“My curiosity to explore unknown places and satisfy my desire for adventure drives me on a daily basis, but I also recognize my responsibility to engage the next generation in climate pursuits and make the ocean more of an accessible space to young people who want to get involved.”

Not many people can say exploring the underwater world is a natural thing for them nor can they boast about a family history of aquanauts that spans across decades. For Fabien Cousteau, a professional aquanaut, ocean conservationist, and documentary filmmaker, he can say just that.

As the first grandson of Jacques Cousteau, the famed oceanographic explorer, Fabien spent his early years aboard his grandfather’s ships Calypso and Alcyone, and learned how to scuba dive on his fourth birthday.

From 2000 to 2002, he was Explorer-at-Large for National Geographic and collaborated on a television special aimed at changing public attitudes about sharks called “Attack of the Mystery Shark”. From 2003 to 2006, he produced the documentary “Mind of a Demon” that aired on CBS.

From 2006–2010, Fabien was part of a multi-hour series for PBS called “Ocean Adventures” with his father, Jean-Michel Cousteau, and sister, Céline, which was inspired by his grandfather’s 1978 PBS series, “Ocean Adventures”.

In early 2009, Fabien began working with local communities and children worldwide to help restore local water ecosystems. He continues to pursue these initiatives through the ‘Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Centre’, his non-profit which he founded in early 2016. The NGO is dedicated to the restoration of the world’s water bodies through active community engagement and education.

Through an interview with Fabien, we took a plunge into the underwater world, got insights into his latest endeavours and listened to his story growing up among the greats of the earliest modern ocean explorers.

EARLY LIFE

Tell us more about your family background and share with us on what it was like growing up.

I was lucky to get to spend a significant amount of time with members of my family growing up, who ignited my passion for the ocean and environment, including my grandfather, father, and sister.

At an early age, my relationship with my grandfather in particular was similar to that of any other close family members. He was a source of inspiration and supported me in all of my interests, but it wasn’t until later on that I fully grasped the impact of what he was able to accomplish as a filmmaker, scientist, and explorer.

From that point on, my curiosity to explore the ocean grew and became one of the primary factors driving me forward.

How did your upbringing shape the person you are today?

I learned to scuba dive on my 4th birthday and spent considerable time with my sister on our grandfather’s research boats, the ‘Calypso’ and ‘Alcyone’. I grew up hearing tales of the underwater habitats that my family created, including ‘Conshelf 2’, which was essentially an entire underwater village.

It always fascinated me, and was clear from an early age that my life’s work would take a similar form. As my grandfather and father have also been involved in various media and filmmaking pursuits throughout their lives, I discovered my passion for that medium and have similarly strove to capture many of my expeditions and share them with the world however possible.

How would you sum up your childhood?

My childhood would probably have been considered unorthodox to many people. I was introduced to complex topics early on, and was also able to spend many of my early years travelling to different places, becoming exposed to a lot of adventure.

This ignited my curiosity, as I always preferred to be on field trips, experiencing things in person, as opposed to learning exclusively in the classroom.

JOURNEY

How and why did you choose to become an aquanaut, ocean conservationist, and documentary filmmaker respectively?

I fell in love with the ocean because I had amazing teachers in my family. I recognized the need to conserve the beautiful marine life and underwater ecosystems I’d seen from the time that I was young. I felt a calling to contribute in the way that we all have a responsibility to protect the forces that sustain our life on this planet.
As for documentary filmmaking, I have a strong interest in sharing my discoveries with as many people in the general population as possible, to show that environmentalism can and should be for everyone.

The more people we can get to be involved, the less it falls on any one of us individually and becomes a collective effort. When I was completing ‘Mission 31’ in the underwater habitat Aquarius, we were lucky enough to be able to broadcast every moment to hundreds of thousands of students in all six continents.

As much as I’m passionate about the ocean, I’m also interested in creating outward facing platforms for people to learn alongside me.

What were some hard decisions you had to make and challenges faced along the way?

One of my biggest challenges has been picking up where a pioneer left off and knowing there’s always a risk of being compared to my grandfather. That’s something that is just a reality and always a challenge, but my passion outweighs the difficulty.

There’s always risks involved in every expedition, but the more experience you have in a field, the more you can mitigate some of the challenges that come along with it. I’m confident that all of my past ventures have prepared me well for all of the expeditions and challenges I’ll take on in the future.

Share with us some experiences or memories that you think are significant to your journey so far.

In recent history, Mission 31 is one of my most significant memories. For this project, I embarked with a team of six aquanauts to the underwater habitat Aquarius off the coast of Key Largo, Florida. We stayed for 31 days in order to pay tribute to my grandfather, whose previous record was 30.

It was incredible to be experiencing the world from this vantage point. I was immersed in the ecosystem and did not have to come up after a few hours – like you do when you’re scuba diving. I also really valued the opportunity that I could share with the world, particularly students who were interested in learning about my particular area of expertise.

I was also able to partner with Aquatica Submarines on an expedition to the bottom of the great Belize Blue Hole. We piloted multiple manned submarines to collect scientific data, focusing on creating a complete sonar scan in order to promote ocean conservation and awareness.

It’s incredible to be one of the first and only people to explore these areas, and it gives me a great sense of responsibility to share my findings with the rest of the world.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Which achievements/milestones are you most proud of and why?

Mind of a Demon is an achievement that I’m very proud of. For this project, we built a shark-shaped submarine. That project took me three years to finish and we ended up on primetime CBS, which was the first time an ocean documentary ended up on network television in roughly 25 years. We got the second highest rating in that prime spot, so that was a huge achievement I’m very proud of.
Going back to the Amazon rainforest 25 years later with my father and sister, where we spent 11 months comparing what’s changed over 25 years, was also very significant. I’ll also be very excited to add PROTEUS to my list of milestones in the next few years.

What do you think are the key ingredients to your success?

The key ingredients to my success are perseverance, always keeping a metaphorical compass in my pocket, ignoring the word impossible, and surrounding myself with amazing, talented people.

What lies ahead in terms of your goals and ambitions?

PROTEUS is just the first in a series of underwater structures in the course of that project. Beyond that, what’s core to my mission is to keep going out there and satisfying my curiosity.

Connecting people with the ocean will always be one of my main priorities, so I’d love to continue accomplishing that through any type of media series that allows me to share my discoveries. In years to come, I hope to still be inviting people around the world along, virtually speaking, on my adventures.

PERSONAL (LIFE)

To you, what are the most important things in life?

Beyond the people in my family and other close individuals who I tend to keep private, the most important things in my life are passing my passion for the ocean on to the world (especially the next generation), never losing my will to explore, and sharing my biggest milestones with those who are closest to me.

What’s worth mentioning on your life’s bucket list that you have not done?

Executing project Proteus and using it to make headway in critical scientific research is probably the primary item on my bucket list, but it doesn’t end there.

If everything goes according to plan, there will be several additional habitats that we’ll install elsewhere, hopefully benefiting communities and giving them a stronger sense of the environmental circumstances that they’re facing.

Beyond that, I’d love to continue documenting my exploits through any sort of media series or project that allows me to spread the word and share what I’m doing with the world.

Why do you do what you do? (What drives you everyday)

My curiosity to explore unknown places and satisfy my desire for adventure drives me on a daily basis. But I also recognize my responsibility to engage the next generation in climate pursuits and make the ocean more of an accessible space to young people who want to get involved.

I wouldn’t have been able to pursue so many of the dreams I accomplished without those before me who paved the way, so it’s up to me to pass the excitement on.

Who are the role models and influences in your life?

I’m obviously very inspired by the people who came before me and gave me the tools to pursue this type of work, specifically those in my family.

I’m also inspired on a daily basis by the members of my team who support my efforts, those at the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Centre, Proteus Ocean Group, as well as all of the aquanauts and ocean explorers who have been a big part of my expeditions.

What are some things that many people don’t know about you?

Something that might be surprising to people is that I had a hard time in school growing up because I was diagnosed with mild dyslexia. At first they thought it was a learning disability, but I see it more from a different perspective.

In general, I feel a little bit different than most people because of my exposure to the ocean and the way I’ve gotten to see the world from a different lens, which maybe distracts me from the day to day mundanities.

It’s also part of the reason why it’s so important for me to try to share the perspective I’ve grown up with in regards to our species on this planet.

What kind of legacy do you hope to leave behind?

I hope to inspire people to seek out answers to questions that may initially seem impossible. I’d also like to make massive concepts like the ocean feel a bit more accessible to the general public and demonstrate that things that often appear distant are actually a lot closer and more impactful than we realise.

Ultimately, I want to make people see that, without a healthy ocean, our lives won’t be able to continue the way we’ve come to expect, so it’s up to every one of us to commit to educating ourselves and contributing to the fight in some way.

What are some life lessons you will take to your grave?

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned over the past several years is that it’s important to take on projects and challenges with brilliant people who have the same goals and values as I do.

Surrounding yourself with people who possess a variety of different skills means that you’re constantly learning, and you’re gaining multiple perspectives that you would lack if you tried to tackle everything yourself.

I’ve also greatly benefited from learning to push myself past boundaries that have been set by others and not let what’s been accomplished before stop me from pursuing something of my own.

VIEWPOINTS

What does it feel like to walk in the footsteps of your famous grandfather, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and how do you hope his legacy can be carried on?

I was incredibly lucky to have a grandfather who supported and inspired me the way that all mentors hopefully can for the young people in their lives.

He’s largely responsible for my life taking the trajectory that it did, as I grew up hearing about all of his exploits and accomplishments. However, it can also be intimidating to feel like you have to follow a figure of that magnitude and pick up where he left off.

In addition to continuing his work as an ocean conservationist, I hope to share everything we’re working towards with the world and get as many people involved as possible.

You founded the ‘Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center’ back in 2016 with a goal to protect and preserve our planet’s waters, coastal areas, and marine habitats. Why do you think this is important and how do you think more people can contribute to this goal?

It starts with something I always emphasize, which is “no ocean, no life.” Going from there, that mantra extends to “no healthy ocean, no healthy future.”

The only reason we exist as a species is because we are living on a very unique oasis in space. It’s our life support system for many reasons. It provides every breath that we take. It allows us to have weather patterns that are conducive to farming, sustaining life, and making food for ourselves.

It provides us with all of the things we love, cherish, and depend on. Therefore it becomes imperative that each of us connect with the ocean in a way that helps us understand that it’s our life support system. We must treat it like we treat ourselves.

We are seeing the repercussions of our abuse and our inaction. And if we are to imagine a future for our children where they enjoy what we’ve taken for granted, then we must care about the ocean and protect it.

From 2000 to 2002, you were an ‘Explorer-at-Large’ for National Geographic and collaborated on a television special aimed at changing public attitudes about sharks called “Attack of the Mystery Shark”. Are there still common misconceptions today, what are they, why do you think this is the case and how can these challenges be overcome?

I think the misconceptions about sharks are part fantasy, part legend, part fear and part ignorance of facts. This is because we subconsciously love to be scared, to have the image of a villain and us being the heroes.

The reality is that we have, at this juncture in history, eliminated virtually all threats to humankind except for ourselves. We are now our own worst enemy. Sharks, to their very core, are essential for a healthy ecosystem in the ocean.

They’ve been around for over 400 million years but because of our hatred, ignorance, and fear, we have dwindled them down to less than 10% of their original numbers, which is extremely dangerous.

Like any ecosystem, you need the garbage cleaners. You need the foragers. You need the web of life to be balanced, and sharks are an integral part of that. We have to remember that the ocean is their home, not ours. That’s something we forget way too often.

The other aspect of it is that, because of the human global population exploding, there’s a huge pressure on sharks as a food source. This is a problem because we’re annihilating the species, which are very valuable for the ecosystem and tourism. They’re also the kind of animals that accrue all of the toxic chemicals that we dump in the ocean, so they’re extremely toxic to eat.

At the end of the day, whether we like sharks or not, they must be a part of the ecosystem in healthy numbers if we’re to have a healthy ocean. It’s difficult because many cultural practices involve sharks, but sometimes it’s worth re-evaluating certain customs.

Most of the information we know about sharks is pretty topical and surface level. Modern science knows a lot more about sharks than we did even ten years ago, but there’s over 400 species of sharks. Many of them are rare and difficult to study, so we all have so much more to learn from them. We discover new species every few years.

The post A Legacy Deep Beneath The Surface – Fabien Cousteau appeared first on My Story Lounge.

“Our universe is full of wonder, and we are not around very long as measured on a cosmic time scale. So we’d better make sure we achieve what we can and appreciate life to the fullest.”

As a well-respected quantum physicist and ‘public scientist’ who regularly goes on television to promote science, Jim Al-Khalili remains humble about his popularity and achievements.

On the professional side, Jim is a professor of physics at the University of Surrey, where he also holds a chair in the Public Engagement in Science. In 1994, Al-Khalili was awarded an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Advanced Research Fellowship for five years, during which time he established himself as a leading expert on mathematical models of exotic atomic nuclei. He has published widely in his field.

Some of his other accolades include being appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to science and public engagement in STEM in 2021. In 2013 he was awarded an Honorary Degree (DSc) from the University of London. Al-Khalili was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2018

On the public side, Jim is a prominent author and broadcaster who has written 14 books on popular science and the history of science, translated into twenty-six languages. He has also presented numerous TV documentaries and radio programmes, mostly for the BBC.

In an interview with us, Jim opened up about his journey immigrating from Iraq to the UK and how he fell in love with physics, delving into the topic he became so passionate about sharing with everyone outside of the scientific community.

EARLY LIFE

Tell us more about your family background and share with us on what it was like growing up.

