The Boron Letters - Chapter 4

Friday, 11:05 AM

June 15, 1984

Dear Bond,

It was very nice for all of you to come up yesterday and bring me a birthday cake. It is good to know that you are all on my side and that I have a strong outside "support system."

I hope everybody understood why I wanted to leave before 7:30. If I hadn't left when I did I would have missed commissary and I wouldn't have gotten my supply of fruit for the whole week. Also, Doc, my best friend in Boron so far, was leaving the next morning (that's this morning; he's gone now) and I needed to spend more time with him.

But I do appreciate all of you and I just wanted to let you know.

Onward. Let's get back to the subject of physique. As I said yesterday, I believe the best physique for a man is lean and hard with strong muscular arms but not a bulging, exaggerated weight-lifter's body.

But why do I stress arm development so much? There are several reasons. As I said yesterday, one benefit is that it is just plain handy to have a long of strength in your arms. I also said the kind of body I have been touting is attractive to women and wins you respect from men.

Let's talk about that respect a little bit. The first thing I want to say is that a fat, sloppy or skinny and weak body tends to broadcast to the world that the owner of that body is lacking self-respect. The second thing is that tough animals have a tendency to prey on weak or helpless animals.

Here is something to remember: DEFENSIVE BEHAVIOR INVITES AGGRESSIVE ACTION!

What that means is that in life in general (and in prison in particular) there is very little sympathy for a weakling.

There's a guy here that I used to like but now he is starting to irritate me. In many ways he's nice old guy (I'll write more about him later) but he is serving a miserable 100 day sentence (maybe it's even less) and he shuffles around like a plantation nigger trying to please "Ol Massah." What's going on is plain and simple: He's scared.

Now, that's no sin. God knows I've been scared many times. But this guy stays scared when there is no need to be and it is very unattractive to watch.

Now, don't get the wrong idea and start worrying about this guy. I am very nice to him and so is everybody else. Everybody cuts him a lot of slack. This is a very "soft" place to do your time and all I want to do by describing this man's mode of behavior to you is to make a point.

The point is this: Bond, as you know, I am a very non-violent person and if this guy, by acting like such a pussy, can irritate me, just think how some hard vicious hard-nosed jerk in a real prison would be affected by him!

You see, this guy is sending out signals and those signals are saying, "I'm scared. I'm a pussy. I'm easy. I'm vulnerable." And so on.

And, unfortunately, not everybody in the world is kind or sympathetic. Some men just look for guys like this guy to prey on.

God, I'm long-winded aren't I? Anyway, finally to get to the point, what I'm trying to say is that it is far better to:

rely on your own strength

instead of somebody Else's

compassion!

And, to make the obvious point, you've obviously first got to have some strength in order to be able to rely on it.

You can't fake it. At least it's not a good idea. Especially in a prison or anywhere else where there are "mean streets". You don't need to "act tough"; you need to be tough.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about being mean or macho or even pushy. I'm also not talking about pumping iron for hours a day or getting a black belt in Karate either.

You don't have to do all that. Plain simple toughness will do. You see most predators, when it comes to their victims, are very practical. Let's face it. If a couple of guys decide to go to the park and mug somebody, they aren't going to pick on some big gnarly looking guy. No, they will go after the victim who looks like easy pickup.

You know what? I believe that if you have two guys of the same height and same weight and you dress them both in a full suit of clothes that most of the time you will still be able to tell who is the toughest. You see, when you "get tough" not only does your appearance change; your "signals" change also. The way you move, the way you hold yourself, your reactions to outside stimuli - all of that changes.

So I want you to start getting tough and self reliant. By the way, I read a quote by John D. Rockefeller in "The Enquirer" today to the effect that nothing is as satisfying as self reliance and I totally agree.

But don't get confused. I don't want you to become a fighter in the physical sense as much as I want you to become a "Fight Avoider". And I want you to be able to avoid fights without losing your dignity.

And one of the best ways to avoid fights (I know this sounds kind of silly!) is to have big arms. Have you ever heard this comment? "Damn! Look at the arms on that guy! How'd you like to meet him in a dark alley?!"

Big strong arms. Start developing them right now. There are no drawbacks and many benefits.

Well, hopefully, by now now I've got you doing your road work, developing your arms and eating more or less properly. On that assumption I am going to temporarily drop this area and start writing about how to make money. We'll come back to health and fitness later though.

But tomorrow we'll start on money. However, right now, I want to comment briefly on one of my friends here. He is black and he was formerly in San Quentin for shooting two Santa Monica cops because he thought they were trying to get his supply of dope.

He's a heroin dealer from Hollywood and he is 55 years old and he is indeed a "career criminal". He thought she was going to OD from the heroin he had sold her. He's a fascinating guy and maybe we'll talk about him at another time.

Some guy was taken out of his hand cuffs yesterday. They found a bunch of money and pot in his hobby shop locker. Last night my friend Doc told me a story about this guy. It seems that some guy snitched on him and his wife and caused his wife to go to jail.

Well, anyway, for some reason this guy was in another institution and he was part of a line of guys who were hand cuffed and in chains when he spots the snitch.

What does he do? Simple. He grabs a nearby pencil (or pen, I forget) and tries to ram it into the snitch's brain by stabbing him in the eye. As it turned out, he didn't kill the snitch, but he did manage to blind him.

What the hell. It was just "his way".

I'm going to sign off now. Are you following my suggestions?

I love you and Good Luck!

Love,

Dad

7:42 p.m.

       The main point of this letter is again VERY well made and quite clear. However, a few of the short sentences surrounding the main lesson trigger memories of other lessons and amazing facts about my dad.

       The beginning seems like a simple "sorry for cutting everything so short last time" sentence to his family and it was, but it is also a whole lot more.

       For one, you can see how nothing stood in the way of what Gary felt was important to his life and routine. He really did prioritize well. Even these letters to me start with health first and then get into what he alone could teach.

       Another point is his appreciation for a good support system. Everyone knows a good support system can be REALLY helpful. Look at men of average skills who attain lofty positions for no better reason than their support system. But my dad had a rare and enviable skill of eradicating people from his life if they were not a positive influence.

       We all have people in our lives we are stuck dealing with for a variety of reasons such as loyalty based on past friendship, family or some other sense of duty. Well not my pop. He said SCREW THAT and cut anyone who impeded his enjoyment right out of his life for good.

       He wasn't mean, but he just wouldn't put up with nonsense from ANYONE! My brother Kevin is like that and I try to learn from them because it makes a lot of difference to one's success. Imagine if everyone you deal with is really on your side and not only believes in you, but they all also want to seriously help you accomplish your goals.

       Most people think the hard part is finding positive people, but that isn't true. Go to any learning Annex workshop with Trump speaking and you will find positive people with hope. No, the real trick is to cut out those that hold you back.

       The first person to try and hold my dad back was his own father. On several occasions he told me of how my grandfather told him he wouldn't be able to breakout of the average working Joe's existence. He had such a lack of faith in my pop that when he actually did strike it rich, he wouldn't believe it until my dad showed him mailbags full of checks from people wanting to buy from him. This was after he bought a new custom home and a built a huge business.

       Once my dad stopped seeking his father's approval, he realized he was in control of his own destiny and without being malicious, he started to rid himself of the people that held him back.

       He sent some money to his mom whenever she needed anything, but for the most part we moved to California and my grandparents became a much smaller part of our lives.

       He even wrote about this in "The Dark Side Of Success"

       He would never want me to tarnish the name of anyone in the family by citing examples, but suffice it to say that he had the ability and more importantly the WILL to eliminate or marginalize anyone in his life that he felt was too negative.

       Most of us like to think we would do the same, but we always have an excuse. So and so is my in-law so I can't tell him to piss up a rope or we have been friends since high school. Screw that. And never ever encourage people who drag you down to hang around.

       A support system is like a garden and you always need to be on the lookout for weeds to pull.

       The other lesson in this chapter is don't be or appear to be a weak target. He discusses having large arms as a deterrent and he is 100% right. Right around the time before he went to prison a friend of mine commented that he wouldn't mess with my dad. The comment struck me as odd because I saw my dad as one big loveable guy of average height and my friend had just kicked his mom's boyfriend's ass about a week earlier.

       I asked him why he thought so and his answer was "his arms". His arms weren't huge like a body builder, but you could tell they were strong. Proving the point my dad would later be making in this fourth letter.

       In business my father tried to never appear weak and it is easier to not appear weak when you are strong. If he found out someone was charging more for an ad he raised his price. He was the best and he was putting it out there. Carry yourself with confidence (not arrogance) in everything you do and people will respond to it in a good way.

       He ends the letter with a quote by Rockefeller that self reliance is the most satisfying thing in the world and it is important to know that often self-reliance is the real motive of great business men and not money.