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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Resolved to Change

Posted by Orrin Woodward on May 15, 2012

A person either hates losing enough to change, or he hates changing enough to lose. These are the two options available to anyone at any time. The Mental Fitness Challenge is a program of personal change designed for the person that wants to grow, change, and win at the next level. What areas in life would you like to improve? What are you doing to create the appropriate changes in your life? Here is a video describing what George Washington did in order to change.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMdEmElVVP8]

Posted in Leadership/Personal Development, Orrin Woodward | Tagged: , | 27 Comments »

Living the 13 Resolutions

Posted by Orrin Woodward on May 14, 2012

George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Jonathan Edwards were all eighteenth-century colonial Americans who made a difference in the world. What did they have in common? Each developed resolutions to live their lives by. Today, the Mental Fitness Challenge (MFC) captures the wisdom of the ages into a 90-day program for long-term success. 

What is the life you have always wanted to live? Many know what they want but are unsure how to get there. The MFC is a road map to help you get there through my new book RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE. Here is a short video describing the process in the lives of these three great colonial Americans.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUHR92EEDS8]

Posted in Leadership/Personal Development | Tagged: , | 50 Comments »

Thriving or Dying Through Change

Posted by Orrin Woodward on May 9, 2012

All improvement, by necessity, requires change. For if a person never changes anything, nothing will ever improve. Interestingly, although everyone knows this intellectually and accepts it as a fact of life, most people still resist change. Why? Having been in a people business for nearly 19 years now, I have a couple of points for people to ponder.

First, recognize the truth in the statement that techniques may change, but principles never do. For example, the team community has been built upon character, community, and leadership from the day it was formed. In 19 years of business, this has never changed. However, the techniques utilized by the community to communicate the message of character, community, and leadership will constantly change since society and the team continue to grow and change.

Second, equilibrium ought to be sought from the resolutions/principles within a person, not the external circumstances experienced. In my life, the 13 Resolutions (covered in my book RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE) are non-negotiable core principles that won’t change regardless of how much external change swirls around me. Peace, in other words, must be sought on the inside, not on the outside. Those taking the Mental Fitness Challenge will quickly realize that the internal achievements precede the external achievements, which precede the leadership achievements and legacy. These principles have stood the test of time.

Third, looking back on my life, some of the biggest blessings that I have are things that I resisted at first. Why? Because I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I have learned to trust God and his plan for my life, even when I don’t understand it.

The movie Karate Kid demonstrated a beautiful example of trust. When the wise Mr. Miyagi told Danny to wax his car, Danny was incredulous at first. Even so, he waxed the car because he wanted to learn Karate so badly that he was willing to do what he didn’t want to do in order to be able to do what he did want to do. Danny began with the end in mind, knowing that by learning Karate, he could defend himself from the bullies. Here is the dialogue between the mentor and student:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PycZtfns_U]

Miyagi: First, wash all car. Then wax. Wax on …

Daniel: Hey, why do I have to? …

Miyagi: Ah, ah! Remember deal! No questions!

Daniel: Yeah, but …

Miyagi: Hai!

[makes circular gestures with each hand]

Miyagi: Wax on, right hand. Wax off, left hand. Wax on, wax off.

At first, through lack of trust, Daniel thought he was being taken advantage of, but in truth, Miyagi was teaching him the basic skills of Karate and improving his hand coordination and muscle strength. However, the most important principles Daniel learned from Miyagi through this process were earned trust and self-discipline. In other words, Daniel’s mentor had proven himself by displaying character and results over his lifetime, so Daniel didn’t have to understand the why to do the how. He trusted Miyagi had a plan even though he couldn’t see how the end result would be achieved through the beginning actions. In truth, he didn’t need to because Miyagi did!

It’s called “Speed of Trust” in the business world. Indeed, an organization’s health and vitality directly correlate to this “Speed of Trust” within it. It’s similar to a principle I teach called “slow to go fast.” A team, in other words, cannot run together until it has learned to walk together. Unless the team has trust (a combination of character and competence), there is no point in attempting to execute plans to achieve objectives, since everyone will question everything. In contrast, when trust is high, changes can occur quickly because the organization knows the character and competence of its leaders in the given field of operation.

Trust, then, is a two-way street. If the leadership team has exhibited character and competence over time, then trust and execution constitute the reciprocity given by a thankful team. Daniel, in the end, reciprocated to Mr. Miyagi because he knew he could trust his mentor to lead him to the results he desired. Admittedly, in today’s pragmatic world, where character-based leadership is on the decline, it’s hard to trust; however, the two ways to ensure failure are to trust no one or to trust everyone. Trust must be earned!

Chris Brady, Tim Marks, Claude Hamilton, Bill Lewis, George Guzzardo, and Dan Hawkins have earned my trust by displaying character and competence over time. We have all learned from the 13 Resolutions in our own lives; that is why we developed the Mental Fitness Challenge to share with others. Have you earned “Speed of Trust” leadership with others?

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Posted in Leadership/Personal Development | Tagged: , , | 27 Comments »

Mental Fitness Challenge Testimonials

Posted by Orrin Woodward on May 8, 2012

Mental Fitness Challenge

The Mental Fitness Challenge (MFC) is entering its second week, and the reports from the mental workouts are mind blowing! 🙂 When a person changes his or her thinking, he or she changes nearly everything. When I formed the idea of RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE, I began by studying the principles that were absolutely essential for success in my own life. This wasn’t a quick process Mental Fitness Challenge pictureas I didn’t want to leave out any key element in the success process. Eventually, after nearly a year of examining every part of my own life and the lives of other successful people around me, I was left with thirteen essential resolutions for success. After another year of writing, the book was released in November of last year.

However, that’s just the beginning of the story. For when Chris Brady finished the book and we talked through the concepts, we realized it wasn’t just a book, but a road map to true success. The Brady/Woodward partnership strikes again with the development and release of the Mental Fitness Challenge total success system. Everyone can improve in the resolutions as I attempt to do daily. And with a step-by-step program, accountability partners, CDs, books, and weekly follow-up videos, this is a complete package. In fact, the MFC is as close to a connect-the-dot success plan as I have ever experienced.

Mental Fitness Challenge Results

With that said, we all know that the proof is in the pudding. Therefore, for any of the thousands of people taking the Mental Fitness Challenge currently, I would like to offer a small reward for the best testimonial. Chris Brady and I will autograph a first-release edition of our LIFE book and personally deliver to you a FREE copy at one of the seminars or leadership conventions around the country. I want to shake the hand of the man or woman who has changed the most thanks to the MFC. So sharpen up your writing skills and pen your MFC testimonial below.

All testimonials must be submitted by comment on this blog by June 8, 2012. Here are some questions to get you started:

1. How has the information changed you?
2. How are you thinking and responding differently?
3. What is the biggest breakthrough you have had so far?
4. Have others noticed changes in you?

The MFC is going to change millions of people’s lives, but first the information must change ours.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvZXoarOqjA]

Posted in Leadership/Personal Development, Mental Fitness Challenge (MFC) | Tagged: , , | 326 Comments »

The Tom Chenault Show

Posted by Orrin Woodward on May 7, 2012

The Tom Chenault Show pictureTom Chenault, my good friend and a top leader in community building across the globe, recently asked me to join him on his radio show The Tom Chenault Show. I enjoyed the interview immensely as Tom has a unique way of coaxing out the good stuff and summarizing the material into bite-sized morsels for mental consumption.

My personal highlight of the interview, however, wasn’t anything I said, but what Tom and Denice (Tom’s lovely bride) shared about his recovery from alcohol abuse, being sober now for over 23 years. Tom’s forthright conversation on his alcohol addiction and his resolve to join AA many years ago was inspiring. This victory is impressive enough, but there’s more. At the beginning of this year, he added further resolutions to his plate – working out, attending daily AA meetings, etc. – and has followed through faithfully. This is what makes the Chenaults champions. I loved hearing Denice explain how the resolutions have helped Tom grow and change. You can hear the authenticity of the admiration coming from her voice in the interview.

Tom and Denice Chenault exemplify the power of resolutions to change a person’s life. The whole point of my writing RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE and launching the Mental Fitness Challenge was to have millions of stories like that of Tom and Denice, who went through the struggles, resolved to change, and through God’s grace, achieved victory! To God alone be the glory!

Here is the link to the interview (about 25 minutes into first hour) if you would like to give it a listen for yourself. Have a great day and resolve to live the life you’ve always wanted today!

