Ralph Zuranski: Hi, this is Ralph Zuranski! I’m on the phone with Robert Channing. He is one of the most amazing people that I have ever met. I met him at Joe Vitale’s seminar Spiritual Marketing Super Summit. He had coordinated the entire seminar, complete with the speakers and virtually everything that you could possibly imagine that goes with a seminar – maintenance and just creation.
Robert also is one of the most impressive people that I have ever seen, using his mind to bend spoons, to remember things and to know what people are thinking. It was incredible. I’ve never been more blown away by somebody’s presentation than Robert’s when he did a special presentation at Joe’s seminar. So Robert, how are you doing today?
Robert Channing: I’m doing phenomenal, Ralph, and thank you very much for inviting me on this. I’m very honored and I really appreciate you having me on today.
Ralph Zuranski: You know, your company is called the Power Performers and I know that you work a lot with scheduling movie stars, business leaders and some of the most important people in the world today to speak at conventions and events. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about your company.
Robert Channing: Power Performers was created around nine years ago. How it came to fruition is I have been a performer since I was five years old. I started studying magic, mind reading, ESP and hypnosis. I studied with David Copperfield, Harry Blackstone Jr., some of the top mentalists and magicians in the world. I learned by actually watching them do what they do.
I learned from the best and I learned from the worst. I made it my life’s goal to be a performer, to be a mentalist, a mind reader, ESP motivational person. I studied Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
The first book I ever read on motivation was by Glen Bland. It was called the Glen Bland Method for Success. It just taught me how you can change your life. You draw a line in the sand and by just taking that step over; you can change your life by changing your attitude and your strategies with your mind.
When I was a child, Ralph, I learned how to do magic tricks and it brought attention to me. I didn’t have that; I didn’t crave that. My mother was fantastic, my father worked all the time and I never saw him. He was a great guy, never made a lot of money but I never knew that. I was a happy guy who played Army and Cowboys and Indians.
But as I grew older, I was into sports, and I was always into magic, how the mind worked and I became an entertainer. I performed at birthday parties for $15. For my first birthday party when I was 11 years old I performed for $15 and I learned I could make money doing it and people loved what I did.
Then I began to performing all over the world. I performed for different Presidents. I performed for corporations and for a lot of colleges and organizations. At that point, the people at the organization said to me, “Hey, Bob. Your mind reading ESP show is phenomenal. Do you have anybody else that can entertain at our event or speak?”
At that point, I said, “I have a friend of mine that can do human calculations. I have another friend of mine who is a rock star, Alice Cooper. He can come in and talk about, for colleges, drug awareness. He can perform.” Then I created the company Power Performers. So that was my unique selling proposition.
These were powerful people but are the best in their industry, just like you are doing, Ralph. You’re interviewing the heroes in different industries that are the best at what they do, the top 1%. And that’s what I did.
I created the speaker’s bureau, or an entertainment agency which is both. I promote the top speakers, entertainers, sports stars, and business leaders in the world to corporations, associations, colleges, private functions and organizations throughout the country. So hopefully that answers your question.
Ralph Zuranski: Yes, it definitely does. Since you are working with the top people in the industry, one of the major things I’ve realized with doing the interviews of my heroes is the real heroes are people that actually provide a quality service to society.
They help put people to work and the true definitions of those people are entrepreneurs who are not afraid to step out on their own to follow their dream. What is your definition of heroism?
Robert Channing: I just spoke to my wife about that this morning; because I told her I was going to be on the line with you, Ralph. She said, and we agreed, it’s the people that make a difference in one person’s life.
If I can make a difference in my neighbor’s life that morning or that afternoon, maybe once a day and bring somebody up that’s been down or helped somebody, like I know you are doing with your family, that’s a hero.
To me, if I can change one life, I don’t know who quoted this before, but it’s a quote from somewhere. If you can change one person’s life, and make them happy, make them feel better about themselves or help them in any other way, you’ve actually helped humanity itself. That’s my definition of heroism.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s so true.
Robert Channing: Helping one person at a time.
Ralph Zuranski: I totally agree. Did you ever create a secret hero in your mind that helped you deal with life’s problems when you were young?
Robert Channing: Yes, I did. Well, God was my hero. I was brought up Catholic. I was an altar boy for 11 years.
Ralph Zuranski: So was I.
Robert Channing: I remember sitting in a small church. I came from a little town called Newport, New York. There were probably around three people in our little town, one blinking light, one Catholic Church and one Methodist church.
I remember doing my services in the evening, the Stations of the Cross. There were maybe like five or six people in the church. I’d be there myself before the mass would start. I’d be there, present with a Being and that’s what I believed that yes, there is a God, there is some Higher Power.
I think that by being by myself in that big open church and just thinking and being open to thoughts in the Universe and to God, is what opened my mind to reality and what I could do. I can’t describe it any more than that, it was just a feeling that I had come over me.
Ralph Zuranski: What is your perspective on goodness, ethics, and moral behavior?
Robert Channing: I know everybody has struggled with that. I have. I would say that I’m 90% ethical and moral. There’s that 10% where sometimes you get tempted by money or greed or temptation of any kind.
Sex, drugs, rock and roll, whatever you want to call it. I think my integrity is up there with the top people in the world.
