The Clean and Green Club

Another Recommended Book: Zentrepreneurism: A Twenty-First Century Guide to the New World of Business by Allan Holender

Not lot of business books quote Greg Palast, the sharp-witted investigative reporter who exposed the illegal removal of over 90,000 likely Democratic voters from Florida’s voter rolls ahead of the hotly-contested 2000 election. And not a lot devote significant space to the classic social/ethical business book Natural Capitalism by PaulHawken and Amory and Hunter Lovins. Even fewer are written by a self-proclaimed “recovering Tony Robbins franchisee.”

I happen to be a huge fan of both Greg Palast and Amory Lovins, and am thrilled that Holender cites them in his examination of how Buddhist principles can apply to improving the business world.

I’m not a Buddhist, and I disagree with the core Buddhist belief that life is suffering. Yet I found much to agree with in Zentrpreneurism, and a great deal of alignment with the principles of my own award-winning book, Principled Profit: Marketing that Puts People First.

Especially relevant to my conception of principles for ethical business: The Eightfold Path:
• Right View
• Right Intention
• Right Speech
• Right Action
• Right Livelihood
• Right Effort
• Right Mindfulness
• Right Concentration

Pointing out that “engaged Buddhism” works not only on finding inner peace but also on addressing social problems, Holender describes each, briefly, toward the beginning of the book. A strong sense of ethics runs through the book and especially the entire chapter on business ethics. Holender includes many quotes from the Buddha; one I especially like is “The wrong action seems sweet to the fool until the reaction comes and brings pain and the bitter frits of wrong deeds have then to be eaten by the fool.”

But not all his insights come directly from the Buddha. Here’s one of his own: “the fear of discovery [when you tell a lie] is greater than the unknown consequence of the truth.” And he raises the question of how to be compassionate and have a higher purpose when money is involved–and then answers that question with the two chapters that immediately follow, one on social entrepreneurship (he notes that aging Boomers especially are looking to find meaning as they find ways to help the world) and the other on socially responsible investing. Even a small group of investor activists, he says, can have an impact far beyond their numbers.

The book’s website is https://www.zentrepreneurism.com

Copywriter and marketing consultant Shel Horowitz specializes in affordable, ethical, and effective approaches. He is the award-winning author of Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First and six other books