Ralph Zuranski:
Hi. This is Ralph Zuranski. I’m on the phone with Jeff
Dedrick who is one of the new people on the Internet that is
making quite a splash with some of the new software and
programs that he is developing. I had the opportunity of
spending some time with him at a couple of the seminars and
found him to be kind and caring and just a brilliant
individual and Internet marketer. How are you doing today
Jeff?
Jeff Dedrick:
Hey, Ralph, I’m doing great and thanks for having me here.
Ralph Zuranski:
Can you tell us a little bit about your venture into
Internet marketing? I know you haven’t been doing it for
very long but you’ve been fairly successful haven’t you?
Jeff Dedrick:
Yeah, I really just started. My first project was just
launched on February 21st of this year so as we
speak, that’s only been about three months ago.
Jeff Dedrick:
Even though I launched on February 21st there was
a good four months of planning going into that launch. It’s
not true to say that I’ve just been around for a few months.
It’s definitely less than a year.
Ralph Zuranski:
That’s amazing. What is the worthy ideal that you are
pursuing with honesty and integrity?
Jeff Dedrick:
I have a family and I’ve got two girls. I think everything I
do relates to my family. Every action that I take,
everything that I say, I am always trying to set a great
example for my girls. One is 13 and one is 7, so, pretty
much everything I do from my whole idea of being in business
for myself.
Jeff Dedrick:
Actually I’ve always been in business for myself but just
recently changed to 100% on-line Website so I could spend
more time with my family, with my wife and my two girls.
Pretty much everything I do now is just to be a great dad.
Ralph Zuranski:
Well, Jeff, what do you want out of life in ten words or
less?
Jeff Dedrick:
You have asked me this question before, so I wanted to make
sure that I got it down. It’s total freedom to do what I
want when I want.
Ralph Zuranski:
That’s a pretty good definition. What is the dream or vision
that sets the course of your life?
Jeff Dedrick:
The dream is just kind of to have that total freedom. I’ve
always been a hard worker, but I also feel that I’ve been a
smart worker.
Jeff Dedrick:
A hard worker might be working really hard but if all you
are doing is a job that you are not happy with or a low end
job that you might not be bringing in the money that you
want or you might not have that happy home life, you might
not feel fulfilled. My vision is always just to work smart
and that will create that total freedom that I was talking
about.
Ralph Zuranski:
How important is it to stay focused on your primary goal?
Jeff Dedrick:
I want to say that’s number one. By far, that is number one.
I see a lot of people jumping around to different ideas.
It’s almost like an idea of the week or the idea of the day.
They come up with an idea and maybe they implement it really
just half-assed, hardly at all and then because they didn’t
make a million dollars that week they move onto the next
one.
Jeff Dedrick:
In my past, I’ve owned real world businesses, pizza stores,
restaurants, and even two fitness clubs that I just recently
sold. When opening up those you need to have a timeline, a
deadline, a calendar. You need to do step A and step B and
step C. For some reason, online people don’t do that so they
lose focus and they bounce around. I would say that the
ability to stay focused is number one.
Ralph Zuranski:
Do you follow your hunches and intuition?
Jeff Dedrick:
Yeah, I almost always do. So far it has always paid off for
me. There were a couple of stocks, that’s when the Internet
bubble burst that I have to say were not very conscientious,
but usually I do follow those. Maybe it’s something that you
can’t learn or teach or maybe some people just don’t listen
to it.
Jeff Dedrick:
A perfect example is when right out of college, I was 22 and
my buddy and I were looking at places in the United States
to open our first Little Caesar’s restaurant. We are sitting
here in Wisconsin doing whatever research we can at the
library at the time, looking at demographics and towns and
all of the things that we thought were important. Well, at
that point, I said, “Here is where we are going. Here is
where we are going to end up at.” I pointed at the map.
Jeff Dedrick:
Then we ended up going in real life. We went out and on our
own we traveled up and down the East Coast. We got into
towns and did research getting there. We talked to business
owners. We did the same thing on the West Coast and we did
all of that stuff.
Jeff Dedrick:
Well, we ended up right in the place that I pointed,
Corvallis, Oregon. It was almost like a hunch, but I was
using some common sense to back up the hunch. But, yeah,
that ability to act on a hunch has paid off many times
throughout my life.
Ralph Zuranski:
What specific philosophy or philosophies guide your life and
decisions?
Jeff Dedrick:
I think it all relates back to being the best dad that I
can. Then I’m not focused on myself. Some people, if all
they are worrying about is their next car or how to look
good for other people, if you are focused on yourself or
sometimes in a selfish way a lot of times good things don’t
happen.
Jeff Dedrick:
If you are focused on, like how I’m focused on my daughters,
everything just kind of falls into place then.
Ralph Zuranski:
Mmhm. What is your perspective on goodness, ethics and moral
behavior?
Jeff Dedrick:
I would say that for me that is one of the most important
things. I just hate people that are two-faced or negative or
do little underhanded stuff. I just can’t stand those
people. Maybe I deal with them, but I don’t want to be
associated with them.
Jeff Dedrick:
If I find out that someone has pulled some stuff like that I
definitely won’t ever do business with them again. I
definitely won’t want to be friends with them either.
Ralph Zuranski:
What place does the power of prayer have in your life?
Jeff Dedrick:
I’ve heard you ask this from other people before. I guess
here is my philosophy on that. A lot of people can pray and
sometimes it doesn’t mean a thing. There are a lot of
different religions and that, a lot of times, doesn’t
matter.
