Sonya Davidson is an wonderfully energetic lady. A client, whose pace is double that of others, she sent me last week a video clip, which she described as “incredible”.

Briefly, in two and a half minutes of simple pictures and brilliant piano musac, you are told how you can believe in yourself. Yes, it’s a must view.

With some irony, Sunday was a “down” day for me. The silly things began to get to me. Even the proverbial bar of chocolate did not really help. I began to recall Sonya’s e-mail, and then I realised that there are groups of people, who have learnt to put aside “distractions”. They have taken their lives back.

I am not just talking about people on reality TV shows, supported by producers and the lure of financial prizes.

Take Mike Faibisch, a friend and former neighbour. In between a series of personal disasters, he contracted MS. So, Mike took up the challenge, decided to lose weight and prove that he could keep himself fit. Less than a decade later, this summer he completed a gruelling ride around Alpine peaks. This clip is ten minutes of pure joy, leaving you smiling at the end.

One of my “favourites” is the tragic story of Dr Randy Pausch, who contracted pancreatic cancer. His attitude, as viewed on Oprah, left me stunned – speachless – for minutes. You see a dying men doing push ups with ease, clearly forcing many to question our own life styles. In a much longer explanation to college students, Pausch described how your life can be used for so much good, if you could only but take control. Nothing, but nothing, should be stopping you.

So what is going to motivate us? For a quick animated cognitive approach, Dan Pink shows how it is not just about the reward. We just want to be treated nicely and then we respond. To develop this theme, I strongly recommend the monthly newsletters of Dr Robert Brooks.

And I just want to finish off with a quote from a powerpoint I received, attributed to Colin Powell, former USA military boss. He observes how less effective people endorse the sentiment, “If I haven’t explicitly been told ‘yes,’ I can’t do it,” whereas good ones believe, “If I haven’t explicitly been told ‘no,’ I can.”  As Powell surmised:

You don’t know what you can get away with until you try.