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The Ultimate Author:
Interview with Gene S. Jones
By Carin Chea
President Andrew Jackson once said, “One man with courage makes a majority.” This was the first quote prolific game show host Gene Jones used in his hit GIMME A HINT Trivia Game Show.
The approach of integrating a motivational quote into each performance proved to be so successful that it became part of his routine.
After years of researching provocative quotes for his audiences, Jones realized he was sitting on an inspirational gold mine.
And so, Consolidated Wisdom: The Ultimate Book of Quotations for Success, Happiness and Health was born.
A titan of uplifting knowledge and insight, Consolidated Wisdom is 368 pages of profound wisdom spanning the ages, going back as far as the beginning of the written word.
While Jones has roots as a producer, creativity coach, and (of course) a successful game show host for nearly four decades, he has also proven to be an astute author.
Consolidated Wisdom is an applicable read not only for those searching and seeking, but for all who wish to understand the past in order to create a better future.
You actually started out as a professional juggler and fire-eater. How did you go from that to published author and associate editor of The Guinness Book of World Records?
In college, I had an epiphany to work on a radio station because I loved blues music and nobody else was offering a blues show. I was given a three- hour time slot on Tuesday nights. I was allowed to play any music I wanted, so I started a blues music and talk show.
My show was noticed by the promoter of all the local blues concerts, and we made a tradeoff where I was given exclusive interviews with all the blues artists, and in return I agreed to emcee their concerts. That’s how I met most of the famous blues musicians active in the 1970s.
One afternoon, that promoter called me into a meeting, where he hired me to produce a series of mini concerts for the University of Michigan. After producing a few of those concerts, I got the idea to do a talent show in between two of the rock and roll acts. I placed an ad in the local paper, and many local stores were set to offer prizes to the winners.
Just before auditions were set to begin, in walked a charismatic fellow named Jango, who was the lead entertainer in an international variety show. He had just returned from Europe and was looking for his troupe’s first American engagement, so instead of doing the talent show, I booked his troupe on the spot.
After that show went extremely well, the troupe asked me to be their business manager, and then took me to Europe where they taught me how to juggle, and soon after taught me to eat fire.
Why did you have to eat fire?
As their business manager they demanded, “When you are selling our act, you’ve got to demonstrate some of what we do.” So I learned to do a number of juggling and magic tricks along with fire-eating, so I could demonstrate at conventions.
One day, a booking agent stopped at my convention booth and asked, “Why don’t I book you instead of the troupe?” At first, I declined, insisting I was just a business manager, but eventually he got me to agree to do a show at Bowling Green University.
Surprisingly, my fire-eating act made the front page of the local newspaper. When I sent that article to the agent, he used it to book me on a whole college tour that eventually led to four years on the road performing a one-man show.
A few years later, I received a grant to research Vaudeville History from the Michigan Council for the Arts that eventually led to a job at The Society of the Preservation of the Variety Arts in Los Angeles. At that variety arts center, I produced shows every Tuesday night, and created a Jugglers Forum on Monday nights.
That got the attention of the International Jugglers Association, as several famous people used to attend those Monday night sessions.
This is where my journey to Consolidated Wisdom kicks in.
When I became president of the International Jugglers Association in 1980, jugglers were constantly complaining that they had submitted record attempts to the Guinness Book of World Records, but never heard back.
I reached out to the publishers of the book, and surprisingly the CEO of Sterling Publishing, David Boehm, invited me to meet with him in his office. He said he had wanted to put juggling records in the book, but never had the proper criteria, so, he asked me to organize some parameters for him. That’s how I got to know David Boehm.
Before long, Mr. Boehm asked me to judge records other than juggling. He then began sending me out to judge records on television. 1983 was the first year juggling records began to appear in the book.
After that, Mr. Boehm asked me to judge more record attempts nationwide. One time, I was flown to Detroit to judge a network television attempt of a man attempting the record for Most Bees on a Face. That’s probably the wildest record I ever judged.
How did your book come about?
My work for the Guinness Book was only a part-time job. My main career at that time was running Royal Production Services. I had organized a whole troupe of improvisational entertainers as part of producing special events for corporations and individuals.
