We are privileged that the dollar is the "currency of last resort" and the most important currency in the world. Global commodities are priced in dollars. Central banks in other countries hold great quantities of dollars. The dollar was the safe harbor, the port in the storm during the credit crisis.
It's a Wonderful Life. This film illustrates that if you treat your customers with respect, they will recognize you and even help when you're most in need.
Researchers have found that identical twins who have been separated for long periods of time actually invest in a similar manner. Biology really does affect how we spend money.
Albert Murray's The Omni-Americans is the most valuable non-business book because it discusses how you have to draw upon everyone's creativity. America is a mash-up of cultures and traditions, and great businesses know how to tap the strengths of all their employees, whatever their background may be.
Persistence. Change doesn't happen overnight. You have to stay with it. Rosa Parks helped start the Civil Rights movement in earnest in 1955. Then it was nearly a decade until the Civil Rights Act was passed.
One of the best ways to convince someone is to use a telling example, a story, a narrative. When Steve Jobs announced a new product, he told a story, exzlaining how a product would change the world as we know it. He turned Apple into a story whose challenges and adventures you want to hear about.
Look at Google. They are re-organizing their businesses ,even renaming it with Alphabet, so they can be bolder and make strategic mistakes and then learn from them. But most companies aren't Google in that they make incremental changes and don't go for the moon shot.
In some cultures, when you give someone a gift, it's expected that they will pass it on. This seems like a peculiar practice in the West, but in many other societies, a gift has a spirit. If you try to possess the gift, you remove its spirit as a gift.
People have tried to control other people by trapping them with debt. A loan can become a harmful and dangerous weapon.
