The Zone

This is the story of the Hellman family going back to 1930’s pre-Nazi Romania. Isidore Hellman was an unlicensed bootleg dentist who learned how to pull teeth working as an apprentice to a real dentist in New York City. He discovered the pain killing miracle of Morphine and used it extensively to treat his patients. Isidore went to Romania to help his Uncle who was injured in a farm accident. Isidore met the love of his life, Gusta, a local seamstress with a nasty toothache. They married and had two children, my father and my Uncle. One day Gusta sees her best friend and her family slaughtered and burned by the Nazi’s as she was hiding in a bush from a distance. Gusta runs back to Isidore on horseback and tells him what she saw and that they have to leave Romania that night and the left by train to France. They bought ticket on the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary. Isidore’s son, my father, was Jack Hellman. They settle in New York and shortly thereafter, Isidore dies of from an overdose of his own Morphine.Gusta (now called Gloria), Jack and his brother Leo, my uncle, are left to fend for themselves and survive the difficult life of new immigrants during the difficult years of the Depression in New York City without a father. I was born in 1959 and my mother suffered a brain hemorrhage which left her paralyzed, mute, bedridden and institutionalized for the next 30 years. My father, unwilling to raise two kids on his own, remarries to a woman named Josephine who very well could have been the Wicked Witch of the West. With three kids of her own, my sister and I were thrust into a life that would have destroyed most people and my sister is proof of that fact. However, instead of letting myself get destroyed, I fought back, learned how to survive think independently and outside the box, and I learned to create things and see things that others didn’t see. I went on to study engineering at Clemson University and graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.I became a serial entrepreneur using this gift of seeing unseen opportunities that are all around us. This is what I call 'The Zone'. I used The Zone to create many new products and companies starting with nothing but a few dollars in my pocket. The purpose of this book is to give you the courage to follow your 'Zone', to learn to see the unseen opportunities that are all around you and to have the fearlessness, ability, entrepreneurial spirit and drive to free yourself from your boss and your 9-5 job and find financial freedom and happiness. This book is a road map on how to do just that, along with a few interesting stories to keep your attention. Welcome to my world and 'The Zone'.