Ralph Zuranski: Hi this is Ralph
Zuranski. I’m on the phone with Mike Filsaime who is one of
the leaders of internet marketing and just recently had a
tremendous launch of his program Butterfly Marketing.
Ralph Zuranski: I as so impressed with
Butterfly Marketing I wanted to use it as a means of
generating income for all the Heroes Programs in all the
different communities so that there’d be plenty of money to
fund the necessary programs in communities where there is no
funding. How are you doing today Mike?
Mike Filsaime: I’m
doing great. Thanks for having me here Ralph.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you think that maybe
you could tell the audience a little bit about yourself and
how you came up with Butterfly Marketing?
Mike Filsaime: Sure.
I’m 38 years old. This is April, 2006. I was born in 1967 in
Long Island, New York. (Born and raised) In 1990 I got into
the automobile business. That’s the same business my father
was in.
Mike Filsaime: I worked
my way up from sales to finance manager, then sales manager
then general sales manager then eventually to general
manager. Over that 14 year period I learned a lot about
marketing as it pertains to the automobile business.
Mike Filsaime: In 2002
I got into online marketing. I stumbled across it and
started learning as much as I could and started building an
e-mail list by using a great auto responder service to
capture names and drive traffic to pages where the call to
action was to get the name & e-mail address.
Mike Filsaime: That
started taking off so well that 2 years later in August of
2004 I was able to leave the car business and go full time
on that. I was on-line for about three years and started to
brand name my own style of marketing. I called it Butterfly
Marketing.
Mike Filsaime: I
launched that home study course in 2006. We originally had
1500 of that course. We sold all 1500 units at a $1,000.00
in 25 days. We brought in 1.5 million dollars in about 25
days.
Mike Filsaime:
Butterfly Marketing is based on the theory of the chaos
theory known as the Butterfly Affect. The Butterfly Affect
states that the single flapping of the butterfly’s wings
produces tiny changes in the atmosphere that can
dramatically affect the future outcome as compared to what
it would have been had the butterfly not flapped its wings.
Mike Filsaime: So,
basically anything that goes on whether you are waving your
hand or a car driving by or you’re just walking through
produces tiny changes in the atmosphere. That makes it very
difficult to predict weather past 5 days. Newscasters will
only give you a 5 day forecast.
Mike Filsaime: There
are so many butterfly effects going on that we can’t measure
or predict accurately what’s going to happen after 5 days.
Recently you have seen movies like the butterfly effect
where they go back in time and just say one word different.
The next thing you know you’d come back to the present day
and there’d be a completely different outcome on the way the
world was.
Mike Filsaime: You also
saw things like that in the movie “Back to the Future” and
“It’s a Wonderful Life”. I was always fascinated by the
butterfly effect. I always looked back at my life and said
“Wow, if I didn’t get stuck at that traffic light I wouldn’t
have walked into the hotel room at that point and met “so in
so” in the elevator.”
Mike Filsaime: You look
at when you met that person in the elevator and what a
dramatic effect it had on your future and everything that
happened after that was a ripple effect. I started looking
at that in the way of marketing.
Mike Filsaime: I coined
the phrase of Butterfly Marketing. That means there are
small things you can do that are seemingly insignificant
changes that you can do in your marketing that will have
dramatic effects on your outcome in the future. Good or bad
because you can make small mistakes and it will have a
dramatic disaster.
Mike Filsaime: If you
do some small things right you can have incredible success.
Just to give you some examples. It took me about a year and
a half when I first started building a list to get to 40,000
optimum members which is pretty good. But in the year and
half after that I was able to get 200,000 optimum members
when I stared putting the Butterfly Effect into my
marketing.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s amazing. In
looking at your program it’s one of the most impressive that
I’ve ever seen and it’s geared to help people generate
income. I’ve been to so many different conferences and so
many people have spent so much money and never generated one
cent of income. It’s kind of pathetic when people are out
there selling stuff that doesn’t work. Have you found that
to be true?
Mike Filsaime: Yes and
what I see that as Ralph is there’s an abundance of
information out there and the problem is that people don’t
know how to bridge the gap. Those that are having problems
getting success they don‘t know how to bridge the gap from
knowing to doing. That’s one of the things I wanted to do
with Butterfly Marketing is not only to show you or tell you
what to do but I wanted to tell you and provide the tools to
do it in a step by step format.
Mike Filsaime: I don’t
like generic 101 marketing that tells you things like “You
need to set up an auto responder, etc, etc. Then you need to
go to Google and learn about Google ad words then you can
put ad sense on your site.” That’s all a general overview
type of course. The way that I like to give my type of
course is getting “down and dirty” case studies that you saw
in Butterfly Marketing.
Mike Filsaime: When I
changed this in my one time offer the percentage of
conversion went from 3.5 to 4.5 and things like that. So I
like to give case studies and examples of the success that I
had rather than just talking in theories and things like
that.
Ralph Zuranski: I really appreciate your
perspective of “all for one” and “one for all” that nobody
gets left behind, the people that invest in your program and
through the forums & the training and special bonuses you
can help everybody be successful if they just apply what you
teach them.
Mike Filsaime: Yeah,
that was our motto for private members forum to let
everybody know that no one would be left behind. If we left
anyone behind then we didn’t accomplish our goals. We wanted
to let everybody know that our attitude was “all for one”
and make sure that bought the package would have the success
they wanted when they hit that auto button.
Ralph Zuranski: What is the worthy ideal
you are pursuing with honesty and integrity?
Mike Filsaime: Well,
Steven Covey says “To live. To love and to leave a legacy.”
So when I was in the car business my frame of what I wanted
in life was to become a general manager. But I didn’t
realize how miserable I was. I was working 28 days a month
and almost 70 hours a week and constantly working on my day
off and my cell phone always ringing.
Mike Filsaime: I
thought I had achieved success because I didn’t think
outside the frame. I didn’t determine my own success based
on what I knew. Getting into online marketing really allowed
me to take that whole white board approach and erase
everything I thought I wanted and clearly define the goals I
wanted in life.
Mike Filsaime: That
really is to live, to learn, to love and leave a legacy. I
want to live a better life. I want to have a great
relationship. I want to learn and continue to grow. And
finally to leave a legacy and be able to pass that
experience on to other people.
Mike Filsaime: That’s
the phase I’m in right now is to try to teach people not
just how to make money but also to have all those things
that we just mentioned
Ralph Zuranski: What do you want out of
life in ten words or less?
Mike Filsaime: Oh boy,
that’s a good question. I want to live a long healthy life
and I want to change lives. As I said I want to leave a
legacy. I don’t want to be something a thousand years from
now where you’re not even a mark anywhere even in a record
book.
Mike Filsaime: I want
to put a nice legacy on this world and really change lives.
And leave a pattern that can be duplicated for centuries to
come.
Ralph Zuranski: What is the dream or
vision that sets the course of your life?
Mike Filsaime: The
dream that sets the course? I would probably say the power
of positive thinking and trying to keep all the negative
poisons out of my mind. Napoleon Hill says “Whatever the
mind can conceive it can achieve” and I’m a big believer in
that. I believe that the things you dwell on you are going
to pull into your life.
