Its an understatement to say that the last 48 hours have been a complete mind-bender.
A couple weeks ago I had a nice conversation with Danielle Dellorto, who is a producer for CNNHealth and Dr. Sanjay Gupta. She asked me to write a short little guest blog — a bit about my story and maybe a few tips to help people begin getting fit or improving their diet. I thought it sounded fun. I pondered what I might have to share for a couple days, bearing in mind that she had asked for about 500 words.
I wrote a piece that was twice as long as what she asked for and sent it in with the knowledge that I would likely need to cut it down. But other than a few tweaks, they decided to run the piece as is. My expectation was that it would end up on the margins of CNNHealth.com — something you would probably have to search for to find.
Instead, and much to my surprise, they decided to run the article as the lead piece on the Health page this past Tuesday. Click HERE to view the article.
And what resulted over the next day rocked my world. The article ended up being the most e-mailed story on all of CNN that day. Yesterday they even moved the article to the front page of CNN.com I went from getting about 200 – 500 page views on my site to 90,000 on Tuesday alone. I got calls from radio programs, TV shows and newspapers. It became a primary trending topic on Twitter and the article was reprinted and reposted all across the Internet like gangbusters. My Facebook and Twitter exploded with new followers and friend requests. It was truly incredible.
But by far the most impactful to me were the almost 400 e-mails I received. People writing me from all over the World expressing thanks for my insight, inspiration and sharing and relating — often in great detail — their own very personal stories and struggles with health, wellness, fitness and diet.
In a case of sympatico, Tuesday was also my wife’s birthday. As we were driving into town to celebrate by attending a yoga class together followed by dinner, I read her a few of the e-mails and completely broke down. The outpouring of such support from so many people striving to connect on such a highly personal, sensitive and intimate level about their lives and challenges was so moving I couldn’t control my emotions.
It was overwhelming in the most beautiful way I could imagine.
I cannot express how happy it makes me feel that I just might have something to say that could be of benefit to others. The Universe is supporting the message and I am newly energized to find new and creative ways to help promote health and wellness in a helpful manner. So thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who might have found something helpful, no matter how small, in what I am sharing.
On another note, its going to be very difficult for me to respond to everyone who wrote with a personal reply, but I am going to try.
And there was a common thread in many of the letters. In particular, people seem keen to learn more about plant-based nutrition in more specific terms. I apologize that the nutrition section of my website is not yet complete, so the first thing I am going to do is work on building that out with some helpful information. Check back in a week or so for updates.
Please know that I have been touched by all of you and I have new perspective on my service role on this Planet. I hope to fulfill it as completely and as responsibly a I can. Thank you to everyone who took time out of their busy lives to read the article, write to me and follow me on Facebook and Twitter and I hope to meet all of you on this most awesome path to long-term wellness!
