Muhammad Yunus: Social Business, Social Action

This morning I finished reading Muhammad Yunus’s book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism.

He’s in my Top Five most influential people of the last half of the twentieth century. (By the way, who are your top five?)

Professor Yunus and the bank he started, Grameen Bank, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 because they brought at least 70 million families out of poverty in Bangladesh.

Yunus is an amazing practical visionary: a humble, but well-educated man, like Gandhi, whose leadership has change the world through small steps bravely taken, reasonably assessed, and then brilliantly implemented—toward a huge goal: ending poverty as we know it on planet Earth.

The book most-readably details the realizations he had in the 1970s, when as an economist he observed that there existed a huge population of people who were outside the boundaries of what was considered normal economic activity: poor women in their homes in small villages, the urban poor, beggars.

He, a Muslim man, began studying the lives of these poor women, especially, asking questions, and discovering that no matter how hard they worked, they were outside the financial system and thus could never leverage their labor and ideas sufficiently to get out of poverty.

To make a 30-year long story short: he started a microloan bank for villager. He turned the rules upside down: he loaned money without asking for collateral; he loaned to the illiterate; he loaned almost exclusively to women, and in very small amounts; he insisted on repayment and worked with them to assist that happening; he helped them form support groups; he established certain principles that borrowers had to adapts (like growing vegetables, keeping their housing repaired, sending their children to school…).

And all the while, he developed and tested a new economic theory, built not on profit-making but on people’s innate desire to do good, to help: he’s called it social business.

A social business is a full-fledged entrepreneurial business, absolutely designed to make money. However, investors do not get the profits: after they are repaid their investment, the profits are plowed back into the company to continue doing good. It’s a non-loss, non-dividend arrangement for investors.

Yunus is a trained scholar, an active researcher, an eloquent speaker, an excellent thinker and clear writer, an inventor, a theoretician, a father, a man who has held fast to an extraordinary impossible vision to the point where it has been created.

In the final chapter of Creating a World Without Poverty, he pushes the envelope even more. He itemizes his dream for 2050, for what he thinks is possible if we collectively develop the will to create it. I read his vision-list with my mouth open and my stomach in knots. It’s impossible: no poor people anywhere; no passports; one global currency; state-of-the-art technology available universally; no use for paper so no trees wasted; simultaneous language translation for everyone; sun, water, and wind as the main sources of power, and much more. No way, I thought.

But he wants the rest of us to develop such vision lists. He just doesn’t take “impossible!” for an answer.

He sees his vision manifesting through individuals taking action. He recommends forming “social action forums” that could be as small as three people, focused on a single local concern, like how they can help one dropout get back into school. Or these social action forums could be large enough to form true social businesses.

He’s developed a website to start to coordinate these social action forums: http://yunusuni.com/id2.html.  It seems to be kind of rough still, but definitely there.

So in the end it gets down to us, to me. Hmm. That’s totally scary. But…

I’d like to form a social action forum around parenting education and family literacy. I’ve actually been working on that issue for some time now, and you can see one of the ways I think could help address it at the website of my new book: http://plusitbook.com.

Anyone interested in further talk about this?

Mega Inner Circle: Bliss and Flyfishing at Dunton Hot Springs

June 8-11, 2008. Dunton Hot Springs—blissfully beautiful—is one of the most exclusive boutique resorts in the country. It accommodates only 43 people at one time. It’s a restored miners’ town, settled in 1886, deserted in the early 20th century, revived mid-century, and finally in the 1990s purchased by a German resort developer, Christoph Henkel, whose company also owns other Aman Resorts. It’s in the Rio Delores valley in the southwest corner of Colorado; above it are the peaks that appear on the Coors beer can. A waterfall is in the back of the property. There are indoor and outdoor hot springs. The cabins, saloon (with kitchen, dining, and meeting areas), the library are decorated with original art selected by Katrin Henkel—many pieces are stunning photos or antique objets d’art.

I’m here for the Mark Victor Hansen Mega Inner Circle Immersive—about 15 of us members, 4 or 5 excellent MIC staff, and several presenters: Mark, of course; Dr. Jason Deitch, a chiropractic doctor whose mission is to lead a Discover Wellness movement and put health and caring back into the healthcare system; Steven Sadlier, a high-level initiate/teacher and meditation leader in several Eastern/Hindu spiritual groups; and Janice Niedefhofer, a formerly very tough woman with a long career in law enforcement—CIA, DEA, undercover agent, and more—who now facilitates personal growth seminars and coaching to the law enforcement industry and others.

