Leadership Award Speech

Welcome to the 21st Century, my friends. This is your century of reward and your day of awards. The Eagle Award, established in 2001, is organized and sponsored by Transcoast London Ltd. It aims to create, or rather -- to recognize -- the astounding role models and leaders like yourselves. As leaders you are important, for others may feel inspired by your achievements. The word "inspired" is an important one, because it is further defined as "in-spirited." What controls our lives are the meanings we associate with things in our lives, which are shaped by our own personal psychology, our world view, and the beliefs and values that we have created. You, as role models and leaders, have a unique spirit in you, and "inspiring" spirit, and that what makes you leaders is that this spirit touches others and gives that spirit to them. You have added value to the world and you have touched many lives. That is why you are being given this recognition and this award.

There are many common attributes in people who touch the lives of others, those who are inspiring. They are leaders; they show the way; they guide; they cause others to act, feel, think, and behave differently than they otherwise might. Some people who are not leaders may touch others because they are just like them, because they walk with them -- but though those touches may comfort or make others happy, they do not change the world. You are leaders not because you help people with problems, but because as leaders you can choose to keep problems from occurring, or you can allow problems that benefit you because true leaders know that challenge and crisis are opportunities for growth. What I am saying here is that a leader is in front. A leader never follows the masses -- because to follow the masses is to invite a greater pain. A leader guards his or her mind from the tyranny of the majority. A leader doesn't care what those that follow behind want them to do or be; they are in charge, they have no need for compassion or for sympathy that shackles them to the pack. They are in front. And why are leaders always in front? Are they fortune tellers or future tellers? No, they are what Wayne Dyer might call "co-creators" -- they are the ones that decide where the pack will go. What separates them from the pack? Are they really even separate from the pack, if the pack follows them like a dog follows its nose?

As I said, I am welcoming you to the 21st century. Never before has the 21st century come, and now it comes abundantly. It is said that those who allow themselves to be at the back of any change will inevitably experience pain. As we socialise today and enjoy this evening, I want you to ask yourself -- where is your team? Where are your followers? They are obviously not here, enjoying this celebration. This is because you have left them in the dust. Everyone will experience change in the 21st century... do you want to be in the back, the middle, of the front? We need to establish ourselves at the front, so that we don't feel pain. So you have to ask yourself, where is the front, and am I there? If you are here tonight, then you are the sort of person who is looking for that front. To understand where the front is, it is important to look at the history of the 21st century to see how the front has been defined and found in the past.

Let us look at demography, psychography and technology. The 20th century has been characterized by its war veterans, and by the many children they produced. The baby boom took over society. These veterans, on their return, had lives that were organized, their psychology was that of certainty. But with this certainty came excess free time and time again the babies came rolling in. These babies of the mid-20th century and later are now determining, deciding and controlling the demography and psychography of the 21st century. They are today's world leaders, and this includes the current American president. They are shaping the future of the world, but they are different from their parents and the world they shaped is different than that of their parents. Their parents lived with certainty and predictable constants. The 21st century lot are not satisfied with certainty. They ask questions; they...

Are they better than their parents? They think so. What we do know is that the world has grown in leaps and bounds so that we live in a more efficient society. This is a highly industrialised society where instead of three flavours of ice cream we can boast hundreds. All human process is preceded by new questions about what exists now and what might a better and different end result be. Drastic and dramatic changes have always been made by breaking the rules. We are able to build ships out of metal today because someone challenged the laws of floatation that said only things which by themselves floated in water could by turned into ships. When Gallileo made his discoveries: the law of motion of pendulums, the law of motion of fallen objects, and the principles of floatation, he was put under house arrest for the rest of his life. Today's rule-breakers don't usually get physically arrested, but they can in fact be starved of funds. After all, this is why nanotechnology and biometrics have not yet revolutionized the face of the world. Nanotechnology and biometrics will, however, be the "in thing" in the 21st century. And this will be the century where atoms in coal can be rearranged by tiny robots and turned to diamonds. History has noted that science does not advance by an extension of established theories but instead takes leaps by a shift in paradigm.
So what does this teach us about being a leader? There is a major lesson to be learned here... vaseline is no cure for cancer! A leader does not try to lubricate the world, to make it easier to keep going the same way as the rest of the pack; a leader knows when decisive action is needed to cut away the conventions of the world -- and nanotechnology is a perfect example of that. The children of the baby boom lead the world because they have an ability to be revolutionary. Leaders know that life is not based on other people's opinion. This is why Galileo was great. Leaders know that its never the environment nor the economy, because leaders know that the human spirit is stronger than the environment and they turn capabilities into realities. This is what makes the successful biotechnology firms great -- and this is what, of course, makes the American president great... even if the environment and the economy both suggest that he is failing, using spiritual matters to lead and calling on the human spirit to overlook all else, he can overcome failure to turn even an economic and environmental disaster into a reelection. Of course, true leaders know that it's not enough to be confident, you must also be competent. This is the lesson taught to us by history as well. Yet confidence itself can create competence of a sort. Leaders know that anything you can dream, conceive, believe, and act upon you can bring into reality. True Leaders avoid the walls in life and focus on the tables. They learn to use human ingenuity and spirit to take dormant, or even nonexistent resources and turn them into significant assets that can improve the quality of their life. And the ability to make something from nothing this way is a triumph of confidence.

Of course, I'm not saying that if you just sit back and practice Yoga and meditate on a perfect world that it will materialise. But a true leader knows that what you believe about yourself and others becomes a controlling factor in how you interact and what that interaction brings is determined by how it is performed. What you attempt to do is limited by this and by what you think is possible and impossible. A true leader knows that every belief you adopt has consequences. You must study your competencies, and study what makes you strong. Leaders know that anyone who knows more about their liabilities than their assets will never win, because they will not recognize the tools they have. Leaders possess auditory, kinesthetic, congenial and congenital qualities -- great leaders are born to their class.

So these are the lessons taught to us by history: that change occurs when you break the rules, that one must have faith in one's competencies and determination in one's vision, and that a great leader will use all their resources to achieve…