CHAPTER 10
Painting a New Portrait of Prosperity

There are no accidents… there is only some purpose that we haven’t yet understood.

—Deepak Chopra

Can one person actually embody the psychology of wealth? Can he do so even if he is neither a millionaire nor wealthy by most monetary standards? Dennis Gardin is a great example of someone who can.

When his motorcycle blew up in his face, Dennis was 14 years old and living in Detroit. Against his parents’ wishes, he and some friends had sneaked the bike into the basement for repairs. The boys didn’t notice how close they were to the furnace. Gasoline leaked out, ran under the hot water heater, and caught fire. Three of the four boys, including Dennis, ran out of the basement to safety. When Dennis realized that his other friend was still inside, he ran back in.

“When I got in the basement, I found my friend looking at the fire and screaming. He wasn’t burned. But when I grabbed him, he turned and jumped on my back in a panic. As I was trying to get him off, the motorcycle exploded. The entire front side of my body was burned. Because he was on my back, my body shielded part of his body.” Dennis woke up in a hospital burn ward with 70 percent of his body burned. He recalled, “My friend, who was burned on 20 percent of his body, had been transferred to the children’s hospital. I was too unstable to be transported. They didn’t expect me to survive, so it didn’t really matter where I died.”

Following the explosion, Dennis spent eight months in the hospital, where he endured 50 surgeries. “I had skin graft after skin graft, and significant reconstructive work. As soon as my mind would clear from the anesthesia, I’d be on my way back to the operating room. That’s all I did. This certainly wasn’t part of my 14-year-old plan. I was going to be a baseball player. This was a serious inconvenience for me—to go from playing ball and running up and down the street with my friends to endless surgeries and months in a hospital bed.”

Today Dennis is executive director of the Georgia Firefighters Burn Foundation.¹ He and the foundation help burn survivors in their recovery and provide fire safety education to prevent others from experiencing the traumatic event of a burn injury.

From Dennis’s story and the stories of the many other people whom I met and interviewed, a portrait of human prosperity had emerged—an inner richness that surpasses any other kind of wealth. Their prosperity seems to come from several essential qualities. Among them is a willingness to face challenges and setbacks, turn them into opportunities, and find meaning in the challenge. Their prosperity also stems from a willingness to take responsibility and face life creatively, to find solutions, and not to accept less than all they can give.

Like Dennis Gardin, these resourceful people know that whatever their circumstances or backgrounds may be, it’s up to no one but themselves to create their lives. They are true to their unique set of values. Like many of the people described in this book, they have the courage to discover and then to follow their individual dreams.

These people have adopted a psychology of wealth. In so doing, they have plugged into the evolutionary impulse, inherent in all human beings, to expand and grow. There is something of the seeker in these prosperous souls. Like Representative Johnny Shaw, they take a view of life that demands an appreciation of the little things. They are grateful. They take steps, and even risks, to move themselves forward. In the process, they accrue self-esteem and self-respect. And they’re persistent about it. They are willing to stand and fight. Like Senator Van de Putte, when called upon, they step up. They flow with the twists and turns in the stream of life. And like Bennie Taylor, who fought in Vietnam, they are willing to serve others, yet ask for help when they need it.

In turn, they are generous, supportive, and thankful for what they have and what they’ve achieved. They face life with grace and withstand the storms of change, loss, and discrimination. They bring consciousness to their actions and decisions. They’re honest with themselves and alert to life’s possibilities. And they are willing to do whatever it takes to succeed—even in the face of unspeakable pain and fear.

I Am a Monster

“When I was in the hospital,” Dennis reflected, “and we’re talking 40 years ago now, this burn unit was a single ward, where all the patients were in a room together, men and women. I was the only kid in the unit. One of the most difficult things for me was hearing adults crying in pain. I didn’t know adults cried like that. I thought, ‘If adults can’t deal with this, what am I going to do as a 14-year-old?’

“The ward wasn’t designed to address the needs of a kid. However, the staff did certain things for me—I guess because I was such a darn sweet kid,” he joked. “They changed my dressings each day before everyone else, so I wouldn’t have to anticipate my turn while hearing the screams of the other patients. That may seem like a small thing, but it wasn’t,” he said.

“There were no mirrors in the burn unit. My knowledge of reconstructive surgery was limited to movie stars, and they always came out looking better. Whenever the doctors took off my bandages, they’d comment about how good I looked. In a weird way, I actually thought I must look better than before. I mean, no one in my life had ever stood over me saying how good I looked,” he said ruefully. “One day, after many months of this, my mom and my brother were walking me down the hall, and I caught a clear reflection of myself in a glass door. I lost it. It truly scared me. That couldn’t be me. I was a monster.

