Laura and I met 40 years ago today. June 8, 1986. High school music trip in Colorado. I was the sound man, she was the singer. She fell in love with my reverb. “Perry, I really like the way you make my voice sound.”

Perry & Laura, less than one week in

June 8 was also my parents’ wedding anniversary. A month before, my dad’s cancer had been diagnosed terminal. I was craving companionship. Laura was painfully shy and determined to break into a new social circle.

She was SO easy to talk to. Excellent listener. She admired the fact that at age seventeen, I already had a business. She wanted to run it.

My dad died four months later. A year later her parents moved to Oklahoma. We started college. Married at age 20.

John McGee famously says, “All the best decisions Perry ever made, Laura made, and Perry just carried them out.” She’s the one who told me when my employer got sold right after September 11, “Perry you should start a company.”

She’s the one who said, “I want to adopt kids and do foster care.” She’s the one who insisted, “You need to go to Ireland. You need to go to Antarctica.”

Once we owned a rental property and I let a tenant talk me out of $150 he owed us. When she heard about it, she said, “Perry, I haven’t had new clothes for years. I was going to use that money to buy a dress.”

We’ve endured lean times with debt up to our eyeballs.  We’ve also enjoyed prosperity and traveled the world. Our love relationship has spanned from deserts to lush oases.

I am extraordinarily proud of our six kids. Every one of them is remarkable…

…and when they have a problem, she’s the first one they call. Her license plate is “MamaLaura.” Any kid within a 50 foot radius is safe. I call it the “MamaLaura force field.”

Laura, I love you so much. Thank you for being my best friend, business partner and lover, and creating our unique life together.

About the Author

Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.

He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.