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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Freedom and Force: The Leadership Challenge

Posted by Orrin Woodward on May 8, 2016

If we look beneath the surface of leadership, we can discern one fundamental fact of influence, namely:  to whom much is given, much is required. This is a fact that should interest all true students of leadership. He has only a secondary or derived interest in matters like character, relationship, honor, loyalty, vision and similar items of influence that fill the pages of books, magazines, and speeches of leadership gurus. All of these can be run up under one head. They have an immediate and temporary importance, and for this reason they monopolize attention, but they all come to the same thing; which is, an increase in responsibilities the higher one climbs in leadership.

It is unfortunately none too well understood that in a free society leadership is freely given by followers, not physically coerced by the leader. All the alleged power of the leader, is in fact merely the display of confidence the community has in his ability to take them where they want to go. Therefore, any attempt to physically control the community, whatever else it may be called, should certainly not be labeled leadership. In effect, influence is something a leader earns through his character and competence whereas coercion is the non-leader’s substitute for the lack of the aforementioned qualities.

Moreover, it follows that as coercion increases, true leadership decreases. After all, if the alleged leader actually had the community’s buy-in, then why would force need to be applied at all? Unfortunately, communities across the globe have become so inured to the use of force by positional leadership that the difference between influence and intimidation has been blurred beyond recognition. Bureaucratic exercise of force has been applied so steadily, that most people are unaware of any other approach to achieving the communities goals.

Nonetheless, there is a better way. In fact, it’s the only way that deserves the noble title of leadership. While neglected and abused by its ersatz replacements, true leadership is the art and science of influence without coercion. In a word, servant leadership. Under the auspices of the industrial revolution, however, servant leadership was replaced with the command and control structures modeled upon national militaries. Indeed, Big Government, Big Banks, and Big Corporations (aka: Big Bureaucracies) have all defaulted to coercion, rather than service, as the ruling modus operandi. Students of politics, naturally, recognize this trend for what it is, namely a continuation of what James Madison called “the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in the government”. Needless to say, the effect all of this has upon the balance between force (coercion) and freedom (service) upon leadership cannot be overstated.

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson

For these reasons, among many others, Chris Brady and I wrote Launching a Leadership Revolution. The force tide must be checked before the freedom tide will return. This, however, will not occur until people free themselves from the addiction to debt, for debt is cancerous to freedom. Imagine how many people would happily exit Big  Bureaucracies command and control structures were they financial capable of doing so to pursue their purpose rather than a paycheck. Not surprisingly, the longer a person is addicted to pleasure and debt, the more difficult it is to break the paycheck dependency.   In other words, debt addiction not only leads to craven obedience to commands, but also atrophies the ability to think and act independently.

Accordingly, the Financial Fitness Program is an essential first step in returning to freedom and servant-based leadership. After all, only when a person is financially independent can he afford to act upon his own opinions rather than simply obeying his superiors mandates. The question boils down to how important is freedom to the reader? Strangely, some of the most vociferous supporters of societal freedom do not seem to recognize the cognitive dissonance inherent in selling themselves into debt slavery.

Thankfully, the LIFE Leadership community has identified debt as the biggest roadblock to freedom in the developed world. To put it bluntly, I simply do not believe our forefathers intended to sacrifice so much for freedom so we could be debt-slaves.  The thought is ludicrous! Unlike most of the talking pundits, however, we are not just going to bewail our current situation. Instead, we are going to do something about it, namely, declare our debt independence and write our personal Emancipation Proclamation.  Then, and only then, will true leadership rise again as free people make free choices to follow servant-based leaders.

And this has brought us back to where we began.  We must maintain the torch of liberty handed to us by the sacrifice of our ancestors, for to whom much is given, much is required. 

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Posted in Freedom/Liberty, Leadership/Personal Development, LIFE Leadership, Orrin Woodward | 20 Comments »

Financial Fitness – Offense

Posted by Orrin Woodward on April 1, 2016

The civilized world is the midst of a debt deluge; nonetheless, pessimism is not the answer. After all, although no one can control what governments or businesses do, everyone can stop being seduced into debt slavery. This alone would return 33% of the average person’s income back into his control and why defense is such an important part of financial literacy. Defense, simply stated, is spending less than one makes compounded over time. The difference between what one makes and what one spends is then applied to the current debt until all debts are eliminated. Amazing how simple it all sounds and also amazing how difficult it is to stop being seduced into slavery by the latest shiny object.

6a00e54eedbee1883401b7c77b0f32970b-320wiInterestingly, however, most financial literacy programs cover little, if anything, of the playing field and focus mainly on the defensive steps. While defense is good, no one can win a sports championship without offense also. Strangely, however, most programs are silent on the crucial aspect of the financial game. Hence, the typical financial education directs a person’s focus to his current reality. Naturally, this keeps his head down in the details and dirt of his current financial mess. The problem with financial mindset alone is it gets a person thinking so logically about scrimping today that he forgets to dream about a better tomorrow. In contrast, a proper financial plan should lead a person to look down into the details to develop today’s belt-tightening plan to be set into motion. Then, however, one must look up so he can get up. After all, the goal is not for a person to surrender all his dreams in order to live debt free. Rather the goal is for him to live below his means so he can begin investing, as Warren Buffett said, in his number one resource, namely, his personal development.

Indeed, developing personal and professional skills is essential for offense. Why this is not emphasized in a person’s financial plan is beyond me. Especially when one considers there are only two methods to increase the amount remaining between what one makes and one spends: either make more or spend less. As a result, both the make more (offense) and spend less (defense) are vital. To make more money, however, a person must dream for a better future and then invest in more skills. Did the reader catch the crucial distinction? The financial plan defense teaches to spend less while the offense teaches to invest more to develop marketable skills. Interestingly, the skills most highly prized are not the hard technical skills, but rather the soft people skills. For many gain the technical skills but lack the people skills to convey their ideas and work as part of a healthy team. Above all else, improved people skills is the fastest way to increase one’s income. For instance, Dale Carnegie once wrote, “…15 percent of one’s financial success is due to one’s technical knowledge and about 85 percent is due to skill in human engineering—to personality and the ability to lead people.”

Perhaps a person may believe that Carnegie’s quote, written back in 1936, is no longer valid in today’s highly technical age. However, if anything, people skills are more valued today than ever. For instance, even the technology giant, Google, realized that technical skills alone did not make for a good manager. According to Google Vice President Laszlo Bock, “In the Google context, we’d always believed that to be a manager, particularly on the engineering side, you needed to be as deep or deeper a technical expert than the people who work for you. It turns out that that’s absolutely the least important thing. It’s important, but pales in comparison. Much more important is just making that connection and being accessible.” This is the where the Financial Fitness Program shines above all others. For not only does it teach all the principles of defense, but also provides the best offense skills available through LIFE Leadership’s personal development library of products. The founders of LIFE have heard thousands of testimonies from people who have raised their incomes through increased commissions, job promotions, or improved effectiveness.

Be that as it may, this is still just the tip of the offense iceberg. The real secret of offense is to develop a burning desire. In contrast to getting buried in defensive details for the next 20 years, the Financial Fitness Program teaches a person how to dream and achieve. Perhaps there has never been a time in history where Napoleon Hill’s advice (he studied over 300 multi-millionaires before writing his classic Think and Grow Rich) is more needed than today: “There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.” Indeed, a burning desire turns fantasies into dreams and dreams into goals that are achievable. Unfortunately, most people live their lives as wandering generalities rather than one with specific intention. After all, success can be boiled down to three thoughts: 1) What do you want? 2) What’s it cost? 3) Pay it. The burning desire, needless to say, is what helps a person answer these three critical questions to help them live a life of purpose in an age of purposelessness. A burning desire turns a someday fantasy into a dream with a deadline through the power of goal setting set today. Success, like they said of Rome, isn’t built in a day, but it is built day by day.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Posted in Finances, Freedom/Liberty, LIFE Leadership, Orrin Woodward | 15 Comments »

The Case Against Fractional-Reserve Banking

Posted by Orrin Woodward on February 19, 2016

Perhaps the best way to explain fractional-reserve banking is by analogy. Just as a bank note was originally a metaphysical paper representation of a specific physical amount of precious metal money so too is a property title a metaphysical paper representation of a physical plot of land. Imagine the indignation a person would feel if he had exchanged his money for the title believing he had purchased a plot of land only to discover later that the unethical seller had copied the title and sold the paper title to ten other people. What was actually sold? Eleven people cannot own the same physical piece of land but they can own identical metaphysical paper representations of the land. The fraud, as a result, begins the moment the metaphysical representation no longer matches the physical reality. Legally, the seller is guilty of violating property laws and would face severe sanctions for his crime.

Curiously, however, when a bank behaves in a similar fashion and prints numerous banknotes representing titles to the same specific physical precious metals money, it is not considered a violation of property laws. Paradoxically, the same fraudulent behavior where multiple metaphysical copies a one physical item receives severe penalties in every other area, somehow is considered “legal” practices in banking and is termed fractional-reserve banking (FRB). For how can the same physical precious metals be sold (loaned) to numerous parties via its metaphysical paper representation anymore than the same physical land can be sold to numerous parties using the identical scheme? How, in essence, can several parties own the same property at the same time? The answer is a physical impossibility and a metaphysical fraud.

Another example conveying the injustice of FRB is to picture a person who decides to sell his motorcycle. He places an ad in the paper and receives a call with a strange request. The potential buyer states his wife is against him owning a bike, but he really wants one. He offers to purchase the bike if the seller will store the motorbike in his garage. The buyer will only use the bike on Saturdays and he even offers to pay a small storage fee. The seller agrees and the title is exchanged for the cash. After several months, the seller realizes the bike is just sitting there the other six days. At first, he casually takes the bike for a ride personally, realizing he practically owns the bike even though he sold it and receives a monthly fee to store it. Finally, however, he conceptualizes and even more devious plan. Why, he asks himself, not copy the title for the bike six more times (since there is seven days in the week and the “owner” needs his bike only one of the days) and sell the bike again to other unsuspecting “owners”? Not only would I seven times my profit but I would also be able to charge a storage fee to each “owner”.

The fraudulent seller proceeds to run the motorcycle ad specifically looking for husbands with limited time and protective wives. To the seller’s delight, over the next several months he identified six more buyers. The seller was careful to only select buyers who asked to store the bike and who only desired to use the bike on a specific day. Although each person believed he owned the motorcycle in full, the seller defrauded all of them for his illicit gains. Now, the storage owner had a new “owner” for each day of the week and received seven times the profit on the sale of his bike and still received storage fees on top of that! Is this fraud or an innovative fractional-reserve motorcycle selling system?

True, if each owner knew he was only buying one day’s ownership then its physically possible and metaphysically permissible because the titles would represent only a fraction of ownership. This, however, wasn’t true in this case nor is it true with FRB loans. Each owner believes he owns 100% of the bike title and paid for it in full. Accordingly, the seller has committed fraud by metaphysically representing he had seven bikes to sell even though he actually owned only one physically. The pragmatic argument that since the bike owners were not using their property the other six days of the week that the storage facility had a right to sell someone’s else’s property the other six days is simply ludicrous. Especially when the owner’s property was sold without his knowledge or consent.

The banks, however, systematically practice the same thing. For instead of storing society’s money (like most people believe they do) they actually sell (loan) the owner’s money to numerous third parties while acting like the money is available to the original owner on demand. How can the same money be loaned out to ten separate parties while still being available to the actual owners all at the same time? This simply is not possible in the physical world but as shown above it is possible when practicing a metaphysical fraud. Amazingly, the motorcycle seller’s fraud would be punished severely, but the bankers similar fraud is blessed by the State.

The Bank of England (one of the first central banks) utilized FRB to print over ten times as many banknotes as the actual precious metals stored in England’s vaults. As a result, the Bank of England quickly captured the English Empire’s money supply and called the shots as Master of the Puppets. However, the issuance of paper bank notes led to one further innovation in money creation that, strangely enough, was developed in colonial America, namely State fiat-paper.  Colonial America lacked precious metal money and did not like the control the Bank of England had on colonial commerce. Naturally, the question was asked, why not have the colonies issue their own paper notes and promise to redeem them with future tax revenues? In this way the government, businesses, and individuals would not have to pay the Bank of England interest on their paper notes.

