The Clean and Green Club

Another Recommended Book: Finding the Sweet Spot: The Natural Entrepreneur’s guide to Responsible, Sustainable, Joyful Work (Chelsea Green, 2008)

This is a book aimed largely at those who are unhappy in a job that doesn’t advance their life’s purpose, looking for something in greater alignment with their core values–and their skills and talents and interests.

Part 1 focuses on finding the right pursuit, and also on finding the right partners to work with. Late in the first chapter, you’ll find a number of excellent processes to go through in finding work that is not only meaningful to you and to the world, but that fills a crucial need. That chapter contains some excellent advice.

Chapter 2 expresses Pollard’s strong belief that heart-centered enterprises and solpreneurship don’t mix. As a successful solopeneur, I take this with a grain of salt. Of course, I don’t try to do everything in my business, and I outsource those tasks that others can do better than me, or seek their guidance in setting up systems for myself. But that doesn’t mean I have to take them on as business partners. Still, if you <i>are</i> seeking partners, you’ll find great advice.

Parts 2 and 3 cover setting up your “Natural Enterprise” as a viable and sustainable operation that offers innovative solutions to real problems, and draws on the power of commuity collaboration to create something resilient and powerful. His section on identifying needs is excellent, and he discusses using biomimicry and other enormously powerful methods to turn those needs into products and markets. He offers 22 attributes of Natural Enterprises, six steps to building a viral marketing buzz, and four keys to successful collaboration.

Two insights I found particularly cogent, both on the same page (178): Relationships are more important than credentials. And because partnerships are based on an equal relationship grounded in mutual trust, when you form partnerships, you predispose others outside the partnership to trust you more, because they understand that’s how you work. These insights reinforce the relationship-based marketing approaches I discuss in my own award-winning book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.