Finding the Sweet Spot : The Natural Entrepreneur's Guide to Responsible, Sustainable, Joyful Work

by Pollard, Dave

• ISBN13: 9781933392905
• ISBN10: 1933392908
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-09-15
• Publisher: Chelsea Green Pub Co

Summary

"Now what am I going to do?" is a question many people ask—and leave unanswered—at critical potential turning points in their careers. Perhaps you’re a new graduate, but instead of lining up for a boring entry-level job at a big corporation, you wish you could start your own sustainable and responsible business. Or maybe you’ve been stuck in a job you hate for a few years, but you still dream of doing the thing you love and that you’re actually good at. Or maybe you’re a boomer and you’re ready for a second career, a personal venture that will represent a total change from what you’ve spent most of your work life doing. Whatever your situation, this is the book to help you get started.Finding the Sweet Spotexplains how sustainable, responsible, and joyful natural enterprises differ from most jobs, and it provides the framework for building your own natural enterprise. You’ll learn how to find partners who will help make your venture successful, how to do world-class market research, how to innovate, how to build resilience into your enterprise, and how to avoid the land mines that sink so many small businesses. Most importantly, you’ll learn how to find the "sweet spot" where your gifts, your passions, and your purpose intersect. And make no mistake: our world needs your talent. The current economic system and the educational system that feeds into it have let us down and are destroying our planet. We need a blossoming of natural enterprises—connected, collaborating, and supporting ventures—to form a dynamic new natural economy. Is such a thing possible? Inventor, entrepreneur, and humanist Buckminster Fuller said: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."Finding the Sweet Spotpresents a new model. Use it to find the work you were meant to do, thereby helping to create the world we’re meant to live—and make a living—in.

Table of Contents

An Open Letter to Readers: becoming a model natural enterprise for others to follow	p. vii
Foreword	p. xi
Introduction: A Better Way to Make a Living	p. 1
Discovering What you Were Meant to Do
Finding the Sweet Spot: Where Your Gifts, Your Passions, and Your Purpose Intersect	p. 31
Finding the Right Partners: Discovering People Whose Skills Complement Your Own	p. 62
Creating Natural Work
Finding Unmet Needs to Fill: Conducting Extraordinary Research	p. 87
Imagining and Innovating Solutions: Offering Something Significantly Different	p. 122
Making it Sustainable
The Resilience of Natural Enterprise	p. 153
Responsibility, Collaboration, Relationship, Community: The Power of People	p. 172
Once You've Finished the Book: Next Steps	p. 193
Resource Guide: Endnotes and Additional Readings	p. 196
Index	p. 204
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