"Part 10: 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 are you personally making the world a better place?
Michel Fortin: By being me. That’s probably the best answer I can give you. I follow what I believe in. I am true to myself and most important, I do what I love to do. When you do what you love to do – you know, we were talking about giving good service or being at the service of others or whatever, if you love doing what you do how much better are you going to serve the people around you?
Michel Fortin: How much more passion and zest you have for not only what you do but what you do expresses itself on service, about service to others. If you had a choice to buy a product from two different service providers or two different stores or whatever, and one person hates their job and the other one absolutely loves their job, how much more that second person will be willing to help you.
Michel Fortin: How much more in service of you will that person be? Of course, a lot more. So how do I expect, you know, to make a change in the world just by being me? Just by being Michel Fortin Fortin. Just by being the person who loves to do what he does because that will give all these byproducts of everything we just talked about on this call.
Ralph Zuranski: You know, there’s a lot of problems facing societies all over the world today, like racism, child and spousal abuse and violence among young people. Do you have any good solutions for those problems?
Michel Fortin: Education. Education. If, you know, we cannot change the world by forcing it but we can change the world by educating it. I was once a college teacher. There’s such a great sense of fulfillment that one gets when they teach other people.
Michel Fortin: If, you know, look at, you know, laws and rules and all that wonderful stuff. They do exist for a purpose and I understand that. But I also believe in education because the more you educate people the more you will change the world rather than forcing it to change so if you’re going to help out somebody in their own lives, if you’re going to help out people to realize maybe they are bad people and they’ve done hurt to others, education.
Michel Fortin: Don’t, you know, it’s not proselytizing. It’s not trying to argue with them. It’s just teaching them and teaching them until they’re ready to be taught and they’re ready to change. I’ve met a lot of people who change their lives because they’ve learned and they’ve decided to learn and that’s the key so yeah, I mean, education, that’s probably the most, you know, profoundest answer I can give to that question is just education.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, what do you think about the “In Search of Heroes” program and its impact on youth, parents and business people?
Michel Fortin: Well, that’s the point. This is exactly what it is. What do you think it’s doing? It’s educating. This is exactly why I love this program and I was one of the first people to actually be fully aware of it and fully aware of my potential contribution to this program because I do believe that this program is not just a point of going out there and being heroes. It is going out there to teach other people the power of being a hero and it educates them and then makes changes in their lives, who will then change the lives of the people around them, who will then just grow exponentially, and that’s, you know, this is – Ralph, you’ve seen the movie “Pay it Forward”?
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Michel Fortin: That’s my point. You don’t necessarily have to be a hero or you don’t necessarily have to get somebody to become a hero. All you have to do is to educate others on what, how powerful it is to become one and if they do become one then they do it to others and then they do it to others and then they do it to others. It’s one huge multilevel marketing process.
Ralph Zuranski: You know, what are the things parents can do that will help their children realize they can, they also can be heroes and make a positive impact on the lives of others?
Michel Fortin: Well, if I had to – if I could boil it down, I think – I said two core actions or two core activities on this call. They are teach and listen, and how parents can make changes in the lives of their kids – the first thing, of course, is to listen.
Michel Fortin: A lot of the strife that we have in today’s world, I believe, and I’m a firm believer, that is because we are all so busy with the goings-on in our lives that we don’t stop and listen as much as to our own selves, as much as to the people around us, and more importantly to the kids in our lives. If you just take a chance to sit down and just listen, and the second part, which is to teach, to educate.
Michel Fortin: You know, teachers are probably the most underrated people in our society, the most underrated profession in our society. I’m a big believer in teachers. I mean, I used to be one and, I mean I’m a teacher right now, being a copywriting coach as much as a motivational speaker or whatever you want to call it, but it’s all teaching. That’s all it really is. It’s not motivation. It’s not all that stuff. It’s teaching. So, yeah, that would be those two fundamental activities – listen and teach.