I'd Rather Fail Big than Live Small

I just got back from driving through the hillwriting e-books, and running an international online
country and listening to Dan Kennedy interviewbusiness?
Gene Landrum. As a "gold" member of DanEVERYTHING!!!
Kennedy's mentoring service, I get CDs everyI think the most valuable benefit of my internet
few weeks of Dan, or his partner Bill Glazer,marketing lifestyle is the people I get to hang out
interviewing a mega-successful entrepreneur.with. After years of being a loner, I've got a
Lundrum gave Dan a delightful interview full of"peer group!"
amazing stories taken from his books. And heI get to hang out with Joe Vitale, who broke all
made me feel like I belonged to a group, which isthe rules in the book publishing business, and went
a feeling I don't get much- even when I'm hangingto number one twice on the national best-seller
out with musicians. You'd be amazed at howcharts- while the authors who played by the rules
many artists and musicians are just sitting aroundsat around and complained.
waiting to be discovered while they continue to doI get to hang out with Cindy Cashman, who made
the same thing all the other musicians and artistsa million bucks by "writing" and promoting a blank
are doing.book with a great title.
Losers, losing by following losers. Not much of aI get to hang out with Craig Perrine, who has
plan, but it's pretty popular.achieved amazing success by breaking the rules in
Until I discovered the internet marketing world, Ithe internet list-building business.
felt like the only square peg in a world of roundAnd there are many others- the internet
holes. Listening to Dan's interviews makes memarketing is world populated with wild, intelligent,
realize that I'm actually in good company- I'm abrave, and interesting people.
member of a group of entrepreneurs who followThese are the mavericks- the square pegs- I'm
Sam Walton's Rule #1.honored to know them.
Do you know Sam's "Rule #1?" He used it to buildAll my life, I've heard "get a REAL job!"
the most successful retail business in history.The miserable, gray people- the ones trapped in
Do you want to know the secret that he used tothe job they hate (which, according to Dan
make WalMart unstoppable?Kennedy's research, is at least 2/3 of the
Keep reading.population) wanted me to join them in their
His "rule #1" has been my credo all my life, andmisery.
I've caught a great deal of shit for it- it turns outParents. Teachers. Unsuccessful musicians. Bosses
that Ayn Rand, Thomas Edison, Frank Lloyd(musicians have lots of bosses- because we keep
Wright, Henry Ford, H. Ross Perot, Donald Trump,a day-job just long enough to book gigs, then we
Richard Branson, and most of my other heroesmove on).
had the same credo.Television- Trump and Branson have TV shows,
Want to hear a story?and that's a good start... but they're about hiring
Due to a bizarre and surreal series ofemployees! The winners get a JOB!
circumstances, I found myself living the life of aYou can bet your momma's egg money that
high-school drop-out street hippie in 1973. I'd tellDonald Trump doesn't want a job. Richard
you the story, but you wouldn't believe me.Branson doesn't want a job. They didn't get
Kafka's an amateur compared to East Texaswhere they are by working for someone else.
wingnuts- and I got on the wrong side of a townI think they should award prize money to the
full of East Texas wingnuts and had to quitcontestant that tells Donald Trump to take a
high-school at 17.flying f**k at the moon, and starts his own
My best option at the time was to move in withbusiness.
a house full of hippie musicians in the MontroseThe education factories- imagine what would
area of Houston. It was shelter, and we usuallyhappen if schools taught entrepreneurship instead
could scrounge food- Anderson Fair, a spaghettiof wage-slavery? Our whole education system
restaurant that featured folk music, would feedsucks lemons because it's based on a 19th
us in return for a few hours of music, but onlycentury model, and designed to turn out workers-
the zucchini spaghetti.for jobs that haven't been available in decades!
You can live on zucchini spaghetti if you have to.Factories that turn out waves of miserable, gray
We played strip clubs and gay bars. We playedpeople- suffering through the week and living for
for peanuts- literally.the weekend.
After a year or so of this, on a hot and humidWhat would happen if they taught people how to
night, I accidentally drank a quart of mysteriousthink, instead?
tea, which caused me to take a psychic time-out.Family- here's the big one. Anytime my family
When I came back from visiting the red queen, Igets together, I get to hear about how I'm the
realized I needed to go to college.one who's always "coloring outside the lines" from
So, I walked, in the early morning hours, throughone of my relatives- he thinks he's insulting me!
the darkest, most dangerous part of Houston, toThat's the thing I'm proudest of, and the key to
the bus station and took the bus home. I walkedmy success. Nobody ever accomplished anything
into the house as my father was drinking hisimportant, or grand, or OUTRAGEOUS by coloring
morning coffee and announced that I was readyinside the lines.
to go to college.Following the rules is for losers.
Skeptical, he suggested I get a job. After a yearDid you notice the list of heroes I put at the top
or so of manual labor, I finally made my way toof this article? They have a lot of things in
North Texas University- on the strength of acommon:
good SAT score and a better audition with the1. They didn't wait for permission to be great-
piano faculty.they just went ahead and did it.
After a year of cutting down trees, I was2. They didn't worry about credentials or diplomas.
probably the "buffest" piano major on theRichard Branson has an eighth grade education.
campus. While I was there, I designed and -withFrank Lloyd Wright had about three months of
the help of a physics major buddy of mine-formal schooling. All educated successful people,
created the first laser light show in the southwest.regardless of how much "schooling" they have,
We had a running engagement at the Fort-Worthare self-educated. You can't trust the educators
Museum of Science and History.to educate you.
After three years at NTSU, I sent an audition3. They were OUTRAGEOUS! Branson and his
tape to the University of Texas, and gothot-air balloons, and now space flights. Thomas
accepted in their graduate composition program.Edison announcing the light bulb long before he
I still hadn't gotten my high-school diploma,actually had created one. Everybody on that list
technically, I was a high-school drop-out going tolistened to sage advice from the gray people and
grad school.called bullshit on it. Then they went on to create a
I loved college. I ended up with music and Englishbetter world.
minors, but that only tells part of the story. I was4. They made their own rules. And then broke
a photography major, studying under Garythem.
Winnogrand. I studied journalism. I took art5. They had grand failures, followed by grand
classes. I was in heaven. My degree plan was tosuccesses.
not worry about getting a degree. I was gettingI tell my clients at the Your Portable Empire
an education.University, and I'll tell you- there ain't no such thing
After a few years, I got a glimpse of the nakedas failure. It's all data. To succeed BIG you may
under-belly of the modern classical music worldhave to fail big. It's just a stretch of highway- you
and didn't like what I saw. A showdown with amay have to go through some bad road to get
famous composer during a seminar was the finalwhere you're going.
straw.The odds that we will be as successful as
He accused me of prostituting my art by makingThomas Edison or Richard Branson are small,
money writing commercials. What a crock! Thiseven if we try... but if we don't try, there's no
was the same guy who financed his studio bychance at all.
doing sound-effects for shampoo commercials.I'd rather fail big than live small, wouldn't you?
And some of the other ways he prostituted didn'tEspecially knowing that "failing big" is just a stop
have anything to do with his art.on the way to "living large."
I bailed on college, and joined a rock band.And what was Sam's "Rule #1?"
Wouldn't you?Here it is: "Break the rules."
A short time later, we were touring with Cheap******** Pat O'Bryan is the CEO of Practical
Trick, Heart, ZZ Top, The Climax Blues Band- itMetaphysics, Inc., Director of the Milagro Research
was a wonderful, exhausting, amazing experience.Institute, an award winning songwriter, recording
At this point in my life, I was probably the bestartist, visual artist, author, video producer and
educated high-school dropout rock star on theinternet marketer. He is the host and promoter of
planet.the "Your Portable Empire" Un-Seminars.
What's this got to do with internet marketing,