Mike Filsaime: I think
that the mind cannot distinguish between imagination and
reality. That’s why the mind doesn’t know the difference
between what you’re thinking and past memory. If you can
envision something and not just set a goal that says “I want
to make a million dollars” but actually envision you have
with that. Like what you’ll be wearing, what you’ll be
smelling, what your house will be like and what it’s like to
drive that car.
Mike Filsaime: Also
what it’s like to be with the person you love. If you can
truly envision that in your mind I believe that you will
actually attract that into life very quickly.
Ralph Zuranski: How important is it to
stay focused on your primary goal?
Mike Filsaime: Staying
focused is something we’ve been talking about a lot lately
and I’m going to give credit to a very good friend of mine
Stephen Pierce. I’m going to give an example that I saw him
talk about in Australia. Basically what Stephen says is
“Imagine if there was a young child that you knew very well
and you were standing at a garage maybe at a bar-b-que. In
the street was a young child maybe playing with marbles or
something right at the corner of the driveway on the street.
Mike Filsaime: Between
you and the child were several of your friends and relatives
holding a drink in their hand and behind them was a wagon
wheel, a big wheel, a bicycle and other kids playing. You
noticed up at the top of the hill that somebody just parked
their car and didn’t put it in park and didn’t put the
emergency brake on.
Mike Filsaime: It was
very slowly running down the hill towards this young girl.
So I’ll ask you the question, Ralph, if you saw that car
coming towards the girl and you had all these people in
front of you but you knew you had to get to this child, what
would you do?
Ralph Zuranski: I would do what you
would do Mike. I would do anything it took to get to that
girl before the car got there.
Mike Filsaime: Anything
it took, right? What about that bicycle that’s in your way?
Ralph Zuranski: I would leap over it and
knock the people aside and not let any obstacle stand in my
way.
Mike Filsaime: Exactly.
It’s what bicycle at this point. You have a goal and you’re
not going to let anything get in your way. Now here’s what
happens when you turn that scenario around. As Stephen
mentions, you take that young child and you turn it into a
car. Now at the top of the hill coming down in stead of a
car it’s a shopping cart.
Mike Filsaime: You see
the shopping cart coming down and you still have all these
people in front of you. So now you’re entire intention
shifts. Your perception has just shifted So what you are
going to say as you see that shopping cart coming down as
you’ll probably have a little of the deer in the headlights
look, you’ll probably say “Hm, this is going to be
interesting.”
Mike Filsaime: I think
that’s what happens sometimes with people with the project
they are working on. They don’t have that serious focus
where they put the blinders on like a horse in horse racing.
They say “That’s my target goal. I don’t care about the
bicycle or the people in front of me. There’s nothing that’s
going to stop me from getting to my target goal.
Mike Filsaime: If you
start looking at that with the product that you are working
on it’s pretty much the same thing. I think what happens is
people get stuck in this syndrome of “Oh I’ve got another
great idea.” A great idea is probably the biggest poison
that anybody could have when they are working on a project
or trying to focus on something. What I tell my students and
people that I work with is to take their ideas and put them
into a separate book.
Mike Filsaime: Write
down that idea in a little paragraph then put that book back
in the drawer. When you are done with your current project
open up the idea book and find the ideas that you can work
on that you can immediately leverage quickly and bring to
the market place or whatever you want to do to complete it.
Brad Fallon, a good friend of mine talks about working on
four different projects at the same.
Mike Filsaime: Let’s
assume that each project takes you one month to do and
you’re working on all four of them at the same time. Simple
math would tell you that it would take 4 months to get these
projects done. So what ends up happening is that you work on
one project one week, the next project the next week, the
next project the following week and you’re moving each
project along kind of like pushing up all these little
magnets up on a board.
Mike Filsaime: But what
ends up happening is if you had been focusing on one
project, in one mo nth you could have that project making
money for you after 30 days. Then you can fully focus on the
next project. Then after 30 days your 2nd project
is making money so now you have two incomes coming in.
Mike Filsaime: After
the 2nd project is done you work for 30 days on
the next project you complete it because you were focused.
Now you have three projects that are making you money. After
that you start the 4th project and all the while
you’re working on the 4th project the other three
projects are making you money.
Mike Filsaime: Not only
are you in a position that you are working on projects, you
are completing projects that are making you money. The
mistakes that people do are trying to work on all these
projects at the same time are that none of these projects
are making money because it’s being spread out over 4
months. So it will take you 4 months to create one single
dollar. Then that poison comes in again right before you’re
about to finish the project and says “Oh I have another
great idea, and another great idea.”
Mike Filsaime: So you
start getting to 90 & 95% on all these other projects then
you start another project and move them up to 90 to 95% then
project #7 comes along with this great idea and you never
complete anything. One more thing, assuming you were working
on 4 projects at the same time, as I said at the beginning
of this conversation about this, that simple math would tell
you it would take 4 months to get these projects done.
Mike Filsaime: What
happens is that when you are multi-tasking and not focusing,
you can multiple that factor times two. It will actually
take you about 8 months to get 4 projects done because you
are multi-tasking and not able to focus on one thing at a
time.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you follow your
hunches & intuition?
Mike Filsaime: Yes I
do. Pretty much like you just said, you have to be careful
with your ideas. That’s where out sourcing comes in. If you
can find people to manage the projects you can put other
ideas out there on the back burner and move them a little
bit closer to the front burner if you understand how to out
source.
Mike Filsaime: There’s
a great expression that says “money likes speed” and I agree
with that. If you do decide to take action on something, do
it very quickly. Because money likes speed and money
attracts speed. When you work fast you can get into this
great zone where you can start bringing things to the market
very quickly.
Ralph Zuranski: What specific philosophy
or philosophies guide your life and decisions?
Mike Filsaime: I
believe in principles so certainly that are a lot of things
I’d like to do to be a better man, to be a better husband
and be a better marketer. One of the specific things that I
like to do is to let go and stop thinking or ever believe
that I know everything.
Mike Filsaime: I’m a
big believer in continued learning. Again Stephen Covey &
another one of the seven habits, Habit #7 says “You must
continue to sharpen the saw.” So even if you start to learn
and you sharpen that saws & it’s the best saw in the world
what ends up happening is that months or years later that
same saw built on great knowledge becomes dull if you
continue to use it every day.
Mike Filsaime: You must
continue to sharpen the saw. I recommend that everybody be a
student of learning and learn from the masters, those people
that have blazed the trail. Sometimes and in most cases you
have to pay for that information. But you’ll find that
anything you pay for when learning from the best will come
back to you tenfold.
Ralph Zuranski: What is your perspective
on goodness, ethics and moral behavior?
Mike Filsaime: Again,
those are life principles. Those aren’t things in my opinion
that one person can say “Well that’s your view on ethics.”
Fundamentally there is a difference between right and wrong.
If you are even questioning it then in some cases it
probably can be wrong.
