Tim Town & Wife Lori Appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show

It was a Sunday evening and we were celebrating my daughter’s birthday. After we wrapped it up and all of the family left, my wife felt a pain in her jaw and neck. I didn’t realize what was going on until my daughter came to me and stated that my wife needed me.

I went to our bedroom and there she was in pain. I asked her what happened and she told me. At that point I asked if I should take her down to the hospital but she refused because she thought it just might be a pinched nerve. The next morning things did not improve so being that we owned our own business I said, “Let’s take the day off and take it easy”, What would you like to do I asked? “Let’s just get a movie and relax” she replied.

So she went out and got the movie and we watched it. I noticed that she had a rapid heart rate and knew something was wrong. Just as the movie was over and the TV switched over to regular programming, a Oprah Winfrey promo came on stating what her program was going to be about that day. Her program was about women and heart disease.  My wife had a gut feeling one that when you get it you just know.

We watched about 15 minutes of the show and knew that we needed to get her down to the hospital. When we arrived and they finally saw my wife they stated that it was most likely a pinched nerve and they hated shows like that because people think they have those symptoms. My wife, like Oprah stressed, was adamant about knowing if she had some heart event because it was not like any other thing she had ever felt.

After awhile of convincing the hospital agreed to check her further. I was seated in the waiting room when all of a sudden our life would take a turn. A nurse, the one that thought there was nothing medically wrong with my wife stated, “Mr. Town, I’m sorry to inform you but our test show that your wife has had a heart attack and it appears she could be having another one”.

I had to convince the hospital to transport my wife to a hospital that specializes in heart care. After some time I got the doctor to agree and my wife was transported. So many thoughts were going through my mind like how could this be she is only 31 and the mother of my three children what does this mean. Could I lose her? She seemed so scared. At some point during the transfer to the other hospital my wife got strength to pull herself through this. She was determined that she wasn’t leaving her kids behind.

My wife was in the hospital for a week and the doctor stated if we didn’t get her to the hospital when we did chances are that she would have had another heart attack which could have caused her life. So you can imagine the gratitude that I had for Oprah, her show saved my wife’s life.  I started thinking of the chances of us catching that 10 second commercial and the odds of it made me sick to think of the what ifs?

Shortly after the hospital running a story on this and getting the permission (plus I emailed the show thanking them and that their show saved my wife’s life), they contacted us to be on the show. We learned a lot and were able to meet Dr. Ornish as well. I realized the power of information, it was life saving. I also knew we had to make some changes in our lives like quitting smoking “cold turkey” and taking better care of ourselves. Just because you work-out you’re kidding yourself to think no damage is being done. It’s funney what happens when you make up your mind, it’s done!

I also had to take a long look at my business. I no longer was interested in working long hours with no vacations, after all, we have a life to live. Things looked different to me, my family, my faith and what a gift life truly is. This is when I started a journey figuring out how to have time freedom and not have my company run our lives. I was turned onto a book entitled, “The Four Hour Work Week” by Timothy Farris. I loved the concepts in that book and it made me realize it could be possible to leverage your time and build a company where after some time invested it ―it could actually run without you

Growing up poor!

As for me, I grew up very poor. As a young adult I tried to get my hands on anything that I could to improve my life. I bought programs like Tony Robbins, Zig Zigler and so many other that helped me with my mindset. I no longer believed in the statistics that if you came from welfare you will end up on welfare. I loved everything business and how it worked. I studied people and relationships and how that played a role in ones success. Landing a ”Job” with a fotune 500 company and learned a lot about business, people, marketing, compliance and other esential skills in business. Being in the securities business is wasn’t long before something was missing. Creativity and freedom.

 Finally, at the age of thirty I formed my first “real” business. I convinced my wife to join me and we jumped in head first. Head first meaning, I did my research and knew I had a “niche” service that was in high demand. I believed that being “Self-Employed” was the American dream. Again I would learn later that self-employment is not the answer, being a business owner and Investor is the answer.  We quickly built that business to a six figures a year. The problem was that we did not have time freedom and if I stopped working, my income stopped as well.  

Once I learned the proper way to manage time and build a business so that it can run fine without you is when I felt free.  I now am after a much larger goal and look forward to building a multi-million dollar company. All by helping others get what they want.

Tim Town on Building Systems 

Throughout the years I learned that creating systems that worked without you was key to life-freedom. Learning again that self-employed meant SELF and further meant long hours and further risk to wealth creation.

Connect with me on Facebook: Join The Biz Room Facebook Community!