Positive Thinking: The Story of A Guy Who Defeated 4th Stage Cancer - Two Sides of the Positive/Negative Thinking Coin

Work is going terrible? Things look bad? 

You think you have it bad now? Seriously? 


Let me tell you about my friend Paul (not his real name) and how his life and death are a good lesson for us all.


Paul was a very popular and well known guy. You might say he was famous. At least in the music business in Japan, everyone knew him. Everyone in the world who knows a very famous late 80s ~ early 90s Japanese all-girl punk band  knows his work. Paul lived a fun and full fast life; fast foods, late nights, drinking and other recreational activities. Besides that, Paul was a heavy cigarette smoker for years. 


One day, out of the blue, Paul had a sore throat. The sore throat didn't go away after a few weeks so Paul went to the doctor again. There, he was diagnosed with forth stage cancer of the throat. 


The forth stage of cancer is, as you may know, the worst and final stages of the disease. Forth stage usually means that the cancer has penetrated the lymph system of the human body. The chances of survival are less than 5%... Suddenly, with all these things going on you'd think that Paul would get very depressed.


Well, he did. Like most people, Paul got very depressed. 


Soon, his condition got worse. It got a lot worse. Of course it did. It had to with an attitude like that.


Then, one day, while he was at work, we met and had a nice long talk. This was after I helped my own daughter defeat forth stage cancer. Paul believed that I could tell him why some people defeat cancer and why some people don't. 


Paul was a difficult discussion. Paul was a like a "sponge." Unconsciously, he was sucking the life and energy out of everyone he came into contact with. I could feel it. He was in a near panic that he felt he was going to die soon. Paul was grasping, searching for me, for anyone, to tell him some sort of knowledge, some sort of epiphany, some sort of magic that would make it all go away. He wanted some sort of "key" to wisdom that would answer his questions and make him healthy again. 


I told him that the knowledge I have he already knows too. I told him that he already knew what had to be done, he just hadn't realized that it was there, right in front of him, the entire time.


Paul told me that whenever he went to the doctor's office (of course it was the doctor for cancer so all the patient's there were cancer patients) he would enter the waiting room. In the waiting room everyone would be looking down. Whenever a new patient entered the room, they look up look nervously at the faces of the other patients. Everyone, he said, would be reading each other's faces and body language to try to determine who was the next one to die and who would survive. 


They were all sponges taking the life energy out of each other. It was like death row at a prison.


I asked Paul to stop this behavior immediately. I asked him to stop being a sponge. I asked him to stop absorbing the light from other people and, instead, start projecting the light. I told him that, instead of entering the doctors waiting room, nervously, like the others, enter bringing hope for everyone else. Smile and be positive. Show the others that you (Paul) are going to be one that survives. Show them the way that they can survive and, not only survive, how to thrive. 


I hate to sound corny, but John Lennon had it right; "And in the end, the love you get is equal to the love you give."


I told him to stop taking energy from others and, instead, to start giving out positive energy.


Paul also told me that he knew that if he could just convince the doctors and the nurses that he was going to recover that he would recover. I told him that he was wrong. I told him that he didn't need to convince the doctors and the nurses; he only needed to convince himself. 

I believe that ancient books, like the bible, are filled with wonderful stories that are not necessary to be taken literally, but to be understood figuratively. In the bible, when Jesus walked on water, we know that it is literally impossible to walk on water. But we know that people can do the "impossible." I think Jesus walking on water means that he accomplished what people thought was impossible... Perhaps like the Wright Brothers making a flying machine. In the bible, Jesus said, "All you need to do is to have faith."


I told Paul that it wasn't necessary for the doctors and nurses and his wife and children to believe that he was going to be cured. It was only necessary that he believed that he was going to be cured.


I told him to take the 5 tips towards winning that I mentioned yesterday. I told him that he needed to do that because he needed to train his mind to be positive for the rest of his life. He promised me he would. He did. He did it religiously, he told me. I also told him that,


"When you recover, you must remember to wake up everyday and continue with these steps to prevent the cancer from returning." This is obvious as a cancer is a physiological disorder and a positive mental attitude is necessary to stop it or keep it at bay.


