Here is an inspiring video that displays the type of friendship and loyalty that all of us should have with our friends.  Fair weather friends are a dime a dozen, but true friendship is built and maintained by a common set of principles and honor.  I have been blessed with long lasting friendships in my life that are my true wealth.  True friends are there when you are up and there when you are down.  Stephen Covey calls his leadership style principle centered leadership.  I believe that more people need to learn principle centered friendship.  I know life will at times deal you some bad cards, but if you are true to your principles then your true friends will stay true you.  I have seen many of my friends soar to incredible heights and have seen others struggle financially.  My friendship with them is not based upon their external results, but by their internal principles.  I love my friends because they live a life based upon the ideals espoused in their principles and a short term financial hardship would never change my love or respect.  Is that true of how you feel about your friends?  Friendships are glued together by the principles that you hold in common.  Friendships can be lost when the previous principles honored begin to change.  This happens when one person continues to grow and apply better principles in their life and another chooses to stagnate.  All of us have high school friends that were really close that might not be as close anymore.  Why?  You are no longer honoring the same principles in your lives.

This is why I love the MV Team community – our friendship is not based upon the points being generated, but, instead, on the consistency of the principles being applied into their lives.  The Team is a group of men and women who espouse and live (to the best of their ability) principles that we hold dear.  The community has, is, and always will be the key to building a strong and successful business.  All networks will produce new products, but the staying power of any network is in the links of friendships, loyalty and common principles, not products and money.  I am surprised at how many people miss this key point!  Like the old saying goes, “Tough times don’t last, but tough people do.”  Living according to the right principles makes a person lovely.  Here is how I would describe my friends – principle centered, encouragers, believers in others, character first, honor, selfless, team oriented, faithful, loyal.  I have never lived up to my ideals, not through lack of effort, but because my ideals are very high.  I pray that you set ideals for your life and become a friend to others worthy of emulation.  How would you rate yourself on the list of principles for true friendship?  Are you loyal to the men and women in your life who are loyal to the principles that you share in common?  

This video started me on this train of thought – would we be as loyal as Tara was to Bella?  Tara and Bella were best friends, but Tara displayed honor and loyalty by her vigil for Bella.  Tara didn't run out and get a new friend at the first sign that Bella was hurting.  In fact, she displayed her friendship more when Bella was in need.  Honor and loyalty are in short supply in the world and all of us suffer as a consequence.  We must choose to be the change that you wish to see in the world!  A person is truly blessed if they have friends like Bella has in Tara.  Be that blessing into someone else’s life!  I want to personally thank my friends for being friends like Tara.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Going Black Diamond in MonaVie takes dedication, direction, and dreams.  I have had the opportunity to see many people go from zero to large communities of leaders through perseverance.  Some of the people that you are sure are going to do it, will choose to go in another direction.  But some of the people who seem to have too many challenges, will choose to rise above their challenges and become champions and leaders of people!  You do not control anyone else's choices on your team, but you do have control over your choices.  Make your decision to win and then follow through when the emotion of the moment of decision is gone.  That is what character and integrity are about.  I made a commitment to God, Laurie and the MonaVie Team to go to one million people and that is what I intend to do.  I cannot make that choice for you, but if you want to Have Fun, Make Money and Make a Difference then the MonaVie Team is the place for you!  Enjoy the video from the MonaVie Anaheim Regional.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward 

Someone took the time to write a short story of what happens to the entrepreneur when bureaucrats get involved.  When you destroy the gain for the entrepreneur to take risk, by definition: the entrepreneur will not take risk.  If the entrepreneur doesn't take risk, by definition: the economy stagnates.  If the economy stagnates, by definition: jobs are lost.  If jobs are lost, by definition: our countries ability to compete in a global market is hampered.  You cannot help the back of the train by stopping the leaders at the front of the train.  All business, throughout history, has been accomplished through the leadership, business acumen, and risk calculations of the entrepreneur.  When you make the risk greater than the rewards, you have effectively stopped the train which hurts all the passengers on board.  In my opinion, only bureacrats in Washington, able bodied welfare recipients, or sluggards (Sorry for repeating myself) could think otherwise.  Enjoy the article and pass it on.  Please share examples from your own life where government intervention hindered a business from performing to its capacity.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward 

"The more people who own little businesses of their own, the safer our country will be, and the better off its cities and towns; for the people who have a stake in their country and their community are its best citizens" - John Hancock, American Founding Father

To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this  country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a  back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure; all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

However, what you don't see is the back story.

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business - hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes.

Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the discount store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself.  I unfortunately do not have that freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden – the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations  ... You never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't.

The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has its benefits but the price I've paid is steep and not without wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes.  Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess  what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of  my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada.  Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.

Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired  more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you?  Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it.  Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.

So where am I going with all this?

It's quite simple.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child's future. Frankly, it isn't my problem any more.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire.  You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

So, if you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever.

If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about.

Signed,

Your Boss

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."—2 Corinthians 3:17

I want to thank the best readers in the country for constantly sending me incredible content to share with all.  Like I said from the beginning, this is our blog and I am just the administrator.  Americans must remember the roots of our liberties.  The Rule of law - Cicero, Magna Carta, the English Civil War (Locke), and the American Revolution (to name just a few) are all required readings to understand the roots of our American liberties.  Here is a fascinating video that captures some of the basics of our philosophy of liberty.  How many of these principles are being violated right before our eyes today.  I have experienced attempted force to deprive me of liberties to pursue my chosen path and know these principles to be true first hand.  We must all learn the philosophy of liberty and recognize that a man or woman convinced against their will is of the same opinion still.  A team is only a team when everyone volutarily buys into the philosophy.  A country is only a country when everyone buys into the philosophy of that country.  America was born on a philosophy of liberty, but how can we defend this philosophy when most American's do not even know nor understand it?  Here is a simple video teaching the underlying principles of liberty.  Enjoy.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Here is a fascinating interview and rant by Rick Santelli.  Rick Santelli has had enough of subsidizing behavior that we wouldn't tolerate in our own children.  We don't artificially boost up our children's grades when they fail to perform nor do we lower the bar for them.  Instead, we boost up the discipline level and reduce the privileges until the bar is cleared.  When have we ever helped anyone by lowering the bar and thus communicating they are helpless to help themselves?  Whatever you reward is multiplied.  Rick Santelli has had enough and tells it like it is on CNBC.  I wonder what an internet vote would really communicate to our bureaucrats in Washington.  We do not want equality of results, just equality of opportunity. 

At 19 years old, I left my mom and dad's house with nothing but a dream.  I had less than a thousand dollars to my name and 3 months of my rent covered.  I was going to school at GMI-EMI (now Kettering) and working at AC SparkPlug (now Delphi if it isn't bankrupt or being bailed out.)  I would get home from work in the winter time and immediately go to GMI-EMI even though it was work term and wasn't going to school.  It was the only place that was warm because I had my heat set at below 55 degrees Fahrenheit to keep the bill down.  I ate one boiled potato and one hot dog for dinner and would splurge on weekends with Kraft macaroni and cheese.  I didn't care, because I knew it was temporary.  I had a dream in my heart and knew that I wasn't lazy.  I knew my friends drove their fancy cars and had school paid for, but that only made me hungrier.  When the going got tough, I knew that I would be ready.  I didn't ask, nor did anyone volunteer to lower the bar for me.  It is the tough times that make people tough.  Our country must be willing to remember the dreams, struggles and the victories of our ancestors - not just the victories!

Thank you Rick for shining some light into the darkness and helping people see clearer.  I think you shared some things that have been on many hard working American's minds. We all play a part by educating ourselves and each one reaching another with anything they learn.  This is the time for all American Patriots to rouse themselves to education and action!  I will not stand by idly and let our country fall, how about you?  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Here is a super educational video on the credit crisis by Jonathan Jarvis.  Easy to understand and captures the underlying principles masterfully.  This is a "must watch" video for anyone wanting to understand where Wall Street and the Banks went wrong.  Loaning money is not immoral, but loaning money that you know is a bad risk and passing it off to a third party is grossly immoral.  The government getting involved and guaranteeing the money lenders immoral activities is beyond unreasonable.  In other words, the government gives permission to the money lenders to loan money to bad risk customers with a tacit agreement to be bailed out if anything goes wrong.  What a deal!  The government allows all the money lenders to keep all the profits and the USA tax payer gets to absorb all the risk! 

OPM - Other People's Money

Allowing one group to spend OPM has the same end result thoughout history.  People will spend OPM much more aggressively than they will their own money.  Never get involved in a situation where your money is being spent at the whims of a third party.  Disaster assuredly awaits!  The government intervening in the markets passes the risk off on the taxpayers and the gains to the business community.  This is why big businesses do not mind abandoning free enterprise - they love to reduce risk and when Washington intervenes in the free markets, a monopoly of sorts is created.  The business person reduces risks and passes it on to OPM - the American tax payer.  How many more business entities will Washington (the American taxpayer) bail out because of tacit promises of protection.  Another perfect example of why Washington should not intervene.  Let the business people take the risk of their loans and you will see a more conservative standard on the loans.  The OPM principle will be eliminated and the entrepreneur will have to take the risk and the reward. 

