Okay, you might have noticed that I haven’t blogged in a while – a long while. Was I too busy? Something bad happened? No ideas for writing? Well, fortunately nothing bad (at least nothing too bad) has happened and I have a lot of ideas for writing. But truthfully, I’ve been really busy with a lot of other things going on my life and I’ve been rethinking a lot of things. I know, sounds heavy but don’t worry – it’s nothing too crazy.

The big change in my life is that I started seriously working out. You may wonder what that means as it can mean practically anything. To me, it means a structured weekly workout programs created with targeted goals in mind. In my case, I have some pretty particular goals for how I want to look and feel so I train seven days a week with a mix of cardio and weights. Today, I just completed day 52 and it feels great.

So what does health and exercise have to do with communication and personal development? Well, a few things. First of all, without your health you have nothing. While there are people that have become successes in business and politics with poor health, it’s the exception not the rule. You can’t motivate and inspire people when just walking to the stage makes you out of breath. You can’t be successful with your job or business if you lack the energy to put forth the effort needed to succeed. Yes you can get by with some extra cups of coffee and a sugar rush here and there, but it won’t sustain you for long. Eventually, it affects both your physical and mental health and it sets you up for failure. I’ll get more into detail on this in another post. Plus, there are a lot of correlations between exercise and personal development – I’ve been using analogies with exercise in my classes for years. Again, more to come.

As for the rethinking, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about a lot of different things since last summer. I’ve asked myself some tough questions, contemplated some radical changes and just spent some time brainstorming, reading and daydreaming. I have to say it’s been a fun process and I feel like I’ve grown from it. And no, I haven’t succumbed to any new age crazy thinking, I’ve just learned a few things and I’m excited to share them.

So from all of this, expect a few new things on this blog. First, I’ve added a category for health which will include all health-related posts. No, this blog isn’t going to get swamped about posts on how I eat or my workout routine, but I will be tagging posts that include information on health in the health category. If this turns you off because all you care about is public speaking or Toastmasters, you might to open your mind a bit here. You might not only learn some tips on how to be a better presenter or some stories to include in your talks, but you might just learn how to extend and enjoy your life.

The next thing is that you may notice a difference in the way I do posts. Historically my posts have been written like articles that you’d read in a newspaper or magazine (in terms of length and format). I’ll keep producing those types of posts but don’t be too surprised if you see some occasional personal posts from me as well as commentary. There’s so much out there to write about and sometimes, I feel it’s more beneficial to you the reader if I crank out a couple paragraphs on a focused topic rather than trying to find something else to add to it to make it a full length article. So keep a lookout, hook up to the RSS feed and as always, become a part of the Overnight Sensation community.

Related posts:

1. Why We Feel Inadequate
2. The Trouble With Thinking Big
3. Sharpening the Axe
4. Making 2010 a Fantastic Year

I don’t usually put personal posts on this blog but given that I haven’t posted anything in a while, I figured it’s time to at least let you all know that I’m still alive. Like most people in the US (and especially in the Northeast where we literally have wicked weather), December is a busy time for me. On the personal side, I celebrate Christmas and several birthdays of close relatives and friends. And this year was especially hectic because I actually did some traveling – I spent ten days at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.

So as you can see, there wasn’t a lot of time for working, writing and blogging. Of course, that will all change with the New Year. And in fact, I have a lot of exciting things going on that I can’t wait to share and some lessons that I’ve learned that I can’t wait to not only put to use, but to also write about. But before I get to the New Year, I want to talk a little about this year.

2010 was an interesting year with its share of ups and downs. And the good news was that the ups canceled out the downs. In fact, they all revolve around one theme – that I stopped dying and finally started living. I know that’s a loaded statement, so I’ll explain.

My year started off on a challenging note. I got a rude awakening during the early part of the year during a routine health checkup. I had quit drinking soda back in 2009 which resulted in me losing seven pounds within six months. I’m six feet tall and that helped me drop down to 190 pounds – a weight I felt was appropriate for my build and height. So when the person doing the check up told me I should make an appointment with my doctor ASAP, I was shocked (as were a lot of people).

