Barters and Small Business: Chartered Planes, Horse Boarding and Dog Breeding Businesses

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ILLUSTRATION: DARREN THOMPSON
Do what you love, make it your business, have your cake, and eat it too.

The Barters and Bootstraps column shares success stories in barters and small business ventures.

Barters and Small Business Success Stories

Shortly before she died, Margaret Mead gave me seven words of  advice. Now, years later, I follow them religiously. I had attended a lecture of hers and volunteered to drive her to the airport, knowing I could pick her brain. After having nodded off during a fairly one-sided conversation in which I enthusiastically articulated my career plans, she was suddenly awakened by a speed bump.

Apparently not happy to be awake, she grunted, “Don’t be a clone. Get a life.” She had a terrific economy with words.

Man, it is not easy getting a life when you are in the “40/40/40” crowd, along with the job, kids, mortgage, car payments, social commitments and taxes. No, 40/40/40 does not represent age/IQ/waist size, it indicates age/income/net worth. It wasn’t long ago when the guiding principles were “sex, drugs, and rock and roll;” now, looming on the horizon are “hair loss, taxes and death:’

  • Published on Feb 1, 1996
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