Thanks to all who have taken the survey I posted last Friday afternoon. The response and willingness to help by providing your input has been remarkable. In only the first few hours, we surpassed the number of responses gathered over an entire week from when we ran it last September. At the end of this post, I'll provide the survey link again for any of you who have yet to take it, or, for any who would like to modify their existing answers in any way.
This first installment of the plan for World Paleo Domination, a description I came up with on the fly the other day, is to provide you with both an introduction to myself, why I'm so interested in doing this, and the whole scope of what I have in mind. I'll tell you up front: it's ambitious, more so than I've ever previously undertaken.
Why me, and where's the benefit to others?
I would never have imagined it. I've been successful at a number of things in my life, from graduating from college, fulfilling a dream to be a US Navy officer and doing well at it, getting to live and travel all over the world, and even to become fluent in a foreign language.
When that chapter of my life closed, I entered the world of business. And it didn't take long to reach a level of success there too. I eventually built a financial services company occupying three physical locations employing 30 employees, as well as a network of sales representatives nationwide.
And in spite of it all, I seemed to feel worse and worse physically and mentally. It showed on the scale. It showed in my approach to dealing with others and it showed in my former political blogging. I was enraged, virtually all the time. And now, I was an enraged fat guy, 70 pounds overweight, with high blood pressure.
Now how many people does that generally sound like? Here's the formula: work hard, obtain some success, trash your body and live your success feeling miserable physically, feeling miserable about yourself, and feeling miserable about your appearance.
So, I guess I have a story to tell. Most of you know how the story has come to pass to the current day so I'll save the whole thing for the book. But the journey will never end, as it's an ongoing journey; but it's a fun, rewarding, easy journey.
I believe that when I tell this story to the many thousands of others who feel at similar dead ends, as I was, it will surely resonate. I know this because people have told me this over and over.
What's the foundation that makes this different?
The fist part of it is to have some guiding principles. First, and let's make no mistake: I plan to enrich myself in doing this. But since I already have a number of ways to make money, this has to be special money. What I mean is that unless I can come away knowing that this is the best quality of money I've ever made, there's simply no use in me doing it.
If you pay attention to comments and if you saw the replies to emails I don't publish on the blog, you'll know I'm fond of responding to the many compliments and thanks I receive by saying that they are "better than money."
While that is absolutely true -- so long as I have enough money to live already -- the compliments and thanks don't pay the bills, they don't bring the satisfaction of a well-earned profit, and most importantly: they don't bring the explosive expansion we'll need to reach others and turn the tide.
So, it's got to be profitable and it's got to be special. We can't afford to cut any corners. It's got to be excellent, valid, easy, fun, and in complete harmony with a natural human life. There can never be any gimmicks, c'mons, cons or frauds, or even the scammy appearance of them.
What are the specifics?
While I could probably keep blogging as-is forever and ever, I get an increasing number of requests for a simple roadmap. Now, suddenly, thanks to readers themselves, the blog has taken on a life of its own: more content being provided by commenters than by me the blogger, more introductions to others to go check it out than I could possibly generate, and a dozen suggestions for post topics for every one I come up with myself. You folks are amazing and to the extent I continue, I'm going to feel a deeper and deeper urgency to create an integrated easy roadmap. No matter how often this simple easy roadmap is revised and updated, it will always be the flagship product because it will always enjoy the widest appeal.
Of course there will be follow-on, or back-end products, and those are highly profitable because they are sold to existing customers whose cost of acquisition has already been paid. But these are of critical importance, because you can't expand unless you have them. The high margins allow for the reaching of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and potentially millions of new people...
The type of "successful" people like me, whom I described above in the first few paragraphs. Yes, this is to some degree about profit, but we can only do it by reaching the masses. I really want to end up with bags and bags full of testimonies of success, notes of thanks, and reports of life-saving. The Paleo life actually works and I want to tell the world about it.
So, what are we looking at, beyond the book, the simple roadmap appropriate for anyone? Seminars; Webinars; Cable TV Show; Cookbooks; TV appearances; Major publishers for follow-on books; Web streaming; Workout guides, and a few other things, but you get the idea. We intend to make the Paleo lifestyle an enterprise.
There are two final aspects I wish to address for this first installment. The first is that there are a lot of other great voices for the Paleo, Primal, Evolutionary Fitness, High Intensity Training, Fasting lifestyle. Let me put it simply: Through these endeavors, I want to help them all. I intend to help them all. If you look at that list of things to do, above, those all can and will incorporate other great voices.
Secondly, there will be an investment opportunity for those qualified to do so. I will detail that in the final installment.
Here's the link to the survey.
You might also like
-
Idiocracy: The Dirty Side of Evolution
-
World Paleo Domination Business Update
- World Paleo Domination – Update
- World Paleo Domination – Part 2
- “Darwin, Evolution and the Paleo Life”
Please spread the word
At the appropriate time, will you be naming a cabinet? I'd like to be in the cabinet of/with the saturated fats. I won't hold out for Secretary though. Maybe secretary to the Secretary. Good luck and God speed Richard. I'll be trailing in your wake.
Here's an example of what I was talking about when I suggested that you have someone who really knows how to spell proofread your anticipated book…
"Complement" is not the same as "compliment."
Just off the top of my head:
When you give someone praise, that is a "compliment." If your wife gives you praise, she "compliments" you.
If something "completes" you, that is "complementing" you. Red and green are "complementary" colors because they are opposite each other on a color wheel, and they mix to form gray.
If your wife is such a great companion that you feel that she "completes" you in some way, she is therefore a "complement" to you.
Probably a lot of people on the internet don't give a shit about spelling things correctly, but if you're going to write and publish a book (and also have it taken seriously), it will definitely help to spell things correctly.
In medicine, for instance, there is a "perineal" area of the body, and a "peroneal" area of the body. Not the same, and it's important to get it right, or someone looks like an idiot.
Also, when people bleat on the internet, "I just want to find someone to 'except' my love," they are writing something that probably means almost the exact opposite of what they intend (accept). I see that all the time.
I say all this partly because I saw a comment on your blog someplace where you said you didn't like some other blogger's frequent typographical errors, and it gave me a raised eyebrow, as in WTF?
BTW, regarding a possible book: I like books which give me a quick way to get into the program, and also explain a lot of why things work. That's one thing I like about the Eades's books. I think that their books are kind of organized that way, so that some folks can just get with the program quickly, and others can read the background information at their leisure (IIRC, they actually say that you can skip Chapter XY if you just want to get right to work).
BTW, I think it would be great if you published a cookbook of some sort, or at least had a nice big section in your book of recipies… not only because your "food porn" stuff makes it look so appetizing, but also because a lot of people who try to eat low-carb, whether or not they are as primal as you are doing, could use a few more ideas about how to have some variety in their meals. It's easy to get bored with eggs, meat, fish and not too many of the other goodies we all used to scarf down.
Bread may not be good for humans, but it sure is convenient for making sandwiches.
BTW, I followed the link provided to another website (Healing Naturally by Bee); I'm working my way through it, and she's advocating going even higher in fat than you are… reaching at least 6 TBSP of coconut oil, on top of all the other good saturated fat one can get down.
If I took a shot in the dark about how to convince the mainstream masses that a paleo diet/lifestyle promotes perhaps the best health, then I think a cable-TV comedy show like "The Daily Show" would work better than books, websites, blogs, etc. These other outlets are great and necessary complements (he he) to a successful and stimulating and gut-splitting cable TV show, but the TV show is what keeps 'em coming back and spreads the gospel by word-of-mouth. Your angle has to be to make it about the evils (intended and otherwise) big pharma companies, the AMA and other government bodies, and the commercial food industry. You need to make fun of them in that sarcastic, yet oh-so-humorous way that John Stewart does and then offer the paleo approach (with the evidence to back it up–such as from your blog, hyperlibid, Stephan's Whole Health Source, etc.) as the "like, duh, of course" alternative. In fact, you could bring proponents from both camps onto the show and roast the big pharma/evil empire AMA types but give special, fun, and entertaining roles to the paleo guests.
That, IMHO, is how you'd get mainstream America on board.
Very insightful, Aaron. Wait until Part 2, coming out later today. The first part is all about TV.
man, a paleolithic/whole foods nutrition company would be downright amazing….
keep the good ideas coming Richard. as far as workouts, you should emphasize the crossfit workouts. I was training with my buddy yesterday 15 minute workout, hard as hell….
some of us need to get some credentials in nutrition too maybe to start book ideas.