Hi David

This is probably one of the hardest emails I've ever had to write. Now after returning from Corey's funeral and with a deeply saddened heart I'm finally ready to send this out.

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My wife, Missy, woke me up Friday morning (June 4th) with an email from a subscriber giving his condolences to me about Corey.

What????!!...

I had been playing video games until 3 in the morning and I was planning on sleeping in - but I suddenly sprang out of bed. Surely, this must be some kind of weird mistake or something else....

I logged onto to a couple message boards since they are the central outlets for info and right there on Tony Blake's board was a memorial banner for Corey Rudl. It was surreal. Corey was the passenger in a Porsche Carrerra GT that lost control and crashed during a track event. (I've included the AP post on the accident at the bottom of this note).

Many of you reading this will know immediately who Corey is.

In Internet marketing circles Corey is a legend. Corey was one of the true pioneers. I believe he was the very first (even before Amazon) to build an affiliate program. He was one of the first to sell downloable ebooks with his 'Car Secrets' book. He was responsible directly and indirectly for thousands (probably tens of thousands) of significant successes online. His site says Corey has personally sold over $40M and I wouldn't be surprised if that figure expands by 100x when you count his students. That's just a small indication of the impact he's had.

Just reading the message boards and tribute sites you can see how deeply this has impacted people. Most people never knew Corey personally like I did and they still feel a tremendous loss. I hope seeing this outpouring from people all over the world will give Corey's wife, Tracy, and his family a small amount of comfort in these trying times.

Now I wouldn't say Corey and I were 'best buds' but in the last few years we had definitely developed a much closer, personal friendship. I have about 8-9 good friends from the Internet world and I would consider Corey in that group.

Corey and I really became much closer friends because we were both in Dan Kennedy's Platinum group so we met at least 4x/year. Kennedy would always give us grief about having the "Internet guys" in the Platinum group especially because many of the existing members wanted to pick our brains for online info. We couldn't present right after another - Kennedy wanted us spaced out to handle the Internet guys in small doses. It was certainly in good fun and the bond between us grew from there.

I was probably one of his closer "Internet" friends. Though it actually wasn't business - we never did promote anything together - it was more personal. (Though we did consider doing a joint seminar.)

We'd hang out after meetings sometimes and go to dinner or a bar together. One meeting was in Los Angeles - we all went out together on the town to a cool LA club staying out until 4 am.

Then January of last year for my "30th Birthday Bash" I managed to get Corey out of 'semi-retirement' from speaking. I'm not certain but I think my Bday bash was the first time he had spoken in a few years. I may be wrong. I was extremely thankful and he did me a personal favor. It was a pretty big coup and thanks to him and everyone else part of my incredible line-up we had over 520 people there.

I have no idea if he already decided he wanted to speak more but after that Corey began appearing again on stage. I was glad because he able to have an impact on even more people. I'd only seen Corey speak a couple of times and it was really him out there. It was exhausting to watch him because he spoke so fast but it wasn't just an act. That was him. He was full of enthusiasm and excitement about the Internet business and he wanted to help compel people that it really was possible.

Just a few months ago I stayed at his new home in La Jolla, CA with his wife Tracy and their cute chocolate lab, Wally. I was invited to their wedding but couldn't make it. So this was the first time I'd seen their place. Pretty amazing and very cool. I was impressed and made some mental notes for myself when I build a house.

I loved this 'moat-like' feature of stepping blocks surrounded by water leading up to the front door. Another standout for me was the "Infinity" pool that looked like it dropped off right into the Pacific. Their place was completely wired inside and out and definitely my style. But I think one of Corey's favorite feature was his garage. It was a 4/5 car garage with carpet. Nice. He had a Ferrari 360 Spyder in there and his brand new baby, a Lamborghini Murcielago.

One of the funniest things he'd seen in awhile was me trying to get into the Lamborghini. It was the scissor doors which are very cool but not exactly the easiest to jump in and out of. I landed very gracefully with a resounding plunk as we got into the car. ;)

The car was a rocket and boy did that thing get stares. When he dropped me off at the Airport - there were 2 people who actually came up and got pictures of him in his car. Pretty funny.

We shared a lot of similarities which makes this even harder to grapple with. We had the same sense of adventure and both were blessed with the opportunity to pursue it. We talked about going off to Russia to fly MIG jets together next summer and going backwoods skiing.

I actually came out to his place so we could go Baja racing in Mexico. It was one of my favorite trips. I've got a fun
slide show that shows Corey having a ball in Baja - www.surefiremarketing.com/baja (I put this together awhile ago so you can just disregard the last page about my copywriting course - I have no intention of making this email a commercial for anything.)

Funny side note - he was in DC at my Underground seminar just a month ago and he couldn't understand why people kept asking him if he was still sore (you'll get it if you watch the video). He never knew I put the photos up of him from the Baja racing trip we did together. He was a bit ticked off at me - but had a laugh about it. Unlike me, Corey didn't want all his "adventures" to be public.

Corey wasn't that close of friends with too many people in the Internet marketing circle. I actually felt privileged to be friends with him.

He didn't keep up on the gossip, the rumors, the "kindergarten' stuff. He simply worked hard building up his business. And he really built it and ran it like a "real business". I know some people have expressed their uncertainty about the Internet Marketing Center continuing without Corey but I have absolutely no doubt it will. Corey built a great team around him and they were running the place already without him for the most part.

As so many others have already said - Corey has left a lot of people better off. He's inspired and taught many.

A couple of the personal lessons (some small and some big ones) I learned from Corey:

1. Live life. Sounds cliche, doesn't it? But Corey really did. Corey died doing something he loved and I think it would be a big mistake to simply take away the lesson that you've got to play it safe after this. Yes, racing might be a bit dangerous but he really lived. And my philosophy is "You can't worry about you're going to die - you can only worry about how you're going to live."

2. Build up a team. In Baja Corey yelled at me for still having many of my emails routed to me. He really tried to hammer home to me that I needed a team and systems in place. I don't know if I ever want as many employees Corey had - but having a team in place is paramount if you want to grow beyond a certain point.

3. Pay for the best. One of my favorite sayings I heard comes from Tom Phillips of Phillips Publishing. He said, "Pay for the best and you'll only cry once". Corey would tell me about how much he paid for top accounting, legal and consulting. Trust me it was a lot but to him worth every penny because he was building a real organization.

I'm sure more will come to me as my mind clears up.

One of the things I remember being most grateful to Corey for was for increasing not just my expectations for my personal life but my business as well. He was inspiring to me with what he had accomplished and also how he coaxed me
a bit to step up my 'game'.

Of course, business will go on as usual. Orders haven't stopped coming in over here and I'm sure orders haven't stopped for Corey's products during this time (which is a great thing about an Internet business). Things go on however I know Corey's spirit and influence won't be forgotten in our Internet community and beyond.

Usually I sign off by saying "All the best" - but I think a better sign-off is "Be the best". Corey really was the best at what he did and if we strive to be the best - we might just wake up one day to find we are.

You'll be missed my friend.

Be the best.