My father came to the UK as a young Iraqi student to study engineering where he met my English mother, a librarian. She fell for the ‘nice, dark, foreign man with the kind eyes.’ They dated, married and moved to Iraq – a place that my mother always referred to as ‘the start of her great adventure’.

Although my parents initially settled down in Baghdad, we moved around quite a lot, depending on where my father was based as an electrical engineer in the Iraqi air force. I was born in Baghdad in 1962, the eldest of four siblings. It was a very pleasant and idyllic childhood really, and I have so many fond memories.

We spoke English at home and my mother taught me to read and write. By the time I started kindergarten we had moved north of Mosul. That is where I learnt to speak Arabic with the friends I made there. From then on, all my schooling until the age of 16 was in Arabic.

By the late 70s, my parents knew that life in Iraq was going to get tougher with Saddam Hussain ready to take over power, especially for a Shia Muslim man like my father, married to a Christian British woman. So, we left in July 1979 for Britain to start a new life. This was quite natural for me and my siblings since we had visited England on many occasions throughout our lives to stay with my maternal grandparents.

On the whole, I just feel lucky. My life could have turned out very differently. For instance, if we had delayed leaving Iraq by just six months we would not have been allowed to leave and I would have been conscripted to fight in that awful and senseless war with Iran, in which many of my school friends I left behind lost their lives to.

How did your upbringing shape the person you are today?

Growing up in a loving household meant that I learnt two cultures. Despite having a Muslim father and Christian mother, I never felt conflicted or pulled in different directions. I learnt that ‘Allah;’ was just Arabic for God. However, I suspected my curious mind and, later, my scientific training, had me questioning the nature of reality and the existence of a supernatural creator.

I turned away from religion in my late teens. But my parents had instilled in me values such as honesty, compassion and morality that really had nothing to do with their faiths. These are traits I hope my wife and I have instilled in our children.

How would you sum up your childhood?

Happy, loving, carefree. Life in Iraq in the 60s and 70s were lightyears away from the troubles the country has endured since I left it. I was bright at school and all subjects came easily to me. My mother had studied art and music at college and she instilled in me a love of those subjects. They became hobbies I pursued at home, such as painting and playing the piano. I even made my own guitar from scratch.

I was obsessed with football of course, as were all my friends, and from about the age of twelve, I also developed an interest in music and girls.

So, I was pretty normal I would say. I didn’t fall in love with physics until my mid-teens, but when I did, I knew that was what I wanted to pursue for the rest of my life: to try to understand the workings of the universe. Even today, nearly half a century later, I still enjoy sport and music, but they get squeezed out by my continuing obsession with science.

JOURNEY

What got you interested in science and more specifically nuclear physics, quantum mechanics and quantum biology in the beginning?

I fell in love with physics thanks to an inspiring teacher (isn’t that always the way?). I remember performing well in a class test at the age of fourteen and realising that I was better at that subject than all my peers. Figuring out physics problems just came naturally to me. I preferred physics far more than chemistry and biology, both of which involved memorising names and concepts.

After all, for me physics was just a mixture of puzzle solving and common sense. I also realised it was the subject I had to study if I wanted answers to the big questions, such as – what are stars made of? Does space go on forever? What are the smallest particles made of? What is time?

I studied physics at the University of Surrey in England (in fact where I still work today) and initially had no plans for what I wanted to do after graduation. But by my final year, I knew my passion was to become an academic researcher. I didn’t choose nuclear physics as my PhD area; it chose me. One of my professors, who presumably saw something in me, offered me the chance to work with him in a field called nuclear reaction theory – a highly mathematical area involving solving the equations of quantum mechanics and writing computer codes to study the nature of atomic nuclei and how they react with each other.

But it was quantum mechanics itself – the weird and beautiful theory that describes the microscopic world, that has been my lifelong passion. So, in recent years I have moved away from studying atomic nuclei to applying quantum mechanics in other areas, such as inside living cells, hence the new field of ‘quantum biology’.

What were some hard decisions you had to make and challenges you faced along the way?

To be honest, I have not had to make many hard decisions. I look back over my life and career and realise I made some smart choices, but at the time I guess things just happened. Maybe I was subconsciously working out what paths to take, but I never felt particularly torn between choices, nor can I say that I have any regrets about the way things have turned out.

I have a successful career which I absolutely love, a loving wife to whom I have been married for 35 years and a wonderful son and daughter who now lead their own happy and fulfilling lives.

What are some memorable moments or anecdotes you could share with us while you were on this journey?

There have been many memorable moments in my career, but I feel those associated with my physics research are not likely to mean very much to the wider public. More interesting might be some of the highlights of my life as a science communicator. Making my TV documentaries, for example, have allowed me to travel around the world and visit locations I would never have had the chance to otherwise.

For instance, in 2009 – I made a three-part documentary on the history of science in the mediaeval Islamic world, which took me and my crew to a number of exotic locations to do filming.

One memorable trip was to Northern Iran to find the archaeological remains of a 12th century observatory high in a mountain fortress called Alamut. Not only was the science story I was telling so fascinating, but the trip itself was a great adventure.

A particular highlight from my science communication career was winning the inaugural Stephen Hawking medal, given to me by Hawking himself at a ceremony in Tenerife. He had watched a number of my documentaries and said I had explained quantum mechanics more clearly than he had ever heard. I was extremely flattered of course.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Which achievements/milestones are you most proud of and why?

I am not saying this because I feel I should, but by far my greatest achievement is playing my part in bringing up our two children and watching them grow into decent and happy human beings. So, obviously the days on which they were born are my most memorable.

But in terms of career milestones and achievements, I think it’s fair to say that being elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and signing the same Fellows’ book as Isaac Newton, is at the top of the pile. Being acknowledged in this way is every scientist’s dream.

What do you think are the key ingredients to your success?

Well, it certainly isn’t because I’m a genius – I know many people who are smarter than me. But personality plays a role too, or more correctly, emotional intelligence. I am able not only to grasp and understand difficult concepts in physics myself, but I can put them in a way that others without my training can also appreciate and understand.

So, in a sense, I would say the key ingredients of my success have been serendipity (at certain moments in my life), curiosity (the obsession to want to understand) and empathy (with an audience when trying to convey the wonders of the universe).

I should also add that a major ingredient in my success has been having a wonderfully supportive wife, Julie, who has encouraged me and been there for me throughout my career.

What lies ahead in terms of your goals and ambitions?

Having spent a big fraction of my time over the past two decades communicating science, either through my TV documentaries, radio and podcast work or my popular science books, I have never forgotten the ‘day job’: that I am first and foremost a research physicist.

I have recently started to get back to my research work in a serious way and I am loving it. I am the lead scientist on a multi-million-dollar research project to explore the nature of time in the quantum world.

This is going to take up much of my energy and I am hugely excited to be working with an international team of physicists, chemists, mathematicians, biologists and philosophers.

So, it’s very interdisciplinary and addresses some fundamental questions in science. But I won’t give up on writing and broadcasting either. I just want to do it all.

Jim Al-Khalili at TEDGlobal London – June 16, 2015, Faraday Lecture Hall, Royal Institution of Great Britain, London, England. Photo: James Duncan Davidson/TED

PERSONAL (LIFE)

What is your life motto (Or core values) if any?

As a humanist, I want to show empathy, compassion and kindness, not because a holy book tells me to, but because it defines my humanity. As a scientist I would say that my core values are to always exhibit honesty and integrity; and where there are conflicting views, as is often the case in science, to be able to disagree with others without being disagreeable.

In everyday life, I can boil my motto down to just two words: Be nice.

To you, what are the most important things in life?

It is to be able to see the other person’s point of view, to examine my own biases before I judge others, and finally to try and live happily and without stress. Our universe is full of wonder, and we are not around very long as measured on a cosmic time scale. So we’d better make sure we achieve what we can and appreciate life to the full.

What’s worth mentioning on your life’s bucket list that you have not done?

Well, it’s certainly not the usual stuff like climbing Mount Everest or skydiving or bungee jumping, nor trying psychedelic drugs, or going to space.

For me it is much less ambitious – I want to get better at playing the guitar, and maybe to have a physics equation that I have discovered named after me.

Why do you do what you do? (What drives you everyday)

Both an obsession with and sheer curiosity about the workings of the Universe and my place in it.

Who are the role models and influences in your life?

There are many people I admire, both in my field of science, from mentors such as my PhD supervisor Ron Johnson and the head of my department at Surrey, Bill Gelletly, who encouraged me to first dip my toe into the world of science communication, to heroes and inspirational figures from the worlds of art, politics and literature.

Ultimately, I would say that my wife, Julie, has had the most influence on how I have developed as a person and I feel, made me a better all-round human being.

What kind of legacy do you hope to leave behind?

I’d like to think that I would have inspired many people to take up science and to appreciate the wonders of nature, as well as to develop a rational, enlightened view of the world.

What are some life lessons you will take to your grave?

As a scientist, knowing that the laws of the Universe are logical and comprehensible. As a member of society, it is important to have empathy and compassion for my fellow humans and not to judge others too harshly before I have examined my own prejudices.

VIEWPOINTS

You can be seen as a ‘public scientist’ who has written numerous books as well as presenting numerous TV documentaries and radio programmes over the years. Why do you think that it is important for the public to be up-to-date on the latest happenings in the scientific community, especially in relation to physics?

A few years ago, I would have cited a couple of reasons for this. The first is the obvious one: that I hope to inspire the next generation of scientists and instil in them a curiosity and fascination with the world around them.

The second is that I feel it is important to imbed science into popular culture so that the wider public feel just as comfortable discussing scientific concepts as they are talking about politics, sport, art, music and literature. To some extent this is happening now, at least in some sectors of society.

However, since the pandemic started in 2020, I have realised that there is potentially an even more important motivation, which is to ensure that we have a scientifically literate society in which people are able to make informed decisions about all sorts of issues that come up in daily life, from understanding public health advice about Covid-19 to how to play a role in tackling climate change.

This requires an understanding of how the process of science works, from acknowledging uncertainty to the willingness to change one’s mind in the light of new data and evidence.

Ultimately however, I love being able to inspire and fascinate the public by instilling in them the same sense of awe and wonder about the universe that I feel.

What kind of innovation do you see in nuclear physics, quantum mechanics and quantum biology at the moment and where do you see new applications in the world in the next 3 to 5 years?

I think the next big advances in science are going to come at the interface of several disciplines that study the world at the tiniest length scales.

The first is quantum technologies, which is seeing exciting developments in areas such as quantum sensing and quantum computing.

Then there is synthetic biology, in which new devices are created and engineered by borrowing tricks from nature and sometimes even engineering or modifying tiny organisms to perform new tasks.

There is also the vast and rapidly developing area of nanotechnology, which involves the manipulation of matter down at the molecular and atomic scale to produce new structures.

This is why the area of quantum biology where I am working is so exciting: if life has evolved the ability to utilise the tricks of the quantum world in the way it manipulates atoms and molecules then we can borrow those tricks.

So, I see a coming together of all these areas into what I call quantum bioengineering.

How do you think nuclear physics, quantum mechanics and quantum biology can be relevant to our daily individual lives? 

Well, the science in these areas is still in its infancy. So it is hard to make predictions or promises about what it might deliver in the way of medical advances in the future.

For example, we have recently discovered that quantum mechanics plays an important role in genetic mutations.

If this is borne out by experimental data then it may have a big role to play in many areas of biology and medicine, from virology to cancer.

The post Wonders Of The Universe – Jim Al-Khalili appeared first on My Story Lounge.

“One person has the power to initiate a change and if we all do it collectively, things will be changed.”

Known for his “urban gardening” endeavours, Ron Finley took the stage on TEDxtalk in early 2013 and blew the audience away with his advocacy and passion for urban gardening. Ron initially started gardening to decrease the effects of the food apartheid in which his own neighborhood existed, encouraging healthy eating habits, and beautifying the land.

Ron is not one who backs down when it comes to causes he believes in. It all started in 2010 when Ron first dug up the strip of land between his house and the street, known as the parkway, and started planting fruits and vegetables. The laws in Los Angeles made it illegal to plant anything on those parkways but he eventually got the city of Los Angeles to change the law. It propelled Ron into a pioneering new career: ‘Gangsta Gardener’.

Ron created the non-profit organization, The Ron Finley Project, which aims to teach communities how to transform food deserts into food sanctuaries, in South Central Los Angeles. In addition, Ron has appeared in several documentary films about urban farming, including ‘Can You Dig This’ and ‘Urban Fruit’. His homegrown gardening course on an American online education subscription platform called ‘Masterclass’, is one of the top classes on the platform and a popular hit among its subscribers as well.

Ron shared with us about his childhood, how he started his journey, giving us insights into the role of community gardening and its impact on the people who are involved. More than that, his unique perspectives of the world and passions breathes life into his responses in our interview with him.

EARLY LIFE

Tell us more about your family background and share with us on what it was like growing up.

I grew up on a main street in South Central Los Angeles with eight siblings. The man of the house was not the best role model or person to be around. I was a homebody, but also had a lot of fun when I would go out and play, so I stayed out. My Mom worked in aerospace, so when she was home, I got to cook with her. I loved French fries, and they would tell me that when I grew up, I would turn into one because I cooked French fries all the time.

For the most part, the parts that I want to remember were fun, but also there was a lot of violence, a lot of alcohol, which I chose not to indulge in, ever. I didn’t really enjoy school, I enjoyed friends at school, but I didn’t necessarily excel in school. I had the most fun doing something that was tactile. I remembered when I was in junior high school, I wanted to take the cooking class and they wouldn’t let me because they said it was for girls, originally.

Then I told the counsellor, “Aren’t most chefs men?” So they literally started a boys cooking class because of that. At the time I didn’t see that as paradigm shifting, but as I got older, I realised it was. That’s a track I’ve been on, is to change our archaic laws and rules that don’t serve us.

