Reardon, Carl & Marsha
Making the right choices puts your life in order, "advises Carl Reardon, "and enables you to reach incredible goals."
Several years ago, Carl and Marsha made those right choices, and today they enjoy a loving home with three beautiful daughters. Says Marsha; "Networking has added life to our years instead of years to our life."
The road to success wasn't easy for Carl and Marsha.
Both came from hard-working middle-class families. Both worked their way through college, paying all their own expenses.
Both understood that life wouldn't be handed to them on a silver platter. They met, fell in love, and were married thirteen weeks later.
Carl spent nearly twenty-seven years as a lawyer and real estate developer, sixteen of those years as the East Peoria, Illinois, City Attorney.
The work required long hours and long weeks, leaving little time for family life. Marsha laboured as an administrator for a nursing facility while keeping things together at home.
Though it came at a price, the Reardon’s achieved a high level of success in their respective professional lives.
Carl earned an annual six-figure income and had a reputation for being a tough and aggressive attorney. He developed a huge inventory of real estate, limited partnerships, and land development projects.
But in the end, it would all be for naught.
In 1982, a tide of financial disaster hit the shores; interest rates skyrocketed, the housing market disappeared, and the farm economy dropped.
Several bankers filed involuntary bankruptcy against his company. Carl spent three years fighting to get his assets liquidated and pay his creditors.
For three years, Carl and Marsha's life was at a standstill. It was a time of helplessness and deep depression.
Unwilling to sit still and see his life's investments drain away, Carl poured himself into his law practice, hoping to earn enough extra money to help stem the tide.
"I found myself trading hours for dollars in increasing quantities, but nothing really seemed to make any difference.
" Work consumed his life, but he knew he'd never be able to retire and recover the lifestyle they had once taken for granted.
"There was no doubt in my mind that I would be working till the day I died."
Carl's secretary, who had been trying for two years to get them interested, introduced the Reardon’s to interactive distribution.
It was only after a friend got involved and showed him the plan, that Carl decided he and Marsha were going to give it a try.
Within sixteen months, he had totally relinquished his law practise to devote full time to building a network.
Carl likes to describe the moment as "half-time in our lives, time for a new game plan.
" Just as a football team goes into the locker room to learn what it can do differently and how it can adjust to win the game, Carl and Marsha were re-evaluating their lives and careers.
The more they thought and planned, the more they believed that their new Quixtar business had the answers they needed to win the game.
With hard work, willpower, and persistence, the Reardon’s went Diamond in four-and-a-half years. The most exhilarating moment of their lives came as they walked through a crowd of 5,000 independent business owners and came up onto the stage as new Diamonds.
Today, the central command of the vast Reardon network is very much a family affair.
Their three daughters, Allison, Carla, and Amy, have all become distributors and now help coordinate expanding branches of the network in India and Europe. Says Marsha, "To have them involved and participating in our success, and to see them learning so many new things and meeting so many new people, has given us the greatest pleasure."
The Reardon’s now have the time and the money to do the things they always wanted to do.
"We're working less and making more than ever before," says Carl. "The stress is gone from our lives."
"We are so very grateful and thankful for having had an opportunity like this," says Marsha. "There are so many people who only need a chance, and then they can take it from there.
And let me tell you, this is all so much more than just making money.
It's about helping others achieve their dreams. It's about seeing the people you love develop and learn. The most beautiful things in the world can't be touched or seen, they are felt in the heart."
