3101 SW 34th Ave Suite 905-262 Ocala, FL 34474 Telephone: 800-290-2817 www. FAX: 866-226-6122 Special Birthday Issue December 22, 2014 I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am. - Francis Bacon Dear Knight of the Round Table, This month marks two historic dates. In only another 15 hours, 29 minutes and 11 seconds at the time of this writing, (and yes, I am counting) I will celebrate a half a century on this planet. Fifty years. The Golden Jubilee anniversary of my birth. (That sounds way less stressful to me than saying the raw truth... I m turning 50.) I d be lying if I said getting older isn t bothering me. As silly as it sounds, I had no plans to be fifty. I had plans to be a rock star, fabulously wealthy and then after that, doing something noble with my life. But I sure as hell didn t have plans of being fifty. Don t ask me what I was thinking. I wasn t. I just assumed I would somehow defy nature and stay young forever. So yeah, turning 50 is bothering me. But there is something that makes me feel a little better. It s the other historic date happening this month... Dan Kennedy Is Turning 60! So every time I lament the fact I m turning into that grouchy old guy in the neighborhood who shouts, Hey you damn kids... get off my lawn!... I find comfort in the fact that compared to Dan, I m still on the young end of geezerhood. And just like he has done in marketing and copywriting, Dan is already blazing the trail for me.
- Page 2 - I m going to talk a lot more about Dan Kennedy in just a minute. But for now, in case you haven t turned 50 yet, let me help set the expectation about what lies ahead. Most other birthdays are monumental occasions. You re still on your way up. Yes, even the 40 th birthday that some people worry about. That one s no biggie. Most men and women nowadays aren t really starting to hit their stride until age 40. But the 50 th birthday is different. That birthday is considered by most (except the person turning 50) the kick-off of your official downswing. I ve been trying to explain all this, and the accompanying anxiety I m experiencing, to the Colombiana. I explained that most married American men my age deal with it by doing one of two things. (Sometimes both.) 1. Have an affair with a much-too-young-for-them woman... 2. Buy an extravagantly expensive sports car. do? So which of those two do you think I was allowed to Number one, she explains, isn t necessary. Because I m already married to a much-too-young-for-me woman. And I have to admit, she s also much too attractive than I deserve, too. Certainly no need to go to a hamburger joint when I ve got filet mignon at home. (I m sure she d be thrilled I m using meat analogies to describe her.) OK... I ll concede point one. And point #2? My sports car? This one she allows... with a caveat. We buy a 2015 Volvo S80. Sure, it s a nice car. But let s be honest. It s an old guy s car. Even worse, after I bought it I started justifying my purchase with hackneyed platitudes like, It s the safest car on the road. And look at the gas mileage. WTF?! Who is this old dude mumbling all these geezerisms? Can you imagine me bragging about safety and good gas mileage zipping down the road in a red Ferrari F12
- Page 3 - Berlinetta with my new buxom 25-year-old girlfriend? Safety and gas mileage would be the furthest things from my mind. But not soon-to-be half a century old Doberman Dan. He s shuffling around talking about gas mileage and safety. And frankly, this concerns me... because I don t want to be that guy. You know... the old guy. So yeah, I gotta be honest. My upcoming 50 th birthday is causing me anxiety. Until I remind myself that Dan Kennedy is much further down the Hey you damn kids, get off my lawn! road than I am. So every December, no matter how worried I am about getting older, I ll find comfort in the fact that... Dan Kennedy Is Blazing The Geezerhood Trail For Me! By the way, this isn t the first time I ve had fun at Dan s expense in my newsletter. Last year I wrote an issue that proposed cryogenically freezing him so we could have access to him long after his passing. Then I pitched people on having lifetime access to his frozen brain for a 7- figure fee. I thought it was all pretty funny. (I m not sure Dan was as amused as I.) Then four people inquired if they could split the 7- figure fee up to join the Dan Kennedy s Frozen Brain coaching program. So I did what any marketer worth his salt would do... I Took Their Money! I ll work out the minor details, like getting Dan s permission to cryogenically freeze him, later. Ready, fire, aim, right? As much as I d love to keep talking about my favorite person (myself), this issue isn t really about me and my birthday. It s about Dan Kennedy and his birthday. More specifically, how Dan has been responsible for my success in direct marketing. And more important than that, how I wouldn t be here if it weren t for Dan. I don t just mean here as in direct response marketing. I mean it s highly likely I wouldn t be here period. You see, my job was killing me... literally.
