Whether your biggest challenges are in your business or personal life, pushing through the fear and challenges to success begins with realizing you’re not alone and adopting the attitude of never giving up. Jason Hartman interviews co-author of It’s Okay to Be Scared But Never Give Up, Jim Palmer about the success stories in the book. Having faced their own serious challenges, the authors wanted to help others find the road to perseverance by telling their own stories and interviewing several business experts regarding the challenges they faced and how they overcame the odds. Jim emphasizes the importance of never giving up, of finding your inspiration and hope to move past the most difficult times in your life. Jim shares several examples from the book. For more details, please visit: www.SolomonSuccess.com. Hearing the success stories can also help others avoid similar pitfalls.
Jim Palmer is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and coach to other entrepreneurs. A marketing and business-building expert and host of Newsletter Guru TV, Jim is known internationally as The Newsletter Guru, the go-to resource for maximizing the profitability of customer relationships. Martin Howey is one of the busiest and most respected business consultants in North America. He has generated more than three and a half billion dollars in sales for his clients, and has contributed to the financial success of more than 10,000 small businesses throughout the world.
Introduction: Welcome to the Solomon Success Show where we explore the timeless wisdom of King Solomon and the Bible as it relates to business and investing, false profits, and get-rich quick schemes are everywhere. Let’s not be distracted by these instead let’s go to the Source, the eternal principles that create a life of peace, power and prosperity, here is our host Jason Hartman.
Jason Hartman: Welcome to today’s show. This is Jason Hartman your host, and as you may or may not know every 10th show we kind of do a special tradition here that originated with my Creating Wealth Show where we do a topic that is actually off-topic on purpose, something just to do with general life and more successful living, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do today with our special guest. Again 10th show is off topic, and it is very much intentional just for personal enrichment and I hope you enjoy today’s show and we will be back with our guest in just a moment.
Introduction: What’s great about the show is you will find on jasonhartman.com is that if you want to learn about some cool new investor software there is a show for that. If you want to learn why Rome fell, Hitler rose, and Enron failed there is a show for that. If you want to know about property evaluation technology on the iPhone there is a show for that, and if you would like to know how to make millions with mobile homes there is even a show that. Yeah there’s a show for just about anything only from jasonhartman.com or type in Jason Hartman in the iTune store.
Jason Hartman: My pleasure to welcome back to the show Jim Palmer. He is the author of a new book with Martin Howey entitled It’s Okay To Be Scared But Never Give Up, and I think you will find this to be inspirational where he did profiles on a lot of people who’ve overcome great adversity to reach new heights of success, and I think you would find it to be very inspirational. Jim welcome, how are you?
Jim: I’m great. How are you doing Jason?
Jason Hartman: Good. You are coming to us from Pennsylvania today, right?
Jim: That is correct, Philadelphia area.
Jason Hartman: Fantastic. What inspired you to write this book?
Jim: Well, my good friend Martin Howey had gone through a very serious battle with cancer. He is one of Martin Howey in case people don’t know it’s one of the most infamous of a business consultant that you know international business and Martin actually was extremely healthy, a runner, a cyclist and triathelte, and he was a marine, eat healthy all of the stuff. But one thing he didn’t do which he is just sharing openly now is he didn’t get the regular checkups that men and women should have after a certain age. And he suddenly found himself about two years ago with Stage 4 Colon cancer, and he was given about six months to live, but he underwent some really radical surgeries and chemo and radiation, and in August of 2011, Jason he was told by his doctors that the cancer is nowhere to be seen, his cancer that was really pervasive throughout his body. And so I started challenging a couple of other friends started challenging Martin you got to write this book and tell your story to this people you know you could save people ‘s lives with the message of early detection and things like that. And then in December on December 2nd of 2011 Martin and I were together at a marketing seminar in LA we were having breakfast, and I kept badgering about the book and that’s when he shared with me very sadly that he had cancer again so I knew writing the book wasn’t something he had time or focus were so let’s write it together and so that we talked a little along. Jason you will probably find this too, but I think that the nation and the country and certainly for small business owners it was kind of like this little bit of gloom in the atmosphere. And we thought and in addition to just another book about some good success strategies, marketing principles things like that I think it would be good to really put out a book that also has some hope and inspiration. And so in addition to telling Martin story and then you know also my story I’m a cancer survivor, so let’s interview some highly successful entrepreneurs and have them each share something like a major challenge that they went through whether it would be in their business life or their personal life, how they get through it, and then ask them to share some business wisdom. Now, in massive action style we set ourselves a hard date of 60 days to get the book done, and we actually pulled it off in 62 days in yeah early February we launched the book It’s Okay To Be Scared But Never Give Up which we actually wrote into the book as a business lesson about how to get something done quickly.
