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BusinessWeek: "Where Entrepreneurship Connects to the Classics. . . . From Beethoven to Bob Dylan. . ."every artist is an entrepreneur," says Dr. Elliot McGucken, a visiting professor at Pepperdine Univeristy." 

The New York Times: McGucken's course (The Hero's Odyssey in Artistic Entrepreneurship and Technology) . . . rests on the principle that those who create art should have the skills to own it, profit from it and protect it. "It's about how to make your passion your profession, your avocation your vocation, and to make this long-term sustainable."  

Jack Bogle: Founder and Former CEO of Vanguard: (Dr. E's) course The Hero's Odyssey in Artistic Entrepreneurship and Technology is an inspiring tribute to the relevance of classical ideals in our modern lives. 

William Ferriss, former Chair of the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA): Many thanks for the impressive work that you are doing. I look forward to keeping in touch and commend you on the innovative teaching you do.

"THE. BEST. CLASS. EVER." Read the epic "Hero's Odyssey" class, festival, and lecture reviews! The positive student reviews mean the world to Dr. E!

The Kauffman Foundation's 2007 Thoughtbook: Elliot McGucken has an artful way of teaching entrepreneurship to artists. He explains the entrepreneurial process, for instance, by comparing it to the classic "hero's odyssey" in myths and epics. Typically, in the first stage of the story, the hero embarks on a quest that requires "separation" or "departure" from the familiar world (here McGucken finds strong parallels to the decision to start a company) -- and after many twists, the odyssey ends with the hero's "return" (exit strategy)."Every aspect of classical story, including antagonists, mentors, reversals of fortune, and the seizing of the sword from the stone, may be found in the realm of entrepreneurship," McGucken claims. And there's more. The college course he designed -- open to students in any major, working in any of the visual, literary or performing arts -- mixes classical concepts with cutting-edge practical advice, such as how to use open-source DRM (digital rights management) to keep the ogres from snatching your profits.. . . The course is called Artistic Entrepreneurship and Technology 101. First offered this past spring at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, with support from the Kauffman Campuses Initiative, it has drawn rave reviews from students. The core message of AE&T 101 is that "ideals are real," and in fact are practical: that you don't have to choose between being a starving artist or selling out. By starting a venture of your own that combines high artistic standards with sound business principles, you can "rock your dreams," McGucken tells students; he says that in the arts as in business, pursuing "fundamental value" pays off. . . McGucken began his career in science. In the late 1990s he was a promising young physics researcher with a faculty position at Davidson College. But he wrote on the side and had long loved classical literature, from the Greeks to the great novelists. Feeling that these got too little attention nowadays he had launched a Web site, jollyroger.com, to host online forums about the Great Books and to offer his own commentary. And lo, the quest drew eyeballs. Before long, he says, "the advertising income from jollyroger was more than I was making from my professorship."

Thomas Jefferson: They all fall off, one by one, until we are left with Virgil and Homer, and perhaps Homer alone.

Martin Luther King Jr: If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values - that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

Helen Keller: The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker. (And so often it is that those tiny pushes become the heroic act, as Neo, the honest cubicle worker, rises to take on The Matrix.)

Sergio Leone: The greatest scriptwriter of Westerns was Homer. The Archetypes of yesterday's cowboys were Achilles, Ajax, Agamemnon, and Hector.  (Sergio Leone chiseled the young Clint Eastwood into an international star in A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly)

COME RIDE WITH HOMER, VIRGIL, DANTE, SOCRATES, ARISTOTLE, GALILEO, NEWTON, & EINSTEIN!

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exalt your art and entrepreneurship--your business and life--by following the Stages of THE Epic Hero's Odyssey

LEARN FROM THE MENTORS OF ALL MENTORS

I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.  --Steve Jobs of Apple

As an artist and entrepreneur, why not learn from the greatest arts entrepreneurs who ever lived?  The other day I was in the bookstore, and I came across a book titled BUSINESS STORYTELLING.  I flipped to the index, as I always do, and there was no mention of Homer nor Aristotle, nor Moses nor Socrates, nor Dante, nor Milton, nor Jesus, nor Achilles nor Odysseus, nor the Iliad nor Odyssey.  I opened one book after another on "business storytelling," and found the same thing--they had exiled all the greatest treasures.

When it comes to branding, who has done better than Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, and Dante?  When it comes to lasting, sustainable wisdom, who has done better than Socrates and Jesus?  When it comes to leadership and management, who has performed better than Moses and Marcus Aurelius?  

