Orrin Woodward shares thoughtful articles weekly for free on his blog. Why would a two-time NY Times bestselling author provide a classical leadership education just by reading his blog? Because he believes ideas make the difference in life. Here is a case in point. Below is an article that the LIFE Leadership founder Orrin Woodward wrote on Walter Lippmann.

Last night, while bouncing between research and watching the NBA championship with my son Lance,  I stumbled across a writer (Walter Lippmann) that explained succinctly why freedom in necessary in a good society. On many issues, Lippmann and I disagree, but his explanation here is impressive. Indeed, I am humbled when I think of all the great thinkers who have studied, pondered, and wrote about the challenges facing Western Civilization today. The book LeaderShift was an attempt to awaken the Western world of its impending peril when liberty is sacrificed for the illusion of security.

As one of the founders of LIFE Leadership, I believe my role is to continue leading and learning until God calls me home. In this vein, I want to share just a segment of Lippmann’s writing so the readers can see the wealth of information available to those who invest the time to learn. Like I have said repeatedly, we cannot defend what we are ignorant of. Here is Lippmann’s thoughts on the value of freedom to Western Civilization and his concern in the current (1937) direction of events that he witnessed at the time. Today, his words resonate even louder than they did when he first wrote them.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Concentration has its origin in privilege and not in technology. Nor does technology require high concentration. For technical progress, being in its essence experimental, calls for much trial and error. That means that if industry is to advance technically, it must be flexible, not rigid change must be possible because it is not too costly; managers must be free, as technicians are free, to make many mistakes in order to achieve a success.

Those who do not like such a program, who would prefer industry stabilized into routine and administered by corporate or public bureaucrats, are entitled to their preference. But they must not pretend that they are the spokesmen of modern science seeking to make more effective man’s mastery of nature. If what they are seeking is a social order in harmony with the genius of the scientific method and of the modern economy of production, they should look with the profoundest skepticism upon the claims of the collectivist movement. Whatever form collectivism takes, whether the great corporate structures of private enterprise, or the national collectivism of the fascists, of the communist or of the gradualist parties, its adherents claim to be adapting the organization of industry to the progress of technology.

Against that claim there is a strong presumption. For these great centralized controls which have to be governed authoritatively by corporate officials or by public officials are unsuited to a system of production which can profit by new invention only if it is flexible, experimental, adjustable, and competitive. The laboratories in which the technic is being developed cannot produce the inventions according to a centrally directed plan. The future technology cannot be predicted, organized, and administered, and it is therefore in the highest degree unlikely that an elaborately organized and highly centralized economy can adapt itself successfully to the intensely dynamic character of the new technology.

. . . The events we are witnessing should not allow us to remain blind any longer to the truth that our generation has misunderstood human experience. We have renounced the wisdom of the ages to embrace the errors the ages have discarded. The road whereby mankind has advanced in knowledge, in the mastery of nature, in unity, and in personal security has lain through a progressive emancipation from the bondage of authority, monopoly, and special privilege. It has been through the release of human energy that men have lifted themselves above the primeval struggle for the bare necessities of existence; it has been by the removal of constraints that they have been able to adapt themselves to the life of great societies; it has been by the disestablishment of privilege that men have risen from the status of slaves, serfs, and subjects to that of free men inviolate in the ways of the spirit.

And how else, when we pause to ponder the matter, can the human race advance except by the emancipation of more and more individuals in ever-widening circles of activity? How can new ideas be conceived? How can new relationships, new habits, be formed? Only by increasing freedom to think, to argue, to debate, to make mistakes, to learn from those mistakes, to explore and occasionally to discover, to be adventurous and enterprising, can change be more than the routine of a recurrent pattern. If those who happen by inheritance, election, or force to achieve the power to govern are not the sole originators of new ways, it follows that the energy of progress originates in the great mass of the people as the more gifted among them are released from constraint and stimulated by intercourse with other free-thinking and free-moving individuals.

This was the faith of the men who made the modern world. Renaissance, Reformation, Declaration of the Rights of Man, Industrial Revolution, National Unification — all were conceived and led by men who regarded themselves as emancipators. One and all these were movements to disestablish authority. It was the energy released by this progressive emancipation which invented, wrought, and made available to mankind all that it counts as good in modern civilization. No government planned, no political authority directed, the material progress of the past four centuries, or the increasing humanity which has accompanied it. It was by a stupendous liberation of the minds and spirits and conduct of men that a world-wide exchange of goods and services and ideas was promoted, and it was in this invigorating and sustaining environment that petty principalities coalesced into great commonwealths.

