Here is an introduction to a book coming out on mentoring. Mentoring is so important to the growth of any organization and LIFE would not be creating the LeaderShift if it wasn’t for great mentors and mentees throughout the community. Yesterday, I learned that LeaderShift cracked the top 10 on the NY Times bestseller list and making the list for the second consecutive week. Onward and upward.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

NY Times Bestselling Books

Great Mentoring

Great leaders are first great students. Indeed, if if a person is too big to follow then he is too small to lead. Good mentoring wisdom lives on in the students long after the mentor is gone. For instance, Socrates mentored Plato who then mentored Aristotle who then mentored Alexander the Great! Clearly, the wisdom, belief, and encouragement from a mentor to a mentee can literally change world history.

A good mentor is someone who has successfully journeyed down a similar trail as his mentee. In fact, it is the mentor’s experience and wisdom from his journey that makes his time so valuable to the student. Newton once said, “If I have seen further, it’s because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” In essence, everyone, in his or her field, stands upon the shoulders of giants because there is no such thing as a self-made person. The only real question is whose shoulders will a person stand upon? In other words, what results do they have in the readers area of interest? Bestselling author Tim Marks elaborated on this thought, stating, “Define what you want, learn from someone who has gone before you, and then do it for the glory of God.”

However, once a person finds a mentor, he must prove himself worthy of the mentor’s investment. In my opinion, the best leadership line from any movie is when William Wallace spoke to his calvary leader, saying, “Do it and let them see you do it.” Likewise, mentees should listen, learn, and apply any advice offered by proven mentors. Mentoring isn’t psychological counseling, where people talk for hours about their past. Rather, it’s a plan of action in the present to change one’s future. A good mentor helps develop a plan for the mentee to implement. Then, when the mentee has completed the task or at least did everything humanly possible while failing on the battlefield, they gather again to PDCA (see resolutions 5 & 6 in my RESOLVED book) the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Interestingly, without the mentee’s application, the mentoring process is practically worthless. The sobering statement, “When all is said and done, much more is said than is ever done,” drives the mentee to apply the mentor’s advice before meeting again. Personally, I imagine how much it would cost to buy a top leader’s time and then ensure that my efforts go above and beyond his expectations to validate the investment of his non-renewable resource – his time. Mentees must do what they know and in the process they will gain more time from mentors and learn even more to do even more.

The best mentors refuse to give away this precious resource; therefore, when before agreeing to mentor, they ensure the student is hungry and driven. Probably the best way to explain this is through sharing a personal experience. When I was a young man, my siblings and I would spend a month at my grandfathers farm in northern Michigan. One of the task my grandpa taught me was how to milk a cow. Although not particularly excited about this assignment, I did what I was told. After filling up a bucket of milk and setting it to the side, I noticed that the cream consistently coagulated on the surface. In fact, I noticed the same phenomena repeated everyday I milked the cow.

Similarly, leaders, like cream, rise in any organization. A mentors role is to ensure he has enough buckets of milk so he can choose from many worthy cream candidates for mentoring. In truth, I am not nearly as good a mentor as my good students makes me look; conversely, I am not nearly as bad a mentor as my bad students make me look either. It is the students hunger and drive that makes all the difference, mainly because, since the mentor has already applied the advice he is giving the mentee in his own life, it is now up to the mentee to apply it in his life to gain the same results. The only remaining question is: will the mentee apply the advice he has been given?

Orrin Woodward: HBRN Leadership Factory

Doug Firebaugh, my good friend and fellow leadership fanatic, asked me to host HBRN’s Leadership Factory last year. Although in the middle of launching my leadership company LIFE, I happily accepted because I believe the Leadership Factory is a great way to share principles to help the entire Network Marketing and home business field. Given that Tony Cannuli, another great friend and leader, is my co-host, I knew the show would be meet with success. However, I have to say that these interviews have been more impacting than even my highest expectations. These interviews continue to cull out the best principle-centered leadership methodology in unique ways to benefit the entire professional community.

For this week’s show, we chose the topic of friendship and asked Chris Mattis to be our special guest. I expected a ton from Chris Mattis on this call, knowing that he has mastered the art of building friendships, and he did not disappoint. About once every two weeks, we are shooting a new show. Be sure to check the HBRN Leadership Factory page for the archived shows and also tune in live on Wednesday nights on HBRN for the radio broadcast!

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Leadership Soft Skill: Motivating & Engaging Others

Leadership Motivation

The seventh leadership soft skill, according to the Center for Creative Leadership, is motivating and engaging others. This is the crux of leadership. For if a person cannot inspire others to achieve more, he is not truly leading.

