What is purpose? Myles Monroe states that purpose is the original in-tention for the creation of a thing. Purpose is the need that makes a manufacturer produce a specific product therefore purpose precedes production. Purpose is the expectation of the source. When you dis-cover your purpose you discover your potential.

The phrase “draws them out” is a form of speech known as an idiom. The literal Hebrew refers to a bucket that is dangled or lowered into a well to draw out water. So the original language uses a play on words, referring to deep waters (purposes of the heart) and a bucket lowered to “draw them out.”

This same Hebrew word for purposes is translated in other verses as plans, advice, counsel, strategy and prediction. A loose paraphrase of this verse emphasizing the meaning of this Hebrew word could be, “The guidance needed to make decisions and plan for the future God has ordained within a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out.”

God has put His purposes in your heart. And they are like deep waters. You will need to be a man or woman of understanding to draw them out.

“Effective leadership is the only competitive advantage that will endure. That’s because leadership has two sides – what a person is (character) and what a person does (competence).” – Stephen Covey

“I believe that you get greater effectiveness in your work when you tie people’s personal mission with the corporate mission.” Richard Barrett, former values coordinator at the World Bank as quoted in the Globe and Mail, June 11, 1999 p.M1.

“Where there is no leadership the people fall, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” – Proverbs 11:14

“A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.” Thomas Carlyle

“Leadership is an engine for creative change.”

“People first, strategy second.” The motto of successful CEOs, Fortune, June 21,1999. p.74.

“Leadership . . . consists of the principles, skills, and attitudes that harness and integrate knowledge, trust and power.” – D.E. Zand in Leadership Triad: Knowledge, Trust, and Power. p. 5.

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Long before I started speaking, writing and coaching on personal development topics I was a student. In fact I’m still very much a student first.

During my studies, as you might imagine I’ve learned a lot of ideas — some I’ve found applicable and have implemented in my life, and some, as I’ve progressed in my own personal development journey no longer fit quite like they once did. If you think about it, that makes sense — we are always growing after all.

Throughout my years of study and application in the field of personal development, one idea always seems to ring true. In fact, it has played such an important part in my own life’s journey that I feel compelled to share it with you here now.

Ready? here goes…

You can’t always control what happens to you, but you can always control how you react to what happens to you.

Did you get that? Please read that again as it’s that important. Even better, grab a 3×5 index card (or your journal) and write it down.

In life, any number of things can happen — good or bad. As someone far brighter than I once said, “the only constant is change.” Before I continue let me say that the point of my writing here is not to get into a discussion on the line of thinking that says that we are attracting into our life each and every negative event — be it disease, the death of a loved one, or insert whatever devastating thing you can think of — that happens to us (either consciously or on a subconscious level). That’s not my point here. Besides, there are no shortage of experts who have addressed that particular line of thinking elsewhere.

What I am saying, is that no matter what may have happened to us, whether it was someone taking advantage of us, a shift in the economy that led to being downsized, or virtually any other situation you choose to apply to this, the simple truth remains — how we choose to react to it is well within our control.

That is not to say that it’s always going to be easy, sometimes it means accepting things we have a hard time accepting, and taking corrective measures that are anything but comfortable.

However, the powerful thing about acknowledging this truth is that in doing so we come to realize that we are able to get over simply accepting the role of victim — the part that says, this happened to me — this is why I’m this way, and as a result I can’t do anything to change where I am.

Instead we are able to move to a more empowering position of, this happened, but by taking action I can change my particular situation for the better.

Through fully embracing the belief that you have control over how you react to what occurs in your life you unleash your personal greatness. You no longer have to accept that you are at the mercy of whatever may come your way, but rather that you can take an active role in defining, and in turn get on with living your perfect life.

While it is true that it isn’t always easy to fully embrace and accept this truth day in and day out — it is imperative that you do make the effort to do so just the same. Fortunately, in most cases it is as easy as being aware of it — even if at first you notice you have resistance to it — by keeping the idea in mind, in time you will come to accept it as well as benefit from all that goes along with viewing challenges and adversity in this light.

Inside this simple, yet profound thought is exactly what is needed in most cases to move you from a place where you feel stuck or out of control to a place where you realize that by applying action — and acquiring new skills, whatever you identify that is needed to learn — you can in fact take an active step towards changing your place for the better.

