Ted Nicholas, one of the
World’s Greatest Copywriters, feels it is critical to believe in
your dreams. He has owned and sold over 22 companies. Many
believe his copywriting skills have sold over a billion dollars
worth of products.
Ralph Zuranski: What are the qualities and
attributes of a hero?
Ted Nicholas: I think one of the things,
that every hero that I’ve ever known has, is the terrific
ability to communicate their ideas and their values. The late
Miss Rand had those qualities in great abundance.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, did you believe that
eventually your dreams would become reality?
Ted Nicholas: Yes, I did. I remember
speaking about my early dreams with my parents that I wanted to
start a chain of retail shops, which I achieved. I wanted to
ultimately become, somehow or other, a best selling author.
Ted Nicholas: I pursued both of those dreams
and they came true. During my late teen years and my early
twenties, I was a great “letter to the editor writer.”
Ted Nicholas: I enjoyed writing letters to
the editor because I liked expressing my ideas on world and
local issues and the like. I’ve seen the impact of my work.
Ted Nicholas: You know, it’s interesting.
People that are hearing and watching this interview should be
aware of the fact that, and it’s a beautiful fact and has helped
me maintain my optimism and that is, that each person listening
to us can make a huge difference.
Ted Nicholas: A lot of people feel that
well, who am I. I’m only one voice. Am I a voice in the
wilderness and so forth and that’s just not a good or realistic
way to look at things.
Ted Nicholas: Each individual has such power
over other humans, such potential power. It reminds me of one of
my favorite movies, “It’s a Wonderful Life” with James Stewart.
The whole movie was dedicated, if you recall, to that whole
concept of how one individual’s life made such a difference.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, in most people’s lives,
especially in the relationship between men and women, has your
significant other, Bethany, had a big influence in your life?
Ted Nicholas: She has had an enormous
influence in my life. She reminds me, from a value and
integrity standpoint, of another hero, who was my grandmother.
Ted Nicholas: Bethany is closest to my
grandmother in character more than anyone that I have ever known
and not in looks, of course, but in character. She is a person
who is tremendously loyal. I am a great admirer of people who
are loyal to people that they respect.
Ted Nicholas: She is so loyal to me. She
would, in effect, take a bullet, which I would of course never
ask her to do. But she would do anything for me, to help me and
just help me advance my work. She is not only a beautiful women
physically, but she has such tremendous integrity that it comes
out of every pore.
Ted Nicholas: So, she has been a great
influence. In fact, we are together almost twenty-four hours a
day. To be honest, before I met her and we’ve been together for
eighteen years, I didn’t think it was possible to be in anyone’s
company for that long.
Ted Nicholas: Because I love people that I
love, and like to be in their company, but at the same time, I
enjoy my solitude and I like to, as you know, I write a lot of
things and of course I need peace and quiet.
Ted Nicholas: But Bethany is the type of
person that she can be right next to me at the next desk or in
the next room and she knows when I’m concentrating and she
senses that it’s time for a little peace and quiet and gives me
the peace and quiet when I need it. So, it’s her integrity, her
loyalty, her contribution.
Ted Nicholas: She’s also the best editor
that I’ve ever worked with, which is such a bonus because it’s
wonderful to be able to write things, you know and writers are
not the best editors, and she can look at what I’ve done and
make good suggestions and help with the grammatical portion of
it and all of those very important things.
Ted Nicholas: She may even make suggestions
at times on the whole sales message that I’m trying to put
forth. She has just been invaluable to me and then her support
and all at the seminars. She helps prepare all of my materials.
Ted Nicholas: I prepare different materials
for every single seminar. No seminar is exactly the same, as
you know Ralph. Because questions bring out different material
and I just like adding new material all the time in my seminars.
I state things in a little different way at each seminar. So,
she’s been a tremendous contributor in my work.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted Nicholas, do you have
the courage to pursue new ideas?
Ted Nicholas: Yes, I do. I’ve found that
I’m a big believer in the concept of just going forward or a
“ready, fire, aim” kind of approach to life. So when I have an
idea I think it through, and I write it down. I have my own
technique.
Ted Nicholas: The old “Ben Franklin
Technique” where I write down the pluses and minuses of every
major idea that I pursue, and when there is an overwhelming
amount of plusses and the negatives that I can think of, or the
minuses that I can think of are not very big monsters, I do like
to go forward right at that point.
Ralph Zuranski: Mr. Nicholas, did you ever
create a secret hero in your mind that helped you deal with
life’s difficulties?
