No B.S. — this guy has been huge.

6:14am
Saint Paul

I broke a rule and read some email this morning.

(usually I try to skip the email, otherwise I get pulled into a rabbit hole)

I immediately opened a letter from PRL Podcast guest Matt Rizvi.

And what I read… was some sad news.

Famed marketer Dan Kennedy is in poor health, recovering from, in his words,

multiple overlapping infections,
surgical procedures, and
diabetic and heart conditions

That can’t be good.

Dan Kennedy is a direct marketer and business consultant. His most famous line of books is the No B.S. series, such as No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs.

Dan also wrote The Ultimate Sales Letter, one of the books PRL podcast guest Ben Settle read —and re-read— at the start of his copywriting career. (You can find my conversation with Settle here)

In his book, My Unfinished Business, Kennedy encourages us to dream big:

“To reverse paraphrase Napoleon Hill’s famous quote, almost anything can be achieved by just about anybody, if they can conceive and believe themselves achieving it… The longer you live, the more might-have-been’s you accumulate. And there darn sure aren’t enough lifetimes to capitalize on all the opportunities that present themselves, once your eyes are open to opportunity. Mine were open at a very early age, so I have a very, very long list of those might-have-been’s…

I see this a lot: people with the raw material and opportunity to do something really big and great, and to make a ton of money, who stop themselves. Nothing stops them. There’s really nothing in their way. They just can’t see themselves operating at that level.“

The best way to celebrate a life like Dan’s… a life that has touched many others through his books, his seminars, and his charitable works… is to go forth and take his (and Hill’s) advice:

Dream big. Envision where you want to go. Embrace that new identity — don’t hold yourself back for of a fear of change, a fear of the unknown.

Because, at the end of the day, the future is always unknown.

May we all have unfinished business.

Dan, you will never read this, but thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom. You have impacted and influenced my life, directly and indirectly, in many positive ways. I hope your next level is filled with productive opportunities.

Jeffrey

 

PS— If you want to know more about Dan’s situation or if you want to leave a tribute, check out the Dan Kennedy Tribute page here, https://dankennedytribute.com/