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Who Is Rodney
Faith – Family – Fun
Who is Rodney Gainous, Jr.? Well since you asked, let me tell y
ou. But not only will I tell you about me, I will tell you about some of the Life Lessons I have learned over the years.
I was born in Washington, DC to two of the greatest parents anyone could ever ask for, Rodney and Evelyn Gainous. From the beginning, I have been surrounded by a loving family. At the age of five, me and my parents and younger sister moved to a town called Capitol Heights, Maryland which is in the suburbs of Prince George’s County which boarders Washington, DC. Now why do I mention this? It is because I loved my childhood and the neighborhood I grew up in and there is where I learned a lot of life’s lessons.
As a child I learned at an early age the value of hard work. I learned that life isn’t easy and anything worth having is worth working for. If I wanted to get good grades, I had to work hard for them. No one ever gave me an “A”, I had to earn it. If I wanted to do well in sports, I had to work hard at it. No one put me in the starting lineup, I had to earn it. If I wanted to be with that pretty girl, I had to work REAL hard. She wasn’t going to give me her phone number without a lot of effort.
Life Lesson #1: In life you have to work hard to earn what you want. No one is ever going to hand you anything.
I attended public school until I reached high school where I attended DeMatha Catholic High Schools. DeMatha has a reputation as being one of the best basketball high school programs in the country but what most people don’t realize is that DeMatha also instills in its students a winning attitude in everything that we did regardless if it’s sports, academics, the arts, business or civic engagement. At DeMatha, we were groomed to be men of success.
Upon graduating from DeMatha, I had the privilege of attending Hampton University, my “Home by the Sea.” Not only did I receive an excellent education, I also met some life long friends one being my future wife Pamela Brown. After four years of dating, she finally gave in and felt sorry for me and we got married.
My high school and college days were the best a young man could ask for. I was able to build friendships that will last a lifetime with some great people. Some of my friends were professional athletes, are business owners, bank officials, architects, educators, financial gurus, real estate investors and just about any other type of professional you can think of. I constantly hung out with people who were successful and were going places.
Life Lesson #2: If you want to be successful, you have to surround yourself with successful people. I’ve learned that with some of my family and friends, although I love them dearly, I have to keep them at a certain distance because we have a different mindset. Some people see the problems in everything and some people find the solutions in the problems. I want to be associated with problem solvers.
My wife and I are blessed to have three wonderful children; Alexandra, Sydney and Rodney, III. I really enjoy spending time with my family especially my children. They are some characters. There is never a dull moment in my house.
All together they are involved in over ten extracurricular activities throughout the year. This keeps my wife and I very busy and on the go but I love every minute of it watching my children in all of their activities. And I especially enjoy basketball season because I am the assistant coach on my son’s team.
Life Lesson #3: My time is not my time if I work for someone else. I can’t spend time with my family like I want to if I have a boss I need to report to. I need to get his permission to take leave to be with MY family. Hmmm, that doesn’t make any sense to me.
One of my passions is youth development and I’ve been working with youth since 1995. The reason I enjoy working with youth so much is because I get the opportunity to guide a young person and help them achieve their goals which is so rewarding. It gives me the chance to help mold the life of an individual. It is the chance for me to impart some wisdom on someone and really guide them in the right direction. When I help others, I feel a sense of reward, of fulfillment, a sense of purpose. Helping others drives me to be my best.
Life Lesson #4: In order to get what you want out of life, you have to help others get what they want. We live in a selfish society but I know for a fact that whenever I go out of my way to help others, it always comes back to me.
As you can see I’m passionate about the Pittsburgh Steelers but over the past 4-5 years I have developed a passion for writing. Now this may not seem out of the ordinary but for someone who hated every English class I ever took while in school, this is miraculous. Yes, EVERY English class. I started writing because of some work assignments and then I translated what I was doing at work to my personal life. I found it very easy to express myself and also a great way to encourage others.
Even though I never used this skill as a young person, I believe it was always in me. I never allowed myself the opportunity to be a good writer because I always told myself that I hated it and couldn’t do it.
In addition to writing articles about network marketing, Internet marketing and self development, I write weekly words of encouragement based on a biblical principal to over 200 family and friends (encouragedbygodsword.com). Since I started doing this, I’ve gotten so much great feedback on how my messages have encouraged and inspired so many people. I’ve also been asked on a number of occasions, “When are you going to write a book?” Well to answer that question, my plans are to be published by the end of 2011.
Life Lesson #5: Everybody is born with God given talents and skills. I think there are a lot of people who are walking around with no idea of what they can accomplish. Most people probably don’t tap into their full potential because no one has helped them to discover and develop it.
More recently I’ve been involved in network marketing. I have always had a passion to be a business owner and have tried a number of things but didn’t really know what I wanted to do until I discovered the opportunities network marketing and Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. had to offer. I truly believe that if I incorporate all of my talents, skills and interest into network marketing, I will build an extremely profitable, successful home-based business. But not only that, I have a desire to continue to work with youth so I can teach them how to build a network marketing business also.
Well there you have it, the real me. A guy who doesn’t pretend to be something he isn’t. A guy who loves life and wakes up every morning thankful for another day. A guy who you can laugh with, joke around with, and just enjoy the simple things in life. A guy who loves his family and friends and cherishes the relationships he has with everyone. A guy who’s intelligent and works hard. Rodney Gainous, Jr.; a real cool dude!
