My Story
Thanks for your further interest in my story. Be sure if you haven’t already done so to check out the about section that will also share with you some more details about me and why I created this website!
Before My Freshmen Year At Boston College
While many fun and exciting things happened in my life prior to my freshmen year at Boston College, I figure I would share a few details for you so you have a greater understanding about where I am coming from.
Prior to my freshmen year in college, being born and raised in southern California, my life was consumed by baseball, homework, working out and taking occasional family vacations. One of the vacations I took during the summer before my freshmen year in high school entailed touring Spain, France, Italy and Greece for 18 days with my 8th grade Spanish class. This was a great trip and one I will always remember.
One other detail that has had a massive impact on my life – during my sophomore year in high school, my father gave me the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” to read. The irony of this was that I hated to read books! After humoring him to read the first 12 pages, I was hooked and the rest was history.
Before reading RDPD I wanted to be a roller coaster designer, but after reading it my life changed in a huge way. From that point forward I committed to myself that the world of business, marketing and entrepreneurship was the path I would choose because it would be the only way for me to truly own my life and make the biggest difference in the world. After reading RDPD I read everything else he wrote, and I later went on to read many of the books in the recommended section of this website. I would highly recommend you do the same for your own personal growth and development.
The last thing I would like to share before moving into the next section is that I played baseball with The San Diego Stars from age 11-16. I joined this team when travel baseball was only where the elite players of the day played and competed. While playing for this team we were unstoppable. We traveled around the country for tournaments, world series and the experience was unforgettable.
While playing with the stars, I was able to experience so much at such an early age when it came to traveling, competing and doing things that most teenagers never really get to experience. Because of the competitiveness of this entire experience, I feel it has truly had a positive impact in helping me become the person I am today. Many of the players I played with and competed against are now in the major leagues, and one person I played with was the very first pick of the major league draft my senior year on high school.
Why The Heck Did You Go To Boston College!?
All throughout my high school years playing baseball was my life, and the days were very predictable. My day entailed, get up, eat breakfast, go to school, go to workout, go to practice, come home, do homework, go to sleep and then wake up and do it all over again the next day.
I was a machine. Not only did I maintain a 4.2+ GPA all through high school, but also managed to find time to dedicate to extra curricular activities such as the National Honor Society and community service trips with my church.
On top of all this I would also be playing on travel baseball teams, and going to various camps and training sessions to help me better my game, and be seen by the colleges who wanted to recruit me for their incoming freshmen classes for their 2004 roster.
In high school I knew that the only way for me to be the most desirable to college coaches who were thinking about recruiting me into their program was to keep the highest grades possible, and look the best on paper for the admissions staff. This is why I always took the highest classes I could, and always did everything I could to maintain A’s and B’s all throughout high school.
The best part is that it all paid off! After attending the Standford baseball camp during the summer of 2003 (my second time going as a pitcher) I lit up the radar gun to 90 mph 5 times and came out with many college coaches contacting me who wanted me to be a part of their program. One of those coaches was the coach for Columbia University in NYC.
To make a long story short I knew I always wanted to play baseball at a top university, and that academics and the college experience always came first over sports when making a decision. I knew that by playing baseball it would be my golden ticket into any school I wanted, and it would all pay off in the end with a scholarship to the universities that were recruiting me.
How I ended up at Boston College was a very interesting story. Here is how it went down. Shortly after the Columbia Coach contacted me I went out there for an unofficial visit to many of the east coast schools that were recruiting me at the time. When touring Columbia, I didn’t get to see the coach that was initially recruiting me…supposedly he was busy with something else that day.
The irony of this east coast trip was that I never once went to check out Boston College. When in Boston the only school I met with was Harvard, and they talked my ear off for 3 hours.
After coming home from my east coast trip I got a call from the coach that was recruiting me to Columbia and he had some interesting news. He told me that he was moving over to Boston College as the assistant coach who would be coordinating the pitching part of the team and he wanted to know if I had any interest in going there.
I must be honest…I had no clue Boston College even existed as a born and raised California boy but I said yes and rolled with it. I took my official visit in October of 2003 and signed my scholarship agreement and letter of commitment in November of 2003. To say I was happy to have the entire baseball recruiting process done would be an understatement!
I could finally finish up my high school senior year without any stress, and could focus all of my time making myself better to prepare for the upcoming high school season.
