Micheal Savoie » Health

Some Really Personal Stuff I Have To Share (Sort Of)

Micheal Savoie — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 21:59:29 +0000

For those of you who have been asking what the heck is bothering me, I have to ask you to be patient.

I never imagined that people could notice a change in the style and content of what someone posts to social media. Ok, so I did sound a little down, I admit it.

I am still coming to terms with it myself, and I am finding it very difficult to work it out in my own mind. Writing helps, but sometimes the writing becomes too dark and I have to stop.

My daughter texted me and asked me if I was alright, as she had noticed the darkness in my Facebook posts. I really didn’t want to tell her about it, because it was similar to what she was going through not even three months ago. I had tried to be objective and to tell her she shouldn’t feel so bad, but when you are the one going through it, you really can’t be told that it is just an emotion.

When it happens to you, it really does hurt. So I am going to send a public apology to everyone I have ever hurt. I really mean it, it sucks that I caused you this kind of pain, and I hope you can forgive me for inflicting that kind of pain to you.

Anyway, the sorting out process is difficult. I am really trying to avoid becoming bitter (no easy task, when sarcasm comes out without even thinking… so when you spend a lot of time thinking, the sarcasm has a venom to it that makes it really easy to hurt people). Bitterness is the starting point to hatred. I do not want to hate anyone. Hating is a good way to make a bad thing permanent…

But damn, it is so easy to want to hate. To make the person who has hurt you pay in the worst way.

Anyway, you probably can tell that I am not comfortable discussing this, and my daughter is the only one I have confided in about this. I really do not need my family in Quebec getting all distraught and trying to make me feel better. Pity sucks worse than feeling sorry for yourself. So rather than expect to get pitied by everyone, it is much better to just go on living and try like heck to put the negative feelings behind you.

But that damn venom is still in my mouth… I really need to spit it out and get back to the me that the world knows and loves (well most of the world – there are still a few third world countries and at least one person in Ocala that are ambivalent about me) and I am sure that I will.

Just please bear with me as I sort myself out. And leave me some comments to help me know that I am not alone!

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Depression Is An Inside Job (In Most Cases)

Micheal Savoie — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 19:01:46 +0000

A social media star recently took his own life after struggling with depression. I call him a star because he was well respected by many in the social media community. In hindsight, many who went through his final hours on Facebook say they could see a man who had already made up his mind that his life was over. But how could we as a community have prevented this?

Depression is something that we have all felt. It is a sinking feeling within our very souls, that we are lacking something we desperately need to give us joy. Sometimes it is a chemical imbalance. Most of the time it is just hormones or a consistent programming of our subconscious mind to believe that we need something to make us happy.

That still leaves us with the question: Are women really more depressed than ever?

Professor David Healey, director of psychological medicine at Cardiff University, thinks this is unlikely. Instead, he says, the leap in prescriptions for antidepressants may be seen as a triumph for drug company sales departments.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2036632/Why-women-depressed-Is-real-epidemic–result-cynical-marketing-drug-giants.html

Drug companies have been trying really hard to make us believe we are more depressed than we should be, and that it is a medical condition. I went through a depression in the late 90’s, and the doctors tried using drugs to help me. The drugs made me numb to the world. They did not cure my depression. When they tried to switch the drugs on me, I almost had a nervous breakdown, and I actually had suicidal thoughts. The real cause was the way I was handling my relationship, but I did not want to blame myself for a failing relationship. Much better to just take the drugs.

Until I tried to take myself off those drugs. It took over 6 months, and my legs felt like they had electrodes pulsing electricity through them every few minutes. The sensation was terrible, and it took a long time to go away.

I wish I had had an opportunity to attend Celebrate Recovery back then. It wasn’t until I attended CR in 2008 that I actually got over my depression. I had mostly gotten away from it because I had thrown myself into my online work from 2007 onwards, and because I was too busy to think about it, I didn’t suffer from the intense lows that I used to have.

Every once in a while, I would come close, but usually getting in touch with one of my friends online would help me through it. But Celebrate Recovery helped me accept that I am not perfect, and that I can fail and still get up and brush myself off and try again. I never again thought of giving up.

Which Brings Me Back To Today

Yesterday I got some bad news. I felt like I had gotten kicked in the stomach. The worst part was it came when I was away from home, I am in Canada to help my parents get packed up and then we are going to drive back home to Florida. But this bad news felt like a sucker punch.

Of course I could have seen it coming. It was all my fault, but when you pretend the problem doesn’t exist, you kind of hope it will go away. Mine didn’t go away in the way that I anticipated. The reason for the problem went away. So now I face the prospect of the drive to Florida to an empty house when I get home. I will survive, but I will definitely have to remember to forgive myself for my failures and dust myself off… because I will most certainly go on!

