Chris Brady’s new book was just released at the TEAM major function!  I cannot share enough adjectives to describe the effect that this book will have on you.  If you have ever dreamed of entrepreneurship, independence, and achievement, then this is the book you must read.  I have witnessed first hand the amazing accomplishments of Chris over the years.  Rascal captures the essential difference between follower and leaders and gives you the tools necessary to develop into a leader.  Read the book and please share your thoughts on what you learned.  Here is the Foreward that I wrote for the book.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Rascal?  Who are you to be calling me names?  But that is exactly what every great achiever is in life.  Rascals are willing to step out of line and pursue their own dreams, not conform to the wishes of the masses.  What is it that separates the Rascals from the rest of humanity?  Chris Brady’s new book will reveal that and much more.   
I have known Chris Brady since I was 17 years old and have been a business partner and close friend for 15 plus years.  As I read his captivating book on Rascals, I saw so many parallels between the characters described and Chris that I have named him Honorary First Rascal.  Rascals fear insignificance more than they fear peer pressure; they fear losing more than they fear change; they fear endless talk more than dangerous actions.  I believe that everyone has inside of them a rascal, but it has been buried by endless, mind-numbing conditioning to be part of the herd. 

Let me share just a few highlights of Chris Brady’s life as an example of rascality.  Chris grew up in a middle class family with supportive parents who taught their two boys that anything was possible in life.  Chris bought into this principle and pursued his passion for racing motorcycles to a competitive level, even though he started at the late age of 16.  From this early success, he parlayed his work ethic into a sponsorship with General Motors and a degree at the prestigious GMI Engineering & Management Institute (now Kettering University).  Chris graduated at the top of his class and went on to obtain his Masters at Carnegie Mellon University, even conducting his thesis in Japan!  With all of these credentials for success behind him, you would think he would have followed the traditional route and climbed the corporate ladder.  Everything certainly seemed to indicate that he should.

All of this changed when he went to a Michael Dell seminar and learned from a billionaire that many of tomorrow’s future leaders would be those who could master the art of building communities that drive traffic to on-line sites.  Being the Rascal that he is, Chris put all of his efforts and know-how to work, leaving his corporate job, and putting everything on the line to develop his leadership skills and systems understanding to help found the TEAM.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Hundreds of thousands of people in community and millions of dollars of revenue later and a lifestyle that is incomprehensible to non-rascals, Chris and his lovely wife Terri have traveled the world with their four talented children.  With multiple best selling books including a Wall Street Journal #1 Best Seller: Launching a Leadership Revolution, I would say Chris has broken out of the herd.  

What made the difference?  Was it just sheer talent?  Luck, by being in the right spot at the right time?  Connections?  God’s Providence?  The Bradys would certainly agree they have been blessed, but I believe this book spells out many of the keys of the Bradys Rascal-like success.  If I were to boil it down into one sentence, I would say Rascals have the courage to pursue their own dreams.  Chris knew what he wanted and pursued it with a singular focus against opposition, against the norms, against the setbacks until success finally surrendered its secrets.  In life, you either hate losing so much that you are willing to change or you hate changing so much that you are willing to lose.  Rascals cannot stand the thought of surrendering their dreams, so instead surrender their comforts in pursuit of their destiny.  

I am proud to strongly recommend this book to all who dare to dream and hunger for significance in life.  Chris doesn’t promise easy when you step up to the Rascal plate, but he does promise worth it!  Get reading and find out that everything you need to be a Rascal has been inside of you all along.

In our Wall Street Journal #1 best selling book Launching a Leadership Revolution, Chris Brady and I talk about the 3H principles of every leader. Hungry, Honeable, and Honorable each plays a part in the developing leader. If you desire to lead in your home, community, workplace, church or club, these 3 characteristics are essential for your success. Anyone can improve their leadership by studying these attributes and applying them to their leadership journey. Each of these is explained in full in our book, but let’s elaborate a little on them here.

There is no leadership without a hungry person mentally willing to learn and grow. Without hunger, a person is satisfied with the status quo. Since every major achievement happens when a goal is set, satisfied people will not get uncomfortable enough to change. The old saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears,” explains this well. What do you yearn for in your life? What existing situation that you are dealing with must change? These are the seeds of discontent that lead to hunger and eventually leadership if directed properly. I believe it is easier to teach a hungry person the skills for leadership than it is to teach a skilled person how to be hungry.

