Is this mic work at all?
Yes, here we go.
Thank you.
Let's just hold that.
Well, good evening, everyone.
Wow, do you look good or what?
I'm going to get some of that daybreak lifeguard alert lullaby stuff.
Because you look like you have a twinkle in your eye.
Like you know something the rest of the world doesn't know.
Like you're happy and fulfilled and glad to be here.
Like you know who you are, where you've been, and more importantly, where you're going.
So to that extent, you're my kind of people.
I'm glad to see you.
Now look, there is no place on the face of this earth I'd rather be tonight than to be
with a group of winners like you.
Because you do represent the best of the best.
I've done my research.
I'm amazed at the incredible success that Starlight has experienced in just the last
three and a half years.
I mean three and a half years in the context of life is nothing.
If you've done this much in three and a half years, I can't wait to see what you're going
to do in the next three, four, five, six, seven, and ten years.
But then hey, I've discovered that Starlight is not just a business opportunity.
Really, in fact, it is a health opportunity.
One and all tonight spoke with conviction about the help that these products have done
for them and their life, for their families, their neighbors, and that's why you can speak
about them to your friends.
Like the McCarthy's from North Carolina and the Marshall's from North Carolina where I
live.
I'm glad to see some North Carolinians are making some serious money by golly.
Well, you have it all really.
You have the finest products.
You have some magnificent sales and marketing tools, training tools.
You really have it all.
You put it together in three and a half years like nobody could.
You have the leadership of Steven Goldberg, 25 years experience in Hollywood and beyond,
known from border to border and coast to coast as one of the finest executives, innovative,
creative, smart, and integrity based.
You're very fortunate indeed.
And Tony Rich, did they come any nicer than Tony Rich, I ask you?
This guy is one in a hundred million.
Twenty years experience he's had in network marketing and advertising and public relations
and more.
It's no surprise to me why you'd be so happy and why Starlight would be so successful.
And those built in motivators are the like of which I've never seen anywhere.
And I've been around for quite a while.
I've spoken for quite a few network marketing companies and other companies as well.
I haven't seen those kinds of programs like the leadership program for the car allowance
and profit points and those trips.
Those trips will knock your socks off.
At 747 picked up all of those people and took them to Paris for a day.
I was there.
I saw you walking down the street.
A lot of money, expensive clothes, big smiles on your faces.
Yes, you're something else.
Now let me tell you another reason why I'm really glad to be with you here tonight.
Because you're expanding beyond just the norm.
I know that this fall you're going to come out with your Hispanic materials and that's
going to be a knockout indeed.
And what I know that you are doing beyond a shadow of a doubt is that you are now inviting,
recruiting and training people who are bilingual.
Because that's the only way that program is going to work with incredible success.
Is to have them in the program, have them in your organization, have them prepared to
really take the materials and make something significant.
And the Hispanic market is one of the biggest in all of the world.
So opportunities are bound for every one of you here tonight.
Well let me tell you another reason why I'm glad to be with you tonight is because I,
like you, had a big dream in my heart as Steve spoke tonight about the field of dreams.
I came to America some years ago, no English.
This language I'm using here tonight is a language I learned after I came to America.
No money and no connections.
I learned this language called English by taking three by five cards, writing ten English
words on this card today and memorizing them.
Tomorrow I'll take another three by five card, ten more English words both spelling and meaning,
memorizing those as I reviewed yesterday's ten.
The next day another three by five card, ten more English words both spelling and meaning,
memorize and study those as I reviewed yesterday's ten and the ten words from the day before.
Somebody said inch by inch life indeed can be a cinch.
How true that is.
So I learned English the hard way.
Tonight you won't hear me use any big words.
In fact often I get this compliment from people.
They say I heard you speak all day or two or three days at a seminar and you don't use
any big words.
We like that.
Do you know why I don't use any big words?
I don't know any big words.
There's only so much you can fit on a three by five card.
Let me tell you a couple of stories.
I'm going to get about an hour and ten, fifteen minutes to visit with you tonight.
I want it to be a visit from my heart to yours.
I just want to chat with you.
Let's make it a fireside chat and I'll tell you some stories from my life and I tell them
to you because I believe that you can relate to them because I believe you in your life
have experienced some things like these.
I walked into a store when I first learned English.
I was so proud of the fact that I just learned the language.
I walked into a store to buy a pair of pajamas.
I picked a pair of pajamas out of the shelf.
I looked at the label on the back of the collar and the label said these pajamas are shrink
resistant and I was confused.
I called the clerk over.
I said to her ma'am please forgive me for being so terribly confused but it says right
here on the back of these pajamas that these pajamas are shrink resistant.
I beg you to tell me what does that mean?
I mean they either shrink or they don't shrink.
Her answer was a classic.
She said sir that means these pajamas will shrink but she said they don't want to.
And that's the way some people are aren't they?
They go through life saying things they don't mean, meaning things they don't say and they
wonder why in God's earth people don't do what we ask them to do.
In Atlanta I was speaking to a nice audience one day afterwards I came downtown outside
a church.
I looked at this big sign outside the church.
It was clear to me the church was a Baptist church because the sign was a neon sign.
I'm a Methodist, God will forgive me.
And on the sign was the name of the church.
Under it was the name of the minister.
Under it was the title of the sermon.
The title of the sermon was do you know what hell is?
Under that I tell you nothing but the honest truth there was an announcement in capital
letters which read come hear our organist Sunday morning.
At the Marriott Hotel at the airport in Atlanta I saw a sign with my own eyes on the wall
which read for bathroom use stairs.
Now let me make it clear to one and all that's illegal in Orlando.
My home city of High Point North Carolina the furniture and hosiery capital of the world.
I saw a classified ad in our local newspaper which read for sale a large German shepherd
easy to handle.
Will eat anything especially fond of little children.
You are catching my drift are you not?
You and I have to go through a life learning how to connect with people, how to persuade
people recruiting means becoming so credible, so believable, so trustworthy that people would
want to have that which we already have.
