Category Archives: MyOrbit Blogs

Intro to Effective Leadership As an Advantage

The Foundations of Leadership range from emotional intelligence to building relationships. Each foundation brings in elements of all the other foundations – and allows you to practice your leadership skill. As you do this, you’ll find that your leadership becomes effective. Effective leadership creates empowerment, innovation, creativity, and achievement – possibly where none existed before. This same leadership teaches people how to lead, along with responsibility and accountability. Let’s discover the ways that your effective leadership can be an advantage – both to you and your organizations – in several different areas of life. In the following series, we will look in more detail at each area and at the advantages that you can obtain.

First, think about how effective leadership can be used as a personal advantage. The most obvious advantage is that you are increasing your own skill. You can take your leadership skills with you wherever you go, whether in personal or work situations. When you have increased skills, you’ll feel more confident in your own abilities. Think about the advantages that could come about because of that confidence. As you practice the foundations of leadership, you’ll develop a toolbox or bench strength of your own – and be able to call on those tools when you need them the most.

At an organizational level, let’s look at communities or community organizations. Many times, as we’ve discussed, these organizations lack solid leadership simply because people do not step up to the plate. When you courageously step forward as a community or organizational leader, you define or redefine what leadership means to that group. But every organization has its own agenda – and you can promote that as a self-made leader. Not only this, you can use your own leadership as a way to create the expectations of leadership – this way, all facets of the organization will be able to sense when leadership is lacking – or has failed.

Corporate groups need leadership at all levels, and perhaps this is where your effective leadership can lend the most advantage. Everyone has some vision for his or her career, whether it’s to advance, to make a place right where you are, or to expand your position laterally. When you set the leadership example, you’re setting yourself up for the achievement of your own vision. As a leader, you prepare yourself to compete with the other people who want the same things. But take the advantages to the entire organization. Effective leadership builds teams, sets up open communication, and helps the organization move forward to the fulfillment of its goals. Leadership in corporate work groups creates a succession plan and a pool of talent who can fill in as things expand.

What about your family? You can use effective leadership as an advantage in family situations, as well. First, you are setting new expectations for yourself and for your family. Above this, as you move through the leadership foundations, you’ll start to define the roles and responsibilities of each family member. Everyone will learn about responsibility and accountability, as well as their own skills. You’ll be able to spend more time coaching and communicating than dictating and ordering. How is this advantageous? Imagine how your every day issues will start to work themselves out, whether it’s bedtime or behavioral problems. Picture your family members when they want to pitch in and achieve the goals you’ve set for them.

Your effective leadership is an advantage – and you can use it personally and for the organization. As we move through this series, we’ll discuss in more detail the ways you can utilize the advantage personally, in your community and community organizations, at work, and at home.

Copyright 2007-2008 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved.

Bryant Nielson – National Corporate Sales Trainer – assists executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Bryant is a trainer, business & leadership coach, and strategic planner for many sales organizations. Bryant’s 27 year business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering.

Subscribe to his blog at: [http://www.BryantNielson.com]

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Bryant_Nielson/142446

 

Robot With Biological Brain

A multidisciplinary team at the University of Reading has developed a robot which is controlled by a biological brain formed from cultured neurons.

(Yes, this is called cutting-edge research)

Kevin Warwick is Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, England, where he carries out research in artificial intelligence, control, robotics and biomedical engineering.

“This new research is tremendously exciting as firstly the biological brain controls its own moving robot body, and secondly it will enable us to investigate how the brain learns and memorises its experiences. This research will move our understanding forward of how brains work, and could have a profound effect on many areas of science and medicine.”

A robot with a biological brain

This is the first step to examine how memories manifest themselves in the brain, and how a brain stores specific pieces of data. The key aim is that eventually this will lead to a better understanding of development and of diseases and disorders which affect the brain such as Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, stoke and brain injury.

The robot’s biological brain is made up of cultured neurons which are placed onto a multi electrode array (MEA). The MEA is a dish with approximately 60 electrodes which pick up the electrical signals generated by the cells. This is then used to drive the movement of the robot.

Every time the robot nears an object, signals are directed to stimulate the brain by means of the electrodes. In response, the brain’s output is used to drive the wheels of the robot, left and right, so that it moves around in an attempt to avoid hitting objects.

The robot has no additional control from a human or a computer, its sole means of control is from its own brain. Click here to read more…

Here’s a Zdnet article that discusses this project.

5 Questions With Warrent Buffet

Warren Buffet doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone because his performance numbers speak for themselves. And that’s what makes it so interesting to hear him take Q&A: “The nastier the better”… as he says!



It’s a long video… if you are in a rush, here’s our summary of the various Q&A:

Q1. What do you look for in the people you like to work with?
WB: I like to work with people I like. I don’t look at their CVs or Grades to decide who can do what. In fact, I don’t even look if they have a degree. If you are working with people you don’t enjoy, please do yourself a favour, and leave the job and work with people you like. You’ll do better.

Q2. What kind of businesses do you like to invest in?
WB: I want to invest in businesses that are stable and where I can visualize it 10 years from now. Companies like Coke (soft drinks), Gillette (mens shaving blades) are examples of my investment choices. There are many others like GEICO (automotive insurance), Nebraska Furniture Mart (maximum sales from a single store location in the US), Iscar Metalworking Company (an industry leader in metal-cutting tools from Israel). I don’t have the understanding of technology-intensive business like software etc, and I stay away from them.

Q3. How do you do business valuation? How detailed is it?
WB: I like to invest in businesses where I have great comfort with the business owner. A paragraph is often sufficient to know the business value. The example being Nebraska Furniture Mart owned by Mrs. Rose Blumpkin, who recently turned 101 years, who has no formal education but has great common sense.

Q4. Tell us some of your bad decisions and what you learned from them?
WB: I invested in US Air though it was a difficult sector. Call it Temporary Insanity. I have learned that my bad decisions have happened when I had more cash than necessary. The airline industry is one step forward for mankind, a giant step backward for capitalism! And then there are other mistakes that conventional accounting does not capture, like the selling of 5% stake in Walt Disney (at $6m) within a year of buying it (at $4mn) in the 1960s. Today that stake is worth over a billion dollars.

Q5. Why not split the Berkshire Hathaway share to make it more affordable to investors?
WB: I think of my investors as a club or an audience in my presentation and we want long-term investors not traders. I don’t want high trading volumes for our shares. In fact, I will be happy with no trading at all. Our share price ($25k per share in recent times) has helped us maintain that seriousness and attract long-term investors.

Thanks for coming by!
MyOrbit Team

Dell Bringing an Apple iPod Rival

News reports are that Dell is engineering an Apple iPod Rival, which will do pretty much everything that iPod does, but at a fraction of the price. Wall Street Journal has got hints that price may be in the range of just $100 USD, which surely looks very interesting. Guess they will launch it just before Thanksgiving Holidays :-)
This video has updates:







So those of us who want functionality, can use the Dell option (even LG/Samsung may come up with something soon). And those who want to use Apple (and feel stylish about it), can of course stay on with the iPod – surely there will be innovations in it. Steve Jobs is never satisfied with status quo- which is good.

Motivation for Starting Your Home Based Business

Did you know that increasing number of professionals working from home — even if they are employed with large companies? The advances in Internet and communications have made this possible.

And with such experience (or taste), some people are finally able to make a decision to start working on their own from their home office.

Most home based businesses can outsource 100% of non-key business functions. It’s a definite trend if you see the increase in project volume of sites like Elance.

We are seeing every possible work – from easy digital products to high-end investment banking work — being done from a home based business. Starting your home business is easier today than ever before, but most people don’t realize it, or don’t want to act on it!

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Here’s a thoughtful article written by Lazz Laszlo.

Has the idea of starting a home based business of your own been rolling around in your head for days, weeks, months, or sadly… even years?

You almost started a couple of times, but for some reason something came up that resulted in you deciding to delay the very first step.

The first step is truly the hardest, but there’s no denying that the first step is STARTING.