If a person is willing to work, that is a good start, but real change occurs only with examination. Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Are you examining your results and honing them for improvement? Failing is not fatal and is a great way to learn. If you run from your failure or blame someone else, you steal from yourself a learning experience. Failure is a given in life, but learning is optional. A honeable student is willing to take counsel, confront reality and change where needed. Too many would-be leaders will not accept any counsel and thus are frozen in work mode without growth. Life is too short to learn only from your own experiences. Find a mentor and be their best student.

The last characteristic is the foundation that holds your leadership together. Without honor you have nothing. People will not remember the car you drove, the house you live in, or your net worth, but they will remember if you treated them with honor. People will disagree and as a leader, you will have to separate from some people, but always do it with honor. Remember when you throw mud, all you do is dig yourself into a hole. Everyone grows and changes at their own pace and mistreating people or doing anything without honor ultimately hurt you more than anyone. Take the high road even when others choose the low one.

Everyone can lead when they incorporate the 3H principles into their life. If you are tired of being part of a group that isn’t being led and tire of thinking someone should lead, maybe it is time to promote yourself. Leadership is not a tile, a position, or rank, but just plain service to others. Those who serve will deserve. I encourage you to Launch a Leadership Revolution in your life. God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Over the past several years, Chris Brady and I have been tweeting our leadership thoughts on an almost daily basis.  We have one several awards from our twitter accounts and now are moving ahead on another project for twitter quotes.  Both of us are reviewing our tweets and pulling out the originals for further comment.  I reviewed some of my favorites today and I am requesting help in selecting a few for further study.  Having read books  and listened to so many CD’s over the last 15 years, it is difficult to determine the original content from comments that I have heard over the years, but to the best of my knowledge these are original tweets.  If you can help me select the best ones, I would greatly appreciate it.  If you know this is a quote from another author or speaker then please share so I do not include.  Select your top 10 or so and then I will add up the scores and proceed accordingly.  Also, the voting is now taking place for the Top 30 and Top 25 Leadership Guru list.  I will attach the links if you would like to vote. Thanks in advance and keep leading and learning on your journey to success. God Bless, Orrin Woodward

http://leadershipgurus.net/index.html – Vote for Top 30
http://www.topleadershipgurus.com/index.php – Vote for Top 25

Don’t be your own worst critic; there are plenty of other people willing to fill that position.

Average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire others to raise their own bar.

Everyone deals with problems in life, but remember the goal is to solve them and get new ones.

Leaders always choose the harder right rather than the easier wrong.

A bitter heart is never thankful & a thankful heart is never bitter.

It’s hard to set yourself on fire with your dream when you are busy wetting yourself with your dread.

Most people settle in life without any satisfaction, winners are satisfied with life without ever settling.

Excuses are used to justify leaving the scene of truth without changing.

Many times in life, those who do the most correcting, need the most correcting.

Just as a gardener pulls weeds from a garden, leaders pull weeds from their thinking before they spread.

People will forget what you kept for yourself, but they will never forget what you gave of yourself.

The higher you climb the mountain, the better your perspective.

It is not what happens to you that matters as much as what happens in you.

Most people are waiting to feel right & then will do good, but successful people do right & then will feel good.

Too often we view learning as a period of life, instead of a way of life.

Living your priorities is telling your time where it’s going, instead of asking where it went.

Competition ensures that winners won’t buy their own excuses.

You cannot have a new beginning, but you can change today and have a new ending.

People will forgive a leaders skill deficiency but rarely will they will forgive a character deficiency.

People harp on others issues because they are too scared to confront and change their own.

Many know what to do, but winners do what they know.

Blaming someone else for your failures only ensures that you won’t learn from them.

The more you tackle the things you fear, the more fearless you will become.

A group’s leadership limit is reached when voluntarism ends and compulsion begins.

The strength of our convictions is measured by how much we are willing to sacrifice for them.

A leader truly listening to his team speaks more than any talk that he can give to them.

It’s easy to be positive when all is positive, but you know you’re positive when everything is negative & you are still positive.

If you feel a teammate acted without character, but won’t confront the issue to ensure you have all the facts, then you lack character.

You don’t feel like a winner and then do, you do like a winner and then feel.

If you accept excuses from others, it’s usually because you have accepted your own excuses.

Leaders dig into their business to learn painful realities rather than believe peaceful illusions.

Success never goes on sale, but most spend their whole life dickering over the cost & never make the purchase.

All people experience failures in life, but the successful people learn from them while the unsuccessful people quit  because of them.

Just because those around you have surrendered their dreams does not mean that you should.

Licking your wounds will not stop the bleeding, but applying pressure will.

Teach character and if you must, use words.

True knowledge is understanding how little you truly know.

