Have you been watching playoff hockey lately? If you’re Canadian, the chances are you have. You would then have seen those commercials about Canada’s Economic Action Plan. It’s VERY hard to get under my skin, but every so often something comes along that just gets to me. Did you know you’re spending around $95 000 each time that advertisement plays; to be told that you’re spending money on improving the economy?

A while back I wrote a piece on the different ways money is spent, and I encourage you to go through it if you haven’t already. It explains how when you’re not spending your own money for yourself, it tends to get wasted. This is especially true when it’s not your money and it’s not for you, which is called third party spending.

If given that $95 000 to spend, even assuming you can’t spend it directly on yourself, how many people do you think would have chosen to spend it on that advertisement? I’ll bet anything that even the people who spent it on the ads would have spent it elsewhere if given the choice; if it wasn’t set for that campaigns budget by the government.

I recently read an article that showed the government has spent $113 million on these type of advertisements since 2009, that tell us they are doing a good job improving the economy. I’m not even going to go into whether the economy has actually improved, and what effect the rest of the plan has had. Let’s just look at these ads.

How much value was added to the economy from these ads? Since value is only added through production and services, there is very little. The prime minister has defended his actions by saying it boosts the confidence of Canadians; and this is true. When you consider the power of advertising, and how it brainwashes us to believe or act certain ways when viewing them repeatedly, there can be no doubt of this.

So confidence is boosted, but how does that boost the economy? Some would have you think that the more money is spent, the better the economy is doing; and this is also why many people believe the government can boost the economy by spending your money for you. The problem is that everyone is already spending too much money, as everyone is in debt; both the government and the general public.

As I go through in ‘Introduction to Economics’, wealth is created by producing something of value. The confidence is supposed to get people to spend money, but if nothing is actually produced then no wealth is created and thus the economy is not boosted. When the government spends money, it does so by taking it from taxpayers, believing it can spend it better; but 1st party spending vs 3rd party spending proves this to be false. So in the end, when the government spends money, it is not actually increasing the nations spending or output since that money has to come from taxpayers who can no longer spend it.

There are uses for the government, but we need to keep the 3rd party spending to a minimum. The only way we can do that is to limit the ability of the government to tax its citizens. As Orrin Woodward and Oliver DeMille proposes in LeaderShift, we need to limit the government to only be allowed to tax enough to cover essential services, and the only way to do that is have a set amount; without allowing them to go over it, and without allowing them to borrow money from our future or future generations.

Does anyone else cringe a little inside when you are shown that your money is being used to show you that your money is being misused?

LeaderShiftIt’s time for power to go back to where it belongs; to the people. With politicians and the business elite making all our decisions for us, we are losing our freedoms each and every day, and our standard of living goes down with that loss.

LeaderShift, by Orrin Woodward & Oliver Demille, is a call for people to stand up and become who they need to be in order to take back our freedoms and prevent it from being lost again. It in no way supports Republicans, nor does it support Democrats; it supports the American people (and Canadian if you read it from my perspective).

It is written in the form of a business parable about the United States, but don’t let that fool you into thinking this is just for Americans. There are a number of proposals put forth in the book that could drastically change the way we run our society, and the principles behind them can be applied to any country.

It all starts with the Five Laws of Decline; If these laws are not addressed in the frame-work of a company or a nation, they will become its undoing. Leadershift will go through the details of how they apply to a nation, but the reasoning will become obvious as you go through them.

1. Sturgeons Law – 90% of everything is Crud (this includes workers, leaders, politicians…) This means that 90% of the people running for office (and being elected) can’t be counted on to do the right thing. Thankfully the other side to this law is that 10% of the people out there are good leaders. We just need to allow them to come forth.

2. Bastiats Law – People will do the least amount of work possible to satisfy their wants. This means that if someone can get what they want without doing anything or by getting someone else to do it for them, they will.

3. Gresham’s Law – When bad behavior is rewarded, more will occur; The good ones will be driven away. Through this law, If you need to be corrupt to get ahead in an organization (or country) those that aren’t corrupt will not even enter the field; if they are already involved, they will likely leave. They do not want to be bad people, and will not be part of something where they feel they will need to do something wrong. At the same time, Those that don’t mind doing something wrong will be much more likely to do so since they will be rewarded for it.

4. The Law of Diminishing Returns – There is always a point where increased quantity produces lower quality. If something grows too big, it will become very inefficient without any significant changes to cope with the growth. When a government gets to a certain size, anything more they do actually wastes more and more resources.

5. The Law of Inertia – An object at rest stays at rest; an object in motion stays in motion. This law ties all the other ones together. If the first four are in motion, it becomes very hard to stop them and even hard to turn them around.

There is no doubt that these laws are in effect in our nations today. It doesn’t matter who is in power, nothing ever really seems to change no matter what is promised during the elections. Whether it’s Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, or Conservatives, These laws are in effect.

Things keep getting worse because the people in power, or those in control, want it this way; it doesn’t get worse for them. Most people who want things to get better don’t know how to talk to people in a way that will make them understand – it often comes across as elitist and caring only for the rich. I have the same problem when I talk to people about this; they seem to think I don’t care about the poor because I speak in the same language as the books I got the information from, not in the language of the general population.

The book explains this idea very well:

“The problem is that business leaders are accustomed to using the language of elitism, so the people in the nation end up thinking that the 10 percent are trying to take away democracy and freedom. The truth is exactly the opposite. The 10 percent are really just caring, regular citizens who happen to have business leadership skills. But as long as they talk like elitists, many of the people won’t trust them.

The irony is that the real elites, the ones who want to increase the divide between themselves and the masses, have learned through history how to speak the language of democracy. They are actually more like aristocrats than elitists, but they are educated on how to sway things so they end up winning.”