“I collapsed and lay in the hallway, screaming that I wanted to die. They had to sedate me and my mom.” Dennis continued, “Oh, man, it was a mess. After that, I didn’t think that life could get any worse—until I was discharged. I was so ashamed of how I looked. I went home and hid. I refused to go out. Tutors came to the house for my schooling. But the most difficult part was seeing my parents helpless for the first time. They didn’t know what to do. Every night my earnest prayer was that I would die in my sleep. Then every morning I’d wake up with a broken heart because I’d woken up.”

Dennis now teaches the kids with whom he works that they are not burn victims—they are burn survivors. This empowering concept encompasses not only the person who is burned, but everyone in the family who was touched by the event. “The family members are injured as well,” he explained, “emotionally and even spiritually. They are all burn survivors.

“All my parents wanted was for me to be okay. I had been hiding at home for two years. When I finally decided to leave the house, it was more about them than about me. I felt that if I went back to school and got a diploma like a normal kid, it would be a gift to my parents. It would say, ‘I’m okay. Your efforts were worth it.’ But the truth is that I was scared to death.”

Multiplying by 10

“When I went to school,” Dennis continued, “everything I feared became a reality. It was much more difficult than I thought it would be. The teachers sat me at the back of the class so people wouldn’t look at me, and they dismissed me from class early, so I could escape the crowded halls. They did all the wrong things for the right reasons. The first time I went into the lunchroom and sat down, a girl jumped up and screamed, ‘How dare you come in here and spoil everyone’s appetite?’ I would come home every day and lock myself in the bathroom to cry.

“Eventually I realized that the more I tried to hide, the worse it got. So I figured, ‘If I’m going to be noticed, let’s just put it out there. Let’s just do it.’”

A shift had occurred inside him. Dennis had learned about positive thinking techniques from his baseball coaches. He began to remember these lessons. “When I was an athlete, the coaches would always say, ‘You’ve got to believe in yourself. Visualize hitting the ball over the fence, and tell yourself you’re the best player on the field.’ I transferred that idea to my situation. Every day, I counted how many times people talked badly about me or treated me unfairly. Then at night, I multiplied that number by 10. That was the number of times I would say to myself, ‘I love me,’ while I stood in front of a mirror. I would say it over and over. At some point I started to believe it.”

“Mind you, I wasn’t deliberately applying positive thinking principles,” explained Dennis. “I was still struggling. I was just a kid trying to survive. But once my appearance was no longer an issue for me, it seemed like it was no longer an issue for other people. I began to notice that not everybody was acting negatively toward me. Because I had expected negativity, that was the message I was sending out, and those were the cues I was picking up on.” He started participating in extracurricular activities and went to all the school games. In his senior year, he ran for class president and came in second. He got his diploma and graduated at the top of his class.

“I was born into a close-knit, very loving family. They are all about acceptance—about accepting who you are. Those principles buoyed me up. When I gave the diploma to my mom, my grandma grabbed it, she was so excited.”

Dennis realized that he could not hide any longer. Comparing himself to the hunchback of Notre Dame, he explained, “After I graduated, I couldn’t go back into my room, like Quasimodo in the bell tower. That was no longer an option.”

Dennis went to college, became a hospital administrator, and eventually started a successful music business. He was also married for a while. He wanted a normal life, and he refused to be identified with his burns. “I wasn’t going to be a burn person. I spent a good deal of my adult life trying to be normal, and I was fairly successful with it. But I wasn’t happy. I didn’t even know what ‘happy’ meant. I knew I should be grateful for what I had, so how could I not be happy?

“My entire life changed when I got a phone call from a friend with whom I’d worked at the hospital. Her uncle had been burned, and he was deeply depressed. She said, ‘Dennis, could you go talk to him? We don’t know what else to do.’ Because I was busy and distracted, I just wanted to hang up, so I told her I would do it. Immediately afterward, I went into a panic. Why did I tell her yes? Then I got mad. What right did she have to ask me to do this? But, really, I was scared. What was I going to talk about with this guy?” That fateful phone call came 23 years after Dennis had been burned.

He gathered his courage and went to the hospital. “It was my first time in a burn unit as a nonpatient.” When the doors to the unit opened, he broke into a cold sweat and nearly fainted. But he met the man he had come to visit. “I don’t remember what we talked about, but at the end, he thanked me and asked me to extend his appreciation to the support group for sending me. I was confused. There was a support group? I still had never spoken with another person outside of a hospital who’d been burned. But for the first time, something good had come from my experience. This man appreciated our conversation, and I’d learned that other people who’d been burned actually got together and talked about it. I learned that there was a group that met once a month a couple of miles from where I worked. But I didn’t go.

“Sometime later, the wife of the burned man called to ask if I would speak with his coworkers to prepare them for his coming back to work. Overcoming my extreme reluctance again, I went to the man’s workplace. The guys there expressed their appreciation for my coming, and a man asked, ‘Do you talk to schools? I know a kid who was burned and is having a hard time.’ I opened my mouth to say no—and again, yes came out.” Next, Dennis was invited to speak to an entire school. Other teachers attended and invited him to their schools.

