Richie is author of The Power of Starting Something Stupid, a book about crushing your fears, making dreams happen, and living without regret. You can read a number of posts I wrote about his book here. Richie was nice enough to sit down with me and talk a bit about his book and tell me about a book that greatly influence him.
Book that influenced Richie: Banker To The Poor by Muhammad Yunus.
Principle from Banker To The Poor that affected Richie: Social entrepreneurship.
Impact of that principle: Started cashmere business in Mongolia, taxi company in Samoa, impacted development of entrepreneurship program at university, eventually wrote a book.
Get to know more about Richie Norton at his site http://richienorton.com and pick up his free 76-day challenge guide at http://richienorton.com/76daychallenge/.
You can buy the Power of Starting Something Stupid and Banker to the Poor here: http://astore.amazon.com/syma3sw3-20
I think of Heber as I listen to this. I’m sad to say that even I, his own wife, thought his idea for our new business was “stupid”. I hate to admit that, but It scared me. I wasn’t scared that he wouldn’t be successful. No, he has proven successful in everything he has ever done. My reasons were vain. There was no prestige in saying, “my husband owns a mattress company”. But, I had complete faith in him and said ‘go get ’em babe!’. And so he did. A humbled (okay, maybe even a little proud) me now says, “yep, I’m married to a completely self-made, self-taught, insanely successful man, who owns a chain of mattress outlets.” 🙂 He is an anomaly. A home-schooled kid in a family of 12 from the sticks in Aztec NM who moved away from home at age 16 and started his own business at age 22. He has proven himself time and time again. He has so many ideas and the majority of them blow my mind. My mind has since been stretched. And like my favorite quote goes, “a mind once stretched by a new idea never regains original dimension”.
What a great story from a unique perspective. How amazing a role perspective plays in how we determine the value of an idea.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the metaphor of a rubber band. I think you’re spot on about elasticity. As we get older, we lose the ability to stretch. Thanks for your ideas Boston.