Chris Carosa

Why It’s Important You Exhibit Creative Tendencies

By Chris Carosa on November 1, 2022

Thanough, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Many aspiring entrepreneurs feel the creative urge represents the most important trait for success. Many great ideas, though, never become viable businesses.

Take a look at some of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time.

Did Henry Ford invent the automobile? No. Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot first produced a steam-powered automobile in 1769.

Did Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak invent the microcomputer in 1979 with the introduction of the Apple ][ computer? No. The French team headed by François Gernelle within a small company, Réalisations & Etudes Electroniqes (R2E), created what they called the “Micro-ordinateur” in 1973.

Did Ray Kroc invent the fast food hamburger joint? No. Most point to White Castle’s 1921 opening of its original location in Wichita, Kansas, as the first fast food hamburger franchise. Heck, Kroc didn’t even invent McDonald’s. He bought the restaurant from founders Dick and Mac McDonald after becoming the chain’s franchising agent in 1955.

What is the importance of creative behavior?

It’s not the ability to come up with an original idea that wins the day. It’s the ability to take Continue Reading “Why It’s Important You Exhibit Creative Tendencies”

Posted in Business Tips, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Adaptation, Apple, Apple II, automobile, Calloway Cook, Chin Beckmann, computer, creative, creativity, Dick McDonald, entrepreneur, Florian Bohn, Francois Gernelle, Henry Ford, innovation, invention, inventor, Joseph Alois Schumpeter, Julie Bee, Mack McDonald, McDonald's, Michael Boyles, microcomputer, Mollie Krengel, Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, Productive Growth, Ray Kroc, risk, rugged individualist, Sari Pekkala Kerr, Stan Garber, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Tina Xu, White Castle, Wichita, William R. Kerr

Why It’s Important You Become A Calculated Risk Taker

By Chris Carosa on October 25, 2022

Ed Dunens, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

When you talk to people about what it takes to be an “entrepreneur,” most people will say you need to be a risk taker.

When you talk to people about what it means to be a “risk taker,” most people will begin describing daredevils and gamblers.

In both cases, these answers are at best incomplete if not totally incorrect.

Risk taking is fundamental to sound investing. Without risk, there could be no return. It’s Continue Reading “Why It’s Important You Become A Calculated Risk Taker”

Posted in Business Tips, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Chin Beckmann, entrepreneur, Harry Markowitz, John Burr Williams, Julie Bee, Mollie Krengel, Portfolio Theory, risk, risk taker, Risk-Return Tradeoff, Sally Caird, Theory of Investment Value, Thyme Sullivan, Vincent Zurzolo

Do You Have What It Takes To Be An Entrepreneur?

By Chris Carosa on October 18, 2022

Look around you. Now, more than ever, the world teems with constant change.

Some succumb, consumed by the cascading chaos.

Winners smile broadly, delighted by the array of percolating opportunities.

“Do I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?”

This is the question every budding entrepreneur asks. It is the wrong question.

Imagine

Wouldn’t you benefit more if, before beginning on your entrepreneurial journey, you knew what talents successful entrepreneurs possess?

Rather than first asking if you have them, you’d be much wiser to ask what they are.

Before answering that unasked question, behold the very first lesson of this series. It’s a lesson you should carry with you at all times. It reveals the ultimate axiom, the rule that Continue Reading “Do You Have What It Takes To Be An Entrepreneur?”

Posted in Business Tips, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Achievement, Autonomy, creativity, entrepeneur, Julie Bee, locus of control, Ratna Singh, risk, Sally Caird, Sari Pekkala Kerr, success, Tina Xu, William R. Kerr

Is Starting A Business Worth It?

By Chris Carosa on October 11, 2022

Can you feel inflation eating away at your income? Are you worried matters will only get worse as the nation dives deeper into recession? Perhaps you’re eying that favorite hobby of yours, wondering if you can tweak it a bit to bring in some much-needed revenue.

What’s holding you back?