Jeff Dedrick:
It’s how you lead your life. Prisons are full of people that
are God fearing men and supposedly pray, but they don’t lead
their life like they should be. There are a lot of preachers
on TV, and sorry to say this, but some of those guys are the
biggest scum bags in the world taking money from people that
can’t least afford it. I guess I would lead by example, the
good moral things in the Bible or that different religions
teach, that’s how I like to live my life, that way.
Ralph Zuranski:
What are the principles that you are willing to sacrifice
your life for?
Jeff Dedrick:
Boy, that is a tough question. I know that the love of my
family, if that involved putting myself in harms way so that
they can be safe or to save them, I would do that without
thinking. If you expand on that, to the love of country if
called upon, I guess if there was a good cause, of I felt
that the country was doing the correct thing then I would
have no problem with putting myself in harms way for my
country also.
Ralph Zuranski:
Well, are your goals consistent with your beliefs?
Jeff Dedrick:
Definitely. As I stated, everything that I’m doing now is
set up in a way to make my family and myself comfortable in
life. What I’m doing now is always reflecting on how I talk
and what I say. I’m always aware of how it affects my girls.
Jeff Dedrick:
I’m always trying to teach them how to be strong women when
they grow up so that they are not dependent on other people
or learning bad things. Certain people learn things early in
life. They never break out of that. They are forever
repeating bad choices or learning bad things. That would be
the case where I look back later in life and say I wish that
I had done things differently.
Ralph Zuranski:
Are your actions consistent with your beliefs?
Jeff Dedrick:
100%. Anything I’ve ever done or said I have no problem
telling my kids about it. Maybe I don’t want to tell them
how much I partied on college. Maybe tone that down a little
bit so that they are studying a little more than I did.
Everything I have ever done I have no problem telling my
parents or any of my friends of family or my daughters.
Ralph Zuranski:
Was it valuable to have highly charged emotions about
achieving your goals?
Jeff Dedrick:
You said emotions?
Ralph Zuranski:
Yes, is it important to have highly charged emotions about
achieving your goals?
Jeff Dedrick:
Yes and no. People have to be passionate and driven to
achieve their goals. Sometimes emotions can really mess with
you. They can really actually cause problems if you get too
emotional about business.
Jeff Dedrick:
Often, for example at seminars, people get really emotional
because the speakers really work them up and cause them to
have certain emotions and then they cause these decisions,
financial decisions on the spot that maybe aren’t the best
for them. Those highly charged emotions really give you an
advantage.
Jeff Dedrick:
You’ve got to be emotional and passionate, but to me,
business is almost a game plan. You are going to do step A
and step B and step C and so on. Emotions have their part
and you want to keep your focus and be emotional and
passionate, but yeah, you don’t want your emotions to run
away and have you make stupid mistakes.
Ralph Zuranski:
Boy that makes a big difference doesn’t it?
Jeff Dedrick:
Oh, yeah, totally. You’ve got to be passionate, but you
don’t want your emotions to cause you to do something dumb.
Ralph Zuranski:
Is it useful to take a positive view of setbacks,
misfortunes and mistakes?
Jeff Dedrick:
You definitely need to, every single thing you do, good and
bad, you need to learn from and move forward. I’ve been
pretty fortunate where most things that I’ve done and all of
my businesses have always made money. They’ve always been
positive.
Jeff Dedrick:
A couple and even most of my stock purchases were positive
except for the few that were not. I definitely learned from
them. They were very expensive lessons. Even though you say
you lose many thousands on a venture now, what you learn
could prevent hundreds of thousands of losses later on.
Jeff Dedrick:
A lot of times you hear people use a setback or a loss or
something like that to stop doing it. “I don’t want to do it
anymore. That’s it. I give up.”
Jeff Dedrick:
Well, that’s not how it works. You need to use every little
positive and negative you experience and move forward from
there.
Ralph Zuranski:
Is optimism valuable?
Jeff Dedrick:
Wow, definitely! Here is what’s really weird is that my
mindset has always been positive. I guess I have never even
thought about it. I had little businesses as a little kid
and then in college I ran a full fledged business that even
had radio ads and print ads and stuff like that.
Jeff Dedrick:
Right after college I opened stores and it has never entered
my mind that I couldn’t do it. The first time I kind of felt
something, and I told this story to Ralph, I sold my last
real world business, my fitness clubs in February 2005. I
was 100% on-line and even though I sold these things and
they were bringing in great money, I sold them because I
just knew I could succeed on-line.
Jeff Dedrick:
I didn’t have any business yet. I didn’t even have a Web
site up. I didn’t even have my first subscriber. I really
had nothing. I never thought about it but at some point some
of that doubt did creep in.
Jeff Dedrick:
Right in the middle of setting up the launch for this
project and I knew that it would be four or five months
before I even brought in my first penny and the doubts did
come into my mind. I thought that it was so foreign. I had
never seen them or heard them before.
Jeff Dedrick:
With me I was lucky enough to know that I had done this
before, I had seen how I was able to take a business from
zero and have it skyrocket and I can do it again. Quickly I
was able to get it out of my mind but it was really weird
having those doubts. It was really strange for me.
Ralph Zuranski:
Do you maintain a sense of humor in the face of serious
problems?
Jeff Dedrick:
(laughter) That’s usually all I do. My friends and I, all we
are doing is laughing and joking. The bad thing is with my
friends, everything is off limits. I mean you can talk and
joke about anything and it’s expected.
