Reviews: Dragon Spirit: Holistic Entrepreneurship

Back in the sixties, as the spirit of the counter-culture spread across the land, there emerged a breed of business person, the hip capitalist. The hippies, freaks, student radicals, black nationalists and other assorted types that made-up the counter culture of the day learned to have a love/hate relationship with these hip merchants, who sometimes made fortunes hawking everything from t-shirts and waterbeds to concert tickets.

In some ways, the hip capitalist was admired. Practically everyone knew that the counter-culture as it existed at the time was a parasitic community, living off the good graces of the dominant culture, and it was pretty much assumed that a parasitic culture could not long survive. Against all odds, the hip capitalists reaped financial rewards, without depending on the good graces of middle America, proving, in a way, that the counter-culture, with a little work and sweat, could become viable and self-sufficient.

At the same time, however, they were derided in the underground press, and mistrusted by the same people who bought their products and made them successful, partly because much of the counter-culture wanted to replace capitalism with something else and were preaching a mostly Marxist doctrine that claimed "the system" couldn't sustain itself forever.

Another problem was with the hip capitalists themselves. With a few notable exceptions, they were generally a greedy lot, sharing many of the same excesses with many of the rock stars of the era and doing little to support the community that sustained them.

Too bad they didn't have a guide like Dragon Spirit: How to Self-Market Your Dream by Ron Rubin and Stuart Avery Gold to guide them. If they did, our history since the sixties might have been very different and the hip capitalists might have become the saviors of the counter-culture.

In many ways the counter-culture of old is still with us, having morphed into something very different, the weird and offbeat collection of holistic lifestyles and spiritual practices known as New Age. Like the counter culture, this is a very diverse community that accommodates everyone from the middle class suburban housewife to the aging hippie who hasn't yet let go of values learned in the sixties. Unlike the counter-culture, the New Age embraces capitalism, not because it's necessarily right but because it's what we have.

The New Age community is so diverse that it often has the appearance of not being a community at all. Many of the people who could be considered a part of the community want nothing to do with it and don't see how they can be lumped into a group that encompasses everybody from the granola heads to the Unity Christians. But there is a common thread here, and that is the belief in holism, the notion that everything you do in life touches and affects everything else you do.

It's evidently for this market that Rubin and Gold have written Dragon Spirit, which is a primer for taking a holistic approach to entrepreneurship. The secret, they say, is not to be an entrepreneur but to be a "Zentrepreneur," to take the holistic approach to life as laid-out in Buddhism and Taoism and to apply that to business. The result will be something very akin to the hip capitalist of old, but these new Zentrepreneurs will be healthy and whole, and will return more to the community than they take from it.

Many "how to be successful" books are written by people who's only success has been in telling people how to be successful. That's not the case here, as Rubin and Gold are the founders of the highly profitable tea company The Republic of Tea. In addition, they've produced two other books, Success At Life and Tea Chings: The Tea and Herb Companion.

Dragon Spirit, told with good humor and an overabundance of positiveness, is not a step-by-step guide that explains the intricate ins-and-outs of establishing and operating a business. Instead, it deals with the person who seeks to capture a dream, to grab the brass ring, by going into business. It addresses the attitudes and approaches necessary for becoming a success, not the mechanics of accounting, finding suppliers and the likes.

According to the authors, it's not enough to be merely a successful businessperson, for the world is filled with people who've found financial success but who are still miserable. Instead, they stress the need for taking the holistic approach. "While entrepreneurs get hold of an idea," they say, "Zentrepreneurs allow an idea to get hold of them."

Perhaps the most important aspect of their message occurs near the end of the book when they write about the importance of giving back to the community. They explain that openly supporting good causes is not only the right thing to do, it creates goodwill that can't be bought at any price.

Anybody who believes in taking a holistic approach to life and who may be considering going into business would benefit from Dragon Spirit: How to Self-Market Your Dream. The book, published by Newmarket Press, is available at bookstores or through Amazon.com.

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