• Columnists

Dave Feldman, Executive Director Bethesda Green

COLUMN = GO GREEN

Dave Feldman is the founding director of Bethesda Green, a dynamic 501c3 that serves as a catalyst and trusted resource for building a healthy economy and sustainable community. This model initiative has set up the first green business incubator and education center in the DC/Maryland region.

Feldman is also the CEO of the Livability Project LLC, an organization that provides structure and tools to help communities develop sustainability initiatives. Through Livability, Feldman leverages his entrepreneurial experience, international economic development expertise, and passion for sustainability to implement socially responsible, “green” community development projects that can be replicated worldwide.

Prior founding the organization, Feldman was Consul, Trade and Investment at the British Embassy. His role as head of the largest economic development agency in the world was to help US companies operate successfully in the United Kingdom and to support UK companies exporting to the United States. He was directly responsible for a portfolio that included information technology and renewable energy.

Feldman holds an MBA from the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland in International Management and Finance. He is a graduate of Leadership Montgomery (’06) and is currently on the Board of Sustainable Business Network of Washington (SB NOW).

For more information about Bethesda Green, visit www.bethesdagreen.org. For details about Feldman’s Livability Project, visit www.livabilityproject.com.

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

The good ideas are all hammered out in agony by individuals, not spewed out by groups.”

– Charles Brower, Advertising Hall of Fame

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

– Thomas Edison

The follow-your-gut mentality of the entrepreneur has the potential to take you anywhere you want to go or run you right out of business.”

– Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"

When I was younger I thought success was being a star, driving nice cars, having groupies. But today I think the most important thing is to live your life with integrity.

– Ellen DeGeneres

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.”

– Steve Jobs

Destiny is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”

– William Jennings Bryan

We never know how high we are
 till we are called to rise;
 And then, if we are true to plan,
 Our statures touch the skies.”

– Emily Dickinson

If it really was a no-brainer to make it on your own in business there’d be millions of no-brained, harebrained individuals quitting their day jobs.”

– Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"

A lot of people have ideas, but few decide to do something about them now. Not next week. But today.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Atari

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

– Dalai Lama

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

– JFK

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.”

– President Calvin Coolidge

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.”

– Jesse Jackson

It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.”

– Alfred Adler

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.”

– Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Confidence is the most important thing you can teach someone… if you can teach them confidence, you don’t have to teach them anything else.”

– Vin Diesel

If you would create something,
 you must be something.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

– Charles R. Swindoll

As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”

– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity 
and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”

– Indira Ghandi

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

I can’t go back to yesterday—because I was a different person then.”

– Lewis Carroll

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

– Charles Darwin

The dove descending breaks the air / With flame of inkandescent terror.”

– T.S. Eliott

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.”

– Jalaluddin Rumi

My job is my hobby. I come to work to play.”

– Uli Becker, president, Reebok International

When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.”

– Henry David Thoreau

Many people prefer to play it safe when it comes to business matters. Are you willing to take risks in the pursuit of entrepreneurial success?”

– Steven Schussler

Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.”

– Jack Kerouac

That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.”

– J.G. Holland, novelist

That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”

– Henry David Thoreau

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Do not say, ‘why were the former days better than these,’ for it is not from wisdom that you ask this.”

– Ecclesiastes, 7:10

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”

– Eckhart Tolle

‎No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.”

– Charles Dickens

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

– Winston Churchill

Do you have the desire to create something new; the strength of conviction to believe your creation will be successful, and the reservoir of energy necessary to thrust it into the marketplace?”

– Steven Schussler

It is to no purpose to turn away from the real nature of the affair because the honor of its elements excites repugnance.

– Carl von Clausewitz, On War

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

– JFK

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

– Leonard Cohen

Letting go of expectations is a ticket to peace. It allows us to ride over every crisis—small or large—like a beach ball on water.”

– Martha Beck

Everyone is a mirror image of yourself—your own thinking coming back at you.”

– Byron Katie

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which obstacles vanish.”

– John Quincy Adams

Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

– Basil King

Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

– Christopher Robin to Pooh

My task is really not to change myself but to become familiar with who I am.”

– Maureen Cook

Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

If you want to be busy, keep trying to be perfect. If you want to be happy, focus on making a difference.”

– Lisa Earle McLeod