I feel like someone who buys one of those Acai, or is it Acia, cleanses must feel like after the last 10 days!

In my opinion, we tend to think others see the world in terms of how we perceive it to be. When, in fact, there is a HUGE population out there totally computer illiterate and most don’t even know how to set up an email account!

That is good for the future of the Internet generally, and creative Internet marketers specifically, but it is a reality many seem to miss when shaping their world view, our world view!

The key to success online, to Internet marketing success, is not trying to sell each other, the trick is to tap into the virgin market still available and waiting for a creative approach and the right message!

Instead of preaching to the choir, we should be focusing on the masses…because that is where the real opportunity resides!

The choir knows the song by heart, it is in reaching those just beginning the search, just beginning the process of online education, whether in online, stay-at-home businesses or in some other form of Internet commerce, the real opportunity for service and for success rests with the novice, the “newbie,” and not in restating the same message to the same followers in the same way, day in and day out, online, whether through social media or whatever!

It is nice to be back with a fresh set of eyes and a new perspective. Often, the best way to understand something is to step away long enough, and in this case, far enough to be able to see the forest for the trees.

John

Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526
216-539-7412
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@johnzajaros.com

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• 

The History and Power of The 30 Day Challenge: Success in Business and a Tool for Life!

I have been thinking a lot about the whole 30 day challenge concept for a while now and have come to the realization that there is a significant flaw in this powerful concept.

While the 30 day challenge is incredibly powerful concept, one I have used repeatedly throughout my life, there is a failure factor built in. I will discuss the flaw in a moment, and it is important when considering whether to run your own 30 day challenge or to participate in someone else’s. However, to begin with let’s discuss the power of this useful concept, a notion that has been around for decades…at the very least.

Interestingly, I tried to do a search to gain an historical perspective on the impetus for, and the story behind, the 30 day challenge and found nothing of value. So, I will keep this focused on the past 75 years or so, paying particular attention to the past 35 years.

Why?

Because it was 35 years ago I first came across the concept, and it was a tried and true method of achieving results then, so I am certain it has been around for, at the very least, several decades.

BTW, I hope you get the time to review my article on the Law of 250 and success in business, online and offline. It is at The Internet Marketing Quest Revealed! Let me know what you think, OK?

Interestingly, Earl Nightingale, known as the “Dean of Personal Development,” speaks of going all out for 30 days, a 30 day “test” if you will, in his recording of The Strangest Secret, the first voice recording to sell over 1 million copies. The Strangest Secret was first published in 1956, so that’s almost 54 years ago…or as long as I have been on this Earth!

Scary thought!

Generally, anything with that sort of staying power, and a phrase that can generate between 50 and 60 million results (without quotes) on Google, and 228,000 results with quotes, has to have real power, even today.

Interestingly, there appears to be something of a paradox with the concept, and with the challenge itself.

Or, does it go deeper than that?

On one hand, the 30 day challenge appears to be a useful tool for motivating people, prompting them to act, at least in the short term. On the other, there appears to be a flaw built into the system, and we will get to that.

But first a bit of history!

The first time I ever heard anything about a 30 day challenge, and challenge wasn’t the word used then, was in the mid-1970s.

The 1970s and early 1980s was a very exciting time in sales and marketing, many of the greats toured the country and sales, marketing, and self-improvement seminars were quite common. Significantly, during this period most of the self-help and self-improvement messages were either tied to sales and marketing, as in the case of Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale, J Douglas Edwards, Zig Ziglar, and Dale Carnegie. Or, they were assigned to the religious or spiritual milieu or genre, as with Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking, an amazing and amazingly popular book! Well worth the read, regardless of your religious affiliation or convictions.

During the 1970s and 80s, I was very big into the whole how to close the sale, self-help, self-motivation, and self-improvement movement.

