Talk:Jim Rohn

Timeline is wrong
Something is not right with the timeline of his story. The wikipedia article states that he was born in 1930, which seems to be accurate as his Myspace page says he is 77 years old. If he met Earl Shoaff when he was 25, that would've been around 1955. Supposedly, Jim became a millionaire 6 years later at the age of 31, but Shoaff died one year earlier, which would've been around 1960.

However, multiple sources on the web, including Jim's own website say that Shoaff died in 1965. On Jim's Myspace page, there is a link to one created for Earl Shoaff, which states his birthdate and death date as being March 21, 1916 - September 5, 1965. It also references a website, earlshoaff.com,, which has a very similar layout to the page on Jim's website. Since the Myspace page that references this site was linked from Jim's own Myspace page, I can only assume that the site is legit.

On that site, it says:

'Everyone knows the profound impact this man had on Jim Rohn that fateful day in late 1955'

and

'Sadly, suffering from a bad case of pneumonia, the weak heart that plagued him since birth finally gave out on September 6, 1965 at age 49.'

If Shoaff died 5 years after Jim met him and just one year before Jim became a millionaire, something is seriously off here. Either the dates are wrong, or Jim's 'rags to riches in 6 years' story is a bit exaggerated. - WorknMan 71.145.144.87 (talk) 02:14, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Mr. Rohn may not not have gone to work immediately after meeting Earl Shoaff. That may explain the confusion about how soon he became a millionare after going to work for Earl Shoaff. Brian62 (talk) 19:29, 2 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I seem to recall from listening to several of Jim Rohn's CDs that he became a millionaire, got carried away and lost it all, and then made it back again. So maybe he became a (permanent) millionaire a year after Shoaff's death?


 * It says in The Art of Exceptional Living that he met Shoaff when he was 25 (1955). He said, 'To make a long story short, this very special gentleman took a liking to me, and a few months after I met him, he hired me, and I went to work for him. I spent the next 5 years working for him in several of his businesses, and then unfortunately, he died.' It also said Jim was a millionaire in 6 years, at the age of 31 (1961/62). So the ONLY way this timeline works is if Shoaff died in 1960/61, not 1965. Somebody needs to tag this article accordingly. I would, but I don't know how. 75.63.3.214 (talk) 03:02, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Okay guys. Here's the scoop. Jim met Earl Shoaff in 1955 when he was 25 years old. Earl was VP of sales for a nutritional supplement company named AbundaVita and toured the country giving success lectures and holding recruiting meetings for the company. It was at one of these meetings that Jim, urged by a friend who had already joined AbundaVita, met Shoaff for the first time. He signed up as a distributor for AbundaVita and started applying Shoaff's philosophy and teachings. Shoaff left AbundaVita in 1957 (2 years later) to form his own company with best friend Rich Schnackenberg. The new company was called Nutri-Bio and was launched in July, 1957 with Shoaff as President and Rich as VP. Rohn resigned his distributorship with AbundaVita and joined Nutri-Bio. Having proven himself in AbundaVita, Jim started getting more direct mentorship from both Earl and Rich. Applying himself in Nutri-Bio, he became the youngest "Group Coordinator" (the highest distributor rank in the company) and was then hand-picked by Shoaff and Schnackenberg to be VP of the brand new Nutri-Bio Canada operation. This is the point that Jim, with residual income and stock options, became a millionaire for the first time. According to his own words he was worth 2.3 million at the height of Nutri-Bio's popularity. Nutri-Bio folded for good in 1963, mainly because of false accusations by the FDA about their product and Jim lost his first fortune. He was 33 and Shoaff was 47. So, when Jim speaks of "working for Shoaff for 5 years" he was talking about the time he worked closely with Shoaff in Nutri-Bio from 1957 until 1963. Earl Shoaff died 2 years later and was indeed alive when Jim made and lost his first fortune. Hope this helps! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronhenley (talk • contribs) 19:31, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Ronhenley, what is your source for this info?  Leef5  TALK &#124; CONTRIBS 12:44, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

My source for the info is from my 30+ years of research including many personal conversations and phone calls with Jim Rohn, Rich Schnackenberg, Bill Bailey many others who were actually around when all of this was happening. Ronhenley

Ronhenley - As per Wikipedia rules, "source" means verifiable, not "Hey guys I had a conversation with him....trust me" So again - Where/What is your source?31.6.62.111 (talk) 13:13, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Advertisement?
--- this whole article sounds a lot like an ad. totally untrustworthy... 68.199.206.104 (talk) 02:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

This does not seem like an actual Wikipedia article. It sounds like a puff-piece lifted from one of the guy's promotional pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.185.96.97 (talk) 20:27, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this reads like an advertisement. Request cleanup by someone who is experienced at editing. I don't know the process to make an article more objective / NPOV.

What makes it worse is there seems to be some MLM schemes/scams being run in Rohn's name since his death. Here's an example: http://rickherbst.com/blog/ -- Herbst is a former soap opera actor who seems to be ready to milk his remaining fans. 70.173.179.59 (talk) 06:22, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with most of what is said above, and I've made changes to make the article read more "clinical", if you will. The article is still poorly sourced, so any help with that would be good.31.6.62.111 (talk) 13:09, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Date clarification
User:208.58.117.211 inserted this in the article. I have marked the spot with a clarify tag:

(There is some disparity in the years concerning this story. Shoaff died in 1965 which would have made Jim 30 at the time of their initial meeting, not 25.)

(John User:Jwy talk) 19:12, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Jim gives his story in almost all of his audio books. He says he is a millionaire by age 31, worked for Earl Shoaff for 5 years, and that he got a job shortly after meeting Earl Shoaff. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.65.186.228 (talk) 05:48, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Jim was born on September 17, 1930. He met Earl Shoaff in October, 1955, which would make him 25. By the time Earl passed in 1965, he and Jim had moved on to separate business ventures.

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