This is one of the most inspiring videos of all-time!  I love this video because it displays the amazing talents that lie buried in each of us.  I have witnessed so many transformations through the TEAM personal development training.  Many who were written off in life have blossomed with the right environment and right information.  Susan shared her inner beauty and gifts with the world.  Don't you think that it is time for the world to see your inner beauty and gifts?  Susan teaches us, yet again, that it is never too late to dream.  2009 is the year to shine!  Thank you Susan Boyle for daring to dream and sharing your dream with all of us!  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

In the course of learning, thinking, leading, and doing - God will bless your life from time to time.  One of these moments occurred this morning.  I had literally just sent a message to Bob Dickie the CEO of TEAM asking him to contact Oliver DeMille and order copies of his excellent book - The Thomas Jefferson Education.  Not fifteen minutes later, I received the following email from Rachel DeMille - Oliver’s wife.  Oliver DeMille, Founder and past President of George Wythe College, is one of the most well read leaders in the country and his track record of proven leadership success is indisputable.  In life, I have learned to seek respect from those that I respect.  I respect the DeMille’s for their love of America and their love of people.  I encourage everyone to read Oliver’s book.  During this Easter season, I thank God for the gift of his Son and I thank God for all of my friends and family.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Oliver recently had me post this to our site at www.tjedonline.com:

As a fan of leadership books, I try to read everything that comes out in this field. Unfortunately, reading hundreds of books on the same topic means there is seldom something really new—fresh, exciting, revolutionary that uplifts the entire genre. The last such surprise for me came several years ago in the writings of Steve Farber. But now, finally, comes another great addition to the leadership genre: Launching a Leadership Revolution by Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward.

Their subtitle, "mastering the five levels of influence," sounds like typical management book fare, but it isn't. Each level is vital, well-taught and interesting, and together they form a truly revolutionary model for leadership.  This is not exaggeration—this book is excellent! I rank it right along with the best of Drucker, Bennis, Blanchard, Gerber, Collins, Deming, and Farber. It is destined to be a classic.

Brady and Woodward teach that everyone will be called upon for leadership at some point in their life. They then turn leadership upon its head, noting that while many people seek leadership for the perceived benefits of power, control, or perks, the true life of a leader is actually built upon "giving power (empowering)...helping others fix problems...and serving others. Leaders lead for the joy of creating something bigger than themselves."  This follows Greenleaf's tradition of servant leadership, but with a twist.

Launching a Leadership (Revolution) education shines because it gets into the specific work of leadership. It outlines many pages of work leaders must do, and explains which work to focus on most. But the book seldom uses the word "work", instead preferring the active "working." Just the list of "working" items for leaders is worth more than the price of the book.

Maybe the best thing about this book is the authors’ ability to take traditional, classic leadership basics and give them new, profound definitions! For example, the definition of learn goes from the old "a leader is always learning" to "a leader must be able to learn from anyone." Imagine the leadership revolution that would occur if top executives and government officials really did seek to learn from everyone!

Another example: The meaning of perform is transformed from "please your boss" or "improve the bottom line" to "persevere through failure to find success." This is the best definition of leadership performance I’ve ever read in print. And the book teaches the reader how to do it.

Likewise, the advice to develop others as leaders moves beyond all the clichés to become "learn to trust your people."  It includes fitting them to be truly trustworthy. That's what leadership should be-- but seldom is even considered.

There are many other examples. This book is a revolution that builds on the best ideas and thinkers of the past by applying them in fresh new ways applicable to the information age.

We learn from case studies such as George Washington, Winston Churchill, Benjamin Franklin and many others right along with contemporary needs and challenges. Above all, the book places leadership success squarely on the success of mentoring and gives excellent advice to mentors on how to help people bring out the leadership inside them.

Everyone serious about Leadership Education will want to read this book, and apply the principles to our learning and mentoring. In truth, great leadership is simply using great influence for great things, and this book can help each of us do this. In these times of government bailouts and government "fixes", it is important to remember that the American Dream never was a government program. The American Dream was a leadership revolution, where regular people chose leadership and became leaders. This revolution is still needed today, perhaps more than ever before in history.

Keep up the great work, and let me know if there's any way we can help you!

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I love this video of Phil Donahue interviewing Milton Friedman.  People bandy about corporate greed, entrepreneurial greed, and excess profits like they can tell the difference between greed, profits or excess profits.  It is hard enough to know your own motives, let alone assign motives to others.  Entrepreneurs risk their capital and their must be a reward or no one would do it.  To call profits greed is insane.  In a true free enterprise system, no one is forced to surrender their hard earned money to a business.  If Starbucks can sell $4 dollar coffees, who am I to say Starbucks is greedy?  Didn't the customer willingly surrender their money for the coffee.  If it was freely given for the coffee; why would a third party, that wasn't involved in the deal, have the audacity to call it greed?  If someone in a true free enterprise system is making a billion dollars, they must be satisfying the customers.  If not, the customers will leave and go elsewhere. 

