W07.02 What Do You Say To Your Mail List Members?

Hi,

I’m Jeremy.

Welcome to my mail list.

(see it over there on the right?)

Until I got married and had two kids, I didn’t care much about money. I got by, had fun and struggled – looking back I can see it was not as wonderful as I imagined it was.

I got my wake call in New York, at the same time Boris Yeltsin was standing on a tank in Moscow. I was staying in the Upper West Side at a guy’s apartment  (I forget his name now –maybe he is reading my blog?). He kindly agreed to let me pay the rent at the end of my stay (which I did) because I had no money.

To eat, I would use my Amex card at the local grocer shop, with no idea how I was going to pay it when the bill came through next month. I was in New York to study with Voice Coach, Miller Lide on the East side. Miller was helping me develop my American accent, as I had a role in my first feature film as an American TV producer. Half way through my stay, the film project was cancelled.

I was so depressed, that I dragged myself out of bed every morning to run around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park so I would not sink down too low. I remember one day looking at myself in the mirror, with tears streaming down my face, wondering who this person was: why had he failed to support and love me in the way I deserved?

I slunk back Sydney, and Len – a gay actor friend who later died of AIDS – let me sleep on his floor, as I had no money for rent. I was an Alexander Technique teacher of 10 years standing – already famous in our small community as Publisher and Editor of DIRECTION Journal – and I was reduced to bumming off my friends. As an Editor I had learnt how to use PageMaker for layouts, so I trafficked that to find employment. I finally got offered a job - a low level clerk at the bottom of the office feeding chain.

And yet, I remember how joyful I felt on my first day of work.

I should have been feeling ashamed – here I was, an Alexander Technique teacher working anonymously as a clerk. But I wasn’t – I was joyful, because I felt useful again. I was doing something that was constructive, that supported me, that used my intelligence and gave me hope for the future.

At that time I decided – I am never, ever going to be here again. I decided I will become the most successful Alexander Technique teacher that has ever lived on this planet. I told my Self I will end up earning a million dollars a year, and I will live the life I want to live.

That was 23 years ago, and now I am ready to help you do the same. I have not yet achieved a million dollars a year, but I can see a clear path there. Besides, it is not the million dollars that matters to me – it is what it represents in achieving the spread of Alexander's work. Walter Carrington once wrote that Alexander's discoveries are on par with those of Darwin and Einstein in terms of their long term impact on the lives of ordinary people.

I am in total agreement with that.

The other point about setting an outrageous financial goal – which I recommend you do – is that it compelled me to tear open the box of my beliefs, and step outside into a world I barely knew existed. If you think money is dirty, just look at the amazing job Bill Gates is doing with his staggering wealth: the eradication of Polio by 2018 is on target. Money has no inherent goodness or badness, so wanting a lot of it does not say you are greedy. It can equally say you are in training to become of one the greatest philanthropists to have ever graced our earth.

The purpose of this list, the purpose of my life, is to gather those people who share my dream, and find out how together we can lift our lives in a way that lifts the lives of others through disseminating Alexander's discoveries.

It is a life worth living, don’t you think?

The first principle in our work is that you can only help others to the degree you can help your Self. What I discovered in New York is that without financial health, I am not able to help others. How can a teacher exist without students? From them a teacher receives financial health – so the rent is paid, healthy food is available and rest is a possibility. And then you can teach.

So my promise to you is I will do everything in my power to help you help your self be the Alexander Technique teacher you want to be. I want for you – if you want this too – that your work will touch the lives of thousands, millions of people. That your life teaching Alexander's discoveries will truly change this world into a better place for all of us to live.

Jeremy Chance

February 12, 2013

Meguro, Tokyo, Japan

BTW – If you have not joined my list yet, the box has now appeared at the very top, on the right hand side. I will be offering stuff in my list that does not appear on my blog – like this rant which you will receive when you first subscribe! My list is for the insiders that are willing to wheel and deal with me: come join us on an exciting journey… Put you name in the box and click “Sign Up”!

See you on the other side…

TOMORROW: How To Use Your Mail List To Develop Your Service Product.

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www.facebook.com/AlexanderTechniqueCareerSuccess