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Posts Tagged ‘answer’

In the next 20 years, you may get bored seeing more and more books analyzing the effects of the current economic crisis and what brought it on.

But, at the very beginning of this financial crisis, I’ve found the first book to advocate a new financial platform and address the biggest problem: adding more jobs and restoring worldwide financial stability.

The book didn’t just suddenly appear as an analysis of the world’s economic crisis. It has been stored in the brain vault of Leonard S. Johnson for more than 5 years. He has been tossing around ideas, coming up with new approaches and creating new kinds of thought for that entire time. And this was long before this financial crisis put the world on its collective knees. It was now time to come to the aid of a crumbling financial world.

That’s when Johnson decided it was time to give the world a needed answer to deal with these effects of the economic crisis with his innovative book “The Bank for International Ideas.” Johnson has based his book entirely on taking intellectual capital to intellectual property. He shows how to use the book’s premise to create a new financial order based on worldwide innovative ideas that become businesses, scientific projects or organizations.

“The Bank for International Ideas” isn’t a book of how to merely get banks to support and fund new ideas. The fact is banks are not doing that to the degree we have known in the past. BII is a complete financial platform which allows anyone in the world to submit ideas to the bank.

The process starts with the review committee. The committee, a noteworthy group of peers, decides if the idea is worthy and valid. If so, the bank actually issues credits which are then redeemed in currency in three parts: 33%, 33% and 34% totally 100%.

This means BII allows the innovator to make money on the idea while searching for investors, investment money, funding and mentor involvement. There’s nothing to pay back unlike a usual bank transaction. The individual is actually paid for the idea. That’s new in the world of finance. And good news for the idea-maker.

Johnson believes the world is no longer going to be run by the current skilled jobs. He believes true financial stability will be led by innovators who create areas of new job categories, not simply the skilled ones that we have known.

Whoa! I certainly didn’t expect this book to be anything like it is. I try to keep an open mind but when the son of one of the richest men on the planet writes a book about life, my mind rushes to ask “What does he know about the life that most of us experience?” My answer: “Nothing.” I am excitedly happy to announce that I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

By the time I got through the first chapter, I couldn’t put it down and every chapter was so filled with “quotable quotes” that the book began looking like the rainbow as I put sticky markers in to be sure I didn’t lose the thought. Usually in the course of reviewing a book, I place a half dozen stickers to show me where the “juicy parts” are. With Life is What You Make It I used something between 30 and 40. I would have to write a book about the book if I spoke to all those points.

Peter Buffet writes with an openness and honesty that is bordering on crazy innocence, laying bare his mistakes and errors in judgment to make a point so profound that you sit in stunned silence while you reflect on it. If there is anything spoiled about this “rich kid” it doesn’t show in his writing or his thinking.

The book is a down to earth – where the rubber meets the road – kind of book. At the same time it is deeply insightful. He challenges mediocrity and “luck,” and talks about what happens to people who have been “spoiled by advantages they have been born to but have not earned.” He has such passion for music that I, not being familiar with his work, went to his website and listened to his music as I read the last half of the book. It is a wonderful mix of hearing the passion and reading the words that combine in perfect synchronicity.

It is true that he has friends in high and wealthy places and people who reviewed his pre-published book have recognizable names like Clinton, Bono, Gates, Steinem and Turner. Yes. The book is for them. But the book is just as powerful for me and you, for the blue collar workers as well as middle management. It can speak to the janitor who cleans the office of top management who also should read it. It can speak to the kid in high school who is trying to figure out where his passion is and what he should be “when he grows up” as clearly as it speaks to those of us who are grandparents. It is for each of us who is trying to walk a path of authenticity, passion and generosity.