I think integrity is very, very important. If you cheat someone, you are cheating yourself. It’s a multiple effect. If you want to track that in business, if you do something well for someone, I’ve heard this, they are going to go out and maybe tell one or two people.
But if you would hurt them in any way, or take advantage of them, it’s going to multiply over 100 times backwards. You can track that as well, Ralph.
A friend of mine, Scott Holm that I hired as a business coach taught me that and we tracked it one day. It’s better to do well than it is to do badly. I’ve learned that all my life, you learn by trial and error as well. I think integrity is the number one pursuit of happiness in a balanced life.
Ralph Zuranski: You know, it’s funny that you’d say that about the 90% doing good and the 10%. One of the heroes that I interviewed is Gregory Allen Williams. He’s the black cop on Baywatch; he actually saved a man’s life during the L.A. riots. He said there is a little bit of bad in the best of us, and a little bit of good in the worst of us.
When anybody steps up to help someone, they too can be a hero at that moment in time. So he was willing basically to sacrifice his life if he had to, to help others that were in difficulty during the LA riots. What do you think are the principles that you are willing to sacrifice your life for?
Robert Channing: The principles that I’m willing to sacrifice my life for? I’ve been struggling with that. Only because I give so much; I give, I give, and I give, Ralph. It seems a lot of the time that it doesn’t come back to me by the people I give to.
I’ve learned that you should not ask for it back. Or expect it back from the people you give it to, although you would love to have that back. I’ve learned from studying different books and the Bible as well is that if you give it to someone; don’t expect it back from them.
It will come from somewhere else. It could come from a baby’s smile that you just had, a newborn baby of yours. It could come from, someone gave you a kind word on a plane or a smile or a thank you. Maybe you just won the lottery, you don’t know. But it’s going to come somewhere else.
Ralph Zuranski: When was the lowest point in your life and how did you change your life path to win a victory over obstacles?
Robert Channing: The lowest point in my life? You know what? I’m an optimist. There were two low points in my life. One was when I became a professional entertainer, and I was very optimistic. I studied all the best people in the world, and then I performed my show and I had another gentleman that was jealous.
I was probably only about 18 years old and this gentleman was 36. I was in the same market that he was in. He would try to shut me down and put me down, because he saw how strong I was when I was performing. People were attracted to me and they loved what I did.
It was the same type of mentalism that he did. Although it was different, it was my personality and he had a different personality. He was jealous. Actually, it hurt me. My own true feelings, I didn’t want anyone to feel bad about me. I didn’t want anybody to look down and say this guy was bad, or this guy is doing something wrong.
I almost felt guilty because I was doing so well for myself that people become jealous of what I’ve done. Ralph, have you ever dealt with that before? Have you done so well that people get jealous? How do you deal with those people?
Ralph Zuranski: Well, again, what you have to realize is that, what you said earlier, the consequences of their actions and their personal integrity. They are providing service to their client, realizing that you only succeed to the level of quality of your products and your service to your customers. The greater the service, the greater the quality, the greater your success.
When people strive to spread evil or not spread good, that has its own consequences because it’s their thought process. If you have negative thoughts, it’s going to ultimately generate negative in your life and it’s the seeds that you sow.
Negative thoughts, negative actions will always reap a horrible harvest somewhere down the line. Positive thoughts and positive action, you get rewards but it might not be from the source where you actually did those positive things.
But the universe is impeccable, it never fails and good will always be rewarded with good, somewhere down the line or maybe immediately. Evil will always be rewarded with evil; it’s an exponential type thing.
Robert Channing: I agree. It just came to my mind that when I was a child, when people got mad at my mother, when people had something against her for some goofy reason, or somebody said something, she would always wave to them. She would always say hi. She would always have a kind word to them. My mother, I call her a saint, she was phenomenal, and she still is. She always does well.
And that’s what I’ve learned to do, even when these people are trying to tear me down in some way, I’ve always come back by being nice to them and have a kind word for them. Even though, in the back of my mind, I’m like, I’d really like to do something.
But by forgiving them and having peace with yourself, you’re actually helping yourself as well as them. Because they don’t have anything to go back on, they can’t keep their momentum going with trying to get feed off of your emotions. Just let it go and keep working with it.
But what I learned from that experience is to keep moving ahead. I became stronger from that, and I got into Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It says; don’t ever mind what they’re thinking, because they don’t know what you can do. You only know what you can do.
Don’t mind the people that are pulling you down or are trying to. Just ignore them and have your own schedule of events. Schedule your time. Schedule your goals, what you want to do in this life.
They can pull at you all you want, but at the end of that, if you draw a line from here and 100 yards from now and saying that’s the end of your goal, in between you are going to have all the obstacles. But remember; keep your eye on the target, at the end, because you will get there. It makes it easier.
Ralph Zuranski: What is your dream or vision that sets the course of your life?
Robert Channing: My dream and vision that sets the course of my life would be to create, plant seeds, grow trees that I could shade my family and friends with when I pass on. So they can live off the fruits of my labor.
Also to provide information and success and knowledge to people like you are doing. That’s why I’m on the line with you as well, is for the people that struggle all their life, not knowing where they want to go.
