30. Power comes from stripping away appearances and seeing things as they really are. Socialism appeals to psychological and intellectual weaklings. Identify and replace all external authorities with internal strength and competence. Take full control of, and responsibility for, your conscious mind and every aspect of your life.
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Dave Kekich: Yeah, I really do, but it takes work and it takes willpower. But the stakes are so much higher now, where 30 or 40 years ago, where our parents and grandparents 50 years ago, were alive, sure they could live longer. They could take care, they could read SALADS™, the information was available then, not all of it, but most of it, and they could have added ten years to their lives.
They would have felt better and would have suffered less at the end. They still would have died from some biological condition. Well, now that might not be the case. Now the opportunity is not just for an extra ten years, or fifteen years.
Now the opportunity could be for more years than you could possibly imagine. We have a company called Stem Cell Products, by the way, and we are coming out with our first product about at the end of February, and that, we think, as do some people in the industry, think it is one of the biggest breakthroughs in years and years in the health supplements technologies.
It is a master antioxidant that is so much more powerful than anything out there now that it is not even calculable. And there have been 70,000 pages of public studies on this compound, and up until now, nobody's been able to take it effectively without it breaking down in the digestive system.
And people know it is effective against things like AIDS and Parkinson’s and Lymphoma. And there have been studies, 70,000 studies, for years and years and years, pointing to the benefits of this compound, which we finally have been able to put into an oral form.
People will be able to take this soon, so there are things like that that are going to extend your lifespan. And one example is that people were getting some benefits of this through IVs, through injections, and doctors’ use of them, but we believe we have even surpassed the results that you would get from IVs.
That is just one of many things coming up that we are developing. We do have about five or ten products in the next year or so. But we are not the only ones; there are people like us and people in other areas who are doing some incredible things, a lot of things I know about, which will be hitting the market in a few years.
A lot of things, of course, I don't know about, because you can't know everything. Five years from now we are going to have things that we couldn't imagine today that are going to be adding even more years to our lives, so I would say the best thing you can do right now is just take care of yourself and start with SALADS™.
Ralph Zuranski: Ah, that is great. I will go to the site today and download that, and I will start applying that today. So thanks for the good advice.
Dave Kekich: Sure. Then stem cell products, if you have any--it is bare bones right now, but we are going to get bigger and better. It is www.StemCellProductsLLC.com.
Ralph Zuranski: Okay. I will have to search that out, too. I will put that in your report.
29. Most accomplishment (and problem avoidance) is built on clear persuasive communication. That includes knowing each other's definitions, careful listening, thinking before talking, focused questioning and observing your feedback. Become a communications expert.
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Ralph Zuranski: Yeah, boy! I fully agree with that! Well, Dave, I really appreciate your time, and I just am excited. I hope I can live long enough so that I can live indefinitely.
Dave Kekich: Well, how old are you know, Ralph?
Ralph Zuranski: Fifty-seven.
Dave Kekich: You are fifty-seven? If you follow the rules that I spell out in SALADS™, and I am going to have to have an expanded version in a month or so, so check back in a month or so because there will be more there. I don't see any reason, barring an accident or bad luck.
You could come down with a bad disease or something, but if you take your normal life span, which is you could probably be expecting to live to at least 80, at 58, that gives you another 23 years.
However, if you take care of yourself and the average lifespan accounts for all the people who died young, so that means you should actually live longer if you take care of yourself, if you account for people who don't take care of themselves, that should put you well above 80.
All of the things that we are developing now, between now and the time we are able to control aging, are going to add more and more years to your life, and there is going to be a point--right now, we are adding a couple of months to a lifespan, a couple of months or so, every year, and it is growing more and more.
There is going to be a time when, every year that goes by, we would have learned enough to add more every year to people's life- spans. So if we hang in there long enough, we are going to be living well beyond what is considered to be our expected lifespan today.
So do I think we are going to be able to reverse aging in 23 years? No. But maybe not too much after that. And there is no reason, if you take care of yourself now, and if you don't have a disease or condition that will shorten your life, or some terrible genetic condition that we won't be able to reverse in the near future, there is no reason we couldn't live to 100.
I think that would give you plenty of time, Ralph, to make that milestone.
27. The choice to exert integrated effort or to default to camouflaged laziness is the key choice that determines your character, competence and future. That critical choice must be made continually - throughout life. The most meaningful thing to live for is reaching your full potential.
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Ralph Zuranski: You know, it is funny, when you have interviewed so many heroes, everybody related that the book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, was one of the most powerful books in their lives.
He believed if his theories were taught to young people, that it would cut their learning time in school by half. I wonder why his theories and this information hasn't been passed down to them?
