After a failed business venture at the age of 21, Rich Campe entered a period of deep discouragement. With the help of his mother and a mentor named Jack Wilder, Campe discovered the MindScan, a tool that helped him identify his strengths and weaknesses in thinking. Through this newfound awareness, Campe was able to leverage his strengths and manage his weaknesses, ultimately achieving his goals of financial success and personal fulfillment.  

In 1991, after graduating from college with a double major in Marketing and Communications, and completing my Coaching Certification with Tony Robbins, I was loaded for bear and ready to have a huge impact into the world.  I was ready to start my coaching business at the ripe old age of 21 years old.

I raised about $30,000 from friends and family and it was “Go Time!” I used the money I raised to put down to get things kicked off for what I was calling "The Challenge Weekend." I put down a nonrefundable deposit for space at the historic Indian Lakes Resort in Bloomingdale, Illinois; I put down deposits for top speakers from around the world to come in and speak; and I pre-paid for collateral materials, merchant accounts, and the other miscellaneous items I needed for my event.  

I was working long, hard, very intense hours. I was staying up late most nights, and pulling all-nighters on the others. But I was fired up and ready!

It was about three weeks before the big show and my partner at the time was Tim Alber—the finance guy and the voice of reason.  He sat me down and laid it out.  

He said, "Have you ever wanted to go parachuting?"

I said, "Yes, of course. Do you want to go now?"

"Sit down," he said, "let me share a quick story first. Imagine we get up to 8,000, 10,000, 12,000, 15,000 feet... and it’s time to jump. We jump. Now w're high in the air, flying and having a blast." He takes a breath and says, "Now pull the chute."

"Let's keep going!"

"Pull the chute."

"This is great."

"Pull the chute."

"Not yet!”

Then he brought his hands together with a booming "CLAP!"

“What's that for?” I wondered aloud.

“We just hit the ground," he said. "We died”

“Wait—what?"

He said, “Look, we just spent all of the $30,000 we raised, and then some, on the deposits and payments. We needed to sell 100 tickets to just break even and, so far, we've only sold 3 tickets... total." He looked me square in the eyes, and laid it out, "It’s time to pull the chute and shut it down.”

"There's always a way!" I said. "What else can we do?”

We ended up shutting it all down. In the time following, I sank into a deep depression. I'd hardly move from Tim's couch, where I was riding out the thought, "My life is over at the ripe old age of 21."

With some persistence, my mom convinced me to move from Tim's couch to the house where I'd grown up. I have to give my mom credit. Moms are so smart. With subtle requests each day to brush my teeth, or take a shower, or eat the PBJ she brought me, she helped slowly pull myself out from the "day after day" in my childhood bed, with the sheets and covers over my head.

And so this went on and on, with little steps of love... and encouragement... and hope. Until my dad entered with, “Did I forget to tell you to get a real job after college?”

So I started back as a waiter at TGI Fridays, my tip tray as my résumé. Then I heard from my friend Peter about a friend of his named Adam who was working at fast-growing company out of Westchester, Illinois called PageNet. This was before cell phones were really a thing.

I knew Adam was working in outside sales, but more importantly, he was making great money and he was in the role of outside sales.

It took some effort, but I did get a job at PageNet, which I talk about in my video "How to Ask Intelligently."

Eventually, I paid everyone back, bought a Toyota Supra Turbo, and was offered an opportunity to move with PageNet to Tampa, Florida.

Flash forward a decade to 2001... where I was one of the 5 highest paid employees at PageNet (earning over $500K per year), living debt free, married with two kids, with primary house and lake house, as well as donating lots of time, money and resources, staying very involved with community, church and friends, leading kids programs at church and coaching kids sports.

So what happened in that ten-year Tenure with PageNet to take me from my personal bottom to a new high that would only keep getting higher as my life continued?

The MindScan. That's what happened.

My Introduction to the Self-realization of the MindScan™ Assessment

Just a few years into my time at PageNet, I met Jack Wilder, a man who would quickly become my good friend, not to mention my life-long mentor and coach. Jack truly changed my life by introducing me to an early version of what would become, with his help, ProAdvisorCoach's groundbreaking MindScan™ Assessment.

For those unfamiliar with it, the MindScan™ Assessment is based on the Hartman Value Profile developed by Nobel Nominee Dr. Robert S. Hartman. It's an axiological inventory that measures a person’s capacity to make value judgments concerning the world and one’s self. Instead of simply understanding “how” a person behaves, the MindScan™ assessment objectively measures “why” a person behaves the way they do, provides the deepest possible understanding of behavior in the workplace, and reveals precisely how to align your thinking strengths with your business or personal plan in order to accelerate successes.

Jack took me through the assessment and I was blown away, gaining immediate awareness of the why, the what, and the how of my thinking, and why I had found myself where I did three years earlier. From just two sets of 18 statements, I gained a HUGE awareness of my own behavior.

I learned I have High Practical with High Bias. This is a huge gift when applied in the corporate world where there's lots of structured thinking like policies, procedures, job descriptions, compensation plans, daily activities, schedules,  timelines, budgets.  But I also learned that my bias for Practical Thinking was so overly attentive that I would go into Massive Action without any attention to Structured Thinking

It was like I was getting into a car and stepping full-gas on the accelerator, sending the car barreling forward as fast as possible down the road, without giving consideration to the route I should be taking to get where I'm trying to go.

Suddenly, everything from three years earlier clicked into place! When I was building my business at 21, oblivious to this tendency, I ended up overusing my strength to create a weakness.  But once I realized it... truly understood it... it was as if the "Heavens of Awareness" opened.  God had opened this door and showed me, through Jack and the assessment. For the previous 25 years of my life, I had ZERO awareness or framework or realization of my own thinking! This awareness changed... well, just... EVERYTHING!

Now I could leverage my strengths and manage my potential weaknesses as I "began again" to pursue the initial vision and dream God put on my heart when I was 18 years old... to empower others to reach their true potential, whatever that is for them.

When I founded Rich Campe International, which is now ProAdvisorCoach, I knew that the MindScan™ was going to be a crucial part of what I was doing. With Jack's help, we developed the propriety technology that makes the MindScan™ Assessment and Report what they are today—a uniquely powerful and insightful tool, unmatched in its ability to provide awareness in three dimensions, and help individuals and businesses succeed in ways they never imagined possible.

It all starts with awareness, and ultimate awareness starts with the MindScan!