This is one of the best and QUICKEST illustrations of why Life Leadership is a great business model to pursue and why it is not a pyramid.
Not only is it not a pyramid but if you did your own research you would discover that it is one of the best ways to build your own business.
Please click on the link to read and see the rest of the article. Orrin Woodward Blog.
God Bless
Bill Lewis
As many of you know, on March 5, 2014 my wife of almost 12 years passed away, from liver failure. I cannot describe the amount of love and support that my family has received. This has been, by far, the most traumatic event to ever happen in my life. Only because of my faith, family and friends have we been able to make it through this difficult time. My heart goes to anyone that has had to endure times like these without the support that I have been blessed with. There are so many people to thank that I cannot possibly list them all. Jackies family: Joe and Linda, Marc and Odette, Brian and Sarah, Josh and Eve, Matt and Bridgette, Trevin and Abby, Anna and of course, Jackie’s parents, Chuck and Char. Thank you for always making me and my family feel like we have always been a family. I know I don’t tell you enough, but I absolutely love being a part of your crazy family. My family with a special shout out to my mom and my cousin/brother Tim Grant. If I called them and said I needed them they would drop whatever they were doing and immediately be there for me. I also had a group of teammates that were willing to do anything we needed. The Brady’s, Morgans, Spiewaks, Birtles, Marks, Allswedes. Each one of the families provided something that we needed and I can never repay you for it. I also had a group that went
Andria Mitchell – has been our babysitter for almost 12 years. She has had her own life issues to deal with but basically took over as being a mom to my kids while I was in the fog. I could not have survived without her effort and support.
Trevin and Abby Thorn – yes they are family but they have done so much more I can’t list it. Trevin, thanks for letting your wife also be a surrogate mom to my kids and Abby thanks for helping our family survive.
Kevin Hargis – one of my best friends but we lost touch for almost 10 years but he didn’t hesitate to pick right back up from where we were before. So many times he would just hangout with me and help distract my brain.
Keisha O’Mara and Cameron Hummel- both have gone through a similar situation and their thoughts and insights helped me at some of my lowest moments. They have been a strength emotionally because I knew they understood what I was feeling.
Kevin and Sharrah Hacket – Jackie’s best friend I would say. Sharrah was in the Bahamas when this happened, and before I knew it she had moved into my house to help support us. Both of your friendships have meant so much to me, but what Sharrah did for Jackie I can’t quantify. I always knew when Jackie was talking to Sharrah because that’s when she looked the most happy. Kevin for letting his wife leave with no time frame on when to come home.
Mark and Anna Huber – besides being the reason I was introduced to Life Leadership which is where I meet Jackie. They also moved into the house and helped me with everything including all of the funeral arrangements. As quoted in a movie, “I’ am forever your man!”
Mike and Vi Gowen – our kids became close friends years ago and we have been doing things together ever since. Mike and Jackie had a special brother sister connection and she could tell him things no one else would dare. They have been more then friends over the years; they have become a part of our family.
Orrin and Laurie woodward – What can I say about a couple that are the reason that I have the life I have. All of my F’s are great because of Gods grace and this couple. I will never be able to fully show my thanks for your dedication and belief.
To all the people I missed and all the people that have sent cards, books, notes, and flowers, your support has been overwhelming. You are the true definition of what a community is suppose to be. I love you and will do everything I can to help you feel the same support. Life leadership truly is doing something special. Don’t you ever surrender to the naysayers because they will never experience a true community of people.
I decided to start back with this blog because my two oldest boys just completed something that is the essence of what my beautiful wife stood for. Perserverence, Determination, Strength, Never quit, Be the best you can be – I miss her so much words cannot describe. I would do anything for one more day together to hold her and tell her how great she is. Jacob and Eli, your mom would be so proud of your accomplishment and I hope you adopt her strength. I love you forever Jack ( my nickname that Chris Brady came up with) and a huge piece of my heart has been ripped out and will never be replaced. Can’t wait to meet you again in glory. Here’s your two boys finishing their commitment to you and receiving their black belts.