Unknown-1The new Sovereign State backed money was a huge success (its still Fiat Money and has its problems but at least the public State does not pay interest to private international financiers) in usurping the need for the Bank of England notes. In fact, Ben Franklin was so impressed by the new innovation that he wrote a treatise in defense of the public Sovereign State backed paper money. Of course, the international bankers who controlled the Bank of England were not amused with the colonial upstarts cheekiness. The Bank of England restored its profits by applying pressure to King George III who forced the colonies to shutdown the colonial paper and return to the Bank of England notes. This, in reality, and not the infinitesimal taxes on colonial merchandise was the real cause of the American Revolution. No less an authority than Ben Franklin himself (considered by many, including me, to be the greatest diplomat in American history because of his keen understanding of humanity) believed this when he observed, “The Colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament, which has caused in the Colonies hatred of England and the Revolutionary War.”

In closing, one of the best principles I learned from economist Dr. Murray Rothbard was FTM – Follow the Money. For every one person motivated by ideals, there are a thousand who are bought and sold. Unfortunately, the more history I read with an eye on Cui Bono (who benefits) the more I realize that most of the history I thought I had learned is simply not so. LIFE Leadership is a company designed to help people learn the truth, escape The Financial Matrixand live a life that matter. I promise to play my part and continue my quest for truth by helping the people understand the dangers of enslaving themselves body, mind, and spirit into the matrix.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Posted in Finances, Freedom/Liberty, Orrin Woodward | 26 Comments »

How the Financial Matrix Captured the State

Posted by Orrin Woodward on February 16, 2016

James Madison - Money Power

Once the elites understood how much wealth could be pilfered from society by capturing the money supply, it was not a question of free money or controlled money. Indeed, the only real question was: who would control the money system and whether it would be led by State Power creating a national fraud or by the Money Power creating an international fraud.

In reality, it wasn’t much of a contest since the Money Elites knew the State’s Achilles heel – it’s all-consuming desire for more power. To increase the State’s power over society, at least in a money economy, the State must direct more of society’s resources, which is just another way of saying the State needs more money. This is a challenge for a States in every age but was especially problematical in the classical age when the money system of society consisted mainly of gold/silver coins. As a result, there were only two ways for the classical States to access more funds, namely, increase taxes or borrow money. Remember, this is before State had the ability to print paper money because this fraud had not been discovered yet. Society, in any event, would not have recognized it as money anyway since precious metal coins were used as money. The State elites (monarchs, emperors, and tyrants) found increased taxes harmed their popularity with the people; hence, they saw the Money Power as the lesser of two evils. The monarchs, choosing short-term good for longterm harm, simply borrowed money from the financial elites rather than upset their subjects by increasing taxes.

Master of the Puppets

                         Master of the Puppets

The State, strangely enough, despite owning the “monopoly of force”, feared a current tax rebellion more than a future debt slavery. Ironically, it will probably end up with both. The State elites sold the nation’s financial future (freedom decreases as debt increases) for increased power in the present. Meanwhile, the savvy financial elites did not rely on just one State for profits. Indeed, they offered loans to every rival States to generate competition amongst the States, which increased the total debt and expanded their financial web. The Money Power, after all, understood as State debts increased, they could demand further privileges to ensure mastery over the State. The Money Power (international elites) now topped the power pyramid followed by the obedient State Powers (national elites) which then directed Societal Power (the masses). Over time, the State, regrettably, became just as oppressed by the Money Power as the people were by the State and Money Power combination.

Unfortunately, the bad news gets even worse. For the “loans” used to enslave the States were not based upon real gold and silver stored in bank vaults; instead, the international financiers used what is known as fractional-reserve-banking (FRB) to initiate numerous loans with only a fraction of gold/silver promised in reserves. In a word, the States enslaved themselves by loving money more than the people. Through the use of bank ledgers credits and an early form of bank note credits, the States accepted money created out of thin air, but forced the people to pay back the loans with precious metals! One may ask how the same precious metals can be loaned to numerous parties (States) at the same time? In the real world, this is physically impossible, but in the imaginary world of high finances, it is metaphysically possible (bank ledger notations) despite being morally impermissible.

It’s been said there is nothing new under the sun, only the history a person doesn’t know. The modern States seem to validate this statement as they appear to have learned nothing from their ancient predecessors – both borrowed themselves into bankruptcy. The Money Power has mastered the State and society with FRB loans created out of thin air. While this information may seem shocking, it is true nonetheless. Yes, the truth will set a person free, but usually only after it ticks him off.

The author has termed the private Money Power’s control over the banking system and money supply the Financial Matrix – a system of control where the Money Power creates money out of thin air to loan to society’s members for profit and power. The origins of the Financial Matrix can be traced back to ancient Babylonian banking practices.  In the early twentieth century, however, with the creation of central banks as lenders of last resort, the Financial Matrix now reigns supreme over the earthly world. This debt system not only enslaves individuals and captures corporations into debt, but it also neuters the nation’s of the world. The Bible admonition in Proverbs 22:7, “The borrower is slave to the lender,” could not be more relevant than it is today and each person must face up to what role he is playing with respect to the Financial Matrix.

For instance, when a person borrows money to buy things he does not need, he is feeding the matrix and losing his liberties. The people must learn to deny themselves short-term pleasures in order to avoid the longterm pain. One final bitter fruit of the Financial Matrix system is the stress and pain experienced when a person attempts to pay off debt with compound interest working against him. The profits and control, in effect, go to the Money Power while the pain and stress go to the debtors. Financial ignorance is not bliss but rather pain personified. When the State debt increases the governments must squeeze society for more tax dollars even though the people are already struggling with their own debt. The shortfall, is then made up by the State borrowing even more money that it cannot afford. This is a form of insanity. Unquestionably, the kick the can down the road strategy cannot last but today’s politicians hope to be out of office by the time the can is no longer kickable. 🙂 Politics is now like a game of musical chairs where the current political leader hopes he is out of office before the music stops.

Meanwhile, the St. Louis Federal Reserve announced the total US debt (the combination of government, business, mortgage, and consumer debt) has risen from $2.2 trillion total in 1971 (the year Nixon took the dollar and thus the world off the gold standard) to $59.4 trillion in the first quarter of 2014. This is not a typo. The debt in America, which took nearly 200 years to reach $2.2 trillion and included the debts from the Civil War, WWI, and WWII, is now (43 years later) 27 times higher! Even at just 5% interest, this amounts to over $3 trillion in interest to service the debt. That’s 3,000,000,000,000 dollars every year, which is more than our total debt was a mere 43 years before. What is going on?