The 1970s was before the time of Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy, it was a time of when many of the greats mentioned above such as Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale, Zig Ziglar, J Douglas Edwards, Tom Hopkins, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale were in vogue. Wayne Dyer had just come out with Your Erroneous Zones (published 1976), followed by Pulling Your Own Strings, both widely accepted and very popular. The 1970s, particularly after the end of the war in Vietnam and the national nightmare of Watergate was finally put to rest with Nixon’s resignation, was a wildly optimistic period. Jimmy Carter’s feel good style mirrored the mood of the country, at least for a few years.

Beginning in the mid-1970s, I purchased all the self-improvement, sales and marketing, and motivational material I could get my hands on. As a young man making 5 figures a month, a huge sum back then, and still respectable today, I invested heavily in my education, informal as it was at the time; and, I soaked up everything written and recorded by any of “the greats,” anything and everything I could get my hands on. It was during this period that I discovered a treasure trove of information at Nightingale-Conant, for me a marriage made in Heaven! That, of course, led me to Earl Nightingale’s recording of The Strangest Secret.

My life was quite literally changed forever with that recording! I listened to The Strangest Secret until I had every word, every syllable, memorized. I put it into action immediately and by 1980 I was building my first business; and, the rest is history, as they say!

The idea of doing something for 30 days all out, just focusing on that had never occurred to me, as simple as it seems today. Yes, I had heard phrases like:

“Make each day your masterpiece.”

“Make each day count.”

“Live for today.”

I had heard those and many more. I also understood the notion of getting the most out of each and every day, something I practiced religiously. But for some reason the idea of putting them in capsule form and going at it for a specific period of time had simply eluded me. Again, I went all out, like “gangbusters” each and every day…I simply failed to connect the dots. Yes, I had read Think and Grow Rich.

• I had a mastermind group of sorts.
• I had specific goals mapped out.
• I had my affirmations on 3 by 5 cards that were so tattered and torn from being looked at each and every day that I routinely had to rewrite them (from memory
after a while), just to tear up a new batch!
• I had pictures of the Ericson 25’ sailboat I wanted and then purchased.
• I had a picture of the Honda 1000 Goldwing I wanted and then purchased.
• And so on and so on!

With everything I had accomplished, hitting my first of many 10k+ months in income by 23 years of age, it wasn’t until I heard The Strangest Secret and put it all together than I took my income and my life to a whole new level. I would love to tell you I listened to the recording and 30 days later I was on my way but life doesn’t work like that, at least not unless you believe some of the hype being sold on the Internet!

My journey to the next level,, my application of the Ultimate 30 Day Challenge that forever changed my life, was set in motion by the recession of the early 1980s. Without getting into a lot of the details, the recession of the early 1980s was just as bad, or worse, than the recession we are currently experiencing.

The funny thing about people, funny as in peculiar or idiosyncratic or simply forgetful, is that people forget quickly and only remember selective bits and pieces of the past, usually not the painful stuff (“stuff” of course is a technical term–ask George Carlin). Of course that’s part of the reason we are forever doomed to repeat the past, we erase from our memory the painful things we should at least take note of and try to remedy. It is easier to simply forget than to fix!

But the recession of the 1980s took down forever the industrial base of this country. The steel industry never recovered and many would argue the automobile industry was forever transformed, as well. The textile industry of the Northeast vanished with barely a trace, entire cities forced to file bankruptcy. The Rust Belt, mainly the Midwest from Pennsylvania to Illinois and south to the Mason-Dixon Line, was hit hard and certain pockets in the Midwest and Northeast had some of the highest unemployment in our nation’s history. The country was reshaped and industries that had driven the country for decades either vanished completely or were seriously damaged. Some companies went abroad, never to return.

The country, and in fact much of the world, felt the impact for several years before the turnaround and recovery of the mid to late 1980s once again moved the country and the world forward.

It was during the recession of the 1980s, complete with a complete halt in sales and marketing for many industries in the Midwest and interest rates at 22%, I was in Cleveland, Ohio (ground zero or within 150 miles of it), that I was forced by dire circumstances to put my ultimate 30 day challenge into action. While still working at my present job, I began to formulate a plan, the plan took shape, and once it took shape I outlined the very first of many 30 day challenges.

Why?

