People around the world wake up everyday with a goal to make money, money designed to help them stay ahead of advancing bills, inflation, and taxes. Few, however, have a plan to escape the Financial Rut and live their dreams debt free. Instead, most merely work to live and count the hours until the weekend to enjoy a few days of freedom until the grind returns. Why is this so? Why, in short, do so few people live their dreams without enslaving themselves within the Financial Matrix debt system? Lacking knowledge of how to escape the Financial Matrix, most people simply surrender to the financial circumstances that overwhelm them. Sure, some seek to save and others to invest, but few seem to do enough to break out of the Financial Rut, because they lack of Financial Literacy. Fortunately, the Green Box Financial Fitness Program, can change this. On one hand, it’s very difficult to save one’s way to wealth in the Tightwad quadrant, but on the other hand, it’s practically impossible to make enough in the Status quadrant to be secure. Indeed, it’s not until a person understands Financial Literacy, marrying making money (Offense), saving money (Defense) and how the Financial Matrix entraps people (Playing Field), will he truly enjoy Financial Freedom.

Financially successful people must synchronize Building (Offense) and Budgeting (Defense) to achieve Financial Freedom just like healthy people synchronize breathing in and out.  One without the other is results in catastrophe. Perhaps nothing confirms this truth as clearly as the 2009 Sports Illustrated article, which stated that 78% of NFL players were either bankrupt or under significant financial stress after only two years of retirement. Wait a minute. How can people who make millions wind up busted just a few short years later? To be sure, this sounds shocking at first, but with some reflection, it really isn’t that surprising. After all, these young men were trained in football, not Financial Literacy. Many go from penniless to the penthouse practically overnight, spending (and borrowing) money faster than it comes in. Sure, while they have the big contracts, they can afford to live in the Status quadrant, servicing their growing debt, but when the retire, many face an insurmountable financial dilemma, namely, how to support their lavish lifestyles without the big contracts. 78% of former NFL players, evidently, fail the test and are forced to sell or surrender assets they never truly owned.

Needless to say, these circumstances affect more than just NFL players, since anyone who achieves financial success is at risk without Financial Literacy. Which leads me to the real question that should be asked – why isn’t Financial Literacy sought out by all who aspire to achieve financial success? Naturally, I’m not surprised by the innumerable stories of Lottery winners falling back into bankruptcy, because they received no training on either Offense or Defense, but I am shocked by the amount of entrepreneurs who do not invest the time to learn the Defensive and Offensive principles necessary for Financial Literacy. Think about it. If one is going to promote the importance of building businesses and making ongoing incomes (which is all fantastic, by the way), why not also teach Financial Literacy to ensure the success is enduring rather than fleeting? What’s the point, in other words, of grinding day and night, merely to build castles in the sand and watch them wash away during the financial storms? To me, this is the height of folly and poor leadership.

Financial Fitness Pack

In consequence, the purpose of the Green Box Financial Fitness Program is to simplify the principles of financial success, teaching people how to stop spending when they should be saving (Defense) and stop saving when they should be investing (Offense). The dismal statistics, 99% fail at one or both of these principles, is mind blowing! Thankfully, the Green Box can change this and set people FREE. If the reader is tired of living in one of the sub-optimized Financial Matrix Quadrants, whether the Broke, Tightwad, or Status one, the Financial Fitness Program has the information and the Green Box community has the inspiration to help a person escape from the Financial Matrix!  Isn’t it time to change your family’s financial legacy, setting yourself free by helping others get financially free? The answer for me and my family is a resounding yes!

Sincerely, Orrin Woodward

The Financial Matrix is a SCAM that fraudulently drains the wealth from hard working people. Orrin Woodward exposes the four quadrants of the Financial Matrix and how to escape the matrix by applying the principles of within the Financial Fitness Program Green Box.

Writer Adam Levin shared some sobering statistics on debt and the loss of the American dream. Unfortunately, government cannot and will not supply the answers for these challenges. If anything, government debt is exacerbating the problems, not leading to the solutions. In reality, the only viable solution is for each citizen to learn financial literacy and escape the Financial Matrix. When enough people do this, then, and only then, will we be in a position to expect government to practice  financially sane principles also.