What reason, then, is there for thinking that in the second half of the nineteenth century the tested method of human progress suddenly became obsolete, and henceforth it is only by more authority, not by more emancipation, that mankind can advance? The patent fact is that soon after the intellectual leaders of the modern world abandoned the method of freedom the world moved into an era of intensified national rivalry, culminating in the Great War, and.of intensified domestic struggle which has racked all nations and reduced some to a condition where there are assassination, massacre, persecution, and the ravaging of armed bands such as have not been known in the western world for at least two centuries.

We belong to a generation that has lost its way. Unable to develop the great truths which it inherited from the emancipators, it has returned to the heresies of absolutism, authority, and the domination of men by men. Against these ideas the progressive spirit of the western world is one long, increasing protest. Thus we have rent the spirit of man, and those who by their deepest sympathies seemed destined to be the bearers of the civilizing tradition have turned against one another in fratricidal strife.

What could be more tragically and more preposterously confused than this choicer Must men renounce all that their ancestors struggled to achieve, or abandon the hope of making the world a better place for their children? Must they disregard as so much antiquated nonsense the principles by which governments were subjected to law, the great made accountable, the humble established in their rights? Shall they not remem-. ber the experience by which the violence of civil factions was subdued? Must they forget how their forefathers suffered and died in order that tyranny should end and that men should be free?

It is the choice of Satan, offering to sell men the kingdoms of this world for their immortal souls. And as always, when that choice is offered, it will be discovered after much travail that on those terms not even the kingdoms of the world can be bought.

Posted by OrrinWoodward at 8:50 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 8:56 AM EDT

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Orrin Woodward, two-time NY Times bestselling author shares a great message on liberty, competition, and progress below. Orrin practices what he preaches, willing to go through legal disputes to ensure freedom for all rather than settle for profits without honor. LIFE Leadership is a model of free enterprise and leadership training par-excellence!

Plato and Aristotle

Ancient Greece is an excellent example of rewarding creators over credentialist. For they had little in the area of credentials, but only recognized results in the many fields they studied. Historian Michael Grant explains:

The Greeks like talking, and their climate (in which much daily life could take place out-of-doors) supplied sufficient and suitable space to talk: that is to say, to exchange and test thoughts and plans and ideas. They had leisure to engage in these activities – and leisure was a thing they prized . . . All this offered individuals the time and opportunity to give their best – outstanding individuals, that is to say. Here is something of a paradox. For if the collective, corporate city-state provided the framework and background for this lavish array of feats, they were actually undertaken and performed by a relatively few persons. Some forty of fifty of them created the classical Greek achievement. Without them, it would only have been a shadow.

In today’s ages of egalitarianism, where we attempt to suppress all differences, this paragraph becomes even more relevant. For one thing that is indisputably true is that everyone is created different. Each of us has different skills, talents, passions, and purposes. Not only shouldn’t this be suppressed, but it ought to be nurtured from birth. The greatest societies allow freedom for all because no one knows where the amazingly talented person will arise from. What society needs is enough freedom for the cream to rise to the top for the benefit of all.

Millions of people every year travel to Greek lands to study the amazing achievement of the 40-50 individuals, who were given the freedom to display their skills to the world. If Greece would have forced equality and punished those who dared to excel, then no one would speak of Greece and these 40-50 people would have lived and died like millions of other “ants” in all the other anthill ancient societies. Instead, the Greeks birthed Western Civilization and the ability to rise to one’s level of purpose, passion, and production.

I dream of a world where freedom fosters competition that rises the tide for all ships and provides the highest achievers the ability to bless society. LIFE Leadership was created to build a leadership engine for personal and professional growth for people around the world. I believe it’s time for people to stop playing it small in life. Instead, let’s use the freedoms God has blessed us with to leave our mark. Imagine, similar to the ancient Greeks, future generations reading, studying, and discussing the legacy you dared to live.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Posted by OrrinWoodward at 7:52 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, June 20, 2013 7:57 AM EDT

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In this blog post, Orrin Woodward shares his Power Pendulum. This concept describes the force/freedom movements within society. LIFE Leadership recently released a full DVD where Orrin outlines Western Civilization's Power Pendulum moves throughout history. Few men can create and teach complex concepts in such a simple fashion as Orrin Woodward. Below is a description of the Power Pendulum from his blog post. 

