“Ted Nicholas Was the First Hero To Be Interviewed In the In Search Of Heroes Program”
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Ralph Zuranski: What are the qualities and attributes of a
hero?
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Ted Nicholas: I think one of the things, that every hero that I’ve ever known
has, is the terrific ability to communicate their ideas and their values. The late Miss Rand had those qualities in
great abundance.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, did you believe
that eventually your dreams would become reality?
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Ted Nicholas: Yes, I did. I remember speaking about my early dreams
with my parents that I wanted to start a chain of retail shops, which I
achieved. I wanted to ultimately
become, somehow or other, a best selling author. I pursued both of those dreams and they came true. During my late teen years and my early
twenties, I was a great "letter to the editor writer."
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I
enjoyed writing letters to the editor because I liked expressing my ideas on
world and local issues and the like. I’ve seen the impact of my work. You know, it’s interesting. People that are hearing and watching this
interview should be aware of the fact that, and it’s a beautiful fact and has
helped me maintain my optimism and that is, that each person listening to us
can make a huge difference.
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A
lot of people feel that well, who am I.
I’m only one voice. Am I a voice in the wilderness and so forth and
that’s just not a good or realistic way to look at things. Each individual has such power over other
humans, such potential power. It reminds me of one of my favorite movies,
"It’s a Wonderful Life" with James Stewart. The whole movie was dedicated, if you recall, to that whole
concept of how one individual’s life made such a difference.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, in most people’s
lives, especially in the relationship between men and women, has your
significant other, Bethany, had a big influence in your life?
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Ted: She has had an enormous influence
in my life. She reminds me, from a
value and integrity standpoint, of another hero, who was my grandmother. Bethany is closest to my grandmother in
character more than anyone that I have ever known and not in looks, of course,
but in character. She is a person who
is tremendously loyal. I am a great
admirer of people who are loyal to people that they respect.
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She is so loyal to
me. She would, in effect, take a bullet,
which I would of course never ask her to do. But she would do anything for me,
to help me and just help me advance my work. She is not only a beautiful women
physically, but she has such tremendous integrity that it comes out of every
pore.
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So, she has been a
great influence. In fact, we are
together almost twenty-four hours a day.
To be honest, before I met her and we’ve been together for eighteen
years, I didn’t think it was possible to be in anyone’s company for that long.
Because I love people that I love, and like to be in their company, but at the
same time, I enjoy my solitude and I like to, as you know, I write a lot of
things and of course I need peace and quiet.
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But Bethany is the
type of person that she can be right next to me at the next desk or in the next
room and she knows when I’m
concentrating and she senses that it’s time for a little peace and quiet and
gives me the peace and quiet when I need it.
So, it’s her integrity, her loyalty, her contribution.
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She’s also the best
editor that I’ve ever worked with, which is such a bonus because it’s wonderful
to be able to write things, you know and writers are not the best editors, and
she can look at what I’ve done and make good suggestions and help with the
grammatical portion of it and all of those very important things.
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She may even make
suggestions at times on the whole sales message that I’m trying to put
forth. She has just been invaluable to
me and then her support and all at the seminars. She helps prepare all of my materials. I prepare different materials for every single seminar. No seminar is exactly the same, as you know
Ralph. Because questions bring out
different material and I just like adding new material all the time in my
seminars. I state things in a little different way at each seminar. So, she’s been a tremendous contributor in
my work.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted Nicholas, do you
have the courage to pursue new ideas?
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Ted Nicholas: Yes, I do. I’ve found that I’m a big believer in the
concept of just going forward or a "ready, fire, aim" kind of
approach to life. So when I have an
idea I think it through, and I write it down. I have my own technique. The old
"Ben Franklin Technique" where I write down the pluses and minuses of
every major idea that I pursue, and when there is an overwhelming amount of
plusses and the negatives that I can think of, or the minuses that I can think
of are not very big monsters, I do like to go forward right at that point.
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Ralph Zuranski: Mr. Nicholas, did you
ever create a secret hero in your mind that helped you deal with life’s
difficulties?
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Ted Nicholas: First of all, please call
me Ted.
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Ralph Zuranski: Okay, I will. Thank you.
