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.
Tony Cannuli and I had the honor of interviewing Bill Lewis in this week’s HBRN Leadership Factory. As you watch this interview, notice how much Bill had to overcome his old labeling in order to become the champion he is today. The subjects discussed were character, integrity, and courage. Bill exemplifies each of these qualities. With his first three organizations surging past 1,000 people attending events, Bill is one of the top depth and community builders in the industry. In fact, Bill is a poster child for the Leadership Factory!
Listen to the interview and please comment on how Bill and Jackie’s story can impact and inspire you to move to the next level.
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?
The LIFE business is closing in on its one-year anniversary (Founded: 11-1-2011), and the LIFE community has plenty to celebrate. Indeed, with product subscriptions nearly doubling since its founding, LIFE is one of the fastest growing community-building businesses in the world. Growth of this magnitude is directly related to customer satisfaction.
I am thankful, but not shocked by these results since the LIFE founders have produced a business model where people can get started for less than fifty dollars. More impressively, a new person can attend the first month of opens and community groups free of charge. Why would a company give away world-class content for no charge? Simply stated, because we know that when the customers experience the leadership culture, servant attitude, and top-notch content for themselves, they will be the best word-of-mouth marketers to their friends.
With a total training cost of under fifty dollars a month, FREE trips for people who hit 6,000 points of business in two legs (hundreds have qualified for free trips already), and the Mental Fitness Challenge receiving rave reviews, I see only faster growth in our future. Back-to-back months of double-digit growth is amazing in any field, but I truly believe it will become the norm for LIFE as more and more people realize the value being offered to them. Remarkably for a first-year company, with a good finish in October, this fiscal year will be the best growth year in my twenty years of community building! This is a testament to the life/leadership principles shared that are making a difference in people’s lives. Moreover, with tens of thousands of satisfied customers and members, I believe the rate of growth will increase as the tipping point is upon us.
If you are a member or customer of LIFE, I want to personally thank you for contributing to LIFE’s first year. If you have not experienced the LIFE difference, I encourage you to reach out to one of the LIFE members and experience the movement for yourself. LIFE’s mission is to reach millions of people with truth in the 8Fs of life: Faith, Family, Finances, Fitness, Freedom, Fun, Friends, and Following. Which Fs are most important to you? How have the LIFE products made a difference in your life?
Because of my background as a product/process engineer, the molecular machines found within living cells are fascinating to me. These assemblies aren’t just machines metaphorically. Rather, speaking as an engineer who designed electric-motor pumps for nearly a decade, these units are truly micro-machines with functions/features beyond anything currently imaginable within the electric-motor design community.
How is it possible for world-class, patentable designs, which any engineer would be proud to invent, to be labeled as time/chance occurrences? Let’s reflect on this. On one hand, the most intelligent, skilled, and knowledgeable engineers in the world cannot recreate the functions/features of these machines using all available knowledge. And yet, on the other hand, the general public is repeatedly indoctrinated with the idea that time and chance alone created these complex machines.
Perhaps, for those not trained in the technical fields, this may be believed because one doesn’t understand the leaps of logic made from simple structures to complex machines. However, for an engineer who worked in this field for a decade, it is difficult to swallow some of the conclusions. For instance, one of my four patents improved an electric motor – rotors, stators, and magnets, shafts, bushings, etc. – and yet the machines within the cell blow away the functions/features designed within the patented part. Can you imagine an engineer developing a motor with equivalent functions to these molecular motors and management refusing him a patent because they reject “intelligent design” as a cause prima facie based upon their naturalistic philosophy?
In his landmark book Darwin’s Black Box, Dr. Michael Behe describes machines as having “irreducible complexity”:
By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional. An irreducibly complex biological system, if there is such a thing, would be a powerful challenge to Darwinian evolution.
In other words, all the parts of the machine must be in place for the unit to function properly. If any part of the assembly is missing, then the function is not accomplished. Accordingly, the unit would not survive the time/chance model of evolution as Darwin described it. Remarkably, at the cellular level, there are numerous “irreducibly complex” machines that cannot be accounted for within any known evolutionary model hypothesis.
