Mike Stewart’s In Search Of
Entrepreneur Heroes Interview
Ralph Zuranski: What is your
definition of heroism?
Mike Stewart: I think that anybody
who is on this planet who can do something to make it
better for everyone else is a hero. My hero that I feel
like is a mentor to me is Thomas Edison.
Mike Stewart: If you think about
what he did, he is an example of persistence; his
example helps other people to better their lives. I
think it was Emerson who said this but he said “If one
person can breathe easier because I am here than I have
succeeded.”
Mike Stewart: Forgive me if it
wasn’t Emerson who said that but I remember the quote
and I think that is why Thomas Edison is my hero because
he invented so many things that has saved lives an
helped people, you know lighting and electricity, the
telephone.
Mike Stewart: There wouldn’t be 911
on a telephone to save peoples lives had Edison not
improved the telephone. I know Alexander Gram Bell
invented it but I know that Edison was involved.
Mike Stewart: So many things, the
phonograph, the recording industry, the recording and
audio industry all stem from his vision in 1876. So he
has been my life long hero.
Mike Stewart: I usually use him in
my presentations because of the examples he has set has
empowered my life and made my life better and I think to
be a hero you have got to pass that on. Heroes can be
of all types. Generally we think of heroes as people
who win in battle and most definitely people in the
military but there are other types of heroes too.
Mike Stewart: I like to recognize
people who have changed the world for the better as
being heroes just as well as those who were brave in
battle. So that is my definition of a hero and I don’t
want to slight the military out there, the veterans and
so fourth I just want to put my definition as in
addition to.
Ralph Zuranski: Did you ever create
a secret hero in your mind that helped you deal with
life’s difficulties?
Mike Stewart: I wouldn’t say it was
a secret hero, I would say the people that I talk to on
a regular basis, even though my father has been gone
four years now he is still a hero to me and I talk to
him frequently in my mind and I ask him “What should I
do” and I actually talk to Thomas Edison, I go “Tom what
should we do?”
Mike Stewart: So these are not
secret heroes, I don’t have an imaginary secret person.
I think about the great mentors of my life occasionally
and those are the heroes that I think of in my mind.
Mike Stewart: So I guess secret
wouldn’t be the word for me, it’s about remembering the
great works of people.
Ralph Zuranski: What is your
perspective on goodness, ethics and moral behavior?
Mike Stewart: How that affects my
life, I mean obviously I think it is important. I don’t
think people should, could or do succeed if they don’t
bare those qualities.
Mike Stewart: I am a firm believer
of what you reap you sew and if you sew those types of
characteristics than the goodness will follow as oppose
to if you don’t have those characteristics, call it
karma, call it reap what you sew, you can’t go a whole
life time without having to pay for your actions.
Mike Stewart: The Golden Rule, you
know all of the things exist because they work and so I
try my darndest to think that I can be as ethical as
possible, be as fair, be as honest an you can become
prosperous and successful maintaining all of those
characteristics and you don’t have to hurt, cheat,
steal, lie to succeed in this world. There are
opportunities.
Mike Stewart: I think it is also all
cause and effect when you put out good returns to you
and if you choose the other path it seems like you can
create a life of difficulty for yourself just because of
the law of cause and effect.
Mike Stewart: So I would recommend
for any hero, any successful person to definitely choose
those characteristics over any other alternative.
Ralph Zuranski: What principles are
you willing to sacrifice your life for?
Mike Stewart: Well you know I have
never been confronted with that decision and it is hard
for me to speculate. Obviously my children, my family,
my wife, if my freedom was taken away which it never has
I would imagine you would be willing to give up your
life, if it was obvious that you were going to be
oppressed.
Mike Stewart: So the things that are
of true true value in your life, if those were
threatened to be taken away I would be willing to
sacrifice my life for those things. It is hard for me
to relate because in my fifty-one years on this planet I
have been very blessed and I have never had to confront
such a prospect.