If you’ve spent the bulk of your career working for someone else, it’s only natural to wonder if starting a business right now is worth it. You can be on the cusp of retirement or even in retirement. Sure, you enjoy helping people, but wouldn’t it be easier just to give it away for free and cut back on other expenses?

Well, no matter what your age, a healthy challenge can invigorate the soul.

“Starting a business can be an exciting responsibility to take on for many people,” says Nick Chandi, CEO, and Co-Founder of ForwardAI in Vancouver, British Columbia. “It’s also a Continue Reading “Is Starting A Business Worth It?”

Posted in Business Tips, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Autonomy, Brandon Harris, business, entrepreneur, freedom, Joe Chatham, Lifetime Dream, Michaell Nova, money, Nick Chandi, profit, Rick Walicki, start-up, success, Ted Wolf, Tyler Muse

The Seven Paths To Lifetime Bliss

By Chris Carosa on October 4, 2022

You remember the story. Mother drags Son to a family wedding. Son doesn’t want to go. Mother nags the Son to get off His seat and have some fun at the party. Son wants none of it. “It’s not my time,” He tells her.

What? Was He waiting for the DJ to play “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”? Clearly, the Son wasn’t hungry for Meatloaf. Nor was He particularly thirsty for wine.

But be honest here, what son can deny his mother? This Son was no different. And when mom told the waiters to “do whatever He says,” they did.

Thus was the back story of Jesus’ first miracle during the Wedding at Cana.

This isn’t the story we’re telling here. We’re talking about what happens before the Continue Reading “The Seven Paths To Lifetime Bliss”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged A Modell of Christian Charity, Apostles' Creed, Arbella, business, Catholic, community, family, finance, first miracle, fun, Galilee, Intellectual, Jesus, John 2:1-12, John Winthrop, Lifetime Dream Process, Mary, Mayflower Compact, personal, Pilgrims, Pre-Cana, professional, water in wine, Wedding at Cana

Strategic Planning For The Soul

By Chris Carosa on September 27, 2022

I’ve always enjoyed the adventure of strategic planning. I call it an “adventure” because it requires one to truly explore the meaning and philosophy of a corporate soul.

A corporate soul differs from a human soul in that the former comprises an entity of many individual souls. With so many human souls making up its psyche, it’s often entertaining to watch as these individuals confuse their personal souls with the corporation’s soul.

OK, I admit this is a form of voyeuristic cynicism, but look, people are egocentric. And the Continue Reading “Strategic Planning For The Soul”

Posted in Business Tips, Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Boy Scout, business, creed, goal, Lifetime Dream, personal, strategy

Do Self-Assessments Really Work?

By Chris Carosa on September 20, 2022

What’s the difference between the Lifetime Dream Process and any of the many other forms of self-assessment? While some of the more astute readers might have already deduced the answer by reading the preceding Commentaries, at some point it helps everyone to forgo subtlety and bluntly reveal why the Lifetime Dream Process is not like any other process you might have heard of or even tried. In the next two weeks, I’ll begin to conclude this series by comparing and contrasting the Lifetime Dream Process to several of these systems.

This week I’d like to focus on self-assessments. These often come in the form of a test but might also take on the nature of a conversation. In either case, compared to the Lifetime Dream Process, each fails to get deeply into the heart of the matter.

To understand why getting to the heart of the matter is important, you might want to read Continue Reading “Do Self-Assessments Really Work?”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Boy Scouts, Carl Gustav, Continue, Cosmo Quiz, David J. Pittenger, Isabel Briggs Myers, Katherine Cook Briggs, Lifetime Dream Process, MBTI, Myers-Briggs, Myers-Briggs Test Indicator, Paul R. Matthews, pop-psychology, psychology, self-assessment, Start, Stop

How To Declare Independence And Start Pursuing Your Happiness

By Chris Carosa on September 6, 2022

Many folks think Thomas Jefferson “borrowed” the phrase “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” from John Locke. The 17^th Century British philosopher and physician famously wrote, in the unsigned Second Treatise Concerning Civil Government, that government exists to protect one’s life, liberty, and property. Sounds awfully similar to the words used by our Founding Father nearly ninety years later.