Jeff Dedrick:
Even if let’s say, something bad happens, I don’t make light
of this but for example if I were to maybe be in the
hospital and have cancer or something, I would actually
expect my friends to come and make fun of me. It may sound
kind of morbid, but they would be making fun of me if I had
lost my hair or something. I would just expect them to be
making jokes about it.
Jeff Dedrick:
For us it’s important to just have a sense of humor. You
can’t get too down. You have to reflect on your mistakes and
your problems but so many people are so serious about stuff.
It gets them so down. That’s how they do it and it’s almost
like a slippery slope. They get down because they are down
and then they get even further sad because they are down.
Jeff Dedrick:
So, we always try to keep things light and positive
including my family. We joke about everything.
Ralph Zuranski:
Do you invest time in daydreaming about what your life will
be like when you attain your goals?
Jeff Dedrick:
This one might be a little different from what you’ve heard
from past ones, but I really don’t. I don’t know if this
sounds weird to you. Ralph, I’ve got to ask you, do most
people say that they do invest time in daydreaming?
Ralph Zuranski:
You know, it’s funny. Everybody has a different answer to
that one.
Jeff Dedrick:
Yeah, because I was going to say that I just don’t. Some
people maybe get caught up so much in dreaming and in
wanting more that they don’t have. Then they don’t
appreciate what they currently have.
Jeff Dedrick:
It’s almost like the person that works so hard to have so
much money for their family, then they worked hard their
whole life and their kids are already out of the house
before they see that success. So, they miss out on their
kids. Their kids are gone. Who cares? Then they want to get
it back. They are older and they wish that they had done
things differently.
Jeff Dedrick:
So, I don’t really dream about stuff. Here is a perfect
example. Last week I kind of on the spur of the moment
decided to get a new car. Because I had never even dreamed
or though about a new car I had no idea what the names of
the car were that I would want. I just got on a site on the
Web and started looking up all the different manufacturers
and all of the different names and models.
I had no clue even of what the names of cars were. I just
don’t pay attention about stuff like that.
Ralph Zuranski:
What did you get?
Jeff Dedrick:
I ended up getting a Lexus. Man is that a lot better than my
Jimmy. I wish that I would have been dreaming a couple of
years ago and bought a better car. Now, after I’m driving it
this thing is sweet!
Jeff Dedrick:
With me I looked it up. I found out my neighbor had a
sister-in-law that sold Lexus’s. I got her on the phone and
she showed me models that are available. Three days later
she drove it up to me from Iowa. I had never even test
driven it.
Jeff Dedrick:
I jumped in it five minutes before I signed the paperwork
and it was done. Usually I don’t dream, but when I do want
something I react pretty quickly to it.
Ralph Zuranski:
Do you feel it is important to make positive statements
about yourself and the type of person you are and your
goals?
Jeff Dedrick:
Here is another one that I’m weird at. I’ve never done that.
I’ve heard that it is so powerful to write down your goals.
I need to start doing that because even opening up those
businesses myself and a business partner we never wrote down
goals. We never even came up with business plans.
Jeff Dedrick:
The only time we ever had to kind of do something financial
was when we would go in for a loan from the bank. We would
have our account and we would throw together our financial
figures and present it to them. We never do business plans
or goals in business or even in personal life just because
we would be taking action. We would be too busy taking
action to maybe write them down.
Jeff Dedrick:
Maybe I could have achieved a whole lot more. I have been
just recently writing down more personal goals. This is what
we want to do with the family. This is vacations we want to
take. I want to do this and that and this just because
before you know it you can blow off a whole summer and you
didn’t even go anywhere.
Jeff Dedrick:
Some of the things I’m writing down now are more personal.
Up to this point I’ve either been lazy or stupid or I just
never did it.
Ralph Zuranski:
Do you take time out of your day to feed your subconscious
positive thoughts about you, your goals and your dreams.
Jeff Dedrick:
There again, maybe I’m just weird. I just don’t do that. I
just take action. My business partner is really good at
taking action. If he had an idea we would talk about it on
the phone and we would be kind of lazy. We had offices in
our fitness club and we’d call each other even though it was
like a 30-second walk to the other office.
Jeff Dedrick:
He would call me about an idea and we would hang up. When I
would see him an hour later he had already made like five
phone calls and made three connections and already had an
idea about what we should do. He was really good at that.
Ralph Zuranski:
You know, I think that is probably true. A lot of people are
so busy having positive thoughts and dreams that they never
do take action.
Jeff Dedrick:
Yeah, yeah. That might be true.
Ralph Zuranski:
Do you have the courage to pursue new ideas? I know for a
lot of people it is hard to change their lifestyles and
receive the amount of fear and abuse that their family and
friends will put on them when they change where they are at.
Do you think it takes courage to pursue new ideas?
Jeff Dedrick:
It definitely would. If you are surrounded with negative
people or if you’ve grown up around negative people, it
would be kind of tough breaking out of that.
Jeff Dedrick:
Even though my dad was just hardworking blue collar type
guy, working at the General Motors plant here in town, I did
see him doing side businesses. It was always in my mind
that, “Hey you don’t always have to work. You can do other
stuff.”
Jeff Dedrick:
So, he had a gardening service, rotor-tilling, and lawn
thatching and he did little stuff like that. I think seeing
that, it just became second nature for me to pursue a new
idea at the drop of the hat. It doesn’t seem strange to me
at all because I’ve always been around that.
