Aid for Africa, The United Way, Save the Whales, PBS, supporting your local jazz station… take your pick. When it comes to making a difference through your charity there is a far better act of philanthropy you can perform—and it doesn’t even require your checkbook.

I attended the star-studded Andre Agassi Grand Slam for Children this weekend where $8 million dollars was raised within a few hours. This got me thinking about philanthropy. Here were some of the items sold to raise money:

• A private dinner prepared at your house by Emeril Lagasse went for $100,000 (twice!);
• A 45-min coaching session by David Beckham, Mia Hamm and Tony Hawk went for $25,000 each;
• A week vacation on a private island went for $125,000; and
• Art pieces sold for over $100,000 each.

The paddle was never raised at our table. It soon became obvious that this level of philanthropy exceeded the allotted commas of my charitable checkbook. And I’ll be candid, I felt a tad inadequate.

A friend of mine later shared with me lessons from The Eight Levels of Charity, written by Maimonides, a 12th-century Jewish philosopher. I’ve summarized them for you here:   read more »

Ever wonder what drives people to be mean, vicious, violent and cruel? Is it a lack of humanity, “bad genes” or the “the devil” at work?

There is a simpler answer: FEAR.

I saw the documentary Tyson this weekend. Mike Tyson was once the most feared human being on the planet. What was behind his ferociousness? His own inexorable fear.

Tyson grew up on the meanest streets of Brooklyn, where he was robbed, bullied and humiliated by older boys. At the time, he was too scared to fight back, and as he later candidly admitted, “I’m afraid of being that way again.”

When a thug gratuitously killed one of his pet pigeons, Tyson went wild and beat the kid up. Once he learned to fight, he was never going to let himself be “bullied” again, “because if anyone tried to humiliate me again, I would kill them.”

The director of the film explained in an interview, “Fear was read more »

This is a continuation (listen to segment #1 here) to the additional audio experts we are releasing from our Mark Sanborn audio interview, originally recorded for our October issue of SUCCESS.

SEGMENT #2 – In this segment Mark discusses why you need to have passion and process in order to be successful.
[audio:Sanborn-Passion_Potential.mp3]

SEGMENT #3 –In this segment Mark explains why you need to think beyond your current experiences and influences if you want to achieve greatness.
[audio:Sanborn-Think_Bigger.mp3]

Thoughts, comments, raves or reviews of what you heard? Tell me in the comment section below.

I just returned from several glorious weeks of travel throughout Europe. Like all experiences, I want to observe and assess what I might learn, share and use to enhance my own life and further my insight. Below are a few lessons I gleaned from our jovial kin across the pond.

1. Service is a profession. In Europe, waiters and waitresses, hotel service clerks, concierges, cooks, taxicab drivers, etc., are performed by mature men and women who see their jobs as professions—professions they have enjoyed and sustained for decades and look forward to continuing for decades to come.

In America, most of these positions are perceived as demeaning and possessing little value. They’re usually held by high-school or college students or low-wage immigrants. I think the difference stems from a social attitude. Europeans consider a service position more respectable than Americans. Thus, they pursue it as a career and find satisfaction in their work.

Furthermore, the organizations they work for also respect their positions and compensate their employees accordingly. As a result, this diminishes the high volume of turnover, significantly reduces costs (hiring, training, administration), and allows European organizations to maintain a consistency of service, operational efficiency and financial stability.

Lesson: Treat your service positions as professional opportunities forprospective employees. Create career opportunities with long-term benefits and satisfactory compensation. After all, these employees will be the front line of your business. Cultivating dedicated, loyal and skilled professionals in these positions could give you an incredibly unique advantage—that is, in the American market!

2. Work to live. There is a much different attitude, outlook and expectation about work in Europe than I believe we have here in America. Many of us tend to read more »

As you know we featured Serena Williams on the cover of the October issue (now on newsstands).

We selected Serena for our cover because we have a great deal of respect for her success, not only on the court (she has won more Grand Slam titles than any other active female player and more career prize money than any other female athlete in history), but also in her entrepreneurial endeavors. However, her recent behavior on the court is disappointing as it does not represent the champion that we know her to be, nor does it meet the standards of behavior we at SUCCESS support.

We do appreciate that she has since apologized for her behavior:

“I need to make it clear to all young people that I handled myself inappropriately and it’s not the way to act — win or lose, good call or bad call in any sport, in any manner.

“I like to lead by example. We all learn from experiences both good and bad. I will learn and grow from this and be a better person as a result.”