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INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
You are donating 10% of the proceeds from the publishing of Stack
The Logs! to help find cures and save children’s lives. What type of
work is being done at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital?
St. Jude has a staff
of world renowned physicians and scientists focused on finding cures
for different types of cancer and other catastrophic diseases
affecting children. The information they gather is shared with
cancer researchers throughout the world so any advancements made at
St. Jude will also benefit cancer research for adults as well. The
mission of St. Jude is only four words long, and it sums up
beautifully why the work is so important. “Finding cures. Saving
children.” The miraculous work being done there has taken a cure and
survival rate for the type of leukemia my son had from 4% in 1962 to
more than 80% today.
What could ever be said or done to show appreciation for saving the
life of your child?
One of the reasons I
began this project is that this question haunted me. St. Jude
Children’s Research Hospital gave me a gift I could never repay in
the gift of my son’s life. The title of the book, Stack The Logs!
represents persistence and adding the building blocks or logs of
success one action at a time. My main goal with this book is to
extend to others the gift St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital gave
to my family. I wrote the book as an opportunity to give back and at
the same time to inspire, educate and empower people to get the most
from the life we are given and to learn to live life on purpose.
Stack The Logs! is for people who face adversity and feel challenged
by obstacles. How does it distinguish itself from the crowded field
of self-help books?
Many self-help books
provide information or hype without a practical application. Stack
The Logs! provides ample illustrations and examples of how the
success strategies can easily be applied to anyone’s goals. As a
student of motivational and inspirational books for the past 15
years, my goal was to write a unique book that would not only give
great information and inspiration, but also a strategy they could
use to put the information to use. This strategy is the same one I
used to grow my business to 20 million dollars a year in revenue and
it is the same one St. Jude has demonstrated to take a cure rate of
leukemia from 4% to more than 80% and growing. When you read Stack
The Logs! you will have a strategy to immediately apply to take your
life where you want it to go.
Frank, you describe how your relationship with your late father and
your young son’s devastating diagnosis of leukemia led you to a new
formula for success. Tell us how you learned a remarkable lesson -
the hard way – to get the most out of life?
The beauty of life
many times happens in the contrast. The dawn is brilliant in
contrast to the darkness…the sharper the contrast, the brighter the
picture. Someone once told me that without bad days, you wouldn’t be
able to fully appreciate the good ones. My relationship with my
father and watching him die and then four years later watching my
son struggle with leukemia provided a not only contrast for the
value of life, it also gave me the gift of perspective and a
defining lesson in how to live life by design rather than by chance.
For anyone who has lost a parent, or a child, you quickly understand
your own mortality and begin looking at everything from a “big
picture” perspective.
What was it like to confront your son’s frightening fight against
cancer?
After the initial
shock, our family made the decision that we would control the only
thing we could…our own attitudes. We began to look for and find
blessings hidden in the adversity. While it was frightening from the
standpoint of not knowing what the ultimate outcome would be, our
faith in God was a major factor in being able to face each day with
the strength and courage to fight the battle with Frankie. We would
NEVER wish our experience on another family, but I can also say that
having gone through what we have together, we would not trade it for
anything.
Your book encourages us to stay positive and focused. How does it
help us to create a positive support structure?
It is a myth that
people are self-made. We need people at every stage in our life to
help us and make our lives more complete. You literally have two
choices, create a support structure that is negative and caustic or
create one that is positive and supportive. It is very difficult to
maintain a success orientation when you have negative people around
you. When you have positive and supportive people, you are elevated
and your results are magnified. It is sometimes a difficult choice,
but relationships are key to the results in life. Start evaluating
your key relationships and begin asking yourself whether they are
positive and affirming pushing you forward or if they are negative
and holding you back.
What lessons did you learn from your father?
My father taught me
that success is not a singular event. He taught me instead that
success is cumulative as you layer experience and knowledge together
over time. Stack The Logs! was his metaphor for success through
persistence, one lesson and one small success added to the pile at a
time. Our failures and setbacks are also tremendously valuable when
given the proper perspective to help us learn and better prepare for
the next opportunity.
You call Applied Incremental Advantage, a system you developed as
“the compound interest of success.” Please explain.
Albert Einstein called
compound interest the 8th wonder of the world. Compound interest is
interest that builds on itself to provide a better return on your
money. Applied Incremental Advantage is making small steps towards
your goals. The small steps turn into victories to be added to. On
our way to becoming successful and reaching our goals we are going
to come across many smaller successes. We need to take the smaller
successes and “reinvest” them so they build on each other to become
success on a larger scale.
You raise the point of why people fail and provide a powerful
solution on how to overcome the number one reason for falling short.
What are some of the techniques referenced in Stack The Logs
including some that were used by Olympic athletes and space
astronauts?
The number one reason
why people fail is because they quit too soon. This sounds obvious,
but that is simply why most people fail. People who succeed take
their failures, learn from them, apply the lessons and keep going.
They don’t give up, instead, they keep “Stacking the Logs!” Look at
the quest to put a man on the moon. The very first Apollo spacecraft
caught fire on the launch pad killing all three astronauts. That
tragedy in turn created lessons and created improvements. Although
painful and costly, this tragedy was part of the overall success in
putting a man on the moon.
Your message is compelling, as you credit your “new family” at St.
Jude for teaching you the gift of optimism in the face of adversity.
What did you learn to help you weather personal storms and to come
back stronger than ever?
When I was first told
that my son Frankie had leukemia, I asked the doctor how much time I
have with my son. He looked me right in the eye and said, “You
cannot think that way…you have to stay positive and optimistic.” Our
family did just that and sought out blessings in the situation. We
cannot control what happens to us, but our St. Jude experience and
the wonderful people there taught us that no matter what the
situation, when you stay positive and optimistic you will come out
of the situation better than when you entered.
Your career is one of entrepreneur and businessman. How were you
able to manage your time and sanity while juggling a business,
family and your son’s crisis – all while writing your book as he
underwent treatment?
The principles
discussed in Stack The Logs! are actual principles I use in my
business. Because I had surrounded myself with positive and focused
individuals, I was able to take a sabbatical during Frankie’s
illness to be with him and my wife in Memphis for his treatment. My
business partners and team continued with the day-to-day details of
running our business while I concentrated on my family. When I
returned six months later, the business was experiencing incredible
success and my team had become even more effective in their daily
roles. The situation was certainly challenging, but it was equally
rewarding and I certainly did not go through it alone.
It’s been almost two years since your son’s diagnosis. Has your
renewed outlook changed since then or have you maintained the same
approach to life that you could have only discovered at that moment
of fear, anger and sadness?
If anything, my
resolve is stronger for the message I want to deliver to people
regarding the Stack The Logs! and also for the awareness of St. Jude
Children’s Research Hospital and their mission of “Finding cures.
Saving children.” We are all given gifts in our life and sometimes
those gifts come as challenges. It is important to maintain this
mindset as we find ourselves challenged so that we can grow. What we
went through was something I will never forget. Therefore, I am
reminded of it every day and my outlook has not changed, I take each
day as the gift it truly is.
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