smartest, most rational and humane arguments; b) a predominance of facts to support its views and positions; c) the most apparent reluctance to “trim” facts or manipulate my opinion with purely emotional appeals. A ticket meeting these criteria is bound to provide the soundest leadership.

1. Tips for Discerning the Smartest Political Argument

Over at On Simplicity a few weeks back, blogger Sara provided a solid methodology for cutting through sound bytes to examine a political position logically and effectively. It’s a suitably simple approach, and one all too easily lost amid political chatter. A few of Sara’s best points:

• Are there any holes in the logic here?
• What’s the other side of the story?
• Are there any facts that support this idea? Are those facts being ignored? Misrepresented? Or are they incorporated usefully?
• Is this argument based on fact and philosophy or emotion?
• What does the opposition have to say?

In the final days before the election, I would amend Sara’s superb points with just the following slightly more explicit ones:

• Am I getting the whole story or quote, or just a snippet? Where can I find the whole story?
• What is this ad/assertion/media story encouraging most: fear or reason?

2. FactCheck.org

“Facts are stubborn things,” said John Adams in 1770. Adams was a passionate apostle for a government of laws not men — a political conviction that suffuses the Declaration of Independence. “Whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion,” Adams said, “they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

The impressive website FactCheck.org operates on that same principle. I explore the site regularly. Its lively but stubbornly rational analyses of the many “facts” and figures thrown around in political debate (tax brackets, budget numbers, senatorial voting records) always strike me as weirdly, well … beautiful. Yep, real non-partisan analysis can be a lovely thing, for it can prove that despite the flinch-votes of some Americans (be it a flinch of fear, faith, or party affiliation), and despite the tacit political endorsements in much media jabber, a reasoned American respect for fact and history survives. By its own description, FactCheck.org

aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.

3. George Orwell’s “Politics & the English Language”

I last read Orwell’s marvelous essay in those shaky, violent, bombastic days surrounding September 11, 2001. In the face of the endless swirl of political discussion surrounding us in the lead-up to the election, I’m revisiting it. With a scalpel’s precision, the essay cuts away the manipulative verbiage of political-speak, and decodes its real meaning — or lack thereof.

A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. …

If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. …

Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called “Pacification.” Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called “Transfer of Population” or “Rectification of Frontiers.” People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called “Elimination of Unreliable Elements.”

4. A Definition of Patriotism

Whether you’re leaning toward or away from a vote for Barack Obama, his non-politicized but stirring speech on the subject of American patriotism, delivered in Independence, Missouri back in June, deserves the attention of all Americans. Read it here.

To conclude, I’ll balance today’s emphasis on fact and reason with a second resonant quote from the great writer James Baldwin, from his essay “The Discovery of What it Means to be an American“:

Though we do not wholly believe it yet, the interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world.

You might also enjoy:

“Looking Deeply, Proceeding On”

“The Happiness Issue”

“The State of American Happiness”

“What We Worship“

Why do most people become entrepreneurs?

Maybe they seek to satisfy their souls by pursuing their lifework. Maybe they long to create lasting organizations that will change the world, or better a community. Maybe it’s part of a grand pursuit to understand reality.

Or does the decision result from a flash of inspiration into an unmet market need? The ambition to solve a gnawing workplace problem? Involvement with technical breakthroughs unappreciated by employers?

Do aspiring entrepreneurs yearn for wealth? For fame? Are they psychologically driven to embrace risk? To lead others?

Maybe the reasons are more prosaic: a corporate layoff, the desire to exercise new skills, a pressing need to make more money.

None of these scenarios, as it turns out, underpin the single reason why most people become entrepreneurs.

According to a comprehensive study of entrepreneurship published earlier this year by Scott A. Shane, a professor at Case Western Reserve University, most people start businesses in order to avoid working for others. Writes Shane:

The real reason that most people start businesses, however, has nothing to do with wanting to make money, to become famous, to better their own communities, to seek adventure, or even to improve the world. Most people start businesses simply because they just don’t like working for someone else.

Shane’s study, entitled The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By, contains surprising findings that contradict almost every bit of entrepreneurship folk wisdom you’ll encounter online. The results are compiled in an extremely readable book of the same title.

Lay readers will certainly find Shane’s conclusions counterintuitive. Everyone knows that great entrepreneurs invent marvelous technologies, create heretofore unimagined markets, launch heroic quests to do social good.

The key to understanding Shane’s findings lies in his definition of entrepreneur: anyone who starts a new business.

That’s a definition I agree with. But it’s at odds with popular perception, because most people think of new businesses as high-tech, high growth companies.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The vast majority of new businesses are sole proprietorships: one-person, undifferentiated, work-at-home enterprises without employees, started on a shoestring, in mature, low-growth industries (not biotechnology or software), managed by a principal without ambition (or plans) to expand. It is these tiny enterprises—not the Googles of the world—that account for 80% or more of all new businesses.

Few of Shane’s findings will surprise those who’ve formally studied entrepreneurship. But I admit that for me, it was an eye opener to see “don’t like working for someone else” as Reason Number One for starting a business.

The hard-hitting facts of Illusions, though, should only encourage aspiring entrepreneurs. The world needs more genuine characters, more original souls determined to trod their own path, and no other.

More power to those who strike out on their own—damn the odds, and whatever the reason.

You may also enjoy:

“Entrepreneurship: A Primer”

“In Praise of Salaried Employment”

“Making Money: The Right and Wrong Questions to Ask“

(This is an installment of CommonSensical, a periodic feature in which we offer timeless words from thinkers and artists new and old on the subject of pursuing fulfillment and protecting the soul.)

Envisioning and designing the University of Virginia in his later years, Thomas Jefferson imagined a haven of higher learning where students could come and go at will, seeking whatever knowledge they pleased and laboring under no expectation to earn a degree. In fact, degrees would not even be offered. It was to be a Utopian bastion of knowledge for knowledge’s sake.

Back in my days of institutional higher learning I was a student in the Jeffersonian mode (though I didn’t even know it). I hungered for knowledge but never really cared about obtaining a degree. Not a few of my elder relations and teachers chafed at this academic lassitude of mine, and amid our culture’s attitudes about university attendance I felt myself being branded an underachiever and pushed out of the system. Only the career-minded need apply. I never did acquire the coveted, gold-embossed, frameable, cardstock certificate.

Ultimately, despite the social pressure to either a) proceed lock-step along the academic path or b) admit myself a wash-up in the gutters of higher learning, my reasons for resigning my university career and not seeking a degree were my own. Maybe I was a young kook, but I came to believe that knowledge and culture could be found all around me at relatively little or no monetary cost (primarily through libraries, conversation, and travel), whereas a full and formal college education was sure to set me on a lifelong path of debt. I figured my self-expansion and edification could happen more economically and more effectively on my own terms and by my own methods of inquiry. I sought the most liberal of liberal arts education.

Maybe I’m still a kook, because now, years later, my convictions about the ready availability of knowledge remain pretty much unchanged. Devoid of a degree as I am, I have never stopped reading, inquiring, and exploring the world of ideas and facts. All this is not to deny, of course, that formal education is good in its way (and naturally some specialties — law and medicine most notably — absolutely require old-fashioned collegiate training). But I still believe deeply in the worth and merit of impractical learning — that is, learning not yoked with any particular worldly ambition — and I wish that this kind of “aimless” learning could find better cultural legitimacy.

In 1892 the thirty-four-year-old poet and classical scholar, A.E. Housman (1859-1936), gave a lively, stylish lecture on the subject of why human beings seek knowledge. It’s the best defense of “aimless” learning I’ve ever read. Here follows an inexcusably brief abridgment.

Housman kicks off with a retort to a contemporary writer who “define[s] the aim of learning to be utility,” and thus science to be the single most desirable subject of learning. Ah, but can any one type of knowledge really hold the claim of being better, or more beneficial, than another?

The popular view…is that the aim of acquiring knowledge is to equip one’s self for the business of life; that accordingly the knowledge most to be sought after is the knowledge which equips one best; and that this knowledge is Science.

… In short, the fact is, that what man will seek to acquaint himself with in order to prepare him for securing the necessaries of life is not Science, but the indispensable minimum of Science.

… In addition to the initial studies of reading, writing and arithmetic, [a person] needs to acquaint himself…with the indispensable minimum of those sciences which concern the trade or the art he earns his bread by: the dyer with chemistry, the carpenter with geometry, the navigator with astronomy. But there he can stop.

… A life spent, however victoriously, in securing the necessaries of life is no more than an elaborate furnishing and decoration of apartments for the reception of a guest who is never to come. Our business here is not to live, but to live happily. …Our true occupation is to manufacture from the raw material of life the fabric of happiness.

… The acquisition of knowledge needs no…justification: its true sanction is a much simpler affair, and inherent in itself. People are too prone to torment themselves with devising far-fetched reasons: they cannot be content with the simple truth asserted by Aristotle: `all men possess by nature a craving for knowledge.’ … This is no rare endowment scattered sparingly from heaven that falls on a few heads and passes others by: curiosity, the desire to know things as they are, is a craving no less native to the being of man, no less universal in diffusion through mankind, than the craving for food and drink. …The desire of knowledge does not need, nor could it possibly possess, any higher or more authentic sanction that the happiness which attends its gratification.

But now Housman pauses to acknowledge that “we see, every day of our lives, plenty of people who exhibit no pleasure in learning and experience no desire to know.” So is the human thirst for knowledge really as involuntary, and crucial to one’s survival, as one’s bodily thirst? Well, yes! The man who ignores his natural thirst for knowledge and chooses to wallow in ignorance may still appear to be a living, thriving human being, but…

…though the man does not die altogether, part of him dies, part of him starves to death: as Plato says, he never attains completeness and health, but walks lame to the end of his life and returns imperfect and good for nothing to the world below.

But the desire of knowledge, stifle it though you may, is none the less originally born with every man; and nature does not implant desires for nothing, nor endow us with faculties in vain.

… The faculty of learning is ours that we may find in its exercise that delight which arises from the unimpeded activity of any energy in the groove nature meant it to run in. Let a man acquire knowledge not for this or that external and incidental good which may chance to result from it, but for itself; not because it is useful or ornamental, but because it is knowledge, and therefore good for man to acquire.

… For knowledge resembles virtue in this, and differs in this from other possessions, that it is not merely a means of procuring good, but is good in itself simply: it is not a coin which we pay down to purchase happiness, but it has happiness indissolubly bound up with it. …The pursuit of knowledge, like the pursuit of righteousness, is part of man’s duty to himself; and remember the Scripture where it is written `He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul’.

In fact, argues Housman, knowledge of some type will come to us all whether we like it or not — through the maturing process of passing years, through tragedy, through regret. This is the nature of life (”live and learn”). So is it not natural, then, to seek knowledge outright, and empower ourselves against avoidable regrets and mistakes?

It is and it must in the long run be better for a man to see things as they are than to be ignorant of them; just as there is less fear of stumbling or of striking against corners in the daylight than in the dark.

… The pleasure of learning and knowing, though not the keenest, is yet the least perishable of pleasures; the least subject to external things, and the play of chance, and the wear of time. And as a prudent man puts money by to serve as a provision for the material wants of his old age, so too he needs to lay up against the end of his days provision for the intellect. As the year go by, comparative values are found to alter: Time, says Sophocles, takes many things which once were pleasures and brings them nearer to pain. In the day when the strong men shall bow themselves, and desire shall fail, it will be a matter of yet more concern than now, whether one can say `my mind to me a kingdom is’; and whether the windows of the soul look out upon a broad and delightful landscape, or face nothing but a brick wall.

Well then, once we have recognised that knowledge in itself is good for man, we shall need to invent no pretexts for studying this subject or that; we shall import no extraneous considerations of use or ornament to justify us in learning one thing rather than another. If a certain department of knowledge specially attracts a man, let him study that, and study it because it attracts him; and let him not fabricate excuses for that which requires no excuse, but rest assured that the reason why it most attracts him is that it is best for him.

(Here I’m reminded of a past discussion on this blog, in which Soul Shelter Director of Fortune Clark introduced (COOT^TM), Clark’s Option on Opportunities Theory. Tim was confronting a reader’s question: ‘Is education always a good investment?’ His response? “No. But if you have serious thoughts about going back to school, that’s a powerful sign that it’s a very good idea for you.”)

…Other desires perish in their gratification, but the desire of knowledge never: the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing. Other desires become the occasion of pain through dearth of the material to gratify them, but not the desire of knowledge: the sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read we shall never come to the end of our story-book.…

(Read Housman’s lecture in full, here.)