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Ted Nicholas: A secret hero, my hero,
greatest hero, the greatest influence of my life was the late author, Ayan
Rand, who wrote "Then Shrugged the Fountain Head." She has been my
secret hero because she is a person of great integrity and she influenced
millions of people. As a matter of
fact, I think her books are still, next to the Bible, the most influential
book. For example, they are used by advanced students at universities.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, I’ve attended four
of your seminars and at each of the seminars, you’ve talked about entrepreneurs
being your heroes. Could you talk a
little bit about that subject?
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Ted Nicholas: Of course. The entrepreneurs are heroes. It’s not
widely known, I’m afraid. I wish it
were. That entrepreneurs are heroes.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, were you willing
to experience discomfort in the pursuit of your dream?
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Ted Nicholas: Absolutely. I learned a long time ago that delayed
gratification is necessary for every human being to achieve a lot. For every hero that I’ve ever known, they
have patience and willingness. They have a kind of an impatient patience, if
you will. I mean, if you ask me if I’m
more patient or impatient, I would say that I’m more impatient, but yet there’s
kind of a deep patience in that I’m willing to keep trying and trying until I
get the result that I want.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, do readily forgive
those who upset, offend and oppose you?
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Ted Nicholas: That’s a very good
question. I do now much more so than I
ever did before. I spent a good part of
my life not forgiving people who had hurt me, both in my family and people that
I interacted with through life, and I found out that that’s just such a
negative waste of energy and what I use are daily affirmations.
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Because words, of
all kinds, not only that you write and things that you hear influence you, but
words that you say to yourself are a tremendous influence to your subconscious,
which is even more powerful than your conscious mind. So, one of my affirmations is, "I forgive the people that
have hurt me in the past. I presently
forgive them for all of these things that they’ve done to me and for me."
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, what is your
perspective on goodness, ethics, and moral behavior.
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Ted Nicholas: Well again, integrity. It
keeps coming to mind in the direction of these questions, which I really
like. I think these questions are
really good. To me, I think of an
individual who exudes love for other human beings. Honesty, it just comes out
of every pore and the willingness to help and to understand something I think
few people understand. I spent a good part of my life fully integrating and
understanding this and that’s the difference between what I call positive
selfishness and negative selfishness.
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A lot of people
confuse the two in their thinking and how they deal with people. I think what
we all can’t wait to get away from are individuals who are negatively selfish,
who in effect, are asking us to sacrifice ourselves for their interests. For example, selling products or services to
us when they have no concern for us, the end consumer, but they have concern
for their interests. That’s negative
selfishness and I’m totally opposed to that.
On the other side
of that coin and totally opposite is the person who is positively selfish, who
is willing to work hard to create a product or service that is much more
valuable to humanity and much more valuable to their customer than the cost or
price.
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In fact, what I try
to do in my own life is have all of my information products, books, tapes, and
seminars to be at least ten times and just what I’ve seen in the real world, a
hundred times or more valuable to my protégés or students or customers than
whatever they invest in the products.
To me, those are parts to the question that you just asked me.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, how do people
actually become heroes?
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Ted Nicholas: Well, I think you become
a hero through mastering something, mastering the field that turns you on, the
field in which you have passion. To be
a hero is not easy, but it well worth the effort. A lot of people are looking for the easy way, the lazy way, and
the shortcut way instead of realizing that there are no shortcuts in life. You have to pay the price; you have to have
self-discipline. You have to do all
these things.
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When I say that, I
hasten to add, that self-discipline, in my opinion, is a highly overrated skill
or quality of a human being. People
think that I’m such a great self-disciplined person and I am in many ways. I am in many ways, but I think the best
thing about self-discipline that makes it not so tough, and as a matter of fact
remarkably easy, is that good habits in life tend to become good actions which
tend to become habits.
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At first, it may be
tough to study a certain amount of time each day or practice your skills a
certain amount of time and you just keep practicing them until you just get
good at what you do. I, for example,
have almost no natural skills in sports, but I have been able to accomplish a
lot, to win a lot of tennis trophies and things like this more from just the
effort and discipline that I put on myself.
It becomes a habit that then enables you to have the kind of results
that you can have.