- Page 4 - Oh sure, I could have left the police department for another job. But it just wouldn t matter. Any job would have killed me. Short of becoming a rock star who makes (and keeps) millions, there s no job in the world I could last very long at and not want to slit my wrists. There s NOTHING better I could be doing than what I ve been doing since 1995. And that s... All Thanks To Dan Kennedy! I remember the moment like it was yesterday. In fact, every time I recall this story I can still smell the cat piss from the couch I sat on when I opened my box with Dan s Magnetic Marketing system. (I was so broke it was the only piece of furniture I had. My neighbors were going to throw it out but donated it to me out of pity for my financial condition.) If I didn t have enough money for furniture, how did I afford the $397 (a large amount of money for me back in the early 90 s) to buy Dan s Magnetic Marketing system? I used the last little bit of credit on my Visa and went into debt for it. To this very day it has been... The Best Investment I ve Ever Made! You see, for nine of the twelve years I was a cop, I was a part-time serial entrepreneurial failure. I bought the Magnetic Marketing system because I thought it would save whatever failing business I was trying to start at the time. Instead, I saw a real-time example of how to sell a high priced info product. And I was utterly fascinated with it. The dude sold me a three ring binder and some cassettes for $400... With Nothing More Than A Letter! That was wayyyy cooler than any other business I had tried and failed at. So with my typical ready, fire, aim strategy... and with no training whatsoever... I totally swiped Dan s process for selling Magnetic Marketing and used it to sell a bodybuilding info product I created. And... wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles... that little mail order business was the very first one, after nine long and painful years of continual failures, that actually succeeded and made money. In fact, after a few months it equaled my police department income and...
- Page 5 - Bought My Freedom From The J-O-B! And here I am, 20 years later, still doing the same thing. Even more amazing for an attention-challenged guy like me, I m just as excited about it today as I was back then. Mentors have come and gone in my life over the past 20 years. My life is better because of them. But there has only been one constant among them all... my original inspiration, Dan Kennedy. I shudder to think where I d be today if I hadn t found Dan. And how exactly did I find Dan? Because he slogged it out day after day... writing, speaking, creating, recording, traveling... probably when he didn t feel like doing it. And that inspires me to keep doing my thang... even when I don t feel like doing it. (Which is most of the time.) Writing this special issue has been fun. But right now... Dan, I gotta break character and address the camera for a minute... None of this is an exaggeration. You have changed my life... on so many levels. It truly does scare me to think where I d be had I not invested in Magnetic Marketing... and continued to mentor with you over the past 20 years. You ve always been there with wisdom and advice, regardless of which business and personal transitions I ve been going through. It s kinda uncanny how I ve heard and/or read exactly what I needed at the most apropos time. As you celebrate the diamond anniversary of your introduction to this world 60 years ago, remember this: The messages Carla has gathered for you only represent a teeny tiny fraction of the people you ve impacted. You d have to rent a frickin warehouse to store all those letters. And when you add in all the others impacted from people you ve influenced (the good old Amway effect) the
- Page 6 - numbers are truly staggering. In fact, you ve set the bar so damn high I know there s no way in hell I could ever possibly even come close to accomplishing what you have in whatever time I have left on this earth. Heck, if I can only make 1% of the impact you ve made, I ll consider my life a success. I consider myself a lifetime student of wordsmithing... but no matter how I ve tried to figure out the best way to say it, words just don t do justice to the gratitude I feel for how you ve changed my life. So let me K.I.S.S. and express it this way... All the best, Thank You! And... Happy Birthday! P.S. When I was in my 30 s I used to find it amusing to talk about the geezer demographic. It ain t so damn funny now. And I d be willing to bet a bunch of smart asses sent you bottles of Geritol or those old fart pills and gag gifts like that. It s good for a laugh. But seriously... 60 is the new 40. You ve got a good twenty more years until you officially enter geezerhood. Although knowing what I know about you, I bet you ve been shouting Hey you damn kids... get off my lawn for at least the last 40 years. Maybe more. Pax vobiscum.