Even so, everything I have just described is actually just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, the most significant aspect of the cell is the unexplainable (by naturalistic means) DNA information code. To build the cell with proper specifications requires an operating code that spells out the sequence of events in its exact order. How big are these operating codes one might ask? Neo-Darwinian Dr. Richard Dawkins states that one bacterial cell contains more information (in the form of specific step-by-step instructions) than the Encyclopedia Britannica. Furthermore, the billionaire super-programmer Bill Gates elaborates, “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.”
Nonetheless, Dawkins, despite conceding, “The machine-code of the genes is uncannily computer-like,” unabashedly rejects a programmer to account for the volumes of programming code. I say rejects a programmer, but that’s not technically correct anymore. Surprisingly, in an interview with Ben Stein for his movie Expelled, Dr. Dawkins, after a caustic attack on God, was all too quick to postulate on the viability of “aliens from another planet” designing life on earth. It appears that philosophical naturalists and scientific evolutionists don’t have an inherent problem with design and programming as such; otherwise, they would reject all designers and programmers. Instead, it seems that design is acceptable as long as it isn’t “The Programmer” called God. Dawkins, in other words, doesn’t reject design or designers; he just inherently rejects God. Evidently, in this instance, it isn’t data, but dogma driving his conclusions.
At any rate, the information code and irreducible complexity, even after decades of time, are still unexplained phenomena within the evolutionary paradigm. In my opinion, the specific programmed information within the cell is the single biggest hurdle for an evolutionary world-view. For example, the complex protein synthesis operation is coordinated by a blueprint inscribed in the four-letter DNA chemical alphabet, which is then translated into the twenty-letter alphabet of the proteins. Just this protein synthesis process alone is more complicated code than the writing of this blog with its twenty-six letter code you are reading.
Simply stated, books don’t write themselves regardless of how much time or chance is provided. In a similar fashion, computer programs, the size of Encyclopedia Britannica, require profounder thought than just a pencil-whipped time/chance explanation. Increasingly, the scientific community is waking up to the fact that Darwinism has huge problems and is without a viable hypothesis to account for information and programming. Without answers, these massive fissures will eventually lead to modern evolutionary theory, as we know it, collapsing on its own unsupported foundations.
Biblically speaking, this is nothing new. When a man denies God, it’s not from the data, but from dogma. The scientific research continues to reveal overwhelming evidence of design and programming. Nevertheless, the naturalist world view rejects God outright; therefore, regardless of what the data indicates, if it points to intelligent design, then it must be rejected as a matter of faith. Astonishingly, it’s not that they don’t see where the data leads them, but rather, they reject the data for taking them where they didn’t want to go. The Apostle Paul explains this phenomena in Romans 1:18-23 (ESV):
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Hence, scientists, like the rest of mankind in their fallen condition, deny the truth set before them. Science, however, by its very definition, is no longer science when it accepts dogma over data. Consequently, what we are watching unfold in the intelligent design/evolution controversy is less about science and more about philosophical world views. All of us can benefit by learning from all sides of the controversy. Science, in order to be science, must allow the data to speak for itself, but the data overwhelmingly points to design/programming, which leaves naturalists in a moral quandary. Either they reject their world view and continue to be scientists, or they reject science and continue to be the priest and prophets of naturalism.
Let me close with one more thought. The Human Genome Project, completed in 2000, described the hereditary information in the genome of DNA as the “book of life.” Watson and Crick discovered that DNA stores text, but not until Francis Collins and his Human Genome team, did scientists begin to decipher its full message. The resulting revolution has catapulted biology into the information age. Again, this is nothing new for a Christian. In fact, the Apostle John started his Gospel with the importance of the Word. What if this Word was a program for life within each living creature? We know every living cell is organized around information-driven machines. Let’s review John’s words on the Word in John 1:1-4 (ESV) with our new understanding from science.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
As a Christian, I am not afraid to seek truth wherever it may lead. How about you? Are you on a quest for truth, allowing the data to lead where it may? Or, are you on a quest for dogma, repeating slogans learned in school regardless of its relevance or accuracy today? Living as a human being today demands one to think through what one has learned, separating fact from fiction. I respect the scientists and their research on all sides of this issue. They are amazingly hardworking and intelligent; however, I refuse to swallow anyone’s paradigms without thinking through the ramifications.
