What Is Real Success in Life?

​I have been very blessed and am very grateful that I have had the most fantastic opportunity in life to be the father of 4 incredible children, four beautiful grand kids and many friends in both Canada and the United States, my second home. I've also been fortunate enough to have a successful career that includes university professor and as a filmmaker. The first two-thirds of my life were spent getting. Now, I want to share my journey of overcoming adversity, finding peace of mind and prosperity and real purpose in the second half of life. To do that I have now written three books: Survival: Transforming Childhood Trauma; Success: ​Reflections On Money, Sex, and Power (the only areas of my life I’ve ever had any challenges with); and last Serenity: Aging With Dignity, Living With Grace. Serenity was released few weeks ago by Post Hill Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster in the United States and Canada. ​ It chronicles my dramatic journey after receiving a catastrophic brain injury and trying to put my life back together.

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As I sit here on a beautiful Thursday afternoon in beautiful Puerto Vallarta Mexico, here is what I know today - my life has been incredibly blessed. And here is what I've learned about life, regardless of where we are on the journey. We experience success, more success, a bump in the road, a significant disappointment, another bump in the road,a speed bump, whoa, a big success that leads one to realize - success is not all it's cracked up to be. And if that's all one's life is about; cars, houses, clothes and bobbles all lose their shine very quickly if we don't have a solid foundation under ourselves emotionally and spiritually. Then as we age, the wife/husband leaves, our parents die our best friend stops talking to us. Our business partner shafts us or betrays us; our children have issues, and we feel like life is unfair. And it is some of the time. Then we pick ourselves up, in my case do an inventory to see, "What was my part in this situation?" It's not always eas to be rigorously honest with ourselves. It is always so much more comforting to think "If it weren't for (fill in the name, gender, relationship, slight, resentment or hurt) my life would be fantastic. So my message today is welcome adversity. Embrace failure as a necessary part of succeeding and heed its lessons well, so you don't have to repeat them again. I've never had to face the kind of insanity encountered in 1986 when I ended up owing $5.2 million dollars on a feature film I was producing in the United States. That experience propelled me in a whole new direction in my life. What I thought at the time was the worst experience of my life ended up being the catalyst for the greatest change I've ever experienced, and still benefiting from it today.

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I feel so lucky to know the people I know, to have met all the incredible people and to have loved the women I've loved. Not that there has been that many, but they have all been so amazing in their ​own ways. I am also looking forward to doing some more inspirational and corporate talks on creativity, overcoming adversity and utilizing spiritual principles to grow your business. Producers are the world's most sophisticated salespeople. We sell an idea that has no shape or form and networks and distributors invest an amount of money you could build an office building, apartment building or large commercial complex. All because I had a good idea that morning. And to think that all my high school teachers use to yell at me for daydreaming. Life really is fantastic, and I always tell people when they are in trouble, "Life will shortly be as good as it is bad for you right now." Nothing last forever and life will always change if we don't give up our dreams and have faith. ​​

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