In November of 2002, I was asked to speak at one of the monthly dinner meetings of the Atlanta chapter of the Georgia Tech Alumni Assn. Actually, it was a subgroup of that chapter whose members were either unemployed or mis-employed.
Why was I asked? Because, at the time, I was a corporate headhunter and they thought I might be able to help some of them get a job. I chose the following topic for my speech that night:
Get a life, then get a job--my seven secrets:
- Lead a simple, uncluttered life.
- Get real serious about getting healthy and fit.
- Purge yourself of relationships that don't bring you joy.
- Follow your passion and find a way to make a living doing what you love.
- Learn to live on far less than you can earn and achieve financial freedom as early in life as possible.
- Get involved with some serious fun; things that bring you joy and satisfaction.
- Sort out your feelings about faith, hope and the things that motivate you to be all that you can be.
Little did I know that night that it would be the reaction to my talk that would be the spark that led to my future as a writer, speaker, wellness consultant and activist. The day after my speech, I received many emails of thanks from those Tech grads; letting me know how much they appreciated my message.
That got me to thinking about scheduling some one-day "Get a Life" seminars that my partners and I would conduct as a way of supplementing our income during the hiring freezes of post 9-11 era. But, before we could do that, we first needed to educate ourselves relative to the above seven "secrets" -- so that we could deliver a helpful 45-minute workshop on each topic.
Well, I chose topic #2 (health) first and started reading everything I could find. And the rest is history. By the way, we never did launch those seminars, but the curiosity that sprung from that evening at Georgia Tech has changed my life forever.
As I began to study about healthy eating, I soon realized that I had stumbled upon the most important topic in the history of humanity--our food choices in the 21st century. For more of the details about my journey,
click here.