Mike Stewart: My family has, my
mother has had that and fortunately she didn’t have to
become in harms way because of it but my father went to
World War 2 and I would have done what was expected of
me if I were asked to and I think that is what the cost
of freedom and the cost of having the joys that we have
had in this world are expected of us, but I don’t wish
it on anybody.
Mike Stewart: I wish we did have
utopia where there was no issues of people having to
sacrifice anything just to live peacefully and just to
live as if it should be like a heaven where there isn’t
conflict but we don’t live there, we live in a world
where there can be situations where people do have to
make ultimate sacrifices and if that was my lot, if that
were cast to me then I would have to respond in a
responsible and ethical way.
Ralph Zuranski: When was the lowest
point in your life and how did you change your life path
to one of victory over all obstacles?
Mike Stewart: I have had several
points in my life and I don’t know which one would be
lower than the other. Years ago I was a young father
with two young children and their mother decided to
leave us all and that was a low point and I decided to
do the best I can and run a business and it was just a
mental persistence.
Mike Stewart: Thinking about Thomas
Edison in saying you just don’t give up. You never fail
as long as you keep trying and I had to just keep
thinking about that, I have got to keep going because I
have a responsibility to these children. So that was a
low point and the fact that I kept moving forward things
did ultimately turn around and got better.
Mike Stewart: Then a few years ago I
made some poor financial decisions and poor business
decisions which was a low point because it set me back
quite a bit financially.
Mike Stewart: Rather then admit
defeat I was determined that I was going to find out the
information that I needed to turn it around and
ironically or not ironically, maybe I think, part of my
belief system is maybe it wasn’t irony, it was destiny;
an old friend, and I even say this during my
presentation on stage but an old friend twenty-five
years ago told me to buy the book Think and Grow Rich by
Napoleon Hill and I had read it yet never did comprehend
it.
Mike Stewart: Back in this low point
in 1999 where I was over 100,000 in debt I was in
Borders Book Store and noticed the Think and Grow Rich
was setting on the shelf and almost called me like “Buy
me” and for whatever reason I bought the audio CDs of
the Think and Grow Rich book in 1999 and that became a
complete inspiration for a business that five years here
later has completely turned around all of that
negativity.
Mike Stewart: So like I said I think
that that low point was a blessing of lessons I had to
learn, but it also made me realize that I couldn’t learn
as a text reader, I was an auditory learner which has
now become a world wide business for me. I proudly can
say I did not declare bankruptcy and I paid all of that
debt off.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you have a dream
or vision that sets the course of your life?
Mike Stewart: It is primary, it is
mandatory, dreamers get things done, dreamers who dream
and take action. Dreamers alone who don’t take action
are just dreamers but dreamers who take action change
the world.
Mike Stewart: Going back to my hero,
Thomas Edison, people told him he was crazy, “You can’t
make an electric light bulb, you failed, you tried 9,999
times to make a light bulb and you failed” but then he
said “I found out 9,999 ways not to make a light bulb
and I knew eventually I would run out of things that
didn’t work.”
Ralph Zuranski: Do you have the
courage to pursue new ideas?
Mike Stewart: Yes, whatever ounce
you can muster up. I can remember many times my brain
saying “don’t do that they are not interested” and I had
to have a conversation with myself saying “don’t listen
to that” and that is all the courage you need is to have
enough energy to say “I am willing to do something that
is uncomfortable and accept the end result may not be as
devastating as my mind might think it can be.”
Mike Stewart: It is scary to get on
stage and speak in front of people, to this day I get
butterflies but I am so glad I do it. It build
relationships with all kinds of people I never would
have met, it creates all the things I am trying to
create in my life. There are so many areas that took a
little bit of courage but not a lot of courage to just
not let your mind convince you to procrastinate and
stop.