I’ve performed for hundreds of colleges a year. People come up to me after my program and always say, “What do you see in my future? What should I do with my life?”
Tony Robbins always says, “If you don’t know, pretend that you do know.” What would you do? And most people will come up with the answer. At that point, that’s the toughest part in the world is trying to find out what you want to do with your life. Once you know, you can plan your course of action.
So, by planting those seeds in these students’ minds or the minds of people that are listening today, it’s probably one of the toughest questions. Wouldn’t you agree, Ralph? What do you want to do with your life?
Ralph Zuranski: I absolutely agree. I’m just listening to Earl Nightingale in The Strangest Secret of the Mind of Man. That’s what he says, 95% of all the people who strive when they are young to become a success end up failures because they never set any goals. They are not working for anything or in any direction.
Robert Channing: They are like a ship without a rudder. If they don’t have a rudder, they are just going to wash up upon the shore or the rocks. If you have a rudder, you can steer your ship. You can steer your way through the seas and as you coast along, the winds blowing your sail, you have learned to work for that. Then you are going to get into some rough waters again and you steer your way through there.
Ralph Zuranski: It’s interesting that you say that, because the next question is, is it important to take a positive view of setbacks, misfortunes and mistakes?
Robert Channing: It definitely is. Believe me; even the most positive person in the world has their setbacks. You can be a positive thinker but you have to take control. You have to say to yourself, you need time to grieve if something happens.
I forget the steps in the grieving process, but you need to get back off the floor. If you get knocked down, you’re into martial arts, Ralph, and I have been too. When you get knocked down, you need to pop back up.
It’s going to take some time after you get the wind knocked out of you to get back up, but the reason you have to get back up is if you don’t, you stay down. You’re going to lose.
Don’t ever give up. Always get back up, dust yourself off, and keep moving forward. You will get ahead, you will. You will learn. You will take the bumps and bruises.
Just study as well. Keep the positive, motivational talking coming through your mind. All the videos and audio courses that I have taken in the country meaning like Dreams Don’t Have Deadlines by Mark Victor Hansen, has a great audio course. Where you are reading right now and listening to Ralph now, is phenomenal as well. Think and Grow Rich.
There’s a lot of information that you need to keep filling your mind with, and the top 1% of the country, the people who are top in their field keep trying to get better, better and better. CANEI, Tony Robbins says the acronym for CANEI is Constant and Never Ending Improvement. You just have keep working and moving ahead.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, you know that is so true. A lot of times I sit down, I wake up in the morning and sit down at my computer and just think, gee, how many new software programs do I have to learn today?
It’s hard to do it. Sometimes you just don’t feel like doing it. I know that you probably agree with this, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to pursue new ideas. What do you think about that?
Robert Channing: I agree. I would say there is another way to look at it. I get excited about new ideas. I’m excited, I know we spoke before this interview about a marketing plan that I’m working on. I’m so excited about it. I think that if you work up that fire in your belly and the excitement about it, it is challenging. You get a little afraid sometimes.
But once you get into it and you see it starting to work and the fruit comes off the trees that you planted, that’s what makes me move. That gives me juice, Ralph. It makes me feel like what I’m doing is working.
But also, Ralph, I study the top people in their industry. If I know someone in marketing, if I have to learn marketing, I will go and find the best marketing people in the world. I’ll call them up and go to their conferences, just like you do, Ralph. That’s what we are doing right now on the phone.
If I need to know something in the medical industry, well, you just told me today a few doctors that could help me out with some blood pressure problems that I have. So I’m going to go and search them, and track them down, the top 1%.
So always strive to find the answers from the top in their field. You don’t want to learn from someone that’s just starting out, although you can learn by their mistakes. You want to take that learning curve and cut it in half, if not more and learn from the top people that have been studying all their life. Would you agree?
Ralph Zuranski: I totally agree. I know that you have done a lot of different things in your life. A lot of the time it’s very uncomfortable to pursue your dreams because of people in your peer group, your life and even in your family that don’t want you to change.
They don’t want you to make transformational decisions in your life that may leave them behind. Do you think it’s important to realize that you are going to be uncomfortable a lot when you are making quantum leaps in your growth in every area of your life?
Robert Channing: Oh, sure, Ralph. I remember when I was getting out of high school, my father told me, “Why do you want to make a career out of this? Go out and get a real job!” I understand that he came from a narrow minded search, because that’s how he was brought up. He was brought up to go to work, work hard, come home and feed his family and provide.
I thought to myself, I was working, in the summertime I worked at a drapery company in Newport called Reynolds Draperies. They are still there. They service all the east coast for stage and scenery curtains.
I was working there. I probably earned $150 a week and I probably worked 50 hours. I would go out and do a show and earn $150 for a 45 minute show and I would say to myself, “Why would I work 50 hours a week if I could just do a show?”
That was my dream, that was what juiced me too was saying, “This is my passion. This is my dream.” No matter what, if anybody said stop to me, it gave me more juice to keep moving. I’m the type of person if someone says you can’t do it, I want to do it even more. I love it, I like when people say it to me.
I guess it was the way I was brought up. My mother was always supportive, my father was always trying, he was a supporter, but he tore me down a little bit, and I think that was a good thing. That’s what created who I am today.