Dave Kekich: I thought about that over 30 years ago, when I first read that book, and it is actually criminal that it is not taught in schools.
Ralph Zuranski: Or taken and put into the super learning format so kids could find it in a format that appeals to them, to make it easy for them to assimilate the information and then look at heroes like yourself and their lives, and see what it has taken to be actually successful, because it is not so much of a twist.
But it is about the eternal process, and about what you think is the major thing that is going to make the difference in how healthy you are, and how long you are going to live, and how successful.
26. Religiously nourish your body with proper nutrition, exercise, recreation, sleep and relaxation techniques.
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Ralph Zuranski: Well, what do you think about the In Search of Heroes program and its impact on youth, parents and business people?
Dave Kekich: Oh, it is empowering, especially to young people. And by going through a program like this, Ralph, especially with young people, it can shave years of painful trial and error from people’s lives.
It can set them on a positive track they might never have discovered on their own. I stumbled across these ideas, mostly late in life, and I just wish I could have had something like this when I was young. It just could have changed my life dramatically.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. That is the reason I created the program.
Dave Kekich: Yeah, my hat is off to you; this is a great program. I just hope you can spread it far and wide.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, with people like you helping out, there is no reason why we can't and just spreading the knowledge that has been around for all of eternity, as it seems to be the same all the time: personal responsibility, believing in dreams, seeking a different path rather than one that is well-traveled.
Dave Kekich: In this there aren't many new ideas; there are new slants on these ideas, but the core values have been there for thousands of years, and for some reason they are not passed on. They are not learned early in life, and I think people get so busy working in their lives that they just don't have enough time to work on their lives or on their children's lives.
25. Working for someone else gives you little chance to make a fortune. By owning your own business, you only have to be good to become wealthy.
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Ralph Zuranski: So personal responsibility is probably the core thing that people need to address?
Dave Kekich: Very much so. Yeah, very much so.
Ralph Zuranski: If you could have three wishes for the world that would instantly come true, what would they be?
Dave Kekich: Well, that is an easy question for me because I have given this a lot of thought, and one would be that everyone would have complete control over their lives and property without interference from anyone or anything. And in one word, you can call that freedom.
And two, perfect health and longevity for everyone; that is something we work on every day. And three is opportunity for anyone who wants to do it, to better their lives.
I’m not saying that anyone should have to do anything, but for anybody that wants to do it, anywhere in the world, to have the opportunity to put food on the table, to get as much education as they want, to create as good a life as they can for their families, and their neighbors and their loved ones, and the rest of the world.
Where are Heroes located?
Ralph: They are located everywhere. They are every person that you come in contact with. I actually believe that angels walk this earth and there are good angels and bad angels. I believe that angels are there to miraculously help you.
They are like the ultimate spiritual Heroes that step in and intervene in the most miraculous ways. I believe that people can find miracles occurring in their lives on a daily basis, if they just look for it and realize that when they do good things without expectation of good in return, that God actually rewards them. People don’t believe in the Christian God, just the universe will reward them.
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Sharif Khan: Heroes are all around us. They are among our friends and family and relatives. They’re in different parts of the world in different cities. People are doing small random acts of kindness every single day. And the media doesn’t go out and video tape them. So when we pick up the newspaper we see all the tragedies and the harm and wars that are going on around the world. But we don’t recognize that heroes are all around us and we don’t have to look far.
With all your world travels would you say that people in different cultures look at heroes differently?
I think so, because people have different connotations of what a ‘hero’ means. For example, in Australia they talk about cutting down the ‘Tall Poppy,’ and so any one who gets to be too ‘heroic’ or too big on themselves, they like to cut down, because they feel that person is trying to be too self-indulging.
People have very different attitudes as to what heroism is and what a hero actually means and who they look up to as heroes. It’s really interesting to see the different world views. I don’t think they share necessarily the common elements because of the different connotations they have about heroes.
With the world the way it is, especially the war against terrorism, you’ve lived in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, do people in Middle Eastern countries look at heroes differently like the bombers or Al Qaeda?
That’s a very difficult question because unfortunately there are some people out there that,. I’m not talking about the Middle Eastern culture, the Iraqi culture, or the Pakistani culture in general…but there are some people who have a twisted mentality and see the terrorist, or the Osama Bin Laden’s as heroes.
For example, when Hitler was running Germany, so many German youths had been through propaganda at a very early age, having been set up to view Hitler as a Hero, as a God to be looked up to. And where I find there is a problem is many of these terrorist operations that are occurring in these countries are sending out this type of propaganda and setting up schools and infiltrating young minds with a lot of garbage and a lot of nonsense about who are heroes and who are not heroes and what are the requirements of heroes.
That’s something that myself, being a South Asian, and having lived in some of those countries, I’m trying to change with my work with The Hero Soul, to let people know that there are options, there are ways of looking at what a true hero really is, where the origin comes from is the Greek root to ‘serve and protect’ and I’m hoping to change perceptions.
28. Keep an active mind, and continue to grow intellectually. You either grow or regress. Nothing stands still.
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Ralph Zuranski: Well, do you have some good resources on www.MaxLife.org that young people can access?
Dave Kekich: For the young people, the best thing they can enact on there is SALADS™. And SALADS™ is the report I mentioned to you. It is an acronym, by the way. It stands for things you need to do in your life, and it doesn't stand for the things you find in salad bars. But part of that is about salads, the D is for diet, and the S is for supplements, and the other S is for stress--stress reduction, for example.
But they can go to www.MaxLife.org, and there are three icons in the middle of the home page. Just click on the one in the middle that says, "How to Live to 120 and Still Remember Where You Left Your Car Keys." That will take you to some pages that will give you some resources.
Right at the bottom of that page, just click on SALADS™, and that will take you to a downloadable version. Now children are probably not going to pay as much attention to that as adults would, because we all kind of feel like we are immortal when we are young.
We all kind of feel like we know it all, and we can get away with a lot of things, physically, that we can’t get away with when we are older. We can get away with a bad diet, although kids are getting much better now, and they are actually seeing Type II Diabetics, millions of cases in children, where you never saw that--you just never saw that 20, 30, 40 years ago.
Now it is rampant. But they still get away with it. I mean, they can get away with lack of exercise more than adults do. The older you get, the harder it is to do some of these things, or at least you think it is harder. It really isn't. But we actually need these things more as we get older.
We need to exercise more, and the older we get, the more we need it, not that we need to get more and more and more as we get older, but the more we need it, because we start to break down. When you are young, your body is pretty forgiving, and it can take a little abuse.
However, if your goal is to live a long time, and feel good and look good, then the earlier you start in life, the more these things are going to help you. Teaching children that is the challenge and it is up to the parents.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, how are you making the world a better place?
Dave Kekich: In the short term, and I call the short term the next immediately, of course, I am trying to reach people, anybody that will listen to me. I will show them how they can live longer and healthier lives with today's technology.
And again you can go to www.MaxLife.org to find that out in the more immediate term. We are making the world a better place by solving aging and being able to cure diseases and conditions that lead to biological death, and that is raising a lot of money, and making people aware that these things are really possible, and getting the technologies off the ground and managing them, and building management teams.
There is a lot to it. In the long term I have some ideas that could, in my humble opinion, make the world a better place to live through technologies and philosophies.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you have any good solutions to the problems facing society, especially racism, child and spousal abuse, and violence among young people?
Dave Kekich: Well, that is a pretty big challenge and a bit out of my scope and anybody's scope. But I just think that my best solution would be to work toward a system that would be where everyone is 100% accountable for their actions. And mostly where everyone would get exactly what he or she deserves.
And that eliminates a lot of forced social programs. That is on a personal level and on a corporate level. This is not a very popular idea, and it is hard to implement, but I think the solutions are basically getting to the core of the problems and not fighting symptoms.
24. Enthusiasm covers many deficiencies - and will make others want to associate with you.
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Ralph Zuranski: How do people become heroes?
Dave Kekich: In my mind, by establishing a strong code of ethics and sticking to it, no matter what. And especially if no one is looking.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, how does it feel to be recognized as a hero?
Dave Kekich: Well, it is nice to know that someone thinks of me as a hero, Ralph. I don't, so I just really don't.
Ralph Zuranski: I think Joe Polish considers you to be a hero, and why do you think you were selected for this honor?
Dave Kekich: Again, I don't know. You would have to talk to Joe.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, how will being recognized as a hero change your life?
Dave Kekich: Oh, kind of like the peer pressure scenario, I think. Anytime you go public with your opinions, and your goals and ideas and your philosophies, it puts more pressure on you to make sure you are right, and it also puts more pressure on you to do something positive with it.
23. Incalculable effort and hardship over countless generations evolved into the life, values and happiness we take for granted today. Every day should be a celebration of existence. You are a masterpiece of life and should feel and appreciate this all the way down to your bones. Aspire to create, achieve and build onto the great value momentum taking place all around you.
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Ralph Zuranski: What is something parents can do to help their children realize that they, too, can be heroes and make a positive impact on the lives of others?
Dave Kekich: I never had children, so I am kind of preaching from Mount Olympus now. But I think just based on my observation, of basically my friends and family who did have children - and I am kind of an uncle to, a real uncle to some and a not-so-real, but an uncle in spirit to others - I think it starts with home education, because the things I think children should learn are not typically taught in schools, like entrepreneurship and rags-to-riches stories, great biographies, but especially values. You just don't seem to find those things in schools.
Also, you will never find the relationship between effort and reward, especially productivity and reward. That is something that has to be instilled in children at a very early age. I think that is going to make their lives so much easier to cope with, and it is going to make it so much easier to grow, to prosper, to walk on the right side of the road if they learn that early in life.
Understanding money is important and its value, because basically in economics, I think young people don't really see the value in money and don't really appreciate what it took to create it. And then the physical things: diet, exercise. Our children now are overweight, more overweight than they have ever been.
They are more out of shape than they have ever been, and a lot of that has to do with the fast food industry and processed foods. A lot of it has to do with the technology that I love so much, because a lot of kids are gamers and are not getting out and running and playing soccer. They are playing soccer with their video games.
I think that another thing that children should share in, that young people should share in, is self-development programs. I think that parents should participate with them in a lot of programs that are available today, and I think that would bond the parents with the children, and parents would learn a lot from it, too. Most parents don't really understand what children need to learn.
22. The value of any service you have to offer diminishes rapidly once it's provided. Protect your compensation before performing.
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Ralph Zuranski: Yeah; I can imagine so. Well, who do you think are the real heroes in our society today who are not getting the recognition and rewards that they deserve?
Dave Kekich: I think while generally entrepreneurs and business leaders are becoming a little more popular, they are still being more vilified than glorified, in the entertainment industry, especially. And in the press.
You get a lot of bad press; people attack them, and when people rise to the top, they tend to get attacked, but the entertainment industry seems to glorify more villains, more drug dealers, and when they portray business people, they often portray them as evil, conniving, destructive, greedy people.
In reality, sure, every field has those kinds of people, but most successful business people and entrepreneurs are exactly the opposite.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah, I really believe that is true. Well, why are heroes so important to the lives of young people?
Dave Kekich: Young people are impressionable; the most impressionable times of your life are when you are young. That can be good or bad, and other people are just going to sway them, and that is why it is important to have heroes sway them rather than some of their peers and the media who are at the opposite end of the spectrum, and don't forget the media.
Don’t attack the media because a lot of it is great, but it is entertaining, and business and entrepreneurs maybe aren't very entertaining. Maybe killers and thieves and drug dealers are more entertaining than entrepreneurs and business people.
But the media impresses young people's peers, your children's peers, and they, in turn, impress your children, and often in a negative way, so I think many of the wrong people are emulated, and that is why it is important when people are at their most impressionable ages, they are given heroes, real heroes, to emulate.
21. Always have lofty explicit goals and visualize them intensely. Assume the attitude that if you don't reach your goals, you will literally die! This type of gun-to-your-head forced focus... survival pressure mindset, no matter how briefly used, stimulates your mind, forces you to use your time effectively... and illuminates new ways of getting things done.
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Ralph Zuranski: How important is it to have trusted friends and a mastermind group to bounce your ideas off?
Dave Kekich: I don't think it is essential, Ralph, but it is a huge advantage. You need to select very carefully who that mastermind group is going to be, though I think you want people who have been selected carefully, who are in tune with their goals, not necessarily their skills, or their experiences, because you want to have a wide variety with different disciplines in there. I think those people do have a huge advantage.
Ralph Zuranski: How do they make a positive difference in your life?
Dave Kekich: For the amount that I have done, they validate or correct my ideas, people to bounce ideas off of, and then I get ideas and inspirations off of them. And I think mostly they give me someone to answer to, and that is a very big, overlooked advantage to mastermind groups.
You basically come out in public and you expose your ideas and dreams and aspirations and your goals to other people. And there is a certain amount of peer pressure to implement your ideas at that point.
It is real easy to have goals and ideas and to keep them to yourself and die with them. But when you start sharing them with other people, it puts a lot of pressure on you.
Did you believe your dreams would become reality?
Ralph: You know, I do believe my dreams will become reality. I look back to 1992 when I first started the Heroes program. I realized that was something that God wanted me to do. I just saw the huge amount of work it would take, and the massive amount of investment of time and money.
I’ve been funding it with my time and money for almost 13 years now. Just the sacrifices that I have had to make, during those times I’ve had to basically live out of my car because in pursuing my dream and doing everything I could to work with people that are ethical and have integrity.