You cannot insure everyone in business and therefore; you should not insure anyone in business.  There should be no special deals at the taxpayers expense.  I am afraid that the wrong lessons are being learned here.  Intervention caused the problems in the first place.  But instead of getting Washington out of business and forcing the risk and rewards to be entirely shouldered by the business community, Washington is now a full fledged partners with the business community and absorbing the business risk on the backs of taxpaying Americans.  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and even Alexander Hamilton would stand against this blatant abuse of governmental power. 

Where are the leaders in our society now?  We are witnessing a moral breakdown in business and government of unprecedented proportions and the answers I am hearing are more government intervention, not less.  We are about ready to take OPM to a new level and our current plan looks amazingly similar to Nazi Germany's plan to regulate the economy of Germany.  As long as business does what they are told, the Nazi government would absorb the risk for the business community.  Hitler would have never come to power were it not for the complicit actions of the business community.  The business community of Germany bought into Hitler when he promised to absorb the downside risk and allow the businesses to keep the upside reward - all secured by the taxpayers of Germany. 

Remember a beginning entrepreneur loves free enterprise and the right to compete based upon allowing the best ideas to win.  But an established multi-billion dollar entity likes intervention better because it cost money and time to follow government regulations and this inhibits new entrepreneurs from freely entering the competitive landscape.  The established business community benefits and the new entrepreneurs along with the market customers are denied new ideas, methods and products.  The larger a company gets, the less they like free enterprise and the more they like a partnership with the government.  The government will assume the downside risk and inhibit new entrepreneurs from entering their markets.  We can get mad at the business owners all day long, but the only way to stop this is to get government out of intervening in the market in the first place.  If they stay out and only play the established role of government as an umpire, not part of the team, then free enterprise will take care of the rest!  Let freedom ring and let the best ideas win.  Let ideas be judged on the merit in the marketplace and if an idea doesn't fly, then let the entrepreneurs that had the poor idea suffer the consequences.  It is called Creative Destruction and it made America the envy of the world!

America was once the largest creditor nation in the world with its ideas and products serving nearly all markets.  We are now the largest debtor nation and in bondage to those we owe!  We do not lack talented people, we do not lack the right ideas, but we do lack leaders of intestinal fortitude (guts) with moral courage to call out these abuses of power.  I am not a pessimist and believe in my heart that America can and will fix this, but not until we return to the principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Allow the American ingenuity the freedom to accept responsibilty for their own lives and we will prosper.  America can show its critics what a freedom loving, principle centered, responsibility oriented citizenry can do!  I love America and what it stands for.  Will we learn from history or have we chosen to repeat it?  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

David C. McCullough:

History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.

Edward Gibbon:

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.

Etienne Gilson:

History is the only laboratory we have in which to test the consequences of thought.

George Santayana:

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Harry Truman:

The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.

Pearl S. Buck:

One faces the future with one's past.

Thucydides:

History is Philosophy teaching by examples.

Ludwig Von Mises lived through WWI and WWII.  He saw the socialistic ideas and what it did to Germany and Austria.  This video is an intriguing look into the man who stood by himself against the onslaught of statist power.  The courage of Von Mises to speak truth in an age of lies should be celebrated and honored.  The Bible states to give honor to whom honor is due.  Ludwig Von Mises should be honored for his ground breaking work in economics and liberty.  Do we understand the price that civilization has paid to have the freedoms we enjoy today?  We have a responsibility to educate ourselves on the principles of freedom.  We must understand the roots of freedom in order to protect those freedoms.  Enjoy the video and watch for the parallels in the history of Von Mises's time with the current events in our time.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Today, with a heavy heart, I will share breaking news on the immoral monetary activity of the Federal Reserve.  Money supply must be tied to economic output of a country or the printed money is merely paper only good for starting fires.  Paper money is a moral promise that the paper is backed by the economic strength of the creator of the paper money.  The reason the Gold Standard was used as a standard practice was to ensure the public that the government producing the money had the wealth that backed up the paper money.  When a government goes off the Gold Standard, it is a clear indicator that the government has run out of money, but would like to print paper to pay its debts without a real wealth to back it.  Argentina, Germany, and other countries that attempted to print money without real wealth backing it have all learned the valuable lesson of inflation and loss of trust.  Would you trade real gold for fake paper? 

