BeInkandescent

ENTREPRENEUR OF THE MONTH: FEBRUARY 2016

By Hope Katz Gibbs
Be Inkandescent
Magazine

For Life is Good co-founder Bert Jacobs (pictured far right), making money isn’t the sole goal for his company — and he believes it shouldn’t be for any entrepreneur.

Consider his thoughts on how you can find success, the Life is Good, Inc., way.

Bert Jacobs’ 14 Tips for Success

1. Speak out. I do a lot of public speaking to raise money for our Life is Good Kids Foundation, and 100 percent of the fee goes to raise money for children facing life-threatening situations — such as poverty, disease, and a lack of positive influences. The reality is that when Boston was founded in the 1700s, the average life span of a Boston resident was 29 years. In 1800, it was in the upper 40s, and today it’s 80. Clearly, we must be doing something right. If you take a global view, despite the recent recession and other negative considerations, there is reason for optimism.

2. Find your audience. John and I didn’t have anything when we started except the idea that we wanted to spread the word about optimism. The first day we put the Life is Good shirt featuring Jake on a table for sale, we sold 48 shirts in 45 minutes. We knew we were onto something.

3. Find good partners who believe in you. We started out by working with a local screen printer in Boston, and parked a big truck and a container there, and strung up lights because they gave us access to their electricity. That enabled us to hold onto the equity in the beginning.

4. Be careful about investors. Several people wanted to invest in us, but we weren’t sure they wanted to do it for the right reasons. If you really have a long-term vision for your concept or organization, it’s always best to hold onto the equity.

5. Hire and partner with people who share your vision. We have a deep-seated belief that capitalism can be the most effective way to create positive social change, and so do the other four people who have a financial stake in our company.

6. Listen to your customers. Our customers have taught us a lot about what we might be able to do, and it’s not always just about making a profit. If it were, I think we would sell the company and go public. But I think we can do a lot of other really interesting things with the brand — like saving kids’ lives.

7. Realize that you don’t know as much about your business as you think you do. Thinking you have all the answers is a pitfall companies should avoid as they start to grow.

8. Know what you are selling. We don’t focus on the stitching on a garment, or the softness of the T-shirts. We’d rather talk about how we can all make a difference in the world.

9. Know that your customers can put you out of business in a minute. Do you remember the housewife in the Midwest who blogged about the fact that Apple’s iPhone battery was too expensive and didn’t last long enough? Two weeks later there were 200 letters on Steve Jobs’ desk, and he made a change. She changed Apple.

10. Think big. We believe that optimism creates the opportunities, and as we move forward, we envision that a lot of those opportunities will move the organization outside of clothing — maybe into creating healthy and sustainable food products, and even getting into the entertainment industry. We’ll keep you posted.

11. Delegate everything — except for two things. Always hire your senior staff and hold onto your vision. Other than that, someone else can do almost everything else in your company better than you.

12. Don’t white-knuckle it. I see so many people try to hold onto things so tightly that they white-knuckle it a bit. John was a bit like that early on with drawing Jake. But now we have people who sometimes draw Jake better than he does, and that has opened us up to new options and ideas.

13. Chill-out on the prototypes and focus groups. An even better approach is to get out there and see what sells. Don’t quit your job. Make something and sell it. That’s how you know if you have a viable business.

14. Start from the end. Don’t think about how you can get to the next step, or where you’d like to be next year. Ask yourself this question: When you are old and gray, what do you want to look back on and say that you have accomplished?

The bottom line: As poet Mary Oliver asked, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” That’s the only question you need to answer when you are starting a business, picking a major in college, or plowing through a midlife crisis. We weren’t created for business, it was created for us. So your business should serve your life’s purpose.

Learn more: www.lifeisgood.com.

By Ken Page, LCSW

Everyone’s heard this self-help platitude: We need to love ourselves before we can love anyone else. This may sound wise, but it misses a great truth — if we want to experience true intimacy, we need to be taught to love aspects of ourselves, again and again, by the people around us.