This place is remote. I flew in to Albuquerque, rented a car, picked up Gaye who’d come in from Washington, and drove 5 hours to Dunton, just north of the NM/CO border. The last nine miles are dirt road; then we see a cluster of old wood cabins on the other side of a fast flowing stream. We cross a wood bridge, dial in at a gate, and find ourselves back in the 19th Century with more than a few 21st century amenities. I’m housed in a cabin called Vertical Log, for obvious reasons. I’m sharing a room with Ann M– and the most wonderful feature of this beautiful space is the adjoining bathroom and bathtub–a small deep copper tub with wheels, which used to be in a brothel. (I do take a bath in it one night–Gee, why don’t they use this design now? It’s the most comfortable I’ve experienced.)

Day One: Mark Victor Hansen sets the stage for the event. The theme is Higher Awareness, with an emphasis on care for the planet, self-care, health and wellness and balance in our individual lives—all so that we can all be of greater service and contribution and live lives of abundance and bliss. Mark shows us an ASTONISHING video of the concepts and prototypes for new forms of energy production created by John Petre and NPC–Natural Power Concepts (?–I can’t read my handwriting—could be Company). Petre is a genius inventor and artist, a Leonardo living in Hawaii, with new ideas for wind and wave capture energy generation technology. Mark and a friend have invested in this company–it’s almost beyond leading edge. Then Mark switches to talk about the water problems on the planet, and the solutions that are emerging. He tells us of Fairfield, Iowa, the most entrepreneurial city in the country, with extraordinary leadership, extraordinary education. (Hmm–maybe I should move there; maybe I could persuade someone I love to move there, so I could visit.)

I can hardly stay in my body; I’m intoxicated. I can hardly believe my luck in being privy to seeing these unreleased computer generated graphics, to hearing of this stuff. “You’re here by divine destiny,” Mark says. Oh, my God, is that true? For me? Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. I’ll take it. I receive. I receive. I am beyond fortunate.

Mark talks about “syntropy”—putting things together at a higher level of awareness to create a healthy planet. Then he says something shocking, because it comes from him, though I’ve thought it before for sure: “Women are the only people who can emancipate the planet.” Women can multitask. If we can free women, we can free everybody. And our group is all women, except for one serene man, Murray, who’s attending for the first time. And … Free yourself. When you are free yourself, you can free the world…Touch yourself and say, ‘I’m freeing me!’…’I'm holding my spirit Divine’… Love only has giving and forgiving. You’re in self-sabotage until you get free and forgive.  You’ve got to detox yourself—do self work first.

He talked about Unfolding Circles of Awareness, and he’s writing about these with Robert Allen. I won’t note them here–they are still developing, checking, refining, rethinking, wording their ideas. Closed and Open systems. And this is only the first morning.

For me personally: I need to see/read/find out about/
Indiana Jones
National Treasure
The Lost Tomb of Jesus
Titanic
Peter Guber
If You Could See What I Hear

The afternoon is Jason Deitch presenting (see <http://www.DiscoverWellnessCenter.com>). He shares research (it’s depressing, disturbing, I want to sleep); he conveys an urgency about why doing what we should be doing is a matter of life and death; he wants us to create a vision for ourselves and our lives—a healthy vision. Most sickness is earned, he says; the leading cause of death is suicide from lifestyle choices, he says. He asks us to imagine we’ve been terribly ill, like Lance Armstrong, and then be given a second chance. What would we do?

I surprised myself: The first thing that came up for me if I had a second chance after a devastating illness is that I’d write poetry. Huh. Then that I’d do more praying and meditation. Huh. Then that I’d talk to a friend who smokes about stopping. And finally, with my second chance, I’d go visit my brothers and beloved friends and stay with them for awhile, offering my services to do whatever they needed me to do—cleaning, writing, whatever—help them complete their project. Huh.

Day Two: Presentation by Steven Sadleir (see <http://www.selfawareness.com>. The world is awakening spiritually, he says. He gives us his biography, which is also on his website—early spiritual interest; much Looking for God; excursions into zen buddhism, sufi-ism, hinduism, study with yoga masters, and many more traditions. Trained with Vethathiri Maharishi. Became a Shaktipat master. Has taken up the lineage of Sri Sri Sri Shivabalayogi. Steven teaches many people now thru tele-courses. And he is Mark’s meditation teacher. I liked Steven; my suspicion of him subsided over the three days; he is about being loving and supporting others to go to that place within themselves. I took in the blessing he conducted. I’m grateful to him.