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Posted in Leadership/Personal Development | Tagged: , , | 12 Comments »

Are You Trip Tracking?

Posted by Orrin Woodward on May 2, 2012

One of the keys to launching the Mental Fitness Challenge was to provide significant incentives for the newer LIFE Members to develop proper business habits. When a person is trip tracking, he or she qualifies for a trip at the ridiculously low level of 6,000 points! All the qualification details are described below. People are going to begin the Mental Fitness Challenge program and resolve to go on a dream trip within the first year of starting their business. LIFE has never been better! 🙂 What goals have you set, and which trip are you taking?

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Are You Trip Tracking? pictureIncentive Trips: Where Are You Going?
At the Spring Leadership Convention in Columbus, Ohio, LIFE was thrilled to introduce one of its most prodigious new programs: Incentive Trips! Rewards don’t get much bigger or more sensational than this! Read on to learn more about the fabulous trip options available and the criteria necessary for LIFE Members to qualify for one of these splendid world-class vacations.

Incentive #1: 6,000 for 6 Trip

Qualifications

Trip Tracker – 200 Personal/Customer PV each and every month. For existing LIFE Members, Trip Tracker can start in April or May. For new Members, Trip Tracking begins with the first month in business.  If one month is missed, including even the first month for the new member, then the member is no longer eligible for this trip.

PV – 6,000 Total PV for 6 consecutive months with a minimum of 4,000 PV in Team #1 and an additional 2,000 PV, including personal and customer volume, outside of Team #1.

For example, a new member that was enrolled in May would start trip tracking in the month of May and continue to do 200 PV each month through the six month consecutive PV requirement.

If in the months of January – March 2012 a member has not met the PV requirements, they are eligible to qualify for the 6,000 for 6 trip.

Trip Options

Disney World, Orlando, Florida – 4-day/3-night stay at Disney’s Beach Club Deluxe Resort. Disney’s Beach Club Resort is a New England-style Disney Deluxe Resort, shaded by broad oak trees and lapped by the gentle waters of the 25-acre Crescent Lake. This trip includes a round-trip airfare credit, Disney Park Hopper Passes, Disney dining meal plan, transportation to and from the airport, and transportation to all Disney properties and theme parks.

Arenal, Costa Rica – 6-day/5-night stay at the Arenal Kiori Suites and Spa hotel.  Perched one thousand feet above the Arenal Valley, the Arenal Kiori allows for incomparable views of the Arenal volcano, the lush valley, and the surrounding towns that sparkle at night. This trip includes an airfare credit, daily breakfast, canopy tour, volcano hike, and safari boat floating.

Oasis of the Seas, Bahamas Cruise – 8-day/7-night balcony cabin cruise. Experience the ship that revolutionized cruising; its revolutionary and breath-taking design includes seven distinct neighborhoods tailored to create the ultimate experience of enjoyment for all passengers.

Incentive #2: Leader 6 Trip

Qualifications

Trip Tracker – 200 Personal/Customer PV each and every month. For existing LIFE Members, Trip Tracker can start in April or May. For new Members, Trip Tracking begins with the first month in business.
PV – 15,000 PV for 6 consecutive months with a minimum of 9,000 PV in Team #1 and an additional 6,000 PV, including personal and customer volume, outside of Team #1.
If in the months of January – March 2012 a member has not met the PV requirements, they are eligible to qualify for the Leader 6 trip.

Trip Options

Disney World, Orlando, Florida – 6-day/5-night stay at Disney’s Grand Floridian Deluxe Hotel. Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa is a Victorian-style Disney Deluxe Resort distinguished as the flagship hotel of the Walt Disney World Resorts and offering world-class dining, entertainment, and luxurious accommodations in its six striking red-gabled buildings. This magnificent hotel sits along the white-sand shores of Seven Seas Lagoon. This trip includes a round-trip airfare credit, Disney Park Hopper Passes, Disney dining meal plan, transportation to and from the airport, and transportation to all Disney properties and theme parks.

Maui, Hawaii – 5-day/4-night stay at the Wailea Beach Marriott Resort and Spa, which is located between two beautiful beaches with pristine white sands and endless blue water. This trip includes a round-trip airfare credit, transportation from the airport to the hotel, Lei greeting, and a helicopter tour ride.

