Tell me a little about yourself:

I am the oldest of nine kids. My mother had an unusual hobby. She had a child everywhere my father was stationed in the military. There are two Virginians, two Californians, two Texans, two Panamanians, and one Puerto Rican in my family. My father was an enlisted pilot. He earned his Navy pilot wings when he was a second class machinist mate. He flew seaplanes, helicopters, jets, and multiengine prop aircraft. I took his advice and went into aviation also. I am a Naval Flight Officer and served a total of 31+ years in the Navy. I retired as a Naval Captain. I was fortunate to visit 60 countries during my tenure in the Navy.

Occasionally at the start of a presentation, I ask the question, “Do you remember your first love?” My first love was chemistry. I loved it so much I got my first degree in that field. I wasn’t able to pursue it as a career because I got an invitation to Vietnam – one that I could not turn down. I got another invitation on my last military assignment – to go to Bosnia – I couldn’t turn that one down either. I served four-plus years on active duty, another twenty plus years in the Reserves, and the last six-plus years on active duty again. I retired out of Stuttgart, Germany as the Deputy Director of Reserve Affairs for United States European Command. I had oversight responsibility for 5500+ Reservists in 89 countries in Europe and Africa.

I became an entrepreneur after being ‘early’ retired early from Halliburton. I decided I didn’t want to work for another company in my later life. I had worked for National Semiconductor, Memorex, Boeing, Dresser, and other companies during my civilian career. My expertise is in Quality Assurance, Reliability Engineering, and Logistics. I have five college degrees and six professional certifications. I chose not to pursue the areas of my expertise and to venture into the world of speaking and writing. I have published four books and co-authored another. My latest book is Longevity Secrets for Healthy Aging – How to Live to 100 Years of Age with the Body of a Healthy 50-year Old and the Mind of a 25-year old.

I do utilize two areas of my experience, Cause and Effect Analysis and Chemistry, to pursue my speaking and writing passion. I research what happens in the human body at the cellular level, biochemically speaking. I look for cause and effect relationships. If you treat symptoms, you will always treat a symptom. You must treat the cause of a problem to correct it.

Tell me about your family?

My wife, Marilyn, and I will celebrate our 48th wedding anniversary this summer. We have two children and three grandchildren.

Our daughter works in law enforcement and lives about an hour north of us. Her son is in college and her daughter is a junior in high school. My son and his family live in Virginia. They have one daughter. My son works in the information technology field.

Marilyn and I love to travel. We just returned from two weeks in Cuba visiting my sister who is the Transportation Officer for Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. To celebrate our birthdays in September of this year, we will walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. We expect to walk 15-18 miles a day for 33-35 days.

No Matter What You Can Do It

Tell me more about your academic and professional credentials.

I have a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Texas A&I University, an Associate’s Degree in Quality Control from DeAnza College, a Master of Science in Systems Management from the University of Southern California, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Houston. I am also a graduate of the Naval War College.

I have the following professional certifications: Certified Quality Engineer, Certified Reliability Engineer, Certified Quality Manager, Certified Professional Logistician, Distinguished Toastmaster, and ISO-9000 Lead Assessor/Evaluator. Additionally, I have numerous certifications in the military and corporate programs.

How did your corporate and military experience prepare you for the entrepreneurial world?

I wish I could say that I was well prepared to enter the ranks of the solitary entrepreneur based on my experience. However, very little of it really applied. Companies (and the military) train and prepare you to be better at skills helping the company, not skills helping to improve the individual. I became better at supervision, management, budgeting, analysis, report writing, weapons systems delivery, navigation, submarine prosecution, etc. True, there are some natural overlaps of skill sets, but none of them train you to be a better you.

I didn’t realize this until my final year with Halliburton. I attended a weekend training course with my wife for her home business. It became very apparent that all my training had been focused on helping the company, not focused on my own growth. There is a major difference.

Shortly after that training, I attended a three-day training event in Dallas, Texas with some of the top entrepreneurs in the world. After that event, I started reading for my own enhancement – my personal growth as a person and as an entrepreneur. I read a book a week for the next three and a half years.

The first book I read was Psychocybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. It taught me how the subconscious mind works – the cause and effect relationships of how we learn and grow. I wrote a book, No Matter What, and was privileged to speak at my mentor’s events around the country and sell my books and CDs after my presentations.

I wrote my second book, Failure Is Not An Option, and slowly discovered that my real passion was not in personal growth and self-improvement. My passion is in health and wellness. It aligns more closely with my background, and my love of chemistry and analytical research. My first book in health and wellness was a book on weight loss, Results Matter When You Want To Lose Weight and Keep It Off.

I have outlined a dozen-plus more books to write on topics of health and wellness over the next few years. I discovered this past summer that there are literally no books, to speak of, on children’s health and wellness. This niche is waiting to be filled. I have plans to write three children’s books this year.

I found that working for another person is easier than working for yourself. There is an accountability requirement that is explicit when working for a paycheck. Working for sales based on your own productivity requires skills I did not possess before becoming a public speaker and author. Marketing myself, and my books, my brand, so to speak, requires continuous attention and knowledge of what works best this year.

Knowing how the subconscious mind works; and, knowing how to write books, does not automatically mean that I will become a successful person. It requires additional knowledge of non-traditional marketing (Internet, social media, videos, etc.); and, knowing what the market really wants. I glean information from books, articles, videos, webinars, seminars, and conferences. I am in a constant learning mode to become a better author, speaker, and entrepreneur.

Longevity Secrets for Healthy Aging

Who is your primary audience?

My primary audience is the baby boomer demographic of 45-65 years of age. They have been in the parent mode up till the age of 45. After that, their children have grown up and left the nest. They then focus their attention on their parents’ ailing health. They discover that they don’t want to live that way when they get older. They are old enough to take action to improve the quality of their lives.

My secondary audience is the younger crowd interested in living a healthy lifestyle. They are in a learning mode and they take action that makes sense to them. I present cause and effect relationships on health and wellness.

My audience is proactive in their health choices – diet, nutrition, exercise, etc. I provide information for them to make decisions. I provide information for them to take to their doctors and ask questions that apply to their specific level of wellness.

I tell my audiences (written and verbal) not to take action if they are on any medical protocol whatsoever. There are too many complications that can occur without having a professional truly knowledgeable about their specific medical history. Doctors know about contraindications of certain medicines, but they don’t know how certain nutrients affect pharmaceutical treatments. It is best to have a doctor on their side when making any lifestyle change.

What topics do you usually speak about?

I speak about health and aging. I do speeches from five minutes to one hour in length. I love to talk about brain health. What affects our brains as we age and what can be done about it. I talk about heart health. There are over a dozen things that can seriously impact the heart; and, we can control most of them.

I talk about the causes of aging; and, what can we do to accelerate or decelerate the aging processes. I talk about the causes of cancer; and, what we can do to minimize the risk of each cause. I occasionally speak in the subconscious mind and how to make changes in our lifestyles that become permanent.

I have done military presentations, most recently for the Marine Corps Birthday celebrations.  I am sometimes asked to speak about my travels.  I have visited 60 countries.

How do people find you and your information?

Redolaughlin.com is my primary website. I am archiving previously written blogs from two other websites and inserting them into my current website. I have been very delinquent in keeping my current website current. My wife had cancer a couple of years ago and the surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and, life in general, kept me in a reactive mode. I spent time learning, but not sharing in the written sense of the word.

My current book on aging was written in one month and it took another six-plus months for me to be happy with the finished product. I don’t believe it should take six months of editing per month of writing to produce a product. Again, I am learning skills to reduce that editing time. To be honest, two months after writing this book, my wife bought me an author’s software program (Scrivener). It took a couple of months to learn to utilize it correctly. Writing a new book from scratch will be easier this next time around. I am expecting that the editing process will be shortened also.

Two of my books are e-books currently on Kindle. Two other books are physical books written for my public presentations. Both will be available soon on Amazon as e-books. Physical books of all my products will be available on Amazon this year also.

I can be reached at red@redolaughlin.com and/or at 281-687-1188.