William Lee Gordon is a pen name.
Bill left college to start his first business, a regional fast-food franchise (he was the sweat-equity partner).
From there he went on to sales and sales management. Always as an Independent Contractor, he sold everything from Wholesale Junior Fashion Clothing to insurance – and ended up building the third largest region in the country for a national health insurance company.
Attracted to the healthcare industry, he later started a number of different businesses under both traditional and direct-selling models. He actually built, and for over a decade maintained, a 30,000+ member international direct selling organization.
He has traveled the world and spent time in both Western and third-world countries.
He is a public speaker and now a best-selling author.
Throughout his adult life, he has always been self-employed or a business owner – he has never been an employee.
He has experienced incredible success and suffered terrible failure. He believes in hard work, never quitting, and didn’t let growing up in a poor household without a father hold him back.
Bill has always loved to live the present and dream the future. Like many authors, he draws from his real-life experiences for his inspiration. In what he still considers to be the first half of his adult life, he has (among other things):
- Performed with and taken improvisation lessons from one of the greatest Jazz trumpet performers of all time, Clark Terry.
- Scored a touchdown in a football game.
- Been elected to the Student Government of his University as well as president of his fraternity and the Interfraternity Council.
- Taught Lifesaving Swimming classes for the Red Cross.
- Hiked the rainforest, walked the Copacabana, and whitewater rafted in the mountains above Rio de Janeiro.
- He has actually read the Bible, the Constitution of the United States, and the Declaration of Independence.
- He has stood alone at the summit, preparing to be the last skier off the mountain, watching a blizzard blow in across the Rockies.
- He has received standing ovations from thousands of listeners for speeches given across four continents spanning three decades.
- He has witnessed unbelievable abject poverty, and dined at some of the most renowned restaurants in the world.
- He has been a pallbearer… and been named a godfather.
- He has driven in a Demolition Derby.
- He has cruised and sailed the Caribbean, and scuba-dived some of the most beautiful locations in the world.
- He has witnessed what is considered to be the most beautiful sunrise in the world from the 10,000 ft. rim of the Haleakala volcano in Maui, Hawaii.
- He helped support an orphanage in Honduras.
- He has hot air ballooned, and picnicked in remote locations only accessible by helicopter.
- He has learned another language.
- He has traveled the high-speed trains of Europe and gazed, open-mouthed, at some of the most amazing frescoes and architecture.
- He has owned a tuxedo.
- He earned and by tradition claimed the just finished crystal decanter of Louis XIII cognac from the Ritz Carlton in Sarasota, FL.
- He met his future wife while traveling on another continent and returned there many times to court her.
- He has eaten lunch atop the Schilthorn Mountain in the Swiss Alps and stayed at the Grand Victoria-Jungfrau, a palace built for Queen Victoria in 1856.
- He has piloted a small plane.
- He has stood side-by-side with the governor of Guam, bracing against the ever-blowing winds, standing on the steps of the Congress Building, overlooking paradise.
- He has raced a NASCAR, and stayed at the hotel made famous by the Eagles in their song, Hotel California.
- He once took 5th Place in a National Foosball Championship tournament.
- He was married in a third-world country, on another continent, in another language, and in a church whose immense beauty was in its poverty and austerity.
- He has now written multiple novels and sold tens of thousands of copies across five continents.
He hopes this list pales in comparison to what he does in the future.
And, as much as he loves life now, he can’t stop thinking about the tremendous possibilities that future holds.
Bill is now writing full time and hopes his readers enjoy his stories as much as he does writing them.
What an incredible book! And I think that you need to write more than just SF.
– Grant
Thank you Cary… What subjects would you like to read more about?