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Testimonials

Never say never: I talk about real life.

Never give up, no matter what obstacles are in your way, no matter what your age, or disadvantage, or disability. I have reinvented myself, three times in my life. Just a short time ago, I never would have thought I would be a motivational speaker.

Years ago, young and unable to attain a good grade level, I had a hard time focusing, and barely graduated high school. My memory wouldn't allow me the ability to recall words, and I had a hard time spelling and knowing where to put commas. Determined to change my life, I went to college.

Thirty years later, I am now a writer with fans that love my work, and tell me so on a daily basis.  I’m 75% creative and 25% technical. It’s a right-brain/left-brain thing; it was the way that God made me.  Never say never.  I have finally managed to improve, and I continue to overcome obstacles. I  simply tell potential readers the truth.

I weigh heavy on the creative side. So, if they're someone that enjoys very good creative writing, they will love my work. Don’t get me wrong, my work is very readable, and my storytelling is some of the best. I am simply prone to run-on-sentences, with a bit of dyslexia tossed in for good measure.

That disability has not held me back. I have overcome it, and have risen above it to write two books.  Readers often e-mail me letters of inspiration, telling me: "Please keep writing, you are doing the right thing in your life."

In my adult years, I have won two major awards. The first was an award for: America’s First Help Yourself Advertising Agency.  This agency was a walk-in, help-yourself style of advertising agency that combined elements of a print shop, computer shop, and copy shop. Back in 1990, when we opened up our prototype store in Lansing Michigan, it won a national award from the printing Industries of America. We were featured in many magazines and newspapers around the country. But with little money and a failed effort to achieve a loan from a bank suffering in the 1990s rust-belt recession, we had to close our doors..

Kinko’s, a chain that was 180 stores strong at the time, was able to secure the necessary funding for growth, and changed the theme of their stores to “Your Branch Office”. They won the race, as I lost everything.  Here is a segment of their own history, taken from the Kinko's web site, which states they changed their stores in 1992 -- two years after I had won the award, for the idea that they based this new concept on. Their stores look exactly like our prototype store in Lansing. Here is their own story:

"Your Branch Office" in the 1990s

The Kinko's of the 1990s had graduated beyond a low-tech service for college students. The company began opening stores averaging 7,000 square feet in size in suburbs and business areas to attract small-business owners seeking more advanced document copies, sometimes oversize or in color or bearing sophisticated graphics. In a nationally advertised television campaign begun in 1992, small-business people were urged to use Kinko's as: "your branch office."

After losing everything in my life, it took years for me to get over that travesty. I had a great deal of pain I had to work through. But, I did it, and came back strong.

Doing the right thing in your life

In 2005, I lost everything again. This time, it was more of a voluntary thing, needing to change my life. I couldn’t sell my business, as no businesses were selling in Michigan at that time.  I began to hate it, working around the clock, and desperately wanting to get back to the arts, I just gave it back to the bank and walked away.

Here is a snapshot of my next book, and my life:

Weston Rayfield is a testament to following your muse and making dreams come true.  His book, Marathon Tools, just became available nationwide. At 50, he made a life-altering decision to get out of business, and go for his lifelong dream of being a novelist. Weston sold all that he owned, and began a two-year sabbatical to see his literary dream through.

A Michigan area native and business owner, he lived and worked in the small town of Grand Ledge, Michigan, and then worked in the Detroit area for 25 years. After a stint as an award-winning commercial artist, he was side-tracked for twenty years.  Intrigued with the idea of owning his own business, he started and managed three businesses over the next 16 years. Recently, he decided he needed to change.  He says: “Sometimes, you have to leave everything you’ve known behind, to discover what you were meant to do in life.” Three years ago, Weston gave up his business, after he experienced the highest of highs, and the very lowest of lows, of self employment. He noticed that doing the wrong thing in his life was affecting his health.  He says, “I changed my lifestyle, eliminating stress, changing diet and exercise, running and working out daily.   I am now a writer working on my third book. “

Weston has 37 years experience as an artist, and has won two national awards. He says, "Everyone is born with some sort of talent; you just have to find it, like I did." Weston travels nationwide with his art exhibit and his book, signing books, and in some cases, even demonstrating his artistic skills. He changed his style of art from commercial art to a larger, more freeform artistic style. He will talk about his experiences and answer questions, on how to publish a book in a down economy, how to be creative, and how it feels using the gifts God gives you.  Weston says that it is easy to become discourages when trying to follow a dream in a recession as profound as the 2008-10 downturn.  In the publishind industry, everyone from the publishers to the book sellers are losing money, and offer very little to help in producing and promoting a new author.  Weston personifies self-reliance.  He says, “I am a far better artist and writer, than a business owner. I wasted about 20 years before I fixed that part of my life.”

Persistence

Never give up, no matter what obstacles are in your way, no matter what your age or disadvantage or disability. I have reinvented myself three times in my life, and so can you.

Marathon Tools is being called a great read, a wide-ranging fiction and self-help book about how an artist, found love where he never would have expected. He says that everyone that reads the book tells him, it needs to be a movie. "Just when you think everything has been done; Weston Rayfield has found a new genre for romance."