HostGator Gives You Heroic Hosting

Alex Mandossian: Like Napoleon Hill, I had many heroes. Usually the heroes faced their own adversity. For example, the Rothschilds! Here’s a family that grew up in the Jewish ghetto and all the sudden they became millionaires then became billionaires because they never gave up.

There’s that speech that Winston Churchill once uttered which was “Never ever give up!” It was at a commencement ceremony. I believe at Harvard or Yale. I forget which University, but that’s all he said. That was the key to life for him. That was his key to success. Winston Churchill was a great, and still is a great example for me.

Abraham Lincoln! There is another leader from behind…what he did for this country, abolishing slavery and having the leadership quality of humility, you know, a great, great leader.

Stephen Covey is a great example. Here’s a person who was nothing more than an obscure professor at Brigham Young University. Look what he did because his teachings were so principle-centered that people embraced them. He became a multi-millionaire just teaching, as an academic…not even as a marketer but as academic.

He really had two different reasons for that. I believe Stephen M.R. Covey, his eldest son, had a lot of influence with that. My good friend Greg Link, who was Stephen Covey Senior’s handler, had a lot to do with.

These are leaders who are alive and heroes for me because they are here and they are people I can count on.

Mark Victor Hanson is a hero. You know some people look at him and in doing business with him they say “Wow, he has so many ideas! Does he have marketing ADD.

I don’t know if he does or doesn’t, but, I know he is one of the most brilliant minds I personally know and have met because there’s so many ideas that fled through his mind. He’s a starter. What he needs is a finisher, and that’s what Jack Canfield is and always has been. Jack Canfield is another hero of mine because they get stuff done.

There are these teams of leaders. For example, I am a finisher and Armand Morin is a starter. Armand is a hero even though he is a colleague.

So, there doesn’t have to be a “no longer with us” definition for heroes. These guys are alive and well. They are still heroes in your eyes because of the roll they play in your life.

Sometimes a hero has hero qualities that you don’t know about. Once you observe it quietly, then you say “Wow, I really like this guy.” I had the chance and the good fortune to speak on the platform with T. Harv Eker.

He gets so many people in the audience. I mean 2,500 or 3,000 people. This particular event had about 600 people and it was a small event for him. It was my first event with Harv so I didn’t really know his philosophies and what he really, really, really thought, you know, behind the curtain.

I was just astonished at the love he has, for his audience. He would call me up and he would say “Are they getting it? Are they getting it? What are they missing? What is the disconnect? What can we do to improve this?”

He’s telling me this as I’m speaking and I’m thinking, “Man! I wish I could be broadcasting this” and I am right now so Harv, if you’re listening I hope you’re smiling because I love the man that you are. You really care about your students and your colleges and I really appreciate and admirer that.

So, these are some of the people in my life. There are many, many more who I haven’t mentioned like Les Brown, Brian Tracey and Joe Polish. Joe Polish is one of my heroes. He’s younger than I am. He shares my wife’s birthday, to the day. Both parents, both mothers were giving birth the same day in history.

You know I don’t know what that’s about but what I do know is that it is most important to me. Joe is a loyal friend and he is a hero, and loyalty has a lot to do with being a hero to me.

Predictability and trust are important. Trust to me is about predictability, and this is not a segue. This I believe has a lot of relevance. If there’s a dog that I know will bite my hand, I trust that dog, because I know that dog will bite. So I don’t put my hand in the vicinity of the dogs mouth.

If I can trust that the dog will not bite me and will lick my hand, then I pet the dog. The dog will get my petting maybe underneath her mouth or tapping on his or her head because I trust the dog.

The dog is predictable, but, if I cannot predict the dog; if the dog bites or if the dog licks, and I don’t even know if that’s going to happen or not, then I don’t trust the dog. I have a distrust for that dog. There’s no judgment. I just distrust the dog because the dog is no longer predicable.

So, I believe predictability creates distrust and that’s what a great leader is. A great leader is someone you can trust because they are predictable. If someone is chronically late then I trust that they are going to be chronically late and I show up 15 to 20 minutes late.

You see? So you adapt. I kind of get upset and it gets on my nerves when I hear people talk about judging trust. Like, “I don’t trust them” and I say “Why?” Because he is a good person or he is not a good person. Trust is about predictability. It has nothing to do with good or bad, in my view.
So, I hope that nugget means a lot to others because it means leading a cleaner life and you’ll get along with more people who are chronically late and are predictable only they are predictable in different ways.

Ralph, you are one of my heroes for putting this program.