I had the treat to hang out with my mentor Orrin Woodward and host Tony Cannuli on the Leadership Factory. It was a great conversation and learning experience. It is always an inspiring and a learning experience when I get the chance to get around this master community builder and leader. Check out the link below.
Curtis Spolar guest of Orrin Woodward and Tony Cannuli on Leadership Factory.
God Bless,
Curtis
by Debbie Spolar
In this new year of 2013, we have a hope, an excitement,and an anticipation of and new plans for the future.
At our New Year’s Eve get together, at about five minutes til midnight, my husband said a wonderful prayer. In addition to his words of praise and thanksgiving, he asked God to supply us with courage and strength to do His will and to unite and strengthen our families. Within the last month or so, two of our children became engaged and there was a beautiful mix of families at this years ringing in. In addition to the celebration of the new year, we are so full of joy to have two new families making two new beginnings together.
Pope John Paul II said “The future of the world and of the Church passes through the family.” At the center of the family is marriage. As two people enter into that union there is excitement and anticipation for the future. I have asked several couples who admit to having wonderful marriages that have lasted some fifty years or more “What’s the secret?” None of them said, We just lucked out! Just as any business about to open wouldn’t do so without a plan, a sports team wouldn’t think of beginning without having a game plan, two people about to wed begin to plan for their lives together. They look at all the different components that make up married life, too many to mention here, but may include communication, expectation, your dreams for the future, resolving conflict, sex, intimacy,(two different things) financial planning and keeping prayer an important part of your marriage. I dusted off the “Perspective on Marriage” booklet that Curtis and I used in our marriage classes. Some comments we wrote in there made me laugh.. I must share one of Curt’s expectations of me was to cook. I hear some of you laughing! Alright! So this year I will work harder to meet that one. I wasn’t surprised to see that Curtis had met and exceeded all of my expectations. The very first exercise in the booklet was to explore each others personality traits. Something that we still love to share with people. We now recommend “Personality Plus” by Florence Littaure. This book has helped so many couples and families better understand each other.
Here is a quote at the very end of that marriage booklet.
““The couple who commit themselves to the long adventure of total Love are a sign of faith and hope to all the community.”
I was listening to a priest talk of the preparation he went through. First, he earned a degree then learned 3 languages, went to school for 5 ½ more years and moved to another country and marriage preparation many times consists of a few days for a few weeks or only a weekend seminar. More time often goes into planning a vacation than this vocation. I am so pleased to hear our newly engaged ones so enthusiastic about not only attending marriage classes, but also in their continuing effort to improve by reading.
I am also so excited to be associated with so many people who commit to being lifelong learners in this LIFE business. May we all commit ourselves to that long adventure motivated by love as a sign of faith and hope to all the community. Happy New Year. Have a great 2013!
In building trust we should follow Columbo’s approach, after all, he always got his man.
The late Peter Falk played a homicide detective by the name of Lieutenant Frank Columbo. Lieutenant Columbo worked for the Los Angeles Police Department in a 1970′s crime fiction TV series called Columbo. Columbo presented himself as incompetent and naive, absent-minded and unkempt in appearance detective, when in reality he was the smartest guy in the room. It could have been very easy for him to let his ego get in the way and try to prove to the perpetrator how smart he was. However, he stayed focused on the big picture and the perpetrators of the crimes he investigated always knew they were too intelligent to get caught by Columbo and they let their walls down. That’s what sealed their fate. Columbo masterfully unveiled his genius and gradually broke down his overconfident adversary bit by bit by asking innocent questions that later proved to be pivotal in revealing the murderer. He would show admiration for the suspect, even praising the very attribute or talent of which the criminal was most proud of. It was a thing of beauty to watch him in action, usually scratching his head with a confused look on his face all the while.
Columbo had confidence. Do we have confidence or must we always be right, always be teaching, and always be talking? By doing this, others will build walls and we will lose trust and a future relationship. I’m not saying to drive up in an unclean, old, beat up, car and get out wearing a wrinkled raincoat, chewing on a cigar, and acting naive. But I am saying we can be humble, be a good finder, and genuinely care about people. In Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friend & Influence People (found on the LIFE site) Part two, chapters 4 through 6 show us that if we must go from being a great listener to talking then talk about their favorite topic “themselves”. If we learn this we will see their walls come down, trust being developed, and a beautiful relationship beginning and in the end you will be loved for focusing on a bigger picture, A CHANGED LIFE.
God Bless,
Curtis Spolar
“There is a loftier ambition than merely stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher.” Henry Van Dyke
Today we find ourselves in a completely different world than that of our parents. We are naturally drawn to succeed, but in many instances these days something seems to get lost while on our way to our destination. There are certain individuals that remind us that the opportunity to serve helps us to progress. It is a rare occasion to see those who have accomplished great success and will reach down to those who seek guidance, direction, and lift them. I have the rare opportunity to work with such people. In business today we hear a lot about investment and return, but with the leadership in LIFE, I hear something different. It’s about helping others better themselves and achieve their dreams. Perhaps that”s why these leaders have become so successful. The bottom line is not measured in dollars and cents but rather in relationships and changed lives.
Curtis Spolar
Recently A friend of mine (Let’s call him John) asked me what was the difference between the LIFE business and other home based businesses. So I decided to answer him using some quotes taken from Tony Dungy’s book “The Mentor Leader”.
Enjoy!
Hi John,
I see you’ve been busy!
We at the TEAM have finally been able to get back to what we do best, build communities. As you know it’s been interesting the last few years for us. This was needed for us to get to the point where we can build correctly. As you know our focus has been on developing people. I’ve recently started reading a book from Tony Dungy called The Mentor Leader”. I’ll share a few things from there.
“I’ve heard sociologist Tony Campolo say that the world has switched the price tags, giving value to the valueless while undervaluing the truly important. Accumulating things is highly prized in our society, as are status and fame. On the other hand, the truly important things of life often happen in quiet, private moments—moments of faith, family, and building relationships.“
The TEAM has launched a company called LIFE. We focus on the 8 F’s in people’s lives; Faith, Family, Friends, Finances, Fitness, Fun, Freedom, and Following (Leadership). We understand the reason leadership is the highest paid profession on earth is because of it’s contribution to society. Leadership effects every part of our lives. Here’s some more from the book.
“What can I do to make other people better, to make them all that God created them to be?”
“Leadership is an acquired trait, learned from the interaction with others who know how to lead and lead well.”
“Leaders seek to have a direct, intentional, and positive impact on those they lead. At it’s core, mentoring is about building character into the lives of others, modeling and teaching attitudes and behaviors, and creating a constructive legacy to be passed along to future generations of leaders. I don’t think it’s possible to be an accidental mentor.”
“Building a life of significance, and creating a legacy of real value, means being willing to get your hands dirty.”
“Part of our purpose in life is to build a legacy– a consistent patten into the lives of others.”
Most people are afraid of these types of businesses John, because of the people that have come before us using people to build their business instead of using a business system to build people.
“Are you building relationships, or are you building a tower (of people) to climb to the top?”
John you remember while growing up you had many teachers. But there was one teacher that you remember more that the others. Why is that? Because that teacher cared about you, invested time and energy into you. Welcome to LIFE! Successful leaders make people they lead better players, workers, students, or family members and ultimately, better people. Most ideas today revolve around sitting at home in our underwear building a tower of people through avatars, and being proud of the fact that we’ve never met them. Let me share some more.
“It take time to build mentoring relationships. It takes time to add value to other people’s lives.”
“Mentor leaders tend to lean toward longer- term results. They are involved in the present, but are willing to defer immediate gratification in order to build value and structure into people’s lives, creating culture based on something more than wins and loses.”
“Mentor leaders understand that if we lose sight of people, we lose sight of the very purpose of leadership.”
“Shortsighted leadership focuses primarily on the bottom line. In football, it’s wins and losses and playoff berth’s. In business, it’s quarterly profits, shareholder equity, and sales targets. Not that these things aren’t important—they are. But when they become the primary focus of a business or a team, they inevitably result in a organization that is out of balance. Leaders whose definition of success depends on such a short-term focus—and by short-term I mean temporal, non eternal—will one day wake up to discover they’ve missed out on what is truly important in life, namely meaningful relationships.”