BEGIN TODAY: CARPE DIEM

When the student is ready, the mentor will appear, and today is the day that you will embark on the lifelong odyssey of learning from the greatest mentors of all time--those who preserved the better parts of their soul's wisdom in words, art, and epic poetry.  In all my classes, books, and festivals, we begin and end with the primary poets.  It is not enough to merely study the stages of the hero's odyssey, nor read what a critic opined, but one must read the primal epic poetry that exalts the poet-warrior-sages across all ages, from the Iliad, to the Odyssey, to the Aeneid, to Exodus.  It is not enough to merely recite the stages of the epic hero's odyssey, but one must live them, rendering them real in art and action.  For Aristotle reminds us that virtue is not defined by words alone, but via deeds.

HOMER'S ILIAD & ODYSSEY ARE MAPS FOR YOUR OWN EPIC SUCCESS IN STORY

The stages of Your Epic Hero's Odyssey grace the rugged 45SURF hoodies and t-shirts, and today is the day you answer the Call to Honor and Action, so as to exalt your art and entrepreneurship--your business and life--with the classical tenets of epic poetry.  Homer's Iliad and Odyssey offer epic maps on towards all those greater treasures, teaching us how to avoid the Sirens and Lotus Eaters so as to sail on home--teaching us how we poet-warrior artists must learn to seek honor from Zeus as Achilles did, instead of mere tenure and titles from the archetypal scribes and pharisees--teaching us how to safely sail between the Scylla of pedantry and the Charybdis of ignoring the Great Books and Classics.

THE GATEWAY TO THE HERO'S ODYSSEY

The hero's odyssey is never found by those seeking to follow the laundry list of its stages (let alone merely studying them in the ivory tower!), but rather, the hero's epic is found in a far simpler manner--by simply following one's honor.  Indeed, neither Homer, nor Virgil, nor Dante, nor Milton--nor Jesus, nor Moses, nor Socrates, nor Aristotle--nor Copernicus, nor Galileo, nor Newton, nor Einstein--nor Rembrandt nor Beethoven--ever saw a "hero's journey" outline, but yet, the epic odysseys they defined by simply following Truth, Beauty, and Honor have been unparalleled.  Achilles quit the Greek Army for the sake of honor, and he ultimately returned to battler for that same honor.  Odysseus left his home and farm for the sake of honor, and ultimately returned for honor's sake.  And so it is that honor, above all else, envelopes Homer's Epic Poetry, from the alpha to the omega.  The very first word of the Iliad is "RAGE"--the divine "RAGE" of Achilles which is nothing more than the manifestation of his sense of honor which his commander has just insulted.  Achilles quits the Greek army, and the the Greeks begin to lose, as Homer sings "Zeus's will was done," as the Poet of all Poets let us know that both he and Zeus side with honor--with the individual poet warrior against the state, with the creative arts entrepreneur over the leaching pedant and bureaucrat.  Achilles speaks Truth to Power and calls out the archetypal manager who profits buy taking none of the risks, but only seizing the rewards:  

"You bloated drunk," Achilles cried to Agamemnon who had just seized Achilles' rightful prize, "with the face of a dog and the heart of a hind, you never dare buckle on armor and join the fight, nor partake in an assault with our finest men. You shun this as you do death itself. You had rather hang back, far from the front line, and cherry-pick the prizes from any man who contradicts you. You devour your people, for you are king over a feeble folk; otherwise, son of Atreus, henceforward you would insult no man. Therefore I say, and swear it with a great oath- nay, by this my sceptre which shalt sprout neither leaf nor shoot, nor bud anew from the day on which it left its parent stem upon the mountains- for the axe stripped it of leaf and bark, and now the sons of the Achaeans bear it as judges and guardians of the decrees of heaven- so surely and solemnly do I swear that hereafter they shall look fondly for Achilles and shall not find him. In the day of your distress, when your men fall dying by the murderous hand of Hector, you shall not know how to help them, and shall rend your heart with rage for the hour when you offered insult to the bravest of the Greeks."  The RAGE of Achilles, Book I, Homer's Iliad

Dr. E's Hero's Odyssey Mythology Fine Art Photography

DR. E'S UPCOMING HERO'S ODYSSEY BOOKS WILL TEACH YOU HOW TO FOLLOW ARISTOTLE'S THREE ACTS IN RENDERING YOUR IDEALS & REAL IN ART AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

