Ralph Zuranski: Hi, I’m on the
phone with David Garfinkel. He is the best teacher of
copywriting in the world today. How are you doing tonight,
David?
David Garfinkel: I’m doing
great, Ralph. How are you?
Ralph Zuranski: I really
appreciate the opportunity to have you answer some of these Hero
questions. You’ve been a real hero of mine for a long time. I’ve
seen you at a lot of the different conferences that I’ve been
to.
David Garfinkel: Thank you.
Ralph Zuranski: Probably one of
the first questions that I wanted to ask you, what is your
definition of heroism?
David Garfinkel: Okay, in my
mind, a hero is someone who has faced challenges and exhibited
great courage in the face of risks and danger. I tend to think
of a hero as someone who acts courageously for a goal or a
purpose that’s greater than him or herself.
Ralph Zuranski: Now, have you
ever considered that there is a silent type of heroism - people
that are sacrificing their lives. I know that in my situation,
taking care of my mom and dad, I had no idea the degree of
sacrifice that it would take and just how much strength it would
take to follow through on my original statement that I was going
to take care of them.
David Garfinkel: Absolutely.
You know it’s funny. We have this image of heroes because we
have such a media culture and a celebrity culture. We tend to
think of heroes as the ones that are best known and who do these
great dramatic things. I think those people are heroes, but I
don’t think they are the only heroes.
David Garfinkel: I think that
what you’re talking about fits my definition very well. I just
saw a movie called “Hostage” with Bruce Willis. I don’t know if
you’ve seen it.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah, I've seen
that one too.
David Garfinkel: I don’t know
if any of our listeners have seen it. I was seeing it with a
friend who talks about heroes all the time and in fact she is a
hero of mine. She says things, like when you do her a favor,
she’ll say, “Well, you’re a hero!”
David Garfinkel: But during the
movie, there’s this scene with a young boy. He’s tied up and he
uses broken glass. Do you remember that scene?
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah, I do.
David Garfinkel: And he cuts
the ropes? My friend got all upset because the broken glass was
not only cutting the ropes, but it was cutting his hand. Blood
was spurting all over the place and she sort of grabbed my arm.
But you know the thing is, he wasn’t doing this because he was
stupid or just to save himself. He was also trying to save his
sister. The bad guys were holding them hostage. I remember
whispering to my friend, “That’s what a hero does.”
David Garfinkel: He was
sacrificing his own comfort and his own safety to save himself
and another person. That’s my definition. Of course, you don’t
always literally get your hands bloody and often a hero is
selfless to help more than one person. I mean what you are
talking about with your own parents is a great example.
Ralph Zuranski: I've also seen
in working with kids for many, many years is that kids really
and truly do have the potential of heroism within themselves. A
lot of times, they don’t even realize that they have that
potential.
David Garfinkel: No, and maybe
one reason is that it is not recognized and valued when it’s at
a small personal level. But I do. I recognize it and value it
and you certainly do. You see it.
Ralph Zuranski: Well you know,
when we were young, I created a secret hero that helped me
overcome all the problems that I had as a kid, being a 99 pound
weakling. You know, big nose, big ears, horned-rimmed glasses.
I just sort of hated who I was and I had this fictional hero in
my own mind that kept on telling me that, “It’s going to be
okay. You can do this.” Did you ever create a hero in your own
mind to help you through difficult situations?
David Garfinkel: I think it’s
terrific that you did that. That’s really great. No. I never
did. I’ll tell you a little bit about heroes in my own life
though. I had some pictures of real heroes on my wall. This is
after I was older. Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein are real
heroes to me.
David Garfinkel: But they are
living people. I know some are very famous and some are not that
I can tell you about. There’s a guy named Bob Parsons. He
founded a company named GoDaddy that makes it real easy to do a
lot of things on the Internet. He's a real hero of mine.
David Garfinkel: Steve Jobs is
a hero of mine even though I’m not a Mac guy. You know? I don’t
even like the attitude that a lot of people have about
Macintoshes. But what Steve did makes him a hero in my mind.
David Garfinkel: Someone we
both know – Armand Morin. What he's done for Internet Marketers
and Internet Marketing, he's a hero of mine.
David Garfinkel: Mike Stewart,
we both know him as well. He's helped ordinary people do things
with audio, with recording and with video on the Internet,
especially in business that no one else has done. He's a hero of
mine.
David Garfinkel: I know a
doctor named Dave Wienerawski; he's a friend of mine. I’m a
customer of his. He's a client of mine and he's an MD. He gave
up his practice and this might not sound like a big deal to a
lot of people, but you have to understand. His father was an MD
and that was what “he was supposed to do”. He gave it up. He
retired to dedicate his life to creating better nutritional
health solutions for people.
David Garfinkel: All of those
people are heroes.
Ralph Zuranski: What is your
perspective on goodness, ethics, and moral behavior?