Here is another snippet of the introduction I am working on for a future book on freedom. I received 10 copies of the final version of the LeaderShift book yesterday and I am so pumped. It looks great and it is going to have such an impact. I am loving LIFE and ready to help move the Power Pendulum back into concord! Here is a couple of paragraphs describing the Power Pendulum.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Mankind’s quest for concord (peace and harmony) within society is as old as human civilization. Concord, the ideal balance between force and freedom, lies between the extremes of chaos and coercion. The freedom and force movements in every society between chaos, concord and coercion is remarkably similar to a pendulum’s trajectory. As a result, the author developed the Power Pendulum to track the trajectory between force and freedom within society. Society is defined as a community of individuals who combine together to pursue common objectives. However, within any working society there must be a power strong enough to ensure justice internally and externally. To meet this responsibility, society forms a government (State) to apply force when any of societies members attempt injustice upon other members. While free societies secure the cooperation of most of its members through persuasion, the State is the watchman provided to protect its peaceable members from those who attempt to plunder others for personal gain. In other words, the state is given the power of coercion to ensure disobedience to laws is punished. The question becomes how much coercion is necessary to ensure internal and external peace without the government itself becoming the plunderers of its people.

In healthy societies, the Power Pendulum moves away from the radical edges (either chaos or coercion) into the center position of concord. The Power Pendulum measures the State force applied within society, ranging from too little on one side (leading to chaos) to too much on the other side (leading to coercion). The quested for resting spot of the Power Pendulum is concord – limited force applied only to maintain internal and external peace and justice. Indeed, society thrives when the pendulum is balanced in concord because sufficient power is present to ensure order-liberty, but not enough to drift the pendulum towards coercion and loss of liberties. Although the State is part of the Society, society is a voluntary organization while the State operates through coercion. The State and Society can be summarized in the following way. The State is part of society and they overlap in many instances. However, society uses the principle of voluntary cooperation, working through good will of its members. The State, on the other hand, uses the principle of compulsion, working with force or threatened force upon its members. Paraphrasing historian Ernest Barker, society’s method is elasticity while the State’s method is rigidity. But, if society is divided between methods of force and freedom, how can it remain free, especially when part of society (the State) is given a force monopoly? Isn’t this force just as likely to be used against society as for its benefit? The answer to this State/Society paradox is the key to resolving the Power Pendulum. Through ending the trajectory swings between chaos and coercion, Western Society can finally complete the 2500 year quest for concord.

Posted by OrrinWoodward at 12:32 PM EDT

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Orrin Woodward and Oliver DeMille recently did a series of radio interviews on their NY Times bestseller LeaderShift. Here is one from Orrin that he posted on his blog. This interview displays the depth of understanding from both Jan and Orrin on the current issues facing America. LIFE Leadership is raising a group of leaders of the caliber. 

Jan “Mickelson in the Morning” Radio Interview

Last week, I had a thoroughly enjoyable discussion with Jan Mickelson, talk show host for WHO-AM, on the book LeaderShift. Interestingly, WHO-AM  is the same radio station where Ronald Reagan launched his meteoric career and Jan Mickelson is one of the most influential talk-show host in the midwest. In fact, according to The American View:

Every weekday morning, from 9 to 11:30, Mickelson presides over the No. 1 talk-radio show in Iowa, giving him more sway over national politics than perhaps all but the biggest names in the broadcast business.

Most Iowans live in cities. However, there is plenty of space in between — long stretches of interstate, endless acres of corn and soybeans — where the radio offers a welcome companion. From his perch here in the studios of WHO-AM1040, Mickelson reaches about 350,000 Iowans a week, twice the audience of his closest competition. That may be a pittance by big-city standards. But for a Republican campaigning in Iowa, which traditionally holds the first vote of the presidential race, the program is a must-stop — and a pathway strewed with hidden perils.

“I wouldn’t suggest that Jan is a kingmaker,” said Steve Grubbs, a pollster and former chairman of the state GOP, who found nearly two-thirds of Iowa Republicans listen to talk radio.”But I would suggest he has the avenue you need to become king.”

Early in the interview, I realized Jan is a reader, thinker, and truly concerned about the state of America. This made the interview discuss many topics and principles of political thought. Listen to the interview here. I closed with the way to check sovereignty and therefore the abuse of power. D. W. Brogan, in his introduction to Bertrand De Jouvenal’s fantastic book On Power said:

Being a ruler is a trade. So we can apply to all types of rulers the judgement of Swift. “Arbitrary power is the natural object of temptation to a prince, as wine or women to a young fellow, or a bribe to a judge, or vanity to a woman.” For the best of motives, rulers will, like courts, try to add to their jurisdiction. How is this never-ending audacity to be, at any rate, limited? By making sure that effective power is not monopolized.