Communicating does not mean simply sharing words it means really connecting heart to
heart soul to soul.
People like to do business with people they like, people they trust, people they believe.
So communication was a very important topic for me I thought if I wanted to be an American
I want to have a part of the American dream that's home of the free and home of the brave.
I better learn how to speak the language and I better learn how to speak it.
Well I was in an airline in an airplane the other day just flying and this is what I saw
you're not going to believe this I just thought you'd enjoy this.
I picked up the safety card you know the little pocket in front of me and here's what it said.
The safety card said if you are sitting in an exit row and you cannot read this card
please tell a crew member wouldn't you like to meet the genius who wrote this piece of
prose.
The US Navy manual has an announcement printed in it which reads materials will be considered
lost if they cannot be found.
We go through life saying things we don't mean meaning things we don't say and wondering
why other people don't do what we ask them to do.
In a church bulletin on Sunday morning I saw this announcement it said this Tuesday afternoon
we will be having a meeting of the little mothers club.
All those wishing to become little mothers please meet the pastor in his studies.
We know that dude is on lifeguard.
Oh well so I came to America I wanted to have a piece of the American dream I began tonight
by saying the reason I'm looking forward to being with you is because you have put together
a grand experiment in free enterprise and proven to one and all that it can be done
in three and a half short years.
And secondly I said I was delighted to be with you because you to me represent what
the free enterprise system is all about what America is all about what opportunity is all
about what sacrifice is all about what hard work and smart work are all about what having
dreams and then attempting to fulfill them is all about.
Let me share with you a couple of things so you'll know where I'm coming from tonight.
My father died when I was six years of age.
Now he was sick when I was three and I was four and five and when I turned six he passed
away.
I want people say to me today like an interviewer for example for some story about success in
America or some such thing if you had to change one thing in your life Nito what might it
be?
And my answer always is assuming I could unequivocally no second thoughts I know what I do I would
have rather had a dad.
A dad who would have saved me on his lap sang me a song read me a book took me to the circus
threw me a ball taught me how to knot a tie or just talk to me man to man.
But such ladies and gentlemen simply was not my fate.
And my mother my mother with fourth grade education took over.
My mother worked day and night to take care of the five of us three boys two girls.
I say she had fourth grade education but make no mistake about this I would put her against
twenty PhDs from the finest Ivy League schools of your own picking for you see my mother
has a postgraduate degree the discipline you and I call common sense.
What would we do without common sense?
My mother would instill in me and my brothers and sisters values for life principles for
living she'd say things like Nito if you want to be a great man you must first walk hand
in hand and side by side with people who are great.
She'd say if you want to be happy hang around people who are happy.
If you want to be successful be in the midst of people who are successful.
If you want to be rich change your name to Steve Goldberg.
My mother would say to me things like this she'd say Nito remember this the circumstances
that you will face in life do not necessarily spell out the person you shall become in life.
It is the choices that you make one by one day in day out that will in fact define the
person you will become in life.
So son make the right choices hang around the right people.
My mother would say just remember this all meaningful change comes from within.
So son learn to live life from the inside out.
And one of those choices was for me to come to America as I've already told you and landed
in Eastern North Carolina that's why I remembered the McCarthy's from New Bern and the Marshall's
from Smithfield because wherever you're sitting McCarthy's and Marshall's and anybody else
here from North Carolina I went to a small school called Mount Olive College it was a
junior college when I first went to school there.
Really that means nobody is left tonight in Mount Olive.
Well I went to school there and I worked 10 hours a day to go to school.
I am not being romantic I am being literal.
I worked 10 hours every single day to earn the money so I could pay for school.
When I finished my second year I was going to transfer to High Point where I now reside
the president of the college a wonderful compassionate human being named Burkitt Raper came up to
me and he said Nito I know you think that you have worked 10 hours a day and that you
have gathered all the money that you need to pay for school.
In fact he said there has been a chasm between the money that you owe the school and the
money that you paid the school and he said I thought this might make an indelible impression
on your life to know that this chasm this difference in cost has been picked up by a
doctor in a neighboring city called Goldsboro.
My oh my I said who is this doctor I would like to thank him or her for their kindness
and their generosity.
Dr. Raper said that is what makes the story so incredibly extraordinary.
For you see he said this doctor wishes to be anonymous.
I have had my suspicion dear friends at this third annual Starlight International Convention
in this active and beautiful city named Orlando.
I have had my suspicion that this same doctor must have helped a lot of other young men
and women along the path of life.
I can remember going back to my room kneeling by the side of my bed crying my eyes out and
making a promise to God.
Now please make this note you make a decision with your brain but you make a commitment
with your heart.
That's why commitments are longer lasting.
That's why commitments are harder to break.
That's why when you make a commitment to achieve something be something do something create
something you're much more likely to do it.
I made a commitment with my heart that day that just as soon as I begin to make some
money I will give some of that money away to establish a foundation to educate other
young men and women.
Hence David's comment tonight that's over 340 students have gone to colleges across
America from that fund.
It all began with the action of one person.
I've written over 30 books by the way over 100 cassette programs an equal number of videos
translated in 20 languages across the world.
Here's what's interesting I never kept one penny I've ever made for many product I ever
sold and the royalty I ever earned every last penny of it went right into that foundation
to help young people.
Well thank you.
But the reason I shared that with you is to let you know that each of you in your own
way when you help someone else do something become something earn something build something
in a way you are paying a lot of debt for the people who have made some difference in
your life.
Well I wanted to transfer to Hypoen as I told you and I wanted to buy a car and I had saved
some money about 350 bucks.
I went to buy a car and cheapest car cost 700 dollars.
So I was telling Miss Lohan those of you from Smithfield you might know a place called Newton
Grove Miss Lohan lives in route one Newton Grove North Carolina.
Let me tell you about Miss Lohan it may be a Miss Lohan in your life.
Miss Lohan was my house mother Manala.
I couldn't afford live in the air conditioned dorm I lived in a house off of the campus
about 15 of us guys and she was a house mother.
Miss Lohan got a hundred dollars a month in pay for her house motherly duties and an equal
sum from her social security check.
Imagine that.
Miss Lohan was like my mother in residence I would go to see her I would share with her
my feelings and where I'm coming from.
She had a compassionate heart and a listening ear.
I was just simply chatting with Miss Lohan and saying that I went to buy a car and I
couldn't buy the car because it cost more than I have money with which to buy it and
I just left the subject and went away.
At the end of the month I got my bank statement from the bank I opened my bank statement and
there in my balance was a total sum of $725.
I can remember standing in my dorm and thinking to myself I love this country.
I went to see Miss Lohan I said Miss Lohan you won't believe this the bankers don't
know how to add.
I put $350 on my account and lo and behold in one month it turned into $725 and then
it dawned on me could she?
Would she?
Did she?
This woman making a hundred dollars a month an equal sum from her social security check.
Oh Nido she said I concluded it's much better for me to invest my money in the life of a
budding young man than it is to park it in a savings account somewhere after all she
said I'm an old woman.
How wrong she was.
She was 65 then.
She's living today 95 years young.
And as you might expect I would do anything from Miss Lohan.
You see even though my father died when I was six years of age my mother taught me that
out of adversity can emerge unbelievable abundance.
It's probably why I'm such a good father to my four children investing so liberally
in memories with them.
The doctor in Goldsboro taught me that there is something fine, something worthwhile about
the spirit of generosity.
And Miss Lohan in her own exceptional way taught me about the virtue of sacrifice.
Here's the principle about life.
You cannot give that which you do not possess.
It's impossible.
If I ask you for $10 and you don't have $10 you can't give it to me.
You cannot give me love if you don't know what love is.
It's impossible.
You cannot share happiness with me if you're an unhappy person yourself.
And you cannot talk to me about health if you don't feel healthy yourself.
I thought Steve made the wisest comment of the night when he said if you don't use the
products and I'm paraphrasing you ought not be selling the products.
I think what Steve was saying is that I think what Steve was saying is how can you be passionate
about something if you don't really feel it first in your heart and believe it in your
life.
Well I came to America because I wanted to be successful.
That's why I was so glad to be with you tonight because you are successful and you are on
the journey to even greater success in your own way.
And then I began to analyze and study what is it that makes people successful.
Why are certain people successful and why are certain other people not so successful?
And I came to some conclusions.
Would you like to hear them tonight?
Here's what I concluded.
I concluded that success is not a matter of luck.
I concluded that success is not a reward for virtue.
I concluded that success is not an accident of birth.
In fact in this, the land of the free and home of the brave, anybody can be successful
if they're willing to work hard enough, smart enough, hang around the right people and be
a part of a success oriented organization like Starlight International.
That's it, right there.
So I asked myself what is success and where does success come from?
And here's what I found.
Success first and foremost grows out of a clear vision.
If you don't know what you want to accomplish in life, you're likely not to accomplish it.
It would be equivalent to getting in your car and just drive aimlessly hoping that you
will arrive at a destination that you have predetermined.
The truth is if you don't get a map and look where you're going and go in the right direction,
you may not get there.
I asked this question, how would you know when you are successful?
How would success feel?
What would it feel like when you're there?
I was listening to these testimonials tonight and I was listening between the lines to some
of the wonderful spiritual, emotional, growing comments that people were making about how
they feel when they experience success.
You see my friends Elvis Presley had the three F's, fans, fame and fortune and Elvis Presley
would you agree with me died a miserable death.
In fact when he got up in the morning he had to take three pills called uppers believe
it or not to get him going and before he could sleep at night he had to take three more pills
called downers to put him to sleep.
If only Elvis Presley knew about lullaby.
And mid-morning he had to take three syringes on his left shoulder and mid-afternoon repeat
the process again.
That's the way he lived the last three or four years of his life.
Is that success?
I think not.
J.C. Fennie in his older years said something beautiful.
He said although my eyesight may be dimming.
He said my vision has never been greater.
Success grows out of a clear vision knowing where we want to go and what it is specifically
we want to achieve.
Then success grows out of a solid strategy.
In other words success is not an accident.
I ask myself these three questions every day of my life.
Who am I?
Who do I want to become?
What must I do to close this gap?
Who am I?
What are my strengths?
What are my weaknesses?
What kind of a person am I today?
What are my talents and my skills?
What kind of a person do I want to become?
And then what must I do specifically to get there?
I learn English ten words a day.
I know people who have been in America for forty years.
With all due respect and I say this with love.
People speak like they just got off the boat yesterday.
It has nothing to do with intelligence.
It has everything to do with commitment.
It has everything to do with having a strategy.
Those of you who have built your business to such spectacular success as we honored
you tonight clearly you had a strategy.
Clearly you have a strategy.
Clearly you do things every day of your life to make the right contacts, to make the right
presentations so that people will know more about Starlight and only then can good things
begin to happen.
A solid strategy.
Thirdly, I found that success comes out of practical systems.
Too many of us want to make a million dollars and would like to make it this month.
It doesn't work that way.
If you make it all this month you might lose it all next month.
Practical systems means we do things in a normal way yet we become extraordinary persons
in our doing.
Here's one practical system.
For example I learned that it's okay to fail in life.
In fact you become a stronger person when you fail in life.
So I've made quite a distinction between productive failures and non-productive successes.
If I said to myself when I fail let me turn it into something positive.
Let me learn from it.
Let me analyze it so I don't fail in quite this way again another time.
But if I had a non-productive success and don't know why I succeeded then that's the
kind of success you can't replicate.
You can't repeat.
I would rather have a productive failure really than a non-productive success because I become
a stronger, better, more mature person who can deal with tomorrow's problems and tomorrow's
decisions in a much more intelligent manner.
That's what we mean by practical systems.
Here's another one.
I have interest in a number of companies now and one of them happens to be a real estate
company.
And so every time we acquire some large real estate property I go through this system on
risk.
I've discovered for example that some people even in America today still try to avoid risk.
Dear friends, I have news for you but I suspect you may already know this news.
If you take risk out of life you take opportunity out of life.
You cannot do anything worthwhile in life without taking some risk.
When you call somebody or send them a package about Starlight you are taking a risk.
But you take that risk out of life, opportunity will simply diminish and disappear.
So the issue really is not risk avoidance, the issue really is risk management.
And so I've developed this practical system in my life.
Listen to this, it might save you a lot of money in your life.
For example, I ask some questions.
Anytime I want to buy a property or invest some money in something big I ask three questions.
What's the best thing that can happen as a result of taking this action?
Second question, what's the worst thing that can happen as a result of taking this action?
Third question, what's the most likely thing to happen as a result of taking this action?
See the magic of Starlight is that really you take little risk and the worst thing that
can happen is you give up and you lose a little time.
That's the worst thing that can happen.
The most likely thing to happen is that you can build a wonderful organization that can
take your places and take other people in your down line as well, wonderful places.
Then I ask this most important question.
If the most likely thing to happen will get me closer to my goals and if I am willing
to deal with the worst thing that can happen then I go for it.
But here's the clicker.
If I'm not willing to deal with the worst thing that could happen then I walk.
Many a person in America has gone bankrupt because they haven't thought through this
question as I just shared it with you.
So they only thought about the best thing that could happen, the worst thing comes about
and they're out of everything they have.
That's why Starlight is a great opportunity because the worst thing that can happen is
so minute and the best thing that can happen is so incredibly great.
So somebody put an opportunity on a silver platter and say are you willing to give it
a little time?
Are you willing to make a few calls?
Are you willing to make a few presentations?
Are you willing to stick with it?
Are you willing not to give up when things get a little tough or you hear a couple of
no's?
By the way, here's a statistic you might find interesting.
This is true in America today.
50% of America's salespeople make one call on a prospect and the prospect says no I'm
not interested, they give up.
17% make two calls and they give up.
8% make three calls then they give up.
5% make four calls and they give up and the truth is 80% of the sales made in America
today are made by the 20% who dare to make first, second, third, fourth and fifth call
on the same person.
Who was it tonight who said, was it the McCarthy's I think who said keep on pastoring them.
I understood what they meant.
I think what they meant is keep on encouraging them.
Keep on motivating them.
Keep on inspiring them.
Keep on telling them.
Keep on showing them.
Keep on proving to them and they're right because that's really what happens.
So success comes out of a clear vision.
It goes out of a solid strategy.
Goes out of practical systems and lastly success grows out of consistent execution.
In other words, the best ideas are to not if we don't keep working at them.
You and I live our life at one of three stages, either the discipline stage or the casual
stage or the sloppy stage.
God forbid you and I ever become sloppy in anything we do.
If something is worth doing, it is in fact worth doing well.
Let me ask you to do something for me to prove a very important point.
The only thing I have discovered in life that really stands in the face of consistent execution
is resistance.
And sometimes people resist us and resist our ideas and that's why they don't sign
up.
That's why they don't do what you ask them to do.
Let me prove it to you in a little exercise and we might need a little bit of lights on
the audience to be able to do that.
What I'd like for you to do, yeah thank you, what I'd like for you to do is just to free
your hands for just a moment.
I'm going to give you three seconds and in those three seconds you're supposed to find
a partner sitting next to you and hold his or her hand up high and I am counting.
You can only get one partner.
You can't be greedy.
I'm counting three thousand, two thousand, one thousand.
Everybody I hope has a partner.
Good, hands down.
Now with your partner decide who in your little group is going to be number one and who's
going to be number two and you have three seconds to do that and I'm counting three
thousand, two thousand.
Now then let me suggest something to you.
The way you decided who's going to be one and who's going to be two tells us a lot about
you clinically.
Let me guess what happened.
Some of you looked at your partner and you said I'll be number one.
I have always been number one and you're not changing my mind tonight.
Some of you looked at your partner and you said you be number one.
As if to say I, the royal king or queen, bestow upon you the privilege.
But do remember that I giveth and I taketh away by God.
And I hope none of you but once in a while there are some people who will do this.
You look at their partner and they'll say I'll be number two.
It's okay, there are half a dozen constipated people in every crowd.
Now number one if you will open up your hands like this.
Number one open up your hands like this.
Number one face number two to the best that you can with your hands and place your hands
number one place your hands gently on number two's hands gently.
If you fall in love it's okay.
I am speaking to number one.
Number one please push as hard as you can on number two's hands.
Go for it number one.
Go for it.
Show them you're strong.
Let them have it.
Give them everything you got.
Alright, alright that's enough don't kill them for crying out loud.
Ma'am have you always been this angry?
Okay, alright just relax for a moment and let me explain to you what we just did.
Now look number one I gave you some instructions and told you what to do.
But number one number two I gave you no instructions.
I didn't tell you to do anything.
And number two most of you what did you do number two most of you?
You resisted.
Did I tell you you could resist?
No you just thought this is America I'll do anything I want to do.
Now here's the deal did you notice number two that when you resisted it caused number
one to do what?
Is that what you wanted?
No and as they push harder number two you resisted more so.
And as you resisted more so it caused number one to push harder.
Where is this going to end when we have a winner and a loser?
In life what happens when we have a winner and a loser is that we have two losers.
That what you and I have to dedicate our energies and our leadership skills to is to ensure
that everybody in our down line wins.
I like the person.
I think it was an emerald star tonight from the stage who said I am up here but I want
you all everybody to be up here next time.
What she was really saying is I want you to share in the spotlight.
I want you to succeed like I've been blessed in my success.
I thought that was warm and kind and gentle and loving for her to say.
As many of you said some wonderful things up on this stage.
Now note please when you resist you clog your mind.
You lock it up.
You stop receiving because you're resisting.
You don't pay attention to what somebody's sharing with you.
Instead you pay attention to how much you can put power behind your resistance.
Resistance is a negative force.
Acceptance is a positive force.
And when I ask people why do you resist you know what they tell me.
They say because it is natural to do that.
Which is their way of saying when all else fails blame it on God.
It's not my fault I resisted.
God made me this way.
I don't think so.
You see resistance is a learned behavior.
Unfortunately some people have been presented an opportunity in the past.
And it didn't work out the way they thought it should work out.
Or they didn't invest in it what they should have invested in it.
And so the next time somebody tells them something that's more wonderful and powerful and positive.
They resist it.
It's not natural.
We didn't come out of our mother's wounds like that.
It's a learned behavior.
Here's natural.
Natural is when you come home somebody leaves the stove on.
You don't know that it's on.
You put your hand on it.
It's hot.
Your hand is burning.
What do you do?
Do you stand there thinking to yourself do I move my hand?
Or do I amputate my arm?
No of course you move your hand immediately unless you're a guy.
If you're a guy you have to prove you're a man.
What's the definition of a real man?
Drink a beer, kill a deer.
That's a real man.
The guys know what I mean.
Some guys more than others I can see.
No it's not natural.
Resistance means we're afraid of something.
Endlessness means we can consistently execute an idea even when it doesn't seem possible.
Even when it seems like there are potholes down the path of life.
Ladies and gentlemen I suggest to you tonight that every single one of us ought to have
three kinds of people in our life.
If you don't have these people in your life you better get them.
The first kind called heroes.
Each of us needs heroes in our lives.
Do you have heroes in your life?
Heroes are men and women you may know or you may have never met before in your life.
It's okay.
Heroes are people you look up to.
And each of us must have models in our life.
Models are people from whom we learn.
Models are people whom we want to emulate.
Models are people who have already done it.
Emerald stars, diamonds, who three and a half years got up to that level and we say how
did they do it?
How can I learn from them?
Might I ask them how?
And thirdly mentors.
Mentors are the people in our life who hold us by the hand, walk us down the pathway of
success, point out the potholes to us so that when we travel that same pathway to success
on our own at night we don't fall in these potholes and hurt ourselves.
Do you have mentors in your lives?
Each of us to achieve success and keep it must have heroes, models and mentors.
That's where success comes from.
A clear vision, a solid strategy, practical systems and consistent execution.
Success is not a secret, it's a system.
And along the path of life as you and I do what we got to do sometimes we meet some challenges.
These are the challenges I met in my life.
Check me out please and see if you meet them in your life.
First time challenges.
We all seem to have more to do than we have time in which to do it.
Am I right on this?
Sure.
Here's a time management course in one line.
All we got to do to manage our time well is to focus on the important and to manage the
urgent.
That's it.
Have you noticed that you seem to have all the time in the world for the important things?
You don't miss the wedding of your daughter or son.
You don't miss the funeral of a very dear friend or relative because you deem them to
be important you make the time for them.
The key to success in life is recognizing what is important and what is urgent.
And to focus really on the people whom we want to serve by getting to know them at their
deepest level.
For example, getting to know their aspirations, their wishes, their needs, their fears.
The more we know that about people the more we understand them.
The more we understand them the more we can help them.
The more we help them the more they trust us.
The more they trust us the more they will help us to help other people whom they know.
It's a simple formula really.
Somebody said help enough other people to get what they want out of life they will all
help you get what you want out of life.
So time pressures we all face them but the successful people know how to deal with them.
Secondly money pressures.
When I was a junior in High Point College there were days when I didn't have enough
money to buy food.
That too is literal.
But as a junior in High Point College I had already read about 200 biographies of very
successful people.
I still read two books a week.
I have read probably four or five hundred biographies of great people.
When someone like Steve Goldberg comes around I don't just meet them and talk to them I
want to dissect them.
I want to understand what makes them cook.
What turns them on?
What tunes them in?
What tones them up?
And I found that all these people have some things in common and if I could just understand
those common points then I can apply them in my life.
And so I found that all successful people in the history of America seem to have invested
in real estate.
So as a junior in college imagine this age 19 didn't have enough money to buy food I
bought a piece of land in a development called High Chaparral just outside the borders of
North Carolina just inside the borders of Virginia.
The land was good for only one thing testing the law of gravity.
Because it was a piece of land that was straight down like this you can't build anything on
it you can take a tennis ball and throw it down see how fast it hit the ground.
Cost me seventeen dollars a month.
I had to make a seventeen dollar payment on the first of each month.
Do you think I made my payments?
Everyone on the first of each month I was a foreigner.
I didn't want them to ship me out of the country.
I made those payments I made a commitment.
It was the single worst economic investment I ever made in my life.
It was a single greatest investment in character I ever made in my life.
Today I have a couple of partners we own about fifty million dollars with the shopping centers
apartment complexes and other things and when someone says to me how did you guys do all
that?
My answer is it's the 25 cent principle and if you've got time I'll explain it to you.
And the 25 cent principle simply means that that's how I got my 17 dollars.
I would pass a Coca Cola machine I'd be thirsty I'd give up instant gratification great law
for success by the way is to give up instant gratification.
They want everything and they want it when?
Now.
But those who can wait till tomorrow somehow can build more grand palaces in life.
I'd give up my 25 cents in buying my Coke and save my 25 cents and I'd save other things
like that 25 cents at a time till I had my 17 dollars and made my payment.
I am one person you'll meet in your life who absolutely unequivocally believes that no
one has an excuse called money pressures because all of us seem to have the money to do the
basic things we do in life.
Again it becomes a question of priorities in life.
Thirdly complexity.
Think about it.
We have to become more complex more technology coming our way more government regulation
coming our way.
Complexity is enormous.
The only way we can answer complexity in our life by the way is by being life long learners
that's it.
You and I have to become better tomorrow than we are today just to stay even.
Just to stay even.
Now if we really want to become great we have to become much much better tomorrow than we
are today.
I wrote a book called Achieving Peak Performance in which I talked about the difference between
training and education.
I said training is important but it's never enough.
You got to train your kids to do what they have to do.
You have to train yourself to do what you have to do but it's never enough you have
to also educate yourself.
And these are the distinctions I made.
I said when you train somebody you show them what to do but when you educate someone you
teach them why they're doing it.
When you train someone you teach them the how.
When you educate someone you teach them the why.
So training is a program but education is a process.
Success comes out of an educated mind, an educated spirit.
I want to be a part of successful things in life.
It's a spirit that permeates our days and our years.
I walked into McDonald's one day to buy something.
An attractive young lady behind the counter looked at me and she said hello sir, how may
I serve you today?
I said oh I'd love to have a vanilla milkshake and an apple pie.
She said sir would you like a dessert to go with that?
I said yeah.
Throw in a Big Mac and two fries will ya?
She had just come back from Hamburger University where they trained her to sell that stuff
but didn't educate her to listen.
AT&T has invested a hundred million dollars teaching all their operators to end every
call with every customer with the same line.
What's the line?
Thank you for using AT&T.
And so I travel a lot.
I make lots and lots of calls and one day I was making this call and the operator came
on the line and she said thank you sir for using AT&T.
And I said oh no thank you for excellent courteous service.
Now she was confused.
She said no sir thank you.
I looked at my watch.
I had at least 30 minutes before my plane leaves.
I said no way Jose.
She says damn it sir thank you and smacked the phone in my face.
And we went from a hundred million dollars let's give excellent customer service to cussing
out the customer and hanging up the telephone in their face.
Now I don't want to confuse you just in case you think I'm dealing with semantics here
tonight in terms of training or education.
I'll ask you one question and then I'll rest my case.
Which would you rather your teenager get sex education or sex training?
I rest my case.
Yes tomorrow pay very close attention because we all have to be trained.
We all have to know the stuff.
We all have to develop the skills.
We all have to gather the knowledge.
But we must make sure that our brain, our heart, our soul are so educated with those
elements of life that keep us at an extraordinary level.
And that can only come through a process called education which you feel and you touch and
you see and you experience by being with all these wonderful exciting people.
You see if you get nothing out of today and tomorrow being here just being in this environment
you should have invested thousands of dollars just what you're getting out of this environment.
Because look where you are tonight.
You're in the midst of five or six thousand successful, positive, determined, excited,
fulfilled, happy starlight professionals.
You applaud because I speak the truth and if there's any place you want to be you want
to be in the kind of midst of people like that.
You sure don't want to be with a bunch of drug addicts and drunks and constipated human
beings do you?
No.
You want to be here.
So lifelong learning suggests that we become educated not just trained.
Time pressures yes.
Money pressures yes.
Poverty yes.
And here's another one.
Accelerating change.
Life is changing so fast.
Here's what I say about change.
For the timid change is frightening.
For the comfortable God forbid any one of us here in this ballroom tonight is comfortable.
Because when you're comfortable you're content.
Contentment will lead you to mediocrity.
And mediocrity will lead you to disaster.
The trouble with America today is that so many Americans would rather be comfortable
than be excellent.
And what we must do is enlighten our friends and neighbors and relatives that there is
a way in which they too can become excellent.
Not comfortable but excellent.
So for the comfortable change is threatening.
Of course it is.
But for the confident.
For the confident in our midst tonight change is opportunity.
Starlight International is an opportunity.
It is an opportunity for those who are confident to do something.
And where does confidence come from?
Comes from competence.
When you are competent you are confident.
Confidence cannot be some empty feeling.
It has to be based in competence.
So we must learn and grow and hang around mentors and models and heroes to become all
we can become.
And when we do that something magical happens in our life.
Have you noticed that it's true what they say?
Nothing succeeds like success.
The more success you have the more success you get.
Success begets success.
Money begets money.
Those who have money make more money.
I didn't make those lines up.
Those are idioms I had to memorize because English is my second language.
But they're the truth.
What happens is that you become positioned in your life for success.
You begin to look at darkness and you see a little spot of light called an opportunity
and you go for it.
Because you positioned your mind that way.
You positioned your life that way.
You positioned your family that way.
You positioned your reading that way.
I tell my kids you want to watch 30 minutes of some dumb sitcom go for it.
Everybody should feel dumb sometimes.
But if you're going to watch that for 30 minutes make a commitment to yourself.
You're going to watch something that will nurture your soul and nourish your mind.
You want to read People magazine for 30 minutes?
Fine.
But make sure you balance it out with 30 minutes of something that will nourish that brain
and nurture that heart.
How do you position yourself?
Here are two, three ideas for you from my life.
You position yourself first and foremost in your own mind.
Ladies and gentlemen, even in my poorest of days I want you to know something.
I always felt wealthy.
I knew that the lack of money was a temporary condition.
So what you put in your brain you get out in activity.
It's called self-concept.
Some people they don't make a lot of money because they don't see themselves ever making
a lot of money.
Some people never become wealthy because they never ever conceptualize themselves as becoming
wealthy people.
Some people call on someone to invite them into this world of Starlight International
and there's that little voice inside of them saying I don't think they're going to say
yes.
I think they're going to say no.
And so when they say no they look at their spouse and they say see I told you so.
Self-concept means self-image plus self-esteem.
Self-image means the way you see yourself.
Self-esteem means the way you feel about yourself.
Those two combined create our self-concept.
We got to work at making ourselves feel good about us.
I tell myself every day I like myself.
I like myself.
I like myself.
And when someone says Nito I don't like you my inner voice is saying I wonder why because
I like myself.
So who have they been hanging around?
What have they been reading?
What have they been watching?
What's wrong with them?
You got to believe and then it will happen.
Secondly you position yourself with your attitude.
There was an emerald star tonight maybe it was a diamond from Irvine California.
Wherever thou art I want you to listen to this story.
I was in Irvine one day in a hotel lobby trying to make a local call and the operator came
on the line and she said to me she said sir that will be 75 cents.
Seventy-five cents for a local call I thought to myself is astronomically high.