LIFE Leadership has the produce (Financial Fitness Program) to teach people the defense, offense, and the playing field for financial success. There is not better time than today to start your journey to debt-free.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

              The Vanishing American Dream

A great number of Americans are redefining the American Dream. That was the takeaway from a recent Credit.com poll, which showed that nearly one in four people between the ages of 18 and 24 defined the American Dream as being debt-free. Shockingly, that’s more than those who dream of owning a home.

The poll underscores something I have long suspected — there’s a great deal of nostalgia for a promise that increasingly and tragically looks to be further out of reach for newer generations. Once upon a time, the American Dream was a Technicolor affair, replete with two and a half thriving, college-bound kids, a dog or cat and not one, but two cars in the garage that were owned outright, or would be before they were ready for the crusher. Finally, and most importantly, for generations of Americans the American Dream was about owning a home.

“The value of homeownership is deeply ingrained in American public culture,” write William M. Rohe and Harry L. Watson in the introduction to their book, Chasing the American Dream: New Perspectives on Affordable Homeownership. “From early laws requiring landownership for the right to vote, to nineteenth-century homestead legislation, to contemporary real estate brochures, the ownership of a home has long been presented as a crucial part of the ‘stake in society’ expected of full fledged members of American communities.”

Now it appears that for millions of Americans, the American Dream is looking different. Our study found while 27.9% of respondents see the American Dream as retiring at 65 and 18.2% see it as owning a home, 23% view the American Dream as being debt-free.

How Did We Get Here?

The Great Recession affected all of us. The irrational exuberance of the mortgage boom and investment portfolios yielding 10% growth year after year led to a burst bubble, downsizing and various kinds of over-corrections. At the height of the boom, USA Today published a poll in which 81% of young adults said getting rich was their top priority (and 51% gave the same priority to becoming famous). Americans now face a new personal finance reality.

For millions, fame and fortune is probably out of the question absent a win on reality television. To them, financial survival equals success and the American Dream is about staying above water while the kids pile up an average $27,000 student loan debt, mortgages are upside-down, and not enough money is finding its way into retirement portfolios.

Today, more Americans dream not of affluence, but of basic financial stability. That’s what both retirement and freedom from debt have in common. When Americans dream of retirement and freedom from debt, they dream of being able to exhale. Homeownership is a little different. Rohe and Watson frame it as an aspirational component of American citizenship. Others believe that you haven’t really “made it” until you own a home. However, the failure to own a home is generally not a source of stress in the same way that drowning in debt and the inability to retire are.

In another section of the survey, in fact, we see just how important debt is to consumers. When we asked what financial goals are most important to respondents right now, being free of debt/credit card debt was at the top (33.4% of responses). The runners-up weren’t even close: Retiring at age 65 (11.6%), buying or paying off a car (11.3%), sending a kid to college (8.1%), buying a home (6.8%), paying off student loans (6.2%), paying off a mortgage (5.6% ) and buying a vacation home (3.2%). (And 13.8% had no response, for those of you doing the math).

Finally, the poll found that nearly one in six respondents felt that it was unlikely that they would ever be debt-free in their lifetime. That’s a troubling number and one we’re going to have to watch over time.

Are We in Denial?

This is all sobering news, but there’s further evidence in this study that most of us aren’t really grasping. An interesting contradiction in the data lies in the fact that the latent pessimism described above is not reflected in any age group when it comes to the question of whether the American Dream is within reach. In the study, 78% of respondents said that the American Dream was either within reach or they had already achieved it, compared to 17.7% who said that it wasn’t within their reach. Meanwhile, 55% said that the American dream wasn’t within reach for most Americans. That means a good portion of us are either overly optimistic about our own prospects, or overly pessimistic about the prospects of others. My bet is the former.

Here’s my takeaway: Most of us still believe in the American Dream — but the nature of that dream seems to be changing. Debt is now woven into the fabric of our society. While some debt is absolutely vital for a healthy American economy, the way many of us experience debt is anything but positive. We’ve all seen the statistics about record-breaking credit card and student loan debt. Those numbers are troubling for some and sources of enormous personal stress for others. Many of us don’t take the time to consider how this new financial reality has changed our expectations of what’s possible for each of us to achieve.  Even though we call these things dreams, what’s always been special about the American Dream is our ability to make them come true. When we’ve lost that, we’ve lost a little bit of what it means to be an American.