How did your upbringing shape the person you are today?

My upbringing shaped me because I realised what I didn’t want to do and what I didn’t want to become. The things I saw didn’t serve me, so I was counter to a lot of the things that happened around me. I didn’t want the violence, I didn’t want the drugs, I didn’t want to be intoxicated and I didn’t want to be in a gang, so I didn’t. That’s a lot of what I saw around me and that wasn’t for me.

How would you sum up your childhood?

Beautiful, because I’m still here. My circumstances shaped me to who I am today, and without that you wouldn’t think I’m interesting enough to do a story on. I try to go through and not have any of the regrets, which, we’re all gonna have some, but release the pain and enjoy the beauty. Remember the things that made you happy. That’s why I say this now, and tell people to “operate from happy”.

JOURNEY

What got you into fashion designing and why the focus on professional athletes?

What got me into fashion designing is at a very young age I realised clothes didn’t accommodate my body or ‘black bodies’ in general. I wanted it so that I didn’t have to accommodate the clothes but that the clothes accommodated me. I wanted everything to be customised. At age 15, I had some pants tailor-made for me and I thought, if the tailor can do it, I can do it. I don’t know where I got the money from but that set me on the fashion designing journey at 15.

I wanted to express myself and I think clothes are a way to do that. My focus wasn’t necessarily on professional athletes, but my community. The athletes generally need bigger sizes and usually have the money for custom made clothing. They typically can’t walk into stores and buy things like the average sized person.

How and why did you become interested in urban gardening?

I became interested in gardening as a child in elementary school. But I didn’t realise that they didn’t give us the whole lesson at the time. They had us watch a seed grow in a wet paper towel in a petri dish. You watch this seed destroy itself to give new life and the stem and leaves come out and you think “wow that’s inside that one seed”. But that was it.

We didn’t do anything with that seed or that new life. Now I say, the school should be in the garden, not the garden in the school. We should have had somewhere to put that bean in the ground to give us hundreds of more beans and those beans would give us thousands of new beans. The lesson is that this one seed had a thousand more seeds in it.

That would have made it so much more magical to us. Growing up in an urban environment, we didn’t have anywhere to grow food. The perimeter of the property was flowers and things like that but I was always interested in growing things. What really took me deeper into urban gardening was the fast food and lack of healthy food. Everywhere you went there was convenient fast food. We didn’t realise it was conveniently taking years off our life.

When I started, it was first and foremost beautification. I just wanted to beautify my surroundings with flowers and trees and smells and colour. And then food. I remember going to the store and seeing a six pack of beautiful same sized, same shaped, tomatoes and on the package it said “May be coated with shellac to preserve freshness”.

It took me back to junior high school where we put shellac on our wood and I’m sure it’s not the exact same but that was a big spark. I realised they didn’t really care about the foods they were giving us, ‘number 6’ food dye, ‘number 2’…this and that, all these ingredients, why are they necessary to be in our food? Our food should heal you not kill you. Homicide, suicide, pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, what do they all have in common?

What were some hard decisions you had to make and challenges you faced along the way?

Hard decisions, shit waking up in the morning and thinking should I get out of bed? One of the biggest challenges I face is being judged by my skin colour. That’s every day, 365 days a year, I’m black. In this society you realise it. Not that I want to be anything else other than what I am. There aren’t really hard decisions, it’s either good or bad. A bear sleeps in the woods.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Which achievements/milestones are you most proud of and why?

Raising my three sons. And the fact that I’m able to change people’s lives and people’s thinking in regards to food and culture and looking at the growing and cultivating of food as art. With Masterclass and TED I’ve been able to spread my gospel around the world.

How many people out there can say that what they’ve done is being studied and analysed in schools and universities around the world. I’m also proud of getting the law changed in Los Angeles where you can now grow food on the parkway. And everyday, the achievement that I woke up that morning.

What do you think are the key ingredients to your success?

Tenacity, giving a fuck, not being put in a box, being dyslexic, seeing and thinking about things differently rather than the way we were trained to think about them. When you think of something like cities, I’ll ask “What are cities designed for?”, and people answer completely wrong and say “People”.

But cities are actually designed for commerce. They house people, but not to their betterment. So how do we collectively design cities so that we’re safe, where they make us healthy and have regenerative food sources and clean air and water around us?

What lies ahead in terms of your goals and ambitions?

Hopefully I’ll wake up in the morning. The present lies ahead. I try not to live in the future. I want to fix the ‘now’, because if not, we don’t have a future. Hopefully I wake up in the morning and I can start anew.

Just like the cycles of the moon or from dusk to dawn. The earth continuously changes and reawakens every day. I want to do the same and have that mindset. If we’re stuck thinking about the future we neglect the present for what it is, a present.

PERSONAL (LIFE)

What is your life motto (Or core values) if any?

Wake up, sit up, stand up, look up and don’t get caught the fuck up. Basically, my core values are bring some, get some; which turns to the golden rule, treat others as you would like to be treated.

To you, what are the most important things in life?

The most important THING in life and to your life is air. Why so? Do I really need to answer that? We’ve been trained to value things – but things give you absolutely no value. So we don’t hold value for self or our neighbours or for this planet, the soil, the water because we think it’s endless, but it’s not.

So to me, air is the single most important thing in life for everything. Try doing without it, see how that works for you. One person has the power to initiate a change and if we all do it collectively, things will be changed. That and healing this planet, when you heal your mother, you heal yourself.

What’s worth mentioning on your life’s bucket list that you have not done?

I don’t know. I don’t have a bucket list. Again, that’s the future. I guess you can say changing the rotation of the planet.

Why do you do what you do? (What drives you everyday)

I do what I do because it needs to be done. It’s in my face. If we can change something for the better we should do it. If we can show people a different way, we should do that. If we can teach, we should all do that. We’re all creatives. This is something that I feel just has to be. It might be linked back to my childhood where I wish these things were explained to me.

Like the fact that we’re on a spinning ball in outer space looking for aliens. The magic, the alchemy of this spinning ball, sustains our existence and that we are a part of nature isn’t taught and it should be . If we were taught these things we would look at this planet and ourselves differently and we would work better to heal it. How do we change man’s need for greed to a man’s need for seed?

Who are the role models and influences in your life?

Mother Nature is a role model. Smart, efficient, architecture is a role model. Art is a role model. Just beautiful design. I’m my own role model, something I didn’t have when I grew up. My goal as a teen was I wanted to become a master tailor but I had nobody around to show me how to get there.

So like a lot of things, I figured it out on my own, like how to work with leather. What we should be taught is that there isn’t one road to get to a place, there are many roads. And if there isn’t one, you make your own road. That’s what we should teach kids, be your own role model. Oh yeah, and I still want to be a master tailor.

What kind of legacy do you hope to leave behind?

I have no hopes to leave a legacy behind because it’s already done. I have three amazing sons and the work I have done has reached across the planet and changed people’s lives.

I’ve got kids from India to Africa to Compton to wherever growing food, calling themselves “gangsta gardeners”, changing their lives and changing their communities, so I think I’ve already done that. The question is what other legacy am I going to leave behind?

What are some life lessons you will take to your grave?

When you hear that question, you talk about life and death in the same sentence. If I’m dying, why am I going to take a life lesson to my grave. Ima try to keep living. A life lesson to take to the grave is that you’re gonna die. Don’t sweat the small stuff because in the end it’s all small stuff.

VIEWPOINTS

You are passionate about making healthy food available to everyone, including the underprivileged. In your opinion, how does nutritious food make a difference across various aspects of people’s lives?

If you don’t have the proper nutrition in your body, it’s not going to function the way it’s supposed to. A lot of people in a lot of countries don’t have a lot of healthy food around them. Even in privileged places like the U.S., not everyone has the privilege to get nutritious food. So you need to grow your own food. You’ll have all sorts of abnormalities, chronic diseases, brain dysfunction, and body dysfunction without these nutrients.

There’s certain nutrients that we need in our systems to function the way we should, and a lot comes from food, but also the environment. Where and how you live and what you’re exposed to. Why doesn’t our education include nutrition? From elementary school throughout the whole process of being so called “educated”.

One of the single most important things to your life is your health and we receive no knowledge of self. The beauty of hindsight. Who’s supposed to show us? Who’s supposed to teach us? That’s why I say, “beauty in, beauty out”.

On another note, you are a strong advocate of guerilla gardening – cultivating food plants or flowers on land not legally permitted for such uses. What good reasons justify such a cause? Especially when seen from the viewpoints of law-abiding citizens in America and other countries.

That’s a misnomer. I don’t believe in taking over spaces you don’t have a right to take over or property that’s not yours. I do “gangsta gardening” not guerrilla gardening, because gardening is gangsta.

We should have healthy food in our communities and spaces and everyone should have the benefit of healthy, nutritious food. I’m an advocate for humanity, that’s what I advocate for. I don’t advocate for people taking other people’s property. That would be colonialism. Did I just say that?

How does both healthy eating and guerilla gardening help reduce the impact of climate change? And what is your advice to people (especially the younger generations) who are inspired to contribute to this movement?

You’ve got plants and soil that sequester carbon, making the air fresher. You’re helping build the soil, which gives us cleaner, fresher air. When you plant things the air is filtered. Planting trees makes the air cleaner.

One of the biggest things we can do to give back to the planet is compost, compost compost. And then some more and then some more after that. If it came from the Earth you can put it back to the Earth. That’s what you should do, practice regenerative systems. Be the forest. Do not waste, heal the land, heal yourself. Learn how to grow food, harvest it and cook it.

The post Community Gardening Is Gangsta – Ron Finley appeared first on My Story Lounge.

“If you optimize only for a single objective such as improved profit, there will be fallout and dire ramifications. But if you establish standards that incorporate humanist objectives as well, science can help you achieve them.”

Eric Siegel is a former Columbia University professor and leading consultant, who is always finding new ways to make machine learning and data analytics more engaging and understandable for the masses.

His passion for machine learning and data analytics is manifested in his accomplishments:

• Founder of the long-running Predictive Analytics World and the Deep Learning World conference series, which he started back in 2009
• Author of the bestselling “Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die”, which has been used in courses at hundreds of universities

Eric has appeared on prominent media outlets such as: Bloomberg TV and Radio, Business News Network (Canada), National Geographic Breakthrough, NPR Marketplace, Radio National (Australia), and TheStreet.

Furthermore, his books has been reviewed and featured in: Businessweek, CBS MoneyWatch, The European Business Review, The Financial Times, Forbes, Forrester, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, Newsweek, Quartz, The San Francisco Chronicle, Scientific American, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and WSJ MarketWatch.

In an era where technology advancements dominate economic growth, impact our personal lives and influence both international and domestic policies, we gather insights from Eric on the path forward for machine learning and artificial intelligence for the near future.

EARLY LIFE

Tell us more about your family background and share with us on what it was like growing up.

I grew up in Burlington, Vermont, a small, progressive city in the cold northeast of the U.S., where Bernie Sanders was my mayor and Ben & Jerry (now famous internationally for their ice cream) were two guys running a single, small shop.

My mother was a teacher and father a doctor. They were extremely caring respectively, so I was very privileged and well-supported. I was encouraged to express myself openly and freely, which led to my participation in many musical and theatrical performances through high school and college. This actually helped my tech career, since I have become a professional speaker – delivering an engaging keynote is very much like delivering a very specific kind of theatrical monologue.

As for my tech interests, I was intrigued by computers from the age of 9. My buddy and I would ride our bikes at age 10 to the university bookstore, where we could access a Texas Instruments personal computer, and teach ourselves the BASIC programming language.

By age 11, in 1980, my family got an Apple ][+, which had no hard-drive (of course) and used the household television as its screen. Having a computer at home to hack on for hours a day gave me the lucky opportunity to learn and experiment in those years.

How did your upbringing shape the person you are today?

With the independence and trust I was given and very few rules – my heart and mind were free to develop real passion for certain kinds of technology and the confidence to share that passion. I came to love machine learning most of all. But I also developed the impulse to express my opinion when I feel technology isn’t being applied properly.

How would you sum up your childhood?

A peaceful, forgiving, and supportive environment and a lot of fun!

JOURNEY

How and when did your interest in machine learning come about? And why did you decide to become a university professor at Columbia?

My original interest in machine learning, which fully blossomed in 1991, was really an infatuation with the technology itself. After all, the ability to learn from experience (data) makes it the most fascinating type of engineering to me.

Being a professor gave me the opportunity to explore the area more deeply and also develop methods to most effectively teach the subject matter to newcomers.

But ultimately, technology has got to be useful, not only interesting. In my career as a consultant, beginning in 2003, my focus had turned to how to most effectively deploy machine learning.

Why did you write the book ‘Predictive Analytics’ and created the ‘Predictive Analytics World and Deep Learning World conference series’?

I wrote Predictive Analytics to demonstrate why the field – aka machine learning — is intuitive, powerful, and awe-inspiring. It’s a book about the most influential and valuable achievements of computerized prediction and the two things that make it possible: the people behind it and the fascinating science that powers it.

While there are a number of books that approach the how-to side of ML, this book serves a different purpose (which turned out to be a rewarding challenge for me): sharing with a wider audience a complete picture of the field, from the way in which it empowers organizations, down to the inner workings of predictive modeling.

The Predictive Analytics World and Deep Learning World conference series continue my efforts to focus on the commercial application of machine learning. The conferences cover best practices and lessons learned in its real-world deployment.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Which achievements/milestones are you most proud of and why?

The Predictive Analytics World conference series has thrived since we launched it in 2009. As the leading vendor-neutral, cross-vendor commercial (non-academic) event, it plays an important, central role in the industry. It’s always so exciting to bring together the leading innovators for these meetings.

