Goodbye 04-06-05

And people read my newsletters for different reasons. Some read it just because it gives them a lift. Often they write me how I wrote something that caused them to laugh out loud (LOL in geek-speak). Many tell me they enjoy reading the little "slice of life" comments I often write in my newsletter.

But here's something interesting: I've learned a lot about myself in the last six months. You know, for quite a long time, I have been a rather big fish in the small pond of direct marketing. However, in the last year, it seemed my visibility and popularity has skyrocketed. It took me a while to figure out why. Then I discovered the existence of "blogs".

It seems there are hundreds, perhaps even more than a thousand, web blogs talking about me. I've even come across an entire website that gives information about me.

And it's been during these last few months as I became a "lurker" and began reading some of these blogs and the like, I started learning a great deal about myself. Recently, John Carlton sent me a link to a website with a comment something like, "My God, Gary, what are they going to think of next?"

I clicked on the link to that website and there was a huge headline that said: "If you're wondering why you haven't heard from Gary Halbert lately, it's because he has been sent to prison." It then went on with page after page describing why and how I happened to be in prison.

Another time I was looking at an article someone was preparing to write about me. It told about the time I had an idea at 9:00 in the morning and turned it into a quarter-billion dollars in cash that same day.