A lot of the people that have taken advantage of me, I have had to break those connections. Even though it was a way that I was making a living, I had to cut back on my life just to pursue my dreams. But I always believed they would come true and I was willing to pay the price to make them become true.
Sharif Khan: It is very important! I believe you have to taste and feel and smell your dream as if it is a reality right now. I’m a big believer in seeing the reality and the vision and dream right up front, right now, the way it is. If you can’t visualize and see the tears of triumph running down your face when you win that award or get that promotion, nothing will happen.
It doesn’t matter how many goals you set, or how many affirmations you say till you’re blue in the face, if you don’t have that feeling or that knowing that this is going to be a reality, then nothing is going to happen.
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20. Rationalizations are generally convenient evasions of reality and are used as excuses for dishonest behavior, mistakes and/or laziness.
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Ralph Zuranski: Well, what is your definition of heroism?
Dave Kekich: It is probably a couple of things. Facing your fears and acting in spite of them would be one. Standing up for your convictions when faced with adversity would be another one. You talked about being wiling to die for your principles, and that would certainly be one: one I hope most people won't have to take.
I say walking the talk, when you have a lot to lose. Doing the right thing when it is not popular. I would say that all those things go into making a hero.
Ralph Zuranski: Did you ever create a secret hero in your mind that helps you with life's difficulties, especially after you had your injury?
Dave Kekich: No, no. I never did.
Ralph Zuranski: Who are the heroes in your life now?
Dave Kekich: My heroes are almost all dead. But there are so many of them. Giordano Bruno was one of them. He was burned at the stake for heresy, and he was a scientist.
Thomas Jefferson was one of them for me, and Thomas Paine, and Sir Isaac Newton, who is probably the most important person who ever lived, who based his work on his breakthroughs and his work on the amount of property that has been affected. Basically everything that is electrical or mechanical stems from his integrations, and Einstein.
There are a lot of people who are alive today, without naming them. Basically they are people who rise to the top with humility and integrity, and people who set positive roll models. And my heroes tend to be scientists and business people.
Well Ralph, what’s next for “In Search of Heroes™?”
Ralph: Well, next is to do the In Search of Heroes book that I’m working on right now, the answer to In Search of Heroes on the Internet. The second book will be In Search of Heroes in Medicine with all the answers kids need to realize, and parents too, that can help make such a big difference in the health and lives of themselves and their kids.
If we can teach kids how to love themselves, how to utilize their brains to their full power, how to be healthy and successful in business and actually provide a vehicle that they can be successful in publishing and promoting the eBooks they create about the Heroes in their community, we should be able to generate enough income to help people in the communities fund their own programs to make their communities better than they could ever be.
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19. Use leverage with ideas (the ability to generalize is the key to intellectual leverage), work, money, time and people. To maximize profits, replicate yourself. Earning potentials become geometric rather than linear.
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Ralph Zuranski: That is amazing. Well, how important is it to believe that your financial dreams will eventually become reality?
Dave Kekich: Most of what I want to accomplish depends on wealth generation, and huge wealth generation. I know I am not going to be single-handedly solving aging; I am going to make an impact on it though, and I know I don't need to do all the research, but I do know what needs to be underwritten now that isn't being funded.
And that is going to take an enormous amount of money over time, and I believe that will happen, so that is very important to me.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, why is it valuable to know exactly how much money you want to have in your bank account, by when?
Dave Kekich: Getting back to focusing on raising money, my focus is on a venture fund. We have a foundation, and we have a venture fund, and we have a roadmap, a scientific roadmap on aging, and we have costs involved.
And in order to follow all that roadmap and reach our goal, we have to know how much money we have to raise by a certain period in time, and how much after that to raise in a certain period of time. Just looking at these goals and writing them automatically makes you visualize them, and you have got to make them explicit.
But when you visualize explicit goals, it really helps you to bring them to reality, at least much more surely and much faster.
18. Find out what works, and then do more of it. Focus first on doing the right things, and then on doing things right by mastering details. A few basic moves produce most results and income.
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Ralph Zuranski: Well, was there anyone who gave you the will power to change things for the better in your life at that time?
Dave Kekich: Not exactly at that time, but right around that time. And his name was Wallace Ward, and he had a publishing company, and it was interesting. I read a lot of things he published, and they were very inspiring, but the most motivating thing to me was a questionnaire that their company sent to me.
And one of the questions on there was, "Do you still get regular aerobic exercise?" But it might have been just exercise, but I think it was aerobic exercise. And I hadn't been working out, and I used to work out six days a week, and usually seven days a week, and I lifted very heavily three days a week.
I ran very hard and very long four days a week. Then I went from that and getting hurt into doing nothing. But in my mind I was a long distance running, body building fanatic. In reality, I hadn't worked out in a couple of years.
