For the past twenty-five years, I worked mostly with independent financial professionals. Good people to be sure. But whether it was my company telling them, or them telling us, the message always seemed to revolve around getting bigger. Accumulate more assets. Bring in more clients. If you have half a billion in AUM (Assets Under Management), how would you get to $1B in AUM?! The treadmill never seems to stop.
Have you ever wondered: Is this all there is? What am I working for? How can I make a real difference in this world?
Here’s an idea: If you want to grow faster and get bigger, focus instead on getting better by doing better.
In about one week, my newest book will be published: Changing the World through Small Business Stewardship. The theme is pretty simple:
Doing good, is good business.
Changing the World… is an audacious, global, timeless guide for small business owners who want their business to mean something more—without losing sight of what keeps it alive. It’s about the quiet and immense power of stewardship: showing up each day with the intent to do right by your customers, employees, partners, suppliers, community, and the environment—and doing it in ways that are measurable, sustainable, and real.
Stewardship is about a lot more than doing the occasional good deed. Once mastered and built into your small business’s DNA, stewardship will change the course of your work forever. And focusing on helping others to help you will take the worry out of getting bigger.
Inside this book you will find accessible tools, checklists, and action steps, alongside examples from real businesses around the world, all of whom focused on “being better”, not bigger – even though that happened too. You’ll also hear from thinkers and reformers—Rumi to Roosevelt, Emerson to Ohmae, Chouinard to Ruskin—whose wisdom echoes what small business owners everywhere know deep down: that smart, purposeful leadership rooted in care and dignity can change lives. That is how to build a legacy.
Publication date: June 20th, 2025!
