Whoever told us that getting what we want, no matter what the cost, rewards us with profits?

What presumptions did we assume during the Industrial Revolution?

Did someone say the earth has a voracious appetite for our refuse without choking?

Paul Hawkens contradicts our presumptions, assumptions, and earth-born arrogance by recognizing an eternal premise: the earth lives, and we have no right, in the name of profits, to destroy the land.

Hawkens, (read The Ecology of Commerce) taught Ray Anderson that sustaining the earth is consistent with making profits. You can treat your customer with high regard, make decorative carpets with sustainable characteristics, offer free recycling of what you make, while making profits.

Ray Anderson is the founder of Interface, the company that makes those adorable Flor carpet tiles (as well as lots of less whizzy but equally useful flooring and fabric). He was a serious carpet guy, focused on building his company and making great products. Then he read Paul Hawken’s book The Ecology of Commerce. Something clicked: with his company’s global reach and manufacturing footprint, he was in a position to do something very real, very important, in building a sustainable world.

Here’s what Ray Anderson told a Ted conference (If you want to learn innovative ideas from critical thinkers, check out “Ted, Ideas worth spreading“.

My Grandmother (“Nannie”) would say, “Raymond, pick up your feet.” At the table, she would remind me to “sit up straight,” and when eating she’d say, “chew your food quietly”. She expressed herself lovingly because the way I behave matters. Probably sounds quaint but I must say, she cared.

Folks working the Wall Street trading floors care too. They’re not different. Even their motivation equates with most investors. They seek profits and wealth. They abhor losses. Their proclivity for gain makes them “push their luck”. No different from any 401(k), pension plan, mutual fund, or individual stock investor.

Excessive desire for gain blows bubbles into markets because no one wants to miss the game. Everyone wants ” in”. If you’re not in the game, you’re not a player, and you’ll feel ashamed. Nobody wants to “fold”. Investing differs from poker, but the methods and outcomes seem dissimilar as the “pot” grows because avarice instigates excessive risk-taking.

At a point of time, unknown to most players, realism cascades into the game. Emotional and economic tremors awaken “the players”  and the game ends. Players drag themselves (or get dragged) away from the table, or languish waiting for the next game to start, and the evolution toward the next game begins on the heals of the one just ended. 

What keeps this paradigm running? Human nature does. Many investors claim an understanding of risk-taking, but most want only consistent gains. These players come to the table late and leave too late.  

Investing is not a game, yet has specific rules. Maybe investors should follow the rules while adhering to ethics and managing emotion. Investing is about modernizing, making life better, healing, serving, and improving the world.

Investment dollars empower entrepreneurs and corporations to test and implement proven theories and methods to achieve a common good. With keen wit and a sharpened ethical edge, investors,  entrepreneurs, technology innovators, and business managers could apply new energy to their work and profit incentive.

Respecting resources, people, and the earth may validate adherence to wisdom and purpose when investing. Many corporations and investors have abandoned legitimate purposes and intentions for their product and service by losing a grip on the what is “good and right”.

Noah Robinson writes, ” We live in a world that’s resource-constrained but ingenuity-rich.” Taking care of the earth, the world around us, having fun, and sleeping well does not contradict the power of new ideas and the ethic that governs those concepts.

Noah Robinson elaborates in his article, “What is Ethonomics?”

My Grandmother knew this in her quiet, reserved, and short-of-stature demeanor. She collected her dividends, invested in quality companies, and held her stocks for the long-term. She saved. She was an investor.