I am an American patriot and very proud to be called an American.  Today is the saddest day for me as an American.  The following graph clearly displays that America has chosen to inflate its money supply without real wealth to back the paper money and money credits.  This is immoral in the highest degree.  This is no different than if I owed someone a million dollars and I only had one hundred dollars so I handed him Monopoly money and told him that it was legal tender.  Money should be like a promissory note and that is the true origin of paper money – a promised note to redeem the above legal tender with gold at the owner’s discretion.  This is no longer the case and has proven to be to great a temptation in the hands of our quick fix political leadership.  This is not a Republican vs. Democrat post because I believe all of the politicians have let us down.  Do you honestly believe that real wealth in this country has rocketed straight up like a spacecraft in the past few months?  This is clearly producing money out of thin air with no real wealth backing, which is another name for inflationary policies!

Are there any concerned citizens with enough understanding of the history of the damaging effects of inflationary policies to demand accountability?  Inflationary policies destroy the virtues of savings, destroy the fixed income retirements, destroy the confidence of the markets in our dollar and reward all types of character-less behavior.  Americans cannot print our way out of our debt.  ONLY real wealth producing strategies in the market combined with moral leadership in Washington will right this sinking ship.  Please read Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek, Free to Choose by Milton Friedman, and The Case Against the Fed by Murray Rothbard.  We must learn, teach and then do something about this mess.  Our children and grand-children are in peril of never enjoying the American Experiment because we have drifted far from our American principles.  It is time to bring fiscal responsibility to Washington.  Get an amendment passed that forces our political leaders to balance their budget like every American citizen must do.  No borrowing against our children's futures and no inflationary policies which punishes all the virtuous characteristics needed to operate society.  Will you help?  Get started today by learning this material and then sharing with everyone that want to learn in your local communities. 

As for me, my family and our team, we promise to play our part in the American Restoration!  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Here is a super 5 minute video by Dr. Terry Paulson.  There are enough nuggets in this video to help anyone move on in their life and businesses.  Success is success is success regardless of the field of your endeavor.  Please get a piece of paper and take some notes on this video!  Are you applying these principles in your life?  If you are not, chances are you are playing a victim role not the victor role.  A positive can do attitude will make the difference between trying and doing!  Are you trying or doing?  On the MonaVie Team we have chosen not to participate in the recession.  The Team knows that there are difficulties and opportunites.  We choose to focus more on our opportunities in our difficulties and less on the difficulties in our opportunities!  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Don't make it easy on people, make it tougher.  Make them earn their maturity and strength of character.

Here is a powerful story of the power of words and deeds to create or destroy.  What is your specific intent that you have for your words and deeds?  I encourage you to take a deep breath before you say or do something harmful to others and ask, "Is it worth it?"  Just this simple pause and question has helped me immensely value people more than I value making a point or having to be right.  Enjoy the story and decide today to validate, encourage, and love people.  Who have you helped today by lightening their load and lifting their spirits?  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

One day, when I was a freshman in high school,

I saw a kid from my class was walking home from school.

His name was Kyle.

It looked like he was carrying all of his books.

I thought to myself, 'Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday?

He must really be a nerd.’

I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football game with my friends tomorrow afternoon), so I shrugged my shoulders and went on.

As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him.

They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt.

His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him..

He looked up and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes

My heart went out to him. So, I jogged over to him as he crawled around looking for his glasses, and I saw a tear in his eye.

As I handed him his glasses, I said, 'Those guys are jerks.'   

They really should get lives.

He looked at me and said, 'Hey thanks!'

There was a big smile on his face.

It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude.

I helped him pick up his books, and asked him where he lived.

As it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him why I had never seen him before.

He said he had gone to private school before now.

I would have never hung out with a private school kid before.

We talked all the way home, and I carried some of his books.

He turned out to be a pretty cool kid.

I asked him if he wanted to play a little football

with my friends

He said yes.

We hung out all weekend and the more I got to know Kyle, the more I liked him, and my    friends thought the same of him.

Monday morning came, and there was Kyle with the huge stack of books again.

I stopped him and said, 'Boy, you are gonna really build some serious muscles with this pile of books everyday!

He just laughed and handed me half the books.

Over the next four years, Kyle and I became best friends..

When we were seniors we began to think about college.

Kyle decided on Georgetown and I was going to Duke.

I knew that we would always be friends, that the miles would never

be a problem.

He was going to be a doctor and I was going for business on a football scholarship..

Kyle was valedictorian of our class.

I teased him all the time about being a nerd.

He had to prepare a speech for graduation.

