If you asked me what my “Brand” was way back in 1947 when I graduated from High school I would have replied, “Lucky Strike”. That was the brand of the cigarette I smoked. Then in 1976 I decided to become “Mr. Lucky of the American platform.” That was my new brand. I wrote a book titled “Selling Lucky” bought a green and white set of tails with a bow tie. I gave a lot of speeches for some major corporations and state and national associations and it launched my professional speaker and my career as an author.
In 1980 I became intrigued with the concept that most of what we were doing in the field of positive living and success training was rehabilitation. I figured that we could teach the secrets of success to children and their parents and I wrote a series of books and gave hundreds of presentations about my Three Robots, Pos, the happy successful robot, Semi-Pos, the robot who believed in success but wasn’t ready to try it, and about Neg, the negative robot who brightened up the room just by leaving. A newspaper writer came up with my new brand name, “The Wizard of Pos.” Now I had two brands.
When I wrote books and became a national speaker on corporate safety I found that I could go into an organization and win signed commitments to safety from everyone in an organization and that it immediately improved their safety performance then I wrote my book titled “Winning the Safety Commitment”. I then became the “Safety Commitment Guy”. In 2002 the National Safety Council honored me with their Distinguished Service to Safety Award.
I had a great career for over forty years as an author and professional speaker.
Years later for my 80th birthday I took a course on comedy and they convinced me that since I was a dead ringer for Andy Griffith as he looked in his TV Series titled Matlock I should use that resemblance in my comedy. People were always stopping me in airports, restaurants and malls and wherever and insisting that I was the real Andy.
I developed a routine and wrote a book titled “You’re Andy Griffith Aren’t You?” My Adventures as Almost Andy.
“Almost Andy” rode in parades and shook hundreds and hundreds of hands and appeared at the Andy Griffith Theatre four times with short, short comedy bits. We created a DVD, post cards; I did a play and had my photo with our governor in many of the newspapers throughout North Carolina.
Now, at 86, I’d rather be me. If you asked me what my brand was I’m not too sure what to answer. “I’m Jean’s husband.” “I’m little Cy’s step-great-grandfather.” “I’m the guy that writes this newsletter every week.” Take your pick.
Be the first to comment