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BANK OF 7%
Fixed monthly profit rate (7%). Minimum investment limit (100 USD)
www.bankof7.com

If only it were true. If you hit the link, you’ll find lots of promises, so just for fun, I wrote to the “bank” asking for the CV’s of the officers and founders, their law and accounting firm. They told me “we don’t give out that information” and also told me they were “an investment firm”, not a bank. Hmmm. let’s see, no disclosure and a lie about representing themselves in their Google ad as a bank. I definitely want to do business with this firm-NOT.

As the economy worsens, you will see many ads like this one. In fact, if you go to their site, you may find ads for other similar schemes. All promise large returns. One had the audacity to say you might make 788% in one day. It would be laughable except that they had raised millions according to their promo material.

Anyway, a word to the wise. Don’t even think about it. This is classic ponzi with new money paying off the first people in so they spread the word and at some point, they are gone with the money.

Always err on the side of caution and you will never get hurt financially. A little friendly advice from someone who spent many years in the investment world and has seen it all.

In his little treasure of a book. Allan Holender, the father of Zenpreneurism, shares his lessons on living a soulful and integrated business and personal life. There are many great business books, but few pack in as much wisdom in 45 pages.

Allan supports readers in redefining what real success means from the accumulation of more and more money to identifying and sharing our authentic soul’s calling as well as our love, compassion and gratitude, attracting and welcoming our experiences, and leaving an honorable footprint on the planet.

As Buddha said “Deeds done in harmony with one’s path of life are those which bring clarity, peace and harmony to the doer”.
He did not say to others. For in doing the work we came to do, we give our gift to the world and those who are waiting for them are deeply satisfied and encouraged to do the same thing and so authenticity can spread its wings through each act of being ourselves.

Allan proposes that a life well lived is one filled with purpose, passion and destiny.

“If you don’t access your gift, it will wither away. People actually die from not using their gifts – you can see the sadness, depression and constriction of life force energy from not using their gifts. But, if you are tapped into your gift(s) using and sharing it consistently with others, and, in fact, making it your life’s work, you will attract all the ‘right’ things that you want and need to keep sharing it and having a great life.”

How do you find your passion? What is right livelihood? What do Buddhism and the Buddha have to tell us about a fulfilling business life? What is a Life Map and how can you use one to move toward your passion? How do you live from your soul and what are the benefits? Can you create a business and a life? What does it take to wake up from the trance of business as struggle, competition, envy, anger, frustration and the pursuit of more. How did we become a generation of instant gratification junkies and what can you do to free yourself from this external focus to being guided by your soul’s inner compass? Is it really possible to exit the orbit of the twisted and distorted world of greed, power, ego, deceit embellishment, and manipulation that typifies capitalism today? Is it really possible to live a life of continued expansion of happiness and the realization of worthy goals with ease?

Thankfully the answer to all these questions is a resounding yes and Allan shares both his own and others experiences in living authentic lives every day. If you or anyone you know have ever felt trapped and drained by the dysfunctional world of business as usual, you’ll want to download Zenpreneurism 3.0 immediately and begin putting its ideas into practice.

Allan’s wise and empowering guide to a sane, elevated and spiritually guided way of doing business will leave you feeling more hopeful about your personal journey as well as leading the way to a business world that benefits all of life with purposeful alignment.

Zentrepreneurism 3.0 is now available on Amazon. You can download your copy at:
http://www.amazon.com/kindle/dp/B0071EPMDI
 
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com , spoke at Princeton University’s 2010 graduation and he asked some probing questions that reflect some of the core principles of Zentrepreneurism.

Speaking to his alma mater (having graduated from Princeton in 1986 with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering), Mr. Bezos made the case that our character is reflected not in the gifts we’re endowed with at birth, but by the choices we make over the course of a lifetime.
He shared some reflective questions about the choices we make, not only applied to recent graduation students, but also to us as Zentrepreneurs.

Consider what these questions bring forward for you as a message about your own life and business choices. 

1. Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passion? Will you follow dogma or will you be original?

2. Will you choose a life of ease or a life of service and adventure? Will you wilt under criticism or will you follow your convictions?

3. Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong or will you apologize? Will you guard your heart against refection or will you act when you fall in love?

4. Will you play it safe or will you be a little bit swashbuckling? When it’s tough, will you give up or will you be relentless?

5. Will you be a cynic or will you be a builder? Will you be clever at the expense of others or will you be kind?

6. Are you going to leave a legacy – a virtual dent in the Universe and make a real difference?

WeFirst believes the following principles should guide our business practices:

* We believe companies have a right to innovation, entrepreneurship and profit making while consumers have a right to a healthy society and planet to live on.

* We recognize an interdependent, global community requires an expanded definition of self-interest that acknowledges the needs of all inhabitants of the planet.

* We define success through prosperity that means the well being of many, not the wealth of a few.

* We believe that future of profit is purpose.

* We believe that the interests of companies and consumers are best served through a sustainable practice of capitalism – economically, morally, ethically, environmentally, and socially.

* We believe that corporations and consumers owe each other an equal duty of transparency, authenticity, and accountability.

