On July 4th, 1907 Willie Keith stood helplessly in Battle Creek, Michigan watching a fire consume his precious factory.*

Willie was 46, yet he had launched his company barely a year before. He’d already worked for 25 years as the unofficial business manager for a famous Seventh-day Adventist Sanitarium (re-invented from the word ‘sanatorium’) under the shadow of his gregarious and extroverted brother Dr John Henry.

Back in 1980, one of my key methods to attract students to our Sydney studio was to stand on the stage in Hyde Park, and declare myself the ringmaster of a $100 competition. This was the most bizarre competition that anyone had heard or seen before, and I used to attract a large crowd of bemused onlookers, curious to discover the "trick" of my simple challenge.

To win, you just had to stand up from a chair without pulling your head back.

I am standing there, looking out on an ocean of people - all wearing orange!

It was a Sydney Easter in 1981, and the crowd was gathered for another "celebration" with Bhagwan Rajneesh's band of merry followers. The Orange People, as they were called then, wanted Alexander Technique in their line up of workshops, but it was all gratis: pitch your workshop to the crowd, see who comes.

As I stood there I thought: I have a unique marketing opportunity: I better not screw up.