The Allan Pease story

[Andrew_A]

I listened to Allan Pease talk on 5th February this year. I was fascinated by his life story and the struggles he has had. I though I would share my notes.

Body Language:

- Allan's first book "Body Language" was written 27 years ago now (1978).
- He received 59 rejection letters from pulishers.
- A.P was told that "It might work in Australia but 'Body Language' won't work in England."
- A.P Tried 29 publisher in Sydney.
- A.P worked out he was going to be a best selling author.
- Decide what you want to do and then do it despite what other people will tell you.

Allan's success formula:

"Work out what you want to do, then how you can accomplish it will become evident"

Goal setting: The WHAT is the most important!

WRITE A GOAL DOWN and commit then suddenly everything appears.

WHAT -----> HOW -------> RESULTS

- A.P ended up publishing 'Body Language' himself. He visited a group in the U.S called the N.S.A to learn how to self publish. Allan paid for 7000 books to be published. In the beginning Allan visited swap clubs and breakfast clubs to give presentations so that he could sell some copies.
- The first big break came when A.P got to go on Mike Walsh's TV show for 20 minutes. A.P had got on the show by telling Mike he could demonstrate using body language when the the Prime Minister of the day was lying.
- 250,000 people bought the books due to this coverage.
- A.P was now a best selling author. 1 in 6 households were to have 'Body Language' in them.

- It's better to create than compete. When you create you have no competition.

- Through the 1980's life was wonderful for A.P. The money was flowing in by the truckload and he had a great lifestyle and celebrity status. However his accountant had been stealing from him for 5 years. In 1994 A.P realized he had lost everything and was also in debt for 1 million. He went into a deep depression for 3 months over this. Men tend to use what we do for a job as form of self worth and now A.P felt like a terrible failure.
- Bankruptcy was not an option as they take your passport and A.P depended on travel and speaking engagements.
- 45 years old is not a good age to have to start over.
- A.P was very angry with the accountant and launched 200k worth of legal action which eventually recovered nothing.
- During the court case A.P. was threatened by a leading underworld figure.
- Life COULDN'T get any worse.
- A.P went to the doctor and discovered he had tumours on his thyroids. Life had gotten worse. There was a 50% chance that he wouldn't speak again.

Depression: Put a time limit on your depression. Otherwise it can last forever. A.P. set a time limit of 4pm the next Friday, then turned around and faced the future only. He sat down and wrote out his goals for the future.

"A worldwide best author"
"Recover everything"

- To become a worldwide best author A.P needed new books in new markets. The Australian market is really too small, you can be a best selling author and not become rich. Europe has 500 million people and the U.S 250 million.
- A.P and Barbara Pease were down to their last 2k, A.P was happy that he knew that Barbara really loved him and wasn't with him for his money They bought 2 tickets to the U.K and hired a car. They placed a pin in the centre of a map of England and decided to live there. They met a salesman whom they knew in the village and they were able to arrange to stay in a water mill near the village for the next 2.5 years.
- A.P needed a book to pay back the million he owed, he wrote "Rude and Politically Incorrect Jokes" for this purpose. 600k copies were sold and the Pease's were now worth nothing!!

-To write a best seller you need to write what the market wants, not what you want to write. 'Talk Language' 300k, 'Write Language' 200k and 'How to Remember Names and Faces' 110k were all books A.P was very proud of and thought were highly useful but weren't best sellers.
- What does everybody want?
- Ask them! A.P listened to the questions people were asking at seminars and asked the public directly. This resulted in "Why Men don't Listen..." 10 million + copies, 3 million + for the sequel and already 1 million + for the next installment.
- A.P cracked it big time in Germany, Japan and the Czech republic. Success! Life was great again!
- In 2000 during a checkup A.P found out he had cancer. He was given three years to live.

Dealing with cancer and living longer:

- It's very important to work out how long you want to live. Otherwise your brain will get your body to meet the national average.
- In the Tibetan valley some people live to 120 years of age.
- A.P set a goal of living to 90 years of age. 15th August 2040. A.P. wrote his goal down by getting it tatooed on his backside! The tatoo reads "Best before 15th August 2040" He got the inspiration from the dates on food.

- When dealing with cancer. Fire the people who tell you that you can't live. A.P visited 19 different doctors with his prostrate cancer. He decided he would look on the positive side and made jokes for when his prostrate was getting examined.
- Cancer is a massive business. A.P believes if cancer was cured the 'cutters' and 'cookers' in the medical profession would be out of work.
- A.P is considering writing a book "How to Survive Cancer"
- There are examples of spontaneous remission with cancer. A.P thinks that wanting and expecting to live can help this.
- When A.P was 48 he had to go on hormones from the doctor, they removed all the testosterone from his body. So.. A.P got to experience menopause at 48! He started crying uncontrollably and experienced life as a women.
- A.P knew things just weren't right when he was behind a beautiful women on an escalator and when she bent over to collect something all he could think was that it was interesting her panties and socks were matching colours

Cleary defined and written out goals are vital to success.

