The Ripple Effect Volume X:

The Strangest Secret

What is your mission?

(continued from The Ripple Effect Volume IX, Issue 855, July 20, 2021...)

I was still listening to Earl Nightingale's, The Strangest Secret, studying The Richest Man in Babylon, Acres of Diamonds, The Law of Compensation, everything I could get my hands on to help my career progress. About this time, I wrote out my personal mission statement, "Help people live richer, fuller, more productive lives." I wrote my mission on 3x5 cards, put one on my shaving mirror, another on my car sun visor. This mission statement has guided my life ever since.

Dick Swanson, Marsh's Calculator Sales Specialist, and I became good friends. Dick, trained by Olivette Underwood, knew far more about approaching large Ann Arbor companies. I started talking to Dick about being in the sales training business. It was just a dream..

When a coworker began the Dale Carnegie Course™, he asked us to attend a free pre-view meeting as his guests. I mentioned the class to a customer, he told me about Success Motivation Institute's® (SMI) office up in Southfield, MI. I attended their SMI® preview.

John Hurd, the SMI® representative asked, "What do you want to do?"

"Be an inspirational speaker."

"Buy my program, join my team. I'll make you an inspirational speaker."

I bought the program, and went to work selling the SMI® program, Dick took the Dale Carnegie Course™ and started selling Carnegie Training. Within eighteen months, Dick was running the Dale Carnegie Sales Course™ in Detroit. I did my best to follow John Hurd's training. It was a tough six months.

My mother found Word Record's Family Program, and told her Holland, MI Regional Manager about me. I went on a joint sales call with him, loved his program and decided to sell SMI® during the day and Word's program at night.

Dick kept calling, "Come to work with me!" He finally had a daytime class. I went through, an emersion, "How to sell Carnegie training" weekend and immediately after graduation from the 12-week Sales Course, I went to work for Dick. I was off and running.

The lesson I learned is the power and importance of knowing my purpose, what I stand for, my personal mission.

The action I call you to take is to write out your personal mission statement. Follow the guidelines in Making Moments Matter: 89 Tools for Taking Charge of Your Time page 37 The Big Questions or use the free guidelines we will enthusiastically send you.

The benefit you will gain is purpose and direction. Decision making will be easier, and your confidence will grow ever stronger.

One ship sails East, And another West, By the self-same winds that blow, Tis the set of the sails And not the gales, That tells the way we go. Like the winds of the sea Are the waves of time, As we journey along through life, Tis the set of the soul, That determines the goal, And not the calm or the strife. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox