Fred Ford is an author, speaker, writing coach, and certified LifeSuccess Consultant. He is the founder and CEO of Fred Ford LifeSuccess and author of Our Daily Fred, a daily newsletter that reaches subscribers in 9 countries. Fred speaks on many topics with a specialty in visualization for positive change. Fred spent several years as a ghost-writer before writing his first novel, The World Premiere of Me, published in 2018. He is currently writing his second novel, The Random Act, set in St. Augustine, Florida. Fred lives in Bellport, NY with his wife Babe, daughter Lila Rose, mother-in-Law Dorothy, and dog Rosie.
KIMBERLY MASKA: Welcome everybody, welcome to Spiritual Biz Chat for Spiritual Biz Magazine, I am your host, Kimberly Maska, and today we have joining us Fred Ford, the founder and CEO of Fred Ford LifeSuccess and author of ‘The World Premiere of Me’. Welcome, Fred, and thank you for being with us, how are you doing today?
FRED FORD: Never better! Living the dream!
KIMBERLY: It’s a pleasure to have you here! And before we introduce your wonderful book, could you share the story behind your personal journey down the path to your current life’s purpose and work?
FRED: Sure. I worked for many years in my own businesses, real estate appraisal and then videography. In 1996, I began a lifelong study of spiritual and personal development literature and that eventually brought me to writing and speaking. I trained to become a Certified LifeSuccess Consult with Bob Proctor’s (from The Secret) LifeSuccess Company, and I created Fred Ford LifeSuccess, a coaching and speaking business. I continue to write my newsletter (“Our Daily Fred”) for clients and subscribers, and I am now working on my second novel, titled The Random Act.
KIMBERLY: Incredible! And the interesting choice of your book title… was it inspired by your personal journey at all? What were some of the sources of your ideas, principles, and concepts weaved into ‘The World Premiere of Me’?
FRED: There’s great irony in your question. One of the principle concepts woven in the narration of my novel is creative visualization, something I have studied and practiced for many years. During a visualization exercise back in 2009, I visualized being on a beach, waiting for creative ideas to show up when suddenly a bottle washed ashore. A furled up sheet of paper was inside the bottle.
I got the note out, unfurled the paper, and written on it was: The World Premiere of Me. My eyes shot open, my visualization session ended, and I said to myself, “That will make a great title for a book.” Approximately 9 years later, I published The World Premiere of Me! So visualization and cultivating the imagination as a way to attract prosperity are big themes of this book. I tell people my novel is Think and Grow Rich meets The Wizard of Oz.
KIMBERLY: And tell us a bit about your novel… Your areas of expertise involve visualization. Did you choose to employ visualization techniques in it too?
FRED: Yes, very much so. My novel is an urban fantasy based in the famed Hamptons region of eastern Long Island. Grayson O’Day, a Hollywood billionaire, is relocating his movie studio from the west coast to the east. The buzz is substantial. What O’Dayisn’t revealing is his motive. He is getting out commercial movies and creating a movie studio—Eternal Sunset Productions Studio—for the sole purpose of ridding the world of poverty through the magic of moving pictures. His plan needs only one final thing: a test subject.
The World Premiere of Me is the story of the underachieving, big Dream Duncan Ferris, and his wild journey as the first test subject for Grayson O’Day. The rule of thumb in movie-making is “show-don’t-tell” and I adopted that strategy in writing the novel. There are lots of books on visualization, but very few that show a person going from concept (the spiritual image) to manifestation (the physical equivalent) using visualization, with all the challenges, magic, unexpected epiphanies, and life-altering shifts.
KIMBERLY: I know you are a writing coach, and this book is unusual in that it uses self-help and spiritual principles to tell the story. What inspired you to write it this way?
FRED: I’ve been studying self-help literature for nearly 20 years, and I’ve found that the same ideas tend to be re-cycled over and over, with very little fresh material. In particular, I come across very few works of fiction that feature these spiritual and metaphysical concepts. But when I find them (Og Mandion’s books, for example, or other books like The Shack or The Alchemist) I tend to love them. I simply decided that a book like mine would be a fresh contribution to a very overcrowded field. More than once, readers have written to tell me my book read and felt like an Og Mandino book, and I consider that very high praise indeed.
KIMBERLY: Fred, what is your ultimate goal with your work? What is your mission? Your dream? What are some projects that are in store for your company and that you are currently working on?
FRED: My ultimate dream is to write a screenplay (or have one written by a movie studio) and create a movie based on the novel. The one comment that I hear over and over from those who’ve read my book is: “Your book would make a GREAT movie!” I agree. I am a visual person and I have a videography background. As I wrote the novel, I simply typed the scenes that appeared on the movie screen in my mind. And the result was a very entertaining and visually stimulating novel. My current project (a novel titled The Random Act) also incorporates creative visualization as a tool in the story-telling, and I’m very optimistic this book will also be well received.
KIMBERLY: Is there a final message you want to let the audience know? Or just any last little words that you have for them?
FRED: The message is simple: Get the image of what you want to do, have, or be. Place no limitation on it and never shrink the goal. Visit the image often and assume the FEELING of the wish fulfilled in the magical realm of your imagination. Act as if it’s impossible to fail. And then keep moving forward with persistence and faith, and the singular obsession to serve the universe and all those in it with your Big Vision.
KIMBERLY: If our readers wanted to reach you or to get your novel, where can they find you?
FRED: Readers can get a Kindle copy of the book on amazon. The hard copy is available with my publisher and they can find the link on my website www.authorfredford.com. If they want to subscribe to the Our Daily Fred newsletter, it’s free and it shows up every Monday through Friday at 6:00 am EST. There’s a sign-up link on the newsletter.
KIMBERLY: Thank you, Fred, very much! It has been such a pleasure chatting with you today!
FRED: Thank YOU, Kimberly, I appreciate the opportunity to empower your audience.
INTERVIEW LINKS
Website: http://www.authorfredford.com/
Fred’s Book: http://3lpublishing.flyingcart.com/?p=detail&pid=86&cat_id=0
https://www.amazon.com/World-Premiere-Me-Fred-Ford-ebook/dp/B07K3929DR/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fred.ford.562
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailyfred
