Talk:John Earl Shoaff

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Recommend deletion

I'm too new to Wikipedia editing to determine how to recommend this for deletion, but it seems this article is only about someone who influenced someone else for whom there is an article written (Jim Rohn). And that other article is already looking like pure ad material. I recommend this be deleted, for notoriety or whatever policy applies.

I disagree with the above recommendation for deletion. Mr. Shoaff's influence had broad reach to a number of noteworthy individuals, including Mary Kay Ash of cosmetics fame, Zig Ziglar, Mark Victor Hansen (Chicken Soup book series), etc. The alleged state of another Wikipedia entry (Rohn's) is, in my opinion, a poor criteria for determining the merits of this one. BValor (talk) 18:07, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What i want to know is if we even have proof that this guy actually existed, outside of a few photos and one audio program that is attributed to him (in which he is never referred to by name)? If he really was this big shot millionaire who influenced so many people and headed several large corporations (as described on Jim Rohn's website), you'd think there would be more info out there about him, but all I found when doing a Google search is material that directly ties him with Rohn. As discussed on Rohn's Wikipedia discussion page, the dates on when Rohn supposedly met Shoaff and worked for him do not match Shoaff's death date, so who knows if Shoaff is just someone that Rohn made up ... 75.63.4.70 (talk) 00:44, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How much proof do you need that the man existed? There are photos, an audio program (which, by the way, he is referred to by name many times including him saying his own name!) And as far as the comment about why little information is known about him, just go to EarlShoaff.com. What I do know is that in the 1950's and 1960's he was very well-known. He was friends with many celebrities of the time. Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Durante, Bob Cummings (there are pictures of them together) along with Danny Kaye and many others. He is mainly tied with Rohn because Rohn worked for him and Shoaff was his mentor. Also, if you know the whole story, the dates that Rohn worked for Shoaff do match. Earl Shoaff is NOT somebody that Jim Rohn made up. He was very real and was very influential in many lives. (Ronhenley (talk) 00:29, 15 April 2012 (UTC))[reply]

I have the audio program (at least the one sold by Rohn), and I don't recall Shoaff ever having been mentioned by name (only the intro that was not actually part of the program). I don't deny that the pics you mentioned are real, but I've never seen them. As for the dates not matching up, go to the Jim Rohn discussion page - maybe you can shed some light on the situation. I never became suspicious of anything dealing with Shoaff until I noticed the date mismatch that is mentioned on Rohn's talk page.

Those discrepancies have been explained on the Jim Rohn page. And as for Shoaff not being mentioned in the audio speech, he says it himself! He is talking about how distributors come up to him complaining about their downlines. In the recording he is mimicking their conversations and says: "You know what Shoaff? I've got a lousy bunch of distributors. Ronhenley