“It’s not what you do; it’s what you allow.” I am so ready!

In the afternoon, I had my first flyfishing lesson and caught my first trout at a remote pond above Dunton!!! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! (We also let it go.)

We dress in waders and boots provided by some fishing company; we’re handed a one day Colorado fishing license and a rod; we line up along a road and practice throwing the fishing line back over our shoulders and out into the grass (I catch a dandelion and get my leader line terribly tangled); and then we’re off. Choose: fish in a pond, or try your luck in the flowing stream. Most choose the stream; only four of us hike the uphill trail to a beaver-dammed pond—with the lead instructor,yeah!—and guess what: we all four catch trout, though only three of us bring the fish in.

Then there was Janice Niederhofer’s presentation (<http://www.peerageconsulting.com>). She told us of the huge value of modeling our heros, modeling those who are successful in the ways we want to be as the speedway to excellence. She’s NLP trained and led us through a process of “unpacking” Mark as our role-model. What does he focus on: what’s his identity, values, rules, beliefs, language (quality questions, metaphors, affirmations), physiology (nutrition, supplements, movement, exercise, habits), wellness procedures, and strategies.

Truly an interesting process, especially with someone so broad, complex, open, and authentic as Mark. You want to know his three top values: spiritual advancement, peaking health, and love of others. Some of his nutritional recommendations: pomegranate juice (to reverse free radical damage); juiced greens (for oxygen); many supplements; no cow milk…. When he needs to change his mood and regain dominion over himself he may use comic tapes/videos, upbeat music, or talking to peers. He steadfastly “lives in the assumption of the wish fulfilled.”

Day Three: I’m winding down here. We had considerable free time today after a morning meditation with Steven. Mark did endorsements for us. Janice led us thru a process of clarifying what we wanted from a mastermind group. We had a delicious loving-line exercise. The afternoon was horseback riding for some; I went for a walk with Corrie and Adrienne and we talked of ways to support one another. And the beautifully served dinner was a time to share appreciations, say goodbye. My term with the Inner Circle ends this month—and oh, I hope to come back soon. I told Mark I felt he was my brother; he immediately responded, “I accept you as my sister.”

I’m grateful, grateful, grateful. As Howard Wills says in his prayers. “Thank you Lord, Thank you Lord, Thank you.” And Please Lord, I want to come back into this Inner Circle soon.

MEGA Business Part 2: More Tid-Bits, Ideas, Value

(from event held May 16-18, 2008 in Irvine, CA)

Mark Victor Hansen knows great speakers and he brings them to the MEGAs. I love hearing presenters who clearly love their material and their audience, and who unabashedly pitch their products. Sometimes they’re irresistible. It’s good training for me. All these folks are full of adages, examples, and witticisms that make good sound bites. I try to capture these as they talk. Someday they’ll be useful to me, I figure, in my writing and speaking. And typing them out here reinforces them in my consciousness.

STEVE LINDER: He’s a masterful NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) practitioner: seemingly shy yet hugely successful as a business strategist who had a big role in E-Trade at some point, and then walked away from it for greater freedom. He’s really an educator, showing people how to master their own neuro-strategies. Some points I appreciated:
*Get a divorce from your product and have a fling with the emotional needs of your customer.
*Don’t make other people’s success wrong; that pushes success away from you.
*His Four Steps for Mastery (these are also on his biz card):
Choose: What does it mean? (we make up the meaning)
Learn: What positive learning came from it?
Integrate: How will you use the learnings
Share: Who will you teach or share learnings with so they benefit, too.
*What worked for you in a previous stage may harm you, going forward.
*The strongest force in us is to be consistent with what we think we are
*A strong enough purpose creates motivation; procrastination occurs when we’ve forgotten purpose
*Decisions made out of fear or anger are always the wrong decision
*If something brings painful memories, you haven’t gotten the learning; learn through studying failures; learnings must be positive
*The unconscious mind is a terrible thing to waste
*Honor the soul of every employee
*If we label something, some situation, we give ourselves certainty about what we think, so we don’t have to look again
*As soon as you judge somebody, you lose all ability to influence them.
*Cycle: Potential–Action–Results–Beliefs
*Sales person = solutions provider: Step up now or you keep the people who need you waiting.
Steve Linder’s website is www.SRICoaching.com