As much as we want to control our own destiny, the humbling truth is that sometimes the only way to learn self-love is by being loved — precisely in the places where we feel most unsure and most tender. When that happens, we feel freedom and relief — and permission to love in a deeper way. No amount of positive self-talk can replicate this experience. It is a gift of intimacy, not of willpower.

Yet if our vulnerability is met with derision or disinterest, something tender shrivels and retracts within us, and we may think twice about ever sharing that part again. In my favorite “Alvin and the Chipmunks” episode, Simon falls head over heels in love, but has no idea how to win the (chip)girl’s heart. Dave exhorts him, “Just be yourself.” In response, Simon wails, “I tried that already!” When our authentic self doesn’t work in the world, we create a false self, which lets us feel safe and accepted — but at significant cost. The great psychoanalytic theorist Donald Winnicott said, “Only the true self can be creative, and only the true self can feel real.” I would add that only the true self can bear the risk of deep intimacy.

Every time we face the choice to share our deeper self, we stand at a precipice. Often, it’s just too scary to take the step forward.

Imagine taking a pet you love and putting it in a yard with an invisible electric fence. When it moves outside its allowed space, it gets stunned by an unexpected shock. It will only take a few jolts before your pet gets the message: If it goes too far, punishment will be instantaneous. In a short period of time, your pet won’t act as if the borders even exist; it will simply avoid them. If pushed closer to the danger zone, it will exhibit increasing signs of anxiety. The world outside the fence just isn’t worth the pain.

Now imagine turning off the charge from the invisible fence, and then placing a bowl of food outside its perimeter. Your pet might be starving, but it will still be terrified to enter into the newly free space. And when it finally crosses the line, it does so with trembling; anticipating the pain of new shocks. It is the same with us; even though we yearn for the freedom of our true self, some deep reflexive instinct still tries to protect us from being hurt again.

We can each learn more about our true and false selves by answering these two questions:

• What parts of your authentic self did you have to hide or camouflage in your childhood?

• In your current relationships, where are you confined to too small a space? What parts of yourself are you not expressing?

In my work as a psychotherapist, I’ve found that we tend to be ashamed of our most unique, passionate, iconoclastic parts. These aspects of ourselves threaten our safety, but as I explain in my book, Deeper Dating, they are the direct path to love and, not incidentally, to personal greatness. When we suppress these challenging gifts, we’re left with a sense of emptiness and loneliness.

This shame around our most vulnerable attributes is almost universal. And even our best thinking will barely budge it.

So, how do we free ourselves from the thrall of learned shame and fear around our gifts? The best — sometimes the only — way out is through relationships; relationships that instruct us in the worth of our most vulnerable self.

Of the people you know, who sees and relishes your true self? Who isn’t too afraid of your passion, or too envious of your gifts? Who has the generosity of spirit to encourage you toward greater self-expression? These people are gold. Practice leaning on them more, and giving more back to them. They are, quite simply, the way out. They are what I call relationships of inspiration, and we usually need to build these relationships into our non-romantic lives before we find them in our romantic partners. When you date someone like this, recognize what progress you’ve made to let them in, and celebrate that.

© Ken Page, LCSW, 2015
This article appeared originally on PsychologyToday.com

Ken Page, LCSW, is a renowned psychotherapist and the author of the best-selling book “Deeper Dating: How to Drop the Games of Seduction and Discover the Power of Intimacy.” His teachings are a message of hope, backed by solid research, for people of all ages, backgrounds, and sexual orientations who are searching for deeper intimacy in their lives. He blogs for Psychology Today and The Huffington Post. He has been featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, and more. Page has led online and in-person workshops on intimacy and spirituality for thousands of participants worldwide. He has taught at Columbia University, the Omega Institute, the Garrison Institute, and The Shift Network. He is also the founder of Deeper Dating, an inspiring event in which single people get to meet in fun and enriching ways while learning the deeper lessons of intimacy.