The Mark of a Leader
VOLUME 7

Welcome to THE MARK OF A LEADER EZINE Volume 7.

Our second year kicked off with a bang in September, with shows in Toronto, Niagara, and Mexico City for new clients Frito Lay Canada, Lego, and Scotiabank, amongst others.

Increasingly clients and audiences are telling us that our most powerful point of differentiation is not just inspiring an audience with great stories. It is combining the power of storytelling with the ability to weave the messages of a conference throughout its duration.

"You made an otherwise ordinary conference extraordinary — in fact, unforgettable", said one client.

"You just kept bringing us back to what was important. And since every story is so different, we were always paying attention."

Thanks!

We have several new modules premiering over the next month, bringing more interactivity and humor to our rapidly expanding library. Last month, one audience responded at their awards gala with a conga line — we'll see what's next!

We've recently made video versions of selected modules for those who want a more in depth preview than the clips which are on the website. If you would like to see these, please email us at info@themarkofaleader.com.

We hope you enjoy this month's ezine featuring the unbelievable Carlos Santana and, for something a bit different, one of the greatest speeches in history.

Yours in leadership,


Doug Keeley

Please visit our website at www.themarkofaleader.com.
FEATURE

QUOTABLE QUOTES

Leadership is doing what is right when no one is watching.

George van Valkenburg



Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

Dwight D. Eisenhower



If you want to be comfortable — take an easy job. If you aspire to leadership, take off your coat.

Unknown

CARLOS SANTANA - The Unmistakable Fire

Few of the artists who created the explosive San Francisco scene of the 60's have retained their stature on the world music scene. None have built their careers, and their influence, to even greater levels - none, that is, except Carlos Santana.

Santana is single handedly proving that barriers — be they based on age, background, race, or creed — can be overcome. It just takes the right attitude, a spiritual approach to life, and a very high level of consciousness.

Born in tiny Autlan de Navarro, Mexico to a musical family, he took up violin at age 5. Several years later, he switched to guitar when his family moved to Tijuana. Heavily influenced by bluesmen like John Lee Hooker, T. Bone Walker, and B.B. King whom he heard on American radio, the guitar rapidly became the center of his life.

In 1961, he moved to San Francisco where he became one of the cornerstones of the scene, along with Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and many others, which would literally change music forever.

Huge hits like Black Magic Woman sent him to the top of the charts and launched him as a musical phenomenon. This was not an artist created by the music industry marketing machine. This was a supremely gifted player who worked endlessly at his craft and had something original to say.

While many of his peers did not survive the excesses of the 60s, Carlos' love of music and life more than kept him alive; they launched him of a voyage of musical and spiritual exploration that continues unabated to this day.

Like all great musicians, and all great leaders, he understands that leadership is a life-long journey of self-improvement and growth.

DID YOU KNOW?

Amount American Airlines saved in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class: $40,000

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.



The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)



The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

Santana all but disappeared from the mass media sometime in the 80s, continuing to tour, help the disadvantaged, and change the world through giving and social activism. In 1998, he and his wife Deborah created the Milagro Foundation, which has given millions of dollars to the needy around the world.

In the same year, disenchanted by the negativity in rap and hiphop and worried about the influence that constant exposure to negative music would have on kids, he dreamed the idea of a new project.

The project would bring together top performers from virtually every style of music. They would collaborate to create a work that would carry a message of love and hope, particularly to young people.

The project was called Supernatural.

It seems the world was indeed ready for some positive messages. Supernatural swept the Grammies upon its release, made stars out of more than one contributing artist, sold over 25 million copies, and rocketed the 51 year old guitarist to the absolute pinnacle of the music business — and at the start of a new phase of his career.

He followed up Supernatural with another collaboration — the appropriately entitled Shaman — that won him another Grammy.

His new release, All That I Am, is due out November 1.

Unlike too many of the world's so called 'leaders', Carlos Santana has handled his success with humility, generosity, and grace — hallmarks of his character, both as a private individual and as a world citizen.

Well into his fourth decade of recording and performing, Carlos Santana is more vital and relevant than ever. He magnificently embodies both "old school" virtuosity and "new school" cool, continually reaching new generations of fans with his passionate music, while earning the unbridled respect of musicians in literally every genre.

In a world where the music industry has become a money-grabbing publicity machine, Santana is a rare artist who combines relevance with popularity. But perhaps his greatest mark is this:

In a world of hundreds of millions of guitar players, there is less than a handful whose sound is immediately distinct. There is perhaps only one who has achieved the holy grail of all musicians: to be instantly identifiable upon hearing just one note.

That one is Carlos Santana.

One note and you know exactly who it is. It is the unmistakable sound of one of music's greatest leaders.
 

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

We recently read a fun and interesting book entitled Why business people speak like idiots by Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway and Jon Warshawsky.

In discussing the need for more concise and clear language among today's business leaders, they reprinted Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Some of you may not have read this since school.

In just 270 words, one of America's greatest leaders set the tone of a new nation. And word has it, he didn't even have PowerPoint.

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
 

Please visit us at www.themarkofaleader.com.

Copyright 2005 Mark of a Leader