In the same way, whether one agrees with everything I wrote is not the point. The key is that you start thinking about what you “know.” Indeed, it’s not as important that we all think the same, but it is desperately important today that we all start to think.
My good friend Tony Cannuli and I were blown away by Chris Brady’s passion in our latest interview on (HBRN) Home-Based Radio Network’s Leadership Factory. Chris has married high achievement with high fulfillment better than anyone I know. In his new book A Month of Italy, Chris explains principles like “slow to go fast,” “make it matter,” “urgent versus important,” and many more. What makes Brady such a great teacher is you laugh while you learn. He had Tony and I cracking up while we pondered the importance of doing something that matters. Chris exemplifies purpose as it is defined and described in RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFEas the intersection of passion, potential, and profits.
Thank you Tony and Doug Firebaugh, co-founders of HBRN, for creating this avenue to share leadership success. Remember, it’s your life; it’s your future; it’s your legacy. Isn’t it worth your leadership best?
Yesterday, I confirmed again the value of the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Adjust) process explained in my RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE book. Actually, it started two weeks ago Sunday when our family and friends have our afternoon basketball game. In that game, my team lost both games and we did so because of my poor performance. I was hitting the front of the rim with my shot and when I attempted to change strategies and drive to the hole, my knee kept hyperextending. These aren’t excuses as we certainly earned our losses, but I confronted the reality of the situation to make some adjustments for the following Sunday (yesterday).
In the scale of things, winning or losing the Sunday afternoon basketball games is not really a big issue; however, habitually using the PDCA process in one’s life is a huge part of success. Accordingly, I came in after our drubbing and made some adjustments. First, I asked Laurie to pick me up a knee brace as I cannot have knee pain while driving to the hoop. Second, since the kids are going to a private Christian school, I asked Laurie if she would practice shooting with me several times a week. (As the reader can see, I really do hate losing enough to change.) Both Laurie and I would take a shot and run to a new position for another shot. In other words, shoot and move.
After a couple of practices, I realized I had been shooting at the rim instead of arcing the ball to swish through the net. This, along with my knee brace, built my confidence for Sunday’s game. Moreover, all week long, when breaking from my studies, I invested mental energy envisioning (Ant and the Elephant) the ball falling through the rim and net. Needless to say, I couldn’t wait for yesterday’s basketball game to redeem our team’s poor performance.
On Sunday, within minutes after the game started, I could tell things had changed. My shot was dropping and I could drive to the hole without pain. True, I still am not in the best of shape; nonetheless, we won both games and looked like a different team. Afterwards, while sitting around the pool area, I realized again how important the PDCA process is to improve a person’s life. Furthermore, I realized I still need PDCA work as the other team will likely have its own adjustments for next week as well. 🙂 That, in a nutshell, is the game of life – constant adjustments from all participants to improve outcomes. Never, in other words, rest with good when a few adjustments make great possible!
I share this story because I am curious why so many people continue to repeat the same mistakes in their careers, relationships, hobbies, etc. when the PDCA process is so effective for improvement? Indeed, if a person will honestly address his shortcomings, applying the PDCA thought process to it, he can and will improve. Without a doubt, every person is creative. The question is: Is he creative in adjustments to win or creative in excuses to lose. I hate excuses and refuse to associate with whiners, complainers, and excuse makers (victims). Life is too short to spend it driving through the rearview mirror. If you don’t like the results in an area then change by applying the PDCA process. The process simply works when you work it.
What area of your life needs a PDCA application? Examine the scoreboard and see where you can improve. The scoreboard never lies. For instance, two weeks ago it said that our team embarrassed itself by losing both games. This week, however, the scoreboard reported a different result because our team made adjustments. Are you winning in the game of life? If yes, then find a defeat in every victory to stay humble and growing. Are you losing in the game of life? If yes, then find a victory in every defeat to stay hopeful and growing. Life truly is a journey, and with constant course corrections, you can reach your legacy destination. The PDCA process is essential for improvement when a person is sick and tired of his current results.