David Garfinkel: Well, that’s a
great question. I think that there is such a thing as good and
there is such a thing as evil. There’s no doubt in my mind, but
an interesting twist on that is I've come to realize that almost
all people consider themselves good even though other people may
consider them evil.
David Garfinkel: For example, I
was very interested in writing movies for a long time. I studied
screen writing and I will never forget, there was a very famous
teacher of screen writing named Robert McKee.
David Garfinkel: He said that
almost all people believe themselves to be good. The example
that he gave and this is what I've come to believe, as I've just
stated it, he said that the people in the Mafia, the mobsters,
they call themselves The Good People.
David Garfinkel: Because they
believe they’re providing drugs, prostitution and all of these
other things that the middle class and the other people want,
they consider them hypocrites. They consider themselves good
people because they’re not hypocrites.
David Garfinkel: I just think
that everyone should know that. That doesn’t mean that I
consider them good.
David Garfinkel: Okay? I just
wanted to state that. People have different points of view. What
some people call the law of cause and effect, in the Bible
there’s a saying, “As you sow, so shall you reap.”
David Garfinkel: From some area
of India, there’s a concept of karma. It’s the same idea. I
believe that if you do things that you consider evil, that evil
will befall you. If you do things that are good, good things
will come to you. Not right away and not always in ways that
you would have expected.
David Garfinkel: I think in
terms of being ethical, it’s a lot harder to be ethical in the
short run. But because of the law of cause and effect, it’s much
easier in the long run. I also believe, and for all of the kids
that are listening to this, I really, really would like to say
this.
The happiest people, the most wealthy people,
the most successful people, either they started to or they
eventually grew to have a long-term perspective on life. They do
things for the long run.
Ralph Zuranski: It’s funny that
you talk about people thinking themselves good. One of the first
heroes that we interviewed was Gregory Allen Williams. He was
one of the stars on Bay Watch. He was the cop, Sergeant Ellerby.
He was a Shakespearean actor. He actually saved the life of an
Asian man during the L.A. riots. He was able to get the guy out
of the car while he was being beaten to death.
David Garfinkel: Really?
Ralph Zuranski: He was an Asian
guy and Gregory Allen Williams is a black guy, so when the mob
turned on him to kill him and finish off the Asian guy, there
was a Mexican gentleman who stepped in to take the beating so he
could get him to the neighbors so they could get him to the
hospital. I still remember this one quote. He said, “There’s a
little bit of good in the worst of us and a little bit of bad in
the best of us.”
David Garfinkel: That is so
true.
Ralph Zuranski: People want to
be heroes when they step up and do something to help others.
David Garfinkel: That’s right.
I agree with you. That’s a wonderful story.
Ralph Zuranski: Anybody could
be a hero if they just did something good to help somebody else.
David Garfinkel: Yes.
Ralph Zuranski: You know
everybody has had low points in their life. What was the lowest
point in your life? How did you change your life path to win a
victory over all obstacles?
David Garfinkel: Well, there
are a couple of things that come to mind. One was when my father
died when I was nineteen. I don’t have much to tell you about
what I did. I don’t think I did anything particularly heroic. I
just went on with my life.
David Garfinkel: I don’t know
if I did anything heroic at the other low point. I think the
very worst time was, oh gosh, twenty years later when I was
around forty. I had been trying to build a business for eight
years and I had been trying to do everything right. I had been
doing many things wrong without knowing it.
David Garfinkel: I was broke
and my business was crumbling. The IRS had frozen my bank
account. There were a couple of things and I can't remember a
day when this happened, but I think that fairly rapidly I came
to make a couple of changes.
David Garfinkel: One is I
learned what I call the “Entrepreneurs Secret.” I will tell you
this, I came to recognize later from an excellent coach named
Dan Sullivan. He has something called “Strategic Coach”. It’s
for Entrepreneurs.
David Garfinkel: The
Entrepreneur’s Secret is very different from the entitlement
mentality. I know that those are big words for a lot of people,
but the entitlement mentality is, “The world owes me a living.
Screw you. Give me what’s mine.”
David Garfinkel: The
Entrepreneur’s Secret is that you have to create and deliver a
massive amount of value before you can really expect anything in
return. You have to step up first. So that’s one thing that
changed things for me.
David Garfinkel: Another thing
was when I switched my focus from being a narrative writer; I
had been a professional writer as a journalist. I think that
people who do that, they serve a very important function. I’m
not saying that there’s anything wrong with it. But for me, what
really changed my life, not only my financial fortune but also
allowed me to do more things for more people, is I switched my
focus from being that kind of writer who just told stories, to
being a copywriter who also told stories, but told stories that
helped people to improve their lives and help businesses to make
more money.
David Garfinkel: My own belief
is that when you can do that, you can tell a story that is going
to have a positive effect on someone, rather than it’s internal
like inspiration. Or external, like helping a person to make
more money, that’s when you can really make a difference for
them.
Ralph Zuranski: Was your dad a
hero to you? I know that you mentioned that when you were
nineteen, he died. Was he that type of person?