Brogan has nailed it! Unchecked power leads to abuse over time. Why? Because the Five Laws of Decline are real and men are not angels. Make the local, state, and federal sovereign over specifically spelled out areas. If either of the three attempt to expand their powers, they must do so at the expense of the other two branches who would naturally check this overreach. Since money is limited, so is the ability to expand their power and thus, sovereignty is finally divided and limited as the founders intended. Listen to the interview and help the LeaderShift by sharing these concepts and the book with as many people who still love what America stood for.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Posted by OrrinWoodward at 7:49 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, June 5, 2013 7:58 AM EDT

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Orrin Woodward reads and researches daily to bring the greatest issues from the past to life. LIFE Leadership members and customers learn so much about leadership, history, life skills, character, work-ethic, and relationships, that it is difficult to imagine any organization covering such a wide range of skills. Orrin's article on Patrick Henry is a great example of all of this.  article on

Modern Interpretation of Patrick Henry

Patrick Henry, during the Revolutionary War, was considered one of the Top 5 leaders in Colonial America. Indeed, he was several times the governor of the largest State (Virginia), the most powerful speaker in any assembly, and a man of unquestioned character and rectitude. His love of freedom made him stand at the front of the line when England threatened the liberty of the states.  His most famous line, “Give me liberty of give me death,” has fanned the flames of freedom around the world.

Interestingly, something changed after America’s victory over England. First, Patrick Henry refused to go to Philadelphia to participate in the Constitutional Convention saying, “He smelled a rat.” Second, Henry quickly joined forces with George Mason, Richard Henry Lee, George Clinton, and others in resisting the new proposed government. Although Patrick Henry felt changes should be made to the Articles of Confederation, he felt a total rewrite was unnecessary and a dangerous innovation.

In consequence, the same man, who several decades before, was the brightest star at the birth of the revolution for supporting liberty against oppressive taxation and arbitrary government force, now was publicly castigated, belittled, and shoved aside, for daring to speak out on the dangers he saw in the new government for oppressive taxation and arbitrary government force. In other words, when Patrick Henry spoke of liberty against English oppression, his support was heartily supported, but when he spoke of the same dangers in the new proposed government, he was severely criticized.

Patrick Henry understood human nature as well as any of the founders. In truth, his objections were valid and America today is suffering from all of the concerns, and more, that Henry expressed in the Virginia Ratification debates. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance and Patrick Henry defended liberty even at the price of his esteemed reputation, career advancement, and lasting legacy. Truth is truth and when one is afraid to speak truth, when so much is at stake, one becomes a coward. Patrick Henry was no coward.

Unfortunately, Henry, although seeing the problem with the current proposal, did not suggest a workable alternative. In politics, one of the oldest dictums is, “You can’t beat something with nothing,” and even Henry’s leadership could not overcome this law. Nonetheless,  he fought to add a Bill of Rights (thankfully for America he won here), stronger states checks on federal government to resist consolidation (centralization), and stronger checks on the taxing power because he felt the power to tax was the power to control.

Oliver DeMille and I share in LeaderShift a proposal to address each of these concerns and more. Knowing that we cannot beat something with nothing, we proposed a workable alternative to the runaway inflation, debts, and federal consolidation. For instance, placing real limits on the power to tax, forbidding government to print fiat money, and decentralizing leadership away from Washington to the state and local levels. Instead of endless complaining about what’s wrong, perhaps it’s time to start doing something that is right. This is the LeaderShift! I have attached just a portion of one speech he made at the Virginia Ratification Debates that Patrick Henry gave in defense of  liberty over tyranny.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward: LIFE Leadership 

When I asked that question, I thought the meaning of my interrogation was obvious. The fate of this question and of America may depend on this. Have they said, We, the states? Have they made a proposal of a compact between states? If they had, this would be a confederation. It is otherwise most clearly a consolidated government.

The question turns, sir, on that poor little thing the expression, We, the people, instead of the states, of America. I need not take much pains to show that the principles of this system are extremely pernicious, impolitic, and dangerous. Is this a monarchy, like England a compact between prince and people, with checks on the former to secure the liberty of the latter? Is this a confederacy, like Holland an association of a number of independent states, each of which retains its individual sovereignty? It is not a democracy, wherein the people retain all their rights securely.

Had these principles been adhered to, we should not have been brought to this alarming transition, from a confederacy to a consolidated government. We have no detail of these great considerations, which, in my opinion, ought to have abounded before we should recur to a government of this kind. Here is a resolution as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. It is radical in this transition; our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the states will be relinquished: and cannot we plainly see that this is actually the case?

The rights of conscience, trial by jury, liberty of the press, all your immunities and franchises, all pretensions to human rights and privileges, are rendered insecure, if not lost, by this change, so loudly talked of by some, and inconsiderately by others. Is this tame relinquishment of rights worthy of freemen? Is it worthy of that manly fortitude that ought to characterize republicans?

