It's amazing what you can achieve when you think around corners.

The best business might not be the one which makes you the most money, but sustains you in a way that brings the most happiness.

Since I left the life of a lawyer, I've talked less and done more. My wife and I have built businesses through careful planning of our money, time, contacts and other resources -- businesses which are fast paced and intense, but which leave us enough time to enjoy the important things in life and to sustain the planet and some of its poorest people whilst we're doing it. Download what THE AGE, Melbourne's major newspaper, said about my retirement in a half page spread in the Saturday supplement. My thoughtful, lateral approach doesn't just solve problems! It makes already good situations even better.

It's thinking around corners which turned silk factory waste into both a means of quadrupling the income of some of India's poorest of rural poor, a means of saving the environment by reducing the amount of plastic bags going to landfill, and a means of reducing carbon emissions by plastic bag manufacturers. We're increasing the wages of these women fourfold, in a project in South India we started in October 2008. Download the business plan.

The Training Division of Vikasana Institute awarded me my Ph.D in October 2008 (although it did take them 14 months to sign the document, but that's the India I'm working so hard to improve!). Whilst it is rare for a small institution in a third world country to assess the worth of a Ph.D thesis, they say that 600 people who now have work and 84 families who are soon to be out of bark huts and into new modern homes can't be wrong. See other past successes from 2008, 2009 and 2010.

My publisher Smokeball has my thesis available to download from its website; Smokeball published my thesis as well as three textbooks of mine in 2010 - link here to see more.

In 2011, I

• consolidated my law tutoring business and published student notes across a range of legal topics;
• relaunched my legal document template site legal-docs.com.au which offers on-line legal advice from currently practising lawyers (I'm no longer one) and litigation support with bulky discovery of documents, legal research and location and co-ordination of experts.
• developed and published my speed research technique;
• researched topics ranging from factoring and finance company setups to town planning permits to small business awards to liquor licences;
• wrote franchise manuals;
• set up self managed superannuation schemes;
• assisted many clients of our textile business, Beautiful Silks, to develop their own business plans;
• together with my fabulous wife, increased the turnover of Beautiful Silks by 15% despite the devastating impact of the Queensland floods, the Christchurch earthquakes (we're originally NZ based) and plummeting consumer confidence in the wake of the European Debt Crisis.
• made my own 30 minute small business training film. (Now everyone can be a film director!!)

As I write this at Auckland airport in December 2011, I've just negotiated the export of traditional Maori handicraft for sale in China, with an exposition at the Beautiful Silks' sponsored Natural Dye Symposium for June 2012. .

No matter what you’re trying to do, it always helps if you can think around corners