Orrin Woodward on LIFE & Leadership

Inc Magazine Top 20 Leader shares his personal, professional, and financial secrets.

  • Orrin Woodward

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    Former Guinness World Record Holder for largest book signing ever, Orrin Woodward is a NY Times bestselling author of And Justice For All along with RESOLVED & coauthor of LeaderShift and Launching a Leadership Revolution. His books have sold over one million copies in the financial, leadership and liberty fields. RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions For LIFE made the Top 100 All-Time Best Leadership Books and the 13 Resolutions are the framework for the top selling Mental Fitness Challenge personal development program.

    Orrin made the Top 20 Inc. Magazine Leadership list & has co-founded two multi-million dollar leadership companies. Currently, he serves as the Chairman of the Board of the LIFE. He has a B.S. degree from GMI-EMI (now Kettering University) in manufacturing systems engineering. He holds four U.S. patents, and won an exclusive National Technical Benchmarking Award.

    This blog is an Alltop selection and ranked in HR's Top 100 Blogs for Management & Leadership.

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Never Complain or Explain

Posted by Orrin Woodward on April 3, 2011

Leaders address issues head on, but refuse to complain about them, seeking to resolve, not inflate the matter. Has complaining about something ever produced real change?  Any change that is browbeaten out of another isn’t a true heart change. One can watch husbands and wives complain to, and about, each other endlessly, but it won’t elicit the desired changes.  A character based response, is to address the issue with the person responsible, asking how one can help with the challenge.  But no matter what happens, a leader won’t complain to others. Good company avoids critical spirits.  Life will deal bad cards to all of us, instead of complaining, play the cards and learn the lessons needed.  Bitter or better, that is the two choices that people have in life. Complaining leads to bitterness and resentment, two characteristics that are lethal to a positive attitudes, creating a cultural cesspool that destroys organizations.   Everyone plays a part that in resolving challenges, even if it’s just encouraging others rather than complaining at or about them. Because seeds are scattered everyday, it takes a disciplined thought process to maintain a positive attitude, refusing to wallow in negativity. Left to itself, a mind will quickly fill with weeds, just as a garden will.  Until the weeds are eradicated,  positive reading and association will not prosper, because most of the success seeds are blocked out by the weeds.  Kill the weeds first, then replace with positive books, audios, and associations. Henry Ford II, said, “Never complain, never explain,” emphasizing the worthlessness of complaining about the circumstances or explaining it away through excuses.   

Mentally complaining may release people feeling responsible, but by passing the buck, one has also passed on leadership, since leaders, by definition, accept responsibility.  People, filled with weeds, instead of accepting responsibility for fixing their problems, attempt to escape responsibility by blaming others.  This would be laughable, if it wasn’t so prevalent. When a limiting belief (weed) is adopted, people will fight to defend that weed.  In fact, many times people will argue with others, denying that they have what it takes to win, becoming upset at them for daring to suggest that they could win. Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull concurs, writing, “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they are yours.” People, fearing the pain of change, or more specifically, the pain of pulling their own weeds, run to self deception instead, in an effort to defend their fragile egos, because they know that if they admit they have what it takes to win, the weed is exposed as lie wrapped in an excuse. The author recently read an anonymous story about a 92 year old lady, exemplifying attitude is a choice, “She is fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with her hair fashionably coifed, and her makeup perfectly applied, in spite of the fact she is legally blind. Today she has moved to a nursing home. Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making this move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, where I am employed, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet curtains that had been hung on her window. “I love it,” she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year old having just been presented with a new puppy. “Mrs. Jones, you haven’t seen the room….just wait,” I said. Then she spoke these words that I will never forget: “That does not have anything to do with it,” she gently replied. “Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like the room or not, does not depend on how the furniture is arranged. It is how I arrange my mind. I have already decided to love it. It is a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice. I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or I can get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do work. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I will focus on the new day and all of the happy memories I have stored away….just for this time in my life.” God Bless, Orrin Woodward

5 Responses to “Never Complain or Explain”

  1. wildtarg said

    Thank you for a convicting discussion on attitude. While it is often simple to acknowledge truth in the head, confronting the heart reality is often different and difficult.

    I would like to make one distinction, that between happiness and joy. I have found it useful to look at happiness as a state of the mind, and joy as a state of the heart. Happiness describes a positive state of relation to our circumstances, and joy is a positive state of relation with ourselves (self-image or self-respect) and our Maker. With joy, it is possible to be happy regardless of external conditions, but without joy, no lasting happiness is possible.

    Keep going, we’re with you…

    Gabriel Weeden

  2. Stacey Arroyo said

    The words,”It’s a choice” in various tenses have caught my eyes and ears for several weeks now.( I love how God chooses to reveal things to me.) The words from this blog are no exception in catching my attention…”it takes a disciplined thought process to maintain a positive attitude, refusing to wallow in negativity.” This does not come naturally to me. So at this time in my journey I have to wake up each day,sometimes moment to moment, and make that choice. Dare I say that with reading,listening and associating with like minded people that it is becoming easier to do.Thank you for pressing on and helping so many discover and reach their potential.

  3. Thank you for this valuable advice as I begin my journey in Life Leadership. Happiness appears to be a consequence of healthy, selfless thoughts and actions. Thank you for your examples. See you in February. ~ Deborah Katz

  4. Greg Bie said

    Well said, Orrin. I consider this a personal challenge to watch my attitude, even the grumbling “under my breath”. Thank you. God bless and keep you. 🙂

  5. Jovian Oliver said

    Great insight Mr.Woodward, like how you explain mental attitude with the garden. It reminds me of the saying that went something like…”God never promised a rose garden”, or something of the rather. It really does take effort to change, and upkeep that garden. I’m not saying I have a rose garden, or the fruit yet, but I’ve planted a few new seeds. Thanks for your guidance!

    P.S. I read that story somewhere, was it in one of your books?

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