Saturday, October 30, 2010

Leaders of Today

True leaders have an understanding of the present, and a vision for the future.  To be successful as a leader in any industry, you must:
  • Prepare to be a leader.
  • Understand leadership.
  • And then be prepared to assume the leadership role in your organization.
Your journey must not end here.  In fact, your journey will never end as a true leader.
Leadership is about reaching for the stars, and when you reach one, reach for the next one,  It's exciting, it's fun, and it's the essence of life.

The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well. and doing well whatever you do.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thursday, October 07, 2010

Leadership Gurus 2011

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Free-Competition

A Lesson on Free-Competition from http://www.capitalism.org/faq/competition.htm

Free-competition means freedom from physical force to produce for ones own profit.

What is free-competition?

Free competition is the freedom to produce, and the freedom to trade what one has produced, for ones own self-interest, i.e., in the pursuit of ones own happiness.

What is the foundation of free-competition?

Politically, free-competition is a consequence of the political right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness applied to the economic sphere of production and trade.

Morally, competition among producers is founded not on service to consumers -- which is a result; but, upon the pursuit of rational self-interest, i.e. the profit motive. Economically, its result is a free-market, i.e. free trade.


Observe that free-market competition presupposes a social system based on
individual rights -- and cannot exist without the protection of rights by government, e.g. what good is the right to produce (right to liberty) if one does not have the right to keep what one has created (right to property), the right to advertise what one has produced (right to free speech), the right to trade ones goods one ones own terms (right to property) and the right to benefit from what one has produced (right to the pursuit of happiness)?

Free-competition without
individual rights is a contradiction in terms, it is an oxymoron. Of course, if one is a communist, fascist or socialist (all are different forms of a single evil principle: collectivism) and does not believe in individual rights then competition has an entirely different meaning.

What is the difference between competition under capitalism and competition under all other kinds of societies (collectivist societies)?

All social systems have competition, the only difference is that in capitalism, all such competition for economic power results in the creation of wealth, whereas in collectivist societies such competition for political power results in the destruction of wealth.

Under capitalism, competition is an economic process where men do not compete to put down others, but to raise their self up by creating values which are potentially unlimited, and raising their competitors up in the process.


Under all collectivist systems competition is a political process where men compete not to create values, but to lobby or kill for positions of political power which they can use to legally extort the wealth of their fellow men.

Here's yet another great Orrin article explaining these principles in terms we can all relate to:

Competition, Excuses, and Free Trade
Competition ensures that winners won’t buy their own excuses.

Competition, a concept much loved by anyone attending a professional sporting event, seeks to have the best contend against the best for the enjoyment of all.  Top level competition reminds me of my youth, when NBA legends Larry Bird and Earvin “Magic” Johnson, both intense competitors and quintessential winners, were first entering the professional ranks.  The battles between the Lakers and Celtics became legendary as each team made constant adjustments to improve against the other.  The NBA turned into a fan favorite, selling out once empty stadiums, in a large part to the competitive greatness displayed by Bird and Magic.  Sadly, competitive greatness, this key ingredient to keeping a country productive, is being lost in the business world as entrepreneurs, fed on a diet of government subsidies and tariffs, become more like bureaucrats than business owners.  Can you imagine the outrage if, after a Lakers loss to the Celtics, the Laker team, rather than confront their lack of execution leading to the loss, instead chose to run to the California congress, seeking a tariff restriction against Celtic basketball the next time they entered California?  I can see the arguments now in congress, the Laker team provides jobs for Americans, it has been an icon in the NBA for years, we cannot allow Laker basketball to fail; therefore, we must support a tariff restriction against the uncompetitive practices of the Celtics, those egregious winners.  Ok, one might be thinking the author is getting carried away as there are no tariffs between states.  This is correct, certainly one of the best decisions our Founding Fathers made was to eliminate all tariffs set up to protect the states against competition from other states.  The Lakers are forbidden by law to seek protection against the Celtics and must learn to adjust to the competitive pressures applied by the Celtics, if they wish to compete and win. The Founding Fathers, although they understood the importance of each state having to compete on its own merits without tariffs, interestingly allowed tariffs on an international scale between countries, claiming the need to protect new American industries.  They agreed with competition within the country, improving the output, quality and price, but wavered in principle when discussing competition amongst countries.

