"Len Thurmond Is an Old-Timer In the Internet Marketing Industry and Has Helped Many Internet Marketers Become Successful With His Proven Techniques and Powerful Software

Ralph Zuranski:  Hi, this is Ralph Zuranski, and I’m here with Len Thurmond. He’s been a friend that I’ve had on the internet for many years and has been incredibly successful in a lot of different projects that he’s actually done. How are you doing today, Len?

Len Thurmond:  Doing real good, Ralph. I appreciate you having me here. I’m really anxious to talk to you about this. It’s a subject that I really love.

Ralph Zuranski:  You know, Len, you’ve been a good friend to me for a long time. We’ve had some great discussions and I was always impressed with the love that you have for your mom in taking care of her, and that’s one of the major reasons why I chose you as one of my heroes. I was just curious. What do you want out of life in ten words or less?

Len Thurmond: Wow, that’s an interesting question; ten words or less. I want to be remembered as someone who cared. I think that would have to sum it up the best I can.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, what is the dream or vision that sets the course of your life?

Len Thurmond: Dream or vision? I guess initially like everyone else I wanted wealth and fame, but as I grew older and realized what success really was, my dream is to see my children be happy; to help everyone in my family as much as I can; and to touch as many people and society and help people find their way in life.

Len Thurmond:  There are just so many people who are lost needlessly, and all they really have to do is look within themselves and believe in themselves. I’ve been through a lot in my life, mostly self imposed, and I think I can help people realize that if they just look at themselves a little differently, if they just have faith in themselves and realize that they can and will do anything that they set their minds to, whether that’s good or bad, the future is up to them.

Len Thurmond:  If I could just convince people of that, then the world would be a better place all the way around.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, how important is it to stay focused on your primary goal?

Len Thurmond: Staying focused is probably the most important thing you can do. I think your primary goal is the question here. What is your goal? I think you have to have good goals; you have to have worthy goals. Then, once you’ve set a worthy goal that’s good for you and those around you, then in order to get there you have to be focused.

Len Thurmond:  I think, more than focused, you have to be dedicated. I think you have to make up your mind that no matter what you’re not going to give up until you get it done. That dedication is what gets people through the hard times.

Len Thurmond:  Focus comes and goes and it’s almost impossible to keep that from happening. Things around you, the world around you is going to change your focus, but dedication brings you back to that focus time and time again.

Len Thurmond:  I think it’s really dedication that is necessary to get anywhere in life.

Ralph Zuranski: This is kind of a strange question, Len, but do you follow your hunches and intuition? I know women are usually more intuitive and follow their hunches more because it’s a part of the brain hemisphere, the right brain that most men don’t use. What do you think about that? Do you use your intuition and follow your hunches?

Len Thurmond: That’s a funny question. Actually, as a man we don’t call it intuition. We call it our “gut feeling.”

Len Thurmond:  But, yes, I always follow my gut feeling and, if I don’t, I pay for it. Inevitably, throughout my entire life I always seem to know what to do, what’s right, what’s wrong, when to do it, why, where, everything intuitively. Through my gut, I mean, I can feel it.

Len Thurmond:  I guess the gut feeling really comes in when you don’t follow what you think is right or when you don’t follow that intuition which, I guess, is what it really is. But if you don’t follow it your guts just get tied in knots. You know that you’re doing the wrong thing.

Len Thurmond:  So many times through my life, and I’ve seen it in other people too, they don’t follow what they feel they should have done and, inevitably, it turns out to be wrong and it comes back to bite them in the butt.

Len Thurmond:  My wife, whenever we’re trying to make a decision, the first thing she’ll ask me is, “What does your gut say?” and then she keeps me on track forcing me to listen to my inner self. I believe that there’s an infinite consciousness out there that we’re all part of God. We’re all part of one infinite consciousness, one thing, and if you open yourself up to the answers they will come. They’re all there waiting to flood in.

Len Thurmond:  But when you deny your intuition, that’s shutting that door; that’s just slamming it shut. The truth can’t get in, and if the truth can’t get in you’ve got a 50/50 chance of going in the right direction.

Len Thurmond:  I can’t say that I always do, but I try to always listen to what my inner self is trying to tell me.

Ralph Zuranski: Philosophies guide people’s lives. What specific philosophy or philosophies guide your life?

Len Thurmond: Philosophies; that’s a tough one. I don’t think it’s so much philosophies as it is a way of life. I believe that everything you do, good or bad, comes back to you tenfold. And I think if you spend your days trying to do good in one way or another, and that doesn’t always mean trying to help people or running around handing out stuff at soup kitchens, but if you try to do good and not bad and help as many people as you can, eventually somewhere, somehow that will come back to you and it will come back to you tenfold.

Len Thurmond:  It’s happened to me so many times in my life, and it’s also happened to me when I’ve done some things that were completely selfish which I would consider bad things, and they come back to bite me too.

Len Thurmond:  I think you have to remember that nothing is free in life. If you do a good deed or if you try to help somebody and you do help somebody, it will come back to you. Someone else will be there when you need it. It’s the law of reciprocity which applies in all things and works both ways.

Len Thurmond:  I guess, if there’s a philosophy that I follow, that would have to be it. I do a lot of coaching and people pay me a lot of money to coach them, but I also almost always have several people that I do for free. I just feel that they need the help; they ask for it; I give it to them.

Len Thurmond:  Almost without question, in one way or another, it comes back to me. Many times they become successful and they’ll come back and pay me out of the blue. I never asked for money. Or they’ll turn me onto someone else, or someone else will want to do a business deal with me because they mentioned how much they learned or whatever. It always comes back to you, always.

Len Thurmond:  If everybody followed that golden rule, that “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” I mean, that’s one of those silly things we were taught when we were kids. But it’s just so true. It does come back to you..

Len Thurmond:  That’s not to say that bad things won’t happen, but I think overall the good will outweigh the bad if you are doing more good than you are bad.

Ralph Zuranski: That’s a great answer. And to follow up with that, what’s your perspective on goodness, ethics, and morality? Do you think that it’s important for people to be good, have good ethics, and have moral behavior?

Len Thurmond: I think that all comes back to what I just said a minute ago that “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Goodness is being good, which means not hurting people. Ethics means following your inner self, knowing when you’re hurting somebody and when you’re not, or whether something that you’re about to do is going to hurt somebody and not doing it.

Len Thurmond:  It’s really just a matter of trying to help each other and loving each other, and not trying to use each other. I think that’s where ethics and morality comes in. When you start trying to use other people for your gains, whatever those are, then you’re getting into a very grey area and it can turn black really easily.

Len Thurmond:  You need to do what you can for yourself in your own way without having to affect other people unless you’re going to affect them positively. I think trying to help other people will always further your cause. I honestly believe you can help yourself better by working with other people and trying to help them better themselves.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, you know a lot of people in their lives have a higher power, some supernatural being that they’re involved with or some God consciousness. What do you think is the place of prayer in a person’s life? What place does it have in yours?

Len Thurmond: That’s a sticky, almost sore, subject with me. I mentioned a few minutes ago that I believe in a higher consciousness, a total consciousness that we’re all part of the one, part of the whole. And I truly believe that.

Len Thurmond:  In any sense of the word, that would have to mean God. So, am I religious? Am I spiritual? Yes, absolutely. I totally believe that only an idiot could think that there’s not a higher consciousness of some kind. How did we get here? Why are we here? There has to be a reason. To deny that is to say that there is no reason for us to be here. That’s like saying, “I’m dead.” There has to be.

Len Thurmond:  As far as where do you pray? As I said, this is a sticky subject and this is probably going to upset some people, but I have a real problem with most organized religions because I believe that most organized religions are people who don’t have the faith to believe on their own and are gathering together so they can convince each other that they’re right.

Len Thurmond:  I personally go to church on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I love churches. I think they’re beautiful buildings and they do bring me closer to God, but I go there when there are not other people there because I don’t need or even want other people telling me what to believe.

Len Thurmond:  The main place that I pray is in nature. I’ve always loved the mountains, and I think the reason I’ve always loved the mountains is because it’s God’s greatest creation and you just feel so close to the infinite when you’re there.

Len Thurmond:  You can sit in the middle of a field in a mountain pasture surrounded by trees and snow-capped peaks and eagles flying over and know what God really is and know what spirituality really is and know what life is really all about.

Len Thurmond:  Whenever I have a problem or I feel badly, that’s where I retreat to. It’s almost always by myself. It’s the only way that I can spiritually connect with what’s there.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, this is a hard question. There are a lot of people who believe that running into a burning building to save somebody is a sign of a hero; or a soldier who’s out on the front lines who gives his life.  Those people definitely are heroes and doing a wonderful thing to save another person’s life.  But a lot of times sacrificing your life for something, for a principle or for a goal, is a lot harder to define, and it’s a lot harder to do because it doesn’t just take adrenaline like it does running into a burning building and being in a battle as a soldier. What are you willing to sacrifice your life for?

Len Thurmond: What would I sacrifice my life for? I would hope that any situation that arose that required that to save someone else’s life I would jump to the occasion. I don’t really know that.