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In writing for
example, I don’t feel that I was endowed.
I was always able to communicate fairly well, but I think that I’ve
gotten better and better by practicing and by being an individual. Also in speaking, I don’t consider speaking
and writing worlds apart as many people seem to think that those are to
be. I think that communication is
communication, and I’m a very much of a studier of communication. So I study
communication, and I get better at it and it becomes a habit.
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So now, Bethany
will ask me sometimes, my significant other, she will ask me, "Why are you
working so hard? You could have retired a long time ago. Don’t you think about
slowing down or taking it easy?" Well
frankly, I’m so used to the pace and the kind of habits that I practice every
day, part of me is afraid that I will lose some of those skills that I’ve
worked so hard to develop unless I continue to do the things that I do.
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Again, it’s such a
habit that it’s almost impossible to break.
Additionally, I’m an individual that has an addictive personality and
I’m afraid to try things like drugs, because I’m afraid I might like them too
much and become addicted to them. So
rather than do that, I addict myself, try to addict myself to things that are
good for me, such as exercise, such as the kind of diet that I try to
follow. I don’t do anything 100%; I
think it’s dangerous because it makes you an unhappy person.
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I think that ten
percent of my diet is whatever I want to have. So, I think that if you develop
the habits that are necessary for you to become a master, that’s really the
secret.
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Ralph Zuranski: How does it feel to be
recognized as a hero?
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Ted Nicholas: It feels fantastic. One of the things that it took me a long
time to learn is the ability to accept a compliment when I feel the compliment
may have some truth behind it. I know that what I do and how I do it is not a
common attribute in a lot of people; I’ve worked hard for it. It’s nice to be recognized for those
things.
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On the other hand I
do it, and while I’m highly compensated, and I’m also a big believer in charity
and that’s a whole other subject, I’m highly compensated in what I do, which
I’m not looking for, for personal spending in my life because long ago that
ceased to be a problem, I like being recognized for what I consider the things
that I admire in myself. I like it when others, who I respect, recognize
it.
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I particularly like
recognition as a hero from people who I consider my heroes, like entrepreneurs
and others who are working hard to build their lives. So, I enjoy it and I want
to keep doing what I’m doing better and better and hopefully be recognized for
the rest of my life.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, do you maintain
your sense of humor in the face of serious situations?
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Ted Nicholas: Well, I like to think
that I do. I think my sense of humor is
a lot better when I’m not facing or not dealing with one of the more serious
challenges in life. But I think even with a serious challenge, I keep myself
whole and that I maintain a sense of humor at that point.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, how are you able
to overcome your doubts and fears?
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Ted Nicholas: I am able to overcome
doubts and fears by just trying and seeing the result. I work very hard in seeing the result. I
have read all of these biographies and autobiographies and they have influenced
me; the greatest people in American business in the past, such as John
Wannamaker, Milton Hershey, Bernard Gimble, and Henry Ford to name a few.
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I could see that
these individuals had had a tremendous amount of setbacks and they somehow
maintained their optimism even though they had had these enormous and
incredible setbacks and failures. What
I wanted to do, in effect, was arm myself for the disappointments in life on
the business side. I wanted to make
myself, in effect, failure-proof and to survive whatever happened to me because
I did not come from a wealthy background.
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I came from a very
poor background and I knew that I was going to have some setbacks along the way
and that I would survive it and be okay.
So, a lot of people who have experienced those kinds of things in their
lives have, through books, become some of my heroes. Because of them, I could
develop that "failure-proofness" if you will, if there is such a
word.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, what place does
the power of prayer have in your life?
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Ted Nicholas: The power of prayer is an
enormous influence. I pray everyday and
I can say with all of the conviction of my soul that every prayer on every
major issue that I’ve had that involved me personally, my family, all the
things that I love, every single prayer that I’ve ever stated, in my
subconscious has been answered. Every
single one has been answered. So, the
role of prayer to my mind is extremely powerful.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, do you take a
positive view of setbacks, misfortunes, and mistakes?