* We believe that social technology, business, and shopping have the potential to change our world through new modes of engagement, collaboration, and contribution.

* We believe the values that inform our daily practice of capitalism include: sustainability, fairness of rewards, fiscal responsibility, accountability, purposefulness, engagement, and global citizenship.

* We believe that corporations and consumers are duty-bound to serve as custodians of global well being for this and future generations.

* We believe that the private sector must cooperate, collaborate and coordinate with governments and NGOs to create a unified force for social good.

To read the We First Manifesto and learn more about it’s book and services, click here.

I feel like I know almost nothing about business, because the only business I’ve ever done is the co-op / sharing model.

It goes like this:

1. You already have something that people want.

It might be something you own, something you’ve learned how to do, or access to valuable resources, space, or people.

2. Find a way to share it with everyone who needs it.

Share because it’s what you do for friends, because it’s the right thing to do, because it makes the world a better place, and because it’ll make you deeply happy.

Share as your contribution in return for all the things and ideas that people have shared with you.

(If you’re having a bad day, or someone has recently wronged you, you may not feel the world has shared much with you, but here’s a reminder.)

3. If it takes some effort for you to share it, you can charge a little something for your effort, to ensure that this giving can continue.

My examples:
In 1994, the U.S. Copyright office still didn’t have their copyright forms online. You still had to mail a letter to Washington DC to ask them to mail you some blank forms, if you wanted to copyright your songs. I scanned all the forms, and put them on my website for free as printable downloads, for any musician who needed them. For the next year or two, until the government started putting the forms online, my site was the only place to get them. This was my first effort to contribute back to this great invention of the internet.

In 1995, I learned how to trademark my band name. It took many hours of work to figure out the legalese, but I did it.
I wrote out the step-by-step instructions and put them on my band’s website for free. For years it was the go-to resource for musicians who wanted to trademark their name.

In 1996, I had a little record label, so I got a UPC barcode account, so I could put unique UPC barcodes on my CDs. I had to pay $750 to the Universal Code Council to get a company account, but that meant I was allowed to create 100,000 products under my account. Musician friends asked how, so I showed them how, but also said they could use one of my product IDs. At first, I did this for free, as a favor, until friends started sending strangers my way. Because it took a little work to generate the number, create their EPS/TIFF graphic barcode, and keep track of their unique IDs forever, I charged $20. Over the next 12 years, this made me almost $2 million.

In 1997, I got a credit card merchant account to sell my own CD at live shows. It cost $1000 in set-up fees and took three months of red-tape paperwork. Then I built a little online shopping cart, which also took months of work, just to sell my own CD. Musician friends asked if they could use mine instead of having to go through all of that work, so I said OK. At first, I did this for free, as a favor, until it was taking up all of my time. Because it took me 45 minutes of work to digitize, stock, set up a new album in my system, I charged $35 per new album. Because it took 10 minutes of work to pick, pack, and ship a purchased CD, I charged $4 per CD sold. Over the next 12 years, this made me about $20 million.

In 1999, I had learned a lot about hosting websites. Linux, Apache, PHP, SQL, FTP, DNS, Qmail, SpamAssassin, etc. I had done it for myself for my band’s website, then for CD Baby, and bought my own servers. So when friends would complain about their existing web-hosting company, I’d host them on my servers instead. At first, I did this for free, as a favor, until it was filling up my server. Because each server cost me $300/month, and I had to hire a full-time person to manage this, I charged $20 per month. (In 1999, this was way cheap.)
Over the next 9 years, this made me about $5 million.

Since 2000, I’ve been sharing everything I’ve learned for free. I’m not the smartest guy, probably below average, but it costs nothing to share, and it’s the right thing to do, so I do. Over the last 11 years, this made me incredibly happy and lucky, because of all the interesting people I’ve met by doing it.

Point being:

None of these things looked like a business venture.

All of them were just sharing something I already had.

People often ask me if I have any suggestions for what kind of business they should get into.

I tell them the only thing I know how to recommend: “Start by sharing whatever you’ve got.”

© 2011 Derek Sivers

Derek Sivers
Entrepreneur, programmer, avid student of life. I make useful things, and share what I learn.

Me in 10 seconds

I’m an entrepreneur. I treat work as play.
I live by “whatever scares you, go do it”.
I’m a minimalist. The less I own, the happier I am.
I’m a learning addict.
I’m very comfortable being the leader and being on stage.
This is my favorite fable.

Official Bragging Bio

Originally a professional musician and circus clown, Derek Sivers created CD Baby in 1998. It became the largest seller of independent music online, with $100M in sales for 150,000 musicians. In 2008, Derek sold CD Baby for $22M, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education.

He is a frequent speaker at the TED Conference, with over 5 million views of his talks.

In 2011, he published a book which shot to #1 on all of its Amazon categories.

Derek Sivers lives in Singapore, where he is creating his next company.

So great design is essential to products and services and their visual language promotes brand affinity and loyalty assuming the product or service is of a high quality and thus informs consumer buying decisions. In short, given a well designed product or service, the logo becomes visual shorthand for the brand and buying decision wither for or against. Poor design can insure an underwhelming desire to purchase. So selecting a designer is a critical part of the business development decision tree.

