Dave Douglas is a new breed of entrepreneurs who wants to make a profit while making a difference. His business, Social Planet, is a global philanthropic network located in San Francisco, CA. They help companies that make a difference attract new customers. Social Planet feels that customers will want to support these businesses because of their social responsibility and fair trade policies.

I was impressed with Dave before I knew of Social Planet and now I am even more impressed. Dave has discovered the kind of RICH life that this book is all about. I met Dave a few years ago after a speech I gave in San Francisco. We connected for a few minutes after my speech and then shared a ride to the airport. We have stayed in touch via email, Facebook, Twitter, and phone calls.  In one of our many phone conversations, we have discussed Social Planet as well the project I am working on to find the REAL Richest People in America. Dave also kindly offered to review my book Living Rich in the early stages. A few weeks after he read it, I received an email from Dave that defined his RICH experience:

“I want to share something with you that made me realize how RICH my father was even though he was a pipe fitter working a blue-collar job in an oil refinery for 35 years. I’m not sharing this in hopes that you will put it in your book (you’re in Dave!), but more as an explanation of my personal “epiphany” of what it means to be RICH.

When I was 35 years old, my father passed away at the age of 71 on February 19th, 1995 after years of being ill. He lived with my mother in Tulsa, Oklahoma where my other three siblings lived.

With their blessing and excitement, I left home for a life of adventure when I was 18 and ended up living in California. I saw my family quite a bit, but in truth it was always a vacation - either they were visiting me in California or I was home for the holidays or some other event. It was great seeing everyone, but in truth I didn’t really know what went on in their day-to-day lives. I didn’t even know the friends that they had except for visiting their church when I would be back in Tulsa.

I kept a viewpoint of my father that I had had the last time I lived with him and saw his life up close and personal. I always respected him and was never ashamed of him. In fact, I wished I could be more like him. People always praised my father, but being a kid in high school I only could see us being “middle class” and not having the “big house” or “extravagant vacations”…my fondest memories now or my childhood are the very vacations that I thought were “second class” as a kid. We would spend TWO WEEKS camping at the lake fishing, swimming, boat rides, burgers, and campfires; God, how I miss that now.

I couldn’t believe how many people were there to pay their respects! The chapel in the funeral home and couldn’t hold everyone. People flowed out into the foyer and into the garden.

I was shocked to hear people that I didn’t know, people of serious wealth and influence in Tulsa, tell me how much they were going to miss “Pete”…(that was his nickname.) His legal name was Elza LeRoy Douglas. I can’t remember anyone calling him Elza except family members at our family reunions; and that was usually when they were giving him a hard time about something or other.

They would tell me about ways that he helped them at one time or another, they would tell me fishing stories, they would express how he touched their lives or supported them when they were down. I learned that my father was the president of the Tulsa Rockhound society. I learned how much he loved his small church and how devoted he was to its success. I found out that he still had friends from high school, even after 50 years. I met people that he worked with from 15 years earlier. There were so many people from so many walks of life and from so many levels of society that I literally had to take a moment and gather my emotions.

I realized that day that my father was one of the RICHEST people I have ever known and that he always taught me how to live my life…even in his death. I thought it would give you maybe a little inspiration to your writing to here that I’ve been trying to live RICH for about 13 years now and it took at least 5 years to get to the point of living RICH the way I wanted to. I basically retired from working for a living at 40 in 2000. For most of my working life, I pursued monetary riches. I was making nearly $500,000 per year, but it wasn’t until I saw what my father had accomplished through his life that I realized I was on the wrong track.

Dave is on track now. I know you’ll hear more about Dave and the great work he and a growing breed of social entrepreneurs are doing to change the world and make a living in the process.