My Dream, Your Dream: An American Dream Come True

By Dennis Eynon and Dr. Kathy Groehn El-Messidi Ph.D.

Successful custom-home builder, outstanding singer, and enthusiastic car collector/racer Dennis Eynon wants you to fulfill your dreams just as he did. Eynon shares with you several principles he followed to achieve his outlined mission of living as elegantly as he had as a child. He credits the generous support and wise counsel of key champions. He encourages you to step boldly into some ventures as well as pace yourself in others. Eynon counsels equally about how to handle setbacks as well as how to sustain success. He addresses the need for family support. He helps you recognize the opportunities the free enterprise system allows. With the book of this self-made entrepreneur close at hand, you will find that you are not alone as you pursue your dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667843841

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My Dream, Your Dream

An American Story

©2022 Dennis Eynon, M.A.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

print ISBN: 978-1-66784-383-4

ebook ISBN: 978-1-66784-384-1

Dedication

I dedicate this motivational memoir to my family and friends, who have enriched my life deeply. Many wonderful people have influenced who I am and what my values are. My parents showed unending support and advice while they raised me. My daughters — Lauren, Heather, and Erica — have each brought an endless source of pride and joy to me as a father. And my grandchildren, Peyton and Cameron Simard, give me faith in the future. My wife has stayed with me through trials and joys for over 50 years, for which I am most grateful. Among friends, successful music teacher Nancy Tobison deserves special mention as the first person who invested generously in my initial building project. Her confidence, expressed practically, sent me on my way as a builder.

This book shows deep appreciation for what we often call The American Dream. It aims to bring inspiration, direction, and motivation to the reader. If I can do it, so can YOU!

Contents

Chapter One: Introduction

Chapter Two: Roll Out the Welcome Mat for your Champions

Chapter Three: Different but not Less

Chapter Four: Give Credit Where Credit is Due

Chapter Five: Always Envision More than the Moment Allows

Chapter Six: Organize Your Life with a Mission in Mind

Chapter Seven: It Just Feels Right (So Do It!)

Chapter Eight: Don’t Give Up, Go Around

Chapter Nine: Keeping the Faith through Failure

Chapter Ten: Patience Wins Races

Chapter Eleven: Infectious Enthusiasm

Chapter Twelve: Little Piggies Get Fat, Hogs Get Slaughtered

Chapter Thirteen: Have Some Fun While Getting It Done

Chapter Fourteen: Staying On Top

Chapter Fifteen: What’s Capitalism Got to Do With It?

Chapter Sixteen: The Eynon’s in a Family Way

Chapter Seventeen: What’s it All About, Alfie?

Appendix: Parting Inspirations

Chapter One:

Introduction

You’ve been there. An idea comes. You get excited. You want to follow your dream. You worry about what others think . . .you wonder how your idea will be received or whether it will be used at all. Unable to overcome fears and false starts, you abandon your vision, and it never appears again, except to nag you with its incompleteness. You settle. But what can you do to nurture your special dreams as well as yourself in the process? What follows is the story how one man listened carefully to his inspirations, actualized his aspirations, and even nurtured others in the process. He hopes you find stimulation, encouragement, and guidance in his story.

Dennis Eynon was born and raised with an elegant upbringing — thanks to his parents — that he hoped to continue for himself and his family. He initially dreamed of making a lucrative living as an entertainer. After all, as a young boy he entertained adults while singing in a bunny suit. As a young adult, his performances for army generals saved him from certain death in the Vietnam War. When his army service finished, a favor from the father of an unpopular boy he had befriended led him to the perfect job in training and public relations. That job taught him new skills essential to his next open door into the custom home building business. He started building one distinctive home in an expensive Detroit subdivision midst a crowded field of builders fighting for opportunities. When the economic recession hit and sales opportunities tightened, Eynon’s business not only survived, but thrived in a narrowed field. He persisted and achieved the gracious life he hoped for. Not stopping there, he parlayed his marketing, technical, and wealth-building experience into buying, selling, and racing high-end, exotic cars.

At three-quarters-of-a-century-plus years, Dennis still sings, still markets, still builds, and still enjoys the finer things in life, including an accomplished, beautiful wife, Carolyn, three children, and two grandchildren. Most important of all, he still looks forward to opening new doors for himself and others. That’s why he’s sharing his experiences with you. Learn from the stories he relates here. Ignite your own dreams with his infectious enthusiasm. Follow the songs of this singer . . . the blueprints of this builder and the course of this race car driver. Join him as he welcomes you into the journey of this book meant to help you open the doors of your own unique and fulfilling life.

It is time for you, too, to accomplish your dreams, not abandon them.

Chapter Two:

Roll Out the Welcome Mat

for your Champions

Whether you are raised in an urban slum or on an Indian reservation or on a military base in a foreign country or in a wealthy suburb — as Dennis was — you will meet all sorts of people in your life. You will never know who might come back to help you (or haunt you if you make a bad impression). There is much emphasis in society on meeting the right people, of course, and by that, they mean people of status or influence or wealth in an obvious position to help you. The problem with that advice is that they might not want to help you. In fact, you often don’t really know who the right people are until they do something that is perfectly right for you at the right time. – for example, they stretch your mind and provide direction or give the support you need or the perfect connection or opportunity.