David Garfinkel: I looked up to
him. I don’t know if I would call him a hero. I mean, I missed
him terribly. I guess I would say no he wasn’t because I didn't
want to live the same kind of life that he had lived. I don’t
mean, getting sick and dying, but no, I wouldn't say he was a
hero.
David Garfinkel: I respected
him and I loved him, but I wouldn't put him in the hero
category.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you have a
dream or vision that set your course of life?
David Garfinkel: Actually, I’m
really glad that you just asked me that question, because I
think I’m going to probably do an about face on my last answer
about my dad. When I was about fifteen, this was about four
years before my dad died, he was writing this book with his
boss. My dad was a scientist. He was having such a hard time
writing the book.
David Garfinkel: You know,
writing has always come easily to me. Now I’m going to make a
little distinction here, writing well never comes easy to me.
Actually, just getting words down on the page, just writing,
that’s always been easy. He was having the hardest, hardest time
and I really wanted to help him. I wanted to help him so bad,
Ralph.
David Garfinkel: I offered to
and of course, it was nice of me to do that, but I didn't know
how I could help him. I didn't understand anything about physics
or what he writing about. I remember him looking at me and
saying, “David, if you could do that, if you could help people
to write more easily, that would be the most wonderful thing.”
David Garfinkel: I think that
more than being a hero, he was an inspiration for my dream and
my vision. I created the World Copywriting Institute and I have
the vision of eradicating copywriting illiteracy in this world.
What’s copywriting illiteracy? It doesn’t mean that you don’t
know who to write. It doesn’t mean that you can't read or write,
which is what people normally think of as illiteracy.
David Garfinkel: What I call
copywriting illiteracy is the inability to write words that
prompt other people to do something - to take action. I would
say that someone is copywriting illiterate even if they are a
copywriter, or work for an ad agency or anything. If they can
only write advertising that doesn’t work. It doesn’t inspire or
motivate other people to take action, so this is a long-term
goal – to eradicate copywriting illiteracy in the world.
David Garfinkel: This is the
mission for the rest of my life.
Ralph Zuranski: Wow. That’s a
great vision because part of the Heroes program is that once the
kids learn to find their own hero within and then go and
publicize local heroes, their job will be to write good copy,
sales copy that will promote that person’s business in the local
community so they can afford to do more good things in the
community itself.
David Garfinkel: Once the kids
get out of school, they become the ultimate copywriter resource
for the local businesses. A lot of times local businesses can
hire kids, but they can't hire copywriters like yourself for
$500 per hour.
David Garfinkel: Ralph, thank
you. That is such a wonderful goal that you have for your
program.
Ralph Zuranski: I guess that
we’re both optimists and wanting to change the world in a
specific way to make it a better place, starting off with the
kids.
David Garfinkel: Yeah.
Ralph Zuranski: You are
obviously an optimist.
David Garfinkel: I am an
optimist, but I'm also a pragmatist. I know that things always
work out best in the end if you stay the course, if you
persevere. But I also know that we don’t always know, we usually
don’t know what’s going to happen along the way.
Ralph Zuranski: Boy, isn’t that
true?
David Garfinkel: Yeah. There's
a very controversial author name Robert Ringer. He wrote a book
called Winning through Intimidation, Million Dollar Habits,
Looking Out for Number One. A lot people think he's all
about selfishness. He's really not in my opinion.
David Garfinkel: He has a
really neat concept called “Positive Thinking with the
Expectation of a Negative Result”. What he means by that is
that, things are always going to work out, but they’re not
always going out the way you expect them. You're going to have a
lot of false starts.
David Garfinkel: You're going
to have a lot of disappointments along the way. If you expect
that, it’s not going to destroy you. It’s going to remind you
that you are on your path and you just have to keep at it.
David Garfinkel: To use a
baseball analogy, you have to swing a few times and you have to
miss a few times before you get a hit. You can't win all the
time. I've gotten to the point in my life now, and I'm a big
optimist. A lot of people can't believe how optimistic I am, and
yet I consider a project or even a day to be a success as long
as I've won more than I've lost.
David Garfinkel: It doesn’t
mean that I'm going to win everything. I'm just going to win
more than I lose.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s a great
concept. You look at the flip side and what everybody is
expecting – instant gratification. You know, when people don’t
get that instant gratification they sort of get embittered. They
start saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.”
David Garfinkel: Well see, I
love instant gratification. I do. Maybe that’s why I'm a
copywriter because I understand that concept in others. If you
can appeal to people’s sense of getting a real quick reward,
you’re will work better. But I also have fifty years of life
experience and I just have seen the way that things go for me
and everyone else.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you think
that it’s hard for people to change and that it takes a lot of
courage to pursue new ideas?
David Garfinkel: Yeah, I think
it is hard. I think for most people it is very hard and I think
that I've been blessed in that I have that courage. It’s one of
my greatest strengths. You know, courage by the way, doesn’t
mean fearlessness in my mind. Courage means willingness to act
in the face of fear.
