Unemployed most of his life, my father never once took a mortgage. Most of the time he was in rent arrears. That did not, however, stop him from starting a business as a mortgage broker. It failed a few months later, but not before several people had unnecessarily refinanced their homes upon his advice. I was sixteen at the time and shocked at how these people parted with their hard-earned cash without ever checking into the background of the advisor.
Fast-forward twenty… ahem… okay, thirty something years, and I find myself also in an advisory role, but to would-be entrepreneurs and businesses. I had just sold my second virtual company, each for over $100 million, and decided to take a two-year sabbatical to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. After pacing the floors of the house for two weeks, however, my wife threatened me with murder if I didn’t start something new. I wrote my first book and entered the murky world of the personal-development industry.
Make no mistake it can be a murky world. In 2009 the US Census showed that 96% of all management consultant businesses make less than $50K a year. Yet the Internet swarms with management consultants offering to show you a path to riches. $50K a year is not success. The stats get worse; only 0.8% of the 13 million non-employer businesses make more than $500K. That is shocking and the words “buyer beware,” come to mind.
Every year people hand over millions of dollars to self-help gurus, and buy their books without ever stopping to check the background behind the advice. It requires answering just one simple question. Had the advisor actually achieved any success before writing or speaking about what it takes to succeed?
I went from welfare existence to financial independence using a simple formula I learned by studying the lives of other self-made men and women. It works, and I pass it along. All my profits go to cancer research and development. That package is what I call authenticity and it is unfortunately rare in the world of personal-development.
As a rule, I do not write guest blogs. I’m not selling anything, so I don’t need to. I was invited to do so for Josh Hinds. I had never heard of Josh Hinds, but I have met many of the most famous personal-development speakers. Only one impressed me as being authentic, and as someone who understood that all thought is energy, and energy has to flow or stagnate. That attitude means caring more about your customers than yourself, wanting success more for those you teach than you get from teaching.
I decided to research Josh Hinds, and discovered a fascinating story of overcoming adversity. His blog teaches many of the things I have found to be true through my business journeys. It feels authentic, but I still would not part with my money without speaking to him and discovering for myself whether he is credible and authentic enough to help me with my life journey or my business success.
Most people would never buy a car without a test drive, but will purchase life advice without so much as a thought. I encourage you to always check for authenticity, experience and credibility. My intuition tells me Josh Hinds is the real deal, and I have written this guest blog to find out. If he posts this, then it will be a pretty good sign, but still pick up the phone and find out. A genuine teacher craves a question.
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Trevor Blake, author of Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life, was founder and CEO of QOL Medial LLC, a specialty pharmaceutical company he started in 2002 with a few thousand dollars and sold in 2010 for over 100 million. He repeated the formula in 2006 when he founded ANU, a unique company dedicated to developing low side-effect cancer drugs which he partly sold in 2011.
Prior to this, Blake was VP Commercial Development at Ceptyr and Director Commercial Development at Orphan Medical. He has worked in the UK, Europe, and the USA with companies such as Biogen, 3M, and Lipha, and has won many industry awards, including marketing professional of the year.
He has an MBA from Durham University (UK) and a Bachelor of Science degree from the Royal College of Radiotherapy. He is also a graduate of the Royal Naval Academy, Britannia Royal Naval College.
For more information please visit trevorgblake.com, and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.