Now, without getting into too many personal details, I needed to make some lifestyle changes. My family has a history of bad things including diabetes and various forms of cancer. Fortunately, I had neither -just some bad numbers that could have meant some very bad things had I been either ten years older or ten pounds heavier. So I finally committed to the healthy habits I said I would. I started exercising each day and kicked up the intensity. I also ate cleaner – dumping garbage foods for healthier options such as fresh fruit and vegetables. At some point, I’ll post a list of some of the food substitutions I made that I found most helpful (so sign up for the RSS feed).

Of course, a healthy body also needs a healthy mind so I made sure I started enjoying life. I had one of the best summers of my life this year – the song “Alive” by P.O.D. comes to mind whenever I think back about it. All summer I was up until the wee hours of the morning either chatting with friends or working on projects that I was excited about. Then as soon as the sun rose, I woke up full of energy and ready to start my day. I probably only got about five hours of sleep per night, but I rarely felt tired and I felt like my life had balance. I even got out quite a bit and spent time with people in real life. It’s been ages since I felt like I truly made the most of summer time.

Of course, all good things must come to an end so I said goodbye to the summer. My fall started off okay, but then became somewhat challenging. Four close family members were rushed to the hospital within a matter of weeks of each other, which is never easy. On top of that, I pushed myself harder than I normally do professionally, which caused me to cut out most of the fun stuff. Since I had so much stress with my personal life, I focused on my work. I had eighteen days straight where I worked between eight and fourteen hours each day. And while I was excited to get up each morning just a few months before, I was now finding it challenging to get out of bed. As the expression goes, when it rains it pours. And this time, I was hit with the perfect storm – a storm that resulted in me losing fourteen pounds within one month between stress and loss of appetite.

But of course, it can’t rain all the time and things eventually got back to normal. I think we all hate to admit that we can’t accomplish every single thing on our to do lists, but doing this saved me (as did having a great support system of friends that I could vent to or just talk things thing out with). I prioritized what needed to be done and didn’t worry about the small stuff. And a small miracle happened, the important stuff got done. For example: during that 18-day work-athon, I met a carpenter that not only did excellent work, but had a great rate and was very honest. So I had him tackle a few projects that had been bugging me for years and were on the verge of becoming serious issues.

I created a list for all these small tasks that are nice to have, but not really important. When I have a free moment, I look at the list and try to find one or two that I can knock off. More often than not, I find one or more items that has either resolved itself or become irrelevant so it gets removed from the list. Makes you wonder how it got on the list to begin with. But just like I wouldn’t have gotten my health in order had it not been for that scare at the check up, I wouldn’t have started getting my life in order had I not gone through that period of stress.

The challenges we face in life are like the check engine lights we have in our cars. You can drive around thinking your car is running fine, and it’s not until the light comes on and you bring it into the shop that you realize there’s a problem. And yes, that problem can be a bit of an inconvenience and a financial burden, but things will run better once it’s fixed. This year, I had no idea that I had these (and other) challenges. But once I faced them and dealt with them, my life got substantially better. Now, I just need to remind myself of this the next time I’m faced with a challenge.

Related posts:

1. On Being Bold
2. The Trouble With Thinking Big
3. Inspiration: Life is Too Short
4. Don’t Blink

I recently took a step back from social media because I found things getting to be quite intense and wanted to reflect on the role it’s played in both my personal and professional life. No, there weren’t any heated arguments or steamy love affairs. Instead, I found myself falling into a trap that many people fall into when it comes to social media – getting too immersed.

As I’ve shared with many of the “friends” I’ve connected with via social media, I first joined sites like Twitter, Facebook and other social networking services to promote this blog. But a funny thing happened on the way to blog stardom – I started really connecting with people and just about professional topics like public speaking but about goals, dreams and even challenges. It’s been wonderful to establish real connections with friends from not just all over the US but from all over the world as well – in fact, I will be posting links to a few of the websites of some of the amazing people I’ve met through social media.

So while I have a big family that I try to keep up with as well as a couple dozen close friends, I slowly added a few hundred other “friends” to the mix over the past year or so. I love being around people and making new friends (and yes business connections – my initial intention of making social media contacts) so it’s been thrilling for me to hope on the computer each day and see an encouraging note from someone halfway across the world or someone that lives only a couple towns away from me.

The funny thing about it is that these people seemed more real to me than some people I know in real life. They aren’t afraid to hide their problems, their flaws or their failures. In fact, so many of them share these personal stories with the hopes of preventing others from experiencing the same pain. So many of these people have become such fun to interact with that I sometimes feel like I’m addicted to my computer – I’ve caught myself running over to my PC to check on things while I’ve had pasta boiling on the stove (fortunately, it’s never boiled over).