My book’s wide adoption was also very rewarding to me, after investing a great deal of effort to describe the technology so it could be understood by all. Hundreds of universities have adopted it and it lead to 120 keynote invitations across industry sectors, including ad tech, marketing, market research, e-commerce, environmentalism, manufacturing, financial services, insurance, news media, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, government, human resources, restaurants, travel, real estate, construction, and law.

What do you think are the key ingredients to your success?

First principles. When I started out as an independent predictive analytics (aka machine learning) consultant in 2003, today’s high demand wasn’t there yet. It hadn’t become a trend. But I knew that optimizing operations by way of per-individual or per-unit predictions, which is what you get from machine learning, was clearly valuable and would have an important place in the world.

I also have always enjoyed working to make technology understandable to newcomers and non-technical folks. And that’s a valuable and yet often underdeveloped skill! After all, business leaders and decision makers need to understand the fundamentals if a technology is going to be deeply integrated into the daily operations of a business.

PERSONAL (LIFE)

What is your life motto (Or core values) if any?

Geek out! Get really into it. As much as you can for as many minutes of every day, focus on your love for the details of what you’re doing rather than the outcome or recognition that you may also be hoping for.

To you, what are the most important things in life? Why so?

I’m all for the cliches: Family, friends, health, and happiness. But after those I would put experiencing a personal connection to work, if you can find it. There’s a lot of gratification there, when work is meaningful to you.

What’s worth mentioning on your life’s bucket list that you have not done?

I’d like to shift my work life to invest more time into ethical technology. Also, zero-gravity in a parabolic airplane trip. As for space travel, thank you but no thank you!

What are some things that many people don’t know about you?

I took 10 years of acting classes. I love actors, their work, and their process. I can’t stop watching interviews with them. The craft of acting has solved aging: The older an actor gets, the deeper their work. Most other performing arts don’t work that way.

What kind of legacy do you hope to leave behind?

I hope that my work shows people the joy that can be found in doing good work.

What are some life lessons you will take to your grave?

People are generous and thoughtful – except for when they aren’t. When they aren’t, they are subconsciously acting out the same strength-testing that kids put one another through on the playground. When people aren’t seeing your valid point, or aren’t responding to it, keep this in mind so that you can persevere.

VIEWPOINTS

You sometimes publish op-eds on analytics and social justice. How do you see that analytics and machine learning can advance the moral objectives of society?

If you optimize only for a single objective such as improved profit, there will be fallout and dire ramifications. But if you establish standards that incorporate humanist objectives as well, science can help you achieve them.

AI/ML is playing a more significant role in the advancement of new technologies around the world, with endless new applications across many industries within reach. Where do you see the development of new technologies based on AI/ML in the next 3 to 5 years?

The main development will be existing technologies’ growing deployment, rather than the development of new technologies. These things are growing rapidly: computer power, data aggregation, and familiarity with machine learning’s potential.

As a result, machine learning’s penetration across company functions will continue to increase. And so will its consumer-facing deployment, including for certain self-driving capabilities and our digital experience. Machine learning fortifies healthcare, prevents fraud, cuts costs, and streamlines manufacturing. This vast applicability makes ML “the new electricity,” as Andrew Ng has put it.

As a professor who used to teach in a University, you got to interact with countless students on a regular basis. In your opinion, how important is it to get more of the younger generation to learn AI/ML?

This is critical. It should be taught in high school. Machine learning is increasingly central to how society is run, and yet curriculums are very slow to adapt to it.

The post Future Of Artificial Intelligence – Eric Siegel appeared first on My Story Lounge.

“I always say – let all your doubts happen before you commit. Once you’ve committed to pursuing something, don’t look back.”

Software engineer and dancer – these two roles don’t usually come together. But in the case of entrepreneur Miral Kotb, the combination made perfect sense. A Houston, Texas native, Miral simultaneously pursued both passions when she studied dancing in Barnard College and computer science in Columbia University respectively.

Her hard work in academics paid off when she launched iLuminate back in 2009. The company creates state-of-the-art technology coupled with dancers performing in the dark, creating a mesmerising light show on stage. Her technology took national spotlight on the popular American talent show called “America’s Got Talent” back in 2011 when performers used her products to land a top spot in the finals of the show that season.

Ever since then, her company has catapulted onto the international scene, entertaining audiences around the globe and pushing storytelling to the next level with stunning visual performances. Miral has collaborated with world-renowned artists such as Grammy-winning superstars Chris Brown, Christina Aguilera and The Black Eyed Peas. The technology has also been featured on Dancing with the Stars, The American Music Awards, MTV’s Video Music Awards, and others.

We spoke to this trail-blazing female entrepreneur in the world of entertainment, to find out more about how she has come a long way to turn her passions for dance and coding respectively, into a successful career.

EARLY LIFE

Tell us more about your family background and share with us on what it was like growing up.

Dancing has always been a part of my culture. Before my parents emigrated from Cairo to Houston, my father was a performer in Egypt’s national dance troupe.

While growing up, I was always dancing. Eventually I landed at Columbia University to study coding and at the same time, I pursued dance training separately. I landed at Bloomberg and became a software engineer, but my free time was spent expressing myself through dance and learning all areas of the craft.

How did your upbringing shape the person you are today?

My mother was an economist, which I feel was where I got my love for math and science. When I was nine, my parents brought home our first desktop computer and I was obsessed with it!

I had a natural knack that was evident from the start. They enrolled me in a computer coding class and I quickly began writing code for fun, making my own games in the process. When people played the games I created, it was fulfilling. It became a way for me to bond more with American culture.

How would you sum up your childhood?

I had an incredible childhood and was always very curious in life, which I think is what led me down this path. My journey was always about doing what I love.

JOURNEY

Why did you decide to take the path of entrepreneurship and start your own company?

It was a long path! When I was at Bloomberg, I had finally reached a point where I was ready to leave my job and put all my time into dance as a career. But I had the biggest life sideline when they found a tumor in my right hip. The diagnosis was so bad that there was a potential for my leg to be amputated and I’d never be able to dance again.

I was very lucky in that they didn’t have to remove my hip, so I could continue pursuing dance. I ended up staying with Bloomberg for six years before becoming a freelancer focusing on website coding which I did while traveling around Europe.

After returning to America, I decided to attend Apple’s App Developer Conference where I learned about wireless chips getting so small that they could be put in everyday devices and a eureka moment instantly clicked in my mind – dance!

You could put a chip on a dancer and be able to communicate with them wirelessly in real-time while performing. This would make shows more organic and different every night. I then cultivated that idea into having the chips control lights attached to the dancers; and with that, iLuminate was born.

How did your interest in computer coding and dance come about in your early years?

I had a passion for both at a young age, but the concept for iLuminate emerged while I was developing iPhone applications. When I realized I could take my love of art and my passion for technology and merge them together to make this really cool, immersive experience that was unlike anything I had ever seen – it just all started to make sense!

I used my friends as guinea pigs, and I had a prototype for the ‘lights suit’ built in a matter of weeks. Since then, I have not stopped working on the technology since. We eventually caught the eye of many celebrities that wanted to use this technology and of course, went on to appear on America’s Got Talent where we came in third place.

Along the way, what were some hard decisions you faced and challenges you had to overcome?

Years after my first fight with cancer, I was diagnosed for a second time, this time with leukemia that was caused from the radiation from the first cancer.

This was in 2017 and I was one of the youngest people known to get this particular type of leukemia. During the fight I decided to make a video of my story to say thank you to everyone who had helped me and to remind myself that life is worth living, and this setback is only temporary. It helped me to realize that love and people will get you through anything.

I was in quarantine for nine months and while it was torture, it also gave me time to be with my family, to think and create. Shortly after getting out of the hospital, I started to put my iLuminate team to work for the show in Las Vegas. We were set to launch March 26, 2020…and we all know what happened to the world that month – Covid-19 caused a global pandemic.

Another setback in life, but another opportunity to continue to create and make things better while we had the time…a lot of time!

ACHIEVEMENTS

Which achievements/milestones are you most proud of and why?

I am really proud that I have had so many hurdles in life, but I have never lost sight of my goals and my passion to leave a mark on this world. A major milestone happened this October when we officially launched the iLuminate show on the famed Las Vegas Strip.

What do you think are the key ingredients to your success?

I always say – let all your doubts happen before you commit. Once you’ve committed to pursuing something, don’t look back. I say this with experience – not just in relation to battling cancer myself or going through a worldwide pandemic, but at every step of the way, have conviction and commit to yourself.

Even the 2021 launch of iLuminate had its ups and downs but I learned to stay true to myself and my vision and not be afraid to step back and reevaluate.

Share with us some anecdotes or experiences that you think played a significant role in your success.

My team has definitely played a significant role in where I am today. My “team” includes not just my work team, but my family and friends (although all of those categories are interchangeable with each other!).

These people have helped me push myself to become a better person, a better boss, a more creative show producer and coder…If you surround yourself with a positive, hard-working group of people, it opens up your mind to endless possibilities!

PERSONAL (LIFE)

What is your life motto (Or core values) if any?

‘Everything happens for a reason’

I really try to look forward and not back – ‘Everything happens for a reason’ is a motto I try to keep at the back of my head. Otherwise, you can go crazy with the “why did I…” or “what ifs.”

‘It’s all in the pre-production’

On the work side – “It’s all in the pre-production!” Planning is the best way to make sure things are executed well in theater. It is part of the creative process.

‘Stay true to yourself’

“Stay true to yourself!” I have spent the last few months trying to do what others told me I should for my company/brand and it backfired. I lost my way and I am even more convinced that staying true to yourself is the way to be.

To you, what are the most important things in life?

The people you surround yourself with are the key to success in life, regardless of what “success” looks like to you.

What’s worth mentioning on your life’s bucket list that you have not done?

I want to start a family. This is dear to my heart. I also want to see more women and artists writing code.

Writing code can be a really creative endeavor and the more people learn about it, the more people will realize that it is not impossible to do or only reserved for certain ‘types of people’.

I would also like to have more shows internationally and a Broadway show soon too!

Why do you do what you do? (What drives you everyday)

I get to express myself and to be creative each and every day which keeps my mind sharp and allows me to continue to grow. I’m like that ABC mantra – Always Be Creating!

Who are the role models and influences in your life?

Richard Branson is one of my many role models because he’s truly an artist at heart and he uses creativity in business too.

What are some things that many people don’t know about you?

I am learning to play the piano. I LOVE IT! It is one of my favorite parts of the day. One day I hope to play in a jazz band.

I also do gymnastics, love to cook (my family owns a restaurant and my mom is the chef), and I am still dancing (for fun!).

What are some life lessons you will take to your grave?

I go back to “Stay True to Yourself” and also that friends and family always come first.

Try to find what you love to do and stick to it if you can, because life is too short to go about it any other way.

VIEWPOINTS

With your background in coding and software engineering, you decided to partner with code.org to create an educational video for elementary school students around the world. Why do you think it is important for children to learn coding at an early age?

Coding is so fun and creative! When you finish a project, you have an incredible piece of art to share with your friends and family. Having something to share that YOU created helps boost confidence and brings out a different way of developing critical thinking skills.

The world is changing and technology is becoming more and more important. Pretty soon we will run out of software developers to fill in the roles. I, myself, still struggle to find strong software developers.

Ever since your technology was showcased on America’s Got Talent, you have become a mentor to young women in coding and an advocate of bringing more women into computer science. Is there a lack of female representation in computer science and how do you hope that can change?

Absolutely! My hope in changing it is to show a successful woman in the field who is also embracing her feminine and creative side. The stigma behind what a computer scientist looks like is a big reason why girls are dissuaded from pursuing coding. But if we can get more women who code in “cool” and “popular” ways, it may help.

You are a survivor of cancer and have supported cancer foundations in various ways. How did it shape your journey and perspectives of life and success? What advice do you give to other cancer survivors who want to pursue their passions just like you did?

There IS life after cancer. I will not lie, I still deal with the side effects of having had cancer twice, but that just makes every moment and accomplishment that much more special because I am so thankful each day to be here and I fight that much harder for what I love and believe in.

The post Dance And Light Up The World – Miral Kotb appeared first on My Story Lounge.

“I learned a long time ago that I will never be the best or the fastest climber, but I don’t have to be. I just have to be absolutely relentless about putting one foot in front of the other.”

Alison Levine isn’t your typical mountain climber or polar explorer. Her unusual transition from corporate life, working for several Fortune 500 companies to becoming a deputy finance director for Arnold Schwarzenegger in his successful bid to become governor of California back in 2003, makes her background rather unique.

More than that, she has made history on several occasions:

• She served as team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition, climbed the highest peak on each continent and skied to both the North and South Poles—a feat known as the Adventure Grand Slam—which only twenty people in the world have achieved.
• In January 2008, she made history as the first American to complete a 600-mile traverse across west Antarctica to the South Pole, following the route of legendary explorer Reinhold Messner. Levine completed this arduous journey on skis while hauling 150 pounds of her gear and supplies in a sled harnessed to her waist.
• She made history again in 2016 when she completed two first ascents: Hall Peak in Antarctica and Khang Karpo in Nepal.

Her success in extreme environments is noteworthy given she has had three heart surgeries and suffers from Raynaud’s disease, which causes the arteries that feed her fingers and toes to collapse in cold weather—leaving her at extreme risk for frostbite.

Adding to her stellar resume, she is a New York Times best-selling author of the book called: ‘On the Edge: Leadership Lessons from Mount Everest and other Extreme Environments’ and a film-maker who executive produced the documentary film called ‘PASANG’ (www.pasangmovie.com). The film chronicles the life of Pasang Lhamu Sherpa (1961-1993), the first female Sherpa to summit Mt. Everest.