It is said eight states have adopted this plan. I declare that if twelve states and a half had adopted it, I would, with manly firmness, and in spite of an erring world, reject it. You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your government.

Having premised these things, I shall, with the aid of my judgment and information, which, I confess, are not extensive, go into the discussion of this system more minutely.

Is it necessary for your liberty that you should abandon those great rights by the adoption of this system? Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings give us that precious jewel, and you may take every thing else!

But I am fearful I have lived long enough to become an old-fashioned fellow. Perhaps an invincible attachment to the dearest rights of man may, in these refined, enlightened days, be deemed old-fashioned; if so, I am contented to be so. I say, the time has been when every pulse of my heart beat for American liberty, and which, I believe, had a counterpart in the breast of every true American; but suspicions have gone forth suspicions of my integrity publicly reported that my professions are not real. Twenty-three years ago was I supposed a traitor to my country? I was then said to be the bane of sedition, because I supported the rights of my country.

I may be thought suspicious when I say our privileges and rights are in danger. But, sir, a number of the people of this country are weak enough to think these things are too true. I am happy to find that the gentleman on the other side declares they are groundless. But, sir, suspicion is a virtue as long as its object is the preservation of the public good, and as long as it stays within proper bounds: should it fall on me, I am contented: conscious rectitude is a powerful consolation. I trust there are many who think my professions for the public good to be real. Let your suspicion look to both sides. There are many on the other side, who possibly may have been persuaded to the necessity of these measures, which I conceive to be dangerous to your liberty.

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.

Posted by OrrinWoodward at 8:28 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, May 31, 2013 8:38 AM EDT

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Orrin Woodward, two-time NY Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, continues to read, write, and think about issues that matter. The following article on Edmund Opitiz is point in fact. LIFE Leadership has the best leaders, authors, and speakers in the leadership field bar none. Here is Orrin's article. 

A man born into freedom is responsible for his life. He cannot blame his father, mother, siblings, environment, partners, or anything else besides himself if he is unhappy with the results. Yes, bad cards are dealt to good people; however, if one keeps playing the game of life, eventually he will receive new cards and develop a winning hand. Man, in other words, must build his life upon the proper principles to reflect his love of God, by serving Him and mankind. People are free to reject what I just wrote, but not free to reject the consequences of living life with improper principles.

Edmund Opitz

I am in the middle of reading a fascinating book by Edmund Opitz, the late Christian Libertarian minister, that is absolutely superb! I love books that make me think at a deeper level and all of Opitz’s books do this. He was an avid reader/thinker, servant of Christ, and lover of (economic, political, and spiritual) liberty. Over the years, I have read most of the classic Christian books like Calvin’s Institutes, Luther’s Bondage of the Will, Augustine’s Confessions, Jonathan Edward’s Freedom of the Will and many others. These books, and my personal leadership journey, led me on a three year study to determine how to explain God’s sovereignty and man responsibility. Since I knew both concepts to be true, I had to comprehend how I could explain this to my own satisfaction and others.

This study was crucial for me as I wanted to be a leader who led people to truth in all areas of life. Consequently, I knew I had plenty of homework ahead of me to get the answers to help others do the same. Mercifully, after hundreds of books read on the subject and thousands of hours of thinking, the breakthrough came. In sum, I do believe man has freedom of will, but, since man’s will is fallen, he wills against God until he is regenerated. I summarized these thoughts on man’s free will and fallen nature in a short quote, “Man is free to will what he wants, but, in his flesh, doesn’t want God.” Anywhere we see man desiring God we know the Holy Spirit has been at work regenerating the mind, heart, and will.

Everyone is free to agree or not agree with what I just wrote, I only share it to explain my three years of pondering one of life’s paradoxes as a lead in to Edmund Opitz’s thoughts on freedom. Think through his thoughts and share why you believe you are responsible to God and mankind and how you live this philosophy in your daily life?

Human beings are virtually without specific instincts. There is no servo-mechanism in men which automatically keeps the human organism or the species within the pattern laid down for human life. Men have to figure things out and, by enormous effort, learn to conform their actions to the relevant norms in the various sectors of life. This absence of instincts in man constitutes the ground for man’s radical inner freedom, the freedom of his will. . .

Men, however, vary enormously from each other at birth, and the differences widen as individuals mature – each into his specialized individuality. And each person has the gift of freedom so radical that he can deny the existence of the creative forces which produced him. This human freedom makes it not only possible but mandatory that man take a hand in the fashioning of his own life. No man creates himself, but every man makes himself, using the created portions of his being as his resources. This is what it means to say that man is a responsible being.

