I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I greatly admire John Reese. I think he’s a stand-up guy. An ethical marketer. He personally saved MY butt many times in the past (like put food on the table for my kids kind of help when I was struggling). All heart in this guy’s chest. I just read a post from him in the Warrior Forum where people were talking about the Kern, Reese, Robbins video and I wanted to share John’s response here and discuss it because it’s what I talked to y’all about a lot these last 30 days. You might be shocked! I was.

John posted:

…I am extremely INTROVERTED and am a borderline recluse at times. There’s a reason some of my close friends lovingly call me “Howard Hughes.” I am also a very PRIVATE person. On top of all that, I grew up as an extremely SHY kid. From age 10+ I was a hacker that spend the majority of his life behind a computer. While other kids were out playing and going to the arcade and to the mall, I was spending quality time with my keyboard and 1200 baud Hayes modem.

Because of these things, for much of my life I have been SOCIALLY AWKWARD. Hey, it’s just who I am and how things worked out. I’m still working at improving it but it is what it is. When I am around really close friends I can be a completely different, outgoing person. But I still struggle at times with crowds of strangers and people I don’t know very well.

Tiff here: I had no idea John was like this. I’m like this too! I’ve even been called Howard Hughes too! I was shy growing up as a young child because of my lovely buck teeth and coke bottle glasses – but I grew somewhat out of that as I got contacts and braces. You look a John and see a handsome, rich guy and you assume he ought to be schmoozing it up and everything but that’s not natural for him. Who woulda thunk it? Okay, back to John…

There’s a reason no one saw photos of for me online for nearly 7+ years. That stupid Auction Secrets headshot of me with the shiny blue shirt (and the often badly photoshopped hair when someone tries to edit that photo) is one of the only photos people saw of me for YEARS. Then slowly but surely I put a few more online or others did.

I also haven’t been on video much by choice. It’s just… well… WEIRD for me. I’m trying to get better at it and really WANT to do more videos and stuff, it’s just something I have to get over. I hope to start putting out more videos in the near future.

Tiff again: I don’t know what pic he’s talking about but as I said before, John’s a good looking guy. Here I am three chins and a bad hairdo and I’m getting past my fear and going online with pics and videos. When I first started marketing, I considered using old pics or having someone professionally retouch them to make me thinner and more attractive. How sad that we all – even the Reese’s – feel intimidated about our appearance. I’m glad he admits publicly that he has obstacles like video that he hopes to get over – he’s one of the few who admits stuff like that. Okay, back to John…

Anyone that ever saw me on a panel at a seminar knows that many people would often ask others, “Why is John Reese so angry?” Heh. It’s not that I’m angry or unhappy… I’m just an INTENSE person. That ‘stressed’ look you often see on my face is simply INTENSITY. My brain is busy processing things a million miles a second. I suffer from extreme ADD and when someone is talking to me I really have to focus intently or my mind will wander.

There’s a reason I don’t do the “seminar circuit.” I could probably make another million or two a year just doing a lot of speaking. As I said, I don’t do well with crowds and strangers. Now don’t get me wrong, I have enjoyed giving the few speeches and presentations that I have (because I love to teach) but seminars are ROUGH for me. One, because selling from the stage is not my thing (I just don’t feel comfortable doing it) and two, because I’m introverted and get a little weirded-out when tons of people start coming up to me.

Tiff here: Again, you see him – his online persona doesn’t reflect this. So all of you who are out there worried about stuff like this? Mister “make a million dollars in 24 hours” is human too. And he’s not afraid to let you know, so don’t give up! Back to John…

…For much of the past 3 years or so I went through some major personal challenges. I lost my only brother and my grandmother that I was very close to. I also lost one of my closest friends (that I had known since childhood) to cancer. And on top of that I, personally, went through some health issues.

I had a lot of other issues that to me took up more of my life and were more important than making more money. So I went through a long stretch of not creating a lot of new stuff and not progressing some of the projects that I had started. In a nutshell… I LOST MY PASSION for my business. Those other things were just weighing so heavily on me, and like I just mentioned, struggling from severe ADD makes it nearly impossible to focus on any work at all when every few seconds the mind starts thinking about these other deep, personal things. I would literally become mentally PARALYZED and just couldn’t make myself do any work.

Tiff writing: OMG wasn’t I just talking about this kind of thing in the last 30 days? There are times (days, weeks, months, YEARS), when you can’t focus on business – life happens and you need mindless task lists for those days. Sometimes it’s not all about making money. It happens to everyone on every level. Part of what you need to do in building your business is prepare yourself for these times. How will you handle it? John has a nice residual income built up I’m sure, so he didn’t go broke. He was able to care for himself until he was able to get back to work. Oh, and when someone commented in the thread – a bash again John – and he replied, he also posted this:

The reason I get ‘sucked in’ to answering people (and it’s something I’m trying to get over to just ignore them) is that I’m SENSITIVE, unfortunately. Probably goes along with the shy thing and how I developed. It’s hard for me not to take it personally when people bash me. It’s stupid, I know, but sometimes I let it bother me.

Tiff: So no, not all “gurus” are heartless creatures. I’ve said a zillion times John’s ethical. You know that video I made where I sort of disagreed with with Kern, Robbins and Reese about the reason people are stuck? It’s not a bash against him. It’s a simple statement of my own observations in interacting with newbies online. Anyway, someone emailed me saying the video was so phony because obviously those guys don’t care about whether or not you succeed. And I replied telling her I can’t speak about Robbins or Kern, but I can certainly say that John cares about people. I know it for a fact.

Tiff

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