Stories Can Change Our Lives

I believe that stories are a great inspiration to help us change our behaviours and our way of seeing our lives. In this podcast, I invite you to explore a story of a regular guy that after a series of events had the opportunity to change his life in a very profound and meaningful way. I hope you enjoy it.

Transcript

Hello and welcome.

I believe that life examples are a powerful way to help inspire profound changes,

Create insights and make us realize what we need to make in our own lives so we can become the best versions of ourselves and live our lives to its fullest.

So today,

I wanted to share with you a recent story of life I got in touch with that I believe can inspire you to take action in shaping a life with purpose that is fulfilling,

Joyful and whole today.

This is just part of the story of a 39 year old man starting in mid 2019.

The story starts with the so called middle life crisis followed by a series of events that created profound reflections on this person's life purpose and meaning and completely transformed his way of seeing the world,

His life and how he lives every day.

This man is a husband,

Father,

Son,

A successful executive working for a multinational company.

He has an incredible family,

The best wife,

Daughter,

The best father and the mother you could ever expect.

He has all the toys he wanted.

He has worked hard,

Probably too hard for over 20 years,

Growing his career,

His position,

His income,

More importantly,

Doing good to others.

As a matter of fact,

He works helping people have access to food across the world,

Helping people create better lives,

Better businesses,

Having access to better and healthier food.

He's in charge of investing millions of dollars to help people through the company he works for and doing good.

In long hours,

Indeed,

But doing good.

Nevertheless,

One day he woke up feeling miserable,

Feeling empty,

Feeling cute,

That even having all he wanted and strived for,

Achieved his professional goals,

Family goals,

Etc.

He felt he was not doing the right thing with his life.

He started to get angry at himself,

Sad and unsatisfied in a level that stress almost took him to the grave,

And quite literally.

At age 37,

He was overweight,

He had high blood pressure,

Terrible diet,

His heart was already failing on him,

He was working for 12-16 hours a day,

He was not feeling happy.

As a matter of fact,

He was feeling hollow,

Down and lost.

Then he went to a doctor for a regular checkup,

And got the speech.

Hey man,

Either you do something now with your help,

Or you will be here very very soon with something we may not be able to correct.

Your heart is already working extra hours,

And at your age,

This is the recipe for disaster.

Well,

Now he feels miserable,

Already felt something was wrong,

And he has to live in fear that he may literally die of a heart attack at any moment.

The funny part of this was that everybody around him was telling him how proud they were about his work,

His career,

His family,

His possessions.

He was perceived as a successful guy among his peers.

He once told me,

Isn't it crazy,

You feel broken,

Sick,

Lost,

And the society around you,

Try to make you feel you did alright?

That you are in the peak,

That your life is a dream life?

A lot of people want to be you,

Want to have the life you have,

And you?

You were desperately trying to find a way out.

So what he did with all of that?

Well,

He knew he needed to lose weight,

He couldn't do it by diet and exercise,

He tried all his life,

So he decided to have a biorectal surgery.

He said that it was not the easy way out as we might think,

To lose weight,

It was hard.

But yes,

He changed really really fast.

He lost 40 kilos,

About 90 pounds.

Over the course of the next 6 months,

His health started to get better,

His blood pressure was normal now,

His heart rate,

His diet,

Everything was going in the right direction at this point.

His life changed a lot after surgery,

He even sometimes questioned if he was himself still.

The change was so noticeable that some of his neighbors that didn't see him for some time asked his wife,

What about this new husband of yours?

Really,

He said that not even his neighbors could recognize him,

And he felt great in this part of his life.

But yet,

He was feeling miserable,

Working long hours,

Feeling attacked by everyone at work,

Getting kicked around by others,

Feeling a failure despite everything I told you before.

He had everything he wanted,

But felt like crap,

Literally.

Then came December 2019,

He was wrecked,

He was ready to end that year and move on to another one that would be awesome.

Yeah,

Well,

2020,

The COVID-19 year,

But the change started a little too early in that year.

As a matter of fact,

On January 1st,

2020,

His life started to change in the most scary and profound way you can imagine.

He was at the beach with family and friends,

Having some great time,

Dreaming about the year ahead,

And then he started to feel pain in his belly.

Started like a discomfort,

And grew hour after hour until he could not bear anymore.

He went to a local hospital in a small beach city on January 2nd.

Public health service,

No doctor was there,

While they were probably partying,

And the person who looked at his case took an x-ray and told him it was just gases.

Yeah,

She said he probably ate too much during New Year's Eve,

And as a bariatric patient,

He was just having gases.

He accepted the diagnosis embarrassed that morning,

And went home with some medicine to reduce the problem.

But a few hours later,

He was rolling on bed,

With a pain that he could never imagine,

And he got back to the hospital.

He felt like in another movie,

People seek all over from drinking too much,

Or food poisoning,

A child that was splitting blood on his side.

He described that as a zombie movie with all sorts of crazy people,

And on top of that,

He was feeling pain.

After hours of suffering,

He was finally diagnosed with appendicitis.

It was in a place that he was not looking forward to be opened up,

So him and his wife decided to jump in a car and drive four hours to a bigger city where he could get access to better health assistance.

Well,

The pain was so great that he decided to drive himself to the hospital.

It was two in the morning,

He put his family in a car and drove four hours with the most excruciating pain he had ever felt so far.

It was about 6 am when he reached the hospital.

He was taken out of the car by nurses,

He could not walk,

Well,

He could not even speak.

He was medicated for pain,

Got knocked out,

And by a miracle,

The doctor that operated him before was there,

January 3rd morning,

And made his appendicitis surgery.

Oh,

Okay,

What is the story here?

It was just an appendicitis,

Right?

How many people had that and survived?

Yeah,

That is what he thought too.

Two days later he was at home and recovering,

And five days later he was called by his doctor to do a follow up on his surgery.

As you can imagine,

It was just an appendicitis,

And he thought he would go there,

Be tapped on his back and asked to go get on with his life.

He was so sure that he even took his wife and daughter to the appointment with him.

That was around January 7th,

2020.

And that day would change his life forever.

His doctor started talking to him about surgery,

Then he asked him to distract his 5 year old for a second,

Because he needed to tell him something important.

And the doctor started.

Well,

During your surgery I felt your appendix was a little strange,

Not normal,

And I sent it for analysis.

We found out your appendicitis was a result of a cancer.

The words nobody wants to hear,

Right?

In front of your 5 year old and your wife.

It was not all though.

His tumor was a very very rare type of cancer.

Unpredictable and so rare that there is no standard treatment for it.

The name?

A denocarcinoma globular cell.

When he heard those words,

The time has just stopped.

All things he did,

Especially the things he didn't do,

Came live in his head.

He thought to himself,

I will die now in an awful matter,

And I will do it out of a life that I'm feeling I had failed.

He was broke.

Really broken.

He had no time to think though.

Two more surgeries were scheduled to remove part of his intestines,

Check for metastasis and implant a permanent axis to start chemotherapy.

By the end of January 2020,

He had done 3 surgeries and was on his way to chemotherapy.

He was a 37 year old executive with an awesome family,

Supposedly health because of his weight loss and got what felt like a death sentence.

He knew he would go through hell in the next few months.

Chemo is really hard.

He said to me that he knew he was really broken when he got himself sitting in a hospital bed writing farewell letters to those he loved.

He said he cried for hours writing to his daughter all he wished her to know about life about him,

About what he wished her to remember about him.

He thought at that time that he had just a few moments to write her a lifelong instruction book and felt like he could not have time to do it.

When he was at the bottom,

In the worst shape he could ever imagine,

Something changed.

He started to realize that everybody around him was sending good vibes,

Love,

Telling him that he had to go through this and he would overcome that.

And that was the moment he realized how his wife,

His daughter,

His parents,

Friends,

Everybody was caring about him.

They were there for him,

Although he thought he was alone and desperate.

Yes,

He needed external support.

He had no mental strength to overcome that alone.

But in that moment,

He was flooded by the most powerful insight he had ever had to that point in his life.

He realized how life is fragile,

How you can be alive and die in a blink of an eye.

That has nothing to do with cancer.

He realized that he could have died in a traffic accident,

Choked in a piece of meat,

Sleep in the shower.

He felt how life is fragile for everyone,

Not just for him.

And that was the moment he made a choice.

He knew he would go through hell,

But also,

He realized the blessing he received to finally understand that life happens now,

Not in the past and not in the future.

Life is now,

And if you don't live it to its fullest today,

You may be wasting the last chance you have to do what makes you happy,

What fulfills you.

If you have come so far,

You might have guessed that this is my own story.

And that's right.

In the past two years,

I have gone through a lot of internal and external changes.

I know I'm not a guru,

And I don't want to be one.

But I have learned so much about myself and life in general that I came to the conclusion that I need to do something to use this experience to help others realize that life without a purpose,

Intention,

And presence is a waste of time.

A precious time that we have and that we cannot and should not waste.

What if you were given a limited number of days to live?

What would you do?

Would you waste the rest of your days on a miserable life?

Working long hours a day in a work you don't like,

Away from those you love?

This is where our journey together begins.

I am now in a journey to make people aware that life is precious,

And whatever is holding you back from your dreams,

Your happiness,

Your full potential,

Is just a waste of time.

A precious time that you and I have the power to design,

To change,

And to shape in whatever way we want.

You cannot change the past.

The future is only an imagination,

And now,

Now is the only thing we have.

Thank you for hearing a bit of my story.

I hope it inspires you to make the changes you wish in your life so you can leave it to its fullest.

If you felt inspired somehow,

Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Let me know how I can help you unlock your potential and free yourself from pain and suffering so you can live the life you deserve.

Also,

I already have a few practices that have helped me to overcome my challenges,

And I am sure that they can help you get started on changing your life today.

They are available in my profile here at InsideTimer.

But remember,

Today,

Feel the energy,

Empower yourself,

And live as if you only have a few days.

Thank you very much.

Reviews

So powerful and moving. What a message, thank you for this reminder.
Take care ...

Thank you so much for sharing your story. I am going through one of lives challenging times right now and feel miserable. I have a pain in my heart. I feel sick. I am 68 years old and am in the autumn of this precious life. Listening to you, I understand that what is important right now is the help and support friends and family have offered me. That although there is a financial cost to giving up my fight, the benefit to be gained is far greater. That giving up gives me an opportunity to live and to do something far more worthwhile with whatever time is left to me. Thank you. Namaste. 🙏

A very encouraging story! Thank you for sharing it with me.

Felt inspired and reassured to continue on this renewed path I am on. Thank you!

Very inspiring story, we are creating and receiving and learning from stories.

Astounding and heartfelt story. Thank you for your sharing.

Thank you for reminding me, in the blink of an eye!
Thanks for your story

Wishing you all the health and all the best!

Thank you for sharing your story. Yes today is all we have. 5 months ago, my son died from fentanyl poisoning. The thing is I lived each day with him, knowing somehow it was all temporary for us to be in earth together. Cherishing each other with this awareness is precious.

Thanks a lot for sharing your story Yuri 🙏. Although we all know that now is all there is, this is a very powerful reminder to include in the way we live our lives.
I do find it hard to find the right balance though, as in this society we can’t really live our lives like it is our last day alive. We do have obligations which will involve activities which are not fulfilling and actually be energy draining. Do you have any tips on how to find the right balance? Thanks for any tips and tricks you could share. Namaste 🙏 Kind regards, Brenda

Amazing!!

Wow. Thank you for sharing. Much blessings & love 🙏🏼

Thank you for sharing your beautiful and inspirational story 🧡

Amazing! So beatiful! The best podcast ever, for sure!! Thank you, Yuri. 🙏