Paul took my advice to heart. He started becoming positive again. He started going to the doctors office and, when the door opened and he entered, he was light a bright shining star bringing happiness and positivity to the other patients. He greeted everyone with a smile. He started creating in his heart the image and the belief that he was positive and that he was a good force and that he was actually, through his positivity and his actions, healing himself and helping others to heal.


Soon, Paul's cancer shrank and fell back into remission. He was ecstatic. His doctor was extremely pleased. 
   
The next time I met him he was a changed man. I couldn't believe how much he thanked me. But he needn't thank me. I told him nothing that he didn't already know: That faith and positive thinking and beliefs can move mountains.


But, alas, this story doesn't have a happy ending. But it does have an important lesson for everyone: Several months later, upon being given a clean bill of health, and being told that the cancer was in complete remission by the doctors, Paul returned to work and his normal lifestyle, Paul began to live as he did before...  


One day, after work, when riding his motorcycle home, he was hit at an intersection by a car and the accident severely broke his hipbone in several places. Paul had to return to the hospital where he languished. He was mentally shattered by this accident. 


I believe that Paul was so disappointed by this accident and the fact that he had to return to the hospital bed for a few months that he fell into deep depression. 


I spoke to Paul again, briefly on the phone, and he was a defeated man. He was crushed to be back into the hospital. Soon after, I'm sure to nobody's surprise, the cancer returned. Paul would die from complications from the cancer and the treatment soon after.


Like I said, there seems to be an important lesson here. When Paul became positive, he healed himself. When he became depressed, he got sick. Could the quickness of this change and how the illness returned show anything but the importance of a positive mental attitude?


A positive mental attitude is not something that you can just turn on and off like a light switch. It must be grown and it must be cultivated. 


A beautiful garden of flowers and roses does not appear overnight. It takes months of doing groundwork, shoveling, spading, planting, watering and nurturing.


Are you doing enough to nurture your soul and your positive attitude? Are you doing enough so that you can become a beacon of light?

For more read the 5 tips towards winning 

The Millionaire Blogger?

“Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.” - Charles F. Kettering

"The Millionaire Blogger." That's what my friend had told me that he was going to call his blog pretty soon. "The Millionaire Blogger!" pretty cool, I thought. "Ron" figured that by March of 2012 or so, he'd have a million reads and his new business would be worth at least about $5 million-plus US dollars to him by 2013. So, he figured that he could be one of the very people who is a millionaire and blogs. Ron was hoping that he could blog and help others make money and live better... I liked his idea.


Well, now, he figures that he can hit the million reads mark, but the $5 million-plus dollars might have just gone up in smoke. Poof! 

You read that right; I've said before that I have some very rich friends, but I also have many almost rich friends. One of them is my friend Ron. 


Ron and his partners (and investors) started a new company that they had  estimated that would have sales of about $20 million dollars annually by end of 2013 and, if Ron sold his founding shares in the company, he stood to gain anywhere between $3.5 to $10.5 million US dollars. Not bad for four years work.


Ron told me yesterday that things seem to have not turned out that way at all. I had warned him.


Ron said that some very disturbing facts have come to light, so he had gone through serious bouts of worry, desperation and stress... Sometimes Ron  says he spends an entire day depressed and starts drinking early in the day (I know, he'd been calling me and ask me to come over many times up until six weeks ago). Ron said his wife thinks that he shouldn't get depressed, but I understand Ron. I would imagine that most people who spent nearly two years working without pay on a brilliant project and then started up that project to great success only to find out that they'd been screwed by their investor, would be depressed. 


Some people would want to kill themselves... Or the investor. I might fall into the latter category. 

I can't go into too much detail, but, just two months after starting up his new company, Ron and crew were such darlings and big news in the media that they drew attention from some of the biggest investment firms in Japan. Soon, they were able to have one of the biggest and most famous companies in Japan become a strategic investor. People were blown away. I was. I said to Ron, "You guys just started up! How in the world did you manage to get that company to invest in you?" Ron just smiled.


I think most people might be depressed when they found out that the strategic investor wasn't actually interested in their company and their idea as a separate, mutually beneficial entity but were only interested in stealing that companies ideas and technology and using it for themselves.


It looks like they did that too... In spite of my efforts to warn Ron and his partners what I thought the real motivations of their strategic "partner" were. Ron listened to me. But Ron's parters were all on seventh heaven when they concluded an agreement for investment. This deal was big news all over Japan.


