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W Mitchell*
Entrepreneur, author, internationally sought after speaker and expert on change.
Presentation to Santa Barbara Council for Self-Esteem - 09/22/06

“Taking responsibility for getting back up after you’ve been knocked down is what success is all about.  I remind people that It’s Not What Happens To You, It’s What You Do About It!” says W Mitchell, CSP.  He has been inducted into The Speakers Hall of Fame and received the Council of Peers Award for Excellence.

W Mitchell, known simply by Mitchell, kept a packed audience riveted for an hour and a half, opening with the statement, “Anyone can count the seeds in an apple.  None can count the apples in a seed.”   Mitchell dropped many seeds of wisdom starting with a quote by Zig Zigler, “You can have anything you want in your life if you help others get what they want.”

Quoting from the introduction to his book, It’s Not What Happens To You, It’s What You Do About It!  Mitchell stated: “Life is what you make it…” 
           
            “If only, Mitchell,” you might say, “If only I were not so old.  So broke.  So uneducated.  If only my wife/husband/boss/kids/would support me in my quest for happiness.  I got a raw deal, Mitchell.”
             
            To which I simple say: Look at me.

            My face looks like a badly made leather quilt; it has inspired children to chant, “Monster, Monster,” as I pass.  I have no fingers.  I cannot walk. 

            Furthermore, all of this did not happen at once—I did not have the “luxury” of one great, grand accident to get over.  First I was burned nearly to a crisp;
There is probably not one person in a billion who has endured more physical pain then I have.  Then four years later, in an entirely separate accident, I was paralyzed from the waist down.  The average person might call me the unluckiest man alive.”

            Since some of the audience was not familiar with his story, Mitchell shared a dramatic history of his life from the time he was a cable car conductor in San Francisco to his brilliant career as an international speaker and trainer.  Briefly, he told of his dream of flying, how he finally learned, then bought a motorcycle to celebrate.  Upon leaving the shop on the corner of 26th and South Van Ness, he was hit by a laundry truck that had run a stop sign.  The gas tank popped open and Mitchell became a human torch.  One man raced to grab a fire extinguisher and put out the flames engulfing him.  It took a team of physicians to save Mitchell’s life.  When he awoke two weeks after the accident, he was burned over 65% of his body!

            Quoting Woody Allen that *“80 % of life is showing up,” Mitchell praised the crowd for doing so.  He said we were all there to add more and to grow more.  He stated that many people spend a lot of time “driving through life looking through the rear view mirror.  Though we can’t change yesterday, we can change the moment.  Life happens; stuff happens!”

             Much of Mitchell’s talk involved stories that resulted in the teaching of self-esteem lessons or through inspirational self-esteem quotes by him and other well-know people.  He told how a woman, passing him on the street, caught his eye and rather than look away, as most did, gave him a sincere smile.  After that experience, Mitchell began to look up and smile at others.  He reminded us that “what we focus on is what we get back.”  We need to “focus on what we can do rather than what we can’t do.” 

            Mitchell quoted Mark Twain’s statement, “We can’t remember everything we know, we must be reminded of it.”  He then reminded us that, as John Denver said, “Someone doesn’t have to lose in order for me to win.”  While Mitchell was in the hospital after being paralyzed from his second awful accident, this one in his Cessna 206 airplane, he was told by his physical therapist to learn five new things he could do every day.  She wanted him to learn how to transfer from his wheel chair to a sofa.  Mitchell didn’t think he needed another place to sit.  She explained that he might want to transfer to a sofa in order to sit next to his girl friend! This story led to Mitchell’s advice to the audience to be willing to “transfer—do what we need to do to get where we want to be.”

            Mitchell showed us how, even in the most horrific of circumstances, one can echo the words of Steven Covey, “We can choose how we respond.”  He was an inspiration demonstrating that it is truly not what happens to us in life but how we respond that counts.

            Finally in a most generous and unusual offer, he suggested the audience buy his books, videos or tapes and that he would not just sign them but also donate 20% of his receipts to the S.B. Council for Self-Esteem.  Then he added, he would take cash, checks, money could be sent to him later or “if some wanted his work and could not afford it, to take it anyway as a gift from him!”

*Some of the self-esteem seeds dropped by Mitchell are underlined in this wrap-up.

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