don’t need to live that way. You deserve to live the life you are most passionate about.
I want to share with you how three little words changed my life. They came in response to a question I asked my doctor. I was thirty-six years old, diagnosed with stage two breast cancer.
“Am I going to die?” I asked. He spoke words that have become my reset button.
“I don’t know,” he said. I don’t know. In that moment, in that doctor’s office, I took those three little words as a revelation. I realized I had run out of hope. I had run out of time. I was filled with an overwhelming sense of regret. Regret for the things I hadn’t said. That I hadn’t done. But mostly for all the things I would never have a chance to become.
I must tell you; I can still feel being in that room, in that moment of despair. Oh my God, how can it be over? What do you mean I’m going to die? I don’t have any more time left? I hadn’t written all I wanted to write. I hadn’t traveled or danced. I hadn’t done any of the things I’d whispered quietly to myself. I hadn’t done any of that because of my belief that I didn’t follow the right path. That success was not for me. That I wasn’t good enough. I was not worthy.
That was the day death became a close reality for me instead of a distant event that would take place far off in my future. None of us considers our mortality until we are faced with a life-threatening situation. However, you don’t need to wait for that; you can learn from my lessons. I made a promise to myself that day that if I lived, I would never face that feeling of regret again.
That one moment took me on an extraordinary journey travelling from deep despair and overwhelming regret to being able to follow my true passion and live my life beyond what I had ever dreamed possible for myself as a young girl.
That moment of regret started a twenty-year journey for me. I’ve been twenty years cancer free now. My journey started with a commitment to myself, that day, to live without regret. What I didn’t know was that it would also lead me to discover how worthiness was the missing ingredient to living my dreams.
No matter what I had to do, I was going to make sure that whenever my final moment came, I would know without a doubt that I had lived unapologetically and completely. I hoped that I had more time to redeem. I didn’t know when the final moments would be. I was going to find out if I was going to live after a process of treatment and recovery. I still had a mountain of medical treatment to go through. If you are unaware of cancer treatment, there is an excruciatingly long period between a diagnosis and the moment when somebody says you have hope. Another biopsy remained before they would provide me with any information other than malignancy. That test returned. I had a lumpectomy and submitted myself to treatment.
It was after surgery that I finally heard there was hope. The cancer hadn’t spread to my lymph nodes. That time between diagnosis and surgery gave me too much space to sit in regret. My promise wasn’t just about staving off regret. It was about living each day to its fullest.
Planting the Worthiness Seed
I want to share the poem I wrote shortly after that day in the doctor’s office. Perhaps you or someone you know has experienced a cancer diagnosis and this poem illustrates the shock of facing your own mortality. I have since learned not to be afraid of death but to be aware that it exists. None of us can escape this part of the human life cycle.
I Have Cancer
You have cancer. Can you check the name on the file please? You have cancer. Are you sure this diagnosis is for me? Am I going to die? You have cancer. I don’t know whether to scream or cry. The thought whirls through my head. You have cancer. All the times I have chosen. Tomorrow. Instead. Too many times. A life lesson learned. I have cancer, the lesson I know is to not leave undone any hopes that I hold.
I didn’t know it at the time but that was where the seeds of the I Am Worth It Project were planted. I thought I was making sure that I never lived with regret. What I didn’t realize at the time was that in order to do that I had to find my self-worth. And that is how I discovered the most powerful and under-utilized tool we all have that can impact our greatest transformation.
Your Power Tool
The most powerful tool you already own is your brain. Your very own personal computer. The problem with the brain, when left to its own devices, is that it will continue to make decisions from decades-old data. When I am giving a talk, I always ask my audience if their brain is operating like a Commodore 64.
I attended a talk about artificial intelligence recently by one of Canada’s top scientists. In this talk he mentioned three Canadian scientists who won a prestigious award for their work in advancing artificial intelligence. Well, do you want to know how they did that? They modeled the human brain. Simply put that’s how they figured out how to put the right data into a computer to get the right answer out. As humans we fail to consider that the data we put into our brain in the form of thoughts—what we hear, see, and experience externally, and how we talk to ourselves internally—will drive our behaviors.
We are not taught to manage the flow of information to our brain, to become proactive instead of reactive and train our brain. Instead, for most of us, we are living what I call the robot life with our brain in charge and operating in a fully present mode only 5 percent of every day, according to scientists. Imagine what you could accomplish if you increased from 5 percent to 15 percent of the day being fully present in your life? What new ideas would jump out? What dreams could you realize?
I have discovered that our brain is the most underutilized tool we all have that can impact our greatest transformation.
Your brain has the ability to help you accomplish all that you dream of and deserve. But most of us just let our brain run wild on its own with no guidance or input.
Sounds dangerous when you hear that, doesn’t it?
If we had to go through Brain Training 101 early in life, we could avoid some of the common pitfalls and roadblocks we all face on the road to success.
Your brain is your very own personal computer.
And your words—the ones you say out loud, the ones that come from your inner critic, and even the words you hear from others—are the DATA you are feeding into your personal computer.
On the other side, that data comes out in the form of your behavior. The data you feed into your personal computer drives your behavior
Is it time for you to review and delete data? Do you want a Commodore 64 running your life? Computers have been updated since the days of the Commodore. That 64 referred to the 8-bit architecture of the computer. Computers these days are 64-bit architecture. Even your phone is at least 32-bit. You must upgrade.
In the age of Netflix, we have welcomed a new term into our culture: binge watching. We can’t stop watching because they leave us hooked at the end. I read an article that said Netflix has the goal to be able to know you through your recent viewing history. They use this data to choose what shows you see based on the shows you have already watched. Their ultimate goal is for you to be able to open your Netflix app and for them to be able to start playing the show they know you want to watch based on your previous viewing history. Think about that for a second. In the future, they want to be able to take your data based on past behavior and predict what you will want to watch in the future. There would be no room to evolve
