I think one key point in life is to maintain balance–balance between time for work, time for loved ones, time for oneself, time for interests outside of one’s business. It’s so important to keep that balance, or we’ll simply burn-out.

I remember once when I was young in my career, and meeting with a fairly older, single woman. She was a successful venture capitalist. I don’t know that I would consider her life successful. She traveled the world incessantly and was on every important board. But she seemed tired and joy was scarce. She told me to “Pack it all in.”

I didn’t. I kept my balance. I started a nonprofit and I did creative improv. I took care of my very young nephews and niece. I loved life and I loved the people in my life.

We need to be renewed. We need to feel honored as whole, functioning people with families, outside interests, balanced lives, as well as our commitment to achieving the goals and vision of the organizations we run. ...more

Wealth is a state of mind and life. We tend to associate poverty with money.

But poverty can be mental, emotional or spiritual poverty. I am often struck by this in my travel and volunteering in developing nations. Often, the divorce rates are low. Families not only stay together, but also spend time together. They gather food from the fields together, cook together and share meals together.

Contrast us: 15 minute family dinners if we are lucky. Fast-food and food distanced from its natural base. We eat alone; we eat in our cars. Divorces are easier to get, and in our mind it can be easier to allow those thoughts in as a possibility, rather than working through critical issues. So we lose the connection to family. We lose the connection to the local farm. We can lose the connection to long-term commitment.

We lose our greatest asset in natural wealth: relationships. Relationships with ourselves, our families, the earth. This wealth creates happy, balanced, ...more

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.  This will be the beginning.”

- Louis L’Amour

Louis L’Amour was an American author. He is best known for his Western fiction novels, though he also wrote historical fiction, science fiction, nonfiction, poetry and short-story collections.  He was born Louis Dearborn LaMoore on March 22, 1908, the last of seven children.  He grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota, a medium-sized farming community.  As he grew older, he traveled throughout the United States and abroad, in various positions including as a mine assessment worker, a professional boxer and a merchant seaman.  In the 1930s, Louis and his family settled in Oklahoma, and Louis turned his focus to writing.  He began to have success with short stories in the late ‘30s and ‘40s, beginning to sell novels in the 1950s.  Louis also served in the United States Army during World War II.  Louis ultimately wrote 89 novels ...more

“Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.” 
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is so much to enjoy… and so important that we focus on it.  It can be easy to be distracted into something that isn’t working, when we really should enjoy and relish what is before us.  It need not be a big event. It can be a small gratitude.

Then, too, there are times to patiently persevere.  Not all is easy, peaceful; at times we must stay the course, step by step, like a diligent marathon runner, committed to her course, unrelenting until the final finish line.  It might not be a quick race, but more a matter of a marathon.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, and natural philosopher, best known for his two-part poetic drama Faust, which he started around the age of twenty-three and didn’t finish till shortly before his death sixty years later. He is considered one of the ...more