Mike Stewart: Another point, you can
not listen to any negativity of any kind. You have to
write down what you intend to do and you have to read it
out loud daily and you have to put on blinders to any
negativity that you hear as input from other people. I
look back on my life on all the people in my life who
said “You can’t start a business, you can’t do this,
there is enough of that already, oh there are too many
people doing that, there is no way you will succeed.”
Mike Stewart: That is an opinion,
there is no proof of that until you take action so what
happens is that if you do nothing I can guarantee you
your results but I can not guarantee your results if you
take action. I love what John Reese told me one time,
“If it works keep doing it, if it doesn’t stop.”
Mike Stewart: If you just do
something and see the result you will get a whole list
of things that will be successful for you, and the final
thing is when you surround yourself with like-minded
people you will start losing contact with the negative
people.
Mike Stewart: You will get to a
point where you can not tolerate any negative input. I
think the best suggestion is, one guy said one time “You
are the average of your five closest mentors or friends”
and Brian Tracy said “If you intend to fly with eagles
you can not hang with turkeys.”
Mike Stewart: So, I feel that you
and I Ralph we are in a good circle of very successful,
influential mentors that just give me ideas on a daily
basis, whether it is through the internet or
conversation or seminars.
Mike Stewart: It takes courage and
energy to go buy a plane ticket and show up somewhere,
but you know what if you don’t I can guarantee your
result, you will stay right where you are and if you are
content with that I am not critical of you but if you
don’t like where you are and you do nothing about it
then you have no one to blame but yourself.
Mike Stewart: You know people like
to be victims, they like to blame. I have so many
people I can blame for my downfalls in my life. I
accept responsibility; I created them all but at the
same time I have a choice to try to do different things
differently and I haven’t met anybody that has said “Oh
I can’t believe you believe that garbage in Think and
Grow Rich, that is all fairy stuff, that is all hocus
pocus, nothing in there is real.”
Mike Stewart: Well you know that is
an actual quote from a partner of mine. I don’t want to
document the reports but things are different, because
of attitude.
Ralph Zuranski: How were you able to
overcome your doubts and fears?
Mike Stewart: I remind myself I can
start over tomorrow. I try to evaluate why I may be
feeling the way I am, escaping to a happy place, I love
the lake and the boat, getting reenergized by other
people that are full of energy and full of positive
energy, all of those things and the better you get at it
the more it seems to happen..
Mike Stewart: Right now I think is
the best my business life and me and my wife have been
in my life and now my biggest concern is trying to give
my children this gift which at their age they are at
that skeptical time but one of my kids is starting to
catch on, Michael, and my other two I can see some of
the other stuff starting to seep in to their “I am
invincible and daddy you are crazy” brain.
Mike Stewart: What is the old joke…
“My dad was the dumbest man alive when I was sixteen and
when I got to be twenty five I was amazed at what he had
learned in ten years.” They are at the “I know it all
age and why listen to you.” So the only concern that I
have in my life these days is just that I want the best
for my children, I wish it was a requirement for all
young people to read Dale Carnegie and to read and learn
Napoleon Hill, to understand the principles of cause and
effect and understand the master mind principle.
Mike Stewart: There are so many
things that are successful mentors, Thomas Edison, one
of the things that impressed me about Napoleon Hill was
Thomas Edison, my hero for what ever reason, was in that
book. Napoleon Hill got to meet and interview Thomas
Edison, that just gives me chills thinking about things
like that.
Mike Stewart: So I think for what
ever reason the school system should include that kind
of learning and that kind of positive goal setting and
energy to help this be a prosperous nation.
Collectively we are very prosperous but there is still a
lot of work to be done.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you readily
forgive those who upset, offend and oppose you?
Mike Stewart: I think forgiveness is
mandatory. When you can’t forgive that eats away at you
and destroys the momentum that you have for yourself.
Mike Stewart: You can choose not to
associate, you can choose not to partner or do business
with people that you have had experiences of negatively
with, I don’t think it is wrong to say “I detach myself
from that individual” but to hold resentment, anger and
venom and want revenge ultimately destroys your good.