David Garfinkel: I want to tell
you, Ralph, I've also learned to hear and to listen to and to
trust my intuition. That’s important with new ideas. I want to
say something. The world does not accept new ideas. If you have
new ideas, that’s going to be a lesson for most people.
David Garfinkel: You have to
learn how to sell and you have to learn how to accept rejection.
Especially when you know the idea is right and people all around
you are just shaking their heads.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
David Garfinkel: Or even
violently arguing with you. You have to endure that. You have to
endure temporary setbacks. The other thing is that you have to
understand that not every new idea is a good idea. But if you
believe in something with all your heart and soul and you can be
open to feedback, you have to understand that most new ideas
have the germ of a good idea in them. It may not be the way that
you originally expected it.
David Garfinkel: Experience
over time helps you a lot to improve your success ratio.
Ralph Zuranski: So do you feel
that when you are pursuing your dreams, you are probably going
to experience a lot of discomfort in that process?
David Garfinkel: Yeah, yeah.
You have too. Let me tell you. It’s different than you might
expect if you’ve never done it, because even when things are
going good, even when you are winning, there are frustrations.
It’s just the nature of life.
David Garfinkel: The other
thing is when you are pursuing your dreams; you're not the same
person today that you were a week ago. If you are really
pursuing your dreams, you start to grow. You start to become
more than you were.
David Garfinkel: A funny thing
happens when you start to grow. What happens is you become a
different person in the same world. So, the world is reacting to
you differently and you're not going to quite believe all the
things that are happening. You're not going to be familiar with
them. You're going to be out of your comfort zone.
David Garfinkel: When you are
out of your comfort zone, that’s the definition of discomfort,
right?
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
David Garfinkel: But that’s not
an issue for me. In fact, for these days I would say that it’s
more uncomfortable to do nothing than to do something that’s a
little uncomfortable.
Ralph Zuranski: I know that to
attain your dreams, you have to believe that they can become
reality. How long did it take it for your dream to become the
greatest copywriter teacher to become reality?
David Garfinkel: It didn't take
that long. I think I first sort of owned that, claimed that,
discovered that, asserted that, in the late 90’s. Here we are
in 2005 and I would say that by 2001, 2002 I was there. Not
everyone accepted it but no one ever said, “No David, I'm a
better copywriting teacher than you. Here’s the proof.”
David Garfinkel: It didn't take
that long, but one thing is that there were a lot of other goals
of dreams and goals that I had before that the seed of this, the
essence of this. I was writing; I was first published when I was
eight. I was a professional writer in my 20’s and I was doing
seminars in the 80’s, teaching people to write, but not
copywriting.
David Garfinkel: It took a
while for me to see this particular dream. But whenever I've had
a dream, not necessarily as big as this, they’ve always become
reality. There are a couple of important things that I've
learned about that.
David Garfinkel: One is that
you can create an outcome of your dream, the end results. A lot
of people, I think certainly me, I used to think that if I can
be in charge of the outcome, I can be in charge of my path to
get there. This is, “what is it going to look like”.
David Garfinkel: That part
isn’t true. You don’t know what you're going to go through.
After all if you did then you would already be there, because,
it’s an adventure to achieve a dream.
David Garfinkel: You have to
become someone else. You're the same person, but you have to
become more of who you truly are. That’s an adventure and there
are unknowns. Maybe nobody knows. Maybe you're blazing a trail
that’s never been blazed before.
David Garfinkel: The other
thing is you're not in control of the time table either. I know
that a lot of people suggest that you set goals with specific
dates on them. I do that. But I find that it doesn’t always
work out that way.
David Garfinkel: Sometimes it
takes longer and sometimes it happens a lot faster. Ultimately,
we’re not in control. There's something bigger than all of us. I
would call it God. A lot of people call what’s in control God,
other people have other names for it. I think it’s funny. It’s a
delicate balance. You have to do your part. You have to give
your all to try to control it but then you have to understand
that there’s more to this than just you.
Ralph Zuranski: When you are
pursuing your dreams and you're striving to be the best that you
possibly can, given the realization that you're not going to get
anything until you actually give everything that you can. You're
sort of prey to doubts and fears. I know that great people, like
yourself, that along the pathway and when you are going through
the difficult times in life that fear and doubt seems to rear
its ugly head. How did you overcome that?
David Garfinkel: What I find is
that I have a lot of doubts until I make a decision. Once I make
a decision and I'm fully committed; I don’t have any doubts
anymore. I really can't explain this, because it doesn’t make a
whole lot of sense.
David Garfinkel: Doubts are not
usually a problem for me. Fears are very real and I would be
lying to you if I said that I didn't have fears. I do. I've even
learned that fear is for me, and I bet for other people too,
disguise themselves as something else. I mean, I know what it is
to be shaking with fear.
David Garfinkel: But I also
know what it is to be very tired or to come up with all these
excuses or to feel overwhelmed. I now believe that those are
just fear in other clothing. I wouldn't say that I've overcome
them, Ralph; I would say that I've learned to live with it.
David Garfinkel: It’s about
acting and I think faith is the answer for me. I'm not a
religious person. I want to be very clear. I'm a spiritual
person. I believe that there's more to us than we can see or
observe with our senses, but I don’t go to temple or church. I'm
just sort of an independent person in that way. Yet it is faith.
It’s faith in God and it’s faith in this process that helps me
get there.
David Garfinkel: The other
thing that I want to say is that I'm a creative person. You are
too. You had an imaginary hero who helped you through some tough
times, right?
Ralph Zuranski: He's still with
me.
David Garfinkel: Well, that’s
good. Our imaginations can go in all different directions and
for me; I've imagined some horrible things that were going to
happen to me when I was afraid.
The worst things that I have ever feared have
never once come to pass.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you feel
that 90% of the things that we fear and worry about never become
reality?
David Garfinkel: I don’t know
if I would put a number on that. I think that if you worry about
something long enough, it will become a reality. I think that
whatever you focus on is what your life tends to become. But, I
think that if you worry about something once and I think that a
lot of worries go away when you take action toward a goal that’s
meaningful to you.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you believe
that fear of failure is probably the most crippling element in
most people’s lives that keeps them from achieving the success
that they desire.
David Garfinkel: That might
be. Yeah, I don’t know if it’s the most, but I think that it’s
probably lack of permission and lack of belief in the
possibility. But fear of failure is right up there. There's a
wonderful book that I have that I read constantly. I read
snippets from (I keep it in my bathroom). It’s called
Failing Forward by John Maxwell. He documents in a very
down-to-earth, understandable way how failure is part of the
success process.
David Garfinkel: How you can’t
succeed at something without going through failure. So, I think
fear of failure is a big impediment towards people getting what
they want.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you
experience service to others as a source joy in your life?
David Garfinkel: Absolutely.
Let me tell you a story. As you know and anyone listening to
this interview can tell, I'm a talker. I'm a speaker. I talk a
lot. One of the things the people like me do is we will find
people who are good at transcribing stuff to transcribe it for
us.
David Garfinkel: I have one
friend; I just had breakfast with him the other day. I used to
hire him to do transcription. I don’t that much anymore, but
we’re still friends and he has other clients. We’ve gone
different ways in our lives a lot, but he was telling me, five
or ten years ago. He's a very intelligent man. A friend of his
ended up with breast cancer.
David Garfinkel: He wanted to
raise some money for her. He remembered what he had learned from
me. I hadn’t taken him on as a student, but he had just learned
it from listening to my materials. He ended up writing a letter
for her that raised $7,000.
Ralph Zuranski: Wow.
David Garfinkel: This guy is
not a copywriter. I cannot tell you the joy that brought me. I
hold very expensive seminars and I mentor people, it’s very
expensive. There's nothing that brings me more joy than when one
of those people has a win or has a breakthrough.
David Garfinkel: But I also
have a free newsletter and I have a free blog. I try to give
away a lot of content. I have to make a living and for what I
want to do, I need a lot of money. I'm not talking about
changing one copywriter’s life; I'm talking about the whole
world.
David Garfinkel: I also want to
reach as many people as I can. I know that some people can't
afford it. There a lot of people that are not willing to pay
what its worth, so they may not get the same value as those who
are but they can get something. Often, I’ll send something in my
newsletter and I’ll get e-mails back from people and they say,
“David, what you just told me solved a problem that I've been
wrestling with. Thank you so much.”
David Garfinkel: Ralph, that
brings me more joy than when I get a big check and I put it in
the bank - a lot more joy. I certainly like money and I
certainly like help making other people make money, but it’s not
my biggest joy in life.
Ralph Zuranski: How can people
benefit from your newsletter and your blog? What are the URLs of
those?
David Garfinkel: Oh, that’s
easy. The newsletter is called the World Copywriter Newsletter
and the URL for that is
www.CopyNewsletter.com. The blog, I don’t have an easy to
remember URL, so I'm just going to tell you the easiest way to
get to the blog is for you to sign up for my newsletter, I’ll
send you an e-mail afterwards automatically. Or the other way is
just go to Google and type in “world copywriting blog” and
you’ll get a lot of links to it.
David Garfinkel: There's a more
complicated way, but I don’t expect people to even get this.
It’s
www.World-Copywriting-Institute.com/blog. The easiest thing
is type in copywriting blog. I think I've got the top search
engine rankings with my blog.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s great. I
know that I've been to a lot of the conferences taking photos of
everybody and you seem to have a good sense of humor. How has
that been able to help you in the face of serious problems?
David Garfinkel: I'm going to
answer that in a couple ways, okay? Often when I'm under a lot
of stress, I can tell I'm under a lot of stress because my sense
of humor just goes. Boom. When things get really tense, my sense
of humor just disappears. But on the other hand, I can't say
that I'm relaxed when things aren’t going so well.
David Garfinkel: Once I get
over some crisis points, humor is what carries me through. It’s
so important. Joking around with friends, listening to comedy
that I think is funny, and those kinds of things. It’s what
carried me through, Ralph. If I didn't have that I don’t know
if I could have made it this far.
Ralph Zuranski: I believe
that’s true. Who do you believe are the real heroes in our
society today?
David Garfinkel: I think that
anyone that is trying to make a difference in the lives of
others is a hero.
Ralph Zuranski: I do too.
David Garfinkel: There all
kinds of people who get recognition in the media and they're
famous. Those people are heroes. There's no doubt about it, but
I think that there are people in all walks of life.
David Garfinkel: I want to say
something important that people need to realize. We look to
others for signs of how we are doing, but a hero is not always
recognized by everyone as a hero. Some heroes run up against
tremendous opposition.
Ralph Zuranski: Boy. That’s
true.
David Garfinkel: I also want to
say that just because I think someone is not a hero, maybe
someone is not a hero to me or I don’t like them, doesn’t mean
that they're not a hero. This is most obvious in politics or
competition. You could have a quarterback for a team that you
didn't like and he could still be a hero.
David Garfinkel: Maybe you
don’t think so. But maybe he's helping his teammates out or he's
helping kids or a fundraising drive to wipe out a disease or
something. The other thing is because we have this star-studded
society, I've come to realize that in a very limited way, I'm
sort of a celebrity. Not like a household name or anything, but
in the particular world that we know about; the Internet
Marketing seminars and the entrepreneur seminars.
David Garfinkel: You tend to
see that people are always looking to see who the celebrities
are. You know, we may be heroes. I understand that I'm a hero to
people. I think that’s great.
David Garfinkel:I also want to
say that ordinary people in life, a teacher in a school can be a
hero. A coach can be a hero. A brother can be a hero to his
little brother. A sister can be a hero to her brother or her
sister. The guy who owns the corner store can be a hero. An
executive in a business that you’ve never heard of can be a
hero. An athlete can be a hero.
David Garfinkel: I would say
that it’s anyone who is putting some time in their life, making
some effort to make the world a better place. My mother is
still alive, which I'm grateful for. I just talked to her today,
in fact I mentioned before this call, her phone, she's only
taking calls. She can't make calls out and she can't use the
Internet until Saturday when the phone company, Verizon, can get
its little truck and go to her house and fix the phone.
David Garfinkel: She, at the
age, I don’t know if I'm allowed to say her age, but she's older
than I am. I'm 51, so do the math. She goes the schools and she
mentors kids that come in from other countries and who need
help. That’s heroic.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah, that’s
the truth.
David Garfinkel: I'm so proud
of her. She said that she wanted to listen to this interview. So
there you go, Mom. I'm really proud of you. You're my hero.
Ralph Zuranski: So you really
think that heroes are really important in the lives of young
people?
David Garfinkel: Absolutely. We
tend to have this very ennobled, sophisticated, superior,
advanced view of ourselves as people. We tend to see ourselves
as this really advanced race of people – six or seven billion of
us. But there is something that I've noticed as a teacher and
that is that we learn by imitating. Monkey see, monkey do sort
of thing.
David Garfinkel: It’s true. I
don’t care if the person is a world class athlete, a genius, a
leader, the head of a corporation. It doesn’t matter. People
will look to other people for cues. That’s where leadership
comes in. that’s where heroes come in. There’s a joke. Hopefully
not your parents, but some parents say this and sometimes people
say this. In life they say, “Do as I say, not as I do.”
David Garfinkel: That’s ironic
but it’s also really backwards from the way life really works. I
think that these days, all the negativity and all the confusion
in our world, we need heroes more than ever. Kids really need
heroes and positive role models. Just as an example of what to
do.
Ralph Zuranski: I know what you
mean. It’s so important and I think that you pretty much defined
how people become heroes and helping other individuals. I see
that you are making the world a better place through your
copywriting college and helping people learn to transform their
lives and the lives of others by helping people to write copy.
It actually generates income.
David Garfinkel: Thank you,
Ralph.
Ralph Zuranski: Let’s face it.
That’s what makes the world go round.
David Garfinkel: Yeah, it’s
not just money. There's a guy named Zig Ziglar who trains
people, who says, “Money isn’t everything, but it’s right up
there with oxygen.”
Ralph Zuranski: That’s true.
Life is better with it than without it.
David Garfinkel: It sure is.
Ralph Zuranski: What do think
about the In Search of Heroes Program’s impact on the youth,
parents and business people?
David Garfinkel: I think that
it’s such a great idea and I know that you’ve had this idea for
a while. Until you sent me these questions and I had a chance to
think about them, I didn't realize how important it is and why
it’s important.
David Garfinkel: One of the
most important things is that we don’t talk about heroes that
much as a society in general. I know that there are programs,
leadership things, organizations that do, but I mean as a
society as a whole. To go out to schools and tell kids, “Hey,
you don’t have to turn on the T.V. set or go to the movie
theater, or open the newspaper to find heroes. You can find them
right in your own back yard, in your own school, in your own
community. You can find business people who are heroes.”