Ron told me about negotiations and I gave my advice. Things he told me just  didn't sit right with me and I warned Ron. Ron tried to warn his partners, but they wouldn't listen. They were convinced that the partner was interested in them as a mutually profitable partnership. I suspected that they were only interested in using Ron's idea for their own ends. I convinced him of the same.


Soon, though, Ron and partners only saw dollar signs in their eyes, I was still suspicious of the investors motivations... In fact, at the only meeting I attended, I felt that I could read the investors motivations like a cook book sitting open right in front of my face. The thing on the menu? Ron's company.


I was right. But, as a mere advisor, I can only do as much. Ron and his partners took the bait; hook line and sinker. They refused to listen or even be suspicious.  They signed the contract, the partners got their way,... So, now Ron's company  lost. 


Ron's company lost the battle. But they haven't lost the war. 


Like I said, Ron told me that he had been depressed and seriously stressed out, but something happened to him six weeks ago. We met and I recommended to him that he change his mind and take it easy and not to stress out about it anymore. I told him to read a blog post by James Altucher who talks about how he lost MUCH more money, $20 million dollars to be exact, and, instead of lying on the bed getting depressed, he decided that he was going to "surrender."


Yeah. That's it. He surrendered. Surrendering didn't mean giving up, it meant that he allocated his fate to "whatever happens, happens." 


That's what I told Ron to do a month and a half ago too. To give up. I have always believed that everything happens for a reason and, if you look for the positive, you'll find it and out of any bad experience, something good will come.


I told Ron to decide to let his life go to fate, faith, God, nature, the spirits, fortune, whatever you want to call it. I told him to decide that he wasn't going to stress and fret. I told him to decide that he was going to keep on going and not let this negativity stop him. He had to keep going and doing what he does best.


I told him to remember that the company that stole his companies idea and technology may have won the battle for now, but they haven't won the war. There is still a huge opportunity sitting there and I ask that he consider picking up the pieces, assessing the situation with a calm and collected frame of mind  and figure out how to put them back together into something even better than before.


Just because, say, a convenience store across the street comes out with a new  cash register, that doesn't mean Ron's convenience store on this side of the street is going to lose all their customers and close up shop. Nope. 


This might sound contradictory, but here's the way I would see it if I were in Ron's shoes. I told Ron that I would think: 


"I may have lost everything already, so I haven't anything to more to lose. They can't do anything to damage me anymore at all. So there is nowhere to go for me but up." 


Things can just only work out for the better that way. 


They can't damage me anymore, but I can do damage to them. Great ideas come from great minds. They have stolen an idea, but they haven't stolen my minds. Positivity will create more great ideas. If they had great ideas, then they wouldn't have needed to steal mine. So, this incident just proves that they cannot create innovation, but I can. I will. Time is on my side."


I asked Ron that he and his CEO and staff come up with some new ideas. Ideas that they would have never imagined had they not been forced to think of a different way and a different angle though this experience.


It worked like a charm! I saw Ron yesterday and we had lunch together. He was a changed man.


He told me, 


"Mike! I have given up my fears and given up my stress and worries. I have, like James Altucher recommends, given up my future to "the Force" (Star Wars) and, no, that doesn't mean that I am going to lay down in my bed and pout all day, that means that I am going to think, plan create and grow.

I believe that, from this experience, my company and I can be taken on a different plane and a different path towards success... In fact, since we have come up with a new brilliant plan we are more convinced than ever that the new way is better than the last. Now, instead of grief and despair, I can see how we can make an even better project and make even more money. Thanks to you.  


But, as with all things in life, nothing is certain and it is a bit of a gamble. But isn't that what's exciting? After all, what is a successful business? It is not a breakthrough technology or just a plan. There have been many companies that had excellent plans and totally new and breakthrough technologies that have failed. But the successful business or plan is created by having great people; the right people. I know we have the right people riding on the bus and we are going in the right direction.


I'm thinking now that our new plan will greatly upset our "partner" because we've set it up so that they are left out. They took from us what they thought was useful. But, the problem is that, if they knew what they were doing in the first place, they would have never needed us. They took what they wanted but failed to recognize the future of this business. We were in it longer than they were and have already seen from the streets the results of our efforts, we had already been evolving the process. They have just kicked off their system (that is a mirror of ours several months ago) filled with all the things that we realized were wrong a long time ago. We certainly are not going to point out the error in their ways.


