"Part 12: Cameron Johnson Is Recognized As One of the Youngest and Most Successful Business Consultants In the World Today Who Teaches His Clients How to Be More Productive With Less Effort While They Create a Real Business" by Ralph Zuranski
Listen to Cameron Johnson's In Search Of Heroes by clicking this link.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, hopefully the “In Search of Heroes” program will help that.
Cameron Johnson: I think so.
Ralph Zuranski: That would be good news.
If you had three wishes for your life in the world that would instantly come true, what would they be?
Cameron Johnson: This is kind of a tough question, because I could probably think on this for several weeks and still not come up with an answer that hits me and strikes me a special.
But I want people to be happy, and that sounds like such a cliché or a beauty pageant answer. But I want people to be happy and to be able to help others, and to get satisfaction out of that.
So many people and so many young people are depressed, and they live these very difficult lives, and there are these huge pressures from their parents and from outside sources to make the best grades possible. I think making good grades is very important, and it helps you get into a good school, or get a good job and everything like that.
But when people go so far as to go on antidepressant medicine because they are so depressed because of their grades. Or at the high school I attended there was a young guy who was a few years older than me. He was literally stressing out about his college applications, and he committed suicide.
That story will stay with me for the rest of my life, because there is really no reason to let things—nothing is that bad. One wish would be for people to be happy and help everyone else.
Number two would be to try and do whatever it is you want to do, and that sounds like a cliché, also. But if you want to start a business, find out what the first step to starting a business is, whether it is an Internet business and you need to come up with a name and register the domain name.
Or that’s a brick and mortar business, and you need to go sign a lease and move into your small location. Every business should start small.
Then third I would say, a very strong wish I would have would be for young people and families and adults and everyone just to have a stronger relationship with their families, because I think that strong family relationships and connections really help give back.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, you know, I really believe that is true.
Cameron Johnson: Me, too. It’s really powerful.
Ralph Zuranski: What do you think about the “In Search of Heroes” program and its impact on youth, parents, and business people?
Cameron Johnson: I mean, just imagine if every single person in this great country and in the world could hear all of these interviews, and what they would take away from them. You know, the people that we can touch are really the people who are normally seeking out help.
They are actually the ones who have the ambition and motivation to take the first step, though, and actually go and find positive influence such as the “In Search of Heroes” program. But I think its impact on youth, parents, and business people is only positive. I think that anything that is positive is good.
I think positive cash flow is good! So I think positive impact is so powerful, and I think that I am thankful that you have spent so much time doing these interview and creating this program, because there is so much value in it. So many people can learn so much from all the different people you have interviewed.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, that is true. I appreciate you taking your valuable time, Cameron, to answer these questions, because I know it will be inspirational in particular to people that are somewhere around your age, either somewhat younger or older.
But it is such a great example to see somebody like you who is so successful at an early age, and just understanding how important the key ideas that you talked about are.
Cameron Johnson: Yeah, well, thank you very much, Ralph. I hope a lot of people get enjoyment out of this, and a lot of people listen to it.
Ralph Zuranski: I am sure they will. Well, thanks again.
Cameron Johnson: All right! Thank you, Ralph
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Cameron Johnson started his first business at the tender age of nine. By age 12, his company was selling Beanie Babies™ over the Internet and he profited $50,000 that year. At the age of fifteen, he became an advisory board member of a Tokyo-based company and published his autobiography in Japanese which became an instant best-seller.
At the age of 21, he has founded and sold more than a dozen businesses and has been featured in more than 250 media outlets worldwide including Newsweek, BusinessWeek, the New York Times, USA Today, CNBC, and MSNBC. He’s served as a consultant to several Fortune 500 companies and is a frequent speaker to a variety of audiences including high schools, colleges, and corporate executives. In January, 2007, his new book titled You Call the Shots: Succeed Your Way – And Live the Life You Want – With the 19 Essential Secrets of Entrepreneurship is being released by Simon & Schuster. Cameron Johnson lives in Blacksburg, Virginia. Visit his official website http://www.cameronjohnson.com.
Why work for someone else when you can call your own shots, pursue your dreams, and find success on your terms by starting your own business? So many people end up bored with their jobs, stuck in the corporate grind, never following their true passions. As wildly successful young entrepreneur Cameron Johnson shows, you don’t have to live that way. We’ve entered a new age of entrepreneurship, with the Web making it easier than ever to start and run your own company.
As Johnson’s remarkable story reveals, the entrepreneurial way of life is a great way to make sure you love what you do—and offers the potential to achieve extraordinary success by following your gut and going for what you really want.
What about the risks? Don’t you need lots of money? Don’t most start-ups fail? Johnson shares his essential secrets to entrepreneurial success that show you how he got into the life at very low risk, and with very little money, took an idea that excited him and ran with it, achieving great success and satisfaction with businesses he loved. He didn’t have an MBA; he didn’t even have a college degree. But he had learned the simple but vital secrets he reveals.
Cameron Johnson is a seriously happy entrepreneur who started his first business when he was nine with $50 and a home computer. Before he’d turned twenty-one he’d started twelve successful businesses and was offered $10 million in venture capital to grow his hot web company CertificateSwap.com—praised by Entrepreneur magazine as one of the leading-edge “Web 2.0” business successes—even bigger. He has never taken out a loan or racked up any debt, and every one of his businesses has been highly profitable—so profitable that he’d made his first million before graduating from high school, and he’s put away enough cash that he could retire today. But that’s the last thing on earth he’d want to do; he’s much too happy starting up new companies.
Through the story of his own impressive career so far, in You Call the Shots, Johnson takes you behind the scenes of entrepreneurial success and empowers you to hit the ground running with your own great business idea, no matter how young you are or how little money you have to invest.
Cameron Johnson had started, run and sold 12 successful companies by the time he was 21. His business successes have been featured in Time, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, USA Today and many more, as well as on the Today Show and Good Morning America. When he was fifteen he became an advisory board member of a Tokyo-based company, and his autobiography, 15-Year-Old CEO, published in Japanese, became an instant best-seller. He has consulted to Fortune 500 companies and spoken at the Wharton School, among others. Every one of his businesses has been a success, even in the worst days of the Internet bust. As a freshman in college, he started CertificateSwap.com, an online marketplace for gift cards, which was a runaway success and for which he was offered $10 million in venture capital. He lives in Blacksburg, VA.
Advance Praise for Cameron Johnson and You Call the Shots
Cameron Johnson wrote me a letter when he was eight years old. I didn’t write back to him, but I responded with a surprise for him when he visited New York City. Thirteen years later, he’s given me a surprise—he’s written a terrific book! No matter what your age, you will enjoy and learn from Cameron’s book about his accomplishments thus far. I’m sure there will be more to come.
— Donald J. Trump
You Call the Shots is for everyone committed to following their dreams. Cameron Johnson thoroughly outlines the strategies it takes to remove obstacles to entrepreneurial success. This book is essential reading for anyone with a passion for life.
— T. Harv Eker, #1 New York Times best-seller Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
If you want to be an enlightened money-maker, read my friend Cam’s brilliant book now—and apply it.
— Mark Victor Hansen, coauthor of the Chicken Soup for the Soul
and One Minute Millionaire series
Cameron Johnson’s extraordinary entrepreneurial journey has made it possible for him to develop more sophistication and business savvy by the age of twenty-two than most professionals accumulate throughout an entire lifetime! In You Call the Shots he shares his personal secrets, experience and advice in a warm and friendly way that’s sure to motivate people of all ages.
— Jennifer Kushell, New York Times best-seller Secrets of the Young & Successful: How to Get Everything You Want Without Waiting a Lifetime