Although my life sometimes seems like something straight out of a Hollywood script, especially my time working with Nelson Mandela or my training to become a traditional healer, it wasn't always easy. To be honest, in between the incredible highs of befriending world leaders or accomplishing amazing cultural integrations, there were many years of terrifying lows. Long periods of extremely difficult life challenges that came close to breaking my will to live.

Yet I never gave up. I eventually developed a skill that I like to call "learned resilience." Basically, the ability to pick yourself up after every failure, loss or humiliation. Then calmy and resolutely brush off the dust and start again.

It is an ability that undoubtedly saved my life on several occasions. Such as the time that I became trapped in deep snow on Mount Nemrut in Turkey and nearly died of exposure. How I dragged myself off that mountain that night and survived can only be attributed to a deep inner strength and a strong will to live.

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's own way." Victor E. Frankl

Eventually my learned resilience melded with boundless positivity and since then I have never looked back. Not even when I developed colon cancer in 2008 or the fateful day in 2022 when I was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer that had metastasized to multiple organs and many bones. 

With barely a moment spent to think about my mortality, I created an ambitious bucket list that included extensive travel, finishing my training as a traditional healer in South Africa and becoming an accredited End Of Life Doula in Canada. Now, my greatest passion is to help others.

A life-limiting diagnosis sucks. No doubt about it! But you have much more control over the outcome than you might think. I can help.

P.S. Recent scans have failed to detect cancer in my body. Time to add more items to my bucket list.