• 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.

You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”

– Mae West

Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make Me Feel Important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.”

– Mary Kay Ash

The awakening to the mystery of life is a revolutionary event; in it an old world is destroyed so that a new and better one may take its place.”

– J.J. Van Der Leeuw, The Conquest of Illusion

Find somebody to be successful for. Raise their hopes. Think of their needs.”

– Barack Obama

But all the while I was alone, the past was close behind, I seen a lot of women, but she never escaped my mind, and I just grew, tangled up in blue.”

– Bob Dylan

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

– J.G. Holland, novelist

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.”

– Andrew Carnegie

The quality of your life is directly related to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with.”

– Tony Robbins

Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences.”

– J.K. Rowling

Don’t wait for someone else to lead you to your right life; that privilege—and responsibility—is yours alone.”

– Martha Beck

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

– Byron Katie

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it”

– Andrew Carnegie

I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than any other ability under the sun.”

– John D. Rockefeller

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

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

The best hobbies are the ones that take us furthest from our primary occupation.”

– Dr. Evelyn Vogel, Dexter

What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?”

– Jim Butcher, White Night

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"

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

– Eleanor Roosevelt

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
 what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

– Nelson Mandela

The music is all around us. All you have to do is listen.”

– August Rush

To find what you seek in the road of life, leave no stone unturned.”

– Edward Bulwer Lytton

By your stumbling the world is perfected.”

– Sri Aurobindo

A person who learns to juggle six balls will be more skilled than the person who never tries to juggle more than three.”

– Marilyn vos Savant

Change is a math formula. Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change.”

– Alan Webber, author, "Rules of Thumb"

A man without a smiling face
 should not open a shop.”

– Chinese Proverb

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

– Ecclesiastes, 7:10

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

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

– Robert Frost

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

Don’t follow, lead. Don’t copy, create. Don’t start, finish. Don’t sit still, move. Don’t fit in, stand out. Don’t sit quietly, speak up. (Not all the time, sure, but more often.)”

– Seth Godin

Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.”

– Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

– Groucho Marx

Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.”

– Lord Chesterfield

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”

– Buddha

Inspiration and genius — one and the same.”

– Victor Hugo

4oz tequila + 1oz TripleSec + 2oz lime juice + 1oz simple syrup (sugar=water), 1 cup crushed ice. Shake + dance around the kitchen.

– Avenida Margarita

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

– Albert Einstein

I’m not afraid of storms,
for I’m learning to sail my ship.”

– Louisa May Alcott

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

– J.G. Holland, novelist

If you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.”

– Oprah Winfrey

You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn. If you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far.”

– Steve Jobs

The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.”

– Marcel Proust

The best reason to start an organization is to create a product or service to make the world a better place.”

– Guy Kawasaki

The biggest flaw in our existing theory of capitalism lies in its misrepresentation of human nature.”

– Muhammad Yunus

I was taught at a very young age that you can do whatever you want to, but you have to make it happen — not just talk about it.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

Some things are destined to be—it just takes us a couple of tries
to get there.”

– J.R. Ward, Lover Mine

My goal was to tell the life side of the story. We have become a nation of voyeurs that expect sensationalism, and that offends me.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leo Jozef Suenens

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