This video was sent to me and although I don’t agree with everything he says I do agree with the theme of what he is saying. I am not against school or education. I am for people chasing their dreams.
Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words;
Be careful of your words, for your words become your deeds;
Be careful of your deeds, for your deeds become your habits;
Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character;
Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny.
Everything we are and everything we do begins with the thoughts that go into our head. The statement goes “From the neck down we are all worth minimum wage and from the neck up we have a multimillion dollar business. Which one do you feed the most?” The sad part is not only are we feeding the minimum wage part more, but we don’t protect what goes into the multimillion dollar part. If we had a 458 Italia Ferrari, we would do everything we could to protect it. We would valet park it so it wouldn’t get dinged, costing us extra money. We would park farther away from others cars causing us extra work, to protect it. We would have it detailed regularly, costing us more money, to protect it. We would do many extra things to make sure it was protected but we almost let anything go into the vehicle, the brain, that has the capability of getting us that Ferrari, and we don’t think twice about it. Everyday we are receiving messages into our brain and the majority of them are taking us farther away from success then closer to it. The first thing we have to do is start protecting the million dollar machine. Stop watching stupid television shows, stop listening to negative radio programs, stop listening to co-workers that are no farther ahead then you, even stop listening to the majority of your relatives (that one should be easy 🙂 If someone or something does not have the results you want then why let there door ding your beautiful vehicle. I’m not saying 100% isolate yourself. That would be just as silly as people who buy Ferraris and never drive them. Just be careful where you park.
The next step is, when you have a Ferrari, you don’t use regular gas or oil. You use the best. Funny story: The first really nice car I bought was a four door Maserati. After the sale I asked the guy where I should take it to get the oil changed. He looked at me funny, kind of chuckled and said you HAVE to bring it here. I immediately understood why, and also immediately felt like a fool. So since you have a million dollar vehicle strapped to your neck, you should probably follow the same process. Don’t have it serviced where someone else will mess it up. Take it to professionals that have the same type of vehicle. Find the best way to read, listen, and associate with the best and most successful minds. The scary part is, our vehicles have already been filled with junk for many years, and so we not only have to fill it with good stuff but we have to fill it with enough good stuff to overcome all the years of neglect. This is the part that I see get people off track. They may have more garbage to shovel out before the good stuff starts to take affect, but they are not patient enough to let that process happen. There is also a consistency component here. If you start the process and then stop and then start the process and then stop and then start the process and then stop……. you lose the compounding affect; the same compounding affect that we allowed with negative information.
The last step is to be focused. When I take my car in for a regular service they don’t take the entire vehicle apart and then put it back together again. That’s how I used to attack my improvement. I would try to work on everything instead of just a few things. By working on everything I was really working on nothing. Once I started working on a few things, being very focused, I started to see results. What are the top three things that are limiting you right now? Not smiling, sarcasm, yelling, white lies, negative, doubt, no goals, waking up, eating addiction, being rude, a budget. Whatever it is, just pick a few and then get laser focused on eliminating it or replacing it with something positive. Allow yourself the time to become great.
Bill Lewis
The growth mindset says your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. That people become leaders and are not born leaders. The fixed mindset believes that your qualities are carved in stone. Fixed mindset people believe that people are born leaders, so why even try. If you are newer to personal development or leadership you probably lean more towards the fixed mindset. That is because we have been conditioned to believe that that mindset is correct. It is proven everyday because people are not growing and changing. People are not accomplishing their goals and dreams. On the other hand, if you have associated with growth communities then you know that the growth mindset is completely true. You have seen people that showed very little leadership ability but through effort and studying, they have developed themselves into leaders. So you might be asking yourself, “What happened?” As a society wouldn’t we want more of the population to have a growth mindset?
