As an "Army Brat" I moved a LOT. The opportunity in this was that I got to grow up in ever changing and extremely diverse environments, and learned to get along with people from all over the world. The challenge was in being constantly uprooted, I was always the new guy. Although playing this role of the chronic outsider came with its fair share of pain and heartache, it also instilled in me a deep desire to connect with people. It also made me extremely observant of the various patterns of interaction required to transition from "the outside" to "the inside"...and because I was never around for long...I had to do it FAST!
In fact, the habit of honing in on and finding a way to deliver the thing that people needed the most to feel a connection became such an ingrained trait that by the time I was finished with high school, I decided to make a career of it. I got a degree in Sociology from the University of Delaware (essentially the study of human interaction) in 1994. I found a bit too much tragedy for my taste in social work and without a ton of other options, 'reluctantly' got into sales. Turns out I LOVED it....and more importantly, I excelled. In each new position I refined my skills until I had a unique opportunity to work with a startup IT company. I was the 5th hire, and within about a year, took over all the sales effort. Over the next 4 years, we went from a 1 room office, to topping 250 employees and making the Inc. 500 list for fastest growing companies in the US.
During those 4 years I had the opportunity to learn how to hire and train sales people, build out business systems, learn everything from search engine optimization, to pay per click advertising, web design, persuasion architecture, copy writing, radio advertising, media buying, trade shows, write press releases, public speaking....the WORKS! I graduated from "The Wizard Academy" founded by Radio Giant Roy Williams, and was published in the Delaware Business Journal for my work with online persuasion. This was a real life laboratory to experiment on and refine my unique skill set.
When it came time to move on, I was able to take these skills to the world of real estate, where my wife and I were able to go from absolutely NOTHING, to making rookie of the year in 6 months, top 20% in the office in the first year, top 10% in the state shortly after, and eventually, being featured on HGTV's my first place, making Top Agent Magazine, and being awarded the Real Trends "America's Best" 2 years in a row for being in the top 1% of agents in the ENTIRE COUNTRY! In in industry where most agents sell fewer that 4 homes a year and 85% going out of business in 5 years, my wife and I managed to buy a plane learn to fly, scuba dive, walk on hot coals, travel the world from Fiji to Alaska, and rack up over 100 Million dollars in sales and have sold hundreds of homes in the process.
As fantastic as that was (and it was really fantastic) in the process, I discovered my passion. As it turns out, there's a huge knowledge gap that exists when it comes to basically any entrepreneur and the task of sales and marketing. The thought process is that if they are good enough at their trade (art, profession, mission, etc.)the customers will come. Although wonderful in theory, the reality is that the inability to consistently create new relationships with customers is the #1 business startup killer. Naturally, I was approached frequently to give advice on how to do these things. And as it turned out, I LOVED to share that information. Where most agents horded their secrets in fear of creating competition, I held workshops and seminars, and started building informational products. Anything to get the word out and help people succeed at reaching their dreams. I quickly realized that one of the biggest obstacles between my clients and their business goals had nothing to do with business. Nearly all of the hangups were around managing their environments, their habits, their mindsets, and their relationships. To serve people at the highest level, I got into coaching in a big way and wanted to be trained by the BEST. I completed my coach training at Robbins-Madanes Training under my teachers Tony Robbins, Cloe Madanes, Mark Peysha, and Magali Peysha. It was through this phenomenal organization and training that I truly learned how to help people create breakthroughs for themselves in their lives and their businesses.