“Sadly, such accomplishment without SIGNIFICANCE will ultimately prove to be meaningless and without lasting value. Mentor leaders insist on more and define success in a much more robust and well rounded way.”
“If your all about winning, it’s not really worth it. I’m after things that last.”
John, one day I will die and meet my maker and He will say “I gave you so much to work with and what did you do with it?” I can say “I built a tower of bodies, and used them for my gain” or I can say “I focused on learning and growing and used a system to build people and got paid handsomely for it, so I can use that money to invest back into other peoples lives.” Because I believe that our privileges should be used not for our pleasures but for our purpose.
Sorry for being so long winded, but as you can see I feel very passionate about the difference we are making.
Your friend,
Curtis Spolar
We are constantly making decisions in LIFE. Decisions that will either enslave us or pay us great dividends down the road. Many in our society are living in a coma of complacency. Having given up great for good, just to find out that down the road good wasn’t so good after all. Many have just become comfortable being uncomfortable. I once heard the definition of hell is “the person you are, meeting the person you could have been”. Something to think about.
Last week, Debbie and I took some of our children and our grandson on a field trip to Mission San Juan Capistrano (see picture above). We had an amazing day. We learned some wonderful things, ate some fantastic food, and had another great day of loving on each other and building memories as a family. As I reflect back to twenty years ago when I was getting up at 3:30 am and driving three hours round trip to work and back, Debbie was working night shifts at the hospital and we were two ships passing in the night. We were so busy making a living that we had no time to make a LIFE. We got married to spend time together, but the little time we had seemed to be spent arguing about money. I remember wanting more children, but all I saw was the cost . Through God’s grace, he put some people in our lives that taught us that if we wanted to change our outcome we would have to change our thinking. They plugged us into high levels of LEADERSHIP training and our lives were forever changed.
I want to share something with you that I read years ago that helped me define my priorities.
The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about your sticker shock! That doesn’t even touch college tuition. But $160,140 isn’t so bad if you break it down. It translates into $8,896.66 a year, $741.38 a month, or $171.08 a week. That’s a mere $24.24 a day! Just over a dollar an hour. Still, you might think the best financial advice says don’t have children if you want to be “rich”. It is just the opposite. What do you get for $160,140? Naming rights. First, middle, and last! Glimpses of God every day. Giggles under the covers every night. More love than your heart can hold. Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs. Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies. A hand to hold, usually covered with jam. A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites, building sand castles, and skipping down the sidewalk in the pouring rain. Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day. For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to finger paint, carve pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch lightning bugs, and never stop believing in Santa Claus. You have an excuse to keep reading “The Adventures of Pooh” and watching Saturday morning cartoons, going to Disney movies, and wishing on stars. You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother’s Day, and cards with backward letters for Father’s Day. For $160,140, there is no greater. You get to be a hero just for retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof, taking the training wheels off the bike, removing a splinter, filling a wading pool, coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless. You get a front row seat to history to witness the first step, first word, first bra, first date and first time behind the wheel. You get to be immortal, you get another branch added to your family tree, and if you’re lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match. In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there with God. You have all the power to heal a booboo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, so that one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost. – Unknown
I am so very grateful to the leadership material that LIFE produces that helps people learn something as simple as DEFINE WHAT I WANT, FIGURE OUT WHAT IT COSTS, AND PAY IT!
Curtis
A company always strives to increase profits, the problem is the owners and the field are not usually on the same side as to where the profits go. Unless the owners gave up their exclusive ownership and placed themselves in the same boat with the field. The leadership of LIFE had done just that on 11/01/11. Our business model is amazing for lots of reasons, but here is just one more example of what happens when we are true owners of our business.
THE FOLLOWING IS A NEW ANNOUNCEMENT THAT JUST CAME OUT TODAY, ENJOY!!!
