Today I will have finished writing a new book entitled Crazy Like Foxes and sent it off to the printer. I cowrote it with best-selling author and highly successful Mary Kay national executive Jamie Vrinios.
So why would I co-write a book with Jamie Vrinios, someone I barely knew when the project began?
A little over a year ago, she spoke at our church and I learned of her background and how she overcame some severe obstacles in her life. Subsequently I spoke at one of her business meetings and she followed with her own testimony and it seemed to resonate greatly with the audience. We are two people that early in life nobody, and I mean nobody, would have ever believed or predicted could have accomplished much of anything and yet we did.
The differences between us were obvious. I’m a man and she is a woman. She is young, fiery, and trendy. I’m older, more measured, and reserved. Our similarities however, were obvious as well; we both emerged from nightmarish, abusive childhoods and at young, vulnerable ages, we found ourselves abandoned, alone, and fighting for survival.
Angry and embittered toward life and homelessness, I turned to alcohol, intravenous drugs, and violent crime to deal with my pain. Though Vrinios didn’t choose that route, her situation was desperate. She was severely abused as a child, disowned from her parents and family as a young single mom and struggled with abject poverty living on government assistance and sometimes working as many as three jobs to keep food on the table for her two small children.
In spite of naysayers saying we were crazy to even think of starting our own businesses we both forged ahead starting at absolute rock bottom and fought our way out of our dire circumstances and today we are both übersuccessful by any standard, having raised wonderful families, amassed multimillions of dollars and all that goes with it, not to mention attaining the most important things in life, peace, joy, and love that surpass human understanding.
We were crazy alright, Crazy like Foxes.
People like us are stereotyped as losers and destined to be failures by a callous world. But God has a different opinion of His children, He looked past our situations and saw how we could be with His capable assistance. We turned to God and ignored the naysayers. The common thread for both of us became our new-found faith in Jesus Christ and verses like Phil. 4:13 – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Ours is a genuine “rags-to-riches” story. I was aware that there are many “rags to riches” stories out there, but what makes our concept unique is that despite our tough circumstances early in life and striking personality differences, we’d been able to succeed using very similar methodology. In fact, our stories clearly demonstrate that even people with vastly different backgrounds can follow the same path to success that we followed and succeed. That path begins and ends with making God the focus of our lives.
As we talked about it we became convinced that if with God’s help we could conquer the obstacles that life had presented to us and reach the pinnacle of success, then virtually anyone could! So we set out on the adventure of documenting in our own words (and writing styles) exactly how each of us did it. Crazy Like Foxes is a step-by-step guide that details exactly how we did it and, more important, how YOU can do it. It contains the unique perspectives from two very different people who followed near identical paths that led them to the winner’s circle of life. Giving back is in our DNA, and this book is a part of our quest to help you to likewise wildly succeed and live your dreams beyond your greatest expectation.
I’m very happy to see this book completed. I truly believe that people from all walks of life especially those who have low self-esteem and have been convinced by the world they can never amount to anything will find hope, courage, and a step by step guide on how to succeed in Crazy Like Foxes so they can begin to live their dreams.
The website for pre-ordering the book is: www.Crazylikefoxes.com and it will be up by the weekend. We worked long and hard on this book and I believe it will help people for many years to come, especially those who harbor fear of failure.
2 Tim 4:17
For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
December 8 2016 – Click here to listen