Len Thurmond:  But I feel that a true hero is anyone who gives selflessly out of love for anything. We spoke about this before.

Len Thurmond:  What would I give my life for? What would I consider myself to do selflessly? I would do anything that it took to keep my children safe, and my children are my world. I think we’re put in this world to create other lives that can be better than ours and to make them better. I think that the reason we’re put here is to help those who go beyond us to be better than we were.

Len Thurmond:  We can only do that by loving them and helping them through it and being there for them when they need us, and trying to raise them in a way that they can go on to help other people be even better than they are. If everybody had that in mind, I think there would be no war; there would be no starvation, no poverty.

Len Thurmond:  There’s enough in this world to go around. There’s more than enough to go around. There’s no reason for anybody being hungry; there’s no reason for any of this stuff that goes on. All this war crap is mostly over religion which is another reason I am against organized religion.

Len Thurmond:  Why does one religion have to say that, “We’re right and, therefore, we’re going to have to kill all of you.” I mean, just to prove that they’re right. Is that any different than going into a church and gathering around each other and patting each other on the back to say that, “Yes, we’re right.”

Len Thurmond:  It’s all crazy. We need to love each other. We need to accept each other’s differences and allow each other to be different. And I think it’s our responsibility to foster that in our children. If the majority fostered that in their children and they did the same through procreation, we have more than one child generally, the world would continually become a better and better place until there was none of this crap left.

Len Thurmond:  I think that’s the only thing worth sacrificing yourself for. You can’t change the world. You can only do it a few people at a time and those people have to be within your family group because you really don’t have the control to do it for anybody else.

Len Thurmond:  That’s who I would sacrifice myself for and do sacrifice myself for, and I love every minute of it.

Ralph Zuranski: That’s a very interesting answer and I agree. There have been more killed in the name of religion than probably anything else. It’s sad to think that all the great teachers and all of the people who created these religions, their whole statement was that you should show kindness and you should love others.

Ralph Zuranski: Yet, there are individuals who take it out of context and say, “If you don’t believe the way that we will, we’re going to violate what the teacher told us to say and we’re going to end up killing you because you’re not going to accept our particular way.” It is absurd.

Ralph Zuranski: So a lot of times people’s goals conflict with their beliefs. Are your goals consistent with your beliefs?

Len Thurmond: I hope so. My beliefs are that I’m put there to do something, and the only thing that I can think of that I’m here to do is to help a few people get by. I’m trying to help as many as I can.

Len Thurmond:  We talked about it earlier. I truly believe this and I think it is something that most people don’t understand. They think on such grand scales that they can never really achieve it. But if you could change the life of one person for the better; if you could help one person, whether that’s your children or your neighbor or whoever that happens to be, if you can impact that person positively for their life and change their life in some way, then you are more than successful.

Len Thurmond:  That, to me, is the epitome of success. That’s my belief and I am trying, one person at a time, to help people. My main goal is to make sure that my children are loved and grow up to be positive and not prejudiced and want to be the same way with their children.

Len Thurmond:  But at the same time, I try to help my clients and people that I come across, friends and even strangers, who just look like they need somebody to talk to. I think that’s the best thing that you can do with you life is help whoever you can where you can.

Len Thurmond:  I hope I live that. I’m trying to, but that’s my belief.

Ralph Zuranski:  Len, is it valuable to have highly charged emotions about achieving your goals and your dreams?

Len Thurmond: I think achieving anything is emotional. I think you have to be emotional in order to get anywhere. If you don’t have any emotion, you don’t have any energy. It takes energy to accomplish anything.

Len Thurmond:  I think goals and dreams is where the problem comes in. What are your goals and dreams? People set unreal expectations. I don’t adhere to the theory that you’ve got to set a goal of making a million dollars in order to make a million dollars.

Len Thurmond:  I think that making a million dollars in and of itself is pointless. I think your goals should be set to be happy, and whatever it is that makes you happy will come. You need to find an avenue that you can follow. We all have to work somehow at something, so you have to find something that you can do that you love. And family has to be a very high priority in everything.

Len Thurmond:  As I said before, I believe in the law of reciprocity. If you find something that you love and you continue to try and help people better themselves through whatever it is that you do, it will come back to you and you will have everything that you need. And if you’re happy, then you’re successful.

Len Thurmond:  I think the goals that we set are not as important as the happiness that we need to obtain. I’ve known people who were penniless and were ecstatically happy because they had love and they loved each other and they had their family.

Len Thurmond:  What else is there in life? You can only spend so much money, and it’s great to go on cruises and do all this stuff. I do it. I make enough money to do that, but I think the money has come to me because I have tried to help a number of people and it brings people to me wanting me to help them. It comes.

Len Thurmond:  Like I said, it’s reciprocity. I think if your goals are to be happy and help other people, then money and everything else will come to you. It’s inescapable.

Ralph Zuranski: Everybody in life has setbacks, misfortunes, and makes mistakes. How important is it to take a positive view of those things that look like failures or setbacks, and it’s hard to comprehend why it actually happened? How important is it to take a positive view of the things that aren’t going right in your life?

Len Thurmond: Wow, how important is it? It’s everything.

Len Thurmond:  We, as humans, can be taught by other people all day long and never learn a thing. But you learn from your mistakes, and we have to make mistakes.

Len Thurmond:  Someone told me if you’re not successful it’s because you haven’t made enough mistakes; you’re not trying hard enough. And it’s very true. The more mistakes you make, the more you fail, the more successful you will be if you learn from those mistakes.

Len Thurmond:  I’ve seen a lot of people make the same mistakes over and over again, and it’s because they’re not willing to learn from those mistakes or admit that there may be a better way.

Len Thurmond:  But it is the only way we can learn, and I think having a positive attitude instead of saying, “I failed,” as Edison said, “Let’s just say I found another way that didn’t work.” Remember that and move onto something else.

Len Thurmond:  I think it’s imperative. It’s the only way that you can get ahead in life. Otherwise you’re stuck in the same rut and you’ll never get out of it.

Ralph Zuranski: In light of that question and overcoming those and learning from the mistakes that you’ve had, how important is it that you have optimism? Is optimism valuable in overcoming those problems?

Len Thurmond: I think optimism is very important, but I overhead you interviewing someone else, a lady I greatly admire, and she had an answer that I absolutely adhere to. I think pure optimism is foolish. I think you have to be realistic.

Len Thurmond:  There are people in my family who feel the exact opposite. They feel that pessimists are never disappointed.  I think that somewhere in the middle is the truth. I think you have to weigh one against the other. You have to be optimistic in order to get anywhere in life, but being overly optimistic or stupidly optimistic is a recipe for failure.

Len Thurmond:  I think you have to look at both sides of the coin. You have to know the possibilities of failure, and you have to be willing to accept that failure. But the optimism comes in by accepting that failure in a way they will help you get ahead the next time. It’s okay to fail as long as you continue to strive. One step back, two steps forward is fine. That’s the way most of us work and most of us learn.

Len Thurmond:  Yes, you have to be optimistic. You have to look at the world in a sense that you know you can get ahead.

Len Thurmond:  You know what it really comes down to? What it really comes down to is that you have to believe in yourself any way you look at it. That’s optimism. It’s not this rose-colored glasses view of the world that everything is beautiful. That’s what everybody thinks that optimism is. It’s really just believing in yourself, know that you’re going to fall down, but that you’re going to get back up.

Len Thurmond:  That’s optimism. And every time you get back up you’re going to take another step forward. If you’ve got that dedication and that kind of optimism, then it’s imperative that optimism be there.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, do you maintain a sense of humor in the face of serious problems? I know a lot of times in events that occur in people’s lives it’s either laugh or cry. How important do you think a sense of humor is?

Len Thurmond: I think it’s important to have both. I think it’s important to laugh and cry. I think that if you do nothing but laugh in the face of danger or laugh in the face of adversity, laugh in the face of loss, then eventually all those hurt feelings, all that down feeling will build up and make you crazy. It will come back to just make you a basket case.

Len Thurmond:  Crying is something most men feel that they can’t do. That’s really unfortunate that we were raised that way. Fortunately, I was raised by my mother only, so I was never raised that way; crying was okay.

Len Thurmond:  There is no such release as a good cry when you really are feeling down. It just cleanses your entire body.

Len Thurmond:  At the same time, you can’t walk around crying all the time either. I think you have to maintain a sense of humor in the face of what’s going on, but not to the point where you can’t let your emotions show. I believe that humor too often is there to mask the feelings that people are really having., male and female.

Len Thurmond:  It’s really important to do both when the time calls for it. If you’re ashamed to cry, do it on your own away from people which is probably the best way anyway, so people won’t look at you weirdly. But it’s really important not to hold those feelings in and not to try to laugh everything off which I’ve seen too many people do.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, did you find it was valuable to invest time in daydreaming about what your life would eventually be like when you attained your dream and achieved your goals?

Len Thurmond: I’m really not sure if daydreaming helps or hurts. You can really get lost in your dreams.

Len Thurmond:  I think you have to have a clear vision of the direction you want to go in, and I think you have to have a clear vision of what will make you happy. That’s really all that’s important.

