" My History !... "
Author : Rick Schneider
As I write this in September of 2005, I am 61 years old. My life has been a good one and I am aware that I was dealt a great hand. First of all, I was born in the greatest country in the world - the United States of America - to God fearing parents. I was healthy and a good athlete. I was the quarterback of the football team, the shortstop on the baseball team, and a guard on the basketball team. I was popular in high school, and was elected president of my junior class. I was smart and a good student when I applied myself. I was chosen to attend Boys State after my junior year, and received an alternate appointment to West Point when I was a freshman in college. I had steady jobs from the time I was 12 years old. Everything seemed to be going my way.
I have always had a tremendous zest for living. I have a passion for many things, and a great capacity for joy. I love to eat good food, to listen to all kinds of music, to read good books, and to drive nice cars. I love to sing, and in high school was the lead singer in a popular band. I love learning new things. I love to dance with my wife, to take long bicycle rides with my brothers, and traveling to the Caribbean, especially on cruise ships. My love life with my wife is exceptional. I love my two children, and dote on my five grandchildren.
From the time when I was 16 years old, my life has been like a roller coaster ride. There were lots of good times and some that were not so good. Looking back at it, I believe that all of my luck was good. All of my problems in life were the result of a lack of discipline, especially in those areas in which consequences were delayed.
Starting in the fourth grade and through most of my life I did not get along with my Mom. The rift between us led me to rebel against most of the authority figures in my life, including teachers, doctors, the Church and many of my bosses. I found many of them to be untrustworthy, and thus spent much of my life off the beaten - and expected - path. I have spent a lot of energy fighting the powers that be, most of the time with unsatisfactory results. Now I try to avoid confrontation whenever I can, unless something important is at stake.
I started drinking alcohol in 1961, when I was 16, and got so good at it that I lost control of all the major areas of my life. This took 20 years. I discovered how to live sober and well, and renewed my relationship with God, in an alcoholism treatment center called Valley Hope, in Atchison, Kansas in 1981. Using the 12-step recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I have now been sober for 24 years. This is my biggest accomplishment.
I love to work, and had two satisfying careers. I was hired by Southwestern Bell Telephone out of college in 1966, and by the time I retired in 1991 I was the head of an organization of 350 people. I was a good leader, built an outstanding management team, and produced top-notch results. My last ten years there were my first ten years of sobriety, and life was wonderful.
In 1996, in my first year in real estate sales, I was working very hard with little to show for it. I was on the verge of bankruptcy, in bad shape physically, and was only able to go on because of the support of my wife and my faith in God. I attended a seminar conducted by Jim Rohn, and at the end of it was introduced to Dr. Tom Hill. Tom was the founder of a program called Goal Coach, which promised a life of balance, which I badly needed. I joined the program, and in the course of the next three years, with Tom's guidance, I achieved a level of peace and fulfillment that I had only dreamed of before.
On Tom's advice I switched real estate companies and greatly increased my income. He recommended a coaching program called By Referral Only, operated by an honorable man named Joe Stumpf, and I learned how to generate business without having to chase after prospects. An upsurge in the stock market, and my newfound financial discipline, increased my savings to a comfortable level. My relationship with my wife and kids was outstanding. I was jogging 25 mi. each week on my treadmill, going to five AA meetings a week, praying on a daily basis, and was glad to be alive. I thought that I had solved most of life's challenges, and I expected to live the rest of my life on an even keel. I had no idea that I still had to pay a dreadful price for my lack of discipline where food was concerned.
At the age of 37, less than a year into sobriety, I was diagnosed with adult-onset diabetes. I tried to eat the way the doctor told me to, but when I did not do so nothing bad happened. The impact on my overall health has been staggering, and I finally got the message when complications from diabetes caused me to be hospitalized 31 times in 22 months, starting in 2001. I have changed the way I eat, I am taking some great vitamins and supplements made by Melaleuca, put two insulin shots in my belly every day, and my diabetes is now under control. I go to the dialysis clinic three times a week for a 4 ½ hour treatment, and my blood pressure is now under control. I lost my right leg to gangrene, but now get around well on my prosthetic leg. Cataract surgery restored my eyesight after three years of blindness, and I can now read again. I have survived two heart attacks, and I feel lucky to be alive.
