"The Knife & the Wasp" is a business and financial self-help book about globalization. It examines what is truly meant by globalization, how cultures react to globalization, and how Americans need to change their thinking about competition in a global economy.
Section 1: Laying a Foundation
CHAPTER 1: A Glance at the Map
CHAPTER 2: Review of Economic Terms
CHAPTER 3: Defining Globalization
CHAPTER 4: What is Culture?
CHAPTER 5: Mapping Culture
CHAPTER 6: Modes of Globalization
CHAPTER 7: Characteristics of Globalization
CHAPTER 8: Measuring Globalization
CHAPTER 9: What Globalization is Not
CHAPTER 10: A Brief History of Globalization
CHAPTER 11: The Human Face of Globalization
Section 2: Models
CHAPTER 12: Kinds of Workers
CHAPTER 13: Examination of the Wage Worker
CHAPTER 14: Examination of the Salesperson
CHAPTER 15: Examination of the Professional
CHAPTER 16: Ways to Conceive of Business Activity
CHAPTER 17: Inflection Points
Section 3: The Fourth Quadrant
CHAPTER 18: The Fourth Quadrant
CHAPTER 19: The Kn.I.F.E.’s Edge
Section 4: The How/What of Leadership
CHAPTER 20: Not a Zero-Sum Game
CHAPTER 21: The Most American Americans
CHAPTER 22: Leadership Matters
CHAPTER 23: The Moveable Feast
Section 5: Individual First-Steps
CHAPTER 24: Preparing to Compete with the Stockdale Mind-Set
CHAPTER 25: Zen in the Business World
CHAPTER 26: Seeking Passion
CHAPTER 27: Going for the Gold
CHAPTER 28: Portable Skill Sets
CHAPTER 29: Life-Long Learning
Section 6: The Future
CHAPTER 30: The Future
Michael M. Forbes was born in San Francisco in 1973. He attended the University of California at Berkeley and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English. Michael worked as a pot washer, petition circulator, fund raiser, telemarketer, prep cook, security guard, retail salesperson, law clerk, lift operator, cab driver, bartender, secretary, administrative assistant, tennis teacher, ventilation installer, and painter while traveling and writing fiction. He has also worked as a freelance writer, reporter, loan officer, car salesman, web master, clothing label proprietor, advertising agent, real estate agent, and property manager. Michael attended Point Loma Nazarene University and earned a Master of Business Administration degree. He started his first business in 2001 and is currently the managing partner of Forbes Realty Union, LLC.
This is a wonderful time to be alive.
Be not afraid.
By virtue of his collective intellect and the discovery of God’s will, Mankind has climbed out of the caves and moved from the huts of his ancestors into skyscrapers of glass and steel. Progress is on the march and our ability to live together in harmony contributes to and is directly related with the rise in our communal standard of living.
It is within our collective grasp to eradicate diseases that have afflicted our race since we began to band together in our first halting steps toward civilization. We already possess the means to combat poverty and starvation. Our knowledge has given us the keys to generate safe and renewable energy. We can travel about the globe with an ease that would have astonished our forebears.
The name for the transference of knowledge between peoples and its resultant integration of cultures is globalization. The increasing connectedness of human beings means that what happens in one place affects those in many places, and, to some degree, all people everywhere.
We can, as observers of globalization, choose to focus on the convergence of patterns of production and consumption and perceived homogenization of culture. It is when we do so that globalization seems most objectionable. In this light we may fret about the loss of an individual’s slice of a finite pie of wealth, fixate upon a given group’s drop in standard-of-living, believe in a decreased ability to engage in freedoms, claim a dilution of voting power, worry about descent into the perceived barbarisms of another culture, fear the disintegration of religious traditions, and feel an increase in general anxiety about the future.
Be not afraid.
Instead, accept that change is inevitable. Seek to adapt to the changes of the future. Remember the universal capacity to love. Acknowledge that the human spirit can withstand trials and hardships. Know that we have the ability to shape our future. Take faith that tomorrow will be a better day.
It is the intention of this work to help the reader understand in an easily grasped fashion how globalization spreads, what that spread means for the future of American workers, and how those who want to participate in the benefits of globalization should respond. The world-view and diagrams contained within will aid individuals in their transition to a future that promises to bring all Mankind to a destination of increased prosperity and contentment.
This book was conceived in the proposition that fear of globalization is largely unfounded. It puts forth that this fear is dangerous to the progress in which we are engaged as individuals and as a species. It believes that the people of United States, and any nation, can find happiness, increased prosperity, and a meaningful existence within economies rooted in enlightened self-interest and the Judeo-Christian ethic. This book advocates the pursuit of prosperity as desirable, not flawed. It views money as a form of freedom, and thus, good; but rejects the rampant materialism that afflicts so many in our society today. Lastly, this book is meant to spread the perception that life in this world is not a zero-sum struggle unless we make it one, and should instead be viewed as a glorious opportunity in which each person may better his or her own life and the lives of others by each of us using our own unique set of God-given skills.