Albert Einstein once said, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world,” pointing out the impressive results when money is compounded over time with interest. In the same way, I believe we should make compound results the ninth wonder of the world since results compound upon themselves over time just like money does. Regretfully, however, few stay consistent long enough in their success efforts to experience this ninth wonder. Nonetheless, just in case someone is truly hungry for answers, I will share this simple, but not easy, principle again.
Success Takes Consistent Work!
Remember when you learned to use an old-fashioned hand water pump at summer camp (or at an old farm, park, etc.)? Typically, one person would pump the handle and another would prime the pump by pouring water into the assembly and down the well. By continuously working the handle up and down, one would eventually hear and feel the pump prime itself and draw water to the surface. In contrast, if at anytime during the priming process, the person responsible for working the handle became despondent or lackadaisical because of repeated efforts without water, the prime would not hold, and the process had to be repeated from the beginning. To achieve results then, one must pump repeatedly, ignoring the lack of evidential progress, until the well water is borne up from the well.
Likewise, the success process must be primed before results can compound. Indeed, many times, it will take years to develop the proper skills, techniques, and leadership to win in your chosen field. Unfortunately, it seems the advertisers have won out over common sense in our cur culture today. For instance, consumers are told that they can be fit in less than a month, achieve millionaire status overnight, or be happy and fulfilled people just by buying the advertiser’s product. True success takes time and effort, but the world is filled with people who are looking for shortcuts because they desire success without sacrifice. Accordingly, many people buy the latest and greatest elixir without realizing the promised results. Worse yet, they begin to believe something is wrong with them because they never seem to get the same results as those paid actors claimed to achieve.
Needless to say, it’s time to wake up from the fantasy of dreams without dedication. This simply doesn’t happen outside of novels, movies, and advertisements. The truth of the matter is, just like priming a manual water pump, one must put forth consistent effort over time to win in any worthy endeavor. In fact, I believe it’s because we have lost the commonsense principle of achieving success through hard work over time that North America is struggling to maintain competitiveness across the globe. Nevertheless, I refuse to give up hope or sit idly by and watch our once great civilization quietly decline. In reality, we can turn this around if we are willing to apply a heavy dose of thinking and work ethic.
What are you doing to achieve your dreams and goals? Are you giving it the consistent effort to learn, grow, and apply that success demands? Without an unequivocal yes to this question, you will remain like the person priming the water pump who stops moving the handle just short of the water reaching the surface. Thus, despite working hard, you must begin all over again because no one can violate the law of consistent effort over time without sacrificing the compounding of results. In other words, there is nothing wrong with the pump, as I have witnessed many families produce water from the pump, but the problem is with a person’s philosophy on what it takes to receive water from the pump.
Essentially, it’s your life, it’s your responsibility, and it’s your future. Learn the principle of compounding results over time and win. The LIFE business has taught me many lessons, and my goal is to pay them forward into others’ lives. Please share how and where you learned the lesson of compounding results.
Tony Cannuli, marketing director for Home Business Radio Network (HBRN) and good friend, recently asked me to co-host the Leadership Factory sponsored by HBRN. After sitting down with Doug Firebaugh, co-founder of HBRN, I realized his philosophy and mine fit together beautifully. I love when people use their talents and business acumen to focus on making a difference. And that is exactly what HBRN does in the marketplace by providing top content from top leaders in the home-based business profession.
The Leadership Factory will focus on interviews with top leaders across the home-based business field, seeking to understand the secrets of their leadership success. Remember, success leaves clues, and the goal of the Leadership Factory is to cull those clues to the surface so that hungry students from across the world can learn from them. Twice a month on Wednesday at 2 pm Eastern Time, Tony and I will be interviewing leaders and learning along with everyone else. The good news is, since we are utilizing Google Hangout, if you miss the live event, you can always watch the YouTube video of the event.
HBRN and the LIFE business have teamed together to provide top-notch leadership thinking to the home-based business profession free of charge! It doesn’t get much better than that! 🙂 Here is the first Leadership Factory with our special guest Claude Hamilton. Enjoy.