Ralph Zuranski:
Were you willing to experience discomfort in the pursuit of
your dreams? It doesn’t sound like you’ve had much
discomfort. Do you think it’s a good idea?
Jeff Dedrick:
I’m sorry, what?
Ralph Zuranski:
Do you think it’s a good idea to be willing to experience
discomfort?
Jeff Dedrick:
Oh, definitely. I guess it is different levels. When me and
my buddy took off we could have definitely easily gotten
jobs right out of college and started making money right
away. Instead we jumped in a car and literally we drove out,
we already had the city of Corvallis, Oregon. That was
already our city to put a store in.
Jeff Dedrick:
It was just a matter of going out there, finding a space and
getting the store built. Here we are driving across the
country. We get there. We’ve got to stay in a hotel room
before we find a place to stay and all we’ve got is we
brought a chair. We brought a little TV to put the TV on top
of the chair. We both had pillows and maybe a sheet and
that’s all we had.
Jeff Dedrick:
Then also, just the process of living off of nothing
literally until we could get that first store up, looking
back at it, it was a discomfort. It could have been a lot
easier staying at home and looking for a job and then moving
out and making money first but because you are in the middle
of it it’s so exciting that you don’t even think about it.
I’m definitely willing to experience the discomfort of
leaving maybe that job.
Jeff Dedrick:
I mean, selling my fitness clubs, we were bringing in over
two million a year. Obviously that’s not all profit. You’ve
got high costs in a gym but it’s pretty steady. It would
have been real easy to just stay on but I was getting bored,
plus I was tied down having 100-plus employees and that was
causing me some discomfort.
Jeff Dedrick:
In a way I move from the discomfort even though it is short
term. Long term now I can set my own hours, I can do
anything I want. It’s kind of nice.
Ralph Zuranski:
Is it beneficial to make decisions quickly?
Jeff Dedrick:
Yes and no. The decisions have to be backed up, obviously,
with common sense and experience. You can’t let emotions
come into play because as we said earlier you can really
make some poor choices if you really let emotions come into
it.
Jeff Dedrick:
I move real quickly on stuff. The car example, the gym, from
when I talked to my wife to when I talked to my partner was
three weeks. Three weeks later I was totally out of the
business. Total of six weeks is pretty quick when you talk
about selling a big business like I sold, but I move really
quickly.
Ralph Zuranski:
Are you slow to revise and reverse important decisions?
Jeff Dedrick:
I definitely could revise it pretty quickly. For example in
business you see things that aren’t working real quick like
you think you are going to have an advertising campaign that
is really maybe going to kick butt and you are right in the
middle of doing it and it isn’t working out.
Jeff Dedrick:
Maybe you tweak a few things and it’s still not working out.
You want to revise and test and change things pretty quickly
but if you know that it is going to continue not to go well
then you need to reverse that decision quickly.
Ralph Zuranski:
How are you able to overcome your doubts and fears? I know
that is something that paralyzes a lot of people, the idea
of just failing or just fear of injury or some of the things
that paralyze people. How are you able to overcome your
doubts and fears?
Jeff Dedrick:
I’ve been lucky. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but I
just don’t have the doubts. A few doubts entered my mind and
it was so foreign. I had never really heard that play out in
my mind before.
Luckily with me I just move forward. I just don’t really
think about it too much.
Ralph Zuranski:
Do you think that had to do with the upbringing that your
parents gave you, that they didn’t put fear and doubts into
your mind?
Jeff Dedrick:
Yeah, yeah, I think you are right. My dad just was a great
worker. I learned things later on. I didn’t even know when I
was a little kid like under four, like two or three years
old, I didn’t even realize that he had a second job.
Jeff Dedrick:
He was getting four hours of sleep a night. I just found
this out when I was like 39 or 40, just a couple of years
ago, that he was working. He had bought a house and my
brother was born when I was like a year and a half. I didn’t
even realize that he was going off with four hours or five
hours of sleep a night working at General Motors. Then he
had a second job at a lumber yard.
Jeff Dedrick:
Here it is 35 years later and I’m finding out about that. He
was just a great worker. He had that stuff on the side.
Yeah, I think whatever I wanted to do they would let me do.
I think that was my total upbringing. It helped me big time.
Ralph Zuranski:
Would you readily forgive those who upset, offend and oppose
you? I know that I’ve had quite a few different answers for
this question. I thought yours would be fairly interesting.
Jeff Dedrick:
(laughter) Well, that is maybe one of my weaknesses. I know
that maybe you are supposed to forgive and forget. I really
have a problem. If someone wrongs me, I almost never forgive
them.
Jeff Dedrick:
Now, there have been a couple of cases where I did forgive
people but I definitely never forget it, if there is someone
who does me wrong. Now, on the opposite side I am loyal.
I’ll stick with someone too long when all opposition has
maybe left that person and the facts are staring me in the
face that this person is not the person they thought they
were or they are doing something they shouldn’t be.
Jeff Dedrick:
I am a little slow because I always trust them. When it does
finally get through my big skull then unfortunately I have a
tough time forgiving people.
Ralph Zuranski:
You know that’s funny. A lot of people say that the value of
forgiveness is not so much forgetting about what the other
person did to you but just for yourself, clearing it out of
your mind so that you’re not thinking about it and
re-experiencing these emotions of what it feels like because
of what they did that was wrong.
Jeff Dedrick:
I think that is important to realize that we still need to
hold people accountable and forgive them just so you can get
them out of your mind but you still need to hold them
accountable until they repent and actually do restitution
and do the right thing. I think there is no true forgiveness
until people actually truly are sorry for what they did, ask
for forgiveness and also if they harm somebody either
physically or financially do some form of restitution.
