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.
Posted by Orrin Woodward on October 9, 2012
Bill Lewis shares on the importance of preparation in this insightful video. Bill has become one of the best teachers within the LIFE business through constant preparation and performance. Remember, failure to plan is a plan for failure. In what areas of your life can you apply these principles?
Sincerely,
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Jenny said
I am pleased and proud to be part of TEAM and LIFE and even as proud to be part of Bill and Jackies team. Keep teaching and I will keep learning and sharing. Thanks to all of the great leaders in this organization.
Bill schmidt said
Bill’s teaching and story is so inspiring!! Bill is on such a learning curve, it makes all of us want to be better!! Thank you Bill and the PC for your Leadership and what you guys are doing to change the World!!
God Bless
Roy and Brenda Hatcher said
Bill and Jackie are the absolute best teachers and mentors…they believe in you from the day you start in this business…and never ever lose hope that you will succeed. We have been so blessed to be a part of their business and make life changes directed by them…and our LIFE is great! What if? Well we can tell you our what if was huge and so far its all been worth the “what if” journey! This business is changing communities throughout the world and we are so very blessed to be a part of it! What if? What Else? Why Not? We did! Love you all! Roy and Brenda
jimmy varghese said
loved this talk! bill lewis’s talks are so insightful and helpful in my daily life. i truly appreciate him and what he has done with the LIFE business.. keeping in mind that “anybody can do this” gives me even more belief that i can achieve my goals and dreams through this opportunity. thank you bill and jackie for being such amazing leaders!
Keith Sieracki said
Bill’s entire talk is fantastic. I think if we were to look at our health, finances, and relationships and apply “productive paranoia” it would trigger a drastic redirection in our thought process. I ask myself “have I invested enough of my energy (in study and action) in these 3 categories to ride out any future storm?”
Kristen Seidl said
Great talk by Bill, thanks for providing us the information and teaching for long term success. God bless!
Peggi Kern said
Thanks so much for sharing this video clip! Bill Lewis has become one of my top 5 favorite success teachers!! I’ve seen him grow and continue to develop his leadership. He is an inspiration to me. I find it a necessary step in success to develop the ability to be prepared in all areas of life. I have many areas to grow in, so it’s hard to decide where to start. Being prepared requires the long term thinking that is so uncommon today. The areas of faith, family, finance, fitness, friendship, freedom, fun, following ALL require being prepared!
Matt Farrand said
Awesome info and insight Bill.
Wildtarg said
I recall hearing this entire talk on audio CD, and found it to be quite an insightful perspective on not simply the logistics, but the mentality of preparedness. In the last bit of the video, Bill touches on something that took me quite some time and effort to comprehend.
What Bill Lewis is discussing in this segment may be referred to as a ‘margin of safety.’ Clearly one expedition planned into their ascent a wide margin of safety, in order to ensure success. The other expedition had no margin of safety, quite possibly with the motive of maximizing profits. They effectively assumed that everything would go as planned. I challenge any military officer, business manager, or non-profit coordinator,to ask theirself how frequently plans are executed exactly as drawn up in the meeting or strategy session? We all know about the infamous ‘Murphy’s Law’, and how reliably real life deviates from the charts and schematics and procedures, or the whiteboard or the slick presentation on the projector wall. Margins of safety are ‘padding’ included in the planning to help ensure, or rather insure, that if one or two things (or even more) DO go wrong, the mission can still be executed, the objective attained, the goal reached, the customer served. In practice, most successful leaders do this in one form or another. The majority that do not tend to find themselves ‘flying by the seat of their pants’, without backups or failsafes to rescue them from the crucible of fast, tough decision-making. Margins of safety are the difference between insuring success and betting on it. Insurance is something that can be afforded most of the time, because it is planned and up-front; gambling on one’s own success presents a broadside target for Murphy’s Law. Hall and Fischer planned in such a way to maximize their rewards (in the form of profits) for succeeding, but effectively minimized their odds of achieving success at all.
Another aspect that Bill touches on is the mental duality of expectation. I will not attempt to cross-reference this with the available books containing information on autosuggestion and subconscious programming: It will suffice to say that in any undertaking involving significant risk, there is a tension between emotionally expecting to succeed and intellectually anticipating, and preparing for, problems and potential failure. The adage “expect the best, but plan for the worst” I think fits in here.
What Bill touches on at the beginning of the video I find extremely critical and relevant, especially in light of the above point: the most critical decisions are made before the undertaking. There is an old proverb about “counting the cost before building.” When huge undertakings such as skyscrapers, cruise ships, or space satellites are begun, often years of planning occur before the first shovel or hammer is lifted to begin the project. Costs and methods are studied, designs drawn up and are tested and analyzed, backers and support services found, contracts laid out and bid; there are literally thousands of person-hours that are executed before the project ever starts to take material shape.
When NASA planned the Voyager space probe missions in the 1970s, they faced a very critical deadline: the opportunity afforded by a favorable arrangement of the four major outer planets, to study all four successively in detail, that would not recur for six generations. Trajectories and mission profiles, probe design and instrumentation, control methods and protocols, were all analyzed and reviewed extensively and even obsessively. The reason? There was a limited window of opportunity, and the decisions made would have a vital impact on the scientific success of the mission, because once they launched, they were committing to the ENTIRE plan; nothing could be taken back or greatly modified after launch. A mistake could mean mission failure, even public embarrassment. Launching of each of the two probes took place on separate dates in 1977.
The outcome of all this planning and preparation was an immense boon for NASA, in terms of scientific and public relations, as well as presenting a favorable case to Congress for continued funding. The so-called ‘Grand Tour’ gathered more data about the four outer planets than had been previously been collected, including close-up photographs and infrared and/or spectrometric surveys of many of their moons. The two probes, Voyager 1 and 2, are still operational and checked up on today; the probes are now so far away that it takes several hours for signals to travel between the mission control center on earth and the probes. Voyager 2 even has one more task expected of it that was not in the original mission profile; using one of its instruments to analyze low-density, high-energy particle flux beyond the Sun’s influence (referred to as interstellar plasma). This will be possible in 2016, nearly thirty years after the mission counter was started. Among other things, proper planning is essential to both immediate and ultimate success.
Keep going, we’re coming…