As our young, relatively inexperienced, African-American President assumes the responsibility of leading a nation in trouble, isn’t it time you stepped up to the responsibility of leading your life?

You are the protagonist of your own destiny and while we’re often buffeted by unknown and inexplicable forces such as disease and the economy, much of our destiny is in our own hands.  Just as only your saliva will break down a stain made of your blood, there are some things that only you can do – and charting your path is the most important. 

Watching someone as improbable as Barack Obama mount the stage before the world emphasizes the power of personal commitment to leading one’s life.  Obama has great talent, it’s true.  But he also has four other traits that you can develop: Realism, discipline, pragmatism and a devotion to preparation.

Realism:  This is the most important trait of the highly successful.  Titans in every walk of life have better and more efficient ‘reality recognition’.  They’re more willing to see the bad and the ugly as well as the good.  Practically speaking, they’re better information gatherers.  They shut up and listen.  Warren Buffett says Obama is “a listener”.  He listens to critics and adversaries as well as supporters; to conservative columnists such as George Will and even to his rival Senator John McCain.  Realistic leaders think like pollsters by looking for patterns in information and get this -- they “live more in the real world of nature” according to the great 20th Century psychologist, Abraham Maslow.  Meaning they don’t confuse what’s real with the current zeitgeist or get sucked in to media and marketing pitches which are thrown at us from dawn ‘til dusk.

Discipline: We’ve recently learned that despite his long days campaigning, Barack Obama would get 60-90 minutes of exercise every day.  (If he can find the time, you can find the time!)  Shailagh Murray who covered Obama for eighteen months as a correspondent for the Washington Post says that Obama, “is almost monkish” in his discipline and habits.  On his campaign plane, Murray says the candidate didn’t engage in chit chat, didn’t gather friends or cronies around him, no need.  She also says he’s “not flirtatious, doesn’t have huge appetites, doesn’t play favorites.”  On the other hand, he did take an acute interest in details of his campaign right down to having all the rope line volunteers in ties and jackets for the men and skirts for the women.  Disciplined from top to bottom.

Pragmatic:  In a briefing for San Francisco family and friends, Murray also said that “Obama doesn’t have an ideological bone in his body.”  He is a practical, pragmatic policy wonk.  Try different approaches to your life’s tough problems.  We all dwell within our own paradigm of how we think our worlds work.  Ask your most admired friends and associates, (often not those to whom you are closest) how they’re charting their career paths, if you work with them, ask them how well they think you may or may not be doing at work.  You can quiz them as to how they’re readjusting their financial portfolios, how they’re relating to their difficult teenager.  Your wisest acquaintances will have ideas and habits that you can adopt; pragmatic ways that you may have never considered because of your ingrained way of thinking.

Preparation:  No less a success than Charlie Munger, the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway says that, “More important than the will to win is the will to prepare.”  This quote hit me like a ton of bricks!  Look what careful planning has done for Obama.  He and his team beat the most powerful Democratic machine in forty years.  In eighteen months, the man “who’d never run anything” raised more money than all of his competitors, built a national professional services firm with hundreds of thousands of volunteers and a creative approach to winning.  They rewrote the book on the South Carolina primary and by mid-January they had effectively outflanked the Clintons in terms of delegates.  For all of you with a little extra smarts or talent who’ve been coasting because of your gifts – this is a BIG one.  If you are willing to spend a little extra time and effort preparing for all those things that are important for your advancement in life, you will dramatically accelerate your progress.

Barack Obama – the 44th President and a realistic, disciplined pragmatist who prepares for his own success.  Now you can too.

Cheers,

Hear are some videos you can watch:

Habits of Successful People

Self made Leaders

Donald Van de Mark is the voice and talent on many of Success Television's videos. He has interviewed hundreds of leaders in business and politics including; Jack Welch, Starbucks' Howard Schultz, Intel's Andy Grove in his nearly 3 decades as a correspondent and anchor at CNN, CNBC and public television.

He integrates tips from these great leaders to provide a riveting motivational speech on the traits of successful people. Please email Contact Us to find out more about pricing and availability.

As we experience the dawn of a new year, we can survive the tough times by digging deeper and listening to our souls.

2009 promises to be really tough as we and those we love struggle with lost jobs, foreclosed homes and diminished dreams.  With that cruel truth in mind, here's four resolutions that all of us can make to better weather the storm.

1. Look at the world with more realism : So that we're better prepared for the body blows to come.  Be practical and become a better observer.  'Be a well not a fountain', in other words -- shut up and listen more.  And be discriminating about whom we listen to -- Warren Buffett not Alan Greenspan!  Also, there are always those around you who have valuable information for you.  Be alert to those good souls who need to communicate with you about your work, your future.

2. Learn to face up to responsibility and handle more stress: Take small but continuous steps to shoulder more of the work that your boss or customers and clients need you to shoulder.  Doing so will make you more valuable and less expendable. Recognize that competition makes the world go around and that you and your team will step up to the competition... or you will need to shake up your team.

3. Turn off the *#@~`! TV.  Regularly shut off the media.  Drive home without the radio on.  Once a week, go for a long walk in the woods or on the beach -- somewhere away from the open sewer of ads and pitchmen. The great psychologist Abraham Maslow called it "resisting enculturation".  Recognize that so much of our commercial culture's messages are designed to sell -- not just products and services but images of your self.  Resist them.

4. Build Independence and personal autonomy.  Believe what former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley believes: That the externals of your life ought to reflect the internals.  Find time to be still and reflect on where you (and your partner) are in your life and where you want to be.  Seek more experiences that excite and delight you.  Remember what the great professor of comparative religion, Joseph Campbell counseled, "It is not so much the meaning of life that we seek, but the experience of being alive."  If you regularly pursue your own, individual life goal, you will not only feel more alive, you may even feel the rapture of aligning your soul with your goal.

Heads up and hearts open into 2009.

Hear are some videos you can watch:

Habits of Successful People

Self made Leaders

Donald Van de Mark is the voice and talent on many of Success Television's videos. He has interviewed hundreds of leaders in business and politics including; Jack Welch, Starbucks' Howard Schultz, Intel's Andy Grove in his nearly 3 decades as a correspondent and anchor at CNN, CNBC and public television.

He integrates tips from these great leaders to provide a riveting motivational speech on the traits of successful people. Donald currently lives in Sonoma, California where he  is writing a book; Personality Traits of the Best Human Beings.