. . . Of all the orders of creation, only man is a responsible being, who can change; everything else, every horse, dog, lion, tiger, and shark is what it is. Only man is, in any measure, responsible for what he is. Man makes himself, and, therefore each person is morally responsible for himself.

Why did the LIFE Leadership founders start our leadership company? Because we want to teach people how to be responsible to their duties in life. Unfortunately, today, we live in a world today where it’s becoming popular to pass the buck. Reality TV shows spew gossip and finger-pointing in an attempt to deflect blame from themselves; radio shows are filled with child-like rants rather than thoughtful solutions to today’s challenges; and free market competition is scorned by Big Business, apparently only allowed on the sports field. Nonetheless, leaders have a responsibility to run against the current of decline, doing their duty by creating a LeaderShift. Whether a leader is recognized, rewarded, or even remembered, it is simply the right thing to do.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Posted by OrrinWoodward at 2:04 PM EDT

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Chris Brady shares another oustanding article on living life for an audience of one. Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady have been partners for 20 years and have produced phenomenal results together. Their latest venture, LIFE Leadership, is in the process of revolutionizing the leadership field. Here is the Chris's article.

Posted by OrrinWoodward at 3:33 PM EDT

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Orrin Woodward, two-time NY Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, shares his thoughts on entrepreurship, leadership and life. If a person wants to be a better entrepreneur then he should focus on becoming a better leader. Here's the blog post.

An entrepreneur must be a leader. Why? Because he or she must build and lead teams of people to accomplish the task, satisfy the customer, and do so at a price that leaves profit for the team members. In other words, ineffective leaders soon prove to be ineffective entrepreneurs because the customer isn’t satisfied nor the teams paid well. Nonetheless, many would-be entrepreneurs start business while ignoring the importance of leadership to the health of their enterprise.

Entrepreneurs should enter into markets where they feel they can satisfy the customers better than their competitors. For instance, Jack Welch, in his early days, was called “Neutron Jack” because he refused to be in a business sector where he couldn’t improve to either #1 or #2. His philosophy of business led him to get out of markets where he couldn’t be the best, and move into markets where he could be the best, thus maximizing profits for the company and ensuring employment for the workers. Incidentally, few seem to understand that only a profitable company can maintain its workers. Since profit is the life-blood of any business, when a company is losing money, it’s similar to a patient losing blood.  In both instances, death results if the bleeding isn’t checked.

Accordingly, leaders are constantly studying the vital signs of their business, ensuring the business is not bleeding to death. In fact, leaders must be PDCA champions, constantly making adjustment in the areas where it can have the most impact. They don’t just change things to make change, however. Instead, they listen, study, and analyze until they determine which area of change could have the biggest impact on the bottom line. Then they do something unheard of in our modern world, namely, take massive action to drive the team and business forward.

Whenever I study a business, the first question I ask is: Who is the leader? If an effective leader is in charge, he can overcome lack of capital, lack of resources, and still beat competitors who have plenty of both. Why? Because leaders constantly are developing innovative ways to solve problems while managers focus on the same methods that worked before. I love the saying: If it isn’t broke, then break it and make it better.

When my co-founders and I started LIFE Leadership, we did so with little funds or resources, but we had a superbly talented leadership team. I knew that the leadership team would quickly build the leadership products that could compete with any leadership team anywhere. Interestingly, over the last 18 months LIFE Leadership has become a $50 million dollar conglomerate through building the highest quality personal development products in the industry.

For example, anyone serious about being an entrepreneur ought to purchase and apply the principles from the Mental Fitness Challenge personal development program. The 13 Resolutions are found in my All-Time Top 100 Leadership book RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE.  If applied daily, they will radically change the leadership capabilities of any hungry student. In fact, I have hundreds of emails from satisfied customers who did just that.

In summary, if the reader wants to be a successful entrepreneur, then he must be a successful leader. Building a company without building one’s leadership is a fools way to launch a company. For no company will rise higher than the leadership within the company. America needs leaders to create the LeaderShift! What part will the reader play? Here is another segment of the article on the role of entrepreneurs.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Entrepreneur as exceptional leader

Posted by OrrinWoodward at 1:25 PM EDT

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George Guzzardo spells out the recipe for financial health in this blog post. George has worked with Orrin Woodward for over 20 years and has applied leadership, financial, and liberty principles to achieve success. Indeed, George is an excellent example of the LeaderShift in action as he went from a non-reader to one of the biggest readers in the LIFE LeaderShip organization. Here is the article. 

How many of us have heard of someone who was climbing the corporate ladder only to discover that they were on the wrong ladder? In the modern world many of us are realizing that learning is not measured by examinations any more but by experiences that we grow from. That is why there is a buzz about the opportunity to learn from Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady with the release of the up and coming ‘Financial Fitness Pack’. This is a pack of CD’s and workbook that will provide information about the ‘Offense’, ‘Defense’, and ‘Playing Field’, of personal finance.

Many of us have a difficult time understanding today’s modern economy and how it effects us, but if we arm ourselves with more knowledge founded from good economic principles we can prepare ourselves for any change. The ‘Financial Fitness Pack’ will provide principles to help prepare for the unexpected.  Charles Handy writes a story about the Peruvian Indians who seeing the sails of the Spanish invaders on the horizon put it down to a freak of the weather and went on about their business, having no concept of sailing ships in their limited experience. Assuming continuity, they screened out what did not fit and let disaster in. Today there are rules that govern science, reading, writing, and speech but there seems to be some confusion about the rules that govern economics. The Oxford dictionary defines principles as basic truths or general laws about cause and effect. Learning solid financial principles can help us with our household economics.

Today government is guided by its economists not its citizens. There is a stereotype that good economic information must come from Ivy League graduates. Not true. Looking back through history you will find that the word economics comes from Greek origin. It is derived from ‘oikos’ = household, and ‘nem’ = administer or organize. Xenophon writes that ‘oikonomikos’ describes a gentleman landowner who understands the proper use of wealth.  The ‘Financial Fitness Pack' will provide a major breakthrough for those wishing to take greater control of their finances by providing what I feel will be the highest quality information for the least amount of cost ever before in the modern world or even the ancient world. Here is a summary of just a few areas you will learn from the Financial Fitness Pack:

The offense of ‘Financial Fitness’ will describe:

-       The mind set and moneyview of the financially fit.

-       Why you need to have long - term vision.

-       The advantages of putting multipliers on you wealth.

-       Harnessing the power of compounding to work for you.

The defense of ‘Financial Fitness’ will describe:

-       The habits of saving and budgeting.

-       The benefits of practicing delayed gratification.

-       A strategic plan to get out of debt.

The playing field of ‘Financial Fitness’ will describe:

-       Command vs. market economies and why it matters in history.

-       The history of money.

-       How inflation works.

-       The role and significance of entrepreneurs.

-       Predicting and preparing for economic downturns.

The workbook will provide examples and worksheets of an actual Financial Action Plan. This will come with an 8 CD pack to support your overall financial learning experience.

The famous inventor and educator Buckminster Fuller said that this type of preparation was to “help with the forward days of our lives.” He described wealth as the “progressive mastery of matter by the mind.” This meant that wealth, or value, is produced not by matter but the ideas that transform it. It’s not always work that produces wealth but working under the right principles. We now live in the information age and it’s critical that we get the right information. Just listen to those who have been surprised by unexpected changes in the economy. Crisis does not have to be the reason we learn. The LIFE business is committed to providing cutting edge quality information that is cost effective. By learning timeless principles we can prepare ourselves for the inevitable changes we know will come, but on the other hand we can influence the future, if we know where we want to go and what we want it to be. God Bless, George Guzzardo

Posted by OrrinWoodward at 3:21 PM EDT

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Orrin Woodward's life has gone from peak to peak in various fields. First, he had four patents and won a national benchmarking award as a top systems engineer. In addition, he was half-way through his MBA from the #2 business school at the time - U of M in Ann Arbor.

However, the entrepreneurial bug hit him and he started his leadership engine and launched in the second phase of his life. He built his community to over 20,000 people at events, but when his supplier changed the contract on him, he announced his resignation.

After several years of lawsuits, attempting to free himself from his former supplier, Orrin and the other LIFE Founders finally launched LIFE Leadership. The rest, as they say, is history in the making. Orrin is a modern-day reformer who refuses to sell out his convictions for convenience. 

Orrin Woodward is now a two-time NY Times bestselling author with Launching a Leadership Revolution and LeaderShift and his first solo book RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE made the all-time top 100 leadership book list. Evidently, his convictions were worth fighting for. 

In each generation, there are a few men and women who refuse to follow the herd, willing to forge their own trails through life. Below is an article from Orrin's blog on Julius Caesar from historian James Froude. Caesar certainly blazed his own trail. The article is attached.

In my ongoing reading of the classics and the leaders of Greece and Rome, I stumbled across a gem of a book by James Froude on Caesar. I had read much on Caesar, but the interpretations of Froude’s works left me with a much better appreciation of the challenges Caesar faced and what he attempted to do to reform the faltering Roman Republic. Caesar, like everyone else, certainly wasn’t perfect, but his mission was solid and his results were amazing given the constraints he was placed under. Caesar in his day, and in his way, attempted to expand the benefits of the Roman Empire to all provinces and end the Five Laws of Decline working upon the Roman Senate. Successful in politics, war, and leadership, he was assassinated by the threatened Senate. However, his reforms were still implemented, albeit belatedly, delayed by another round of civil wars before Augustus assumed leadership.