Let me give you an example. Five monkeys were put into a cage. At the center of the cage was a ladder with a hand of bananas. Of course, one of the monkeys leaves the corner, and climbs the ladder to get a banana. As he is about to grab the banana, the scientist spray all the other monkeys with cold water. Undeterred, the next monkey goes to the ladder and climbs to get a banana. As soon as he gets on the ladder the scientist spray the other monkeys again. When the next monkey goes to get a banana the rest of the monkeys attack him. Now it gets interesting. The scientist replace one of the old monkeys with a new monkey. Guess what the new monkey thinks? I don’t know why no one else is getting a banana but I’m hungry. He goes to climb the ladder and gets attacked by his fellow monkeys. He is probably thinking, “Man I won’t try that again.” They replace another monkey and the same thing happens. The scientist take out the rest of the original monkeys and now no monkey in the cage has ever been sprayed with cold water, yet no monkey will ever get one of those bananas. They have been conditioned to believe that if they try, something bad will happen. Sound familiar? In a country that was FOUNDED ON TAKING A CHANCE, BEING COURAGEOUS, AND RISKING IT ALL, we are starting to become safe, fearful, and spineless. Why? Because someone tried something, was sprayed with cold water, or worse yet they HEARD that people were getting sprayed with cold water, and now it’s their duty to protect you.
The death rate for people who play it safe and for those who live boldly is the same. Patti Digh
You will become like the five people you hang around the most and the books you read. As I write this I think about what I did before I was involved with growth communities. My friends were great guys and I love them but you need someone that is much farther down the road. I think I had read two books from cover to cover over a twenty year time frame. WOW! I was proving this theory to be totally correct because my life was a mess. Most of us have been around negative or limited thinking for so long we begin to think it’s normal. Heck, the government and television tell you not to think at all! I can do an entire article about that later. Fixed mindsets have been scientifically proven to be inaccurate. A group of scientists were studying the brain when they accidentally discovered what they now call, brain elasticity. They discovered that the brain is ever changing. They found that patterns in your brain can be re-wired, but the longer one subject has been grooved in that area, the harder it is to overcome. Example: young children have no problem learning multiple languages at the same time. Ask an adult to learn multiple languages and they may break down and cry. The reason is the area of the brain for language is being conditioned for multiple languages, when younger, but the longer we go with only one language we condition that area for one language. So as an adult, you almost have to totally immerse yourself in the new language because you have to overcome the years of one language being grooved into that area. The same is true with a fixed mindset and we just have to overrun that area of your brain with growth mindset. Here’s what you do.
1. Find a group of growth mindset people and associate with them as much as you can.
2. Listen to positive audio recordings daily
3. Read books from people that are teaching or have experienced a growth mindset.
4. Try to eliminate as many fixed mindset activities as you can
5. Do these over and over and over and over and over and over and over …………………
Remember we have to overrun the areas that have been grooved with fixed thinking and try to get our brain re-wired for growth mindset. You ever notice that fixed mindset people think that everything is hard or undoable. Growth mindset people think that anything is possible. The best thing about that is most growth mindset people started off with a very fixed mindset. We know this works because the results are all around us. Everything we use in our life was developed from a growth mindset person and they all have written books about what and how they did it. Acquiring a growth mindset is hard, it is annoying, it takes time, it takes persistence, but man, is it worth it. You don’t know how great you can be until you get around people that see your greatness.
Bill Lewis
In November of 2012, Life Leadership completed its first year of operation. I wanted to wait a few months to post because I knew additional feedback would come in. To say we got off to a good start would be an understatement. We had a fantastic first year! Just like anything else in life, there were many challenges and changes along the path of the first year, but we have an amazing group of founders that are leading the charge. What’s unique about the LIFE business is the founders are also the leaders in the field. They are actually teaching what they know from first-hand experience.
First Year Results:
1. The LIFE business surpassed a 100% increase in subscriptions of the LIFE and LLR Series in under one year of business.
2. The LIFE business launched the Mental Fitness Challenge and sold thousands of 90-day challenges throughout North America.
3. The LIFE business paid out over $1,800,000 in end-of-year bonuses and free trips its first year.
4. The LIFE business paid out over 70% bonuses on its product volume points in its first year of business.
5. Rob Hallstrand, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of TEAM and a LIFE founder, coordinated operations for both companies, and combined sales blew past $50,000,000 (with LIFE leading the charge) from the Flint, Michigan, based office.
6. Team training produced its best operating margins ever (of which 100% of profits flowed back to field trainers) as Mr. Hallstrand continued his dramatic turnaround of Team operations. In fact, employee cost-per-profit-dollar has decreased over six times in his three years as COO, leading to increased bonuses for field trainers and office staff—a truly stunning performance.
7. Customers composed nearly 20% of total LIFE business subscriptions in the first year. Considering new members have six months to learn how to develop customers, this number will only grow as members complete training. What other community building business hits 20% customer subscriptions in its first year?
8. The LIFE business launched the Edge Series for youth and has added thousands of satisfied families in LIFE’s first year.
9. The AGO Series donates 100% of its profits to charities.
10. We added the 3 for Free Program to help develop a strong customer base.
11. The One-Time Cash Awards were increased.
All people will be called upon to lead at some point (and usually at several points) in their lives. The only question is: Will they be ready?
The life business launched with the purpose of providing world-class leadership materials to business executives, entrepreneurs, corporate climbers, pastors, church leaders, administrators, community service leaders, public servants, teachers, parents, and all those who will find themselves in the position to lead. When it gets right down to it, leadership is for everyone. Nobody will be able to make it through life without needing to draw upon the toolbox of leadership skills. Sadly, many people lack these tools and therefore get to live with the consequences of being ill-equipped. These consequences include missed opportunities, unfulfilled career aspirations, financial woes, and broken relationships.
LIFE is for those who earnestly seek a better life, are interested in the strenuous process of personal growth, are driven to succeed in significant ways, and are committed to a life of excellence for a higher purpose.
Our Point of View: You can live the life you’ve always wanted. We believe it requires correct information applied with discipline, consistency, and purpose over time and the support and encouragement of a community of people aligned in a common purpose.
Our Purpose: LIFE seeks to provide the information, encouragement, opportunity, and community necessary to individuals who are hungry to live a life that counts!
We don’t know what we don’t know, and we’ve forgotten some of what we did know. But we know what we didn’t used to know, and we’ll help you learn it, too!
To me, the best way to learn about something is to talk to the people that are involved. Please click the link I have attached below to hear personal testimonies from people who have used the LIFE materials.
The Life Business testimonials : Life Leadership
Anyone who is searching for information about Orrin Woodward and/or his business Life Leadership (www.lifeleadership.com) has come to the right spot. Over the past fourteen years of knowing and working with Orrin, many people have asked me about him. Some have asked about his character and integrity. Some have wanted to know how he has set up his businesses. Others just wanted to get a general feel for who he is as a man because someone they knew had hyped him up sooooooo much. Hopefully this article will provide a little insight on those subjects.
I was an engineer when I started this business; therefore, I am a very logical person, and so my thoughts and remarks will be based on some simple knowledge and the facts as I know them. First of all, when digging into information about anything or anyone, it is very important to make sure to approach the process the correct way. When searching the cyber world to try to find information, it is important to look for facts—not just people’s opinions. Facts are hard to find in today’s world, but as the saying goes, “The facts are the facts.” Now, researching a product is usually pretty easy. The product worked, or it didn’t work. Customers liked this about the product, or they didn’t like that about the product. Even so, there are those who will only try to discredit their competitors so customers will go to their site and purchase their product instead. When researching a person, however, those rules are harder to follow. Since the person is the product, people’s opinions are typically based on feelings rather than facts. For instance, most people have a person in their life that gives them the cold shoulder for no apparent reason. There are only two conclusions a person can come to in such a scenario. First, either the one giving the cold shoulder doesn’t have all the facts (otherwise, it would likely be apparent why he or she felt that way), or second, he or she is unwilling to address, forgive, and move past the situation. The interesting thing about forgiveness is when that person does something wrong, he or she will surely EXPECT to be forgiven, in spite of not being willing to grant forgiveness to others. With this thought process established, the foundation is set for digging a little into the three areas discussed in the first paragraph: Orrin’s character, his businesses, and Orrin as a man. The three are actually intertwined.
