Author: Dan Giordano

Manny Wolfe had a rather unconventional start to life. His story starts out with being born into a cult in the late 60’s in the San Francisco Bay area, where he was programmed from birth not to fit into outside society. At 8 ½ years old, the cult moved from right into the middle of one of the top 10 most violent ghettos at the time, Stockton, CA. Overnight, he experienced violence and spent the next 4 years in a constant state of flight-or-fight mode and the children in the cult received no protection or guidance from the adults. Between the countercultural mindset instilled in him, 4 years of violence, and an environment where drug use was encouraged, by the time he was 12 and they moved away, he was set on a path of drug abuse, addiction, criminal behavior, jails and violence.

It took years for him to even realize that his youth was not normal and, finally, he had a moment of clarity at 28 years old that sent him running. He disappeared from the life and the crowd that he was in, never to be heard from again. That decision marked the exact moment when his trajectory started to change. From that time forward, he began to pursue self-exploration, personal development, and studied what internal mechanisms had led him to that point.

He looked to thought leaders and as he started absorbing their teachings and undoing his own damage bit by bit, the person that emerged was someone who was tender, vulnerable and wanted to be of service to others. It would be many years still until he put their thoughts and his calling together. During the intervening years he did everything from construction to being a playwright, until one day his fiancé told him he should write a book about his experiences.

After the book was done, the question became, “how do I get a platform to sell it?” A podcast was the obvious answer. From there, the possibilities just opened up a whole new life for Manny and today, he is a Public Speaking and Charisma Coach. If you need to deliver from the stage in a way that is dazzling, Manny will show you how to get there by using your body language and speech as your secret weapons.

Amos grew up Amish, one of the most conservative communities in existence. He knew nothing but farming and hard work but, in his heart, he knew that was not the life for him. That drive for something bigger, coupled with dyslexia, a learning disability that the Amish community refused to understand or recognize, led him to make a commitment at the age of 10 to prove that he could do something greater.

By the age of 21, he was running his own sawmill business, but it was only doing ‘okay’, and he was living paycheck to paycheck. A good friend of his told him, “you can be everything you want to be and have as much as you want”. That thought was always in the back of his mind, but it wasn’t until he was 37 and facing a serious illness that he made the decision that ‘enough is enough’. At that time, he had a wife and 7 children. He realized that if he died, his family would have nothing to survive on. It was at that moment, when he made that decision, that things started to fall into place.

He took immediate action but realized that he needed to start learning. He’d always felt ‘blindfolded’ when it came to learning because of the experiences of his youth, but he didn’t let that stop him. He listened to other people who had done well, like Brian Tracy and Napoleon Hill, and knew if they could do it, he should be able to as well.

Initially, he looked for an opportunity that would provide residual income for his family in the event of his death. But, he ended up with an opportunity that did not only that but improved his health as well. Today, he is not only financially successful, but he’s here and healthy and enjoying

At age 17, Mark had hit rock bottom, when he woke up in a jail cell with no memory of why and how he had gotten there. He had been going down a path of drinking and drugs and ended up being arrested for DUI. Not only had he been beaten up pretty badly by the driver he rear-ended, but was so intoxicated that he should have been dead. It was his wake-up call to leave that life behind. He moved back in with his parents and started getting his life back on track. Even through the bad times, he had never lost his relationship with God, and this time, God was speaking to him, saying, “What are you going to do with the second chance at life I have given you?” From that point forward, he improved his physical being and pursued his college degree. He never felt that he was very ‘book smart’, but he was determined to outwork everyone else. He had a bigger mission to live a better life.

After receiving his Bachelor’s in Psychology, he moved to Ohio to work with his brother. Through a family friend, he had an opportunity to work with special needs adults in the Ohio ‘County Workshops’. He really enjoyed what he was doing but found the environment to be depressing and institutionalized. The adults in the program had 2 choices to fill their time all day-either color or work putting together machine parts. He took another opportunity teaching a new special education program for High School students with special needs, which eventually brought him back to the County Workshops when he would tour them with his students heading for graduation.

He realized just how fortunate most of us are that we do have options and these students had very, very few. He thought, ‘there has to be another way’, and God started showing him that he was that person that needed to bring the change. At only 26 years old, he started learning the Medicaid and Ohio rules for funding of these types of facilities. His used his brother’s campground as his campus and founded DreamShine with his sister.

