Keep your friends close and your enemies closer ~ Sun Tzu. Today I attended the monthly meeting of a professional organization that includes competitors, colleagues and Goons. The history is interesting...I joined this professional organization in June, 2001 to develop my new business, and I immediately signed up for their mentor program to help accelerate my progress. I was assigned to aging, washed up executive I'll call PeePee because he continually pee'd on himself and everyone around him. I read PeePee's very bad book before I ever met him and wondered how this man could ever have succeeded anywhere, including my new industry. He portrayed himself as a big time looser in his book. I was new to both the organization and the industry so I decided to try to get along.PeePee immediately demanded to see drafts of my book and became very critical when I demurred. His hostility escalated despite my stellar performance in the mentor program. He did everything he could to smear me within the organization and even said we had had an affair. Wishful thinking on his part. As an attractive single woman new to the field I was an easy target. I was focused, determined and I persevered.The next year I joined a Toastmaster's like program run by another member of this same professional organization I'll call Lawson. He especially loved a signature story I told about my uncle who began a rowing program for a disadvantaged boys club in Boston. The key lines were "You always past failure on your way to success. Take pride in how far you have come, have faith in how far you can go. And, feel your power." It is a marvelous, very powerful story that I performed just once at his workshop.Before the fire I had a Cat5 network installed between three of my desktop PCs and I routinely backed up all my critical files across the network. This meant I had at least two backup copies of all my work in addition to my primary copy on the PC it was developed on. That story was no exception. Imagine my surprise when I later found that the Feel Your Power story files had disappeared from all three of the PCs! After the fire Lawson was very nervous whenever our paths crossed and he could not look me in the eye. I wonder if he was using the Feel Your Power story himself. More about the fire...My next door neighbor, the inadequate architect I call AIA always dreamt of building his dream house but he could not afford to fund it himself. AIA and his wife were close personal friends and business associates of PeePee and his wife.The universe has a way of warning you when evil is coming. The week of the fire it was clear something was up. I was close to finishing the draft of the book that PeePee had wanted so badly and had set up a meeting in my home office 3 pm Friday with my graphic designer to discuss final book design. She had strangely insisted we meet in my office, we had always met at her office before. It was easy for me to bring materials to her.I called my graphic designer early Friday afternoon to cancel our 3 pm appointment, something just didn't feel right. My graphic designer is normally a very sweet, demure lady, she wasn't earning much on this project and she had said next week was equally good for her. Then I left home to run some errands.I heard sirens and saw helicopters overhead as I approached home around 3:40 pm. The house next to me, AIA's house was burning, flames were shooting out his deck across the narrow driveway at my home. The side of my house was badly cooked. I'd been keeping one of my PCs in the trunk of my car because I expected just such an occurrence. AIA and his wife had just left for a three week trip to the Far East, their employees dealt with all the fire inspectors and insurance people after the fire.Strangely, I had a vicious voice mail around 2 pm from my normally demur graphic designer furious because I had cancelled our 3 pm meeting at my home office. This did not make sense, she had said next week was equally good and she was not earning more than $50 from the session. After the fire I had to pressure her to meet to complete our business. The following Tuesday when we met at her home office she was very badly shaken and could not look me in the eye. Her brother is a prominent member of the same profession PeePee had tried to drive me from. When I reviewed the events with my mentor in NY, he said this is the impression the Goons want to leave: There was a contract placed for the fire to be set in AIA's home shortly after three at the time of my meeting with the graphic designer. AIA wanted to rebuild anyway, insurance would cover his costs. His business partner's son ran a construction company. AIA and his wife could not stand the public scrutiny of a fire investigation, so the fire was set at a time when they would be out of the country for a prolonged period of time.The graphics designer was given special instructions and a zip drive. If a distraction occurred during our meeting at my home office, she was to copy the book files from my PC and then fry the drive. She was a good Christian girl who was hard up for money. She had no idea she was getting involved in a major act of arson. She was blown away by what happened.The Goons expected the fire which shot out of AIA's deck like a blow torch to eventually burn my house as well. I was saved by the old asbestos shingling on my home. A billing error made them think my home was uninsured. The Goons intended to get a copy of my book, fry my other PCs and destroy me financially. But of course being Goons, once again hey failed miserably.The intriguing question is why all these manipulations? The apparent intent is to hurt me in ways similar to the Nazi Soliliquy. Whoever is behind this wants others to take the fall. None of the people mentioned in this public Goon Log have the insight or abilities to perpetrate it themselves. The low level perps, the Pawn Perps, these Goons on the Ground are spineless, cowardly cretins who cave in quickly under pressure. The Grand Goons know this. This makes the Pawn Perps very expendable and they become victims of the same vicious activities they perpetrate on others. The Goon philosophy is, "You've done it to others, you'll get it yourself."Despite all the bad things that have happened, I feel a very special warmth, love and protection through all these difficult times. God has protected me through all the Goons antics and He has turned each of the Goon engineered bad breaks into blessings.
Remember, there is so much more to this story. This is only a brief, sanitized summary of some of the detailed logs we have been keeping for years.