Before leaders can inspire others, they must be inspired themselves. Reading, listening, and associating is essential for any leader because, as Ronald Reagan once said, “I am not a great man; I’m just committed to great ideas.” In essence, when a person swims in great ideas, the world-view, mindset, and attitude soak into him.

Unfortunately, few people understand this. Most run from business to business, seeking the shortcut to success. When actually, success is a matter of immersion into the greatest thoughts and leaders one can find. Why I love the LIFE community is that it provides the association necessary to learn the great ideas from great leaders so that people can do great things. The testimonies of the changed lives in LIFE is amazing even though I have been witnessing this first hand for years.

There is an old saying that expresses a candle must be lit before it can light another one. In the same way, a person must set himself on fire with great ideas and then light others on fire by his passion, belief, and vision. The greatest leaders, in other words, were first great followers. In fact, I have said for years that if you are too big to follow then you are too small to lead.

The world needs a leadershift. It won’t happen until enough people immerse themselves into the greatest ideas on leadership available today. Each generation has its own challenges that require responses. The founding generation responded by creating a company. The civil war generation responded by ending slavery. The WWII generation responded by winning a global conflict. Today’s generation must respond by launching the leadershift!

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Developing the Heart for Leadership

The Mouth Speak: Paulo Zerbato

Give me thirty minutes with anyone and through asking a series of simple questions, his words will reveal his heart. Whatever the heart dwells upon will ultimately be what the mouth speaks about. Consequently, when a person desires to change his attitude, he must dive into the recesses of his own heart. In other words, a person cannot fake love for people for long before the fakers hypocrisy is revealed. Indeed Abraham Lincoln said similarly, “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.”

Although people with bad hearts can achieve a level of success in community building, it only last for a season because the community rejects false leadership. These people tend to jump from network to network instead of looking within their own heart or, worse yet, blame networking for their problems and hide from their sinful heart by playing the victim card.

In fact, community builders, who have maintained a solid business for a decade or longer, are extremely rare because few leadership culture’s work on heart issues. The LIFE Business, on the other hand, begins with the heart. For, in reality, a person’s heart  is the essence of his leadership. Leadership is who you are more than what you do. Does a leader truly love his people? Does he truly desire to serve them or just himself? Is he willing to sacrifice for them when sacrifice is necessary?

Everyone can say what he will do under these situations, but a community experiences first-hand the behavior of its leader when challenging circumstances arise. Today’s lesson is simple, but not easy. While learning the techniques to build a solid community, be sure to also pray for a Christ-centered heart that desires good for everyone that you come into contract with. Remember, at the end of the day, the relationships are infinitely more important than the task.

The LeaderShift demands leaders with loving hearts in order to lead communities. Below is a short article I wrote on the words flowing out of the mouth. My book RESOLVED covers much more on this subject.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Out of the Abundance of the Mouth

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. – Matthew 12:34

It’s amazing how much one can learn from a person just by listening.  People who believe that they have a positive attitude, give away their negativity when they speak. I like to begin mentoring sessions with, “Tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly.  The good we will celebrate, the bad we will make adjustments, and the ugly we will pray about.”  This is sure to get people talking, helping me to identify, not just what happened, but how they are thinking about what happened.  Which, in the end, is more important than the event; since the event happens only once, but how they think about the event repeats over and over in their minds and hearts.  Painful experiences happen to both achievers and non-achievers.  The difference is in the responses, achievers learning from the bad cards, choose to draw more; while non-achievers complaining about the cards of life being stacked against them, choose to quit the game.  But what’s actually stacked against them is their own thinking. Winners received the same stimulus, but chose to respond differently than the non-winners.

When something bad happens to a winner, he immediately focuses on minimizing its effects, learning anything he can from the situation.  No pity parties, no woe is me attitudes, just resolution and teachable moments.  The extent a person wins in life, is many times, related to how quickly he can go from problem identified to problem solved, learning through the pain of the process.  When people stay down for weeks, months, sometimes even years at a time, can they honestly expect a positive outcome?  There is only so much mental energy, when it’s spent dwelling on negative thoughts, allowing them to enter the heart, eventually pouring out of the mouth, why is anyone shocked that so little is accomplished in life?  The key is pulling the weeds (negative thoughts) upon entering the mind, not allowing them to move into the heart and out the mouth.  Weeds are much easier to pull when immediately seized when they enter the mind, but much tougher when allowed to root in the heart, eventually flowing out of the mouth.  Don’t provide fertile soil in the mind for weeds; don’t allow weeds to seed into the heart; and whatever you do, don’t allow negative seeds to spread out of your mouth, infecting other people. The former leader literally becoming a carrier of negativity.

