Being Kevin Trudeau
It sounds too good to be true - a wealthy pool fan funding million-dollar tournaments. We question the "Natural Cures" author and why so many are leary of the controversial entrepreneur.
Story by Mike Panozzo
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| For Trudeau, wealth is just a means for achieving dreams, like living in idyllic Ojai, Calif. |
It's not easy being Kevin Trudeau.
After five days of body- and spirit-enhancing rest and reflection at the ultra exclusive Golden Door spa near San Diego ($7,000 a week, if you can secure a spot), the best-selling self-help author, infomercial icon and defacto savior of professional pool has only a day to attend to his multi-faceted business empire before heading off to Calabasas, Calif., for a rigorous weeklong physical training boot camp.
The brief respite between excursions leaves time for a quick haircut in Beverly Hills, followed by a business lunch at tony Il Fornaio. Tanned and neatly coiffed, sporting a black, silk Tommy Bahama shirt and designer jeans, Trudeau climbs into his jet black AMG Mercedes S65 sedan ($165,000 at your local performance car dealer) and buckles up for the two-hour drive from Los Angeles to "Shangri-la."
Technically, Rand McNally refers to the 8,000-population city Trudeau calls "home" as Ojai, Calif. But Trudeau knew he would live in Ojai long before he even knew it existed.
"Shangri-la was the mythical, remote idyllic hideaway in James Hilton's book, 'Lost Horizon,'" says Trudeau, sipping from a bottle of water as he motors north on I-405. "When they made the movie version (1937), it showed these shots of a valley with lush greenery and orange groves surrounded by mountains. Way back when I saw that movie I said I wanted to live there.
"Then, the first time I came to Ojai to visit a friend, I looked around and said, 'This is Shangri-la. I want to live here.' I didn't realize until later that Ojai actually was the Shangri-la depicted in the movie."
Dreams always seem to find their way into reality for Trudeau.
And we're not talking garden-variety dreams here. Kevin Trudeau dreams of success and wealth and personal growth and happiness - all in very large proportions. There is little argument that he has realized those dreams in the categories of success and wealth. As a mail-order marketer, Trudeau was earning more than $1 million before he was 20. He was one of the pioneers of the infomercial, selling products from memory systems to weight-loss programs through well-crafted program-length TV advertisements, turning himself into a celebrity in the process. And he is the author of one of the most controversial and successful books in print, "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About" - a book espousing cures and remedies that don't require drugs. According to various sources, Natural Cures has sold more than 3 million copies, making it the best-selling self-help book in history. Trudeau's infomercial promoting the book and its subscription-only companion Web site, NaturalCures.com, is seen dozens of times a month on dozens of television channels.
Reports also insist that Natural Cures and NaturalCures.com generate more than $2 million a week in sales. Added to his many other business ventures, Trudeau is said to be worth more than $2 billion.
Which is why these days the 42-year-old Trudeau can turn more of his attention to personal growth and happiness. Between tours promoting his book, appearing in television and radio interviews, and business trips, Trudeau indulges himself with trips to private spas and resorts, and punishing excursions to the boot camp in Calabasas. The boot camp, which Trudeau says he has attended a half dozen times in the past year, has helped him regain strength and stamina sapped after he gave up his 10-cigars-a-day smoking habit a year ago.
For fun, Trudeau goes on an annual fishing expedition and is a confessed "mad chef."
More recently, he's decided to stage the richest tournaments in the history of pocket billiards.
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