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Where The Wild Things Are (In Your Mind)

Micheal Savoie — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:03:35 +0000

When things are going good, it is easy to forget the struggles. You have lots of things to occupy your mind, so the struggles seem pretty far away.

But it does not take much to bring them back in technicolor with 3D surround sound (and extra bass from the subwoofer) when things take a slow curve through a bad month. Then the struggles feel so real, it is like you are living them all over again. You could be back behind that desk, answering the constantly ringing telephone.

Sometimes, it feels like you never left at all.

That is when you need to put yourself around the people who are not going through the day to day struggles. You need to find a way to escape your own mind and surround yourself with positive, successful people who can help your mindset get cleansed.

Because it does not matter how successful you are, the wild things are lurking, waiting, hoping for a chance to take over your mind and make you feel like you are not a success. They liked it when your domains were getting shut down left and right because you didn’t have the $10 to pay for their renewal. They lust after the emails you get from the bank, telling you that something just bounced and that they are subtracting $34 from a balance that was negative to begin with.

The wild things in your mind feed on the negative emotions that wrack your very core, when your stomach feels like a black hole just opened up inside. Just when the darkness is about to overtake you, the wild things are at their strongest. Those are the times when a CD of Bob Proctor, Les Brown or Stephen Pierce can tame the wild things, and set them in their place.

Attending an event you know in your gut you could never afford to pay for is the perfect time to crush the wild things. It is when you are at your most vulnerable to their destructive enzymes are eating away at your very core that you should find a way to get around a group of positive, successful people who can pull you out of the wild things’ clutches, bathe you in healing salve, and guard you while your mind is healing from the harm the wild things did to it.

You should never try to go it alone.

It is way too dangerous.

The wild things…

…are watching.

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How Did They Get So Freaking Lucky?

Micheal Savoie — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 03:48:08 +0000

Has that thought ever crossed your mind?

You meet someone who seems to have it all in their business and their personal life… success, wealth, freedom, notoriety, and great relationships with their family.

Yes, everything they touch seems to turn to gold.

Meanwhile- you’re working your tail off to make ends meet, you’re struggling to get your business off the ground…yet always taking one step forward, two steps back.
Sound familiar?

Well, I’ve got news for you. Truth is, those other entrepreneurs DO have a significant amount of luck working in their lives.

But it’s not by chance–it’s by CHOICE. And this eye-opening video will reveal exactly how you can get it too.

https://empowered.infusionsoft.com/go/sci/signup/

That’s Tom McCarthy, a world-renowned business consultant, motivational speaker and success coach…

Tom’s spent the last 21 years helping Fortune 500 companies like Cisco, Marriott, Disney and scores of others (like Tony Robbins) boot their profits and achieve bigger success.

And along the way, Tom discovered that there’s an actual SCIENCE to increasing your luck and reaching your income and personal goals faster and easier.

Now, Tom’s ready to reveal his secret “luck” formula to the world that will allow you to systematically create opportunities that lead to the success you want. And you can get a glimpse–FREE–inside this video.

https://empowered.infusionsoft.com/go/sci/signup/
I urge you to take action immediately and watch this short video…
Because let’s face it–we could all use a lot more “luck” in our lives.

Right?
https://empowered.infusionsoft.com/go/sci/signup/
See you inside,

Micheal Savoie

PS – You’ll want to listen closely to Tom’s story, especially in the first few minutes…

Here’s a kid who grew up fatherless, virtually penniless, and without much hope of succeeding in anything–let alone business.

But with a few lucky breaks (there’s that word again), Tom clawed his way to the top.

Now he lives the life of his dreams in an exclusive Southern California neighborhood, enjoying the fruits of his labor and watching his net worth skyrocket as his luck continues to grow. You GOTTA hear this guy…

PPS - Oh, and one last thing: This is NOT what you think it is. It’s NOT the “touchy feely”, new age mumbo jumbo of “thinking positive.” Tom’s the real deal. And just the four steps he gives you today could easily help you reach your businesses goals – Plus BOOST your income faster than you ever thought possible!
https://empowered.infusionsoft.com/go/sci/signup/

Break Through Your Blocks, Build Site Flipping Business With Them!

Micheal Savoie — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:55:17 +0000

I used to promote a lot of stuff.

Then I started getting burned by products that did not live up to what the owner said it would do.

So I changed my methodology. Now I only promote (most of the time) products that I myself have purchased or tried…

Project Archimedes – One Of The Best…

Ben Shaffer is one of those guys who stays behind the scenes. He creates niche sites and makes a lot of money. But most of the time, you don’t see him in the limelight, unless he is winning an affiliate contest or something.

