I recently wrote a guest article about the current economic turmoil for the motivation and self improvement website Pick The Brain.  You can read the article, which I titled “Your Money Or Your Life?“. Since I received such a strong reaction to the piece, I thought I would record an audio version.

If you find that my message offers a useful point of view, please take a moment to share it with anyone who might also benefit from hearing / reading it.

Also, please share your thoughts in the comments section!

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(By the way… if you have only listened to the audio version and are wondering what is so special about April 15, 1994. Wonder no longer!)

…And when I say motivation from “within” – I mean WITHIN!

Last week I had my annual check-up with the cardiology team.  These are not your standard cardiologists – these doctors are specially trained in dealing with adults with congenital heart conditions. (Public Service Announcement: If you, or someone you love, was born with any sort of heart defect [as 1 in 100 babies are], then you need to be sure that you are being followed by a congenital heart specialist – not just a regular cardiologist.  For more information contact the CCHA in Canada or the ACHA in the US)

I have been having annual checkups since I was born (except for the seven or eight years after receiving my ‘expiry date’ – you may have read about those years in my book).  One of the diagnostic tests that they almost always use during these checkups is called an echocardiogram.  It’s the same technology that they use on pregnant women to check the progress of the baby and it gives you a fascinating look inside the human body.

So I have had the privilege of being able to watch my own heart as it does its thing.  I’m guessing that I’ve probably seen this “live and in person” about 31 times. And I have a powerful video clip of my own heart that I keep on my BlackBerry (Ask me to see it the next time you meet me).  For me, watching my heart is like visiting with a wise old friend.

Now my heart bears little resemblance to yours.  (If you haven’t already listened to my heart – you can do that here.) All my life I have had cardiologists tell me that if someone were to intentionally build a heart the way mine is built – it would never function.  But mine does!  I know that I am a walking miracle!

And that humbling fact was brought home to me once again last week as I lay on my side watching my heart beating away – doing things that it’s not supposed to do.

As I reflected on this miracle in action, I felt a renewed sense of purpose and drive sweep over me.  “I’ve been given a tremendous gift here!  Who am I to squander it by living an ‘ordinary’ life?”

Isn’t that a powerful realization?

But you don’t have to have a freakish heart to tap into that same feeling. Your own body, whether young or old, healthy or not, is a miracle of nature!  You have the ability to turn food and drink into muscles and bones.  You pull oxygen out of the air and turn it into thoughts and dreams.  And all without any effort on your part!

You’re a miracle in action too!  So please tell me you’re not planning on living an ordinary life!  No matter what sort of live you’ve been living up to this point – it can all change now!  With the very next beat of your heart, you can decide to live your life on purpose.  And if you ever get discouraged or doubtful… put two fingers on your wrist, feel the driving rhythm of your pulse and tap into that motivation from within!

ENJOY NOW!

Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, I am friends with Jose’ Micallef from Malta. (You can be my friend on Facebook too, my profile page is here.)

This morning I was looking at some amazing photos that Jose’ has on Facebook.  As soon as I saw them, I realized that I had to write a blog post about them, so I dropped him a note to ask if I could use them. He wrote back and told me that I was welcome to use the photos.  He also told me that there was a story behind them – and what a story it is!  So today, I will bring you Jose’s story.  Then, in my next blog entry,  I will give you the post that I was originally inspired to write when I saw these fantastic photos.

Here are the photos (Jose’ is the one in the white t-shirt) – Click on each one to see the larger photo):

And here’s the story behind them, as told by Jose’:

I was scared of heights. A couple of years ago the German girlfriend I had at the time took me sight seeing on top of Cologne cathedral. Going up the never ending stairs did not make me realize how high we were going as we had no windows around us. When we got to the top and realized the height, I simply froze, got hold of the wall behind me and was shaking with panic. Well it took her and some other tourist around 45 minutes to get me down. I went down the steps facing the wall and my girlfriend talking me about silly stuff to deviate my frightening thoughts.

Last year I started working on myself and getting my life in shape. One of the things I had to work on was the fear of heights. I was going to be in Hawaii for a conference regarding personal development and I decided to take action to defeat this fear of heights. I booked a skydive 5 weeks before the jump and from that day I created a mind movie where I saw myself boarding the plane with a smile and no fear and also watched myself jump off the aircraft with a big smile and screaming with joy having the time of my life. I went through this mind movie at least once a day till the jump and while doing so I said aloud to myself “I am going to skydive and am going to have fun”. Well, I jumped and it was a live performance of my mind movie and did not feel any fear for not even a fraction of a second. Now I know that with the right mind-set I can achieve what I want.

Do I have some powerful friends, or what?

Now I want you to consider doing three simple things:

1. Use the comments section below to tell us how you’ve overcome fears.

2. Forward this to any of your friends who are having difficulty facing their fears.

3. Join Jose’ and I on Facebook!

ENJOY NOW!

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How much of your time do you spend focused on things over which you have absolutely no control or influence?

I’m talking about things like the weather, the price of oil, the wars and conflicts that are raging around the world, terrorism, global warming, the stock market. And the list goes on and on. Sure, we can and should “think globally and act locally”, but how often do you find yourself worrying, stressing or obsessing about these things?

But what about the “smaller” things over which you have little, if any, control or influence? I’m talking about the thoughts and actions of others. It might be your boss, your clients, your spouse or your kids. Depending on who we’re talking about you might have some level of influence, but it is a very fine line between “attempting to influence” and “attempting to control”, isn’t it?

And what happens to your quality of life when you are preoccupied with things that are “out there”? You know the answer to that question very well, even if you don’t like to admit it or even think about it.

