Richard J Schueler

I love my family, I love my fiancee, and I dream of a better future for mankind. I’ve had a bit of hardship in my life, and a bit of good fortune. I work hard. I have worked hard my whole life. I always try to do the best I can. Getting everyone an extra 7 years of healthy life is my mid and long term goal. I support distributed computing and anti aging initiatives. Did you know 100,000 people died yesterday of age?

How do you show you’ve worked hard enough and earend what you have, without sounding like a jackass? Where is the line between substantiation and [arrogant, big-headed*, boastful, cocky*, conceited, egocentric, egoistic, haughty, high-and-mighty*, inflated, narcissistic, ostentatious, overweening, proud, puffed up*, self-important, stuck-up*, swaggering*, swollen-headed*, vainglorious]ness?

Prior to moving abroad I’d always lived in Broward County which is the 2nd most populous county in Florida, and has a population of 1,787,636.

I was blessed since I was very young with a “gift.” My mother always read to me as a very young boy, and as a result of that, I started reading when I was 3 years old. When I first began attending kindergarten, my teacher called my parents and said that I was “gifted” and would like to have my IQ tested to see if I qualified for the “gifted” program of advanced learning.

I don’t remember much from kindergarten, but I do remember that day. They gave me a timed test with some different shaped blocks and a wooden board to put them into. I think after I passed that test I was taken to a facility in Davie Florida where a more standardized written and verbal test was given. My parents always kept my IQ number hidden from me, because they thought it would be healthier for me. I think it was 147, it’s been a very long time since I thought about it.

Was moved to Riverland elementary where they had a gifted program, and I had one of the best teachers of my life, Mrs. Cross. I won a few awards while there, a Broward county math competition and a story writing competition in the school, (I think I only scored 5th in the county and 3rd in the story writing competition.)

When I graduated form elementary to middle school, my father heard about a very special very elite math program being offered to only a select few students. The program was called MEGSSS which stands for “Mathematics Education for Gifted Secondary School Students.” It is one of the most challenging curriculums in United States with a strong focus on logic. I barely made it in.

After middle school I enrolled in Nova High School. I took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test, and the recruiters called my house and told me that I had scored the highest in Broward County on the test. It’s the test I take the most achievement in, because it tests you on many things that matter in the real world, and tests you on much much more than math and verbal skills like the SAT. It tests you on mechanics, electronics, the speed you can do math, I scored a 1390 on the SAT which is the 99.315 percentile, putting me in top 1 percent of all test takers.

I skipped my senior year and instead enrolled in a program called “early admissions” by which one could skip entirely their senior year, and instead enroll directly into college. After 2 years of college I decided that it wasn’t for me, as I could learn much more effectively from the books than from the teachers, and not only was it faster and better, but free and less time consuming!

Looking for a challenging peer group, I joined Mensa which is a club of people that are in the top 2% of IQ level. I became a licensed mortgage broker, and have graduated Tony Robbins Mastery University, a $10,000 course which focuses on Health, Finance, and Relationships. I’ve also done Leadership academy and several “Unleash the Power Withins,” known to most folks as UPW, where you walk across burning coals and learn lots about yourself. Most of my friends don’t get blisters, for some reason I always get one of the embers stuck to my foot at the end, I think it’s because I wear a size 14 shoe. I’ve spent in excess of $50,000 in training for myself and my loved ones to be the best that we can be.

I have helped my friends wherever I can, putting them through mortgage broker’s school, some Tony Robbins courses, got my father a personal coach working for the Robbins group, which helped him lose 80 lbs. *which he would have never ever lost any other way*, paid for a year of a friends college, and been the best friend I know how to be to many.

After I found out that college wasn’t right for me, I continued to working for my father’s air conditioning company in Florida, with my sights on something better. It’s hard to understand how much physical labor sucks until you’ve had to take out a bad fan motor in the attic of a house in Miami in the summer. In the attic it reaches up to 135 degrees Fahrenheit commonly, and they’re full of fiberglass and nails sticking down through the roof. You itch, you burn, and you’re stabbed while working in attics. And that’s probably better than what you get underneath a mobile home with the sewage and animals. AC work was not much fun at all.

While I was delivering newspapers when I was very young, I was running with a hand truck (we call them dollies) the hand truck stopped and my head didn’t so one of my teeth was chipped, hurt like hell. Over the years the root of the tooth died, and the tooth became brittle. One night I bit into a fork by accident and heard a horrible sound. I felt my tooth was able to be moved back and forth inside my head, and knew that I had a problem. I went to the dentist to find out that my tooth had broken in half above the gum line, and that it would need to be removed, and a fake tooth put back in. The problem with fake teeth, is that there is no easy way to get them. You have 3 options basically, dentures, a bridge, or an implant. Dentures are no fun at all, and a bridge requires the destruction of the two good teeth on the sides of the broken one. That leaves you with the implant, and implants are expensive.

Working for my father, I didn’t have enough money for the implant, and he didn’t’ have any either. I needed money and I needed it fast. I had accumulated lots of car stereo equipment over the years because stereo equipment had always been a hobby of mine. Through my father I met and did the air conditioning work for a manager at a large electronics outlet in Florida. He always gave me amazing prices. I started selling everything I owned to pay for my dental work. It turned out that the prices he was giving me were so good, that when I sold my 2 year old stereo equipment, I got for it what I paid. I was shocked.

It occurred to me. What if I put ads in the newspaper for stereo equipment I don’t own yet. When people call, I’ll tell them I have a good friend at an electronics store, and that if they can give me half the money, I can get them the equipment at a great price, and they can have it that day. It worked! Out of the front yard of my house I started getting more and more phone calls for more and more equipment, until I had to keep a steady inventory, or I’d be constantly driving to the store and back home (a 25 minute drive or more each way.)

I would install people’s equipment in their car, and would often do so until 3am in the morning, which drove my father crazy. He told me that I needed to move my business somewhere else, and I did.

I started Audio Ecstasy. I physically moved not only my business but my home there. I lived in the front office of that warehouse for close to a year, I think, until we built an extra room in the back of the warehouse for a bed instead of sleeping on a couch.

Audio Ecstasy was a great business, but I reached a cap. Putting out more advertisements didn’t work, winning car stereo “sound off” shows didn’t work, and it would be too risky and too hard to find trusted help to try and open another physical location, as we were driven by advertising, not location. I knew that I had to find something different, a better business, or I’d be forever stuck where I was.

I had a friend that built computers, hosted websites, and then eventually built a shopping cart software and content management software. He has always been 2 years ahead of me in all endeavors. He got into martial arts a year or 2 before I did, and continued doing them a year after I stopped. I did 2.5 years of American Kenpo. He started his business 2 years before I did, maybe more, as he started when we were juniors in high school. His scores in school, on the sat, and I’m sure IQ score are much higher than mine. He said that if I wanted to, I could help sell his shopping cart software on ebay. I did, and it worked.

Soon I was making better money selling shopping cart software and internet marketing services than I was with the car stereo business. I knew that this was a business that could grow with me, no matter how much money I wanted to make, there’d always be more available to be made. We would do pay per click advertising for people with websites but not enough traffic.

We then branched out into affiliate programs, search engine optimizations, and referral marketing. An affiliate program is one where by anyone can send visitors to a website, and if those visitors purchase things, the person that referred them makes money. Sometimes a lot of money.

I joined mensa, then never went to a single get together or even spoke to another memeber after the test! One day I hope to see what they’re like. I’m worried though that a group of the smartest folks in the world doesn’t seem to be a very powerful lobby, or get much accolades for anything other than being smart. Hopefully I’ve missed something, or one day they live up to their potential. I’ve read a few places that there’s a golden area of IQ where above it, you zone out and are unproductive. Maybe they should make a club for productive people. There probably are a few.

I see intelligence as potential. Over the years if you never focus that potential on a skillset, or achieving a specific thing, it’s wasted. Like water in a behind a dam that you never let out through the power turbine, you have to let the water fall through the dam if you want to create any power. Probably a better way to see the potential of intelligence is like a car. Intelligence would be your engine, focusing on what you want would be your steering wheel, tires would be your diligence, and productivity would be forward motion in the right direction. You can have all the horsepower(intelligence) in the world, but if you can’t keep traction(tires/focus) and face the car in the right direction (focus on what you want), you’ll not get where you want to go very quickly. I know many smart folks who are spin their wheels very hard. I’ve spent a few years doing it, I know exactly what it looks like.

I’ve travelled the world a bit: Madrid, Cape Town, Namibia, Johannesburg, Costa Rica, Montreal, Toronto, Fiji, the Cayman Islands, Bimini, Nassau, Curacao, Bonaire, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Hawaii and many other states of the USA, Cancun, Switzerland, Luxembourg, London and Italy

So here we are…doinig the best we can….If only I could exchange all the stuff I’ve learned I’m not using, for new knowledge I could use today. If I had to do it all over again, I’d spend way less time learning things that only benefit you once (which computer to buy this year.), and way more time learning things of lasting value, (whare are the top 10 logical fallacies you’ll encounter in a day, how do you find qualified people?…). Everything I knew about last years computer is useless now. Who cares what you know about a p2 266? (that’s a little older than last years, heh.) If I could swap out all the trivial stuff that only benefits once, for knowledge that benefits over and over again, I think I could make the world a lot better.

I spend my time these days trying to focus on getting things done that will have a massive positive effect on the world, and I think I’ve found the one area that’s underappreciated enough for me to make some great progress, primarily because no one else is really trying that hard. It’s not easy to work on something that has little to know short term rewards, to remain diligent in the face of all types of fun distraction. I know that in life we all get good at what we focus on sooner or later, so as long as I remain dedicated, it will get easier and easier with time.

P.S. Please donate to the Mprize or other initiatives (if you can find them) which may help your children live longer, healthier lives. This year about 18 billion dollars were spent on cosmetics, I’d be happy if we could get 1/10th that ammt put into getting your children and loved ones a few extra years of healthy, happy life.

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