Curt
We said we would launch a company that would position itself in space never before occupied. We said we would deliver world class life-improvement materials. We said those materials would be the highest value products in their market. And finally, we said we’d make a pay plan that put 70% or more of total revenue into the field.
Check.
Check.
Check.
Check.
Friday night, in front of a live audience both in Lansing, Michigan and tuning in on video streaming from around the country, Orrin Woodward rolled out the One Time Cash Awards for the fiscal year 2012. This is sooner than we had once thought practical, but the founders of LIFE wanted to get these out as soon as possible so LIFE members could maximize their 2012 incomes. Here’s what LIFE members can earn when they hit the following levels for the first time during the 2012 fiscal year (which corresponds to the calendar year).
Leader 6 – which is six months (with at least 3 in a row) as a qualified Leader (either 15,000 total PV if you have no one under you who is also at 15,000 or at least 6,000 total PV (including your outside legs, personal volume, and customer volume) outside of that first leg if someone in that first leg is at 15,000 or above) receives $3,000
Leader 12 (this means you would have to start qualifying in January) receives $8,000
Coordinator 6 receives $4,000
Coordinator 12 receives $10,000
Sr. Coordinator 6 receives $10,000
Sr. Coordinator 12 receives $25,000
Life Coach 6 receives $30,000
Life Coach 12 receives $80,000
Executive Life Coach 6 receives $50,000
Executive Life Coach 12 receives $125,000
Double Life Coach 6 receives $75,000
Double Life Coach 12 receives $200,000
Triple Life Coach 6 receives $100,000
Triple Life Coach 12 receives $250,000
These OTCA’s are an extra bonus we will announce each year.
The way to qualify for them is to take your December 2011 achievement as a baseline. For instance, if you hit Leader in December, then you can begin qualifying for the Leader OTCA’s in 2012. If you hit Coordinator in December of 2011, then you can begin qualifying for the Coordinator OTCA’s for 2012 (but not for any of the OTCA’s below that level). As you move up through the ranks during 2012, you can accumulate the bonuses.
EXAMPLE: Let’s say you qualify as a Leader in January 2012. Then you continue qualifying through the entire year, but in July you also move up to the Coordinator level and hold it through the end of the year (thereby hitting Coordinator for 6 months). In this case you would accumulate three OTCA’s: $3,000 for Leader 6, $8,000 for Leader 12, and $4,000 for Coordinator 6. Your total OTCA’s for 2012, on top of all your other monthly LIFE bonuses, would therefore be $15,000!
This all means that January is a hugely important month for you! If you can attain to at least the Leader level, you are setting yourself up for some big bucks in 2012!
So set some goals now! Get to work and start hitting those volume heights and earning for yourself the LIFE you’ve always wanted! It’s here!
Growing up, my dad used to say; “Curt there’s the possibility and the probability. There’s always the possibility.” Do we focus on the probability so much that we question whether it’s even possible?
We have to stop counseling with ourselves, when we know nothing on the topic.
As an example, do we say things like…
- “I could never do that”
- “I could never be like that”
- “Well of course he can do it, he’s a natural”
- “Things never work out for me”
I used to think that the whole world was filled with Olympic gold medalists and astronauts, and that everyone else was either very smart or very talented. In school I had to study very hard just to get an average grade, while some didn’t study at all and got A’s. The words my dad spoke to me as a kid,”There’s always the possibility”, started to fade away because I started to think I wasn’t good enough to compete and the possibilities were not endless.
Then I plugged into a Leadership system and realized once again that things are possible and I can achieve anything I want. It doesn’t matter about I.Q. or how talented a person is. It only matters how hungry one is. From the words of Henry Ford “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t… your right.” or from Napoleon Hill “Whatever a mind can conceive and believe it shall achieve”.