If you find yourself in a place in your own life where all is going well, then all the better. The idea will only make more concrete the reality that you have all you need to achieve your goals and dreams.

Keep clearly in mind that great personal power comes from knowing that come what may, for better or worse you can play an active role in shaping — and in turn living the life you were meant to live.

It’s your life, LIVE BIG! Josh Hinds

Josh Hinds is a speaker, trainer and coach. He is the author of ‘Why Perfect Timing is a Myth: Tips for Staying Inspired and Motivated Day in and Day out!’ — grab your copy of this life changing booklet at http://GetMotivation.com/booklet/ now!

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Following a great success in my first article of The Billionaire Story, I feel motivated in writing a sequel. In this part two series of the billionaire story, I would like to share with you three most outstanding people that have shaped the business world.

The Apple Story

Steven Paul (Steve) Jobs was responsible for building Apple Computer twice, as well as for rescuing Pixar Animation Studios and turning it into one of the world’s most successful motion picture studios. He was a hands-on manager, who studied even the minutest details of his products, with the heart and eye of an artist. His insistence on high-quality, good-looking products struck a chord with many people who appreciated the beauty of Apple products, resulting in such fabulous successes as the Macintosh computer and the iPod portable music system. These successes often reshaped how consumers viewed technology and also reshaped the technology itself.

Jobs was adopted in February 1955 by Paul and Clara Jobs, who were indulgent parents. They were so focused on their son’s needs that they even moved from Mountain View, California, to Los Altos, California, in 1968, to put Jobs in a new school because he said that he could not get along with the children in his old school. He was an odd student, out of step with both classmates and teachers, with a mind that looked at science from unusual angles. He preferred to spend his time with older students rather than ones his own age, including Stephen Wozniak, an electronics genius four years older than Jobs.

In 1972 Jobs attended Reed College, in Portland, Oregon, dropping out after one semester. He hung around the school for about a year longer, before submitting a résumé that greatly inflated his electronics experience to Atari, a pioneer in video gaming. After saving up enough money to pay his way, he left Atari and journeyed with friends to India to search for enlightenment. He shaved his head and walked through what he saw to be appalling poverty. He soon left India believing that Thomas Edison had done more for the betterment of humanity than all the gurus in the world. In 1975 he joined the Homebrew computer club, which included Wozniak among its members. Wozniak had discovered that a toy in Cap’n Crunch cereal boxes made the same tones that telephone companies used for long-distance switching. Soon, with Jobs’s help, he was making small blue boxes that could be used with telephones to circumvent the safeguards of telephone companies and make free long-distance calls. It was Jobs who turned this into a business venture by selling the boxes to college students.

Wozniak was an electronics enthusiast. He enjoyed making gadgets and then sharing his inventions with anyone who was interested, without concern for patents or profit. It was Jobs who soon saw the potential marketability of Wozniak’s circuit board combined with the microprocessor chips. In 1975 he and Wozniak became partners, and Jobs gave their enterprise the name “Apple.” They designed their simple computer in Jobs’s bedroom. When more space was needed, Jobs’s father cleared out his home’s garage, where Jobs and Wozniak cobbled together their combination of a circuit board, a microprocessor, a video screen, and Jobs’s most important contribution, a typewriter-style keyboard. The inventors called it the Apple I.

Jobs had already discovered a local electronics storeowner who wanted 50 personal computers to sell to college students, who were the bulk of electronics enthusiasts. Jobs and Wozniak gave the Apple I the whimsical price of $666.66 and ended up selling more than 600 of them, making $774,000. The Apple I was a hobbyist’s machine, a clumsy-looking beast of wires and boards that invited tinkering. The partners wanted to build something more sophisticated and easier to use-making technology easier to use would become essential to Jobs’s views for building his companies. In 1977 the former Intel executive Mike Markkula, a venture capitalist, invested in Apple, becoming its chairman of the board and bringing in outsiders to help govern the company. Jobs persuaded a successful publicist, Regis McKenna, to join Apple. That year the Apple II was introduced. It took only about four hours for a purchaser to set it up and have it running, and it could run some business programs, reducing to minutes from hours certain accounting tasks. With a canny sales campaign created by McKenna, and Jobs’s own magnetic personality helping persuade corporate buyers, the Apple II became the first successful mass-market personal computer.

Jobs had to have been a concern for McKenna: Jobs had long hair and a scruffy beard, and he usually wore jeans when meeting the conservatively dressed businessmen who had the power to order dozens of Apple IIs at a time. But Jobs was charismatic. When he spoke of what his machines could do and of the future the machines would shape, he created what came to be known as his “reality distortion field.” His power to persuade was remarkable, and he often had potential customers vying for his attention. He was soon perceived to be a visionary genius that foresaw how to marry high-technology electronics and everyday business.

According to Forbes magazine, Steve jobs estimated net worth is at US $4 billion in 2007.

The Hutchinson Whampoa Story

The wealthiest man in Asia, Li Ka-shing was nicknamed “Superman” in Hong Kong, where his global empire was based. His political and financial influence, as derived from his diverse holdings, which included real estate, ports, telecommunications, finance, infrastructure, and biotechnology, led AsiaWeek to call him “the most powerful man in Asia” in 2000. Born in mainland China, Li came to Hong Kong as a poor immigrant in 1940 and launched his career making and exporting plastic flowers.

Although his father was the head of a primary school in Guangdong province, Li had little opportunity for formal education. He was 12 years old in 1940 when his family fled the Japanese invasion of China. Within three years of their arrival in Hong Kong, his father had died, and the teenage Li was helping to support the family by selling plastic watchbands and belts.

Li proved to be a capable salesman and started his own plastics factory in Hong Kong in 1950. By 1958 he had a flourishing business manufacturing plastic flowers and was ready to expand. He named the firm Cheung Kong Industries, after the Cheung Kong River-also known as the Yangtze-the longest river in China. The name was reportedly an allusion to both the river’s many tributaries and the need for business alliances.

By 1958, when his landlord raised its rent, Li had enough cash to purchase his factory. This would be the first of many investments in real estate; by the 1960s Cheung Kong had transformed into a property development and management company. Li’s strategy was to avoid debt by raising capital before building, both through the formation of joint ventures with landowners and by pre-selling apartments to friends and colleagues. As such Cheung Kong could incur fewer risks while still earning profits for both Li and his co-investors, fueling rapid growth. The company, renamed Cheung Kong Holdings in 1971, had its initial public offering in 1972. By 1979 Li was Hong Kong’s largest private landlord.

Once again success led Li to expand his corporate efforts in a new direction, this time through the acquisition of one of the oldest British “hongs,” or trading companies. Hutchison Whampoa had been created in 1977 by a merger between the financially troubled Hutchison International, founded in 1880, and Hongkong and Whampoa Dock, which had been the first registered company in Hong Kong when it was founded in 1861. In 1979 Li bought 23 percent of Hutchison Whampoa from Hongkong & Shanghai Bank, becoming the first Chinese to control one of the old British companies that had long dominated Hong Kong’s economy.

Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at US$23 billion, making him the 9th richest man in the world.

The Dell Story

Michael Dell defied conventional wisdom-that consumers would not purchase computer equipment over the telephone-and built a billion-dollar company doing just that. Through his direct method of offering low-cost, custom-configured personal computers direct to customers, Dell changed the competitive dynamic of the computer industry. Notable for a natural business talent coupled with a willingness to share power, Dell carried the company through rapid growth and economic difficulties. He innovated operating processes, took risks, learned through his mistakes, and built Dell Inc. from a college dormitory operation to a global corporation. Along the way Dell became one of the wealthiest Americans and the youngest CEO of a company on the Fortune 500 list of largest American companies.

Dell understood the meaning of “business opportunity” early in life, as his mother’s profession, stockbroker, frequently raised discussions of business and economic affairs at the family dinner table. So when he began to collect stamps at age 12 and noticed prices rising, Dell recognized a business opportunity. He determined the most profitable way to sell stamps would be to bypass the auctioneer and sell direct to collectors. He compiled a 12-page catalog of his and his friends’ stamps and advertised in a stamp collectors’ magazine. In this first business venture Dell earned $2000.

Dell further developed his business acumen at the age of 16, when he sold newspaper subscriptions for the Houston Post. The inefficiency of cold-calling prompted Dell to find better marketing methods. He determined that the people most likely to subscribe were newly married couples and people who had moved. He obtained lists of marriage license applicants and mortgage applicants then used his Apple II computer to address sales letters to people on these lists. The approach succeeded so well that Dell earned $18,000 the first year and had bought a BMW automobile by the time he went to college. In the back seat of that BMW, Dell carried three personal computers, the seeds of PC’s Limited and Dell Computer Corporation.

Dell’s fascination with computers began with exposure to a data processor in junior high school then to computers at the local Radio Shack store. After much persuasion, Dell’s parents allowed him to use savings to buy an Apple II computer at the age of 15. To the fury of his parents, upon arriving home Dell dismantled the computer to see how it operated. The following year, in 1981, Dell bought an IBM desktop computer and learned how to upgrade and add new components. With insight that IBM-compatible computers would become the choice of business, Dell began to buy, upgrade, and resell personal computers for friends and acquaintances, eventually purchasing components at wholesale rates from distributors. Exposure to the computer industry fostered Dell’s desire to start a computer business. In June 1982 he skipped classes for most of a week to attend the National Computer Conference. After saving money to buy a hard disk drive (not standard equipment at the time), Dell communicated with other computer enthusiasts on a bulletin board system and learned how the industry operated. He found dealers sold computers for $3,000 and made $1,000 gross profit, yet he could purchase components for less than $700.

Dell determined that he could compete with retail computer dealers by selling direct to consumers at a lower price and offering better technical service, but his parents had another idea-that Dell should become a physician. Dell went to the University of Texas at Austin in fall 1983. While he attended to premed studies, Dell continued to upgrade and resell computers, finding customers among students and local business-people through word-of-mouth. By the time his parents made a surprise visit in November to address poor class attendance, Dell knew he wanted to compete with IBM. An attempt to be the good son and study premed lasted approximately three weeks, then Dell returned to upgrading computers. In early 1984 Dell registered PC’s Limited with the state of Texas and moved to a two-bedroom condominium. Between word-of-mouth referrals and a small advertisement in the local newspaper, PC’s Limited sold between $50,000 and $80,000 per month in computers, add-on components, and upgrade kits. The week before final examinations in May 1983 Dell incorporated the company as Dell Computer Corporation with the state-required minimum of $1,000 capital. He never returned to college.

Today, Forbes estimated Michael Dell at US$15 billion dollars, remarkable achievement for a dropout.

I believe everyone has a chance for success, whether you are high school dropout or a PHD graduate, you can chose what kind of life you want to lead, you can chose who you want to become.

Rod Low is the founder of Expedite Drop, an advertising network company that focus on niche blog advertising. Featuring over 20 niche blogs and growing, Expedite Drop enable you to promote your Web site, product, service or company and reach out to these highly targeted audiences.

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It’s a true fact that it’s not where you are born or whom you are born to that determines how your life will be. Its what you do with your life that determines how your life will be. Not long ago, Forbes Magazine publishes a special report on The World’s Billionaires. It’s a snap shot of who’s who of the super rich.

I have the privilege of studying their life stories and observe that many of them started out as either a poor boy from the neighborhood or a high school dropout. In this article, you too will have the privilege to read about them and hopefully get inspired by Their Billionaire Story.

The IKEA Story

IKEA Founder Ingvar Kamprad made headlines in early 2004 when Swedish business magazine Veckans Affarer reported that he had surpassed Bill Gates as the world’s wealthiest person. While IKEA’s unconventional ownership structure makes this the matter of some debate, there is no doubt that IKEA is still one of the largest, most successful privately held companies in the world, with over 200 stores in 31 countries, employing over 75,000 people and generating over 12 billion in sales annually.

Kamprad was born in the South of Sweden in 1926 and brought up on a farm called Elmtaryd, near the small village of Agunnaryd. Kamprad began to develop a business as a young boy, selling matches to neighbors from his bicycle. He found that he could buy matches in bulk very cheaply from Stockholm, sell them individually at a low price and still make a good profit. From matches, he expanded to selling fish, Christmas tree decorations, seeds and later ball-point pens and pencils. When Kamprad was 17, his father gave him a reward for succeeding in his studies. He used this money to establish what has grown into IKEA.

The name IKEA was formed from Kamprad’s initials (I.K.) plus the first letters of Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd, the farm and village where he grew up. He continued to expand his business to a variety of goods, including wallets, watches, jewelry and stockings. When he outgrew his ability to call on his customers individually, he converted to a sort of makeshift mail order operation, hiring the local milk van to make his deliveries.

Kamprad has a reputation for being, well, “cheap”. He takes the subway to work, and when he drives, it’s an old Volvo. Rumor is that when he stays in a hotel, if he feels the urge to drink one of those expensive sodas from the wet bar, he replaces it later with one picked up from a nearby convenience store. He also encourages IKEA employees always to write on both sides of a paper.

Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at US$33 billion, making him the 4th richest man in the world.

Las Vegas Sands story

Sheldon Gary Adelson is an American businessman. He is a property developer and public company CEO based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is also a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., which owns and operates the Venetian Casino Resort and the Sands Expo and Convention Center. Adelson vastly increased his net worth upon the initial public offering of Las Vegas Sands in December 2004 by selling just 10% of the shares.

In addition, on May 26, 2006, Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands was awarded a hotly contested license to construct a casino resort in Singapore’s Marina Bay. The new casino is expected to open in 2009 at a rumored cost of $3.16 billion.

Adelson was born to a poor Jewish family, in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. Son of a Boston cabdriver, he borrowed $200 from his uncle to sell newspapers at age 12. In the years that followed, he worked as a mortgage broker, investment adviser and financial consultant. To this point in his career, Adelson has created and developed to maturity more than 50 different companies, including COMDEX, a tradeshow he developed with his partners for the computer industry. Adelson together with his partners directed COMDEX to become the world’s largest trade show with a presence in more than 20 countries.

According to Forbes magazine, Adelson is the 6th richest person and the third richest American in the world, with a net worth estimated at US $26.5 billion in 2007. Forbes estimates he has been earning about $1 million an hour for the past two years.

The Zara Story

The son of a railroad worker and a maid, Amancio Ortega received no formal higher education. He began his remarkable career as a teenager in La Coruña, Spain, the traditional center of the Iberian textile industry. When he was 13 years old he worked as a delivery boy for a shirt maker who produced clothing for the rich. He later worked as a draper’s and tailor’s assistant. In seeing firsthand how costs mounted as garments moved from designers to factories to stores, Ortega learned early on the importance of delivering products directly to customers without using outside distributors. He would later employ such a strategy with great success at Zara, attempting to control all of the steps in textile production in order to cut costs and gain speed and flexibility.

In the early 1960s Ortega became the manager of a local clothing shop, where he noticed that only a few wealthy residents could afford to buy the expensive clothes. Thus he started producing similar items at lower prices, purchasing cheaper fabric in Barcelona and cutting out pieces by hand using cardboard patterns. Ortega then sold his items to local shops; he used the profits to start his first factory in 1963 at the age of 27.

In 1975 Ortega opened his first Zara shop across the street from La Coruña’s most important department store; he would become renowned for choosing the best locations for his outlets. By 1989 Ortega had opened nearly one hundred stores in Spain.

Ortega had a reputation as a private and secretive man. He never granted interviews to the media, and the company released very little personal information about its founder and chairman. For decades there was only one known photograph of Ortega in circulation. When the company issued its first annual report in 1999, a new photograph finally appeared.

Ortega rarely attended official events. When the Spanish Prince Felipe called on Inditex headquarters, the royal visitor was received by one of Ortega’s representatives.

Ortega was also known for being a down-to-earth boss. He never wore a tie to work; indeed his wedding was reportedly the last time he had donned one. He hated working with investment bankers in preparation for the initial public offering of Inditex stock. One banker told the Financial Times, “We could see it was absolute torture for him” (April 28, 2001). Even on the first day of the sale of Inditex stock in 2001, when Ortega became the richest man in Spain, he did not celebrate in grand style. Rather he went to work, watched the news on television for 15 minutes to find out that he had just earned $6 billion, and then ate lunch in the company cafeteria.

According to Forbes magazine, Ortega is the 8th richest person and the richest Spaniard in the world, with a net worth estimated at US $24 billion in 2007.

Rich as they may seem, but their poor start leaves a message that says “its not where you started, its where you end up, that is important”.

Rod Low is the founder of Expedite Drop, an advertising network company that focus on niche blog advertising. Featuring over 20 niche blogs and growing, Expedite Drop enable you to promote your Web site, product, service or company and reach out to these highly targeted audiences.

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