Character
An important beginning step is to define character because some people definitely have a skewed view of what that means. Character has two parts: 1) the avoidance of doing something wrong (If a person is doing something that is wrong, then by default, he can’t be doing what is right), and 2) taking action to do what is right. Orrin has been in business for nearly twenty years, and his businesses are based on developing relationships with people. He tells people exactly what is going to happen when they decide to join his businesses. Logically, if he wasn’t telling the truth, wouldn’t the tens of thousands of people who are following him figure that out and stop following him? The fact of the matter is those people continue to follow him because his actions line up with his words. There are some that have chosen not to associate anymore, and that is to be expected when building a volunteer business. However, if Orrin was a liar, wouldn’t the masses and certainly those closest to him figure that out and stop associating? Some might be thinking right now, “But that’s because the people closest to him get a special deal.” That is a great lead into the business side of all this.
Business
The shocking part about the business model that Orrin has created is that it is based upon formulas, not personal agendas. In other words, individual results are based upon the effort put in and the level of personal growth, not who a person is friends with. Each part of the business, from the volume of products sold to the profits on the CDs, books, and meetings, is calculated using formulas, so everyone is operating on the same playing field. Another key area to understand is that this is a business. Consequently, as with any business endeavor, there is a cost associated with it.
The amount of expense compared to the return is off the charts, but it is still a business. It will require money, time, and dedication, which is no different from any other start-up business. The part that is different, however, is that it’s up to each individual to determine his level of commitment—and that can change over time. Another unique aspect of Orrin’s business plan is that it includes a training system that teaches members the art and science of success. Each new member becomes part of a team of people who help mentor him through the process. In fact, one of the biggest hindrances to success for many people is that because the start-up cost is so low, they treat the whole thing more like a hobby than a business.
The Man
The shocking part about Orrin Woodward, the man, is that he is not only driven to succeed, but he also desires to do so in the right way, based on principles. Indeed, if something is not based on principles, then Orrin refuses to function in that environment. He is more driven to improve himself daily because he understands the principle of The Law of the Lid: An organization grows to the level of its leader; therefore, Orrin continually attacks his own thinking in an effort to learn and grow. With all of that said, he is human and, therefore, has made mistakes. But his willingness to admit those mistakes and to do what he can to fix them is extremely impressive. In a world where people perpetually blame others, Orrin, instead, accepts responsibility and focuses on improving. It’s hard to not like someone like that. His humility and his faith also separate him from the crowd. In most organizations, the person that created it makes himself the supreme being of that company. Orrin, on the other hand, usually takes a back seat in order to let others lead and receive the glory. His goal is to surround himself with the best leaders, which takes a person who understands where he comes from and possesses a humble spirit that enables him to realize that one person doesn’t have all the answers. On a personal level, Orrin has developed a successful marriage with his wife Laurie and raised four wonderful kids.
Closing Thoughts
In closing, the shocking truth is that for once in life, the hype does not live up to the man. It is simply very rare in today’s society to find someone who lives what he preaches and teaches. Going into business with another person requires a high level of trust, so the best kind of person to be in business with, is someone who lives the way Orrin does. He doesn’t just talk a good game; he also has the results to back it up.
The final thing to consider is what the people in the organization are saying. Anyone who is going to work for a company, start a business, go to school, try to be a professional athlete, etc. doesn’t want to talk to people who tried it and quit; he wants to talk to people who are involved in it and are successful. Please read the comments after this article to get a good feel of what people think of this dynamic man Orrin Woodward.
God Bless