Archive for the ‘Leadership’ Category

Be careful who you listen to; you might end up with their results

Posted: December 9, 2017 in Finances, Freedom, Leadership, Success
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chosen to beWe are exactly where we have chosen to be, by the people we associate with, the things we watch, read, and hear.

A speaker had said that at a leadership conference and I wanted to argue with him; I did in my head a little bit. I thought… I didn’t choose to have the job I did at the pay that I got; I would have chosen more! I didn’t choose to be very shy. I didn’t choose for the air conditioning in my car to break!

But then I got to thinking about the people I hung around with up to that point, and other than my A/C not working, they were all in similar situations. You might say we were all just trapped in the financial matrix (which we were), but the main reason I was stuck in it was because I was always around others who were too!

I’ve learned that our results come from our actions, which comes from our thinking, which is influenced by the people we listen to, and the advice we get.

Where do you get your advice from?

Be careful who you listen to; you might end up with their results!

When it came to finances, since it’s not taught in schools I got it from the media, the banks, and the people around me. The media is the advertising, trying to get me to buy their stuff now and pay later, while the banks are happy to help out and make me their slave for my debt. The people around me were other people who were broke!

I don’t know about you, but I wanted to be rich. If that’s the goal, I needed to stop taking financial advice from people who were broke like me! If they had the solution, why were they still broke?

How about relationships? Does it make sense to get relationship advice from someone who has been divorced 5 times? They may be able to tell you what NOT to do, but unless this person has now been happily married for 10-20 years, they may not have the right advice yet.

Sometimes it’s tempting to take the easy way out though, and take advice we shouldn’t.

I remember when I just started college, and I had to take a class in which I had absolutely no interest. At this time I hung around with people who loved board games like me, and who also thought that telling me to skip a class to finish a game was good advice.

I did just that. In the class I missed, the teacher gave us the main class project, explaining what we had to do for something that was worth 50% of our mark!. I had made a new friend in that class though, and asked him what we were supposed to do, and he gave me what I thought was a satisfactory answer

I did what my friend told me, and gave my paper to the teacher on the last day of class. The teacher looked at the paper, looked at me, and said “THIS isn’t what I asked for!”

I took advice from someone who didn’t have the results I was looking for, and got the same results. I failed that class along with my friend. Years later I found out that this friend missed the same class as me! He didn’t even have the information I was looking for, let alone the results!

Be careful who you listen to; you might end up with their results.

This goes for listening to ourselves too. For most of my life I was a very shy person unless you were a close friend that I was comfortable with. I was constantly telling myself that I couldn’t talk to people, so I never did. After all, why would I bother trying to talk to someone if I didn’t believe I could?

I needed to start listening to people with the results I wanted, which in this case was people who could talk to people.

I have since been going through the program put together by Life Leadership, and listening to people who have what I’m looking for in all the areas of my life. By reading good books and listening to CDs like those found in the public speaking pack, I can now talk to people.

By going through their Total Personal Development program, I improve in my ability to lead people, to resolve conflict, to have confidence, to be persuasive and to just win in general. I’ve been able to build the belief that I CAN win and that I will. In essence, it has changed my thinking. It has changed me from thinking like I am who I am and stuck with what I have, to thinking like I can be who I want to be, have what I want to have; if I just follow the formula for high achievement!

By going though their Financial Fitness Program, I’ve started learning financial principles from the millionaires, from those who have the results I want from the principles being taught. I’ve learned how to save money, how to make more money, and even how to pay less taxes!

Be careful who you listen to; you might end up with their results.

Be purposeful in who and what you listen to; you can end up with their results!

Only The Disciplined Are Free

Posted: July 29, 2016 in Finances, Freedom, Leadership, Success
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Only the Disciplined Are Freeshawshank

I think I’ve heard that statement many times over the past couple years, and in many forms. I knew it to be true when I first heard it… but you wouldn’t think I believed it from my actions.

Just look at the previous article I wrote, and you will see I was definitely NOT disciplining myself to continue updating this site!

