40 Strategy Blog

One of the highest selling books of all time started out with just 15 copies printed at Office Depot. Paul Young wrote “The Shack” expecting to just give copies to his children — but the book quickly grew past even his wildest expectations. His journey to best-selling author is one that anybody can learn from, whether you’re a high-performing CEO stuck in “production” mode, or simply anybody who wants to leave an impact on the world.    Paul Young is the author of “The Shack,” “Cross Roads,” “Eve,” and other books. He was born a Canadian and raised among a Stone Age tribe with his missionary parents in the highlands of what was Netherlands New Guinea (now West Papua). He suffered great loss as a child and young adult, and now enjoys the “wastefulness of grace” with his growing family in the Pacific Northwest.    Tune into the full conversation for more on the backstory behind one of the most successful fiction books of all time, Paul’s definition of success (and why so many leaders

How does your work integrate with your overall purpose and your passion projects? Is it possible to have both — and to use them both to make a difference in the world? Even after retirement from a successful career, our guest this week has been able to answer a resounding “yes” to those questions.    Bert Waugh Jr. and his wife, Susy, began taking street youth into their home in the 1970s. In 1991, Waugh founded Transitional Youth, a nonprofit organization that provides housing, outreach, and support to young people who otherwise would be living on the streets.    Tune into the full conversation — as part of our holiday “giving back” episodes — for more on how Bert got started with helping kids transition from living on the streets, what makes his organization different from others, why his focus is on youth mostly in the 18-24 age category, what others can do to help youth in need, and more.   Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Learn:    How Bert got his start with helping yout

There’s a big difference between eliminating short-term suffering — vs fixing the underlying issues that cause those problems in the long term. That’s an important lesson our guest this week learned in his quest to help an impoverished community near his home. Now, he’s using those lessons as he leads one of the largest nonprofits in Oregon, which is gaining national recognition.    This episode is part of our holiday “giving back” episodes. This week, we’re talking with Brad Ketch. A global advocate and former tech CEO, Brad steers both grassroots and executive efforts on poverty, justice, and reconciliation initiatives, catalyzing community rebirth internationally, and now within Oregon’s poorest community, through a profound fusion of “bottom-up” and “top-down” methodologies for transformative change. He’s also the author of “The Flourishing Community.”   Tune into the full episode for more on why poverty is so pervasive in some areas, what regular people can do to help alleviat

Running water. Sanitation systems. Electricity. A car to drive to the store. Enough food to feed your family. These are all things that we’ve likely taken for granted at one time or another — and they’re things that so many in the world live without every day. As part of our Holiday Giving Back Episode series, we talk with the VP of a charitable organization whose mission is to eliminate that level of extreme poverty worldwide.    Mark Lutz is the Senior Vice President of Global Philanthropy at Opportunity International. He joined the organization in 1986 and grew private annual revenue from $1 million to more than $40 million. Mark grew up in South Africa with his missionary parents. Living for 20 years under apartheid shaped him to become an advocate for justice. He’s also the author of “UnPoverty: Rich Lessons from the Working Poor.”   Tune into the full conversation for more on Opportunity International’s unique method of making a difference in impoverished people’s lives, pers