I’m a storyteller at heart. Oh, people label me as an entrepreneur or an author (and other names I’m sure, ones I can’t print), but in my heart I define myself as simply a weaver of stories. When I start a story, I never know how it will end. There’s no beginning, middle, or punch line either. I just jump into the story like Mary Poppins jumping through the sidewalk (original version and still in my never-humble opinion, by far the better) and then the story takes me on a ride, not the other way around.   My life is one of many stories…I have my marriage story, which I began nearly 40 years ago. It didn’t begin with marriage, of course. That came along later, but the ride that story has taken me on is still exhilarating and creating more chapters as the illusion of time passes. And I didn’t set out to be married. I simply bumped into someone (literally, as I was pushing a wheelchair down a hospital ward) and found myself in the middle of a story.  I have my business stories. I’m on my 5th company now — are they 5 short stories or 5 chapters in the same story?Again, there was never a formal beginning. I simply got annoyed about something and decided to set about fixing it. All the best entrepreneurs I know never set out to be entrepreneurs. That would be like setting out to be a writer and plagiarizing someone else’s work. No… Entrepreneurs are people who jump through the sidewalk and let the story take them for a ride.  I also have a few author stories but I never set out to write them because I was ‘an author.’ I wrote them because people asked me for ideas and guidance… or because someone or something inspired me or annoyed me, which is how my first book Three Simple Steps came to be, which became a New York Times Bestseller.One evening I was browsing a book stand at the airport when I came across a new self-help book. It was yet another to me written by an academic who’d never actually found success except as a writer of self-help books.I confess… it’s a big pet peeve of mine.So, I jumped through the sidewalk and the story of Three Simple Steps — a real story about rags to financial independence by someone who actually knows how you can get out of quicksand and be the best of you — took me on a ride. I wrote what interested me and seemed most useful without thought for a beginning, middle and end, because that is the magic of storytelling… jump in and it creates itself. When the book was published, I was surprised to see that, indeed, it seemed to have a definable beginning, middle and end (just as well for a book called Three Simple Steps). But, actually…It only appears that way to the untrained eye… because most people are indoctrinated to think of time this way: Birth, life, death. Start, work, stop. Beginning, middle, end.It looks like the book was planned in a forward and linear manner. It was not. It’s a story that you can open the book at any page and get a helping hand out of the swamp…  The ride it took me on continues today and along the way…And I’ve connected with hundreds of readers who are all busy telling their own breathless stories.  Some of those readers asked for a class or course. Good idea, but although I like to tell stories I never thought of myself as a teacher. So, I jumped through the sidewalk, and the course Transformation was the result. Now, that course is a Big story…When I started putting it together, I never imagined the life-changing impact it would have for so many people. I got to teach with video and audio, and the overall experience for every attendee is profound and mind boggling. I think it’s also a bit unsettling because it changes their lives in major ways, whether relationships, vocations, or lifestyles.

This is when the game changes for many people…Many attendees choose to start their own ventures because they want to take control of their lives again and achieve financial independence. I realized that, while there is no shortage of management consultant style advice books, there were really no practical guides for startups… about how to come up with a winning idea, and then turn that into a real, physical company, one that uses a unique business model that can lead to being one of what I call the ‘new home-based multi-millionaires.’ You’ll hear me say this over and over:There’s never been a better time to start a venture of your own and achieve rapid financial independence. This period will go down in history for the opportunity available. So, I wrote the A-Z guide Secrets to a Successful Startup.What a story. If, however, you were a management consultant sent to interview Trevor Blake and ‘the power of the feminine’ (a strong subplot in my story), you would view it all as a linear plan. How clever, you would say, to start a company, sell it, do it again and again, then share the ideas with people through a book, then create a course for the devotees… and then do that again. It looks planned and linear… and quite frankly boring. Life is not like that. I’ve never had a plan, just Intentions.And just like a good story, I jump through the sidewalk and let life fill in the details.                                                              The question.               O me! so sad, recurring — What good amid these, O me, O life?                                                                                                                    Answer.                           That you are here — that life exists and identity,               That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.                                                  — Walt WhitmanCheers,Trev