Non­fic­tion

Do the KIND Thing: Think Bound­less­ly, Work Pur­pose­ful­ly, Live Passionately

Daniel Lubet­zky
  • Review
By – March 19, 2015

It is axiomat­ic that in busi­ness you can do well by doing good. In his book Do the KIND Thing, Daniel Lubet­zky, an entre­pre­neur known for his KIND snack bars among oth­er accom­plish­ments, has mod­i­fied this adage by propos­ing what he calls the AND phi­los­o­phy,” which sug­gests that busi­ness­es need not make a choice between being suc­cess­ful or social­ly respon­si­ble, but that they can actu­al­ly be prof­itable and social­ly impactful.”

Do the KIND Thing is both a man­u­al for the social­ly con­scious entre­pre­neur and a mem­oir of a first-gen­er­a­tion Amer­i­can who lives the Amer­i­can dream. In his book, Lubet­zky shares his per­son­al expe­ri­ences and his fam­i­ly back­ground. They are the foun­da­tion upon which he built not only a suc­cess­ful busi­ness but also an orga­ni­za­tion designed to improve the lives of peo­ple every­where, and par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Mid­dle East.

Daniel Lubet­zky was born in 1968 in Mex­i­co City. His father was a Holo­caust sur­vivor from Lithua­nia and his moth­er was the Mex­i­can-born daugh­ter of Pol­ish immi­grants. The fam­i­ly even­tu­al­ly moved to the Unit­ed States, where Daniel was edu­cat­ed at Trin­i­ty Uni­ver­si­ty and Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty Law School. This back­ground, par­tic­u­lar­ly his father’s expe­ri­ences, had a pro­found effect upon him and made him want to fur­ther the cause of peace and under­stand­ing among nations. In his book, Lubet­zky recalls some of the expe­ri­ences he had while liv­ing in Israel and dis­cuss­es the cre­ation of his Peace Works Foun­da­tion and One Voice Move­ment. It still is his dream to bridge the gap between Israel and her neigh­bors by means of devel­op­ing mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial joint ventures.

The foun­da­tion upon which Lubet­zky builds his entre­pre­neur­ial activ­i­ties con­sists of what he describes as his Ten Tenets. The first of these is to advance both social and busi­ness objec­tives in uni­son.” The remain­ing nine, each of which he thor­ough­ly expounds in the book, are pur­pose, truth and dis­ci­pline, keep­ing it sim­ple, orig­i­nal­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and authen­tic­i­ty, empa­thy, and trust and ownership.

Through­out the book, Lubet­zky intro­duces the read­er to some of the piv­otal men and women who have influ­enced him and con­tributed to his suc­cess­es. His style is large­ly con­ver­sa­tion­al and he is hon­est in dis­cussing not only his suc­cess­es but also a num­ber of fail­ures he expe­ri­enced along the way.

Some may want to read Do The KIND Thing as a guide to estab­lish­ing and oper­at­ing a social­ly con­scious busi­ness, while oth­ers may read it sim­ply for an insight into the life of a remark­able man. Either way, it will sure­ly inspire you to do more of the kind thing.

Relat­ed Content:

Peter L. Roth­holz head­ed his own Man­hat­tan-based pub­lic rela­tions agency and taught at the Busi­ness and Lib­er­al Arts (BALA) pro­gram at Queens Col­lege. He lives in East Hamp­ton, NY and San­ta Mon­i­ca, CA and is a fre­quent con­trib­u­tor to Jew­ish publications.

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