Mike Filsaime: We know
deep down in our hearts what the right things to do are and
what the wrong things to do are. I believe that in anything
that you do it will attract that same thing to you. If you
live an ethical life you will find yourself surrounded by
ethical people.
Mike Filsaime: You will
have an ethical business and you will have ethical customers
working with you and everything like that. Anything that you
try to kid yourself with or try to resist is going to push
back at you in the same way. If you’re working and you are
doing things unethically it will come back to bite you. It’s
just a terrible way to have a mindset to think that you can
take advantage of people. You really need to just cleanse
your soul and know the right things to do and live your life
in that direction.
Ralph Zuranski: What place does the
power of prayer have in your life?
Mike Filsaime: Well you
know Ralph this something that I’ll talk from the heart and
say this in a way as to not offend anyone or any faith. I
will say it in some generic terms. I believe in a higher
place and a higher person.
Mike Filsaime: I do
have a God in my life and have a very good relationship with
him. In terms of quote “religion” or would I say I am a
religious person? No and again I don’t want to offend
anybody but I’ll speak my heart here for a second.
Mike Filsaime: I think
sometimes people get confused between the difference of the
words faith and religion. I believe everybody should have
faith. I also believe that what is religion? Religion means
doing things religiously. Sometimes those rules were given
to us by man not by what we believe our God is or the book
that was written by God.
Mike Filsaime: I
believe in faith and having a relationship with God. As I
said before, you know what’s right and you know what’s wrong
and you know what God wants from you. So I think you need to
walk that life as close to the way they wanted it as best
you possibly can.
Ralph Zuranski: What principles are you
willing to sacrifice your life for?
Mike Filsaime: If you
truly believe in your heart that the soul goes on then our
time on this earth is so miniscule that it can’t even be
measured if we talk in the terms of eternity. I think we
have a purpose here on earth to do what’s right and to live
a life in the way that God would want us.
Mike Filsaime: So what
that means is that anytime you are faced with a situation
and deep down, sometimes it’s very subconscious & you don’t
know what to do. Your subconscious takes over and you just
do what’s right. I believe that anybody listening on this
call would go into a house and save a child if they knew
there was a life in there, a precious life that needed to be
changed whether it was a stranger or their daughter.
Mike Filsaime: I think
that’s I inherent in all of us. I love to see those types of
stories where you see average, ordinary everyday people do
great things. That is something I think is unique to the
human spirit. I think that it’s blessed to see those things.
Ralph Zuranski: Are your goals
consistent with your beliefs?
Mike Filsaime: Yes they
are. I think they go hand in hand. Again I think when we
talk in the terms of the power of positive thinking you are
talking about your beliefs and your goals. When you set your
goals you need to believe that you can achieve them.
Mike Filsaime: Then
talking abstract about all the different beliefs in your
life like your faith and things like that I believe
everything needs to be congruent in order to have symmetry
in your life & to achieve exactly what you want out of life.
Ralph Zuranski: Are your actions
consistent with your beliefs?
Mike Filsaime: These
are all great questions and I’d like say yes. But I’m not
perfect but I try to be. I know my faults and I try to work
on them and I try to be humble. I’d like to say Ralph that
yes I try to make most of my actions as close to my beliefs
as I can. We know everybody has sometimes lazy tendencies.
Mike Filsaime: Some of
the things I struggle with are living normal hours as most
people in the world would see as normal. I tend to go on
these weird patterns where I’m working normal hours then the
next thing I know I start working till two, three or four in
the morning then get up at 11:00 am. Then the next day I
work until 4:00 in the morning and then the next day get up
at 12:00. The next day I work until 4:30 in the morning then
I end up sleeping until 1:00 in the afternoon. Then I have
to hit that reset button & say “Wait a second.”
Mike Filsaime: I can’t
even get up and get to the bank on time and get my hair cut.
(Laughter) So those are some of the faults I have. To answer
the question some of my actions are not 100% of what my
beliefs are but I try working on them.
Ralph Zuranski: Is it valuable to have
highly charged emotions about achieving your goals?
Mike Filsaime: Oh yes!
Absolutely! And those are exercises that you can do. I
recently saw a great movie. It’s really a documentary that I
recommend to everybody watch it. I’m sure some of the past
speakers mentioned it and some of the future ones will as
well.
Mike Filsaime: You can
see it at thesecret.tv. That documentary talks about the
power of positive thinking but you need to be a visionary
and you need to envision these goals that you set. There are
certain things you can do. You can have a cork board that
you call a vision board.
Mike Filsaime: You can
cut out the home that you want or how you see yourself
looking professional in a suit or the watch that you want or
the car that you want. Or the family type of icon that you
want or a picture of your church to see where you want to be
associated with. Group photos of people you love and family
and friends.
Mike Filsaime: If you
start to put these exercises into place then that’s how you
can start setting up exercises to attain your goals. I think
one of the mistakes people make when they make a goal Ralph
is they say things like “I want a million dollars.” No you
don’t. You really don’t.
Mike Filsaime: Ralph if
I gave you a million dollars what does that do? That is just
a means to getting what you really want. What you really
want is to help children. Or what you really want is to have
better health or raise your kids the right way or send them
to the right schools.
Mike Filsaime: So
setting a goal on money is ok. I know a lot of people do
that but you really need to realize that the money is just
the means to what you really want. You have to really ask
yourself “What do I really want?” I even caution people
sometimes when they say “I want a million dollars.” or “I
want this business or I want do this type of business per
day for a month.”
Mike Filsaime:
Sometimes you have to say to yourself “What will I have
created if I say I want an Ebay business that makes me a
million dollars a month?” Do you really want to be shipping
boxes out of your house? Sometimes by really defining what
it is that you really want I think you can have a more clear
understanding of what you want & how to get there. Rather
than putting up an abstract and saying “I want a million
dollars.
Ralph Zuranski: Is it useful to take a
positive view of setbacks, misfortunes and mistakes?
Mike Filsaime: Oh yeah.
To answer that directly I think we all need to learn from
our mistakes. What I was talking about before about being a
student of higher learning I would rather learn from other
peoples successes than learn from my own mistakes. We all
have to know that being an entrepreneur is that we’re going
to have more failures than we do successes.
Mike Filsaime: We need
to be able to understand that when we have a failure that
negative people are going to welcome that. Saying “Oh you
see that, you tried to join that thing and it didn’t work.
Well you’re still stuck here in blue collarville.”
Mike Filsaime: The true
entrepreneurial spirit will not allow those negative people
to effect us. It will understand that we made mistakes and
we can ask “What did we do wrong?” Let’s look at the success
principles and see what we did and find out where we went
off the tract. Then get back on the horse and try it again.
Ralph Zuranski: Is
optimism valuable?
Mike Filsaime: Yes.
It’s all in that circle Ralph of positive thinking. If you
are pessimistic you will achieve pessimistic results. If you
are optimist you will achieve optimum results. All going
back to the power of positive thinking, the energy you put
out there comes back to you in the same way. The entire
universe is built on energy.
