About the Author
“Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing." –Margaret Chittendenhere
Your author.
My experience developing training material began when I was planning and providing skill-focused training programs in 1996 as an engineer with the Coastal Corporation in Detroit. When I became the Key Communicator for the Michigan Jaycees in 1998, I saw the opportunity to use these training skills in another arena. My goal at that point was to help Jaycee Newsletter Editors to better their publications as well as to introduce and explain a new judging criterea I had developed. That went well and I know the used the basic parts of for several years afterwards. However, the really important thing I learned was how powerful presentation skills could be. So I started developing success-focused training programs around 2000 and presenting them to the Jaycees. I developed and delivered dozens of different training and motivational sessions to Jaycee and other organizations all over Michigan.
In 2003 my training development was going quite well and I decided that it would be a good idea to use another of my skills -writing- to get the word out about my training programs. So I created a free email newsletter which I invited everyone who attended a training to receive. That is how the For Your Success articles began. During the mid-2000s, I was giving at least a training a month. Over time, my focus shifted from the trainings to the articles.
I wish I could say I had it all figured out from the beginning. My initial idea was to incorporate humor into the newsletter, which I did for the first few issues. I quickly realized that, although I love to write humorous essays, this was not the appropriate topic for that skill. Other experiments were tried - some of the newsletters had five success tips and others had seven. Over time, for whatever reason, six seemed to be optimal, so I started always trying to come up with six success tips each month. I still come up with an extra at times or really struggle to get the last one at other times, but it's a good formula and I try to honor it.
Click the photo above to see a .pdf version
of the printed version of this newsletter.
In the beginning of the newsletter, I also had a two-sided one-sheet copy of the newsletter. This included the article, quotes and a profile of a successful person. (You can see an example of it at left. Clicking on this image will open a new window containing a .pdf copy of that newsletter.) The printed version was designed to be handed out during training sessions so that people could see what they were signing up to receive. After I had established the newsletter and people began referring it via word-of-mouth, I decided the extra work and money required to put it together was unnecessary and I stopped printing it.
Several people have said some very nice things about these articles and how they have helped them out. I deeply appreciate that, but I must admit that I write them to keep myself focused on success principles as much as for anyone else. I briefly quite writing them in 2005 and I ended up regretting that decision. Knowing that I have to put a new article together each month makes me continue my reading on success principles so that I keep them fresh in my mind. It's as good for me as it is for you readers and I appreciate your enjoying them enough to keep me writing them.
Mark Kehoe holds a Bachelor's of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Master's in Business Administration from Wayne State University. He is presently working towards saving the money necessary to pursue a Master's Degree in Positive Psychology. He continues to write his For Your Success Newsletter monthly, aiming to release each issue to the web between the 15th and 20th of the month.