Because I had no way out! In essence, it was sink or swim, the economy was about to make me just one more of its casualties…and that just wouldn’t do! Not at 25 years of age, so sir!

So, I implemented a plan, invested all the money I had left, by then $50 for a little tiny office and a telephone answering service; and, a few bucks for some flyers and postage, and I went to work. Interestingly, I had the support of my current employer, a great man who knew he couldn’t hold on to all of his people through the terrible economic conditions the area was struggling with. We had Ford, GM, Chrysler, US Steel, and Republic Steel all within a few miles, it was as if the entire country had collapsed.

The Rust Belt became the Disaster Belt!

But people will always spend money on certain things…and I happened to pick one of them. I would love to tell you I tested and analyzed and researched but in actuality, I just did it!

What is the saying?

Ready…Fire…Aim!

Well, without getting into the details, I will save that for another day, we started making money. We did OK the first 30 days, a little better the next 30, and by the fourth 30 day challenge, one run consecutively after another, our entire business model at the time, just one all-out 30 day challenge followed by an even more frantic all-out 30 day challenge, we were making mid-five figures! That’s from a $50 investment plus some postage and a few flyers in one of the worst economic climates since the Great Depression! Interestingly, we actually received the flyers free from the printer on barter after we got going, trading our services for his.

Things fell into place, almost by magic!

Tony Robbins said something in one of his Power Talk recordings that rings so true and is appropriate here:

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear!”

The same sort of thing happens with goals and forward movement, whether the forward movement is part of a directed 30 day challenge, or is simply part of a goal directed overall plan of action, once you set a thing in motion, the right people, circumstances, and tools become apparent and available to you.

It is like LUCK:

• Labor

• Under

• Correct

• Knowledge

L…U…C…K!

Have you ever noticed when you are heavily into something, driven and focused, all of the sudden you become aware of things you never noticed before, experience things you never knew existed? Once you open yourself up and become focused on a specific goal and direct your energy into a specific arena and provide a specific time frame for it to appear…things begin to happen!

It is like looking up in the sky!

Try looking up in the sky whenever the sky is clear and you will notice a lot of shooting stars!

Are there more now than there used to be?

No!

You notice them now, so there appear to be more of them, simply because you are now looking in the direction! They were always there! It’s just that you are now ready to see them!

It’s like that with goals and the 30 day challenge! You are now looking in the right direction, so you will see the opportunities, the tools, the knowledge, and the resources that were there all the time…you are now laboring under correct knowledge, so you will see what has been there all along!

So, what’s the downside?

Well, it isn’t a downside with the 30 day challenge; it’s not a downside with the challenge, it’s a downside with human beings. It is a word one of the Internet marketers of note, Eben Pagan is big on:

DISTRACTION!

Distraction is the arch enemy of success and it is also the arch enemy of The 30 Day Challenge!

You see, in today’s world many people suffer from what I call socio-cultural ADD/ADHD.

People just do not stay on task for very long and, when they embark upon a specific course of action, they are easily distracted. Additionally, if results are not easily or immediately apparent, the risk and the reality of distraction becomes exponentially greater. There is a fundamental flaw in the psyche of the modern mind, a failure to stay on task. The old American “stick-to-it-ness” of the past seems to have vanished in favor of the 3 second rule and the 1 minute video culture.

Heaven forbid people have to read a book!

War and Peace? Never!

I recently heard an Internet marketer say it took him purchasing a CD to be able to get through a book he felt he needed to read. This is not atypical! This is a symptom of the video generation and it is only getting worse. The prospect of sitting down and reading a book, say War and Peace, would probably send a significant portion of our population to the emergency room with an anxiety attack!

That may be overplaying it a bit…but just a bit!

That’s the flaw in The 30 Day Challenge, it’s not results, it’s distraction and attention; and, those are inextricably linked!

So, how do we combat this seemingly fatal flaw?

With results!

And

CANI!

Tony Robbins’s notion of CANI! Constant and never ending improvement!

And

RITTR!

Reducing it to the ridiculous!