Len Thurmond:  Dreaming about it, daydreaming about it, thinking about it, obsessing about it; I’m not sure that that doesn’t just hurt rather than help. I think you really need to have a strategy. You have to have a road map that you come up with that’s going to get you to the next level.

Len Thurmond:  This flies in the face of what so many of my peers say. I think you have to take it one level at a time. I think you have to have a road map to that next level and you have to follow it and you have to go for it. In the back of your mind you’re always going to know where you want to go next and you never can stop.

Len Thurmond:  One of the problems about having dreams and goals and so forth is that once you’ve reached those, assuming you do, now what do you do? I think you have to continue; you can’t ever stop.

Len Thurmond:  If you can set finite goals, that’s a recipe for saying, “I’m done; I finished it; I did what I wanted; I’m through. Yeah, me!” It doesn’t work that way. People who are successful, people who continue on, the Bill Gates, the Armand Morins of this world are never happy with where they are. There is always more to do.

Len Thurmond:  They are very satisfied with what they’ve done, but there’s always more to do. And I think you have to look at life that way regardless of what it’s about; business, family, friends; it doesn’t matter. You can never love anybody enough.

Len Thurmond:  To say, “I’m going to love my children until they know they’re loved, until I make sure they know they’re loved,” that’s like saying, “When they figure that out, I’m done.” You can never love anybody too much. You can never work too hard. You can never get to a place where enough is enough.

Len Thurmond:  We are here to do everything we can until we die, and I think that’s the way you have to go. As long as you keep that inside and continue to go on, then your life will be full. You’ll always have something to shoot for; you’ll always have something that you’re trying to work towards.

Len Thurmond:  If we run out of things to work towards, we die. Think about it. How many people have had loved ones, and their whole life was wrapped around that loved one. What does that mean? That means that it was wrapped around making that person happy. They loved them so much that their entire life meant, “I want you to be happy and I’m going to spend my life making you happy.”

Len Thurmond:  It doesn’t end. It never stops. “I will make you happy, forever, and happier and happier and happier,” and that’s their goal in life. When that person dies, they usually die shortly thereafter because they have nothing to live for.

Len Thurmond:  I don’t think that you can set goals in that sense. I think your goal needs to be always to go father; to never stop and never reach the end of the road. The end of the road is a death sentence.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, do you feel it’s important to make positive statements about your future and your goals?

Len Thurmond: I feel that it’s important to believe in yourself, and the only way you can believe in yourself is to be positive about where you want to go and how you’re going to get there. Positive statements? I think too many people take that out of context and feel that, “If I tell my friend I’m going to quit smoking, that means I’ll quit because I’ll be shamed into doing so.”

Len Thurmond:  That just means that when they don’t, they’re going to feel badly about themselves.

Len Thurmond:  What is a positive statement? A positive statement is, “I believe in myself.” If you believe in yourself, then all things are possible. Then it really comes down to what do you want to do? And you will do whatever you want to do if you believe you can.

Len Thurmond:  Positive statements in a sense that it helps you keep track of knowing you can get there, that helps you keep track of believing in yourself, yes. But positive statements in the sense of speak it and it will happen, I don’t believe in that. I think that’s cooked up by the gurus out there who are selling the self-help books that don’t work.

Len Thurmond:  I think you have to believe in yourself, period. And if you believe it, it will happen, whatever it takes to get there.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, I wanted to ask you this question about the subconscious. I know you’re quite aware about what goes on in the mind and how powerful the subconscious is. Do you take time to feed your subconscious?

Ralph Zuranski: Everything needs food, and it seems the subconscious is the primary factor that determines how successful we are and what we do and sort of the thing working behind the scenes that gets things done.

Ralph Zuranski: What do you do to feed your subconscious?

Len Thurmond: Feeding the subconscious? I think that the conscious is fed by the subconscious, not the other way around. I don’t think that we feed the subconscious.

Len Thurmond:  The subconscious is the door that’s open to all that is. The subconscious is where ideas come from. The subconscious is where creativity comes from. The subconscious is where inventions come from, songs come from; anything that’s creative and inventive comes from the subconscious.

Len Thurmond:  Then it’s fed to the conscious and the conscious is then, if it’s open to it, allowed to make that into a reality. I honestly don’t believe that we have to feed the subconscious. We have to feed the conscious. We have to allow the subconscious to do its thing. I think it’s inherent of the way life is.

Len Thurmond:  If we cut off that connection between the two, then we’re robots and we don’t get anything done except what the boss tells us to do. People who are entrepreneurs, people who get over adversity, people who become successful, people who invent things are all people who have opened that door between the subconscious and the conscious and allow that thought to flow.

Len Thurmond:  When I was younger I was a singer and song writer, and I played bars and stuff like that. And I wrote a lot of songs and the majority of the songs that I wrote were written while I was asleep. I would hammer on my guitar all day trying to hammer out a song. I could not get it. I’d have the melody and I’d have an idea for the lyrics, but I just couldn’t make them work.

Len Thurmond:  I’d go to sleep and I’d wake up in the middle of the night, about 4: 00 in the morning, and write down the lyrics for the song. It’s because that door is automatically opened when you’re asleep. If you can train yourself to let that door be open when you’re awake, then the thought processes that go on let that unconscious idea feed into the conscious.

Len Thurmond:  It’s like a machine. The conscious can then make that a reality. It’s like the subconscious draws the blueprint and then the conscious is the factory that hammers out the product.

Len Thurmond:  You have to be open to that. Feeding it? I don’t feed my subconscious. I relax my subconscious. When I’ve had a stressful day or whatever, I relax. I listen to Windham Hill and Narada, soft jazz and classical music when I go to sleep. I turn it on and I go to sleep to it.

Len Thurmond:  It soothes my subconscious and opens that door. There is a reverse polarity there where if you’ve got too much crap in your conscious it can feed back into your subconscious. That’s where nightmares come from. That’s where all that happens.

Len Thurmond:  I soothe it instead of feeding it with music. And my way is music. There are lots of other techniques. I was talking to a lady at dinner last night who is putting out some CDs with, basically, hypnotherapy, small snippets of hypnosis that allow you to overcome different situations that you’ve gone through and relax and so forth. She’s got different things for different ones. But I think it’s a genius idea.

Len Thurmond:  However you do it, whether it’s through certain herbs or whatever; if it’s through music; some people can just zone out by watching a movie and let all the crap go away. Whatever it takes I think it’s not so much feeding the subconscious as it is soothing the subconscious so it can get back to doing its job.

Len Thurmond:  We really are controlled by our subconscious to a great degree.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, how important is it to have the courage to pursue new ideas. You know, a lot of people just can’t do anything. They are paralyzed by making any changes in their lives. How important is it to have courage?

Len Thurmond: Honestly, Ralph, for me it’s not a matter of courage. It’s a matter of necessity. I don’t know how it is for everyone. I’m a very creative person and I have been all my life. If I’m not creating, which means coming up with ideas and trying them whether they be music or new products or software or writing a book, I’ve got a novel, I mean, regardless, if I’m not creating something I’m miserable.

Len Thurmond:  But that’s just me. I don’t think it takes courage to try something new or to create something. I think people who don’t feel they have the courage to do it are really afraid of failure. It’s not fear of the unknown; it’s not fear of changing; it’s not fear of trying something new. It’s fear of failure.

Len Thurmond:  If they don’t make it, then what? If you have a great idea and you need to quit your job to do it, it’s not a fear of what will happen if I create this thing or if I go down that road. It’s a fear of what if I fail and I don’t have my job?

Len Thurmond:  I think that all really comes back to believing in yourself again. If you believe that you can do it, you can do it. What the mind can conceive, the body can do. That’s just the way it is. It is a proven fact over the millennium. You must truly believe, and that means believing down to your toenails, not telling yourself, “I can do it! Yelp, yelp, yelp!” That’s the way it works.

Len Thurmond:  But if you truly believe in your soul that you can do something, then there’s no question. Then it takes, I don’t know if courage is the word, but it would take more courage not to do it than it would to do it because how could you live with yourself if you didn’t? I couldn’t. I absolutely couldn’t.

Len Thurmond:  If I have an idea that I feel is something I need to do and I don’t do it, then for the rest of my life I’ll wonder why. I think you just have to believe in yourself.

Len Thurmond:  Unfortunately, I think we’re brought up not to believe in ourselves. As an American culture especially, I’m not sure that it’s that way worldwide, but in America we’re brought up to work for somebody else, to not think for ourselves, to never believe in yourself, basically, beyond the fact that you can do what you’re told.

Len Thurmond:  I think that’s totally wrong, and somehow we’ve got to change that in our children and in society in general, and let everybody believe in themselves. It’s okay to work for someone else, but you’ve got to believe in yourself. You’ve got to know that that’s what you want to do, you know? It’s not because you have to or that you’re not good enough to do anything else. That’s where the fear comes in.

Len Thurmond:  Trying something new is essential for everybody at all times. Otherwise your life gets stagnant and then what’s the point? But it’s fear of failure more than anything else, and that can only be overcome by believing in yourself.

