the essence............................

      To me, that is the essence of being an entrepreneur—to not just recognize problems but to provide solutions.

-Sam Zell

accept the strangeness...........................

      Life, for many, is a futile attempt to become secure in a dimension that is intrinsically insecure.  People constantly fight that, rather than accept the strangeness of the human lesson as a beautiful thing.  God must have a marvelous sense of humor—the contradictions of life are awesome and funny and very appealing.  I find them heroic. . . .

      Life is mostly guesswork.  You will usually guess more or less right, and sometimes you'll guess wrong.  When you guess wrong, don't react—love your mistakes and don't beat yourself up.

-Stuart Wilde, Weight Loss for the Mind

Live music is back............................

The Reissues recently presented Eric Clapton unplugged:

oh clever one................................

 When the chesty, fierce-furred bear becomes sick, he travels the mountainsides and the fields, searching for certain grasses, flowers, leaves and herbs, that hold within themselves the power of healing.  He eats, he grows stronger.  Could you, oh clever one, do this?  Do you know anything about where you live, what it offers?  Have you ever said, "Sir Bear, teach me.  I am a customer of death coming, and would give you a pot of honey and my home on the western hills to know what you know."

-Mary Oliver, Upstream

Much to be grateful for............................

 

the basics...................................

 I realized that the basics of business are straightforward.  It's largely about risk.  If you have a big downside and a small upside, run the other way. If you've got a big upside and a small downside, do the deal.  Always make sure you're getting paid for the risk you take, and never risk what you cannot afford to lose,   Keep it simple. . . . Opportunity is very often embedded in the imbalance between supply and demand.

-Sam Zell,  Am I Being Too Subtle:  Straight Talk From A Business Rebel

Opening paragraphs................................

 Five years earlier, the high school guidance counselor sat Barney Hall down and said, "Barney, you're bright enough, but you're not college material.  Not yet."  He was looking over Hall's standard test scores and other accumulated records from thirteen years in the Lower Cape May Regional School District.  "You're not mature for your age.  If you hadn't been sent to detention once a week, you wouldn't have done any studying at all."

-John Sanford, Ocean Prey

I'd have made it sixty............................

 

A few musts................................

 You must never stop being whimsical.

And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.

-Mary Oliver