Jeff Dedrick:
I totally agree with you Ralph. I 100% agree with you on
that one.
Ralph Zuranski:
So, I think that in situations like that I totally agree
with you that it is important to hold people that do bad
things accountable and never forget what they did because if
you do then you are subject to potentially re-experiencing
that again in the future. What’s that old saying about fool
me once that’s human shame on me; tool me twice shame on me.
Jeff Dedrick:
Yeah.
Ralph Zuranski:
What’s the third one? You fool me a third time and shame on
both of us?
Jeff Dedrick:
Something like that. Hopefully we would never get to that
third one.
Ralph Zuranski:
Have you experienced service to others as a source of joy?
Jeff Dedrick:
Yeah. I really do like it. I need to do more of it. I talked
about how my businesses have always been doing well and
right now my family life is in what I feel a great position.
I really think everything is going forward great there. The
service part of it, the service end, I need to be out there
donating my time.
Jeff Dedrick:
I really do enjoy it and when I was at the athletic club and
the pizza restaurants, we all the time donated our services
and our place. We would open up our club and have groups
come in and we would at my pizza place we would donate so
many thousands of dollars of pizza a year. It’s
unbelievable.
Jeff Dedrick:
We would go into all of these schools and set up what we
called our Little Caesar’s prize patrol. We would have our
spinning wheel and we would give out prizes. Granted there
was an advertising benefit to that, but I really enjoyed
being there and helping these women out. I could have easily
sent my employees out to do it, but I was there doing it
myself. I would be in the little Caesar costume having fun
with the kids and just be like a little kid myself. I really
enjoyed it.
Jeff Dedrick:
Now that I’ve been on-line I don’t have that. I need to get
my butt out of the house and maybe join some organizations
to re-experience that feeling again.
Ralph Zuranski:
When was the lowest point of your life and how did you
change your path to one of victory over obstacles you were
facing at that time?
Jeff Dedrick:
Overall I’ve had a pretty darned good life. Some people have
a lot of hardships. I was listening to your interview with
Tom Beal earlier today and I know Tom. He was talking about
some of his experiences in life and it’s almost like an
opposite extreme where I have a story where his parents were
teenagers and there is a lot of divorce and the story of him
being ejected from a car and not being able to walk, all of
these things.
Jeff Dedrick:
I’ve had a pretty good life overall now. Sometimes this is
hard for me to talk about, but my wife and I did go through
a rocky patch and I would have to say personally that was
the lowest point in my life. The whole thought that I could
be losing my kids, meaning that the wife would move away to
the other side of the country to the state of Oregon, I’m in
the state of Wisconsin right now.
Jeff Dedrick:
That was tough to even think because I knew the outcome of
what could possibly happen of the kids being away from their
dad. You’ve heard all of the stories and that alone caused
me to decide for us to work on it. I might have told you the
story that it went right out to the day before or maybe two
days before the actual final divorce hearing that I called
it off.
Jeff Dedrick:
I would say that was the lowest point, but I also I had some
control on it and I made that decision to change it. I’m
really glad that I did make that change.
Ralph Zuranski:
Were there things that you changed in yourself that made the
difference?
Jeff Dedrick:
I think that was one of the forgiveness things that I talked
about maybe a couple of times forgiving in my life. I
realized at that point that I had to for once, one of the
few times ever, to do the forgiveness and change my
behavior. Even though I am stubborn, I was smart enough in
this case to change my behavior for the long-term good of my
kids.
Ralph Zuranski:
You know it’s funny. I just went through that same thing
with my wife and the last couple of years of her being away
from her family and helping take care of my mom and dad in
catastrophic illnesses, I just suddenly realized that the
major problem was I wasn’t accepting her for who she was and
I was trying to get her to conform to who I thought she was.
Jeff Dedrick:
When I dropped those expectations and just allowed her to be
who she was and was willing to forgive her for all of the
stuff that I perceived as slights against me it was an
amazing relationship changed right on the spot because I
changed myself and realized that I could never change her
and that she could only change herself.
Jeff Dedrick:
That’s just been all recently, right?
Ralph Zuranski:
Yeah, recently.
Jeff Dedrick:
That’s good to hear.
Ralph Zuranski:
I think that’s one of the biggest eye openers that I’ve
learned from the Heroes Interviews is that a lot of times if
you want to change the world you have to start with
yourself. If you are having problems with relationships with
others you have to change yourself first.
Jeff Dedrick:
I agree.
Ralph Zuranski:
That is astounding how fast that works isn’t it?
Jeff Dedrick:
Yeah, we agree on a lot of stuff.
Ralph Zuranski:
Is there anyone who helped give you the will power to change
things in your life for the better? Was there anyone who
helped as a counselor for you when you were going through
that difficulty with your wife or how did you arrive at the
decision you made?
Jeff Dedrick:
Oh, boy. I’m one of those guys that my whole family has,
like I said, strong, strong loyalty but we keep our emotions
kind of in check. The whole idea of when my wife and I were
going through problems up to before the divorce proceedings
started, I would keep everything to myself including my best
friends. My best friends didn’t know and had no clue.
Jeff Dedrick:
If you were to say my two best friends who I talked to every
couple of days, one being my business partner and one being
a buddy who was just a couple of hours north of here, they
had no clue. So, I did maybe start talking for once. That
helps obviously, if you keep everything bottled up.
Ralph Zuranski:
Mmhm.
Jeff Dedrick:
That’s probably not good. In that case maybe just me talking
things out, the whole idea of will power and being able to
just do things on my own and how quick I can move on things,
that just all, how we talked about my parents and seeing
them in action over the years. Again, that’s what I’m trying
to do for my daughters.
Jeff Dedrick:
I want to show them how to do things correctly or at least
be in a proper mindset to accept things and to be able to be
accountable for their actions and stuff like that. So many
people are not accountable. They think it’s everyone else’s
fault that things are happening in their life. Everything
that I’ve learned I totally owe to my parents.
Ralph Zuranski:
How important is it to believe your financial dreams would
eventually become to reality?
Jeff Dedrick:
I totally believe the philosophy of that T. Harv Ecker’s
Millionaire Mindset. If you believe you are going to be
successful or rich or if you are going to have a good
relationship it’s going to happen because that’s just how it
is. If you truly believe then without even thinking you are
just going to gravitate towards success.
Jeff Dedrick:
People that don’t have that mindset that think that other
people owe them or that for some reason they deserve not to
be happy, well they are going to be searching out situations
where they are not going to be happy. Yeah, I totally think
you really need to feel that you deserve to be happy
successful and financially successful.
Ralph Zuranski:
Boy, that is true. Why is it valuable to know how much money
you want to have in your bank account and when?
Jeff Dedrick:
That’s another one where I might give kind of a weird
answer. I probably changed a lot. When I was younger it was
all about money and how much I was going to make and stuff.
Now, I don’t even pay attention to it. I couldn’t even tell
you how much I have in my accounts or what is in my IRA or
anything like that.
Jeff Dedrick:
I am more focused now on being successful and my mind, my
mindset of being successful, not so much that corresponding
to what you have in your checking account. There are many
millionaires’ that are not happy. Their kids are
dysfunctional because they are not around. So, to tell you
the truth I don’t really pay attention to that.
Ralph Zuranski:
It’s funny to think that so many people focus on money and
they are missing a lot of things that are more important in
life that actually make them better people and also make
their life happier than those around them. What is your
definition of heroism?
Jeff Dedrick:
Oh, boy. That was kind of a tough one too. I definitely can
tell you this. Some of the people that right now kids are
looking to nowadays that are so called heroes, just because
you can throw a basketball through a hoop.
Jeff Dedrick:
It seems like people gravitate towards the loudest and the
guys that are just downright not nice people. I don’t know
why that is. Nowadays the loudest reality stars that have
done nothing in life other than be on TV and they are loud
and obnoxious, they get the most press. They end up getting
more deals out of it.
Jeff Dedrick:
Everyone should start looking at people in their life that
are making a difference especially people who are making a
difference in their life like teachers. That is something of
value, being able to catch a football, in the scheme of life
who cares?
Ralph Zuranski:
That is so true. Did you ever have a secret hero in your
mind that helped you with life’s difficulties, maybe Little
Caesar?
Jeff Dedrick:
Hey, I was Little Caesar. Yeah, I was dancing around in that
costume. Unfortunately people outside in their cars would be
going by beeping their horns and flipping me off half the
time. I never did. I was able to just draw strength from the
real world people around me, my parents, so that I didn’t
have to create anything.
Jeff Dedrick:
I guess some people listening to this aren’t maybe as lucky
as I was. It would be important for them to either create
something or create a person to strive to be or even to look
for someone that is not catching a football, someone to look
at in life that they can pattern their life like or at least
get some additional training or just be able to talk to some
of these real life heroes.
Ralph Zuranski:
What were the qualities or attributes of your mom and dad
when you were growing up? I know that they are probably your
real heroes and you didn’t need any secret heroes. What
specifically were there other than hard work and just
infusing in you the ability and the knowledge that you could
do anything?
Jeff Dedrick:
Good people. You know if my dad said something even now, you
knew that was it. Even now we make jokes about it. If my
parents say they are going to be at my house at say noon
they will be here at noon or maybe two minutes past or they
are going to call and give you the reason why all of the
sudden something happened that they couldn’t be there.
Jeff Dedrick:
It’s almost like their word is gold. You know that you can
rely on them. You can trust them. They are always there for
you. We don’t have that relationship where you’re all
running around screaming, “I love you, I love you, I love
you.”
Jeff Dedrick:
The bond is there. The family is my mom and dad and then
I’ve got a younger brother. It’s almost like a guys type of
household where you don’t talk it you walk it.
Ralph Zuranski:
Boy that is so true in so many people’s lives that I’ve
interviewed. Having your word be your bond and actually
following through on what you say has such a huge impact on
people growing up. Who are the heroes in your life now?
Jeff Dedrick:
That was another one of those questions where I sat there
and thought about it and just because I never really look
for heroes just because I’ve always had the strong family
for some reason I don’t have the heroes that maybe other
people have.
Jeff Dedrick:
Other people have political heroes or maybe even heroes of
books or writers that they’ve read or in business. There are
many people that I admire. There is just no one that I could
really come up with.
Ralph Zuranski:
How important is it to have trusted friends or a mastermind
group to bounce your ideas off?
Jeff Dedrick:
That is 100%. The friends that I hand out with are almost
like my dad. My buddy Paul, nicknamed Mooka, if he says he’s
going to be somewhere or do something or whatever it may be
it’s done. I don’t have to worry about. Business wise, it’s
very important. Everybody that is listening, if you are
thinking about doing a business or anything I say always
take on a business partner.