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Ted Nicholas: I would say 99% of the
time I do. I have to keep reminding
myself of the principles that I so believe in, that I live my life by. But, I would say yes. Almost 100% of the time I do because I learn
from my mistakes. I know that a couple of setbacks that I’ve had in business,
like the one I talked to you about earlier where I had to close a business that
was once so successful, you know.
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I started
twenty-one businesses before I started writing and nineteen of them were hugely
successful. Two were not. I know from
those experiences that I learned much from my setbacks, what other people call
failures, than from all of the other successes put together. So that being the
case, I’m in effect insulated much more so than many people are with regard to
setbacks and failures.
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I’m also aware
statistically, since I’ve studied biographies all of my life of very successful
people, heroes, real heroes in the world, that they’ve had far more setbacks
and failures and successes. So for
instance, a lot of people know me for my copywriting, for my work, for my
communication skills and even I, more of my ads do not work or do not close
profits for my companies or my client companies. I have a very high batting
average, but I don’t have a 100% success record anymore than a baseball player
goes up and hits a homerun every time they go to bat. When you are creating a
message of any kind, whether you call yourself a copywriter, or you’re a
speaker or you’re just a human being communicating your message with other
people, you have to find ways or words and techniques to get that message
across to other people in ways that’s hearable to them and understandable by
them. So, that’s how I take that issue.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, what principles
are you willing to sacrifice your life for?
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Ted Nicholas: Well, for the principle
of freedom, I’m willing to put my life on the line to help people to be
free. I cherish personal and individual
freedom in my life and I cherish it in the lives of other humans and of course,
in all of those that I love, like my children and my grandchildren.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, do you experience
service to others as a source of joy?
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Ted Nicholas: Yes, I do experience
service to others as a source of joy.
It can be said in a lot of ways, but I like the law of reciprocity where
I don’t believe there is any negative energy in the universe when you put
yourself out there and you help. You get back so much. One of the great things you get back is
feedback and evidence where you put forth your energy, your ideas; it comes
back and rewards you. In that sense, it gives me a great sense of joy.
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People a lot of
times don’t give you immediate feedback about your influence in their
lives. That’s okay. I know when I’m giving feedback. See, this is one of the things that I like
about giving the seminars that I do. I
endeavor to put more information into my seminars on marketing, communications,
on copywriting than anyone else on the planet has done, or will do, or is
willing to do.
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I know that I’m
doing that whether the people in the audience, you know, it has often been
said, "When the student is ready, the teacher appears." As long as I
know that in my heart, but it makes it even more joyful when I get feedback
from people who are applying the lessons that I’m putting forward in my work.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, I would like to
ask you a question. What is your
definition of heroism?
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Ted Nicholas: Well to my mind, heroes
are people who are masters of what they are doing and are individuals who have
unlimited personal integrity. As I
travel around the world, there are not many people who, in fact it is a very
rare talent to have to both mastered your craft and delivered it or served it
or functioned in that craft with a sense of great integrity, concern with and
for other people. The ones that are the
greatest heroes are the ones that are the most help to other humans along the way.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, are you an
optimist?
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Ted Nicholas: I consider myself
definitely an optimist. I don’t
deliberately think, "Well, I’m not going to be an optimist or a
pessimist." I do see things, to a large extent, through "rose-colored
glasses." At times perhaps if I
err, it is on the optimistic side.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, do you have a
dream or a vision that sets the course of your life?
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Ted Nicholas: Yes, my dream is that the
whole world will be free, every country. There will be no tyrannies or
dictatorships. What has to happen in
order for that to happen is the undiscovered heroes of this world,
entrepreneurs in my judgment, if my work can influence entrepreneurs to even a
greater degree that even I influence people now.
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I have millions of
readers, so I’ve influenced people a lot, but as my work spreads and as I
continue hopefully to get better in refining my message, my dream is that I
will be one of the people to help individuals all over the world to be free or
more successful. To just be one of the
leaders in that direction, just turns me on; it keeps me going.
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One of the things
that I am so excited about, every time I get letters, almost everyday, from
people who give me credit for making such a big impact on their lives and for changing
their lives and in many cases they deserve the credit. I don’t, because they
acted on my work or my ideas. It just
makes me feel so good and proud to be part of that process.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, if you had three
wishes for your life and for the world that would instantly come true, what
would they be?
