Journeyman Stories

Believe it or not, this is the first time that I am writing a blog about a place I have never been to. But I am not worried about that because, in a couple of hours I will be on a flight heading there. Just looking at the map to see where I would be staying got me so excited. It is just a couple of blocks away from Madison Square Garden, the Mecca as Basketball fans call it. I will make sure that I have a camera with me and a pen just in case I meet people who would like to have my autograph (or the other way around). I hope to meet Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert so they can get to know a little about me, before I am invited to be on their show to promote my book (yes I heard MLK speech “I have a dream”) The reason why I am going to New York (one of 4 trips I will take there this year) is to particiapte in a leadership course (yes we can) that will go up to October. To tell you the truth I have no idea of what to expect from the course other than what I read; I was al...

As I am finishing up a fully loaded busy week, I can't help but think about a wonderful lesson I learned this week. I learned that my blog really rocks. Just kidding. I was on the phone the other day with a great friend of mine, and she (yes it's a she) was telling me about her day and how life is good. She told me that a good friend of hers came to see her, seeking moral support as he was missing his parents who were very far from him. As my friend listened to him, as she always does with everybody, she was praying for some kind of inspiration to find the right words to say to her friend. She came up with a pretty cool answer. She simply said to her friend: “I really understand your pain. You do miss your parents. And you should. But think about those people who miss their parents but who cannot see them anymore because they are no longer alive. At least yours are at a phone call away.” Her friend had no other words to add. It was so true. I was so moved by my friend's ans...

Last Thursday I was so inspired to write this blog but I did not do it, and now I have to recall everything ( you can say that I was the king of the biggest nation in the world: (Procasti)nation lol). Why was I inspired, you may ask. I was attending a four day conference and was inspired by the great food we had for lunch. Just kidding (maybe not). We had keyote speakers, for each of the conference morning sessions, who were very inspiring. The one who inspired me the most was Dr. Richard Heinzi, founder of Doctors Without Borders, Canada (needless to say that I took a picture with him so that I could brag about it in my blog, lol). This guy has been in over 100 countries helping people. This has been his passion since he left medical school. We could see that passion in his eyes as he was telling his stories. He almost cried when recounting his involvement in the first free elections in South Africa. There he witnessed a 80 year old handicap Black woman cast her vote for the fir...

As I was waiting for my flight to Toronto from Ottawa, I couldn't help but smile at what has been my life for the last couple of weeks. Ottawa was great. I met people that I haven't seen, for about 10 years, others for a couple of months. It is always great to meet with old friends. I went to Ottawa for a conference and I had dual duties. I was one of the speakers as well as participants. My presentation was scheduled for the first day, so I got to enjoy others' presentations (as well as the free food and nice hotel room. I went just for that lol). The response to my presentation was great and while I was getting this great feedback, my mind went back 7 years ago. Yes, it was seven years ago that I met my friend Paul. It was a fall night of 2003 when I saw this guy on the subway platform waring a nice blue jacket. I went to him and just said:"nice jacket". The guy smiled and we started chatting a little bit. He mentioned that his passion was to help people to sta...

This past week has been very interesting in many ways. First of all, I have never spent this amount of time on the phone (and not wanting to hang up). I know some of you have been in those moments, and those of you who can read between the lines will understand why lol To tell you the truth, I don’t know where to start. Let me begin by this. I had a very interesting phone call yesterday morning from George from LifeSuccess Publishing. We had a 10 minutes conversation that got me so excited. It has been a while now since I have been receiving great feedback about my blog. I didn’t realize that so many people read it. I only began writing it for fun. Many people (including my mom) told me that I should write a book. As I was browsing through the Internet, I came across a message from one of the top speakers in the world. He spoke about how he could help people to write and promote their own books. (coincidence? I don’t think so). He talked about a company called LifeSuccess Publishing;...

The last few days have been full of surprises. Some good, some others not so good. That is the beauty of life. It is unpredictable. Whenever I am in a place where I think I have it all figured out, life has a way of putting me right in my place if you know what I mean. Now, all I have to do is enjoy the ride and be just an observer of what is happening (I think I missed my career. I should have been a philosopher, what do you think?) As far as I can remember, I have always had big dreams. I remember when I was coaching Basketball, I used to tell my players that I would bring them to play in the Olympics one day. At that time our team was so poor that we had one uniform (we were praying not to have two games back to back otherwise we would play with no uniform). We used to go to the games so early because we relied on rides from strangers on the street (as you can see, we were ready to go to the Olympics lol).But I am glad I had those dreams because along the way I accomplished things t...

Have you ever been in a situation when it seems that you are in a dream? That was me in March 2009. For about 6 months I was part of Toasmasters International. For those who do not know Toastmasters, it is a club that trains people to speak in public. Public speaking has been one of my passions lately and I felt I could do it as a profession (I used to be shy but now I'm not). Being part of the club, I received their monthly magazine. I must admit that I rarely read it (procrastination maybe, but I'm getting over it). But one day, while flipping through it, I noticed that there was a company offerring special training to people who would like to become professional public speakers (and I was one of them). Before you knew it, I was on their website. On the main page was a video of one of the top speakers in the world (that is my opinion, but it is so because the world does not know of me as yet lol). This guy said that he had received this training , and that was...