Jason Hartman: Yeah that’s good 62 days to do a book is a good pace. Tell us about some of the stories in the book? I mean you profiled a whole bunch of different people here. I’m looking at your table contents a quite list of names, Jim, give us may be your top four, five stories from the people you interviewed.
Jim: Adam Urbanski is known as the millionaire marketing mentor, very, very great entrepreneur in business a long time. I think you know 10 to 15 years. We told a story. He was a very successful coach you know multimillion dollar business. He had his dream house. He had two dream cars living a life. And then he got a little bit lazy with some of the strategies which helped them to be successful, and he also had some bad spending habits and he suddenly found himself Jason where he had to sell his house and actually get rid of his two cars and move in with his brother-in-law, and almost start his business over, and he talked about having this major mindset struggle because he was known as the millionaire marketing mentor, had a very successful coaching business, and here he was living in is his brother-in-law ‘s home driving a used car so he told the story about how he got through that, and built his business back up so I think it’s fair to say that was a major and significant challenge that he work through very, very interesting and inspiring story.
Jason Hartman: And so what were some of the things that he did or told himself because a lot of this I think well I don’t mean I know a lot of it is a result of self-talk of us just the most important conversation any of us will ever have is the conversation we have with ourselves isn’t it?
Jim: Absolutely.
Jason Hartman: And what are these people this may we’ve through all the stories so it doesn’t need to be about Adam in particular and maybe this is even better left for the end that after you talk about a few people here, but what I want to know and I want the listeners to hear Jim is what did they do, how do they overcome these obstacles, what were they saying to themselves in the heat of the moment when all the chips were down when things look really bad or most people would give up jump off a bridge you know whatever. And unfortunately people do that stuff, and then what do they do to just keep themselves going and work through the fire?
Jim: In Adams case, he actually shared the story. He went back to a networking event which is something a lot of very brand-new entrepreneurs do, and but he was going to a networking event. He shared how we parked actually a few blocks from the place, and is used Ford Fiesta I think he said he was. He had $20 in his pocket. He was kind of nervous that he might have to go out for drinks afterward invite drinks, so that was going to his head, and that was kind of hitting bottom for him. And he said he went back to one of his earlier mentors who helped them very early on his business and the guy told him exactly what to do. He said you go to get on the phone, stop all the e-mail, and all this other stuff, get on the phone, talk to the people that you’ve coached, that have coached with you before and introducing new program and sell it one-on-one and that’s essentially what he did, and he kind of fought back and developed a new coaching program as much as he hated doing it, got on the phone, talked to past clients who again had no idea of his current situation. And he actually built up a book, a book of business and a new coaching program and he just kept going from there. I think one of the morals of the story in addition to never giving up is that he went back to something that you know he relied on early in his business which is a mentor and a coach, and the coach was able to deliver some really in rock solid advice kind of edge between the ice type stuff. Followup your bootstraps and make it happened type advice you know what I mean.
Jason Hartman: Sure. Okay go on to the next one that you would like to share. I mean obviously we don’t have time to share all of these people, but tell us about the ones you’d like to talk about.
Jim: Let me tell you about Melanie Benson Strick. She again was a successful internet marketer. She was a speaker and a coach, and Melanie started building this business you know from six figures to multiple six-figures to a million dollar coaching I guess where she had multiple coaches working for her partners and Melanie looks back on it now and shares how it was really not congruent with what she wanted to build for a business. And because of that she started doing things and relying on things that she didn’t feel comfortable with like she’s all about really providing great customer service. But the bigger the business got, the more she got out of touch with that. She ended up getting into a couple of relationships and partnerships where she was launching this very expensive live event three day live event, at a very expensive hotel. It was just as the economy was starting to crash several years ago I think four years ago, and she ended up one of those relationships ended up, costing up like days before the event. So therefore she was on the hook for like I think she shared about $80,000 hotel bill because that because the coaching relationships she had dissolved. Even though she went on with the event she wasn’t able to sell what they were going to sell. I mean she really everything completely fell apart from Melanie, you know somebody you had a million dollar business and just in the complete despair of anguish, and she just started working through it, getting back and again she reached out to some friends in the business and actually I was one of the friends she reached out to him and back about three, little over three years ago Melanie and I created a March [PH] training program together based on both of our beliefs about customer retention and provided good customer experience. So she did that with a couple of folks and it would be fair to say I think she’d say she is still building her business back up, but again and never giving up she’s fighting back, and it’s a real testament to when you see highly successful entrepreneurs you never know what’s going on behind the scenes.
Jason Hartman: Sometimes they make it look so easy you know like there’s just no problems and it’s amazing how people on the outside so many times think that, oh I can just do that. I can just start a business like this, and do that, and it’s a lot more to it than that there every business has its challenges and things are a lot more complicated than they sometimes make them look on the surface.
Jim: Exactly there’s two sides to every coin that’s for sure. Another story I will share. Let me share a little bit about my back story. You know in 2000, for the first time since I was 15 years old I was out of work, and it was very sudden. My wife is a stay-at-home mom all these years. We have four kids, and I was the main breadwinner, and my position was eliminated with his company. I had done pretty well for myself Jason, and I thought you know I will just, I’m sure I will bounced back in a couple weeks really multiple lucrative job offers was in my head. And that actually turned into 14 months of unemployment. We lost all our savings, started racking up incredible debt. My wife did go back to work, but things got really bad. I mean really I don’t know if you plan or if you know anybody who is been out of work that long really wreak havoc on your self-esteem and confidence.
Jason Hartman: Sure that’s yeah.
Jim: And about 12 months into this already you know over 16, I was diagnosed with Stage Two Melanoma just for good measure, right?
Jason Hartman: Yeah right.
Jim: And so I got through that. A couple of months later as I was recovering and in this time October of 2001, I just — I had to figure a way to take control of my life because I was, I felt like I was spinning out of control, and I basically turned to prayer and it became clear to me that I was supposed to start business. Owning and operating my own business was the way that I was going to rebuild my life you know our financial situation and that was what I did. I battled back, I’ve actually had cancer twice again sag but I catched her early all my checkups that I go to, but I built a very successful business and again I’ve never looked back. It’s been tough and I gave an interview to somebody who said told me about your early years. And I said well, my entire first year 12 months in business was what I call revenue free which means —
Jason Hartman: Revenue free.
Jim: Revenue free, took me over a year to get my first client and so just because you have a business I felt like I had a job. I just didn’t have any income which was the problem I had to solve and figure out how to do that. But I kept going and going and going, and I was in debt for quite a while as I know anybody starts a business can understand you still got to feed the family, and as you build things up you keep incurring more and more debt. But thankfully things have worked out very well for me,
Jason Hartman: Good, good, so your story is inspiring. These other stories are inspiring. Are there, maybe one or two more that you want to share with us before you go Jim?
Jim: Well, I was going to mention Renee. She is — I didn’t know her at all. I met her. She is Joe Polish’s girlfriend. You know Joe Polish is the famous carpet cleaner and direct marketer and she was very beautiful. She was a very beautiful woman. And she having illness and problems with her face and things like that and she discovered she had a tumor on her brainstem. I mean again basically a death sentence and through some really good therapy and doctors and all these different things she is still with us and doing well today, and again using what she went through to help and coach others, very, very inspirational when you hear what she went through. And you want to ask me about somebody?
Jason Hartman: Yeah I want to ask you about Mike Koenigs.