Of course, real people have real problems and that’s what’s become the big eye opener for me. I’m not talking about quirks or oddities either. I’m talking about serious challenges such as terminal illnesses, sick children, physical handicaps and abuse in their past. Of course, there are those with their share of relationship troubles, financial hardships and career problems as well. I’ve read about people with these types of problems my whole life – just pick up your local newspaper and you’ll see people with all of these problems.

But what changes it is that the people with problems aren’t just a paragraph in an article or a photo anymore. The game changer is that these people are out there interacting with others and you can see it. And if you interact with them, you might find that they are truly inspirational in the way they deal with things. They are no longer a story, they are a friend with a story and that story hits home. It’s never easy to see someone you care about suffer and it’s even tougher when you see some of these amazing people hit their breaking point. I feel so helpless at times as I want to say something, but I’m not quite sure what to say. I want to be encouraging and let them know that things will be okay. I pray for them (I even light candles for them at my church) and offer to listen to them. Sometimes, all I can do is let them know I’m thinking about them – and I’m not sure if that helps or not.

All of the friends I’ve made through social media have been a gift in some way or another. Whether we’ve had some spirited debates about politics, shared advice or stories or just paid each other a complement, so many of the photos I see in my streams just instantly bring a smile to my face. But the biggest gift I’ve received is the lesson I’ve walked away with – there are real people out there with real stories and you better be ready for that. My friends that don’t get social media talk about the “Social Media Trap” – they think of things like Farmville or mafia wars or chatting it up with strangers that only are able to connect with people online. While there is a trap to social media (and admittedly, I selfishly need to give myself a break from it from time to time) that trap is actually a gift in disguise.

Related posts:

1. Watch How You Use Social Media
2. You Might Be Addicted to Social Media If…
3. Why Most Speakers Are Clueless About Social Media
4. Unfollowed and Unfriended – The Perils of Social Media Friendships

This morning an eight year-old girl passed away from a rare form of cancer. I learned about it through Twitter – many of my friends on Twitter were following the story of this young girl and re-tweeted the note that she had passed on. My heart goes out to her family – I can’t even begin to fathom what they are going through (and have been going through). But it’s a sobering reminder that life is a gift and can be taken away at any time.

It’s easy to get caught up in day to day activities, the rat race, goals and the lives of those in the entertainment industry. But when our time to go comes, none of that matters. What matters is whether or not we’ve left the world a better place. While I’m often critical of celebrities, my hat goes off to those who participate in programs such as Make A Wish. I find it tough sometimes to cope with just reading a story about a child with a terminal illness, so I’m sure meeting that child in person would have an even stronger effect on me. I remember seeing an interview with the band Journey about one kid that they met just days before he lost his battle. Decades later, it still had an effect on the band members.

Life isn’t fair and sometimes the good die young. While I consider myself positive and religious, I still can’t understand why children are given such big crosses to bear. Each night I pray for the sick (young & old) but it’s moments like these where a face is put to a name that I realize how tough a world it is out there. I remember sitting the waiting room at Children’s Hospital in Boston on two separate occasions and meeting others that had young family members trying to beat the odds. Some were quiet, some were in tears and some were sad. It didn’t matter if you were CEO of a big company or worked the front counter of a fast food restaurant. It didn’t matter what race or religion you were or where you lived. All you cared about was if a miracle would happen to a child that did nothing to deserve to be in that situation.

While all of us may not possess the ability to cure cancer, there are a number of things that we can do:

• Donate money for research or to children’s hospitals.
• Promote awareness via your blog, network or social media.
• Volunteer to help out in any way you can.
• Pray for those in need and send them your encouragement.
• Provide food or lodging for an out of town family with a child that needs specialized treatments.
• Be a good friend, employer or colleague to those who have family members going through rough times.

I know time (and money) is at a premium for most of us, but if we could each find one hour a week to dedicate to helping these kids, who knows what might happen. Especially if we all spread the word and get others involved, we can make things happen. All it takes is one hour to care each week and your heart will help you find something helpful to do.

Related posts:

1. Motivation: The Power of Youth
2. Life Lessons From Video Games
3. If Only Life Were as Easy as Personal Finance Books Make it Sound
4. Inspiration: Life is Too Short