Ben braindumped everything he knows about website flipping and domaining into a course that will help you build the foundation for a massive business. He calls it Project Archimedes, and it is very much the course that will propel people into transforming their businesses.

Simply by adding the practice of scoping out for undervalued domains to your existing business, you have the ability to add 20% to 50% more to your bottom line while only adding a few extra hours a month to your routine.

Now I would have included more nuts and bolts type of training to the project, but I decided to include that as a bonus to anyone who purchases Project Archimedes through my link.

I am assembling a membership site that you can use to learn the skills you may not have right now (like how to do graphics using either GIMP or Paint.net), how to upload via FTP and cpanel, how to make a paypal button, how to use clickbank (for affiliate products) and how to use KompoZer as your HTML editor. This membership site will be selling for $47 per month when I release it next week, but anyone who gets on Ben’s prenotification list and buys Project Archimedes on November 11th will get 180 days access for $1! (6 months should be more than enough time to pick up the skills you will need to do a professional looking job with websites so that you can flip them and make more than you invested in both the website and Project Archimedes).

So if you are a Virtual Real Estate guru in training, this is one course that you shouldn’t do without!

For The Faint Of Heart!

Success can be elusive at times. Sometimes we can actually sabotage ourselves through the negative baggage we carry with us wherever we go, from job to job, business to business even hobby to hobby.

Things that we struggle with are very dependent on our internal struggles. Things like:
- Lack of money

- Relationship issues

- Why you don’t achieve true success

- Past trauma

- Compulsions / Obsessions/ OCD

- Addictions

- Phobias

- And more…

Visit Pam Ragland and listen to the recordings of her calls…

I have gone through her thought shifting program and I can tell you that I have seen a difference. Incredible focus where total overwhelm and distraction was overcoming me.

But now the only distraction is when I forget to write down my objectives and I just decide to wing it.

Pam is one of those people who gives so much of herself that she ends up spending the entire day on the phone helping people overcome their roadblocks and inner negativity.

I urge you to take her up on her offer to answer your toughest questions about why you are not succeeding at relationships, at business, work, breaking addictions and other emotional and mental challenges. Visit Pam’s website now!

Have an amazing day!

Micheal Savoie
http://twitter.com/michealsavoie

PS – Jeff Johnson wanted me to tell you that he still has some great content to share with you:

How To Quickly and Easily Create Your Very Own Highly Profitable
Info Product!

Viral Video and Social Media Tutorial

Technorati Tags: Pam Ragland, Ben Shaffer, Project Archimedes, Thought Shifting, overcome addiction, break through thought barriers

Send In The Orchestra Quick, I Am Having A Crisis!

Micheal Savoie — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 04:34:15 +0000

Tears are welling up in my eyes as I type this, the sheer force of the first movement of Beethoven’s 4th Symphony (in B-Flat major for those of you who care) as I try and drown out the negativity that my mind keeps attempting to pour into my soul…

Music is amazing.

In my case, I like instrumental music because I lose concentration when I hear words. In this case, maybe words would be good, so long as they sang positive affirmations. I am a firm believer that what you listen to does affect you. I once wanted to write a comic book series about a hero who would gain superhuman strength whenever he heard music. It would have made for a really cool movie. I like the way it gives me strength (not superhuman, but it does energize me in instances when I feel particularly down).

Like right now.

I check my bank account balance last night immediately after my direct deposit hit and my 2 week paycheck had just brought my balance back to $23. I wasn’t excited, but I thought I could make it so long as I canceled as many of my bill payments as I could.

After canceling what I could, I figured out that I needed to deposit $240 to cover the bills that weren’t covered yet, so I made a plan and worked until 4:30AM getting my site set up.

I tested it and then went to bed. I awoke and started mailing and promoting the product, which, ironically enough, is designed to help you increase cashflow by offering a coaching program. Paypal decided to do some sort of upgrade and Instant Payment Notifications were delayed by up to an hour, so a lot of customers were not shown the one time offer that was supposed to convert really well…

Still, Beethoven was breaking me out of the funks that all of these issues were tossing my direction. It was still going well, until I logged in to my Bank of America (BOA) account… They lived up to their acronym, because they squeezed the wind right out of me.

I really had to debate whether to finish this post. I have had the habit of revealing too much of the personal in my personal posts. My PR friends say that honesty is good, but too much honesty will take you right out of the game.

Seriously, though, my thoughts today as I examine my next 6 months and plan how I am going to retire from my job on October 31st… I sometimes don’t see how it can be possible. Vision is sometimes seeing what isn’t there yet. So I am going to do what I can with my current situation and work on setting a firm foundation for my business.

But I don’t intend on doing it alone.

Don’t ever plan your future and only consult with yourself. Surround yourself with higher income earners than yourself and let them help you with the brainstorming and the potential for your plans. They can help you see obstacles that you might not have planned for and help you steer clear of them BEFORE they become a problem.

So now that I am at peace with the world of finances, I can again focus on the world of product creation and social media! Together, the two disciplines are very powerful because of how quickly you can align yourself with your audience. I used Wowit software creator to put together a really cool player for an audio interview I did with Felicia Slattery and it floored her. The player gave instant access to the audio and also links that people could click on to get to the products she mentioned in the interview.

I am planning a software product like that for traffic generation and social media. In fact, I have an idea for a software social media card that will give your links to every social media platform so that you just send a person to download your software and then they can sign up as your friend on all of the networks. I also plan on making it brandable.

This post has really meandered today, so I am going to let you get some much needed rest for your weary eyes. Just remember to tell people about the contest, because we need more people trying to get the word out about SpeakUpSaveLives.org… The contest URL is http://speakupsavelives.org/impact
and you can sign up and win some awesome prizes!

When you feel down, remember that others are thinking about taking their own lives and that you should be out there helping to bring the orchestra to the thousands who need some music in their souls!

Have an amazing day!

Micheal

PS – Take a moment to read this report

http://extremeproductexplosion.com/coaching

and then take a look at EasyCoachPro http://nexurl.com/easycoachpro – a unique software program that makes managing your coaching clients fast and simple.

Technorati Tags: Beethoven, 4th Symphony, BoA, Bank Of America, coaching, easy coach pro, wowit, software products, Felicia Slattery

Welcoming Home The Impacted You

Micheal Savoie — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:09:43 +0000

When you go to an event, you are exposed to a lot of people and concepts that are life changing. I can identify with that, because spending a few minutes with Brendon Burchard is enough to change you. You find the people and concepts that are most in line with your core values and then you accept them into your being.

Then you get home.

Life hits you squarely in the face. This is when your character gets tested. I drove home last night and arrived to find my mobile home still in the deteriorating form that I had left it. I could not believe it had not healed miraculously over the weekend – “I know God can work miracles, He created the universe in 7 days and I have been away for 4, so he should have been able to resurrect the rotting carcass of a mobile home and breathe some new life into it!”

The pool was still on the patio with 3 inches of water in the bottom, I stepped over the hole in the floor in the entryway as I lugged my suitcase into the house. My wife almost broke her neck coming down the hall too fast and slipping into a hole in the floor and coming really close to falling. It all hit me with a vengeance!

Nothing had changed here.

I was different inside, a more determined me, but without taking massive focused action, that scenario will be repeated time and time again… The goal is still to get to the point where I can get a burn permit from the Citrus County government and have the biggest bonfire ever… when I have a new home to move into.

The difference is that I have a plan. I have the action steps outlined to get myself in front of businesses in my community and show them the wonders of social media. My first step is to set up my domain for Wired Social Profits, because that is where the action will be! That is the name of my new company and it is going to take Citrus and Marion counties in a big way.

What am I going to do?

Informing, Training and Coaching offline businesses in the profit exploding tactics that make social media so powerful! I am studying with Brendon Burchard and Felicia Slattery on the best ways to get the word out. I am lining up calls with some of the most amazing people I have had the pleasure of working with. You will be hearing more as they acknowledge that they have been enlisted in my cause… lol!

How to fund these important changes? First, I am enlisting the help of some awesome people as I make them a part of my advisory board. They are going to be shareholders in my company, so they will have a vested interest in helping me bring in more income. The greatest gift that the past 30 days has given me is the faith that all of this is going to happen and the Lord is funneling blessings my way.

Some blessings are a hug from a spouse who has missed me beyond my comprehension. I am vowing to do what it takes to be able to bring her on my journey through the tough times and out the other side to the good times. I have tried too hard without success to insulate her from the struggles… she has been forced to live with my failures and while she has kept about as quiet as I have ever seen her, she is actually more supportive than I give her credit for. With her by my side, the journey should not be a lonely one – which has made the current journey so difficult and painful.

Blessing also come from unusual places. Felicia Slattery came home from Philadelphia to find her office tranformed! New furniture and a tidy home – her husband was so proud of her accomplishments that he worked overtime to get the office redone and make her home a pleasure to come home to! That blessing was passed through to me, because Felicia is going to do a teleseminar with me in the next 7 days to show you why you can be a speaker. Since I am learning from her, I am definitely happy that she is going to be joining me for a call.

Inspiration is the biggest blessing of all, as I am feeling the effects of a strong force of inspiration that allowed me to be able to come up with the business plan and a way to fund these new changes to my business.