When Nixon took America off the gold, the dollar still remained the world’s money system, but it freed the Money Power to create as much money as it wanted without and need for gold in reserve. This turbo-charged the ability of the Financial Matrix to loan money and the consumers naively accepted the bait. I believe it’s time for the citizens of the world to reject the debt seduction. True, you can, like the proverbial ostrich, put your head in the sand and ignore this entire article, but I promise you even though you may hide your head from the financial tiger, it will still be painful when you are devoured.  🙂

The chart below reveals how the Financial Matrix is siphoning off trillions of dollars of productive capacity in each nation. The debt for American governments, corporations, and individuals is now around $20 trillion each and the interest payments are causing significant price, tax, and debt payment increases. The average American family is at the breaking point and what is need is some financial wisdom to alleviate their personal debt and stress. There is a personal pathway out of the Financial Matrix and I promise to do my part in sharing the steps to freedom.

Without intending to sound overly dramatic, I truly believe this is liberty’s last stand. The Founders of LIFE Leadership intend to stand in the gap and educate the masses of the world on a plan to escape the Financial Matrix. Will you help us set the captives free?

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Financial Matrix Trap

 

Posted in Finances, Freedom/Liberty, Orrin Woodward | 19 Comments »

State Power vs Money Power

Posted by Orrin Woodward on February 15, 2016

In today’s capitalistic society, money is power. The more money a person has, the more choices and resources available. Initially, money was simply the most marketable commodity within society. If Tom raised chickens and had extra eggs, he sought to barter the eggs for another item he desired. Mary, for instance, may have wanted to purchase eggs, but Tom did’t need the woman’s bracelet she offered in return. Barter of commodities, then, required both parties to want the others person’s items and in a quantity that made the trade possible. This, however, was not normally the case which made the exchange of goods a laborious process of seeking someone who desired the item you offered in exchange and vice-versa.

Fortunately, some entrepreneur in ancient Lydia solved the barter dilemma by coining electrum (a natural occurring mixture of gold and silver) that was desired by nearly everyone. This changed the bartering process forever. Now, even through Tom didn’t want Mary’s bracelet, she could still get eggs for breakfast. How?  Mary simply exchanged her bracelet to a willing third party for the electrum coins that she knew Tom would happily accept in exchange for his eggs. The electrum coins of Lydia, without exaggeration, launched classical civilization into its golden age. Thereafter, trade expanded across the classical world as the coins made the exchange process so much simpler. All exchanges, interestingly enough, are still a form of bartering with the specific commodity now being traded for an agreed upon quantity of coins (money is simply the most marketable commodity). All the other commodities in society were subsequently valued by the free market in the quantity of coins needed to purchase them.

Although free market entrepreneurs developed coins (commodity money) and exploded societal wealth, its important to remember that the ruling elites are not interested in societal wealth, Rather, they are interested in increasing their wealth and power. Accordingly,  commodity money was viewed as a threat to the elites’ power structure because society’s members could now exchange goods freely and increase wealth with minimal State involvement. This was unacceptable. The elites, predictably, used the State’s monopoly of force to capture the money supply within society to increase their power and control. After all, power is maximized when the monopolization of force and money is maximized. Classical historian Augustus Boeckh recognized this when he noted, “The intellectual faculties however are not of themselves sufficient to produce external action; they require the aid of physical force, the direction and combination of which are wholly at the disposal of money, that mighty spring by which the total force of human energies is set in motion.”  Not surprisingly, the ruling elites (kings, aristocracy, and bankers) quickly seized control of the money supply and use this explosive new innovation to enhance its own power.

This theme, strikingly, seem to repeat over and over in recorded history, namely, elites dictates over what society creates. In this case, the elites dictated the money supply that society’s entrepreneurs created. Curiously, the story of money isn’t as simple as the elites defeating the masses of society for increased power. The truth is actually more complicated. For the elites divided into two groups and battled over the next millennia for control of the money supply. In one corner stood the public State Power. It sought to use its “monopoly of force” power to control the money supply and dictate the value of money. In the other corner, however, stood the private Money Power. It sought to use “fractional-reserve-banking” (FRB) to control the money supply and bribe the State to use its monopoly of force to ensure it’s “lawful” control. Society’s masses, regrettably, were in a “heads you win and tails I lose” economic quandary.

The historical record reveals the private Money Power defeated the public State Power game/set/match. As a result, money across the civilized world is now in the hands of private central banks that back the Big Banks practicing fractional-reserve-banking to manipulate each nations money supply for its gain and society’s loss. The author has termed the private Money Power’s control over the banking system and money supply the Financial Matrix – a system of control where the Money Power creates money out of thin air to loan to society’s members for profits and control. The money elites generate massive profits by loaning out fake money and then collecting interest and principle payments on the loans. The State, corporations, and people are all trapped in the Financial Matrix and are enslaved just like the Bible describes in Proverbs 22:7, “The borrower is slave to the lender.” The final fruit of the Financial Matrix equation is pain. For once the borrower has indebted himself, he experiences the pain and stress of paying off the debt with compound interest working against him. The control and profits, in a nutshell, go to the Money Power while the pain and stress of go to the debtors as they unknowingly sell themselves into slavery.

Warren Buffett Quotes

Warren Buffet Quotes

Perhaps an example of the process will help. Suppose a person desires to purchase a house for $100,000 and has 20% ($20,000) for a down payment. The bank does not have to use its existing deposits, but rather merely creates a mortgage loan for the $80,000 (not including other closing cost) to be paid back monthly with interest. If they person pays monthly for the next 30 years at a 6% interest rate, he will end up paying nearly twice as much for the house as what it is actually worth. The bank, in other words, is allowed to create the loan out of thin air but the borrower must pay back nearly twice as much in dollars earned by sweat-equity real production. To add insult to injury, if at anytime the borrower does not pay, the bank uses the State Power to foreclose on the loan and receive the property in collateral. Although the bank created the mortgage from nothing, it receives something in return – either the monthly payment or the property. Either way the bank receives something for nothing because of its State protected special arrangement.

I suggest the reader do something about his/her debt. That something is to get serious about escaping the Financial Matrix through utilizing the techniques taught within LIFE Leadership‘s Financial Fitness Program and my Financial Matrix book. Imagine what a debt-free lifestyle would do to alleviate pain and stress in one’s life and how awesome it would be to pass these principles onto the next generation. The future belongs to those who boldly go in the direction of their dreams!

