Interview With Invisible Mentor Gary Vurnum, Author, Part II

Interviewee Name: Gary Vurnum, Author

Website:  http://www.vurnum.com 

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Gary Vurnum:  I’ve been earning a living from the Internet full-time since December 2001, and in that time, I have created 15 products in the self-improvement niche, from general success to leadership to goal-setting to law of attraction to stress relief and so on. I’ve also written 20 books over the last few years, and set-up my own publishing house last July, and I publish other people’s books as well as my own.

Avil Beckford: How do you integrate your personal and professional life?

Gary Vurnum: My work really is my hobby because I love to read and write about self-improvement, marketing and the internet. I choose how often I work so I don’t need to integrate anything at all. I take time off whenever I choose, whether I’m with my daughters, fiancée and so on. It’s one big melting pot for me because I choose when and how often I work then there isn’t too much conflict between the personal life and the business life. 

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Interview With Invisible Mentor Gary Vurnum, Author

Avil Beckford: When you have some down time, how do you spend it? 

Gary Vurnum: Because I have my daughters for a couple of days each week, and half of any holidays I focus on them because I don’t have the quantity of time, I focus on quality. I read books on the topics that I write about and I watch very little TV. Apart from that, I spend time with my fiancée and we go out for meals and date nights and things like that. That’s essentially how I use my free time.

Avil Beckford: What are five life lessons that you have learned so far?

Gary Vurnum:

1. You have more chances of making people miserable if you always try to make them happy because they need to make themselves happy rather than you doing it for them by bending over backwards. If you try to bend over backwards trying to make others happy, quite often, it’s at the expense of you being happy. And it ends up blowing up in your face.
2. The best way to deal with a setback is to say, “So what,” and get on with it. Deal with what happens and move on. It’s not always easy but essentially that’s what I try to do.
3. Being successful at anything may be complicated but not difficult, whether it’s internet marketing, being an author, trading stock, real estate, whatever. The steps involved are not difficult, you don’t need degrees, or need to be a rocket scientist, but there are usually a number of steps involved. If it’s important to you, you’re going to find a way to make it happen.
4. Always get paid more than once for everything you do, which is a rule I try to stand by whenever I can, and refuse to be paid per hour. That’s why I have books and products that earn me money years after I created them.
5. You always get what you expect. A lot of us in our lives expect the worst, and guess what happens, the worst. Again it’s not easy, I’m human and you have to catch yourself if you’re focusing on the things you don’t want to happen. It’s so easy to focus on what you don’t want rather than what you do want.

Avil Beckford: What process do you use to generate great ideas?

Gary Vurnum: If you’re doing the same thing day-after-day then new thoughts and avenues won’t appear and I never ever have a problem with ideas. In fact, I have too many of them. I have many product ideas and things I can do and that’s because when I approach a task, I keep on with it and look for new ways to improve it. There isn’t a set process, I just basically get on with it and solutions often appear.

Avil Beckford: What’s your favourite quotation and why?

Gary Vurnum: It may sound a bit vain but it’s one of mine, “Never ignore the obvious, that’s what it’s there for.” Too many people talk themselves out of starting because they over-complicate things. Start with the most simple and obvious thing first and then you find quite often that things start to fall into place once you get moving. Don’t hold back from doing the most obvious thing because it’s obvious.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success? And in your opinion what’s the formula for success?

Gary Vurnum: The formula and definition for such is really the same thing in my book. Success is doing what you love as often as you want to, whether that’s in business or life. In my mind, how happy you are should be the currency for success not a monetary figure. There are enough miserable millionaires and billionaires around to prove this. Unfortunately, the gurus will tell you that you should be a millionaire and aspire to this, but essentially everyone wants to aspire to be happier in their lives. My definition and formula for success is to do more of what you love in both business and life.

Avil Beckford: What are the steps you took to succeed in your field?

Gary Vurnum: I push beyond my comfort zone because if you’re not moving forward you’re moving backward while other people are moving forward and leapfrogging. We’re always in motion so you may think that you’re standing still by not doing anything, but you are going backward because you are nor learning and applying. The reason why I’ve become a speaker, author, publisher, marketer and so on is because if I didn’t believe I could do something, I looked and saw that other people could do it and thought I should give it a go, and sometimes it’s scary, but unless you can push your comfort zone you won’t find out what you’re capable of doing. Once you start doing a few things that you didn’t think you were capable of then you find that there are very few things that you can’t do.

Avil Beckford: What advice do you have for someone just starting out in your field?

Gary Vurnum: Work out what you’re already world-class at, and everyone that I’ve ever met whether they were failure, rich or poor is world-class at something – painting, motivating people, fantastic parent, whatever. Everyone has something that they find either easy to do or comes naturally to them, and enjoy it as well. Take that and see how you can build something around it and do it as often as you can. You do what you love and the money will follow except you have to look at it in a business sense.

But basically someone, somewhere will want what you can do, or wish they could do what you find easy to do. So if it’s organizing, you have very successful personal assistants out there, if it’s painting, people will pay you for your paintings. If it’s being a great parent, there are many avenues to monetize your world-class talent. Everyone has been given a world-class talent at something. That’s the best place to start from rather than follow a process to go and do this then that. Start from inside out.

Avil Beckford: If trusted friends could introduce you to five people that you’ve always wanted to meet, who would you choose? And what would you say to them?

Gary Vurnum:

1. Napoleon Hill: He is the man who wrote Think and Grow Rich and also Law of Success, which is my favourite book of his. I would ask him, “Can I have your original notes to your interviews of over 600 millionaires of the day?” He converted those interviews into Think and Grow Rich but it was a two-day seminar that was the Law of Success. I would want to see those original interview notes to get insights.
2. Warren Buffett: I would like to get information from him on investing.
3. Dalai Lama: Aside from meditation, I’d like to find out what he would recommend to focus on happiness as often as I can.
4. Richard Branson: I would ask him how best to manage your to-do list because I’ve seen his to-do list at the back of one of his books, and he has a big to-do list.
5. Leonardo da Vinci: I’d like to watch him but not necessarily ask him any questions. He was a polymath and involved in many different things.

Avil Beckford: Which one book had a profound impact on your life? What was it about this book that impacted you so deeply?

Gary Vurnum: There have been many that had a profound impact on me. One at the time when I was going through all my problems to quit my job and so on, which tuned me in to the more spiritual side of success, was a book written back in 1912 I think, The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles. You can get it for free online. It’s a short book and might be a bit too spiritual for a lot of people. It made me focus and took me away from the reality that I was facing and made me appreciate possibilities rather than restrictions.

Avil Beckford: You are one of the 10 finalists on the reality show, So, How Would You Spend Your Time? Each finalist is placed on separate deserted islands for two years. You have a basic hut on the island and all the tools for survival; you just have to be imaginative and inventive when using them. You are allowed to take five books, one movie and one music CD, and whatever else you take has to fit in one suitcase and a travel on case. What would you take with you and how would you spend the two years? T he prize is worth your while and at this stage in the game there really aren’t any losers among the 10 finalists, since each are guaranteed at least $2 million?

Gary Vurnum: This is the hardest question because there are too many books and I have eclectic music taste and I go to the cinema quite a bit.

Two Years

I would do a lot of writing, thinking, teach myself meditation and try to find a way to invent a happiness machine so I could work out whether I’m being happy or not. The hardest thing when you’re on your own is being happy irrespective of technology and the tools you have in your life. So I would work on a happiness machine so that I would come off solitary confinement happier than when I went on.

Five Books

1. Law of Success, Napoleon Hill
2. The Science of Getting Rich, Wallace D. Wattles
3. The Richest Man in Babylon, George S. Clason
4. Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires, Esther and Jerry Hicks
5. Reality Transurfing 1: The Space of Variations, Vadim Zeeland – It’s just becoming known in the west but has sold millions of copies in Russia. It adds a completely different spin on law of attraction and spirituality in a completely different language and approach. Very few people have heard of it but it’s fascinating

 The Law of Success: In Sixteen Lessons: Complete and Unabridged The Law of Success: The Master Wealth-Builder's Complete and Original Lesson Plan for Achieving Your Dreams The Science of Getting Rich Richest Man In Babylon – Original Edition Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires Reality Transurfing 1: The Space of Variations

Movie and Music CD

One music CD would have to be a compilation of 80s music because I was a child of the 80s. I was born in 1969 and it was my teenage years in the late 80s (Journey – Greatest Hits DVD 1978-1997 – Music Videos & Live Performances). In terms of films that is very difficult because I don’t tend to watch movies more than once, and I have a number of favourites. One of them for pure comedy value is Step Brothers (Unrated) with Will Ferrell. That’s the only film that made me laugh before the credits started and it’s a film that you either love or hate. 

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Gary Vurnum: Knowing that I am the only one who can choose what I do with my life. If there are any limitations in my life, they are due to me, which is a scary thing because you start to question yourself. Essentially I’m the one in control, that’s what excites me, if I choose to do something, there is no reason why I shouldn’t be able to do it.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Gary Vurnum: My business life is about that side of things, the best way for me to nurture anything is to teach other people, share it with other people because you learn so much more by trying to teach someone or put it down in words. The way I develop and cope with things – problems or challenge,s is to get it down on paper, and take a step backwards and see how I would suggest other people do it. So I nurture my soul by getting things out of my head and see what other people think.

Avil Beckford: If you had a personal genie and she gave you one wish, what would you wish for?

Gary Vurnum: I would wish that everybody in the world would aspire to be as happy as possible instead of aspiring to be a millionaire.

Avil Beckford: Complete the following, I am happy when…..

Gary Vurnum: The people I love are happy.

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