WFG CHAIRMAN'S COUNCIL MEMBER ED MYLETT:
SWAPPING BASEBALL FOR THE BIG LEAGUES OF BUSINESS

When WFG Chairman's Council member Ed Mylett was growing up, he never dreamed he'd be a powerhouse in the financial services industry. His initial dream was to play major league baseball, but an injury squelched an athletic future. After working so hard on that dream for so many years, he wasn't sure what to do next with his life.

"Looking back on it, I don't think I really wanted to be a baseball player," Ed said. "I just wanted to be successful. I wanted people to know who I was."

As a young boy, Ed yearned for the spotlight. He grew up in Diamond Bar, Calif., the city next to where he lives now, as the only boy in his family, with three younger sisters.

"I watched my father work very hard," he said. "He really engrained the tradition of hard work and character in me."

Ed decided very young that if he was going to work for something, it was going to be his own business - he was not going to work for 15 to 20 years building another man's dreams.

His wife Kristianna shares that vision. Her father was an engineer who worked hard so her mother didn't have to. Instead, Kristianna's mother stayed home with her six children.

"That was a big dream of mine, that when Ed and I got married I would be able to raise our children," she said.

When Kristianna first met Ed at a school play - he was "Eddie" then - she was 14 then and he was 16.

"There was this beautiful girl in front of me, and it turns out that was Kristianna," Ed said. "I had no idea who she was - I just knew I had to meet that girl. I called her and she said she had a boyfriend, and I said, 'Good, I'll just wait until you finish with him - I'll be here waiting for you.'"

Sure enough, when Kristianna broke up with her boyfriend, she and Ed began dating. The two were married in 1997.

While his personal life thrived, Ed's career goals stalled. After several job changes, he discovered the WFG opportunity.

"WFG believed in me," Ed said. "They put a uniform on me, and I found the same principles apply as do in baseball - those who get there early and stay there late are successful."

During their early years in the business, he and Kristianna faced a number of challenges. Ed was always gone in the evenings conducting Corporate Overviews, and the couple was not prospering financially. They couldn't spend much time alone - but they still found joy with being in business with each other.

"It was our business together," Ed said. "Right away that gave us a tremendous advantage over other people in business."

They both put in a tremendous amount of energy to make their WFG business take off. Both made sacrifices. Kristianna even cut her college career short to help Ed.

"A spouse is key in this business," she said. "If you are not behind your spouse 100 percent, it's not going to work. Go to the meetings and learn as much as you can, because you are the other half of this equation. You absolutely need to be involved."

While Ed is more concerned with dreaming big and working hard, Kristianna focuses on establishing financial and familial security. He finally convinced her that if she would let him work really hard for the first three to five years, they would have the next 50-60 years to do whatever they wanted to do.

As it turns out, Ed was right about that. After the first few years, his WFG business grew and thrived into an exceptionally large team of associates, which has turned out some of the most inspirational and productive leaders in WFG, and it just keeps growing.

Ed loves that WFG doesn't just provide him with a great income, it allows him to have an incredible lifestyle and the freedom to do whatever he and his family want to do. The WFG opportunity has afforded Ed, Kristianna and their two children the time to spend together that no other business opportunities seemed to offer.

"I get to be with my children all day," Kristianna said. "I drive a very safe car, and I get to live in this beautiful home with the man I love and our babies. It seems like once a month we'll take a vacation for a week. We'll go to the beach or to our desert house. This company has given us an extraordinary amount of freedom."

Ed also appreciates the safety and security in his personal life that the WFG opportunity has given him, proven in that all of the Myletts' homes are in gated, secured neighborhoods.

"As great as I thought it would be to be totally financially independent, it's 100,000 times better when you actually get there, to have that peace of mind of not having to worry about money anymore," he said. "Of course, that took a tremendous amount of work, and that's what makes it so worthwhile."

Sometimes, Ed looks back and can't believe he became a millionaire during his 30s. When he travels down memory lane, he finds all of his success stemmed from WFG's opportunity - which helped him fall in love with his life again.

"I've found the big leagues is making your family proud of you," he said. "I would say WFG is the big leagues in business, and you've got a chance. Swing for the fences because you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. I say step up, and let's play!"