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Posted in Finances, Orrin Woodward | 18 Comments »

Losing and Winning: Comfort or Change

Posted by Orrin Woodward on January 26, 2016

You either hate losing enough to change or you hate change enough to lose. – Orrin Woodward

Why do some people seem to win at whatever they do while most settle for the middle of pack mediocrity? I believe the difference boils down to a person’s hierarchy of needs, namely, comfort or winning. On one hand, if comfort is the most important, then the person will resist all change regardless of whether it’s better because it’s uncomfortable. On the other hand, if winning is more important, then a person will get uncomfortable enough to improve to produce the results he desires. In a nutshell, winners are different because they refuse to settle for good when great is possible.

Change or Comfort?

Change or Comfort?

I recently gave a keynote presentation where I played a classic 1988 Wendy’s advertisement that captured the key difference between those who win and those who simply work. It took less than 30 seconds for some advertising executive to pinpoint why most people don’t change. For many people are comfortable in past victories  rather than uncomfortable in present mediocrity. Can my readers identify areas where they are settling for comfortable mediocrity rather than changing into uncomfortable champions? True, winning may not be as easy as some winners make it look, but I can promise you its not as tough as some losers make it sound either. 🙂

Simply put, the toughest part of winning is (dare I say it) getting comfortable being uncomfortable. Every day winners are pushed to get better because your competition never rest. Show me someone who is comfortable with an average scoreboard and I will show you someone who is one a downward slide. In contrast, show me someone who is already winning at the highest levels, but is still uncomfortable, and I will show you someone who is on their way to revolutionizing a their chosen field. LIFE Leadership CEO Chris Brady and I have vowed to stay hungry, honorable, and honorable on our way to helping millions of people escape the Financial Matrix!

I am embedding the Wendy’s ad for your viewing pleasure. What is your takeaway from the video?

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward – Chairman of LIFE Leadership

Posted in Finances, Leadership/Personal Development, LIFE Leadership, Orrin Woodward | 29 Comments »

Word of Mouth Marketing

Posted by Orrin Woodward on October 19, 2015

Word of Mouth advertising is the most effective form of advertising and thus why LIFE Leadership leverages the concept through its Compensated Community to spread its message. The Financial Matrix looms larger everyday for those without financial literacy. Thankfully, however, there is a community of people who are doing something about it. Below are some thoughts I am working on about Word of Mouth marketing.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Word of Mouth Advertising

Word of Mouth Advertising

LIFE Leadership leverages word-of-mouth marketing to compound its growth. Instead of paying millions of dollars per year to advertise in print, radio, or TV, LIFE Leadership instead rewards people who recommend our products. This is a major competitive advantage! For example, authors Huba and McConnell proclaimed, “Word-of-mouth is THE valuable currency in today’s advertising-saturated world.” Meanwhile, Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising noted that 92% of respondents surveyed trusted recommendations received from friends about products or services. Last but not least, a recent McKinsey study identified word-of-mouth as the most effective form of marketing and advertising in the world. According to the McKinsey study, word-of-mouth marketing generates twice as much sales as paid advertising, and over 50% of all purchases are influenced by word-of-mouth. Indeed, the buzz generated by word-of-mouth marketing is vital to the growth of a company.

Because word-of-mouth marketing is so effective, LIFE Leadership built all of its marketing and advertising budget around it. We reward loyal customers and members who are effective in recommending our products to others. All word-of-mouth marketing can be boiled down to a three-step process:

  • 1. Discovery: Somebody encounters a new idea.
  • 2. Wow: This person is convinced that the idea is worth sharing.
  • 3. The Share: The person shares the new information with others.

Once this process loop is started, the share stage for one person corresponds with the discovery stage of another one, and the word-of-mouth chain reaction has started. Seth Godin, author of Unleashing the Ideavirus, emphasized the importance of making it easy to share the product or company’s message: “How easy is it for an end user to spread this particular ideavirus? Can I click one button or mention some magic phrase, or do I have to go through hoops and risk embarrassment to tell someone about it?”

Posted in LIFE Leadership, Orrin Woodward | 16 Comments »

What is Fiat Money?

Posted by Orrin Woodward on September 15, 2015

Society developed money to make trade easier between its members. Real money is simply the most marketable commodity within a society. For the most marketable commodity is in high demand and is generally accepted by all parties; consequently, over time, the most marketable commodity becomes the preferred medium of exchange. Of course, this is just another way of saying the most marketable commodity becomes society’s money. Without exaggeration, money is one of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind because it greatly increases the amount of win-win exchanges.

How does it do that one might ask? Because money allows all goods to be rated using the same monetary units which makes valuation of each item much more convenient. This leads to quicker agreement on win-win exchanges compared to the older and less convenient bartering process. It’s easier, in other words, to trade excess eggs for its money  market price and then buy bacon at its money market price rather than barter with every customer over how many eggs is bacon, milk, or even a chiropractic adjustment worth. Money simplifies the exchange process for all members in society; thus, it increases the amount of exchanges occurring. As a result, the division-of-labor and subsequent production and wealth for society’s members greatly increases.

Gold and Silver appear to be mankind’s preferred money because the commodity is in demand outside of its potential use for money, is easily divisible, and is extremely durable (coin collectors have many specimens over 2,500 years old). Of course, as the marketplace within society grew, the time and cost associated with moving precious metal coins from one location to another also grew. Predictably, the marketplace developed a solution to this challenge by creating modern banking. Instead of transferring the physical gold or silver, a bank would create a title or metaphysical representation of the physical precious metal. The paper claim (bank note) would allow the recipient to either receive the said amount of precious metals for the bank note or just exchange the bank notes to others in exchange for goods.

This allowed business to be carried on in others cities without  having to physically move the gold or silver. So long as the banks ensured the paper titles represented actual physical gold in the banks, the system worked wonderfully. Unfortunately, however, it didn’t take long for the banks, once they had established a reputation of integrity and trust,  to start printing more paper notes than the had precious metals backing them. This resulted in the birth of fractional-reserve bank notes – metaphysical banknote money backed by only a fraction of the physical precious metals the notes allegedly represented.