Such are her remarkable achievements, driven by a burning passion to explore extreme environments and some of the most inhospitable places on earth. We spoke to her to find out how she got started on this journey and how she tackled the challenges faced, in order to reach the pinnacle of her successes.

EARLY LIFE

Tell us more about your family background and share with us on what it was like growing up.

I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, which has some of the hottest weather in the United States. I always thought I would be an air-conditioning repair woman because I figured that job would be in high demand and would offer a lot of job security.

I was the middle child in between two brothers. My parents took a very “tough-love” approach to raising us. My mom’s rules were, “no whining, no crying, and no complaining.” This type of mindset has its advantages and disadvantages of course. The advantage is that it builds resilience and self-reliance. The disadvantage is that it tends to make you fearful about expressing fear, anger or sadness.

How did your upbringing shape the person you are today?

My father, Jack Levine, was an FBI agent in the 60s under J. Edgar Hoover. He was the first Special Agent to ever publicly speak out against Hoover and tried to get him investigated for all of the unethical things he was doing. Hoover was one of the most powerful people in the nation at the time, and no government agencies were willing to investigate him – no one would touch him. Hoover sought revenge on my father and ruined his career. But of course after Hoover died, all of his illegal and unethical dealings were revealed, and my father was vindicated.

Growing up as the daughter of Jack Levine shaped who I am today because he taught me that you call out the wrongs that you witness, even if it costs you everything. AND…you go down swinging.

How would you sum up your childhood?

One word: Strength-building.

JOURNEY

How and why did you get interested in mountain-climbing, polar exploration and subsequently film-making respectively?

Mountain-climbing & polar exploration

Growing up in Phoenix, I was always intrigued by the early Arctic and Antarctic explorers and the early mountaineers. I loved reading about all of these expeditions – because it felt like an escape from the oppressive summer heat (average high temperature in August of last year was 110 degreesF/43.3 C).

But I never thought I would actually go to any of these places because I was born with a hole in my heart, so I faced some health challenges. I had my first heart surgery when I was 17, and then another when I turned 30.

And after that second surgery this lightbulb went on in my head and I thought, “If I want to know what it’s like to cross Antarctica on skis, then I should go do it instead of reading about it. If I want to know what it’s like to try to climb a big mountain, I should go climb one instead of watching climbing films. And if these other guys can go do this stuff, why can’t I?” So I climbed my first mountain at age 32 and have not stopped since.

Film-making

As far as the film-making goes… the film, PASANG, is about the first female Sherpa to summit Mt. Everest, and I got involved as the executive producer on the film because I think it is important for the world to know about strong women who broke through gender barriers in pursuit of their dreams. The subject of the film, Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, died while descending the mountain in 1993, so she never got the chance to tell her story. I wanted to make sure it got told.

What was the personal development process like for you?

In addition to all of the physical training involved, I tried to read about various failed expeditions so I could analyze why they failed. Not only the accounts of teams that didn’t reach the summit, but also the accounts of expeditions that had severe injuries or deaths.

I wanted to know what went wrong and what could have led to a better outcome. Sometimes tragic consequences are due to things that are out of your control, but other times they are preventable.

What are some hard decisions you had to make and tough challenges faced along the way?

Turning back from the summit of Mt Everest less than 300ft/70 meters from the summit in a storm in 2002. We were the first American Women’s Everest Expedition so we had quite a lot of media coverage, and it’s always hard to fail when you are in the public eye.

We had to do a big media tour after the expedition and talk about how we did not achieve our goal of getting to the summit. Talking about your failures over and over on national television and in print media can feel like a punch to the gut after a while.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Which achievements/milestones are you most proud of and why?

I am most proud of my work in western Uganda where I trained jobless women to work as porters and trekking guides on Mt Stanley which is in the Rwenzori Mountain range and is the highest peak in Uganda. Prior to our work over there, these women had to rely on prostitution survive. Once they were trained to work in the mountains, they were able to earn a sustainable living wage, which was a game-changer for them.

Outside of the mountains, I am most proud of my work in leadership development and helping people of all ages and in all different job functions become stronger leaders. I spent four years on the part-time faculty at the United States Military Academy at West Point where I lectured in the Department of ‘Behavioral Sciences and Leadership’.

I also speak more than 100 times a year at corporate conferences around the globe, sharing the leadership lessons I have learned in the mountains and advising people on how to lead (in business and in life) in a world where the conditions around you are constantly shifting and changing. I am incredibly proud of this work, because I get to have a positive influence on thousands of people every year, and that feels really great!

What do you think are the key ingredients to your success?

The key ingredient to my success, in the mountains and in my personal/professional life, is my determination. I learned a long time ago that I will never be the best or the fastest climber, but I don’t have to be. I just have to be absolutely relentless about putting one foot in front of the other.

What lies ahead in terms of your goals and ambitions?

I am incredibly excited to be working with Seabourn Cruises in their launch of a new polar icebreaker ship – the Seabourn Venture. This ship is being built specifically to go to the Arctic and Antarctic regions, as well as other regions that would be nearly impossible to get to by plane. The ship is scheduled to be finished in the Spring of 2022. I am the godmother of the ship, an honor that stays with me as long as the ship is in service.

I am looking forward to being part of the effort to get more people to embark upon adventures that will take them to the ends of the earth. One of my personal goals is to get more people to have an adventurous mindset, as these experiences are life-changing for people.

PERSONAL (LIFE)

To you, what are the most important things in life?

The most important things in life involve showing the people you care about that they are important to you. I can live without mountains. I can live without money. I cannot live without connection/love. People are more important than anything else. ANYTHING.

And one thing I have learned is that a few kind words of support can completely change the outcome of a situation for someone who is struggling. You have to show up for people. Period.

And if I could change anything in this world, I would “cure” loneliness. I think a lot of people feel very desperate because they feel lonely, as if no one cares about them. This is one reason we lose people to suicide.

What’s worth mentioning on your life’s bucket list that you have not done?

I have always wanted to start a dog-rescue. I love dogs so much. SO SO SO MUCH!!! I want to kiss every single dog that walks by me. Sometimes I do it (if the owner gives me permission).

Why do you do what you do? (What drives you everyday)

I know that my words have the ability to change people’s lives for the better. There is no better feeling than when I get off stage and someone comes running up to me and tells me about a challenge they now feel confident they can overcome.

Or when they tell me they are going to look at their set-backs as pure opportunity, or when they tell me they are going to make massive changes in their life that they were previously in fear of making. This is why I do what I do. I figure if I can make people think, laugh, learn, and then take action – I’ve done my job.

Who are the role models and influences in your life?

My mom’s cousin, Jack Terry is a major role model for me. He is 91 years old and lives in New York. He is a holocaust survivor and was the youngest prisoner to survive the Flossenbug concentration camp. He grew up in Poland, and his parents and siblings were shot and killed by the Nazis, so when the Americans came to liberate the camp, he had NOTHING. No family, nowhere to go.

But an American army officer helped get him to the US where he was eventually adopted by a family in New York. He refused to let his past prevent him from living his best life. He went to college and went on to serve in the American army because he was so grateful to them for rescuing him, and if that was not enough, he went to medical school and became a psychiatrist because he wanted to help people with PTSD.

Whenever I am having a sh*t day, I think of him and his outlook on life and all of his contributions. I am inspired by him every day. EVERY. DAY.

What are some things that many people don’t know about you?

I am an extreme introvert. And when I say extreme, I mean EXTREME.

What are you most passionate about in life and why?

Well, besides DOGS, I am most passionate about helping people develop their leadership skills so that they can achieve more than they ever thought possible.

What are some life lessons you will take to your grave?

~ When you see bad sh*t going on, call it out.

~ Don’t ever underestimate the power of a few kind words.

~ When you hear “no” – don’t let that be your stopping point.

~ You don’t have to be the best, fastest, strongest climber to get to the top of a mountain – you just have to be absolutely relentless about putting one foot in front of the other.

VIEWPOINTS

Embarking on expeditions in extreme environments comes with a fair amount of risks to human life. What are some steps you take to ensure good leadership and to create cohesive teams on such trips?

Well, this answer would require hours and hours of writing. It’s all about building trust and loyalty, while also displaying competence during times of extreme uncertainty.

I wrote an entire book about this – ON THE EDGE: Leadership Lessons from Mt. Everest and Other Extreme Environments.

Despite having three heart surgeries and being a sufferer of Raynaud’s disease, you continue to embark on expeditions with extreme environments. What’s the rationale behind this? What can people with underlying medical conditions who have that same train of thought do to mitigate their own risks?

First of all, talk to your doctor before you embark on anything that could put your health at risk.

The reason I still embark on expeditions is because my heart condition is now cured, and the problems associated with my Raynaud’s can usually be alleviated with hand-warmers.

You are the founder of the Climb High Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of jobless women in western Uganda by training them to be trekking guides and porters in their local mountains. How can more women facing similar circumstances be empowered to take control of their own lives this way? In Africa and around the world.

Prior to me going to work with these women in Uganda and taking them up into their local mountains, they had no opportunity to make money because women were not permitted to climb these mountains – it was considered “taboo” in their culture. For generations, women just assumed that they could not step into the mountains because people told them they couldn’t go.

And believe it or not, no one ever asked WHY. And as it turned out, there was no real reason why women could not climb or work in these mountains. It simply had been status quo and no one had challenged it.

So one big step women can take to empower themselves is to ask questions and CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO. The only way progress happens is when people ask questions. Step up and ask. Don’t accept the explanation of “it has always been this way.”

And when someone tells you, “no” – it doesn’t mean you have to walk away from an opportunity. Be persistent, stand your ground. Don’t just give up every time someone tells you “no.”

The post Challenge The Status Quo – Alison Levine appeared first on My Story Lounge.

“The best thing that ever happened to me is being born without arms. It brought me circumstances I never thought possible.”

In the early 1960’s, over 13,000 babies around the world were born with deformities as a direct result of Thalidomide – a drug prescribed to relieve morning sickness. Alvin Law was one of them. In his case, just a couple of the tiny pills were enough to cause him to be born without arms.

Facing what they thought was a hopeless situation, Alvin’s birth family courageously gave him up for adoption. They hoped and prayed that their sickly, deformed newborn would somehow find a family more capable of caring for his needs. Luckily, their prayers were answered. Hilda Law was a fifty-five year old foster mother who, along with her husband, Jack, took in Alvin, nursed him back to health and have stood as his pillar of support ever since.

If you ever saw Alvin in person, one of your first reactions might be to feel a sense of pity. But don’t be fooled by his appearance. As an international speaker and bestselling author, Alvin not only travels the world to speak to crowds of captivated audiences, he has worked with over 7,500 organizations on five continents for corporate training purposes. Such companies include Merck & Company, ConocoPhillips, Kosmos Energy, Caribbean Association of Banks, Alberta Energy Regulators and GolfTec, just to name a handful.

In addition, he has appeared on over a hundred telethons and media features, and was the subject of two award winning television documentaries. Alvin was also featured on The Joan Rivers Show, CBS’s How’d They Do That, CBC’s What On Earth and ABC’s Frontrunners. To top it all off, he has played a direct role in raising over USD 225 million dollars for charity to date.

Alvin shares his life with his wife and business partner, Darlene, and Murphy, a rescue dog, in beautiful Calgary, Alberta, Canada. We caught up with him to hear more about his inspiring story, admire his positive attitude and find out how he has overcome major obstacles in his life with complete optimism.

EARLY LIFE

Tell us more about what it is like growing up with your foster parents – how did they contribute to your life and shape your perspectives?

I believe that my experience of being abandoned at five days of age by my birth parents and then a few weeks later, being placed in a foster home illustrates the power of “Nature vs Nurture”! I have no ill will towards my birth family at all. In fact, I’ve always been amazed that anyone would even want a baby like me. I’m not overly “religious” but am highly “spiritual”, convinced that this was the essence of fate.

My foster parents, “Mom & Dad”, were somewhat religious – so having a foster home was akin to doing mission work. But our home life wasn’t about bible reading or constant religious discussion. My mom’s biological children aka my brothers, John and Terry, had already left home to start their own families and lives by the time I was adopted. Mom & Dad were in their fifties when they adopted me so they had the experience and wisdom to deal with an armless child like me.

This was 1960 and deformed people like me were seen by many as freaks and outcasts, not human beings. I grew up in a community of around 10,000 people. It was a rural area where farming was the main economy.

Contrary to what people might think, I didn’t spend my childhood hidden in our home at all. In fact, I went everywhere and soon became “The Law Boy”! Furthermore, I was not only accepted, but embraced by people in the community. But I did not live an entitled life where people helped me with everything – a lot of self-reliance was emphasised during my childhood.

Describe to us the daily challenges you encountered while growing up and how you overcame them.

I had a spectacular childhood. I knew most of the other kids in my neighbourhood because we grew up together. I wasn’t excluded at all until adolescence but that wasn’t about having no arms. It was about different interests then but my early youth was also about the era for another reason. We were “free range children”! We didn’t have our parents hovering over us, not even mine.

The biggest challenges of my early years came with some irony. I was seen as a ‘medical curiosity’, so I went to countless clinics so doctors and rehabilitation experts could examine me. What really sticks out for me was the language they used. It was like I was a mistake and they needed to fix me!

Another bigger issue was my education. In 1966, handicapped children were relegated to special schools, not like the social integration we see today. My parents knew that I needed a real education as they believed that my intelligence would make up for my lack of arms. After many hurdles, I was allowed to go through a regular education. I even graduated from high school with honours!

How would you sum up your childhood?

My childhood is easy to sum up…the best!

JOURNEY

Could you share with us the moments/encounters when you first discovered your musical talents? And how did your music career flourished from there?