Finally, I am working on my book, because the story I have lived through is almost unbelievable because so many people are living like this and they are not getting the word out, they are not even aware of their ability to break free… they may be giving up completely without even knowing that they hold the key to their own jail cell in their clenched fist.

Escape with me…

Take a moment.

Close your eyes. Wait until after you have finished reading this or go get someone to read this to you…

Think about where you are right now. Imagine the worst things that have happened to you in the last 30 days. Imagine that all of those bad things that have happened are boulders and they are all over the ground in front of you, behind your, they are stacked on top of you and you feel that you are barely able to breathe from the weight of all of these boulders.

Now, imagine that your dream of freedom from your current struggles is a spray bottle with a trigger. Your place your finger on that trigger. Place your finger on the trigger in the air in front of you. Now, spray the boulder directly over your head. Squeeze that trigger as you point to that insurance bill or late mortgage payment boulder.

You are amazed to see that the boulder is shrinking, whithering away into a little pebble and it falls to the ground, unable to bother you. Now choose some other boulders, the maintenance of your home, or the laundry or the car… spray each one of them and watch them shrivel into pebbles that no longer have any control over you.

Get crazy with your spray bottle and spray in all directions! Your boulders are all withering, and you are now in control of your situation, because your dream is stronger than any one item on your To Struggle List.

Who needs a To Struggle List, anyway?

Don’t Focus On The Struggle… Focus On Your Dream!

You are dependent on your dream more than you realize, because without the dream, the boulders can look mighty huge, and might even be an obstacle to your success. But with my spray bottle, I have the ability to shrink those obstacles into pebbles, so I can walk toward my dreams much more rapidly!

Acknowledgments:
Ken McArthur – for seeing something in me that made him want to work with me.
Lee & Robin Collins – for pointing out that I was already successful, but that my bank account had not caught up to me yet!
Debra Micek – for encouraging me and helping to change my focus from trying to nickel and dime sale my way to success, when I am worth much more than an $8 commission!
Brendon Burchard – for helping develop me into an expert.
Jeff Wellman – for a 3 hour phone call that took me from a grumpy, tense and depressed individual to a team member.
Michelle Alvarez – for not allowing me to quit during my darkest moment!
Ross Goldberg – for being a friend and exposing me to his friends.
Alan Bechtold – for not letting me forget that I am a Fundamental part of my business!
Felicia Slattery – for showing me that I can be a speaker.
Rachel Rofe – for helping me to develop my business plan (that anyone can do and I encourage you to – this is a BIG market that you can fine tune to your personality and strengths).
Donna Fox – for showing me that who you are on stage is only a small part of who you are and just because you seem to be outgoing and gregarious in the public does not mean that you aren’t a shy person inside. In fact, I now go out of my way to bring people into a discussion if I see them hanging back… because I was there once upon a time!
Keith Wellman – for having the balls to push his father into the best thing he has ever done because of how much impact Jeff now has! And also for treating me like an equal even before I even rated to be a servant…
Andrea Chin – for showing me that an impact is like a ripple in a pond – that ripple is still moving as she is going to be a major force in this industry, especially in the corporate and non-profit world.
Deremiah – the blessings from you are just trickling now and your impact on this world will be so great that I see people writing about you at the turn of this century and how much better the world is since you decided to choose life instead of death!

Of course I cannot put everyone on this list, and I can’t even attempt to without making myself late for work… but I can tell you that I love each and every one of you for everything you mean to me! The development process is difficult, and takes harsh chemicals, catalysts and preservatives… in photography – life is harder than that!

If I touch your life in a meaningful way, I want to know about it. Comment below, follow me on twitter and let me know privately or publicly. If you can donate funds to help me make a difference for others, just visit my home page and either buy one of my products or use the donate button.

I also recommend that you follow me on Ustream.tv and 12seconds.tv (you’ll have to request an invitation from me via twitter) so that I can alert you of my next broadcasts…

Remember that you are on a quest… don’t let anything keep you from that ultimate goal, even though you will have some side journeys and tasks that you will have to accomplish before all is said and done.

Have an amazing day!

Micheal Savoie

PS – I am going to be marketing much less and choosing carefully those products that I am going to be promoting. Mostly, I will be promoting those things that will help you with your ultimate goals. So just ask if you are looking for a link to buy something, as it will help both of us!

Technorati Tags: people, goals, struggle, overcoming

Clawing Your Way Through The Struggles To Success

Micheal Savoie — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:17:05 +0000

Did you ever think to yourself, “how could it get any worse?”

Don’t Do It!
I did that one night. I was doing the wallowing bit, after looking at my negative bank account balance, I looked at the notice from the electric company, telling me that I had 2 more days to give them $488 or the power was coming off, and I had just walked the obstacle course over hole after hole in the floors of my hallway, almost falling at least twice, and I was about to go to bed. I thought to myself, “this will make a great story to tell people how I was at my lowest point in my life, that is when I made the decision to just do it and overcame everything! I mean, it can’t be any worse, right?”

