Nothing SUCCEEDs like success!

"I am one of the most successful stock and commodity traders in the world and one of the most brilliant minds on the Law Of Attraction. The reason I am a great teacher of the laws of the universe is due to my ability to explain a complex subject in the simplest way possible."

~ David Schirmer in Keith Leon’s book, Who Do You Think You Are? Discover The Purpose Of Your Life

You just can’t keep a good huckster man down. For the last year or so, a few little things have not been going so well for David Scammer Schirmer, the lone Aussie star of the hit New-Wage moviemercial The Secret. First there was that annoying little exposé on the Australian TV show A Current Affair. (Actually, it’s a continuing series of exposés – five so far; here’s a link to the latest one.)

Then there was the matter of the divorce between Schirmer and one of his idols (and former joint-venture partner), Bob Proctor. Proctor sued Schirmer in Australia’s Federal Court for deceitful practices, among other things, and doesn’t want anything to do with him ever again. Recently Schirmer found himself in Federal Court yet again regarding an intellectual property charge (JLF Corporation Pty Ltd v Schirmer Financial Management Pty Ltd, VID222/2008). An Aussie businessman named John Fitzgerald,* who seems to be authentically successful (well, rich, anyway) as well as genuinely altruistic (or conspicuously altruistic, anyway), has taken Schirmer to court for breach of intellectual property in regard to (or so I understand) Fitzgerald’s 7 Steps To Accelerated Wealth and Schirmer’s 7 Steps to Unlimited Wealth. While of course no one has a copyright on the admittedly overused concept of "7 steps" (or 3, 10, 12 steps/secrets/tips, etc.), it seems there are some uncanny similarities between Fitzgerald’s work and Schirmer’s – enough to justify a court case, apparently. The date of the hearing is May 2; beyond that, I know very little about the details, though I am sure they will be sorted out in court.

Despite all of this – the lies, the negativity, the false accusations against this good man, and oh, those pesky court cases – David Schirmer continues to be the Law Of Attraction In Action, as the quotation above indicates. He’s not just sitting around feeling sorry for himself and wondering what happened to that $250,000.00 dining room table he bragged about to the crew from A Current Affair last year. (Rumor has it that the guy who made the table doesn’t want anything to do with Schirmer these days. But that’s just gossip, and you know I don’t deal in that sort of stuff. Oh, wait. Yes, I do.)

ANYWAY, David Schirmer isn’t just sitting around admiring his ill-gained flashy BMW and spending other people’s money. No, he’s continuing to exercise his brilliant Law Of Attraction mind with such projects as his new publishing venture, Succeed Magazine, which regularly features great and inspiring people who have made it big in the New-Wage world. And even though his heart may have been broken when Scientist Bob cruelly threw him out into the cold, it seems that Schirmer is now finding solace by cozying up to another one of his "friends," Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale.

Not only did Mr. Fire mention on his own blog that he had made the cover (well, sort of) of Succeed, Schirmer himself devoted not one but two blog posts to the new alliance. On his post of 23 April, titled "Opps [sic]! I’d better write another blog!", Schirmer writes:

At 7:30am the editor of our Succeed Magazine phoned Texas, USA. It was a special call to an amazing man, friend and co-presenter on The Secret, Dr Joe Vitale. I enjoyed immensely sitting in and listening to Joe's story.

Over the coming months we are sharing with our readers the story behind The Secret Teachers ... the real stuff of where they started and the key distinctions they learned on the journey that brought them to where they are today.

Joe's story is amazing - from homeless and poverty stricken to an international author, speaker and world acclaimed marketer. While on the call Joe shared something with us that he is doing which will make the world a better place - and Succeed will get to announce it exclusively in the next issue.

