Here at the Big Seminar in Atlanta, the same question seems to pop up over and over again. I walk with a cane now, and people keep asking me, “Michel, What’s wrong? Are you OK? What happened?”

I don’t blame them. My wife told me I was turning as white as a ghost, so we’ve decided to go back to our room to take some time — and pressure — off my spine.

I thought to myself, “Maybe I should take advantage of this downtime to blog about this — that way, more people will know what’s going on.”

You see, I have a broken back. Literally.

Read the rest or post a comment »

Clayton Makepeace is certainly living up to his name. And if you’re game, you might want to check out what he recently did for breast cancer awareness.

As you know, my wife is the owner of Workaholics4Hire.com, the outsourcing and project management solution used by most top marketers. (We share a lot of the same clients. That’s how we met!)

Today, Clayton interviewed my lovely wife for his teleseminar series. They spoke about the outsourcing aspect of creating, publishing and making money with information products. They revealed some amazing information on the call!

But there’s something else…

Read the rest or post a comment »

As promised, my wife has finally “exposed” herself for charity, recorded the event on video, and released it to the entire world.

If you were living under a rock these past couple of weeks, let me put you up to speed.

Sylvie Fortin, who shaved her head in preparation for her breast cancer chemotherapy treatments, decided to turn it into a fundraiser for Avon’s Breast Cancer Crusade. She “sold” sections of her scalp, similar to those pixel ads you see on the Internet.

Basically, we recorded the event on video and at the end of it turned an image of her scalp into a clickable “map” of sorts, leading to websites of the top sponsors. The cool thing about it is, we raised over $13,000 for breast cancer research and awareness!

Thank you to everyone for your support and generosity. If you want to watch the video and see my newly shorn wife’s head, check out my wife’s blog at BreastCancerVictory.com.

When I say that my wife is probably the strongest woman I’ve ever met, my words don’t do justice to show how strong she really is.

Since her chemo was scheduled to start next Wednesday, rather than embarrassingly lose clumps of hair over the next few days, Sylvie has decided to turn her loss into someone else’s gain.

She decided to cut her hair before the treatments and donate her now useless mane to a charity called Locks of Love, which creates wigs for disadvantaged kids with long-term medical hairloss.

But there’s more to this story…

Read the rest or post a comment »

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As you know, my wife has started a blog about her breast cancer at BreastCancerVictory.com. In addition to being somewhat therapeutic for her, she’s not only enriching people’s lives with her story but also creating awareness about this silent killer.

Every 1.9 minutes, a woman is diagnosed.

So anything you can do to help is so important. Even small things. Run in your local “run for the cure.” Talk about it on your blog or in your emails (early detection and prevention is the single greatest “cure”). Donate to it directly. Shop “pink” during October whenever you can (from retailers who donate portions of your purchase).

Read the rest or post a comment »

Sylvie is so upbeat and positive about her breast cancer — and her upcoming mastectomy on Monday, September 11 — that she decided to make the best of it in the only way she knew how… “Market and monetize it!”

She decided to start a blog about her journey, complete with AdSense, affiliate links and more. Creating and writing on a blog is part therapeutic (she feels liberated by writing about it), part education (she wants to use her “adventure” to increase awareness), and part profit (breast cancer keywords are very profitable!).

Nevertheless, it’s part of the healing process and great medicine for her soul. As she says so fervently: “Life gave me lemons, so I might as well make the best of it. Lemonade? Heck no… I’m going to turn lemons into lemon merangue pie!”

Go take a look at BreastCancerVictory.com and post a comment!

Now that the wedding and honeymoon are over, I want to share with you some important news, as there are many things I need to explain but didn’t want to share until today.

After much reflection, we decided to make this information public for a variety of reasons. One is to offer our apologies. Another is to create awareness about an incredibly important issue.

First, the apologies.

You may be expecting us to see us speak at an upcoming event — such as the Focus 4 The Future in the UK this weekend, in Las Vegas at the World Internet Summit, or in Baltimore at the Internet Marketing Main Event in September.

However, we’ve decided to make some drastic changes to our plans for the next few weeks. And that includes cancelling our travel and speaking schedules for September and early October.

Here’s why…

Read the rest or post a comment »