Here’s my assignment for you: List down five persons who are already living your dream.
Who are your VIPs—Very Inspiring People?
Because the only way to raise the quality of your life is to raise the quality of the people in your life. Change your friends and you change your life.
Once you write their names, make a decision to connect more with these five persons.
You can do it in three ways.
1. Direct Connection
I have friends who nourish my soul and give me joy—and I make it a point to meet with them regularly. (In Light of Jesus Family, we call them Light Groups.) Without these wonderful people in my life, I wouldn’t survive.
I repeat: If you want to be happy, hang out with happy people. If you want to be healthy, hang out with healthy people. If you want to be holy, hang out with holy people.
Hang out with VIPs—Very Inspiring People.
I also have various mentors that I meet regularly.
I have a mentor for my spiritual life, another mentor for my financial life, another mentor for my health life, etc.
I wouldn’t be where I am now without them!
2. Indirect Connection
Pope Francis is my mentor. His life and words have impacted my life like crazy.
That’s why I call up every morning and say, “Pope Francis! Let’s have breakfast tomorrow. Your place or mine?”
The problem is he doesn’t answer me. He’s a bit busy, running the Church of 1.24 billion. So I do the next best thing. I read his books over breakfast.
I’m also a big fan of Cardinal Antonio Luis Tagle. He has a brilliant mind and kind heart. Though we’re friends and know each other, I can’t just barge into his office every week and say, “Cardinal, let’s have lunch!” (I know he’ll also get busier when he becomes Pope. He hates it when I tell him that.) So I do the next best thing. Over lunch, I read his essays and listen to his messages.
Rick Warren is another guy I admire. He’s not Catholic, but he’s a pastor who loves working with Catholics. I would love to chat with him. But I have a slight problem. He doesn’t know me. But he’s still a mentor because I attend his conferences and listen to his talks.
Every year, I organize a lot of conferences—Kerygma Conference, Wealth Summit, among them. I’m the main guy on stage. But what many people don’t know is that I also attend a lot of conferences too—as a regular participant. Every year, I go to two local conferences and two international conferences. So four times a year, I’m an attendee—a faceless, nameless guy in the crowd, usually up in the bleachers, in the General Admission, drinking all the wisdom I could get. And I love it.
I urge you, hang out with VIPs through media—books, videos, talks, seminars, conferences…
I’m a Mentor Too
In the same way, I know a lot of people consider me their mentor—even if we’ve never met.
It gets weird sometimes. One day, I was in a busy mall, when a woman came up to me, started crying, and said, “May I hug you?”
She was actually hugging me already when she asked. And for the next two minutes, while weeping uncontrollably, she kept repeating the words, “You changed my life. You changed my life. You changed my life…”
But the people around couldn’t hear what she was saying. In their imagination, they probably heard her say, “You ruined my life,” or “You left your wife,” or something bad about me.
And then there are those wonderful people who make me feel like a statue. They’d come from behind, sneak up, touch me, make the sign of the cross, and run away.
People who greet me feel very close to me, because spiritually we are. They’ve read my books or heard my message, and I touched their lives.
Finally…
3. Spiritual Connection
I ask a lot of people to pray for me.
We have an Intercession Ministry in every Feast. Lots and lots of people praying for everyone. And I’m blessed because they pray for me.
I also got whole congregations of nuns praying for me. Augustinians. Pink Sisters. Brown Sisters. I’ve been very close to the cloistered Carmelite sisters since I was a kid.
I love telling that story. No one was allowed to enter their convent. Except me. Because I was cute. At least, that was what my mother told me.
In fact, I remember the nuns would carry me in their arms and they’d lift me high enough so that I could pluck guavas from their guava trees.
To this day, I’ve kept communication with these nuns—who are now in their 70s, 80s, and 90s—and they’re still carrying me in prayer, so that I could pluck the spiritual fruits that God has for me.
When someone prays for you, that person’s faith and love help you open up yourself more to God’s miracles. Faith and love cause miracles.
I believe that love is the most powerful force in this universe. To this day, doctors and scientists cannot explain miraculous healing.
Praying for one another bonds us in a very deep way.
I pray for you every day. And praying for you increases my love for you.
I love to ask saints on earth to pray for me.
But I also love to ask Saints in Heaven to pray for me…
Saints in Heaven
One of the richest blessings of being Catholic is we’re very comfortable with being spiritually connected to “friends in high places.” Yes, I do hang out with Heavenly VIPs!
We may not physically see around us St. Peter the Apostle or St. John the Beloved or St. Francis of Assisi or St. Padre Pio. But they love us—because their love is perfected in Christ. This holy gang cares for us. They’re praying for us. They’re rooting for us. They’re our spiritual cheering squad. Their example and prayer encourage us to press on.
As the Bible says, “Since we have such a huge crowd of men of faith watching us from the grandstands, let us strip off anything that slows us down or holds us back, and especially those sins that wrap themselves so tightly around our feet and trip us up; and let us run with patience the particular race that God has set before us. (Hebrews 12:1 TLB)”
How can they not care for us? Death does not separate us.
We’re one spiritual family.
May your dreams come true,
Bo Sanchez
