JohnDuffyLiveCourageously

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Speak Like a Champion Tour 2017 - NOTRE DAME SPEAKER John Duffy

Sunday, June 12, 2016

I Got Stories: A Story Part II

So last night I'm at a friends dinner party and he introduces me to someone he wanted to connect me with for awhile. I ask him what his story is and he tells me the following: "His son was 19 and signed up to join the US Airforce and was coming out of a party in LA when he was killed in a drive-by shooting. It devastated him and he didn't know how to handle it. So he prayed and asked what he could do about this and he got the message that he needed to write a Memoir about his son and him. So he tells me that he answered, "I don't know how to write I'm a manager and a business man. In his prayers he got back "Just Write It", Just Write It". Well he did and he said all these people appeared to help him with editing, cover design, publishing and he published the book.
He shared how it has gone on to touch people's lives and how he has set up foundation in honor of his son and is sponsoring scholarships and helping veterans with his foundation.
I just kept hearing the words in my mind, "Just Write it". I told him about the post I made that morning about my Memoir and how his story touched me and especially the words "Just Write It". I made a new friend last night and gained a new inspiration for my life.
Now some will see this meeting as purely a coincidence and some might see it as a woman I met in DC at the GI Film Festival put it when they "coincidentally" walked into a museum that day while visiting DC and ran into her husbands HS friend from Texas who was screening his film "Last Man Club" that maybe this was "God's wink". Either way I think that maybe I need to "Just Write It"

Saturday, June 11, 2016

I Got Stories: A Story - June 11, 2016

I am recommitting to rewriting my Memoir with the help of a writing partner. As I embark on this journey I have been reflecting back on my life and on life in general. I realize I have been blessed with wealth, now not financial wealth, I'm still working on that but a wealth of experiences, opportunities, friends  and stories. Helen Keller said, "Life is a great adventure or it is nothing at all". I can say I have had some great adventures.

The picture I posted below is the tenement apartment I started life in and  lived in for 18 years in the South Bronx. My widowed mother took care of us on two checks, my deceased dad's veterans' check and his Social Security check. I dropped out of high school at 15 and started to work. 

Flash Forward to the future and I have lived  a life  that I never dreamed of when I was a  teenager sitting in my apartment in the South Bronx. Someone had a bigger dream for me than I had. 

I have lived a very colorful, eclectic and adventurous life. I've worked in factories, worked at the Post Office, worked as a substitute teacher, worked as an oral history interviewer, I'vbeen a counselor for runaways in Hollywood, I've acted in film and television, produced over 25 feature films, attended the Cannes and GI Film festivals, scouted states and countries for filming, directed a short film that was accepted into the GI Film Festival in DC, became a Adjunct Professor teaching MBA students in film,  created a family and raised a daughter, given public speeches to film and veteran groups, walked across hot coals in NYC and Maui, reconnected with my family in Ireland and travelled there four times. Got my Irish dual citizenship and the list goes on and on. I not even scratching the surface here.

So I Got Stories. And I am amazed at how my life has turned out and all the opportunities I have had. I don't now if everyone is blessed in the same way or in the same amounts but I know I have been truly blessed. 

 So if I wasn't' grateful every day I would be a fool. I start every day out reviewing all I am grateful for. 

So I hope to begin to start sharing my stories and eventually my memoir in the future. The adventure continues .... Make Your Life a Masterpiece and Live with Gratitude