Leadership to Freedom

There are two sources of information that I have found to really help me understand what it means to be free, and that shows us how we can impart this information to others; helping to promote a free and prosperous society.

At the end of this post your going to Think I’m advertising a product and a website to you. I’ll set you straight right now. YES! That is exactly what I’m trying to do! I am so fired up about freedom that I want to give you the best tools available to promote these ideas in a way that people will want to listen; and that is through the principles of leadership. As Dale Carnegie says in ‘How to win friends and influence people’: “a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

LIFE

The first source is LIFE. LIFE is an amazing educational system that teaches you about life and leadership. It teaches how to improve yourself in all areas that may be of importance – Faith, Family, Finances, Fitness, Following, Freedom, Friends, and Fun.

But what might be the most important part of LIFE to those wanting to spread the principles of freedom is it’s leadership training. If leadership is influence, and the goal is to influence others into improving

society by spreading the idea freedom, does it not make sense to improve our leadership ability? The LLR (Launching a Leadership Revolution) suite of materials in the LIFE program teaches the leadership principles required in both our everyday lives and in running our own business. It is also sprinkled with the economic and freedom principles I will discuss below. It not only teaches us about them, but really shows us what we can do about it, and how to help others understand the concepts.

LIFE is put together by top leadership gurus such as Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady, the #6 and #11 leadership gurus in the world, who are also best selling authors.

I’ll break up this source in two – freedom itself, and economics.

Freedom

What I have learned from the most is the freedom pack from the LIFE system. For a long time I’ve always wanted to help others (and so for a long time I believed in socialism;  with its intent on helping those in need and making things fair for everyone). The first thing that hit me from this pack was the book: Leadership and Liberty by Orrin Woodward & Chris Brady. This book covers so many areas from Austrian Economics to Libertarian principles explaining the problems of big government, and why socialism hurts those in need more than it helps.

Take a look at some of the chapter headings for a good example:

Having read this while still being more or less a socialist, I have to admit I did not agree with, or even understand, some of those chapters in the beginning. One chapter started to alter my perception however. It was a joke, but with some truth to it that got me thinking. It was a farce about democracy in the NBA, allowing those without talent being allowed to compete in the name of fairness – Read it here on Orrin’s site. Having believed in democracy 100% at the time and that there could be absolutely no fault in it, this chapter made me start to realize there was more to this than what I knew, and it drove me to want to learn more.

Chris Brady states the situation well when he explains that ‘We don’t know what we don’t know, we often forget what we do know, and much of what we do know is just not so!’

The great thing about this book is how it not only teaches about freedom, but also about leadership. Without the leadership skills to go with this information, it will be very hard to get others to follow you into truth. It is through the great leadership abilities of both Orrin and Chris that I was willing to hear (and read) what they had to say. When you come across someone who has the desire to help, and then credibility through the amount of learning they have done themselves, it’s hard not to hear and trust what they have to say. It also helps that freedom just makes sense.

This pack also contains 4 audio CDs that teach you core freedom principles. They are:

One of the greatest lessons I got from this pack was on ‘Freedom isn’t Free’ and it was learning about the different ways money is spent; I summarize it here. Bob McEwen was a republican politician, and so he has some bias in what he says, but for the most part it is well said, and very true.

The other great lesson I got from this pack was on the principles of what it means to be free. This is explained so well on the CD ‘The History of Freedom’ which I also summarize here. Going through the history, I learned how Freedom isn’t just something you have politically, but also financially. I learned that the more power government has, the less freedom individuals have.

Economics

The other great source that taught me about freedom from the LIFE suite of materials was the Economics pack. This one does not contain a book, but 4 very impactful audio CDs which include the following titles:

The introduction to Economics CD goes into more detail about the economic aspects mentioned on ‘The History of Freedom’ CD from the Freedom pack. It gives a fairly basic introduction to economics that anyone can understand and follow. I give my own, more in depth introduction, here. It uses much of the material found on this CD.

The Camel in the Tent CD might as well be called ‘Economic History and Why it Matters’ as that is what the CD is all about. I mentioned before how an article in the Leadership and Liberty book opened my eyes a little… well this CD pulled them wide open and put some toothpicks in them to keep from ever closing again!

This CD goes through how money first started, what was then done in 1913 to mold the economy we have today, and then goes through the business cycles and economics bubbles. As Chris Brady says on the CD ‘You’ve been conned!’ It focuses a lot on inflation over the years, and how much of our money has been devalued by the duplicity of the government printing press called the Federal Reserve (even though it is not federal and there probably isn’t much in the way of reserves).

In Economics 101, Larry VanBuskirk talks about where we are, where we are going, and what we can do about the economy. He talks more about how we are being misinformed about the state of the economy, quoting experts such as Peter Shiff, Tom Woods and even Paul Krugman. If you know anything about the differences between the first two names and Paul Krugman, you know there must be something right when they agree on something! and what they agree on is that the economy is in bad shape. He covers topics concerning the national debt, inflation, and the economic ages; from agrarian age to the industrial age and all the way up to the information age. He goes into great detail talking about the 7 economic bubbles we are currently facing, and how we can shield ourselves from it.

Mises Institute

The second main source of my freedom education is the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Both the main mises.org and it’s Canadian counterpart mises.ca.

This institution has everything you need to know about the subject of economics, in the books it distributes and the articles is publishes on a daily basis. It may not be as exciting as the information from the LIFE materials, but it goes into great details and really completes your understanding on everything from personal liberty to economic liberty.

This is where I really learned why taxes hurt society instead of helping it. This is where I learned that you have to think carefully about any economic policy, and how it affects everyone and not just one group. This is where I learned why government stimulus doesn’t help anyone. This is where I learned how rules and regulation often protect special interest groups and hurt the individuals it is supposed to protect. This is where I developed a more  complete understanding of the subject which has allowed me to discuss economic issues with others. This where I developed enough of an understanding that I have gained enough credibility to impart the message of freedom to those that are open to it.

I encourage you all to keep on learning.

You don’t know what you don’t know. Additionally, what we do know we gradually forget. So if we don’t know what we don’t know and we’re forgetting what we do know, it would probably be a good thing to continue learning. That way we would at least know something!” – Chris Brady, Launching a Leadership Revolution

You can find all of the products discussed here through this link. Have you already gone through any of the materials I mentioned? Let me know what you think!