Foreword from The Life Champion In You
Years ago, my friend Francis whom I first met through a local ski club, said, “Clint, I’m really impressed by your many achievements.” Although I appreciated his admiration, I found his statement to be somewhat perplexing. I wasn’t sure what achievements he was referring to. Sure, I was an MBA graduate working in a pharmaceutical sales career and a decent skier, but I really didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary. After all, lots of people graduate and begin successful careers.
Perhaps his admiration had something to do with the trophies I had won from local and regional martial arts competitions. But I was just participating in an activity that I enjoyed. Maybe it was my guitar playing but lots of people are musicians. Throughout the years, I’ve had other people tell me they were impressed by the activities I did but I never thought much of it. These were mostly my passions I’ve been doing all along. It’s true that I have been through some very rough times and still managed to do well in life. Maybe that’s why some people were impressed. Perhaps it was surprising to them that I succeeded based on my history, but to me continuing on with life with a positive attitude, despite hardship, was the only option. It was just the right thing to do in my mind.
It wasn’t until I had a conversation with one particular doctor during my pharmaceutical career when I really started to understand what I’ve been through and why some people found my life fascinating. I shared some details of my background with this doctor and he said that most people who go through similar adverse experiences that I went through usually do not come out okay. These people usually end up on a dark road. But despite the mess that I went through, I never became clinically depressed, not even once. The doctor found this quite surprising. Maybe I was lucky. Perhaps my unique biochemistry spared me from depression. Of course, since this entire clinical area is still much of a mystery, I’ll probably never be certain why I was depression free. However, I do believe that I must have done some things that were major factors in helping me keep off that dark road. This is when I finally appreciated the scope of my experiences and I felt compelled to help others.
Given the complexities of modern day life, many people are vulnerable to taking wrong turns towards that dark road at some point. Today especially, with things like slumping economies, rising gas prices, 9/11, high divorce rates and countless other complicated issues in our society, perhaps all of us are vulnerable. Even after reading great books on achieving success by people like motivational speaker Anthony Robbins, cyclist Lance Armstrong, and Dr. Wayne Dyer, many individuals are not able to get past major hurdles in life. This is because people need continued motivation on a regular basis. And since there is always room for more motivation and inspiration, I will contribute by sharing my experiences and what can be learned from them.
One thing I want to make clear before I continue. I am not a psychologist or health professional. However, because of my own experiences that took me from personal tragedy to success, including becoming a karate world champion, I feel that I know something about motivation. I am certain that a lot of people can benefit from my experiences and apply the universal lessons learned for their own unique lives. After all, I was not always a champion, in fact, far from it. I was just like everybody else. I could even be considered as someone who experienced more serious setbacks than many people have. So the purpose of this book’s first chapter is to establish my origins and where my journey started. Be prepared. There is some drama involved. But it is my hope that this book will prove as you read further on, that all of us can become peak performing life champions achieving success, especially you!
Clint Cora
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