It is time people start thinking again.  Labels and character attacks are a cheap way to get out of thinking.  In my opinion, we need less name calling and more thinking.  Hey, I have a great idea, why don't we elect some government officials that can balance a budget and not just print money!  Just because we will be dead when the bill is due, doesn't leave us without a moral responsibility to future generations.  I better watch it, someone might call me a name for thinking.  If we had a balanced budget amendment, wouldn't the political leaders have to start making tough calls - like every family in the world has to make on finances.  No one has an unlimited budget, unless they are given the right to print paper money and own millions of acres of forest.  This is morally wrong and must be stopped.  Is anyone else concerned about the moral and fiscal responsibility gap between our elected officials and the hard working citizens? God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Here is a thought provoking article from Walter E. Williams that was sent to me from another hungry student of this blog.  Mr. Williams is a clear thinker and discusses the issues in a thought provoking style.  You cannot have freedom and tyranny at the same time.  Either our country believes in freedom that is grounded upon private property or it believes in theft mandated by those in power.  The American people are losing the ability to reason on freedom and tyranny because they are losing the ideas of our founding generations about these two terms.  When America forgets its past, it will fall prey to demagogues promising everything and delivering only serfdom.  Read the article and please share your thoughts. God Bless, Orrin Woodward  

Most of our nation's great problems, including our economic problems, have as their root decaying moral values. Whether we have the stomach to own up to it or not, we have become an immoral people left with little more than the pretense of morality. You say, "That's a pretty heavy charge, Williams. You'd better be prepared to back it up with evidence!" I'll try with a few questions for you to answer.

Do you believe that it is moral and just for one person to be forcibly used to serve the purposes of another? And, if that person does not peaceably submit to being so used, do you believe that there should be the initiation of some kind of force against him? Neither question is complex and can be answered by either a yes or no. For me the answer is no to both questions but I bet that your average college professor, politician or minister would not give a simple yes or no response. They would be evasive and probably say that it all depends.  

In thinking about questions of morality, my initial premise is that I am my private property and you are your private property. That's simple. What's complex is what percentage of me belongs to someone else. If we accept the idea of self-ownership, then certain acts are readily revealed as moral or immoral. Acts such as rape and murder are immoral because they violate one's private property rights. Theft of the physical things that we own, such as cars, jewelry and money, also violates our ownership rights.

The reason why your college professor, politician or minister cannot give a simple yes or no answer to the question of whether one person should be used to serve the purposes of another is because they are sly enough to know that either answer would be troublesome for their agenda. A yes answer would put them firmly in the position of supporting some of mankind's most horrible injustices such as slavery. After all, what is slavery but the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another? A no answer would put them on the spot as well because that would mean they would have to come out against taking the earnings of one American to give to another in the forms of farm and business handouts, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and thousands of similar programs that account for more than two-thirds of the federal budget. There is neither moral justification nor constitutional authority for what amounts to legalized theft. This is not an argument against paying taxes. We all have a moral obligation to pay our share of the constitutionally mandated and enumerated functions of the federal government.

Unfortunately, there is no way out of our immoral quagmire. The reason is that now that the U.S. Congress has established the principle that one American has a right to live at the expense of another American, it no longer pays to be moral. People who choose to be moral and refuse congressional handouts will find themselves losers. They'll be paying higher and higher taxes to support increasing numbers of those paying lower and lower taxes. As it stands now, close to 50 percent of income earners have no federal income tax liability and as such, what do they care about rising income taxes? In other words, once legalized theft begins, it becomes too costly to remain moral and self-sufficient. You might as well join in the looting, including the current looting in the name of stimulating the economy.

I am all too afraid that a historian, a hundred years from now, will footnote America as a historical curiosity where people once enjoyed private property rights and limited government but it all returned to mankind's normal state of affairs -- arbitrary abuse and control by the powerful elite.

Here is an excellent analogy on socialism that was sent to me by one of the many hungry students on this blog.  I do not assume the story is real, but the principles are real.  You can go all the way back to the pilgrims and the shared field to see the effects of socialism. Imagine if education graded on a socialistic curve?  What a shame common sense is not common.  Free enterprise is not perfect, but it is head and shoulders above coercion, which is the only other option regardless of what name it is given.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

An economics professor at (Take your Pick) said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. The class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too, so they studied little.

The second test average was a D. No one was happy.

When the third test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, and name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for anyone else.

To their great surprise, all failed. The professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail because the harder it is to succeed the greater the reward, but when a government takes all the reward away, no one will try and no one will succeed...

Here is a super article on the power of choice in the attitude you take to each situation.  A big thank you to Ann Clous for sending it to me.  I am blessed to be surrounded by the best group of leaders and attitudes in the country.  How is your attitude?  Do you choose to see the rainbow in every storm?  Does life knock you out or knock you down only to leave you tougher when you get back up?  Attitude is a choice!  Choose wisely.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, 'If I were any better, I would be twins!' He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, 'I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?' He replied, 'Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or ... You can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood.' 'Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or ... I can choose to learn from it.  I choose to learn from it.'

Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or... I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.'

'Yeah, right, it's not that easy,' I protested.

'Yes, it is,' he said. 'Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood.

You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live your life.'

I reflected on what he said. Soon after that, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.
Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.

I saw him about six months after the accident.

When I asked him how he was, he replied, 'If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?'

I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.

'The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,' he replied. 'Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or...I could choose to die. I chose to live.'

'Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?' I asked

He continued, '...the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man'. I knew I needed to take action.'

'What did you do?' I asked.

'Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,' said John. 'She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes, I replied.' The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Gravity.' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.'

He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34.

After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.