The combination of CANI! and RITTR makes a step-by-step approach not only achievable, it will keep you and the members of your team, if you are managing more than just yourself, on track.

By focusing on each day, on each hour or even just a moment, building one success, one accomplishment upon the next, before you know it you have built something amazing, all one small piece, one small moment, one small success at a time.

Just as the paragraph above notes, by reducing your year, month, week, day, hour, and moment you bring everything into focus and, while still having the big picture in mind, you are able to bring your efforts to bear upon the task at hand, thus accomplishing more in a moment than many do in a week…or a month, a 30 day challenge!

The combination of laser-like focus and the knowledge that everything in life is progressive means you can do great things.

Constant and never ending improvement leads to motion, motion to momentum, and momentum leads to overwhelming success by way of enthusiasm and inertia. Just like a dynamo, at first slow and almost imperceptible in motion, it becomes an irresistible force, unstoppable and undeniably powerful.

The 30 Day Challenge, first brought to my attention as a 20 something kid, has been responsible for my absolute faith in our ability to do anything we set our minds to, anything! By setting small and achievable goals, building one moment upon the next, one accomplishment upon another, we build one 30 day challenge into a lifetime of challenges and triumphs.

The result is a life full of excitement and successful in every sense of the word.

Will there be failure along the way? Certainly!

But for every failure, there will be an incredible harvest of successes.

The secret is to keep focused, continue setting goals, and remember CANI! and RITTR!

All things are possible if you have faith in yourself and in the concepts built into the premise behind the 30 day challenge…that anything built upon a solid foundation will have an positive and lasting effect upon your life.

Because:

“Whatever the mind of many can conceive and believe, it can achieve!”

I believe that with all my heart and mind, so did Napoleon Hill when he said it in 1937!

John

John Zajaros
216-712-6526
866-835-2913
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@johnzajaros.com

PS, I love this movie…but then I love most sports movies with a theme! Al Pacino is perfect and there isn’t a middle-aged man alive that hasn’t felt these emotions…and probably a lot of other men and women, too! Just click anywhere here!

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• 

It seems longer, almost an eternity ago. I was living my life from pain pill to pain pill…more like PAIN PILL to PAIN PILL…and doctor’s appointment to hospital stay. It certainly doesn’t seem like a matter of months…it seems like a lifetime ago! Yet, as I think back, it really wasn’t that long ago at all! So, how did I get here? How did it all happen so fast? Is it important to tell my story at all?

Well, to the last question I would say yes…but then, I am somewhat biased. Not egocentric, mind you, just somewhat biased.

You see, I think my story is important. The story isn’t important in the “Here I am!” and “See what I did!” or “Look what I have!” sense but it is in the “See what I’ve been able to accomplish and you can too!” sense. The story is important if only to give someone else hope, to assure others that, no matter how dark their present may be, there is an alternative future just beyond the range of their sight, beyond the horizon, just out of their grasp. It is a life-lesson, passed on from me to you, assuring you that you can get there, wherever and whatever there is for you, if you simply persevere and remember that someone else, in this case yours truly, has been there before you, with you, and has done it, whatever it is…so you can too!

This seems to be a time for baring of the soul, telling how we got here, sharing the trials and tribulations that brought us to the point of self-realization, self-discovery, and finally, of self-knowledge.

But that is way ahead of the story…way ahead of it!

Before we get to all the self-actualization “stuff,” to use a technical term…cuz everybodies got “stuff“! Just ask George Carlin!

Oops! Got off the subject with George there. Hope you came back! Or, better yet, click the link later. It will be worth it, too funny…and true!

Back to self-discovery:

Self-actualization is a term that has been used by psychologists in a variety of ways and for a long time now. The interesting thing about the term self-actualization is that the term is used in slightly different ways by different psychologists at different times. In many instances, as with history itself, psychological thought is a reflection of the times it was written in as much as it is or was about the subject matter itself. While a topic for a different time and a different article, it is interesting to note that our history, and much of social scientific and physical scientific theory seems to reflect the period it was written in, as much as being a reflection of the thought or theory itself. Meaning, like it or not, we see the world in terms of the world we live in…and that is a very difficult bronco to buck!

