MAY 1, 2018

My oh my, how fun does time when you are having flies!

Tick, tick, tick….time never stops nor waits for anyone!

Five Years=60 Months=3,120 Weeks=21,849 Days=524,160 Hours!
That is indeed a long time!

Everybody on earth has the same amount of time available to them (i.e. 24 hours per day) for their own chosen use; their own decided productivity.

The only difference between and multi-millionaire and a ditch digger is:

1. How they think, and
2. How they spend (invest) their spare time and spare money.

A human being’s two most valuable assets are their physical health and their own brain. Both of these assets need to be well developed, well trained, and well used on a continual and rigorous basis if a person truly desires to become highly successful.

Any great and valuable personal accomplishment, produced asset, or completed endeavor is going to require a significant amount of time, energy, resource, and effort. Because that is what it takes to produce it!

Achieving success in your chosen arena is going to demand a significant quantity of dedicated and committed time and effort. A total commitment will be the price to be paid by those individuals who choose to succeed in life.

No one will ever succeed who only puts forth a sporadic, half-hearted, part-time, effort.

Success is definitely a long-term planned event. It never is an accident or happenstance!

Although time is a constant parameter all around the globe i.e. every 60 seconds creates one minute of time;60 minutes is required for one hour of time to be measured; and it still takes 24 complete hours of time for one day to pass; everybody, everywhere around the world, operates under the same parameter of 365 days being needed to measure one year of lapsed time. So time is a constant unit of measure regardless of who you happen to be, where you happen to be, and what you happen to be doing. The more productive you are with the use of your allotted time, the faster will it seem to be used, spent, or invested.

Just as you should be very wise with the choice of your personal friends and associates, so should you be with the expenditure and/or investment of your time and money.

Once your time has been spent or invested, it is gone,…it has been moved from the present into the past….It can never be recaptured for a second or third opportunity to be spent or invested again.

Lost or spent time is just that,….wasted, lost, unrecoverable.

For the benefit of those folks who never knew or associated with my late bride (of 42 years), Jan Severn, please permit me to provide you some limited background so as to help you better understand the purpose of this website, www.davesevern.com:

We met in the month of May 1967, while attending the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. She was a beautiful, vivacious, and ever-so-full-of-life red-headed freshman coed. I was a fifth year wild and crazy super-senior. Her physical beauty totally consumed me. She had a warm and caring
A+++ personality and had the sex appeal of a gorgeous world famous movie star. Her personal warmth and kindness as well as her ear-to-ear beaming smile could either have been used to heat a deep freezer storage warehouse or illuminate a wilderness lighthouse if we had been located on the western seacoast.

She stole my “heart” completely out of my body the first time I looked into her beautiful blue-green eyes. Please do not tell me that there is no such thing as “love at first sight.” I well know from personal experience that there is!

I instantly knew that this young woman would be the one whom I would marry and the wife with whom I would build a happy, productive, and prosperous family in the coming years. I just knew it in my heart of hearts, right from the “get-go.”

When things are right, proper, and blessed by our Creator God, they usually happen and materialize very quickly.

Now it must be remembered that at this point in history, the Viet Nam War was raging in Southeast Asia. College seniors, who were enrolled in the U.S. Armed Forces R.O.T.C. (Reserved Officers Training Corps) Program, were graduating from college, being commissioned into their chosen branch of armed forces, given matching clothes and insignia, and ordered immediately to military training and preparation courses, and then on to the Southeast Asia battle-zone. Some 47,000 plus allied military men and women were killed in action in that dreadful jungle Theatre of Operations. Expected life spans for the newly commissioned “in-country” second lieutenants in the United States Armed Forces were extremely short and uncertain to say the least. Consequently none of the newly commissioned ROTC Cadets were making any long-term plans or other personal preparations. Their future was simply too uncertain and had little to no long-term flexibility.

As I mentioned, Jan and I met in May 1967. She was 4 years my junior. I tried to maintain a low profile, but failed miserably to do so. All those students and friends who knew me well figured out real quick that I was a serious suitor to and for this long-legged gorgeous red-headed varsity cheer-leader.

I attended U.S. Army “boot camp” during the summer of 1967 at Fort Lewis, Washington. My sixth and final half year of advanced university education began in September 1968, with a new school year pre-registration dinner date with Jan in Moscow, Idaho. She was a sophomore and I a 6th year super senior. It was a great “lights-out” date. We just “clicked.” We were serious candidates for a wedding and hardly knew each other….but it was real, not imagined. It was not “puppy love.” We were looking at wedding rings in December 1968, in total secrecy from both of our parents. The following April, 1969, I borrowed $1,000 cash from my old college roommate, who was single and had just signed a pro football contract with the Pittsburg Steelers. He was loaded with cash. He was delighted to advance me the loan—which I completely repaid with interest. We chose Jan’s engagement and wedding rings from Lee Read Jewelers in Boise, Idaho. And after a wonderful evening supper at the elegant and intimate dining room restaurant, “The Game Keeper,” in the Owhyee Hotel in Boise, Idaho, after dessert, I proposed to Jan! Her reply was a teary enthusiastic, highly emotional, and emphatic “YES!” At that moment a new chapter was opened in our life together. I was personally scared to death, but also very excited and thrilled. I was going to be a husband and I had never been one of those before! I certainly did not know just how I was going to accomplish that feat, but I just knew that somehow I would figure it all out as we progressed along the way.

Because my Army commitment was uncertain at that point, we chose a date of sometime during the second half of 1969 to be married in Jan’s hometown, Twin Falls, Idaho, which just happened to be my personal birthplace.

I reported for active duty in May 1969, in the United States Army Corps of Engineers School at Fort Belvior, Virginia, just outside of Washington D. C.
At that time, the U.S. Army offered a revolutionary new duty assignment’s program to all new incoming officers in which they could freely select their first duty station and be guaranteed the choice of assignments and locations for the first full year of their active military service….to qualify, all I would have to do is volunteer to serve for another “third year” of service in the U.S. Army. If I gave the Army a third full year of service, I could then call my first duty station anywhere in the world! It was the opportunity of a lifetime! Why not? At that time, I was in-between military duty assignments at Fort Belvoir. It just seemed to be the right thing to do. I called Jan from Fort Belvior and asked her if she wanted to get married right away and spend our first year together in Western Europe,…say somewhere like southern Germany! Needless to say, she was overjoyed! Jan and I (over a long distance telephone) quickly threw things and plans together. Because I had some free time, I took ten days leave and raced back across America in my dark blue 1967 Chevrolet Impala coupe. We were married on July 19, 1969, at the First Christian Church in Twin Falls, Idaho, near the center of town.

We spent our wedding night in the honeymoon suite in the nicest, newest, and most elegant hotel in southern Idaho in a town called Burley, Idaho. It was wonderful and most unforgettable!

The next day we drove to Bellevue, Idaho, and went fly fishing for native rainbow and brook trout on a most familiar and frequented special Severn family fishing spot. The first men to walk on the moon did their thing on that July 20, 1969….and so did we! We spent a second and third night in Sun Valley, Idaho, before returning to Twin Falls to say our good byes to Jan’s parents and siblings. We were Idaho country bumpkins on their way to Western Europe!…..Let the games begin!

Then it was off across America once again and back to Fort Belvior, Virginia, and the springboard then pointed us toward the European Continent. It would three full years—until May 1972, until we reset our feet back in the United States and terminated my military career.

I mustered out of the Army in Fort Dix, New Jersey. The next day I drove to New York City and picked up my new car, an orange 911T Porsche, that I had purchased in Stuttgart, West Germany, where the Porsche manufacturing plant is located. I then returned to Fort Dix and retrieved my bride and six week’s old baby son, Dodd. Together, we drove the new sports car back across America as a happy and most grateful family of three. Our family, resettled in Boise, Idaho. We were driving a brand new Porsche 911 T that literally flew down the freeways, and we possessed a pocket full of cash ($100 bills) as I had cashed out my untaken leave pay at Fort Dix when I mustered out of the Army. Life was indeed very good!

Seven years later, as a C.P.A. working for a National Big Eight Accounting Firm, and after untold hours of hard work, low pay, and almost unbearable hours of racing around like a cat chasing its own tail, I was exposed to the Amway Business Opportunity. It was a natural match. My old University of Idaho fraternity brother presented the business opportunity plan to us in Boise, Idaho. The timing was right! Jan and I were definitely ready for a change! Opportunity and preparedness met, and we acted when they did!

We started our own personal business that very night, February 22, 1977, in Boise, Idaho. Because I have never been lazy or afraid of my own shadow, I went right to work. Although my initial presentations of the Business Opportunity were shaky and poorly presented, it was a start and starting an effort means you are at least half finished with your chosen project.

In the following 18 months I had built a large international business organization with the help of God Almighty, my wife, and some new dear friends who were already involved in the Business Opportunity. Our business income soon grew to be four times that of my professional salary. Once my part-time income came to be four times my full time income, I could not justify working for another man any longer. Sooo…I quit my job (profession, career,…whatever you desire to term it) and became a financially independent and personally free young, happily married, and energetic American man who was now traveling the world with no time clock to rule and run his life…and no boss! FREEDOM! I was free indeed!…and,….I was only 33 years old!

For the next 34 years (1977—2011), we lived and enjoyed a story-book marriage, business, and family life. Our life was joy filled and love filled in every imaginable way! We were independently wealthy, traveled the globe, lived in a huge and beautiful home on 145 acres of ground, and attended a wonderful Christian church. Oh the joy!

Life happens! Things change. People change! Times change! People grow and events occur. People pass away. New babies were born! Friends leave you for whatever reason. New friends join you and love and care for you. Change is a natural result of living life—be it large or small. Through it all, great blessings and rewards were earned and enjoyed. Through it all, the greatest blessing and benefit was that both Jan and I became“Born-Again Believers in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through the business in which we were involved. Consequently all good things were added unto us and our family, just as is promised within the pages of the Holy Scriptures.

I experienced a serious heart attack in early May of 2007. With the wonderful talent, knowledge, experience, and expertise, my personal friend and cardiologist/cardiac surgeon performed a double by-pass open heart surgery on my heart and saved my life that same month.

While I was recovering from my open heart surgery, sitting in my recliner chair in my office at home, in July of 2007, I heard my bride of 38 years groaning and moaning in great pain…her calls for help took me hobbling to our bed-room, where I found her collapsed on the floor. Another OBGYN/ONCOLOGIST-surgeon family friend was called in to perform emergency exploratory surgery from which he discovered a large soft-ball sized growth from within her female parts. Further tests identified the growth as being malignant. With that information, we (Jan and I) began what turned out to be a five and one half year ovarian cancer battle for her precious life.

I had chosen to be Jan’s primary care-giver. I just knew that no one could or would take as good care of her as I would. I knew that this decision would be life changing for both of us. It would cost us a lot,…maybe even everything. I was right, and it did just that.

I decided after many long hours of personal prayer, scripture reading and study, together with self questioning, and on-going pastoral guidance and counsel that I could, while taking care of my bride, continue feeding and teaching my downline business associates what I had spent thirty-five years of my life learning, employing, operating, empowering, and growing. I simply needed to feed “my sheep.” After careful consideration, I came to know that what the other people within my business needed more than anything else was solid, serious, and strong spiritual growth and understanding. With over 35 years of committed Christian living and believing under my belt,….I confidently knew I could provide such instruction to my own downline…and anybody else who wanted to learn. So back to the drawing board I went….totally determined to teach them.

I settled upon a method of feeding my downline through nightly voice-mail messages consisting of short succinct 5 to 10 minute vignettes. These messages were precise and covered a wide variety of business building topics, techniques, and examples as to how they are best applied in dealing with oneself and/or with other people.

So as to be an good and proper example of teaching all downline how they too could become a consistent and persistent example to their own downline and that such a regular application of effort when applied every day would easily become the basis for completing what we called in our business “The 2 to 5 Year Plan” to achieving success within the business, I began issuing nightly messages of truth, knowledge, and business building encouragement.

My “Plan” was to prove to the group that a five night a week work habit could be established and performed if only the individual IBO (Independent Business Owner) could or rather would decide that he or she was indeed going to put forth such a decided, dedicated, and consistent work effort, regardless of what it took for them to perform it.

I would prepare and broadcast such teaching messages 7 nights a week for a full five years. Only those members of the voicemail system who had verbally and directly requested from me personally to be included in this distribution voice-mail list would be included and would be receiving these special messages. This effort would start on December 31, 2007 and run every night up to and including December 31, 2012. My committed actions and efforts would unquestionably prove to all who would listen, learn, and then apply themselves,…that true completion of the 2 to 5 Year Plan could and would be accomplished by anyone who so chose to do the work!

We started the program and the nightly messages were sent out to the volunteer listeners who were on the list of receivers. Without a single exception, the program was broadcast every single night (7 nights per week) including the night my bride went home to be with Jesus, (September 11, 2011), as well as the night of her burial….no exceptions. Consistency is indeed a choice.

All was well. All was received with enthusiasm and excitement. The positive feedback was outstanding and most rewarding and fulfilling. My desired effort was producing great results.

However, (as is always the case) there was some minimal indirect and/or anonymous complaint from a unidentified handful of critics…Surprise! There were no complaints or criticism from those who had requested to be included in the original distribution list. As is always the case, the complainers were not on the original distribution list. They were just negative people.

Remember to receive this information, one had to request directly from me to personally receive it and they had to be in my direct line of sponsorship. I never for an instant attempted or desired to force any such of my personal religious information or beliefs on or into anybody!

New tools and techniques, control mechanisms, rules, new regulations, and uses of existing business tools were exploding over the world of my business. Some people didn’t know what I was doing and did not want me doing whatever it was that they thought I was doing. Some where some of these complainers wanted me silenced, and they were not going to stop hounding me until they accomplished their desires.