And Then The Tide Turns…
Isn’t it interesting when everything is going smoothly sometimes and then a monkey-wrench is throw into the mix? Well that is exactly what happened to me during the middle of my senior year in high school.
During one of the games in the middle of the season when I was pitching in a game I felt a tweak in my leg that took me off guard and started to bother me. I ignored it because I thought it was growing pains but it just kept getting worse and worse.
I ended up finishing up the season where in the last game I pitched I just couldn’t take it anymore. My leg was hurting, my velocity was struggling and I was pissed because I had done everything I could up until that point to stay as healthy as I could because I knew the payoff would be worth it.
After the high school season was over, with my leg still bothering me, we were trying to figure out what was wrong. After going to every specialist known to man in the southern CA area, we finally had a MRI taken to see what the problem was.
Instead of my leg being the problem, the MRI showed bulging disks in my back (L5-S1 lumbar disks). My leg would hurt because the disks would be compressed by my vertebrae pushing the disk out to the sciatic nerve, sending the pain down my leg.
I was told it could be fixed so we did everything we could so I could be the healthiest possible before getting back to BC to start the fall workouts.
We got it somewhat better, but there were still some issues with me coming into the fall ball workouts at Boston College.
Boston College Begins (September 2004)
Coming into Boston College was something that I was looking forward to. Even though I knew the winters would be unbearable, I was looking forward to an entirely new environment and a memorable college experience. I really didn’t know what to expect but went in initially as a Finance major which I later switched to a Marketing major during my sophomore year after realizing Finance wasn’t what I wanted to focus on.
The first couple months of college took some getting used to for me because I was constantly juggling school work, baseball, social and just getting used to being 3000 miles away from home. Thankfully all of my dad’s side of the family lived around the Boston area so I would see them from time to time when I wanted to be near family.
The days were long, I was working my butt off on the baseball field, my leg started to bother me again, and something that I never would have expected to happen in November changed my life forever…
The November That Changed My Life Forever
It was November 21, 2004 and my father, mother and brother were flying out to celebrate Thanksgiving and my birthday with his side of the family. We were really looking forward spending the week together as we had a ton of fun plans with some Boston friends in the city.
To make a long story short on the night of November 21 I lost my father to a silent heart attack where he passed away right in front of me in a matter of 30 seconds during a celebration for my cousin who came back from Iraq a month earlier. His wake was on my 19th birthday and his funeral was the day before Thanksgiving.
After the Thanksgiving break was over, my mother and brother got back on the plane to fly back home and I stayed back at Boston College to finish up the semester. I ended up finishing with a 3.0, which I am still blown away I was able to keep and maintain my composure for, and later flew back home after finals were over to have a memorial ceremony for my father for everyone grieving on the west coast.
This entire experience taught me many things. Most notably it taught me to never take life for granted and to always make the most of every experience because you never know when your number is up.
I still miss my father to this day, but know he is watching over me as I continue to push through the pain and suffering I experienced during and after his passing. Thankfully I was able to put him in a place and move on after having a few sessions with a trusted spiritual medium. If you are looking for someone to help you connect with a loved one who has passed over to the other side just send me an e-mail and I will put you in touch with him.
After having a memorial ceremony for my father back home, it was time for me to head back to college to finish up my freshmen year. To say it was tough would be an understatement as my back was slowly deteriorating and my willingness to continue on with baseball was slowly declining as the rest of the season continued to drag on.
Putting Baseball To Rest And A New Beginning (May/June 2005)
After coming to the end of my freshmen year I feel like I experienced everything life had to offer in a little over 9 months. Not only was I dealing with a career ending injury, but also lost one of the closest people to me. I knew I had to make some changes mentally and physically and the first change of many was to get back surgery and decide I would never play baseball again.
This was a very hard decision for me because baseball consumed literally my entire life up until this point. It is what defined me, and was the activity that took up every waking moment of free time I had from the age of 2 all the way to my freshmen year in college. I knew the change would be hard, but it would be the right change for me and my future.
After having the surgery, which was a success, and thinking about how I would fill my days back at college from my sophomore year on at BC, I really didn’t know what to expect or what to focus on…but one thing I did do was read some pretty powerful books. Many of them are in the recommended section of this website so please go and check them out.
One book that I read in particular was the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. This book had a great impact on me as I was recovering from my surgery and everything that had happened to me my freshmen year in college. I was lucky enough to graduate with a 3.0 the second semester of my freshmen year in spite of the struggles I was going through with losing my dad.
