I decided to like me, I decided to love me, I decided to learn what I liked and who I am, where, then, the other sex was, they were, like, "Who is this guy? I want to get to know him, um, he appears to be daunting, he appears to have fun with life," and so that was definitely a lesson for me, so you definitely have to be in a position to like and love yourself before expecting others to like and love you at the level you feel you deserve.

You know, when God has a plan for your life, it must be fulfilled. Regardless of how much you try to stray away or run away, God's work cannot return back up to him void, you know. And I constantly went back and forth. I mean, there was a time when it was, like, six months where I didn't even pick up a pen and write because I was like, "No way. God cannot be telling me to write a book."

I started reading about anything I could find, and somehow I happened upon an article written by a wonderful therapist by the name of Andrea Schneider, she does the show The Savvy Shrink on our network, and it was about narcissistic personality disorder, and I went, "I feel like I just got in the movie The Matrix where you can put in a plug in the back of your neck, and now you know how to fly a helicopter." That's what it was. I went, "Oh my gosh. This is what I've been doing with my entire life."

Sincere words of Gratitude have enormous power. Do you know how powerful and encouraging your words of thank you are to the people you come in contact with? Maybe you need to speak those words to somebody in your life, maybe a friend. Maybe your parents, your kids, or your grandkids need to hear them. Maybe it’s a coach or a teacher who believed in you, who breathed life into you, had dreams for you, cheered you on and comforted you when you needed that.

I'm a firm believer in gratitude, and I actually wrote about this recently. I remember when Oprah's show first came on the air, so I'll date myself with that, but I rolled my eyes for so many years at the concept of gratitude and gratitude journals, and then I finally got over myself and I found a gratitude practice that worked for me and wow, what an impact it's made.

I did want to memorialize my dad. My kids weren't born yet and I needed to let them know that he was my hero and how incredible a human being he was. He was my mentor and he was pretty much everything and it was a terrible loss. I was 23. He was only 58 and it rocked my world, again. Yeah, I lost my brother Bruce to a suicide when I was 16. He was 22 and just that also just altered my existence very rapidly and for a long, long time.

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

My favorite quote of all time, and I'll end with this, "The meaning of life is to find your gift, but the purpose of life is to give it away, and I'm trying to do everything I can to give away my gifts to as many people as I can every day, and I hope that your audience does that as well.

A long time ago, before there were podcasts and workshops, and psychologists. Our ancestors used to look at animals as their guides and animals would inform them of how to be authentic. So, what we've been talking about here is how I followed a cookie cutter formula to success and it didn't make me happy. So, knowing who my animal totem is by studying the animal's behavior, I am able to pick up those qualities and get more in touch with who I am authentically.

And at the end of the day, I tell my clients all the time, "I can't care more than you care. I can't care more than you care. And your customers can't care more than you care. So if you want your brand to be as powerful as you dreamed about when you thought, 'I'm going to start my own business,' then you have to care the most about protecting that brand and every day is an exercise of protecting your reputation as a business."