Not meaning to steal your thunder, Succeed, but would this thing Joe is doing to make the world a better place have anything to do with putting an end to homelessness in our lifetime? Yeah, I thought as much. You can read about that on Joe's blog for free now, though he'll hit you up for an Amazon gift certificate. I'm sure his Operation YES! will be every bit as effective at ending homelessness as The Hunger Project, co-founded by est founder Werner Erhard back in the late 1970s, was at ending world hunger. Whatever. Anyhoo, Schirmer followed up the next day with a post that supplied a link to a PDF of the Vitale article. He ended with a rather puzzling solicitation for subscribers:

Help us out by subscribing ... currently the magazine is only $69.70 for 12 issues (plus international postage). The June/July issue will be bigger and better and will be $99.70 for 12 issues.

So…are we to infer that each issue is actually 12 issues? I’m a little confused, I must confess. But anyway, Succeed Magazine sounds like a real bargain to me.

Word on the (cyber)street is that Schirmer put some of his own money into this venture (do I even need to add, "rather than using that money to pay back some of the people to whom he owes so much"?). Succeed has apparently been through a number of owners, but at one point was a joint venture between Schirmer and a guy named Michael Walls. Walls got royally pissed off at the Schirmers about something or other…goodness, I can’t imagine what; the man must just have a bad temper…and he resigned his co-directorship, so now it’s David and Lorna’s baby. Not that you’d really be able to discern that just by going to the Succeed Magazine web site…but Schirmer does list it on his Linkedin page.

By the way, I got a kick out of the disclaimer on Succeed’s About Us page. It’s another example of why you can’t successfully sue a New-Wage b.s.’er for b.s.’ing you, no matter how outrageous the b.s. is:

disclaimer

"No person or party should rely in any way or act upon any part or parts of the contents of this publication without first obtaining advice from a fully qualified professional person. This publication is sold or otherwise disseminated on the clear terms and conditions that:

* The consultants, authors, contributors, editors and other associated parties are not responsible for the results of any actions taken on the basis of information in this publication, or for any error in or omission therefrom; and

* The publisher is not engaged in rendering financial, accounting, professional, legal or any other advice or services of a professional nature. The publisher, consultants, editors, contributors, authors and other associated parties expressly disclaim any and all liability and responsibility to every person or party, whether a purchaser, reader or consumer of this publication or not, in respect of anything and of the consequences of anything, done or omitted to be done by any such person or party and being in reliance whether wholly or partially upon any part or parts or the whole of the contents of this publication. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, no publisher, consultant, editor, contributor, author or other associated party shall have any responsibility for any act or omission of any other consultant, editor, contributor, author or other associated party."

On the one hand, that's pretty much a standard disclaimer, perhaps necessary in today's sue-happy bidness climate. On the other hand...well, that disclaimer pretty much covers everything and everyone even remotely connected to Succeed, doesn’t it? It does raise one big question: If you need a "fully qualified professional person" of some kind in order to act upon any of the hustledorks’ advice in the pages of Succeed, why not just go to the professional(s) of choice in the first place, and save yourself the subscription costs? At the very least, you can be reasonably certain that the professionals will probably still be in operation next week or next month, should you need their services again, whereas given the Schirmers’ track record, I’m not so sure that the same can be guaranteed for Succeed.

Schirmer has many other irons in the fire these days, and is also dabbling in social networking, which is all the rage now. I'd be part of the trend myself if I could ever figure it out. [Memo to all of the people who have invited me to be one of your Linkedin buds: I'll get to you, I promise. I'm not being rude. I just have to figure out how to actually use Linkedin.] At any rate, Schirmer recently sent out a spam email inviting people to be his "friend" on Facebook:

Hi:

Are you using Facebook?…

… Facebook has recently been surging in growth and once you mess around with it for a few minutes you'll quickly realize WHY...

…It really is a unique communications tool – and the marketing uses are still in their infancy. Yet there are tons of ways to communicate, learn and even grow your business TODAY with it.

I've been using Facebook for over a year. I actually didn't see much of a reason to use it for my own business.