So, you are going to have times that people knock you down. You are going to have it during the day and during the nighttime. You are going to have it when you are on the road, you are tired, you are exhausted, and you don’t want it to happen.
At that point, you have to look at yourself and say, you know what, here are my goals, and read them every day. Write them down. Put them in front of you, put them on the mirror.
Read them before you go to bed, when you wake up in the morning. At lunchtime, when you are just relaxing, you are going to feed your subconscious mind the direction you want to go in.
It’s going to move you. Ralph, you and I spoke before about the four principles that you went over, how the mind works. The mind works on what you concentrate the most on. You will get that in your life. So if you can plant positive seeds and positive emotions, you will reap those.
Ralph Zuranski: Everybody has doubts and fears. It seems that’s an inevitable part of life. How do you overcome your doubts and fears?
Robert Channing: Also I have a confident in my wife. I ask her some things and she is my psychiatrist/psychologist sometimes. I have friends like you. I have mentors, peers and coaches. Also, I go inside myself, because education means you learn from the outside, but you bring it in. You translate it and it comes out of yourself as a process.
So, by learning to be with myself, to pray, to ask God to take my concerns, my heartaches, my wishes and give them to Him, that’s the release process that you have to do. It comes back to you, just pray and have faith. Does that make sense?
Ralph Zuranski: That does make sense. I think probably one of the hardest things in the world to do is forgive those that upset, offend and oppose you. How important do you think that forgiveness is?
Robert Channing: Very, very important. That was my second challenge. You asked me before, what was one of my toughest challenges? Well, the company Power Performers, I hired a few people to help me out, top sales people in my industry and I hired consultants to come in and train them in my office.
I respected them. They asked me to be in their weddings, they asked me to be part of their families, and I have generously given to them. Over given. I would buy them lunch every week, almost three or four times a week.
I would take them on trips, give them bonuses, and buy them color televisions because they did so well. What they loved to do was selling entertainment and speaking to celebrities, and I gave them bonuses them because we would have monthly goals, weekly goals, yearly goals, they would hit all the goals.
After three years, they decided to, two of them, I won’t mention their names because I don’t want this to get out, but two of them actually stole all my business. They stole my company and downloaded all my information. They put up a website while they were working for me.
They came in on a Friday afternoon and both gave me their resignation and said, “Bob, we loved working here. Thank you so much for the opportunity. It was the best job that we have ever had but we are going to go work for my father in another industry.”
This other gentleman who was a friend of his left as well. They gave me this big story Ralph. I found out a week later from one of my clients who said, “Did you know, Robert that they have their own website and they are in competition with you?”
At that point I had a 24 page employment agreement that every word in the agreement, Ralph, they went against and they just totally raped and pillaged my company. I was depressed. I was down because these were friends of mine that I lived with for three, three and a half years, every day.
We laughed, we cried. We went through 9/11 together. Different things, one gentleman had eye problems; I went to the hospital to see him. Two weeks before this, the other gentleman was having a baby and I brought gifts to them. You can tell, it hurts me right now talking about it, but that was about a year, a year and a half ago.
Since then, Ralph, my business has tripled. I’ve hired more people, and I’ve learned that these people were planning and plotting against me and I had that faith. I believed in them. I gave. I was blind.
What I learned form that was yes, give, but to leave my eyes open a little bit, to protect myself. Like I said before, when people say I can do something that’s what inspired me to motivate this business, to move higher and further.
I’ve gone further, and it’s going to go further. I’m going to build this so that people who work for me can benefit from the fruits of my labor. I hope that answers that question.
Ralph Zuranski: Did you actually forgive those people for what they did to you?
Robert Channing: I have forgiven them. It’s a challenge, because from day to day I’m in competition with them. Although we are in a lawsuit because my attorneys, friends and mentors said you can forgive them but it’s like, for example, Ralph, if you had a child, or if my child, God forbid, got hit by a drunk driver and was killed, I could forgive the drunk driver.
It would be hard but you have to serve due diligence and justice, so they wouldn’t do it again. That’s the reason for the lawsuit. That’s to hopefully stop them or make them feel…
Ralph Zuranski: What they did was wrong.
Robert Channing: Exactly.
Ralph Zuranski: There are consequences for actions. You always need to stand for the right thing. If people promise and say they are going to do something, they need to be held accountable and you can forgive them for the offenses. But still, they are consequences for actions that don’t have integrity, that’s for sure.
Too many people that should be held accountable are not. I respect that you are doing that, because people that do that, if they continue to do it and nobody calls them to accounting, they just continue on and on. They do it to more and more people, that’s what I’ve found.
Too many people, once they get screwed by somebody they don’t say anything and people that they know wind up getting screwed by that same person. It’s hard to tell the truth about people that aren’t doing their jobs with integrity and honesty which is what the Heroes program is all about.
It’s to show people just from asking hard questions what type of attitude and what type of mind process the people that I recognize as heroes actually have. The neat thing about those heroes is a lot of them experience service to others as a source of joy. Do you experience that also?
Robert Channing: I do, I do. Let me just go back to that last question for a moment about forgiveness, and here’s what I have learned. By forgiving, everybody has their own sins that they have committed, if you want to call it that, or the mistakes that they have made that they need to be forgiven for.
