Through his collection of essays, originally published in Forbes magazine, entrepreneur Christopher Myers shares an honest account of building his company—BodeTree, an online financial management tool for small businesses. He provides invaluable insights and tips for others looking to start a small business. But this is no ordinary how-to book. Instead of proclaiming that he is a know-it-all dispensing the secrets to success, Christopher provides personal stories of accomplishments and failures. His advice is woven into three sections on starting your business, scaling your business, and staying sane. You will not only learn how to take control of your business decision making, planning, and funding, but you will also discover the importance of creating balance in management and in life. Christopher knows firsthand that responsibility overload can lead to anxiety and depression, and he helps readers navigate these issues. “One thing I’ve come to realize is that everything, good or bad, starts in your mind. What you think is, in fact, what you become,” Christopher says. Embrace the characteristics you admire in yourself and your business. It won’t be easy, but with the right mentality, you can find happiness and achievement.

An expert on ethical leadership analyzes the complicated history of business people who tried to marry the pursuit of profits with virtuous organizational practices—from British industrialist Robert Owen to American retailer John Cash Penney and jeans maker Levi Strauss to such modern-day entrepreneurs Anita Roddick and Tom Chappell. Today’s business leaders are increasingly pressured by citizens, consumers, and government officials to address urgent social and environmental issues. Although some corporate executives remain deaf to such calls, over the last two centuries, a handful of business leaders in America and Britain have attempted to create business organizations that were both profitable and socially responsible. In The Enlightened Capitalists, James O’Toole tells the largely forgotten stories of men and women who adopted forward-thinking business practices designed to serve the needs of their employees, customers, communities, and the natural environment. They wanted to prove that executives didn’t have to make trade-offs between profit and virtue. Combining a wealth of research and vivid storytelling, O’Toole brings life to historical figures like William Lever, the inventor of bar soap who created the most profitable company in Britain and used his money to greatly improve the lives of his workers and their families. Eventually, he lost control of the company to creditors who promptly terminated the enlightened practices he had initiated—the fate of many idealistic capitalists. As a new generation attempts to address social problems through enlightened organizational leadership, O’Toole explores a major question being posed today in Britain and America: Are virtuous corporate practices compatible with shareholder capitalism?

The Enlightened Entrepreneur is a unique guide for people who have or want to start their own business, offering a new approach to marketing as the discovery and expression of their company's spirit. Each facet of the process is examined and accompanied by practical information, business research, personal stories, and real-life examples. At the end of each section is a series of thought-provoking exercises, meditations, and visualizations, which will teach you how to conceptualize your new business or run an existing one with greater depth and clarity. In essence, it outlines the process for developing the tools necessary to effectively envision and market an enterprise in its highest integrity. Written by a successful entrepreneur who has consulted with enterprises ranging from one-person start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, the book is filled with practical exercises and real-life anecdotes to walk readers through every stage of envisioning and marketing an organization.

A great book about an even greater book is a rare event in publishing. Darnton's history of the Encyclopedie is such an occasion. The author explores some fascinating territory in the French genre of histoire du livre, and at the same time he tracks the diffusion of Enlightenment ideas. He is concerned with the form of the thought of the great philosophes as it materialized into books and with the way books were made and distributed in the business of publishing. This is cultural history on a broad scale, a history of the process of civilization. In tracing the publishing story of Diderot's Encyclopedie, Darnton uses new sources--the papers of eighteenth-century publishers--that allow him to respond firmly to a set of problems long vexing historians. He shows how the material basis of literature and the technology of its production affected the substance and diffusion of ideas. He fully explores the workings of the literary market place, including the roles of publishers, book dealers, traveling salesmen, and other intermediaries in cultural communication. How publishing functioned as a business, and how it fit into the political as well as the economic systems of prerevolutionary Europe are set forth. The making of books touched on this vast range of activities because books were products of artisanal labor, objects of economic exchange, vehicles of ideas, and elements in political and religious conflict. The ways ideas traveled in early modern Europe, the level of penetration of Enlightenment ideas in the society of the Old Regime, and the connections between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution are brilliantly treated by Darnton. In doing so he unearths a double paradox. It was the upper orders in society rather than the industrial bourgeoisie or the lower classes that first shook off archaic beliefs and took up Enlightenment ideas. And the state, which initially had suppressed those ideas, ultimately came to favor them. Yet at this high point in the diffusion and legitimation of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution erupted, destroying the social and political order in which the Enlightenment had flourished. Never again will the contours of the Enlightenment be drawn without reference to this work. Darnton has written an indispensable book for historians of modern Europe.

Can you be on a spiritual path and run a money-making business? Yes! When you align your business with your purpose, it’s easy to pursue both. Irina Mihaela’s Entrepreneur Enlightenment philosophy combines practical business strategies with spiritual principles and personal transformation, teaching you how to transcend your ego and fears and do business with love. Find out how you can achieve enlightenment through entrepreneurship: • Discover your life’s purpose and turn it into a successful business • Develop your marketing and sales materials and get clients • Release the fears of receiving money and set your prices right • Relieve financial pressures to change your energy • Establish yourself as a leader for yourself and your clients From clarifying your purpose to defining your niche and learning to love marketing and sales, this book is a unique take on creating a thriving business.

Based on the authors' work with top companies such as Hewlett-Packard and BellSouth, Enlightened Leadership is a practical program managers can use to create "change-friendly" environments that will foster the continuous innovation businesses need to stay ahead in today's competitive world.

How are women transforming the practice of leadership in the 21st century? Enlightened Power is a first-of-a-kind book that answers this question--and forever changes the traditional notions involving women in leadership. The book features the accumulated wisdom of 40 influential men and women who represent the most compelling voices in the field, including: Dynamic business leaders such as Eileen Fisher (founder, Eileen Fisher, Inc.), Barbara Corcoran (founder and chairman, The Corcoran Group), and Pat Mitchell (president and CEO, PBS) Trailblazing women from other arenas such as politics (Ambassador Swanee Hunt), the military (Rear Admiral Deborah A. Loewer, USN), and sports (U.S. Olympian Marilyn King) Renowned thought leaders such as Riane Eisler, Rayona Sharpnack, Sally Helgesen, Peggy Klaus, Bruce Patton, Nancy J. Adler, and Gail Evans Leading-edge academics, activists, executives, entrepreneurs, and practitioners