I was so glad it wasn't me having to get up there and speak

Graduation day, I saw Kyle.

He looked great.

He was one of those guys that really found himself during high school.

He filled out and actually looked good in glasses.

He had more dates than I had and all the girls loved him.  

Boy, sometimes I was jealous!

Today was one of those days.

I could see that he was nervous about his speech.

So, I smacked him on the back and said, 'Hey, big guy, you'll be great!'

He looked at me with one of those looks (the really grateful one) and smiled.

' Thanks,' he said.

As he started his speech, he cleared his throat, and began

'Graduation is a time to thank those who helped you make it through those tough years.

Your parents, your teachers, your siblings, maybe a coach...but mostly your friends...

I am here to tell all of you that being a friend to someone is the best gift you can give them.

I am going to tell you a story.'

I just looked at my friend with disbelief as he told the

first day we met.

He had planned to kill himself over the weekend.

He talked of how he had cleaned out his locker so his Mom wouldn't have to do it later and was carrying his stuff home.

He looked hard at me and gave me a little smile.

'Thankfully, I was saved.

My friend saved me from doing the unspeakable..'

I heard the gasp go through the crowd as this handsome, popular boy told us all about his weakest moment.

I saw his Mom and dad looking at me and smiling that same grateful smile.

Not until that moment did I realize it's depth.

Never underestimate the power of your actions..

With one small gesture you can change a person's life.

For better or for worse.

God puts us all in each others lives to impact one another in some way.  

Look for God in others.

'Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.'

There is no beginning or end. Yesterday is history.

Tomorrow is a mystery.

Here is an informative video that describes our American form of government.   I believe that the more we learn about our past, the less susceptible we will be government promises.  Government has a few specific task to ensure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  But government was never designed to provide for their citizens.  I will paraphrase what the founding father's said, "Any government big enough to give you everything you need, is also big enough to take everything you have."  Our local communities must learn to work, think and provide for ourselves.  If someone needs charity, then let's provide this through private funding - not government funding.  The only thing saving us from the totalitarian power of our government is its inherent bureaucratic inefficiencies!  The Bible is clear on providing for those in need, but nowhere does it tell the government to take from one group and give to another.  It needs to be freely given from those who are blessed by the fruits of their labors.  Charity must be freely chosen or it is not charity.  To have the government create laws that give them permission to steal from one group to give to another is a double loss.  Three things wrong with this: government siphons off most of the actual money intended for those in need, it steals the sense of giving from those who desire to give, and it steals the thankfulness of those who receive the love offering.  It turns the people who receive the charity from a thankful spirit into a posture of charity as a God-given right provided by the paternal government.  Charity is not a right, but should be a gift from those who have to those who truly need. 

The long-term plan should be to give them a hand up not a hand out.  The fact that third and fourth generations of welfare recipients are now multiplying is clear evidence that government handouts do not work!  The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing while expecting a different result and based upon the overwhelming evidence - our government is insane!  It is time for the citizens to demand a balanced budget and force the politicians to lead as they were elected to do.  Every single family reading this article understands that they must balance their family budget or face the consequences of debt and eventual loss of freedoms.  Debt is a form of bondage and ought to be treated as a cancer in the body.  Debt in the home must be eradicated.  Debt in our government must be eliminated to ensure our children and grand-children enjoy the same freedoms that we have.  How can any honest American believe that it is right to hand over trillions of dollars of debt as our the only inheritance that we leave to the next generation?  God forbid that we behave so irresponsibly!  These are points to ponder as we slide closer and closer to an all powerful government.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Here is a profound parable that teaches many lessons on personal responsibility and the price of freedom.  Thank you Jason Frega for passing this on to me.  We do not make people or society better by giving handouts.  Only by strengthening the character and work ethic of the people do we improve our communities.  Character must be developed through the Dream, Struggle, and Victory process.  Failure is never final and without failures, it is nearly impossible to know what you need to improve.  Read the parable and please share your thoughts on how it relates to our present bailouts and stimulus packages.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

A chemistry professor at a large college had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Professor noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist government.

In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, 'Do you know how to catch wild pigs?' The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. 'You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again.

You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat; you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught.

Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. While we continually lose our freedoms -- just a little at a time.  