Ralph Zuranski: As a creative person, you definitely make a lot of quick decisions. How important and how beneficial is it to make decisions quickly?

Len Thurmond: I’m not really sure that I would categorize it as making decisions quickly. What I would say is that it’s essential to act on things when they come up.

Len Thurmond:  It’s been my experience over my entire life that ideas come and go, things happen, but they’re fleeting. And if you don’t act on them right now, they’re gone. I can’t count the number of ideas that have come to me that I didn’t bother to write down or act on or whatever, and they were gone forever.

Len Thurmond:  Opportunities and ideas, creativity, creation in general, are things that are floating around in the cosmos. It sounds cryptic and weird, but I can’t think of any other way to put it. And that’s not really the way I look at it, but I can’t really put it into words.

Len Thurmond:  They’re there, and they’re like little birds that are just flying around and they’re constantly lighting on your shoulder. And if you don’t grab that bird when it lights and make it your pet, make it your own, then it’s going to fly away and light on somebody else.

Len Thurmond:  That’s why so many people have had ideas that they didn’t do anything on, just to find out a month later that somebody else did it instead. It’s not that we’re such geniuses that we’re the ones that thought of it. It’s just that the idea came to us, and if we don’t take that and act on it quickly, and that would be your making decisions quickly, then it will go someplace else and somebody else will.

Len Thurmond:  So making decisions quickly; I’m not sure that it’s so much decisions as it is acting on opportunities, and thoughts. It’s knowing yourself. You can have a thought like, “I want to kill somebody,” and that’s not something you obviously something you want to act on real quickly.

Len Thurmond:  It’s a difference between believing in yourself and knowing what is a good opportunity and what it is you need to act on and not. Obviously, the bad things you shouldn’t act on. But you need to be open to the positive, and when positive things come to you I think you need to act quickly, or at least decisively if not quickly.

Len Thurmond:  It doesn’t mean that you have to create whatever it is immediately, but you do need to start the process or it will go away and become somebody else’s.

Ralph Zuranski: You know, Len, in your life you’ve done a lot of different projects and some have been successful and some have not been. Once you make that decision to go down that trail, how valuable do you think it is to be slow to revise and reverse an important decision?

Len Thurmond: I think it’s imperative to always be open to change. I can’t think of a single success that I’ve ever had that has ever ended up the way it started out.

Len Thurmond:  When I have an idea for a new project, whatever it happens to be, it invariably becomes so much more and so different in the end that it would be totally unidentifiable with what I started out with. So I think you need to be open to changes that present themselves.

Len Thurmond:  In the course of creation, things are constantly changing. They are constantly in a state of flux where you make one thing, you do one thing, and it creates another problem or it creates another situation. If you look at that situation and you say, “Okay, how can I better what I’ve done already by looking at this situation?” and then take that into account, it’s continually evolving and changing.

Len Thurmond:  When you reach the final edition, the final subject of what it is that you’re doing, whether it is a book or writing or a job or whatever you’re doing, even writing a theme paper at school, you have to be open to those changes. Then you will end up with a far better result than you would have if you stick to what it was to begin with.

Len Thurmond:  There have been so many software products and ebooks that I’ve done. If I had stuck with my original idea and refused to change, they would never have been successful because it was the end product that made them special.

Len Thurmond:  There have been so many times that I have failed to make things done because I wasn’t willing to make that change and so forth. So, yes, it’s absolutely essential that you’re open to change and then, basically, that you go with the flow. Be open to what comes up.

Len Thurmond:  My career has been one of being open to what comes up. Not just in my software creation or in my newsletter or anything, but back to the days of construction and I owned an art gallery. All the things that have happened to me, my entire life has been one of being open to what came up.

Len Thurmond:  How do you make the jump from being a carpenter to owning an art gallery? It’s because I was open to what happened. I was a closet photographer at first and then it became my passion and I needed a place to sell my stuff, so I ended up with an art gallery. The art gallery led me to the internet because I was trying to publish the works of art online when the internet was in its infancy.

Len Thurmond:  One thing has led to another, but if I wasn’t open to those things I’d still be driving nails right now. I was making a good living driving nails, but I had passions that I had to follow and I had to be open to them.

Len Thurmond:  Everything happens for a reason, and you need to follow what comes along.

Ralph Zuranski: Boy, Len, that’s really inspirational to follow your passion and just have self confidence. I know that the world and just the educational system seeks to destroy your self confidence and destroy your ability to pursue your dreams and even believe that you can.

It’s a horrible thing to be paralyzed by fears and self doubts. How do you overcome fears and self doubts? It’s something that everybody deals with on a daily basis.

Len Thurmond: I don’t allow fear to rule me; I face my fears head on. I’ve been doing it as long as I can remember. The more scared I am the more apt I am to jump in the face of that fear. Somehow, somewhere along the line, and I honestly don’t know where it came from but I know it to be true, I realized and was taught that the only way to overcome your fears is to face them.

Len Thurmond:  Invariably, the only thing there is to fear is fear itself. It’s an old saying, but it is very, very true. How many times have we all been afraid of whatever just to be suddenly forced into a situation where we didn’t have any choice but to face it, and then realize, “What the hell was I so afraid of?”

Len Thurmond:  It happens all the time. When I was a kid I was diagnosed with bone cancer when I was about six years old, and it basically just went away on its own. Nobody knows what it was or what happened, but they put me in the hospital, they did all these surgeries on me, and they were constantly sticking me with needles to the point where my father at one point grabbed the doctor and literally threw him into the hall and said, “Leave my son alone!”

Len Thurmond:  To this day I’m afraid of needles. I have a fear of needles because of that, but it doesn’t keep me from going to the doctor. And when they tell me I get a shot, I don’t run out the door, you know? You face your fears and every time it’s like, “Oh, that wasn’t so bad,” regardless of what it is.

Len Thurmond:  I think it comes back to what I said a little while ago. Most of us are afraid of failure more than anything else. In most cases the fears that we have are a fear of not being able to perform whatever it is we feel we should perform in any given situation.

Len Thurmond:  You have to face those fears and just do it anyway, and most of the time you will overcome those fears and it will help build self confidence so that when something else arises you’re not as paralyzed by it. You get to a point where you realize, “Yeah, it scares me; my heart’s beating really fast, but I know I’m going to survive this. And I know tomorrow I’m going to wake up and wonder what I was scared of?”

Len Thurmond:  And the next day when I’m faced with something I’m going to be more self confident and less afraid. To answer your question, I think the only way to deal with fear is to face it head on and realize that it’s just the fear itself that we’re afraid of.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, in our lives we come across a lot of people, people even in our own family, who upset, offend, and oppose us. How important is forgiveness and forgiving those who upset, offend, and oppose us?

Len Thurmond: Forgiveness is a strange thing; it’s a strange concept even. When you are truly hurt by something, you’re scarred. I don’t believe there’s anybody who can truthfully deny that. So what is forgiveness? Do you ever really forgive those who really hurt you? I don’t think so.

Len Thurmond:  I think somewhere down deep you never truly forgive them. But there is acceptance. You don’t want to hurt them; you don’t want to get back at them; there’s no retribution involved. It’s acceptance. But forgiveness, I’m not really sure that it is a reality. I don’t really think there is forgiveness.

Len Thurmond:  Jesus may have said to forgive, but I’m not sure that he didn’t mean accept. I don’t think you can truly forgive. Forgive means that it’s okay, and it was never okay. It will never be okay that you hurt me. It will never be okay, I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is.

Len Thurmond:  But to say, “I can accept that you did it and I will not hold it against you any longer. I will love you anyway,” that’s acceptance. That’s not forgiveness. I think there’s a fine line there. This silliness of, “It’s okay;” it’s not okay.

Len Thurmond:  We’re going to get hurt through our whole lives. It’s going to happen. People always stand in your way. I think a lot of it is that it’s really an understanding of where they’re coming from. People who stand in your way and tell you that you can’t do something, that you’ll never be able to do that, or what’s the matter with you, go get a job, whatever the situation happens to be, are people who have no self reliance of their own. They don’t believe in themselves, and if they can’t do it then you certainly can’t.

Len Thurmond:  And they can’t give you the benefit of the doubt, so it’s their problem really; it’s not yours. In those kinds of hurting situations, I don’t think it’s a matter of forgiveness. I think it’s a matter of accepting that it’s their problem. You have to just say, “I’m not going to let them keep me in my place because they can’t get out of theirs.” That’s really what it comes down to.

Len Thurmond:  And the real hurts, the ones that scar us to the bone, as I said, I don’t think there’s really ever any forgiveness. There’s acceptance and I think that’s where love comes in. You have to love them enough at some point to let go of the anger. But the forgiveness I don’t think really exists.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, do you experience service to others as a source of joy?

Len Thurmond:  There again, service. What does that mean? Do I like to see people happy for things that I do for them? Absolutely. I was here when you interviewed Donna. Donna said she enjoyed that spark she saw in people’s eye, that “aha” moment.

Len Thurmond:  I do too. I can’t agree with her more. I live for those moments of clarity. It’s not when you’re trying to teach somebody how to make a web site or something and they say, “Aha!” It’s the inside moments where they suddenly realize, “I can do this!” It’s where they suddenly gain a measure of self confidence in themselves in those little things.