You might also enjoy:

“The Value of Travel — One Household’s Mild Manifesto”

“In Praise of Salaried Employment”

“Soul School”

Ever wonder why some people complete in hours tasks that others drag out over days? Or why busy people seem to volunteer most, yet accomplish far more than their leisure-blessed counterparts?

Many believe the answer lies in “time management.”

What nonsense!

I’ve tried to manage time. Once I decided to put the fourth of July into May. Didn’t work. Then I struggled to delay my 40th birthday for a few months. It steamrolled toward me anyway, moving at the precise rate of 24 hours per day.

Believers in time management may benefit by reading Getting Things Done, the David Allen bestseller which I’ve found useful, mainly for two pieces of advice taken to heart:

1. Buy and use only plain manila tab folders
2. Buy and use a label maker to create professional labels for all files and notebooks

The rest of Allen’s advice is no doubt helpful for busy, busy people overwhelmed with long and short-term directives, deliverables, family and civic responsibilities, and general information. A terrific overview of the GTD approach is available at the 43 Folders blog.

But for those who’ve achieved some success in being underwhelmed by administrivia, Getting Things Done seems too long by, well, about 257 of its 267 pages.

I prefer a simpler, “higher altitude” approach advocated by my London-based buddy Mark Fritz, an aspiring achievement guru who recently came out with his second book, The Truth About Getting Things Done.

The Truth’s key point is that “time management” is an illusion. Everyone gets the same amount of time, and no one can “manage” it.

Instead of trying to manage time, says Mark, manage your focus.

“I’ve coached a number of people over the past few years,” Mark writes, “and one of the key problems they face is confusing activity with accomplishment. With today’s business complexity and the flood of information deluging us hour-to-hour, many workers fall into an “activity trap.” They wind up reacting to everything that hits them all day long. They feel constantly busy and active, yet at the end of their day wonder what they’ve accomplished.”

So how to stop confusing activity with accomplishment?

“It’s all about changing from time management to focus management,” says Mark. “Time management is about fitting the most activities into the smallest amount of time. Focus management is about accomplishing your most important goals.”

For one Fortune 100 manager, changing from time management to focus management had a dramatic impact on what he and his team accomplished each week, says Mark. Two new habits made the difference:

1. Weekly Focus Review
This manager invested 30 to 60 minutes each Friday afternoon to list and review the key things he and his team needed to accomplish in the week ahead and weeks ahead. Then, he reviewed both his planned actions and actions he thought he needed to take (the ones he was thinking about but hadn’t yet written down), and made choices on what to do and what not to do.

Benefits of the Weekly Review: First, he clarified his Focus (important outcomes) and the key actions that would deliver it. Second, he went into his weekend with less stress, because he knew what needed to be done in the coming week.

2. Daily Focus Reminder
The manager started each day by reviewing his Focus: the key outcomes and actions he defined during the previous Friday afternoon Weekly Focus Review. He knew priorities often change, and that refining and keeping clarity on his Focus was key.

Benefits of the Daily Focus Reminder: First, the manager reminded himself of his Focus before the pressures of the day started. A clear Focus helped him make wise “yes/no” choices on actions throughout day. Second, he had a chance to refine his Focus based on new priorities that were beyond his control.

The Weekly Focus Review and the Daily Focus Reminder provided clarity that led the manager to better choices on how to use his time: What to do and what not to do. It also helped him guide his team toward better choices.

The way to stop confusing activity with accomplishment, says Mark, is focus management, not time management.

So, if like me, you sometimes find yourself struggling to accomplish goals, give the Mark Fritz approach a try. And stop trying to make Christmas come in July.

You may also enjoy:

“Daunting Task? Learn to Whip It”

“Jack London on Upward Mobility”

“Recognizing the Opportunity Within“

One of the most enjoyable parts of posting on Soul Shelter every week is the opportunity it presents to share the books and voices that mean the most to me. In that vein, today I recommend five books certain to stir and fortify the soul of any reader.

1. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis (1952)

Greek writer Kazantzakis’ classic novel recounts an unlikely friendship. Zorba is a sensualist and libertine who finds his every joy in earthly pleasures, and his friend “The Boss” is an intellectual, monkish type inclined to seek spiritual fulfillment through renunciation and detachment. Their colorful adventures on the island of Crete are an ongoing dialogue between body and soul, spirit and flesh, earth and stars. An unforgettable book.

