Victor Hugo Manzanilla - Awaken Your Inner Hero: 7 Steps to a Successful and Meaningful Life

Awaken Your Inner Hero

2017 by Victor Hugo Manzanilla

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America.

Grupo Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson.

www.gruponelson.com

Title in Spanish: Despierta tu hroe interior

2015 by Victor Hugo Manzanilla

Published by Grupo Nelson, a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Editor-in-Chief: Graciela Lelli

ISBN: 978-0-71809-841-4

Epub Edition January 2017 ISBN 9780718098476

Printed in the United States of America

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To My Son Benjamin:

Some day you will be able to read these pages. My greatest desire is that they help you overcome any fear you have and that they inspire you to set out to live a life of unique adventure.

You are the hero of your story. Sing your song at the top of your lungs; the world needs to hear it. I cant wait to see what God has in store for you.

I love you forever.

Download the

Awaken

Your

Inner Hero

free study at:

www.innerheroguide.com

YOU FRIEND HAVE BEEN GIVEN a tremendous gift.

By virtue of the fact that you are alive, here and now, with the ability to hold this book and process its ideas, you are among the top fraction of a percent of all beings who have ever graced this planet in terms of opportunity. There are people throughout all of known history who would have traded anything to simply live one of your normal days. Even the least wealthy among us would have been considered wildly advantaged just a few centuries ago.

So, in the words of the poet Mary Oliver, Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I believe that how you answer this question defines everything about you. If you chooseby design or defaultto simply move through your life reacting to your circumstances by taking the predictable path, chasing comfort, and trying to make as few waves as possible then your life will likely be fine. Just fine. And frankly, if thats what youre aiming for, theres nothing wrong with that. Youll probably hit your target.

Howeverand I promise you thisyou will always wonder what if? What if I had taken that chance? What if Id introduced myself to her or him? What if Id actually tried? Though you lived your life, it was never actually yours.

On the other hand, if you choose to take the wise advice of Victor Hugo Manzanilla and treat your life as a journey to be embraced and an adventure to be relished, your life will be full of highs and lows, successes and failures, joys and heartaches. There will be times when you wonder if it was all worth it. But, the one thing I promise you is this: your life will be yours, and no one elses. You will go to your grave knowing that you lived your days to their fullest, and that you squeezed every last ounce of beauty and wonder out of them while you had the chance.

So, what will you do with your one and only life? Will you choose to be the hero of your story or a background character in your own plot line?

Today is your day of reckoning, and Victor Hugo Manzanilla is your guide. This book is full of such practical wisdom that its impossible to read it without being moved and transformed. Live The Heros Journey, embrace your call, and bring your gift to the world. We need you to live your life. Will you?

Todd Henry

September, 2016

I WANT TO TELL YOU A STORY that changed my life and will surely change yours as well.

It all began on a Sunday like any other. We had made it through a hellish wintersometimes I dont know which is more infernal, the extreme heat or the winter cold in Ohio that brutalizes us five months of the year here in the North, and we were slowly beginning to see blue skies and hear the birds sing again.

After church service we greeted our friends Dave and Beth as we normally did.

Dave and Beth are a couple that became close friends when I moved from Venezuela to Cincinnati. If you have ever emigrated, you know what it is means to leave your people, your city, and your country as a somebody and overnight become a nobody. Dave and Beth were that couple that began to make us feel like we were somebodies once again.

Dave is the type of person who always has new ideas. His mind never stops working. Each week, without fail, he comes to me with a new project, adventure, or business idea.

And he doesnt stop talking. Its as if his soul refuses to be tamed by a common life, routine, or even the impossible. He is always thinking about something new that might be achieved.

That day, I was met with an invitation:

Would you like to go meet Donald Miller?

Who is Donald Miller? I asked.

Don, as he is called, is a famous writer, Dave said. He wrote a book called Blue Like Jazz that was hugely successful that I absolutely loved. Don is here in Cincinnati today speaking about his next book, and I would really like to meet him.

I never liked these last-minute invitations. For some reason I always felt they messed up my already well-planned day. It was as if my appointment book was always making me refuse the call to something new, to something unknown.

The truth is that refusing something new was very common for me. The appointment book was just an excuse.

That day was like any other Sunday. Nevertheless, going to see Don meant a drastic change from what I had in mind. I would have to forfeit going out to eat at the place we normally did on Sundays, and I would miss out on the usual Sunday meal, and the same cup of coffee that I ordered every Sunday. Oh, and, of course, I would risk not getting home in time to see Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, a program where homes are rebuilt for the poor or someone going through difficult circumstances. I watched it faithfully every Sunday. I would cry at the end when the remodeled house was turned over to its owner and would feel that I had somehow contributed to the good of humanity.

I dont know why it makes you feel so good. Its like a low-cost way of imparting some benevolence to the world. We watch a video or see some story of kindness, compassion, or redemption and it touches our hearts. We share it on social media, and we feel like we are part of that story when in reality we have done nothing. And, we do nothing differently from that moment. Its as though the act of watching something, crying a little, and sharing in the stories lend a bit of significance to our lives. As if that were the only way we could get involved and be a part of a great story.

So, going back to Daves invitation, for some reason that I still dont understand, that day I decided not to eat the same meal I ate every Sunday in the same restaurant with the same cup of coffee I always had, or watch my favorite Sunday program so I could go with Dave to meet Don.

That day something happened inside of me that was a turning point in my life. Don planted a seed in my heart that led me to change; a seed that, years later, sprouted and became this book.

I want to be honest with you. I wrote this book with the goal of helping you to change your life for the better. This is not a book meant to simply entertain you, but rather a book that will touch the deepest fibers of your being with a clear search for change.