So, as we seek to understand ourselves, we also need to take a hard look at our context, how we are living our lives and who is shaping our beliefs, consciously or unconsciously…some would say subconsciously.

OK! Back to self-actualization. To quote Wikipedia (Why not? Everyone else does!): “The term was originally introduced by the organismic theorist Kurt Goldstein for the motive to realise [sic] all of one’s potentialities. In his view, it is the master motive—indeed, the only real motive a person has, all others being merely manifestations of it. However, the concept was brought to prominence in Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory {Tim Schmidt has incorporated this nicely into his Tribal Marketing concept!} as the final level of psychological development that can be achieved when all basic and mental needs are fulfilled and the “actualisation” of the full personal potential takes place.

In other words, as a consequence of our life-lessons, by way of a journey of self-discovery and the eventual fulfillment of the needs below on the pyramid, below self-actualization on the hierarchy, we come to an awareness of our full potential, our “full personal potential” or our “potentialities.”

I would argue that there is, in fact, a degree above this, true self-actualization takes place when we implement our potentialities, when we put our selves (spelled put our a##es) into gear and get going with the business of living…thus achieving our true potential or potentialities, whatever that or they may be!

Just to be clear, because the image, when transferred, blackened out the labels somewhat, the lowest level of needs in Mazlow’s hierarchy are physiological. Next up on the pyramid are the needs associated with safety. Then come the needs associated with love and belonging. The next level up are the needs related to esteem, and this is where most people get stuck…if they get to this level at all. And finally, we reach the peak of Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs, those needs labeled as self-actualizing, or simply self-actualization!

Whether you agree with the whole of self-actualization theory and Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs or not, it seems apparent, at least to me, that we all search for a purpose, something larger than ourselves to identify with and to incorporate into our schema of the world, the meaningful world we seek to identify with and become linked to.

Why do you think social media is so popular, aside from the whole issue of marketing…spam notwithstanding? It’s because we all seek to attach ourselves to something or someone greater than ourselves! Notice the emphasis here on selves! Something or someone exciting, larger than life if you will…and certainly larger than our lives! Our current lives anyway, the lives many of us wish we could escape, or at least change drastically!

So what is stopping us?

Well, I hear a lot of gobbledygook phrases (wait to click it until after you’ve finished the article, OK?!) like:

Inertia!

Take action!

Visualize!

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe…

You know the remainder of the last one, you finished it without me even writing it out here, didn’t you?

…it can achieve!

Change your state!

Huh? What? How?

We all know the catch phrases, we all know the goobledygook terms…but how the heck do we implement them and what has to happen in our lives, to our lives, in order to get us to the point where we:

1.) Counter the inertia that is our life!

2.) Take the necessary action because we simply can’t stand the pain of inaction any longer!

3.) Get to a point where or when, although it may be difficult, if not seemingly impossible, we know there must be something, anything that ranks higher on the life-satisfaction scale than our lives do now. Something out there that ranks higher in terms of satisfaction, reward, meaning, and here’s the million dollar word…potential!

It is the potentiality, the possibility of potentiality, that will ultimately fuel our action, breaking through the inertia of our inaction that is our lives! Without belief in the possibility of potentiality…we are doomed!

That takes me back to my story!

Phew! Thought we’d never get back here, didn’t you?

The fact is, I thought I was doomed! I was absolutely, totally, completely, utterly, finally (get the idea?) doomed! That was my mindset, just roll me over and stick a fork in me…I was done!

Here I was at the time, a 53 year old guy with a huge gap in his employment history because of catastrophic illness (almost dying in the process-see below). I had finally come through several surgeries to save my life after doctor after doctor (some of the “best” in the word), and hospital after hospital (also a few of the “best,” like the Cleveland Clinic) misdiagnosed me, or didn’t bother to diagnose me at all.

I actually had one doctor, I had to admire is honesty, who told me my back was too big a mess for him to handle and he’d, “rather not touch it!”

Yup! Doomed!