Several months may not seem like a long time, but in the Internet business, several months is a lifetime.

I won't look to our strategic "partners" as "criminals" - what one of my founding partners called them - but will look upon them as the competition... 

They might be the competition but we were the originals and we are the ones who are the leaders and the creators and the ones who will always be the innovators. They won't. They will always be the copy machines. Drones without new ideas."


I was so happy to see Ron back to his old self. Ron's always been one of these super go-getter guys. You know,  ready to climb Mount Everest by lunchtime and at a dinner meeting in Paris by 7 pm.


There's a lesson here from Ron for you, me and all of us.


I don't want to get depressed, stressed or mad. You shouldn't either.


In my case, everyday, no matter what, I have decided to keep doing the best. I won't get sad and I will keep going out and meeting people and talking about and promoting my business. I will keep reading books and sharing new ideas. 
We all need to take a total assessment of our situations at all times. Things might seem bad at this very moment, but look at the situation overall. That there are troubles and difficulties are expected and obvious. Rome wasn't built in a day. We all must use our way of thinking to create good self-fulfilling prophesies and not negative ones. 


Regardless of your situation, you can do the same thing too. Do not fret about your situation, but use it as a lesson in life. Use it to learn and to better yourself. Falling into a state of worry, fear or depression, will only make the situation worse. Remember the story about "self-fulfilling prophesy." You can create a better situation for yourself but you must first create that situation in your own mind. 


That's what I am going to do... As well as giving myself up to fate and faith and knowing that, if I always do right by myself and others, good things will surely come to me. And they can come to you.


Like they say, the best revenge in life is success.

My Best Friend Died

This is a very difficult post to write.


My best friend's name was David. His picture was on the front page of the newspaper. The newspaper said, "David, Father Die in Boating Accident." 

"That's impossible!" I thought. I didn't want to believe it. I read and reread the newspaper article over and over in the hopes that I was misunderstanding what I was reading. I was hoping it meant that 'David's father died. But not David.' 


Forgive me for wishing such a morbid thing, but that's what I thought.


...But there was no misunderstanding. David was dead.


I cried and cried. How could that possibly have happened? I just saw him the day before and we talked and had fun. We always had fun. David was my very best friend.


I think David was everyone's best friend because he was such a nice guy. 


When I heard the news, and realized it wasn't a mistake, I cried all day. I desperately wanted to know how it happened and why it happened. I wanted to know the exact details. I called my friends and, a few days later, they had a school meeting for classmates and explained to us about the accident. 


But I still wasn't satisfied with the details. Besides how and what, I wanted to know "why"? Why did god allow this to happen to my best friend? Why did god allow this to happen to such a good person? 


After all the questions I asked and all the details I found, I found out that they were fishing in the Lake of the Woods. The boat was overloaded and slipped under water and that the dad had tried to save David but the water was too cold and they both drowned.


That's how it happened. That still didn't answer the question for me as to why it happened. 


I was upset. "Why did god allow this to happen?" "Why does god allow bad things to happen to good people?" 


David was 7-years-old and he was boating and fishing with his dad in a lake in Minnesota. The photo of him on the front page of the newspaper was the class photo they took of him from our second grade class. I recognized it immediately.


That was 47 years ago. In 1964.


What a waste. He was a handsome kid. I think I was jealous of him because I thought he was more handsome than me. I wonder what he would have become had he lived? 


I have thought about David off and on over these past decades. Yesterday, memories of David suddenly came back to me like a shot to the head.


My own seven-year-old son was off to a friend's house to play with some other of his friends. I was sleeping on the sofa in the living room when my wife returned from the friend's house and she was very flustered. She woke me up. Her face was all red and she seemed like she was about to cry.


I was still half asleep. She started rambling on about something and it was difficult to follow what she wanted to say. It was concerning one of the boys who was supposed to come and play with my son and the others but couldn't make it that day. When my son's friend's mom had called that boy's father to ask about his absence, the father had said something like "He can't come to play as he is, 'no more.'"


He is "no more?"


My son's friend's mom is not a native English speaker so when my son (and her son) heard this "no more" they were sure she merely misunderstood and laughed about it. Why not? They were just playing with him at school yesterday and kicking the soccer ball around together.