So what you forgive, you can’t expect to be forgiven for some of your things that you have done if you can’t forgive the people who have sinned against you. It’s a double edged sword.
By forgiving, you do two things. You help yourself by forgiving them and you help them, because they need to be forgiven too. You have to forgive yourself for things that you have done. What was the question, again, Ralph? I apologize.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s okay. How do you experience service to others as a source of joy?
Robert Channing: Oh yes, there’s nothing more than going in and for me, if I can bring it back to my ESP mind reading show, I go in and read people’s minds. I make them laugh, I’m a comedian. One thing that I do is I always surprise my clients with doing more.
When they see my program, my ESP Robert Channing show, motivational talk, I will deliver to them an experience that they will never forget. How I do that, here’s one of the things that I do, Ralph. I’m the only one in the world that does this. I’m known as the world’s foremost mind reader and motivator.
I will mail you a prediction at your event of what three people, including yourself, will be wearing the night of the show. I will mail it out a month in advance; you give me the names that are going to be at your key event. This is the climax of the whole show.
I’ll mail it out; you will hold it in a sealed prediction. I’ll never touch it again. At the end of my show, I’ll say, “Ralph, do you have the envelope that I mailed you a month ago?” “Yes, I do. Robert, I have it right here.”
You are 100 feet away from me. “Ralph, would you stand up a few minutes? Would you hold the envelope up? Ralph, have we pre-arranged anything?” You are going to say no.
Because I give $100,000 away to anybody in the audience who proves that I used stooges, meaning that I planted people from the audience to help me out. I don’t do that. I’ll say, “Ralph, just to prove that, I want more people to randomly stand up in the audience. They are going to randomly stand up, doesn’t matter who they are, four people.”
I’ll also say I also predicted in an envelope what these four people are going to create in their minds as a dream vacation. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a show. It’s entertainment. I’ll say, “Sir, if you were to go anywhere in the world on a dream vacation, where would you like to go?” That person might say Hawaii, or Bermuda, or Tahiti. Whatever it is, I’ll say thank you.
The next person, I’ll say, “Young lady, if you were to go with a special person, give me the name of the person.” They can make a name up, or they can say their husband, wife, or boyfriend. They’ll say John. “Okay, John, terrific!”
Next person, day month and year. “When would you like to go?” “March 28, 2098.” “Fantastic.” “Young lady, how much money would you like to spend? You like to spend money, I can tell.” They will laugh a little bit. She’ll say, “$10 million?” I’ll say, “Make it something really cool up. They will say $10,000,428.67. “Terrific. Ralph, would you open that prediction?”
You open it up and it will say, “Hi, this is Robert Channing. I’m sitting in my office in Hartford, New York in July 21 writing this prediction for Ralph. The conference is coming up in January of 2006. I predict the following to be true. Four people will create a dream vacation. Given this chance, they will select the following.”
And you are reading this, I’ve never touched it. It’s live on the spot. It will say, first person will say Tahiti. The second person is going with John. The day month and year is March 28, 2098 and will cost $10,000,437.67. Whatever they said, people just drop their drawers, jaws. Not their drawers, their jaws! You’ve experienced it at the conference.
Ralph Zuranski: It was incredible. I almost dropped my drawers there.
Robert Channing: And on the back of that, I’d say Ralph, turn the piece of paper over and I predicted what those three names that you have given me, maybe the VIP of the conference, or the medium that I am performing for a corporation or association. They will say, “Jane Reynolds will be wearing a red blouse with polka dots and she will have on gold shoes with a gold ring.”
Whatever it is, I get right to the details. If I don’t get that prediction correct, down to the color of the sock or stripe in the shirt, I give my whole fee to them, my whole paycheck, which is substantial.
Ralph Zuranski: It’s amazing; I don’t know how you do it. I was impressed when you bent that spoon just by running your finger over the top of it. I thought, oh my God; don’t let him near my mother’s silverware.
Robert Channing: That’s funny.
Ralph Zuranski: That is astounding. I’ve never been more impressed with a presentation than your presentation that I saw at Joe’s. It was one of the highlights of my life of being at your presentation. It was incredible and working with you at Joe’s, I ran the computers and photos.
Robert Channing: You did a phenomenal job Ralph; and we became instant friends.
Ralph Zuranski: We did, it was just astounding, and I’ve never been more impressed with any live entertainment that I’ve ever seen. It was just incredible. I know that you maintain an incredible sense of humor, especially in the face of serious problems. How important do you think humor is in your life?
Robert Channing: I think it’s very, very important. Humor actually is the proven fact, I think you know this. When you laugh, it actually creates endorphins in your brain that stimulate your mind to be happier. When we laugh, you have to laugh.
I remember being depressed when these people left me. I popped a DVD in, Jeff Foxworthy and a couple of other funny comedians. I just laughed and laughed, it brought me up. It just brings your emotional state up. If you ever get a depressed mood, just put a smile on your face if you can, those endorphins will make you in a better mood.
Try to get out, relax, laugh with your friends, it just brings that blood pressure down, brings the reality of life back to you. Look around you, go out in the woods, go out in a stream, go out with your family, your dog or if you have a cat.
Be with that person, just look up in the sky and say do you know what? Life’s not that bad, there are people in this world that are dying, that are going without food and my little problem is nothing. It feels like a lot, but it really isn’t.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s so true. Who are the heroes in your life?
Robert Channing: The heroes in my life, one that comes to my mind is Reverend Russell Little. He is a gentleman that taught me how to do magic and a little ESP and mind reading when I was a child. I used to walk to school in the morning and pass his house.
He used to use magic in his sermons to get attention, to make people pay attention to the Word of God. He used to make his thumb disappear. He would put sugar in his hand and make it disappear as I was on my way to school.
He’s the one that I had to write a report about, that my teacher gave me in third grade. What did I want to be when I grew up? I didn’t know. I want to be a magician. I went and I did some research, I went right to his house and said…
That’s the key, Ralph, anybody that wants to know what they are doing, don’t be afraid to ask for advice, because people will give it to you. Ask and you shall receive information that you are looking for. Remember to ask.
So that’s what happened, I asked, and he brought me up to this room upstairs, I remember to this day, I walked into his house, up the stairs, and this whole room filled with magic props, magic cool stuff, and my eyes, it was just unbelievable.
He was a mentor of mine. He was someone that I respected. He put a foot in the door when I was leaving his house. Robert, he said, “See my foot?” He opened his door and put his foot in the door and said, “What I just did for you, I put your foot in that door, now it’s your job to open it for yourself.”
From that point forward, I’ve been opening it for the rest of my life. It’s brought me to meet spectacular people. It has brought me all over the world to see different people and different cultures. To do what I wanted to do, perform, entertain, to make a great living performing, and have a great speaker’s bureau and entertainment agency.
The reason that I opened that was I had my second child; I was on the road a lot. I told my wife I need to make some more money not being on the road so I can spend some time eating popcorn with you at home and still make some money.
That’s what I did, I opened a bureau and I book people and at night, when I’m on the road and not at home, I’m still making a decent living and booking people that I respect and admire.
Ralph Zuranski: Who do you feel are the real heroes in society today that aren’t getting the recognition they deserve?
Robert Channing: The mothers, the teachers. You and I were speaking before that in a school, the teachers are phenomenal. They are teaching how to have a job, and to go in the world and work for somebody else.
But I think the Heroes program that you are working on now is going to bring a different dimension, a different philosophy to the schools and to kids that don’t work for somebody else.
Although it’s a great opportunity, try to work for yourself and try to grow yourself to rely on yourself. For example, you can rent a lifestyle, meaning you can have a job at IBM making $100,000 a year, have a beautiful home, a BMW, a car, two children and all of a sudden BMW lays you off, I mean, IBM lays you off.
Who are you working for? Now you are scraping, trying to find a job, minimum wage, a lot less than you made. But when you work for yourself, you have investments; you invest in yourself in your mind, and your opportunities.
Meaning real estate, your business meaning when you go out and work, you are being compensated for your own mind, not by working for somebody else to make them a millionaire. Work for yourself to make yourself get ahead in this life. Does that make sense?
Ralph Zuranski: Boy, that’s good advice, that’s what all the other heroes have said. It’s so important to become an entrepreneur and be the captain of your own ship and direct it to where you want to go. Just working for other people, you never will be able to attain the dreams that you have, maybe retiring down in Florida when you get to be 65.
And you forget all the things that you could have done that you wanted to do that you should have done. It’s the difference between having a dream and having a life.
Robert Channing: I agree. Robert Kiyosaki in Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I learned this from him by reading his books. Books unlock the secrets of the universe, Ralph, and I know you know this. I teach my children this.
My daughter, I ask her all the time, “Gabrielle, tell your teacher what we talked about!” She says to the teacher all the time, “Books unlock the secrets to the universe.”
They really do, the books, they have studied different subjects. If I have an ailment, I’m not going to go to school to be a doctor to find out how to fix my own ailment. I’m going to go to the top surgeon or top doctor in the world and I’m going to get fixed.
Robert Kiyosaki has studied how to become a successful person by investing in real estate, and investing in yourself.
Here’s the point I wanted to bring across. Even if you have job and you are in the job right now, and you are sitting and working for somebody else, that’s okay. You can be wealthy, and have a comfortable lifestyle.
I think it’s a great lifestyle sometimes Ralph, because my friends are teachers and they make a comfortable living. They have summers off. But also what you want to do with your time off. When you go to work, that’s your time to work but that’s your living.
But when you come home, if you are going to work every day, that’s when you make your life. That’s why Robert Kiyosaki says, that’s when you go out and you find real estate, or you find your business that you can open. You can have the best of both worlds.
I’m not putting down going to work for somebody else because 95% of the people in this country do that. The top 10% of people, entrepreneurs, they are doing for themselves and providing these wonderful experiences and jobs for people.
But you can do both, that’s what I’m saying. I’m not putting them down, I’m giving the opportunity to open your mind that if you work for somebody else on your off time, when you go home instead of watching television or doing something not productive, go and look at a property. Invest in a property, invest in real estate. Study commodities; study how to be a marketing person for internet products. So that’s my point with that.
Ralph Zuranski: Why are heroes so important in the lives of young people?
Robert Channing: Well, first of all, a hero, people look up to different heroes nowadays. There are some bad examples of heroes meaning there are some sports celebrities and stars that are smoking cigarettes and doing drugs and anti-depressants, things along this line.
I remember watching Tom Cruise, a few weeks ago being interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today show, talking about psychiatry and how he thought it was a pseudo science and all this. I believe a little bit of that, but I believe heroes are people that have done it before you that are successful.
You want to model success and duplicate results. That’s the reason you have heroes in your life. You see something that they are doing that you would love to emulate, that’s a positive in your life that you know if you could attain, you would be happy.
How you do that is just model what they are doing. You become that much successful in your learning curve. You will get there that much faster. Does that make sense?
Ralph Zuranski: It does. The next question is, how does it feel to be recognized as a hero? I know a lot of the people that I have interviewed don’t consider themselves heroes. But I think it’s important to accept the good that you are doing and the benefits that you have in the lives of others and not be ashamed to be recognized for the good things that you do. How does it feel to be recognized as a hero?
Robert Channing: I’m very flattered, first of all. It’s flattering to even be considered being a hero. The place I always thought I was a hero was in raising my family. I never thought I was a hero in anything else, other than I love doing what I do.
I’m passionate about what I do, and I try, whoever I come in contact with is bring and build them up. So if that’s being a hero, thank you for knighting me a hero, Ralph.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, how are you making the world a better place?
Robert Channing: Making the world a better place, I’m providing my experience of how to get into the industry. For example, when I book somebody in my company, or my sales reps book somebody, we are doing a service to our client by giving them something they want.
We are doing a service to the speaker, because all we have to do is call the speaker and the speaker picks up the phone and says, “Hello.” We say, “Hi, we have a date for you!” So it makes their life easier, it makes my life easier, and our client is happy when they experience a stellar performance.
Also the people that work in my office, I try to give them an opportunity to improve themselves with goals. I also try to build people, not just teach them how to make money but build them. If you can teach them to fish, they will do that much better in the future.
You can show them how to do something, but if you don’t teach them and implement the information in their minds and take consistent action with that information, they are not going to be able to do it on their own.
I guess what I’m saying is that I provide an atmosphere to the people in my life to benefit from what I can do in my own experience. I hope I made sense with that, I tried to.
Ralph Zuranski: You did. Do you have any good solutions for the problems facing society today, especially racism, child and spousal abuse and violence among young people?
Robert Channing: That’s a tough question, Ralph! Because there are so many stereotypes, there is so much racism still. To solve that, the solution would be to do what you are doing right now. To give the young kids in this world mentors, heroes to emulate themselves by.
Let them know that if anything they are going through now, there are people in the past that have gone through things as bad, if not worse and they have made themselves through it. They have grown stronger and more successful in their lives because of that persecution in their life.
Ralph Zuranski: If you had three wishes for your life in the world that would instantly come true, what would they be?
Robert Channing: Three wishes. One would be to the drug industry, first of all, not to have so many drugs to fix people but to have holistic solutions and the world to be a better place. This is going out on a limb here, our government, whether people want to believe it or not is one of the biggest mafias in the world.
We control the world but we do it for a reason because we have to protect ourselves. But I would love to have the world be a utopia like John Lennon used to sing about, that would be my wish to have a utopia. Almost like heaven.
The second wish would be that the young people in this world could be educated and know how to model success when they are younger.
And the teachers that are teaching them will learn how to teach them how to manage their life, not so much as how to do the sciences and mathematics but how to manage their life with the relationship with themselves their family, financially, emotionally. I think they don’t teach that in school now, Ralph.
Ralph Zuranski: I agree. What do you think about the “In Search of Heroes” program and its impact on youth, parents and business people?
Robert Channing: I think everybody in the world should benefit from this and will benefit from it. I think the word has to get out. I think I mentioned to you before that I want to do something with you Ralph, with my Power Performers and I’m going to promote “In Search Of Heroes” in everything that I do. That’s one of my life goals.
Ralph Zuranski: What are the things that parents can do that will help their children realize that they too can be heroes and make a positive impact on the lives of others?
Robert Channing: Giving, learn that it is better to give than receive. Don’t you feel better, I feel better, anyway. I know that a lot of people love to get gifts. I love to get gifts but it’s always hard for me when someone gives me a gift to say “thank you.”
I would not feel like I deserved it, I don’t know why, something in my psyche but I have learned to say thank you and to appreciate it. By them giving them a gift, you are giving them a gift. So be giving, you will receive 100 fold.
Teach your children to give, to help, to praise and to praise them. Just something that I learned by some statistics, I think there is a lot of validity here, is that if you are a parent and you have a daughter, you as the male person will influence your daughter’s life, her emotions and her self confidence more so than the mother will.
And it’s true of the opposite sex, meaning the mother will dominate and influence the child’s psyche because it’s the opposite sex. If you learn this when you are growing up, if you have children, to also compliment, to support, to bring them up, not in a false way. Of course you have to correct them, but in a delicate way. Does that make sense?
Ralph Zuranski: Yes, that really does. Robert, I just really appreciate your time. I know how incredibly busy you are. I was just so impressed with your presentation and just the humor. It still blows my mind on how you can read people’s minds. I don’t know how you do that, but it is incredibly awesome.
I just really encourage you to do the Power Performers and do interviews on those guys to just spread the knowledge that they have. Excellence is such a fine thing, it’s such a great role model for young people, for those that are giving service above self, that are providing quality and integrity in the fields they are in.
That’s what young people need to know, they need to find out how these people that are attaining the level of success they want to attain, and listen to the people that they become. I’m sure that you would agree with this, you have to become a person that is worthy of incredible wealth and fame before it ever shows up, or it will completely go down the drain.
Just like a lot of people feared success, once it arrived they completely dumped it down the drain by their actions. You’ve had a lot of impact with very famous people. What do you think about that idea?
Robert Channing: What I think is you are absolutely right. When I was younger, just to make a point back to what I was doing was I did very well when I was 18 or 19 years old and I was at the top of my field performing in what I did. People used to say to me, “This guy is going to get involved in drugs, he’s going to do this or he’s going to do that.”
But I didn’t do that. You have to pay your price. You have to do your diligence. You have to learn. There’s a way, yes. You can go from to zero to one hundred and cut out that curve. But most of the time you have to go through the bumps and bruises. Once you go through those bumps and bruises and you do obtain your success, you will learn how to keep it.
If something is given to you, if somebody gave you one million dollars, there’s an old expression, you can spread out all the money in the United States, put in one lump sum and spread it out between all the people in the United States equally. At the end of the year, 10% of the people would have all the money back.
That’s because they learned how to control their emotions their life and learn by their actions. Meaning, having their goals, accomplishing them, going through the struggles. Going through struggles is good. When you go through a struggle, you are teaching yourself a lesson in life.
When you do that, if something was given to me, you won’t appreciate it as much as if you worked for it. So work for what you have, appreciate what you have, and here’s something else too.
Teach your children to work for what they have, because you as a person, if you decide you want to build your life up to make a fortune in wealth and riches with everything that you do, don’t give your children everything because that generation will lose it.
The next generation, their children will have nothing, and they will have to rebuild it themselves. So teach the children that you do have, and the young people listening today, or reading this interview, is that you don’t get something for nothing. Work for it. When you work for it, you will appreciate it, and you will keep it. That’s all I can say on that.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s so true. I just really appreciate your time and just the wisdom that you shared with us. I encourage anybody listening to this interview that if you ever get an opportunity to see Robert perform in person, it will be one of the high points of your life.
Again Robert, I appreciate your time and I appreciate what you do in making such a difference in the world today. So thanks again.
Robert Channing: Thank you, Ralph. You are doing a wonderful service. Thanks so much.
Ralph Zuranski: Bye!
Robert Channing: Bye!
Robert Channing is renowned for his E.S.P. ability to demonstrate the incredible power of the human mind. Audiences are consistently amazed and left awestruck by his performances.
Think of Robert Channing as a hacker of the human brain – presenting routines that exploit it’s bugs and loopholes, and offering a revealing look at the software behind our ears.
Channing’s repitoire ranges from outrageous stunts – driving a car at full-speed, blindfolded – to mind control, including mind reading. The World’s Greatest Mentalist and Mind Reader’s relaxed style has made him an audience favorite worldwide, both in live shows and on his many television appearances and upcoming series “Your Mind’s Eye” and “Connections” with Robert Channing.
He was recently named college/university “Campus Entertainer of the Year 2009” as well as being nominated “Event Solutions” Corporate Meetings & Events Entertainer of the Year! He is one of the official entertainers for the United Nations “From Hunger to Hope” along side ambassadors former President Bill Clinton and Mariah Carey.
About The Show: Robert Channing’s spectacular E.S.P. Show is exactly what you need to satisfy the taste of your audience. Robert’s exciting, entertaining and mind-boggling show will have your audience on the edge of their seats, squirming with anticipation and sheer thrill.
Robert Channing’s show is amazing, riveting and clean – with a perfect blend of comedy. This dramatic yet up-beat program masterfully illustrates the strange and incredible mysteries of the mind. Your audience will thank you for having Robert’s show and will look forward to the next Channing event you host.
Your whole audience will participate and experience the fascinating and mysterious wonders of the sixth sense. Pick a thought — any thought. Robert will tell you what it is. Social security numbers, special dates or even the exact amount of money in someone’s pocket – it’s no challenge to Robert Channing – but your mind will ache with curiosity and wonder. Special thoughts, specific people, special events – if it is on your mind – Robert can reveal these innermost thoughts. All this and more – while maintaining a level of professionalism and sensitivity to the privacy of your audience.
No information is ever given to Robert before the performance. The names, numbers, and innermost thoughts that he reveals are those actually held in the minds of the audience — all strangers to him. Robert offers a 100% full refund of his fee to anyone who can prove that there are stooges or informants planted in the audience. We are so confident that you will be nothing less than thrilled with this show – that Robert offers a money back guarantee.
Robert Channing’s Amazing ESP Show is sure to leave your audience amazed and thoroughly entertained.
“He knows what you are wearing RIGHT NOW. Don’t believe it? Call and see for yourself!”
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