There is a section in the 7 habits that talks about “beginning with the end in mind,” and this chapter had one of the greatest impacts on me. After reading that book and thinking about the principles in that section, I started to create what was now possible in my life after clearing the slate knowing I wasn’t going to be spending time playing baseball in college anymore.
I didn’t necessarily create an entirely new game plan that summer, but kept this principle of “beginning with the end in mind” at the forefront of my being as I was about to go into my sophomore year in college.
Writing A Book and The Boston College Entrepreneur Society (2005-2006)
Going into my sophomore year was an interesting time. The first day I could meet with the head coach to tell him what I went through during the summer, and that I wanted to step down as a member of the team due to my back injury and surgery was tough for me, but it had to be done.
Walking out of the office that day after signing the papers to relinquish my scholarship was both sad and freeing at the same time. No longer would I have to worry about letting my baseball schedule dictate the classes I took, or affect what I chose to do with my new found free time all college students enjoy during their four years in school.
Shortly thereafter I figured I would go and see what clubs and organizations were on campus that I could join to fill up some of the time that would have normally been allocated to baseball. I went to student activities day sometime in September and signed up for many of the clubs.
What I later learned from this experience was that most of the clubs were all talk and no action, which pissed me off a little bit. Although I did join the organization 4Boston on campus. This organization did community service work in the city of Boston. I was assigned to a local pre-school that was T accessible. I really enjoyed myself doing this type of work because it was so fulfilling working with the kids four hours a week.
On top of my commitment to the 4 Boston community service club, one club in particular that I was really interested in was the Entrepreneur Society. I joined and was expecting some really exciting things to happen that year with the organization. Sadly, very little if anything came from it, even after speaking with the people who were running it.
Because I was passionate about entrepreneurship, I figured this was a great way to find entrepreneurial friends to connect with on campus, so I approached the people who ran the organization and asked them if they would have a problem with me taking it over.
They agreed! I spent the latter half of my sophomore year getting everything ready for the club to be officially re-launched again at the beginning of my junior year. This was really fun and led to many new opportunities which I will share shortly.
Another thing that I did throughout my sophomore year was write a book on my entire baseball recruiting process. The document is still on my hard drive, and probably won’t be published due to it being incredibly old. Going through the experience of writing and planning out a book was great. Do I plan on letting the book run wild on the internet down the road…maybe…but for the time being it will be kept safely with me.
Boston College Junior Year 2006-2007
Junior year was an interesting year to say the least. I received an RA position in a junior and senior dorm, was running the Boston College Entrepreneur Society, and finally got to start taking some marketing classes that I was looking forward to. I was also working with a network marketing company from my dorm room honing my online marketing, copywriting and communication skills. I made mistakes but learned from them quickly.
As of now, I am only part of one network marketing company called Send Out Cards. I love all the products and services that they offer. They make sending real greeting cards through the mail so easy. That link is my link so thank you in advance if you do sign up as a customer! You can send a free card on me to try out the system if you like. E-mail me if you have any problems.
For the most part the entrepreneur society launch on student activities day was a massive success as we signed up over 250+ people who were interested. My goal with the entrepreneur society was to build a group of like minded entrepreneurs on campus and provide a place where we could openly share our ideas with each other and hopefully implement some of them moving forward. One other moving part to the society was to bring speakers to the campus to share their knowledge with the members of the group.
Bringing the speakers was the most successful of all the initiatives of the club and gave me some leverage in connecting and networking with some powerful people who came to speak.
Another moving part to my junior year that was really cool and exciting was that I really spent time exclusively networking on facebook with other entrepreneurial individuals. The biggest issue I had at Boston College is that the majority of the students there were not entrepreneurial minded, and instead were finance majors that were more interested in getting investment banking jobs on wall street instead of building their own profitable companies.
Knowing this was a fact I told myself…”If I won’t be able to find many friends here on campus who are entrepreneurs I am going to use facebook.” So that is what I did!
Using facebook to connect with entrepreneurs around the country yielded to be a massive success! Not only did I connect with people who were like-minded, but also connected with people who I could invite to speak at the entrepreneur society. Over the course of my 2 years running the entrepreneur society, I probably invited 95% of the speakers using facebook as the medium to connect with them.
These relationships are still alive and well today, and many of the entrepreneurial relationships I built using facebook are to the point where I can pick up the phone and pick up where I left off with the person.
As I like to put it, “I threw myself into the randomness of the world in a focused way to yield friendships that I never thought would come from the activity of using facebook to connect.”
When it came to being an RA, I enjoyed the experience and loved that they gave me free room and board. That was worth its weight in gold! Not only did I enjoy that, but I also liked being seen as a leader in the dorm and a resource to the residents if they had any issues.
Senior Year Comes To A Close and One Big Break
During the beginning of my senior year I landed a job with the Macy’s Home Store in NYC. I was excited that I got a job early but was really passionate about doing my own thing down the road as an entrepreneur. I knew I had to start somewhere but didn’t think it would be on the east coast.
I must admit, I was a bit naive to think that west coast companies would come all the way to Boston College to recruit for their firms on the west coast, but I learned quickly that they didn’t so I rolled with the next best opportunity to start in NYC even though I knew I wanted to be back out west where I grew up.
During my senior year I still was running the Boston College Entrepreneur Society, and was also an RA. Both of these responsibilities kept me busy, but also gave me the freedom to enjoy my final year in school.
Since I had my job all lined up by November, I didn’t have to stress like other classmates. This gave me more time to focus on making the most of the entrepreneur society for my final year as the president of the club.
During the November of my senior year I got an e-mail from the entrepreneur who wanted to speak to my club and share his insight about entrepreneurship with the members. He delivered a great speech and I invited him to go out for drinks afterwords.
He agreed. We spoke and connected and one thing led to the next.
Over the next couple of months during my December break he reached out to me and mentioned he was writing a book and needed some preliminary feedback because the book was targeted to my niche. I agreed and had him send the book my way.
I immediately read the book and sent my thoughts back to him on what I felt and thought, “Oh cool, my name is going to be in the book!”
Sometime around February, this speaker reached back out to me and the conversation went something like this, “Scott you know how to use all of these web based tools to promote anything effectively…would you like to help me with my book. I won’t be able to pay you but you can use me as a reference.”
I thought to myself what the hell do I have to lose…YES!
From February all the way through the summer I helped this author lay the entire groundwork for his book, the marketing of his book, consulted with him on every front end marketing piece of his book, and networked him into all of my entrepreneurial circles I made during my junior and senior year.
Sidenote: I ended up graduating in May of 2008 with a Marketing degree from Boston College and started working for Macy’s on June 21, 2008 in NYC.
As I was working for Macy’s my days were long and hard. I would get up early, get to the office by 8:30am, work until 6:00pm and then work on the authors project from 6:30pm-12am at night.
One day after coming home from work I was speaking with this entrepreneur/author on the phone. I was talking with him how I didn’t really like what I was doing at my job and needed some guidance as to how to manage this until his project was a success and I could start working with him full time.
Well two days later I get a phone call from him and he says “How would you like to start working with me now, and say goodbye to Macy’s for good?”
I agreed and quit my job working at Macy’s the very next day to relocate from NYC to NJ.
Now THAT was liberating!
I started working with the new author September 1, 2008 and we launched his book on September 29, 2008…which if you remember was when the recession became a reality where the stock market dropped 700+ points in a single day that day.
The author I am referring to in this story is The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur – Mike Michalowicz.
Back Out To California and New Beginnings + A New Company
To make a long story short I helped Mike kill it. Not only did I help him drive anywhere from 20,000 – 70,000 visitors per month through is site but helped him become so well known in the entrepreneurial niche in about 6 months. Entrepreneur Magazine highlighted his book in their February 2009 issue. Things from a promotional standpoint were cooking with gas.
The final thing I helped him do was launch an entire membership program to his growing list which created a $70,000/yr business in a matter of a weeks time. I helped him come up with all the front end content, the entire sequence for the launch and even wrote some of the copy for him as well.
I worked with Mike from September 2008 all the way until July 31, 2009.
I must be frank. I really didn’t like living back east because the weather was horrible, and it just wasn’t for me, so Mike allowed me to move back to CA to work remotely at the end of June.
At the end of July we decided to peacefully part ways and I decided to start my own company Rapid Results Marketing Group LLC.
This is my main focus as of today and I love working with my clients and entrepreneurs helping them quickly generate loyal paying customers using the web.
Please reach out to me if you feel there is a way we can work together. Be sure to click the link above for the company website educating you on the types of products and services we offer.
Thank you for reading my story! I greatly appreciate you.
Best,
Scott