So if everything’s possible, where do we start? How do we pursue something as broad as possibilities? Well, we need to simplify. “Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least” said Goethe. As Dr. Norman Vincent Peale writes, “Seek knowledge and clarity. Once you can visualize clearly, your attitude and your confidence soar. Therefore, your probability to succeed soars also”. We have to visualize our dreams. We need to get emotional about the logical. So pick yourself out a few of the trillions of possibilities you would like to accomplish, because people are like dynamite… the powers on the inside, but nothing happens until the fuse gets lit. It doesn’t matter if you’re a skinny young man that failed to make the high school basketball team, that others some day would know you as Michael Jordan. Or if you were a humble little girl by the name of Agnes Gonxha Bojarhiu who wanted to help the poor and wondered what she could possibly do on her own. The world one day would know her as Mother Teresa. “You become what you think about”. said Earl Nightingale
I would like to end with a story I found called “The Young Eagle”.
The nest of young eagles hung on every word as the Master Eagle described his exploits. This was an important day for the eaglets. They were preparing for their first solo flight from the nest. It was the confidence builder many of them needed to fulfill their destiny.
“How far can I travel?” asked one of the eaglets. “How far can you see?” responded the master eagle.
“How high can I fly?” quizzed the young eaglet. “How far can you stretch your wings?” asked the old eagle.
“How long can I fly?” the eaglet persisted. “How far is the horizon?” the mentor rebounded.
“How much should I dream?” asked the eaglet. “How much can you dream?” smiled the older wiser eagle.
“How much can I achieve?” the young eagle continued. “How much can you believe?” the old eagle challenged.
Frustrated by the banter, the young eagle demanded, “Why don’t you answer my questions?” “I did.”
“Yes, but you answered them with questions.” “I answered them the best I could.”
“But you’re the master eagle. You’re supposed to know everything. If you can’t answer these questions, who can?”
“You”, the old wise eagle reassured.
“Me? How?” The young eagle was confused.
“No one can tell you how high to fly or how much to dream. It’s different for each eagle. Only God and you know how far you’ll go. No one on this earth knows your potential or what’s in your heart. You alone will answer that. The only thing that limits you is the edge of your imagination.”
The young eagle puzzled by this asked, What should I do?”
“Look to the horizon, spread your wings, and fly.” By Tom Reilly
We shouldn’t only look outside ourselves and dream, but look inside ourselves and awaken.
God Bless,
Curtis Spolar
“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” – Anatole France
When I was a young kid in grade school we used to play a game called tag. One day while playing, one of my friends named Jimmy was tagged and started after me. I ran down the stairs and across the school yard while my friends were cheering me on from the second story balcony. I could hear him behind me the whole time. I finally got tired and stopped, and now I was the one tagged. This sounds like a typical day for a kid in grade school, but for me it was a life lesson, because of what I learned that day. My other friends told me that I should have kept going, and that Jimmy had given up just before I stopped and he just walked over and tagged me.
Orrin Woodward has taught me a process called PDCA. It stands for Plan, Do, Check, and Adjust. That day on the play ground, I came up with a plan and quickly started to do it. The problem came in on the check and adjust part. I couldn’t possibly see behind me and had no one to advise me. If I only had a small webcam feeding into my sunglasses.
I have learned over the years the importance of having a mentor. To have somebody to be my webcam that can give me a second story balcony perspective. Somebody that can help me check my progress and help me make adjustments to gain the belief so not to lose hope and give up just before the victory.
As we start this new year off with great expectations let us not forget the PDCA process because acting, dreaming, and planning are nothing without belief.
God Bless,
Curtis
I started my leadership journey in March of 1992. I’ve been truly blessed to be able to associate and learn from some of the finest leaders on earth over the years. It has been an exciting adventure up to this point, and I know the best is yet to come.
In 2005, I met my friend and mentor Orrin Woodward (Co-author of best seller “Launching A Leadership Revolution”) and outside of my faith and family he has impacted my life more than anyone else. It has been said by Zig Ziglar that “Successful people use their strength by recognizing, developing and utilizing the talents of others” and I’m truly indebted to Orrin for caring enough to invest the best of who he is into me.
I started this blog to share my past, present, and future thoughts on LIFE and Leadership. I hope you will find them informative, inspiring and sometimes humorous. My prayer is that my never ending journey of the pursuit of truth will help you on your journey.
God bless,
Curtis Spolar
