Guest Blog by Ben Newman
What a pleasure it is to find this website! The concept of The Memoiry Journal is one that truly resonates with me. My mother passed away just before my eighth birthday. Many years after her death, my grandmother gave me a tremendous gift: my mother’s journal. Reading it as an adult was a powerful experience for me. While I always felt incredibly loved by my mother, I now had new insight into her courage, strength, and wisdom that set me on me on my path to success, even though she was only with me a short time.
“Our circumstances in life are much less significant than our responses to them, because it is not how long you live but how YOU choose to live your life.”
This is one of the most important lessons I came to learn from my mother, Janet Fishman Newman. She lost the fight with Amyloidosis, a rare and debilitating disease, but she never lost her fight. I soon realized that her wisdom is universal, and the lessons that helped me could also positively impact others. That realization led me to shift the focus of my career from financial sales to speaker, author and coach. While in many ways this was a natural transition, it was my mother’s teachings through her journal that helped me see it in a clear and real way. I have taken her lessons to heart. They are not only the core of my own life – both personal and professional – they are the foundation of the training, motivation, and coaching I bring to others.
My mother fought a brave and worthy fight that taught me the value of fighting for the things we care about most. Getting knocked down is part of life, but what matters is that we bounce back to living and loving. This has become the framework of my personal philosophy. I incorporate the image of the prizefighter and the idea of fighting the good fight into my programs to illustrate the principles of persistence, perseverance, and optimism.
My mother’s actions bring to mind, Abraham Lincoln’s words, “I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end.” I’m so grateful to have her words to guide and inspire me.
Ben Newman is an international speaker and a 4-time author. His fourth book, Own Your Success will be released by John Wiley & Sons in August 2012. Since his first year in the financial industry, Ben has been a perennial member of the Million Dollar Round Table with sales that place him in the TOP 1% of the world’s life insurance and financial services professionals in the world. Sharing his exceptional professional knowledge and outstanding client services, he speaks and motivates individuals and teams to reach greater heights in vision, productivity and sales.
