38 Who Do You Think You Are?
up inside. I had $200 and a dream. I went door-to-door and cleaned of-
fices in the evening time. I used a vacuum cleaner, a bottle of Pledge and
a bottle of Windex. I built that business to a certain degree in about three
years. I got stuck, as so many of us do, and I could not break out of where
I was financially. In hindsight, I realize that I wasn’t just stuck finan-
cially, I was stuck spiritually, I was stuck in my relationships, I was stuck
in every area of my life. I was stuck in my personal development and my
health.
I did something that I had never done before in school; I started
to read books. I had flunked out of high school. I had limiting beliefs for
the first half of my life. I had this terrible speech impediment...I stut-
tered. Of course, whenever a young person has some kind of weakness
the other kids tend to prey on that. I was told that I was stupid and was
teased a lot. If you hear these comments over and over again, sooner or
later it forms your perception of who you are. It got to a point where I
had so much desire that I began to challenge my own core beliefs and
values. I began the tough work of self evaluation, of asking, Why do I
believe this? Is this true about me? Does it have to be?
I read everything from Anthony Robbins to Zig Zigler, but I just
couldn’t get any of it to stick. It seemed like most of the information in
those self help books just wanted to motivate me, and I was already
motivated. I was a twenty-four-year-old man, who was cleaning toilets
and emptying trashcans at night. I did not need a kick in the rear end to
move me faster in same direction. I needed a change of course. I needed
to change who I was and how I operated. I truly believed that this could
happen.
Through divine intervention, somebody gave me a videotape of
seminar called You Were Born Rich by Bob Proctor. After watching it for
about thirty minutes, I knew that Bob had the answers for me. He made
me aware of the universal laws that govern the way I thought and be-
haved. He showed me that I had intellectual faculties that I was using,
but wasn’t using properly. I would always imagine the worst-case sce-
narios instead of using my imagination to look at all the possibilities. I
realized that I had the ability to choose my perception and that would
ultimately create my reality.
That was the first shift, when I realized I could co-create my life
by tapping into the spiritual side of myself, becoming aware of my one-
ness with my creator, and working with the talents I had been given. I
could define who I was and define my purpose and I could live that out
loud and boldly. For the first time in my life, what other people thought