Interestingly, Caesar attempted to restore civil peace and was killed and, at nearly the same time, Jesus was restoring spiritual peace and was killed. Evidently, reformers, who threaten the status quo beneficiaries of the Five Laws of Decline, are rarely welcomed by the threatened groups. Even so, right is right, justice is justice, and peace is peace. As Teddy Roosevelt said, “There is no peace without justice.” Accordingly, each citizen ought to strive to check the FLD in his life and community, promoting peace with justice for posterity’s sake. The LeaderShift will demand nothing less than our personal best in this area.

Here is a portion of James Froude’s summary.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Caesar’s Assassination

“We have killed the king,” exclaimed Cicero in the bitterness of his disenchantment, ” but the kingdom is with us still;” “we have taken away the tyrant; the tyranny survives.” Caesar had not overthrown the oligarchy; their own incapacity, their own selfishness, their own baseness, had overthrown them. Caesar had  been  but the reluctant instrument of the power which metes out to men the inevitable penalties of their own misdeeds. They  had dreamt that the constitution was a living force which would revive of itself as soon as its enemy was gone. They did not know that it was dead already, and that they had themselves destroyed it.

The constitution was but an agreement by which the Roman people had consented to abide for  their common good. It had ceased to be for the common good. The experience of fifty miserable years had proved that it meant the supremacy of the rich, maintained by the bought votes of demoralized electors. The soil of Italy, the industry and happiness of tens of millions of mankind, from the Rhine to the Euphrates, had been the spoil of five hundred families and their relatives and dependents, of men whose occupation was luxury, and whose appetites were for monstrous pleasures.

The self-respect of  reasonable men could no longer tolerate such a rule in Italy or out of it. In killing Caesar the Optimates had been as foolish as they were treacherous; for Caesar’s efforts had been to reform the constitution, not to abolish it. The Civil War had risen from their dread of his second consulship, which they had feared would make an end of their corruptions; and that the constitution should be purged of  the poison in its veins was the sole condition on which its continuance was possible. The obstinacy, the ferocity, the treachery of the aristocracy, had compelled Caesar to crush them; and the more desperate their struggles the more absolute the necessity became. But he alone could have restored as much of popular liberty as was consistent with the responsibilities of such a government as the Empire required.

In Caesar alone were combined the intellect and the power necessary for such a work; and they had killed him, and in doing so had passed final sentence on themselves. Not as realities any more, but as harmless phantoms, the forms of the old Republic were henceforth to persist. In the army only remained the imperial consciousness of the honour and duty of Roman citizens. To the army, therefore, the rule was transferred. The Roman nation had grown as the oak grows, self-developed in severe morality, each citizen a law to himself, and therefore capable of political freedom in an unexampled degree. All organizations destined to endure spring from forces inherent in themselves, and must grow freely, or they will not grow at all. When the tree reaches maturity, decay sets in; if it be left standing, the disintegration of the fibre goes swiftly forward; if the stem is severed from the root, the destroying power is arrested, and the timber will endure a thousand years. . .

In ages less visionary which are given to ease and enjoyment the tendency is to bring a great man down to the common level, and to discover or invent faults which shall show that he is or was but a little man after all. Our vanity is soothed by evidence that those who have eclipsed us in the race of life are no better than ourselves, or in some respects are worse than ourselves; and if to these general impulses be added political or personal animosity, accusations of depravity are circulated as surely about such men, and are credited as readily, as under other influences are the marvellous achievements of a Cid or a St. Francis.

But enough and too much on this miserable subject. Men will continue to form their opinions about it, not upon the evidence, but according to their preconceived notions of what is probable or improbable. Ages of progress and equality are as credulous of evil as ages of faith are credulous of good, and reason will not modify convictions which do not originate in reason. . .

He fought his battles to establish some tolerable degree of justice in the government of this world; and he succeeded, though he was murdered for doing it. Strange and startling resemblance between the fate of the founder of the kingdom of this world and of the Founder of the kingdom not of this world, for which the first was a preparation. Each was denounced for making himself a king. Each was maligned as the friend of publicans and sinners; each was betrayed by those whom he had loved and cared for; each was put to death; and Caesar also was believed to have risen again and ascended into heaven and become a divine being.

Posted by OrrinWoodward at 7:42 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, May 16, 2013 7:54 AM EDT

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