I looked at Zorba in the light of the moon and admired the jauntiness and simplicity with which he adapted himself to the world around him, the way his body and soul formed one harmonious whole, and all things — women, bread, water, meat, sleep — blended happily with his flesh and became Zorba. I had never seen such a friendly accord between a man and the universe.

2. The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck (1961)

Steinbeck is an immensely powerful writer celebrated primarily for The Grapes of Wrath, a fine book in some ways, but not his best by any stretch of the imagination. The Winter of Our Discontent, one of Steinbeck’s last novels, is often overlooked, although a year after its publication the author won the Nobel Prize in literature. Of the numerous Steinbeck titles I’ve read, this one rises to the top whenever I think of his work. It’s a gripping story about a hardworking grocery clerk who comes perilously close to (in the words of the first edition jacket flap) “tak[ing] a holiday from his own scrupulous standards…trad[ing], temporarily, as he thinks, ‘a habit of conduct’ for ‘a cushion of security.’” The novel explores “some of our shoddy [American] attitudes toward honesty and success … the loss of integrity in our world — the decline in our standards of personal, business, and political morality.” Given the current breakdowns on Wall Street, these themes resound with uncanny relevance today, but Steinbeck’s dénouement here is affecting and redemptive. Here’s the author’s own brief preface to the novel:

Readers seeking to identify the fictional people and places here described would do better to inspect their own communities and search their own hearts, for this book is about a large part of America today.

He meant America of 1961, but his words could just as well apply to America of 2008.

3. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner (1987)

Another somewhat overlooked novel by a celebrated author, Crossing to Safety is a beautifully intimate story about friendship, family life, ambition, and the ways our well-laid plans go sometimes aright and sometimes awry. Stegner explores the fifty-year friendship between two couples, the Morgans and the Langs, whose lives run parallel at points and at other points sharply diverge. Studded with deep, witty reflections on the most important matters in life — faithful friendship, work/life balance, sacrifice, aspiration, strength and loyalty in times of hardship — it’s one of the most moving novels I’ve ever read. Here’s the narrator, Larry Morgan, recalling his early days of overachievement:

Ambition is a path, not a destination, and it is essentially the same path for everybody. No matter what the goal is, the path leads through Pilgrim’s Progress regions of motivation, hard work, persistence, stubbornness, and resilience under disappointment. Unconsidered, merely indulged, ambition becomes a vice; it can turn an man into a machine that knows nothing but how to run. Considered, it can be something else — pathway to the stars, maybe.

4. Emperor of the Air, Stories by Ethan Canin (1988)

Ethan Canin published this riveting short story collection, his debut, at age 28 while simultaneously maintaining a medical school career. Twenty years later, Emperor of the Air endures as a contemporary classic. The jacket flap aptly remarks that Canin’s stories explore “the beauty and mystery in everyday existence: that rare knowledge, denied or pursued, that illuminates the soul … the startling moments when life opens up and presents itself to us.” That’s about as accurate a description of the book as I can imagine. Here’s a little sampling, one of many beautiful moments that permeate the book. It’s from the title story, whose narrator is an aging high school science teacher.

What would be left of the earth in a century? I didn’t think I was a sentimental man, and I don’t weep at plays or movies, but certain moments have always been peculiarly moving for me, and the mention of a century was one. There have been others. Standing out of the way on a fall evening, as couples and families converge on the concert hall from the radiating footpaths, has always filed me with a longing, though I don’t know for what. I have taught the life of the simple hydra that is drawn, for no reasons it could ever understand, toward the bright surface of the water, and the spectacle of a thousand human beings organizing themselves into a single room to hear the quartets of Beethoven is as moving to me as birth or death. I feel the same way during the passage of an automobile across a cantilever span above the Mississippi, mother of rivers. These moments overwhelm me…