In essence, banks began printing more banknotes supposedly redeemable in precious metals even though the banks did not have enough gold/silver on hand to do so. Naturally, this increased banker profits exponentially but also caused rapid inflation from more not circulating within society. Furthermore, as bank members discover the bank’s fraud, they respond by returning the banknotes and demanding precious metals. Of course, this only works for the early returners of the fiat paper because the precious metals are quickly depleted and the bank collapses. The numerous remaining banknotes, allegedly redeemable in precious metals, are now worthless since the bank pledging to redeem them has bankrupted itself by falling for the something-for-nothing temptation of the fraudulent fractional-reserve-banking system. 

This process of collective banknote redemption by the banks members is called a bank run. Although the banks feared and hated this scenario, it is merely society’s natural response to the banks unnatural behavior. For how can a paper note, that is supposed to be simply a representation of the physical money (precious metal), now be passed off as the actual money? This is no different than a seller of land printing multiple paper titles to his land and selling the paper titles to different buyers to reap multiple profits from multiple sales.  Indeed, the main difference in the two frauds is that most land title holders will eventually want to see the physical land backing the title where few banknote holders (unless they lose trust in the bank) ever request to see the physical precious metals backing the note. The other difference, ironically, is the seller of multiple land titles (representing the same land) will be prosecuted for fraud while the seller of multiple banknotes (representing the same precious metal) will be protected by the government.

How did the banking system manage to convince governments to support fractional-reserve banking (FRB) fraud when similar practices in any other field are punished severely? Why would governments across the world support such an unethical behavior Perhaps the simplest answer is that all governments are insatiable in their desire for more money and power. The banks offer governments the philosopher’s stone of creating money out of thin air through the ‘joys’ of fractional-reserve banking. The government, in other words, supported the banks fraudulent activity because the banks happily agreed to loan copious amounts of fractional-reserve banknotes to the government. This is an ignominious alliance where the banks gain extra profits by creating money out of thin air and the governments gain extra power by borrowing the FRB funds. As a result, both the banks (profits) and governments (power) benefited while society paid the bill through the predictable inflation, boom/bust cycles, and lost liberties. 

The Birth of the Financial Matrix

Fiat Money

Fiat Money: Only Backed by State Coercion

Absurdly, the monetary madness gets even worse with the beginning of World War I. For before the first World War, the bank notes at least had to be redeemed in gold or silver when demanded by the owner of the notes. Governments, however, knew this would be impossible to do during a war where billions of extra banknotes were create to fund the war without without the backing of any precious metals. As a result, the European governments ended the gold standard and permitted banks to no longer redeem the metaphysical banknotes into the physical precious metal. This was the beginning of fiat money – paper notes not backed by any precious metal but only by the coercion of government.

Fiat paper notes backed by government coercion knocked out the last connection between the metaphysical paper and the physical money. From now on, the central banks would create fiat paper and call it money. Then it allowed the big banks to pyramid fractional-reserve-banking on top of the fiat notes to multiply the money supply ten, one hundred, and eventually thousands of times over the actual commodity money. The purchasing power (amount of production each monetary unit can purchase) decreased disastrously as inflation increased the cost-of-living to unheard of levels.

Fiat paper money allows the banks to create money at will and profit on the loans to governments, businesses, and families. Meanwhile the government supports the FRB fraud by declaring the paper legal tender good for all taxes and monetary exchanges even though it is not backed by any physical precious metal commodity. Fiat money, in effect, is the victory of the governments and banks to replace the physical commodity money society developed with a metaphysical counterfeit that has no physical commodity backing whatsoever. Indeed, the only reason the banks can get away with this scheme is they have purchased government’s support (by loaning FRB money to it) and then using government’s monopoly of force to coerce society into using its funny money. The government has mandated acceptance of the banking system’s fiat paper money and punishes anyone who refuses to do so. Welcome to the wonderful world of fiat money. 🙂

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward: Chairman of the Board of LIFE Leadership

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The Quest for the Philosopher’s Stone

Posted by Orrin Woodward on August 31, 2015

“The trouble with paper money is that it rewards the minority that can manipulate money and makes fools of the generation that has worked and saved.” – George Goodman

The philosopher’s stone was mankind’s quest to turn base metals into gold. Although there were several reasons for the quest, the main one was to increase the power of the sovereigns over their people. Kings and princes encouraged and rewarded alchemists from the Middle Ages to the end of the 17th century in the effort to discover the philosophers stone to no avail. Unfortunately, however, mankind discovered an easier way to turn valueless material into gold, namely fiat paper money and fractional-reserve banking. I cover the basics of these two processes in my book The Financial Matrix, but I wanted to share from Jack Weatherford’s informative book The History of Money to convey just how confused most people are about money. These are blue quotes are from Weatherford’s book with my comments below. Sincerely, Orrin Woodward – LIFE Leadership Chairman of the Board

Nero Debases Roman Coins:

Nero began to tamper with the coinage itself. In A.D. 64, in a naive attempt to deceive the populace, Nero decreased the silver content in the coins and made both the silver and gold coins slightly smaller. By collecting the existing coins and reminting them with his portrait bust but less silver, Nero produced a momentary surplus of sliver and gold. The same pound of silver that had formerly produced 84 denarii now produced 96, giving Nero almost a 15 percent ‘profit.’ He similarly increased from 40 to 45 the number of golden aurei manufactured from a pound of gold, thus rendering the coins about 11 percent less golden.”

Nero attacked private property by manipulating the measuring scale of money. Instead of a certain amount of silver making 84 denarii coins, it now made 96 denarii coins. The measure of how much silver in each coin was arbitrarily changed by the sovereign. This attack on private property is no different than the State owing a certain merchant 100 pounds of gold, and then paying the merchant only 50 pounds of gold. When the merchant complains, the State points to a new law that has changed the pound to half its former weight. Therefore, the State did pay 100 pounds of gold, but changed the definition of the pound to steal half the value of amount owed. In a sense, the State debased the weight of the pound just as Nero debased the denarii coins.

Law of Inertia: If Bad Behavior is not Punished, it Expands:

Roman Coin Debasement

Roman Coin Fraudulent Debasement = Inflation

Thus over the course of two hundred years, the silver content was cut from nearly 100 percent to virtually nothing. The amount of silver previously used to mint a single denarius eventually produced 150 denarii, and as the silver content decreased, the price of good increased in direct proportion. Wheat that had sold for one-half a denarius in the second century increased to 100 denarii a century later, a two-hundred fold increase.