Being In Hot Water Sucks, Right?
I awoke the next morning to the sound of running water in a strange place. Looking into the bathroom, the water sounded like it was running behind the shower. Oh, no! I turned on the faucet and the water coming out was cold. I went outside the mobile home to the little door where the hot water heater is hidden away, but I did not get very close, water was gushing out from under the door at a very brisk flow… the hot water heater had exploded…

So there is was, it finally got worse, and I still hadn’t solved the first two problems of the negative bank account and the looming electrical cutoff. I was ready for some antacid, or a stiff drink… I wasn’t sure which. But I made my decision. I would have to take a cold shower, and get my wife up so she could take one, too. Then I would have to turn off the water.

And then what?

Plumbers Like Money, Too…
As I went over all of the possibilities in my mind, I really could not figure out a good solution, because I was at the end of the last fiber of the frayed rope. I had just gone through the finances the night before and found myself in the most depressing situation I had ever been in and awakened to a more depressing situation.

Have You Ever Been In A Situation Like This?
When life hands us situations we don’t think we can handle, where do we go? I would love to hear a situation you were in and how you clawed your way out of it. Who did you turn to? Where did help finally come from? Leave some comments on this blog to help others with their struggles.

Remember that this world needs you and your story. You do make a difference in the lives of countless others. I learned this from Ken McArthur in his book, Impact: How To Get Notice, Motivate Millions and Make A Difference In A Noisy World. He tells the story of Juan Mann, a fellow in Australia who gave hugs in his local mall. At first he didn’t think he mattered, but as he hugged people, he saw more smiles than usual from the normally gloomy people walking around the mall.

Juan Mann made a difference in one person and that one person affected those around him because of the smile that he passed along! You, too make a difference, just like I know that I impact at least the lives of my wife and daughters, who then impact their friends, coworkers and their circles of influence.

It is like a big pond, and any kindness you pass along, ripples out in ever larger circles, until it is the size of a tidal wave when it reaches the shore! Don’t ever think that you are not able to make a difference in the lives of people you will never meet, because by doing nothing, you could have withheld the information that someone needed to make that next business decision that could impact the job of someone in another state.

No Burden Too Large
I don’t mean to put it all on your shoulders. But actions defeat inaction, and we know that inaction is the cause of most of our troubles.

Procrastination is the number one reason people are broke. They put off paying a bill, it gets a late fee, the interest gets added to the late fee and the bill soons grows out of proportion to the original bill.

Putting off the activities that you know will help you overcome the struggles, like writing an article, sending out an email, working on that new product are all things that can be put off until later, but can allow you to defeat many problems before they can become problems.

So if you are in the situation where you have put off, gotten the Murphy Slap (where Murphy’s Law: “What Can Go Wrong, Will Go Wrong, At The Worst Possible Moment” meets the real world) and now you are at the point of despair, where you don’t think you could possibly figure this out on your own…

STOP!
Quiet yourself down. That is the time when I pray. “Lord, I know I like to feel like I am running things on my own… like the 3 year old that thinks he can do it all with no help. It is my humanity that gets in the way, Lord. I think I can do it all and I forget who is in control. I should have placed my faith in you from the beginning, and let you lead me through the minefield, because you know where to place Your feet, instead of wanting to do it all on my own. I yield my childish need to be in control and I put You back in charge, because I know that You are ultimately in control and without following humbly, I am just putting myself into a situation where I will be humbled, anyway. I put my life and my family and my business in Your hands. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.”

Describing the feeling of relief that comes from praying that prayer is like trying to describe the way you feel after you have just stopped hitting your thumb with a hammer. At first you are too numb to notice that the pain has stopped, then the pain rushes back at you and then it finally subsides.

I sometimes get conflicted when I open up about my life, because I know that people want to get the meat and potatoes, not the cool whip… but trust me, if you aren’t placing your faith somewhere, you are heading for trouble. I figured out the hard way that I should not place faith in myself until I put my faith in God.

What difference do you want to make in your life?

I guess I need to call the plumber now.

Have an amazing day!

Micheal Savoie

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Technorati Tags: personal tragedy, life, decisions, strength, character

Ready For An Impact?

Micheal Savoie — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:20:26 +0000

If you have been following me for any length of time, you already know that I was selected for Ken McArthur’s Impact Action Team. I was totally floored when I found out, and then I was panic-stricken because I have to accomplish so much to get myself there.

