a) Ignore the need for their organization to deliver superior service,
b) Relegate the need to improve their service standards to the important but not a present priority category, and/or
c) Conduct some ill-conceived service training and development program with no heart, poor depth, little follow through and absolutely no commitment from senior leadership.

By doing so, they fast lose share of heart with their customers and then wonder why they are losing share of wallet to their competitors too.

Often times when they do actually get involved they mostly delegate the task to subordinates or human resource staff at lower levels to address their service related issues. This is often done with a, “it is them who need to improve their level of service, not me!” thinking.

This is not the mind set of organizations that fully reap the rewards of a world class culture of service excellence.

If you are interested to create a world class culture of service excellence, do consider the following best practices factored strategies and take action to implement them in your organization immediately.

1) Engage a professional strategic consultancy

It is virtually impossible for you to coach yourself, and it is therefore virtually impossible for you to be objective about your service standards. So engage a professional strategic consultancy and get the professional strategic consultancy to do a thorough analysis to benchmark where your organization is at when it comes to service excellence and where your organization needs to consistently be when it comes to your service mind sets, skill sets and business sets.

2) Get a 360º internal and external service perspective

Get your professional strategic consultancy to organize focus groups to get a 360º internal and external perspective of your organization’s present service standards. Factor in all points of views, uncover all preconceived notions and scoop out relevant service needs, wants and desires. And ensure that senior leadership is involved right from the start.

3) Design a fully customized service initiative for your unique needs

Factor in the service perspectives gathered and get your professional strategic consultancy to design a fully customized world class service initiative specifically for you. Check to ensure that it is aligned to your organization’s strategic vision, mission, values and targets.

4) Arrange for a strategic senior leadership service session

In this session communicate the findings of your 360º internal and external service perspective groups and introduce your fully customized world class service initiative to selected key stakeholders with the intention to…

a) Get top to bottom appreciation for the need to have your new world class culture of service excellence succeed.
b) To modify and enhance your fully customized world class service initiative.

5) Implement your fully customized world class service initiative across all levels of your organization

Start to implement your service initiative from the top down. As you do so, ensure you are getting buy-in across all levels of your organization by assisting people to clearly appreciate “what’s in it for them” when your world class service initiative is successfully implemented.

6) Ensure senior leadership gets special service coaching

While rolling out the initiative give senior leadership special professional service coaching to ensure they appreciate their role in “walking the talk”. This should involve having them certified as professional service champions to make it easier for them both now and in the long run to keep improving your organization’s service standards.

7) Draw up a post service initiative continuous development plan

Once your initial series of service initiatives are completed, you need to make sure the service initiatives becomes steeped as part of your organization’s culture.

How do you do that?

By ensuring there is ongoing personal and team service coaching in the real world work-based environment. Keep service fresh in mind through a series of service keynotes on a bi-monthly basis to highlight the various facets and benefits of service. Place reminders everywhere to ensure your service initiative is kept visible and foremost in mind for everyone.

8) Create new service business sets

Your fully customized world class service initiative should have adequately created the right service mind sets and skill sets throughout your organization. To support these service mind sets and skill sets you need to also create very clear operating standards, processes, systems, guidelines, rules and regulations that involve people within their job scopes, roles and responsibilities. This is what service business sets are all about.

9) Publicly reward service excellence

Arguably little will assist you to create a world class culture of service excellence more than rewarding great service publically and punctually. When you do so, your organization will start to create service legends and legacies that have a wonderful effect of promoting service continuity.

10) Embrace continuing service improvement mechanisms

Create a system for both internal and external service suggestions. Establish a service feedback mechanism and designate service champions that are tasked to enhance your service standards on a quarterly basis.

And most importantly restart at number 1) every single year because service is not a one time event. Know that what was great service last year will become the expected norm this year! Service excellence, at heart, is about delighting your internal and external customer in unexpectedly and surprisingly pleasant ways and that entails upping your service standards continuously.

I trust the above 10 strategies gives you a great structure to get started on creating your own world class culture of service excellence. So, get started right now, take the first step and reap the infinite tangible and intangible rewards that come with living a life in service.

The following is a checklist you can use to see where you stand and what you need to do to be a Superstar Sales Professional.

However, before you start, please take note that a Superstar Sales Professional is not just a top performer. A Superstar Sales Professional is not just someone who delivers on the numbers; a Superstar Sales Professional is someone who delivers holistically beyond their numbers. And that is what makes them Superstars in their own right.

So let’s get started …

1) Do you commit to a super high sales target?

The top sales professionals across industries are a distinct breed from the average sales professional. While average sales professionals are trying their best to figure out how to hit their sales targets, the Superstar Sales Professionals have, on their own, increased their target by up to 10 times and are figuring out how to deliver on their super high sales targets.

Naturally, when they are taking on a bigger challenge, the smaller target that is expected of them is one that is easily hit.

2) Do you put your heart and soul into achieving your sales target?

Superstar Sales Professionals put everything into their sales targets. They wake up in the morning, living, eating and breathing their targets. They come in early and are raring to go. They have one burning question paramount in mind. “How do I exceed my sales targets today?”

I have, and I have also regularly seen the best sales professionals, sit in the office alone, long after everyone has gone home, silently going over their activities of the day. I’ve seen them looking desperate, figuring out what they need to do to improve tomorrow. Ultimately I’ve seen them go home with a tremendous sense of peace, confidence and an absolutely focused mind on what they need to accomplish tomorrow.

A Superstar Sales Professional is like a thoroughbred athletic, completely focused on going for the gold.

3) Are you a superb professional?

Professionals have a code or conduct – an ethical framework that they live their lives by. But a superb professional is much more than that.

Superb professionals are also principled, conscientious of their actions and polite to one and all. They are quick with a sorry if necessary. They are not caught up in their egos, do not strut their self-importance around and are gracious at heart.

Superstar Sales Professionals whether they have achieved superstar status or are still on their path, do their best to be generous, serene, magnanimous, appreciative and compassionate.

Most people forget that people don’t just buy products and services; they buy the people who are promoting those products and services too. One of the biggest secrets of a Superstar Sales Professional is that they genuinely connect with other human beings through the best of human qualities.

4) Do you focus on the “future now”?

A Superstar Sales Professional has to learn the lessons of the past to not repeat them in the future. Failing which the future becomes just another version of the past repeating itself. A Superstar Sales Professional has to embrace the mistakes they have made, not make excuses and avoid being in denial. They need to take responsibility for what has happened before, especially their disasters. They need to deal with them and then move forward.

Superstar Sales Professional also knows that in reality there is no future, except the future that is created now. Knowing this, they ensure they perform at their absolute best right here and right now, not saving their best for tomorrow. Superstar Sales Professionals are also not caught in procrastination. They have an urgency to seize the moment. They know the importance of doing productive, aligned work that brings them closer to their targeted results.

5) Do you sharpen yourself incessantly?

Superstar Sales Professional never rest on their laurels, they are always moving forward, forever working on their mind sets, skill sets and business sets.

To be a Superstar Sales Professional requires that you are first a communication superstar. After all, Sales is simply, communicating a point of view to achieve a mutually desirable result. From yet another angle, Sales is about leadership - leading people and assisting them to decide for themselves what would be in their best interest. So, leadership for a Sales Superstar is a mandatory skill set. Along those lines, follow the need to develop sophisticated negotiation and deal making skills and so on.

A Superstar Sales Professional never stops improving, never stops striving to be greater than they already are and never passes on an opportunity to sharpen himself / herself further.

6) Do you make service your motto?

While at the start of the day the Superstar Sales Professional is focused on the question, “How do I exceed my sales targets today?” during customer (I actually prefer to use the word “partner” instead) interactions, the Sales Superstar is entirely focused on, ““How can I best be of service here?”

Being of service is not about how well you smile, or saying things to appease the customer. While that may be of appropriate value, the degree to which you are in service is actually determined by the degree to which you are willing to put your customer’s interest over your own.

I know of a Superstar Sales Professional who after listening intently to his customers requirements, and knowing full well that he would not be able to fully serve his customers needs, actually told the customer that he would need to buy from a competitor. “Yes!” he gave up his sales commission, but I know for a fact, this particular customer not just goes back to him whenever he has any subsequent need, but also recommends numerous people to talk to him first too. Now that’s the value of service, and only something a Superstar Sales Professional secure in his value proposition would do.

7) Do you have a professional sales coach?

Nobody has ever gotten to the top of their field without a tremendous amount of professional assistance. You may not hear of it in open circles, but anyone who is someone today, has always kept close the counsel of other professionals and actively paid for their assistance.

If naturally gifted sports professionals need professional coaches to propel them to greatness, aren’t you being foolish by thinking that you don’t?