5. Meditations from a Moveable Chair by Andre Dubus (1998)

On a July night in 1986 the writer Andre Dubus saw two cars stalled on I-93 north of Boston and stopped to see if he could help. While standing at the roadside he was struck by a car and lost one leg and the use of the other. A former Marine and long-distance runner, Dubus was a Zorba-like personality who’d always nurtured a powerful relationship with his own physical self. After that fateful night, he found himself confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Meditations from a Moveable Chair collects 25 Dubus essays, long and short, on the subject of the human soul, and the ways in which Dubus “finally, found joy in the sacramental magic of even the most quotidian tasks.” A devout — but by no means orthodox -- Catholic, Dubus writes very openly about matters of faith. Here’s a bit from his essay, “Sacraments”:

Between isolation and harmony, there is not always a vast distance. Sometimes it is a distance that can be traversed in a moment, by choosing to focus on the essence of what is occurring, rather than on its exterior: its difficulty or beauty, its demands or joy, peace or grief, passion or humor. This is not a matter of courage or discipline or will; it is a receptive condition.

Read well, be well.  

You might also enjoy:

“Three Books on the Perils of the Internet”

“Here’s to Success Finding ‘How to Succeed’ Books”

“Steve Martin Tells the Story Before the Glory“

Looking across the living room of his expansive flat in Hong Kong’s tony Victoria Peak neighborhood, Peter Hamilton spoke in the calm, slightly world-weary voice of a man who will never again worry about earning a living.

“The ones who made it,” he said softly, “are the ones who weren’t in it for the money. The fortune-seekers couldn’t sustain their passion through the hard times—and there were hard times.”

A transplanted Brit who launched a Web production company in Hong Kong in 1995, Hamilton was one of a handful of Internet entrepreneurs in the island colony who enjoyed a multimillion dollar payday after his firm was acquired by a company that later went public on NASDAQ.

Hamilton’s not alone. In interview after interview throughout Japan, Asia, and North America, successful entrepreneurs told me the same thing, in different words and in different languages: “It’s not about the money.”

What, then, is entrepreneurship about?

Exploiting a market opportunity? Fame? Fortune? Proving yourself?

First, a tip as to what entrepreneurship’s not about: Entrepreneurship is not about you. It’s not about you getting rich, you proving something to the world, you struggling to overcome the odds.

Rather, it’s about you helping other people achieve their goals.

This is obvious when you think about it. Business is all about satisfying customers, right? Well, to satisfy customers, you need to help them save money, solve annoying problems, experience more satisfaction or pleasure, or earn a better living.

Put simply, in order to succeed as an entrepreneur, you must help other people.

Entrepreneurship, therefore, is about helping other people achieve their goals. It’s not about you (I’ll try to minimize repetition of that phrase in these final lines).

Successful entrepreneurs focus on others. Take Derek Sivers, for example. As the leader of a successful touring band, he needed a way to make his CDs available to fans everywhere, all the time—not just at concerts.

But Derek and his group were unattached to a major label, and big sellers like CDNow and Amazon required bands to have in-place agreements with large distributors. What was a hard-working, independent musician to do?

Derek decided to set up his own modest online sales channel, and soon friends from other bands were asking for help selling their music. Within a couple of years, the store, renamed CD Baby, was distributing the work of more than 90,000 artists. To date, it’s paid out more than $80 million to the more than 200,000 independent artists it now represents. Derek focused on helping others.

Successful entrepreneurs undertake ventures that benefit many people. My personal theory is that ventures are successful to the degree that they generate social benefits. I’m no fan of Microsoft’s products or business practices, but who can deny that the company enabled personal computing for a billion citizens? (Too bad Apple missed its chance to make that contribution—we’d probably all be a mellower bunch.)

So success as an entrepreneur is not about you. Ooh—I feel another Clark’s Rule coming on—I think I’ll call this one Clark’s “About” Rule for Entrepreneurs (CARE): It’s Not About You.

Now the question is, what do you CARE about?

This essay first appeared as a guest post at Get Rich Slowly in a slightly different form.

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David Foster Wallace, a talented fiction writer and essayist, died tragically a few weeks ago at age 46, a suicide. It’s impossible to know the kind of clinical angst Wallace must have suffered in order to make so horrific a final decision. The man’s work offers immense thoughtfulness and insight.

A cursory glance at Wallace’s writing appears to show a hyper-intellectual mind which probably regards faith as quaint and outmoded and any talk of the soul as either New-Agey or flattened by platitudes. Actually, Wallace used his prodigious powers of scrutiny in a mammoth attempt to peel away cliché, ingrained thought, or tried-and-true philosophies, all in the hope of achieving — truly achieving (and not merely taking it second-hand) — a real apprehension of Meaning. In other words, things like faith and the soul were important to him, as they are to any good writer. He believed we needn’t all be stuck inside our own heads.