JOEL COMM: He’s an easy-going inventor, really, having a blast living his life, making vast amounts of passive income online essentially by playing. I think he and his family live in Hawaii. His internet math: me + Google = gold. He’s written The AdSense Code, which I’ve ordered. Some pointers:
*Test everything; keep changing until you get best results
*Respect the penny; my penny cup runs over
*Content is king/ka-ching: it’s what people search for on the internet.
*Create lots of content: Write it yourself; outsource it; create it via site visitors; get it from public domain; repurpose it from teleseminars; repurpose other sources; use photos and videos

*Sites that make money from AdSense: article sites; blogs; membership sites; forums; search and directory sites; game and entertainment sites; retail sits; ecommerce sites; social network sites

* The top 10 mistakes people make with AdSense: 1) Not applying for it 2) Not creating content 3) Clicking their own ads (DON’T DO IT) 4) Using the wrong block size 5) Using the wrong color palettes 6) Poor page placement 7) Doing AdSense half way 8) Not testing and keeping a journal 9) Creating junk sites 10) Not continually learning.

* Top 5 strategies: 1) Use right size box (large rectangle 336 X280 gets max click-thru rate) 2) Optimize placement — not at top 3) Color scheme–blue link, black description 4) Use tools at your disposal-AdSense Buddy and other 5) Diversify your income.

Joel also wrote How to Build a Profitable Website Fast.

PAT MESITI is from Australia. He flew to LA just for Mega Biz, returned immediately for his daughter’s wedding. A physically small man; huge heart and mind; mesmerizing speaker; pathetic childhood story. I believe he mentors many young people.

*If you don’t love something, how will it prosper?
*You gotta ask! Be a master asker.
*What’s easy to do is also easy not to do.
*Full head, full heart, full pocket.
*Motivation will not change you; knowledge will.
*Your destiny is linked to those closest to you.
*How you leave one thing determines who you enter the next.
*If you enter your purse into your mind, your mind will fill your purse.
*In life you must go where you’re celebrated, not just tolerated.
*Change is the first law that governs prosperity.
*What you respect will move toward you; what you disrespect will move away from you.
*What I do daily will determine what I am permanently.
*Prosperity doesn’t happen in a day, but it happens daily.
*I must never care more about a person’s problems than they do.

Mega Business and Mark Victor Hansen’s First Talk at It

Mega Business was an intense, info-packed three day session, May 16 -18, 2008, and I must write about it before it fades. It was a Mark Victor Hansen event in Irvine, CA, and because I’m part of the MVH Mega Inner Circle (an inspiring, illuminating, and expensive venture!), I attended as a VIP. My guest was Robert Gould, a graphic design business owner and, like me, a children’s literacy advocate. The first morning of the workshop, gave me a copy of his oh-so-beautiful book, Father and Son Read-Aloud Stories. See his website, <http://www.bigguybooks.com> — the cure for reluctant readers– a wonderful contribution to literacy, especially for young boys.

I love listening to Mark Victor Hansen. He has a huge heart and service consciousness, and yet he’s a vigorous businessman and massively wealthy. His style is authentically his own; he does plenty of call and response; he’s attuned to his audience, and engages us physically, emotionally, mentally. “Turn to your neighbor, touch their forehead, and say, I see greatness in you.” Then he’ll get quiet, teary eyed, and launch into a story that moves all of us. And in a flash, he’ll cite statistics and facts and dates (some of them inaccurate, though in the ballpark of truth) to underscore his point. He promotes conscious capitalism (a new term, I think); an end to war (Either war is obsolete, or humanity is); and believes the ‘recession’ we are supposedly in is media created.

