Did you ever consider that having a miraculous life is natural?  Inspired actions create miracles and a miraculous life.

Know that inspired actions create miracles

Dave Sanderson believes that miracles do happen and for a reason.  I am honored to have spoken to Dave Sanderson, author of the book “Moments Matter” and the last passenger off of Flight 1549 that “Sully”  flew.  I believe Dave made a significant change after that day from just living a life, to living a miraculous life.

Dave shared some of his stories about his life after the plane’s forced water landing and how he changed and implemented those changes.  Think about his answers and please share with me what you think.  Is Dave living a miraculous life now?

Back Story: The Emergency Landing on Jan. 15, 2009:  

Dave caught an earlier flight home that winter day.  He boarded the plane like everyone else and after take-off, bam!  He could see an engine on fire and the plane started going down.  He and others described it being so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.  Dave was inspired by his deceased mother nudging him “If you do the right thing, God will take care of you.”

Dave was the last passenger off of the plane along with Captain Sullenburger from what was called “Miracle on the Hudson.”  Can you imagine Dave’s experiences and thoughts?  Read the book “Moments Matter” and see the new movie “Sully” for a fuller understanding of that day.

Dave and others have shared how they witnessed many miracles from this experience.  Before getting to the interview, get yourself ready by thinking about what a miracle is to you and the miracles there have been in your life.

What is a Miracle?

A miracle is a remarkable unexpected event.  Many times that event has other synchronistic effects that seem to be part of some Divine plan.  People and opportunities might come together to make something more in life than what a person might have expected. With an open mind, one might change their outlook and see many paths of abundant miracles.  There is even a pathway to create an environment for facilitating more miracles coming into your life.

Pathway to Living a Miraculous Life

1. Create a quiet moment for yourself. Think about how you respond to events in your life when you feel like you are being fully supported.  When that happens, don’t you usually find yourself in a relaxed state of mind?  You usually have good posture don’t you?  You are probably not trying to control the experience and are very present in the moment.  Do you find your senses heightened, be they visual, feeling, hearing or another?
2. Then, in stillness, you notice an open heart. Many describe feeling love or gratitude when these heightened emotions have opened their heart center.
3. Do you sense or hear inspirational messages to take action?
4. Then to discern if it makes sense or not, don’t you usually evaluate if the messages are from your ego, or from your higher Divine intelligence. Are these messages good, right or true?  If so, then you know they are coming from Divine intelligence.
5. When you heed the advice of the message by planning and taking inspired actions, don’t you feel in the “zone”?
6. Consider now that you have to let go of expectations about how the outcome will be revealed. Have trust that all will happen with Divine perfection.  A good way to trust is to know that the Divine has only 3 answers for all requests:
   Yes…Not Now…I have something better in mind!

Now take these ideas and your opened mind as you read about the changes Dave made in his life, using his experiences to create a miraculous life.

The Interview:  Dave’s Transition after the Emergency Landing

I asked Dave, “You experienced being connected at a heart and soul level with strangers, accomplishing many miracles.  Then suddenly you were thrown back into your workplace with people you knew that were focused on achieving success.  You moved afterward from achieving success for your company, as most of us do at our jobs.  That day on the plane you [chose] a new model to being of significance to others.  How did you navigate that experience of moving from achieving success, to being of significance?”

“Susan, you’ve gone to a new distinction which candidly, I hadn’t been asked for a number of years…  Here is a bigger global view.  I was head of security for Tony Robbins and spent a lot of time, business time, travel time.  When you are with somebody that much, you learn a lot, just by osmosis, which I did and took copious notes likewise.  I think I moved to a model of growth and certainty.  Significance to me is someone who wants to stand out, somebody who wants to be seen as the one.  That is a sharp contrast with those that feel a love and connection.  So if it is all about you, does someone connect with you?  I would go to an event and people would check their egos at the door, people worked together as a team, [for] a common outcome.  People were focused on a mission.

At that point on the plane, no one knew there was a mission.  It turned out to be where everybody pulled together; a miracle occurred.  When I got back the next day, when I went back to the office and they saw I was alive, no one even called me from my work or even called my wife the evening of the plane crash.  I don’t even know if they knew I was on that plane.  That day, I found out that I was just a number.  So I was striving all these years to be a top producer and achieving.  I was happily achieving [instead] of spending time with my family and focusing on what’s most important [to them].  Actually I started to make the shift that I needed to focus on a new global model of growth and certainty.  That is what I went through rather than focusing on helping another billionaire get another couple of million dollars in his pocket.  That is when I made the shift; it was actually the day after the plane crash and though I didn’t have a game plan to actually do it yet.