These traits are evident in his 2005 Kenyon College commencement address. It’s a strange speech to give at a college graduation (although maybe not for Wallace). It meanders through the banalities of road rage at rush hour and shopping cart warfare at the local supermarket. But toward the conclusion something almost transcendent happens. Wallace provides powerful counsel regarding the importance of what we choose to “worship” in contemporary society, and the dangers of allowing intellectual habit to replace real thoughtfulness.

For today’s post I want to share the following remarkable excerpt from that speech. I believe readers will find it as moving as I do.

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already — it’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the “rat race” — the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn’t sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don’t dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death…

(Read Wallace’s commencement address in its entirety here.)

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“So, boy. You wish to serve me?”

Silhouetted against the blue-black sky, the horse-mounted samurai with the horned helmet towered over me like a demon as I knelt in the dirt before him. I could not see his face but there was no mistaking the authority in his growling tone, nor the hint of mockery in his question.

I tried to speak and managed only a faint croak. My mouth had gone dry, as parched as a man dying of thirst. But I had to respond. My fate—and though I didn’t know it then, the fate of all of Japan—rested on my answer.

Raising my head just enough to brave a glance at the demonic figure, I saw him staring at me, like a hawk poised to seize a mouse in its talons.

When I managed to speak, my voice was clear and steady, and I drew courage with each syllable.

“That’s correct, Lord Nobunaga,” I said. “I do.”

It was a time of carnage and darkness: the Age of Wars, when the land was torn by bloodshed and the only law was the law of the sword. A peasant wandered the countryside alone, seeking his fortune, without a coin in his pocket. He longed to become a successful samurai—a career all but impossible for an uneducated peasant unskilled in the martial arts. To be sure, nothing in the demeanor of this five-foot tall, one-hundred-ten-pound boy could possibly have foretold the astounding destiny awaiting him.

His name was Hideyoshi, and on that fateful spring evening in the year 1553, the brash young warlord Nobunaga hired him as a sandal-bearer. Driven by a relentless desire to transcend his peasant roots, Hideyoshi went on to become Nobunaga’s loyal protégé and right-hand man. Ultimately he became the supreme ruler of all Japan—the first peasant ever to rise to the absolute height of power—and unified a nation torn apart by more than a hundred years of civil strife.

Hideyoshi’s true story has inspired countless novels, plays, movies—even video games—for more than four centuries. Born the weakling son of a poor farmer at a time when martial prowess or entry to the priesthood were the only ways for an ambitious commoner to escape a life of backbreaking farm toil, he rose from poverty to rule a mighty nation and command hundreds of thousands of samurai warriors. For generations of men, Hideyoshi became the ultimate underdog hero: a symbol of the possibility of reinventing oneself as a man and rising, Horatio Alger fashion, from rags to riches.

Hideyoshi was driven by a burning desire to rise in the world, and rise he did—beyond his wildest dreams. Sheer hard work, dedication to service, and force of will enabled him to become the first-ever peasant to achieve supreme civil and military power as Taiko, or Imperial Regent—the Emperor’s proxy. Along the way, he pacified dozens of warring clans, built roads, bridges, and Japan’s greatest castles, instituted currency reform, and laid the foundation for a federation of states that would later become Japan’s social democracy—and Asia’s mightiest economic power.

But absolute power, as they say, corrupts absolutely. In the evening of his days, Hideyoshi stained his legacy by ordering an ill-advised invasion of China via Korea (so illogical was this move that many scholars believe mental illness sparked Hideyoshi’s astounding hubris). The debacle turned into a disastrous seven year war costing hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. To this day, Hideyoshi is reviled by many in Korea as history’s greatest villain. Today the lessons of his life could not be more timely.

In The Swordless Samurai, my second book, Hideyoshi reveals secrets of organizational leadership and success in an imaginative exposition of the peasant-turned-samurai’s personal philosophy, based on true historical incidences and what is known of his enigmatic personality. The work is now available in paperback from St. Martin’s Press.

This essay, excerpted from parts of The Swordless Samurai, first appeared as a guest post at the Art of Manliness.

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