Michel Fortin Interview Part 2 of 5

Michel Fortin: Peo­ple have egos and it’s nor­mal and it’s nat­ural and we all have things that are near and dear to every sin­gle per­son. Peo­ple will fight for what their egos tell them that they need to fight for.

I’m a very hum­ble per­son. I always like to take the low road. I do like the approval. I do like the lime­light. But, if I feel that some­body else can take it for me, if I feel that if there is some­thing that I can do, that it takes away from me, but it makes some­body else’s life bet­ter, I will do that. That’s a really hard les­son to learn in humility.

When­ever you look at, for exam­ple, some of the dis­cus­sion boards that I’m par­tic­i­pat­ing in, some­times you get these really fierce bat­tles. And there was a cou­ple of times when peo­ple actu­ally were against some of the things that I’ve either actu­ally said or had done.

And I will go into the board and I will say, “You know, I so under­stand how you feel.” I have to look at it from the per­spec­tive of the other per­son. And I hum­ble myself by say­ing, “Lis­ten, every sin­gle per­son in this world is a teacher.”

Every­body teaches you in some way, the peo­ple who are nasty to you as much as peo­ple who are good to you. They’re all just teach­ers. They’re not good. they’re not bad. It’s not black and white. Things that hap­pen to you or things that peo­ple tell you, it’s all teach­ing you some­thing. Your con­scious­ness is where you come to the real­iza­tion that I am ready to learn, just like the old Con­fu­cian say­ing that, “When the stu­dent is ready the teacher will appear.”

To me teach­ers are peo­ple or events or things that hap­pen. And as a hum­bled per­son, my guid­ing prin­ci­ple is to always look at every sin­gle thing as some kind of a les­son. And that’s the prin­ci­ple I would sac­ri­fice for. Yes, absolutely!

Ralph Zuran­ski: Every­body has low points in their life. I know you’ve had a fair num­ber of those events in your life. What was the low­est point in your life and how did you change your path to have vic­tory over the obsta­cles at that time?

Michel Fortin: I recently wrote — that’s actu­ally not true. I wrote a book over ten years ago that I just recently put on the Inter­net for free. And it was a book that I’d writ­ten as a way to teach my self how to go through some of the hard­ships that I was going at that time. I was a go-​​getting, goal-​​achieving, goal-​​oriented, Type A per­son­al­ity, do as much as you pos­si­bly can-​​type per­son. And I real­ized that I was achiev­ing a lot.

Michel Fortin: I was mak­ing a lot of money. I was a sales­per­son work­ing on com­mis­sion. And I was doing very well until I real­ized that I was neglect­ing and ignor­ing other things, espe­cially my own self, the qual­ity of my life. I was focus­ing too much on quan­tity of time rather than qual­ity of life.

Well, “lo and behold,” in what seemed like a mat­ter of hours I lost every­thing in my life… my home, my car, my fur­ni­ture, my wife. I lost every­thing and then I went into bank­ruptcy. I even had to look at sleep­ing at the YMCA for shel­ter. And then I started writ­ing that book. And I real­ized there are far more impor­tant things out there than mate­r­ial things. First of all, peo­ple are more impor­tant. Sec­ond is time.

Time is a com­mod­ity, a scarce com­mod­ity. And what you don’t do in this moment is some­thing you will never be able to do, in that moment any­ways. When that moment’s gone, it’s gone.

Do you want to spend it work­ing on your busi­ness? Sure, if it gives you some kind of feel­ing that I’m doing some­thing that I absolutely love to do. Or do you want to work in a job dread­ing those years until you retire?

Or are you going to work so much that you neglect the peo­ple that you love or the peo­ple who love you? So the point, I’m say­ing, is that the low of the low that I have gone through was the most pre­cious and beau­ti­ful gift that I have ever received. It was the biggest les­son that I had to learn. And that’s what encom­passes every­thing I just said up until this point.

Ralph Zuran­ski: Peo­ple fear to do any­thing because they fear they’re “gonna” fail. And when cat­a­strophic events like that occur to some peo­ple, they never recover. Would you say that it’s those events that change the course of our life for the better?

Michel Fortin: Those are events that do change your life. But you have to know there are things like death. There’s a griev­ing process to go through. When you’re in the thick of things, at that moment in your life, you’ll prob­a­bly be depressed. You’ll prob­a­bly have a hard time try­ing to see the les­son for what it is.

But when you have a chance to go through the griev­ing process, this pseudo-​​grieving process, you need to take a step back and look at your what is happening.

Michel Fortin: That’s why I’m a big believer in writ­ing in jour­nals. In fact, the book that I just men­tioned was a book that was actu­ally a way to write to myself on how to deal with the things that I was going through in my life. But, it was like writ­ing in my own jour­nal because that way you can teach your­self to be better.

You can teach your­self to accept things bet­ter. You can teach your­self to get out of that rut. Jim Rohn said it best.

If you are in a low point in your life, go help out some­body else who’s in a low point, the same low point as you. By teach­ing oth­ers or by help­ing oth­ers, you are actu­ally help­ing your self. Because, then you can take a step back and say, “Well, gosh, I’m telling this per­son how to get out of this sit­u­a­tion and I’m in the sit­u­a­tion myself.”

And then you real­ize, because what hap­pens is you let this intu­ition flow, this con­scious­ness flow and you real­ize that you will get out of that rut by help­ing oth­ers. To answer your ques­tion, that’s what I would do.

Actu­ally, writ­ing in a jour­nal is good. But, most often when you have an oppor­tu­nity to go through the griev­ing process, do, be depressed. Be sad. Those are things, if you’re unhappy because some­thing really bad hap­pened to you, that is per­fectly fine. When that’s done take a step back. And then you’ll learn. You’ll see the les­son for what it is. And you’ll grow from it.