And, to be honest, I didn't want to tell people my personal account because I value my PRIVACY and was afraid I would get too many people hounding me with messages, and getting mad if I didn't reply, etc. etc.

But Facebook has really evolved in the past year and has added some great privacy features as well as other options to control your account.

…So I've decided to go ahead and share my facebook account – it allows me to share personal photos and videos as well as business-related ones with the "friends" linked to my account.

If you have a Facebook account please put in a request to add me as a friend (when you're logged in) by visiting: http://profile.to/davidschirmer/
http://www.facebook.com/people/David_Schirmer/626721581

If you don't yet have a Facebook account I suggest you go create one RIGHT AWAY: http://www.facebook.com.

After you create your account and you're logged in, then visit this URL and request to add me as your friend:

http://www.facebook.com/people/David_Schirmer/626721581

http://profile.to/davidschirmer/

Sign up and play around with it a little bit. You'll quickly start seeing how powerful it is.

I'll be publishing more information in the near future that you will find educational and helpful in applying The Secret in your life and some money making ideas with the stock market and business…

Yours in abundance,

David Schirmer

I just thought that y’all might want to know this, in case you are interested in hanging with Schirmer on Facebook.

But the really big triumphant news in Schirmerville is that David Schirmer is part of a new book by Keith Leon, whom I’ve mentioned here before. The book is titled, Who Do You Think You Are?: Discover The Purpose Of Your Life. It’s a compendium of advice from 64-count-em-64 successful sorts, and even has a foreword by Jack "Chicken Soup" Canfield (who was, of course, also in The Secret. And The Opus.** And so on).

Naturally, Schirmer is involved in a spampaign to promote this book. [Subject line: "A great new book from my friend Keith Leon ... And I'm in it!"] Not only can Schirmer's inspiring story be found within its pages, but he’s also part of the big promo package. Yes, with the purchase of Who Do You Think You Are? you get a passel of goodies from numerous New-Wage gurus; these offerings are free, and probably worth every penny. Included in this happy line-up is an amazing 49-minute CD from…you guessed it!…David Schirmer. Here's the scoop:

Learn What Faith Is and How To Apply It To Get Everything You Desire by David Schirmer (Value: $97)

Without Faith, The Secret is nothing! With Faith, you will overcome the mountains of sickness, disease and poverty. Come on a journey with The Secret Teacher David Schirmer and find out why Faith is the most POWERFUL unseen force know to man. He will teach you what Faith is, how to develop and grow it, and most importantly how to use Faith to create abundance and prosperity in ALL areas your life. Get this amazing 49 minute CD and transcript valued at $97.

As for Keith Leon, he seems to be riding the "life purpose" wave with Oprah:

Even OPRAH knows that discovering your life purpose is a priority, so much so that she has been holding the largest web based seminars in history about this very subject. Oprah has been speaking with one man about this topic; Keith interviewed 64 mentors just for you!

Pretty exciting stuff, eh, Dear Ones?

Perhaps the most excited person of all is Keith Leon himself, who says his book is already changing lives:

…We've been bursting with excitement about the release of this book, which many believe has the power to change the world.

The editor of the book didn't even finish the first of six sections before her life changed forever.

Ten days before, she had just started a job that she wasn't passionate about. She took the job for the money. While editing the book, she received an idea that would change the way her new employer's company did business.

The next day she went into the office of her boss, told him her idea, how it would increase their profits and said that she was the one who should lead the project because she had the experience and the passion to do so.

Her boss agreed with her, and before she left his office that day, she had a new position in the company, had doubled her salary and set herself up for stock options so that when her idea takes off, she will reap the financial benefits.

Don’t you just love miracle stories like that? And as it turns out, Who Do You Think You Are? may very well be the last book you will ever have to read or buy, because...

By the time you finish reading Keith's book, you will know how to access the answers to all the questions you could ever think to ask.***

What’s really remarkable about Keith Leon is that he has so much compassion for the unenlightened:

We know that if you have read to the end of this letter you are quite likely to buy Keith's book and receive the bonus resources and gifts. We sadly think about the unfortunate few who will just go on with their day and not order the book now.

Think of me sadly, then, Keith, et al.

By the way, if you’re really ready to change your life for the better, or at least fix what’s ailing in your intimate relationship, Keith and his lovely wife Maura will give you their undivided attention on a Weekend With The Experts, for a mere $10,000.00 USD.

But I digress. You’re probably wondering what Keith Leon’s book reveals about David Schirmer. Well, you can be sure it doesn’t say a word about exposés on A Current Affair, nor about the rancorous split with Bob Proctor, nor about the intellectual properties actions, nor about the tons of angry investors, nor about any of the skeletons in the Schirmer family closet. Instead, in response to Leon’s question "What event or series of events lead [sic] to your discovery?", Schirmer begins with the standard "I-was-once-flat-broke" story. He explains how he and his brother were once successful manufacturers of a piece of farming equipment that they had invented. "Things were going extremely well," he writes, "until greed set in."

According to various sources, the truth of the matter – and the story you won’t read in Keith Leon’s book – is that the Schirmer brothers were merely working on the farm of the man who had actually invented and patented the machine. The brothers decided they could make money from the invention, so they left the farm to begin their own manufacturing company. They didn’t have the permission of the inventor, but he was a good Christian man and apparently not a litigious sort so he didn’t pursue it. Evidently the business folded when David Schirmer’s brother went to prison for a spell.

Schirmer goes on to tell his version of his amazing success story, wrapping it up thusly:

A friend loaned me some Bob Proctor cassette tapes of his seminar You Were Born Rich. As I listened, Bob explained to me how the mind works and why we get the results we have in our life. The reason I was drawn to his work was because Bob didn’t just tell me what to do, he also showed me how the mind works and told me why to do it. Within thirty days of listening to Bob and doing the things he said, things started to change. I went from broke to ten thousand dollars a month within 3 month, then over a million a year within three years.

Thus it was that Schirmer set his sights on Scientist Bob, and wormed his way into the man's good graces (or at least bought the rights to market some of Proctor's material). The two even did some workshops together. It was lovely while it lasted…

Schirmer concludes:

I became a very successful trader once I realized that the stock market is just a vibration, like everything else. Once you tune into the vibration and really notice the way the energy moves, you can see its patterns and cycles. All you really need to successfully trade is the right knowledge, a rule, a pencil and a half an hour a week.

This from the man whose broker, according to more than one source, refused to work with him any more because Schirmer lost so much money.

But you probably won’t read that in Keith Leon’s book or, for that matter, on any of David Schirmer’s web sites. Well, I suppose the variance in the stories is really no big deal. Perhaps Schirmer is only exercising his skills in "explaining complex subjects in the simplest way possible."

Be that as it may, it looks as if Mr. Fire, for better or for worse, and whether he likes it or not, has a new best friend.

PS added on April 25: I just revisited Keith Leon's Gaia Community profile. Formerly David Schirmer was the second name under his "My Heroes" listing. Schirmer seems to be missing from that list now, though Keith still gives him credit as one of his teachers.
PPS added on May 7: Here's your chance to subscribe to Succeed Magazine and save big! Remember, the next issue will feature Mr. Fire!

* I've been informed that Mr. Fitzgerald is one of Australia's most notorious spruikers. I confess to not having known much about him, or even to have heard of him until recently, but I do understand the "birds of a feather" concept...
**It's really too bad Schirmer apparently wasn't chosen to be in The Opus, since I understand the story is framed around the tale of a famous violinist, and as it happens, rumor has it that David Schirmer fiddles about...er.. plays the violin! The movie could have featured footage of him playing. Talk about a missed opportunity...
*** What if one of the questions turns out to be, "Why the hell did I waste my money on this crap?"?