Mike Filsaime: The
reasons why you are sick or if you’re healthy are based on
energy. So when you put out positive energy that’s what that
is, is optimism. When you put out positive energy it will
come back to you in positive ways.
Mike Filsaime: If you
are pessimistic, that glass is half empty. I know
entrepreneurs and I know you. We believe that the glass is
half full. A lot of people believe that the glass is half
empty. When people start thinking half empty the sooner or
later the glass will be completely empty.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you
maintain your sense of humor in the face of serious
problems?
Mike Filsaime: Oh absolutely! Probably
too much. You know Ralph when I was in the car business I
was the joker. I knew when it was time to be serious but
even at the most serious points like if I was getting mad or
if we had a meeting or something like that I would always
throw in a tidbit of humor.
Mike Filsaime: I think
it keeps us real. I think it bonds people with you. It’s one
of the best qualities you can have is to have a good sense
of humor and a good wit. Being able to laugh at yourself but
still knowing when business is business and how to put
business together.
Mike Filsaime: I think
it’s important to create a work environment where people
have fun. There’s no place they’d rather be than working
with a group of people that they are with. If humor is not
somewhere in there then I think the workplace will suffer.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you
invest time into daydreaming about what your life will be
like when you attain your goals?
Mike Filsaime: Yes I
do. I tend to night dream or day dream at night before I go
to bed. I’m sure you’ve had that Ralph. Some of the people
listening may be racing in their mind and get to bed at
11:30 pm then all of a sudden they look up and the clock
says 12:50am. They saw “Wow! I’ve got to get to bed.”
Mike Filsaime: Or you
may say “Wow, if I can get this site up tomorrow and get
this interview up.” Then you look over and its 2:30am and
it’s like you can’t shut your mind off. But that’s healthy.
That means that you are thinking in the right terms. Again
whatever the mind can conceive the mind can achieve.
Mike Filsaime: That is
why Ralph it is so important that people don’t daydream on
the negative things. So it’s best they don’t say “Oh my
goodness I didn’t do my taxes yet and my car payment is 60
days behind.” You are attracting that negative energy.
Mike Filsaime: If your
car payment is 60 days behind and that’s all you are
thinking of then you are thinking in wrong terms. You need
to think in terms of “I want to gain financial success.”
When you think in terms like that you will attract those
things and the car payment issues will go away.
Mike Filsaime: Yes I do
tend to daydream quite often about my business and always
think in terms of positive ways. Sometimes the negative
things work their way into your thoughts and there is
nothing you can do. You can’t shift on positive things so
just don’t think of them at all
Mike Filsaime: Just
start thinking of clown feet (Laughter) or something like
that. But if you can’t think of anything that’s positive at
that time then almost go into a state of denial and just
block it out because it’s not going to do any good to dwell
on it or the negative.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you
feel it is important to make positive statements about
yourself...the type of person you are and the your goals?
Mike Filsaime: Yes,
those are affirmations. You need to not only say the
affirmations but you need to envision the affirmation. Like
I said before it’s been proven and it’s a fact that when
your mind and in your imagination & you think in terms of
the past & look back in your memory bank & you imagine
things the mind looks in the same exact place that it does
for memories.
Mike Filsaime: The mind
cannot distinguish between imagination and reality. So all
you have to do is imagine the results that you want & you
will suddenly start to live that life. I know I keep on
saying that same thing but I believe so strongly in those
things that we are talking about right now.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you
take time out of your day to feed your subconscious positive
thoughts about you, your goals and dreams?
Mike Filsaime: That’s
something I believe I should do and something I believe
everybody should do. But I can’t tell you that I do that. I
think it has become so conscious that once you start living
a life of positive thinking you are just on auto pilot and
thinking g positively all the time.
Mike Filsaime: However,
I believe that meditation is good. I think you should have
some type of time where you are doing meditation. Whether
you are doing sub-conscious learning programs, any types of
hypnotic programs or subliminal programs or anything like
that.
Mike Filsaime: I think
those things are great to super charge the mind. I don’t
actually do it, Ralph. I do research into it. That’s one of
the things I said before. Do I actively do everything I know
that’s right? No I don’t. But that doesn’t mean that they’re
not right. I don’t do as much as I’d like to.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you
have the courage to pursue new ideas?
Mike Filsaime: Oh yes.
The easiest way to get your family to get behind you is to
prove them wrong in the first place. When they start telling
you, “Enough already! You have a job already & that’s where
the food comes from. Why don’t you go out and get a real job
instead of chasing these Mickey Mouse dreams and blah, blah,
blah? I’m sick and tired of hearing about these names you
keep talking about.”
Mike Filsaime: That’s
negative energy and you have to put your force field up. You
have to do what the entrepreneur spirit inside knows you can
do. Then all of a sudden when that check comes in of $34,000
then you’ll see how quickly the friends or people in your
life say “Oh wow, that’s great! How can I do something like
that? Can I have that to go buy something?”
Mike Filsaime: You just
have to do what you know is right and they’ll come around
when they see the success or they’ll get out of your life.
Sometimes you need to fire your negative friends & fire the
negative people in your life. If you are married to a
negative person you have to understand that you can’t change
people.
Mike Filsaime: I would
never endorse people to fire the negative people in their
life when they are their kids and their spouse. All you can
do is be who you can be. Be the best you can be and what
will happen is that hopefully they can see the type of
person you are and want to be more like you.
Mike Filsaime: You
can’t change somebody and keep trying to change people from
who they are. They can only change themselves. They do that
when you stop batting heads with them. You just have to
sometimes say “This is the life I want to live.” Either they
are going to come along with you or they won’t. But you
can’t forcefully try to change them.
Mike Filsaime: We are
talking about everything we’ve spoken about on this call.
It’s about honor, ethics, faith and knowing what’s right &
believing what’s right. Sometimes we get into a position
where we did get involved with the right person in the
beginning.
Mike Filsaime: That
doesn’t mean it’s over. It means they have to realize that
you are the right thing in their lives and they have to walk
towards you. Sometimes you can’t force them to do that.
Ralph Zuranski: Were
you willing to experience discomfort in the pursuit of your
dream?
Mike Filsaime:
Absolutely, Ralph. Absolutely. Like we were saying before
sometimes you need to fire your negative friends. The
expression is that your income is the average of your five
closest friends.
Mike Filsaime: You can
find anybody out there whether they are making $300,000 or
$30,000 a year or $15,000 a year I will venture to say their
income is the average of their 4 closest friends with them
making $5,000.
Mike Filsaime: If you
look at the two people above them and the two people below
them they will probably make more than two people and less
than two people and they are the average of those two. I
think it’s important to understand that if you want to give
yourself a raise you have associate yourself with a better
quality of people that think in the way you think.
Mike Filsaime: If you
can please repeat that question there Ralph. I wanted to tie
that in but have kind of lost my train of thought there.
Ralph Zuranski: Are you
willing to experience discomfort in the pursuit of your
dreams? I was talking to Tom just the other day and he was
talking about it’s like increasing the size of your muscles.
The muscles to be successful and the muscles to be
empathetic where you have to stretch your abilities to the
point of breaking. It’s uncomfortable to do that. Do you
feel that’s important?
Mike Filsaime:
Absolutely! Again that’s the frame that you define yourself
for or align yourself with. In my opinion I don’t think that
somebody should just quit their job today even though their
job is creating pain in their life. You can’t just quit your
job and say “Well I’m going to go out and be an
entrepreneur.”
Mike Filsaime: That’s
good if you have $50,000 in the bank. If you have nothing in
the bank then you have to morph into the next thing. You
have to work at your current job and leverage that income
and time where you’re not working there into building the
new business that you want so that you can walk away.
Mike Filsaime: As an
example, when I was in the car business I was making good
money. I was making $150,000 plus per year. It was killing
me but I knew I had to stay there in order to build the
foundation of my business that I wanted to build on line.
Mike Filsaime: It was
difficult to run both. It was very, very difficult to run
both. Then when the time is right it will come. It came to
the point where I was talking to the owner and we just
decided one day it was time for me to move on.
Mike Filsaime: I took
the leap. It was the scariest thing that I’ve ever had to do
Ralph. I actually cried outside of the dealership. My other
sales people came up to me and said to me “Hey don’t worry
about it. Everything is going to be ok.” I couldn’t believe
he gave me an ultimatum saying “You work for me or work for
yourself.”
Mike Filsaime: I took
the choice and stuck my hand out and said “Thanks it’s been
a great five years. The other people were saying “How could
you walk away from this making $150,000 a year?” I was so
emotionally upset that I was one of the best managers in the
auto group and that he would actually be so upset that I was
trying to better my life in a non-conflictive way that he
made me choose. I was so emotional I couldn’t talk to the
guys. I was saying “I don’t care this is…”
Mike Filsaime: One of
the reasons I was crying is that the chains just let go. It
was an emotional charge. They saw the tears as me being
upset but more than anything it was that anger and that
happy emotion that came out. It was that happy anger of
breaking free of the chains.
Mike Filsaime: I was
saying, and in not so polite of words so I’ll tone them
down, “Screw that. He doesn’t understand what he just did
for me. He doesn’t understand that he gave me a choice. I
didn’t have the strength to ask him myself. This is a
celebration! This is the best thing that’s ever happened to
me.”
Mike Filsaime: Then I
had to get home and tell the family that I no longer have a
Toyota Forerunner demo. I no longer have medical benefits
and an income or all these things. But to me it was
liberation. Because of that I was able to go from $150,000
to making $850,000 last year.
Mike Filsaime: So far
this year I’ve made over $3,000,000. Sometimes you have to
be able to be willing to “break or cut your wrist” or almost
shave the skin off your arms while you are pulling your
hands out of those things that bind you.
Ralph Zuranski: Is it
beneficial to make decisions quickly?
Mike Filsaime: Yes
absolutely Ralph. As you’ll see you’ll be talking to a lot
of people and we all quote famous people and successful
people. Especially quotes from Napoleon Hill.
Mike Filsaime: Napoleon
Hill teaches that one of the habits that he notices about
all the successful people he interviewed was that successful
people are decisive in nature. Successful people make
decisions very quickly. And they change them slowly.
Mike Filsaime:
Unsuccessful people make decisions very slowly and they
change them very quickly. I saw that in the car business.
What that means is if I ask you “What color is a blue
shirt?” You say it’s blue because you know it to be true.
Mike Filsaime:
Sometimes we know the right answer but we were brought up to
say “Never make a decision right away. Always sleep on it.
Always think about it.” That’s a bunch of nonsense but we
have to look at the people that taught us that. They were
people that lived their structured life where they made
$472.63 a week
Mike Filsaime: Those
are the people that are teaching our kids today. I want the
kids listening today to know that when they know something
is right to make the decision. Stick with it and make it
through and focus on that decision you made because you knew
it was right.
Mike Filsaime: If it
turns out to be the wrong decision then we go back and we
talk about what we learned from our mistakes. I will venture
to say that 19 times out of 20 your gut instinct is right
and you know the right decision. The mistake that people
make is they say I’m going to sleep on it.
Mike Filsaime: It’s
like me saying “Here you give me $5.00 and I’ll give you ten
tomorrow.” Then you say “Well let me think about that.” And
the next thing you know you end up saying “I remember when
Snapple came out. My friends bought it but I decided not to
buy it. I remember when Google came out and I was going to
but the stocks but I didn’t.”
Mike Filsaime: Because
they knew it was right but they didn’t act on it. What ends
up happening is that when they do end up making a decision
they say “Everybody bought Google. I waited a year and half
and I’m going to buy Google now.”
Mike Filsaime: They buy
Google for $110.00 a share and tomorrow it goes to $109.00 a
share. Remember unsuccessful people make decisions slowly
and change them quickly. It took them a year and a half to
make the decision then all of a sudden they say “Oh wow, I
just lost a dollar. Let me pull my money out of the market
place.”
Mike Filsaime: Next
thing you know as they pull their money out of the market
place it goes up to $115.00 and they lost the opportunity
when they had the right decision to begin with. So that’s an
example that I can give you.
Mike Filsaime: To
answer question in a nutshell when you have a decision
should you act quickly? I believe the answer is
unequivocally yes.
Ralph Zuranski: Are you
slow to revise or reverse an important decision?
Mike Filsaime: That’s
correct. Yes I think that when you believe something is
right in your heart, don’t listen to everybody. Take
everybody’s advice into consideration. That’s a good
question. You see we are on a ship and we are going to the
new world. We don’t know exactly where it is but we know
it’s there.
Mike Filsaime: We have
our captains and other people that are helping us and
telling us “Our calculations show us that the wind is
blowing us this way. We need to shift our direction two
degrees.” That doesn’t mean you have to stand firm with your
feet dead in cement once you’ve made your decision.
Mike Filsaime: You want
to stay along the same path and make small changes along the
path that you believe is right. But don’t just do a complete
180 degrees because at that point you are going to get lost
in the ocean and just sink.
Ralph Zuranski: How were you able to
overcome your doubts and fears?
Mike Filsaime: They
tell you whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. You
have to confront your fears. That’s easier said than done. I
have things that I struggle with in my life. I have the fear
that there are things I need to take care of that I work on.
It all comes down to knowing what’s right.
Mike Filsaime: If you
know what’s right and you have faith you need to just
confront your fears. You can not let anything control you
especially not a fear. If you can confront the fears and ask
yourself “What’s the worse that’s going to happen?”
Mike Filsaime: If you
are a 16 year old boy and you want to take that 16 year old
girl out to the prom and remember about being decisive in
nature, well if you take too long to act on that you are
going to do it in 3, 4 or 5 days then you finally build up
the courage to do it. As you’re doing that the other kid is
going to walk up and ask her “Hey would you like to go to
the prom with me?”
Mike Filsaime: She’s
going to say “Yes.” and just like in the movies she’s going
to look over and see you 3 lockers down and say “Boy I wish
he would have asked me first.”
