By Jennifer Kohlhepp, Managing Editor
Bart Jackson is hard to classify. He’s a storyteller, a humorist and an adventurer. As a publisher and author, he’s also a curator of business guidance and a champion of workers’ souls.
As CEO of Prometheus Publishing LLC, he oversees the creation of BartsBooks Ultimate Business Guides. The guides aim to help businessmen and women overcome their challenges with expertise from veterans who have been through it all before and to nudge business toward what it should be — a force for good.
Mr. Jackson also uses the publishing company to give his wit a venue through BartsBooks Business Quips. These weekly remarks, which currently reach an online audience of 23,000, poke fun at the corporate world, marketing trends and work in general.
“We’ve fired so many workers that we can’t provide product or service, but think of all the money we’re saving — our shareholders love us,” reads one of the quips.
The full breadth of Mr. Jackson’s big-time personality is showcased as the host of his weekly radio show, “The Art of the CEO,” featuring business leaders from around the globe.
His resume also includes founding “Biz4NJ,“ the online New Jersey business journal. He has also written thousands of articles on business, outdoor sports, and archeological subjects, which have appeared in “Cairo Today Magazine,” the local “U.S. 1 Newspaper” and “The New York Times.” His business insights also regularly appear in the media, including “The Huffington Post“ and “SmartBrief.”
“Business means creating and distributing useful energies” and “all people have the desire to make and do,” according to Mr. Jackson.
To be the best possible business leader, one has to constantly set his/her physical, emotional, and mental capacities at full throttle. However, one must not deny the magical, internal essence of one’s true self, according to Mr. Jackson.
One of the main reasons for business burnout is that the inner soul can only be denied for so long. Mr. Jackson is a proponent of keeping the soul well honed with a regular, daily routine of recreation.
Practicing what he preaches, this time of year, Mr. Jackson and his wife, Lorraine, are busy with their hobby of harvesting grapes and making their “Chateau Bonne Chance” wine. And although their lives bustle with business, with Ms. Jackson an executive in the International Federation of Library Associations as well as Mr. Jackson’s editor, their 3-acre property in Cranbury is dotted with signs of relaxation and play. There’s a croquet course in the yard and two wooden swings that Mr. Jackson built overlooking the homestead. The couple’s recreational jaunts away from home include whitewater paddling, hiking, and tandem bicycle riding through local and foreign terrain.
The essence of Mr. Jackson developed out of what he calls “a schizophrenic childhood.” His mother, a writer, would look at the “colors of autumn splayed out before us” and consider Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and the harvest goddess Demeter. His father, an engineer, would look at the same and lecture about the mechanics of sap flow. In turn, Mr. Jackson would become fascinated by uniting people to get things done.
“We like to see teamwork, this is what business is,” he said.
Parlaying all of his life’s experiences into his career, Mr. Jackson brings people and ideas together through his books and radio show. With work that tends to other people’s needs and a mind to focus on his soul’s needs, he has cultivated an unrivaled source of inner peace.
Workers, even CEOs, must strike a balance between work and play because, as Mr. Jackson says, “Pouring your heart and soul into the firm alone never quite brings your life the return you seek.”
He is writing two new books due out this winter, “The Dealmakers” and “Today’s Innovators.” For more information about BartsBooks, visit www.bartsbooks.com.
To listen to or become a guest on “The Art of the CEO,” visit http://blogtalkradio.com/theartoftheceo. New shows air every Tuesday at 2 p.m. but listeners can download previous episodes at the website as well.
