9th August 2006
From Dan Peña – Executive Coach and Mentor to the High Performer.
Dear High Performance Person and Visionary,
I haven’t written since last April, when I talked about the stock market and commodity prices. I hope some of you took note! All the pundits have come up with great reasons to describe what happened. I hope you benefited from my thoughts.
Well here we are and I am 1 year into my new goals for my 60’s! And in the spirit of candor I can say I have made a great start on the 10 year plan; or as soon as humanly possible plan! There have been many changes in my life and almost all of them have been good with some exceptionally great and I am proud to say a couple have been tremendously extraordinary! I can only wish you have had a terrific year yourselves.
Holiday vs World Crisis!
As I sit here in an Asian country I think about the last head lines I read before leaving the UK. They all related to Tony Blair making the gut wrenching decision to postpone his 3 week holiday in the Caribbean. I was so amused by hearing and reading this I almost soiled myself from laughter! After the first day of hearing this crap I thought it would be over, but oh no! It lasted 3 days. You would have thought it would have been a fairly simple decision. The world is at crisis with the fighting in the Middle East, yet it took some bullying from the House of Commons to bring him to the decision. And what’s even stranger is that most (not all) commentators felt he was so brave to postpone his holiday for a measly 3 days. What kind of world do we live in? And for those of you that have heard me speak before know, I often say, most people spend far more time on planning holidays than they do planning their lives!!
Now before I get a bunch of emails from my Brit fans, I like Blair. I think he has had to take a lot of heat for supporting what he believes in when in is in line with USA interests! I take my hat off to him for that. And there is no doubt he is a hi-performance guy. But the hoopla made over his holiday was a bit too much! And some of the people on the street interviewed actually thought he should not have to give his holiday time up, even for a couple of days. Now ask yourself where are people’s priorities? Notwithstanding he probably didn’t have to pay for the holiday!
88 Year Old Fathers Son!
Now here is a story that should have received more coverage than postponing a holiday for 3 days! This story was on the front page of the paper today here in India – 88 year old guy fathered a son. As great as the story is, it gets better. This dude (and I can only imagine he is also a stud) had tried for over 60 years to have a son. His first wife was baron and she arranged for him to marry his second wife. The second wife gave him a daughter and died at 45. The first wife arranged yet for a third wife 45 years his junior and after many years of trying produced him a son. Actually it was twin sons but one was still born.
This man walks 10 – 35 kilometers a day as a herder. He drinks up to 3 litres of raw goat’s milk each day he can remember since a child. He doesn’t smoke or drink (it would have been better if he had), and till his son’s birth had no desire to live to 100. But now he wants to continue to have children. He says it is God’s will! And since he has sex every night he preys he will have more. And he says 2 – 4 am is his favorite time for this natural by product of life!
My only thought is he may have to get yet a 4th wife since she current one is 33.
Now this true story is wrought with several QLA precepts, but I will only mention the obvious and fun ones: Can’t hit a home run unless you are up to bat; Can’t score (pun intended) unless you are swinging away; Can’t ever give up and must doggedly preserver no matter what; Common consensus is almost always wrong; And last but not least, even your first wife can be your real friend!
To Your Quantum Leap,
Dan Peña
As many of you have noticed my site has been not functioning for many weeks. The stories of why are not important, but I now have my own web master who is highly qualified and extremely attentive to the needs of my sites. The message board is functional again and hopefully will be used by those who frequent my site. It has been redesigned and cleared of old data, but your personal info has been kept. It is now also easier to sign on. If you have any suggestions send them to steven@guthriecastle.com.
PPS Castle Seminar
Do to my schedule I will give the only castle seminar of 2006, 3rd – 9th December. It will be the same material in a more compact time frame. Hence, it will be GBP £7,950 instead of GBP £10,000, plus vat of 17.5% (recoverable to most). A couple of my partners have already shown interest in coming again, so it should be another extraordinary group! You can click here to hear testimonials of the last attendees http://www.danpena.com/docs/Seminar%20clips.htm.
