When my wife first brought me home to meet her parents over 40 years ago, there was a bit of quiet tension in the room. They were academics and healthcare professionals. Thoughtful. Measured. Purpose driven in a very traditional sense. And then there was me… the business guy. To them, perhaps, a bit of a dirty capitalist.
I remember feeling the need to explain myself, not defensively, but philosophically. Even then, I held a belief that I still carry today: commerce, when directed with intention, is one of the most powerful forces for good in the world. It creates jobs, solves problems, fuels innovation, and when done right, elevates people and communities. That belief wasn’t fully formed back then, but it was there. Over the last four decades, I’ve sculpted and sharpened it into what I now think of as a kind of Karmic Accelerator.
At its foundation is a simple but demanding principle: Karmic Boomerangs.
Give without expectation of return. Show up in every interaction asking, “How can I add value here?” not “What can I extract?” This isn’t a tactic. It’s not networking strategy dressed up in softer language. It’s a way of being. And you can’t fake it. People feel the difference between generosity and agenda.
What I’ve found, over time, is that when you consistently give your time, your insight, your energy without keeping score, something interesting happens. The boomerangs come back. Not always directly. Not always immediately. But they come back. Opportunities emerge. Relationships deepen. Doors open that you didn’t even know existed. It becomes an accelerator, not because you’re chasing outcomes, but because outcomes start finding you.
Layered on top of that is a second choice: impact over income. Purpose over profits.
That doesn’t mean income doesn’t matter. It does. Businesses need to be financially healthy to survive and grow. But when income becomes the objective, rather than the byproduct, something shifts. Decisions get narrower. Time horizons shrink. You start optimizing instead of building.
Instead, focus on doing something meaningful. Solve a real problem. Meet an acute need. Create something that matters to someone. Do that well, do it consistently, and income tends to follow. Not always linearly, not always immediately, but sustainably. In my experience, purpose is a far better north star than profit.
The third principle is one that often gets overlooked in today’s growth at all costs narrative: significance over scale.
We celebrate size. Revenue milestones. Distribution breadth. Valuations. And those can all be important. But they’re not the whole story. A business can be large and still be insignificant. It can generate millions and still not matter.
Significance asks a different question: does what you’re building truly matter to your customers, to your team, to the community you touch? Are you creating something that people care about, rely on, believe in?
Scale is a metric. Significance is a legacy.
And then there’s the choice between collaboration and competition.
A hat tip here to Kyle Koehler, who helped crystallize for me the importance of choosing collaboration over competition, significance over scale, and purpose over profits. That articulation gave language to something I had long felt but not yet fully expressed.
Most markets train us to think in terms of winners and losers. To protect, to posture, to outmaneuver. That mindset is rooted in scarcity. There’s only so much to go around, so I need to get mine.
But what if that’s not true?
What if, instead, we approached our industries with an abundance mindset? What if we focused on building the category, elevating standards, educating consumers, and creating more space for everyone to succeed?
The concept of Libertarian Paternalism, coined by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, speaks to the idea that you can guide choices without restricting them. In business, that might look like creating better products, telling better stories, and allowing consumers to choose, rather than tearing down others in the process. You can offer a nudge. You don’t need to throw elbows.
When you collaborate, you expand the pie. When you compete from scarcity, you fight over slices.
Now, I recognize that all of this can sound a little idealistic. Maybe even a bit woo woo. But after 40 years of building, advising, and studying business, I can tell you this: this works.
Not just in theory. In practice.
It works because it aligns how you build with who you are. It creates businesses that are not only resilient, but meaningful. It fosters relationships that endure. And it builds a kind of momentum that is hard to replicate through tactics alone.
The Karmic Accelerator isn’t about being soft. It’s about being intentional. It’s about playing a longer game.
And in both life and business, I’ve found that the longer game is the one worth playing.
