Category — Other's GoodThinkingStuff

The following interview is an excerpt from my 2002 top-selling eBook, Success: A Spiritual Matter.

Your History

Many of our values come directly from our childhood and upbringing. What are the most important values you feel you still carry today from your parents and other family members, friends, teachers etc.?

Many of the “values” we’re self-taught. You see, I’m a perpetual student. And I have been BECAUSE of my upbringing, which was not a perfect one. Scarred from an abusive father, it pushed me to learn and learn and learn. I finally came to the realization that my upbringing was the most beautiful, powerful and rewarding lesson I have ever been given — it made me what I am today.

In order for me to fight early bouts of depression and fear, which were incredibly devastating for me, I became a student … I listened and read from the masters: from spiritual leaders to modern-day philosophers. I read the Bhagivad Gita, the Bible, the Torah, the Qu’ran, the Dhammapada (Buddha), the Tao, you name it.

I also became engrossed with works from Wayne Dyer, Jim Rohn, Henry David Thoreau, Tony Robbins, Marsha Sinetar, Joseph Campbell, Dr. Maxwell Maltz, Florence Scovel Shinn, Rene Descartes, Jean-Paul Sartre, Louise Hay, Stuart Wilde … You name it, I read it.

Let me back up a little, so you may understand what I mean …

I was emotionally and physically abused by an alcoholic father. Today, he is institutionalized, suffering from a mental illness called “Korsakov’s Disease,” which resulted from years of alcohol abuse.

You see, I entered this world with a physical disability. And my father, being a perfectionist, regarded me as a “failure.” This is when he started to drink heavily. I believe it’s because he couldn’t accept the fact that he “failed,” in other words.

I was a big baby — born at over 11 pounds. And my mother is a petite woman, measuring no more than four and a half feet tall! So, being such a big baby inside her tiny womb, my legs and feet grew crookedly. I had to wear special crutches until the age of three.

Over the years, my father called me “stupid.” I was told that I would never amount to much. I was a “failure.” And as a result, I became a recluse. Agoraphobic-like. I just hated being around other people because I feared rejection immensely.

Consequently, I practically lived inside my bedroom most of my childhood. And it lasted pretty much the remainder of my teenage years.

But deep down, I wanted to prove my father wrong. I wanted to succeed in order to show him that I am someone, that I’m not a failure.

How does one fight the fear of being with people let alone the fear of rejection? As Henry David Thoreau said, “Do what you fear and the death of that fear is certain.”

So, I decided to dive into the world of sales in order to fight my fears head-on. In my mind, I had no other choice.

Well, commissions were my only source of income. And since I wasn’t successful, I fell deeply into debt in order to survive. Eventually, I declared bankruptcy at the still young age of 21.

It took me another four years before I became a top producing salesperson in a Fortune 500 company. Since I hated prospecting (and still do, in fact), I developed more effective strategies that caused high quality prospects to come to me instead of the other way around. I no longer had to prospect. I no longer had to be rejected. I no longer had to force myself to be with other people (unless they wanted to be with me). And over the years, I started teaching my techniques. I became a marketing consultant.

For the rest of my values, I guess most of them stem from my grandparents. Because of my parents’ situation and my father’s distaste for his own son, I grew up with my grandparents pretty much throughout my early childhood. My grandfather was a hard worker, which became an endearing value for me. More important than that, he loved what he did. In fact, he told me something that I keep remembering (and falling back on), even to this day:

“A buzzy bee
is hard to see,
It teaches us all,
great or small,
We have a job to do.”

I was about nine years old when he told me that. And it still rings true to this day.

Bottom-line, he inculcated in my psyche the idea that one should do what one loves. That’s the ultimate rule of life, I believe. There’s no other rule any greater than that, since everything else falls naturally once that “primary directive,” if you will, is followed. When you do what you love, everything else seems trivial. Challenges, hard work, problems, even people.

Jim Rohn said: “Turn your vocation into a vacation.”

I even tell my students to follow their hearts, their desires or their passions, even when this process could mean that they feel they must change their academic majors. (I’m sure my superiors at the college are not happy when I do that because some students may leave the marketing program altogether, but I believe in it so strongly that I feel my students are much better off – and they can become much better students, too, in whatever field they choose — if they follow their hearts and not their minds, their families’ wishes or their wallets.)

As Confucius once said in 500 B.C.E., “Do what you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” Marsha Sinetar, author of “True Wealth,” once said, “Do what you love and the money will follow.”

One of my favorite contemporary philosophers is Joseph Campbell. A mythologist, Joseph professed that number one rule, which pervades all cultures and religions …

“Follow your bliss.”

Do what you love or love what you do. That rule is the basis of any religion or social belief system. (Or it should be, anyway.)

When you do what you love, everything else becomes so clear. And every problem or challenge you encounter seems so trite. It also makes everything else so much easier: from living and working, to accepting yourself (and others) and achieving true inner peace.