I still live in High Point North Carolina where North State telephone allows us to make
local calls for a dime for crying out loud and I told her so.
And I shouldn't have told her so because she wasn't feeling good this day this month or
this lifetime.
And she let me know in no uncertain terms if I don't deposit the 75 cents she's going
to hang up that telephone in my face.
So I said ma'am let me just register one point with you.
In High Point North Carolina where I live I can call to hell and back for 50 cents.
To which she enthusiastically retorted in High Point North Carolina where you sir live
that's probably a local call.
Now clearly she's never been to High Point North Carolina because she would know differently.
But here's my point I can teach people skills.
I'm good at it.
I've done it for 25 years.
I've spoken to 5,000 audiences in 32 countries around the world.
I can give people knowledge.
I'm really good at that.
I've written a lot, recorded a lot.
I know a lot of stuff.
I can go on for three days up here just talking to you like this and making some sense.
But here's what I cannot do.
I cannot teach anyone how to have a positive attitude.
I am totally incapable of doing that.
When companies would say to me would you come please we'll pay you whatever you want just
motivate our people I say I cannot do it.
I cannot motivate your people.
Your people are already motivated.
And the sales manager said to me one day he said but I have a salesman who doesn't get
out of bed until 9 o'clock in the morning.
I said he's motivated to stay in bed until 9 o'clock in the morning.
But he's motivated.
And I can't give him positive attitudes.
Got to tell you the story.
Three year old girl every morning goes to nursery school with her dad.
Her dad drives her to nursery school.
This particular day her dad is away at a conference.
So her mother has to take her to nursery school.
Picture this if you can.
Three years of age sitting next to her mom in the front seat of the car she can hardly
see over the dashboard on a very heavily trafficked morning.
Out of the clear blue sky this little girl innocent as she was looks over to her mother
and asks her mother this penetrating question.
Honey she said where are all the bastards today?
And her mother said I don't know honey I guess they're only out when your father drives.
You would agree with me would you not ladies and gentlemen that little girl had not the
slightest notion what that word meant.
Well she knew that every single morning on her way to school her father introduced her
to 30 of those people.
And being wonderful and lovely as she was she was concerned what happened to those people.
Did they die are they sick did they move out of town?
And if you and I expect this world to be filled with that kind of a person what happens?
They begin to pop up everywhere.
But if we expect this world to be filled with positive wonderful exciting people they too
begin to pop up everywhere.
That's called an attitude.
And all the sociologists in the world and all the psychologists in the world have not
been able to discover a better concept than the concept called positive mental attitude.
Not the clothes you have or not what your eyes look like but here's a really wonderful
question for you to remember out of this little visit tonight.
When someone looks at you what do they see?
When someone looks at you what do they see?
Do they see a happy person or do they see a sad person?
I know happy people who looks at.
You know people like that?
Do they see an intelligent person or an uninformed person?
Do they see a committed person or a tentative person?
What do they see?
Let me show you something really interesting.
On the count of three would you please throw your hands up in the sky not yet on the count
of three you throw your hands up in the sky as high as you can and you holler out three
English words.
Now you do it with enthusiasm and excitement.
On the count of three you take both of your hands throw them up in the sky as high as
you can and you holler out three English words and you do it with all the enthusiasm and
excitement that you can.
And the three English words are I am depressed.
Are you ready?
One two three.
Either you're the happiest depressed crowd I've ever seen or you really are taking these
products and they're working.
I don't think there's a person in the house tonight who would like to write down this
phone number 1-800-KIVORKIAN.
And here's my point you laughed when you said I am depressed.
The words I am depressed are not funny but you laughed.
Why did you laugh?
Because you don't feel depressed.
I asked you to behave in a way that you don't feel and therefore you don't do it.
If you're depressed you wouldn't come down the aisle saying I'm depressed open up the
way I'm depressed oh boy I'm depressed look at me I'm really depressed.
Because if you do that everybody will be saying I want to be depressed too.
How do you get depressed?
You go to a seminar or what do you get this stuff?
Of course you don't do that that would be an incongruent gesture and yet the opposite
is true.
Sometimes we feel great but we don't show it on our face.
So make a commitment to yourself smile every day even when you don't feel like it.
Hey look you go to work when you don't feel like it.
What would happen if you worked only when you felt like it?
Nobody would be working too much in America.
Everybody would be a government employee you know.
Well anyway the truth is we got to show it that's my point.
Everybody looks at us they got to say I don't know what she's got but I want some of it.
I don't know what he's got in his life but I want to be more like him.
When people come to that conclusion they'll be asking you please let me in this starlight
opportunity.
Of course then we position ourselves with our words.
Ask yourself this question every time you say something to someone why should this person
listen to me now?
Why should they listen to me?
I have to be using words that are active to them.
Words that mean something to them.
I actually have a person who worked for one of my companies who one day in response to
an assignment I gave him with a deadline in which to get it done looked at me and said
I think I might be able to try.
I said hello.
Why didn't you just say no?
We have taken less time and effort.
And sometimes we do talk like that.
We say things like you know I've never done that before.
I've never been good at this.
This isn't something I really know how to do.
I don't know if I'm the right person for this.
And these words begin to be entrenched in our minds soul and spirit.
And we begin to act in ways that reflect these words.
And finally we position ourselves with our focus.
What are we focused on in life?
I've discovered the more I'm focused on the other person the more success comes to me.
It's an amazing thing.
The more I focus on you the better you and I get along.
In the days that I used to sort of memorize a speech and have it all put together and
then regardless of what happens out here I'm just going to give you that speech.
I wasn't a very good speaker.
Now I just have some ideas and I come up and I watch you and I look at you.
And when I feel you're getting a little tired I tell you something funny.
You see I'm trying to respond to where you are and how you feel.
And that way you stay with me longer and better and we travel this journey having a good time
together.
We've got to be focused on the other person.
Notice that companies know that.
Prudential Insurance for example knows that nobody wants to exchange their hard earned
money for a piece of paper called an insurance policy.
