Makemi: A Melding for Risk-Return

Laozi
Confucius
Risk, Return

PREAMBLE:  Thank you Chinese history and thought for empowering our thinking.  The following has been developed over years of study, experience and observations of the Chinese experience.  For this passionate Small Business loyal student the balance of which we speak has helped us help ourselves and others in a very challenging world for small business, especially since 2007.

To begin, common terms:

In Confucianism, human beings are teachable, improvable and perfectible through personal and communal endeavor especially including self-cultivation and self-creation.  .

Taoist propriety and ethics emphasize the Three Jewels of the Tao: compassion, moderation, and humility, while Taoist thought generally focuses on nature, the relationship between humanity and the cosmos (天人相应); health and longevity; and wu wei (action through inaction). Harmony with the Universe, or the source thereof (Tao), is the intended result of many Taoist rules and practices.

LAOSHI and CONFUCIUS For Small Business

As educated westerners we think all humans need the balance of heart (intuition) and mind (intellect) to do well and be as well as possible in country, politics, economics and life.  What is important is that we feed, develop and use the intellect, the Chinese historical reference is “literati” (sher) which is the Confucius “right way, road or path”; a proactive thinking that is about and from the past.  Most western thought and suggested actions is based on a proactive approach that assumes 100% knowledge or ability to foresee the future.

The concept of Yin and Yang in Buddhist and Hindu teachings tell us that all thinking, all life needs balance.

Balance for the risk-adverse or inactive of “doing nothing is doing something” is needed from Laoshi and the Taoism concept of the “right way, road or path”; a passive, do nothing approach that espouses that we do not know everything so leaving where we are to go someplace else might have unintended consequences.  The Dao is about the future that can only be perceived vaguely like a lighthouse in the fog, shape, some form, and few details as perceived in the inner self.

When it comes to the past (intellectual) and seeing patterns of life’s ebb and flow for past answers and extrapolating them into the future come from intelligence, reading, study, writing, history and thinking (Confucius). But, the mind must be in balance with the heart where emotion, passion, intuition, creativity, drive, work ethic and the ability to feel and perceive the future spiritually exists at the core of self, the center of all, inside the spiritual and emotional, the power of self we speak of in Tai Chi, right?  A way to see the extreme is to recall Rwanda.  The country was the most Roman Catholic country in Africa, over 70% Roman Catholic. How did so many Roman Catholics participate in such inhuman massacres and prejudice?  One could pose that the Roman Catholic intellect of being Roman Catholic was disconnected from the necessity of the Roman Catholic heart (intuition, Laoshi); the old “heart of stone” homily.

It is interesting but where westerners reduce all they can to risk (Laoshi) and return (Confucius) model there appears to be little guidance, little direction pointing, little help from an obviously inadequate model.  Look at how the brightest at AIG dealt with risk using the proactive only as did all the others in the global meltdown; others that should have known better.  At Makemi we see much to learn form the Chinese history and philosophy so as to better understand ourselves and to make better choices affecting our future success or failure in a predatory jungle of commerce, a rapidly changing world and an uncertain future.

Small business is like a rifle or other dangerous weapons. It can be used to hurt and it can be used to feed.  Misuse has consequences.  Using a weapon or your small business correctly requires both the “right path” of Laoshi and Confucius for you and your world if you are to increase the probability of success and the probability of feeding yourself, your family and helping you community and country.

A small business choice is like a marriage choice. In fact it is more like a choice to have a child.  You will spend more time with your small business that sleeping or with your spouse and family.  Above all else you must have a passion of your vision for you and your future. You must find or have passion so great that at its worst you prefer your small business choice to other options like quitting and delivering mail; working for a large organization as a lemming among many.  The process of small business begins with “know yourself” then know you product or service, your customers and your market.

Makemi is about helping small business start-ups and owners finding their own answers inside of themselves. The world is full of pundits and talking-heads who have never met payroll, worked rather than slept or face the irate customer At Makemi we rely on over 50-years of actual small business and corporate experience but mostly other small business owners participating in this forum to help each individual find their answers for them, for their small business decisions, for their future inside of themselves. Most do this through a lengthy and expensive trial and error processes with survival elusive for many.  The Makemi Small Business Forum has no answers for anyone. Hopefully the forum can help owners minimize the time and expense of trial and error to meet the challenges they face and to find the answers for them, their business and their personal challenges inside of them, inside of their small business and inside of their market.

Your future depends on you, know one else. You must live with the consequences of your decision, no one else. Small business can enslave you psychologically or financially resulting in an experience of few rewards, more pain and maybe lost family and children. A small business can free you, empower you and reward you financially and psychologically for your benefit and the benefit of family, children, community and country.  We at Makemi seek for the latter which is why we ask for all to contribute with blunt honesty as we help each other prepare for the worst, as we strive for the best with a healthy respect for the fact that we, the small business owners, are solely responsible for all decisions and consequences of us, no one else.  We respect the fact that no one can predict the future.  We admit and recognize we must change in thought, behavior and our small business processes and offerings to remain viable in this dynamically changing new age. This new age, like the Phoenix from the ashes, is rising from the ruins of the last century of accepted business processes for profitability. The old world is flailing and departing. We must be careful we do not throw the baby out with the old (bathwater).  The Makemi Small Business Forum is dedicated to saving the baby while getting fresh water.

Makemi is about you the small business start-up or small business owner and the quality of your life, marriage, family when living the small business world.

PREAMBLE:  Thank you Chinese history and thought for empowering our thinking.  The following has been developed over years of study, experience and observations of the Chinese experience.  For this passionate Small Business loyal student the balance of which we speak has helped us help ourselves and others in a very challenging world for small business, especially since 2007.

To begin, common terms:

In Confucianism, human beings are teachable, improvable and perfectible through personal and communal endeavor especially including self-cultivation and self-creation.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism.

Taoist propriety and ethics emphasize the Three Jewels of the Tao: compassion, moderation, and humility, while Taoist thought generally focuses on nature, the relationship between humanity and the cosmos (天人相应); health and longevity; and wu wei (action through inaction). Harmony with the Universe, or the source thereof (Tao), is the intended result of many Taoist rules and practices.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoism

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