Success is not as easy as winners make it look, but not as hard as losers make it sound.

A life of success requires sacrifice for a period of time while a life of failure requires sacrifice for lifetime – period.

Telling a person to seek a nice secure job is like telling a lion to seek a nice secure zoo.

You cease to be excellent the moment you accept mediocrity in your life.

Being a critic is much easier than being a leader since it requires no sacrifice or results to qualify.

Today’s age worries too much about image and not enough about integrity.

Never surrender your convictions for your conveniences.

 Anyone can throw money at problems but successful leaders throw better thinking at them.

The only place where compensation comes before service is in the dictionary.

Followers need help, leaders need example.

A person who cannot handle setbacks will never handle victories either.

Ingratitude produces pride while gratitude produces humility.

If you want to make a difference, but are afraid to be different then you won’t make a difference.

In life, most people surrender what is possible for what is comfortable.

In life, you either hate losing enough to change or you hate changing enough to lose.  

You cannot seize your future until you let go of your past.

Your business is going to change, either led by you or your competitors.

The winds of change can be used like a kite to lift you higher or like a tumbleweed to toss you about.

Unaddressed problems on the inside of a person leads to unaddressed problems on the outside.

The worst decision is indecision.

I just read a snippet online that I believe is from a Peter Schiff’s book called CrashProof written in 2006.  It was a parable describing why consumerism and debt are bad habits to develop for individuals, companies, and nations.  America became a great nation by its disciplined people who saved, produced, and then enjoyed the fruits of their labors.  Today, many are taught the alleged joys of debt, consumerism, and the right to live off our American birthrights.  The reason I am so passionate about leadership is because it is so lacking in our culture today.  Leaders get results, not just talk, not just pose, not just run to government to protect them!  Leaders get results through serving their customers.  

Do you want to help restore the American Dream?  Then start dreaming, learning, leading, and producing results.  When you lose ask yourself this question.  Do you hate losing bad enough to change or do you hate changing bad enough to lose?  Everyone hates losing, but most are adept at sidestepping the responsibility for the loss and thus never change. Don’t pass the buck, don’t blame your parentage, your environment, your spouse etc.  Accept responsibility for losing, learn to really absorb the loss and hate it enough to change.  Those who are willing to change ultimately win and those who are willing to blame perpetually lose.  Here is the snippet, are you one of the producers or one of the writers of IOU’s.  America cannot stand government IOU’s and needs leaders to lead a revival of true production.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

A Tale of Two Farmers

Farmer Chang grows only oranges. Farmer Jones grows only apples. Each grows only the fruit he produces most efficiently, trading his surplus for the fruit grown by the other. Both farmers benefit from comparative advantage and free trade. The sole reason that Farmer Chang “exports” oranges is so that he can afford to “import” apples, and vice versa. Suppose that one year a flood wipes out Farmer Jones’ apple crop. Not having any fruit to trade, but hungry nevertheless, he proposes to trade apple IOUs for Farmer Chang’s oranges. Since Farmer Chang cannot eat all the oranges he grows anyway, and since Farmer Jones’ IOUs will pay 10 percent interest (in extra apples, of course), he accepts. Farmer Chang accepts Farmer Jones’ offer only because of the apples that Farmer Jones’ IOUs promise to pay. By themselves, the IOUs have no intrinsic value. Farmer Chang cannot eat them. It is the promise to pay additional apples that gives the IOUs their value.

When Farmer Jones issues his apple IOUs in exchange for real oranges, he does not actually pay for the oranges. Payment will not really be made until the following year when Farmer Jones redeems his notes by giving Farmer Chang all the apples his IOUs obligate him to pay. Only then can the notes be retired and the transaction be completed. Now suppose that the following year Farmer Jones’ crop is again destroyed, this time by a hurricane. He and Farmer Chang once again make the same deal, with Farmer Jones getting more of Farmer Chang’s oranges, and Farmer Chang accepting more of Farmer Jones’ IOUs. Further suppose that similar natural disasters continue to besiege Farmer Jones for several more years, until it finally dawns on him that he is eating pretty well, without actually farming. He therefore decides to turn his apple orchard into a golf course and simply play golf all day while enjoying farmer Chang’s oranges.