David Garfinkel: I think that
is terrific. I also want to say that there is so much negativity
these days. It’s almost cool to be cynical. Its been that way
for a while in our society. It seems to run through the course
of the fabric of everyday life. I think that you are doing
something to offer an alternative to that, Ralph.
David Garfinkel: That’s great.
Ralph Zuranski: I was just
listening to a tape today and they said that 80% of all the news
that people hear on T.V. (most people watch T.V. about 30 hours
per week) is about negative things. Things that people have no
ability to have any impact on at all other than just creating
fear in their lives.
David Garfinkel: I think that’s
true. I also know that from a marketing point of view, somebody
tried once to come up with a newspaper that only had good news
and they couldn't sell anything. So I think that we are oriented
towards that. It’s a complex problem; nevertheless, we are
looking for good news. We are looking for things to feel good
about. We are looking for people to inspire us, people that we
can identify with.
David Garfinkel: People that we
can relate to and if you can help people focus on that – and you
are. The fact that you are doing that is very positive, it’s
very important.
Ralph Zuranski: What do you
think are things that parents can do that will help their
children realize that they too can be heroes and that they can
make a positive impact on the lives of others?
David Garfinkel: The first
thing I would say is that parents should encourage their kids to
try things. Parents need to help kids understand about risk,
because it’s important to take risks. But, it’s important to not
take crazy risks. If you grew up with parents who were risk
takers, you might have a better sense for that. If you didn't,
you may have to learn the hard way.
David Garfinkel: Ultimately the
worst ‘hard way’ is to take such a big risk that you die. Then
you don’t get to take any more.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s true.
David Garfinkel: You need to
learn to answer the question, “What’s the worst thing that could
happen?” If you can't handle the worst thing that could happen,
you need to take a smaller risk. I think parents need to
encourage kids to take risks that they can handle.
David Garfinkel: There's
another thing. I think parents can demonstrate helping others by
their own actions, not just by their own words. I don’t think
parents need to be perfect nor can they.
David Garfinkel: There's no
perfect being walking around on this planet walking around in a
body that I know of. Okay? But, just because you can't be
perfect doesn’t mean that you can't be good. You can't focus on
what’s good inside you and I think that by demonstrating the
activity of helping others with their own actions and not just
their own words, I think parents can be very helpful and
empowering their kids to realize that they can do the same
thing.
David Garfinkel: I think that
it’s also good; I'm not a parent so I'm talking a little out of
my area of direct experience here. I still think to do
activities together that celebrate acts of heroism and the hero
point of view, people positive accomplishments, acts of service,
by doing those kind of things together that’s probably the most
important thing.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah, I believe
that’s true. As your final question, this is one of my favorite
ones.
Ralph Zuranski: I was wondering
what you thought of this. If you had three wishes for your life
and the world that would come true instantly, what would they
be? Three wishes for your life and the world.
David Garfinkel: I don’t know.
I think that the world is a classroom for everybody all the time
but it’s a different classroom for each person. I think part of
our path here is to learn. To learn the rules, the way things
work. To learn who we are and what we are here to do. If what
we’re here to do is to make the world a better place, then I
think that it’s important to find a way to do that.
David Garfinkel: I'm not sure
that everyone is here to do that. I don’t know.
Ralph Zuranski: It’s a tough
question.
David Garfinkel: When I was a
little kid, my mother tells me that my parents had a nickname
for me. The nickname was ‘instant coffee’. Because I wanted
stuff and I wanted it now! I didn't even want to take the time
to brew the coffee. Well, these days, I brew the coffee. It
tastes better.
David Garfinkel: I think that
one of God’s greatest gifts to us is the fact that things don’t
always happen instantly, that there is a process and that we can
learn. We can experience the joy of that and even that we can
experience the pain of learning how not to do things so that we
have a real reason not to do things the wrong way again.
Ralph Zuranski: So, sort of a
learning experience then.
David Garfinkel: Yeah.
Ralph Zuranski: Like you can't
learn what you need to do until you failed doing it a number of
times the wrong way.
David Garfinkel: I think so.
One of the most valuable things in my life was studying screen
writing even though my own life path has gone in a different
direction. I remember one of my teachers, not the teacher but
his wife. He was a wise man, but she was a lot wiser. I
remember she told me that somebody said, “You can't really learn
anything until you’ve learned it and forgotten it seven times.”
David Garfinkel: It sounds
silly. The way that we learn in school is that you are supposed
to learn it once and get it right on the test. They don’t seem
to think much about how much you are going to know it later.
David Garfinkel: But I think
that it’s not only about failing and doing it wrong, it’s about
repetition. I think one of the greatest movies anyone can watch
is The Karate Kid.
David Garfinkel: Mr. Meogi
going, “Wax on. Wax off.” He's making the kid wax all of his
cars so the kid is going nuts. Then when it comes time to fight,
he realizes that through the repetition, he has learned to
protect himself against the punch better than he ever would have
thought.