Tony would always say, ‘You’ve got to have a game plan.’  Some people just do things and there are ramifications for doing things without having a game plan.  So it took me a few years to get the game plan together.  Part of that game plan, Susan, was to make sure I was in sync and lockstep with my family, where they were at, what they needed and what they needed to have in order to have certainty in their lives and certainty that Dad wasn’t going off the deep end.  And I may have been.  I may have not knowingly been out there.  I was trying to serve everybody’s needs by doing everything I could.  Whether it was interviews, talks, whatever it may be.  Then I started focusing on my family.  That’s what changed everything.  I would say that distinction you made was a tremendous distinction.  I actually did move from an area of success or achievement.  Look at the hierarchy of needs right?  I was at that level where I was probably a driver/achiever and all of a sudden, I started moving up the ladder.  Tony told me I was more an awakened soul.  Candidly, I saw things at a different level where I could be an achiever in a moment.  I could be a power guy in a moment.  I could be a travel person in a moment, but I integrated all these instead of being focused on achievement.  You really hit on that distinction. That is what changed dramatically in my life.

[For me], the definition of significance comes from the one of the [Tony Robbins]  6 human needs.

• Certain
• Uncertain
• Significance
• New love and connections
• Growth
• Contribution

I went from an achiever mode to how can I serve and add value to other people.  Tony and I had a heart to heart.  We talked many times after the plane crash.  He basically laid it out for me.  Tony said, ‘You know you went through something unbelievable and miraculous.’  It’s a matter of being humble.  Be able to show people and feel in your body that you have gratitude for everything that you have.  Candidly, I shouldn’t be here today.  I should either be dead or in a wheel chair or maybe a different situation.  I was given a gift.  I talk now to give that gift to other people.  That is why I do what I do.”

Dave Discusses Moving to a Heart Centered Model – A New Way to View Teamwork

I then asked Dave this question.  “When I read the book Brace for Impact, in the chapter that you wrote, you described how people used their strengths and skills, worked as a team, then served each other.  You talked about the potential, if people started instead of just achieving success, if they would be willing to work as a team, each using their skills and strengths serving each other.  What potential of accomplishment could be reached?  Wow.  Imagine the potential of that.  Have you given any thought to how you would recommend people take the old mindset of what they mean by teamwork to achieve success and move into a new mindset of teamwork as a sense of service?”

Dave’s reply:

“When I do my workshop…we talk about mission based teamwork.  Where people get focused on the ultimate mission, rather than focusing on their personal significance.  That is where I was using the word significance, ‘It’s all about me.’  That is what part of my workshop is talking about.

I learned over the years and was reinforced when I had the opportunity to be with General Schwarzkopf.  I asked him how he won the war in Iraq so quickly.  He gave me his standard pat answer.  I asked a follow-up question.  He sort of looked at me like no one ever asked the general a second question.  He gave me then his true answer:  Getting people in his team to focus on the mission, [instead of] everyone focused on things that didn’t matter.  The mission was kicking Saddam out of Kuwait, not about going into Bagdad and kicking his butt.

Then I had the opportunity…10 years later, [to speak] with Captain Sullenberger.  He was talking to me about his mission, about getting that plane down with zero fatalities.

I am seeing the root of teamwork and leadership is about setting the mission and checking your egos at the door.  I was in a movie last year, “Be Who You Are”, and I was 1 of 5 stories in the movie.  It was one of those things that was like a seminal moment [for me].  I did this movie and was asked to go to the premier in Philadelphia.  I was really jazzed to do it.  The producer tells us, ‘Oh, by the way, we’re premiering this movie at a gay/lesbian film festival.’  I’m like OK, I have to step back and look at the bigger picture here.  I did an interview about my part and was asked an uncomfortable question.  My answer, I just came up with this answer.  I think [of] talks about the teamwork on the plane, because candidly in [those] 6 minutes, no one really gave a crap whether you were white, black, gay, lesbian, Hispanic, or whatever.  No one cared; everyone checked their egos at the door and pulled together because we all had a common mission.  We worked together.  Everyone did what they needed to do to have a successful outcome.  That was sort of a seminal moment for me because in my mind, I don’t care if you’re gay or lesbian.  I care about you and can you do what you need to do and execute in a moment….

That would be my answer I tell people, the mindset when I work with teams.

Setting the mission

Finding out what the primary needs of everybody on that team are

What their primary focus is

What modality they reside in [sensory modality – visual, kinesthetic, auditory]

If I find those things out, I can set people up to get a victorious outcome.”

Dave’s Book – “Moments Matter” for a Reason

I asked, “Dave, give me a taste of your new book Moments Matter, to wet our appetite a bit.”