Jim: Mike Koenigs you know, Mike his story is a little bit less of a ‘oh my gosh’ type challenge, but really a great story of inspiration and hope or make her up in this very small town. I believe it was Minnesota, yeah Eagle Lake Minnesota and his father was a barber and it was just a small town and most people grew up and stayed in, but Mike’s main ambition was to get out and create something of himself. Mike really started his entrepreneurial route making movies and doing things like that it caused actually you know so much debt and trying to build his business. It caused to hit the divorce of his first marriage, but he kept going and plodding along, and today Mike is the creator of many successful programs to help people market their business Traffic Geyser is one of them. It’s a real testament to when you really put your customers first and you try and solve problems. Mike I think it’s one of the best problem solvers I’ve ever met. You know he takes a look at a problem or situation what people need to do which is help people with marketing grow the business and he kind of reverse engineers and finds a way to automate it so it can be quick and easy and it’s really built quite a business. It’s a — and lets say not a life-threatening challenge, and it’s like some of the others but very, very inspirational.
Jason Hartman: Yeah sure is. Well, any common threads that you want to mention Jim between all of these people I mean certainly persistence, tenacity not giving up you got to keep going in the face of incredible odds and in fact in my own life I like that you know it’s quite exhilarating to do that and I think that’s why people take up extreme sports or big challenges whether it would be running marathons or climbing mountains or whatever it is so it’s not an uncommon thing that people like _____[0:16:25] challenges by any means.
Jim: I mean and especially when your backs up against the wall I mean you got a make it happen you know I was watching the show the Shark Tank, I’m not you’re familiar about ABC with these entrepreneurs go before these highly successful business people and try to get them to invest in their business and one of the people that was trying to get and he had like it was — he was doing about 2 or $300,000 a year living in a small apartment very comfortable. And he was trying to get these what they call, you know they call them ‘sharks’ investors to invest in his business. And he was talking and kind of braggadocios manner as he talk yeah all I need is like six figures to live on. I got a simple life and one of the sharks said you know what I’m not investing because you’re no longer scared and you’re no longer hungry and that means you’re not — more in the life you’re not going to do the tough work that needs to be done. And so when you have 10 or a $100,000 with a credit card debt or when you know in my case doctor said well, there may be a 50-50 chance you would be alive after five years I mean that really it’s a real slap in the face it is a hard cold reality well, what I got to do. I got to do something to protect my family and you know in my case when I started my business and I had a zero revenue, I had to go out to networking events . I had to go speak, and to all these different things which were to be honest with you well outside my comfort zone at the time, but it’s that fear being scared coupled with I’m going to make it. I know I need to do this. I know I can do, and this is exactly what I was made for and when you marry those two, the kind of the ambition, but also little bit of the fear and there is nothing more driving, potential driving than that.
Jason Hartman: Yeah very, very good points. Where can people get the book?
Jim: www.itsokaytobescared.com. It’s also available at Amazon and you can get its Kindle versions on Amazon as well. There is amazing bonuses. The number the people that we interviewed gave us some pretty cool bonuses that you will get instantly. If you buy the book itsokaytobescared.com you get them instantly if you buy at Amazon. On the last page of the book I give you the URL where you can claim your bonuses. I think the final thing I would say Jason is one of the things that will help any business owner succeed is what I call constant implementation and massive action. You know Martin and I did really and some real straight talk, I didn’t know if Martin would be here in 60 or 90 days when we talked about the book as soon his cancer came back I didn’t know what that meant so I did not want us to be like a six-month thing. So we developed a strategy where Martin and I were going to get on the phone and interviewing each other for three hours and then we’re going to get all of our guest on the phone interview and then have it transcribed then we would edit into a book. It was an amazing two months of very hard work, and like really diligent notes of the grindstone, but we got the book done, and it’s out, and it’s really making an impact. Some of these stories are really changing lives so massive action just get it done, then stop looking for perfection, do the best you can. Get it done and don’t keep it in your word processor. You’re trying to look for that last comet that you might have missed.
Jason Hartman: Right yeah now get it out there definitely and things can be improved later. Good advice. Jim Palmer thanks much for joining us today.
Jim: Good to talk to you again.
Jason Hartman: My pleasure Jason. Take care.
Introduction: This show is produced by the Hartman media company. All rights reserved. For distribution or publication rights and media interviews, please visit www.hartmanmedia.com, or email [email protected]. Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own, and the host is acting on behalf of Empowered Investor Network Inc exclusively. (Top image: Flickr | Capture Queen)
The Solomon Success Show Team
Transcribed by: Renee