Sam Walton drove change. In any situation, when everyone else was happy, Sam was working on ways to improve further. But it wasn't just change for change sake, it was change directed at serving the customer by giving the best value for the money spent. Consequently, Sam Walton went from a broke young man to the wealthiest man with one of the most successful companies in the history of manking - Walmart. Regardless of whether a person likes Walmart today, Walton's success is admirable.
One of the keys to Walton's success was his ability to thrive through change, not die through change. The Mental Fitness Challenge designed by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady teaches a person how to develop internal consistency so that when the external world changes, he still feels peace on the inside. The Mental Fitness Challenge was developed around the principles of Orrin Woodward's best-selling book RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE. In it, Orrin outlines 13 resolutions that are crucial for inuring internal peace and fortitude.
Sam Walton had this peace and fortitude. Check out this blog post from Orrin.
Walton, as a young boy, hit the ground running, starting his business career early. His parents, Tom and Nan Walton, were mismatched, to put it mildly. Walton shared in his must read autobiography, Sam Walton: Made in America, “They were always at odds, and they really only stayed together because of Bud and me. . . . I’m not exactly sure how this situation affected my personality – unless it was partly a motivation to stay so busy all the time – but I swore early on that if I ever had a family, I would never expose it to that kind of squabbling.” Walton’s first leadership lessons were instructions in what not to do, similar to General Norman Schwarzkopf’s, who said he had learned more from bad leadership than good leadership, learning first hand what demotivated the troops. Walton’s dad, who foreclosed on defaulted farm loans during the depression, developed a small thinker’s mentality, valuing security over any potential risk associated with success. He was frugal, not just with expenses, but also with personal investments, a good plan to remain poor.
Again, Walton learned a valuable lesson. He absorbed his dad’s frugality in expenses, but ignored it, when it came to investments, believing that only through investments could he start his own business, which he fully intended to do. Thinking big and not squabbling were two of his original principles developed on his way to business immortality. He applied both principles in his first significant business venture, a newspaper route, that expanded across the Missouri countryside. Walton, always kind and courteous to his customers, quickly realized that one man could not do it all. His solution, was to subcontract out the newspaper routes, setting up others kids in business, while maintaining control of the financial accounting. Through this win-win arrangement, many hard working kids who struggled with financial literacy, became successful in business; at the same time, Walton made an extraordinary side income, literally financing his own college education, making more than his professors by profiting $4,000 to $5,000 per college year (over $70,000 in todays money), until his graduation in 1940.
Walton’s intense hunger was fueled further when he accepted an offer for $75 a month at the J.C. Penney store, as a management trainee, in Des Moines, Iowa. His salary was minimal compared to his paper routes, but Walton desired to learn the retail trade from one of the top companies, understanding that learning comes before earning. Walton was an immediate success as a salesman, topping the list of sales numerous times, but the personnel manager told him, because of his haphazard approach to recording sales slips along with cash register transactions, “Walton, I’d fire you if you weren’t such a good salesman. Maybe you’re just not cut out for retail,” proving the truthfulness of the saying, “The smallest minds with the smallest ideas will criticize the biggest minds with the biggest ideas.” But, in the personnel manager’s defense, Sam admitted later, that he “never learned handwriting all that well.”
Walton was befriended by Duncan Majors, his mentor and store manager. He was Majors’ top student, working with him six days a week, then spending Sunday afternoons at his house, playing ping pong, cards, and learning all he could about the retail business. After an eighteen month stint, Walton left J.C. Penney, joining the service during World War II, but he never ceased to dream of one day owning his own retail store. Moreover, while stationed in the army at Salt Lake City, he checked out every book on retailing at the local library, reading voraciously on the latest trends and techniques, supplementing his books learning with innumerable trips to the local department stores. Walton was a huge positive thinker even then, saying, “Thinking like that (positively) often seems to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy,” having faith, that when his opportunity arose, he would win, just like he had in sports, entrepreneurship, and education, and college elections throughout his youth.
