Rising Above Adversity: The Amazing Story of Jean-Dominique Bauby

His mind was sharp, but his vision was blurred.  He could think, but could not talk.  He wanted to write, but could not use his hands.  With one eye sewn shut, his only means of communication was by blinking his left eye.  Yet with all his obstacles and challenges, he was able to ”write” a bestselling book that was turned into a movie.  Who am I talking about?  Jean-Dominique Bauby the author of “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”.

There are stories that entertain, stores that scare, and stories that motivate.  This is a story of motivation, perseverance and accomplishment in the face of adversity and debilitating paralysis. Every now and then you come across a story so powerful and compelling, that it grabs you by the throat and just won’t let go.   Such is the nature of the true story of Jean- Dominique Bauby – locked in his body as one is in entombed in a diving bell, yet free to wander, dream and travel to faraway places using only his mind.

Jean-Dominique was the editor of the French ELLE magazine and lived a fast pace life in the world of fashion. Then on one day in 1995 he had a massive stroke that left him completely immobile except for the movement of his left eye.  Unfortunately he was the victim of a extremely rare condition called Locked-in Syndrome.  Now, just take a moment to absorb Jean-Dominique’s condition – you’re mind is perfectly fine, you feel pain, hot and cold, a bead of sweat rolling down your forehead, but the only thing you can move is your left eye.  How would you react?  Would you be able to turn your condition into something positive?
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How to Survive in Troubled Times

The events of the past few months and especially this week are disturbing and troubling at best. Food and gas prices are rising faster than they have in a long, long, time. The value of our retirement accounts are on a wild roller coaster ride and our incomes are not keeping pace with inflation. It’s a scary time and one night I was wondering if there was anything that we can do to calm our fears and help us sleep at night?

The other night I was particularly restless and decided to go downstairs and started watching The Matrix. I watched the movie, the scene selections, listened to the audio commentary and viewed every piece of footage on the DVD. Then I stumbled across the strangest scene of all – it must have been a ‘deleted scene’ that didn’t make it into the released version of the movie. In this scene Morpheus was explaining to Neo how to survive troubled times. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and even felt the back of my head for one of those ‘Neural connectivity ports’.
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Invisible Forces: An Exploration in Irrational Behavior by Rational People

Believe it or not, I actually owned a small amount of Netscape stock right after it went public in the mid ‘90s. I watched in awe as the price soared and my little investment doubled in value. I felt like a wall street warrior and marveled at my investment prowess. Wall Street was mine for the taking and nothing was going to stop me.

Then one day the price went down. Only a little at first and certainly not enough to worry about. But then the downward slide began and I watched in as the price went lower and lower and lower. How could this be? Netscape was the darling of Wall Street at the time and made ‘surfing the net’ a mainstream experience. With unbridled confidence I watched and waited. And waited some more. I just knew it would rebound.

Unfortunately for me, after a few years of “waiting”, I finally sold the stock at a loss after the AOL buyout. It was only after reading “Sway – the Irresistible pull of irrational behavior” by Ori and Rom Brafman that I understood why I had acted the way I did. It was little comfort to know that I acted like so many investors and was swayed by a force almost as powerful as gravity – Loss Aversion.

Ori and Rom Brafman explore several psychological forces that influence decisions we make and the actions we take on a daily basis. These forces are stronger that any of us realize, and have a significant impact on our lives. Think of these forces as Dark Matter for our minds, that exert an unseen force that sways us into taking actions that we really should not be taking. Rational people doing irrational things. What are these forces that have us in their grip? Is there a way to overcome them? Ori and Rom present the evidence and provide the information needed for us to break free.
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How to Instill Passion in Others (and Yourself)

Photos by Idea-man and TeeRish.

We read about it in magazines, blogs and news stories. Every day in the media we see it. What am I talking about? Passion. Passion for a cause, a product, a candidate or a company. You can easily read yet another story of a team that put in a Herculean effort to get their product out the door, their company launched or make that last deadline.

Even though they’ve spent large amounts of time at work, they look happy, satisfied, and only a little tired. For all the hours they spent at work, they certainly don’t have any of the signs that they’ve settled. What is it that drives groups like this and is there anything you can do to create the same passion in yourself and the people around you? At what point does being at work stop being work and turn into something enjoyable and satisfying?

Instilling passion in a group or team is an art practiced by many successful leaders and is something that can be learned – believe me, I’ve tried the suggestions below and have had great success. Many of us manage teams of people during our day jobs, and with the right team and working environment this can be an enjoyable experience. You may be leading a software development team, creating a product or working on a political campaign. Either way, you’re expected to motivate and lead a team through what may be, a period of very hard work.

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The Movie Director’s Guide to Effective Teaching

How many “training sessions” have you sat through where you’re eyes started to roll into the back of your head and you couldn’t stay focused no matter how hard you tried?

I’ve sat through too many sessions like this, and frankly, can’t stand it any longer. I don’t even fault the presenter. Many times people gain valuable experience in a topic or technique and are asked to put together a presentation and “train” a group of people. The problem is, the presenters are rarely trained in teaching techniques or learning theory. Read the Rest of This Article »

10 Secrets to Success

What is it that makes people successful and I mean really successful compared to you or me? Are they smarter or do they work harder? Are they risk takers or have powerful and influential friends?

The financial newspaper Investors Business Daily (IBD) asked these same questions a few years ago and started a multi-year search for the answer. They studied industry leaders, investors and entrepreneurs to understand the traits they all had in common that contributed to their success. Reproduced here is their list of 10 Secrets to Success along with my commentary on each no-so-secret, ‘secret’.

I decided to reproduce the list here and comment on each of the traits in hopes of motivating you and myself in the process. It’s time for me to take my own advice and start on the path to my dreams. I hope to motivate you, by using myself as an example. Read the Rest of This Article »

Improve Your Writing with a Conversation Tone

Our brains have an amazing ability to learn and retain material. The trouble is we don’t have 100% control over this ability — we can tell our brain something is important, but our brain may not listen.

Have you ever told yourself that a particular book is important but you find yourself rereading the pages just to understand the material? It’s difficult to pay attention to material written in a formal tone (like most textbooks) even though you may want to understand it. The problem is you’re fighting against your brain – the most sophisticated computer ever created. Read the Rest of This Article »

Keeping Your Brain Young

Alzheimer’s and Dementia are two of the cruelest diseases known and the ones that frighten me the most. I can’t imagine what it’s like to slowly slip into a fog and not remember where you are, who you are or be told the lady in the room you don’t recognize is actually your wife of 50 years.

It’s unfortunate that nursing homes are filled with people that barely recognize their friends and family that come to visit. If you’ve read the book or seen the movie “The Notebook”, you understand what I’m talking about. Is there anything we can do now to help prevent these diseases or should we sit and wait for science to develop a magic pill for us?

I don’t know about any magic pill, but there is research that shows there are things we can do to help ward off the effects of Alzheimer’s and Dementia. But, before I divulge the secret-sauce of mind disease prevention, I need to explain a property of the brain that may be contrary to what you already know. Read the Rest of This Article »

How to Achieve the Creative State of Flow

Have you ever been so engaged in an activity that you lost track of time or even your surroundings? A bomb could of gone off (figuratively) and you wouldn’t have noticed?

That’s called “flow” – a state of consciousness where we experience a task so deeply that it truly becomes enjoyable and satisfying. For me this usually happens while I’m reading, writing, or developing software. For you, it could happen during any number of tasks — golfing, cooking, hiking, etc. Read the Rest of This Article »