However, when he was in his thirties, he purchased a Tony Robbins book after seeing him on a television show. At first he was put off by Robbins’s excited attitude, but after listening for a few minutes, he started to understand that this person was sincere, and really excited about life.

It wasn’t long before he’d purchased the CD program and then parted with a few thousand dollars to attend two seminars. He found them to be life-altering. One process in particular made a great impression on Mitch. He discovered he could walk across hot coals without experiencing pain or burning his feet! Even after he did it, he still thought it might be a hoax, so he volunteered to place the coals for a group later in the day, and discovered it was totally legitimate. After that, he gave up some of his skepticism and cynicism, and he began to recognize the self-limiting beliefs he carried around subconsciously. He started to see that what looked impossible often was very possible. And he wanted to share this newfound knowledge with his friend.

About a year ago, Mitch purchased tickets for Danny and one of his buddies to attend a Tony Robbins seminar when he was appearing in Cleveland. After Danny went, he called Mitch and thanked him for the tickets, but told him he hadn’t gotten much out of it because he already knew most of the stuff they had presented, and he didn’t see any reason to explore self-improvement because he was pretty happy with the way things were. Mitch got it. Some people didn’t want to be bothered challenging themselves, and some of the concepts in the program were meant to force oneself to confront uncomfortable truths. It wasn’t for everyone.

After his stint in jail, Danny’s life had gone pretty well. He had a wonderful wife and two beautiful sons, and Maryann had become a devoted a daughter who completed their family unit. He was able to move to a comfortable house in Akron largely because his brother worked so hard to expand his small chain of sporting goods stores into fifteen locations.

Danny had a great gig managing a region that included five stores, which also gave him plenty of freedom to spend his days as he liked. Sometimes that included a round of golf in the afternoon, and sometimes it meant shacking up with a woman he’d met on the road. Despite the fact Danny wasn’t known for his work ethic, Tony didn’t seem to mind, and paid him handsomely.

Danny went to church regularly with his family, as did Mitch, and he and Rachel even attended a Bible study with Mitch and Carolyn, but they rarely had anything to say at those meetings. Every once in a while, Mitch would bring up God, and Danny would evade the question or just change the subject. He just seemed like a happy-go-lucky guy.