What if we could get people interested in caring for themselves and their future? What if we could get people to see the truth, and not blindly be maneuvered by the elites; the 0.001 percent who actually control things?

What if we could significantly limit the power of our governments to tax? What if there were a set amount to be divided among the different levels of government; forcing them to take from each other if they wanted more instead of taking more and more from the people every time they wanted to do something? What if they could be limited to only doing what the people can’t do for themselves?

What if we were able to force the government to balance the budget and not hurt our future or that of future generations? What if an automatic election could be called if the budget wasn’t balanced? Would the worry of losing their position force them to do what ‘s right?

What if we were able to get rid of our fiat money system that lets the government print what it wants, with the burden put on the lower class who has no means to protect itself from inflation?

What if Senators were appointed by the states or provinces, helping to insure the federal government couldn’t encroach on their territory and responsibilities? What if most of the power and money were given to the cities and towns, to be spent in the areas that matter the most to that local population?

What if all non-military government meetings were open to the public, and broadcast on cable TV?

What if you could help make a difference?

Read LeaderShift!

It began with Oliver DeMille’s FreedomShift and then 1913. Now we have list of proposals put forth by both Orrin and Oliver. I can’t wait for the next LeaderShift book that they’ve already started writing!

I’m so thankful to people like Joce Dionne and Claude Hamilton who mentors with Orrin Woodward; without their involvement in LIFE, I never would have been put in touch with such great information. I never would have had a chance to be involved in the coming LeaderShift.

thumbs upI was approached by a gentleman at work yesterday, and was told I had to stop telling people I’m awesome. At first I was a little taken aback; thinking here is one of those guys who is always negative and can’t stand other people being in a good mood.

In any good book on leadership or personal development, it will go through the importance of having a good attitude, and how important it is to respond with something extraordinary when asked ‘how are you’ or ‘how’s it going’. It will also point out how some people will not be completely receptive to this, and we should not let it bring us down.

So now when someone tries to put down my awesomeness, I have a lot of fun!

I was told that I have to change what I say, because when someone refers to the word awesome, my name always comes up. He tried to you use this as a negative about me, but how would you like to have your name tied to the word ‘awesome’? I thought that was awesome!

He then explained to me how I was misusing the word and that I couldn’t be awesome. I told him if he preferred, I could start being amazing, great, super, fantastic or even phenomenal with him, but I wanted to know what was wrong with being awesome. Read the rest of this entry »

The Slight Edge by Jeff OlsonSuccess in anything is easy. It’s doing small and simple things continuously over time. The problem: these simple things are easy not to do.

I just finished reading ‘The Slight Edge’ by Jeff Olson, which I now consider to be one of my top 10 favorite books. The main point of the book: Success is easy; but so is failure. What is great is that we have the freedom to choose which path to take.

As we’ve gone through many times before, true success requires personal and professional development. Be careful here though; reading one book like ‘The Magic of Thinking Big’ or attending a leadership seminar is not enough. If it were, you would see many more successful people in the world due to how many leadership books get sold and how many people are attending leadership seminars.

Success requires reading good books on success, and listening to good information. It also requires the slight edge principle that Jeff Olson tells us about.

The slight edge is about doing simple things consistently over time. Read the rest of this entry »

I just finished reading two articles by Orrin Woodward, on the subject of his and Oliver Demille’s soon to be released LeaderShift book, and I just have to share them. The first is an introduction to a book Orrin is currently writing, going through the history of past civilizations and pointing out what can be learned and applied from them. The second is more about what the LeaderShift book itself is going to accomplish.

Enjoy the articles below the awesome trailer for the book!

Why America & Western Society Needs a LeaderShift

The following is a portion of the introduction from a book I am working on about Western Society. LeaderShift is less than a month away from release and Oliver DeMille and I are pumped about it. However, there is much more to share on this important subject than can be contained in one book. The Quest for Concord is as old as Western Societies existence and has been attempted in every society since the Greeks. The LIFE Business intends to educate people on their history so we can ensure we protect the freedoms we enjoy for our posterity. Today’s reading is not light, but I promise if you take the time to read and comprehend, it will help you understand the pressing issues going on in today’s society. Read the rest of this entry »

green belt certificateI’ve finally given my presentation on my Lean Six-Sigma Green Belt project, and it was a huge success. I can now be proud to say that I’ve got my Green Belt. The only sad thing is that it’s just a term, and I only get a certificate; no belt for me :)

For those of you not familiar with the term, Six-Sigma is a set of tools used to improve processes. It’s about implementing Kaizen after Kaizen to make things better.

Kaizen is Japanese for continuous improvement. It’s about continually doing small improvements that over time compound, bringing a company or a process from good to great.

What I loved most about it, is how it compares to what LIFE teaches about life.

Consider this: Six Sigma projects follow a project methodology inspired by William Edwards Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle.

There are 5 phases to this: Read the rest of this entry »

I finally did it! I put my top 100 list in order!

I also removed a couple things, and replaced it with things that mattered more to me. The main change I made was due to watching the film ‘Pay it Forward’ again a few months ago. It got me thinking how awesome it would be to do stuff like that for random people.

I’m going to give them something they really need, or do something for them that will get them through a bad situation. The stipulation I put on myself for this, is that the value will have to be around $10000 or more.

Imagine what it would be like to find someone who needs a very important surgery but can’t afford it. Maybe I can help someone who was in a car accident and who got screwed over by the insurance company’s small print. Maybe it will be someone who got stuck in another country, and has no way to get back to their family.

I don’t know what it will end up being, but I’m going to apply the slight edge principle to my life, using the LIFE Business, to be ready when the time comes. My post on what the slight edge is all about is forthcoming in the next few days. Stay tuned… It’s AWESOME!

And yes… I will ask them to pay it forward when they have the opportunity :)