I take notes when MVH talks, and here are some of them. I warn any reader that they may not be totally accurate, but they’re pretty darn close. Every talk of his leaves me with a list of affirmations and aphorisms:
*Say, I’m ready.
*I’m going to ask you to elevate yourself, so you serve all.
*I see you doing great stuff.
*I want you to be the most creative you can be.
*Say, I’m a visionary leader.
*As you elevate in consciousness, you get more time.
*Money freedom leads to time freedom leads to relationship freedom leads to spiritual freedom leads to creativity freedom.
*We must be in eco-centered businesses.
*The best thing you can do for the poor is not be one of them.
*Thinking turns into form.
*I was born with a sense of urgency to get things done.
*The more enterprising you are, the freer you are.
*A mega business isn’t for you; it’s for them.
*Say, I’m here to be in surplus.
*Say, I’m bullish in this bearish time.
*Sharing means having more.
*Say, I’m not participating in the recession!
*Say, I’m into financial freedom.
*I want more for you than you want for yourself.
*Say, I’ve got permission.
*Say, I know what I’m looking for. I know who to talk to. I know who to listen to.
*Say, I am viscerally excited because I feel the reality of the downside possibilities, but will not participate.
Say, I’m leading edge.
Ask: What’s the next level for me? What does it look like? Who do I want to play with?

Then MVH gave us Ten Keys to Success in Any Economy: I won’t write them out here because, who knows, he may want to make a book out of them.

I’m thinking I’ll continue with brief notes on the next three days of speakers…but that was already a week ago. This Memorial Day weekend I had two days of hiking to build fitness for my fall pilgrimage in Spain on the Camino Frances de Compostela de Santigo. My feet are sore!

Assignment from Shelley Noble

An assignment today from my friend and mentor, Shelley Noble, has me blogging again after almost four months of not making an entry. [An aside: Shelley has an extraordinary blog, Notes from Halfland, <http://www.notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/>. She is an artist, graphic designer, book-maker, wordsmith, dancer, writer, stop-motion film-producer, and oh, so savvy about media, marketing, and what's important in life. I love being in her home/studio/loft/presence-- and you'll get a hit of her spirit if you visit her blog.]

Shelley, who helped me conceive and design the Way to Go! Family Learning Journal– see <http://www.familylearningjournal.com> is a cheerleader for me and for me doing things, producing things, connected to my interest in literacy, education, children, parenting.

She gave me two assignments today: 1) to blog, and 2) to search out, find, and connect with/ collaborate with people who also feel that parenting education is super important, that literacy initiatives need to begin in the home, that parents need to be supported in doing things with their children that help the kids become better readers and learners. My assignment is to find those people. They are out there.

Okay. I’m open to making alliances. I yearn for it.

And Shelley also suggested rethinking the format for my new book for people with kids- Plus It: How to Easily Turn Everyday Activities into Learning Adventures for Kids. You can download it for free right now at <https://www.youpublish.com/estherjantzen>. She proposes my little book be broken into several even smaller books, and be made super portable and user friendly. I like that idea — down the line.

By the way, I’ll get my youpublish public site in order soon, with pix and bio.

Oh, yes, Shelley also assigned me to get on Twitter. Ohhh–so many learning adventures ahead, so much timidity.

The Brilliance of Muhammad Yunus

1/16/08 Last night I was in the presence of one of the greatest thinkers on the planet at this time: Muhammad Yunus. He is the economist who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize (along with his Grameen Bank) for introducing micro-credit to the desperately poor women in the villages of Bangladesh. His ideas on social business and his leadership in the arena of banking provided them with the means to lift themselves and their families out of extreme poverty.

He spoke at the public Los Angeles Central Library. As a member of Mark Victor Hansen’s Inner Circle, I was notified about the availability of free tickets, and I got a front row seat in the small Mark Taper Auditorium! I am SO GRATEFUL for this experience. Professor Yunus was at the top of my People to Meet List, the one person of the planet I most wanted to see! (Mark, Leora, Julie V, Amie, Vee, and Lynn Rose were other MIC members there.)

Why? Because he’s come up with answers AND implemented solutions to concerns which have been on my heart and mind for the past 45-50 years. Since I was a child growing up in India and on through my adult life, I’ve thought/ worried/wrestled/worked with several issues : how do we (the caring, educated, and privileged on the planet) assist people to get out of dire poverty? how do we eliminate the subjugation of women worldwide? how do we promote literacy to all? and how do we resolve the capitalist–socialist dialectic (how do we take the good from both and evolve a system that is better than both)?

I think Muhammad Yunus’s theory of social business is the answer, or at least a big part of the answer, to all four of those questions. Bless him! I’m so inspired. It’s going to change my business, my focus, my life, I do believe.

I got autographed copies of his two books: Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the Battle against World Poverty (first published in 1999) and his 2007 book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. I can hardly wait to read more (although there are others in my reading-line-up ahead of these books.)