Len Thurmond:  All those little pieces of self confidence build up to become an “I can do anything” at some point, so those are the victories. If that’s service to others, then absolutely, I live for that.

Len Thurmond:  I was a math whiz when I was in school. It was the only subject I liked and I barely made it through anything else, but there was something about math that just intrigued me. It was such an exact science and everything was always the way it was going to be, and there was nothing you could do to change it. I used to love to come up with theories and theorems that would blow my teachers away. They were totally different than what they had taught me to arrive at the same place.

Len Thurmond:  They would teach me to do multiplication and division one way and I would do it the other way. I would multiply from the left to the right instead of the right to the left. Just because I enjoyed it, it was fun to play with those kinds of things.

Len Thurmond:  But my two girls have a problem with math. Their mother is not really good at math and I guess they inherited that, I don’t know. But to see the look in their eye when I can explain something in a different way that it suddenly just makes sense and they can say, “Oh, I get it!” They were thinking they can’t do this, and now they know they can. So that self confidence is built up and it shows in all of their school work.

Len Thurmond:  Now they know that if they can just understand it, if somebody can just explain it the right way, then they can do it and there’s no question in their minds. That’s self confidence. It’s those moments that make my life worthwhile whether it’s with my clients, with people I’m coaching, friends whom I’m trying to help or explain something to, family members, whatever.

Len Thurmond:  If that’s service, then, absolutely, I live for that. I don’t see it as service. I see it as necessity. I see it as that’s what life is about and that’s what we’re here for.

Ralph Zuranski: Well, Len, you know everybody goes through some low points in their lives. When was the lowest point in your life and how did you overcome that low point? How did you achieve victory over the obstacles that you had at that time?

Len Thurmond: Wow, what was the low point of my life? I honestly don’t know what the low point of my life was.

Len Thurmond:  I went through a really tough childhood and adolescence and early adulthood, but truthfully, it was all self-imposed. It stems from my father and mother got divorced, and it’s the same old story. That’s not even, in most people’s eyes, worth getting upset over, you know. How could you let your life get destroyed over something like that?

Len Thurmond:  I was 11 years old, I think, and it devastated me. I blamed my mother and I spent years trying to get back at her, trying to get even. I know that now and I’ve apologized to her many times, but I put her through hell. And I did it by ruining my life.

Len Thurmond:  I got into drugs; I drank; I was constantly getting arrested. I was in trouble with the law. It was just terrible. I ran with the wrong crowd. I dropped out of school. I evaded the draft. I did everything that a kid could possibly do wrong, and I didn’t really know it at the time, but I look back now and I realize that subconsciously I was trying to get back at both of them, not just her, for ruining my life.

Len Thurmond:  In retrospect, it’s probably the best thing that could have ever happened to me that they broke up. My father turned out to be something else.

Len Thurmond:  The low point in my life; that’s what caused the low points in my life. It was that self-imposed self destruction that caused the low points.

Len Thurmond:  But when I actually hit bottom, I am honestly not really sure of the exact date, but I was homeless and starving. I was a very talented carpenter, but I couldn’t keep a job long enough to really eat or anything else. I was feeding my drug habits and stuff more than anything. I was living in a van. I had an old, beat up van that had a broken shifter. It was terrible. It was pretty lousy.

Len Thurmond:  But as I said, it was self imposed. And at some point I just woke up and said enough is enough. That was it. I have never in my entire life believed or felt like I couldn’t do anything I wanted to. I just didn’t want to, and I knew that; on some level I knew that.

Len Thurmond:  I always knew that I could do anything I wanted to, and at some point I got tired of beating myself up for no reason. It was just plain stupid and I knew it. So at some point I said, “Okay, that’s enough. You’re done now.” And the day I did that, life changed.

Len Thurmond:  I immediately went out and got a normal job and cleaned myself up, and before I knew it I was a general contractor and had my own crews. It was just a matter of applying myself.

Len Thurmond:  I see it so often in young people. I think they are really subconsciously trying to get back at somebody else by hurting themselves. Somehow it converts into, “If I hurt myself bad enough, you’ll be sorry,” which is just totally stupid. But I know that’s where I was and what I did.

Len Thurmond:  Once I had had enough, I had had enough. My mom is one of the greatest women who ever lived. She is a very special woman. She went through all of it; bailed me out of jail; never really complained too much. She just took care of everything.

Len Thurmond:  I had a brother and a sister and she worked three jobs to keep us in a middle class home that we couldn’t afford. She didn’t have to do any of the stuff that she did, but she felt it was her place in life to raise her kids and give them the best life that she could and just love them through it all.

Len Thurmond:  I guess I did enough rebelling for the rest of the family because the other kids were perfect. You’ve met my brother. He’s an executive type; he’s got a Ph.D. He’s everything that I probably should have been.

Len Thurmond:  I put myself through it and I know it was to hurt her and I am truly sorry for it now. I guess, in reality, it was something I had to go through to be who I am now. I wouldn’t put my mother through that for anything in the world again, but if I had it to do all over again just to me, I probably would do it the same way because, in truth, all the problems I had with drugs and alcohol and going to jail and getting in fights; all the stupid things I did made me who I am. They made me know that I have experienced this for a reason and I have to help other people and I have to try and show people that there’s a better way and it’s stupid to do these kinds of things.

Len Thurmond:  I know I can’t keep people from going down the same road I did, but maybe I can save one person. Maybe I can let them see that they don’t have to do what I did in order to redeem yourself to yourself. That’s really all it is.

Len Thurmond:  The low point of my life was at some point in my 20s when I decided enough was enough and just hit rock bottom, and made the decision that that was it. I pulled myself in and it didn’t take long.

Len Thurmond:  I don’t think anybody with any intelligence would ever take long to pull out of that. It’s just making that decision.

Len Thurmond:  That’s what happened to me.

Ralph Zuranski: Wow, that’s a pretty amazing story. I sort of went through the same thing. I was angry at my dad for the way that he treated me when I was growing up so I figured, “Well, you’ll be sorry when I hurt myself or kill myself,” and I got myself involved in extreme sports and had one bad injury or one big mistake or made stupid mistakes and got involved with drugs. It was like, “Gee, I think I’ll just destroy my life to get back at you.”

Ralph Zuranski: Now that I look at it the same as you do, it’s like, gee! What was I thinking at that time?

Ralph Zuranski: Was there anybody who helped you to give you the will power to make changes at that time or did you just come up with it on your own?

Len Thurmond: Honestly, it was on my own. I was too messed up to let anyone get close enough to help me. There were a lot of people who loved me and wanted to help me and were constantly trying to help me; my brother and sister, my aunts, my uncles, my best friends, my girlfriends. I was married four times through all this because I couldn’t keep a wife. God, some of those women were incredible. I look back on it now and what an idiot I was.

Len Thurmond:  It’s like that country song that says, “I know what I was feeling, but what the heck was I thinking?”  What was I thinking?

Len Thurmond:  There were plenty of people who would have helped me if I had let them, but I think most people who find themselves in a situation of hitting rock bottom couldn’t hit rock bottom if they allowed people to help them. There’re always going to be people who want to help you. Even just the local pastor or the neighbor’s father or whatever; there are always people who care.

Len Thurmond:  But if you get that low, it’s because you refused to let anybody help. You are bound and determined to ruin yourself, and if you are lucky enough to live through it, then you will eventually hit rock bottom. And when you hit rock bottom, you know it. It’s not, “Am I there yet?” There’s no question; you know the day that happens. “It’s time! I’m done! This is it! Enough’s enough!”

Len Thurmond:  It doesn’t mean that all your problems go away, but it’s the start of the recovery. I would love to be able to save that somebody saved me.

Len Thurmond:  I’m a musician, I love music. There have always been countless ballads and stories about people who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and if anything saved me it was probably those types of things that kept hammering in my head. “You only have to live this way as long as you decide. And when you’ve decided to change, it will change.”

Len Thurmond:  I guess you could say I was helped by thousands, the thousands of people who’d gone before me and actually done it. People who had worse lives than I had; people who lived in all kinds of horrible situations and gangs and everything; they managed to pull themselves out of it.

Len Thurmond:  Stephen Pierce is a prime example of that. He had it much worse than I did. So it’s hard for me to feel sorry for myself at this point, but back then I felt like I was the lowest guy on the earth. I guess it was stories of people that were inescapable. They are everywhere around you. Those stories finally sunk in enough to let me know I didn’t have to do this anymore and that I could do anything I wanted to. I never really questioned that.

Len Thurmond:  I changed from what I wanted. I never wanted to die. I was not suicidal. If I had wanted to die, I would have been dead. I could have said, “I’ll show you, I’ll die,” and then shot myself in the head. That’s not what I wanted, you know. I wanted, for whatever reasons, to suffer. And I did a good job at it, and I wanted those around me to suffer too.