The truth is everybody has “blind spots”, huge areas that they are not aware of. Everybody can afford to improve their technical sales skills (the science of sales) and their non-technical sales skills (the art of sales). Everybody can benefit from the discipline of a structured one-to-one fully professionalized series of coaching sessions that address their personal needs.

Superstar Sales Professionals know that their investment of time and money in professional sales coaching propels them to new levels of competencies, which deliver exponential high results.

So, if you don’t have a Professional Sales Coach, consider getting yourself one. After all, getting to the top is one challenge, and to stay at the top is quite another.

So, how did you fair in relation to being a Superstar Sales Professional? What do you need to continue doing with greater diligence and what do you need to do that you presently are not?

The general consensus is in. The financial crisis, which has hogged the headlines globally in 2008, will continue to be a leading player in 2009. As hopes for a V shaped recovery disappear, realistically, we are resigned to, at best, experience no more than an abysmal 1% global growth for 2009.

To say this will put a strain on economic, social and political structures is to possibly make the understatement of the year.

While doom and gloom, might well dominate the news over the next 12 months, all is not lost. For as certain as we are, that we are heading towards the eye of the storm, there is just as much certainty that the next boom past 2010 will be greater than the last. And it is with that optimistic note that the transformational leadership the world is crying out for, will have to sing its song.

So what do you need to do as a transformational leader to assist your customers, organization, teams and stakeholders survive stormy waters and enjoy the vast blue ocean ahead?

1) Realize The Implications

The first thing to understand about this financial crisis is that no one is safe from it, as the banking sector, which connects all sectors, is at the heart of the crisis. The effects of the global credit vacuum and subsequent tsunami that crashed asset prices have yet to fully ripple through the real global economy. To curb the tide, Central Banks, the world over, are desperately attempting to make cheap credit available. However, it seems this credit is being used to shore up gaping holes in the financial system and is not yet fully serving its purpose of making credit readily available to catalyze economic growth.

2) Rationalize Your Course Of Action

A readjustment is in order. While the thought of this is certainly not pleasant, it is nevertheless a reality a transformational leader needs to face up to. The economic weather vane, is pointing in one direction and one direction alone – global slowdown. The headwinds are strong and a transformational leader knows when to wise up and avoid being wizened. Restructuring is not a sign of present weakness; it has to be recognized as a source of future strength. Naturally this has to be done with the greatest of prudence.

3) Renew Your Commitment

If you have to deleverage, do deleverage and make your cost structures sustainable as soon as possible. As you are on your path to do so, renew your commitment to find a better way to be of service to your customer to gain a greater share of wallet and market.

4) Relate To Your Customers

Get out there and engage your customers in a dialogue. Listen from the ground up to the challenges they are facing and the difficulties they have with their customers. Challenging times call for a transformational leader to not just solve their customers’ problems but preferably their customers’ customers’ problems too.

5) Reinvent Your Value Proposition

What was of value in an up time might well be extraneous in a down time. Find out what matters most to your customers and ensure you are best equipped to provide it. Reinvent your value propositions to match the market’s need. While doing so, endeavour to provide additional benefits that are not expected but greatly appreciated. Do this and soon enough you will gain a disproportionately high share of wallet and market too.

6) Revitalize Your Entire Organization

Seek out the best strategic keynotes, training and development initiatives. In a downturn to gain an unassailable competitive advantage, you as a transformational leader, need to ensure your human resources are transformed into human capital and that your human capital is a human investment that reaps abundant returns in the future. To follow this course of action you will need to take a top-down approach, investing first in your most valuable assets and only then your most transitory ones. This will revitalize your entire organization.

7) Reemerge As The Winners

The ultimate purpose of being a transformational leader in stormy times is to ensure your organization comes out of this patch of trouble in great shape to reap the rewards the future promises. The global economic game is a game of relativity; the lower the downside, the higher the upside is relative to the mean.

This economic downturn is knocking at the door of a benchmark interest rate of zero percent - a highly reactive measure. As a transformational leader you need to learn the lessons of this reactive action taking and not follow this trend. To play your role as a transformational leader you need to be as proactive as possible and preempt the changes ahead.

If you are proactive as a transformational leader, you and your organization will ride out this downturn and reemerge as winners, while numerous others will tragically lose.

EXCELLENCE is a standard. A standard well above the bad, the okay, the average and even the good. A standard that surpasses even the great.