I mean, if you do what you love or love what you do, you’ll do it with so much passion and zest that everything else follows. Money becomes a byproduct. A thriving business becomes a byproduct. A
life filled with peace and joy becomes a byproduct. Happiness and finding that “one true love” also become byproducts.

Speaking of business, when you love what you do you deliver superb customer service because you want your clients to feel the same passion you do. You fall in love with your business and your product, and as a result you automatically transfer that passion into other people, creating a much greater sense of credibility, trust and believability — from vendors to clients.

In my marketing seminars, I talk about this “rule” by saying that it is the greatest marketing secret of all. If people follow that rule, marketing becomes natural. In fact, the more you love what you do, the less you need to promote your business — it emanates from everything you do. You become a marketer by extension, not by position. That’s why, in those seminars, I often add:

“Do what you love and the business will follow.”

I know that personally, in my life, since I’ve never made so much money and had so much fun since I followed that number one rule. I’ve got enough clients to feed me for a lifetime. It’s so true.

Did these come from your socio-economic status, your home life, spiritual and/or religious experiences? If so, please describe.

I think I was pretty clear on that one, earlier.

Exactly how did you get started in your business or career? What prompted or pushed you to be attracted to your field?

As stated earlier, I became a sales rep in order to fight my overwhelming fear of rejection — it certainly wasn’t for the money or because of career advancement. It was simply to prove my father wrong.

But I hated rejection so much that I found ways to pre-qualify my prospects and get them to come to me, not the other way around. Seeing how successful I was, my techniques became an object sought after by coworkers, colleagues, employers and now clients. One thing led to another until it grew into the speaking and marketing consulting career that I work in and enjoy today.

I realized that you have to market in such a way that causes the right kinds of people to come to you. Too many marketers suffer from the “build-it-and-they-will-come” syndrome. That’s even more true on the web. Many rely on mere search engines for producing their traffic. That’s not good.

Instead, you can become a magnet and attract qualified traffic to your website by using the same techniques I teach today. That’s why my consulting career later spilled onto the web … It was a natural extension, I guess.

Today, as a speaker, copywriter and consultant, I give seminars on marketing, copywriting and sales training (and now Internet marketing) all over Canada and the U.S. (and still do). Bottom-line, all of my talks are somehow based on my unique set of experiences. Call it the “school of hard marketing knocks.”
[Read more →]

Rick Beneteau invites you to become a Messenger of Change

This inspirational poem on peace came across my Facebook News Feed and I had no choice but to contact the author and ask if I could post it. I am greatful Satish offered to share it.

Love is Light

What is His dress code?
I do not know
What is His language?
I do not know
What is His colour?
I do not know
How does He look?
I do not know

My search ended
when I met Him
WITHIN

He was no-body,
He was all Light
He enveloped me with his light
and said
‘LOVE YOU’ in that silence

Now
I keep on watching him in that silence
without missing him every moment
He flows in me in His form
Radiating out as LOVE

[Read more →]

I think that we’re all probably familiar with the fairground rant ‘take a chance, win a prize’. Whenever I hear this call to action, I immediately break out into a cold sweat. Whether the test is to knock down 6 cans in pyramid formation or to throw a dart at a balloon, I’m there, almost hypnotically, pulling coins out of my pocket. And it doesn’t really matter what prizes are on offer either. It could be stuffed panda bears, bubble makers or even Velcro wallets. What’s important to me is rising to the challenge and having a go.

Now I know that many of you may have suffered from this fairground fever at one time or another. But do you actually take this fearless enthusiasm out into the real world when the carnival is over?

Taking chances.
Taking a chance is effectively doing something that has an uncertain payoff. To use our fairground adventure as an example playing a game where there is a chance you might win a prize and a chance that you might not. Now as nice as it is to win prizes, it is important not to become side tracked into believing that this is the only reason you should play the game, because it isn’t. To become players of life, we need to be continually growing and expanding our capabilities regardless of the outcome. When we step outside of what is comfortable, not only do we become more adept at assessing risk in the future but our innate ability to handle risk is also greatly enhanced. It is from this space that you will find the prizes of life flowing naturally to you.

Fearless living.
Can you remember your last encounter with someone that was truly fearless? Someone brimming with self confidence, unquestionable enthusiasm and the bravado to take seemingly impossible risks? Chances are that person probably couldn’t walk, let alone string a sentence together. That’s right, the most fearless people on the planet are the little humans we call children.

[Read more →]

Time wasted, tempers flaring, tempus fugit. Traffic jam. Gridlock.

We all know what that means… traffic has comes to a complete standstill. Frustrated drivers and passengers sit on the road in their vehicles, unable to move forward or backward. Sometimes they can see reason for the gridlock, often they cannot. Standstill. Imposed inertia. What does gridlock have to do with joy? Nothing and everything. Read on and find out.