In a world of commodification of everything, its not surprising that you can find websites offering $29 logos. At the opposite end of the spectrum are world-class designers like Santa Barbara based Benjamin Cziller who, for the past 20+ years, has worked with clients including The Skirball Center (Los Angeles), Technicolor, Capital Records, Guess?/George Marciano, CBS, Marriott, Richard Gere (Tibet House), International Medical Corps, UCLA, Virgin Records, The Sculpture Foundation and Season for Non-Violence. Amplifyd’s services include Launch Campaigns, Brand Identities and Applications, Book and CD covers, Film Posters, Product Packaging, and Web Site Design and Development.

Ben recently launched his new updated website, www.amplifyd.com

John Raatz, a Public Relations and Marketing professional and founder of GATE (Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment) has this to say about Ben:

“For nearly 20 years, the art direction and graphics work for The Visioneering Group and our clients has been provided by Benjamin Cziller. Ben is a world-class creative director and designer and has worked on projects that span both the commerce sector, as well as social/humanitarian foundations and organizations.”

“Ben is committed to creating clear, effective and memorable graphic impressions for clients and projects that address the humanitarian, social and spiritual issues he finds most meaningful, the kinds of projects that Visioneering has embraced for almost 25 years.”

“Ben is not only a world-class designer, he¹s a world-class human being.”

- John Raatz

If you or anyone you know is in need of a distinct visual identity for your product or service on which to build a brand, you should consider a conversation with Ben. I have known him for over 20 years and never hesitate to recommended his services to friends and associates looking for memorable world class design. Ben delivers exceptional work on time and budget and reflects the highest business integrity in all his dealings.

Is growing produce on your roof commercially viable on a larger scale? New York-based BrightFarms, which builds rooftop greenhouses, hopes to turn a profit while cutting shoppers’ “food miles” down to zero by growing vegetables where people buy them: on the supermarket roof.

BrightFarms is trying to convince major supermarket chains to hire them to cover vacant roofs with heirloom tomatoes, salad greens, and other produce. The company’s business plan is simple: they handle the labor and expense of farming—greenhouse design, construction, planting, and harvest—while participating supermarkets sign a 10-year contract agreeing to purchase whatever is grown on their rooftop. A store’s rooftop garden can produce as much as 500,000 pounds of produce a year, BrightFarms told Edible Manhattan.

“We grow for taste, not for shelf-life, and we pick when the vegetables are ripe,” CEO Paul Lightfoot explains in a video on BrightFarm’s website. Unlike industrial vegetable breeds, grown to endure cross-country road trips in the back of a truck, BrightFarms can pick the tastiest crop varieties with the highest nutrient content. And with hydroponic methods, they’ll use one-10th the water and one-20th the space of commercial agriculture.

BrightFarms intends to have their first three greenhouses up and running by summer 2012. But the team has had plenty of practice already, consulting on a demonstration greenhouse at a Whole Foods in New Jersey and the Science Barge, an educational urban farm located on a ship in the Hudson River.

Living the Life of Your Dreams – The Secrets to Turning Your Dreams into Reality

Her short little book is packed with wisdom, tips and stories to help readers understand their life purpose and the steps to getting you they really value in life. Marilyn started her life with what are commonly regarded as handicaps and used them to help her achieve her dream life. In this book she shares her experiences and insights as well as secrets and stories from other happy and accomplished people to provide readers with the tools for their success. At $6.95 for the print edition and $3.95 – $4.95 for the ebook, readers will obtain many times its price in actionable information. And, it’s just been nominated as eBook of the year in three categories.

You can obtain a copy of Marilyn’s new book by clicking here.

I just finished reading the book and heartily recommend that you seriously consider purchasing a copy for yourself or as a gift. It’s a quick read and great to refer back to for its very useful advice and inspiration. I look forward to hearing what you think of the book should you decide to order a copy.

Marilyn is offering several free gifts for anyone who visits her webpage. These gifts from Jack Canfield, Joan Borysenko, and other experts reveal the secrets of living a healthy, happy and successful life. Click on the link above to read more about Marilyn’s new book and access your free gifts.

Here’s are a few recent endorsements:

“If you want to live the life you’ve dreamed of, read ‘Living the Life of Your Dreams’.  Marilyn went through many tough challenges to achieve her dream life – she can help you attain yours.”
~ Jack Canfield, NY Times best selling author, “Chicken Soup for the Soul” and “The Success Principles.”

“At last. The book you’ve been waiting for. Can you make a living – and a difference in this world – and still have a life? In this slim and powerful volume, Marilyn Tam, former President of Reebok and CEO of Aveda, tells how she traded burnout for a life of Dynamic Balance. By following the simple and brilliant guidelines she suggests, you too can make the shift to living the life of your dreams.                                                                                ~ Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., NY Times Best selling Author of “Inner Peace for Busy People” and “Fried: Why You Burn Out and How to Revive”, co-founder and former director of the Mind/Body Clinical Center, Harvard Medical School.