In other words, Farmer Jones now operates as a service economy. Farmer Chang, by contrast, is so busy growing all those oranges that he never gets a chance to play Farmer Jones’ course. In fact, he has been accepting Farmer Jones’ IOUs for so long that he no longer remembers his original reason for doing so. He now counts his wealth based solely on his accumulation of Farmer Jones’ IOUs. Farmer Jones actually enjoys such a good reputation within the farming community that Farmer Chang is able to trade some of Farmer Jones’ IOUs for goods and services provided by other farmers and merchants. However, as a result of Farmer Jones’ good reputation, no one notices that his apple orchard has been turned into a golf course. His IOUs are now worthless since Farmer Jones no longer possesses the ability to redeem them with actual apples.

Some might argue that the entire community now depends on Farmer Jones and his worthless IOUs and that Farmer Chang and the others will simply accept them indefinitely to avoid acknowledging the reality of their folly. Of course, were these revelations to occur, any unfortunate holders of Farmer Jones’ IOUs would officially be forced to realize their losses. However, their true financial situations would improve, as any further accumulation of worthless IOUs would end. As for Farmer Chang, he would once again, literally, enjoy all the fruits of his labor. The real loser, of course, would be Farmer Jones, for without a viable apple orchard or the ability to buy oranges on credit, he would starve. It would take years to transform his golf course back into an orchard, regain his lost knowledge of farming, and replace his obsolete and dilapidated farming equipment (provided he hadn’t already traded it in for golf carts and titanium clubs). In the end, Farmer Jones’ only alternative might be to sell his golf course to Farmer Chang and take a job picking fruit in his orange grove.

During the summer at our Michigan residence, my good friend Dan Hawkins recorded a video of me teaching the analogy of culture as compared to a pool current.  What is the culture current you ask? By calling the same play and having everyone in your organization running in the same direction, a current is created that carries people to success.  Notice what happens in the video when you change the play too often in the pool. 🙂 The pool analogy is an excellent example of the power of culture to create a winning organization, when the leader understands the effect of the culture current.  Proper culture carries people in the winning direction and new people quickly adopt the principles and philosophies of the community.  Watch the video and determine how you can have the culture current work for you and not against you.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYi11i9SusI&w=480&h=385]

As the Woodward family headed back to Florida, I had plenty of time to
think about life, business, and success.  Several key points kept coming
back to my mind and I felt that they were worthy to be shared with
all.  I haven’t written on my blog much this summer as I was actively building and helping other people build their businesses.  I will share more thoughts at the upcoming Majors, but here is a sneak
preview.

First, this summer Laurie and I came back to Michigan with a specific
intent to dream more, work more, and produce more results than any other
summer.  With at least 8 new Round Table members in the last 90 days, I would
say it has been a smashing success. 🙂  I have never been prouder of the
TEAM as I witnessed many leaders jump back in the pool and start the
current flowing again.  One of the keys to growth is to shut down all
negative inputs and replacing with CD’s, Books, and Seminars.  If that
means, shutting off your TV, getting off FaceBook, stop associating with
negative people (even if that’s someone on the TEAM), etc, then so be
it.  I have never met a successful person that wasn’t willing to
sacrifice short term pleasure for long term results.  Numbers and volume
are growing because leaders are dreaming and doing again.

Second, one of the principles that has helped Laurie and I achieve in
life is to get going where you are at.  So many people are waiting for
their circumstances to change before they make their run.  There will
always be circumstances, there will always be problems in business, that
is why they pay leaders so much, because they solve problems.  Leaders
are problem solvers and non-leaders are problem creators.  Laurie and I
decided early on to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Third, Dallin Larsen has been such a positive influence in my life.
Being mentored in business by the entrepreneur of the year is not a bad
deal. 🙂  Our relationship has allowed both of us to speak freely where
we see we can improve our businesses and this has created an environment
of trust and unity.  No networking company has a better relationship
with its top field leaders than Dallin does with the TEAM leaders.  The
future is bright because Dallin recognizes the power of community and is
actively encouraging us to focus more on leading people to truth in all
areas through community building.  I love the products, but I know
communities move products, products do not move communities.

Fourth, the PC leaders have committed to work harder than any group on
the TEAM until the current is going so fast that anyone with a dream
will achieve more here than anywhere else.  That is our specific
intent.  Entrepreneurs have many choices on what to do with their time
and money, we want Team to be their best choice because of our community
and the super products offered by Dallin with a world class compensation plan.  The TEAM is rolling and we
are now about to take our business to the next level.  Get a dream, get
going, and get free!

When historians look back at this time in the world’s history, it will
be easy for them to see gloom and doom, but there is a glimmer of hope
on the horizon, a group of men and women who have had enough of
negativity, a group that has vowed to make a difference, a group that
cares enough to get involved, a community called TEAM that is Having Fun, Making Money and Making a Difference! God Bless, Orrin Woodward