Excellence is an opportunity to live your life to the fullest, to engage passionately in what matters and make a difference that few will every experience in their lifetimes.

Excellence is not something anyone is born with as excellence needs to be appreciated and created.

Excellence is a certain special something that you bring into your life, that you endeavour to showcase and hone at work and at play.

Excellence is the reward of a lifetime of doing your absolute best.

In today’s world, excellence is what truly matters, and what matters needs to be brought out from with you.

10th February 2007

Let me begin by saying thanks to all you who’ve traveled, from far and wide, to brave the cold today.

We all made this journey for a reason. It’s humbling, but in my heart I know you didn’t come here just for me, you came here because you believe in what this country can be. In the face of war, you believe there can be peace. In the face of despair, you believe there can be hope. In the face of a politics that’s shut you out, that’s told you to settle, that’s divided us for too long, you believe we can be one people, reaching for what’s possible, building that more perfect union.

That’s the journey we’re on today. But let me tell you how I came to be here. As most of you know, I am not a native of this great state. I moved to Illinois over two decades ago. I was a young man then, just a year out of college; I knew no one in Chicago, was without money or family connections. But a group of churches had offered me a job as a community organizer for $13,000 a year. And I accepted the job, sight unseen, motivated then by a single, simple, powerful idea - that I might play a small part in building a better America.

My work took me to some of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods. I joined with pastors and lay-people to deal with communities that had been ravaged by plant closings. I saw that the problems people faced weren’t simply local in nature - that the decision to close a steel mill was made by distant executives; that the lack of textbooks and computers in schools could be traced to the skewed priorities of politicians a thousand miles away; and that when a child turns to violence, there’s a hole in his heart no government could ever fill.

It was in these neighborhoods that I received the best education I ever had, and where I learned the true meaning of my Christian faith.

After three years of this work, I went to law school, because I wanted to understand how the law should work for those in need. I became a civil rights lawyer, and taught constitutional law, and after a time, I came to understand that our cherished rights of liberty and equality depend on the active participation of an awakened electorate. It was with these ideas in mind that I arrived in this capital city as a state Senator.

It was here, in Springfield, where I saw all that is America converge - farmers and teachers, businessmen and laborers, all of them with a story to tell, all of them seeking a seat at the table, all of them clamoring to be heard. I made lasting friendships here - friends that I see in the audience today.

It was here we learned to disagree without being disagreeable - that it’s possible to compromise so long as you know those principles that can never be compromised; and that so long as we’re willing to listen to each other, we can assume the best in people instead of the worst.

That’s why we were able to reform a death penalty system that was broken. That’s why we were able to give health insurance to children in need. That’s why we made the tax system more fair and just for working families, and that’s why we passed ethics reforms that the cynics said could never, ever be passed.

It was here, in Springfield, where North, South, East and West come together that I was reminded of the essential decency of the American people - where I came to believe that through this decency, we can build a more hopeful America.

And that is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a divided house to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for President of the United States.

I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness - a certain audacity - to this announcement. I know I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.

The genius of our founders is that they designed a system of government that can be changed. And we should take heart, because we’ve changed this country before. In the face of tyranny, a band of patriots brought an Empire to its knees. In the face of secession, we unified a nation and set the captives free. In the face of Depression, we put people back to work and lifted millions out of poverty. We welcomed immigrants to our shores, we opened railroads to the west, we landed a man on the moon, and we heard a King’s call to let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what’s needed to be done. Today we are called once more - and it is time for our generation to answer that call.

For that is our unyielding faith - that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it.

That’s what Abraham Lincoln understood. He had his doubts. He had his defeats. He had his setbacks. But through his will and his words, he moved a nation and helped free a people. It is because of the millions who rallied to his cause that we are no longer divided, North and South, slave and free. It is because men and women of every race, from every walk of life, continued to march for freedom long after Lincoln was laid to rest, that today we have the chance to face the challenges of this millennium together, as one people - as Americans.

All of us know what those challenges are today - a war with no end, a dependence on oil that threatens our future, schools where too many children aren’t learning, and families struggling paycheck to paycheck despite working as hard as they can. We know the challenges. We’ve heard them. We’ve talked about them for years.

What’s stopped us from meeting these challenges is not the absence of sound policies and sensible plans. What’s stopped us is the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics - the ease with which we’re distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our preference for scoring cheap political points instead of rolling up our sleeves and building a working consensus to tackle big problems.

For the last six years we’ve been told that our mounting debts don’t matter, we’ve been told that the anxiety Americans feel about rising health care costs and stagnant wages are an illusion, we’ve been told that climate change is a hoax, and that tough talk and an ill-conceived war can replace diplomacy, and strategy, and foresight. And when all else fails, when Katrina happens, or the death toll in Iraq mounts, we’ve been told that our crises are somebody else’s fault. We’re distracted from our real failures, and told to blame the other party, or gay people, or immigrants.

And as people have looked away in disillusionment and frustration, we know what’s filled the void. The cynics, and the lobbyists, and the special interests who’ve turned our government into a game only they can afford to play. They write the checks and you get stuck with the bills, they get the access while you get to write a letter, they think they own this government, but we’re here today to take it back. The time for that politics is over. It’s time to turn the page.

We’ve made some progress already. I was proud to help lead the fight in Congress that led to the most sweeping ethics reform since Watergate.

But Washington has a long way to go. And it won’t be easy. That’s why we’ll have to set priorities. We’ll have to make hard choices. And although government will play a crucial role in bringing about the changes we need, more money and programs alone will not get us where we need to go. Each of us, in our own lives, will have to accept responsibility - for instilling an ethic of achievement in our children, for adapting to a more competitive economy, for strengthening our communities, and sharing some measure of sacrifice. So let us begin. Let us begin this hard work together. Let us transform this nation.

Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age. Let’s set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let’s recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability. Let’s make college more affordable, and let’s invest in scientific research, and let’s lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America.

And as our economy changes, let’s be the generation that ensures our nation’s workers are sharing in our prosperity. Let’s protect the hard-earned benefits their companies have promised. Let’s make it possible for hardworking Americans to save for retirement. And let’s allow our unions and their organizers to lift up this country’s middle-class again.

Let’s be the generation that ends poverty in America. Every single person willing to work should be able to get job training that leads to a job, and earn a living wage that can pay the bills, and afford child care so their kids have a safe place to go when they work. Let’s do this.

Let’s be the generation that finally tackles our health care crisis. We can control costs by focusing on prevention, by providing better treatment to the chronically ill, and using technology to cut the bureaucracy. Let’s be the generation that says right here, right now, that we will have universal health care in America by the end of the next president’s first term.

Let’s be the generation that finally frees America from the tyranny of oil. We can harness homegrown, alternative fuels like ethanol and spur the production of more fuel-efficient cars. We can set up a system for capping greenhouse gases. We can turn this crisis of global warming into a moment of opportunity for innovation, and job creation, and an incentive for businesses that will serve as a model for the world. Let’s be the generation that makes future generations proud of what we did here.

Most of all, let’s be the generation that never forgets what happened on that September day and confront the terrorists with everything we’ve got. Politics doesn’t have to divide us on this anymore - we can work together to keep our country safe. I’ve worked with Republican Senator Dick Lugar to pass a law that will secure and destroy some of the world’s deadliest, unguarded weapons. We can work together to track terrorists down with a stronger military, we can tighten the net around their finances, and we can improve our intelligence capabilities. But let us also understand that ultimate victory against our enemies will come only by rebuilding our alliances and exporting those ideals that bring hope and opportunity to millions around the globe.

But all of this cannot come to pass until we bring an end to this war in Iraq. Most of you know I opposed this war from the start. I thought it was a tragic mistake. Today we grieve for the families who have lost loved ones, the hearts that have been broken, and the young lives that could have been. America, it’s time to start bringing our troops home. It’s time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else’s civil war. That’s why I have a plan that will bring our combat troops home by March of 2008. Letting the Iraqis know that we will not be there forever is our last, best hope to pressure the Sunni and Shia to come to the table and find peace.

Finally, there is one other thing that is not too late to get right about this war - and that is the homecoming of the men and women - our veterans - who have sacrificed the most. Let us honor their valor by providing the care they need and rebuilding the military they love. Let us be the generation that begins this work.

I know there are those who don’t believe we can do all these things. I understand the skepticism. After all, every four years, candidates from both parties make similar promises, and I expect this year will be no different. All of us running for president will travel around the country offering ten-point plans and making grand speeches; all of us will trumpet those qualities we believe make us uniquely qualified to lead the country. But too many times, after the election is over, and the confetti is swept away, all those promises fade from memory, and the lobbyists and the special interests move in, and people turn away, disappointed as before, left to struggle on their own.

That is why this campaign can’t only be about me. It must be about us - it must be about what we can do together. This campaign must be the occasion, the vehicle, of your hopes, and your dreams. It will take your time, your energy, and your advice - to push us forward when we’re doing right, and to let us know when we’re not. This campaign has to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring our sense of common purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.

By ourselves, this change will not happen. Divided, we are bound to fail.

But the life of a tall, gangly, self-made Springfield lawyer tells us that a different future is possible.

He tells us that there is power in words.

He tells us that there is power in conviction.

That beneath all the differences of race and region, faith and station, we are one people.

He tells us that there is power in hope.

As Lincoln organized the forces arrayed against slavery, he was heard to say: “Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought to battle through.”

That is our purpose here today.

That’s why I’m in this race.

Not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation.

I want to win that next battle - for justice and opportunity.

I want to win that next battle - for better schools, and better jobs, and health care for all.

I want us to take up the unfinished business of perfecting our union, and building a better America.

And if you will join me in this improbable quest, if you feel destiny calling, and see as I see, a future of endless possibility stretching before us; if you sense, as I sense, that the time is now to shake off our slumber, and slough off our fear, and make good on the debt we owe past and future generations, then I’m ready to take up the cause, and march with you, and work with you. Together, starting today, let us finish the work that needs to be done, and usher in a new birth of freedom on this Earth.

4th November 2008

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.

It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled — Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It’s the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.

I just received a very gracious call from Senator McCain. He fought long and hard in this campaign, and he’s fought even longer and harder for the country he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and we are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader. I congratulate him and Governor Palin for all they have achieved, and I look forward to working with them to renew this nation’s promise in the months ahead.

I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on that train home to Delaware, the Vice President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.

I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last sixteen years, the rock of our family and the love of my life, our nation’s next First Lady, Michelle Obama. Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House. And while she’s no longer with us, I know my grandmother is watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight, and know that my debt to them is beyond measure.

To my campaign manager David Plouffe, my chief strategist David Axelrod, and the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics — you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you’ve sacrificed to get it done.

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to — it belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington — it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.

It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give five dollars and ten dollars and twenty dollars to this cause. It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers; from the millions of Americans who volunteered, and organized, and proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this Earth. This is your victory.

I know you didn’t do this just to win an election and I know you didn’t do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they’ll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor’s bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America — I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you — we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek — it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers — in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.

Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House — a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, “We are not enemies, but friends…though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn — I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world — our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down — we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security — we support you. And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright –tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

For that is the true genius of America — that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that’s on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She’s a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing — Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons — because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that “We Shall Overcome.” Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves — if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time — to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth — that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

Yes We Can. Thank you, God bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

MCCAIN: Thank you. Thank you, my friends. Thank you for coming here on this beautiful Arizona evening.

My friends, we have — we have come to the end of a long journey. The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly.

A little while ago, I had the honor of calling Sen. Barack Obama to congratulate him.

(BOOING)

Please.

To congratulate him on being elected the next president of the country that we both love.

In a contest as long and difficult as this campaign has been, his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving.

This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

I’ve always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it. Sen. Obama believes that, too.

But we both recognize that, though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound.

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters.

America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States.

Let there be no reason now … Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth.

Sen. Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it, and offer him my sincere sympathy that his beloved grandmother did not live to see this day. Though our faith assures us she is at rest in the presence of her creator and so very proud of the good man she helped raise.

Sen. Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain.

These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I urge all Americans … I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our goodwill and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

It is natural. It’s natural, tonight, to feel some disappointment. But tomorrow, we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again.

We fought — we fought as hard as we could. And though we feel short, the failure is mine, not yours.

AUDIENCE: No!

MCCAIN: I am so…

AUDIENCE: (CHANTING)

MCCAIN: I am so deeply grateful to all of you for the great honor of your support and for all you have done for me. I wish the outcome had been different, my friends.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We do, too (OFF-MIKE)

MCCAIN: The road was a difficult one from the outset, but your support and friendship never wavered. I cannot adequately express how deeply indebted I am to you.

I’m especially grateful to my wife, Cindy, my children, my dear mother … my dear mother and all my family, and to the many old and dear friends who have stood by my side through the many ups and downs of this long campaign.

I have always been a fortunate man, and never more so for the love and encouragement you have given me.

You know, campaigns are often harder on a candidate’s family than on the candidate, and that’s been true in this campaign.

All I can offer in compensation is my love and gratitude and the promise of more peaceful years ahead.

I am also — I am also, of course, very thankful to Gov. Sarah Palin, one of the best campaigners I’ve ever seen … one of the best campaigners I have ever seen, and an impressive new voice in our party for reform and the principles that have always been our greatest strength … her husband, Todd, and their five beautiful children … for their tireless dedication to our cause, and the courage and grace they showed in the rough and tumble of a presidential campaign.

We can all look forward with great interest to her future service to Alaska, the Republican Party and our country.

To all my campaign comrades, from Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter, to every last volunteer who fought so hard and valiantly, month after month, in what at times seemed to be the most challenged campaign in modern times, thank you so much. A lost election will never mean more to me than the privilege of your faith and friendship.

I don’t know — I don’t know what more we could have done to try to win this election. I’ll leave that to others to determine. Every candidate makes mistakes, and I’m sure I made my share of them. But I won’t spend a moment of the future regretting what might have been.

This campaign was and will remain the great honor of my life, and my heart is filled with nothing but gratitude for the experience and to the American people for giving me a fair hearing before deciding that Sen. Obama and my old friend Sen. Joe Biden should have the honor of leading us for the next four years.

(BOOING)

Please. Please.

I would not — I would not be an American worthy of the name should I regret a fate that has allowed me the extraordinary privilege of serving this country for a half a century.

Today, I was a candidate for the highest office in the country I love so much. And tonight, I remain her servant. That is blessing enough for anyone, and I thank the people of Arizona for it.

AUDIENCE: USA. USA. USA. USA.

MCCAIN: Tonight — tonight, more than any night, I hold in my heart nothing but love for this country and for all its citizens, whether they supported me or Sen. Obama — whether they supported me or Sen. Obama.

I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president. And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe, always, in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.

Americans never quit. We never surrender.

We never hide from history. We make history.

Thank you, and God bless you, and God bless America. Thank you all very much.

“The role of business in an open market economy is to create wealth for shareholders, employees, customers and society-at-large. No other human activity matches private enterprise in its ability to assemble people, capital and innovation under controlled risk-taking, in order to create meaningful jobs and produce goods and services profitably - profit being essential to long-term business survival and job creation.” - From The International Chamber of Commerce    

Editor’s note: Joseph E. Stiglitz, professor at Columbia University, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for his work on the economics of information and was on the climate change panel that shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008. Stiglitz, a supporter of Barack Obama, was a member and later chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration before joining the World Bank as chief economist and senior vice president. He is the co-author with Linda Bilmes of the “Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict.”

NEW YORK (CNN) — Many seem taken aback by the depth and severity of the current financial turmoil. I was among several economists who saw it coming and warned about the risks.

There is ample blame to be shared; but the purpose of parsing out blame is to figure out how to make a recurrence less likely.

President Bush famously said, a little while ago, that the problem is simple: Too many houses were built. Yes, but the answer is too simplistic: Why did that happen?

One can say the Fed failed twice, both as a regulator and in the conduct of monetary policy. Its flood of liquidity (money made available to borrow at low interest rates) and lax regulations led to a housing bubble. When the bubble broke, the excessively leveraged loans made on the basis of overvalued assets went sour.

For all the new-fangled financial instruments, this was just another one of those financial crises based on excess leverage, or borrowing, and a pyramid scheme.

The new “innovations” simply hid the extent of systemic leverage and made the risks less transparent; it is these innovations that have made this collapse so much more dramatic than earlier financial crises. But one needs to push further: Why did the Fed fail?

First, key regulators like Alan Greenspan didn’t really believe in regulation; when the excesses of the financial system were noted, they called for self-regulation — an oxymoron.

Second, the macro-economy was in bad shape with the collapse of the tech bubble. The tax cut of 2001 was not designed to stimulate the economy but to give a largesse to the wealthy — the group that had been doing so well over the last quarter-century.

The coup d’grace was the Iraq War, which contributed to soaring oil prices. Money that used to be spent on American goods now got diverted abroad. The Fed took seriously its responsibility to keep the economy going.

It did this by replacing the tech bubble with a new bubble, a housing bubble. Household savings plummeted to zero, to the lowest level since the Great Depression. It managed to sustain the economy, but the way it did it was shortsighted: America was living on borrowed money and borrowed time.

Finally, at the center of blame must be the financial institutions themselves. They — and even more their executives — had incentives that were not well aligned with the needs of our economy and our society.

They were amply rewarded, presumably for managing risk and allocating capital, which was supposed to improve the efficiency of the economy so much that it justified their generous compensation. But they misallocated capital; they mismanaged risk — they created risk.

They did what their incentive structures were designed to do: focusing on short-term profits and encouraging excessive risk-taking.

This is not the first crisis in our financial system, not the first time that those who believe in free and unregulated markets have come running to the government for bail-outs. There is a pattern here, one that suggests deep systemic problems — and a variety of solutions:

1. We need first to correct incentives for executives, reducing the scope for conflicts of interest and improving shareholder information about dilution in share value as a result of stock options. We should mitigate the incentives for excessive risk-taking and the short-term focus that has so long prevailed, for instance, by requiring bonuses to be paid on the basis of, say, five-year returns, rather than annual returns.

2. Secondly, we need to create a financial product safety commission, to make sure that products bought and sold by banks, pension funds, etc. are safe for “human consumption.” Consenting adults should be given great freedom to do whatever they want, but that does not mean they should gamble with other people’s money. Some may worry that this may stifle innovation. But that may be a good thing considering the kind of innovation we had — attempting to subvert accounting and regulations. What we need is more innovation addressing the needs of ordinary Americans, so they can stay in their homes when economic conditions change.

3. We need to create a financial systems stability commission to take an overview of the entire financial system, recognizing the interrelations among the various parts, and to prevent the excessive systemic leveraging that we have just experienced.

4. We need to impose other regulations to improve the safety and soundness of our financial system, such as “speed bumps” to limit borrowing. Historically, rapid expansion of lending has been responsible for a large fraction of crises and this crisis is no exception.

5. We need better consumer protection laws, including laws that prevent predatory lending.

6. We need better competition laws. The financial institutions have been able to prey on consumers through credit cards partly because of the absence of competition. But even more importantly, we should not be in situations where a firm is “too big to fail.” If it is that big, it should be broken up.

These reforms will not guarantee that we will not have another crisis. The ingenuity of those in the financial markets is impressive. Eventually, they will figure out how to circumvent whatever regulations are imposed. But these reforms will make another crisis of this kind less likely, and, should it occur, make it less severe than it otherwise would be.

This article orginally appeared on CNN on the 17th of Sep 2008

Be True To Your SELF

Be True To Your SELF and you will automatically see, hear and feel beyond the clutter of chaos that is everywhere in every facet of everyday life. You will elevate yourself beyond the ebbs and flows simply by Being True To Your SELF and this will result in great equanimity of your mind.

It is with equanimity of mind alone that a human being is able to gain clarity with respect to the past. Not just their past but the past of all of humanity. Likewise it is with equanimity of mind that a human being can be fully present and fully savour the preciousness of the now. And ultimately it only with equanimity of mind that a human being can be fully clear about what the future, both near and far, holds for all.

Being True To Your SELF requires you to shun the normality of your “self” and do your best to live up to the highest ideal of humanity. The highest ideal that are within the reach of each and every one of us and that all of us, with a little examination, deeply know.

We all have to face the endless “formidables” that life throws up. But by living a life Being True To Your SELF, the anxiety, fear, worries, concerns and doubt that often go with facing endless “formidables”, simply disappear or become completely insignificant. By living a life Being True To Your SELF your confidence will remain high, your conscience will be clear and your spirit will be uplifted. The baseness that most of humanity dwells in as a normal way of life will no longer be a disease you have to suffer.  Congruency will arise from within you, substance will build itself up and a quite confidence will be self evident.

Ignore the need for you to Be True To Your SELF and you will, through your own bravado, spell your own demise and merrily lead you and your self to ruin. Ignore the need for you to Be True To Your SELF starting right now and you will continue to engage in pointless power games, never fully experience lasting holistic success and the joy of mastery will forever elude you.

Most people will never consider the above as something within their domain to exercise. They may also due to a lack of putting in the effort never be the wiser as to what they stand to lose out as a result of living a “normal” life and therefore will surely waste a lifetime rescuing an ever deteriorating situation by fighting a constant battle within, the reprieve from which is but fleeting.

Avoid this fate for yourself, by Being True To Your SELF, starting right now!

As usual, please feel free to send me your thoughts and comments to Info@ManojSharma.com

If you’d like to explore how you, your teams and your organization can benefit from the above please feel free call me at now! For more, please go to http://www.differworld.com and http://www.manojsharma.com