Ocho Rios, Jamaica – 5-day/4-night stay at the Beaches Boscobel, which takes advantage of its stunning seaside locale to infuse all of its accommodations with the flavor of Jamaica. This trip includes a round-trip airfare credit and access to Pirates Island Water Park. Parent magazine voted Beaches Boscobel among the Top 10 Best Beach Resorts.

Celebrity Cruise – 10-day/9-night trip package, including a 7-night cruise from Seattle on the Seattle Celebrity Solstice, 3 nights at a 4-star hotel, and a Mount Rainer sightseeing trip.

Princess Cruise – 10-day/9-night Alaskan cruise on the Coral Princess. This trip includes a 7-day voyage of the glaciers cruise, 1 night at Mount McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge, 1 night at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, a natural history tour, and a 1-night Fairbanks with Sternwheeler Riverboat Cruise. This cruise is perfect for witnessing all that Alaska has to offer.

Posted in Fun, Leadership/Personal Development | Tagged: | 27 Comments »

Mental Fitness Challenge: Self-Improvement Program

Posted by Orrin Woodward on May 1, 2012

In Columbus, Ohio, the LIFE Founders rolled out the Mental Fitness Challenge, a program for personal growth and change. Instead of complaining about the culture of the world or protesting against the powers-that-be, the LIFE Founders launched a program to assist people in changing themselves from the inside out.

What is the life you always wanted to live? What would it take for you to get out of the stands and onto the field in the game of life? The Mental Fitness Challenge was designed to help the common man and woman produce uncommon results. What are you waiting for? Launch the Mental Fitness Challenge into your life today!

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvXVqFC9bMI]

Posted in Leadership/Personal Development | Tagged: | 12 Comments »

Mental Fitness Challenge Rolled Out in Columbus

Posted by Orrin Woodward on April 30, 2012

Mental Fitness Challenge Rolled Out in Columbus picture

LIFE poured into Columbus for the launch of the Mental Fitness Challenge – the greatest personal development program created to help the average person achieve above-average results in life. What is the life you have always wanted to live? Learn the principles taught within the Mental Fitness Challenge and pursue your dreams. Here is a video explaining more!

The team has never had as powerful an event as what took place this weekend. Speaker after speaker stepped up to the plate and hit it out of the park! If you attended the event, what was your key nugget or magic moment that you took away to implement into your life?

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvZXoarOqjA]

Posted in Leadership/Personal Development, Orrin Woodward | Tagged: , | 22 Comments »

Mental Fitness Challenge: 90 Days to Change Your Life

Posted by Orrin Woodward on April 26, 2012

Mental Fitness Challenge

It is here – The Mental Fitness Challenge! The official release of the best systematically designed personal development program ever.  I teamed up with NY Times best-selling author Chris Brady to conceptualize and develop a step-by-step process to grow personally from the inside out starting with private achievements, moving onto public achievements, then to leadership achievements, and eventually culminating in a legacy achievement. Anyone reading this who has the mind, heart, and desire to change can now achieve his or her destiny.

The Mental Fitness Challenge is based around my book RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE. Each of the resolutions is focused on for one week, leading to a 13-week program designed to inculcate the 13 resolutions mindset into your life. I have never been happier with a personal development product, and I am excited to play a part in helping people fulfill their purposes. What is the life you have always wanted? Isn’t it time to pursue it today?  Here is Chris’s short description of the Mental Fitness Challenge.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Mental Fitness Challenge: 90 Days to Change Your Life pictureThe Mental Fitness Challenge, the product that has required more study, time, effort, input, design, and blood, sweat, and tears than anything the LIFE company or Team have ever come out with, is coming soon!

How soon? At the Spring Leadership Convention in Columbus, Ohio this coming weekend!

What is it? A life-changing package of information, including three best-selling books, a bunch of CDs, an online environment for tracking progress, a video library which accumulates for future viewing as videos stream in through email on a regular basis, a self-assessment test, unlimited 360 feedback, accountability partners, goal and tracking sheets, and more! This product encompasses years and years of learning how people change and maximize in their lives in all the 13 areas of resolutions from Orrin Woodward’s best seller RESOLVED.

Why is this such a great thing for LIFE members? Because it embodies an extremely low-priced, overall package of life improvement that can easily be sold to customers who want to “Live the Life They’ve Always Wanted to Live!”

