What you can learn about purpose from a HOG

By Jim Whitt My friend Don Riley sent me this email after the holidays: Hi Jim, Hope you and your family had a wonderful holiday season. I don’t know why it just popped into my head, but I have belonged to an organization for the past 10 years that epitomizes your purpose principle. The organization is called Harley Owners Group or HOG for short.  It was formed in 1983 by the Harley-Davidson Motor Company after the executives bought the company back from AMF. The purpose of Harley Owners Group has remained the same for 29 years.  The ONLY purpose of… Read More

January 24th, 2012 at 10:56pm

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PTSD: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or Purpose Taken Somewhere Distant?

By Jim Whitt In response to my December 14 issue entitled Lessons on PURPOSE from our armed forces, I received this email from my friend Fred Vocasek: Jim, My step-son served two tours in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne.  After hearing about the troop withdrawals earlier this month, he expressed concern about all of the young, returning troops.  He said they were coming back “all amped up” and had to adapt immediately to civilian life. It would be a dangerous time for them.  He was 29 and 30 when he returned from his two tours.  He watched the 19 and… Read More

January 15th, 2012 at 9:57pm

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Giving What Is Most Difficult To Give

By Jim Whitt The following story about Doc Lunsford was published on December 23, 1991. It remains one of my favorites. So much so that I decided to make it a tradition and share it with our subscribers each Christmas. At a time when Christmas seems to have lost much of its meaning in our hectic lives, it is my sincere desire that this story about Doc would remind us of what we are truly celebrating. Have a Merry Christmas and a Purposeful 2012. We called him “Doc” – Doc Lunsford. I never knew how he came by the nickname… Read More

December 18th, 2011 at 11:41am

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Lessons on PURPOSE from our armed forces

By Jim Whitt I received this email from my friend Peter McGuill: Jim, Hope all is well.  I was thinking of you earlier today.  I am participating in a Leadership Development program right now.  As part of the program we spent the day at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio listening to U.S. Army officers describing “Military Leadership.” One of the officers described leadership as “Protection, Projection, and PURPOSE.”  I was thrilled to hear someone talk about purpose as it relates to leadership.  The points he made were very much in line with those that I have heard you present… Read More

December 14th, 2011 at 11:02pm

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A Thanksgiving tribute: Paul Harvey on why God made a farmer

By Jim Whitt On Thursday most of us will sit down to tables covered with more food than we can say grace over. Here in America, that bounty comes to us as a result of the safest and most efficient food production system ever known to mankind. I’ve been fortunate to be involved in food production all my life, either directly or indirectly. Meat, milk, eggs, vegetables and bread do not magically appear on grocery shelves or on our dinner plates in a restaurant. This Thanksgiving I want to pay tribute to those who work on the ground floor of… Read More

November 20th, 2011 at 9:07pm

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An open letter to the President: You’re right, we’re lazy

Dear Mr. President: I am in complete agreement with the statement you made at the recent APEC conference in Honolulu: “We’ve been a little bit lazy over the last couple of decades. We’ve kind of taken for granted — ‘Well, people would want to come here’ — and we aren’t out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new businesses into America.” You have hit the nail on the head and here’s my analysis of why you are right. We have become lazy. Laziness is subsidized through a myriad of government programs that make it easy and profitable to… Read More

November 16th, 2011 at 9:48pm

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A 12 Step Program for Government Spending

By Jim Whitt If you had any doubt that our economy is joined at the hip with the global economy it was shattered by how the stock market reacted to the news that Europe had reached an agreement on resolving their debt crisis. The thing that got my attention about the deal is the recapitalization of European banks which forces them to accept a loss of 50% on their holdings of Greek debt. I am no economist but taking a 50% loss on anything is never good. This isn’t really a solution. It’s just another bailout. You can slap some… Read More

November 1st, 2011 at 8:13am

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God and science: Is there a conflict?

By Jim Whitt I’ve tackled politics and sports in my last two articles so I thought what the heck, why not write about religion. If you can’t start an argument with that trifecta you aren’t really trying. What inspired me is an article in the Pueblo Chieftain entitled No proof of God by Jon M. Pompia. Mr. Pompia was reporting on a sermon by Victor Stenger at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Pueblo. Stenger is an atheist, a professor of physics at the University of Hawaii and adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado. It’s not unusual for… Read More

October 12th, 2011 at 8:53pm

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The Big 12: A case study on how to destroy a partnership

By Jim Whitt If you’ve read Riding for the Brand: The Power of Purposeful Leadership, you know there are four principles for leaders to follow in order to create a model organization: 1. Purpose 2. Partnering 3. Pioneering 4. Profit The key words are “in order” — you start with purpose and end with profit. Not the other way around. Apparently, leaders of the universities that comprise the Big 12 Conference haven’t read the book. Those of us who reside in the Big 12 geography are witnessing a case study of what happens when you get the principles bassackwards. What is destroying the Big… Read More

September 22nd, 2011 at 10:50am

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The seeds of solution are found inside our problems: Let’s get to farming

By Jim Whitt The seeds of solution are found inside our problems: Let’s get to farming I have good news and bad news. First the bad news — a sampling of recent online headlines: • 46.2 million Americans are now poor… • 22% of children in poverty… • Dramatic drop in median income… • Likely to worsen… • ABBAS: Palestinians want full UN membership… • Netanyahu set for UN showdown… • Anti-Israel subway signs in NYC spark religious war of words… • Bloomberg warns of riots Our world is in a state of disruption. Our nation is in a state of disruption. Business is in a state of… Read More

September 19th, 2011 at 8:10pm

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