I was in so much pain, I couldn’t crawl to the bathroom, literally. It was horrible! I was on so much pain medication that when I finally found a surgeon willing to operate, I almost couldn’t find an anesthesiologist to do the honors! That would have been the height of irony…and about my luck back then! Fortunately, I found a guy, a good one, who was willing to take me on and it ended up saving my life.

Osteomyelitis!

They woke me up in the recovery room to one of those good news-bad news lines:

“Mr. Zajaros,” who cared if they got the title wrong, “the bad news is, we couldn’t fix your back.”

“Mr. Zajaros,” did it again, “the good news is, we found a massive staph infection throughout the vertebrae and the surrounding tissue. We think it may have been in there for several years…and you are going to live!”

I have to tell you, the pain when you wake up from spine surgery is worse than anything you can possibly imagine! You really think death would be a relief, it’s that bad. But at least I knew all the pain I had experienced up to that moment was not in my head, there was a reason, it was based in a medical reality; and, that was strangely satisfying. Just knowing that I hadn’t imagined it all, that it wasn’t “in my head,” that it wasn’t “rebound pain” or some other ridiculous misdiagnosis…

…I was relieved.

Little did I know, the battle of my life was just beginning.

That was May of 2000.

Several more surgeries, many years in hospitals, yes years, and I can’t tell you how many pills, bills, and doctors I went through on my way to recovery.

“Recovery?”

I walked away from a comfortable 6 figure a year job (well, they got tired of waiting for me to get well and put me on leave), spent months going through our retirement, 401k, IRAs, everything we owned, including the better of the two vehicles (a brand new minivan we had payed cash for), to keep from living in a box…or in the back of a 1992 Chevrolet Cavalier Station Wagon!

Had it not been for amazing friends and the help of Catholic Charities, we would have been homeless, evicted while I was in the hospital having surgery number 13…of 14 or 15?! We had run out of time…and money! Thank goodness we still had friends!

We moved…started over.

Operation.

Moved…started over.

Operation.

Moved…started over.

Operation. Addiction (there is no such thing as a “controlled addiction,” physician monitored or not). Depression. Blackness.

I felt utterly and completely doomed!

Then, in March of 2007, I fell while walking out our door and down the front walk. The winter had lifted the sidewalk and I didn’t notice it. That is, until I was falling into the bumper of my in-laws new pickup truck, denting the bumper with my head, ripping open my scalp (100+ stitches), and the concrete sidewalk (crushing my shoulder). The osteomyelitis had weakened my bones, when I say I crushed my shoulder, I mean it was almost completely destroyed, they pinned it back and rebuilt it as well as possible but, as you can see from the videos, it is still quite a mess!

While recovering from the reconstruction, yet another operation if you are keeping track (15 by now), I had a pulmonary embolism, along with another large clot in my shoulder, congestive heart failure, and a myriad of other health consequences and complications.

By April of 2007 there was little left of our previous existence, I should say our previous lives…because what we were doing by 2007 was existing. We no longer had our lives, we muddled through each day, I on the sectional or in the recliner, taking pain pills to kill the pain, physical and psychological, in pain 24/7, severely depressed, truly at the and of things…all things…or so I thought.

I was doomed in every sense of the word…except one…I had an amazing wife and family!

Each time our standard of living dropped and our prospects diminished…my self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth with them! Yet, my family never gave up on me and I never saw anything but love and respect in their eyes. I will never forget that, I can never adequately express my feelings concerning it…or ever repay what it meant to me or did for me.

I will work the rest of my life, for them, that is my burning desire…my one thing!

It literally kept me alive…their love!

You know, it seems like everyone has a near death story, it’s almost the new Horatio Alger, Rags to Riches thing….

As an aside: Horatio Alger wrote rags to riches stories, yet at the time of his death he was living with his sister and brother in law, he never made a lot of money from his writing. His image today is somewhat tarnished by rumor and innuendo, another tragic fatality of revisionism and conjecture in historical research. But the American Dream, the ideal of a rags to riches life of achievement based on honesty, hard work, integrity, and ingenuity is embedded in American social culture at least in part due to his stories.