The Mental Fitness Challenge helps develop both art and science side of leadership thanks to the book RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE. Even after developing the skills to perform, the magic is in developing the communication skills to help others make the adjustment to perform. For example, if you remove a fly from a teammates forehead with an axe, you are exhibiting a lack of tact. Read the article and ponder how you can improve on the art side of your business. The Mental Fitness Challenge helps a person develop tact along with many other skills. Here is an old blog post from Orrin Woodward on the importance of tact:
Tact is the art of saying the right thing at the right time to the right person with the goal of steering his thoughts and behaviors to a productive result while strengthening the bond of trust. Leaders without tact are more likely to injure their teams than serve them. I believe that in order to move from a Level 2 Performer to a Level 3 Leader, as Chris Brady and I teach in Launching a Leadership Revolution, it’s imperative to develop the art of tact. The more tact you have the more you can guide your leadership craft without running it aground on the shallow waters of hurt feelings and damaged egos. There is an art and science to all businesses.
Though in its higher degrees it is essentially a natural gift, and is sometimes conspicuous in perfectly uneducated men, it may be largely cultivated and improved; and in this respect the education of good society is especially valuable. Such an education, whatever else it may do, at least removes many jarring notes from the rhythm of life. It tends to correct faults of manner, demeanor, or pronunciation which tell against men to a degree altogether disproportioned to their real importance, and on which, it is hardly too much to say, the casual judgments of the world are mainly formed; and it also fosters moral qualities which are essentially of the nature of tact.
We can hardly have a better picture of a really tactful man than in some sentences taken from the admirable pages in which Cardinal Newman has painted the character of the perfect gentleman.
‘ It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain. … He carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of those with whom he is cast—all clashing of opinion or collision of feeling, all restraint or suspicion or gloom or resentment; his great concern being to make everyone at ease and at home. He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unreasonable allusions or topics that may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favors while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort; he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets everything for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes an unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out. . . . He has too much good sense to be affronted at insult; he is too busy to remember injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. … If he engages in controversy of any kind his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blundering discourtesy of better though less educated minds, who, like blunt weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean. … He may be right or wrong in his opinion, but he is too clear-headed to be unjust; he is as simple as he is forcible, and as brief as he is decisive. Nowhere shall we find greater candor, consideration, indulgence. He throws himself into the minds of his opponents, he accounts for their mistakes. He knows the weakness of human nature as well as its strength, its province, and its limits.’
Very few times in life does a company offer something of value absolutely free. The Mental Fitness Challenge Self-Assessment test is one of those times. Loaded with a series of questions designed to identify where a person stands currently in the application of Orrin Woodward's resolutions from the book RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE.
Go ahead. Go to the Mental Fitness Challenge site and click on the free pre-challenge. Watch the videos and take the test today. The good news is there is no failing grades and everyone can improve their score. What is the life you have always wanted to live? What is holding you back from accomplishing it? While most people would say their job, their circumstances, etc. In truth, what holds people back from their dreams is themselves and their limiting beliefs. The MFC is designed to help break people out of the negative patterns of life that imprison them in a jail of their own making.
In computer programming, it's called GIGO - Garbage IN, Garbage Out. Similarly, what a person puts into their brain is what he or she will get out of life. What are you putting into your brain currently? Is it taking you to or away from your dreams? The MFC provides a roadmap for a person to go from where he is to where he wants to be.
I have read hundreds of examples recently where people have taken a 90 day challenge to improve the physical fitness and I love it! What better way to get in physical shape than partner with a community of like-minded individuals? However, with all the focus on a physical challenge, aren't people missing out on two other key aspects of fitness - the mental and spiritual sides?
If people are going to challenge themselves anyway, why not launch a 90 day total mental fitness challenge? Work on all three areas of life by improving one's physical, mental, and spiritual sides. For example, just as flabby muscles must be worked out in order to tone and strengthen, so too does flabby thinking. In fact, if anything, flabby thinking can have more disastrous effects in a person's life than flabby muscles. Therefore, if a person is investing energy for 90 days anyway, then make it a total transformation, not just a physical one.
A person's thought life changes when he begins to feed on a steady diet of positive books, audios, and association with others who do the same. Indeed, I know of no other activity than can change a person's life as fast as changing his associations. Birds of a feather, in other words, do flock together. My good friend, the late Charlie "Tremendous" Jones, used to say, "Five years from now you will be pretty much the same as you are today except for two things: the books you read and the people you get close to" It was eighteen years when I first heard Charlie's words and took his advice. It changed everything.