Finally, in September 2012, I was told in a business meeting with my peers, held in Spokane Washington, that I was to cease and desist any further broadcasting of any such spiritual type messages I was sending out through my voicemail system. We argued and bickered for more than a hour over and about these voice messages. I was incensed and greatly pained and offended. As a last attempt to assuage my efforts to persevere, I was informed by these men and women attending the meeting that because it was so close to the preplanned termination date (December 31, 2012), that I could continue the voice messages through the end of the calendar year. I wondered,…that if what I was doing was so wrong, why am I being offered an extended termination date?

I responded that I would terminate any and all such messages immediately and do no more of them from that moment on. September, 2012, marked the end of any and all of these voice-mail leadership/spiritual believers type voicemail messages.

My bride, Jan, passed away on September 11, 2011 from her battle with ovarian cancer. Prior to her passing, I had begun writing articles that I had been preparing for future inclusion in the creation of my personal website. Through the remainder of 2011 and all of 2012, I wrote and stockpiled articles for any future use that might arise. I also typed and edited for publication a weekly blog containing information regarding what I had learned from 35 years of operating experience in owning, operating for a profit, and growing my own personal business around the world. Every Saturday in 2013 I posted a blog on different and varied subjects regarding personal success, personal and spiritual growth, family, marriage, world history, miscellaneous “Did You Know” articles, leadership principles, business building techniques, and other personal manhood development articles.

On May 1, 2013, I launched the present day format of my full blown sixteen article per month website which contained both audio, printed, and video, blogs and articles every week!

I gleaned great amounts of wisdom taken from my personal notes, and training information provided to me from my counselors, mentors, training seminar speakers and teachers, and my own personal growth and development study and efforts. Today my website information and knowledge comes from my 42 years of study, learning, and applying what I have learned from my association and education from some of the greatest men and women in all of America and some of the most successful business and education leaders in and around the world. I post a website article concerning a personal blog on a myriad of subjects every Saturday of the year; a leadership training article for the leading and equipping other people every Monday; a spiritual personal growth article teaching people how to increase and expand an individuals’ spiritual growth and development every Wednesday; and an eight week rotating series on Special Events covering a separate like-kind subject once every eight weeks on every Friday. Those rotating subjects are:

1. Marriage.
2. Developing Your Faith.
3. Did You Know?
4. Great Men and Women of History.
5. Manhood.
6. Stories That Will Bless Your Heart.
7. The English Language.
8. Special American Events.

All of that information, knowledge, and understanding, totaling 16 separate monthly messages, has all been designed and posted for the benefit and knowledge of anyone who desires to learn more than they presently know and become more than they presently are.

Without knowing who you really are, where you are really going, how and when you are going to get there, and without possessing the communicative ability to convince other people to follow you, you will not wind up where it is that you want to go or accomplish what it is that you want to achieve. In order to get these personally desired end-results, you will need to possess a real and proven game plan that will produce them.

God’s Laws and God’s Success Principles are always constant and equally applicable to all people around the world. The knowledge and understanding as well as the needed wisdom to accomplish these Laws and Principles are the very explicit instruction and directions given to you through the actual end results of the teaching and training information that is provided to all of the website users of www.davesevern.com

Becoming a Premier Member to www.davesevern.com provides all of the website information made available to these registered users. A meager monthly fee of $9.99 makes all of this knowledge, understanding, and life experience available to you 24/7, 365, days per year.

All website content is archived and can be copied out of the archives to and by all Premier Members.

We have come so very far since those dark days in Reno, Nevada, in August 2011, where the original idea for this website was initially planted in my mind by an honest and close personal friend and business associate. I will be forever grateful to him and his wife for not allowing me to argue my way out of boldly stepping onward and upward and overcoming my initial fears and concerns of what would be required to complete this mission and publish my own personal website.

God Almighty Himself commanded me early one morning to begin this website. With great fear and trepidation I stretched myself out of my comfort zone and into the fringe of fear and obediently followed my Lord’s command. I am forever grateful and thankful that I did so.

Only God Himself knows where this road to success we are presently traveling will eventually lead us in the future. I am just looking forward with positive anticipation and great enthusiasm to see where it will lead.

I eagerly anticipate great and glorious things, events, people, and accomplishments to come from my continuing efforts and applications.

I just pray that God will use this website to help people around the globe grow themselves to higher levels of knowledge and understanding so that they can then change and help other people move to higher levels of living.

Success is a journey! The real and true secret of success is always found from deep within your own heart and mind. In order to grow yourself to higher levels of living, you must first come to know yourself and

how you personally fit into the grand scheme of things in God’s Creation! Enjoy the journey!

I wish you all of Godspeed and blessings in all of your chosen efforts and energies.

HAPPY 5TH ANNIVERSARY WWW.DAVESEVERN.COM

 

Peace and Love to All of You………………………Poppa Bear