Seriously though, I wanted to take this time to talk about this concept, because when it comes to being successful, or even just being free in general, this seems to be one of the most important attributes you need; to be disciplined.

I was at Life Leadership’s Masters of Leadership conference in Ottawa this past weekend, and I heard this topic discussed in almost every talk in some form or another. I was in Quebec City a week earlier listening to Claude Hamilton talk about this concept there too, and in greater detail.

It was a sign. It’s time to be more disciplined.

After all, Successful people discipline themselves to do daily what unsuccessful people do only occasionally

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A Journey Into Public Speaking

Posted: February 2, 2015 in Leadership
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microphoneI’ve heard that for most people, their second greatest fear in life is dying; with the fear of public speaking being their first.

This makes perfect sense to me, because for the longest time I was in that lot!

Thankfully there was hope… and a solution!

Actually, there were several solutions, and this of course began with information. Information was not enough though, because the truth is activity conquers fear. The information I went through on how to be a better speaker gave me the courage to speak, but it was the actual speaking that helped diminish the fear.

If you’re someone who has fear of people of public speaking, or just wants some tips on being better, this story is for you. I’m going to go through what I did, and some pointers that I think will really help.

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McDonald’s and the power in Decentralization

Posted: March 12, 2014 in Economics, Freedom, Leadership
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McDonald's Behind the ArchesSome people believe that more government is better; that they can do things more efficiently and cheaper due to the principle of economies of scale. Some people would know better than that, but still feel the a central government is best to make decisions for society as a whole, because they know what is best for people, and because they can make sure no one person or small group, is taking advantage of everyone else.

Other people understand how this is not the case.

The same thing goes for private enterprise. There are cases where companies have tried to keep all the decisions at the top, while others kept only the major decisions at the top that couldn’t be handled at the lower levels, and left everything else to be done in the local areas.

In the Freedom series from Life Leadership, you learn how a government can’t understand the needs of the individual, but can only see global statistics. It uses a great example. Imagine someone’s arm is burning and needs to be put in ice, while his other arm is freezing and needs to be warmed up. overall the body temperature is average. If a central planner doctor were to look at the overall statistics, without looking at each arm, he would assume there is no problem and do nothing!

The best decisions will always be made by those who can clearly see the situation, and so should be left to the lowest level possible, right down to the individual when the individual can make the decisions.

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Reading: Are You Doing it Enough? Are You Doing it Right?

Posted: February 18, 2014 in Fun, Leadership, Success
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Turn The Page, How to Read Like a Top LeaderI’m in the middle of reading “Turn the Page: How to Read Like a Top Leader” and have come to some realizations; one is that I’m certainly not reading enough, and for everything that I have read, I could have gotten more out of the books.

I’ve learned that reading is so important to our future, because when we read the right books, we are getting the life experiences of the author in the amount of time it takes to read a book. Success then becomes less trial and error, and more about leveraging the success of those who went through struggles before; about being mentored on what we should  and shouldn’t do.

You are where you are because of who you are; if you want to be somewhere else, you have to become someone else. This thought has come to me often throughout my leadership journey, as it has been said and taught in many different ways. I’ve learned that when we aren’t reading or listening to someone, we are talking to ourselves; this means we are talking to ourselves with the mind that got us to where we are. When we are reading, we are shutting ourselves up and listening to someone else with good information. This works for listening to great talks on CDs too, but I think reading takes it even a step further, and you get more out of what is written because you have time to think about what is written and reflect on it.

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The 5 Laws of Decline – (#5) The Law of Inertia

Posted: January 21, 2014 in Economics, Freedom, Leadership
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inertiaWe have seen how the previous 4 laws of decline can bring an organization or a country down. The 5th and final law, of Orrin Woodward‘s Five Laws of Decline, plays a different role in my opinion. This law won’t bring about a decline, but it does keep the current decline from the previous laws in place, which includes the momentum of that decline. If only 10% of leaders are good leaders, as per Sturgeon’s Law, this law will make it difficult to make things better. If everyone has ways to get something for nothing as per Bastiat’s Law, this law makes it extremely difficult to stop the beneficiaries from getting their special deals. If people are being rewarded for doing things that wrong, as per Gresham’s Law, this law will make it very difficult to stop the behavior. And if you have a growing bureaucracy and getting fewer things done due to the law of Diminishing Returns, this law will stop you from reversing that trend, if not decreasing the returns at the same momentum.

The Law of Inertia

This law comes from Newton’s first law, which as Orrin Woodward explains in Resolved ‘Every body remains in a state of rest or uniform motion, unless it is acted upon by an external unbalanced force. In layman’s terms, an object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by another force.’ (more…)

Rascal Radio is Here and it’s Gone Global!

Posted: December 13, 2013 in Leadership, Success
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Rascal Radio

This is an exciting moment! Until now, Life Leadership’s products have only been available in North America, but now we’ve gone global!

How would you like to get world class, life changing information, and not even have to worry about the shipping costs associated with its book and CD subscriptions? How would you like to listen to some great information either on your computer at home, or anywhere else from your smartphone? What if you could try it all for free?

For the first time in history, you now have access to a radio station for personal development! (more…)

Are Your Actions Based on Ignorance or Good information?

Posted: December 2, 2013 in Fun, Leadership, Success
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Near the end of high school a friend of mine had a pool party. It was a nice sunny day and I was 16 or 17. It was a perfect recipe for disaster when you consider how little we know at that age. I had great marks in physics, but you wouldn’t think so after what you read next.

I was a kid who liked to have fun joking around, the kind who would hide in the bushes or behind walls and jump out to scare you (that part is still in me). On this occasion I saw balloons lying around that weren’t blown up yet, and had the brilliant idea of using them to make water balloons to throw at people.

This proved to not be so brilliant when they didn’t break; only after it hit the pavement beside the pool did it break, and only if it hit hard enough. This was also the first clue that made what I did really dumb. (more…)

The 5 Laws of Decline – (#4) The Law of Diminishing Returns

Posted: November 1, 2013 in Economics, Freedom, Leadership
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law of diminishing returnsThe 5 laws of decline detailed by Orrin Woodward & Oliver DeMille continues with law #4. Previously we have seen how 90% of everything is crud, leaving a good possibility of bad people being in the wrong positions of leadership. We have also seen how people will always do the least amount of work possible for the most gains, including outright theft if there were no repercussions. The last law we looked at showed that if bad behaviors get rewarded, there will be more of it, and it will drive out the good.

The first 3 laws from ‘Resolved‘ and ‘LeaderShift‘ all tie together in how one law set in motion leads to another and makes it even worse. The 4th and 5th laws are a little bit different, but still connected in their own way

The Law of Diminishing Returns

I believe most of us know what this one represents, as it’s a basic law of economics and business taught to us in high school. For those of you who weren’t taught, or who may have forgotten, let’s review.

The principle is that when you add more of one good, or one action to a process, each addition unit being added produces less of an output than the previous unit did. As the return on each additional unit decreases, there will come a point where more units will not add any more output, and in fact will start reducing the total output. (more…)

Winning People To Your Way Of Thinking

Posted: September 30, 2013 in Leadership, Success
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argumentHas there ever been a time where you KNEW you were right about something, where you had all the facts on the subject but still couldn’t get someone else to agree with you?

Maybe you are trying to get someone to agree with you on economic principles, or to see the importance of understanding what is happening in regards to our freedom. Maybe you are trying to sell someone on the idea of improving their lives by learning to be better leaders. Maybe you’re just trying to get them to see the importance of eating healthy or exercising. Maybe you’re trying to get a job and need the interviewer to believe your worth hiring. If so, this article will resonate with you

You’re in Sales!

In case you weren’t aware, when you are trying to get someone to think a certain way, or to see the value of something that is not already apparent to them, you are ‘selling’ your view point to the other person; the question is, are they buying? (more…)

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