Business is the foundation to what we have accomplished as a species.  Business principles applied to ourselves will help us continue transforming our world.  If we don’t manage ourselves someone else will.  Seeing our lives through the lens of business system thinking can help us change our world and the environment we live in for the better. It provides a foundation to understand ourselves, distribute our resources  manifest our vision and live with as much life as we can.

We face global warming, losing global biodiversity, over population, international conflict and other threats to our ways of life.  We also have issues dealing with ourselves, others and work. At work, we may even get thrown under the proverbial bus at times.  We live in a complex system comprised of myriad interdependencies and interactions and struggle to fix the issues.  There are, however, pockets of improvement around the world.  Some of these positive changes include recycling used cars and waste in the cradle-to-cradle approach as well as companies like companies like Alcoa, Coca-Cola, and Nike taking steps to reduce or eliminate there ecological footprint.  What can we do as individuals to assist in fixing our global, local, or personal issues?  Simply stated we can learn from business and leading psychological theories. Managing the Business of You apples successful business, psychological, strategic and management principles to the individual.

I was telling this to people for years as a friend or manager “You gotta manage the business of you,” when someone would face the hardships of life. Successful international businesses face adversity all the time and become stronger working through it. Why can’t we as individuals? I think many do as they unknowingly utilize business principles. Managing the Business of You is about gaining awareness via observation and seeking continual improvement to better our lives.

I’ve been blogging the ideas and application of the ideas of the manuscript at http://bizofyou.com for the last year.  The hyperlinks in the text above take you to articles on the blog where some are simply excerpts from the manuscript.