So, I didn't know how to check that box. So I knew if I put down no, it would be something that I don't see myself as. If I put yes, I would be lying, so I checked yes and started working out that day. And I haven't quit since.
Who helped give you the will power to change things in your life for the better?
Ralph: Well, back when I was thinking about committing suicide, even though I had material possessions and money, drugs and sex, it brought no happiness. If it wasn’t for God offering me that free gift of salvation, eternal salvation and giving me the grace that I needed to make the right decision, I would be dead.
I would be dead or in some alley like you when you were going down that trail. So first, I have to say that God gives me the willpower to change things in my life because I’m selfish and I want things for myself.
It’s so hard sometimes just to sacrifice your life for others, especially if it’s a big sacrifice of wealth and material possessions when you have to take care of others who are sick in your family. I think the other person who has given me will power is my wife, even though we have been through a lot of difficult times over the past ten years because she’s had severe health problems herself.
It has taken ten years to find out why she was going through premature menopause, with all the hormonal problems that she had. We met Dr. Borkin over the last five years who is an expert in hormones and understanding how the hormonal process works.
If I just would have known when I was a kid, and if I were a parent and knew about the hormones in my kids and how major the impact is, and how you can balance those things out, it would have made a huge difference.
So I say that first God, and then my wife supporting me no matter what and dealing with the problems in her life, but always saying, “Yes, Ralph, I know that you can do it” and always having faith that I could do it. Dr. Borkin coming into my life and showing me what I needed to balance out my hormones so I could have victory over the hormones to cause depression..
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Debra Berg: My new husband, my mother, and my extended family were all very supportive. I know I couldn’t have marched as quickly toward my goals without their encouragement.
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Sharif Khan: My father passed on a lot of wisdom and guidance and encouraged me to study the lives of successful people and read successful biographies. My father was a PhD. in Psychology. Ever since I was 8 years old he immersed myself in the classics like James Allen, Wayne Dyer, Shakti Gawain, Dale Carnegie, and all of these personal development greats I started learning at a young age. So he was an inspiration to me.
Another person that was a real inspiration to me is a gentleman by the name of Jim Ross, who I dedicated my book to. He is the founder of the Canadian Academy of Method Acting, and he taught me a lot about the psychology of the hero and psychology of the villain. He was a mentor to me, a messenger, a carrier of truth. He is definitely a hero in my life.
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17. Life operates in reverse action to entropy. Therefore the universe is hostile to life. Progress is a continued effort to swim against the stream.
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Ralph Zuranski: Well, when was the lowest point in your life, and how did you change your life afterwards to win a victory over the obstacles you were facing at that time?
Dave Kekich: Well, the lowest point was my injury. I lost basically everything I had, emotionally and physically, and relationships. Well, they actually endured over time. I lost my business, and my attitude. Primarily, that was the worst part. But there really is no magic bullet or quick fix to overcoming obstacles.
A lot of people talk about, well - this is a life-changing event and so forth. And when you see a life-changing event, usually a lot of things have led up to that to lay the groundwork for it. And when you see a certain breakthrough, they almost always follow slowly building a foundation for that breakthrough.
Now, if there was one breakthrough in my life that changed my life and got me back on track, it was when I decided to hold a fundraiser for spinal cord injuries. And I was working with the Spinal Cord Society at that time; I had a local chapter.
I held a drug-free power lifting event back in Pennsylvania, a small town in western Pennsylvania, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. We called it, or I called it, the Eastern United States Power Lifting Championships. And it was the first positive thing I had done in a couple of years.
I mean, I pretty much vegetated after my injury, and I put together this event, and it turned out we had people from all over the East Coast, and some people from the Midwest came to this relatively small town, and we got local newspaper coverage, all local, lots of local radio coverage, and sponsors.
And after it was all over, I realized my brain still worked. And that yes, it got me back on track. And I didn't go from stagnation to being in the stratosphere that day, but gradually it got me going, and I had ups and downs after that, but mostly ups. Overall I am way ahead in many ways now than I was when I was hurt, or before I was hurt.
When was the lowest point in your life, and how did you change your life path to one of victory over obstacles?
Ralph Zuranski: I decided to turn away from my faith. I still remember the first day that I didn’t go to Mass. I decided I would go surfing instead. I was sitting out in the ocean and it was the time of the movie Jaws and I just kept on thinking about this big giant shark opening up its mouth and just consuming me, like the whale consumed Jonah.
Sitting out on my board as punishment for turning away from God, and when nothing happened like that, that sent me on a spiral on getting involved with sex and drugs and rock and roll, and psychedelics.
