Racing the World: From 2 to 222

By Czar

This book shares the adventures Bill Blades has enjoyed since the age of 2.
In it, you will find his experiences to be broad, fun and exciting. He shares business successes and personal defeats.
Two things are constant. He demands a lot from himself and gives a lot of himself to others. He shares stories from the age of 2 to driving automobiles at 222 KPH and higher. You will find that the author is often living life at 222 and faster. And quite a Maverick who has improved the lives of thousands of people, their families and corporations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499077780

Czar

Bill Blades' background includes: *At the age of22, Bill served as plant manager for a major manufacturing finn while a full-time college student. *While serving as vice president of sales & marketing for a food manufacturing concern, he: -increased sales 1500/c, from $13 million to $33 million in only four years and were approaching $60 million when he left in year 5. -during this same period the sales personnel was reduced by 20%. *Bill has served as Finance Chairman for Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of the United States Congress. *Bill is author of the best sellers, Selling: The Mother of All Enterprise and Top Gun Selling. He also co-authored books with F. Lee Bailey, Famous Amos, Bruce Jenner and General Alexander Haig. *He has served as Chairman of the National Speakers Association's Sales PEG and Chairman for the Institute of Management Consultants' Marketing SIG. He is the only speaker and consultant in history to chair both groups. He has also served as President ofiMC's Arizona Chapter and is a Charter Member of Society for Advancement of Consultants.• Bill is 1 of only 8 Certified Management Consultants who speaks and consults with clients in the areas of sales and sales management.• He does so with a straight forward mission statement that reads: Our Mission Is To Always Deliver More Than We Promise And To Serve As Our Clients' Partner In Their Quest For Excellence. •

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Czar.

ISBN:      Softcover        978-1-4990-7779-7

                 eBook            978-1-4990-7778-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 02/25/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

545297

Contents

Chapter 1 The Terrible Twos

Chapter 2 From First Grade to Barely Graduating

Chapter 3 Sports

Chapter 4 The Army The Best and Worst Times

Chapter 5 Family

Chapter 6 Interns

Chapter 7 The Splits

Chapter 8 I Did It Again

Chapter 9 The Crash

Chapter 10 Financial Disaster

Chapter 11 Career Path

Chapter 12 My Fun Career

Chapter 13 The Journey of Fun

Chapter 14 More Trips Along the Way

Chapter 15 My Final Thoughts

This book is dedicated to the love of my life – Czarina.

Without both of us changing flights we would not have met each other. Thus, I believe it was meant to be.

Chapter 1

The Terrible Twos

Most parents talk about the terrible two’s when discussing children.

I look back when I was that age and feel my personality and style were already being established placing me in the small percentage of the advanced terrible two’s. An example would be that I had already learned to whistle at girls.

I also developed a style of having little fear of anything. I wandered away from my father at a park with a lake running through it. I jumped off the ledge into about 6 feet of water and started swimming the best I could and as I was sinking, a sailor leaned over to grab me by the ankles and handed me to my father.

Our home was based on brick columns which left an abundance of crawl space under the house. One day I decided I needed to explore the area, with my last stop being the police station, about a mile from home. Once inside, they asked if I knew my last name, where I lived and where my parents worked. I didn’t have any answers, but I was rewarded anyway with ice cream. On another visit, they gave me ice cream and a quarter which is about $2.00 in today’s money. While escaping the babysitter, by quietly scampering under our home and taking off in different directions, adults on different streets would flag down or call the police; they were often told we know who he is – we’ll get him home.

Running away to explore was so commonplace that my parents bought a contraption that connected from the clothesline to my upper body. I felt like a prisoner, but as you continue reading you will see that I later expanded my boundaries to explore much more in the world.

Chapter 2

From First Grade to Barely Graduating

During my formative years, I found major niches that would stick with me throughout my life.

These niches would definitely include having fun, exploring, playing sports, giving of myself to others, and last, but definitely not least – driving fast cars and seeking fast girls. My Algebra teacher asked, Czar, why do you even come to school? Without taking a second to think, I quickly replied, Girls, baseball and cars.

In the first grade, I was Santa Claus in our Christmas play. I enjoyed being the lead star. If they asked me to put on a reindeer outfit and play Donner or any other reindeer, I would have declined as I was not destined to be part of the group. Be the leader or be nothing. So even in the first grade, my personality was appreciated by my teacher. She must have also noticed that I helped others as she would pick me up about once monthly to visit elderly patients in nursing homes and similar facilities. She took the goodies and took me for my pleasing and fun style. I not only liked bringing joy to others, but I also got to be with Ms. Parsons who I had decided to marry.

So at age 6 I was Santa Claus and I rode a horse, with an American flag, to lead our Christmas parade. I believe my destiny had already been outlined. I was going to be first or last (such as in Algebra and Chemistry classes) and not in the middle with the masses. It’s the way I acted since age 2, the way I act today and the way I always want to be…

I had already been dating and drove my four year old girlfriend around in my pedal car. She always wore only shorts, but for our dates, I had her wear a halter top that she would occasionally wear. That would enable her, in my eyes, to appear more like Marilyn Monroe than a kid.

In the second grade, I had my first part-time job. I cut boy’s hair for ¢5 or ¢10, but the best part of it was that I did it while class was in session. I put a chair in the back of the room, put a paper towel around the back of their neck and used the dull-edged scissors we used for cutting paper. That was more proof that having a pleasing and fun style brings returns to the individual. I was making money and the teacher thought it was funny. My third grade teacher must have also like my style as I was the only student she drove home on occasions.

My fourth grade teacher was not as amused, but not to be deterred I still continued with my fun activities even while knowing she would exercise her authority. My father was delighted as he told me I would have a teacher like her some day. Her discipline, however, didn’t change me in any way as I was dedicated to having fun. Many people live quiet lives of desperation from birth until death. I was not going to join that fraternity! I was going to have fun, help other people have fun and keep developing as an entrepreneur.

The Boomer-aged people will remember how big yo-yos were. It was a lasting business unlike the short tenure of hula hoops. The Duncan brand was by far the biggest brand. They had an employee, from the Philippines, travel throughout the country to rent theaters or similar venues to display his prowess, teach the audience fancy tricks and then conduct a city yo-yo championship. I won the championship which enabled me to start a business – selling yo-yo strings. I waxed 3 strings and placed them in small paper bags with a label taped on that read Czar’s Champion Yo-Yo Strings. Even though my venture only last about six months, it was both fun and profitable.

Other businesses I developed in those early years included picking up returnable soda bottles that were cashed in to buy baseball cards. I know that, at a minimum, I had almost 2,000 cards as I traded 500 for one Ted Williams card and it barely made a dent in my collection. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made was with my collection. While overseas in the Army, my mother wrote that mice had been eating the shoe boxes that held my cards and then feasted on my cards. In her letter, she asked if she should just throw them away. I hesitated with my reply and when she wrote again and I wrote my stupid reply, Yes, throw them away. While I cherished my collection, I had no idea how much money I could have made later.

While some of my business ventures, such as making and selling potholders, were borderline boring, I sold a lot of them door to door and I always had special sales such as buy four and the fifth one is free. And asking what colors would you really like? always resulted in more sales. On the fun side, I would include picking blackberries, too, because one of my favorite door-to-door customers was a teacher who would not only buy them, but tell me to, Come back after 6:00 pm and I’ll have some blackberry cobbler for you to take home. My adult neighbor worked in the Breyers ice cream plant and she always had plenty of on hand which was great during blackberry season!

My father nudged me towards the grass cutting business and he helped provide customers around town so bicycling with a lawn mower and clippers in tow was a common sight. When winter came, I would arrive again with my snow shovel. During the fall and spring I always had other opportunities with the same customer base to include my pot holders, strawberries, and other products and services.

A fun business was my food and beverage delivery services. I had a basket on the front of my bicycle with the main items being sodas and candies. I knew where all of the kids would be playing ball and similar activities. I marked all of the prices up for the delivery services. Boomers will remember Chum-Gum. It was a very cheap and short-lasting gum with 3 individually packed sticks with outer wrapping holding the 3 pieces together. At the store you would get the 3 pieces for a penny. I tore off the outer wrapping and sold each stick for a penny. Nice profit! Just as profitable was the cold lemonade I delivered to the neighborhood baseball fields. On a hot day, this was my big seller. And refills were sold at a reduced price. The over-sized and wealthy Johnny was a target account. While most of us would have a few pennies or a nickel in our pockets, he would usually have $10 to $20 as he was adopted by parents that gave him everything he wanted. And he freely bought lemonade and other goodies for everyone which usually meant I went home frequently to restock to make another delivery.

When not selling to Johnny, I would play with him because almost every day after school, he bought us a soft drink and Tasty Kakes. He was literally triple our size and he spent his money on sweets while his parents bought him everything else. My first car cost $100 while his first one was a new ’63 Impala equipped with a 327 cubic inch engine, 4-barrel carburetor to equal 300 horsepower. While he bought most of his friends treats, Johnny was also the big bully. Since, again, he was triple my size, I had to develop ways to fight back. After he knocked me around one day, he turned on another boy. I picked up his authentic M-1 rifle (which weighs 9.5 lbs – a heavy object for a skinny little nine year old boy. So while Johnny was bullying the other boy I picked up the M-1 by the barrel and rotated my body 2 to 3 times to pick up speed. I walloped him with the wooden stock against his head. Since he was dazed, I didn’t have to run. I walked and smiled all the way home.

On another day, he put his bully hat on. I don’t remember why but he climbed on top of the home heating oil tank. Then I saw that he was going to jump on me, but he slipped. But luck was on my side as his zippered jacket got caught on a 4-6 inch nozzle at the top of the oil container leaving him hanging. I ran up to him and punched him until I knew he had enough for one day. He continued his bullying for years, but not to me as he learned twice that while bigger in size, I was bigger with determination. He actually befriended me more.

His father owned several businesses including a top submarine and burger shop. I became Johnny’s primary friend and benefactor resulting in great cheeseburgers and milk shakes followed by the movie theater.

Let me go back to sports. I was booted from the high school football team as I worked too much causing me to miss the team’s practice too much. My job included picking acres of watermelons, throwing them up to a co-worker on the farm truck and loading them onto a 40-foot tractor trailer. It was good preparation for the Army as I developed good arm muscles.

In the warehouse, an older black guy, out of the blue, said, I’m going to cut me a white boy as he opened his switchblade knife. A black friend, recently out of the Army and quite a physical specimen, said, You have to get through me first. Tom and I were already friends and became great friends. We were both in lines for movie tickets and I walked to his line and suggested that we sit together. He reminded me that he had to sit in the colored only section on the second floor. My date and I sat with him – upstairs.

I worked at the movie theater as an usher. One of my co-workers asked a rowdy group of four to leave. He was being pushed around and as he had a weak soul and body, I rushed over and it evolved quickly into a melee: 4 against 1. Not 4 against 2 as the other usher hustled away out of fear. It started on the theatre balcony and I was getting in some real haymakers until a Marine drilled my head with his Marine Corps ring as I was slumping to my knees. That scar still remains. While on my knees I took a few more punches, but made it to my feet and got some pay-back. While we got into it on the balcony, three of us tumbled to the first floor. I was a bloody mess.

While being treated at the hospital, my father arrived. The police told him they had stopped a group of four (I was 15 and they were 16-19) as they were bloodied, but they told the police they had been fighting amongst themselves. After hearing the truth, the police told my father, He got the best of all of them.

I later saw one of them walking down a dirt road and I gave chase, on the grass so he couldn’t hear my flat feet flopping. I jumped him from behind and while he was falling down, I got my dollars’ worth and then turned him over to deliver him one