Mike Filsaime: So if
you have a fear to ask a girl or whatever the case is to go
to the prom you have ask yourself “What is the worst that
can happen? She’ll say no.” Is that really the worst thing
in the world? No brush yourself off and say “Her loss.”
Mike Filsaime: Guess
what’s really going to happen? She’ll say yes. You have to
take action on the fear that you have. As long as you know
the worst and best case scenario it’s better to make a
decision and go with it.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you
readily forgive those who upset, offend and oppose you?
Mike Filsaime: I am so
forgiving to a fault. I think that’s the Scorpio nature in
me. I was born October 26. I almost go into everything that
I do with the expectation that I’m going to do everything I
can right. I hope this person does too but if they don’t
then so be it.
Mike Filsaime: I try
not to hold a grudge. I’ll kick and scream sometimes and say
“Oh man I can’t believe this guy did this to me.” But you
have to get over it. If you are going to dwell on the
negative things and in the past think instead of what you
could be doing if you are working on a project and moving
something forward.
Mike Filsaime: I’ve
been burned so many times. I could basically tell you on a
weekly basis how I get burned. But look where I am in my
life because I let it go.
Mike Filsaime: I say
“Ok you know if that happened and this & that got shut down
or this person did this & that then I hope in my heart this
person changes their ways so they can be a better person.
Because if they don’t they’ll only have bad things happen to
them.”
Mike Filsaime: I don’t
wish that upon them. There was a person recently that we
didn’t get along with each other in Butterfly Marketing.
Remember I said you may have fire your bad friends, well
this guy wasn’t behaving. I had to fire him as a customer
and refund him.
Mike Filsaime: So he
now is going around in forums and tongue & cheek beating me
up a little bit. I’m not going to play down to that game. I
sent him a very polite email and apologized that we got off
on the wrong foot.
Mike Filsaime: I said
“We can do better things in this world if we both put
positive energy out there. I give you my word I’ll never say
anything bad about you regardless of what you continue to do
to me.
Mike Filsaime: However,
maybe one day we’ll meet and let’s not have any
uncomfortable feelings when that happens. I always believed
that if you don’t have anything nice to say about people
then don’t say anything. And right there, do I have faults
with that? I’m sure I do.
Mike Filsaime: I’m sure
there are times I may have a cup of coffee or a drink with
somebody and a topic will come up and I’ll probably talk in
ways that I shouldn’t about somebody. But publicly you
should never do anything like that. Without a doubt you have
to be able to forgive people and forgive yourself.
Mike Filsaime: You have
to know when you’ve made faults. You have to say I’m sorry
and apologize to people and reach out to them before they
reach out to you if you believe that they may be upset. You
have to let it go and don’t associate with those types of
people but you can definitely forgive them.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you
experience service to others as a source of joy?
Mike Filsaime: Yes.
It’s not about the money. Money is a byproduct of doing good
things. If you can create good products and good services
then that’s what life is all about.
Mike Filsaime: It’s
about good products and good services. What your doing In
Search of Heroes, is a good service. I definitely believe in
putting a good service out there and everything else you
want in life will come.
Ralph Zuranski: When
was the lowest point in your life and how did you change
your life path to one of victory over the obstacles you were
facing at that time?
Mike Filsaime: I’ve
been fortunate Ralph that I haven’t had, knock wood of
course, and I will (Knock, knock), any deaths in my
immediate family. My parents got divorced when I was in my
mid-twenties so that didn’t affect me the way it could have.
Mike Filsaime: Maybe it
would have affected someone who was 8 years old. I lost my
grandfather. We knew each other but we didn’t know each
other well. So “knock wood” again there hasn’t been any type
of tragedy or anything like that.
Mike Filsaime: However,
I had financial tragedy and stress back in 1998. I was in
the car business. I left the car business for 6 months to
get involved with a real estate investor who turned out to
be nothing more than a con man. He took me and about six
other people in on this con. It was a con by driving a
Mercedes and having a house that wasn’t his and all these
other things that we believed were his.
Mike Filsaime: His
intentions were good. His intentions were to use our credit
and our money to buy houses and repair them and flip them.
What ended up happening, remember what we said about taking
on too many projects, he was trying to buy too many houses
at a time.
Mike Filsaime: While he
was trying to put all this construction in and collecting
the mortgage payments and when the cash flow went negative
he started keeping the mortgage payments and putting it in
his own pocket.
Mike Filsaime: Several
months later we found out that the whole project went
bankrupt. Since it was our credit and our money he lost
nothing. We had him arrested and we filed charges and put
all that stuff behind us.
Mike Filsaime: What it
left me in 1998 was $70,000 in debt and 3 foreclosures and 3
repossessions. One was for a Mercedes Benz and one for a
Ford Exhibition and a Harley Davidson. I had signed for all
these things for him under the business name.
Mike Filsaime: Also the
credit card machine and three foreclosures were in my name
so I had no choice at that time but to file bankruptcy. They
were coming after everything I owned. If you look at all
these successful people out there like Stephen Pierce, Mark
Victor Hansen, Armand Moran and Joe Vitalie there’s one
thing you can be comfortable in knowing.
Mike Filsaime: The
school of hard knocks happens to all of us. So we must stop
with the self-pity. Everybody’s got their own story. I heard
recently that everybody is going to tell you “My parents
left me when I was three years old and I was put up for
adoption.” Ok, well so what, everybody’s got a story.
Mike Filsaime: Let it
go. Stop holding on to it and let that be an inspiration to
people when you’ve overcome it. Start thinking positive and
stop dwelling on it on that. Eighty-five percent of the
people in the US have grown up in a dysfunctional family.
Mike Filsaime: You are
not alone. So stop thinking about that you were given these
bad things. I think that 9 out of 10 successful people that
are multi-millionaires in this world have gone through major
tragedies or bankruptcy or financial tragedy.
Mike Filsaime: It’s ok
to let those things happen. You can’t be embarrassed and say
“Oh I don’t want anybody to know that I went bankrupt.” Hey,
it happens. We’ve made mistakes in our life. We have to
learn from them and move on.
Ralph Zuranski: Was
there anyone who helped give you the willpower to change
things in you life for the better?
Mike Filsaime: Yes, my
dad. My dad’s nick name for me when I was a kid was top
shelf. I wrote about that in Butterfly Marketing. My dad is
my hero and my mentor. My dad always used to talk to me in
positive ways.
Mike Filsaime: He
brainwashed me a little bit. He never told me I was better
than anybody else. He told me I could be the best and I can
run with the best. I never realized what a difference that
made until someone that you look up to in your life says
negative things to you.
Mike Filsaime: Maybe
holding a beer can and saying “You are nothing but a piece
of garbage. You are going to turn out to be nothing just
like your grandfather on your mother’s side.” Kids are
impressionable.
Mike Filsaime: I watch
some of these movies these days where you are a hero to run
around with a gun and drive a Hummer and talk about “popping
caps”. And sayings like “get rich or die trying” and other
things. Again these kids are impressionable today. As much
as those things may be entertainment they are really
poisonous to the youth of our society.
