I have been a fan of Debbie Ford’s work for many years. I was first introduced to her many years ago when she appeared on Oprah to talk about her book, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers. She is an expert on the saboteur and our shadow selves, and she always has such great insight into looking within and finding out what deep inner blocks are keeping us from reaching our dreams.

She has a great course on the on this topic that I can personally recommend.

I came across one of her books that I hadn’t read before the other day, and I’m so excited to recommend it to you all today!

It’s called
The Right Questions:
The Ten Essential Questions to Guide You to More

As many of you know, I am in a real-world marketing school. It’s not something that I ever would’ve imagined I would be doing. And honestly, I’m still wrestling with the concept of promoting myself, my work, and my message. So many of us who are in the healing/inspiring/nurturing field feel this way. We feel that if we are promoting our message we somehow become sleazy salespeople (images of slicked back hair and bad 70s suits come to my mind for some reason). =&0=& I know this firsthand. Dan and I have achieved some success with our business over the years. And yet, we never really achieved the high level of success that we both were shooting for. You know why? Because we rarely marketed it. It’s true. We always felt strange making calls or emailing our accounts.  We didn’t want to bother them. We told ourselves that they would call when they were ready to order. But you know what happens? We forgot that we weren’t at the forefront of their minds – these were busy store owners who had so much on their plate already. How could they be expected to remember when our journals sold out? And then it hit me. We were actually doing them a favor (and ourselves a favor at the same time) by staying on the radar. By checking in more often. By believing in ourselves and our product so deeply that we honestly felt that we were helping their customers by offering it to them. It just took a shift in our mindset. I would imagine that a lot of you are also in this same mindset. If you truly are passionate about what you do – there is absolutely nothing wrong with making money from it and promoting it. To help give you some tools to get your marketing campaign off the ground, you may want to start with this book: Crush It: Why NOW is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion=&1=&

I believe that our thoughts create our reality.

This means that our thoughts have the power to create all of the wonderful things that happen to us each day. When we are happy and filled with abundance, we can pat ourselves on the back for creating that and attracting that into our life.

I was introduced to Mattie Stepanek the same way most of us were – when he appeared on Oprah 10 years ago. I was immediately drawn to his soul. I was amazed at how strong his spirit was in such a weakened body. I was touched by his words of peace and his love for humanity.  Mattie was just 11 when he appeared on Oprah. He was born with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, which made him rely on a ventilator and be in a wheelchair. He died in 2004, just shy of his 14th birthday. He was a wonderfully talented and prolific poet, and he wrote several bestselling books about love and peace and growing up in his world. I recently read many of his books, and I was so moved by his sweetness and depth. I was touched by his pure heart and knowing soul. He was so kind and sensitive and caring and inspiring. Most of his books centered around his “Heartsongs.” Here is how how defined this term: A heartsong doesn’t have to be a song in your heart. It doesn’t have to be talking about love and peace. It can just be your message. It can be your feeling. Some people might even call it a conscience, even though that’s not really what it is. It’s your message, what you feel like you need to do. Everyone has a heartsong. No matter what it is, it still sings the same beautiful message of peace and love. People are fighting over how our heartsongs are different. But they don’t need to be the same. That’s the beauty. We are a mosaic of gifts. Each of us has our inner beauty no matter how we look. When Oprah asked him what he knew for sure, this is what he said:  That our attitude is a choice. I believe we can decide to be miserable, to roll ourselves in the dirt and say, ‘Hit me again.’ But when we do that, we’re missing out on so much! I know for sure that while it’s great to have role models, we should never try to be anyone but ourselves. I know for sure that when we use words, not bombs, we all get peace. I know for sure that there’s something bigger than the here and now—some people call it God, some call it Buddha, some call it Yahweh. I know for sure that we don’t need to be afraid of death, because we’ll be greeted by something better on the other side. And I know for sure that life is a gift to be treasured—and that we must always live it to the fullest. He had such a wide impact on our planet in the short time he was here. He worked tirelessly at spreading his message of peace, and this message continues today.  If you would like to read more about Mattie, here is his website that his mom updates regularly. She also just came out with a new book about him that I have just begun to read: Messenger: The Legacy of Mattie J.T. Stepanek and Heartsongs I feel blessed to have been alive while he was alive. He was a true angel here on Earth. Thank you, Mattie. May we all take his message to heart and bring our own heartsongs into the world.