I lived in a home where we practiced Christianity and went to church every Sunday, that was where I started to love singing. I was also put in tap dancing classes where I learned to dance.

Although we didn’t have a piano at home, my mom took me to see a lady who gave piano lessons and while she admired my “courage”, she simply believed my toes were too short to play piano properly – it made me lose interest. But this was not the end of my music journey.

The next year, I was invited to join the school band! At first the new band director was hesitant and was unsure that I could handle the trombone, let alone play with an entire band. But eventually they came up with a solution – they mounted the trombone on the side of a wooden chair with metal rods and clamps. I used the slide with my right foot. It worked. So in 1978, I was chosen to play First Chair Trombone in Canada’s National All Star High School Jazz Band!

As a teenager, I got to go to Summer Band Camp for Jazz and that’s when I learned to play a drum set (Which I still do). After going to college, I taught myself to play the piano too! But the real highlight of it all, was the people I played music with. I have an expression I created for this: “Musicians don’t care what you look like. All they care about is, can you play? The answer…Yes I Can”!

Why did you choose to become a professional speaker?

I had no plans to become a professional speaker. But in 1976, I was asked to be an “Ambassador” for handicapped children in my home province of Saskatchewan, Canada. I started out speaking at several charity events and then at telethons to talk about how it was like to live without arms.

Back then I couldn’t see much of a financially stable future doing talks on stage. Thus I went to college to study Broadcasting. Upon graduating in 1980, I got a job as a disc jockey at an FM radio station in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Soon I became very popular and well known.

It was an opportune time, because the United Nations (UN) declared in 1981, The International Year of Disabled Persons. Being invited to be a guest speaker at such UN events saw my popularity rise overnight!

It didn’t take me long to realize that not only could I get paid to be a speaker, but it was really my true destiny. All the learning I did to be a broadcaster gave me the right skillset to be a speaker. And if I may humbly mention, I do have a remarkable story to tell about myself! I am proud to say that I still speak on stage today, just as I did forty years back!

What were some important lessons or things you have learnt along the way?

I am a “student of life” and an observer of people, or another way to put it – I’ve been privileged to be enlightened this way.

I didn’t realize it but I had been living a cliche. I have been “living outside the box” my whole life and constantly asked my audiences to do the same. I’d accepted my role as an advocate for people with special needs, so I had to embrace the whole notion of diversity and inclusion – action speaks louder than words.

I’ve seen the world move from so many taboos – mixed race relationships, gay marriage, LGBTQ+ and racial segregation…we’ve come so far. It’s true that “character” can’t be purchased, self esteem doesn’t start by looking in a mirror and resilience can’t exist in a bump free life. More importantly, I’ve learned that love is blind and we only get one life – so we need to make the best of it.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Which achievements are you most proud of and why?

In music

I vividly recall my first “achievement” – I got to tap dance with my troupe on local television in 1970. Then, I won my first solo competition on trombone at a local music festival and in 1978, I was chosen Lead Chair Trombone for Canada’s All Star High School Jazz band.

In 1977, I and two other Canadians represented our country at an International Red Cross Youth Camp in Norway.

I won a few other music awards too such as – ‘Saskatchewan Junior Citizen of the Year’ in 1978, ‘Canadian Junior Citizen of the Year’ in 1982 and I was named the first ever ‘Mount Royal College Most Distinguished Alumni’ in 1983.

In 2016, I got to play drums for an awesome promotional video for the Rio Paralympics, “The Real Superhumans”! The highlight? We recorded the soundtrack at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London.

In speaking

In 2009, I received my Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation, an honour where less than 10% of all professional speakers in the entire world are able to attain.

In 2013, I was inducted into the Canadian Professional Speakers Hall of Fame. In 2018, I was also inducted into the Canadian Disability Hall as well.

In acting

In 1996, I played a character on the hit television series, “X-Files”.

In relationship

To top it all off, one of my biggest achievements was meeting my wife and business partner, Darlene in 1991. I convinced her to marry me two years later…that’s a huge achievement!

How do you usually connect with your audience as a speaker?

It’s difficult to pick one thing that I do to connect with my audience. But I could share my experience connecting with kids as a speaker.

Back in 1981, after I quit my radio job to become a speaker, I was going to schools to give talks where 90% of the time, my audience were children. And if you know kids well enough, they are very observant and curious – they can spot a phoney person from a mile away.

During that time, I used a technique to coincide with the topic I was speaking about, on ‘Disability awareness’. Walking onto a stage or gymnasium floor with 500 kids’ eyes on you can be intimidating. But remember that I was also a musician.

So I would walk out and ask the students and teachers to close their eyes and not look at me for 30 seconds while I played a single snare drum. After 20 seconds or so, I’d tell them they could open their eyes to watch while I played a bit more. Then I helped them to realise that when they closed their eyes, they most probably didn’t think of a disabled person producing those sounds on the drums. In essence, the perception of a handicap person in front of them is simply a visual illusion! It’s always about the attitude and mindset rather than the physical circumstances of someone. It worked, they understood what I meant immediately.

While my unusual body form naturally attracts people’s attention, my wife Darlene also believes that my greatest strength is my voice. I am a trained broadcaster and have a very resonant voice that commands attention without being aggressive. Over the years, I’ve learned stagecraft, pacing and inducing humour in my content. Sharing funny stories does two things – 1) It engages my audience and 2) It makes me ‘human’ enough to connect with them.

What do you think are the key ingredients to your success?

The key to my success is mostly a mystery to me. The answer is more boring than anyone would expect but very profound as well.

It all comes down to having a support system (In this case my wife), turning my passion for speaking into a business, spending a great deal of time and money on professional development and getting access to as many international speaking gigs as possible.

Philosophically, I’ve lived my words, tried to remain humble but most importantly, I remained authentic by focusing on just being a good person.

PERSONAL (LIFE)

What do you do when you find yourself feeling down on certain days?

I owe my parents a great deal but I believe the most significant lesson I learnt was to possess gratitude.

My folks lived through “The Depression” in the 1930’s and my Dad fought in World War Two. We were a decent middle-class family so I wasn’t spoiled with stuff. And honestly, having no arms means you learn to appreciate what you have. I have experienced depression and struggled with my mental health like everyone.

On a very personal note, I had an unplanned child. Me and a girl were barely dating but somehow I got her pregnant unintentionally. We got married and stayed together but it was a disastrous one where she struggled with mental health issues and her friends were negative and mean-spirited toward me. So in 1988, we split. I actually raised my son, born in 1985, mostly on my own.

But the key to my rejuvenation was reconnecting with my old friends, avoiding my ex-wife or her friends and making a commitment to only spend time with people who made me better, not worse. That still works today especially whenever I am feeling down.

Share with us some memorable letters/gifts you receive from fans.

It’s so difficult to choose an encounter that’s memorable as I’ve had so many. I attribute that to my involvement in telethons for television. Using my talents but also my commitment to giving back has seen me on countless shows since 1977. I’ve met major celebrities like Ray Charles and David Foster.

But here is one of my favourites. I was speaking in Singapore for over 2,500 CEO’s of Young Professionals Organization (YPO) a few years ago and the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak happened to be one of the speakers as well. We met backstage and while it wasn’t like I was meeting my hero and I don’t describe myself as a computer geek, he remains a pretty significant figure.

I got my picture with him, of course and he even signed the back of my iPad. But then, we had a coffee together because he was so intrigued with how I used my feet to work my iPad. He even took pictures and video of me doing it so he could send it back to his people in the U.S. who were as he described them, “computer nerds” who would just love to see how I use technology. That was cool.

How do strangers usually react when they see you in public and what is your response?

My whole life I’ve been stared at by strangers. That is another lesson learned from my parents – accept it, acknowledge it and move on! It’s not that easy. I tell a story about being a precocious adolescent who struggled with my own self esteem.

One day, my Dad and I were having a hamburger lunch at a local fast food place and it happened again. Some rude stranger stared at me trying to eat a hamburger with my right foot. I should have shown a more restrained behaviour but I admit that I threw a wee tantrum and made my Dad take me home right away.

I ran downstairs to our basement, slammed the door and raged! Dad let me cool down then he came downstairs to have a serious discussion. He reminded me that this was just human nature – people do not mean to be rude, they just can’t help themselves.

So Dad basically said I had two options: 1) Stay home for the rest of my life and never leave. That way, nobody could stare. I could live in the basement and Mom could throw toast down the stairs so I didn’t starve. Or 2) Accept my circumstances and face the world bravely.

I replied by saying…”The first option is stupid”! He responded…”Yes it is stupid and people can be stupid. But Alvin, people will always look at you. It’s not fair but that’s the way it is. Maybe you could help them by acknowledging their curiosity and not being rude back. You can only choose what you do, not what they do.”

So, that short conversation changed everything and I started actually waving at people with my foot! It took away the tension immediately.

Why do you do what you do? (What drives you everyday)

That’s a good question and my answer may seem predictable. But let me just directly quote my Mom here: “Honey, someday the reason you were born without arms will make sense but you do not have a curse, you have a blessing”!

Most speakers have a very personal reason for what drives them individually. However we all have one thing in common – We want to make the world a better place.

There’s no denying ego is involved but I say again, my real dream was to be a “Rock Star”, entertaining huge crowds with my music and to bring some joy and celebration into people’s lives, even if it’s just for a while. I guess I got my wish!

Who are the role models and influences in your life?

I can directly credit three people with my early inspirations for my life – my Mom and Dad and my band director, Blaine McClary.

My parents are obvious but if I may add something very deep for me. I was able to meet and get to know my birth family in 1993. I was able to see what my life might have been. I would have grown up on a very poor farm with no power, running water, or access to activities in town. I would have likely been resented by my siblings for being useless on the farm. Blaine McClary put a trombone on a wooden chair with metal rods and clamps that held it, like hands, so I could play in a band. Who does that? What kind of person thinks; “No arms…Trombone”! It altered my entire life path.

Because of my public life later on, I was fortunate to meet many people I consider to be my role models and mentors as well. For example, in the telethons I participated in, there were many prominent speakers who challenged me to up my game rather than patronize me because I had no arms.

Most importantly, in the last 30 years, my wife and business partner, Darlene, has literally changed me. The connection with her beliefs about living life with a purpose has brought us together in so many ways. It has allowed me to grow farther than I ever could have predicted. I am humbled every single day!

To you, what are the most important things in life?

For me it’s all about:

1) Gratitude; because we need to be thankful for what we have, not what we don’t.

2) Purpose; because everyone needs a reason to get out of bed every day.

3) Relationships; whether it’s a romantic partner, family friends, co-workers, or even pets, all of which can give us a unity of being. Be a “giver” not a “taker”; because that is the essence of balance.

4) Simplicity; the internet was supposed to make life easier and no question, it’s given our culture so much but it has led to device addiction, mental health issues for people who can’t “live without their phone”, the effects of cyberbullying and I won’t even mention Donald Trump and Twitter! We claim to “have no time” because we create a busy life that’s the opposite of ‘simple’.

5) Love; The world has enough hate. We need more love!

VIEWPOINTS

You mentioned in your bio that “how you look at life and make choices is a skill”. Could you elaborate on this?

Ultimately our perspectives of life is a learned behaviour that leads us to make decisions.

Consider this formula created by Jack Canfield in his best selling book, “Success Principles” – E +/- R = O To expand; “Event”, positive or negative “Response” equals “Outcome”!

If you learn this formula, practice it like a skill every day and it becomes a great habit that will make us experts at dealing with our circumstances, whatever they may be. This notion can seem naive but it really works and I have been practicing Canfield’s formula my whole life without even knowing it. I never read the book until later on!

What would be your advice to someone who is currently facing a crisis in his or her life?

In my bestselling book, “Alvin’s Laws of Life”, I have five laws – Attitude, Learn, Value, Imagination and Never Give Up. The “V” is this; “Value your life and spirit. Too many people live another ‘V’ in their lives and that is: ‘Victim’. It’s true. Bad things happen to good people and unfortunately there are sometimes victims. The trouble is, as a victim, there’s no answer to the question – “Why me?”

Even worse, victims often get stuck in their past, when what they need to do is live for today and look forward to the future. When you focus on moving forward, you never know what you’ll discover. Everyone has value. Finding it, that’s the trick”!

In what ways do you hope the world can change to accomodate to more people with some form of disability?

If the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is that human beings are vulnerable. We are not statues that can withstand centuries of conflict. The price of being human is that we experience pain, loss, failure, rejection and so on. Clearly, our choices dictate our circumstances. If you choose a life of crime, be prepared to spend the rest of it in prison. But if you have proper moral code, ethics and values, you can live freely.

We are all up against something at some point in our lives, not just handicapped people. But with faith, belief, resilience and courage, I believe we can get through it all. Our reaction to our circumstances is a choice.

In 1977, I was very fortunate to be chosen to attend an International Red Cross Retreat at a camp in Norway. The King of Norway built it after his nephew became paralyzed in a skiing accident. It was the first completely “accessible” outdoor camp in the world. The experience was simply amazing and so welcoming even for people with disabilities. The next year, I went to Mount Royal College to study Broadcasting and it was also completely accessible for the handicapped.

We have come a long way to accommodate people with special needs. But we should continue to make every design of every new building as accessible as possible. This way, we all can truly feel equal in society.

To be really honest though, most people do not know what “accommodation, inclusion, diversity and equality’ means in practical terms. I often joke that the lack of consideration for handicap people is an evil conspiracy by human resource departments around the world to justify their existence. The point is, when we can learn these ideals aren’t about “special treatment” but to provide equality to everyone.

The post Best Thing That Happened: Bad Circumstances – Alvin Law appeared first on My Story Lounge.

“It’s not about trying to get back to what you were, it’s about trying to be the best of what you’re capable of today, this minute.”