This boy was happy as can be and as fit as a fiddle and had the whole world and his entire life in front of him... He was one of the top students in class. He was one of my son's best friends; he was everyone's best friend. He couldn't be "no more." That couldn't happen.


My son goes to a school with a large international enrollment. There are children at that school who come from all over the world. Some of their parents do not speak English well so sometimes there are miscommunications. My wife told me about this conversation and asked me to confirm if, "...he is, 'no more'" means what we think it means.


I called the boy's house, there was no answer. Then, against my better judgement, and against common courtesy, I called a cell phone number that is listed on the class schedule given to parents to be used in cases of emergency. I talked to the father.


I knew immediately from the tone of his voice what the meaning of "No more" was. It was exactly what you or I would fear it meant.


The poor boy had died the night before. I said, "I'm sorry" and "God bless you all" and hung up the phone. 


I thought immediately of my friend David from so many years ago. Here he was visiting me again. 


I also immediately thought of what I was going to tell my son and his other seven year old friends. Like I said, they didn't believe it. Why should they? It is unbelievable.  


How did this wonderful little boy die? We don't know yet. We will know how someday soon, I reckon. But we will never know "why."


Maybe the "why" is for each of us to decide for ourselves. I'm not sure.


I went to my son's friend's house to report the news. When the mother saw my face, she knew the news. I asked that she sit down and the kids playing to sit down also. I didn't beat around the bush. I told them the truth. 


There was stone silence. 


I'm not a priest, minister or man of the cloth so I didn't know what to say, but everyone was looking at me expectantly so I knew I had to say something. I spoke,


"I'm sure you will find out at school next week what happened to your friend. Now, I don't know. But, even when we find out what happened, it will always be difficult to understand why it happened.... 


When I was a little boy, I had a similar experience; my best friend drowned in a lake. I was so sad. I found out later how he died, but I never found out why. That's been many years ago and I still don't know why....


...All you can do now is to pray that he is happy and in a safe, warm place. And you must thank god for giving you the time you had to spend with this wonderful friend. Of course, you are sad and will miss him, but always thank god for the time you had and shared with your wonderful friend.... he will always be with you in your hearts...


Also remember that life is very short and we have to be very careful everyday. Accidents happen and, even though I am happy and healthy today, I could be hit by a car and killed or put in the hospital tomorrow, so we must be very careful when crossing streets or when walking near cars. It's always the car you don't see that is the one that hits you....


Pray for your friend and his family and always appreciate your friends that you have now. Give them a hug; give your parents a hug and thank god that you have such good friends and a mother and father who loves you very much."


I stuttered and stopped... I looked at their faces and they seemed to be thinking, "What is he talking about?"


I wanted to say, and should have said, something profound but I couldn't. I wanted to say something that would have made it all alright and set things straight. But I couldn't. What I said was lame. It was the minimum that had to be said, I suppose. 


Still silent, the kids all stared at me, eyes wide open and expressionless. The silence filled the room.


I sighed, paused and awkwardly looked at the floor. I didn't know what to do or say. I lightly slapped both hands on my knees and stood up. I meekly told the mother that I'd be back in a few hours to pick up my son as the kids held hands.


The kids were sad but they weren't crying. I think they still found it unbelievable that their friend could actually be gone so it hasn't sunk in what exactly has happened.


It may not sink in for 40 or 50 years. It didn't for me. Even then, as with me, they might know how, but they will probably never know exactly, "why"? 


Come to think of it, is there really ever a reason "why"?


There are lessons, I suppose. The lesson for me is that bad things do happen to good people. That can't be stopped. The only thing we can do is to try to learn something from it that can help the survivors to lead happier lives and become better people.


Later on when my son comes home, I'm going to hug him and try to explain the saying my good friend Ken always lives by. Ken says,


"Dream as if you will live forever. Live as if you will die tomorrow."


I hope the lesson of David and my son's friend helps my own son and his friends. I also hope it helps others as it has helped me, to become, if even a little bit, a better person (I hope). It has taken me nearly 50 years to write down this tribute to my dear friend David. Now, his death taught me a lesson that I can teach my son.


Remember to hug your kids today and tell them that you love them and that they are beautiful. And, of course, teach them to dream and to live each day to the fullest and to appreciate all the wonderful things this earth and god has given us.


They say that tomorrow never comes, but tomorrow, I think, tomorrow often comes much too quickly.