Summary: Podcast Note: Podcast name has changed to The Successful Life Mindset. What Is Your Passion Behind What You Do? Tracy’s play in Branson, “A Christmas Snow – Live!” is doing very well. He gets comments after each performance about how the message of forgiveness is changing people’s lives. One example is after a meeting with tour groups coordinators, a bus driver spoke with him and told him that he and his wife have been estranged from their two sons for several years. After seeing the play, he and his wife bought two copies of the DVD and two copies of the book and sent them, one to each son, with a letter asking for forgiveness. It’s touching stories like this that make the hard work worth the effort. If you follow your passion, your dream, you will find true happiness. Cliff says he feels called to have a positive impact on people’s lives. When you do what you’re doing for the money, burnout occurs, but when it’s because you’re driven to do what you do, it’s all good. What Will You Do With Your Time To Help Others Cliff had a client, living in Florida that was getting ready to retire. He and his wife wanted advice as to how to start a podcast for locals when they moved to a rural area for retirement. The man contacted Cliff again when he needed to refocus his podcasting. He had been diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer and had about six months to live. He could have said poor me, but he chose to put the original podcast on hold and start up a new one, “God is Bigger than Cancer” to share his journey through whatever time he had remaining to encourage others. The choice is to say poor me or what can I do to better the world with the time I have left. Do It Today Tracy and his wife often talked of selling everything, buying an RV and traveling, but the time never seemed right. While Tracy was working on a project, a laser tech (in his 60s) was telling Tracy about his life of touring with rock bands all over the world, but suddenly the man became serious and said, “Do it now!” He told Tracy he had wasted his dreams of marriage, family, that he had never taken time to do the things he really wanted to do. He said he had cancer and would be dead in a year. He told Tracy to do the things he really wanted to do now because you never know how much time you have. Tracy told his wife about the conversation and they decided to take the trip they so often talked about doing someday. They sold their home, a couple of cars, their cabin at the lake and set things up so Tracy could work remotely from an RV. It took about nine months to set-up, but then they took a year and experienced their dream of traveling the country. It is something they will never forget. Because of that conversation with the tech, Tracy has sort of adopted the philosophy of do it now. The play in Branson is an example of doing it now. Tracy always wanted to do a stage play, so he decided to do it now. Cliff knows how fleeting life can be, in recent times he has lost several people, a friend to ALS, a young woman in her 30s to colon cancer and others. We never know how long we have. He is working with a Jake Colsen, who wrote a book titled, “So, you don’t want to go to church anymore.” Jake often says the phrase, “Wow, that couldn’t have been a lot worse.” It’s so true. Get Perspective Tracy went on a mission trip to India in 1992. One of the things they did was dig wells for fresh water. Many wells that the people use for drinking, cooking and more are wells that have raw sewerage draining into them. The people also lived in such poverty; their homes were shacks. They had the opportunity to speak to the people about the one true living God. When Tracy got home, he was asked what things he learned from his experience in India. He said he was now convinced there is a God and he would never complain about his life again. He became grateful for his life.