Today, 9 years later, they have their own 2 ½ acre facility where residents can engage in a wealth of enriching activities and earn a paycheck that is higher than minimum wage. He’s expanded into leadership service, public speaking, hosting a podcast and has just written his first book, ‘The Story of You’.

Jim grew up in Tulsa, OK. All through his teenage years, his one dream and passion was to become a star football player and play in the NFL. He didn’t have a safety net or a Plan B and he pursued football to the exclusion of almost everything else.

During a routine sports exam for his high school football team, he was diagnosed with a condition that would cause him to lose his sight early in life. Everything came to a halt. He realized that not only would he be eventually blind, but he wouldn’t be going to the NFL either to live his life as a football pro.

He had to come up with another option. He switched his life path and became a weightlifter. He was able to end his athletic career having experienced championship and a Gold medal in the weightlifting arena. Shortly thereafter, in his late 20’s, he did lose the remainder of his sight. For a while, he was depressed and scared. It was a neighbor who turned him onto to his first motivational speaker, and he began to devour those messages. So much so that he’s now on his 3^rd copy of that same program, ‘The Psychology of Winning’.

Over time, he got back into life, got his act together, and started a company that makes movies and television accessible to the visually impaired. Out of that, he became a speaker and then an author. Today, he has written over 30 books, 6 of them having been made into movies, has a weekly syndicated newspaper column and speaks to millions of people in arenas all over the world.

Cadey is the wife and business partner of a previous show guest, Alex Charfen. Born and raised in Dallas, she was a flight attendant when she met Alex 12 years ago and didn’t even realize she was an entrepreneur until they started dating!

Her father was the entrepreneur in the family, but, unfortunately, she didn’t get to see much of that lifestyle as her parents were divorced, and her stepfather was a ‘corporate guy’, staying with the same company for 20+ years. While she didn’t stay with Southwest Airlines after meeting Alex, her time there was a great experience for her to see what a really dynamic company looked like from the inside out and to understand what did and didn’t work.

After meeting Alex and discovering her entrepreneurial spirt, real estate was the natural path, as that was the predominant career background of almost her entire family. In her first year of selling real estate, she earned a triple-digit income, especially remarkable when considering the average 1^st year agent’s income is approximately $28,000.

She was off to a very successful start but she and Alex, like so many others, got hit by the housing recession of 2007-2008. While it was personally devastating at the time, it allowed them to look more carefully at their own financial habits, and just as important, it led them to develop the CDP course and designation. The CDP was an answer to all of the foreclosures that no one, even in the industry, knew how to effectively deal with. They made a HUGE impact with this course, even being told by a representative in the US Treasury that their program alone probably sped up the housing recovery by 5 years!

Today, Cadey runs the operations and oversight for CHARFEN, the company she and Alex founded together. They focus on general entrepreneurship and want people to understand that if they can run a transparent business, then they can gain the support and trust that they need to go out and make the impact that they envision. For them, it’s not about creating a big company; it’s about creating a movement.

Stuart got to where he is today because he was really bad in school at one point! As a young kid, Stuart was failing school-in Singapore. Culturally, there is a lot of pride in doing well academically in Singapore and it was really quite the shock that, not only was he not doing well, he didn’t seem to care. He really hated studying and just wanted to ‘get by’.

His mom got so worried about school that she enrolled him in some enrichment classes. That’s where things started to change for him and put him on the path that would become his future. Those classes gave him a new-found interest in learning and he started doing so well that one of his classmates thought he was cheating! Stuart told him he made a turn-around because of the extra classes and offered to teach him the same. That first experience of sharing what he was learning, something that someone else could also use to improve, is what set everything in motion.

Not surprisingly, he became involved in teaching personal development. He was aligned with what he wanted to do but as an introverted kid, the thought of getting on stage to teach programs was unheard of. When he taught his first seminar, LEAP, to about 250 people, he looked up and saw 2 of his secondary school teachers were there and could not believe their ears!

He continued to teach, but it wasn’t necessarily about the money and was more of a hobby. He truly enjoys helping people live fuller lives. But, in 2002, the opportunity did come for him to start benefitting financially from his programs. That first year, with his business partners, he made $1.35M in revenue, which would grow close to $15-17M by the time he left, less than 10 years later. They had expanded into 7 countries and, at his peak, was training 16 hours a day.

He loves every moment of sharing with others that there IS joy in learning and this year marks his 22^nd year as a professional trainer.

Chase Thompson is a native Texan, born and raised in San Antonio. He is a husband and the father of 2 young children. He knows they’re incredible and his wife deserves all the credit for that! Having his children gave him an entire new level of motivation that he didn’t even know existed until they arrived in the world.

His professional career started in insurance sales and then he moved to the real estate mortgage industry, where he’s been for almost a decade. His started his career in mortgage as a loan originator, and then moved into business development and marketing, an area where he was better able to use his background, talent and skills. He then broke out on his own and today he’s a real estate investor as well as the podcast host of ‘NoteMBA’.

Jonathan Milligan had no idea he’d be doing what he’s doing today. He tells his son to keep his eyes open because this generation will create the jobs and opportunities that didn’t even exist as options when Jonathan was in school.

Both of Jonathan’s parents were teachers, so being in the environment, teaching was a part of him as well. After college, he also started out as a High School teacher and coach but only stayed in that position for three years. He loved teaching but the context was wrong for him-it was too structured for his entrepreneurial spirit.   He took time off to ‘figure it out’, getting a night job in a call center for nine months. He read all there was on starting your own venture but didn’t put anything into action. Finally, he felt that he was ready to go fail at something, because even failure was progress compared with being paralyzed from inaction.

His first round as an entrepreneur found him ‘flipping’ a house. Although he made a decent profit, he realized that was not his calling. Then, he took a 100% commission job recruiting for an executive search firm. He did that for 8 years and was successful, but he still had that entrepreneurial drive and wanted to use his gifts.

He then started blogging about the job search advice and strategies he had gained. He fell back in love with teaching but on terms that he could control.   The sky was the limit on income and creative freedom. He fell in love with it and he fell back in love with writing, a skill he hadn’t used very much since college.

When he started to see that people were getting value out of his blogging, it made him want to do it more and more. The next step was realizing that if they loved his free content, then maybe he could create something people would pay for.

From there, he progressed to what he’s doing today-he’s an author, a blogger, a speaker, and the host of 2 podcasts, Simple Life Habits and Blogging Your Passion.

Bolaji is the creator of Brave Little Heroes, a series of superhero stories for children ages 6-12.

Bolaji grew up in Nigeria to first-generated educated parents. Although his parents became doctors, they had grown up poor and had a very strong ‘do for yourself’ drive that they instilled in their children. That work ethic, combined with his love for American comics, led Bolaji to be an entrepreneur at just 10 years old, when he would draw and sell Spiderman images for lunch money.

He did well academically, going on to earn his undergrad degree in Computer Science and an MBA. Because his parents had come from a poor background, but became doctors, they saw a “good job” as the path to happiness and success because it provided financial stability. But, he tried working in Corporate America, staying in cubicles for 12 years, and never felt fulfilled. When he was laid off for the last time, even his boss said “I don’t know where you’re supposed to be, but this is not it”.

At the same time, he had been encouraged by his wife to start writing down all of the stories he was telling his children. Then, came the first publication. After a few challenging ‘start-up’ years, ‘Brave Little Heroes’ has broken through and they’ve now reached over 100,000 children around the world. He’s also recently started a podcast, Bravepreneur, to interview other entrepreneurs about their most defining childhood moments. As an adult, creating this company goes full-circle back to his childhood. He’s realized his dream and he’s having a blast doing it!

A turning point in Joel’s life came when he was just 5 years old, stemming from an incident that almost resulted in him being hit by a train. While out hiking with family and friends, he had climbed up on a train trestle that was 30 feet above a gorge. By the time his father saw him and was able to run to the tracks, the train was already there, but Joel was not. He had fallen the 30 feet below, where he lay on the jagged rocks, very narrowly missing death. He spent 3 weeks in a coma and, upon waking, had to re-learn everything a child his age already knew had developed.

He fought back, going all-in by investing himself in every aspect of his healing. He went on to earn both his MBA and a Master’s in Counseling, as well as becoming a syndicated radio host, life coach, author and podcaster. His latest book, ‘Finding Your Voice’, hit the #1 spot on Amazon in 3 categories-success, happiness and self-esteem.

His podcast, ReLaunch, is actually his 9^th show, along with wife and co-host, Pei. They really hit the mark on this one, recently passing the one million mark in listeners. It has given them an opportunity to speak publicly on a national level regarding issues that people from all walks of life can resonate with.