Update 8/23/19: In contradiction to his doctor’s prognosis and his own written projection, Dan is in fact alive.
The information I received about his passing came from a source that I had every reason to believe was credible. I apologize for conveying it without triple checking it. What we know for sure is that Dan is seriously ill, is in Hospice and he does not expect to recover.
People have recovered and walked out of Hospice care. Let’s pray this is the case for him. (Dan is one of the few people I know with a sense of humor deep enough to find all this amusing.)
If you don’t know Dan or even if you have known him for 40 years, this is a good time to think about him and the outsized contributions he’s made to many, many people over his life.
We’re all going to die
We’re all going to die.
The question is how are we going to live while we’re alive.
Dan thought through very clearly about how he was going to live and regularly counseled others to do the same.
By coincidence, Ben Settle and I were “talking” about Dan via email before either of us knew he was sick.
Here’s what Ben said on August 16, 2019:
“Those old NO BS newsletters are incredible, even more so than 20 years ago.”
My reply the same day:
“Kennedy is so deep and I find the more life experience I have, the more I appreciate him.”
People with superficial experience of Dan Kennedy – a book, a talk, other people’s opinions – who think they knew what he was about, with all due respect, don’t have a clue.
If you don’t know him, you not only missed an epically generous guy (quietly behind the scenes), you also missed the single most profound scholar/teacher/practitioner of the art of direct response who ever lived.
Hopkins, Caples, Sackheim, Schwab, Collier, Benson, Ogilvy, and many other highly worthy people have all made important contributions, but no one put it all together like Dan did.
Personal selling…copywriting…direct mail…space ads…stage selling…in-office marketing…infomercials…radio advertising…Internet marketing…book authoring…book promoting…event promoting…community building…and several dozens other things that in my ignorance I’ve probably overlooked.
Most important for “us’n”…He distilled it so that WE THE PEOPLE could use this information.
We will never see his like again.
The good news is Dan has produced a body of work you can profitably study from every day for the rest of your life and never get to the bottom of.
I was able to get this message to him in the last week:
“Dan – My ‘thank yous’ from the stage were never just show business. For Bettina, myself and all the people I’ve been able to help using what I learned from you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generosity of spirit and your heroic diligence in teaching us and showing us – like no other – how to live a life of sovereignty, integrity, and excellence.”
We’re all going to die.
The question is how are we’re going to live while we’re alive.
– Ken McCarthy
P.S. Dan lit a fire under my ass, he demolished all excuses, and he painstakingly showed me and all his students how to do things right. What more can a teacher give us?
P.P.S. Dan reputedly liked horses more than human beings. What is true is Dan was more comfortable with horses than human beings, but he taught himself to overcome his early stuttering, his stage fright, and his inherent shyness so that he could be a net contributor to other people. Anyone who looks at his life’s work has to know he clearly loved people.
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