Being Kevin Trudeau

Trudeau isn't certain when and where he developed such an incredible instinct for business. Born in Lynn, Mass., Trudeau considers his childhood fairly normal. His father, Bob, a union man, spent his entire working life hauling his lunch bucket to the General Electric plant in Lynn, where he was a welder. His Southern Italian mother spent her days at home, doing housework and getting dinner ready for Bob, eldest son Bob, Jr., and Kevin.

Trudeau played Little League baseball, and caused trouble in the neighborhood with his friends. Even then, however, he was self-motivated and ambitious, selling newspapers, cutting lawns and dressing as a clown while performing magic at kids parties. He also set pins in a bowling alley, where he got his first taste of pool.

Trudeau very clearly remembers, however, the day he discovered the value of dreams. It was a weekend day in the fall of 1978, and he was on his way home when he passed a friend's house. He noticed the friend was standing on his porch, neatly dressed in a suit.

"A 15-year-old in a suit on a weekend," Trudeau remembers. "I figured he was either on his way to a funeral or a wedding."

Instead, the friend mentioned that he was going to a "business meeting."

"He asked me if I wanted to go," says Trudeau. "I just looked at him funny. Then he asked, 'You're looking to make money, right?' So I went along with him."

The meeting turned out to be an Amway recruiting session, and the sales pitch stimulated him like nothing he'd heard before.

"The Amway guy talked about dreams," Trudeau says, with heavy emphasis on "dreams." "It was the first time I was ever exposed to dreaming. He asked us what we'd do if money wasn't an object. What kind of house would you have? What kind of car would you drive? What type of lifestyle would you lead? No one had ever asked me that before. It's not the type of stuff we ever talked about at home."

Trudeau lugged home a stack of books, including "The Magic of Thinking Big," and "The Possible Dream." He was overwhelmed with this new sense of purpose. He read more books - "How to Win Friends and Influence People," and "Success Through Positive Attitude." He listened to tapes and went to seminars. "I learned to listen to people who have what you want," Trudeau recites, "and avoid the dream-stealers. You have to stay away from the SNIOPS - someone who is Susceptible to the Negative Influences of Other People. People want you to be successful, but not too successful.

"That was my initial training into the positive attitude or the thinking process of being successful." He did a brief stint with Amway, but quickly discovered that, as a 15-year-old, discussing success and financial freedom with contemporaries was a fruitless venture. Plus, what older working man was going to listen to a kid who wasn't even old enough to have a driver's license?

One of the books he'd read, though, "Seven Steps to Freedom - How to Escape the American Rat Race," talked about making money in the mail-order business. In mail order, Trudeau figured, no one would know his age or lack of experience. He began selling reports on a variety of subjects - how to get loans, fix your credit, obtain credit cards, etc. All of it was information already published by others.

"One thing I learned early on," Trudeau says, "is that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Bill Gates didn't invent computers or software. The pioneers get bloodied and bruised. Usually, the next generation takes the idea and makes it better."

Almost overnight, Trudeau became a teenage millionaire. With a photographic memory and an uncanny sense of business and marketing, Trudeau's mini business empire continued to grow. He traveled the country selling memory courses. He was realizing his "dreams," but at a break-neck pace.

In fact, Trudeau now admits, the pace blurred his motivation. And he paid a dear price.

"My motivation very early on," Trudeau says frankly, "was one-dimensional; to make money. When you're one-dimensional, you focus on that over everything else. Athletes are a good example. If an athlete has that one-dimensional focus to be the best, he might take steroids, or cork his bat, or cheat in other ways. You get so focused that the lines get blurred. "That happens even if you're Martha Stewart. 'Let's see. I've already got a billion dollars, but I'm going to break the law to make another $40,000.' That just shows you the addiction."

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