Ted Nicholas: First of all, please call me
Ted.
Ralph Zuranski: Okay, I will. Thank you.
Ted Nicholas: A secret hero, my hero,
greatest hero, the greatest influence of my life was the late
author, Ayan Rand, who wrote “Then Shrugged the Fountain Head.”
She has been my secret hero because she is a person of great
integrity and she influenced millions of people.
Ted Nicholas: As a matter of fact, I think
her books are still, next to the Bible, the most influential
book. For example, they are used by advanced students at
universities.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, I’ve attended four of
your seminars and at each of the seminars, you’ve talked about
entrepreneurs being your heroes. Could you talk a little bit
about that subject?
Ted Nicholas: Of course. The entrepreneurs
are heroes. It’s not widely known, I’m afraid. I wish it were.
That entrepreneurs are heroes.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, were you willing to
experience discomfort in the pursuit of your dream?
Ted Nicholas: Absolutely. I learned a long
time ago that delayed gratification is necessary for every human
being to achieve a lot. For every hero that I’ve ever known,
they have patience and willingness. They have a kind of an
impatient patience, if you will.
Ted Nicholas: I mean, if you ask me if I’m
more patient or impatient, I would say that I’m more impatient,
but yet there’s kind of a deep patience in that I’m willing to
keep trying and trying until I get the result that I want.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, do readily forgive
those who upset, offend and oppose you?
Ted Nicholas: That’s a very good question.
I do now much more so than I ever did before. I spent a good
part of my life not forgiving people who had hurt me, both in my
family and people that I interacted with through life, and I
found out that that’s just such a negative waste of energy and
what I use are daily affirmations.
Ted Nicholas: Because words, of all kinds,
not only that you write and things that you hear influence you,
but words that you say to yourself are a tremendous influence to
your subconscious, which is even more powerful than your
conscious mind.
Ted Nicholas: So, one of my affirmations is,
“I forgive the people that have hurt me in the past. I
presently forgive them for all of these things that they’ve done
to me and for me.”
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, what is your
perspective on goodness, ethics, and moral behavior.
Ted Nicholas: Well again, integrity. It
keeps coming to mind in the direction of these questions, which
I really like. I think these questions are really good. To me,
I think of an individual who exudes love for other human beings.
Ted Nicholas: Honesty, it just comes out of
every pore and the willingness to help and to understand
something I think few people understand. I spent a good part of
my life fully integrating and understanding this and that’s the
difference between what I call positive selfishness and negative
selfishness.
Ted Nicholas: A lot of people confuse the
two in their thinking and how they deal with people. I think
what we all can’t wait to get away from are individuals who are
negatively selfish, who in effect, are asking us to sacrifice
ourselves for their interests.
Ted Nicholas: For example, selling products
or services to us when they have no concern for us, the end
consumer, but they have concern for their interests. That’s
negative selfishness and I’m totally opposed to that.
Ted Nicholas: On the other side of that coin
and totally opposite is the person who is positively selfish,
who is willing to work hard to create a product or service that
is much more valuable to humanity and much more valuable to
their customer than the cost or price.
Ted Nicholas: In fact, what I try to do in
my own life is have all of my information products, books,
tapes, and seminars to be at least ten times and just what I’ve
seen in the real world, a hundred times or more valuable to my
protégés or students or customers than whatever they invest in
the products. To me, those are parts to the question that you
just asked me.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, how do people actually
become heroes?
Ted Nicholas: Well, I think you become a
hero through mastering something, mastering the field that turns
you on, the field in which you have passion. To be a hero is
not easy, but it well worth the effort.
Ted Nicholas: A lot of people are looking
for the easy way, the lazy way, and the shortcut way instead of
realizing that there are no shortcuts in life. You have to pay
the price; you have to have self-discipline. You have to do all
these things.
Ted Nicholas: When I say that, I hasten to
add, that self-discipline, in my opinion, is a highly overrated
skill or quality of a human being. People think that I’m such a
great self-disciplined person and I am in many ways.
Ted Nicholas: I am in many ways, but I think
the best thing about self-discipline that makes it not so tough,
and as a matter of fact remarkably easy, is that good habits in
life tend to become good actions which tend to become habits.
Ted Nicholas: At first, it may be tough to
study a certain amount of time each day or practice your skills
a certain amount of time and you just keep practicing them until
you just get good at what you do.
Ted Nicholas: I, for example, have almost no
natural skills in sports, but I have been able to accomplish a
lot, to win a lot of tennis trophies and things like this more
from just the effort and discipline that I put on myself. It
becomes a habit that then enables you to have the kind of
results that you can have.