Fitness experts say that 85% of physical fitness is in proper dieting. I believe the same principle holds true for mental and spiritual dieting as well. Tell me the thought diet a person routinely feeds his mental and spiritual sides and I can fairly accurately predict his five year future. Success is that predictable; however, it isn't that easy.
Here is an article explaining the value of making work a game by Orrin Woodward. The concepts in this article are part of Chapter 5 of Orrin's RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE book. What work can you turn into a game to excel to the next level?
The work necessary to win at the highest levels isn’t for sissies, but it can be developed by anyone. There is no shortcut past the 10,000 hours for mastery in any field, but there is a shortcut through the monotony, by making the work a game. When work becomes a game, the tasks of the job become plays in the game. One will never work again, when the tasks are enjoyed as plays in a game. The secret to mastery in any field, hinges upon learning to enjoy the deliberate practice, turning the grueling effort into play. Think about a man, having to choose, on a hot autumn afternoon, between a game of tennis or raking the lawn. One, can be played for hours, sweating profusely, enjoying the thrill of the game. The other, is looked upon with dread, procrastinating as long as possible, completed only through sheer strength of will. Why the difference? Both require effort, both require discipline, both are exhausting, but one is fun, while the other is miserable. This is the difference between play and work. When you view work as a game, then you no longer do tasks, but plays in a game, with the specific intent to win the game. All top performers have learned this principle, performers in business, sports, music, etc, have all mastered work as play. Whether the name is Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Thomas Watson, Jerry Rice, Michael Jordan, and Hank Aaron, Garth Brooks, Josh Bell, or Steven Tyler, all of them, learned to make their profession a game, enjoying the deliberate practice to win in the game.
This explains the paradox of how a few will work so hard, while others think that they are crazy. It’s isn’t work to them, but enjoyment, winning another game. Similar to all the weekend warriors, who give 100% effort into their weekend sports for not pay, but then return to their jobs or business at 50% effort. The weekend warriors can give 100%, even though not payed anything, because they love the game. The highly successful in life, have tapped into this reservoir of energy by creating a game out of their professions. Imagine the productivity explosion, if everyone worked their professions as hard as their weekend sports and hobbies.
Ozzie Smith, the Hall of Fame baseball player, is an excellent example of turning the work into a game. When he was a young, growing up in poverty, he loved the game of baseball. Not having the best equipment, but wanting to develop his skills in fielding, Ozzie used his imagination, creating a game where he bounced a tennis ball off of his cement porch. Ozzie challenged himself daily, moving closer and closer to the porch, testing his ability to field the tennis ball cleanly. The goal was to field the ball rebounding off the porch, developing the hand eye coordination that made him a perennial Gold Glove performer. By making it a game, Ozzie played for hours on end, hurling the ball at the porch, fielding again and again. No coach would have asked the same level of discipline out of a Little League team, but since it was a game, it hardly felt like discipline at all. Just a love of the game developed the hours of practice, developing mastery in fielding a baseball. Smith’s endless hours of deliberate practice, made him the best short stop fielder in baseball, handling line shots with ease, amazing the fans with his highly developed hand eye coordination. Ozzie credited his game for developing the skills applied to his profession. Few, if any, will subject themselves to the endless hours of deliberate practice needed to win, unless they can mentally make it a game. Ozzie made the practice a game, creating the skills while enjoying the time, a lesson that all winners must learn before they win.
If 10,000 hours is needed to master any field, and, if mastery is needed to perform at the highest levels, then, creating a game out of the deliberate practice is a key strategy for success. One must work hard, accepting no excuses, focusing on the long-term dreams, enduring the pain in the personal growth process, but the rewards are well worth the effort. Rewards, that go way beyond the financial, and into the satisfaction obtained when one knows that he truly did his personal best in a worthy cause, allowing one to look in the mirror and see a winner staring back at him. The game is the shortcut through the countless hours, in the quest for excellence. Identifying the field for mastery, determining the skills needed, developing the game to play, and, playing the game over and over, is the most enjoyable way to create mastery and thus excellence. What are you waiting for? Let the games begin. God Bless, Orrin Woodward
Orrin Woodward's RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions For LIFE
Orrin Woodward's new book RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions For LIFE has been getting rave reviews across the world. Leaders from India, South Africa, Norway, Australia, too name just a few overseas, along with the many satisfied customers in America and Canada.