A man by the name of James Cash Penney who died at the age of 96 in the year of 1971 said something that perhaps will help you to understand that you are not the only one to have been timid about beginning a new business, in particular, your new home based business.

James Cash Penney said, “It is always the start that requires the greatest effort.”

He knew, and I’m sure you know, he’s the man behind the retailer J.C. Penney. You have to just love his middle name as it relates to his last name and capsulizes his life so to speak. He’s got a great story to tell if you take the time to find it and read it. Just to imagine that he lived through two world wars is amazing in itself.

There are lots of excuses used by people as to why they haven’t started their new home based business. Some of them include, but not limited to; just don’t have the time; just not ready yet; not sure which type of home based business to start; no money; looking for a partner; haven’t found the right product; or have to learn more.

If you’re in this zone of not being able to start, investigating the lives of others may just be the catalyst to kick you in the behind, knock you off the fence, and get you started. Benjamin Franklin said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

The money you spend on a new pair of shoes is gone forever once it is spent and after weeks, months, and even perhaps years, those shoes will be discarded. The knowledge you gain from the article you read, the book you buy, the course you take, or the mentor you befriend will be with you for a lifetime.

You are not the first to have the desire to start a business. You certainly won’t be the last, but if you don’t start, you’ll be among the thousands who wished they had. It’s your choice to either get started or just forget it.

Some of my favorite people to read about have been, but certainly not limited to just these people;

Jeno Paulucci, the creator of Chung King Foods brought Chinese food to the kitchen tables of America. One of my favorite parts of his story was when he made a split-second decision and ate a grasshopper rather than… well, you’ll have to read his story.

Walt Disney began his dream, essentially in a garage. There are a lot of companies that begin in a garage, apparently because the kitchen table wasn’t available. Bill Hewlett and David Packard began the company that bares their name in a garage and as a footnote, they wound up burning down the garage. Oops! Apple Computer is another garage beginning business.

William Wrigley Jr., essentially stumbled on his fortune with chewing gum when this item he used as an incentive became more popular than the item he was selling.

Reading one or two of what I like to call, “How’d they do it” stories can shed a lot of light on what it really takes to get a business off the ground. It would be smart to make this an ongoing practice of reading about how others built their businesses, but don’t use the excuse of having to read just one more, and another, and another, and another… delaying your own start indefinitely.

The message here is that you have to focus and disregard what the naysayers think and say, this includes that little naysayer voice in your own head. Do you really want to do what other people want you to do, or do you want to put your efforts, energy, and brain power into doing what you really would like to do?

If you’re embarrassed as to what people will think of you while you are climbing and stumbling on the ladder of success, you might as well quit now. Success is a bumpy road with lots of hazards and stress, which is another couple of reasons why people seek the safety of a job rather than beginning a home based business in their off hours.

Dean Martin, the entertainer said, “Successful people make mistakes.” Some people make more mistakes than others, but I have never met anyone who has only made one mistake in their life. I was taught that there is a lesson in every mistake, but more to the point, you can learn from the mistakes made by others. Read a biography or two of people behind some of the greatest achievements in history and you’ll see that it wasn’t always smooth sailing.

If you are not just a little bit daring and willing to spit in the face of pessimism, than you’re not living.

Malcolm Forbes said, “Venture nothing, and life is less than it should be.”

It’s time to start your journey into business. You don’t have to go at break-neck speed, but you do have to begin. It’s been said that the best part of the trip is not the destination, but the journey itself. Begin your journey today.

Yes, it sometimes hurts to be entrepreneurial and a visionary. It is full of embarrassment and behind-your-back ridicule, neither of which is lethal. Try something and if it doesn’t work, try something else. The adversities in your life will fertilize the genius within you. I’ll leave you with this Welsh proverb; adversity and loss make a man wise.

About the Author: Lazz Laszlo is a former Investment Executive and Radio & Television Financial Reporter with many entrepreneurial endeavors to his credit. He spends his time as an emcee, public speaker, enjoying life and writing about business, travel, retirement, strategy, and pleasure. To learn more, please visit Lazz’s website; http://www.925-wage-slave-alternatives.com