Feel Good and Do Well by Doing Good

A Proposition that Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibility Can Be the Model for Business Success and Personal Happiness

By: Peter S. Milewski

Narrated by: Benjamin McLean

Length: 4 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

The Secret to Happiness and Success

“Greed is good,” said Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas in the iconic movie Wall Street. Turns out, greed is not good. Beating the system and amassing material wealth may make an epic movie plot, but in real life, greed is the recipe for painful economic failure for business and society - and working men and women.

All too often we are presented stories about extremely wealthy people who are held up as role models for a successful life. The truth is that wealth rarely guarantees happiness. This book looks to successful small and medium-sized companies contributing to communities, and the far-sighted corporate executives we never hear about who, while successful, are also happy. These are the true-life examples of corporate social responsibility that this book relies on to make its point.

Peter Milewski tells you why and how you, personally, can feel good and do well by doing good too. He passionately believes that these are the secrets to personal and professional happiness and success.

Learn about successful companies "doing good," such as TOMS Shoes, Newman's Own, Red Barn, and Ben & Jerry's and those that didn't (Countrywide Mortgage and Wells Fargo, among others).

Exclusive interviews about corporate social responsibility with the CEOs of Eastern Bank (Bob Rivers), Envision Bank (Jim McDonough), Leader Bank (Sushil Tuli), and Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank (David Brennan and Dorothy Savarese).

©2019 Peter S. Milewski (P)2019 Peter S. Milewski

Great book for Business School Students

It’s not very often that one encounters a book that you wish was “required reading” for every business school grad, but this book is one. As a business school grad myself (albeit many years ago), I found this book an inspiration, chock full of real life and encouraging examples demonstrating the author’s message, i.e. feel good and do well by doing good. The book provides a particularly enlightening contrast to many of the current day business practices of so many companies which tend to be motivated by greed, self-indulgence, and a fast buck mentality. At the same time, the message really transcends the business environment and is equally applicable as a personal mantra for how an individual can achieve fulfillment on a personal basis as well.

Would have returned it

This is book is fine if you are at the very beginning of your entrepreneurship. Maybe you haven't even started your journey? This book will probably be fine for you. It might offer some inspiration. However, I was looking for concrete examples of CSR success stories and unfortunately what I found was a lot of reused information lifted from blogs and better-known bestsellers on the subject. Very little research seems to have gone into this book and it seems at times that the author is trying to hit a word count by explaining the mundane. Again, it's fine for some but not for everyone and it's especially not for me. I would have skipped writing this review altogether, but audible recently changed their return policy so I can't exchange this for another title. Their new policy raises the value of each credit and for that reason, I feel that it's worth it to write honest reviews.