Obstacles and challenges are nothing new to Robyn Benincasa. After all, as a professional adventure racer and endurance athlete, she has competed in some of the harshest environments on planet earth. For the last 20 years, she and her teammates have been competing at the front of the pack in the most unique and compelling classrooms on earth: the jungles of Borneo, the Himalayan peaks of Tibet, the rivers of Fiji, the rainforests of Ecuador and the deserts of Namibia, among other extreme environments.

As a two-time World Champion adventure racer, San Diego firefighter, and CNN Hero, Robyn firmly believes in bringing together ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things.

She is also a motivational speaker and trainer who has worked with countless leaders and teams at Fortune 500 companies to cultivate resilience and cohesive teamwork, including organisations like IBM, Starbucks, Walmart, Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, HubSpot, Intel, and more.

Furthermore, Robyn is the founder of The Project Athena Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps women who have experienced medical challenges to fulfill their athletic ambitions. To top it all off, she holds three Guinness World Records:
Her first was in 2010, for the farthest distance travelled by a woman by canoe or kayak on flat water.
In 2011, Benincasa set a Guinness World Record for the farthest distance travelled by a woman by canoe or kayak in 24 hours on moving water.
She secured her third Guinness Record in 2014, for the greatest distance travelled by a woman on a stand-up paddleboard on still water in 24 hours.

Robyn amplifies the epitome of what teamwork can accomplish and what it means to get back up when life kicks you down. She sends a message that we are all capable of a great deal of things if we put our minds to it, especially when working with others, despite the challenges and obstacles that stand in our way.

EARLY LIFE

Tell us more about your family background and share with us on what it was like growing up.

I had a pretty normal childhood in Long Island New York with a sister and parents who were pretty “indoorsy”.

Up until about the age of 8, I just went to school, got good grades, and tried not to bother my mom too much. Dad would see us on the weekends.

How did your upbringing shape the person you are today?

It wasn’t really my upbringing that shaped my life, it was a flyer that magically landed on my front lawn from a local gymnastics club when I was 8. I asked my mom if my friend and I could go to a class, and from my first practice on, I knew I wanted to get as far as I could in that sport.

When I was 12 we moved to Arizona. I joined Desert Devils Gymnastics and the coach of that program, Stormy Eaton, became one of the most important figures in my life. We all loved him so much. He was a father figure whom we always looked up to and we wanted to make him proud through our achievements, but he was also fun and silly like us. When he was training for the Ironman Triathlon, he would take the team out on long bike rides and hikes in the Grand Canyon. It was then I discovered what I lacked in speed in the gym, I made up for in endurance in outdoor sports.

At our summer gymnastics camp one year, he challenged us to run 13 miles at one go. Ultimately, I was one of only 3 gymnasts from my team that finished the camp. It was a thrilling feeling of accomplishment and it made my coach so proud.

So, when I graduated college (where I switched from gymnastics to springboard diving), I knew that the next sport I wanted to tackle would be Ironman in honor of, and inspired by, Stormy. It was then that my endurance racing career was born.

How would you sum up your childhood?

Gymnastics practice, school, diving practice, homework, track practice, cross country practice, eating lunch in the library so I could get a head start on my homework. No parties, not a ton of friends outside of sports.

All was good. I haven’t changed much.

JOURNEY

How and why did you become a firefighter, and subsequently, how did you get into endurance racing?

When I graduated from college with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing, I worked as a hospital supply and pharmaceutical sales representative for about 7 years. Even so, I was still equally drawn to my athletic life.

So, in 1996 I ditched the pantyhose and heels and picked up an application for the San Diego Fire Department. I passed all the tests, but there was an unfortunate 3-year hiring freeze. I had some fun as a substitute teacher and semi-professional athlete (the nice way to say “lived with roommates or on friend’s couches”) until I got my shot at the fire academy. Being a firefighter allows me to be all of the things I love the most: an athlete, a rescuer, an emergency medical first responder, a teammate, and an adventurer. It’s never the same day twice!

On the endurance racing side, by 1996 I had completed 10 Ironman triathlons, with two podium finishes in my age group at the world championships in Kona, Hawaii. But I was still a little too slow at the swim and run sections to race in the pro category. After my last Ironman in Kona, I was in the hospital on IV antibiotics for several days. Several racers picked up a crazy E. coli infection from the water at the start line.

I realized that I was ‘okay’ at triathlons, but the sport I was going to be really good at in my life had to be even longer. I was never fast, but I could maintain one speed forever over a long distance. I also vowed to find a sport that had weight divisions since I wasn’t what one would call “frail” (I started training in judo the minute I got home from Kona).

My triathlon competitors were up to 40 pounds lighter in body weight than I was, which was a major disadvantage, to say the least. So having assessed my unique strengths and talents as a strong, slowish, not small girl with a ton of grit, I went in search of what was next, and pretty quickly, the universe brought me to adventure racing.

Be careful what you wish for! The moment I read about the first American team ever to enter this crazy multi-day, multi-sport, nonstop race called the Raid Gauloises, I thought “This is the craziest, most awesome, most ridiculous sport in the entire world…and it’s PERFECT!”

Along the way, what were some hard decisions you faced and challenges you had to overcome?

The challenges in an adventure race are endless! For 5 to 10 days and nights NON-STOP, you’re navigating with a map and compass through the most remote terrain on earth, using only non-motorized transportation (mountain biking, mountaineering, kayaking, running and whitewater rafting) to get across the finish line with all 5 of your teammates, operating as one big team at every step of the way. If one of your teammates quits, the entire team is disqualified. And there was no official built-in rest time. The clock literally never stops, so the winning teams will only sleep 1.5 to 2 hours every 24 hours.

One of my craziest memories is from the Raid Gauloises World Championship in Ecuador. We had to summit a 19,700-foot active volcano on the third day of the race, right after running 75 miles at 14,000-foot elevation! My oxygen saturation was only 71% at the medical checkpoint before our big summit attempt. I remember crying and coughing green things out of my lungs (we all were) and having a temperature of 104 degrees.

The doctors at the checkpoint didn’t think I should continue, and in fact weren’t allowing anyone to continue if they had an oxygen saturation of 70% or less. But I knew that I had to go. I would have never forgiven myself if I let the team down. My teammates attached me to the rope in the middle of the group and (very literally) dragged me up the mountain through the darkness. I have no recollection of any of it.

The only thing I remembered was crying non-stop because somehow it helped me breathe. At 18,000 feet, the doctors did actually send 2 of my teammates back down the mountain to the checkpoint/hut at 15,000 feet because they were showing signs of high-altitude pulmonary edema and it was too dangerous to continue up. But they assured us that they were going to change the rules for all of the teams behind us as well, and that as long as each team got 3 people to the summit we could continue in the race.

To this day, I can’t believe I was one of the three of us that made it to the summit at 19,700 feet. But it was my teammates that literally and figuratively gave me the confidence and desire to continue into the clouds, knowing I may not be able to make it back down or if my blood could stay oxygenated enough to sustain life. I still have no idea what my oxygen saturation was at nearly 20,000 feet if it was 71% at 15,000 feet.

But I did discover the power and magic of the TEAM. None of us could have finished that race alone, NO WAY. We literally raced with one heart and one mind. All problems were ours. All success or failure was ours. All egos were left at the start line. And not only did our team survive, we went on to win that race 6 days later! To this day, that race in Ecuador is still regarded as the longest and toughest adventure race in the history of the sport.

During our darkest moments, though, when our own strength and courage ran thin, we all succeeded by borrowing courage from each other. Because someone else on the team was brave enough in that moment for the others who weren’t, they were able to keep us all afloat. I can’t tell you how many times I was wet, cold, exhausted, crying or hallucinating from lack of sleep on our fourth day of racing with only 6 hours of sleep TOTAL under our belts, wondering if I was going to have the courage or strength to keep going. And then someone on my team would always reach out and grab my hand, offer me a tow line, make me laugh, feed me some Fritos, or even sing the Sound of Music soundtrack with me to get me through the toughest, scariest obstacles and darkest, coldest nights. Never in a million years would I have finished an adventure race alone.

Another technique that also worked well for me during my toughest moments, was to let myself think through the process of quitting. I asked myself how would I feel in a week from now when I’m warm and fed and sitting on my couch thinking about letting myself and my teammates down?

The fear of having that feeling, labelling myself as a quitter and being the person that ended the race for the entire team, weighed heavily on me. I didn’t want to live with that label for the rest of my life. That fear was so overpowering and sad that I would suddenly get a burst of energy knowing that I could still change that reality! Right now! If I just get up and keep going.

The end of that story was STILL under my control at that time, no matter how horrible I felt at that moment. We can never have a new beginning, but in every individual moment we get to write the next chapter and decide how our story ends.

Share with us some experiences that you think are significant to your journey so far.

In 2007 I discovered I had end-stage osteoarthritis in both of my hips. I ran out of my last bit of cartilage at the world championships in Scotland and fell to the ground. When I stood up, I discovered my leg would no longer move forward on its own. Like it wasn’t getting the signals from my brain somehow. I didn’t want to quit though, so we figured out a way for me to pull my leg forward with a rope around my quadriceps. After some practice, I got pretty good at the timing of being my own puppet.

The team had to take my pack and all of my weight. We were disappointed that we weren’t going to win, but we still finished in the top 10. My husband had to carry me around on his back until we got home, and the doctor confirmed that I had zero cartilage left in one hip and very little in the other. I was devastated. I was not only facing one hip replacement, but two.

After my first hip replacement, with another not too far behind it, I knew I wasn’t going to be a good enough adventure racer anymore, so I made a couple of conscious and proactive decisions pretty quickly. It was simple: I wanted to focus on what I COULD do instead of what I couldn’t do. Why torture myself? There’s lots of cool things to do in the world!

I also wanted to take all the skills I had developed, and a few of my semi-broken, adventure racing pals to create a way to help other people create their big comeback after a setback in their own lives. So, the Project Athena Foundation, along with an ultra-endurance solo kayaking career, were born in 2008. It’s still going strong.

We not only take survivors on endurance adventures (such as hiking all the way across the Grand Canyon or kayaking and riding through all of the Florida Keys), but we also take fundraisers, who do the adventure right alongside the survivors, every step of the way. We all have a few setbacks we need to turn into comebacks, don’t we?

Sometimes a setback offers us a beautiful gift. I think when I made the conscious decision to put on my beanie cap of gratitude for what I still did have (versus mourning what I was losing) and the fact that in the lottery of life’s setbacks, having hip replacements was a winner – it changed everything.

In life some rain must fall. At least for me, this was the sun shower of rain storms. I decided to be ruled by the hope of success. It’s not about trying to get back to what you were, it’s about trying to be the best of what you’re capable of today, this minute.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Which achievements/milestones are you most proud of and why?

I’m so happy that Project Athena has changed so many lives in the last decade. We put so much love into our beneficiaries so they can have the most amazing comeback story. And those comeback stories have a huge ripple effect in the world afterwards. It’s amazing to think about how many people our team has reached out to and made a positive impact in their lives.

I’m proud to be the mom of one adorable puppy girl named Valentine! She has inspired me to create an animal sanctuary in Sedona, so I can rescue hundreds more ‘Valentines’ and other creatures that just need a paw or leg up in this world after their own setbacks. A little like Project Athena, but for animal rescue.

I’m just thrilled with how life has turned out so far. I’ve been able to capitalize on my strengths, inspire others to create what’s next in their lives, and create a couple of small companies and a nonprofit foundation with my friends so we can all do WELL and do GOOD at the same time. That’s what I’ve always aspired to do!

What do you think are the key ingredients to your success?

At any one point of time, I always have a goal, mission or dream. Without them, I’d be lost.

Tenacious pursuit of greatness, whether that’s in my athletic life or business life. There’s always something I feel like I need to learn, know, or change. I know I can always be better, and I’m not happy unless I’m among the best of the best in whatever I choose to focus on.

Human Synergy. I always surround myself with people who have strengths and talents and skills I don’t have and find a way to make them my teammates.

I focus on the comeback, not the setback. I know that change is the only thing that’s going to stay the same in life. I try to focus on what I can learn in times of challenge and change and to focus on what I CAN do instead of what I can’t do.

What lies ahead in terms of your goals and ambitions?

Oops. I might have answered this one already!

To help survivors live their adventurous dreams through Project Athena and create new adventures each year.

Start an animal sanctuary in Sedona, Arizona (USA) in a couple of years! I want to save them all. I also want to train my rescue dogs in agility sports to keep their brains and hearts happy and healthy. If we can get good enough maybe that will be my next sport!

Do the Alabama 650-mile endurance paddling race.

Continue speaking about building world class teams that adapt, overcome and win as one team as long as companies, associations and user groups will invite me to come play!

I want to retire from the San Diego Fire Department and continue my short-term rental property business in Arizona.

Pretty soon, we’ll even have some modern cabins out on the animal sanctuary so people can come stay, volunteer, and play with the animals.

PERSONAL (LIFE)

What is your life motto (or core values) if any?

I have a bunch of core values or sayings I live by (all my original quotes):

• You don’t inspire your teammates by showing them how amazing YOU are, you inspire them by showing them how amazing THEY are.
• You can’t create a new beginning, but right now you can create a new ending.
• You are never defined by your setbacks; you are defined by your comebacks.
• Your goals are upstream. If you’re floating through life, you’ll never get there.
• Always have a goal, and a deadline to accomplish it, on your calendar. Would you ever have studied in school if there wasn’t a test?
• Leave your ego at the start line; it’s the heaviest thing in your pack.
• Surround yourself with people who have been where you want to go.
• Keep searching until you find the thing that wakes you up at night to dream.

To you, what are the most important things in life?