If the State is allowed to arbitrarily change the monetary units at will, inflation occurs and the price system quickly accounts for the debased purchasing power of the monetary unit.  The State receives the benefit of the inflated money first, but they do so at the expense of later users of the money who now need more monetary units to buy the same production as previous. This is fraud perpetrated by the State upon society and one of the main reasons Rome fell.  The people lost trust in the money supply because the State could not stop debasing the dollar to benefit itself.  Accordingly, the late Roman empire devolved backwards to payment in kind and landlords protecting people rather than State. Once this occurred, society could no longer support the bloated  State and the Roman Empire collapsed under its own weight.

The Roman Empire Kills Its Money:

In the last centuries of the Roman Empire, the emperors operated without a workable currency; like the ancient empires that had preceded it, Rome turned to conscription and forced labor to meet its needs. The government often would not allow its citizens to pay taxes in the debased money that it still issued; instead, officials demanded payment in good, crops, or labor. . . As tax (and monetary) policies continued to suppress productivity and commerce, the emperors found it increasingly difficult to supply their armies and the bureaucracy with the equipment and goods necessary to rule the far-flung but diminishing empire. The markets had withered; even the emperor could no longer depend on the open market to supply him with the sandals, armor, weapons, saddles, tents, and other goods that an army needed. Out of desperation, Diocletian created government-sponsored workshops to manufacture armaments and supplies. As privately financed shipping and other transport enterprises declined, Diocletian also had to create government transport companies to move the goods that were manufactured in the workshops. Well before the end of the third-century, these changes made the emperor and the government the greatest manufacturers in the empire, in addition to being the largest owner of land, mines, and quarries. Step by step, the imperial government took over the direct administration of the economy and crowded out the small, independent merchants, landowners, manufacturers, and entrepreneurs. . . By its last decades, Rome had become another state-administered economy, an empire without money and markets. It had reverted to a palace system more like that of pharaonic Egypt or imperial China than that of the republican system on which it had been built.

Rome fell because as the State expanded, it destroyed the monetary system and thus the commercial system that used it as the medium of exchange in trade. Through increasing inflation and taxation the State killed society to feed the growing bureaucracy and military. The originally thriving Roman society provided a level of systematic justice unknown to previous empires eventually became just like the other empires as it killed the monetary system through repeated unjust debasements and the commercial society reverted to a command and control empire without money.  The Roman Empire died, in other words, when its money did.

Fractional-Reserve Banking is Fraud:

Under the new system a bag of a hundred florins that might once have sit idle for years in a noble’s strongbox could now be deposited for safekeeping in an Italian bank that had access to branches across the continent. The bank then lent the money and circulated the bill of exchange as money. The noble still had his one hundred florins, which were now one deposit in the bank; the bank had one hundred florins on its books. The merchant who borrowed the florins was richer, and the person who held the bill of exchange now had one hundred florins as well. Even though only one hundred gold coins were involved, the miracle of banking deposits and loans had transformed them into many hundreds of florins that could be used by different individuals in different cities at the same time. This new banking money opened vast new commercial avenues for merchants, manufacturers, and investors. Everyone had more money: it was sheer magic.

Actually, it is not sheer magic, but sheer fraud. In a nutshell, the banks creates a metaphysical representation (bank notes) of the actual money (precious metal commodity florins). This would be fine if there was only one banknote to represent the same commodity money, but fraudulently, the banks through FRB create multiple sets of banknotes to represent the SAME bag of florins. This is no different than a bank selling 10 people the same physical property by creating 10 separate metaphysical property titles to represent the land. Of course, in the property example, the fraud would be exposed because the owners would eventually show up at the property and realize, along with the the other “owners” of the property, that they were duped by duplicate property titles created for the same physical property. In the same way, the bank creates duplicate banknotes to represent the same physical commodity money. This is FRAUD. In the banknote example, however, all parties can use the banknotes representing the same bag without being aware that the others also have banknotes that represent the EXACT same physical bag of money.

Of course, this violates the laws of Logic. For two people cannot 100% own the same item at the same time and two people cannot be in the same spot at the same time. In a similar fashion, two people (let along 9 or 10 than FRB legally allows) cannot both have banknotes that metaphysically represent the same bag. Because this “magic” (read fraud) is allowed, the money supply is expanded metaphysically even though the physical money hasn’t changed size, just like the land was metaphysically  expanded by the fake titles even though the physical land has not changed. Unfortunately, the scam is rarely detected because the banknotes are just transferred from person to person without anyone realizing their are counterfeit not not backed by real commodity money. The result is huge bank profits, huge societal inflation, and indebtedness for governments, businesses, and people. Of course, another result is the predictable boom/bust cycle that bankrupts many others when the money supply deflation from its previous inflation.

Fractional-Reserve Banking (FRB), in other words, is modern man’s solution to the Philosopher’s Stone. Add to it the Central Banks special privilege to purchase items by creating banknotes not backed by anything and one can see that the modern day elites have accomplished what the middle-age kings and princes only dreamed of – creating fools gold, but having the legal right to pass off fool’s gold as real gold and enslave the people in the process. The is the Financial Matrix! Like I said previously, the modern golden rule reads: He who controls the fool’s gold controls the fools.

Posted in Finances, Freedom/Liberty, Orrin Woodward | 20 Comments »

The Manufacture of Consent?

Posted by Orrin Woodward on June 15, 2015

The ownership and control of the Mass Media is one of the key ingredient in the ruling elites plan for control of Western Civilization. Most of the news, as a result, fits the “manufactured” world-view that the elites have carefully constructed for mass consumption. Before you think I have gone off the deep end, let me share some of thoughts from some of the best minds of the topic of media and control.  Austrian economists Joseph Salerno described the ruling elites agenda in his brilliant introduction to one of Murray Rothbard’s classic works on money:

The ruling class, however, confronts one serious and ongoing problem: how to persuade the productive majority, whose tribute or taxes it consumes, that its laws, regulations, and policies are beneficial; that is, that they coincide with “the public interest” or are designed to promote “the common good” or to optimize “social welfare.” Given its minority status, failure to solve this problem exposes the political class to serious consequences. Even passive resistance by a substantial part of the producers, in the form of mass tax resistance, renders the income of the political class and, therefore, its continued existence extremely precarious. More ominously, attempts to suppress such resistance may cause it to spread and intensify and eventually boil over into an active revolution whose likely result is the forcible ousting of the minority exploiting class from its position of political power. 

