So it was late in the evening here at Eben Pagan’s Advanced Learning & Teaching Program and my brain was on shut down. He surprised us by inviting a friend of his on stage, Nathan Otto. This young man is the grandson of Bill and Vieve Gore, the founders of W. L. Gore & Associates, a $3 billion family-owned company. After creating and selling two internet-based companies, Otto founded the business consultancy Plenable Solutions and teaches inheritors about how to align their contributions with their core values.
Bright young intellectual, as he was introduced as one of the smartest people Eben knows! Frankly, Eben is one of the smartest people I know so this guy is REALLY smart…
Nathan Otto got my full attention and my brain stood to alert when he talked about his book, “Give Peace A Deadline – What Ordinary People Can Do To Cause World Peace In Five Years” Turns out that he and his co-author Amber Lupton are on a mission to attain World Peace in 5 years.
Now what blew me away is that they got this idea in February of 2008 and it’s now December 2008 and here is some of what they have accomplished in 10 months…Book Done, Film in the works, Speech given to 40 Former Heads of State in Prague, Endorsements by the Dalai Lama and FW Deklerk, former President of South Africa. This and more done in 10 Months.
So of course the natural thing to think is “well, he is rich and well connected, of course he can do THAT”. However, when he got on stage, the 1st thing he discussed with Eben was “Highest First”…which means…
if you are going to eat the best food: eat organic
if you are going to exercise….do the most effective exercise
if you are going to solicit a corporation…go to the CEO or the Top People in the Corporation
if you want to do something with our Govt…go to the President
if you want to learn something…learn from the best experts in the field
Bottomline, always go to the top, the highest, the best….FIRST!
Then it hit me that all he did was have a Clear Vision, Think Big, Place No Limits on himself and got to the Highest People First…and Fast! As Eben said: “Clear Visions Create Causes”
If you are clear on your vision, for whatever endeavors you have, you can make things happen. We simply have to Think Big, Be Bold, Be Confident, and Place no Limits on ourselves. In addition, having the Confidence to go directly to top decisions-makers and influencers is key.
THAT is all that Nathan Otto did…he connected with the top experts on PEACE in the world and they are now planning a Conference on Peace in Kenya in April 2009 and working towards a GLOBAL Peace Treaty…which currently does not exist….WOW!
I realized the power of having a clear vision and then really putting your cause into action, with speed. Everyone can do this! We must consciously STOP putting limitations on ourselves and making excuses. “Think Big” as Donald Trump says! You or I could have taken the same actions as Nathan Otto since February 2008 if we had the same Belief in “Highest First” & World Peace in 5 years!
Once I REALLY GOT this AH-HAH of “Highest First” my BIG VISION for my business and personal goals got a shorter deadline, has no boundaries or limitations, and most of all, I now know that I can draft anyone I chose to for my cause. Stay tuned!
5 users commented in " “Highest First” by Nathan Otto & Eben Pagan… "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI saw Eban at the Info-Summit. My 3 take aways were:
1. Not to look at emails first or you’ll be on someone else’s schedule. I tend to get sucked into the black hole.
2. Do not try to multi-task. Work on projects in 90 min. segments. I found when I did that, I would go way over the 90 minutes. It would be a couple of hours without a break.
3. Give away alot more value than you’re used to.
Give me a break. Of course he can achieve “highest first”, he has money. Eating organic costs money. Working out with a personal trainer costs money. Flying to Prague to meet with world leaders costs money. Having access to CEOs and Executives takes money and a high social standing, which he has thanks to his family fortune. This guy is dreaming if he thinks people who are living on minimum wage can achieve these kinds of things. It is ignorant, out of touch and quite simply offensive. This is the kind of blind-sighted stuff you would expect Paris Hilton to say: “anything is possible if you work hard”. Why doesn’t he use his money and open up some homeless shelters in LA so that people aren’t dying on skid row.
I think it’s doing the most with what you have that counts. Money may remove some obstacles but without a clear vision there are unlimited new ones to take their place. A clear vision can overcome any obstacle.
Hilarious. He talked to world leaders about peace… wow, fascinating stuff.
I wonder if he realizes the US is the world’s #1 threat to world peace. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
I’m sure Obama will just yank the military industrial complex cord right out of the wall…
Seriously, this stuff is so pathetically optimistic and blind to reality it takes a special kind of moron to believe it.
remember kids… dream big, if you waste your life talking to bureaucrats, you can always fall back on your family’s fortunes!
Marlene, thanks for the post.
It does take a “special kind of moron” to believe that we have a sustainable future for our race without making war a quaint and horrible anachronism.
It takes a special kind of moron who is pathetically optimistic to think that we have any worthwhile future, or any future at all, without making new agreements about how we settle political dispute in and among peoples.
If being pathetically optimistic is what it takes to create a future I want to live in, and that works for my kids, then sign me up.
Skeptics, look to the future your skepticism is creating–is that the future you want?
Obama doesn’t need to yank the cord on the military-industrial complex for us to have world peace–as defined not by some never-never utopia but by ending politically organized killing and raping. We have just about got it already–we need a mop-up operation and new structures of peace that include the military option to take over failed states and build effective governance.
Check our http://www.p5y.org
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