It's not about cancer

If you don't know who Randy Pausch is, you should. Dr. Pausch is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and he has three to six months to live. And LIVE he will.... This video, "The Last Lecture" is well worth watching even though it is over an hour long. Get comfy, pull up a chair grab a coffee and listen.

Randy Pausch's PhD means he knows a lot about computer science and virtual reality, but this lecture demonstrates that he knows a lot about living life and how to achieve your dreams as well. Key points that resonated with me:

The importance of People Who Help Us: family, friends, collegues, bosses. We can't achieve success alone.
Having lost my mother at an early age, and having a father who was absent in a lot of ways taught me early on to do things myself. I've been spending the last few years unlearning some of that. It's not only OK to ask for help, but sometimes, to really be successful, it takes more than one person, and when you have a team of talented, dedicated people working together you can make a difference in the world.

How people perceive you can limit your ability to succeed.
Like it or not, Perception is reality as any good marketeer will tell you!

Do the right thing and good things have a way of happening.
This is a hard piece of advice, especially when you look around and see people that seem to be successful by cheating or lying, and it looks so easy to do it that way.

Be good at something.
This is another one that's challenging. Sometimes it takes a long time to figure out what you're good at.

Get a feedback loop and listen to it.
This is one of my favorites, I call it a personal mantra. My current mantra is "Live Like There is No Tomorrow" which to me means living life to its fullest, being prepared to take advantage of opportunities, and asking for help if I need it.

What's your personal mantra? Who do you find inspirational? and if you have a minute, say a prayer for Randy Pausch and his family... especially his three children.

Pray it forward

If you're like me you go through the routine of your day. Maybe you start out with a latte at your favorite gourmet coffee stop on your way to work. Maybe you get ticked off at the guy who cut you off or the woman who is going too slow. In the fast lane.
You go to work. You have lunch with friends, run some errands on the way home, cook dinner, tinker around on the computer a bit then go to bed.
You start the whole thing over the next day.

And maybe somewhere in the routine of the day you come across a post on a blog by a woman who asks the question:

....what you would do if you had only 12 months left to live. What would be really important for you, the things that mean so much, that you would regret if you didn't do them and left this planet soon....
READ MORE HERE

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As you read further you discover that this young woman, young mother, who's name Jen is similar to your own but she has only one 'n', is asking the question because she has an agressive form of colon cancer.

Maybe that gets you to thinking about what really IS important.

You wonder what WOULD you do. Or maybe you just DO.

Needle Ninny

Been meaning to post this for a while.... my sister, like me, is not especially fond of needles. Unfortunately, since she has breast cancer, she's been forced to deal with a lot of needles. And she has gone one step further even, doing acupuncture, voluntarily even. I'll let her tell you in her own words:

http://video.nbcsandiego.com/player/?id=162500

sorry I couldn't find a way to embed the video here, but go ahead and click if you are 1. curious about my sister 2. interested in acupuncture and how it could help breast cancer survivors.

Shameless Plug

This is a shameless plug promoting my sister's (ad)venture as a Gyrotonic instructor.

Most of you know Debby's story...
in 2000 she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

It was caught early,
and after the standard course of treatment the prognosis looked good.



But (there's always a but), in 2004 it was discovered again, this time as metastisized breast cancer...
landing in her bones, specifically her pelvis. She was treated with chemo, and with radiation.

The drugs left her weak and thin and the radiation left her hip muscle damaged-- at one point she was even using a walker.

In her quest to regain her strength, and improve the range of motion in her hip, through a friend who is a physical therapist, she found Gyrotonic exercise. If you had seen my sister in 2004, you would not recognize her today. She not only looks great, she is successfully keeping the cancer at bay and her physical fitness has improved significantly. In fact, the attached postcard is a picture of Debby on the Gryotonic tower.

Debby liked the exercise system so much that she determined to become a certified Gyrotonic instructor, which she completed earlier this year.

The exercise system is similar to pilates. You work one-on-one with an instructor utilizing the machine's system of weights and pulleys for resistance training. I liken a Gryotonic session to something between a workout and a massage. The next day you definitely feel like you got a work out, and all the stretching and rotational movement makes you feel like you got a massage.

A private session is usually $65, but as a new Gyrotonic instructor, Debby is offering a first time client special of $35 for an hour-long session.... She's working out of a pilates studio in Encinitas on El Camino Real just north of Encinitas Boulevard. (The Pilates Place is located at 317 N. El Camino Real Suite 109, Encinitas, CA)

I know this is not for everyone-- maybe it's not in your budget, maybe Encinitas is too far-- but (see, I told you there's always a but!) maybe you know someone this would be perfect for, and you could pass this along.

If you have any questions, give me a holler, or an email, or call Debby direct.

Thanks for reading! No obligation to buy anything, ever...