Jeff Dedrick:
Don’t think of it like you are splitting the profits 50%.
Think of it like you are also splitting the work 50%. If you
don’t get that work done you’ve got 100% of nothing and
having a business partner will get you because you are
relying on each other.
Jeff Dedrick:
Again, it’s got to be a good match personality wise. It’s
got to be somebody you can trust that will get the job done
but they are going to get you to move forward because your
buddy is expecting you to get something done and it’s going
to get done and vice versa. He’s going to get done because
you are expecting it. When it comes to something like that
it is very, very important.
Jeff Dedrick:
As for the mastermind group, before it was just my business
partner and myself. It was just the two of us. We did have
other owner’s and stuff. We would kind of ask a little bit
but it was pretty much just us.
Jeff Dedrick:
We were very successful the two of us but I’ve just now
because I don’t have that anymore even though I occasionally
do bounce things off of him I am just now getting a group of
friends on-line that I can ask questions with. That’s also
very important.
Ralph Zuranski:
Who do you feel are the real heroes in society today that
aren’t getting the recognition and the rewards that they
deserve?
Jeff Dedrick:
Boy, going back to that, people have to give up on some of
these sports figures or these TV celebrities. People care so
much about what celebrity is cheating on who and who is
having whose baby. Man who cares? They sang a couple of
songs and they became stars because of that. Other than that
who cares? They might still be just evil nasty people.
Jeff Dedrick:
It’s the people that you see that are making the difference.
The teacher that sits there and they get in school early and
then afterwards they are a coach.
Jeff Dedrick:
They don’t make that much money being a coach as far as I
remember in high school, but they are out there teaching
kids great lessons that they are going to have for the rest
of their life. Some of them eventually make money, but they
are definitely not paid what they are worth.
Ralph Zuranski:
Boy, that is so true.
Jeff Dedrick:
Yeah, it’s amazing. Then the hassles that they go through.
There is almost no respect for them. I remember when I was a
kid unfortunately in middle school and you know looking back
at it people were pretty mean to those middle school
teachers. I am assuming it’s the same now.
Ralph Zuranski:
Why are heroes so important in the lives of young people?
Jeff Dedrick:
They are the ones shaping it. Many kids don’t have strong
parents or if it’s a single family right there you are down
50% of what you could be learning. Even though the mom might
be great and she is doing all she could do they might need a
different figure in their life be it maybe a father figure
or male figure or vice versa. If they are living with their
dad, they are going to need a strong female figure.
Jeff Dedrick:
Women are going to want to relate or should relate to a
strong female figure. Them having a hero, be it their
parents or someone else to just shape their personality is
just so important.
Ralph Zuranski:
That is really true. What are the things that parents can do
that will help their children realize that they too can be
heroes and make a positive difference in the lives of
others?
Jeff Dedrick:
I would say getting involved in their life by exposing them
to as much stuff as possible. Even if the kids don’t want to
try it or do it, hopefully they have built up a good enough
relationships that they can join in. Expose them to
different music and different cultures and different cities
or whatever it may be.
Jeff Dedrick:
You need to just expand their mind and break down any
barriers. Definitely don’t be introducing any bigotry or
racism or anything like that. Even if you have bad habits
try not to introduce those to your children.
Jeff Dedrick:
I love it when parents are smoking and then they are telling
their kid not to smoke. The kids love and respect you. They
are going to do it because you do it. Everything they do
they have to realize that it’s shaping that child’s life.
Ralph Zuranski:
It’s funny how much kids actually look at what people do and
listen to what they say and see if those two things match
up.
Jeff Dedrick:
Yeah, a lot more than parents realize it too.
Ralph Zuranski:
How do people become heroes?
Jeff Dedrick:
I think being unselfish, doing things for other people and
not having some other motives like they are doing it just
because they want to get something out of it be it money or
whatever it may be. Unselfishness, that they are giving
their time, their energies, their past knowledge, they are
giving just for the sake of giving and not expecting
something back.
Ralph Zuranski:
How does it feel to be recognized as an International hero?
Jeff Dedrick:
I think it is pretty cool. I really appreciate this Ralph.
The whole Internet part of it is fairly new to me. My
business is having great success. In the past, and I’m also
quickly seeing it on the Internet but it’s pretty nice. I
kind of like it. I really feel honored.
Ralph Zuranski:
Why do you think I selected you for this unique honor?
Jeff Dedrick:
Well, originally I thought it was in case you ran into a
hotel problem and you had a place to crash that one night. I
think just because what you do is you go around to these
seminars.
Jeff Dedrick:
I think you are meeting people and you are taking pictures
and soaking in what people are and eventually you get a feel
for the people that are legitimate good people compared to
the guys that are just in it to make a buck and that’s it.
Jeff Dedrick:
I think you do a good job of just sitting back and looking
at people. The ones I think that pass your test you feel
that those are the people that can teach other peoples
something positive.
Ralph Zuranski:
When I take photos of people, the eyes are really the mirror
to the soul. When you take a photo of a person that really
tells you a lot about them which is how I pretty much judge
people’s character by how they look in the photos, whether
their smile looks phony or you see them over a number of
different events. You can really tell a lot about their
heart on how they look when they are smiling.
Jeff Dedrick:
Really? So, over the years you’ve just been able to pick up
stuff and you end up being usually right?
