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From the beginning, like many people in the U.S. I
was raised with the belief that success had something to do with making a
lot of money. For me, the
natural order seemed to be obtaining a business degree, which I did in
1980.
With high hopes, I pulled up my Minnesota roots
and moved to Washington where the real estate market was very good.
Making money came easy for me as a self-employed real estate
appraiser. Society was
applauding me every step of the way.
On the outside things were rolling along quite smoothly, but it was
becoming more difficult to deny the emptiness I was feeling inside.
Psychology and personal growth had always interested me, however, I
was still under the delusion that what couldn’t be measured wasn’t
really that important. I was
working very long hours still thinking if I made a little more or got an
exciting new hobby, I would find happiness.
After 12 years of this frenetic pace, I moved to Indonesia to make
some sense of my life. Curiosity
led me to a wide variety of healing modalities.
They were helpful but they didn’t last.
In 1996, when I was ready for the most profound
experience of a lifetime, Avatar® revealed itself to me.
Like everything, it was a process.
I read the book Living Deliberately
with some hesitation.
I would put it down, shake my head in semi disbelief, but for some
reason, I always picked it up again.
The exercises in the workbook ReSurfacing®
were enjoyable for me.
They were something I could apply to my own life immediately. As I went through the Avatar Course amazing
things began happening. Light
bulbs were clicking on left and right.
With each exercise, I had more insights.
I could hardly believe the self-imposed limitations I had placed on
myself without even knowing it. I
was under the belief that for anything to be this powerful, I would have
to dig up everything from the past and drag it around for a while.
Not so! The whole
course was set up in such a brilliant way that it was simple and powerful
at the same time. Nobody was
telling me what I should be doing or how to solve any problems.
I felt lighter and the world was not so serious.
Colors became brighter and life was more three-dimensional.
I was living in a different world.
The most amazing thing for me was how everything came to me and I
learned my own truth. It
became very clear to me what I wanted to do next.
Avatar is a course about creating the reality you
prefer. If I was going to
teach these tools to others, I had to be able to deliberately create my
own life. One thing that I
had always been desperately afraid of was speaking in front of groups of
people. Whether it was 2 people or 200 people, the thought of it
paralyzed me with fear. The
funny thing is that secretly I really wanted to be able to do it.
With the tools I got past the fear and created a new
profession. I went from being
a real estate appraiser to a professional speaker within a year.
Speaking to large groups across the United States, Canada and
Australia I would often sit in my hotel room at night amazed at the impact
the course had and continues to have on my life.
Since 1996 I’ve clocked more than 1200 hours in additional
advanced Avatar training and development courses.
People asked me, “Now that you’ve reached the highest level of
speaking recognition at Toastmasters International and addressed groups
all over the world, what’s next?” Intuitively I knew I wanted to devote more of my time and
energy to delivering Avatar. It’s
simply the kindest and most empowering thing I can do for others.
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