It’s impossible to extend oneself from a place of purity and goodness to help another person without being helped in the process.

—Dennis Gardin

Thankful in All Things

“I finally went to that support group,” said Dennis. “As I listened to nine other burn survivors, I realized I had finally found another family—a group of people who not only knew how I felt, but felt the same way. I wasn’t alone anymore. From them, I learned about a conference of several hundred burn survivors, to be held in San Francisco.”

When Dennis arrived at the conference, he was too terrified to go in. The chairperson, a retired firefighter and burn survivor, took him aside and got Dennis to tell him his story. He gently encouraged Dennis to attend a session. Soon thereafter, Dennis entered the session room, and the chairperson announced that the first speaker hadn’t shown up. When he recalled the moment, Dennis laughed. The next thing he heard from the podium was, “But I met a young man who has a story I thought was amazing, and I think you guys are going to find it amazing, too.” Dennis was called to the stage—and he went. “I cried my way through a 30-minute presentation that ended in a standing ovation. Before that conference was over, organizations from different parts of the globe had asked me to come talk to them. And the telephone hasn’t stopped ringing since.”

Dennis is now a happy man. “Through extending myself to help someone else, I was helped in the process,” he explained. “It’s a universal principle, like a personal law—it’s impossible to extend oneself from a place of purity and goodness to help another person without being helped in the process.

“I speak because my heart says that’s what I have to do. As a motivational speaker, I’ve now traveled around the world several times.” He recently addressed the first adult burn survivor retreats in Australia and in South Africa. “The decisions I made from the time of that first phone call were really about allowing myself to follow my path. Odessa Scott, my grandmother, used to come to the hospital every day and rub my feet for hours, just praying and thanking. I couldn’t understand how she could be giving thanks. For what? She said, ‘Baby, you have to be thankful in all things, not thankful for all things. God’s not punishing you. God is preparing you to do your work.’

Baby, you have to be thankful in all things, not thankful for all things.

—Odessa Scott

“It was years before I understood what she was talking about—that the incident (I can’t call it an accident) was meant to happen so that I could receive the gifts of those experiences. And so that when a kid is telling me what he’s going through, and I say, ‘I know,’ he knows that I do.”

Dennis’s insight into the psychology of wealth is profound. He has learned firsthand that it is our responses to life’s challenges that determine our level of prosperity and the richness of our lives. “I’ve learned to accept that I can’t change other people’s responses to me. All I can do is to accept other people, stay open, and respond the way I would want others to respond to me.”

As for wealth itself, Dennis says, “Wealth is having a life of purpose and being able to fulfill that purpose—being able to make a difference in someone else’s life. In the time I have left on this planet, I want to start seeing burn survivors communicate with each other and their loved ones about their feelings and experiences, so they can truly heal and get on with their own lives.” If they can get on with their lives the way Dennis Gardin has, the world will be a much richer place.

Fire and Power

Dennis touches the lives of hundreds of children every year, helping them to heal from their own burn experiences. Joey Wincek is one of those “kids.” Now in his twenties, Joey was just seven years old when he started going to burn camp² every summer. Now he gives back as a camp counselor. Little kids surround him as he arrives at the camp, yelling, “Joey, Joey, Joey!” and he smiles hugely down at them from his six-foot three-inch frame.

He was burned as a baby; he was playing and splashing in the tub when the water suddenly turned scalding. He was laughing and happy one moment and fighting for his life the next. His burns were deep and required agonizing surgeries. Joey attributes his ability to get through the pain and his difficult teenage years to the love and support of his family and of Dennis. On his forearms are two tattoos with Chinese symbols that mean “power” and “fire.” “Power,” Joey explains, “is about knowing what you have to do and doing it. It is about claiming your life and assuming the responsibility. And fire? It’s about passion—finding what you love and giving it your all.” For him, the tattoos mean that he is in charge of his own skin.

Joey is now in an internship at Georgia Institute of Technology and is living a productive and happy life, following his passion. And although a third of his body is badly scarred, his heart is in perfect working order and full of love.

First, You Get the Moon

Stuart Johnson couldn’t wait to get started in life. The product of an upper-middle-class family, he could have had an exceptionally easy route to prosperity. But he had a strong independent streak. He felt an inner command to take a different path and to make something unique for himself—and as soon as possible. Stuart wanted to be an entrepreneur. And so, at a young age and on his own, he started his first business.

Today, not only does Stuart own a huge media company, but he moves among CEOs, celebrities, opinion leaders, and politicians—some very successful people indeed. He has built a business empire on his passion for achievement. Very successful himself, he loves encouraging success in others. It is fitting, then, that he is the owner of SUCCESS magazine. SUCCESS lives up to its name. Its covers are graced by people who have made unique contributions and achievements in their respective fields: Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Usher, Maria Shriver, Jackie Chan, Alicia Keys, and Magic Johnson, to name a few. The magazine is one way in which Stuart shares what he and other highly accomplished people have learned along the way. His tenacity is an example in itself. “I had wanted to own the magazine for over a decade,” he says. “I always knew that if I did what I needed to do, somehow the opportunity for me to purchase it would arise. I kept working at it, and, just over four years ago, the opportunity came.”

Never quit, never surrender, never give up, never, never, never.

—Winston Churchill

Stuart’s formula for success? “Hard work, hard work, and just showing up!” He took his lumps along the way. “Once I got started, I began to make money very quickly. But I might have had a taste of success too early. I started believing my press a little bit more than I should have, and I became overconfident. I guess I had to get a couple of rocks thrown at me before I realized what it really takes to succeed.” He got knocked down—and more than once. He admits that he failed at least six or seven times before the age of 21. Of course, most people are barely getting started at that age, and Stuart was already rebuilding. “When I had gone down for the fourth or fifth time, my mom finally said, ‘Stop trying to take the easy road. Just get a job!’ But the setbacks had only fired me up and confirmed my conviction that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Somehow I knew I’d make it and become successful.” To Stuart, failing is not a bad thing. It’s just an indication that he needs to try another avenue. “After 25 years, I’m an overnight success,” he laughs.

Surrounded by extremely successful people—and being one himself—Stuart often works outside the spotlight. With his lightning-quick and quiet intelligence, he is an intuitive observer of psychological strengths in people who have reached their goals with more than usual success. “Successful people, like Donald Trump, Suze Orman, and Oprah Winfrey, have tenacity. They can be knocked down, but they’re not knocked out. They have integrity, and they work hard. They put good people around them, and they always seem to really care about others.” Stuart expresses these qualities himself: “I’m just grateful for everything I’ve been able to accomplish, for all the people I’ve been able to touch. I have a great family, a great network of friends, and a great team. I feel blessed just to wake up and be able to do business and have fun with them. I think a wealthy life is knowing you are doing the best you can to make a difference.”

Stuart advises anyone who wants to take the next step toward prosperity: “If you shoot for the stars and actually hit the moon, it’s a start. It’s a lot better than not trying. You have to be realistic; you can’t just wake up and say, ‘I’m going to be a billionaire by Friday.’ At the same time, it’s just as easy to have big goals as it is to have small goals. But it’s not just going to come to you. You still have to get up and take action.”

The Call

Surrounded by young kids who are trying to make it up a ropes challenge course, Joey Wincek is encouraging them. It is not easy to face life with the added challenge of serious scars. But here at burn camp, in the middle of a Georgia pine forest, everyone is going for it. They are being encouraged and cheered on to achieve things that many of us would not be able to handle. It’s nearly 100 degrees outside, but no one seems to notice. The kids are all lining up to tackle the high ropes. Using harnesses, helmets, cables, ropes, nets, and wooden beams strung high among the trees and poles, the kids explore risk taking, trust, and mutual coaching. Some are struggling, and sweat pours from their faces. The hydration team stands ready to provide water whenever it’s needed. But the kids don’t back down. They have come to face the challenge. Joey likes sports metaphors, so he describes it this way: “It’s not about being on the sidelines,” he says. “This is your life, and you’re supposed to be a player, on the field and fully engaged.”

It’s not about being on the sidelines. This is your life, and you’re supposed to be a player, on the field and fully engaged.

—Joey Wincek

“We’re all called,” Oprah Winfrey says. She asserts that each of us has a role to play in the world. She continues, “If you’re here breathing, you have a contribution to make to our human community. The real work of your life is to figure out your function—your part in the whole—as soon as possible and then get about the business of fulfilling it as only you can.”³ Representative Johnny Shaw would say that it’s about being “obedient to your purpose.”

Dennis Gardin and Stuart Johnson provide two very different portraits of prosperity. And yet it strikes me that a common quality shines through both of them. Taking different routes—and at different times in their lives—each man found the purpose to which he was called. In the process, each of them created a fulfilling life. Joey Wincek might say that they are in their power. They show us that when we are in our power—in touch with and aligned with our calling—good things tend to happen. When we strive for what is important to us as individuals, then opportunities arise, and the chances to share with others become abundant. Life becomes connected and dramatically sensible. When it happens, we just know, “I’m in the right place, doing the right thing. I’m where I know I was meant to be.” When we find our calling, the special something that really inspires us, we can achieve more than we ever imagined.

I think Oprah puts it best, and it’s one of the things that she says she knows for sure: “There is no greater gift you can give or receive than to honor your calling. It’s why you were born. And how you become most truly alive.”⁴