Dear Friend,
In just a few moments I am going to “bare my soul” by telling you a series of intensely personal stories about my life. As I relate them to you, I will do far more than tell you about my success … I will introduce you to your own.
But before we go there, let me ask: How would you like to go through each and every day with an over-powering feeling of success coursing through your veins? How would you like to attract success to yourself like bits of steel drawn to a magnet?
How would you like to end ALL self-sabotage once and for all? To blast through ANY and ALL obstacles? To overcome fear, guilt, worry, self-doubt as well as the pangs of previous mistakes and failures? To achieve anything and everything you earnestly desire from life – faster and easier than most people can possibly believe?
Sound too good to be true? It’s not.
But I will agree with you on one thing: Many of us have been sold a bill of goods about life having to be a struggle, filled with nothing but endless years of hard work, heartache, pain and agony. Yet, the truth of the matter is that the mega-successful people have always found a way to hit their targets and goals without all the drudgery so many people accept as “the way it is.”
I should know.
Matt Furey winning a world kung fu championship in China.
My name is Matthew Furey and I’ve been studying “success” for most of my life. While in college I won a national collegiate wrestling title; years later I became a world kung fu champion (in fact I am the only American to ever win a world kung fu title in China, beating the Chinese at their own game). I am a best-selling author, a very successful entrepreneur and a top-notch speaker. I have been featured on the cover of several martial arts magazines and my articles in these magazines as well as my daily emails, draw customers from over 140 countries.
Now, I realize that you might be thinking: “That’s all well and good, but what’s that got to do with me?”
Good question. And the answer is my success has everything to do with YOU. Why? Because success leaves clues. No one succeeds by accident. And no one succeeds without standing on the shoulders of giants. I am no exception. You’ll see what I mean when you read about my struggles earlier in life.
Before I Learned The Secret of Success – Life Was Not So Rosy
In case you’re impressed with my credentials – bear in mind that before I learned “the secret” to real and lasting success, everything was a struggle. I had no money. I had no good friends. I had a dead-end job. One failed relationship after another. And what bugged me more than anything is that I had desires I wanted to fulfill – and I didn’t even have the drive to take action to make them a reality.
I’ll get into this in more detail shortly – but for now suffice it to say that I have lived in poverty. I know what it’s like to have no money left in my wallet – or my bank account. I know what it’s like to be tens of thousands of dollars in debt. And I know what it’s like to be so hungry that I looked through old containers of coins to see if I could scrounge up enough money to afford another meal.
I know what it’s like to fail. I know what it’s like to be humiliated and embarrassed in front of tens of thousands of people in the heat of athletic competition. I know what it’s like to be crushed, so overcome with grief from an unwanted loss that I viewed myself as a failure.
“Outer Scars”
I also know what it’s like to be scarred and disfigured from an event that “should not have happened to me.” Today I live with the reminder: a face that was heavily scarred more than 20 years ago – when an insane drunk violently struck me across the face with a glass beer pitcher and laughed as it shattered against my innocent skin. I was in a crowded college bar when this happened, and to this day I can still hear the horrifying screams of young girls who saw blood gushing from me like a fire hose.
A few hours later, while in emergency surgery at University Hospital in Iowa City, I remember summoning the courage to ask the doctors how I looked. They had already cleaned the glass fragments from my face, as well as my eye, and were beginning to stitch me up when I said, “Could you tell me how I look?”
“Well,” the doctor replied. “Right now your face looks like a jigsaw puzzle.” And that it did.
There Is Light At The End of the Tunnel
As a result of this incident, there was significant scarring as well as skin loss and nerve damage which made it almost impossible for me to completely close my right eye. In addition to that, I developed a facial tic or twitch that I was unable to control.
And so, believe me when I say that I know what it’s like to live with inner turmoil; to lack confidence in oneself.
