RETAILOBSERVER.COM JULY 2019
4
Eliana Barriga
eliana@retailobserver.com
Happy Fourth of July,
JULY 2019, VOLUME 30, ISSUE 7
CELEBRATING OUR 30
TH
YEAR
AS THE RETAIL OBSERVER
PUBLISHER/MANAGING EDITOR
E LIANA BARRIGA
DIRECTOR OF SALES AND MARKETING
MOE LASTFOGEL
ART DIRECTOR
TERRY PRICE
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
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JOE HIGGENS
MISSY HODGES
MARIO JUAREZ
LANCE KIMBALL
JOHHNY LAMP
STEVEN MORRIS
DENNIS SHEILDS
JOHN TSCHOHL
LIBBY WAGNER
DOUG WREDE
DEADLINE FOR SEPT. 2019 ISSUE:
AUGUST 1, 2019
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THE RETAIL
J
uly gives us a chance to contemplate what freedom means. Give me some
elbow room, because I'm going to suggest a startling framework for our
discussion – I propose that we take Star Trek: Next Generation as our guide.
Happiness and freedom, so the world's wisdom teachings tell us, increase
when we apply our bodies, hearts, will, minds, and souls expansively, with a
growing awareness of other people's needs. It strikes me that the Star Trek
characters embody those five "tools of expansion" in ways that are relevant to
our success.
Geordi is the body. He cares for the physical plant and makes the ship go. His
blindness symbolizes the fact that without the higher faculties of feeling, will, and
mind, the body is just a lump, incapable of initiating action.
Deanna Troi is feeling. Calm feeling, not reason and logic, is the faculty that
enables us to tell right from wrong. When Picard needs to know the thoughts
of an alien race, he turns to Troi who applies her heart's intuition. Nor is Troi
ever in doubt about the rightness or wrongness of a course of action that
Picard proposes.
Worf is will power – obvious! Worf can go two ways. When he's swayed by raw
emotion, his decisions are unwise, but if he follows the calm, intuitive voice of
Picard, his power gets channeled positively.
Data is the rational mind – capable of impressive computational feats, he's lost
when it comes to relating to humans through intuitive feeling.
Picard is the integrated human being: a leader of strength, refined feeling,
volition, and wisdom who uncompromisingly lets himself be guided by
impersonal truth.
Consider starting a business. The first stage is the body: finding space,
ordering product, setting up systems. Once the physical plant is running, we pour
our hearts into making the business go, while facing challenges to our will and
intelligence along the way. If the business succeeds, it can serve as an incubator
for others to develop their own happiness tools.
Join me, business Trekkies, as we celebrate the pursuit of freedom and success.
IF YOU'RE
SEEKING
FREEDOM
Elle's View As I See It