It completely evolved into a situation where I was smoking pot all the time. I was living with a guy that was into coke and all the horrible things involved in freebasing coke and I saw all that. Ultimately it led me to a point where I was just so depressed and I was ready to kill myself. I still had that problem with depression. Even though I had money, sex and drugs I was just so depressed.
The idea of training a child in the way they should go and when they are old they won’t depart from it. I know my parents were praying for me and spontaneously at the lowest point of my life when I was ready to kill myself, out of the blue, subconsciously I started saying the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary.
That seemed to put me in a situation where I was able to find my relationship with God as either accept the free gift of salvation or just kill myself. Thankfully God gave me the grace and the faith to make the right choice.
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16. Competence starts with guaranteeing your work.
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Ralph Zuranski: Would you experience service to others as a source of joy?
Dave Kekich: Yes, I do. But I actually try to do it profitably. And the reason I do that is it is more durable. One example is the life extension pursuits I have. We believe we have a pretty strong team, by the way, and have a really strong group of scientists on our board, and we have a very strong management team and a really strong team as advisors.
And things aren't just automatically going to happen, because of the law of accelerating returns. Well, they will happen, but they will happen when people make them happen if it is not something that is on remote control.
And we think we are going to make it happen a lot sooner, and by doing that we believe we are going to be able to save millions, if not tens of hundreds of millions of lives of people who were dying prematurely. Now, if you try to do something to save yourself, and try to extend your own life, you just aren't going to be able to pull it off.
There is just, you don't have enough resources. In order to make this work you have to make it work for the world. You better make it work for humanity. And that is what I mean by durability, and that carries over to all kinds of other things.
You have heard the old adage over and over about you can give a man a fish and you can feed him for a day, and you can teach him to fish, and you feed him for life. That is a philosophy I like to follow. It is more sustainable, and again, it is more durable.
A lot of people want to be a martyr. They stand up and they say, "Well, gee, I am servicing others," and often that is self-defeating, because you run out of resources. In order to give you have to create, because if you are not creating, you won't have anything to give.
15. If it's not proprietary, it won't work. Pay only on performance. Proprietary interest is one of the most powerful forces ever known. Whatever you reinforce or reward, you get more of.
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Ralph Zuranski: Are you slow to reverse or revise an important decision?
Dave Kekich: I am slow, but I am willing. Once I make a decision, then I have thought it out. Hopefully, I have thought it out, if I do what I say I should do. But once you make a decision, if you do it the right way, it is probably right, but it is not necessarily right. You should spend more time changing it than you did making it.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, how were you able to overcome your doubts and fears? It must have been pretty catastrophic when you got paralyzed.
Dave Kekich: Well, it was, and I didn't overcome it at first. I ended up just facing them. But not just fears from being paralyzed. It was fears from making a sales call, or fears from asking somebody out on a date. There are a lot of fears we face in our lives.
I mean, you just have to face them. But when you do, you are going to find most of your fears are over-hyped. They really weren't that bad.
Ralph Zuranski: Would you readily forgive those who upset, offended, and oppose you?
Dave Kekich: I think for the people who upset, offend or oppose me, there isn't anything to forgive. There is always somebody that is going to oppose you. You have different opinions, and people feel just as strongly about theirs as you do yours.
So just because they are opposing you doesn't mean there is something to forgive, and people offend other people all the time. It is just their nature; I don't think it is anything to forgive. People upset you from time to time. I think the thing that is a forgivable offense is when you are cheated, you are lied to, you are stolen from, and you have physical harm.
Or when someone does those things to somebody you love. That is a whole different category. And in those cases I try, but I have to say it is very difficult.
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What were or are the qualities and attributes of your secret Hero?
Ralph Zuranski: My secret Hero was positive all the time. My Hero was always telling me, “You can do it! Don’t give up! Even though you failed, never give up! Everything is going to be okay! Don’t focus on the negative. Just continue to be positive and just try. You are only a failure if you don’t get back up and try again. You are going to fail a lot, but if you learn from your failures, you continue to find how to have a better and more successful life.”
So, my character really gave me hope and said, “You can do it!” There is that one piece of life that always was there to keep me going in times of difficulty and depression, fear and self worthlessness.
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Sharif Khan: They had a dream, they were determined, and knew exactly what they wanted and they had a larger than life vision. They went out there with courage and did what they wanted to do and didn’t take “no” from anybody and were able to accomplish their dreams; and so I look up to these role models knowing if they can do it, I can do it.