Author Chris Brady

Chris Brady has done it again! How many home runs can a guy hit in a row anyway? His latest book Leadership Lessons from the Age of Fighting Sail (LLAFS) is simply brilliant. As everyone knows, I love history, but somehow Chris Brady found a portion of history that I had only studied briefly. Then, he proceeded to deliver leadership nugget after nugget while sharing fascinating stories I was completely unaware of.

Like the famous dictum, “facts tell but stories sell,” Brady sold the importance of leadership by laying out the severe complications and challenges that faced the captains of ships in the age of fighting sail. As I read the chapters, I realized that LLAFS is not just a great book in its own right, but also an excellent follow-up book to Brady and my New York Times Bestseller Launching a Leadership Revolution (LLR). For Brady adds color and depth to so many principles in his latest book that were merely touched upon in LLR.

For instance, Brady dedicates a whole chapter to the importance of hunger in world-class leadership and expostulates on the message by sharing how Horatio Nelson’s teenage decision made him the leader he was. All of which, by the way, I had never read or heard before. If the reader desires to learn leadership (while being entertained and inspired), then look no further than LLAFS. Indeed, when I completed the last chapter, I changed the hierarchy of my favorite historical leadership books, moving Brady’s to the top of the list.

I feel driven to share so many stories from the book, but I will hold myself back, for the way Brady crescendos the leadership principles and stories upon each other is masterful. The reader needs needs to experience this for himself without me spoiling the effect. Nonetheless, a quick look at the chapter headings, will convey the depth and scope one will experience when he reads the book. Just look at the leadership principles taught in LLAFS:

1. The Lesson of the Ripple Effect
2. The Lesson of Hunger
3. The Lesson of Initiative
4. The Lesson of the Front
5. The Lesson of Discernment
6. The Lesson of Concentration
7. The Lesson of Decentralization
8. The Lesson of Culture
9. The Lesson of the Unfair Unload
10. The Lesson of the Battle
11. The Lesson of Legacy

Furthermore, inside each of the major leadership lessons are tidbits and side-thoughts that each deserve separate books from Brady. When someone has lived each of these principles the resulting book becomes ten times more valuable than just someone repeating verbiage he has read from others. Indeed, this is what makes Leadership Lessons from the Age of Fighting Sail a book that I will return to again and again.

I am so proud of the leaders within LIFE Leadership who have produced a series of best sellers over the years led by LIFE Coaches Tim Marks and Claude Hamilton. Chris Brady, not surprisingly, has just added another to the growing list.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Leadership Culture

The longer I am in the leadership field, the more apparent it is to me that creating a leadership culture is the key to longterm results in any company. Yes, a leader must be a top performer, but that, by itself, cannot produce longterm excellence. Indeed, only when the leader works on creating a culture of excellence will his/her company fulfill its potential.

Perhaps the simplest description of culture is to recognize the relation between the community’s culture and the leader’s expectation. Whatever the leader finds acceptable (believes, behaviors, and results) soon becomes the cultural norms for the organization. Therefore, when leaders do not like the current results, they must begin by changing their expectations and standard of excellence.

Unfortunately, most top performers seem to struggle with the jump into leadership because they do not understand how to effectively transfer their personal high standards into the community-at-large. This explains why so many top performers end up failing when promoted into leadership positions. Nonetheless, the good news is that every performer can become a leader through studying and applying the leadership soft-skills.

There are only four lens’s a person can wear in life (victim, follower, performer, and leader). If someone has worked hard to reach the performer lens, there is simply no reason not to continue progressing and put on the leadership lens. This is exactly why I (and my co-founders) formed LIFE Leadership, namely, to help people move up lens levels until they become effective leaders in the homes, communities, and companies.

Isn’t it time for the reader to become a leader and create a culture of excellence in your sphere of influence?