So here is the deal – I will be off the radar for most of the coming weeks except for an occasional post here to let you know that I am still alive and what I am doing to get ready for the Impact Boot Camp in Philadelphia a week from Friday!

If you are in need of information, you can use my help desk, or call me at 352-257-1332 and I’ll do what I can to help you with whatever it is. My clients are making great strides in their marketing, and the buzz that they are generating is amazing! Keep your eyes peeled for Mr. Ebay as he is making the Podcast circuit.

I am offering sponsorships for the next 3 to 6 months for companies that would like to get some extra publicity, since the Impact Action Team will be generating a LOT of buzz over the next 3 months. I will be getting a lot of traffic and making a lot of media appearances as we get the word out about The Life’s Golden Ticket Event in Los Angeles and some of the other projects going on! So if you would like to sponsor me in my travels in return for mention on my blog and on my home page as well as in any speaking engagements, just open up a support ticket or use the Donate button below:

For Donations of $2500, $3500 or $5000 I will be placing advertisements on my home page and on my blogs as well as mentions at the tail end of my videos. I thank in advance anyone who gives anything, because as you will see below, my story is interesting…

I am also working with Rachel Rofe and Jaime Mintun on a way for me to do seminars locally with Brick And Mortar businesses! This will definitely expand the income streams and help bring more new coaching clients into my fold. The goal is to have monthly seminars in towns nearby and help bring more businesses into the online world. With the new training package I am putting together for offline businesses, this combination will be a way to develop more business and help the economy by strengthening the grass roots.

Tell me how I can Impact you!
If you are struggling with something, please, let me know what it is. My mission in life is to help as many people as possible and to be accessible. So whenever you run into a problem that you haven’t been able to solve on your own, leave me a comment. I will find the answer or point you in the direction of the person that does have the answer.

Calls of the WILD…
Teleseminars are coming again! The first call you need to be on this week is the Faster Webmaster Erik Stafford’s call on Wednesday evening! To get on the call, you just have to register here…

Leave me a comment if you want to hear from specific people and I will get them on a call. I am serious when I tell you that I am here for you! We are in this together and I have a lot of amazing friends in the marketing world. If you would like me to schedule a call with any of them, just tell me which one (leave a comment or a help desk ticket) and the most popular ones will get scheduled!

Point Of Impact
The whole reason I wanted to sign up for Ken’s Impact Boot Camp and the Impact Action Team was that for a while I felt really insignificant. Sure I was making a difference with the people at work and my family, but sometimes you get that feeling inside of you that says, “I want to do more…”

So I started praying about it. I asked God what I should be doing to help the world. The answer didn’t seem to come. I repeatedly prayed that prayer and the next day I was faced with the same tasks daily – go to work, come home and work on my business, sleep and start all over the next day.

I attended jvAlert Live in June and as usual, I felt insignificant there, because so many people with such powerful ambitions were already making an Impact, and I was struggling to pay for a hotel room – in fact, I did not even have the means to pay for a hotel room while I was there. I was wandering around with my luggage, not sure what to do when someone offered to let me share their room.

You don’t know how humbling it is when you are at a hotel full of Internet Millionaires and you don’t have the cash to put yourself up for the night. I fought tears for most of the weekend, but I placed myself at everyone’s service while I was there. If someone needed something, I was on it. But inside, I thought, “what the heck am I doing here?”

During that weekend, I made some sales of products, so I was able to eat, but I still felt like I was missing something. I was sitting in the restaurant on Sunday evening thinking I had pretty much hit the bottom and that the only way to go was up, when Ken came by and thanked me for helping everyone out during the event. I thanked him for the opportunity to serve, but Ken looked at me and said, “what do we have to do to get you where you want to be?”

I was dumbfounded. I really didn’t know how to answer that. Short of an infusion of a few thousand dollars, I didn’t see what Ken could do for me that he hadn’t done already. My first thought was to define what I really want to do, and I explained to Ken that I was at a point in my business where I was treading water and that the time I was spending at work was hurting my momentum. So Ken told me to fill out the questionnaire and submit it to his personal assistant and that we would schedule a phone conversation to help me figure out where I want to be.

Things Get Better, Right?
So I flew home. Still worried (one thing about worry… it will defeat you – the more you worry, the more energy you devote to the negative event and the more of that negative event you end up attracting) about how I was going to get my car out of the airport parking garage when my flight got home, I sent a quick email out to my list about a product I had promoted for the past month, and sales had dropped considerably. But I had the amount in my mind that I needed to achieve to be certain that I could pay for tolls and the parking garage.