Anyway, back to the recent wave of “I Survived…Buy from Me!” stories!

< For a moment, anyway!

Or

“I Survived the Black Death and Learned 12 Life-Lessons! You can learn them all for $997 and $97 per month!”

Or

“How I turned lessons learned from the plague! Yes, the actual Black Death, I survived and turned it into a marketing miracle, you can too!”

“Get your ‘I Had a Heart Attack and Now I Para-Sail in Cancun!’ Home Study Kit!”

OK! Maybe the last one is a bit much…but just barely! Maybe they para-glide off of Mt Everest!

My point is, illness and disease, near death experience and all the baggage that comes with it has sadly, almost tragically become cliche! Amazingly, the rags to riches stories have too! We have, as a society, a nation, even a world of skeptics. We have become jaded, not knowing who or what to believe. It’s sad, almost tragic.

And, if we do believe…so what? What does it mean?

Well, I really don’t know…what it means!

The only reason I’ve told you as much as I have, and I have waited quite a while to do that, is to get you to this point, to the here and now of this article…so you will get what comes next…I hope!

By April of 2007 I was ready to throw in the towel, quite literally! Had it not been for my family, and the knowledge of what it would do to them, I would not be here today. I am not being overly melodramatic, I am being brutally honest when I tell you that I was in so much pain, physically and psychologically, I was ready to leave this world.

Nothing had changed, I still felt doomed.

I had come to the rubicon, I was either going to commit to life, giving it everything I had one last time…or I was out of here!

So, I checked myself into a clinic, got off the pain medication, went through 28 days of meetings, treatment, the whole ball of wax, and got clean and sober! It was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. Remember, I was on prescription pain medication for a legitimate chronic pain condition, I had been through 15 major surgeries. And, I was totally, hopelessly addicted. There was absolutely no way I was getting off of the pain medication on my own…no way!

It had been 10 years…and remember how hard it was to even get an anesthesiologist! And that had been 7 years before, in May of 2000!

The treatment was an ordeal, at first it was brutal. Again, getting off of the medication was one of the most difficult things I have ever been through, but it worked and the fog started to lift; and, so did my mood. You see, once I got off the pain medication, I started to believe other things might be possible! I even talked about working again and, to my amazement, my family didn’t discourage me, also something new.

Here we are at the beginning of the article!

I’m a 53 year old guy, a huge hole in my employment record, a catastrophic illness just behind me, overqualified with almost 3 decades of achievement in business and academia, including a doctoral fellowship at one of the most prestigious academic consortiums in the country, perhaps the world, and I can’t get a job. I can’t even get an interview. Every day I go out, make calls, fill out applications and every day nothing. I started to get the old feelings again.

Was I…doomed?

I have to say, feeling mentally sharp and being rejected every day was humiliating. And, it was the first time in my life I saw another expression in my family’s eyes…pity!

Pity!

Was I imagining it? Certainly I felt ashamed, even humiliated, by the whole experience. The economy hadn’t hit bottom, but it was heading there, yet I still felt like I should be able to get a job, something…anything!? And yet there I was, each and every day, more ashamed and more humiliated than the day before.

Heck!

I didn’t even get called back for a pizza delivery job. And I’m not talking about Papa John’s or Domino’s, I’m talking about the neighborhood pizza shack! The owner with his belly hanging over his belt, dirty t-shirt, the whole deal. That’s where I was! That’s what I would have accepted! Just to get someone to say, “Yes!” to me!

Then, I got a call from BP!

Yup!

The gas station people. Not for a management position, not for an assistant manager position, also known as the night manager, not even for full time work, days or nights, but for a part-time counter person working afternoons, 3 days a week. That was it…after weeks of looking, a part-time job at a gas station/convenience store down the street from my house.

Well, I almost took it. In fact, I went in, interviewed for the job, passed the background screening and credit checks, was set to start…and didn’t!

You see, I knew one thing with a certainty that was so clear it was frightening, I knew if I took that job I was in fact…doomed! I can’t tell you how or why, but I just knew.