Some peo­ple don’t step back. They keep them­selves in that depres­sion mode. Some peo­ple have bad things hap­pen to them in their lives and they stay there for a very, very long time sim­ply because they want to stay there.

Wayne Dyer said it best. “Your body has a nat­ural abil­ity to heal itself.”

If you have a cut on your arm are you going to force it to stay open because you want the world to see, “Hey, look.!, I have an open wound here. I’m hurt­ing. I’m hurt­ing. Take care of me.”

It gives you some feel­ing of grandeur, the fact that you are hurt­ing, that it means some­thing to you. No, your body’s nat­ural process is to heal itself, the same way if some­thing bad hap­pens to you emo­tion­ally or psy­chi­cally as well as physiologically.

Michel Fortin: Your body has a nat­ural ten­dency to heal itself. Let the heal­ing do its own job. It takes time. You don’t heal overnight of a cut wound, just as you won’t heal overnight of a bad sit­u­a­tion or a bad event that hap­pened in your life. But once you heal, now is the chance. That scar tis­sue is your body’s process to strengthen that one area that was broken.

You know bones that are bro­ken, when they heal become even stronger than they were before. That’s the process of even a bad event that hap­pens in your life. Some­thing bad hap­pens to you. Once you’ve healed, yes, you will have scars. But, you can turn your scars into stars! Because those scars are like shields that will pro­tect you in case this stuff hap­pens again. And it will make you stronger. And I believe in that totally.

Ralph Zuran­ski: It’s funny that you talk about jour­nal­ing. Lor­rie Morgan-​​Ferrero, who’s another copy­writer, suf­fered sex­ual abuse as a young per­son. She’s now cre­at­ing a course using jour­nal­ing to help other women over­come the same trauma of that sit­u­a­tion while grow­ing up. So it’s fas­ci­nat­ing that you would talk about jour­nal­ing. Did it really help you also?

Michel Fortin: Oh, absolutely. I hurt in my jour­nals so much, espe­cially in those, those dark times in my life. It’s also a great ref­er­ence tool because it makes you more resilient that next time some­thing hap­pens in the future. If it hap­pens again, or when­ever, you do have a chance to go back and reflect and review entries in your jour­nal. You real­ize how far you’ve grown and that in itself it is a strength­en­ing process. Because, then you can see, “Wow, I really went through that. I really felt that way? Oh my good­ness, how far I’ve grown.” And that in itself makes you grow even more, even in good times.

Ralph Zuran­ski: What is the dream or vision that sets the course of your life?

Michel Fortin: I live by one motto and one motto alone. I don’t believe in goals. I don’t believe in an end result specif­i­cally in my life. You know, there is two types of peo­ple in this world.

There are the peo­ple who always will live in the future where they always have some­thing that they want to look for, a vision or a dream or what­ever. Like you just said. Then there are peo­ple who are in the rap­ture of the moment, peo­ple like artists. I think it was, I can’t remem­ber exactly who, but I believe it was Dr. Tony Alessan­dra who said, “You’ve got row­ers and you’ve got drifters and then there’s noth­ing bad with either one of them.”

Michel Fortin: Peo­ple who row, going toward a des­ti­na­tion, will row. Peo­ple who drift will enjoy the scenery along the way as they drift in that river going towards the ocean. Me, that’s what it is and the point is this. If you want me to say that I do have a dream or a vision it is this, to always do what I love. Joseph Camp­bell said it best, “Fol­low your bliss. Do what you love. The money will fol­low. The busi­ness will fol­low. The suc­cess will follow.”

Even if those things don’t, the fact that once you go through your life and you end up look­ing back on your life and you say, “I really enjoyed my life. I’ve really done some­thing that I totally love.” So do what you love or love what you do. That’s the ulti­mate vision and it’s my vision.

Ralph Zuran­ski: Well, in everybody’s life, there is pos­i­tive. There are set­backs. There are mis­for­tunes and mis­takes that we make. How impor­tant is it to be an opti­mist and take a pos­i­tive view of things?

Michel Fortin: Well, opti­mism has a lot of some­times bad con­no­ta­tions as much as good connotations.

Ralph Zuran­ski: Really?

Michel Fortin: Opti­mism is not moti­va­tion and peo­ple mis­in­ter­pret that. Opti­mism is a pos­i­tive men­tal atti­tude. The one thing that you need the most and that’s beyond being an opti­mist is not just being a real­ist but being a stu­dent. If you have a bad sit­u­a­tion, try to learn as much as you can. That’s why jour­nal­ing is so impor­tant. Try to learn as much as you can in terms of look­ing at the pos­i­tive aspect of what happened.

There is a tech­nique called the “best and bet­ter tech­nique.” Look for what’s the best you can pull from every sit­u­a­tion and how you can be bet­ter next time, how you can bet­ter your own self from the event. Is that an opti­mist? Not nec­es­sar­ily. Peo­ple will take opti­mism and look at it as some form of motivation.

Jim Rohn said it best. “If somebody’s going down the wrong road, they don’t need moti­va­tion to speed them up, they need edu­ca­tion to turn them around” So being an opti­mist is not some “Pollyanna,” bang your head against the wall and hey it hurts but hey, I’m happy about it and I’ll keep, you know, bump­ing myself against the way.

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

• How to Capture and Captivate Attention
• The Real Problem With The Flaw of Attraction
• Two Shining Stars in an Age of Darkness
• Changes, Relaunches, and Extreme Makeovers
• Superior Value Equals Superior Sales

Other Related Posts

• Natural Laws
• True Motivation
• The Connection
• Foreword
• Corner Cutting