David Garfinkel: Do you see?
There's a lot of value in doing things right over and over again
too.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you think
that’s the best way to ingrain it into a person’s mind so it
becomes a reflexive action? They are ready for their moment of
great glory because they have put in the practice, they put in
the work, they put in the effort so that when the moment comes
to experience great success, they're ready.
David Garfinkel: Yeah. I think
so. I think that you want to be open to failure, but you want to
focus on success. I think that when you find something that
works, and maybe this is a problem for a lot of people,
especially creative, adventurous people. I've noticed this with
businesses that I've worked with too, they found something that
works and they get bored with it so they go out and try to find
all of the things that don’t work, instead of sticking with what
works.
David Garfinkel: You have to
have a combination of both.
Ralph Zuranski: You feel that
it’s important to have a balance in life, a balance of success,
and a balance of failure.
David Garfinkel: I don’t think
that you need to seek out anymore failure. I think that it will
find you, but I think that you need to allow for failure and
don’t see it as a bad thing. Just understand failure is one of
the stepping stones in the path to your next success.
Ralph Zuranski: So rather than
call it failure, you just think that it’s like Thomas Edison. He
found a gazillion ways that the light bulb didn't work rather
then identifying it as a failure. It was just a way that it
didn't actually work.
David Garfinkel: I think that
you’ve got to be careful. In Thomas Edison’s case that’s true.
He was looking for the one way it was going to work and he found
10,000 ways that it didn’t. It’s okay to say failure and it’s
okay to experience it. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off.
David Garfinkel: Most
important, think about what happened. Think about what you
learned from it. Try to not to make the same mistakes too often.
Ralph Zuranski: So do you think
that even though we do fail, that doesn’t make us failures?
David Garfinkel: Absolutely. I
think that is a great point. The biggest successes have had more
failures than most people who consider themselves failures. A
lot of people give up when they fail once and they think, “Oh,
I'm a failure.”
David Garfinkel: No. you just
experienced one failure on the path to success. It’s resilience.
It’s bounce-back. It’s being able to say, “Okay, that didn’t
work. I failed on that. No big deal. I'm not going to do that
again. Let me try a different way.” Or, “Let me try to do it
right.” Or, “Let me try to do it the way I was trying to do it,
but let me get it right this time instead of getting it wrong.”
David Garfinkel: That’s Okay.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you think
that it’s important just to say, “I'm never going to give up.
I'm just going to keep on trying until I finally figured out the
way it works”?
David Garfinkel: That’s been
important for me and also I think you need to realize that
sometimes, changing your plans, changing your course, course
correction, adjustment, you have to be careful about that too.
You can become so headstrong about a goal that’s not really the
goal that you should be going after.
David Garfinkel: I think that
you just need to be alert and aware. If you know that there is
something you are supposed to do, if you really know in your
heart that it’s something that is right for you – never give up.
Keep at it. But be willing to try different ways. Be willing to
be flexible. Be willing to be open to new information, feedback.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you think
that is where the heroes in people’s lives come in handy in
helping to guide them in the direction that is best for them.
David Garfinkel: I think of
people like that are more like teachers, coaches and mentors.
But, I think that a teacher, coach or a mentor can certainly be
a hero.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah,
absolutely, because they can definitely take kids lives and get
to know the kids and who they are. Then they help to direct them
on a pathway that they don’t even know that would be the best.
Just like your dad, you are becoming a great teacher of
copywriters. That seed started back when you were fifteen and
your dad gave you that.
David Garfinkel: I don’t know
what he knew. I certainly didn't know it at the time. I just
thought, “Oh” and went off and did something else. The funny
thing about that, Ralph, I didn't even realize until a couple of
years ago, I didn't even remember that. It has just sort of been
developing in my unconscious mind for a long time, that whole
incident with my father.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s
amazing. I really appreciate your time and coming on the phone
for your “In Search of Heroes” interview. Is there one piece of
wisdom that you would like to leave for the kids?
David Garfinkel: Yeah. It’s
tough being a kid. It’s tough because sometimes you feel like
you are an adult and all of these people are putting all of this
pressure on you. You have all of these responsibilities, but you
don’t have all of the privileges of being an adult.
David Garfinkel: You have all
of these people telling you what to do and you get these
conflicting signals. All I can say is stick with it. Every
person listening to this, you have something that you came here
to do. You may know what it is or you may not know what it is,
but if you can stick around, keep your eyes open, be curious, be
willing to try things, be willing to get help, and be willing to
help others, you can have a life better and more fulfilling and
more exciting and more important than you ever imagined.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s really
great, David. I really appreciate your time and again thank you
so much.
David Garfinkel: You're
welcome. Thanks, Ralph.
Ralph Zuranski: I hope to see
you at the Big Seminar.
David Garfinkel: Yeah, I will
see you there. This was fun.
Ralph Zuranski: Okay, you take
care.
David Garfinkel: Bye.