My wife of forty years and my faith in God have seen me through tough times. I now feel good enough to start a new career, but I am not exactly sure of what I want to do with the rest of my life. Starting next week I will re-enter Tom Hill's coaching program. I have no doubt that with Tom's help I will again achieve the balance and peace of mind he once helped me obtain. I have never before known someone who is so willing to give without expecting anything in return. I trust Tom to tell me the truth, and have found his advice to always be in my best interest. I think he is the authority figure I have been looking for all of my life.
Tom has encouraged me to write a book, and I am seriously working on a collection of essays to my grandchildren, in the hope that they can learn from some of my mistakes. I can't type well due to diabetic neuropathy, but am using a program called Dragon Naturally Speaking which lets me dictate into my computer. That is the technology which enabled me to write this piece.
My major life lessons have come from drinking too much alcohol, eating too much rich food, and not living on a budget, thinking I would always make enough money to live the way I want. Some discipline applied to each of these areas early in life would have saved me a lot of grief and regret. My inability to postpone pleasure until the important life tasks were accomplished has cost me dearly, and if I could do anything over again I would learn to use my free will to accomplish something worthwhile, instead of doing what seemed to be the most fun in the short run.
Postscript:
Today is November 25th, 2005. I have completed the exercises and activities for week 9 of the Eagoal program. I am pleased to record that I have made substantial progress in several of the major areas in my life. For starters, I have reestablished my routines in the Spiritual area. I am praying and meditating on a daily basis, and am now attending two AA meetings per week. I have also made significant gains in the areas of Relationships, Emotions, and Knowledge. I have started healing a hurtful quarrel of many years with a younger sister. I have gotten much better at expressing my appreciation to my major life supporters. I have finished more than forty chapters of the book for my grandchildren. I am reading two books per week. My current rating in each of these four areas is at least eight on a scale of 1 to 10.
I still face major challenges in the areas of physical exercise and producing a steady income, because my schedule is interrupted so frequently by dialysis. This will require the establishment of daily disciplines which will occur as I focus on them. I am once again using the powers of discipline, focus and perseverance that flow from regular exercise of the tools of the goal-setting process. Life is good, and is getting better.
Update on October 27, 2006.
The events of the past year have been interesting and very fulfilling. I have spent most of that time trying to start my own business on the Internet. I have experienced lots of disappointment, primarily because I had so much to learn and probably tried to move too fast. Among the lessons I have learned is that there are thousands of scams on the Internet, and that you should be skeptical of all the claims you find there until you have personal experience with the integrity of the person or people who are making the claims.
Among the people who have been most responsible for my online success are Walter Painter, a website designer from Dalton Georgia; Kevin Thompson, the founder of Automatic Income Systems, in the suburbs of Seattle, Washington; Perry Marshall, the author of some absolute works about Google AdWords; and Dan Kennedy, the direct marketing expert. Each of these people have consistently provided me with more value than the amount for which I was charged. They are all smart, responsive and user friendly. If you would like more information on how to contact them, please call me at 314-480-5747.
I am currently involved with a website at
"The Secret of Attraction"
on which I provide a free copy of Deepak Chopra's "Creating Affluence ", followed by a series of e-mails designed to help the Subscriber find more happiness in her daily life. The response has been heartening, now I just have to figure out a way to monetize it without destroying the relationships I have worked so hard to build among the Subscribers.
I have chosen as my mission to make everyone I meet happier than they were before, to do my best to help other people reach their goals, and to promote world peace one person at a time. I have never been happier than I am right now, in spite of the fact that I am unable to do many of the things with which I associated happiness in my earlier years. How cool is that?!
October 27, 2006
Rick Schneider
www.TheSecretOfAffluence.com
314.480.5747
Rick.schneider@charter.net
Daily Inspiration
"When you give, a vacuum is created that attracts even more of what you have given away. "
Deepak Chopra - (Creating Affluence)
"Lorsque vous donnez, un vide se crée; il attire alors vers lui encore plus que ce que vous avez donné."
Merci de tout mon coeur d'être simplement là,
Québec, Canada
Jocelyne.Chouinard@hypertelecom.net
www.whatmagicmoment.com
www.quelmomentmagique.com
Au Jardin de Jolyne
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