Friday, Feb 21 2014 8:30AM to 11:00AM

Monthly BIG Ideas Exchange

Friday, February 21, 2014 (rescheduled from Feb 14)

Location: Goodmortgage.com, 3325 South Tryon Street, 28217

http://www.goodmortgage.com/directions/

8:30 am to 9:00 am    Continental breakfast and networking
9:00 am to 11:00 am  Book Discussion

Free to Members and Guests of BIG: RSVP to terry@bigcouncil.com or register below.

Book: "Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks" by August Turak

August Turak is a successful entrepreneur, corporate executive, and award-winning author who attributes much of his success to living and working alongside the Trappist monks of Mepkin Abbey for seventeen years. As a frequent monastic guest, he learned firsthand from the monks as they grew an incredibly successful portfolio of businesses.

Service and selflessness are at the heart of the 1,500-year-old monastic tradition's remarkable business success. It is an ancient though immensely relevant economic model that preserves what is positive and productive about capitalism while transcending its ethical limitations and internal contradictions. Combining vivid case studies from his thirty-year business career with intimate portraits of the monks at work, Turak shows how Trappist principles can be successfully applied to a variety of secular business settings and to our personal lives as well. He demonstrates that monks and people like Warren Buffett are wildly successful not despite their high principles but because of them. Turak also introduces other "transformational organizations" that share the crucial monastic business strategies so critical for success.

Don Minges will facilitate this engaging discussion.

August Turak's column in Forbes Magazine:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/augustturak/2013/06/27/business-secrets-of-the-trappists/

Video of August Turak speaking about his book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaY4RH34xEg .

For an excerpt of this book: http://www.augustturak.com

During this roundtable we'll:
· share our own experiences in this area in our businesses
· share best practices from our own personal experience or from industry thought leaders
· share ideas on how to improve the area within our businesses to fuel growth

Note: We are looking for people to facilitate book discussions, so please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is a book that you’re passionate about and would like to share with the group. We are currently looking to fill the 2014 calendar. The meetings take place the second Friday of every month, so pick a month that suits you for 2014. Thanks!