FREEDOM, SERENDIPITY, AND ME

"WHAT, ARE YOU CRAZY?" I've gotten this reaction on a couple of occasions, old friends or colleagues wondering whether twelve years in prison left me bereft of all common sense. Their comments usually involve asking me why, with six published self-help books under my belt, several more plus a prison memoir in the planning stage, thousands of people who say they owe their success to my books, tapes, or seminars, and all the choices I could have made on starting a new life, I decided to get involved with a company marketing healthy dark chocolate.

Serendipitous is the word that comes to mind when I am searching for an appropriate response. The word means, as you know, lucky in making fortunate and unexpected discoveries. Several situations all came together at once after my parole from Folsom at the end of last August. One of my top five desires was to taste the new brands of dark chocolate, a very
favored treat I had been deprived of during incarceration. The friend I entrusted with the task of making a list of top
brands in terms of taste was Susannah Lippman, another dark chocolate connoisseur. Once I got out on parole, we compared a lot of notes on various brands. At one point, Susannah told me she had tasted the best dark chocolate ever, and it was even supposed to be good for you, and she had gotten it from her health practitioner, a doctor of Oriental medicine. But she and
the doctor had a disagreement about the way the doctor treated another patient, a friend of Susannah's, and they were no longer in contact. A few weeks went by, and Susannah called to tell me that Hope Kiah, the woman designing her new website for her also had some of that healthy chocolate, and it involved a network marketing company.

Now Susannah and I had investigated and researched and been involved with a number of network marketing companies.
In fact, she had chaired the ethics and standards committee of the Multilevel Marketing International Association, and
written the first set of ethics and standards for the entire network marketing industry. And both of us had since sworn never to get involved with another network marketing company. My feeling was that this form of business held the promise of a
new kind of capitalism that was more people-oriented, more righteously designed. Unfortunately, almost no company came close to fulfilling that promise. Now, connected with this delicious dark chocolate, Susannah told me the company seemed to
be doing network marketing, or as they preferred describing it, "relationship marketing," in a new, more people-friendly and individually profitable way. In other words, following a lot of the financial philosophy I described in my book, MONEYLOVE.

The first step, of course, was to taste the product. Again, serendipitously, I had purchased about five different top-of-the-line dark chocolate bars, so I had the essentials to do a real taste comparison test. I won't say the XOCAI was much better than all five top-rated gourmet premium dark chocolate bars. But it was better than most of them, and as good as the top two. And it
was a lot purer, unprocessed dark chocolate, and had the highly recommended Acai berry in it.

I should note here that a number of people who have tasted Xocai do tell me it's the all-time best-tasting dark chocolate they've ever experienced. I suppose I want to err on the side of caution when it comes to taste. I am trying to do the same thing when it comes to the health benefits and the amazingly rapid results people report for all types of health issues. This new health food tastes great and does great things, but each person's experiences are not going to be evident until they start taking it.

The next serendipitous factor was that Hope Kiah, the Santa Fe website designer who introduced Susannah to the healthy dark chocolate, also was very knowledgeable about blogs, and gave me the information I would need to start my own, as well as get my own website domain name on which to feature the blog.

The next almost unbelievable fortunate "accident" was that I was chatting with my literary agent on the East coast, when
I mentioned healthy dark chocolate. He told me he loved dark chocolate, and I said I would send him some Xocai samples.
He then said something which brought it all together for me. "I think there's a successful book here, about the health benefits of dark chocolate. Can you write me a book proposal?"

Well, sometimes I have been a bit slow in picking up cues from the universe about what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. But I don't need to be pounded over the head with a sledge hammer more than once to get it. Not only can I be doing the research for the health benefits of dark chocolate book, I can put together a team of successful entreprenuers who will be my partners in this healthy dark chocolate business. And if, as I believe, they become extraordinarily prosperous as a result of this, I can do a whole other book on that! Not to mention, that once I've got my business thriving, I can do a special updated MONEYLOVE report, and share it with all the XOCAI distributors. And all the while, I can be gobbling down these delicious dark chocolate squares and nuggets, and positively affecting my physical and emotional well-being. My traditional primary care physician already has told me I can cut down on my most potent heart medication, Warfarin, as my increased antioxidant intake has apparently increased my blood flow to the point that I don't need as much blood-thinning medication to prevent a stroke or heart attack.

On top of all this, I can reference, often and extensively--as I have done in the previous posting, XOCAI--NO PLACEBO FACTOR--my earlier book, PSYCHOLOGICAL IMMORTALITY, in which I extensively interviewed the nation's top longevity doctors, especially about the damage caused by free radicals and how antioxidants could come to the rescue.

Everyone should have a really good reason why they do something. I have a multitude of reasons why I am doing what I
am doing right now. But I really only need one. In the opening of WORKLOVE, Chapter Two in MONEYLOVE, I say it all
in one sentence:

"The richest man in all the world is the one who has a good time earning his daily bread."

To me, this exemplifies freedom. In prison, one does the job one is assigned, and for almost no daily bread, the average pay is $18-$30 a month. So I can go on and on about serendipity and freedom and all the good reasons I am involved in eating,
sharing, and talking and writing about healthy dark chocolate. It all comes down to one thing, however--I'm having fun!

Jerry Gillies

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And by the way:
If you love dark chocolate, and only if that is true, I may be interested in having you join my prosperity team in this business.
Part-time or full-time, to earn substantial income or just enough to pay for your own supply of this healthy, delicious superfood. To find out more, and see some informative short videos, contact my sponsoring partners, Susannah Lippman,
at her www.Alphasonics.com website, where you can check out Chocolate For Health--and Hope Kiah, at her blogsite,
www.darkchocolatebenefits.net. To get directly in touch with me, e-mail me at jerrygillies@gmail.com