Len Thurmond:  When I got tired of suffering I said, “Okay,” and that was that. It was just knowing that I could and know that other people had done it. I don’t think you can ever be too far gone where you can’t crawl out. You just have to make up your mind that it’s time. And when that time comes, it’s not that difficult to crawl out. You just have to believe that you can.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, how important was it to believe that your financial dreams had come true?

Len Thurmond: Really, Ralph, my financial dreams have not come true. They never will come true.

Len Thurmond:  I don’t really have financial dreams. I want to be able to give my family everything they want. I want to not have to worry about how I’m going to pay the bills.

Len Thurmond:  You know what I want? Do you know why I became successful when I became successful? When my oldest daughter was born, or rather, when she was two years old and she came and she asked me for something. I don’t remember what she wanted, but she wanted something, and I couldn’t afford it.

Len Thurmond:  I told her I couldn’t afford it, “I’m sorry, but we can’t afford it.” And I told my wife that night that I felt so bad, so bad. I told my wife that night that I will never, ever have to tell my child I can’t afford it again. Not that I’ll give them everything that they want, ever. I don’t think that you should spoil your kids.

Len Thurmond:  But I will never have to tell them I can’t afford it again. I made that promise to myself and to my wife that day, and I never had to again. I busted my ass to make sure that would never happen again. And it was almost an overnight thing.

Len Thurmond:  I turned the gallery around instantly. I got into the internet stuff very shortly thereafter. I ran the gallery during the day. It was in a mall, so it was open day and night. My wife ran it at night and I went home and worked on the internet and took care of the kids. I raised my kids from the time they were in diapers, which is the most important thing to me, and it’s the reason that I do what I do right now. I’ve always been able to be there for them. I’ve never had to farm them out to anybody and I never will.

Len Thurmond:  But that day I told myself that I will never have to tell her I can’t afford it again, and I haven’t. That’s the driving force that keeps me going.

Len Thurmond:  I will never reach my aspirations of enough money because I don’t think there is such a thing. But I don’t really have any goal or set aspirations because all I really want is to never have to tell them I can’t afford it; never have to worry about paying a bill, where the money’s going to come from; and to be able to take them to Disney World or on cruises or to Hawaii or whatever when I feel it’s time to get away.

Len Thurmond:  That’s the only thing that money means to me. I suppose it would be great to leave them a fortune in the end, but I’m not really sure that’s a good thing either. I mean, look at Bill Gates. He’s one of the richest men in the world and he’s not leaving his kids his money. He’s giving it away to charity because he knows it’s not a good thing to endow that on somebody. Make them make it on their own.

Len Thurmond:  Give them enough to be able to get by and be comfortable. You don’t want to stick them in the ghetto, but I don’t think it’s good to do that to a kid. You need to raise them to be self sufficient and teach them to do it on their own.

Len Thurmond:  My girls are learning how to make web sites and stuff right now at their young age of eight and ten. They’ve both got their own web sites and I fully intend for them to move into the business if that’s what they want to do. I’ll give them that opportunity.

Len Thurmond:  But how much money I make is just enough to do whatever because you can’t take it with you anyway. Anything that’s left, if I were to become extremely wealthy, I would probably give it away to charity too. You have to give it and use it where it’s best needed. There are too many people who need it more than my girls do, as long as they’re comfortable.

Ralph Zuranski: Well, Len, you’ve had a really interesting life. Some of the stuff we can’t really tell that you’ve shared with me in this interview, but what is your definition of heroism?

Len Thurmond: I think I said it earlier. I don’t think I put it into words of heroism. Heroism is a tricky word. I don’t believe it means people pulling people out of burning buildings, although that is very much heroism. I think a hero is someone who sacrifices anything for someone whom they love on any level; whatever level they can.

Len Thurmond:  Even if it’s just giving up a meal so that someone you love can have it; a small thing like that; or doing without something that you really want so that your child can have something that they need. Those things are heroism to me.

Len Thurmond:  Mothers literally giving up their lives. I think I told you earlier that my hero is my mother, and I think anybody who loves anybody that much, and she loved all three of her children that much, to literally give up everything, is amazing. That is my term.

Ralph Zuranski: Well, Len, you’ve had a pretty interesting life and you’ve been involved with a lot of different types of groups of people. I was just curious, who are the heroes in your life now?

Len Thurmond: Now in my life, my mother will always be my hero more than anything else. She’s the reason I’m on this earth to begin with; she’s the reason I survived the years I was trying to destroy myself; and she’s the reason that I live right now.

Len Thurmond:  I came back to where I lived in Georgia to be hear her because she was ill, and I wanted to take care of her and I wanted to try and give back some of what she had given me and make sure that her grandchildren knew what a special lady she was.

Len Thurmond:  As far as current people that I look up to, in this industry, the internet industry, there are so many people who have literally pulled themselves up by the bootstraps that it’s amazing. Stephen Pierce, everybody knows the story of how he was shot, was homeless; very similar to my story only I wasn’t shot and he had it much worse than I did. Armand Morin came from the wrong side of the tracks and is now a multi-millionaire.

Len Thurmond:  It goes on and on. There are just so many people who decided, basically, I think we all decided that we are unemployable. There’s no way that any of us can work for anybody else. We don’t have any choice. We have to make it and we have. We’ve made a living at it; some better than others. Most of those, better than I, but I still make a good living.

Len Thurmond:  Those are my heroes. Those are the people I look up to. People made the decision; not that they don’t want to work for somebody, but they know in their heart that they can’t work for somebody else. They are entrepreneurs at heart, which basically means they are creative. They have an energy force in them that will not be denied. They cannot put that aside.

Len Thurmond:  It’s not that they can’t work for someone else. It’s that they can’t deny that. It’s like a singer who decides not to sing or a really, good, talented actor with a passion who can’t act all of a sudden; there’s no reason to live. You cannot deny it if you are one of those unemployable people. You have to follow your dreams.

Len Thurmond:  That brings up another thing. Who are my real heroes? I don’t know any of them personally, but I think my real heroes would have to be the people who follow their dreams because they have to and never make it because they are so dedicated that they can’t quit. That’s the epitome of dedication. If you never even reach your dream, but you continue to have to go for it, you just can’t stop.

Len Thurmond:  That’s dedication and there’s nothing like that out there. That’s an amazing level of dedication. Those would have to be my real heroes and I was one of them for a long, long time. I think I am proof that you can strive for something you believe in for a long time and never make it, and if you keep trying eventually you probably will.

Len Thurmond:  You asked me what level of money is enough and all that? It’s really not important. I make a good living. I’m not rich, but I make a good living and I do something that I truly love, and that’s all that matters.

Len Thurmond:  If you can be happy doing what you do, that’s all that matters.  People who strive to become famous singers and do nothing but play one night gigs in little bars their entire lives for the most part are really happy because they’re doing what they love. That’s all that really matters.

Len Thurmond:  If there’s any unhappiness in their lives it’s mostly because there is somebody else they are responsible for whom they can’t provide for the way they want to. That’s my impetus for making money and getting where I am. But most people in that situation are by themselves; they are not responsible for somebody else. If they have somebody else who loves them, they probably work their own job and are self-sufficient.

Len Thurmond:  They are pursuing a dream, and I don’t think there’s anything in life more important that you can do than to pursue a dream. If you spend your life pursuing a dream honestly and with all your heart, regardless of what level of  “success” society says you’ve reached, I think you’re a success, and I think that’s really all that’s important in life.

Ralph Zuranski: Boy, Len, that is so true. That is what Earl Nightingale said, “Pursuing a worthy ideal with every ounce of honesty and integrity and having full faith that you’ll attain it; that is being a success everyday.” There are so many people who are a success who don’t even realize it.

Ralph Zuranski: It’s important to, as you go through life and try to attain success, have people around you who are trusted friends or a mastermind group.

Ralph Zuranski: How important is a mastermind group or trust friends?

Len Thurmond: I think that in anything that you try to do in any profession or area of expertise that you try to attain, it’s always important to have peers that you can discuss your ideas with, your failures with, your successes with, and to hold each other’s hands.

Len Thurmond:  It’s like a family. A family unit is put together to help each other, to nurture each other, to make sure that you do the best you can and nobody can ever ask more out of you than that. If you do the best you can at what you do, then you’re a success. That’s the end of that. That’s all there is to say about that.

Len Thurmond:  And I think having a mastermind of your peers who are all trying to do the same thing pushes you to do better. It elevates you to a different level of success that you probably wouldn’t have attained on your own. I think it’s incredibly important to surround yourself both with successful people in your area of expertise, but also people who are striving to get to the same place you are and have a support group, if you will.

Len Thurmond:  Basically, that’s what it really is. It’s a support group. It’s a bunch of people of like mind who have like goals and like intentions and like loves, which is the most important thing, all striving to do the same thing and to help each other to get there. That’s what a mastermind is, and I think that’s important in whatever area of your life that you’re working in to have that working for you, if you want to be successful.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, who do you feel are the real heroes in society today who aren’t getting the credit that they deserve for the things that they do?

Len Thurmond: Wow, who does get the credit for the things that they do? Very few people do. The most obvious are teachers.

Len Thurmond:  My oldest daughter is a teacher and she’s a very good teacher, but my middle daughter has had some problems with teachers who were burned out. And the reason they’re burned out is because they are not given what they need to teach the kids the way that they should be taught. They are not given a salary that’s commensurate to what they do.

Len Thurmond:  They are true heroes, and yet they’re downtrodden to the point where they just give up. It’s a real shame. Almost every teacher to the person went into it for the love of children, because they wanted to help build a better society; because they wanted to build an enlightened society; they wanted to help the children have a better life than they did. That’s the reasoning behind being a teacher. There is no other reason because they don’t get paid enough to be anything else.

Len Thurmond:  But what happens? Society comes along They crap on their art programs. The art programs have just about been totally removed from school now. I have to pay extra for my kids to go after school to learn the arts, which I gladly do. But there’s no reason why it should be removed.

Len Thurmond:  Physical education, which was a paramount part of school when I was there, is not like twice a week. Music programs are now all but gone. It’s insane because they’re penny pinching everything. The kids are not learning anything but the golden rule; the ABCs are all they’re learning. School is not only no longer fun, but they’re not learning the things they need.

Len Thurmond:  Without beauty in your life, without the arts in your life, without music in your life, what is life? How far can you go on ABC, one, two three? It’s a shame, and the teachers are feeling this in the core of their hearts.

Len Thurmond:  After a while with the frustration, they get to a point of being burned out where they’re mistreating the kids to a point. They’re just mean. They hate life; they hate where they’re at; they hate what’s happened to them; they hate not being able to give the children what they went into this to do. It’s one of the biggest shames in our society that I have ever seen.

Len Thurmond:  The children are our future and we are just stomping on them by not giving them what they need to be what we want our future to be; what we profess that we want our children to be.

Len Thurmond:  There are so many people who are homeschooling now, and I’m not sure that that’s the answer either because the kids don’t get the social interaction that they do at school, which is important. But what are you going to do?

Len Thurmond:  As far as heroes are concerned who are downtrodden and not taken care of, there are God knows how many professions that fall into that category. But I honestly believe that the worst of all, the worst crime of all is what we as a society have done to the teachers of this country who have given their lives and souls and gone to school for all of those years to become what we’re denying them the ability to be.

Len Thurmond:  There’s no greater crime, I think, in society than that today.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, why are heroes so important in the lives of young people?

Len Thurmond: Young people, babies, are born an open book, and we write the pages to that book. We make them and mold them and tell them what they can and cannot be. We give them the right, the permission to become good, bad, evil, or nothing at all.

Len Thurmond:  Heroes, if that’s the word, show children what they can be if they just believe. Without that, society tells them to be worker bees and get a job at the Seven Eleven and put in your eight hours, five days a week, and go home and don’t complain.

Len Thurmond:  That’s not a way to live life. You have to have aspirations. You have to believe that you can do better. You have to want to do better. They all want to do better, but they have to believe that they can in order to do it.

Len Thurmond:  Without heroes, without people showing the way, without people leading the way, they have no reason to believe that they can do any better, and that’s a real shame.

Len Thurmond:  This country was founded on being able to do whatever you thought you could. It was founded on the freedom to be creative; the freedom to get ahead; the freedom to make your own way, to make your own life.

Len Thurmond:  Now we’re doing nothing but shoving them down and telling them, “No! You can’t do this. No, no, no, no, you have to go get a job!” It’s just insane, and I think the only thing that is giving them any hope at all, for those who are even shown it which so few are, is the heroes, the people who have stepped out of that mold and said, “I don’t care what you tell me, I’m going to do what I know I can do. I can be better than that and you’re not going to keep me down.”

Len Thurmond:  It’s those few individuals, those very few, who are put into the public eye to the point where children actually see them to give them hope; to let them know that life is not so mundane; that it’s not what the government tells them (and it’s really the government) they have to be.

Len Thurmond:  It’s not, “Yeah, I’ve got to get As and Bs so I can go to college, and then get out and be an accountant’s assistant and work five days a week and be bored out of my skull and take a two week vacation every year and die when I’m 80 on a retirement that I can’t afford my medicine on.”

Len Thurmond:  That’s not what life is about. This country was founded on entrepreneurialship. It was founded on the ability to do and be whatever you can do and be. It sickens me that we have created a society that feels that they have to be worker bees. It’s a shame.

Len Thurmond:  It’s the reason that our country is falling off in the hierarchy of the world where all of the main inventions and all the greatest creations and all the technology and everything is happening elsewhere because we’re raising our kids to think that they can’t do it; that they’re not supposed to do it.

Len Thurmond:  Other places are teaching their kids how to speak English in first grade all over the world so they can take over our jobs. They’re teaching them technology; they’re teaching them how to think and teaching them why to think so that they can think. We’re teaching our kids not to think.

Len Thurmond:  There are very few heroes, I think, that are at least thrust into the public’s eye enough to help the kids. But those are the ones that are giving them hope, giving them the opportunity to see that there is a better life and that they can do whatever they want.

Len Thurmond:  If we can just teach our kids that they can do and be anything they want to be, they’ll turn it around because they won’t be satisfied to be where they are unless we beat them down at a young age to where they don’t know any better.

Ralph Zuranski: Len, you’ve been a parent, in fact you’ve been a parent a number of times with a number of kids. What are the things parents can do that will help their children realize that they, too, can be heroes and make a positive difference in the lives of other people?

Len Thurmond: I think the job of a parent is to lead by example. We need to let them know that what society tells them is wrong and that they can be anything that they want to be. We need to instill in our kids that they literally can be anything they want to be. It is up to them; it’s not up to society. It’s not up to what jobs are available. It’s not up to what the stock market says.

Len Thurmond:  It’s up to them. If they know that they can invent the next big widget that’s going to change the world, then they can do it. They just have to believe. It’s up to us to give them that believe in themselves.

Len Thurmond:  The truth is that 99% of humanity can do anything that they believe they can do and on an individual basis. The majority of the world is taught to believe that they don’t have that option. If we just instill in our children that it is their God-given right to have that option, and that they are capable of doing whatever they want, and it is their right to do whatever they want, then they will. There’s going to be nothing that can hold them back.

Len Thurmond:  I am totally and completely unemployable because I will not conform to what they want me to be. I’ve been that way my whole life. I’ve paid for it a lot my whole life. But in the end I’m one of the few who stand out. Instead of looking at me as the crazy hippie who wouldn’t conform, now they look at me as somebody who actually is successful. How weird is that? Think about it. How weird is that?

Len Thurmond:  I’m no different than I was then. I’m not doing the crazy things I used to, but I’m the same person. My mom refused, through all I put her through, through all that happened, to let me believe anything less than I am special and I can do whatever I want to and never conform. Be yourself regardless of what anybody else thinks. It’s not important what anybody thinks about you. It’s what you think about yourself that’s important.

Len Thurmond:  I’ve lived my whole life I’ve lived that way and now I’m revered for it. It’s silly. I’m not any different than I was when everybody hated me, but now I’m revered for it. I’m successful. People come to me and ask my advice. How weird is that?

Len Thurmond:  I sit back sometimes and I marvel at it and I laugh. Ten, 15 years ago you wouldn’t give me the time of day and now you’re asking my advice? I haven’t changed, but I think it’s our job to raise our children to raise their children to be free thinkers, to be outward thinkers, to be all that they can be in every way that they can be, and to not let anybody hold them back.

Len Thurmond:  Those are the heroes that our kids need, and it’s not just parents. It’s everyone around them. It’s got to be a group effort. Somehow we’ve got to save the teachers and pay them more money.

Len Thurmond:  I raise my kids, I work at home and I’ve done that on purpose so that I can raise my kids and not have anybody else do it. But they’re still affected by their teachers. That’s the only thing that I don’t have control over.

Len Thurmond:  I want to see a society that has teachers the way they used to be. When I was in school teachers cared. They weren’t paid any better, but they were revered. Now they’re just like nobody really cares. We’ve got to save the teachers somehow. We’ve got to save the school system so they can help us raise our children to be all that they can be.

Len Thurmond:  They can raise them to be the free thinkers of the future who can save this world because right now we’re headed to hell in a hand basket.

Ralph Zuranski: Well, Len, you’re about the same age as I am and most of the time people thought we were crazy because we were following our own path and refused to give up on our dreams and just be different and follow a different path than the entire herd.

Ralph Zuranski: Now it’s interesting that people look at us and think that we’re special, but we’re no different than we were before. I guess it’s funny that the world has changed and we haven’t. So I guess just being ahead of our time makes a big difference.

Ralph Zuranski: How does it feel to be recognized as an internet hero?

Len Thurmond: Isn’t it funny that you and I come from an age, it was the ‘60s when we grew up as adolescents, when we were feeling our oats, and we refused to give in. We were the hippies; we were the crazy guys that wouldn’t conform and our parents hated us and the cops hated us, everybody hated us because we refused to conform.

Len Thurmond:  Now, all of a sudden all these years later everybody is looking up at us as, “Wow, they didn’t conform. Let’s find out what they know?” Isn’t that strange? It’s so funny; it’s come full circle. It never ceases to amaze me.