Mike Stewart: That is why I think,
at least from my belief system is do my darndest and the
natural thing you want to do is get even and the natural
thing you want to do is be angry and blame. I was in a
business with a partner that didn’t do what I felt he
should do and it was the demise of the business and it
put my family in a terrible financial result by the
decisions that I made but it was real easy to say “If he
just would have just done what he was supposed to have
done this would have never happened” but I had to get
beyond that and I realized that forgiveness was a big
part of that.
Mike Stewart: I totally forgive and
still love him as a person. I would never want to be in
partnership with him again, and that is what the
beautiful part is, you have choices. I can choose to
work with this person and I can choose to never work
with this person, I can choose to build a relationship
with this person and I can choose to co-exist with this
other person without an active relationship but for me
to hold resentment with somebody they don’t even know
it.
Mike Stewart: If I was mad at him
right now he wouldn’t even know it, the only person that
would get a body reaction is me. So forgiveness is
mandatory and is a difficult thing to control but you
are a better person for it if you can start working on
it.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you experience
service to others as a source of joy?
Mike Stewart: Sure. I love getting
paid, I love prospering but I really delight in people
being empowered with something I knew that they didn’t
know. So yes it is energizing, it is delightful, it is
rewarding for somebody to go “I didn’t know that I could
do that” or for somebody getting back to me and saying
“You know what, I took what you showed me and I did this
and it helped my family in this way.”
Mike Stewart: That is empowering to
me so yes I enjoy service but I can’t do everything for
free. I have to do some things but what happens is I
think that money is a by-product of the right attitude.
Ralph Zuranski: What place does the
power of prayer have in your life?
Mike Stewart: It is extremely
important. I think that even in Napoleon Hill,
communicating with the infinite intelligence which I
prefer to call God is prayer and the prayer of Gebeeze
is basically where you can say “Help me be able to do
this” because I heard this and I can not take credit for
this but God does not want poor people, God does want
rich people because they can help people who have not
seen how to become prosperous.
Mike Stewart: There is infinite
abundance, there is not a lack and only prosperous
people can help the others. I give back and I pray
because I just don’t believe that we are all alone and
this is the end.
Mike Stewart: There is a creator and
there is a whole lot out there that we don’t totally
understand but when you communicate with that kind of
power and energy of the Universe, God, then you connect
and good things can happen for you.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you maintain your
sense of humor in the face of serious problems?
Mike Stewart: Humor sure does make
life go a lot more fun. That is why I love music, I go
play music at a lot of the events you have been at not
because I expect to get money or pats on the back but
the fact that I am seeing people have fun and laugh and
forget about their woes for a while.
Ralph Zuranski: Who do you think are
the HEROES today that are not getting the recognition
they deserve?
Mike Stewart: I am sure there are, I
don’t know if I could identify anybody in particular
right now but anyone who has the goodness and the ethics
about themselves to make anybody breathe a little easier
are heroes and they may not be famous, they may not be
well known or may not ever be known, it does not make
them any less of a hero.
Ralph Zuranski: Why are HEROES so
important in the lives of young people?
Mike Stewart: Because those are
their formative years and if they don’t have role models
to emulate in a more positive way than we just create
more negative issues on the world. The terrible things
such as teaching hatred that turns into terrorism or
something like that.
Mike Stewart: It is not out
balanced, there is a lot more good in this world than
there is negative but the negative makes the news. So
the more we can show positive and the more mentor role
models that young people can see, maybe love can conquer
hate.
Ralph Zuranski: How does it feel to
be recognized as an Internet HERO?
I am very honored. I don’t think of me as being a
hero but if that is what I can be labeled as then I take
it graciously, accept it humbly and want to maintain a
relationship with you and the world to maintain that
status.
Mike Stewart: I just enjoy telling
people what I know and hopefully they see tremendous
return on their invested time and money that they have
done with me and it brings back to them ten fold what
they put into it.
