Todd's Tips

I know Sunday is my normal Link Love day, but I just couldn't pass up sharing this; in case any of you don't already read Mark Cuban's Blog . A couple of day's ago Mr Cuban re-posted a few blog articles from back in 2004 which detail how he got started, and some of the lessons he learned along the way. Here are a few of my favorite parts ... "I remember being 24 years old, living in Dallas in a 3-bedroom apartment with 5 other friends. This wasn't a really nice place we all kicked in to move up for. This place has since been torn down. Probably condemned. I didn't have my own bedroom. I slept on the couch or floor depending on what time I got home." Definitely a "rags to riches" story. "It's always the little decisions that have the biggest impact. We all have to make that 'make or break' call to follow orders or do what you know is right. I followed my first instinct: close the sale." "I would continuously search

I really like quotes. This past week, I've been reading about leadership. Here are a few that caught my eye. I hope you like them too ... "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." - John Quincy Adams "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves." - Lao Tzu "A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader, a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves" - unknown "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them" - JFK "There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction." - JFK "The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership." - Harvey S. Firestone "Nearly all men can stand adversity,

My son Justin will be 15 years old in a little over a month. lol, sometimes I wonder how I am even surviving the teen years. The other day in the car, on the way to the skateboard park, we were talking about what he wants to do when he gets older. Like any teenager, his ultimate dream is to be a professional athlete ... in this case, the next Tony Hawk. The difference between now, and the last time we had this conversation (before I went to Iraq), is that today, he's also talking about a back-up plan ... Apparently a guy came to their class on "career day", and told them that the best way to get rich is to own your own company. Fortunately, it appears as though that was a day that Justin was paying attention. For the past few days, we've had several more conversations about the type of company he wants to own (skateboards, clothes, shoes, etc), and some of the steps he should take to go about achieving his goal. At his request, I just got on the Richdad website

Well, after 8 long months here in Iraq, I'm finally going back home to Hawaii in less than 3 weeks.  Obviously I spent a lot of time (probably too much) griping about things I didn't like about being here ... I missed my family!  But just to keep things in perspective, I thought it was important to also write down some of the things I liked. First, let me qualify this a little bit.  During my time here I was what's known as a Fobbit ... someone who spends their whole tour on a relatively secure base.  I can hardly begin to imagine the real sacrifices that the soldiers who are outside the wire everyday have made during their very long time here in Iraq.  I feel for those guys/girls. That being said, here's my list of things that actually weren't too bad about living on FOB Sykes for 8 months ... The food was excellent - While I'm not even going to try to guess what Uncle Sam is paying them to feed us, I do have to say that KBR put on a good spread.  Every day

I suscribe to many newsletters.  One of the best is "Leadership Wired" from John C. Maxwell.  I really enjoyed one of today's articles, and thought I'd share it here ... 9 Things You Simply Must Do By Dr. John C. Maxwell Oprah Winfrey and Anderson Cooper are two of the most popular media personalities in America. Yet, their backgrounds hardly could be more dissimilar. Oprah was born to unmarried teenage parents in rural Mississippi. Anderson’s mother was fashionable railroad heiress, Gloria Vanderbilt, and his father was a successful writer/editor in Manhattan. Oprah grew up in poverty, spending her childhood in the inner-city ghettoes of Milwaukee. Anderson was born into wealth. He appeared with his mom on The Tonight Show when he was three, and he modeled for Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Macy’s as a child. Yet, for all of their differences (background, race, and gender), Oprah Winfrey and Anderson Cooper have unmistakable similarities. At some level, they resembl

So I was in the Rec center the other day, and there's a table of books that people send over here to Iraq. I picked one up, that I'm finding quite interesting. It's by a guy named James Green and it's call If There's One Thing I've Learned". The premise is a thought that I think we all have from time to time ... if only I knew then, what I know now. Mr Green spent a couple of years interviewing a number of people with a series of set questions basically revolving around the idea of "what would you do differently". It covers love, career, family, money, etc.. Each of the stories is just a page or two long, but each carries with it a message ... some more profound than others. For example, here was a one sentence story that I think many guys (and probably quite a few girls too) my age can relate to: "If I could do it all over again, I'd have gone out a lot more, but I'd have drank a lot less". I'm only about halfway throug

... but not always in the exact ways you expected. A few years back, I signed up for the Tut Adventurer's Club , and started getting Notes from the Universe in my email box every day. I love the positive uplifting messages. But, that's not really the subject of this post ... When I first signed up, I had to fill out a profile, where it asked me to put in some pretty specific goals. Well, since I have a part-time business, making some extra money was certainly among my goals. So, here's what I asked for: 1) A large screen TV with a home theater system. 2) Pay off all my debts 3) Earn and extra $5200 a month It just hit me a couple of weeks ago, that without even realizing it, I've already gotten everything I asked for in that profile a couple of years ago ... - When I met my wife Ana last summer, one of the first changes she made in my life was declaring that my small little TV was just not gonna cut it. So off we went to the store, and quickly became the proud owner

One of the more interesting challenges you may face is defining the meaning of the word SUCCESSFUL Here's what the dictionary says: suc·cess·ful adj. 1. Having a favorable outcome: a successful heart transplant. 2. Having obtained something desired or intended: was successful in stopping the leak of oil. 3. Having achieved wealth or eminence: a successful architect. For some odd reason, most people in general tend to focus on definition #3 ... show me the money! Don't misunderstand me; for most people, the reason they started a network marketing business in the first place is to earn money. So it stands to reason that wealth would be a perfectly adequate (and obvious) definition of success. However, check out those first two definitions. Having a favorable outcome and/or obtaining something desired or intended. Hmmm, based on those descriptions, do you think it might also be possible for success (as it relates to your business) to sometimes have to do with more than just the mo