Leaders are gardeners of their own minds, identifying and pulling weeds quickly.  True leaders are never down period, choosing to pull weeds promptly.  But if they ever were down, they certainly wouldn’t spread the disease to their communities, since they know that pulling weeds is an inside job.  If a weed is extra difficult, then leaders have the discipline to seek out their mentors for help, refusing to contaminate others with their weed seeds.  One of the first, and most important, assignments of any would-be leader is consistent and prompt pulling of his own weeds.  It’s not an option if he plans on inspiring others, since no one is inspired by a bitter attitude and sour faced person.  Pull your weeds, guard your mind, protect your heart, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.  Leadership occurs when people having confidence in the leader, if a person’s attitude is unpredictable, he disqualifies himself for leadership, until he learns to pull his own weeds. Leaders are dealers in hope, change, and growth, beginning inside of them.  Perhaps it’s time that we launched a leadership revolution, let’s start the revolution by tending to our own gardens.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

LeaderShift and Limited Government

LeaderShift, Oliver DeMille and my new book, is to be released on April 16th! In LeaderShift, we discuss how to limit government by limiting taxes and requiring balanced budgets. Indeed, political leaders must accept responsibility. If political leaders do not have to balance budgets, then we have taken away the responsibility for them to lead.

The concepts of success are simple to explain, but difficult to implement. The answers to North America’s fiscal problems are known; however, leaders must implement the fixes in order to restore our freedoms. The following hilarious, yet sad, video explains what’s wrong with America’s budget and LeaderShift will explain how to fix it!

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Dan Hawkins on Keeping Score in Life

Dan Hawkins has become one of the best teachers in the LIFE Business. Indeed, because he had to make the changes in his own life, he is amply qualified to share how others can make the same changes. Dan and Lisa Hawkins applied the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check and Adjust) process as well as anyone in LIFE and are reaping the rewards from their perseverance and courage. In this video, Dan shares how to keep score in the game of life. Furthermore, he teaches how important the Check step is for people to change. Sadly, only a minority of people will make plans, but only a few of these will actually do the plan.

Dan Hawkins Believes the Check Step is the Key for Life Transformations

However, even planning and doing is not enough because it’s the adjust step that is the difference maker. But, the adjust step requires a scoreboard to determine what the results of the current plan and actions were. In other words, the PDCA process must do all four steps. Unfortunately, here is how it breaks down in real life. For the majority of people they don’t do P, D, C, or A. However, around 33% will plan, but never do anything to accomplish it. Next, is the 10% who actually do the plan developed. This is a great start as they created a plan and did the work. Even so, without checking the results, a person cannot make adjustments; therefore, he cannot improve like someone who does the full PDCA process. Dan does a great job of describing this and more in the following video.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

An old Charlie “Tremendous” Jones tape kept me

building my compensated community many times when I was hurting. Charlie’s ability to share inspirational truth is second to none. I cannot count the number of times I reached for Charlie’s tape to speak truth to me one more time. Fortunately, in the last year of Charlie’s life, I had the honor of getting to know him and his family. Spending a day together in Harrisburg and later in Port St. Lucie were two days I will remember forever. Remarkably, the years of listening and applying the principles he taught on that worn out tape led to great conversations with Charlie on leadership, faith, and legacy. The gift of his teaching and friendship was invaluable to me. In fact, Charlie, shortly before he passed away, sent me a portion of his library, telling me he knew I would use the books to make a difference. I told him I would and I intend to follow through on my commitment with the LIFE Business and LeaderShift.

Charlie “Tremendous” Jones lived his life with passion

and commitment. The reader can see just a sliver of this passion in the following video. Charlie was filled with Jesus Christ and his example made everyone around him better. I thank God for men like Charlie Jones who teach that ruined sinners, who accept Jesus Christ, can do “Tremendous” things with their lives.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Zig Ziglar: Setting Goals for Life

I miss Zig Ziglar. My three favorite classic speakers are Zig Ziglar, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, and Ken McFarland. Each of these three men spoke to the winner inside and kept me going during the leadership challenges on the journey to success. Zig’s unique style captures the attention of anyone with hunger. His personal stories of setting goals and accomplishing them has helped many others do the same. Indeed, LIFE resulted from dreams identified, goals set, and goals accomplished. 2013 is shaping up to be a breakthrough year for so many, but it won’t happen until the reader sets the goal and moves towards it. Thank you Zig for a life well lived. Your example is still inspiring millions!

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward