Chance have him life while poverty, hunger, social ostracism dogged his childhood. After his father’s untimely demise, fate condemned him to servitude but courage gave him wings to fly out and above his lowly station and into the known world where racism became his greatest challenge. Not unlike the strongest metal that’s withstands the fiercest fires, the ‘Beggar from Bombay’ emerged from the ashes to build a globally favored media brand, penned an internationally accepted sales-related best seller and a billion-dollar company that’s inspired countless many, globally, all from just one quality…empathy. MR. GLENN ROGERS
An exclusive Q&A with me MACK FITT PIJEWSKI
MFP: What is the secret of success in the publishing industry? Any 3 key factors for success?
GR: It’s all about creating a niche and excelling in it. Package your product. Sell it before you make it. Immediately forget about the profit you made.
MFP: You work with many people. You have hired many team members to work with you. What are the top 3 qualities you see in the people before you hire them?
GR: Honesty. Simplicity. Persistence.
MFP: You have different faces as an author, publisher, entrepreneur, blogger and much more. Which is the face you love the most and why?
GR: Entrepreneur, because taking a concept from pre-birth to post-maturity with a goal of helping as many people on the way as possible is like walking a tightrope. It gives me a thrill.
MFP: Do you have unpublished works which you would love to publish one day?
GR: Yes. I’d like to make a feature film one day. I’d started putting parts of it together a few years ago. I hope to complete it one day.
MFP: What is the rule you have created for yourself that you will never break?
GR: To break all rules is the only rule I have that I will never break. I am spontaneous. I love to contradict myself. Predictability is boring.
MFP: Many people complain that they don’t have time to do activities to keep them fit. What would you like to tell them?
GR: Fitness is a drug. It is addictive and contagious. All you need is the first sincere step toward seeing that fitness is NOT about others. It is about yourself. Once you GET that, the path is painless and enjoyable. Life itself becomes a pleasure. To me, fitness is a sort of meditation – a way to communicate with existence.
MFP: What are the activities that energize you and what exhausts you?
GR: Being with nature energizes me. I can sit watching trees and animals all day long and stay totally at peace. People exhaust me.
MFP: You have visited various countries, can you share with our viewers any interesting travel experience, which changed your perspective on a few things?
GR: When you stop looking and start ‘seeing’, people and places all instantly become the same. It’s just different colors and shapes but intrinsically indifferentiable. It is in meditation that I watch the universe as if I were not a part of it at all. There I see the total insignificance of man. The lie that is ‘knowledge’ and the futility of control. Perspective is not relative. It is absolute. It is non-existant in existence.
MFP: You have worked in different continents and different countries. Which culture or spirit of each country you loved or admired?
GR: I like simple people. So I find third world countries like the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand very relaxing and spiritually uplifting. In poverty there is abundance and in wealth there is scarcity. I prefer the richness of the poor to the bankruptcy of the rich.
MFP: As a master of many trades, given an opportunity, what would you like to change in your life in your past, maybe a 10 years before?
GR: I’d have liked to have given my voice a little more attention. I’d have liked to go for voice training workshops and learn to sing professionally.
MFP: Any incident in your life which left a deep impact on you?
GR: My dad’s demise when I was 12 changed my life. It opened my eyes to the cruelty of the human species which I have loathed since then.
MFP: Tell us about your childhood.
GR: My childhood was marred by parental neglect, poverty, mal-nutrition, and despair. I would not wish anyone to go through what I did. While you could say, it made me a stronger person I would have rather been a weaker person than someone who grew up with a torn spirit.
MFP: Who is the person or Incident, which helped you to decide your career path?
GR: Watching society cannibalize on itself made me want to join the press. I wanted to save those who were disadvantaged by the system, the way I was. One day as a young reporter i went to report on the story about the death of two kids (brother 8, and sister 5) who killed themselves. The sister died of starvation and the brother jumped from the hostel window in grief. This was because the hostel manager did not allow the sister her meals. The management tried to cover up the scandal but i fought hard to expose them. In spite of my report, the police did nothing to the hostel manager. This made me see through the hypocrisy of the system and become a rebel.
MFP: Any three people in your life, who can never forget and why?
GR: My mother. She taught me that i could rely on and trust no one.
My first tutor. He was the only one who truly believed that I was gifted with the power of empathy. It is the single-most quality that got me to where I am today.
My first girlfriend. She taught me how purchasable the word ‘love’ can be. That experience made me look beyond the word and that’s when I discovered the true meaning of love. Were it not for her, i might have spent my whole life believing the lie.
MFP: Any three important things needed to achieve success in life?
GR: 1. Never lose your ‘center’ (state of pure being). It is your anchor. Never let the winds of circumstance tear through your sails. Stay true. Be the lighthouse.
- Always follow the heart and NEVER the brain. Not even once — across all decisions.
- Remember – whatever you give, you will receive multi-fold.
MFP: What do you think is important in life Wealth, Health or Love?
GR: Always love, because that is what we all are. But understanding what love takes courage. Love is unconditional. The moment is it tainted by condition, it ceases to be love. With love will come health. Wealth is a disease and has no place on the altar of love.
MFP: For excellent relationships in the family or workforce, what are the important rules to follow?
GR: There is no ‘other’. Everyone is just YOU in different bodies.
MFP: Do you visit India? What reminds you of India?
GR: I used to. India is not a country. It is a kaleidoscopic experience. You have to live its diverse culture, taste its rich tapestry of art and craft and immerse yourself in its billion-plus recipes to even get a drop of what it is. It is fascination on the grandest scale.
MFP: Please tell us about a decision in your life which you have taken in a jiffy and proved to be a fantastic decision. Do you have any as such? Or all your decisions carefully calculated ones?
GR: All my decisions have been spontaneous except one. That was the decision to stop pretending to be intelligent. When i first saw that knowledge is a lie, it became clear to me that intelligence was a mis-nomer. It was then that i decided to stop trying to impress with my knowledge and i began just keeping things simple and straightforward. That’s when my career really took off.
I can’t calculate. I work on instinct.
MFP: What do prefer for entertainment? What do you do in your free time if you have any?
GR: I love massages, aromatherapy, and reading.
MFP: Few things which you would always carry?
GR: 1. My awareness. 2. My friendship with the Lady in Blue
MFP: What are the mistakes you regret in life?
GR: Trusting people.
More about Mr. Glenn Rogers:
Download How to Sell Like Jesus (here): https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Like-Jesus-Glenn-Rogers-ebook/dp/B00AVKZVJE
About Mediazone: www.mediazone.com.hk
Connect with Glenn Rogers via Linkedin: https://au.linkedin.com/in/glennrogers1
Read Glenn Rogers’ hotel and restaurant reviews on Tripadvisor: https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/members/608glennr