That night, the night I made that decision, I asked my daughter if she knew anything about building websites and would she help me. Well, as much time as she was on the computer, I figured she would know, right? Wrong! But I knew enough to stumble upon (yup! pun intended) the right resources, constructed a website, placed a few ads, and by the end of the night had put my education to work and had built an online and in-home tutoring business. It had been in front of me the whole time! I had tutored kids for years before getting sick. I love kids, teaching, coaching, it was a natural!

At first?

Nothing!

Surprise anyone out there?

I got very discouraged, this would be the final humiliation if I failed at this…I just couldn’t do it again…or so I thought at the time.

Enter an email from Anthony Garcia, a very nice guy who works for Tony Robbins. Well, I talked a bit to Anthony via email and on the phone, told him my story, a little of it anyway, and he was very kind and offered me some encouragement, some words of advice, and was just in the right spot at the right time.

Interestingly, I don’t think any of us realize the real power of a kind word or gesture at just the right moment. In this case, the right gesture, at precisely the right moment kept me on track, gave me enough of a push to go just one more day.

Do any of us realize we have that sort of power?

I wonder!

Anyway, a short time after that Tony Robbins started video blogging, vlogging, and he was online quite frequently. Having purchased one of his original programs, Personal Power II (I still have it on my desk) years before, I have always followed his career and watched for his products, purchasing them when I felt the need. So, when I discovered this free resource and his videos, I felt I had hit the mother lode!

In fact, Tony said in one video that he would stay up all or most of the night reading the comments from people. Well, one of those people was me, and I was moved by the message in one of his videos, so I commented and mentioned how much Anthony’s kindness had meant to me and what a difference it had made in keeping me on track…just that simple act of kindness. Well, one night he must have read my comment because I got a response, then a call from Anthony, and then a pretty amazing gesture from Tony himself.

The gesture was a small one in the grand scheme of things and I never did take him up on the offer. However, the gesture kept me going, inspired me to “pay it forward,” in fact my email address and the semi-annual “Zoobies for Kids” is inspired by Tony’s action and the challenge he made to pay the kindness forward. I have…and I do!

After that?

I started to get a nibble, then a bite, and before long I was working…and I mean really working my tail off!

One thing lead to another, I worked and I began to study. I started looking at Internet marketing as a second doctorate, this one in entrepreneurial science..so to speak. So, I consumed everything on Internet marketing I could find! I got some great stuff and I got ripped off…sound familiar?

In the end? I’m not there yet! I now have over 5 separate enterprises and close to 50 blogs and websites going, with more in the works. I literally have trouble keeping up and am looking for help now, full time help! John Zajaros, who almost took a menial, 3 days a week job for next to nothing! Imagine what my life, my self-esteem would be like…never mind speaking of potentialities!

I am still learning, growing, and evolving into the entrepreneur I have been for most of my adult life. I started my first business in 1974, 19 and just out of the Army. And, aside from my stint in academia and as Indiana Zajaros trotting the globe, I have been involved as an entrepreneur, primarily in sales and marketing, my whole life…usually as a business owner but occassionally as a top sales representative.

This is just in a different arena now, one with new rules, one with limitless possibilities.

However, had I quit, given up, rolled over and played dead, or worse, I wouldn’t be succeeding in the manner I am today.

Had I not taken the necessary steps to reclaim my life and then followed through, as painful as it was at the time, I would not be facing the amazing future I am today.

Had I taken that menial job…how different would my life be today? Talk about self-esteem and self-worth!

Had Anthony Garcia not been put in my path, sent me that email, made that call?

Had I not answered his phone call!?

Had Tony Robbins decided to spend time doing something else that night, instead of being online with his videos, answering comments, making one small gesture….

So much for coincidence!

This has become a tome instead of an article…I dread the thought of proofreading it!

My point here is that if I can do this, so can you…anyone can! It is simply a matter of perseverance, determination, and faith!

Faith in the possibilities!

Faith in yourself!

Faith in others!

Faith in a Higher Power!

Or, as Tony calls it…grace!

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