 “Thank you for that because we launched the book in New Jersey January 2016.  How it really came about was 3 years ago.  My former assistant Vicki called me one day and said, ‘If nothing else, you need to record your story for your grandchildren and their grandkids.’  Your story is out there. I told Vicki, I appreciate you saying that because there are two ladies living down the street from us.  They were sisters. I knew they were older and they were Jewish.  They always called me when they had a technical issue, whether it was their TV or something.

 I said to Vicki that one day I went down there to help them and they had these books out on the coffee table.  I started flipping through one.  I saw pictures.  They were kids in a concentration camp in Bergen Belsen back in WWII.

 You look at their arms and could see the numbers on their arms.  I kept telling them that you need to record this.  They were 80 years old then.  I asked please let me record this for posterity.  They would never let me tell the story.  They passed on since.  It took Vickie and I about 8 or 9 hours to record my story.  We recorded every minute of that day and subsequent days as it came together.

There were 12 different things I kept talking about that I did and other people did that day that helped me get to where I was and everybody else to get where they were.  There were these 12 skills or resources.  That is where we decided that there was a book out of this.  I didn’t know how to do a book, so I asked Cindy to help me do the book.  Cindy used to be the Assistant Creative Director for Tony Robbins.  She helped him write one of his programs “Date with Destiny.”  Her skill set in life is taking disparate information and putting it into a context people can understand.  So that is what she did for me.  She took all those tapes that I did, interviews, and all my disparate information in a format that is coherent.

The book, “Moments Matter” the title came about [this way].  As we were discussing titles, I realized after that day [Jan15, 2009] every moment in my life really mattered.   [Why?]  Because those things that I learned, such as learning how to swim back in the 60’s.  My mom and dad took me down and made me learn how to swim.  You never think you are going to learn how to swim to save your life.  I never did. Captain Sullenberger learned how to glide a plane at the Air Force Academy in the early 70’s.  I’m sure he never thought he’d have to learn to glide a plane to save 155 lives.  So all those moments that you really don’t think matter in your life, really do add up and matter.  That’s how we came up with the title.

The 12 resources and my story is in “Moments Matter.”  It really helps people understand all these things, these resources that you may have learned [do matter].  [It may be] whether it is to be safe, whether it is about awareness or how you communicate with people.  One day all of a sudden, you may save yourself or save someone else’s life.  Just by being able to understand these things, you’ve learned in these moments that you had in your life – take them seriously.  I tell these kids, ‘You never know which moments are going to change someone’s destiny in life.’

Simone Manuel.  Last week she won that Gold Medal.  Along the way, she had a lot of setbacks.  In that seminal moment, when someone believed in her, all of a sudden, she is an Olympic Gold Medalist.

My blog last week is about the book Esther in the Bible.  She was put in that position for a reason. I was put in my position for a reason.  Captain Sullenberger was.  We’re all put in positions in our life for a reason, which sometimes you may or may not know or understand why.  One day it might just come to us.  We have that enlightening, that awakening, that epiphany.  That is what my blog was about last week.  You never know when you are going to be put in that position.  You’re put in that position for a reason.”

Your Mission, Your Game Plan and Creating Your Moments of Miracles

You can change your life to a miraculous one and receive many miracles.  It is natural and how we were meant to live.  Decide to make a change in your life purpose that has a heart based mission.  Include your primary needs and those of your loved ones by making a plan.  It took almost 5 years for Dave to implement his plan.  You can do this.

All you need to do is to listen to the messages from your soul, in the quietness of a relaxed state and open heart.  Evaluate if the message is coming from your ego or your soul.  Take these inspirations and plan out your inspired actions.  Implement them with excited passion and let go of being attached to the exact outcome by trusting in the perfection of Divine intelligence.  These inspired actions create miracles.

Go for it!  Take a moment and feel a sense of purpose in your whole body.  Your highest self and your loved ones are counting on you.

Dave Sanderson is Managing Partner of davesandersonspeaks.com and a motivational speaker.  He wrote a chapter of the book “Brace for Impact” and continues to meet and speak with others about what he has learned about creating a lifetime of purpose.  Dave leads workshops and writes a blog to inspire and help people make positive change.

I highly recommend buying his new book, “Moments Matter.”  Dave describes how to be successful accessing the 12 key resources that he found that he and others used that day on the plane, and also throughout his life.  It is a practical book filled with his stories of how he and others used those resources, suggestions for creating your own flight plan and next steps to take.  A book you will probably want always available.  It lies on my coffee table and I access it regularly.  I am also looking forward to seeing the new movie, “Sully.”

By Susan Suehr, an interview with Dave Sanderson

Change Your Beliefs = Change Your Life = Change Your World

Being in a relaxed state of mind is key to receiving inspirations from our soul.  Achieve a state of calm in minutes so you can use your inspired actions to create miracles.

FREE access to meditation “Create Better Feelings”

Google+