In 1986, one of my clients asked me to produce a game show for his company. Surprisingly, my performance that day caused a sensation. The next Monday, I received numerous calls to host game shows, so I started booking myself as a game show host.
Eventually, that evolved into what became my signature game show, the GIMME A HINT Trivia Game Show.
One evening Martha Stewart was part of my audience, and she got very involved as a contestant. The next week, she phoned my agent and booked me to be on her television show. She wanted me to produce a segment about presidential trivia on the day Barack Obama was inaugurated.
On her show, I went into the studio audience asking those questions, which included a few famous quotes. Over time, as I collected quotes for my shows, I eventually amassed a huge file of them.
During the pandemic, I started looking over that file and realized how amazing those quotes were. It inspired me to share them with the world.
That’s how Consolidated Wisdom began.
Tell us about your writer’s journey in creating Consolidated Wisdom.
It was the most enriching experience of my life. As I read all the quotes, I also looked at the names of the people who wrote them. I wondered what those people were like and began to realize things like, “This quote comes from 100 B.C., and this other quote comes from 1857, and they’re both saying the same thing." I soon became fascinated with the history of wisdom.
As I began researching, each book I read led me to another person and/or time in history. It became an all-encompassing three-year research adventure that made me realize the history I learned in school was just scratching the surface. There is so much richness behind the quotes and the situations that led people to say them.
That’s why Consolidated Wisdom began to take on a much broader look, and why it’s divided into 20 chapters by subject, with each chapter containing up to three different subjects, adding up to a total of 42 different subjects.
I tried to cover every avenue of life – including love, success, nature, sports, leadership, history, the future, technology, science, fear & courage, extreme desire, the arts, spirituality, the art of play and many more.
Within the chapters, there are contributors from all periods in history talking about similar issues and challenges. To highlight this, there are boxes in each chapter called “Great Minds Think Alike” featuring quotes from sources as different as Socrates and Ronald Reagan commenting on the same subject.
This arose because I realized how quotes from sports apply to leadership, and quotes from business apply to work and success, which all directly apply to human nature. That led to an exploration of the interconnectedness of all the subjects.
It sounds like you found a great deal of peace during that time.
I became immersed in a long-term flow state. My wife would lose me for days. She’d have to call me and remind me to eat because I would often be at my desk for six hours or more. Time would just fly by.
Okay. This may be impossible, but do you have a favorite quote?
Most of these quotes are like my children. And just as most people say about their children,
I love them all in different ways. Some quotes are short. Some of them are three or four sentences, but the quote that started everything comes from Andrew Jackson who said:
“One man with courage makes a majority.”
That’s the quote that got me interested in quotes. It was the first quote I used in my game show.
What is something you know now that you wish you knew when you were 21?
Wow. There’s a lot. I didn’t understand love at all when I was that age. It took until I met my current wife at the age of 50 to learn what it was to be fully loved by someone, and what it means to love someone the way they always wanted to be loved.
What do you think is the central message of your Consolidated Wisdom?
If you put more wisdom in your life, you can make better decisions, and if you make better decisions, you can live a happier, more fulfilling life.
That’s a great quote. Have you thought of writing a book full of your own quotes?
That will be the focus of my next book. At this point in time, I’m focused on sharing the brilliant quotes of others that are in Consolidated Wisdom.
By the way, when we were chatting earlier, you asked about my journey as a writer, so I’d like to answer that question briefly.
To me, creativity is at the heart of everything. Living a creative life is what I’ve done ever since my college days. Until then, I was totally uncreative. I didn’t like to write until my freshman year at the University of Michigan.
The school had a requirement of taking an English class, so I chose creative writing. On the first day of class, the teacher said, “No rules, just write.” Those four words changed my life. They launched my love for creative writing and living a creative life.
I soon came to realize that if you don’t judge yourself before you think an idea through, your creativity will be able to flow.
That’s another great quote! Congratulations! And thank you so much for sharing your journey.
For more information, please visit GeneJonesWisdom.com.
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