I know what it’s like to look in the mirror and want to look the other way. I know what it’s like to think that I would never find love; that no woman would ever love me; that, with my looks, I would never fulfill my lifelong desires, which included becoming a champion athlete, as well as an author and “professional” speaker. Most people are scared to death of public speaking, right? Well, imagine having to give a speech with a face that twitches when you don’t want it to. Don’t you think that would make you a little bit self-conscious? Not to mention it being a major distraction for your audience?
But do you know what? There’s a way out. There’s a way up and over and through all the unpleasant circumstances you may find yourself in during your journey here on earth. It may be easier to focus on this other place if we simply call it “the light at the end of the tunnel.”
I know what it’s like to walk toward that light. And I know what it’s like to emerge all the better for having the courage to take the risk, to make the decision for the good life, to “go for it” regardless of all my so-called imperfections and limitations.
Now, there are many things I can tell you about myself that I believe you can relate to. But before I go into more detail – I want to say that I sincerely hope you are moved and inspired by my words. I tell my story, not to brag or boast – but to show you the ever-expanding range of possibilities available to you if you simply take the time to learn how to focus on what you want and once you have the idea in mind, to go get it – no matter what your personal list of reasons or excuses may be.
How I Got My First Job
In February of 1987, right out of college, I applied for several jobs. Although I was a national collegiate wrestling champion and expert in the realm of fitness, I couldn’t get a gym to hire me if I paid them to do so. Prospects were grim. In fact, they were so bleak that I simply gave up and started a business. I started from scratch, doing so with zero experience.
Incredibly, for a reason unbeknownst to me at the time, the clients and money came to me with ease. Every day was one of excitement. New people called, then dropped by my gym (which was in the second story of a warehouse, right above a mechanic’s shop). I didn’t even know what to say to “sell them” – but, I suppose, because I was sincere (especially with my facial twitch), they trusted me with a credit card to reserve their slot. In spite of all my shortcomings and lack of people skills, that first year felt like magic. But then reality changed. A year later things were no longer smooth sailing. I couldn’t put my finger on why the same business that I now had “experience” it was getting harder and harder. And with each passing year, despite my study of every self-help book, course and seminar I could find – I just wasn’t able to advance in the direction of my goals.
“Why is everything so hard compared to when I started?” I often wondered aloud. I When I began everything flowed to me effortlessly. I was in “the Zone.”
What did I need to do to get myself back in that “Zone?”
Re-Entering the Zone
Six years after I started my own business, which up til then was really what you would call a “buy-job” – I re-entered the zone. The year was 1993.
After failing in yet another relationship, I made a decision to consciously choose the type of woman I wanted to have in my life. Due to my love of Chinese martial arts, I figured that I would be most compatible with a special someone from that culture. Well, one thing led to another and before I knew it, instead of finding a Chinese lady in the Bay Area of California, where I lived at the time, I ended up corresponding with a woman who lived in Mainland China.
It’s a long story, actually – but let me give you the short version: Strange and odd as this may sound, after being introduced through the mail, I fell “head over heels” for a woman who cast a spell over me with her eyes.
After reading a few of her letters, which at the time had to be translated from Chinese, I made a decision that would prove very unpopular with my family. I would fly to China to meet my “love” – and I would marry her.
When I made this decision it was a preposterous notion. First of all, in a rational world, you cannot fall in love by only reading a letter from someone you have never met. Second, in a rational world, being I didn’t speak a word of Chinese and my wife didn’t know a word of English, we wouldn’t be able to communicate. Third and in many ways most important, I was up to my ears in debt with absolutely no money to even afford a plane ticket to China, much less Chinese lessons, a wedding, honeymoon and the like.
And yet, in spite of all the strikes I had against me, including the twitch that she would find out about eventually, I felt compelled to make this decision – and, right or wrong, there was no one who could tell me otherwise.
And do you know what? After making this decision my life changed so fast you would think that God was standing over me with a magic wand, sending me everything I needed to make my goal a reality.
