“We all dream of noble purposes, of making a significant
impact in the limited time we have. To do so, as the Sages
said two millennia ago: "Your only obligation in any
lifetime is to be true to yourself." Mark Albion
Mark Albion
"True
to Yourself"
As
he pursued a career these last 30 years, the
essential question for him has been: "How can I be a
Marxist and still own a Jacuzzi?"
With his dream has been that he and the next
generation of business leaders – the generation our
planet has been waiting for – would find a path to
lifetime happiness ("Making a Life, Making a
LivingŪ," Warner Books, 2000), find our right
livelihood ("Finding Work That Matters," Sounds
True, 2002), and find a way to have a significant
impact on making the world a better place for all
("True to Yourself: Leading a Values-Based
Business," Berrett-Koehler, 2006).
He
never really lost the ideals of the '60s. He just
wanted material comforts, too. While he detested
Western capitalism – witnessed by his 15-month
backpack around the world after college – he
returned to doctoral work at the West Point of
Capitalism, and even became a marketing professor
there.
He
received his 15-minutes of fame in the mid-80s,
started his own businesses, and even got a hug from
then President Ronald Reagan, who taught him that
when you make people feel good about themselves,
they will do almost anything for you. Even so, as a
fast-track "conflicted achiever" unhappy in his
work, he found out, as the great philosopher Lily
Tomlin once said, "The problem with the rat race is
that even if you win, you are still a rat."
