staci_stallings@hotmail.com

http://www.stacistallings.com

 Four years ago I wrote an article called, "Living in God's
Hands." It was about how God had led me to a seminar by a man who helped me
to learn to market on the Internet. The man's name was Corey Rudl.
There was so much to talk about in the story at the time I had to skim
over the top of it and hit only the high points. It wasn't until this
afternoon when I found out with complete disbelief and grief that Corey
had died in a car accident that I took the time to remember the rest of
the story. And what a story.

You see, I signed up for one seminar that led to a smaller seminar
that Corey was giving. At the time I knew it was't unusual for Corey to
speak to upwards of 1,000 people in a seminar, but this one was to be
very small, only about 25 people.  So I was excited to say the least,
and I was not disappointed.  For three hours we sat riveted as Corey
strolled around the room, talking at the speed of lightning. By the end of
the first three hours I had 12 pages of notes.

At the lunch break I dashed out and down the block, grabbed something
quick, and headed back.  We had an hour. It wasn't like I had to
rush, but I was afraid my car would break down and I would be forced to
walk back. I certainly didn't want to miss anything because I was
dilly-dallying around. 

When I got back, I was the only attendee in the room with about 40
minutes to spare. Corey and his small staff of about four were still
working.  Unfortunately something in the computer system had gone wrong, and
it wasn't working the way Corey wanted it to work. At the time he was
worth in the neighborhood of $20 million.  In a suit that could've
bought a small island, here he was crawling around on the floor under the
tables trying to figure out which cord hooked to which thing to fix the
glitch.

As this was going on, one of Corey's staff members, Travis came up
and started asking me about my experience, why I was there, if I was
getting anything out of the seminar, how many pages of notes I had, what
kind of books I write, that kind of thing. Every so often, Corey would
pop his head up over the table and ask, "lunch here yet?"

Apparently the restaurant they'd ordered lunch from was running
behind, and as time dwindled down, their window of time to eat was thinning
quickly.  The "no" would come from the back of the room, and Corey
would say "okay" before diving beneath the table again.  This is
going to sound unbelievable, and thinking back on it now, it is even to
me, but while all of this was going on, Corey was asking me questions as
well. He was interested to hear how I had found his stuff, what I
thought of it as I read it, what things I had already tried, what things I
planned to try.  There was no end to the questions!

To this minute I don't know how he did it, but he managed to fix
that computer. Lunch arrived, and he inhaled a sandwich and fries. With
five minutes to spare, he put on his jacket and was waiting with a smile
when the other people came back.  I'm sure they never knew the chaos
that had surrounded him for the better part of an hour. He looked like
peace personified.

Yes, Corey Rudl was a very rich man. To me, he was the servant God
gave five talents to, who used them, and they multiplied many fold. In
fact, if you are reading this now, you can thank Corey for it because I
never could have found you on my own. Corey used the talents God gave him
to make his own fortune, and then he willingly passed that knowledge
onto others. In fact, when he was married a year ago, he invited all of
his subscribers to his wedding, for free.  I didn't get to go. I wish
I could have.

A huge, sad void has been left in the Internet Marketing world with the
passing of Corey Rudl into God's Kingdom, and it has nothing to do
with the money he helped anybody make. It has to do with the man he was.
The man who had enough money to sit back and do nothing for the rest of
his life but instead chose to spend his time crawling around on the
floor, looking for the cord that wasn't hooked up properly, waiting for
lunch that was late, and doing it with a grace and a peace and a
kindness that defy human logic.

Yes, Corey was rich, but it had nothing to do with money. I'm
grateful for that lesson and wish only that he could've stayed with us
longer to teach me more just like it.

Copyright Staci Stallings, June 2005