JERRY GILLIES: I WON'T DANCE (with all of you)

This amazing healthy dark chocolate opportunity is not for everyone. I hate to sound like an elitist, which has become a perjorative term in recent years…as if wanting to be the best and noblest and most discerning is somehow a crime, but there are people I am not interested in working with.

The other day, I was having a conversation with several children of a friend of mine, one was a young man of twenty-seven, one a young woman who is twenty-two, the third her younger sister who’s sixteen. The topic became chocolate, as it had when we’d met a couple of months earlier before I had even heard of XOCAI and MXI. And they all agreed that they didn’t like dark chocolate, but loved milk chocolate. Dark chocolate was “too bitter,” “not sweet enough,” “too different from the chocolate we grew up with.” Great marketing genius that I am, did I try to convince them otherwise? Of course not—you can’t argue with someone’s taste buds. It’s a matter of conditioning, years of habits, and the taste sensations that most please us. Some people just don’t have discriminating palates, some people would rather have Thunderbird wine in a cardboard box than a fine bottle of Dom Perignon. Some people would rather have a grilled cheese sandwich than lobster.

Everyone is entitled to their personal taste, and they are not wrong, they are just not people I want to be in business with. So maybe I am an elitest, maybe I am a snob—maybe I am a dark chocolate bigot. But, in this business, I only want to partner up with people who love dark chocolate. Let the others market cleaning products and pimple creams, and I wish them well. I feel badly that unless they are eating two pounds of spinach a day, they have no way of getting the antioxidant protection of our delicious dark chocolate products, but that is their choice, and I wish them well.

A good friend and teacher of mine was Ken Keyes, Jr., a great philosopher/workshop leader, inspiring force in the Human Potential Movement, and author of many books, including the classic Handbook To Higher Consciousness. He taught that unconditional love was the path to success in all areas of life. And I asked him once, “Ken, you say you love everyone unconditionally, but I notice at conferences and such that you very specifically choose certain people to join you for lunch—aren’t they meeting certain conditions before you invite them?” He said something then I’ve never forgotten, and consider one of those profound statements that can alter one’s whole perception of life and the way things are or ought to be: “Jerry, I do love everyone unconditionally. But everyone is doing their own dance. And you might be doing the Tango, while I’m doing the Waltz. I can enjoy and admire your Tango, but I want to dance with someone doing the Waltz. So I usually enjoy sharing meals with people who are doing my dance.”

I will not apologize for the fact that I enjoy doing this business with people who love dark chocolate. I don’t intend on talking anyone into liking or loving it, there are too many people who are passionate about the taste to waste time on those who aren’t. We dark chocolate lovers might be an elitist, discriminating, egalitarian group—but we’re an awfully large segment of the population, and boy, do we have fun hanging out and doing business together.
Jerry Gillies

(Want to join my healthy dark chocolate success story? Get in touch: jerrygillies@gmail.com)