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Ted Nicholas: Number one, that every
single country got rid of their dictators so that everybody would be free. Number two, that the individuals were free
to become and interested in becoming entrepreneurs. I believe that there is an entrepreneur in the heart of everyone,
inside the fiber, inside the being of everyone and for more people to recognize
the true heroes are the entrepreneurs who are creating the jobs.
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You know, 90% of
all new jobs are created by entrepreneurs, not big businesses. When people understand that entrepreneurship
is the only real way to create wealth, not to spend by the people who create
it, although that’s part of the joy of it, part of the joy, but I think most of
the joy is all of the great things you can do with it and charitable activities
and your church activities, if that is what you are motivated to do with your
wealth. I just think that’s a fantastic
thing.
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The third thing
that I would like to see people do is recognize that their number one asset is
their health and when I look at Americans, 60% of which are obese and that’s
spreading like wild, that issue of obesity all over the world. People need to realize that their life is
finite, that they can extend their lives by being healthy. We’re within ten years of breakthrough, more
breakthroughs where we will all live to be 120 years or more, barring accidents
and that sort of thing. So when more
people recognize that health is a value that we are pursuing, they watch their
exercise, their diet and they also learn that the mental food, what you feed
yourself is so critical. I would like
it if 100% of the world were on that premise.
We would have even a better world if all of those three things happened.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, when was the
lowest point of your life and how did you change your life’s path to one of
victory over all obstacles?
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Ted Nicholas: Well, the lowest point of
my life, I’ve been very blessed that I haven’t had any real severe lows, I guess
the closest I’ve come to the lowest point is after many years is when I started
my first business at age twenty-one. I
was voted outstanding businessman in my state at age twenty-nine and I felt
much honored.
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A couple of years
after that, a long series of events, most of which were out of my control, I
was in the candy and ice cream business at the time. Two of my many stores were
bypassed and I lost a lot of volume. I
couldn’t replace it because there were new toll roads that were taking the
traffic away from my shops. I started a
franchise business and I basically had to close the business and it was very
painful to me because some of my franchisees, some of my suppliers were hurt
financially and although they almost all forgave me immediately for the
circumstances that caused that, for me, I felt emotionally very low during that
period.
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So I would say that
is kind of the ultimate depth that I felt.
I felt that, rock bottom, that many of the things that I believed in and
still do were, how do I say it, I questioned some of the things that I so
believed in at those moments. I had
some questions; I had a lot of thinking and feeling to get through that period.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, who are the heroes
in your life?
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Ted Nicholas: The heroes in my life are
mostly authors of books and a few speakers and I will identify a few of them.
Some are the business men who were the early pioneers in America. I think that America is really the country
that has shown that entrepreneurship, given free reign, can produce miraculous
results.
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The early people,
like Andrew Carnegie, Bernard Gimble, and Henry Ford and others that I’ve
mentioned in other interviews that I’ve done with you are the ones that are my
heroes, because they have shown me not only great accomplishment but that
setbacks or failures did not dissuade them from ultimately succeeding.
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But in addition,
there have been a few seminar speakers that have been highly influential to
me. I was privileged, for example, to
be in the audience of Napoleon Hill, before he passed away. He spoke from the
platform and ultimately his books that I read were greatly influential to me.
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Also greatly
influential to me was the late Joe Cossman.
When I was in my mid-twenties, there was a fellow by the name of; I believe
it was E. Joseph Cossman who wrote a book called "How I Made a Million
Dollars in Mail Order." I went to
his seminar and what I was so impressed by, is here is this millionaire,
good-looking, articulate fellow who was so interested in the audience and what
the audience got out of his presentation that I made him a personal hero.
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I had the wonderful
privilege of speaking with him on the platform of a cruise that we were on. As
a matter of fact, a marketing cruise in about 1998 or 1999. I got to meet him and interact with him
personally, and I was so pleased that he considered me one of his heroes. So it
was a great relationship.
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Other heroes to me
have been sports heroes. I’ve always
been interested in physical things and sports and I’ve liked people like Bill
Tilden, reading about him and seeing his videos. Great tennis players, I’m very
interested in tennis. Also baseball
players like Babe Ruth have been tremendous heroes.
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Football players
and also football coaches have been great heroes of mine. My high school coach was such a hero. He was Russell Coleman, who later became the
principal of the school. I had to be on
a team and we were state champions in our particular division. He was just such
a disciplinarian. I learned the concept
from him of "tough love."
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He was so tough,
such a disciplinarian, but at the same time, he loved us. He could be tough with us and he loved
us. I’ve tried to be in life, working
with employees and all, to be loving with all my people but also expecting a very
high standard. If the people were not living up to, not just my standard but a
standard that they and I had mutually developed, if they didn’t live up to it,
I tried do be a executive or entrepreneurial leader that was like my coach. I
learned a lot of that from my coach.
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Basically what I
learned was that I could be kind and loving as well as tough at the same
time. So those were just a few of some
of my major heroes.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, who do you think
are the heroes today that are not getting the recognition that they deserve?
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Ted Nicholas: The first ones that come
to mind, since we were just talking about children, are sports heroes. I think
sports heroes are tremendous for children.
The people that are setting records, breaking homeruns, for example
people that are coming close to it like
Sammy Sosa, and others who came here as immigrants. He seems to be a very kind
and good person and a good parent. I
remember the retired John Elway, the former NFL quarterback and "Hall of
Famer." I think he is
tremendous.
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I have had occasion
to do some things for the Make a Wish Foundation that he was very much a part
of and supporting them. He is a
terrific hero to look up to as a great NFL Champion. I think the tennis players, some of the top ones, are wonderful
heroes like the current number one, Roger Federer and Andrea Agassi who has
just been a terrific influence on so many kids, so many young people. So, many of the sports legends I feel are
great heroes.
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Michael Jordon has
of course influenced so many people from lower income backgrounds, because
lower income kids tend to play a lot of basketball in neighborhoods and so
forth. He is a tremendous hero. But then I think, also of authors again, who
I think are terrific heroes.
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I think to be a
children’s author means that you are a special hero, because what I like about
children and authors that write for children, like Rowling and others, is that
you have to be a person of special integrity. Kids can see through dishonesty
better than adults. There’s like a
dishonesty filter and we adults can be more easily influenced by someone who
may not have great integrity, but kids seem to see that.
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So the children’s
writers are terrific heroes for children, I feel. Then of course, the entrepreneurs that are very good in the world
are also very good examples in our lives.
Individuals who are thinkers along their own path and people who
influence so many people are heroes, like Bill Gates for example, Richard
Branson, and the publisher heroes that may not be as well known in celebrity
status. But, people like my friend Bill
Bonner of Agora Publishing.
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He publishes
pro-freedom and pro-entrepreneurial work.
Tom Phillips of Phillips Publishing and Bill Bonner are tremendous
heroes who are helping to spread ideas.
So the idea spreaders, if you will, are tremendous heroes. Just to name a few that I think are terrific
are the people on the stage, who talk from the stage, who influence a lot of
people, such as Peter Lowe, who is a seminar attendee of mine.
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He does the biggest
seminars in America right now. He is
the promoter of Zig Ziglar and he is a very good speaker himself. They are terrific heroes bringing heroes
like retired General Schwarzkopf, for example to speak at his seminars. I just think those people are tremendous
heroes.
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Ralph Zuranski: Ted, why are heroes so
important in the lives of young people?
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Ted Nicholas: Oh, heroes are crucial
because they are the individuals that people consciously or subconsciously
encourage us. I think it’s very
important for young children to know heroes, the kind of heroes who are great.
It is important for young children to know who the heroes are. As parents I think the greatest thing that
you can do is expose your child to very good heroes, excellent heroes, and top
heroes.
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Ralph Zuranski: Who helped give you the
willpower to change things in your life for the better?
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Ted Nicholas: Well, there wasn’t any
outside help. I had to develop my own willpower. But again, my heroes are the authors of books. I think that there are two basic ways to
learn. The best ways to learn are to
discover information through books and in today’s age, seminars and to utilize
those things in your life. So, when I
went through the process of reading, studying, going to seminars and learning
things myself, these people, these things helped me the most.