It was as if I was standing on the beach and wave after wave kept coming my way. All the clients and money I needed beat a path to my doorstep. Within a few short weeks I had a waiting list of clients. With a full slate of clients I had money I could use to get lessons in speaking the Chinese language. Six months later I paid off all my debts. And eight months after I made the decision I had plenty of cash in savings – and this was after buying a round trip airfare, putting money aside for the wedding and honeymoon – and, get this, after paying another person to train my clients while I was gone.
Nine months after deciding to get married
I was on a Singapore airlines jet heading for China.
What a thrill.
Matt Furey and wife, Zhannie, in China
One week after Zhannie and I met, we were married. This year we celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, with our three-year old son, Frank, who is the love of our lives.
Like the story about being clunked over the face with a beer pitcher, I rarely tell my wedding story, as it is intensely personal and generally makes Zhannie a bit uneasy, mostly due to that whole “mail order bride” stigma some people have. She rests easier, though, when I tell her, the process doesn’t matter – it’s the result that counts. I know people who “lived together for years” – then got married and ended up divorced inside of a year. So I don’t think we need to apologize for how we got the job done.
The real kicker to my story and where I am leading, though is this: One year later, shortly after Zhannie emigrated to the United States, I was back in the hole financially. I was actually headed in the direction of being worse off than ever before.
Naturally this lead to more than a few quarrels. It’s been said that most of what couples fight about is money. And in our case that was the absolute truth.
But aside from the verbal battles, the worst thing of all was the feeling inside that the magic was all gone. Why was I able to attract success so easily in 1987 and 1993, but not during the other years?
What was it that put me into the zone during those “success” years? And what took me out of the zone in the “failure” years? I had to know the answer and the search was on.
Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of Psycho-Cybernetics
In my search for “the answer” I was led back my personal library, where I had a copy of the classic, Psycho-Cybernetics dog-eared and highlighted. The book was written in 1960 by a plastic surgeon named Dr. Maxwell Maltz, and ironically, I had read it in both 1987 and 1993, applied its principles, and oddly enough, never made the connection. Psycho-Cybernetics is an amazing book, especially when you consider that through word of mouth alone it has sold over 30 million copies. As a result of this book, Dr. Maltz become infinitely more famous for treating “inner scars” than he ever did for the treatment of “outer” physical scars.
One of the discoveries Dr. Maltz made early on in his career was that even after using his scalpel to transform a patient’s face into a work of beauty, some patients claimed that nothing had changed. Dr. Maltz wanted to know why this was. He showed the patient “before and after photos” as proof, and although he would get him to agree that there was a physical change, he would say, “but I don’t feel any different.”
This led Dr. Maltz to search for the answer. He studied everything from hypnosis to German missile technology (which at the time was far superior to any other country) and the answers he came up proved that a person’s “outer life” is a reflection of how you see yourself on the inside. This Dr. Maltz dubbed as a person’s self-image. He noted that the person you are on the “inside” pre-paves the way for the person you will become on the outside. Moreover, he noted that you can never rise higher than your self-image – and although you may enjoy temporary success – if your inner you is not equal to the “outer you” – you will literally snap yourself back to where you think you belong.
This sure explained the ups and downs I was experiencing. That’s for sure. Plus, when Maltz talked about facial scars and “inner scars” I knew what he was talking about. I related with his teachings 100%.
So after drawing the connection between the two years of seemingly “effortless success” – I delved back into Psycho-Cybernetics and stuck with it. The result of doing so staggers the mind. At the same time, although Psycho-Cybernetics was and still is an awesome book – I always felt that it didn’t go into enough detail.
So I though to myself: How much better could I do if Dr. Maltz had put together a step-by-step daily and weekly program to follow? Something where I knew exactly what to do each and every day. No thinking. No guess work. Just follow the instructions and voila – I’m on target.
Turns out that Dr. Maltz understood the need for such a program, which he created before he died. Dr. Maltz called the program Zero Resistance Living®. Thing is, it was never published. Instead of being in people’s hands changing their lives – it was gathering dust.
But, as luck would have it, two long time Psycho-Cybernetics “mega-success stories” came along and saved the day.