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Debra Berg: Mom surmounted incredible odds and obstacles to become successful, and mostly she did it while she was a single parent raising me. She was a secretary to generals and college deans. She also headed up a large organization that helped thousands of women achieve a better financial situation. Perseverance was her battle cry. Now, whenever obstacles come up for me, I just remember her example.
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14. The primary purpose of business is to create and keep customers. Marketing and innovation produce results. All other business functions are costs. Prospecting and increasing the average value and frequency of sales are the bedrock of marketing and business.
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Ralph Zuranski: Do you think it takes courage to pursue new ideas?
Dave Kekich: Oh, yeah, sure; it is not very easy because the tendency is to go with the flow, and inertia is hard to overcome, but it is very important to keep from stagnating. The world is changing so quickly, and that gets back to the Law of Accelerating Returns, that if you don't, you are not going to keep up. It is exciting. There are a lot of exciting things happening.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, were you willing to experience discomfort in the pursuit of your dreams?
Dave Kekich: I wish I didn't have to but yeah, you have got to. We all have comfort zones; at least, perceived comfort zones. And if we just try to stay in those, we are going to guarantee stagnation. Usually when you get out of your comfort zones, you will find the effort that you make to get out of your comfort zones and be uncomfortable, really leads to more long term comforts.
So I think people are kidding themselves when they say, "Well, I am comfortable here now, and things are great, and I don't need to do anything," they are going to find that they are sacrificing comfort as well as other things for short-term gratification.
Ralph Zuranski: Was it beneficial to make decisions quickly?
Dave Kekich: Not necessarily. I admire people who can make very quick decisions that are right. I find that when I act impulsively it is almost always wrong. Now, having said that, I think it is important to make decisions quickly once you do your homework, and once you get all of the facts, or most of the facts. Or at least enough of them. But make sure, once you get the facts, you look at them and then make a decision. At that point, it doesn't pay to vacillate.
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How will being recognized as an Internet hero change your life?
Cameron Johnson: Well, hopefully it will change the life of others and of the people listening. But also it changed my life just by thinking about the questions we have talked about today, and I hope that further discussion on these questions will not just help me, but help everyone who is listening.
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Ralph Zuranski: You know it already has changed my life. That other people think that I am a Hero confirms and reaffirms all the years and all the sacrifices that I have ever been through since I created Captain Biorhythm back in 1976.
It’s been a hard road, and I can’t tell you how embarrassing it was to wear my costume around. For one year, I lived as Captain Biorhythm. I wore my costume to work every day, the costume I designed went through a series of evolutions. Ultimately it became a test of people’s brain integration, whether they were right or left brained dominant.
So when I was director of a chain of health spas in charge of health research, family fitness centers, I wore my costume to work every day to test people’s brain hemisphere. I had my car painted up as the Biomobile and it had Captain Bio on it.
Everybody kept asking me, “Gee, who is Captain B10”, just this thing that I did had the reverse consequences. I was ridiculed, but still, I persevered and went to the comic conventions in San Diego and went up on stage.
I remember one time when I was doing the first Heroes program, I had a young man, stay with me and we went on In Search of Heroes in the comic industry, the comic convention at Sea World and Disneyland. I was up on the stage; I was going to have three stages where I had Ralph Zuranski on the outside.
Underneath that costume I had Captain Biorhythm, and underneath that costume I had Captain Bioman, where you integrate the right brain and the left brain. Bio means two, so when you join your hands together that integrates both your right brain and your left brain, and people do that naturally when they put their hands together in great joy or great sorrow. Some people pray, it’s like integrating the person instantly.
At that time the people that were running the convention turned the lights off when I took my first layer off. They thought I was probably a pervert and that I was going to expose myself. I intended to expose that there were three aspects of human beings, there is your right brain, your left brain, and anybody can be a Bioman or Biowoman when they join hands together and they form a circle of completion and become friends with themselves. Both brain hemispheres are working together rather than trying to destroy one brain hemisphere.
Most of the time our worst enemy is ourselves, and our dominant brains, either the left brain that is the logical, judgmental, mathematical, verbal skills. It’s the one that’s competitive and the judgmental one. It internalizes all the negative stuff that people have told us over our lifetime and a lot of times, destroy our self image and make our lives the worst ever.
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Sharif Khan: It already has changed my life. I know if I were to pass away right now, that I have already done something that will leave a lasting legacy and a gift to humanity with the work that I’ve already done. And it gives me a great sense of peace. And what really gets me going, the drive, is thinking what will be written on my epitaph when I die, how do I want to be remembered.
That’s what allows me to want to serve as best I can using my God-given abilities to help as many people as I can within the shortest time frame that’s left because life is really fragile. Life is so short. I heard about Cory Ru