Here are snippets from a fabulous article by Gene Weingarten in the Washington Post.  This article will stop and make you think.  Thank you Mr. Weingarten for sharing your gifts of writing with the world! In our never ending quest for goals and dreams, let us not forget to take time to smell the roses and search for the beauty that surrounds us.   What makes this article so powerful to me is that it captures how easy it is to overlook the incredible gifts of others right before our eyes.  I did an earlier article on the video validation that captures some of these points.  If a person is not validated, they may lose hope and their genius is lost to the world.  Here is my message for the day:

Do not let life choke the beautiful out of you.  Do not let life wear the passion out of you.  Do not stand by idly as the beauty in others is being marred by the incisions of life.  Let your beauty shine for the world to see!  While you’re at it, lift other’s beauty so the world can enjoy the beautiful in all around you.  We spend too much time consumed in our own issues and life to take notice of the gifts and talents of others.  We must share our gifts with others while breathing oxygen onto the flame of beauty in their souls!  Encouragement and discouragement are a choice and that choice has ramifications that reverberate into eternity.  True success involves bring out the beauty in body, mind and soul.  I love building teams because it gives me the opportunity to validate other people’s genius and gifts in body, mind and soul.  If someone as validated as Joshua Bell can begin to feel un-validated, then imagine what can happen in the population at large?

Make a promise today to bring out you inner beauty and be the example to draw other’s beauty to the surface!  What is beautiful in your life that you are ignoring? This video is a powerful example of ignored genius and a great example of why we must build our communities.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Snippets from Pearls Before Breakfast by Gene Weingarten

Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?

On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

The musician did not play popular tunes whose familiarity alone might have drawn interest. That was not the test. These were masterpieces that have endured for centuries on their brilliance alone, soaring music befitting the grandeur of cathedrals and concert halls.

The acoustics proved surprisingly kind. Though the arcade is of utilitarian design, a buffer between the Metro escalator and the outdoors, it somehow caught the sound and bounced it back round and resonant. The violin is an instrument that is said to be much like the human voice, and in this musician's masterly hands, it sobbed and laughed and sang -- ecstatic, sorrowful, importuning, adoring, flirtatious, castigating, playful, romancing, merry, triumphal, sumptuous.

So, what do you think happened?

HANG ON, WE'LL GET YOU SOME EXPERT HELP.

Leonard Slatkin, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, was asked the same question. What did he think would occur, hypothetically, if one of the world's great violinists had performed incognito before a traveling rush-hour audience of 1,000-odd people?

"Let's assume," Slatkin said, "that he is not recognized and just taken for granted as a street musician . . . Still, I don't think that if he's really good, he's going to go unnoticed. He'd get a larger audience in Europe . . . but, okay, out of 1,000 people, my guess is there might be 35 or 40 who will recognize the quality for what it is. Maybe 75 to 100 will stop and spend some time listening."

So, a crowd would gather?

"Oh, yes."

And how much will he make?

"About $150."

Thanks, Maestro. As it happens, this is not hypothetical. It really happened.

"How'd I do?"

We'll tell you in a minute.

"Well, who was the musician?"

Joshua Bell.

"NO!!!"

A onetime child prodigy, at 39 Joshua Bell has arrived as an internationally acclaimed virtuoso. Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston's stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100. Two weeks later, at the Music Center at Strathmore, in North Bethesda, he would play to a standing-room-only audience so respectful of his artistry that they stifled their coughs until the silence between movements. But on that Friday in January, Joshua Bell was just another mendicant, competing for the attention of busy people on their way to work.

HE EMERGED FROM THE METRO AT THE L'ENFANT PLAZA STATION AND POSITIONED HIMSELF AGAINST A WALL BESIDE A TRASH BASKET. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.

It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.

Bell always performs on the same instrument, and he ruled out using another for this gig.  Called the Gibson ex Huberman, it was handcrafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari during the Italian master's "golden period," toward the end of his career, when he had access to the finest sprcue, maple and willow, and when his technique had been refined to perfection.

"Our knowledge of acoustics is still incomplete," Bell said, "but he, he just . . . knew."

Bell doesn't mention Stradvari by name.  Just "he."  When the violinist shows his Strad to people, he holds the instrument gingerly by its neck, resting it on a knee. "He made this to perfect thickness at all parts," Bell says, pivoting it.  "If you shaved off a millimeter of wood at any point, it would totally imbalance the sound."  No violins sound as wonderful as Strads from the 1710s, still.

The front of Bell's violin is in nearly perfect condition, with a deep, rich grain and luster. The back is a mess, its dark reddish finish bleeding away into a flatter, lighter shade and finally, in one section, to bare wood.

"This has never been refinished," Bell said. "That's his original varnish. People attribute aspects of the sound to the varnish. Each maker had his own secret formula." Stradivari is thought to have made his from an ingeniously balanced cocktail of honey, egg whites and gum arabic from sub-Saharan trees.

Bell bought it a few years ago.  He had to sell his own Strad and borrow much of the rest.  The price tag was reported to be about $3.5 million.

On Friday, January 12, the people waiting in the lottery line looking for a long shot would get a lucky break -- a free, close-up ticket to a concert by one of the world's most famous musicians -- but only if they were of a mind to take note.

Bell decided to begin with "Chaconne" from Johann Sebastian Bach's Partita No. 2 in D Minor. Bell calls it "not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It's a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect. Plus, it was written for a solo violin, so I won't be cheating with some half-assed version."

Bell didn't say it, but Bach's "Chaconne" is also considered one of the most difficult violin pieces to master. Many try; few succeed. It's exhaustingly long -- 14 minutes -- and consists entirely of a single, succinct musical progression repeated in dozens of variations to create a dauntingly complex architecture of sound. Composed around 1720, on the eve of the European Enlightenment, it is said to be a celebration of the breadth of human possibility.

If Bell's encomium to "Chaconne" seems overly effusive, consider this from the 19th-century composer Johannes Brahms, in a letter to Clara Schumann: "On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind."

So, that's the piece Bell started with.

He'd clearly meant it when he promised not to cheap out this performance: He played with acrobatic enthusiasm, his body leaning into the music and arching on tiptoes at the high notes. The sound was nearly symphonic, carrying to all parts of the homely arcade as the pedestrian traffic filed past.

Three minutes went by before something happened. Sixty-three people had already passed when, finally, there was a breakthrough of sorts. A middle-age man altered his gait for a split second, turning his head to notice that there seemed to be some guy playing music. Yes, the man kept walking, but it was something.

A half-minute later, Bell got his first donation. A woman threw in a buck and scooted off. It was not until six minutes into the performance that someone actually stood against a wall, and listened.

Things never got much better. In the three-quarters of an hour that Joshua Bell played, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most of them on the run -- for a total of $32 and change. That leaves the 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look.

IF A GREAT MUSICIAN PLAYS GREAT MUSIC BUT NO ONE HEARS . . . WAS HE REALLY ANY GOOD?

It's an old epistemological debate, older, actually, than the koan about the tree in the forest. Plato weighed in on it, and philosophers for two millennia afterward: What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried Leibniz), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)?

We'll go with Kant, because he's obviously right, and because he brings us pretty directly to Joshua Bell, sitting there in a hotel restaurant, picking at his breakfast, wryly trying to figure out what the hell had just happened back there at the Metro.

"At the beginning," Bell says, "I was just concentrating on playing the music. I wasn't really watching what was happening around me . . ."

Playing the violin looks all-consuming, mentally and physically, but Bell says that for him the mechanics of it are partly second nature, cemented by practice and muscle memory: It's like a juggler, he says, who can keep those balls in play while interacting with a crowd. What he's mostly thinking about as he plays, Bell says, is capturing emotion as a narrative: "When you play a violin piece, you are a storyteller, and you're telling a story."

With "Chaconne," the opening is filled with a building sense of awe. That kept him busy for a while. Eventually, though, he began to steal a sidelong glance.

"It was a strange feeling, that people were actually, ah . . ."

The word doesn't come easily.

". . . ignoring me."

Bell is laughing.  It's at himself.

"At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change." This is from a man whose talents can command $1,000 a minute.

Before he began, Bell hadn't known what to expect. What he does know is that, for some reason, he was nervous.

"It wasn't exactly stage fright, but there were butterflies," he says. "I was stressing a little."

Bell has played, literally, before crowned heads of Europe. Why the anxiety at the Washington Metro?

"When you play for ticket-holders," Bell explains, "you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I'm already accepted. Here, there was this thought: What if they don't like me? What if they resent my presence . . ."

He was, in short, art without a frame. Which, it turns out, may have a lot to do with what happened -- or, more precisely, what didn't happen -- on January 12.

THERE ARE SIX MOMENTS IN THE VIDEO THAT BELL FINDS PARTICULARLY PAINFUL TO RELIVE: "The awkward times," he calls them. It's what happens right after each piece ends: nothing. The music stops. The same people who hadn't noticed him playing don't notice that he has finished. No applause, no acknowledgment. So Bell just saws out a small, nervous chord -- the embarrassed musician's equivalent of, "Er, okay, moving right along . . ." -- and begins the next piece.

