June 2009
Carol Adrienne

“I’ve been a collector for almost thirty years, says, Gary McAvoy, a good friend of mine who lives in Seattle, Washington.  We were recently talking on the phone, and he was showing me around his new Web site on the Internet, www.vintagememorabilia.com as we chatted about his new/old passion.  Gary has a knack for magnetizing new opportunities by simply following his nose—or his curiosity.  Several times his so-called interest or hobby has been turned into either a lucrative career or certainly the next step in his creative evolution.  Gary is a front-runner.  He thrives on finding ideas or trends before they become mainstream. 

The aphorism, Know Thyself, reminds us that we have a natural bent towards how we see and live life.  Some Native American philosophy describes a community as needing four types of people—(these are not necessarily the terms they would use, but the ideas are similar): Those Who Look to the Future—thinkers and planners concerned with long-term affects.  Those Who Nurture and Support—people who care for the community by providing food, child care, shelter, comfort, or mediation.  Those Who Honor the Past—people who tend to turn to history for answers, and who remember traditions that have proved useful and keep knowledge alive.  Those Who Take Action—people who act for the good of the community by creating viable structures and processes of all kinds, such as houses, schools, infrastructure, or solar panels.

My friend, Gary says, “I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I love the start-up part of business. I’ve always been just a little ahead of the market.  However, when I started my search-engine optimization business in 1997, that turned out to be extremely timely.”

I first met Gary in 1999 when I went up to Seattle on a book tour for my book, When Life Changes or You Wish It Would.  Gary picked me up at the airport and we didn’t stop talking all day long.  I was fascinated to learn that Gary had chosen to work part-time in his friend’s media escorting business for one reason: to meet authors.   “At the time, I was working on a novel about the Vatican,” Gary says. “I decided to help out my friend by escorting authors for her company as a way to immerse myself in the publishing field.  I was able to meet dozens of best-selling authors, and talk with their agents and publicists.  It was really fun to be able to sit in the car and have a famous author all to myself for a few hours!  When Salman Rushdie came to town, for example, I even got a chance to talk with his Secret Service people.  They gave me some great security tips for my novel!”  Some of the other authors Gary met were Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm), forensic anthropologist, Kathy Reichs, (right before she became famous for her crime mysteries,) and primatologist and anthropologist, Jane Goodall.

One thing led to another.

Gary remembers, “After I started escorting authors in 1997, I got the idea to put together a Web site, (www.Literati.net), featuring all the authors I had met—some of whom did not yet have their own Web site.   Since I wanted to get the authors to the top of the search engines, I had to learn how to optimize Web sites.  That knowledge led me to starting my business GettotheTop.com, even though that had not been my original intent.”

Gary’s decision to work as a part-time media escort paid off with many unexpected benefits and opportunities.  In addition to his Web site business, Gary also co-authored a book, Harvest for Hope with Jane Goodall, after serving as her West Coast base camp leader in Seattle for the Jane Goodall Institute. 

“I think where I shine best is in building a business from nothing,” Gary says, “I like to be at the beginning of a trend, where I’m discovering something that is not yet mainstream.  Once it gets going, then I feel an urge to move on.  However, I’m not always sure when the building phase is over and the maintaining part begins!  Eventually, though, something seems to find me that I can’t resist.”

Gary has just done it again—built a whole new business in the field of memorabilia collecting. “I’ve just turned sixty, but I feel more like I’m still thirty-five—because I’m always looking ahead to what the future might bring.  His new Web site, www.vintagememorabilia.com is well-conceived and stunningly beautiful.

“I’ve had this interest in collecting memorabilia since the mid-eighties.  I’ve bought and sold letters, first editions, personal effects, and photographs belonging to such famous people as Hemingway, Abraham Lincoln, and Walt Whitman to name a few.  I love the thrill of the hunt.  I see myself as a temporary custodian of these mementos of history.
In fact that was the advice of my mentor, Leon Becker, who was a major dealer in the world, maybe one of the top ten.  He was Albert Einstein’s roommate at Princeton.  Leon had a fabulous gallery/museum in Rancho La Costa.  I wandered in there one time and my jaw dropped at the thousands of framed pieces of history that he had.  The gallery had the feel of an old library, like an old study with chairs and tables and lamps.

“For example, I remember Leon had one of the copies of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln.  I’ll also never forget looking at a little map of Mt. Vernon showing all the properties that George Washington owned.  Washington had signed his name eight times around the map to indicate what he owned.  Leon also had a confidential letter from Thomas Jefferson ordering blankets for his slaves, at a time when he was not known to have slaves. When I walked into Leon’s gallery, it was like overload, looking at all this history.  It really brought me to tears on my first visit.”

One of the things Gary coveted the most during that period was a black and white photograph of Thomas Edison, showing him in front of an electric power station.  On the photograph he had inscribed, “Dear Friend Murray, in 1879 I invented the incandescent lamp”  with his signature.  “It was priced at $750, which was a lot of money then, and I couldn’t afford it,” says Gary, “But years later that same photo was sold at auction for $9,500.”

This passion for history lay like a seed for many years, waiting for the right time to blossom.

Gary began to collect items in earnest about three years ago. “I started to buy more things at auctions, especially as people were forced to sell because of the economy.  As I picked up more inventory, I decided to build a Web site to show my collection.  I get several hundred hits a day now, and sales are starting to pick up.  www.vintagememorabilia.com. (I suggest you visit his site just to see how beautifully the objects move into view, and how you can see details up close—like a cross belonging to Russian mystic, Grigori Rasputin, often called the Mad Monk.)

In talking about life purpose and such things, Gary said to me, “I’ve never felt like I had a purpose in my life, so to speak.  But, as I look back it probably has to do with starting things, wanting to take a raw idea and make something of it.  That’s what always lures me on.  I’m beginning to think that maybe this need for discovery is the purpose of my life.  And it’s just not myself who has benefited from my ventures.  I can look back and see that all the people I’ve been involved with have also benefited-- from my colleagues, my investors, to my customers.  It’s very important to me that it be good for all concerned.  Then when I feel it’s time to go, I can let go knowing that they can carry on without me.

“There’s been a lot of times when it looked like I didn’t know what I was doing, or where I was going,” says Gary, “But something always keeps showing up.  In a way, my life could be summed by five words—‘One thing led to another.’”

As I listened to Gary’s emphasis on his life of discovering things, being a pioneer, and starting independent business I couldn’t help wondering if he had a number One prominent in his numerology chart.  Before we got off the phone, I quickly calculated his numbers.  Indeed, Gary does have a One Destiny!  The One Destiny indicates the path of an entrepreneur, sole proprietor, idea person, or possibly a writer or inventor.  No wonder he loves the beginning of projects, when things feel new, untried, and challenging.  His Heart’s Desire number is Eight.  An Eight Heart’s Desire tends to gravitate to business.  It is not happy unless it has turned ideas into a profit-making venture.  Another indicator of a very strong focus on materializing ideas is found in his Line of Focus, which is called the Line of Fundamentals or, sometimes, the Line of Foundation.  And where does Gary get his joie de vivre, optimism, and ability to sell refrigerators to Eskimos—why, from his charming Three Birth Path, of course!

So if you don’t feel you have found your life purpose yet, it’s out there if you just keep following your curiosity about life.  Just remember the image created by cartoonist Robert Crumb in 1968--and “Keep on Truckin.”

Happy June!
Carol Adrienne

Carol Adrienne, Ph.D. is an intuitive counselor and life coach who has helped thousands of people work through doubt, procrastination, and obstacles to create the life they want to live. Private consultations and coaching available. Contact her at Carol@caroladrienne.com
Please email Carol with a story or question about your own life for consideration for her monthly column.