...In spite of years of dramatic highs and lows I realized I have a world filled with many blessings, though I am ashamed to admit that it took fifty years to recognize many of them. Once I forced the dust to settle, it became clear I love the arts and feel privileged that God chose me, to be caretaker of his gift of creative magic. I will do him proud before I finish my term as Gatekeeper, and then, turn the keys over to the next generation of artists, writers, and creative youth. I can guarantee you one thing, you have never read a self-help book quite like this one; actually, it is more of a novel as it turns out: An autobiography of my personal-life-long-beliefs, to never say die, to never surrender, and never give up.

My journey from a loser, to a winner, is here in this new style of book: The Self Help Business Novel. Get ready to be entertained, and at the same time, help find your station in life, now, and not later. My job today is to take you on a journey into my crazy world, starting at childhood. It's a story enjoyed by anyone, a funny and humorous look at what can go wrong in a life-time of wants and needs, and business ventures, which went astray.

People call me the Workingman’s Author ‘The Blue-Collar Street Fighter’. The message has more value than anything tangible, I make people laugh, and saved my own life in the process. Happenstance can be our greatest reward in life. That is what I have taken throughout this cathartic experience: Sometime’s failure, is God telling us to change our life.

Now, I live the dream...

Failure can strike at anytime, without a warning. During my stint as a business owner I had an ongoing dispute with my phone company. That ongoing problem brought me to my knees; I went to the media with stories of poor treatment and uncaring customer service, which culminated in testifying before a State of Michigan Public Service Commission hearing. The report in the local newspaper, a week later, had the telephone giant being fined three million dollars. Before I testified, the telephone company, which I laughingly nicknamed "The Telephone Mafia," threatened to keep me out of the phone book.

Several years later when the dust settled, they did exactly what they said and intentionally kept my company out of our town's local phone book. This was a small town retail business that absolutely depended on the phone book to be successful. In Michigan, where I lived, I couldn't get anyone to help.  Because the media and the government are so closely tied to this company, no one wanted to go against them. I call this institution, America's Legal Mafia.

Taking advice from my attorney, I was advised to have my company pay up-front for yellow pages advertising, with a letter from the Telephone Mafia that stated; I could do exactly that: The verbiage on the checks directed the money be used for advertising in the 2005 phone book -- I went to this extreme, anticipating they might try to retaliate against me. You would guess I did everything right, but in the end I was alone, and I got no help from anyone. Over a period of time, totaling almost 30 years, I accumulated a total of over $380,000 paid for my yellow pages and business phone service.  This was more money given to phone service than paid to banks, more than gas, heat, or electricity; more than rent, or even mortgage payments. You would think that paying this amount of money, they would give someone the red carpet treatment?

But no one cares why you failed, only that you did. It was at this point, that I started to get sick from stress.

At the same time all of this was going on, my wife left me and asked for a divorce and took my only son away. Devastated, I continued on, only to be confronted by an angry ex-wife and a non-caring friend of the court; I now was introduced to a whole new world called divorce court. My ex-wife was keeping my child from me and the courts could care less. ButI wouldn't give up. I spent over $30,000 defending my rights as a father.

When deliberating content for the rest of my life, I had to overcome several objections in my mind:

1. I wanted to change my career from entrepreneur and commercial advertising, to fine art, abstract art to be precise: I could still paint larger paintings, disarming the ever-so-real shaking and unsteadiness I felt.
2. I needed to tell my story, what happened to me, in an autobiography. However, I'm not a millionaire (I was convinced I had to write corporate non-fiction). But - and here's a big ‘but' - how does someone who lost everything, write a self-help book?  So many bill collectors were calling me, I could title the book:

How to exercise stress away and set your cell phone to silent mode.

I was convinced I could write a book, but -- another ‘but' -- wondered who would believe me. I prayed to God to give me direction in my life. My heart was telling me: use your creative talent and write fiction! It took a while to get the idea I had to write non-fiction, self help books. I told myself that fiction was a way to vent all the many stories banging around in my head, and then later, I could write the autobiography. I have since finished the autobiography "The Limo Driver" to be released, some time in late 2010.

I lost everything in this chronicle and in real life... Or did I?

