Oak Glen grad shares message
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STEUBENVILLE -- Larry Dillon might have been gone from West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle for more than 40 years, but his connection to the area remains deep.
“A lot of family members still live there,” Dillon explained from his home in Grapevine, Texas, during a telephone interview. “My dad, my grandpa, my aunt, my uncle and my brother all retired from Weirton Steel Corp. I have deep roots there.”
Dillon, who grew up in New Cumberland, said the values learned while growing up in the area helped shape his life. He built a successful career in commercial real estate, and now he is the author of two books, “Start with the End in Mind” and “The Brand Called You.”
The road to finally getting his words into print was long and included a twist, he said.
“I started them about 16 years ago,” added Dillon, who is a 1980 graduate of Oak Glen High School. “They were pretty much completed in 2015, and I told my wife, Julie, that one day I’d like to publish the books, because I felt they could make a profound difference in somebody’s life. I wanted to be, in my opinion, elementary.”
His mission behind the books is to encourage others to stop waiting for someday to discover their purpose and find what he calls their “There” -- that place where faith, purpose, relationships and the gifts God has given them come together.
“I believe in the philosophies,” Dillon continued. “So, it was kind of like what Vince Lombardi did when he went into training camp one year and held up a football to these pro athletes who had played from peewee football to middle school, high school and college football, and now they’re in the pros, and he said, ‘This is a football’ -- it was back to basics.”
His writing, he said, shares that philosophy with the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers.
“I think the books are similar to that, in that these are things that most people just pass over,” Dillon added. “I felt like I wanted to publish these books. Well, they sat there for 10 years. And then I got the diagnosis of the tumor behind my eye.”
Facing the possibility of cancer led him to take a look at his life.
“After that trauma, I said that I didn’t want to die someday and say that I wish I had published my book. And that’s when I pursued it. I pulled them off the shelf and submitted them, and the publisher took them on. I went to my wife and said they had accepted my book, and she asked what I wanted to do.
“I said if I could help one person, that would be great,” Dillon continued. “I didn’t think I’d sell tons and tons of books, and that’s not what this is really about. It’s more about that I didn’t want to be on my deathbed saying, ‘I wish I would have.'”
He added that thought led to a modification in the manuscript.
“That’s one of the original stories I changed in the book in 2015,” Dillon said. “I had a friend who was passing. He had cancer and he was in the ICU, and he was holding my hand after the cancer had gone up to his brain, then he had a stroke, and he pulled my hand crying, and said, ‘I wish I would have.’ You can put whatever you want behind that story or that statement.
“And I left that obstacle in 2015 telling my wife that I was changing my life, that I didn’t want to be on my deathbed saying, I wished I would have,” Dillon added. “Well, 10 years forward, I still hadn’t done one of the things I wished I would have -- I changed that and published the books.”
What ended up being sold as two separate books began as one book, Dillon explained, and while the decision was made to split the original, the books can be read in either order and they can stand alone.
“Start with the End in Mind,” Dillon said, “is about the tools to discover your ‘There,’ your core purpose, and letting you define it.” Once you know that, he added, you can write your own personal mission statement. That, he added, helps you understand why you make decisions.
“The Brand Called You,” he added, “is just trusting who you are, respecting yourself and remembering that your authentic self is a perfect character.” It’s a philosophy about how to get smaller to grow larger, he added.
Dillon said he headed south in the 1980s when it was difficult to find a job in the area, and even though he ended up in Texas and never returned home, he maintains his connections.
“I still own property up there, by Mountaineer Casino, Resort and Races, that I bought about seven years ago,” he said. “My main reason was that as people get older, you always want a reason to go home.
“I moved to Texas in 1981, and I have made my career here, but the people in Hancock County, even the Ohio Valley in general, are just kind people. I remember when I bought my property, and I was cleaning it up, people just showed up, and I asked if I owed them something, and they said this is what we do.”
That really touched him.
“It’s emotionally moving, the kindness and the care for others,” Dillon said. “There are both ends of the spectrum, I’m sure, but in general, it’s just great people.”
The books can be purchased through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Walmart Books, Apple Books, Google Play Books and larrydillon.com.