Miraculously, I arrived at the Orlando airport to find the exact amount I needed to pay for the parking garage in my Paypal account. Excited, I hurried home! But things at home had gotten worse. Our mobile home had been ravaged by hurricane Frances in 2004 and the $3000 we received from FEMA to help fix it up was barely able to fix a 28 year old mobile home. Back in the ’80s, most mobile homes were created with particleboard flooring and the humidity from having the underside of the mobile home exposed for that short time was enough to start a chain reaction and over the last 4 years the floors have begun to rot out from under us.

New holes had formed in the bathroom, the hallway and even in front of the front door. Suddenly, our home was a hazard to live in. Since June, the weather here in Beverly Hills, Florida is rainy, hot and humid. With all this rain, we soon discovered that the roof has sprung a couple leaks and is hastening the floor disintegration. Now I think to myself that I have really hit the bottom.

Your Mission – Should You Decide To Accept It…
That is when I hear back from Ken’s office that I have been accepted to the Impact Action Team! They tell me that I have to be able to travel to Philadelphia again for the training and then to Los Angeles to attend the Life’s Golden Ticket Event! I am excited, but my wife sprinkles a huge dose of reality on me… “What about the floors and the roof? And have you seen where mold is starting to grow in the wood around the leaks? I think we are allergic to it.”

Smack! That dropped me to my knees.

To think that my dream is about to be achieved, that I could be able to help make a difference in the world, but my own world is about to engulf me. That is why I am telling you this story. I am living proof that dreams can get drowned in reality if you let them. But, I have a life jacket.

Surround Yourself With Winners
I am fortunate to be friends with hearts bigger than Texas. They also have attitudes that tell me that nothing is going to block me from my dream as long as I focus on it. I have never revealed any of my circumstances to anyone before, but last night as I was tossing and turning and listening to the sound of the air conditioning fighting against the influx of warm air through the floorboards (floormush?) and other unidentifiable sounds (my imagination at 3am can really take me to strange places, so I tried to think about something else) that it hit me that I need to write down what I am going through. This is going to inspire someone. It isn’t very inspiring to me, since I am living through it, nor to my wife and three daughters, who have almost lost hope in their father’s ability to make good decisions because I choose to follow my dream.

We all start somewhere. I am here in this semi-shelter planning on the day when I can get a burn permit from the county and set fire to it as we start construction of a real home. I have a plan mapped out, now. I did not let my dream get dowsed by the rain dripping through the ceiling. I navigate through my hallway a little differently than most people, but I have a plan in place to make this a temporary situation. So with the descent into the depths of despair, I found that sometimes that is the only time we can actually listen to God’s whispers to us. It seems like when you have hit your lowest point, your ears finally open.

Of course, it is going to take a hell of a lot of convincing to get my family on board for this wild ride, because they are the ones having to fight the fight while I work at my job and work on my business plan. Thankfully, if I don’t have a family I can get encouragement from, I have mentors and best friends who are where I want to go and they encourage me, give me ideas that I can use to sidestep potential roadblocks and potholes (I am getting good at avoiding those with the practice I get in the house).

So the moral to this story is don’t ever give up. Last week, I wrote an email to Ken McArthur’s personal assistant to tell her that I was quitting. I told her to tell Ken that I was going to have to concentrate on my problems here, instead of helping others with their problems and possibly impacting thousands more people. I had reached my own limit of endurance.

The email I got back from her was like a jolt of electricity. It was like she had charged up the paddles of the defibrillator and applied them to my chest and yelled, “clear!” and then poured on the juice! My lifeless dream took a sharp intake of breath and its heart started beating again! I no longer cared about the critters in the walls and the floors disappearing under my feet, because I know that with just the right amount of massive focused action, I can get rid of any obstacles in my way. And if my wife doesn’t understand right now, I feel for her, I love her and I want her to know that I will make this work no matter what she thinks or tells my daughters. The impact that this will have on their lives will be more immense than they will ever know. The people who will be touched by my story will one day make a difference in the lives of my grandchildren!

So take a moment and define your dream. Really put it out there for the world to see instead of keeping it close to the vest. Because if you don’t let anyone know that you have a dream, you don’t really have one. Until you have been laughed at, made uncomfortable, told you are crazy for thinking that you can make something of yourself because of where you came from, or threatened with divorce – you don’t even know if your dream is worth fighting for! This is my dream for you!

Have an amazing day!

Micheal Savoie

PS – I am drained after writing this. It is rather cleansing… I also know that this is a time when I could have been writing a blog post to try and make some money by selling you something.

But I am selling you something. I am selling you on your dream! You need to buy into it. Until you have, nobody else will buy into it, either!

Impact Action Team video produced by Paul Richardson – another one of the 18 Impact Action Team Members chosen!

Technorati Tags: mold, donate, advertise, Impact, Ken McArthur, jvAlert, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Life’s Golden Ticket, helping people, dreams, overcoming obstacles