Have you noticed that?
So Prudential Insurance comes up with this line which says you and I can own a piece
of that rock.
What does the rock mean?
Safety, security for our families, our businesses, our lives.
And so we say here take our money and give us some of that.
Eastman Kodak does not talk about plastic or film.
Eastman Kodak talks about memories.
BMW doesn't talk about cars.
They talk about the ultimate driving machine.
They're trying to appeal to the 45 year old male going through a midlife crisis.
Who's going to buy a BMW or a red Porsche, you know, one of the two.
And have you noticed that McDonald's does not talk about cholesterol?
McDonald's talks about the fact that you and I deserve a break today.
Have you noticed that the emphasis is on today?
Do you know why?
Because tomorrow you're going to be dead from all that cholesterol.
That's why we do really position ourselves with our focus.
When you're focused on that which is good, when you're focused on learning, when you're
focused on helping others, when you're focused on growing, when you're focused on saving,
when you're focused on securing a good future for you and your family, good things begin
to happen.
When you focus only on fun for today, those other things may not happen.
When you focus on making the call only when you feel like it, opportunities do not end
up in being wonderful results.
The best three words in the English language and then some.
I asked a successful person one time, what was the secret to your success?
She said, I did everything I was expected to do and then some.
I made all the calls I was expected to make and then some.
I wrote all the letters and reports I was supposed to write and then some.
I learned all the techniques there are to learn in selling and marketing, in communication
and human behavior and then some.
I told my children ten times a day how much I love them and then some.
It's the and then some that separate the ordinary people from the extraordinary people, from
the good people, from the superb people.
The pianist who's outstanding trains and practices five, ten hours a day and then some.
The Olympic champion practices and works for ten years in preparation for the Olympics
every day, so many hours and then some.
When we focus on that, good things begin to come our way.
Oh well, you've been really nice to me and you listened to me for a long time tonight
and I really appreciate that.
All I really wanted to do was to come here and honor you for being so outstanding in
your own way.
I wanted to come here to just say to you, you're awesome, you're special, you're wonderful.
You've discovered that out of life something marvelous can bloom and blossom.
You're working hard to make good things happen in your life and for that I tip my hat off
to you.
For that I honor you.
Let me just sort of close tonight with this little story.
There was this guy who started a little dime store years ago.
It wasn't much of a store, just a little store, but he was a good guy.
He was courteous, he was fair, he was honest and he took care of his customers and they
told their neighbors about him and their friends about him and the next day he sold more stuff
and then more stuff and then more stuff again and he opened more stores and before you knew
it he had a big chain of stores across America from border to border and coast to coast and
one day he was taken ill to the hospital and he knew his time on this earth has come to
an end and so he called all three of his adult children and he said, one of the three of
you will become president of this company, this chain of stores.
I don't know which one is going to become the president so here's what I'm going to
do.
He reached in his pocket and he took out three one dollar bills and he gave son number one
a dollar, son number two a dollar and daughter number three a dollar and he said you go and
spend this money any way that you choose but when you get back here tonight however you
spend this money must fill this room from corner to corner to corner to corner it must
fill this room.
So for the chance to become president of this incredible company they all went downtown,
they all spent their dollars, they all came back in the evening and the father said what
have you done and son number one said daddy I'll tell you what I have done.
I took my dollar and went down to see my old buddy from high school whose father owns this
big farm on this big farm he has this big barn and this big barn he has lots and lots
of bales of hay.
I gave him my dollar and he gave me three bales of hay, brought in the hay, tore it
open, threw it up in the sky and that room was filled with hay but momentarily all the
hay sort of tumbled down, settled on the floor and the daddy said no sir.
Number two what have you done with your dollar, number two said oh dad I took my dollar went
down to Sears and Robach I gave the clerk my dollar and I got two pillows made with
feathers with that he took the pillows made with feathers tore them open threw the feathers
up in the sky and the room was filled but momentarily much like the hay all the feathers
tumbled down settled on the floor and the daddy said no sir.
Door number three what have you done with your dollar and door number three said dad
I'll tell you what I did with my dollar.
I went down to a store like the one you had years ago I gave the owner my dollar and I
asked for some currency some chains some dimes and nickels and quarters.
I took fifty cents of my dollar and I invested in something very worthwhile just like the
Bible says invest thine talents.
I gave twenty cents of my dollar to my church my synagogue my mosque ten cents I gave to
the Girl Scouts of America and ten cents I gave to the Boy Scouts of America and daddy
you counted up that left me ten tiny little pennies and with those ten tiny little pennies
I went back to the store and I bought two things dad she reached in one pocket and she
took out a little match book she reached in the other pocket and she took out a little
candle she struck a match she lit the candle she turned the light switch off and the room
was full from corner to corner to corner to corner the room was full not with hay not
with feathers but with it was full with light and the father said daughter number three
you seem to know something about life you'll become the president of this company.
As I look at you tonight I don't see a group of distributors outstanding and successful
as you all are I see reservoirs of energy I see treasuries with gold I see light your
challenge is to go through life lighting the path for so many more when we focus on the
notion that when we build our organization in the process we help everybody else then
we truly light the path for so many others and then we truly make the journey from success
to significance which is much more beautiful than just success alone and my friends in
a land called the United States of America North America for any of our Canadian friends
who may be here tonight a sovereign nation as we know it to be a place where immigrants
like me beg to come I filled out 38 forms side a and side b to become one of you I have
to promise that I will contribute to the system not take away from it I will create jobs not
bleed the government because I don't want to work what excuse does any one of us tonight
have healthy as we feel blessed as we are free in America as we are a part of Starlight
International as we are what excuse does any one of us really have that would keep us from
climbing the highest mountain that will keep us from achieving the most noble of goals
that will keep us from attaining everyone of our dreams for you sleep tonight say a
word of prayer thank God for the opportunities in your life because you and I are blessed
indeed thank you and God bless you thank you very much thank you thank you thank you thank
you you