After nearly twenty years of working with people, building teams, and leading people, I have learned that there are many Biblical truths that can be applied daily. For instance, Romans 1:18 clearly explains why unrighteous people refuse to see the truths about themselves and their sinful condition. In the ESV version of the Bible, Romans 1:18 reads, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” Paul wrote this epistle to explain why the people who see the truth of God all around them—systems designed beyond the capabilities of today’s best engineers, anthropic principles that if off by even the slightest amount would not have supported mankind, and proof (cosmological, teleological, and natural theology) that points toward a Creator—suppress and reject it. Interestingly, nearly 2,000 years ago, Paul, in apparent anticipation of today’s faithless age, captured the reason why people chronically suppress truth.
Certainly Paul’s statement was intended to reflect the suppression of the truth of God, but it has secondary applications as well. For example, even today’s secular leadership manuals teach the importance of “confronting reality,” the same principle Paul expounded above. Leaders have learned that people do not like dealing with uncomfortable truths of any size. Whether that truth is major (like the existence of God) or small (like miscommunication with a co-worker), people quickly suppress the truth, allowing themselves to be held blameless while the other party is held responsible for any issues. Consequently, most people never fulfill their leadership potential because they are too busy suppressing truth to learn from it.
Have you ever wondered why it is that people see others’ faults so clearly, yet seem to struggle to discover, or at least admit discovery of, their own? This is a big challenge. Even so, imagine what could change in a person’s life if he could see his own areas of needed improvement as easily as he sees others’. This is a HUGE part of the leadership journey and a HUGE part of a mentor’s role. I can promise you this: People who run around blaming everyone but themselves for their current predicaments are hopelessly self-deceived through the repeated suppression of truth. (Internet Haters come to mind. 🙂 ) Thankfully, few people allow themselves to slide so far from truth; however, all of us veer from truth to some degree. Thus, one of the key leadership assignments is to identify and address areas where untruth has seeped into one’s thinking. In other words, a problem identified is half solved.
Mentoring matters because it helps people see their blind spots and begin working on them. I have been blessed with superb mentors over the years and have read many books that have helped me. With that said, my wife Laurie, who has developed the tact and courage to address her husband in love, has done the best job of pointing out where I might be suffering from suppression of truth at any given time. It is my assignment, as a leader confronted with truth, to view the situation without emotion and address the facts as they are, not as I want them to be. No one is perfect at this art, but with practice and courage, a person can grow and change. The Mental Fitness Challenge from the LIFE business is a personal mentoring program to improve one’s ability to deal with truth.
What about you? Are you dealing with uncomfortable truths in your life? Let me speak to the Christians reading this post for a moment. Christians need to understand that suppressing truth in any area of life is just another name for sin. That may sound strong, but please hear me out. Suppressing truth is really just a simpler way of saying that people would rather believe comfortable lies than difficult truths. Since the Bible states that all lies come from the “father of lies,” then suppressing truth makes one believe lies and, in that instance, a person has chosen to follow Satan, not God. This is a significant distinction that I believe would revolutionize the Christian church. The Christian church must repent from believing Satan’s lies in any area of life and begin to live and reflect God’s truths again.
Okay, okay, I will hop off my soapbox now. I just encourage each person to examine his thinking and identify where the suppression of truth may be hurting him. If you have mentors, then seek their help in the process. 2012 is shaping up to be a breakthrough year for so many, and I encourage you to break through, too. Below is the inaugural HBRN Leadership Factory interview. Tony and I asked Claude Hamilton on as our special guest and we dove into the mentoring process. Enjoy.
Ray Kroc is one of my favorite entrepreneurs. First, he maintained his hunger through many tough years of conventional business so when he discovered the McDonald’s brothers at the age of 52, he was still motivated to do something about it. Second, his zeal to create a system that works for any hungry entrepreneur willing to do the work helped many people become successful in business. And third, his leadership melded a diverse team from the corporate level, the field, and suppliers to create a restaurant dynasty. Here is a video from a recent talk where I go into further detail. In my book RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE, I share Kroc’s entrepreneurial journey.
Tony Cannuli and I had the honor of interviewing Bill Lewis in this week’s HBRN Leadership Factory. As you watch this interview, notice how much Bill had to overcome his old labeling in order to become the champion he is today. The subjects discussed were character, integrity, and courage. Bill exemplifies each of these qualities. With his first three organizations surging past 1,000 people attending events, Bill is one of the top depth and community builders in the industry. In fact, Bill is a poster child for the Leadership Factory!
