Superior evaluations create superior lives

In modeling the most successful people in our culture, one common denominator I notice without fail is that they make superior evaluations. Think of anyone you consider to be a master of anything, in business, politics, law, the arts, relationships, physical health, spirituality. What has brought them to their personal pinnacle? What has made prosecuting attorney Gerry Spence win almost every case he has taken on in the last fifteen years? Why does Bill Cosby seem to delight his audiences virtually every time he takes the stage? What makes Andrew Lloyd Webber's music so hauntingly perfect?

It all comes down to these people making superior evaluations in their areas of expertise. Spence has honed a superior understanding of what influences human emotion and decision. Cosby has spent years developing key references, beliefs, and rules about how to use anything in his environment as material to make people laugh. Webber's mastery of melody, orchestration, arrangement, and other elements enables him to write music that touches us at the deepest level.

Consider Wayne Gretzky of the Los Angeles Kings. He has scored more points than anyone in the history of the National Hockey League. What makes him so powerful? Is it because he's the biggest, strongest, or fastest player in the league? By his own admission, the answer to all three of these questions is no. Yet he was consistently the number-one scorer in the league. When asked what makes him so effective, his response is that while most players skate to where the puck is, he tends to skate to where the puck is going. At any moment in time, his ability to anticipate—to evaluate the velocity of the puck, its direction, the present strategies and physical momentum of the players around him—allows him to place himself in the optimum position for scoring. One of the top money managers in the world is Sir John Templeton, dean of international investing, whose track record for the last fifty jears is unrivaled. A sum of $10, 000 invested in the Templeton Growth Fund at its inception in 1954 would be worth $2.2 million today! In order to have him personally work with you on your portfolio, you must invest at minimum of $10 million cash; his top client entrusted him with over $11 billion to invest. What has made Templeton one of the greatest investment advisors of all time? When I asked him this question, he didn't hesitate a moment. He said, " My ability to evaluate the true value of an investment." He's been able to do this despite the vagaries of trends and 'short-term market fluctuations.