This is why the elites capture the society of every nation following the same 3M formula – Money, Media, Military. First, the ruling elite captures the Money supply, then it purchased the Mass Media, and finally, it buys the politicians to use the nation’s Military for its egregious ends. Is anyone surprised that the ruling elites, once they have captured the Money supply, would quickly use the fake money to buy controlling interest over the Mass Media. For the role of the Mass Media is to persuade the “dumbed down” people that society needs the ruling elites oversight. To illustrate, has anyone else noticed how often the Mass Media quotes intellectual experts to prove the validity of its messaging? Of course, what’s not revealed is that nearly all these so called experts in the university/corporate system are also bought and paid for by the ruling elites.  Salerno, again, explained this phenomena:

Here is where the intellectuals come in. It is their task to convince the public to actively submit to State rule because it is beneficial to do so, or at least to passively endure the State’s depredations because the alternative is anarchy and chaos. In return for fabricating an ideological cover for its exploitation of the masses of subjects or taxpayers, these “court intellectuals” are rewarded with the power, wealth, and prestige of a junior partnership in the ruling elite. Whereas in pre-industrial times these apologists for State rule were associated with the clergy, in modern times—at least since the Progressive Era in the U.S.—they have been drawn increasingly from the academy. Politicians, bureaucrats, and those whom they subsidize and privilege within the economy thus routinely trumpet lofty ideological motives for their actions in order to conceal from the exploited and plundered citizenry their true motive of economic gain.

Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

As I researched the Mass Media’s influence within society, I think I was most shocked by the elites’ level of hubris. For instance, Walter Lippmann, the two time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author, wrote one of the classic works on why the Mass Media must manipulate public opinion. In the appropriately named book, Public Opinion (1922), Lippmann described the masses as a “great beast” and a “bewildered herd” that needed the governing class to direct them. Not surprisingly, he defined the ruling elite as “a specialized class whose interests reach beyond the locality.” Lippmann believed the ruling elites (a class of experts, specialists and bureaucrats) needed to circumvent the primary defect of democracy, the impossible ideal of the “omni-competent citizen.” In effect, the “bewildered herd” is mesmerized by the ruling elites into being merely “interested spectators of action,” rather than active citizens. Lippmann explained that participation should only be for the “the responsible man”, not the regular citizen.

The Mass media, subsequently, is no longer about reporting facts or highlighting competing visions for the future. Rather, it is used to produce ruling-elite approved propaganda to mislead the public into supporting initiatives that benefit the elites at the masses expense. Lippmann even coined the term “manufacture of consent” to explain how the elites manipulate public opinion through Mass Media. In other words, the Mass Media reports what the ruling elites want you to believe, not what necessarily is the truth. But don’t take my word for it, let’s have Lippmann explain “manufacture of consent” in his own words from his book, Public Opinion:

That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough. . . . as a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power. . . . Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy; that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot rely upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach.

Lippmann, however, was not alone in revealing the ruling elites plan at the beginning of the 20th century. Although the ruling elites have learned to be more careful, it still isn’t too difficult to piece together their revealed agenda. Perhaps no one was clearer than Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud and father of “public relations”. Without apology, he applied his uncle’s teaching and techniques to alter the subconscious of the customers of his client’s product to encourage a buying decision. Bernays boasted of his ability to control the masses in his ruling elite classic book Propaganda:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.

The final example of Mass Media control is my personal testimony. It was 2008, in the middle of a multimillion dollar legal dispute between a billion dollar company and the top leaders of my company, when I was contacted by Forbes Magazine. Needless to say, I was shocked to hear this large corporate magazine (that reports upon billion dollar companies) wanted to write about a leadership company which barely surpassed 40 million dollars at the time. When I first asked the reporter why she picked us, she replied she was interested in network marketing and the leadership and Christian principles I utilized. I thought this was odd but naively agreed to help. After interviewing me for over six hours, she had the gist of our business, the dispute with our former supplier, and any supporting evidence I had. Strangely, over the course of our discussion, it came out that she knew nothing about network marketing (the business I was in), had never heard of John Maxwell (the number one leadership trainer and author), nor had ever heard of Pastor Bill Hybels (the pastor of one of the largest churches in America (even though she lived in Chicago where his church is located) who had selected Chris Brady and my NY Times bestseller Launching a Leadership Revolution as one of his best books for 2007.

Curious, I asked her why she would do an article about three subjects she admittedly knew nothing about. At first, she started explaining that her superiors asked her to write it, but then I think she realized this wouldn’t jive with what she previously had said. She abruptly broke off the conversation and simply said she was doing her job. Of course, now I realize the article could have been written without interviewing me at all since it included practically nothing from what we discussed. Something, however, wasn’t adding up. Why would someone write a nonsensical article in a major magazine on subjects she admitted to knowing nothing about nor have any interest in? I smelled a rat. Several months later, I found the rat. In the strangest of coincidences (I smile when I say that 🙂 ), I discovered the company I was in the legal dispute with had run expensive centerfold advertisements in Forbes magazine. Whoa! Now I understood how Mass Media manufactures consent first hand. 🙂

Nevertheless, one of the key lessons a leader learns on his journey is how to turn the lemons of life into lemonade. In this case, my personal exposure to Mass Media shenanigans led me to study the role of media in controlling what and how people think. This eventually led to the Financial Matrix through the control of Money, Media, and the Military. With our liberties at stake the masses can and must learn to think for themselves. And, despite what the ruling elites have done to “dumb down” our educational system, the people are still capable of learning, doing, and teaching leadership. In fact, I believe the key to breaking the Financial Matrix is for a group of men and women to launch a leadership revolution through serving others rather than manipulating or coercing as the elites do. While this isn’t an easy task, I know it’s possible because I have spent the last  20+  years of my life helping people lead themselves, their families, and their businesses.

I reject the theory that the masses are sentenced to be part of the “great beast” the “bewildered herd” which must leave all the thinking to the elites. Instead, the LIFE Leadership founders created a company that believes everyone is called to lead wherever  they are and can with the right information applied consistently. Don’t be scared of the word leadership, for it merely means serving others. We can all do that. I cannot imagine a better purpose to fulfill in life than building LIFE Leadership and helping people break free from the “bewildered herd” that are trapped in the Financial Matrix. 

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

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