ACT I: DREAMS OF IDEALS: THE RAGE OF ACHILLES: x4=ict ergo dx4/dt=ic
THE CALL TO HONOR & ACTION: SERVE EPIC HONOR OVER PASSIONS & BLISS
REFUSAL OF THE QUEST: MOSES AND ODYSSEUS BOTH REFUSED THE INTITIAL CALL 
MASTERING TALENTS/CRAFTS: FIRST MASTER THE FORCE & TRUTH OF THE MATRIX
SEEKING MENTORS & GODS: WHEN THE STUDENT IS READY, THE MASTER WILL APPEAR
TAKING ACTION: LEAVING PORT: CARPE DIEM! SEIZE THE DAY! CROSS THE THRESHOLD!
SOUL SHINES ON DARK, STORMY SEAS:  ONLY THOSE WHO SET OUT WALKING ALONE LEAD
FIRST SHOWDOWN': FROM THE WOUND THE SOUL FLIES FREE IN ETERNAL ART & POETRY
ART, INVENTION, & INNOVATION: STOICS KNOW THE WOUNDED DEAR LEAPS THE HIGHEST 
ACT II: RENDERING IDEALS REAL: ODYSSEUS'S ODYSSEY: THE JOURNEY IS THE THING
THE EPIC ROAD OF TRIALS: LIFE'S A JOURNEY, NOT A DESTINATION: CRAVE AN  ODYSSEY
FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD: AUDACES FORTUNA IUVAT--VIRGIL'S AENEID: BEGIN TODAY 
FORMING THE FELLOWSHIP: OUT HERE, WE MEET THOSE FOLLOWING THE SAME IDEALS
THE GODDESS ARCHETYPE: THE NOBLE FEMININE SOUL & SPIRIT: QUEEN, WIFE, & LOVE
TESTS, ALLIES & ENEMIES: OUR FRIENDS SERVE & SHARE VIA ART, THE VILLAINS STEAL
SIRENS AND SORCERERS: BEWARE OF SHAPESHIFTING TEMPTERS & TAKERS OF MAKERS
THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS: FAR FROM HOME, WE FIND IT IN DEEP WITHIN OURSELVES
APOTHEOSIS VIA SERVICE: HIGHER POTENTIAL IS FOUND IN SERVICE OF IDEALS & OTHERS
ACT III: IDEALS RENDERED REAL: SOCRATES' WISDOM: THE HEROIC BATTLE FOR THE SOUL
CAUGHT IN THE MATRIX: THE REIGNING DARK FORCES PREVENT RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR
THE DEATH OF THE BODY: WE LOSE THE TEMPORAL FLESH SO & FIND THE ETERNAL SOUL
LOVE CONQUERS ALL: THE SOUL'S LOVE OF IDEALS TRANSCENDS DEATH & TIME ITSELF
RESCUE FROM BEYOND: ALL THOSE WE SOUGHT TO SERVE NOW RETURN TO SAVE US
RESURRECTION OF THE SOUL: OUR DEEPER, TRUER SELF RISES: PHOENIX FROM ASHES
FINAL SHOWDOWN: WE MEET THE VILLAIN IN OUR ETHEREAL FORM, IMMUNE TO BULLETS
TRUTH, ART & FREEDOM FOR ALL: THE ONLY TRUE TRUTH IS TRUTH WHICH SERVES ALL
RETURN OF THE KING: THE MORAL MAJESTY EARNS THE HIGHER THRONE VIA SERVICE
MASTER OF MANY WORLDS: THE EPIC MONOMYTH IS THE SOUL OF ALL EXALTED ENDEAVORS

Subscribe to Dr. E's Hero's Odyssey newsletter to be notified of the release of his upcoming book The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology and to receive your free podcasts & "Hero's Odyssey" philosophy for your very own rugged hero's odyssey!

UNC Chapel Hill News reports: Students Line Up for New Artistic Entrepreneurship Course based on Hero's Odyssey Mythology: When UNC Professor Elliot McGucken put out the call to adventure to "make your passion your profession" with a pilot course for artistic entrepreneurs, students answered. More than 110 students applied for the new course, The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship and Technology 101. The course, geared towards students with an interest in the intersection between the arts, entrepreneurial ventures and cutting-edge technology, was originally slated for 40 spots, but the overwhelming response triggered an increase in class size. Nearly 50 students are enrolled for the spring semester. Students from a range of creative disciplines--from painting to film production--will develop their artistic vision over the course of the semester. McGucken hopes the course will both inspire artists to pursue their creative passions and give them the practical tools necessary to launch and develop their ventures. "Every artist is an entrepreneur, and every entrepreneur is an artist," explains McGucken. --Univeristy of North Carolina, Chapel Hill News

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