Books on Free Agentry and Entrepreneurship. Browse or buy in our affiliate FutureU's Bookstore, where you will find descriptions of dozens of books and tapes that can help you make meaningful choices about your career and life.

Of special interest are two books written by business consultant and career guide Claude Whitmyer, co-founder of meaningfulWork.com:

If you have your own business or wish you did, read Running A One-Person Business (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1994, 2nd edition). To review or buy this book, click here.

If you wish your work had greater meaning, read Mindfulness and Meaningful Work: Explorations in Right Livelihood (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1994). To review or buy this book, click here.

Online Learning for Enterprise Builders. Longtime associate Paul Terry was named Inc. Magazine's Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year in 1995. Now he is helping meaningfulWork.com to create a series of online training courses for entrepreneurs. These courses are based on the methods and materials developed by Mr. Terry and meaningfulWork.com co-founder Claude Whitmyer over many years and presented successfully to thousands of small business owners. Here are some course ideas based on topics already successfully delivered in the face-to-face classroom:

• Building a Professional Service Business
• Finding Money for Your Business
• Developing and Understanding Financial Statements
• Selling by Building Relationships
• "Doing" a Trade Show
• Do You Have What it Takes to Start Your Own Business?
• Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Running a One-Person Business
• Grass Roots Marketing
• Writing Your Own Business Strategic Plan
• Growing Your Own Business
• Managing Your Business As If People Matter

If you're looking for a learning experience that is more effective than reading a book but takes less time than going to an evening class, you may want to enroll in one of the forthcoming online programs for entrepreneurs, based on our unique values-based approach to business.

Receive the study materials by mail or online, with optional online discussion groups. Proceed at your own pace. Enroll for the entire program at once or each of eight courses sequentially. To learn more or put your name on the waiting list, click here.

Good Business Advice. Some of Northern California's most highly respected small business consultants are longtime associates of meaningfulWork.com. They are known around the world, in fact, for their adherence to socially responsible business management practices developed over two decades by members of the Briarpatch community, an international association of business colleagues who are committed to social responsibility, environmental protection, and open-books management. We are pleased to introduce these consultants to you for assistance with all your small business matters. For more information, please send an email.

Our small business consultants are among the best in the field and we have served thousands of clients ranging from manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers with under 100 employees to hundreds of one-person businesses including, but not limited to, Accountants, Acupuncturists, Archivists, Artists, Body Workers, Bookkeepers, Consultants, Dancers, Doctors, Editors, Financial Planners, Floor Finishers, Historians, Lawyers, Martial Arts Instructors, Musicians, Painters, Plumbers, Photographers, Publishers, Stock Brokers, Teachers, and Writers. For a list of representative clients, click here. For a description of Good Business Advice™ click here.

Planning To Stay Together. The Mom and Pop store and the SOHO (small office/home office) are thriving as more couples than ever before are finding ways to work together. Such couple-owned businesses have their share of rewards--and challenges--as meaningfulWork.com co-founders Gail Terry Grimes and Claude Whitmyer well know. To help others meet the challenges and make the most of the rewards, they have adapted the Future Search methodology of large-group facilitation (developed by Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff) as a planning tool for couples and have made it available through meaningfulWork.com.

Entrepreneurial couples report especially dramatic results when they join Ms. Grimes and Mr. Whitmyer for a three-day private retreat that culminates in a comprehensive action plan for their own future. Plans are now underway for a lower-cost, one-day workshop in which couples will learn how to carry out the process on their own without facilitation. To express your interest in either of these versions of Planning to Stay Together, please telephone Gail Terry Grimes at (415) 824-7726. (Couples of all orientations are welcome.)