Every once in a while a voice will speak up from the proverbial crowd with such clarity and insight that we are shaken out of our reveries and catalyzed towards life change.
It is much like the bold, young boy in the children’s story, The Emperor’s New Clothes, who plucks up the courage to shout, “Enough! The king is unclothed!” while the rest of the confused crowd watch their naked king parade on by without a word.
While reading Orin Woodward’s first solo book project, RESOLVED, 13 Resolutions for LIFE, I felt him appear in my own story and shout “Enough! Enough of living out other people’s purpose instead of my own; enough of the excuses and blame-shifting that stop me from taking 100% responsibility for my life choices and responses and enough of the things that prevent me from building on good character traits and integrity in my own life.
Orrin bases his practical guide for character based living on real-life examples of men and women who have influenced history through their distinct leadership capacities and oftentimes gritty resolve to change and bring about change and liberty in their social, political and spiritual environments. RESOLVED, 13 Resolutions for LIFE is written with individuals in mind who want to embrace a more holistic approach to success that will help them live lives that truly matter.
Do yourself a favour and get hold of a copy for yourself soon! If you apply the principles taught, it could change your Results and your Life!
Here is a post from Orrin Woodward's blog. When the old community building companies pay 33% commissions, the best pay 50% commissions, what do you think will happen when LIFE pays out nearly 70% in commissions?!? Combining the revolutionary trends of home based businesses, leadership, community building, and life coaching, the LIFE business is rolling ahead. It is growing at an average of 10% per month. Have you checked out the LIFE Compensation Plan difference? Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady said they were going to change the profession and I would have to say that they did! It is here. The launch of LIFE and the compensation plan for building communities of leaders is finally here! Imagine a compensation plan that doesn't top out at 25%, 35% or even 45%, but rewards through volume discounts up to 50%. This isn't even touching upon the seven depth bonuses paid out for building secure long-term businesses. LIFE isn't a plan to get a couple of people wealthy with everyone else trying really hard. Instead, it's a plan where 70% of the revenue is paid out to 95% of the people, meaning everyone who is moving LIFE Leadership materials will receive a bonus if they have at least 150 points worth of total business and have personal volume/customers.
Never before has a plan shared so much with so many, but that is how LIFE TEAM is going to reach 1 million people - by rewarding everyone who does the work based upon results. The LIFE compensation plan is a game changer and one of the key planks in helping the TEAM reach 1 million people. The rewards for building communities and hitting new brackets is second to none with all subscription dollars to points being 1:1. In other words, 100 dollars of subscription volume equals 100 points.
The LIFE business is designed to help people make money through customers, volume discounts, and depth bonuses. LIFE is happening; is yours? Sincerely, Orrin Woodward
Being physically fit without a corresponding mental fitness is like have a nice race car, but no driver. In other words, the brain drives behavior just like a driver does the car.
Why do so many people ignore the mental fitness, even if they exercise physically on a regular basis? Today's generation simply isn't willing to exercise the brain like our forefathers did routinely.
We see the results of mental decline all around us. Junk thinking, junk food, and junk results. Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward have formed LIFE to do something about this. If you haven't read RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE, you do not know what you are missing. Oliver DeMille, best-selling author describe it as the best leadership book he has ever read and he has read thousands.
Are you ready to challenge yourself to mental fitness? Perhaps its time to Launch a Leadership Revolution in your life. Like the Bible shares, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
Orrin Woodward Awarded 2011 International Association of Business Top Leader
The leadership results are in. 2012 is starting off with a bang for Orrin Woodward and his community. Mr. Woodward was just awarded one of the top leadership awards in the world for 2011. The Top 10 finalist competing for the award is a veritable “Who’s Who” list in the field of leadership. The IAB, using numerous criteria to separate the contenders, awarded Orrin as its Top Leader for 2011! Here are the background details on this coveted award:
Who is the International Association of Business (IAB)?
