Flash back to July 1998.
My dad was three months away from his 60th birthday—just retired, and contemplating the things he wanted to do with the rest of his life now that he had stopped working at a relatively “young” age.
He just needed to check out the nagging cough that had suddenly presented itself and wouldn’t go away—bringing along with it a steady low-grade fever. He had put off going to the doctor for several weeks, as he was someone who prided himself as never having to take one sick day in his entire working life.
And the rest of the story goes downhill from here.
Flash forward to October 8, 1998—3 months later and his 60th birthday. I was sitting with him in a lung specialist’s office at the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, when he got the final news.
“You have a golf-ball sized tumor on your left lung”, the doctor articulated slowly and matter-of-factly—as if he delivered this sort of news on a routine basis in his work.
“The typical life expectancy for this is 6 months.”
What happened next is s a sort of blur for me—so I can’t even begin to imagine what it was like being the person actually on the receiving end of that prognosis. What I do know is that I was never the same after that moment. Being with someone just turning age 60 and hearing their death prognosis, whether you are related to them or not, can’t help but have a wake-up call affect on you. It was like being struck by lightening—unexpected and strong enough to jolt you out of your body into another place.
He spent the next two and final years of his life living with me, and I am grateful for the conversations we had during that time. They were the conversations that we had never had while I was growing up.
One of them –though brief—is etched in my mind and was the catalyst for much of the change I have made in my life since that day.
We were sitting in a coffee shop in the middle of a shopping mall, as he wanted to get out of the house but was too tired to walk around much. I asked him what he was thinking about, and he responded,
“That we think we have all the time in the world—and we really don’t”.
I looked at him and asked him what he regretted not doing more of, and his reply has stuck with me to this day,
“I never really did enough soul searching,” he replied. “I just went through the days doing what everyone does…”
“I really wanted to be a lawyer because I believe in fairness and justice—but I guess I wasn’t brave enough to make the changes I needed to make.”
This single conversation was probably the most poignant and impactful conversation I have ever had with anyone, ever. Only one more life event, the loss of my best friend’s daughter at age 10 ten years later, had the same type of impact on my life.
I immediately began the soul search my dad had eluded to and regretted not doing—and subsequently made big changes in my own life and career direction in the following years.
After my own personal journey and over 20 years of study, personal transformation, and experience in leadership development and helping people change and grow, I am ready to launch a new program that I really think I have been preparing to do my whole life.
It’s called—“Soul Search Sessions .”
It’s program for people who are at a point in their lives where they are searching for “something more”.
For people who want to live fully awake, play the music that is inside of them, and maximize their impact in the world.
It is for anyone who is ready to stop playing shallow and go deep.
It walks you through 5 steps. It is a process to get in touch with yourself at the soul level, behind all the masks you wear to others.
It is a call to action to stop wasting time and maximize your full impact in the world.
The program is dedicated to my dad.
I wish he was here to take it.
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