Emanuel James Rohn (September 17, 1930 – December 5, 2009) professionally known as Jim Rohn, was an American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker.
Early life
Emanuel James "Jim" Rohn was born in Yakima, Washington, to Emmanuel and Clara Rohn. The Rohns owned and worked a farm in Caldwell, Idaho, where Jim grew up, being the only child. [1]
Career
Rohn left college after just one yearand started his professional life by working as a human resource manager for department store Sears. Around this time, a friend invited him to a lecture given by famous entrepreneur John Earl Shoaff. In 1955, Rohn joined Shoaff's direct selling business AbundaVita as a distributor.
In 1957, Rohn resigned his distributorship with AbundaVita and joined Nutri-Bio, another direct selling company. It was at this point that the company's founders, including Shoaff, started to mentor him. After this mentorship, Rohn built one of the largest organizations in the company. In 1960 when Nutri-Bio expanded into Canada, Shoaff and the other founders selected Rohn as a vice president for the organization.
After Nutri-Bio went out of business in the early 1960s, Rohn was invited to speak at a meeting of his Rotary Club. He accepted and, soon, others began asking him to speak at various luncheons and other events. In 1963 at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he gave his first public seminar. He then began presenting seminars all over the country, telling his story and teaching his personal development philosophy.
Throughout the 1970s, Rohn conducted a number of seminars for Standard Oil. At the same time, he participated in a personal development business called "Adventures in Achievement", which featured both live seminars as well as personal development workshops. He presented seminars worldwide for more than 40 years.
Rohn mentored Mark R. Hughes (the founder of Herbalife International) and life strategist Tony Robbins in the late 1970s. Others who credit Rohn for his influence on their careers include authors/lecturers Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup book series), Everton Edwards (Hallmark Innovators Conglomerate), Brian Tracy, Todd Smith, and T. Harv Eker. Rohn also coauthored the novel Twelve Pillars with Chris Widener.[
Rohn was the recipient of the 1985 National Speakers Association CPAE Award for excellence in speaking. He is also the author of 17 different written, audio, and video media,[7] including "The Power of Ambition", "Take Charge of Your Life", and "The Day That Turns Your Life Around". Many of his speeches are now available for free on social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram.
Jim Rohn died of pulmonary fibrosis on December 5, 2009. He is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
Bibliography
7 Strategies for Wealth & Happiness: Power Ideas from America's Foremost Business Philosopher
My Philosophy For Successful Living
"The power of ambition"
“The Seasons Of Life”
Who is?
John Earl Shoaff (March 21, 1916 - September 6, 1965) was an American entrepreneur and motivational speaker. Shoaff was President and Board Chairman of the Nutri-Bio Corporation, a direct sales organization which sold vitamin, mineral, and protein dietary food supplements.
Shoaff was influential in the early career of Jim Rohn, another American entrepreneur, motivational speaker and writer.
Early life
Shoaff was born March 21, 1916 in Plain Grove, Pennsylvania.[1] Shoaff was born with a heart condition, and was not expected to survive childhood. At age 14 during the Great Depression Shoaff left school in the ninth grade to work in a local dry cleaners, working his way up to manager.
During World War II Shoaff was not able to enlist due to his heart condition, and instead worked overseas as a medical volunteer with the American Field Service. After the war, he was told that this combat duty had caused further heart complications. He married his sweetheart Flossie, and went on to open his own dry cleaning business which he named "Earl's Cleaners" in Michigan.
In 1950, Shoaff and his wife decided to sell the dry cleaning business and move with his parents to Long Beach, California. Shoaff got a job at Desmond's department store pressing suits.
In 1953, the couple's next door neighbor, Marvin Wendt, took them to a success lecture in Long Beach given by J. B. (James Breckenridge) Jones. Jones toured the county giving lectures on how anyone who applied the "laws of success" could be, do and have anything they wanted. Jones had founded a nutritional supplement company called "The AbundaVita Corporation of America". He also wrote a book in the 1950s about his philosophy titled "If You Can Count to Four[2]". Shoaff joined AbundaVita, and was eventually promoted to VP of Sales. Shoaff began touring the country giving speeches on Jones' success philosophy and recruiting others into AbundaVita. At one of these seminars Jim Rohn came to hear Shoaff speak, and signed up as a distributor of AbundaVita's product line.
In July, 1957, Shoaff along with Rich Schnackenberg and Harry Ebbert, left Abundavita and started The Nutri-Bio Corporation. The company grew to six million dollars per month in sales with 115,000 distributors in the USA and Canada, and Shoaff became a multi-millionaire.
On September 5, 1965, Earl Shoaff died from complications of pneumonia.