Mike Filsaime: Get rich
or die trying is a terrible, terrible thing for people to
look up to. And these young kids actually look up at these
stars and say I want to be like this person.
Mike Filsaime: The
messages in those movies are horrible because those people
end up having success at the end of the movies. So it’s
telling you that you need to be a thug or die trying. Man,
it just bothers me. There are so many better heroes out
there to learn from.
Ralph Zuranski: How
important was it to believe your financial dreams would
eventually become reality?
Mike Filsaime: You set
your goals and I have to be honest with you, I’ve been
setting goals all my life and never achieving them but it
sent me in the right direction. I set a goal years ago that
I wanted to be a millionaire.
Mike Filsaime:
Sometimes you say to yourself “Well that’s a great carrot to
go for.” What ends up happening is that when you get there
you have to re-evaluate and set new goals. You have to start
thinking bigger and thinking more philanthropic.
Mike Filsaime: You want
to start thinking how you want to affect lives and help
people achieve success and dreams they want out of life. Of
course I can still make money doing that. There is nothing
wrong with charging money for mentoring programs.
Mike Filsaime: If you
believe in what you are doing and that people will spend
$5,000 a year and it can bring them from making $5,000 a mo
nth to a$100,000 a month, well they’ll pay you 10 times for
what it is.
Mike Filsaime:
Sometimes you have to pay for information. Like I said
before you have to be a student of learning. So those are
some of the things we are doing right now. I believe in
higher learning. When you ask that question about positive
thinking and achieving goals, I think it all boils down to
having a positive attitude.
Ralph Zuranski: Why is
it valuable to know exactly how much money you want to have
in your bank account and when?
Mike Filsaime: You need
to have specific goals. The more abstract something is the
harder it is to envision it. There are people that have
taken a $100.00 bill and written three zeros at the end of
it and they have taped it to their roof of their bed so
every time they woke up they would see that they wanted to
make $100,000 a year.
Mike Filsaime: They
take their bank statements and they white it out and they
type in the number they want to see in their bank account.
It’s just envisioning what they want and by doing that they
manifest it.
Mike Filsaime: It can
come true and I believe it will come true if you start
living the life that needs to be lived in order to achieve
those things. You just can’t say “I want a million dollars.”
and continue to work at the bakery and not do anything about
it.
Mike Filsaime: I will
tell you that when you start focusing on those positive
things you will attract those opportunities into your life.
When you are decisive in nature you will take action on
those things.
Ralph Zuranski: What is
your definition of heroism?
Mike Filsaime: A hero
to me is a mentor, a person that has unconditional love for
the people that they are working with. I don’t see heroes
necessarily in terms of Babe Ruth. Those are icons.
Mike Filsaime: I don’t
want to tell people to change the way that we can talk in
this country. You can have sports heroes but the true heroes
need to be the fathers and uncles and the teachers.
Mike Filsaime: Those
are the heroes of this world and people like you with what
you are doing with young kids. I think a hero, has to do
with some type of adult figure working with a young child.
Ralph Zuranski: Did you
ever create a secret hero in your mind that helped you deal
with life’s difficulties?
Mike Filsaime: When I
was a kid I was a Superman fan and I don’t know if Superman
helped me deal with any difficulties but I used to put the
towel on my back and run around the house in my underroos
and fly around. I had my little Superman expressions and
things like that.
Mike Filsaime: It was
good to have those fantasies but I think the real heroes I
had was my dad. He’d get home late like 11:00 pm at night.
He’d sometimes wake me up and I would be there sitting there
at the kitchen table.
Mike Filsaime: He’d be
putting cheese & jelly on saltine crackers and we’d talk.
Any problems that I had I’d talk to him about.
Ralph Zuranski: What
were the qualities and attributes of your secret hero or
your real life heroes when you were growing up?
Mike Filsaime: I guess
what I always liked about Superman was that he was the most
powerful super-hero out there yet but what was great about
it was he had his Achilles heal which was kryptonite. As
powerful as he was there was always a way to take him down
and he was able to overcome it.
Mike Filsaime: With my
dad he was just my dad so I had that unconditional love from
him. He’s still around today and we talk all the time and we
have an incredible friendship.
Ralph Zuranski: Who are
the HEROES in your life now?
Mike Filsaime: Yes, the
marketers that I have great respect for. I almost don’t want
to name them because I’ll probably forget some. I guess if I
have to name some they are some of my good friends like Tom
Beal, Paulie Sabol, Donna Fox and Stephen Pierce and Armand
Moran. Frank Kern was an early hero of mine.
Mike Filsaime: Brad
Fallon is a very good friend of mine. If anyone is hearing
this I probably could list another 50 but those are some
very good friends and heroes. Chuck Smith is a very good
friend of mine. A young man coming up that really has a good
heart and I like what he’s doing is Sterling Valentine.
Mike Filsaime: I think
he’ll be a hero for a lot of young kids for years to come.
Those are just some to name a few. As I said there’s
probably another 50 I could name.
Ralph Zuranski: How
important is it to have trusted friends or a master mind
group to bounce your ideas off?
Mike Filsaime: It’s
extremely important. In the terms of the Napoleon Hill
mastermind I don’t know if it’s that easy to structure a
mastermind that well. The closest you can get to that the
better.
Mike Filsaime: Like I
said before your income is the average of your four closest
friends. If you want to give yourself a raise you have to
start associating yourself with people at higher levels that
you want to be like.
Mike Filsaime: That’s
what happens with the mastermind. You don’t want to
associate yourself with the mastermind of losers because you
will become a loser to the tenth degree. If you associate
yourself with a winner in a mastermind and that’s not really
the scope of this call, to talk about what a mastermind
really is.
Mike Filsaime: But,
just so if any young kid is listening if I could explain the
power of the mastermind. The mastermind is a result of what
happens when two or more people get together. Ralph I could
have one idea that’s a very good idea and you can one idea,
so together we have two ideas.
Mike Filsaime: When you
and I get together and we talk about that idea we can say
“You know what we should add?” You say “How about we do
this?” and we are working together. What results in that is
a third idea. Now two people can achieve a third better idea
than the two we had by ourselves.
Mike Filsaime: That’s
the power of the mastermind. It’s the result of what happens
when two or more people get together. When you get 8 to 10
people together in a mastermind that exponential formula I
just gave you is what makes the results become exponential.
Ralph Zuranski: How do
they make a positive difference in your life? Who do you
feel are the real heroes in our society today that are not
getting the recognition and rewards they deserve?
Mike Filsaime: The
teachers and the pastors and the kids that are working with
the youths in the YMCA & the Big Brother Program and things
like that. Those are the real heroes out there today.
Mike Filsaime: One
thing I really want to talk about is those people that are
serving this country over seas. Some of them are so young
they don’t even realize how important they are or even what
the cause is that they are fighting for. But they are real
heroes.
Mike Filsaime: As a
mastermind unit together they build up and defend the
strongest country in the world and give us the freedom we
might take for granted.
Ralph Zuranski: Why are
HEROES so important in the lives of young people?
Mike Filsaime: We need
people to look up to. Part of the human spirit is knowing
that we can’t do it alone. Having a negative person in our
lives can be detrimental.
Mike Filsaime: Having a
hero helps us to block out everything. We want to work with
that hero because a hero believes we can achieve our best.
The hero sees us with crystal clear glasses. They can see
the future. They don’t judge us. They love us and they see
the best part of us when a lot of people don’t.
Mike Filsaime: They
bring out the things in us that we don’t even see. So it’s
very important for a young kid to have a hero to work with
because sometimes that hero is all they’ve got and can bring
the world out for them.
Ralph Zuranski: What
are the things that a parent can do that will help their
children realize that they too can be heroes & have a
positive impact on the lives of others?
Mike Filsaime: The
first thing a parent needs to do is lead a life by example.
You can’t be a hypocrite and tell your kids they shouldn’t
smoke weed when you indeed smoke weed. Kids are smarter than
what parents give them credit for.
Mike Filsaime: Even if
they don’t consciously see it subconsciously they pick up on
things. A parent needs to live their life by example then
they need to let their kid know how much they love them.
They need to share that and express that and let that kid
know that they are the best thing that’s ever been put on
this earth.
Mike Filsaime: When the
kid starts to understand that they need to instill the
properties in these kids of the laws of reciprocity to know
that when you have what you want or when you’re going
through that point in your life & trying to achieve what you
want you have to always make sure you help other people get
what they want.
Mike Filsaime: As you
are always a student looking up to your hero there is always
somebody looking up to you. So you have the dual role of the
student and the hero. When people look up to you as a hero
you have to be there for them.
Ralph Zuranski: How do
people become heroes?
Mike Filsaime: By just
living a good life. People look up to you when you do things
right. That’s a simple answer for a complicated question.
How to become a hero is simply just living the life that you
know is right. Then people will look up to you.
Ralph Zuranski: How
does it feel to be recognized as an Internet HERO?
Mike Filsaime: Oh I’m
honored. It’s something that’s difficult to put into words.
I am honored to be on this call and as long as I know what I
keep on doing what’s right in my heart I know I can be an
example for others & not let anybody down.
Mike Filsaime: If I do
let anybody down it’s because I’ve made a mistake I can
acknowledge it and apologize for it and move on. You can’t
live the perfect life because you want to be the perfect
life for other people. Along as you go out everyday with
good intentions most of the time you’ll end up doing the
right thing.
Ralph Zuranski: Why do
you think you were selected for this unique honor?
Mike Filsaime: I look
good in photos. (Laughter)I think that you and I Ralph had
an opportunity to build a very good friendship over the last
year and a half. We’ve had an opportunity to see each other
and we both know that we want to do what’s right in the
world.
Mike Filsaime: I think
everything we spoke about in this call about attracting
negative and positive energy is that you and I both put out
positive signals. I think it was just a matter of fate that
we had an opportunity to meet and do this call today.
Ralph Zuranski: How
will being recognized as an Internet HERO change your life?
Mike Filsaime: As long
as I can realize that I can continue to help people then my
life gets changed as I see other people’s lives get changed
by any influence I have about it.
Ralph Zuranski: How are
you making the world a better place?
Mike Filsaime: By
helping others. Teaching people what I know and teaching
people how to take action. I know that these butterfly
effects that we are having with other people like Jason,
Dennis, James and Keith is making them able to become heroes
to other people.
Mike Filsaime: That
butterfly effect is now becoming a ripple effect and those
people they are helping will become heroes for other people.
It can go on for years and years to come and that’s leaving
a legacy.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you
have any good solutions to the problems facing society,
especially racism, child and spousal abuse and violence
among young people?
Mike Filsaime: Yes, I
will say a statement that will shock a couple of people.
Racism will probably be around for a long time. I don’t see
how you can have so many different people that can grow up
in different cultures and unfortunately there’s negative
energy in this world and those people are going to see
differences in other people as fear unfortunately.
Mike Filsaime: I would
hope that one day as Martin Luther King had this dream that
everybody can let go on the differences and understand that
those differences can bring us closer together.
Mike Filsaime: If we
understand that there’s racism in this world just as we
understand that there’s hate. There will probably always be
hate and there will probably always be love. Of course there
will always be love.
Mike Filsaime: As long
as we know the right thing to do. If we focus too much on
the racism and look at these leaders that are fighting for
racism lets go back to the 1960’s. There were two major
leaders out there.
Mike Filsaime: It gets
very tough when you start talking about faith, religion and
politics and things like that. I’m not going to talk about
the one leader that spoke about racism and did it in terms
of anger.
Mike Filsaime: I’ll
talk about the one that did it in terms of love and that was
Martin Luther King. What he did is everything that we are
talking about today. If you have debt and you focus on how I
can get out of debt then you are just going to get more
debt.
Mike Filsaime: If you
have debt and focus on how I can have more success then
you’ll have success and you’ll get out of debt. So it’s the
same thing that Martin Luther King realized is that there is
racism in this country. But don’t go out there and focus on
the problem and say “There is racism. We need to do this and
to do that and they need to recognize us.”
Mike Filsaime: No, talk
about the positive things like love and talk about getting
together. Then all those things will automatically go out.
To answer your question a little quicker is not to dwell on
the negative things.
Mike Filsaime: There is
racism out there and a lot of bad things out there. All
these kids are seeing it in their schools. There are bad
kids in every school.
Mike Filsaime: Some
have it worse than others. But if you focus on the positive
and align yourself with the positive students in the school
and you can overcome it. Focus on the good and you’ll have
good in your life. Don’t focus on solving the problems by
looking at the problems. Focus on solving the problems by
looking at the solutions....
Ralph Zuranski: If you
had three wishes for your life and the world, that would
instantly come true, what would they be?
Mike Filsaime: I just
want to live a long healthy life. I want it to be
prosperous. I want to leave a legacy by helping as many
people as I can along the way.
Ralph Zuranski: What do
you think about the In Search Of Heroes Program and its
impact on youth, parents and business people?
Mike Filsaime: I think
we are blessed to have people like you in this world Ralph
that get heroes together out there to work and speak and to
help young kids. We need more things like that in the world
and I’m so glad to participate in a program like this. I
know that you’ve created some butterfly effects that will
change people’s lives and young people’s lives.
Mike Filsaime: They’ll
look back and one day they’ll do an interview with a
successful radio show or television station. Someone will
ask “What was it that changed your life?” They’ll say it was
a program called In Search of Heroes and they’ll talk about
it.
Mike Filsaime: I think
you are leaving a legacy here Ralph and I want to commend
you and applaud you for what you are doing for young kids.
It’s the most selfless act a human being can do. I am very
proud of you.
Ralph Zuranski: I
really appreciate your time and thanks a lot Mike.
Mike Filsaime: Thank
you very much Ralph. I appreciate it. All the kids listening
out there today remember whatever the mind can dream up it
can achieve. You can conceive it and I know that you guys
will all have a good life and you are very lucky to be
working with Ralph and being part of this program. Thank you
Ralph.
Ralph Zuranski: Thanks
Mike and have a great day.
