"Part 4: Michel Fortin's In Search Of Heroes Inteview" by Ralph Zuranski
Michel Fortin and Sylvie Charrier found their soulmate in each other and were recently married. Just before their marriage, Sylvie discovered she had a lump in her breast that was cancerous.
She is one of the internet heroes I have yet to interveiw because both my parents are near death and on hospice. It is a full time job keeping them alive.
Sylvie and Michel are sharing Sylvie's experiences with regaining her health in her blog at: BreastCancerVictory Michel's heroes interview was so inspiring, I felt moved to publish it in the In Search Of Heroes Blog.
Michel's response to his wife's health challenges is simply amazing. When you read his interview, you will realize why I chose him as one of my heroes. When you read about Sylvie's pathway back to health, you will understand why she is one of the most inspiring people I have ever met.
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Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. Well, you know, there are certain principles that people are willing to sacrifice their lives for. Are there any principles that you’re willing to sacrifice your life for?
Michel Fortin: I think so. The one thing that I believe in terms of principles is, the biggest one is, humility and it’s something that I’ve learned in the process of my growing up and learning the problems, going through the problems that I went through when I was a child.
Michel Fortin: If you look at, for example, some of, you know, people have egos and it’s normal and it’s natural and we all have things that we, you know, that are near and dear to every single person and 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 if 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.
Michel Fortin: Whenever you look at, for example, some of the discussion boards that I’m participating in, sometimes you get these really fierce **** and there was a couple of times when people actually were against some of the things that I’ve either actually said or 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.
Michel Fortin: Everybody teaches you in some way, 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.
Michel Fortin: 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: Well, you know, 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 to the Internet for free, and it was a book that I’d written as a way to teach my own 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, and especially my own self, the quality of my life. I was focusing too much on quantity of time rather than quality of life.
Michel Fortin: 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 and 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, you know – first of all, people are more important and second of all is time.
Michel Fortin: 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 like, you know, 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 you love? So the point, I’m saying, is that 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 I – that pretty much encompasses everything I just said up until this point.