Your circle of contacts might range – as they did for Dennis – from a parent to the organizational king-maker around the block to the unpopular, awkward boy at school who no one else seemed to befriend. Most young people prefer the company of their peers, but Dennis especially sought out older friends who had been over the bridge. He sensed that he could learn something from their life experiences that would help him progress. As you will learn in this chapter, he was right.

Dennis discovered that the best results came when he was kind to people, didn’t shun or ignore anyone, and shared his optimism with others. He reminds us that: There is nothing phony or insincere in adopting this attitude, as long as you remember that you are not doing it selfishly, for your own benefit, but for the potential to share ideas, support and opportunities with others, which they will tend to reciprocate.

In Throw Away that Resume and Get that Job! Warren J. Rosaluk estimates that nearly everyone has access to about 40,000 people who might be good leads toward fulfilling our dreams – be it the ideal job or the best client for your business venture or finding the perfect mate or school or house. You are probably acquainted with about 200 people, each of whom is – in turn—acquainted with another 200. Simple multiplication suggests that you have at hand a potential small militia of 40,000 who can connect you to needed resources in unimagined ways if you just nurture your relationships and open your mind to others.¹

It’s fun, Dennis reminds us. For me, it started about the time I was about eleven years old, selling Christmas wreaths in my neighborhood as part of an effort to earn my Boy Scout badge in marketing. When neighbor Tex Colvert, the chairman of Chrysler Corporation at the time, bought a wreath from him with a modicum of respect and gusto, it did something special for Dennis. As he summarized, He made me feel important.

When you gain confidence from someone of stature who shows some regard for your young self, it can resonate profoundly. It makes you feel you can do more than you ever thought possible. It also teaches you by example that in knowing how to make others feel important, you often become a person of importance yourself.

Although still close at hand young neighbor Bruce Gould – unlike Tex Colvert –seemed nearly invisible. Dennis knew him in elementary and junior high school. Bruce was one of those beleaguered kids that bullies taunt and average students ignore. Dennis’s’ mother told him, You should be nice to Bruce; he needs some kindness. Most kids shunned Bruce, but Dennis took his mother’s suggestion to heart.

Dennis remembers, I played tennis with him and let him win, even though he was a lousy tennis player. Dennis began to enjoy Bruce’s company because he found it fulfilling to be nice to someone who faced so much meanness. Dennis had learned to weather some peer taunting for his vocal performance, so he knew what Bruce faced. Despite what others thought or did, the two struck up a good, stable friendship, and Bruce introduced him to his family members. His father, Fred Gould, never forgot Eynon’s unaccustomed peer-to-peer encouragement to his son, which evidently gave Bruce some needed confidence.

The law of what goes around, comes around kicked in over the years. After Dennis left the military and sought employment in the private sector, Fred Gould had connections and interest in Dennis, which led to Dennis’s first job as assistant to the Vice President of Marketing with Communico, a division of the Maritz Motivation Company, an incentive-marketing firm for which Fred Gould worked. Maritz facilitated sales incentive programs for corporations and used direct mail, slide presentations, and short movies to clarify the rules of these programs. Travel and merchandise awards were given to the top salespeople.²

It turns out that Fred Gould sold the company’s biggest contract to AC Sparkplug and earned commissions on this and other sales that led him to actually earn more money than the president of Maritz. Thanks to his relationships with Fred Gould and his son, Dennis was able to land his post-military job at Communico.

Further, when Dennis later became a custom home builder, Fred Gould enlisted Eynon to build a multi-million-dollar home. He also gave Dennis some useful business advice: If there are ten decisions to make and seven are winners and three are losers, don’t beat yourself up about the three losers because if you don’t have the opportunity to make decisions – both winners and losers – your business will not flourish.

The point is this, Dennis summarizes, The seeds you lay along the way with the people you meet can grow into wonderful, unforeseen benefits.

One fortunate inclination that few young people shared was his tendency, early on, to actively seek out and listen to his elders. I thought they had something to share because they have gone over bridges that you haven’t crossed yet. They made it possible for me to cross over myself – with them – before I had to do it all by myself.

Holding to this view, Dennis purposely didn’t seek many friends his own age or younger. Maybe I lost something in doing that, he muses, but for sure, I gained a lot in following the alternative strategy of seeking friendship with older people. Ask their advice and seek their guidance about the things you are facing. The stories from your elders will motivate you to the next step. They tell you about precious experiences that give you learning tools and perspectives on your own life.

In high school, his choir director and teacher Clarence Luchtman introduced Dennis to 80-year-old entertainment agent Val Campbell. Dennis came well-recommended at that point. Pioneering American music educator and conductor Dr. Joseph Maddy had judged Eynon to be the Best Male Vocalist in an Interlochen state (Michigan) competition in 1963. That state honor led the Italian government – which sought to foster outstanding global voices – to offer Dennis a full scholarship to study vocal music there. While it marked an honor that his parents supported, Eynon became homesick and returned home after six months of study with a Russian teacher there. In his senior year of high school, Dennis was approached by Detroit’s Motown founder Barry Gordy to possibly become a White singer on