- If A.P lost everything next week he would now laugh about it. It wouldn't matter as he could just start again.

Always have a full glass in life. . Don't be half full or half empty. Get a smaller glass and be 100% full!

 

[duncan_m]

I listened to Allan Pease talk on 5th February this year. I was fascinated by his life story and the struggles he has had. I though I would share my notes.

Thanks for taking the time to post such great notes! I enjoyed reading that and have bookmarked it to re-read again!

 

[duncan_m]

- A.P is considering writing a book "How to Survive Cancer"

What I find most interesting about our approach to Health and Wellness in Australia is the incredible focus so many of us put on cures and surviving disease.. we put so, so, so much faith in our Medical Profession..

Yet we take so little responsibility for our own wellness. There are such a vast array of steps that we can take to prevent cancer and heart disease (our two biggest killers) in the first place. Diet, exercise, diet, state of mind, diet, avoidance of toxins, diet.. and then of course there's so many cancers that are easily detectable EARLY but so many people choose NOT to even try detecting them early (things like Skin Cancer checks, bowel cancer screening, checking for lumps, etc).

Its barely worth talking about this with so many people, the general reaction seems to be "well, they say one thing this week, but next week its completely diffferent" and the conversation is over, the mental shutters have come down.

I take my hat off to Allan, he's a true legend.. but just had to add this

 

[House_Keeper]

Thanks for this fantastic post Andrew! It's a very inspiring story. There are a few similarities with my experience so far. I wrote a book and published it a while but lacked the skills to market it. This story has inspired me to give it another go later on. I have also been ripped off by my first financial advisor. As much as I wanted to sue him, I found that he set himself up to be legally untouchable. You live and learn.

I also saw Allan Pease do a speech a few years ago. He was very inspiring speaker. His book "Why men don't listen..." is full of interesting stories that every couple would benefit from reading.

Thanks again,

 

[Aceyducey]

Good post Andrew!

Cheers,

Aceyducey

 

[House_Keeper]

What I find most interesting about our approach to Health and Wellness in Australia is the incredible focus so many of us put on cures and surviving disease.. we put so, so, so much faith in our Medical Profession..

Yet we take so little responsibility for our own wellness. There are such a vast array of steps that we can take to prevent cancer and heart disease (our two biggest killers) in the first place. Diet, exercise, diet, state of mind, diet, avoidance of toxins, diet.. and then of course there's so many cancers that are easily detectable EARLY but so many people choose NOT to even try detecting them early (things like Skin Cancer checks, bowel cancer screening, checking for lumps, etc).

Its barely worth talking about this with so many people, the general reaction seems to be "well, they say one thing this week, but next week its completely diffferent" and the conversation is over, the mental shutters have come down.

I take my hat off to Allan, he's a true legend.. but just had to add this

Well said Duncan,

I used to think that you "get" sick, as if it was bad luck. That was until I found myself sick a bit too often to attribute it to bad luck. The doctors and drugs were getting me nowhere.

So I decided to do a bit of research to find out what I could do differently to be healthier. I found what I was looking for in this book "The PH Miracle" from Dr. Robert Young. (Duncan, you might find this book interesting) He explains in a simple and scientific way that most of the diseases we experience are the result of polluting our body with too much toxins. In a nutshell, if we eat mostly fresh green vegetables, and very little processed food, our body will be in a much better state, and will not be vulnerable to many of the sickness that seem to "happen" to us.

Since I understood that, I totally cut down coffee, and significantly cut down alcohol. For breakfast, I have a salad instead of breakfast cereals. Here are the results after a few weeks:
1. No more craving for coffee throughout the day.
2. Feeling much more energy throughout the day.
3. Headaches I used to experience almost daily have gone.
4. I am losing weight
5. I no longer feel tired at the end of the day. I have more energy for my family when I come home from work, and I can do more in the evenings.

To anybody who is feeling sick or tired a bit too often, I would recommend you get a copy a book (from Amazon.com), and ask yourself what change you could do to your diet to start enjoying a better health.

Cheers,

 

[duncan_m]

In a nutshell, if we eat mostly fresh green vegetables, and very little processed food, our body will be in a much better state, and will not be vulnerable to many of the sickness that seem to "happen" to us.

The Western World's diet has gone horribly, horribly wrong and the consequences are proving to be breathtakingly disastrous.

Thanks for the book link, I'll check it out.

 

[keithj]

His book "Why men don't listen..." is full of interesting stories that every couple would benefit from reading.

Coincidentally, I just returned the book to the library at the w/e. There were so many sections where I said 'that's us'. It was so spot on in so many areas.

 

[Jacque]

What an inspiring read! Thanks for sharing this, Andrew