WHO ARE RICHARD, WILLIAM, AND JOHN?
Okay, so Charles Haanel was an extraordinary and extraordinarily accomplished human being. But what does that matter to you? Well, it so happens that the techniques that Haanel developed actually work and have worked for millions of people over the last one hundred years. Even more important, there are profound and practical insights Haanel shares that will help you no matter what your position in your life, your educational background, or your personality type. This is what is truly extraordinary. Most self-help authors and teachers provide information and techniques that are useful for certain types of individuals and certain types of thinking. Haanel’s Master Key System, unlike any of the other dozens of systems we three authors have ever studied or used, is truly universal.
You could not find three more divergent personalities than your author team of Richard Greninger, William Gladstone, and John Selby. Each of us has been extremely successful in aspects of our lives. Each of us, upon studying Haanel’s Master Keys, achieved personal mastery in our own lives when we followed the guidance provided in his book. And based on what we know now, we have come together to share what we each believe is the simplest and most powerful guidance any human being can have toward living a happy and successful life.
Richard Greninger never thought that he would be an author or teacher. Richard attended the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, which is known the world over for developing famous world-class photographers, filmmakers, and automobile designers. Richard’s commercial career began in 1970, and he was a commercial producer in Hollywood for some fifteen years. As his career progressed, he became familiar with the personal development field of production. He was introduced to Berny Dohrmann, founder of CEO Space and a visionary in transforming people’s way of thinking, and was asked to create live videos for a self-help seminar called IBI. IBI was about teaching people how to create multiple streams of income. Among the speakers who spoke at these seminars were the creators of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series, Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield, and many other self-help gurus and inspirational speakers. As it turned out, Richard had a wonderful ability to capture Mark and Jack’s presentations and their audiences in a way that grabbed people’s attention. Word spread, and soon Richard was the go-to videographer for Tony Robbins, T. Harv Eker, and many other motivational speakers.
Richard’s videography business thrived, and along the way Richard could not help but notice that the basic messages of many of these speakers were similar and that the people attending were not coming just to increase their incomes, but also to be inspired and motivated to live happy and fulfilling lives. The energy at many of these events was extraordinary, and Richard was able to observe firsthand the near-miraculous transformations and successes of many who had attended. But Richard also observed that in many cases the same people would return again and again, even after achieving success, still seeking more profound results or simply because they enjoyed being in the energy created at these events. Why was that so?
Richard, being someone who wants to know why things work, started to study on his own. In the process, he came upon the work of Haanel and his Master Key System. Haanel was a revelation for Richard. Here, in one small book, were all the keys that all of the other self-help teachers were talking about. Richard became so motivated that he created his own very basic video version of the Master Key System and started living the principles in his daily life. Although the video series did not take off at that time, Richard felt and saw the powerful success these tapes had with those who viewed them. He vowed then that, when the time presented itself, he would find a way to bring the wisdom of the Master Key System to millions of people through a book and a new and better video series. Of course, one of the major problems for Richard was that he was not an experienced writer. And so he waited.
As John Lennon wrote, “Life is what happens when we are busy making other plans.” One of Richard’s other plans was to work on a promotional video for a novel by a friend of Mark Victor Hansen’s, William Gladstone. The novel was called The Twelve, and part of the assignment included flying to New York City to shoot some subway scenes with William. In the process, Richard and William became good friends. Shortly after the promotional video for The Twelve was completed, Richard drove down from his home and studio in Newport Beach, California, to William’s home and office in Cardiff by the Sea, California, to go over the final cut and make some tweaks. The meeting turned into lunch, and after lunch Richard mentioned to William that his own dream—much like the writing of The Twelve had been William’s—was to write and publish a major book acknowledging Charles Haanel and his Master Key System as the most powerful self-help guide ever written.
William was busy with many other projects in addition to promoting his novel. As the founder and active president of Waterside Productions, a major literary agency, he was personally representing best-selling authors such as Eckhart Tolle and Neale Donald Walsch. However, William could not ignore the enthusiasm with which Richard raved about Haanel and his Master Key System. Finally, with some reluctance, William gave in. “Okay, send this Master Key System to me and I will see what I can do. We will need to bring in a writer to update the story for twenty-first-century readers, but if the original is as strong as you say it is, I am sure I will be able to find a writer.”
A few days later, the manuscript of the original Master Key System arrived. William was too busy to do more than spend about five minutes with it, but he thought a local writer he was meeting with that very day might be ideal to rewrite the text. So William gave this writer the manuscript with the hope that he would be inspired to become part of the project. The writer took about a week before responding to William, and though he was excited by the material, he had another project that required his immediate attention. It looked unlikely that he would be able to even consider becoming the coauthor of a book about the Master Key System for another five or six months. That was just too long to wait, so William had the writer return the manuscript and decided he would take it with him the following weekend when he went to Kauai, Hawaii, for his annual spring vacation.
William is not your ordinary literary agent. He grew up in a wealthy book publishing family and wanted to be a writer before his father persuaded him that writing was an unlikely profession if he ever expected to support a family or maintain the highly affluent lifestyle he had experienced as a child. William had obtained an advanced degree in cultural anthropology at Harvard University before entering the world of business, and from his first days as a film producer working with Rod Serling and NBC Television, and then as an executive editor for Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishing, it was clear William had a unique talent for selecting and managing creative talent. William is always focused, disciplined, and a hard worker. Utilizing these Haanel-like qualities, as well as his natural openness to “synchronicity” and “good fortune,” William soon built his own multimillion-dollar literary agency, Waterside Productions, which not only represents book authors but entire companies, including mid-level mergers and acquisitions up to $30 million in individual transactions. William is a busy guy but believes in living a balanced life that includes playing golf and taking frequent visits to his second home in Kauai.
One of the friendships William had developed in Kauai was with an author named John Selby. John is an accomplished writer and has worked with a number of literary agents in order to build his résumé, which includes more than twenty books with more than a million copies sold in total. The relationship between William and John sometimes included some agenting, but William is not John’s primary literary agent and their relationship is based more on having children with similar interests and both having received Ivy League educations (William went to Yale as an undergraduate, John to Princeton).
John knew William was coming to Kauai that May and had invited William to dinner soon after he was due to arrive. A funny thing happened to William on the plane ride from San Diego to Kauai. He read Haanel’s original The Master Key System cover to cover. He couldn’t believe the manuscript. He later commented to Richard and John, “I felt that I was reading a manuscript that I could have written myself. I have been living these principles in my work for the last twenty-five years. Haanel’s Master Keys are literally the keys to my own career and financial success.”
Well, the dinner with John took a very different course than just talk about the kids and John’s latest marvelous video products, which were designed to help people sleep better and reduce stress. “John, you have got to read this manuscript. I need a writer to bring this up to the twenty-first century, and in my gut I know you would be great for the task,” William suggested, almost before dinner had started.
John replied, cheerfully but firmly, “Well, I’m super busy with my new video production and I have another agent who is offering me a book deal, so I really just don’t have the time. I’m sorry, but at this stage of my life I really want to focus exclusively on my own projects.”
Never one to give up on creative talent without a second or third attempt, William simply looked at John as he handed him the manuscript. “I understand,” William said, “but please at least skim this and let me know if you can think of someone else on the island I might meet with. I know this is powerful and deserves a great writer like you.”
“Okay, I can do that at least,” John responded as he took the manuscript and noticed that it was the work of Haanel. “Funny you should hand me this. My grandfather was a major cattle rancher and owned the largest ranch in what is today Ojai, California, and he used to rave about Charles Haanel and his Master Key System to me when I was a boy. I never paid much attention at the time, but I did come across his work later when I was doing my studies in cognitive psychology at Princeton. It will be good to spend an hour or two getting reacquainted with Charles and his Master Keys. Must be more than thirty years since I looked at his stuff.”
Dinner in John’s Kauai “writing shack” was even more pleasant than usual that evening, with great barbequed steak prepared by John and exotic, organic Hawaiian vegetables, grown and prepared by John’s wife, Birgitta. When William woke up the next day, he was pleased but not altogether surprised when John called, almost shouting, “This is unbelievable. In the last thirty years, my entire life’s work has been on helping people focus and overcome addictions and stress. Now I see that I have been missing one major ingredient in my own teaching, and Charles Haanel has had that secret for me all these years. There is no question. I was meant to write this book. My heart is racing just thinking about what a powerful message we can bring to others and how I can use my expertise in teaching breathing meditation exercises to fully complement what Charles Haanel has been recommending for more than a hundred years. I know I have the missing ingredient that will enable people to immediately use the Master Keys in a way that they never could before. When should we get started?”
And of course John was 100 percent correct. The book you hold in your hands is the result of the unique gifts of three different authors. We are certain that what you will discover is the most inspiring and practical advice you will ever read anywhere: the original and streamlined wisdom of master thinker and manifester Charles Haanel.