Significantly, Locke’s focus on personal “property” breaks from the sense of Thomas Hobbes. In his 1651 treatise Leviathan, Hobbes paints a sovereign-centric ideal. In this “social contract,” citizens cede personal freedoms to the ruler in exchange for protection. Without such protection, the contract is invalidated.

Bear in mind, Hobbes wrote this while in exile during the English Civil War between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists. He rejected Aristotle’s premise that man is driven by Continue Reading “How To Declare Independence And Start Pursuing Your Happiness”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Aristotle, English Civil War, Eudaimonia, Founding Father, government, happiness, John Locke, Leviathan, liberty, life, Lifetime Dream, Parliamentarians, property, pursuit of happiness, Royalists, Second Treatise Concerning Civil Government, social contract, State, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Jefferson

Why America’s Founding Secretly Influences You

By Chris Carosa on August 30, 2022

You don’t have to be an American to say you’re an American. That was the whole idea of the American Experiment – it was meant for all nations, not just those uppity Tea Partiers who frolicked in Boston Harbor a few centuries back. But this experiment didn’t start with the American Revolution, Declaration of Independence or even the United States Constitution. It began with a collection of oppressed runaways and an accidental metaphor that endures to this day.

After reading a perhaps too rosy account of the Plymouth Colony by the Pilgrims Edward Winslow and William Bradford, excitement grew in England to establish more companies to Continue Reading “Why America’s Founding Secretly Influences You”

Posted in Business Tips, Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged A Modell of Christian Charity, American Exceptionalism, American Experiment, American Ideal, American Revolution, Anne Hutchinson, Arbella, Ben Franklin, Boston Harbor, City Upon A Hill, community, Constitutional Convention, core value, creed, Declaration of Independence, Edward Winslow, England, Jesus, John Adams, John F. Kennedy, John Ford, John Winthrop, King Charles I, Lifetime Dream, Lifetime Dream Process, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Massachusetts Bay Company, Matthew 5:14, Mayflower Compact, Nathaniel Hawthorne, personal belief, Plymouth Colony, Puritan, Roger Williams, Ronald Reagan, Scarlett Letter, Sermon on the Mount, Tea Party, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, United States Constitution, unity, William Bradford

How to Live the Good Life with No Regrets

By Chris Carosa on August 23, 2022

“Why is This Important to You?”

Socrates believed “the unexamined life is not worth living.” He may not have coined the phrase “know thyself,” but he’s famous for traipsing the streets of Athens examining lives by nagging prominent people until he proved they did not “know thineselfs.”

So effective was he the good city-state of democracy voted to put him to death. Socrates, despite his friends’ wishes, readily agreed to drink the hemlock and thus first came into usage the phrase “good career move.”

But before he died, Socrates perfected a method that would become his lasting legacy. Used today anywhere from the courtroom, to the classroom, to the psychologist’s couch, we call it the “Socratic Method” (which just shows you how terribly dull and unimaginative philosophers can be at times).

In a nutshell, here’s how it works. Come up with a question or hypothesis and keep asking annoying questions (often the same one or of the same form) until you’ve eliminated all Continue Reading “How to Live the Good Life with No Regrets”

Posted in The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Aristotle, Arthur C. Clarke, Eudaimonia, Freud, liberty, life, Mortimer Adler, psychoanalysis, Sherlock Holmes, Socrates, Socratic Method, the good life, the unplanned life, Twenty Questions

Chris Carosa

Why It’s Important You Exhibit Creative Tendencies

Why It’s Important You Become A Calculated Risk Taker

Do You Have What It Takes To Be An Entrepreneur?

Is Starting A Business Worth It?

The Seven Paths To Lifetime Bliss

Strategic Planning For The Soul

Do Self-Assessments Really Work?

Why America’s Founding Secretly Influences You

How to Live the Good Life with No Regrets

“Why is This Important to You?”

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“Why is This Important to You?”

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