There is so much more to tell you than we can possibly do in this little blog. Therefore, we’ll just have to put it all out there for you at this convention (One big reason, among about 100, that you need to be there!) You won’t believe what you will learn about this product and how it is especially designed to help your business (and your future) go viral!!!!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lD0ZOEA1ZU]

Posted in Leadership/Personal Development, Mental Fitness Challenge (MFC), Orrin Woodward | Tagged: , , | 16 Comments »

America – Conceived in Liberty: Died in Tyranny?

Posted by Orrin Woodward on April 25, 2012

Murray Rothbard has struck again! Through reading his fascinating, albeit frustrating at times, history of America Conceived in Liberty, I stumbled across some shocking stories. Rothbard is the type of author that even when I disagree with him, I find myself laughing and thinking. I enjoy authors who make their readers think because so few do today. Since recorded history, governments have violated people’s inherent rights, but how these poor precedents proceed in perpetuity is astonishing. Has anyone studied the history of the English postal system? I certainly hadn’t! Let me quote from the irrepressible sacred cow buster Murray Rothbard:

Murray Rothbard picturePostal service began in the early American colonies as freely competitive private enterprises of varying forms and types. Letters between neighboring villages were sent by special messengers, who were often Indians. For longer journeys, letters were carried by travelers or regular merchants. Letters to or from England were carried by private ship captains, who often hung a bag in the local coffeehouse to receive letters for shipment. The price was generally a penny for a single letter and two pence for a double letter or parcel.

Unfortunately, English precedent held out little hope for the unhampered development of a freely competitive postal service. In 1591 the Crown had issued a proclamation granting itself the monopoly of all foreign mail, and in 1609 the Crown’s proclamation extended its own monopoly to all mail foreign or domestic. The purpose of this postal monopoly was quite simple: to enable governmental officials to read the letters of private citizens in order to discover and suppress “treason” and “sedition.”

Thus, when the Privy Council decided in 1627 to allow merchants to operate an independent foreign post, the king’s principal secretary of state wrote sternly: “Your lordship best knoweth what account we shall be able to give in our places of that which passeth by letters in or out of the land, if every man may convey letters under the course of merchants to whom and what place he pleaseth…how unfit a time this is to give liberty to every man to write and send what he list….” And in 1657 when the Commonwealth Parliament continued the English governmental postal monopoly, the preamble of the act stated a major objective: “to discover and prevent many dangerous and bigoted designs, which have been and are daily contrived against the peace and welfare of this Commonwealth, the intelligence whereof cannot well be communicated, but by letter of script.”

The first government meddling in the postal service in America came as early as 1639 in Massachusetts. At that time the government appointed Richard Fairbanks to be a receiver and deliverer of foreign letters for the price of one penny; no monopoly privilege was granted, and no one was prevented from using other postal intermediaries. The Dutch government in New Netherland went far beyond this when in 1657 it awarded itself a compulsory monopoly of receipt of foreign mail; anyone presuming to board a vessel first to obtain his own mail was fined thirty guilders. Ship captains were fined heavily for carrying letters for anyone except the government postal monopolist.

In other words, America’s “snail mail” postal monopoly has nothing to do with efficiency (I guess we all knew that :)); it has nothing to do with the poor economics of this generation; and it has everything to do with the State’s desire to spy on people’s thoughts, plans, and actions. This, mind you, from our English forefathers, whose ideas of liberty were modeled in the creation of America. The postal system is one area where we shouldn’t have applied English principles. If government has the right to spy at will, where does this right end? If someone disagrees with the ruling power, does that person have the right to open letters, emails, tap phones, etc? England’s unethical precedent is still affecting America’s postal system to this day.

I love history, but this isn’t the type of lessons I learned in school and neither will you. Since Big Government funds the schools, no one should be shocked about this. Sadly, with today’s further government interventions like the Patriot Act, to name one among many, civil liberties are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Harry Truman, an avid reader, once paraphrased Solomon when he said, “There is nothing new under the sun, only the history you don’t know.” We must educate ourselves on real history and not the government fed history from our schools and other government-funded institutions.

The battles fought over freedom today may be different in detail but astonishingly similar in principle. Yes, America was conceived in liberty; I pray it doesn’t die in tyranny.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Posted in Freedom/Liberty, Leadership/Personal Development | Tagged: , , | 12 Comments »

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