Sometimes, it's the message that's more valuable than anything tangible. I'm not going to let divorce court or tremors in my hands stop me, and I'm not going to let the "Telephone Mafia" get me down either.  Some would think, it would be difficult to find humor in these tragedies that infest and permeate our lives. But I am under the strict theory, that what you can't laugh at, will kill you! I now know my life's calling is to write. If I could make people laugh -- explaining my unpredictable, precarious life -- I had something.

Deciding to go with my heart, writing, would allow me to help people to avoid making the same mistakes I made. Even though, many "experts" would say:

You're telling people you're not perfect. Do you want that image?

Then I would refute myself: But I think that's what people want to read -- how imperfect lives can be -- not how wonderful I am, or how life is always grand! I don't have a seventy-story building, with my name on it, who would be that audacious anyway?”  "Do as I say and your life will be perfect too," the so-called experts say. I can hear my family laughing in my head. Your family will always know you best. The world is full of skeptical families of "self-help authors" laughing right now. I knew if I was going to be a hit… as a writer, it would have to be more than a sterile business help book. It would have to be a story enjoyed by anyone. It would have to have the following three things:

1. A different style of self-help book: I want to tell all my unbelievable stories… including the ups and downs. In order to be entertaining, and real, you have to let your guard down and let yourself be vulnerable. I'm not afraid to tell readers the good and bad times in my life
2. It's got to be real, and funny. Now I look at my life and see tragedy, sure. But, I also look back, and see humor, along with many lessons learned.
3. Real life, not just business. I wanted a story of how hard life can be, but also how resolved humans are; like me, spending thousands protecting my right to be a father from my ex-wife -- gobs of money spent and time wasted – and how hard it is to be self-employed. Then finally, the never ending struggle to fine a life partner, the endless endeavor to find the right mate, to find that person that's supposed to witness our life, and failures.

When my whimsical writings of ‘how-to business' went askew, and became too personal -- whenever I put pen to paper everything would come out funny. After searching my soul, I found that my writings were amusing and educational. As I learned from my mistakes; my writing style developed into something like this:

Be prepared, self-employment can change your life forever. You could lose your girlfriend; your wife could divorce you --your best friend, even your family can split away because they lost money. Or you're disrupting their lives to the point they can't take it. I call this "Houdini entrepreneurship." What is a Houdini entrepreneur you ask?

-- It's like this, lets just pretend for a minute, of a potential company called -- magic man (a brand new entrepreneur, someone who convinced everyone he knows to invest in this new magic company) and the magic man watches as his magic car, with all the magic investors (in other words, all your family and friends) go off a cliff, after all the magic is gone. Said person watches as their wife, kids, best friends and family members (all the "can’t go wrong" investors, he had borrowed money from) go crashing down a hill: Screams from tortured humanity echo over the landscape as body parts fly everywhere. Damage even the real Houdini himself could fix. In other words, go get your money somewhere else. Not family and friends.

Yeah that it… I remember it well; the magic man company and all his friends disappear like magic, never to be heard from again. So gee, you already learned something and you haven't even yet read The Limo Driver: my self-help, business autobiography book. But wait, not so fast. I at least became aware that I wanted to tell the story... not explain how to fix other peoples' lives. But anyhow, happenstance is our greatest reward in life. What I learned, throughout all of this cathartic experience, was that I wanted to write -- the story, not tell people how to run a business. I shelved the 'business self-help book' and wrote stories about life, based on how I have lived it. I went on to write The Limo Driver, and then, Marathon Tools, a work of fiction about someone who lost everything, an artist with Parkinson's, and a woman that lost even more.

The Limo Driver took ten years to write. I started writing it after writing poetry for some time. I was encouraged by friends and family to continue. My first contact from a reader of my stuff was from a friend of my mothers, who, out of the blue, called me one day and said that my mother had given her my transcript. She said:

“I read a lot, so your mom asked me to see what I think of your book. I didn’t want to do it, but for your mother… I said OK. To my surprise, I couldn’t put it down. Kid, you can write!”

So, from that point I knew that was it for me. I am giving up everything and changing my life. To read more of my real-life venture, you will have to wait for The Limo Driver to come out some time in 2010.

Thank you... Weston