The Samantha Letters: A Marketer’s Message to His Daughter’s Future

The Samantha Letter
Letters from Bob Yeager to His Daughter Samantha

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Years ago, just after I had started to mentor with Leslie, I began writing a series of letters to my daughter. Keep in mind that she was only a year old at the time, but I figured I would some day place them into a nice book that I could give her when she turns eighteen years old. A right of passage of sorts. Well, my wife just said to me today… “Why wait to give those letters to someone.”

So, from time to time, I’ll be posting some of those letters here and in the near future I am going to be releasing a hardbound book of these letters, simply called:

“The Samantha Letters.”

Here’s the first in that series:

The Samantha Letters: #1
by Bob Yeager

April 5th 2007

Dear Sammy,

It may seem odd that I decided to write these letters and publish them to the internet. who knows, by the time you are old enough to read them, the internet may no longer exist; that’s an interesting thought:)

I’ve been back and forth on what I’d write to you, but I figured I would commit to writing one of these letters every few days and, perhaps, someday they would end up being placed into a book. You’re going to find throughout this letter, that your daddy is not a good writer. I’m just a guy that likes to get his thoughts out and since we tend to allow our thoughts to fade away, there’s a good chance that this will be the best way to preserve my thoughts for you, instead of writing them on sheets of paper that could get lost or damaged over the years.

I think the best place for me to start is were we are right now and what I can see happening along the way. Your mother and I are struggling a little bit. As you probably know, daddy was sick for a very long time. There were times that I never thought I would be able to move forward or be here for you. Your mother knew this when we got married, but she chose to stick this thing out with me. I’ll tell ya, when she came along I feel like my life was saved. In the place of a cancer, an angel was sat next to me to enjoy this journey of life… instead of planning for an early end.

It was through meeting your mommy that I decided to push forward. You see, years ago when I was seventeen, everyone thought that I was going to be the biggest success story they had ever met. I was becoming that, but something always seemed a bit off. I was consistently getting involved in different business ventures and ways to make more money, but never seemed to be connected to what I was doing. When I was nineteen and developed cancer, I wasn’t sad or upset that I had to sell of my businesses, or even that I had to live in my truck for a couple of years. Actually, although it was difficult, living in my truck was one of the most freeing experiences of my life.

Imagine that you are able to wake up every morning to a different sunrise. You smell a different breeze every time you open your eyes. Imagine, if only for a moment, that your heart is racing because you don’t know if you are going to make it to your next stop. The fuel is running low and it will take for you to take up an odd job in a strange new land… not knowing if you will be welcome.

That’s where I was and that is where today’s lesson is going to take us.

I used to travel around the country, going from one doctor to the next, until one day I stopped visiting doctors and just started to enjoy life. It was pretty easy to start working in a new town. Although, physically, I couldn’t take on any manual labor jobs, there were two things that I was good at.

The first, as I’ll describe it, is compelling people to become more. I would have talks at small martial arts training studios where the classes consisted mainly of small children. It was empowering to see these micro-people conquering their fears and finding new ways to adapt and move forward with some of the most advanced, physical training that anyone could possibly endure. These kids never believed that anything was impossible. They had courage, they held themselves accountable for their own accomplishments, but most importantly; these kids ALWAYS held themselves accountable for the accomplishments of their class mates.

I’ve always said that the boy scouts have nothing on a good martial arts class. Sure, the scouts show you how to be a good humanitarian and survival techniques, but the martial arts for kids wasn’t riddled with commercialism and always seemed to stay true to the moral and phylisophical principles they wer built upon. These children also understood the magnificence their bodies and minds were truly capable of. The only limitations they ever faced, were those limitations they had placed upon themselves.

Getting back to the lesson. I learned that, being able to articulate these principles and teach them to others, especially small children, was a gift that no one could ever take away. So many people out there, who wish to have a taste of success, usually find it short lived. It’s usually due to the fact that, they are focused on “money success” instead of the “ME” success.

The “ME” success is this.

~ I am passionate and strong and there is no one person in this world who can relieve me of this passion and strength, unless that person is myself. Strength and passion can only be given up; not taken from you.

~ My phylosophies in life are not complex, rather they are fundamental and few and far in between. They are: Love, passion, determination, a burning desire and acting upon my life and myself, as if I am creating the greates human being for all of human kind to benefit from.

~ The value that I create for myself will directly affect others around me. The more I become more, the more I am capable of contributing to others. It is this one principle that will allow me to serve my purpose and achieve unlimited potential.

~Finally, when I want; I do. When I need, I have. When I desire, I take action. When I envision a goal… I stay the course. It is imperative, Sammy, that you grow to believe these principles and implement them into every day of your life, in everything you do and convey them through every word that you speak.

The second thing that I realized I was really good at, was selling things. I wasn’t ever what you would call a sales man, but I had always been able to market my thoughts and explain better ways of doing things. Take for example, cars. When your grandfather and I used to work on cars together, he was the skilled mechanic and I was the kid who knew how to use the tools… I just didn’t know what they were called.

There were many occasions when your pap would find a problem with a car and immediately get upset that he would have to purchase an expensive part, or would be in fear that he would have to take it to a mechanic and end up getting raped on the charges for the labor.

I would usually wait for him to walk away; he tended to do that just before he would come up with some solution, and then I would step back and look at the task at hand. For whatever reason, I’ve always been able to step back and look at a “problem” from the outside and see a way to work out a solution. Funny term, “work” out. It never seemed like work to me. The mistery of problem solving on any level had always intrigued me. For whatever reason, I was a natural at finding alternative solutions and I would always present them to my dad.

That brings us to the second part of the second thing I was always good at. Marketing. In every situation in your life, when you have to present information to someone, including your parents, in order to get someone to take action… there are skills in marketing that are natural in all of us. Really, so many people think that marketing is seperate from us all, when in reality… it is an inherent part of us.

The ability to convey one’s message to others in order to compel them to take action. It sounds like a phylisophical principle, when it is merely a great way to continuously create new opportunities.

Well, your grandfather was never the easiest guy to present new ideas to, or to ask for a favor. Let me give you an example. When your Aunt T and I were kids, we always wanted to go to our cousins’ houses over the summer. We were caretakers of cemetaries and we always knew that our summer vacations would be riddled with manual labor. Your Aunt T would always approach your grandma to have HER ask our dad if she could go to stay with our cousins.

My mother would ask our dad and his answer was almost instantly know. Your Aunt T spent a lot of time asking our dad for things, through our mom. What she didn’t realize was, her approach was all wrong. Why would you ask one person to convey your message for you? Our mother would spend a few seconds trying to talk our dad into something and when he said no, that would be the end of it.

Keep in mind, I was a bit younger than your aunt, but I was also more observant. Instead of asking our mother to ask our dad for permission, I’d go straight to the source. But I didn’t use the method of, “Could I please go to our cousins’ houses for the summer?” That wasn’t what my dad was looking for. He needed a compelling why and he needed to see that it wasn’t for pure selfishness. You see, although he never said so, when he had us working in the cemetary during the summer, he was teaching us many valuable lessons.

Besides learning how to keep your hands from blistering from pulling a rake or mowing a lawn, he would teach us the value of honesty, determination and putting 100% effort into everything that we would do. He’d always step back and look at our work and ask, “Do YOU think it’s done?” We could’ve said yes and that would’ve been fine with him, but we were always compelled to say, “NO” and continue to make our work better.

So when I’d ask dad if I could go away for the summer, here was my approach.

“Dad, I was just talking to Uncle Harvey on the phone and he said that Grandma’s farm is really in need of a lot of work. Also, Aunt Sherry and Aunt Linda’s farms are the same way. Well, Uncle Harvey, Eddy and Steven and me all figured if we all work together throughout the summer, we could have them in pretty good shape by the time autumn comes around. Is it ok if WE go and help out?”

Notice I was offering help and I asked if WE could go, instead of asking if I could go.

THAT, to your pap Samantha, was a compelling why, we were creating value for others and there was no selfish intent involved. Sure, your pap knew we would spend a good portion of our time playing and having fun, but he also knew that we would be helping others in our family at the same time.

You see, a lot of people think that I learned to coach or mentor others in success philosophies from the martial arts and that I learned to convey my message in marketing from some courses and books. Nope… no PHDs or university training on those fronts. It all came from your grandpap and now I pass these lessons on to you. I want you to practice conveying your message and focusing your intent on making yourself more valuable in order to create more value for others. If you could master these two lessons… you can create success and accomplish many great things, no matter where you are in your life.

I’ll write you more of these letters so you can have them to give to your kids, sweety.

I love you and I am already proud of you,

Daddy.

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