Ralph Zuranski:
Pretty much. People can see that too, they are attracted to
the honesty and integrity and the quality of the people in
the photos that I have taken over the years. That’s one of
the things that really draws people to the individual that
I’ve selected as heroes.
I was just curious as how being recognized as an Internet
hero changed your life?
Jeff Dedrick:
I think after hearing some of the questions that you were
going to ask it actually makes you take a look at yourself.
For example, until you asked the question or had me think
through the question about servicing others and the joy I
feel, I didn’t really realize that I wasn’t doing it
anymore.
Jeff Dedrick:
I was doing all of that back with my fitness club and giving
so much and the pizza places and it never even dawned on me.
If anything, it’s just going to reawaken these are great
questions.
Jeff Dedrick:
People need to not just listen to these interviews you are
doing but to actually apply them to their own lives and see
am I doing what I should be doing? Am I following some of
these principles? Am I a hero? If anything, I think it’s
more personally going to awaken a few things and make me a
better person. I like to think that anyway. That’s what I’m
striving for.
Ralph Zuranski:
Hopefully it will awaken the hero in everybody. It’s there.
It’s just waiting to come to fruition and have them realize
that they too can be a hero. Well, how are you making the
world a better place?
Jeff Dedrick:
I know that I’m starting from home. I know that if you said,
“Could the world survive without my businesses or my pizza
places?” Now, the fitness clubs are a little different
because I was really shaping people’s lives. The success
stories that I had in those clubs were great, people that
dropped 100 pounds are now living longer.
Jeff Dedrick:
People that were getting off of medicine because they were
so heavy that they were taking 20 pills a day and now are
down to 2 or 0. That was a nice feeling. On the Internet,
even though I’m helping people, am I really changing the
world? That is a tough one.
Jeff Dedrick:
Now, your stories are great. These can change people and
make a difference. I know that I’m making a difference by
paying attention to my family and my daughters, that’s how I
make a difference.
Ralph Zuranski:
Do you have any good solutions to the problems facing
society, especially racism, child and spousal abuse, and
violence among young people?
Jeff Dedrick:
Oh, boy. There again, some of that can again boil down to
maybe it’s just the luck of the draw for these people. It’s
having strong role models because like you said they need
those heroes. They need the strong role models to pattern
their lives after and to not associate with some of these
characters, weaker people with problems.
Jeff Dedrick:
It’s one of those tough questions. So many people are in bad
situations and they feel like it is out of their hands. It
is out of their control. People need to just be able to take
and look at their situations and realize they do have
control.
Jeff Dedrick:
They do have somewhere some type of control be it distance
themselves from the bad situation or start making better
choices for themselves. You always have some type of control
so people need to just look at how they can better
themselves and take control back in those situations.
Ralph Zuranski:
If you had three wishes for your life and for the world that
would instantly come true what would they be?
Jeff Dedrick:
There are obviously for the world you want major things like
having no poverty and having peace and for there not being
all of the natural disasters that are just killing people
and ruining people’s lives. Obviously, all of that I would
want, true.
Jeff Dedrick:
I guess I always think on a smaller scale. My immediate
family and friends, I want all of the happiness for them and
for them to reach their goals and their dreams. That’s what
I want the most.
Ralph Zuranski:
What do you think about the In Search of Heroes program and
its impact on youth, parents, and business people?
Jeff Dedrick:
I think it can have a huge impact. As I understand, Ralph,
you are going to be expanding this into other areas, or
possibly people are listening to this it’s already expanded
into a lot of different areas. If people can find a hero
that they can relate to be it outside of Internet marketing,
it it’s in different businesses, if it’s in different areas,
if they can relate be it if it’s a female or a male of
different races, that’s what’s going to be great.
Jeff Dedrick:
To expand this to include more and more people it’s just a
better chance that people are going to be able to relate and
they are going to be able to realize that they can change or
they can make a difference in their own lives.
Ralph Zuranski:
Hopefully the program will go to every local community and
people will go in search of local different individuals for
making a positive difference in the lives of others. As
opposed to the people that are the sports’ stars and the
movie stars, the rock stars who don’t have any real value to
society other than how much money they make and how screwed
up their personalities are. Maybe people like them so much
because they don’t feel so bad in their own lives because
these people’s lives are so messed up.
Jeff Dedrick:
Yeah, they don’t realize that. I don’t want to name
celebrities but some of them are so messed up but people are
hanging on their every word or looking at People magazine or
Us or whatever the magazines are in the
newsstand as though these guys are experts on anything. All
they are doing is maybe singing songs or making movies and
that’s it. Otherwise they are screwed up.
Ralph Zuranski:
That’s the reason for the heroes program is for other people
to realize, especially young people that the real heroes are
the moms and the dads and the next door neighbors and the
coaches and the teachers that are making a positive
difference in their lives.
Jeff Dedrick:
Totally, I 100% agree again, Ralph.
Ralph Zuranski:
I really appreciate your time, Jeff. I know how busy you are
and it’s just a real pleasure to talk to somebody who has
had a good childhood and a good college and has been
successful and hasn’t gone through all of the trials and
tribulations that most of the people that I know have.
Jeff Dedrick:
That really, I think, goes back to the quality of your
upbringing and just how valuable it is to have a mom and a
dad who are people that keep their word and live what they
say and pass that on to the young people.
Jeff Dedrick:
Definitely.
Ralph Zuranski:
Thanks again, Jeff Dedrick. I appreciate your time.
Jeff Dedrick:
Thank you very much for having me here.
Ralph Zuranski:
You are very welcome.