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

The glory of Western Civilization was its protection of life, liberty, and property. Through an admixture of Biblical principles, Natural Law, and the English Common Law, America was gifted a solid foundation for people to enjoy a life of liberty with protection of private property. 

Today, however, this historic legacy is under attack. Perhaps the most significant attack is the one least understood by the people – the State supported Fractional Reserve Banking (FRB) system imposed upon society. What is this FRB system? In short, it is the State sponsored process whereby banks use customer deposits as a fractional reserve base for loans to third parties. Loans of deposits is not fraudulent, but when the State permits the bank to turn a $1,000 deposit into $10,000 worth of loans, then we have an ethical problem. 

Fractional Reserve Banking Creates Money

According to Professor Thorsten Polleit of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, FRB, “means that a bank lends out money that clients have deposited with it. Fractional-reserve banking thus leads to a situation in which two individuals are made owners of the same thing. Fractional-reserve banking thus creates a legal impossibility: through bank lending, the borrower and the depositor become owners of the same money. Fractional-reserve banking leads to contractual obligations that cannot be fulfilled from the outset.”

Anyone ever heard of a bank run? This occurs when customers are concerned that the bank does not have enough money to redeem all the deposits of its customers. Of course, in the FRB system, the bank doesn’t have all the depositor’s money since it has loaned it out many times over. Only the minimum fractional reserve mandated by the State is retained to service potential depositor withdrawals.

In truth, every FRB bank is inherently bankrupt by the very nature of the State allowing only fractional reserves. Proverbs 11:1 states, “The LORD detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with him.” Alas, FRB is dishonest because it pyramids fiat money (dishonest layers of fake money) on top of the real money deposits. 

By studying the FRB system, one quickly realizes that it permits the banks to expand the money supply (leading to inflation and boom/bust cycles) by loaning the same deposited money to numerous other individuals and businesses. Somehow the banks profess to have the money on deposit for immediate withdrawal while, at the same time, providing the funds several times over to other parties. Banks, through the joys of the FRB system, can charge interest on loans that exist only on a computer screen or on a piece of paper not backed by real deposited funds. 

How, for example, can $1,000 of real deposits be converted into $10,000 of loans? This is nothing less than creating money out of thin air. Worse, this fiat money is dangled in front of instant-gratification consumers, who do not possess the moral strength to delay their gratification until they have produced enough income to pay cash for the desired item. Instead, they eagerly enslave themselves into the FRB system for the latest of Mammon’s creations.

Indeed, the number one method the FRB system captures people into its net is through the consumers desire to “own” a house. Whereas in 1900 there were only 5% of the households in America holding a mortgage, today that number has ballooned to over 37%. The rapid increase in the number of mortgages is responsible for FRB mortgage debt money becoming over 70% of the total USA money supply at its peak! No wonder the State and FRB system are constantly reducing the qualifications for home ownership because its the easiest way to ensnare people into usurious debt.

The State sponsored FRB banks needs the populace to remain in debt in order to fund the debt-based monetary system. This is not just my personal opinion on the issue, but is well-known, though rarely discussed, fact by those in power. For instance, Robert H. Hemphill, credit manager of the Federal Reserve in Atlanta, stated in 1939:

If all the bank loans were paid, no one would have a bank deposit and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is. It (the banking problem) is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon.

Simply put, the entire system relies on people willingly enslaving themselves into the FRB system. Ok, I have ranted long enough. Is anyone interested in the solution?

Consumers, en masse, must reject the FRB model of increasing debt to “own” products. Instead, they must pay for goods today from production they earned yesterday.  Simply put, its time to build Ownership rather than Loanership. Laurie and I personally made the last payment on house in Grand Blanc in early 2003 and have been out of the FRB system ever since. It is LIFE Leadership’s goal, through sharing the principles in our Financial Fitness Pack, to help millions of others get free from the FRB system.

Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” No, I am not saying to sell your house and live like a hermit. But I am saying to eliminate debt in your household like a patient seeks to eliminate cancer from his/her body. As one wipes out debt, start paying down the mortgage principle down by restraining one’s urge to spend until it is paid off. 

LIVE DEBT FREE! Then, and only then, can a person experience both spiritual and economic freedom to follow God’s plan rather than Mammon’s commands. 

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward