Tony Robbins -Re-Awaken_the_Giant_Within

LIFE VALUES: YOUR PERSONAL COMPASS
Courage, determination, perseverance, dedication. As Ross Perot conducted the tense briefing in Dallas,
he saw those qualities reflected in the faces of the men he had handpicked for an extraordinary rescue
mission. Do you remember when, in the early days of 1979, civil unrest and anti-America hysteria were
rising to a fever pitch in Iran? Only a few days before this briefing, two of Perot’s corporate executives in
Tehran had been inexplicably jailed. Bail was set at $13 million.
When high-powered diplomatic negotiations failed to get results, Perot decided that there was only one
way to get his men out: he’d have to do it himself. Calling upon the expertise of legendary army colonel
Arthur “Bull” Simons to lead this daring raid, Perot quickly assembled a crack team of his top executives
to pull off the jailbreak. They were selected because they’d all been in Tehran and had military
experience. He called his men “Eagles” to signify “high fliers who used their initiative, got the job done,
and gave results, not excuses.”
The rewards would be high if they won, but the risks were even greater: the mission was completely
unauthorized, and not only was failure a possibility, but so was death. What drove Ross Perot to muster
all his resources, take the risks, and defy the odds? Clearly, he’s a man who lives by his values. Courage,
loyalty, love, commitment, and determination are all values that give him an exceptional capacity to
care and strength of will that is legendary. These same values were the force that drove him to build his
company, EDS (Electronic Data Systems Corporation), from a thousand-dollar investment into an enterprise
worth billions of dollars. He rose to the top because of his capacity to evaluate and select the right men.
He chose them based on a strict code of values and he knew that with the right people, those who held
high enough standards, all he’d have to do was give them the job to do and get out of their way.
Now he would have the ultimate test of the people he’d selected as he called upon them to summon
their finest resources and rescue a few members of the corporate “family.” The story of their mission
and the challenges they met can be found in the book On Wings of Eagles. Suffice it to say that despite
obstacles beyond compare, Perot’s heroic rescue mission succeeded and brought home his most valued
assets: his people.
Values guide our every decision and, therefore, our destiny. Those who know their values and live by
them become the leaders of our society. They are exemplified by outstanding individuals throughout our
nation, from the boardroom to the classroom. For example, did you see the movie Stand and Deliver? It
told the story of the maverick math teacher Jaime Escalante.
Were you as inspired as I was by the heroic strides he made in transmitting to his students his passion for
learning? He got them to associate in their nervous systems, at the deepest level, a sense of pride in their
capacity to master those things others were certain they could never learn. His example of commitment
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