Jericho Chris - No Is a Four-Letter Word: How I Failed Spelling but Succeeded in Life

LETS GET IT STARTED IN HERE!

No, no, no, dont say you cant when you can

KISS, NO, NO, NO

A prerequisite of being a heavy metal kid in the 1980s was watching music videos, and one of the first bands that effectively utilized this new medium to the highest degree was Twisted Sister. TS filmed mini-movie intros to their videos that set the stage for the song, and the best example of this was the prelude for their 1984 monster hit Were Not Gonna Take It. The video opened with a kid playing air guitar in his room (a ritual that I was also guilty of at the time), until the kids militant dad (I recognized him instantly as Niedermeyer from Animal House) bursts into the room and berates him for wasting his time in hoping that his rock n roll dreams come true. Towering over his son, he gives him the bollocking of his young life, and then demands to know the answer to one simple question:

WHAT DO YOU WANNA DO WITH YOUR LIFE??

The kid looks sheepishly up at his parental torturer and barks back (in Dee Sniders voice) these three magic words:

I WANNA ROCK!

Then he strums a majestic power chord on his axe and blows his dad out of the second-story window as the songs iconic drum intro kicks in. While I never caused my dad great bodily harm by torpedoing him out of a second-floor window, I do remember having a similar answer when he asked me what I wanted to do with my life.

However, in my case the answer was a little more detailed. Yes, I wanted to rock but I also wanted to wrestle.

You see, I decided when I was twelve years old that I loved both of these equally and therefore was going to succeed at both. I never thought about what the odds were in making it in even one of these vocations, never mind the two of them. But I also didnt care. All I knew was that I wanted to rock and wrestle and wasnt interested in much else.

Well, here we are thirty-five years later in 2017 and lo and behold, good golly Miss Mollyhere I am living both my dreams at the highest of levels. Now, even though my success in wrestling is obviously bigger than my success with Fozzy, my band has done a damn good job fighting our way into the big leagues as well. We arent KISS or Metallica, but weve toured with both and held our own, so Id say thats pretty freakin good, wouldnt you agree?

If you do, your million-dollar question might be, How did you achieve both of your dreams? Well, for a long time I didnt really have a specific answer; I wanted to be a rocker and wrestler, so I did it. But when the idea of this book was pitched to me by my marvelous literary agent, Marc Gerald, I realized there was a whole lot more to the story of how I got to where I am today than I originally thought.

After much deliberation, I was able to distill the secret of my success (and I aint talkin about Michael J. Fox) into twenty simple principles, or rules if you wheeel, that can help you achieve your dreams too. Whether youre looking to get a promotion, land a certain gig, meet the girl or guy of your dreams, or become the first-ever undisputed world champion (actually, scratch that last one, I beat you to it), I think this book will help you.

One of the first things I came up with was the title. It popped into my head early on in the process, because the lesson contained within those six words is fundamental to everything Ive achieved. The secret is simple, because no really is a four-letter word. Those two runes combined form the most crippling weapon in the English language, an idiom so evil that it has the power to derail even the most dedicated of people and crush their dreams in a split second. Its a word even more repugnant than the most abrasive of profanities, and my whole life Ive wanted nothing to do with it.

And let me clarify: this isnt about not taking no for an answer from the girl you want to invite to the sock hop or take out for dinner at the El Pollo Loco. Ive accepted those type of nos more times than Id like to admit. What Im talking about is not accepting no for an answer when it comes to what you want out of your life and careerthats the kind of no Ive never bowed down to. And thats where the idea to write this tome came from.

This book started as a list of twenty lessons Ive learned that have guided me through my life and career. Some have more importance than others depending on the moral, and others didnt make the final cut because they just werent exciting enough to write about (youll have to wait for volume two to read The Bob Backlund Principle: Save Your Money).

Some of the axioms in this vade mecum were learned from my parents, others came from various mentors along the way, and others were taught the hardest way of all: by trying, failing, learning, and doing better the next time. My list of rules comes from different sources for sure, but all of them combined form a cohesive philosophy. I know these dictums have helped me immensely in my life, and Im certain they can help you too.

Now, its not like youre going to be reading the Dead Sea Scrolls or the