User:Rickbeneteau08

Rick Beneteau has worn many hats during his half century of living. Straight out of high school, he started working for his family dry-cleaning business, eventually managing it and finally purchasing the multi-store company from his father.

Throughout the 1970's and 1980's, while firing up the boilers at 5 am, six days a week, Rick pursued his true passion; writing, recording and pitching songs. He won Billboard Magazine's International Songwriting Competition the first two years running, and other major music competitions. Music publishers and recording companies started picking up his material. Based on this success, he sold his dry-cleaning business in the 1990â€™s to form a music production company. He spent two years building a professional recording facility in his home. Unfortunately, the same month his production company launched, his marriage ended, and his studio and music royalties were seized by the divorce court.

Devastated, and unwilling to lead the starving artist lifestyle, Rick made his way to the Internet and began using his entrepreneurial and creative skills to become one of the original Internet marketers. He created top-selling marketing products, such as: Ezine Marketing Machine, Branding You and Breaking the Bank, and he originated the Internet's first two-tier affiliate program with his traveling billboards, I.D. IT! Plates.

Rick's articles and quotes have been featured in hundreds of Internet newsletters as well as in magazines and print books. One of his most popular quotations has it:

Give a shelterless man tools and he will build a home Inspire him, encourage him, give him vision, and he will build an empire.

In 2001, Rick founded the Internet's first toy drive, an online holiday mainstay for seven years. Recruiting the top Internet marketers in large promotional campaigns aimed at making sure no child is left without at least one gift under the Christmas tree, InternetToyDrive.org is a corporate sponsor in direct affiliation with the official Toys for Tots program.

The tragic events of September 11, 2001 affected Rick so profoundly that he decided to change direction from helping people build online businesses to simply helping build people. His breakthrough ebook from 2002, Success: a Spiritual Matter, the first in a series of products that bridge business success and spirituality, remains an entrepreneur's favorite to this day.

In 2003, Rick's first print book, "A Large Slice of Life to Go, Please!" was published, landing him the prestigious Pinnacle Book Achievement Award and many high-level endorsements.

In 2006, Rick and Julian Kalmar founded the humanitarian project, 10 Million Clicks For Peace, that Nobel Prize Winner Desmond Tutu has called "a beautiful and remarkable concept."

Rick and Julian went on to create an extension of their peace work, the deeply spiritual program, Modern Day Mastery, set to launch in 2016. The intense 9-month journey helps transform people’s lives with mastery so that they can in turn masterfully transform the world.