From entrepreneur to author: A Niwot man's literary success

"I wanted to show my children the whole parent, not just the parent they saw growing up, but the whole person," said Len Goldberg. "I wanted to document a number of paranormal experiences I've experienced in my life."

In the 1960s, 20-year-old Goldberg dropped out of school. Then one day, he created a "four word resume" and mailed it to 1,200 advertising agencies. His career took off--he worked as a copywriter, a salesman, and eventually started his own marketing firm in 1987 that grew exponentially.

"One day, I'm a nobody, the next, people are flying me out to their countries to pick me up in limos," Goldberg said. "Nothing really has matched that feeling." But in 1999, he sold his business and retired to Colorado, eventually finding himself in Niwot.

Upon leaving the business and marketing world, Goldberg realized he wanted to share his life story with his children. When he laid out the events of his life, many of them seemed, at first, unconnected. He tried using a creative lens, a historical or scientific lens to analyze these events. But it wasn't until he looked at the events with a spiritual perspective that he was able to find connections and find his overall story.

"It's my story," he said. "Everybody has a story and they're all valid...I thought my story was important because it showed, in my case, how all of this spirituality was necessary in order to succeed."

It took him almost five years to write his book, A Few Steps Along the Way, and he said that while it was sometimes a painful process, to draw his story from his creative side and put it down on paper was deeply rewarding. Goldberg said, "I laid it all out there. I'm embarrassed about some of the stuff and proud of the others." So, even though it started out as a memoir for his children, when he saw a spiritual connection throughout life events, it quickly morphed into a spiritual journey.

However, despite finishing the book a number of years ago, he only recently started promoting it. Goldberg explained that since the book includes his spiritual and sometimes paranormal experiences--like near death and out-of-body experiences, precognitive dreams, and perhaps most unusual, the ability to see past-life entities in others--he was initially hesitant to share the book more widely.

"I never talked about this for many years," he said. "I lead a relatively normal life for an entrepreneur. But just recently, I said, 'heck with it,' and put it out there to let people decide what they want...I've been really pleasantly surprised that many people are open to this."

In fact, people have been so open to reading about his experiences that Boulder's Barnes and Noble reached out to Goldberg about hosting an event last Saturday. The event included a book reading, signing, and discussion.

As for Goldberg, he remains humble about his literary success and open to whatever the future has in store for him. He said that he is able to have fun with his children and grandchildren, and that his intuition is now telling him to play golf and relax. "But I'm not built that way...I had an idea about 30 years ago for a company that I still think is valid today and I'm going to possibly put that out there... But I'm living my life."