The IAB is a million plus member nonprofit organization, helping American small businesses start, grow and effectively create jobs in the US. President Shane Madigan shares the vision of the IAB:
“This is the dawn of a new generation in America. It is a time of tremendous growth, innovation and communication of American entrepreneurs and the Association. For nearly three decades, IAB has created and navigated innovative solutions that provide basic protections for small business owners, the self employed and their families. The innovation, vision and leadership of our founder, Mr. James C. Wood, is unprecedented. Mr. Wood has redefined innovation in the Association industry. IAB remains a center of education and access to membership benefits that helps independent business owners and the self employed prosper with abundance in this new age of entrepreneurship.”
What is the IAB Leadership Award?
As part of this innovation, the IAB presents its Small Business Awards, recognizing and awarding businesses who achieve both qualitative and quantitative results in their organization. There are ten separate awards presented each year with the Leadership Award being the highest recognition given among the 10 categories.
What is the criteria for receiving the Leadership Award?
According to the IAB site, the Leadership Award, “. . . applies to ones own leadership principles and how they help develop and influence successful leaders throughout American businesses. The criteria for the IAB Awards winners includes:
- Originality of ideas
- Practicality of ideas
- Presentation style
- Testimonials
- Impact of ideas
- Quality of web content, publications and writings
- Ranking of website in America”
Who were the contenders for the 2011 Leadership Award?
www.jimcollins.com : Jim Collins
www.giantimpact.com : John Maxwell
www.stephencovey.com : Stephen Covey
www.kenblanchard.com : Ken Blanchard
www.robinsharma.com : Robin Sharma
www.marshallgoldsmith.com : Marshall Goldsmith
www.tompeters.com : Tom Peters
www.tonyrobbins.com : Anthony Robbins
www.straightfromthegut.com : Jack Welch
www.orrinwoodward.com : Orrin Woodward
Who is the 2011 Top Leadership Award Winner?
Although everyone of the Top 10 finalists is a winner, only one can receive the prize. The 2011 Top Leadership Award was presented to Orrin Woodward – Founder of two multi-million dollar leadership companies – LIFE and TEAM.
Orrin is a New York Times Best-Selling Co-Author of Launching a Leadership Revolution, Top Leadership Blogger, and recognized Leadership Guru. His first solo book RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions For LIFE was released in 2011 and is achieving international acclaim for its character-centered leadership resolutons.
Congratulations to Orrin Woodward and his entire leadership team for raising the bar in the field of leadership!
One of the things that I enjoy about Orrin Woodward is the depth of his thinking. He reads and writes in so many diverse areas like Faith, Economics, Leadership, Personal Development, Political Theory, Biographies, History, and others. His depth of understanding is displayed in his new book RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions For LIFE. The book makes a person think about life. It simply cannot be read at one sitting.
Orrin writes many articles on these subjects. I have read this particular article several times. I wonder how many other top leaders are willing to read hundreds of books per year to make a difference? Here are a couple of paragraphs from the article. Thank you Orrin Woodward for making your life count so we can all have LIFE!
William Lecky, an English historian, wrote a book called Democracy and Liberty just before the turn of the twentieth century. In it, he describes the malevolent effects against personal liberty of a full-blown democracy. Although Lecky was criticized for his stand, today, he looks like a prophet. America is displaying all the signs of decay and decline predicted in Lecky's great work. He shared his thoughts on the close alignment of democracy and despotism:
The American Constitution, indeed, was framed by men who had for the most part the strongest sense of the dangers of democracy. The school of American thought which was represented in a great degree by Washington and John Adams, and still more emphatically by Gouvemeur Morris and Alexander Hamilton ; which inspired the Federalist and was embodied in the Federalist party, was utterly opposed to the schools of Rousseau, of Paine, and even of Jefferson, and it has largely guided American policy to the present hour. It did not prevent America from becoming a democracy, but it framed a form of government under which the power of the democracy was broken and divided, restricted to a much smaller sphere, and attended with far less disastrous results than in most European countries. Hamilton, who was probably the greatest political thinker America has produced, was, in the essentials of his political thought, quite as conservative as Burke, and he never concealed his preference for monarchical institutions. Democratic government, he believed, must end in despotism, and be in the meantime destructive to public morality and to the security of private property. . .