Let’s revisit our NBA analogy with a twist,...   FULL ARTICLE HERE.


Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Orrin Woodward & the Power of Creative Visualization

Harnessing the power of creative visualization to help you improve every area of your life is not only possible, it's the only way to truly achieve change.  It is a power every one of us uses everyday, whether you are aware of it or not.  Being aware of and having the knowledge of these laws governing creative visualization, and engaging a conscious and effective use of them, you can fill your life with success and positive change.

Anything we focus upon such as success, health, money, family, promotion, marriage, business, and possessions can be gained through creative visualization.  While it may not mean that everything will magically change overnight, mental work is necessary to begin changing the foundation of our thinking and our beliefs.  This change of attitude towards life is absolutely necessary to achieve any subsequent manifested change.  You need to simply have an open mind, focus & concentration, the ability to visualize, and a lot of enthusiasm and don't forget persistence.

No one understands this better than Orrin.  Here's another great post from a guy who not only has a big vision, but casts one even bigger.

Dreams or Dreads
It’s hard to light yourself on fire with your dream when you are busy wetting yourself with your dread.

All achievers, in every field, visualize successful outcomes before making them a reality. From athletes, salespeople, musicians, business owners, and many others, top performers understand the power of vision.  The ability of your subconscious mind to lead you towards your dominating vision is little known and rarely tapped into amongst the masses, but his must change.  If someone plans on breaking out of the crowd, learning to feed the subconscious mind the vision of the future isn’t a nice add on, but an absolute necessity.  Author Vince Poscente, a world class athlete, wrote in his entertaining and informative book, The Ant & the Elephant, on the difference between the conscious and subconscious mind, teaching that the conscious mind in one second of thinking through words stimulates 2,000 neurons, while the sub-conscious mind in a second of imagining through images stimulates 4 billion neurons.  That’s 4,000,000,000 neurons, literally 2 million times more neurons stimulated in your subconscious mind than your conscious mind in one second of activity.  Poscente called the conscious mind the and and the subconscious mind an elephant.  Loving analogies, I have used the ant and elephant concept numerous times to teach people the power in their imagination.  The great Albert Einstein said, many years ago, “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” so these concepts are not new, just rarely applied in people’s lives.



Sunday, October 03, 2010

The Harder Right vs. The Easy Wrong- Orrin Woodward

Orrin has been a blogging crazy man lately.  I'm not sure how he puts out such relevant, thought-provoking, inspirational and poignant articles on such a continuous basis but.... oh wait, yes I do... he's Orrin Woodward.  The guy reads and thinks more in a single day than most do in their entire lifetime.  

Another great article:

Character - Producers vs Exploiters
Leaders always choose the harder right rather than the easier wrong.

Character demands strength of mind, heart, and will.  Choosing to do right, regardless of what others are doing, isn’t easy or natural, but leaders refuse to surrender their character, considering it more valuable than any earthly possession.  Many talk glibly of character, boasting loudly of its importance, who, when circumstances press against them, quickly run to the easier wrong than the harder right.  Character is less about head knowledge, nearly everyone knows when they are doing wrong, but more a matter of heart knowledge, doing right when it hurts.  In life, one can choose to produce results or search for ways to exploit others results. Producers create value by serving people, either directly in the service fields, or indirectly by producing products that people desire.  Producers do not look for handouts, only hand ups.  Given the right training, they can achieve nearly anything by their efforts and tenacity.  Maintaining a productive existence requires character as people will not remain in business with exploiters unless coerced. One of the quickest way to recognize producers, is by the long term relationships built through serving others through win-win principles.  Character based people refuse to be exploiters, even though it looks easier, it always ends up hurting the person more than it benefits the pocketbook.

The rest of the story: CLICK IT