Meeting Joel Weldon in 1980, Scottsdale, Arizona


Something that changed my life, back when I was 22 years old, was meeting the motivational speaker Joel Weldon. I know that he's touched many lives, and I'm just one of them, but I thought that maybe you would like to hear about it. Let's time-travel back to 1980 and go to Scottsdale, Arizona.

Well, actually, we need to start at Phoenix College, which is on Thomas Road and 15th Avenue, because that's where I saw a "help wanted" ad on the job board. It was to draw some cartoons, which is what I had been looking for.

Among the many things that I had never heard of before at age 22 was a "motivational speaker". Yes, of course I know all about them now, but at the time it made no sense to me. Motivational speakers have always been around, and still are, and mostly they give the type of advice that salespeople need. But I found out that it ran much deeper.

At the time, Joel was using an overhead projector to show cartoons while he spoke. He had been using "clip art", but had decided that he would prefer to have original cartoons made up just for him. The cartoons were really just background images, which changed often throughout his speeches, so he had a need for a lot of them, which I was glad to do.

I mostly worked with his staff, but I distinctly remember meeting Joel. And I was genuinely puzzled by what he did. He had, and still has, a "larger than life" persona, and while he wasn't a particularly big man, he seemed to fill up the room. I had never met a celebrity before, but I had the sense that I was meeting one then. Over the years every time I had occasion to meet him he always impressed me, the way that I would imagine meeting Elvis in real life would be. 

Anyway, his business card, which is at the top of this post, was a can that said, "Success Comes in Cans, not in cannots". And he wasn't kidding, you could tell that he really felt it, believed it, and wanted to share it. It wasn't just for salespeople, it was for anyone who, like me, was stumbling in a complicated world, and wanted to find the strength to forge ahead.

At 22, of course, I imagined success to be financial. As I got older I discovered that success is much more than that, it's fulfillment, and happiness. When I turned 38, and got in front of a college class for the first time in my life, I imagined that I was Joel Weldon. I became successful at being a teacher not by being rich, but by seeing other people achieve their dreams.

Joel never claimed to be presenting material that he had just thought up himself. He gave credit where credit was due, and I liked that. I give a lot of credit to my success to Joel, and hopefully I've passed enough motivation along that it will continue on and on. That makes me happy, and that's success.

Thank you, Joel!

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