After "Chaconne," it is Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria," which surprised some music critics when it debuted in 1825: Schubert seldom showed religious feeling in his compositions, yet "Ave Maria" is a breathtaking work of adoration of the Virgin Mary. What was with the sudden piety? Schubert dryly answered: "I think this is due to the fact that I never forced devotion in myself and never compose hymns or prayers of that kind unless it overcomes me unawares; but then it is usually the right and true devotion." This musical prayer became among the most familiar and enduring religious pieces in history.

The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother's heart is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us. It may be true with music, too.

BELL ENDS "AVE MARIA" TO ANOTHER THUNDEROUS SILENCE, plays Manuel Ponce's sentimental "Estrellita," then a piece by Jules Massenet, and then begins a Bach gavotte, a joyful, frolicsome, lyrical dance. It's got an Old World delicacy to it; you can imagine it entertaining bewigged dancers at a Versailles ball, or -- in a lute, fiddle and fife version -- the boot-kicking peasants of a Pieter Bruegel painting.

Watching the video weeks later, Bell finds himself mystified by one thing only. He understands why he's not drawing a crowd, in the rush of a morning workday. But: "I'm surprised at the number of people who don't pay attention at all, as if I'm invisible. Because, you know what? I'm makin' a lot of noise!"

He is. You don't need to know music at all to appreciate the simple fact that there's a guy there, playing a violin that's throwing out a whole bucket of sound; at times, Bell's bowing is so intricate that you seem to be hearing two instruments playing in harmony. So those head-forward, quick-stepping passersby are a remarkable phenomenon.

Bell wonders whether their inattention may be deliberate: If you don't take visible note of the musician, you don't have to feel guilty about not forking over money; you're not complicit in a rip-off.

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

-- from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies

Let's say Kant is right. Let's accept that we can't look at what happened on January 12 and make any judgment whatever about people's sophistication or their ability to appreciate beauty. But what about their ability to appreciate life?

We're busy. Americans have been busy, as a people, since at least 1831, when a young French sociologist named Alexis de Tocqueville visited the States and found himself impressed, bemused and slightly dismayed at the degree to which people were driven, to the exclusion of everything else, by hard work and the accumulation of wealth.

In his 2003 book, Timeless Beauty: In the Arts and Everyday Life, British author John Lane writes about the loss of the appreciation for beauty in the modern world. The experiment at L'Enfant Plaza may be symptomatic of that, he said -- not because people didn't have the capacity to understand beauty, but because it was irrelevant to them.

"This is about having the wrong priorities," Lane said.

If we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that -- then what else are we missing?

That's what the Welsh poet W.H. Davies meant in 1911 when he published those two lines that begin this section. They made him famous. The thought was simple, even primitive, but somehow no one had put it quite that way before.

Of course, Davies had an advantage -- an advantage of perception. He wasn't a tradesman or a laborer or a bureaucrat or a consultant or a policy analyst or a labor lawyer or a program manager. He was a hobo.

Bell headed off on a concert tour of European capitals. But he is back in the States this week. He has to be. On Tuesday, he will be accepting the Avery Fisher prize, recognizing the Flop of L'Enfant Plaza as the best classical musician in America.

I have been emailed and twittered repeatedly for follow up material from Chris Brady and my best selling Launching a Leadership Revolution book.  We have three specific talks on DVD to walk through the LLR book and give expanded discussion on the points in the book.  This will help anyone in the field of leadership increase the influence and effectiveness.  You can pick the DVD's up at the Team store.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

The Team teaches leaders to rotate a process known as PDCA - Plan, Do, Check, and Adjust.  Nearly every activity in life can be broken down into this patter to improve.  When you make a plan, do the work, and check the results - the next step is to adjust your plan to improve the results the next time.  Some people will follow this process through the first three steps, but at the last step, will not adjust.  They stick to their plan and blame others for not getting the desired results.  This is the PDCB - Plan, Do, Check, and Blame process and is highly detrimental to results!  Leaders can spend years blaming others, but at the end of the day must adjust their plan to produce the desired results.  Blaming or excuse making is the quickest way to lose influence and fail to accomplish your goals.  Do not fall into this trap!  Here is a funny video that displays someone discombulating on the facts and shifting the responsibility ot anyone but himself.  This is a skit and not a true story, but the principles are very funny and very true!  Enjoy the video.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Here is another tear jerking story of a young man name Jason McElwain.  It is a true story of persistence and dream fulfillment.  I loved this video and love what it represents.  The human spirit to overcome in the face of adversity inspires others to overcome!  Enjoy the video and please share your thought on this video.  The announcer said, "What we all want is a shot."  This is what we offer to people as we build our MonaVie Team businesses.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward