Jim's Early Life

Jim "Jimmy" Connelly was born in 1937 in TurtleCreek, Pennsylvania - a small factory town in Western Pennsylvania. Life was not easy for the young Connelly. As the middle child and only son of the town drunk and bully, Connelly learned at an early age to fight for survival. Living in the "projects" - WWII row house slums - taught Connelly the meaning of "hard work." His natural leadership and entrepreneural skills began at age 7 when he acquired his first business: a newspaper route.

Afraid of his father and his drunken angry outbursts, by age 10 Connelly was forced to earn all his own money. Hiring 3 others boys, Connelly took on all the newspaper routes in the city so that anyone in Turtle Creek that bought a newspaper would buy it from Jimmy Connelly.

Angry and with a bad attitude, Connelly grew up as a street fighter with a fierce competitive nature. The pool hall became his home away from home. His inability to spell, read, and do algebra caused him to skip more days of high school than he attended. He was the only student to finish the 4 years of high school in 5 years.

Happy to finally get out of high school he served two years in the US Army as a Signal Corp. specialist and then won a gymnastics scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh. Already practicing with the team, Connelly was asked to take the entrance exam. He couldn't pass, so he had to leave.

Angry, humilated, embarrassed and frustrated, a fight in the pool hall forced him to leave Turtle Creek or be thrown in jail.

With $100 in his pocket, he talked Joe "The Show" into driving him cross country to Beverly Hills, California where he became a room clerk at the Regency Beverly Wilshire Hotel, working himself up in 6 years to become the General Manager of this $100 million property, a position he held for ten years. It was during those early years at the hotel that he was taken under the wing of several very influential people where he learned many lessons.

His most influential mentor, Jacque Leveque, put him on a reading program and for the first time in his life he read 3 books: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, and How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. The principles in these books made so much sense that he changed his attitude from negative to positive.

Exploring other business opportunities, Connelly was invited by the chairman of Shearson Lehman to join the Wall Street Investment Banking firm. He became the first non-college graduate accepted into the firm's management program and graduated from the New York Intitute of Finance in the top 10% of his class.

After 5 years as the top salesperson at Shearson, Connelly went on to become Vice President of the Marina City Club in Marina del Rey, California where he took a failing operation to profit within 1 year.

Practice makes perfect.