Len Thurmond:  All we can do is just continue to do what we’ve done. It’s funny, I don’t really consider myself a hero. I’m me; I’ve done my thing. If a hero is somebody who tries to help people, then I guess you could consider that.

Len Thurmond:  But I think that everybody should do that. I don’t think that’s heroism. I think that’s humanity; I think that’s the way we were intended to be. If there is a God that is looking down on us and saying, “This is what I want,” then that’s what he’s saying.

Len Thurmond:  “This is what I want you to be. I want you to help each other. I want you to love each other.”

Len Thurmond:  What did we do in the ‘60s. What in the world were the ‘60s and ‘70s about? It was about love and peace. That’s what we taught; that’s what we preached; that’s what we picketed about. And we went through all of the shenanigans we did to get our point across.

Len Thurmond:  We only had our hair really long and dressed weird and did the things that we did to make a point. The point was, “We’re made as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore,” you know. “The world has gone haywire. Love and peace; let’s love each other. Let’s stop fighting each other for stupid things.” That’s what it was about, and that’s still what it’s about. It’s what it’s always been about.

Len Thurmond:  I talked earlier about religions. I think the saddest part about religion is that you’ve got all of these different religions all over the world; wars are fought and millions of people are killed. What’s it really all about?

Len Thurmond:  It’s about people saying, “I want you to believe like I do,” when in reality, if they really got down to the core of it, we all believe the same. You’ve got Mohammed; you’ve got Buddha, Krishna, Jesus Christ, all the way down the line; Abraham. They’re all preaching the same exact gospel. That’s the sad part.

Len Thurmond:  I don’t understand why we are fighting. What’s it about? We’re all being taught by these great, great people of the past to love each other, to get along, to accept each other’s differences and not fight about it. That’s what it’s all about, and yet, that’s not what’s happening.

Len Thurmond:  That’s what you and I fought for in those years, and I’m still fighting today for. I think that’s what the heroes program is about. It’s about love; it’s about acceptance; and it’s about letting people know that they don’t have to let this crazy societal thing screw them up. You’re okay. It’s okay to be you. In fact, it’s good to be you. Just believe in yourself and stop letting other people tell you it’s a bad thing and move on with your life. Become what you can be.

Len Thurmond:  Wherever your heart takes you, it’s okay. Follow your heart and you will be okay. That, I think, is what this program is about. It’s what I see it being about. The only thing I think in life that is worth being about, it’s what everybody that I know who’s being successful is about. In one way or another they do their thing, they make their money, but every one of them to a man, all of my friends, all of my peers, are very intent on helping other people find themselves in one way or another.

Len Thurmond:  Some of us teach them to find themselves through success in business. That’s one way. Some of us like Stephen teach you to believe in yourself and know that this is how it’s going to go and that will get you where you want to go.

Len Thurmond:  There are all different levels of how to get there, but in the end, we’re all trying to tell everybody that it’s okay to be you and it’s not only okay, it’s imperative that you be you. Be true to yourself. I don’t know of a single person out there who’s saying to be something you’re not. It’s be true to yourself and you will find people who will follow you and want to be with you and will help you get where you want to go. That’s what life is all about; help as many people as you can and be happy with who they are. We’re all different.

Ralph Zuranski: Well, Len, it seems that we’ve traveled a similar trail being excoriated most of our lives because we were different from everybody else; we refused to conform. How will being recognized as an internet hero change your life?

Len Thurmond: Quite honestly, Ralph, it won’t change my life. But what I hope it will do is change somebody else’s life. I hope, in the bottom of my heart, that somebody, somewhere, who’s in a similar situation, who’s father left or who’s hooked on drugs or who had a bad divorce or lost their kids or whatever, will hear this and say, “God, I understand. He understands and it’s okay. I’m okay and I can do this, and life will be good because I believe it will be good.”

Len Thurmond:  That’s my most fervent hope. It’s not going to change my life. I’m an old guy now. We’re both, by some people’s standards, maybe not old but I’m in my mid-fifties. I’m in the twilight of my life and it took me most of that time to get to this point and realization.

Len Thurmond:  It took me 45 years of those 55 years to understand that it was okay to be me; to understand that I can be anything that I want to be and it’s okay to be that. Not only is it okay, but it’s good to be that, and that I can help other people be that.

Len Thurmond:  If this interview helps any one person, then it’s all worthwhile. That’s what it’s all about. It’s okay to be you. It’s okay to be different, and you know what? It’s not only okay to be different, it’s important to be different. We are all different. It’s not good to follow the crowd, period. I don’t care. As many hippies and people who I hung with and all the crazy things I did as there are out there, not a single one of us was like me. I am me; I am one person; I am an individual and there’s not another person on the face of this earth like me.

Len Thurmond:  Not only is that a good thing, it’s an imperative thing. It’s important to understand that that’s okay. It’s not only okay, it’s great! It’s good to be me. I don’t want anybody else to be like me. I just want people to understand that it’s okay to be them. It’s good to be them, and they can do anything they want. If they can be happy living out of garbage cans and living in a cardboard box, then that’s okay too, as long as they’re happy at it.

Len Thurmond: The important thing is that whatever you do you’re happy about it and you love it. Success is about going to meet your Maker with a smile on your face because you knew you were happy about the way you lived your life.

Len Thurmond:  I’ve done a lot of things that I’m not really proud of, but in the end I can die tomorrow and know that I lived my life well; I did what I was supposed to do. This is part of the culmination of that. This is my epitaph. I’m passing on the license to people to be themselves. I’m passing on the right to be themselves.

Len Thurmond:  I’m saying, “Do what you want to do, be yourself. The only thing, the only thing that is important is that you be happy. If you can be happy, then God bless you. You’re successful.”

Len Thurmond:  That’s all life’s about. Let the other crap go. Just be happy.

Ralph Zuranski: Well, Len, I really appreciate your time. I know how busy you are and some of the stuff that you’ve had to say has really resonated with me because we’re from the same generation. We were seeking after truth and honesty and being ourselves and making a difference in the world.

Ralph Zuranski: What do you think about the heroes program and its impact on families, children, and businesses?

Len Thurmond: Ralph, when you first told me about this I thought it was an unbelievable idea. I was completely honored that you asked me to be part of it. I’m sure I’ve gone into a lot more detail than you wanted me to, but I do appreciate the opportunity.

Len Thurmond:  I’m a very outspoken person when it comes to things like this.

Len Thurmond:  I’ve heard some of the other interviews that you’ve done and if we can find a way to get these interviews to people who need to hear them, we can change the world. It’s amazing how you’ve interviewed people who were mostly my peers, people whom I know, people who’ve been successful. A lot of people who’ve had similar stories to what we’ve done. Everybody has had their own crosses to bear and their all different, but they are all equally as upsetting and they’re not unlike millions of other people out there.

Len Thurmond:  If we can find a way to get this out to people, to let them know that it’s okay to be them, to let them know that not only is it okay, but it’s good to be them and that they can move on and be whatever they want to be. They can become the success stories that they want to be.

Len Thurmond:  As I said earlier, success has nothing to do with money; it has to do with being happy. Then we can do a world of good with this. I personally will do anything and everything I can to help get this out there. This is an amazing project, one that’s long overdue and I think the only trial ahead of us is figuring out how we can get this in front of the people who need to see it and need to hear it.

Len Thurmond:  My hope for this is that anyone listening to this will pass it on to those who need to hear it or those who have the ability to give it to those who need to hear it.

Len Thurmond:  If my story can help anyone, that’s incredible. That’s my life’s goal is to help anyone. As I said earlier, if you can help make a difference in one person’s life, I honestly believe that that is the definition of success.

Len Thurmond:  But with all of the other interviews you’ve done, with all of the other testimonials that you have, with all the other affirmation of life that you’ve got on here, I can’t see how this could be anything but an incredible life-giving project; one that could save literally millions of lives.

Len Thurmond:  Right now it’s a matter of getting to the right people. It’s a matter of getting it to the schools. It’s a matter of getting it to the churches, to the suicide centers, to the people who are really hurting who really need to hear these things; who need to know that it’s not over, that there is hope.

Len Thurmond:  Not only is there hope, but that they can do whatever they want and that it’s time to stop listening to the crap that’s been filled into their heads. That’s not what life is about; they can do whatever they want.

Len Thurmond:  I applaud you. I can’t think of a better way to help the world than with something like this. I want you to know that I will do everything that I can to try and get this out to the people who need to hear it because I think it is the most heartfelt and important project that I’ve seen in a long, long time.

Ralph Zuranski: Well, Len, I really thank you for that, and it’s been a project I’ve worked on for 14 years. I’ve sacrificed my life for it because God put it on my heart to make a difference in the world for good. There’s no reason why kids have to go through the mistakes I made and that you made and just the self loathing and all the ways that we tried to destroy our own lives.

Ralph Zuranski: It’s my dream to have people like you who are my heroes to help make this product and this program successful, and to help the up and coming generation so that they can make the world a better place; that we truly can have love and peace without war and prosperity and feed the masses.

Ralph Zuranski: I really thank you for taking your time and I appreciate your offer for help. Thanks again.

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