I have recently discovered Byron Katie and her philosophy called “The Work”. You may already be familiar with her since her first book Loving What Is was published a number of years ago. In it, she says that there are only three kinds of business in the Universe: mine, yours and God’s. She goes on to say that stress comes from mentally being in any business other than your own.

If you think about this for a minute, you’ll probably agree that focusing on someone else’s business is a recipe for stress and conflict. But there’s another consequence to focusing on God’s business or someone else’s business and that is that you are not focusing on your own business!

Just let that sink in. Who’s living your life if you are spending your time and energy trying to live everyone else’s lives?

Now let’s look at this in terms of the Power of Mortality™. When you woke up this morning you were given a tremendous gift – a gift that was not owed to you – the gift of more time. The gift of another day on this earth. Do you really want to spend that time trying to live someone else’s life?

If your goal is to live a happier, healthier, more productive life – doesn’t it seem natural that the best way to go about it is to put your energy into your own affairs? After all, it’s much easier to change the way YOU are thinking about something than it is to change the way THEY are thinking, isn’t it? The sooner we start to choose our own life, the sooner our life will be the one that we want to choose!

So the next time you find yourself stressed, just stop and ask yourself these two simple questions: “What is it that is causing this upset?” and “Who’s business is that?” (And then thank Byron Katie).

PS: For more information on “The Work”, including some powerful video clips of “The Work” in action, please visit: Byron Katie’s website.

ENJOY NOW!

Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon University professor who became famous for his “Last Lecture”, has died at the age of 47.

I’m sure that you’ve heard his story, watched him on Oprah, seen a video of his lecture or read his book.

I applaud Randy for two things:

1. When told that he had six months to live, Randy chose to focus on the LIVING part and not the dying part!  So many of us make the opposite choice.

2. Randy took a very selfless approach to the precious time that he had left and generously used his experience to help others examine their own lives and priorities.

And that’s what the Power of Mortality™ is all about!

Thanks Randy!

My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.

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On April 3 I promised to tell you some big news on April 15th. Well, sometimes things take longer than expected. Now I can finally let you in on the news!

First, the background… In the fall, I started working with a Speaker’s Bureau. After we had been working together for a while, Cathleen (the woman who runs Speaker’s Gold) introduced me to another speaker of hers because she felt that we ought to know one another, since our messages are so complimentary.

The gentleman’s name is Derrick Sweet and we hit it off right away. We had lunch to discuss the possibility of doing a joint speaking event. As lunch continued, we found ourselves more and more amazed at how well we got along and at how our messages and our styles meshed so well. Derrick told me that in addition to being a professional keynote speaker, he was also the Founder and Chairman of an international training and development company. (Naturally, I already knew this because I had done my research before our lunch meeting) The company is called Healthy Wealthy and Wise and its mission statement is: “To provide leading edge training and development programs in the areas of coaching, sales training, public speaking, and self-improvement. To empower our clients with new and innovative tools, skills and resources which enable them to reach their full potential.”

Derrick told me that he felt that my skills and my style would make me a perfect fit for the Healthy Wealthy and Wise team and asked me to consider accepting a position with them. I was excited at the prospect, because I felt that the HWW offering would be an excellent compliment to my role as a motivational speaker and author. Initially, I made the decision to become involved with the Certified Coaches Federation, which is the coaching division of HWW. In February, I became a Certified Coach Practitioner™. I was so impressed with the powerful program developed by the Certified Coaches Federation, and I was so blown away with the phenomenal reactions from fellow attendees, I decided that I needed to incorporate this into my own offerings. In April, I became a Certified Master Coach.

Since I had a 10-year career in sales, I was very interested to learn about HWW’s Sales Mastery program. Also, since I entered my first public speaking competition in the seventh grade and since I’ve been a professional motivational speaker for the past five years, I was also very interested in HWW’s Speech Mastery program.

Derrick and I continued to discuss opportunities and I’m pleased to announce that I am now a Senior Vice President with Healthy Wealthy and Wise! I am excited about this for two main reasons:

1. I truly believe in what Healthy Wealthy and Wise does and the value that it offers to its clients.

In the past, I have worked with more than my fair share of companies who’s vision didn’t match mine. I chose to work with them because I felt, “well, sometimes you have to compromise to put food on the table, and work is work.” Does that sound familiar to any of you? Well, you can only tell yourself that for so long before the disconnection between what you do and what you should do gets to be too much. I am so happy to be working with a company that has the same ideals and goals as I do!

2. It doesn’t require me to compromise my own message or mission, in fact, it compliments it beautifully!

For a number of years, I wore two distinctly different hats. On the one hand, I was a motivational speaker and author. On the other hand, I was a corporate sales person in the field of IT security. This split-personality situation was the cause of a great deal of personal anxiety for me. In 2003, when I decided to start my career as a professional motivational speaker, I wasn’t financially ready to leave my career in sales. So I did both. (Again, does any of this sound familiar to you?) And I told myself, that I would only continue with the IT world, until I was in a financial position to leave it behind. The problem was that my heart just wasn’t in the world of IT any more. After I would complete a corporate security sale, no one ever came up to me and told me how much better their lives were as a result of the product that I had sold them. But that is where my money was coming from. So I stayed. The next thing I knew, it was four years later and I was no closer to being financially ready to leave my career in IT sales.

And that’s when the Universe introduced me to Healthy Wealthy and Wise! And as Bogart said at the end of Casablanca… “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

To learn more about my work with Healthy Wealthy and Wise, including the Certified Coaches Federation, the Sales Mastery Course and the Speech Mastery Course – please visit http://www.Mathieu.com/

ENJOY NOW!