Joy is deceptively simply to achieve, and at the same time incredibly difficult to sustain because it requires us to transform the way we think, to get rid of beliefs that no longer serve us, to move past gridlock. Joy is all about self imposed energy and positive movement. Emotional gridlock is all about self imposed inertia. Finding the joy in life is all about appreciating every moment with gusto and glee, it is about moving forward and making each moment better than the last. Gridlock is about being forced to stand still, to remain motionless, frustrated and held back.

While physical gridlock will pass, emotional gridlock is a silent killer. It is an invisible demon that slowly creeps crawls into our life and feeds off our joy. It starts when we lose touch with who we are and what we want, it grows when we spend our days and nights dancing to another man’s drummer. At its best, emotional gridlock will sap our creativity and innovation. At its worst, it will suck up every ounce of joy we have, insidiously, invisibly, consistently until inertia touches every aspect of our lives.

Moving past gridlock means having the tenacity and clarity to see past the blocks in the road, the personal traffic jams that we all face. It means making a life decision to let go of all the negative emotions and limiting beliefs that block our creativity, our energy, and our joie de vivre. It means replacing road rage with faith, frustration with certainty, doubt with confidence and inertia with a passion to reclaim our dreams and our life.

Moving past our personal gridlock is a war, a battle that we each face every moment, every day, in every way. We can choose to be valiant warriors of joy and recognize that the greatest gridlock we face is not from other people, not from other cars, not from oncoming traffic, not from our work, our neighbors, our children, our colleagues, but from ourselves, from the fears that hold us back from being and doing all that we can.

[Read more →]

When I first embarked upon my spiritual journey in a quest for truth and light, I had no idea the mountains that loomed ahead of me were going to be so treacherous. My relentless passion and enthusiasm found me in the ether’s of meditation and flying high on the 7th plane. My request and desire was to take the shortest route from where I was currently, to my highest co-creation with God. In short, I was setting my intention to plow straight through the mountain, instead of going over or around it. My inner guidance system was working on overdrive and something told me that I didn’t have time for the scenic tour. As I always like to say, if you ask, you will indeed receive. This seemingly simple meditation revved the engine of a red hot Ferrari which took me at break neck speed across the paved highways of the Autobahn.

Believe me when I tell you that cutting a path through the Alp mountain range does not come close to describing the passion I have in my heart to fulfill my mission. However, the trip became more like a roller coaster ride through Mount Mindbender. I soon discovered that one wrong turn and the seat belt was no more going to keep me alive than a band aid would on a shotgun wound. I survived the snow storms so that I may spread this bit of wisdom.

What you have within is what you mirror on the outside. There is no difference. If your body, mind and soul are in or out of balance your everyday life reflects this. To discover where you are at, you need to take a look at your life. Is every part of your life peaceful, happy, healthy, joyful and filled with love? If not, there is something that needs to be tweaked. Working out the kinks takes a new perspective and a different approach and this is how my self-discovery began.

Raising my consciousness, cleansing and healing my body and filling my heart with love was the journey I embarked upon. This is the path straight through the mountain and not one for the faint of heart, but for the person that desires to live in the light, realize their highest potential and make their dreams come true. I have discovered five easy to decipher road signs on this journey that have been successful in keeping me aligned to the golden road ahead.

[Read more →]

As I write this, the sun is rising over the hills to the south-east, hidden behind a pillar on the corner of my home. When I sit at this table during the summer, the sun rises off my left shoulder, but now it has moved dramatically to the south. It shifts slowly, and from one day to the next I see no apparent difference, but over time, the earth changes from summer to winter.

Without noticing it, and with no effort on my part, in six months my relationship with the entire solar system has changed! The light in my office has changed, and so I shift positions, re-arrange my computer screen, move the furniture, and even work at a different time of the day, all because of changes over which I have no control, and take no notice.

Success and failure are often like that. We cannot control many of the things and events in our lives, including the sun and the tilt of the earth. What I DO control is whether or not I put curtains on the windows, arrange my furniture to take advantage of the light, and use the seasons to add variety and perspective to my office. Actually, I depend on the changing angle of the sun to “make” me move the furniture and dust behind my desk every few months. I use these predictable changes to enrich my office and make me look at the world differently.

In life, there are many things over which we have no control. Fortunately however, there are many things we can influence, and a few wonderful things we can arrange as we see fit. Highly successful people understand this and spend their time and energy where they can make a difference.

There is a wonderful quote that is attributed to Marianne Williamson that points out that our fear is not that we are powerless, but that in fact we are powerful beyond measure. We can influence more than we think. Given enough time, courage and determination, we can modify, impact, transform and re-invent almost everything in our lives. We are not in complete control; that is no excuse to deny the power we have!

[Read more →]