Jim & Lucille McAfee

Age: Lucille 73; Jim 51

Family: Lucille is the mother of Kharlyn and Jim. Jim is single. Kharlyn is married to Steve and has five children. Another son, Larry, lives in Roseburg, Oregon.

Highest Education: Lucille has a high school education. Jim has a B.A. in English Literature and a Th.M. in Semitics (4 years college, 4 years graduate school). Jim is also a Certified Clinical Nutritionist.

Year started business: Lucille started the business in 1969. Jim joined her in 1974.

Type of business: Golden Neo-Life Diamite markets nutritional supplements, skin care, and cleaning compounds.

Market: “Everyone needs what we have to offer.”

Number of employees: One full-time office manager and one part time in addition to Jim, Lucille, and Kharlyn.

Best month (gross revenues): $65,000.

Hours worked per week during start-up: about 30

Hours worked per week now: about 30

Favorite business magazines: Upline, Fortune

Favorite business books and authors: Success Journey by John Maxwell (favorite author), Building the Leaders Around You by John Maxwell, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

Relaxes by: Lucille ­ travel and visiting with friends. Jim ­ travel, organic gardening, reading, contra dancing, guitar.

Keeps in shape physically by: Lucille ­ workouts. Jim ­ gardening, cycling, walking, contra dance

Favorite part of job: Creating ways to enable others to experience success and to develop success patterns.

Least favorite part of job: Accounting.

Companies admired: Microsoft; Hewlett Packard; Intel.

Favorite quotes:

"Loving people precedes leading them. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." (John Maxwell)

"Living itself is a risky business. If we spent half as much time learning how to take risks as we spend avoiding them, we wouldn't have nearly so much to fear in life." ( E. Paul Torrance)

"You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction." (George Horace Lorimer)

Contact Jim at: jmcafee@juno.com

Jim McAfee was forty years old, broke and tired. He was tired of trying to stretch a paycheck from one month to the next, and he was also suffering from fatigue. About this time, he discovered a new product that relieved his fatigue and renewed his energy. And with the product came a moneymaking opportunity.

Jim says people were telling him that at 40 he was too old to be hired, so he took the plunge and went into business for himself selling these products that were helping him. This proved to be a wise decision as he made a profit of over $1000 the first month in business, and this was in 1969.

From there he went on to receive most of the honors his company gives. He has trophys; he is in the company Hall of Fame, the Million Dollar Club, the Chairman's Club, and has received the Founder's Award.

Some of his special prizes have included several new cars, diamond jewelry, all-expense-paid trips to places like Bora Bora, London, Munich, and several trips to Hawaii. Other trips he has won are a week's stay at any hotel in the world and the exclusive use of a 1700-acre ranch for a week.

Jim credits his heroes for inspiring him: men such as James Dobson, John Maxwell, and Howard Hendricks.

He enjoys being self-employed because of the great freedom it brings him. He says there is no limit to where you can go or what you can do. Self-employment affords him the ability to build a future for his family, and at the same time, it offers him the freedom to choose the people he wants to work with.

Jim's story is certainly one of rags to riches; fatigue to freedom, with many fabulous trips, honors, and accomplishments along the way. Forty, tired and over the hill? Not Jim McAfee! He saw an opportunity and took full advantage of it.