Mike Stewart: So my wish is for
people to see what is possible if they don’t know what
is possible and benefit from it.
Ralph Zuranski: How are you making
the world a better place?
Mike Stewart: If I empower people to
improve their lives, several of my customers have left
jobs they hated which improved their lives and increased
their income, built relationships with new people they
did not know, enabled them to travel and experience Gods
world.
Mike Stewart: It is kind of like
every little piece influences the next piece. I don’t
know much about the butterfly effect but hopefully my
positive vibrations of excitement and passion when
saying “Look what this can do for you” and people taking
action with it just replicates that.
Mike Stewart: So I am hoping that I
am making a difference. I know some people personally
that has made tremendous strides with what little bit I
have shown them and I have had comments like “I made my
money back the first day. Thanks for showing me what I
could do.
Mike Stewart: I made twenty times
that money the first month because of what you showed
me. I got to quit my job.” My wife got to quit her
corporate job that she didn’t enjoy. She can sleep in
till ten o’clock everyday if she wants to. All of that,
hopefully that is the improvement that I can make a
change with people is just showing them things that will
allow them to get what they want out of life.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you have any
good solutions to the problems facing society,
especially racism, child and spousal abuse and violence
among young people?
That is a heavy one. John Lennon said “All you need
is love and love is the answer and all of those problems
are the result of greed, hate and negative energy and if
we can overcome negative energy then maybe more and more
of that will dissipate. I don’t have a definitive
answer other than love.
Ralph Zuranski: If you had three
wishes for your life and the world, that would instantly
come true, what would they be?
Mike Stewart: I am living my
wishes. I wish there wasn’t the fear of the negative
things going on in this world. I wish I could eradicate
the bombings in London and 911, those kinds of things
and the boys getting killed in Iraq, those kinds of
thing sadden me on a daily basis.
Mike Stewart: I wish we didn’t have
that but for me personally I am on a journey that I am
enjoying. I could be shallow and say I want my lake
house but that is a dream of mine and I am going to
achieve it and it is enjoyable to work towards it.
Mike Stewart: I don’t think it would
be that much of an accomplishment if I didn’t have to
work for it, if I could just snap my fingers and it be
here. I have to visualize it now and take the action to
manifest it by doing good deeds for a period of time,
but not a long period of time. I can see things now
coming about faster then I did five years ago.
Ralph Zuranski: What do you think
about the “In Search Of Heroes” Program and its impact
on youth, parents and business people?
Mike Stewart: I think it is a
powerful idea that you have come up with Ralph. I think
anything of this positive nature is going to make a
difference in this world.
Mike Stewart: You have just got to
keep your eyes on the focus of what you want to
accomplish and I know personally first hand of your
persistence and that persistence will make to be what
you have envisioned it to be.
Ralph Zuranski: What are the things
parents can do that will help their children realize
they too can be HEROES and make a positive impact on the
lives of others?
Mike Stewart: Basically all I know
that parent can do is they have got to live by example.
They can not say one thing and do another; they can’t
say don’t do drugs and do drugs.
Mike Stewart: They can’t say don’t
lie, but then call in sick to go play golf. The example
that they show is one that they have got to expect their
children to follow. If the parents do things that are
of a negative nature, even though you tell the children
not to do something they are still going to do it.
Mike Stewart: Creating the example
that you expect them to do, if you believe that they
should have spiritual nourishment then you should do
something to show them an example, don’t just send them
to church or teach them of a spiritual nature and then
do not act it yourself.
Mike Stewart: Setting the example
and doing things together, having dinner is one of the
things that has been lost, the family dinner is time for
family bonding and things and I would like to see us get
back to that. We struggled for many years to get our
kids together for dinner because they all want to do
things on different time schedules and it was important
for us all to sit down together and now they remember
that those were some really good times and a lot of good
bonding happens.
Mike Stewart: So the examples that
parents do, they have just really got to pay attention
to what example they are setting.