Ted Nicholas: In writing for example, I
don’t feel that I was endowed. I was always able to communicate
fairly well, but I think that I’ve gotten better and better by
practicing and by being an individual.
Ted Nicholas: Also in speaking, I don’t
consider speaking and writing worlds apart as many people seem
to think that those are to be. I think that communication is
communication, and I’m a very much of a studier of
communication. So I study communication, and I get better at it
and it becomes a habit.
Ted Nicholas: So now, Bethany will ask me
sometimes, my significant other, she will ask me, “Why are you
working so hard? You could have retired a long time ago. Don’t
you think about slowing down or taking it easy?”
Ted Nicholas: Well frankly, I’m so used to
the pace and the kind of habits that I practice every day, part
of me is afraid that I will lose some of those skills that I’ve
worked so hard to develop unless I continue to do the things
that I do.
Ted Nicholas: Again, it’s such a habit that
it’s almost impossible to break. Additionally, I’m an
individual that has an addictive personality and I’m afraid to
try things like drugs, because I’m afraid I might like them too
much and become addicted to them.
Ted Nicholas: So rather than do that, I
addict myself, try to addict myself to things that are good for
me, such as exercise, such as the kind of diet that I try to
follow. I don’t do anything 100%; I think it’s dangerous
because it makes you an unhappy person.
Ted Nicholas: I think that ten percent of my
diet is whatever I want to have. So, I think that if you develop
the habits that are necessary for you to become a master, that’s
really the secret.
Ralph Zuranski: How does it feel to be
recognized as a hero?
Ted Nicholas: It feels fantastic. One of
the things that it took me a long time to learn is the ability
to accept a compliment when I feel the compliment may have some
truth behind it.
Ted Nicholas: I know that what I do and how
I do it is not a common attribute in a lot of people; I’ve
worked hard for it. It’s nice to be recognized for those
things.
Ted Nicholas: On the other hand I do it, and
while I’m highly compensated, and I’m also a big believer in
charity and that’s a whole other subject, I’m highly compensated
in what I do, which I’m not looking for, for personal spending
in my life because long ago that ceased to be a problem, I like
being recognized for what I consider the things that I admire in
myself. I like it when others, who I respect, recognize it.
Ted Nicholas: I particularly like
recognition as a hero from people who I consider my heroes, like
entrepreneurs and others who are working hard to build their
lives. So, I enjoy it and I want to keep doing what I’m doing
better and better and hopefully be recognized for the rest of my
life.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, do you maintain your
sense of humor in the face of serious situations?
Ted Nicholas: Well, I like to think that I
do. I think my sense of humor is a lot better when I’m not
facing or not dealing with one of the more serious challenges in
life. But I think even with a serious challenge, I keep myself
whole and that I maintain a sense of humor at that point.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, how are you able to
overcome your doubts and fears?
Ted Nicholas: I am able to overcome doubts
and fears by just trying and seeing the result. I work very
hard in seeing the result. I have read all of these biographies
and autobiographies and they have influenced me; the greatest
people in American business in the past, such as John
Wannamaker, Milton Hershey, Bernard Gimble, and Henry Ford to
name a few.
Ted Nicholas: I could see that these
individuals had had a tremendous amount of setbacks and they
somehow maintained their optimism even though they had had these
enormous and incredible setbacks and failures.
Ted Nicholas: What I wanted to do, in
effect, was arm myself for the disappointments in life on the
business side. I wanted to make myself, in effect,
failure-proof and to survive whatever happened to me because I
did not come from a wealthy background.
Ted Nicholas: I came from a very poor
background and I knew that I was going to have some setbacks
along the way and that I would survive it and be okay. So, a
lot of people who have experienced those kinds of things in
their lives have, through books, become some of my heroes.
Because of them, I could develop that “failure-proofness” if you
will, if there is such a word.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, what place does the
power of prayer have in your life?
Ted Nicholas: The power of prayer is an
enormous influence. I pray everyday and I can say with all of
the conviction of my soul that every prayer on every major issue
that I’ve had that involved me personally, my family, all the
things that I love, every single prayer that I’ve ever stated,
in my subconscious has been answered. Every single one has been
answered. So, the role of prayer to my mind is extremely
powerful.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, do you take a positive
view of setbacks, misfortunes, and mistakes?
Ted Nicholas: I would say 99% of the time I
do. I have to keep reminding myself of the principles that I so
believe in, that I live my life by. But, I would say yes.
Almost 100% of the time I do because I learn from my mistakes. I
know that a couple of setbacks that I’ve had in business, like
the one I talked to you about earlier where I had to close a
business that was once so successful, you know.
Ted Nicholas: I started twenty-one
businesses before I started writing and nineteen of them were
hugely successful. Two were not. I know from those experiences
that I learned much from my setbacks, what other people call
failures, than from all of the other successes put together. So
that being the case, I’m in effect insulated much more so than
many people are with regard to setbacks and failures.
Ted Nicholas: I’m also aware statistically,
since I’ve studied biographies all of my life of very successful
people, heroes, real heroes in the world, that they’ve had far
more setbacks and failures and successes.
Ted Nicholas: So for instance, a lot of
people know me for my copywriting, for my work, for my
communication skills and even I, more of my ads do not work or
do not close profits for my companies or my client companies.
Ted Nicholas: I have a very high batting
average, but I don’t have a 100% success record anymore than a
baseball player goes up and hits a homerun every time they go to
bat.
Ted Nicholas: When you are creating a
message of any kind, whether you call yourself a copywriter, or
you’re a speaker or you’re just a human being communicating your
message with other people, you have to find ways or words and
techniques to get that message across to other people in ways
that’s hearable to them and understandable by them. So, that’s
how I take that issue.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, what principles are you
willing to sacrifice your life for?
Ted Nicholas: Well, for the principle of
freedom, I’m willing to put my life on the line to help people
to be free. I cherish personal and individual freedom in my
life and I cherish it in the lives of other humans and of
course, in all of those that I love, like my children and my
grandchildren.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, do you experience
service to others as a source of joy?
Ted Nicholas: Yes, I do experience service
to others as a source of joy. It can be said in a lot of ways,
but I like the law of reciprocity where I don’t believe there is
any negative energy in the universe when you put yourself out
there and you help. You get back so much.
Ted Nicholas: One of the great things you
get back is feedback and evidence where you put forth your
energy, your ideas; it comes back and rewards you. In that
sense, it gives me a great sense of joy.
Ted Nicholas: People a lot of times don’t
give you immediate feedback about your influence in their
lives. That’s okay. I know when I’m giving feedback. See,
this is one of the things that I like about giving the seminars
that I do.
Ted Nicholas: I endeavor to put more
information into my seminars on marketing, communications, on
copywriting than anyone else on the planet has done, or will do,
or is willing to do.
Ted Nicholas: I know that I’m doing that
whether the people in the audience, you know, it has often been
said, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” As long
as I know that in my heart, but it makes it even more joyful
when I get feedback from people who are applying the lessons
that I’m putting forward in my work.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, I would like to ask you
a question. What is your definition of heroism?
Ted Nicholas: Well to my mind, heroes are
people who are masters of what they are doing and are
individuals who have unlimited personal integrity.
Ted Nicholas: As I travel around the world,
there are not many people who, in fact it is a very rare talent
to have to both mastered your craft and delivered it or served
it or functioned in that craft with a sense of great integrity,
concern with and for other people. The ones that are the
greatest heroes are the ones that are the most help to other
humans along the way.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, are you an optimist?
Ted Nicholas: I consider myself definitely
an optimist. I don’t deliberately think, “Well, I’m not going
to be an optimist or a pessimist.” I do see things, to a large
extent, through “rose-colored glasses.” At times perhaps if I
err, it is on the optimistic side.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, do you have a dream or
a vision that sets the course of your life?
Ted Nicholas: Yes, my dream is that the
whole world will be free, every country. There will be no
tyrannies or dictatorships. What has to happen in order for
that to happen is the undiscovered heroes of this world,
entrepreneurs in my judgment, if my work can influence
entrepreneurs to even a greater degree that even I influence
people now.
Ted Nicholas: I have millions of readers, so
I’ve influenced people a lot, but as my work spreads and as I
continue hopefully to get better in refining my message, my
dream is that I will be one of the people to help individuals
all over the world to be free or more successful. To just be
one of the leaders in that direction, just turns me on; it keeps
me going.
Ted Nicholas: One of the things that I am so
excited about, every time I get letters, almost everyday, from
people who give me credit for making such a big impact on their
lives and for changing their lives and in many cases they
deserve the credit. I don’t, because they acted on my work or my
ideas. It just makes me feel so good and proud to be part of
that process.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, if you had three wishes
for your life and for the world that would instantly come true,
what would they be?
Ted Nicholas: Number one, that every single
country got rid of their dictators so that everybody would be
free. Number two, that the individuals were free to become and
interested in becoming entrepreneurs.
Ted Nicholas: I believe that there is an
entrepreneur in the heart of everyone, inside the fiber, inside
the being of everyone and for more people to recognize the true
heroes are the entrepreneurs who are creating the jobs.
Ted Nicholas: You know, 90% of all new jobs
are created by entrepreneurs, not big businesses. When people
understand that entrepreneurship is the only real way to create
wealth, not to spend by the people who create it, although
that’s part of the joy of it, part of the joy, but I think most
of the joy is all of the great things you can do with it and
charitable activities and your church activities, if that is
what you are motivated to do with your wealth. I just think
that’s a fantastic thing.
Ted Nicholas: The third thing that I would
like to see people do is recognize that their number one asset
is their health and when I look at Americans, 60% of which are
obese and that’s spreading like wild, that issue of obesity all
over the world.
Ted Nicholas: People need to realize that
their life is finite, that they can extend their lives by being
healthy. We’re within ten years of breakthrough, more
breakthroughs where we will all live to be 120 years or more,
barring accidents and that sort of thing.
Ted Nicholas: So when more people recognize
that health is a value that we are pursuing, they watch their
exercise, their diet and they also learn that the mental food,
what you feed yourself is so critical. I would like it if 100%
of the world were on that premise. We would have even a better
world if all of those three things happened.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, when was the lowest
point of your life and how did you change your life’s path to
one of victory over all obstacles?
Ted Nicholas: Well, the lowest point of my
life, I’ve been very blessed that I haven’t had any real severe
lows, I guess the closest I’ve come to the lowest point is after
many years is when I started my first business at age
twenty-one. I was voted outstanding businessman in my state at
age twenty-nine and I felt much honored.
Ted Nicholas: A couple of years after that,
a long series of events, most of which were out of my control, I
was in the candy and ice cream business at the time. Two of my
many stores were bypassed and I lost a lot of volume.
Ted Nicholas: I couldn’t replace it because
there were new toll roads that were taking the traffic away from
my shops. I started a franchise business and I basically had to
close the business and it was very painful to me because some of
my franchisees, some of my suppliers were hurt financially and
although they almost all forgave me immediately for the
circumstances that caused that, for me, I felt emotionally very
low during that period.
Ted Nicholas: So I would say that is kind of
the ultimate depth that I felt. I felt that, rock bottom, that
many of the things that I believed in and still do were, how do
I say it, I questioned some of the things that I so believed in
at those moments.
Ted Nicholas: I had some questions; I had a
lot of thinking and feeling to get through that period.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, who are the heroes in
your life?
Ted Nicholas: The heroes in my life are
mostly authors of books and a few speakers and I will identify a
few of them. Some are the business men who were the early
pioneers in America. I think that America is really the country
that has shown that entrepreneurship, given free reign, can
produce miraculous results.
Ted Nicholas: The early people, like Andrew
Carnegie, Bernard Gimble, and Henry Ford and others that I’ve
mentioned in other interviews that I’ve done with you are the
ones that are my heroes, because they have shown me not only
great accomplishment but that setbacks or failures did not
dissuade them from ultimately succeeding.
Ted Nicholas: But in addition, there have
been a few seminar speakers that have been highly influential to
me. I was privileged, for example, to be in the audience of
Napoleon Hill, before he passed away. He spoke from the platform
and ultimately his books that I read were greatly influential to
me.
Ted Nicholas: Also greatly influential to me
was the late Joe Cossman. When I was in my mid-twenties, there
was a fellow by the name of; I believe it was E. Joseph Cossman
who wrote a book called “How I Made a Million Dollars in Mail
Order.”
Ted Nicholas: I went to his seminar and what
I was so impressed by, is here is this millionaire,
good-looking, articulate fellow who was so interested in the
audience and what the audience got out of his presentation that
I made him a personal hero.
Ted Nicholas: I had the wonderful privilege
of speaking with him on the platform of a cruise that we were
on. As a matter of fact, a marketing cruise in about 1998 or
1999. I got to meet him and interact with him personally, and I
was so pleased that he considered me one of his heroes. So it
was a great relationship.
Ted Nicholas: Other heroes to me have been
sports heroes. I’ve always been interested in physical things
and sports and I’ve liked people like Bill Tilden, reading about
him and seeing his videos. Great tennis players, I’m very
interested in tennis. Also baseball players like Babe Ruth have
been tremendous heroes.
Ted Nicholas: Football players and also
football coaches have been great heroes of mine. My high school
coach was such a hero. He was Russell Coleman, who later became
the principal of the school.
Ted Nicholas: I had to be on a team and we
were state champions in our particular division. He was just
such a disciplinarian. I learned the concept from him of “tough
love.”
Ted Nicholas: He was so tough, such a
disciplinarian, but at the same time, he loved us. He could be
tough with us and he loved us. I’ve tried to be in life,
working with employees and all, to be loving with all my people
but also expecting a very high standard.
Ted Nicholas: If the people were not living
up to, not just my standard but a standard that they and I had
mutually developed, if they didn’t live up to it, I tried do be
a executive or entrepreneurial leader that was like my coach. I
learned a lot of that from my coach.
Ted Nicholas: Basically what I learned was
that I could be kind and loving as well as tough at the same
time. So those were just a few of some of my major heroes.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, who do you think are
the heroes today that are not getting the recognition that they
deserve?
Ted Nicholas: The first ones that come to
mind, since we were just talking about children, are sports
heroes. I think sports heroes are tremendous for children.
Ted Nicholas: The people that are setting
records, breaking homeruns, for example people that are coming
close to it like Sammy Sosa, and others who came here as
immigrants.
Ted Nicholas: He seems to be a very kind and
good person and a good parent. I remember the retired John
Elway, the former NFL quarterback and “Hall of Famer.” I think
he is tremendous.
Ted Nicholas: I have had occasion to do some
things for the Make a Wish Foundation that he was very much a
part of and supporting them. He is a terrific hero to look up
to as a great NFL Champion.
Ted Nicholas: I think the tennis players,
some of the top ones, are wonderful heroes like the current
number one, Roger Federer and Andrea Agassi who has just been a
terrific influence on so many kids, so many young people. So,
many of the sports legends I feel are great heroes.
Ted Nicholas: Michael Jordon has of course
influenced so many people from lower income backgrounds, because
lower income kids tend to play a lot of basketball in
neighborhoods and so forth. He is a tremendous hero. But then
I think, also of authors again, who I think are terrific heroes.
Ted Nicholas: I think to be a children’s
author means that you are a special hero, because what I like
about children and authors that write for children, like Rowling
and others, is that you have to be a person of special
integrity.
Ted Nicholas: Kids can see through
dishonesty better than adults. There’s like a dishonesty filter
and we adults can be more easily influenced by someone who may
not have great integrity, but kids seem to see that.
Ted Nicholas: So the children’s writers are
terrific heroes for children, I feel. Then of course, the
entrepreneurs that are very good in the world are also very good
examples in our lives. Individuals who are thinkers along their
own path and people who influence so many people are heroes,
like Bill Gates for example, Richard Branson, and the publisher
heroes that may not be as well known in celebrity status. But,
people like my friend Bill Bonner of Agora Publishing.
Ted Nicholas: He publishes pro-freedom and
pro-entrepreneurial work. Tom Phillips of Phillips Publishing
and Bill Bonner are tremendous heroes who are helping to spread
ideas. So the idea spreaders, if you will, are tremendous
heroes.
Ted Nicholas: Just to name a few that I
think are terrific are the people on the stage, who talk from
the stage, who influence a lot of people, such as Peter Lowe,
who is a seminar attendee of mine.
Ted Nicholas: He does the biggest seminars
in America right now. He is the promoter of Zig Ziglar and he
is a very good speaker himself. They are terrific heroes
bringing heroes like retired General Schwarzkopf, for example to
speak at his seminars. I just think those people are tremendous
heroes.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted, why are heroes so
important in the lives of young people?
Ted Nicholas: Oh, heroes are crucial because
they are the individuals that people consciously or
subconsciously encourage us. I think it’s very important for
young children to know heroes, the kind of heroes who are great.
Ted Nicholas: It is important for young
children to know who the heroes are. As parents I think the
greatest thing that you can do is expose your child to very good
heroes, excellent heroes, and top heroes.
Ralph Zuranski: Who helped give you the
willpower to change things in your life for the better?
Ted Nicholas: Well, there wasn’t any outside
help. I had to develop my own willpower. But again, my heroes
are the authors of books. I think that there are two basic ways
to learn.
Ted Nicholas: The best ways to learn are to
discover information through books and in today’s age, seminars
and to utilize those things in your life.
Ted Nicholas: So, when I went through the
process of reading, studying, going to seminars and learning
things myself, these people, these things helped me the most.
