"Part 7: 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: How important is belief that your dreams will actually become reality?
Michel Fortin: How important is the belief that your dreams will become reality? There is, first of all it is extremely important but it’s not important to the degree that you might think. I don’t believe that people should believe that their dreams become reality because belief is something that almost, you can’t change on a whim. How can you believe something that you don’t believe?
Michel Fortin: Can you force yourself to believe into something? Can you believe in your dream? No, you can’t. It’s not something you can change on a whim, you know. If I don’t like asparagus today, do I have to force myself to like asparagus? No, I mean, I can’t change the way I feel. If I don’t believe in my dreams today I can’t switch it just like with one flick of a switch and say I’m believing in my dream, but here’s the difference.
Michel Fortin: If I have dreams and I do tiny little things that will make me consciously purposeful every single day as I head towards my dreams, the more and more this internal switch will flick on for you not only to believe in your dreams but to know that your dreams will become reality. And there’s big difference between belief and knowing.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s a profound point when you know in the process of trying to achieve your dreams there’s a tremendous amount of doubts and fears and a lot of people in your life will try to crush your dream because they don’t want you to change for fear of having to change themselves. How did you overcome your doubts and fears?
Michel Fortin: By journaling is the one. The other point is to always constantly listen to yourself and to be true to your own self. You know, to thine own self be true, in Shakespeare Hamlet, you know? And the one thing that you have to understand is, you know, this is absolutely so true.
Michel Fortin: We are like, you know, and I don’t mean to proselytize for any religion and I don’t mean to sound religious, but we are all like Jesus where we’re crucified between two thieves, tomorrow and yesterday’s ****, or in other words, fear and guilt.
Michel Fortin: The fear of what’s going to happen tomorrow and the guilt of what happened in the past, and there’s always gonna be that but, you know, like Jesus, he was true to himself. He did what he needed to do. Well, like yourself, if you have fears and you have doubts, that’s perfectly fine as long as you realize that the more focused you are on yourself the more you let the inner you tell you what to do, guide you in what you’re doing, the more you, like, you know, writing to yourself as much as even talking to other people about how you feel about certain things, that is learning process that will give you the ammunition to destroy lack and limitation.
Michel Fortin: There’s also another thing. I know, I think it’s the most important. The greatest creator of fear is a low self esteem. Any lack and limitation in your life that are there, you know. Don’t just, you know, they’re not just lack and limitations because they exist. They’re lack and limitations because you believe they are lack and limitation.
Michel Fortin: The only way to circum that, to overcome that, to destroy those fears, at least to reduce it, is to increase the belief that you have in your own self. The more you work on your own self esteem, the more you have confidence in yourself or the more you work on having confidence in yourself, all the other fears and all the things that are destroying or attempting to destroy the things that are good to you in your life or the things that you want to do in your life will almost dissipate by themselves because you’ve become a bigger believer in the best thing that ever happened in this world, and that’s you.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, is there anybody that helped give you the willpower to change things in your lives for the better?
Michel Fortin: Well, like I said whenever I grew up I had a mentor, and I’ll tell you one thing that really has the most profound impact in my life. He kept telling me every single day something very, and it may not sound profound, but he said “turn off the tape recorder”. Okay? Now, let me explain what that means. I was a salesman and as I grew up and I was trying to make sales I had fears and doubts but a lot of times it’s because I was saying that to my own self.
Michel Fortin: There was a tape recorder in my mind that kept telling me I’m stupid, I’m a failure, I don’t, I’ll never amount to much, I will always, I’m gonna fail or this is not for me of this is too lofty of an ambition for me or this is impossible for me to reach, blah, blah, blah. My mentor kept telling me – he was a, you know, sometimes he would just look at me and I wouldn’t even say a word and he would look at me and he will say, “turn the tape recorder off, Mike”.
Michel Fortin: And that is the most profound thing that I’ve ever, ever been taught because we all have tape recorders in our minds. We do become what we think about. We, you know, you reap what you sow. If you think you’re a failure, if you think that you will fail, if you think that, you know, you’re not good enough or whatever, then you are. You are what you think and, you know, big philosophy that I go by is the Latin **** by a philosopher by the name of Rudi DeCarte is 1637 and what it means is, in Latin it means “I think, therefore I am”. If you think you’re a failure, you are.
Michel Fortin: If you’re thinking you’re a success, you are. So that thing that my mentor kept telling me, “turn the tape recorder off” is just a very modern way to look at it but it’s so true and that has changed my life.