~ Goals and dreams.

~ Without the North Star and magnetic pull of goals and dreams, I think people are lost. For every one of my family members and friends, my wish is that they have that THING in their life that creates passion and greatness.

~ Whether that’s to be the CEO of a company or to be the best mom or dad on earth, the most important thing is having a mission that drives you.

~ Teammates. Notice I didn’t say family. Teammates aren’t always blood, but they’re 100% love. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people you admire and respect, who can help show you the way, and who genuinely want you to succeed are priceless.

~ Making good decisions.

~ Our ability to make good decisions is the only constant we have throughout our lives, and it completely dictates our success.

I always wish for everyone I love to have this capability above all others. I often envision life as being a mouse maze. Your cumulative decisions at each intersection point in your life dictates your hunk of ‘happiness cheese’.

What’s worth mentioning on your life’s bucket list that you have not done?

~ Starting my animal sanctuary in Sedona, which I first dreamt about 20 years ago

~ I also have a small, but wild, notion to try sprint kayak racing

~ To take back my Guinness 24-hour Flatwater Kayaking record

~ To be a mom to a capybara

~ Start another successful business in short-term rentals when I retire from the fire department

~ And to continue to grow my speaking business with 2 of my best pals at the helm

Why do you do what you do? (What drives you everyday?)

My big dream is to live the 4Cs in my life:

• To do Cool things
• In Cool places
• With Cool people (and animals!)
• For a Cool cause.

I work toward making my best 4Cs life happen every day.

Who are the role models and influences in your life?

My dad, Ron Benincasa, is the smartest and funniest person I know. We jokingly call him my ‘Board of Advisors’. He’s right about things 98% of the time, except when he told me I might die at my first Ironman. He’s never stepped on dirt in his life on purpose. We couldn’t be more opposite, but more the same. We’ve been super close since I was a kid.

My husband of 23 years, Jeff, is my rock, my teammate, my cheerleader, and best friend. He was a firefighter for 25 years too, and now he creates all my PowerPoints and runs my keynote presentation while I’m on stage. He is also the head of our ground crew for Project Athena on our 5 annual endurance adventures for Survivors. We couldn’t untangle our lives if we wanted to.

My first gymnastics coach, Stormy, was a second father figure. We would do anything to make him proud of us.

I’m surrounded by so many inspiring people within the Project Athena Foundation, including our Trail Angel team of adventure racing rockstars that help us get everyone across the finish line.

I find myself wanting to be more like every one of them, and I always feel honored and lucky that they’re my friends.

What are some things that many people don’t know about you?

~ I’m a complete introvert even though I play an extrovert on stage. I love sharing my keynotes, but afterwards, my husband Jeff knows I’m not going to talk to him for a few hours.

~ I’ve had 6 hip replacements. Good times.

~ I was the National Judo Champion in the 72-kilo Division in the late 90s. I had made a random detour into a completely new sport. Hmmm, I think I was a national champion in judo and a World Champion in adventure racing in the same year, in addition to starting the fire academy. That was a good year!

~ I wear a men’s US size 11 shoe. This worked out perfectly when we were racing, because when our blisters got bad by day 3 or 4, everyone on the team would just trade shoes so we could get blisters in different places.

VIEWPOINTS

What made you decide to write your New York Times Bestseller book “How Winning Works”?

As a speaker, it’s important to have something available for people who want to know more or hear more stories because they’re inspired during your keynote presentation. So, I wrote How Winning Works for my new friends in every audience who want to share what they’ve learned and how they feel with their families, kids, and colleagues.

I don’t really expect people to peruse a bookstore to pick up a copy of my book, since I’m not famous or important. It was written for anyone who decides they are my tribe once they know me.

There is a statement you made previously: “Magic that allows ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things together.” Could you elaborate on this and how it has worked out for you?

Human Synergy, a term I use when describing my adventure racing teams’ success, is that magic which makes us better together than any of us could ever be alone. It says that we are better, stronger, faster, more productive, and more successful BECAUSE of one another, versus DESPITE one another. Having teammates around you is not incidental to your success, it’s instrumental to your success, whether you are striving for a team goal or a personal one.

Perhaps Vince Lombardi (an American football coach that never had a losing season) described Human Synergy best when he said “The secret is to work less as an individual and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my 11 best, but my best 11.” In other words, it’s not the brightest superstars that create the greatest teams; the greatest TEAMMATES create the greatest teams.

Your adventure racing friends called you the ‘Human Cockroach’ because you could make it through anything. In this regard, how can anyone become more resilient in their own lives when it comes to facing physical and mental challenges?

I think that our courage, grit, and resilience come from 3 Bs: we can either be BORN with it, we can BUILD it, or we can BORROW it.

Born

Many people are born with and grow up knowing that they’re just meant to be successful if they work hard, continue to learn, and never give up. They are absolutely right! But sometimes that belief in ourselves runs thin. When this happens, we need to rely on the courage and grit that we’ve built.

Build

You can actually create your courage and grit by deeply challenging yourself and succeeding, time and time again. I’ve always believed since I was a little kid that every time I truly challenge myself, I earn a new “brick” for my confidence wall. And it’s been my mission over my lifetime to build that confidence wall as high as possible, brick by brick.

Because the height of that confidence wall has a direct relationship to the amount of courage and grit you have when faced with a difficult challenge. You have to earn your courage by DOING hard things. Because simply believing in yourself without PROVING it to yourself is only for Disney Princesses.

Borrow

We can also borrow our courage from other people in a couple of ways. First, having a higher sense of purpose, doing something FOR someone else, gives us incredible strength and resilience.

Second, surrounding ourselves with people who truly and deeply believe in us. When we have people around us who know us and are convinced we can succeed, we can borrow that belief in ourselves from them, until we’re able to grow our own.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of courage-building in adventure racing, as well as firefighting. But if I had a guess at it, I’d say that most of my courage was borrowed from my teammates and crew, whom I could never let down, and who always lifted me up!

The post Making It Through Anything – Robyn Benincasa appeared first on My Story Lounge.

“My inspiration is to beautify the world. I always found myself having more ideas than companies could ever produce.”

Visualising an entirely different world where design shapes culture, is something Karim Rashid is good at and passionate about. Borned in Egypt and raised in Canada, Karim is one of the most recognised industrial designers in America and around the world.

His accolades speak for themselves – with over 4000 designs produced, 300 awards and design works in 40 countries, making him one of the most prolific designers of his generation.

Based in New York City, with a second office in Shenzhen, China, Karim creates and delivers design works to the world that both solve problems and beautify spaces. A handful of his works are featured in 20 permanent collections and he exhibits art in galleries worldwide. Some award-winning design examples include:

• Luxury goods – Christofle, Veuve Clicquot, and Alessi
• Furniture & lighting – Bonaldo, Vondom and Artemide
• Technology products – Asus and Samsung
• Brand identity – Citibank and Sony Ericsson
• Packaging – Paris Baguette, Kenzo and Hugo Boss

Bringing together a world full of contemporary inspiring objects, spaces, places, worlds, spirits and experiences, is an artistic endeavour that only Karim knows best.

EARLY LIFE

Tell us more about your family background and share with us on what it was like growing up.

I was born in 1960 in Cairo, and after a year, we moved for a short time to Rome. My father was working with an Egyptian television as a designer. Then we moved to Paris for a short time. My father had an exhibition and then he decided to move on. My mother’s British and she wanted to go to England to be near her family after five years abroad. So, then we moved to London, and I was young, about two and a half. My first formative years were in London.

I was very young, about six when we moved to Canada, which was very different from England despite their linguistic similarities. I remember my first experiences from then on. We have differences in how much we remember our childhoods. I remember very little of mine. It’s strange. My first really strong memory was on the ship going from London to Montreal. We were on the Queen Elizabeth and there was a drawing competition.

How did your upbringing shape the person you are today?

My father encouraged me to explore the arts and be a pluralist! He was a creative renaissance man – I saw him create furniture, make dresses for my mother, paint canvases, design sets for television and film, etc. We were brought up in an extremely inspiring context that gave me great respect for all of the arts including costume design.

There were pens, markers, colored pencils and paper everywhere, so drawing and creating were a natural process for both of us. He took us to his office where he designed film and television sets. We would spend the weekend making models, drawing, playing in the costume department and on the TV sets.

Karim with his dad in Canada as a kid

JOURNEY

How and why did you get into the design of physical spaces and objects as a profession?

I realized my life’s mission at the age of 5 in London. I went sketching with my father drawing churches on Sundays. He taught me to see – he taught me perspective at that age – he taught me that I could design anything and touch all aspects of our physical landscape. I remember drawing a cathedral facade and deciding I did not like the shape of the gothic windows (the pointed tops seemed dangerous) so I redesigned them. I drew them as ovals.

I also remember winning a drawing competition for children on the ‘Queen Elizabeth’, when we sailed from London to Montreal in 1966 – I drew a luggage since I was really perplexed at how we packed up our entire belongings into some suitcases to go to the new world.

What were some hard decisions you had to make and challenges faced along the way?

My career really started in 1992 (I was 32) when I moved to New York City. I was penniless but started drawing objects, romanticizing about the beautiful world I always wanted to shape. I found a rundown loft without a kitchen or bathroom and struggled to survive.

After approaching about 100 companies from ‘Lazy Boy’ to Gillette, I only managed to clinch one client. At the same time, I started teaching at Pratt Institute and worked alone for a few years before hiring some staff. I was determined to create a successful practice. That was 29 years ago!

Share with us some stories/experiences that you think are significant to your journey.

After college, I went for a one-year graduate program in ‘Industrial Design’ in Italy, studying with Gaetano Pesce and Ettore Sottsass. Sottsass taught me that there are many beautiful design objects, but that you have to ask yourself – “what do they do for us?”

In the sense of human, inspiring objects, Memphis was a revelation. There are many imposing design objects who need to stand by themselves to impress. I always ask myself, what is left, if you take the design away? If it’s style, it is a thing of the past.

Later on, I was a full-time professor in Toronto at OCAD, and then moved to teach at the Rhode Island school of Design (RISD). I was going to quit the design profession in 1992 when I was fired from RISD. I was told I was teaching ‘philosophy and theory’, not design. I loved academia but I’m grateful to have been let go because it prompted me to start my own firm.

Karim in 1984 while working for a Canadian industrial design firm called ‘KAN’

ACHIEVEMENTS

Which achievements/milestones are you most proud of and why?

My most challenging project was probably my design for Naples Metro. It is my longest project to date! I started in 2004 and it wasn’t completed until 2011. But I am very proud of the finished product.

They selected various famous architects to design each station. The stations in Naples are referred to as ‘Art Stations’. Gae Aulenti’s art station had work by artists Michelangelo Pistoletto and Joseph Kosuth. Some stations had art from artists Sol Lewitt to Sandro Chia. The late Italian design maestro, Alessandro Mendini, liked my sensibility, which was really flattering considering that I aspired to his vision when I was in university and always saw him as a mentor.

So since the art stations were under the auspices of art, this afforded me to rather than design an art station that is somewhat conservative and ‘accent’ it with art, I just did the whole station as my digital art. So I sunk the art budget into the interior walls and spaces instead of selecting art. I will always love the impact and challenge that was the Naples Metro. It is the epitome of democratic design.

But if I must choose products then I am proud of the Garbo can for Umbra that I designed in 1994 since it is 20 years old and is still so successful.

What do you think are the key ingredients to your success?

Digital tools inspire me to make forms as sensual, as human, as evocative, as sculptural as possible, but through new shapes that were historically impossible to make without new technologies. The humanized and organic language of ‘Sensual Minimalism’ is very appealing to our natural sensibilities.

Also, I usually work with the strengths of the client based on the different materials – such as glass, fiberglass, 3D printing, wood, rotomolding or injection molding. Because these are the cultures of the company – and design is about this collaboration. A designer must understand completely the culture and history of a company, their vision and their market.

What lies ahead in terms of your goals and ambitions?

– Open an art gallery and coffee shop.

– Design more private homes, a hospital, museum, mosque, and small appliances like humidifiers, coffee machines, blenders, toasters, irons, etc.

– Design sets for contemporary theatre and dance, ships, and a fashion line in my own name.

– Design an electric car, a really good digital wireless music system, a moped, a bicycle, and digital camera (sorry to say that they are all very ugly!), and many more hotels (one in each city that I travel to).

Karim – AZ Awards 2014

PERSONAL (LIFE)

What is your life motto (Or core values) if any?

To be is to create.

To you, what are the most important things in life?

Every life is different, but the most important point is that you are on the earth for a reason and you need to find that reason. Your reason is your passion and the most luxurious life you can possibly have, is that you are pursuing your passion.

Why do you do what you do? (What drives you everyday)

My inspiration is to beautify the world. I always found myself having more ideas than companies could ever produce. I perpetually observe, analyze and dissect everything around me in our built environments.

I am most creative when I meet and talk to a client that is determined to do something new or original or inspiring. I’m all about contributing as much as I can while I am on this planet.

Who are the role models and influences in your life?

When I was younger I was obsessed with designers such as George Nelson (who started the GOOD DESIGN AWARDS in 1950), Charles Eames, Achille Castilioni, Sottsass, and so many other designers. I had a feeling deep inside that I possessed the talent, focus, and perseverance to one day become as successful as they were.

I ended up studying with Ettore Sottsass and Gaetano Pesce, working in Milano with Rodolfo Bonetto. I also studied from hundreds of lectures from Buckminster Fuller to George Nelson to Mario Bellini to Alessandro Mendini.

What are some things that many people don’t know about you?

I love sketching with my daughter. She beautifully draws and designs her own objects and hotels. She has all the great qualities of a designer – creative yet scientific, disciplined and focused. We visit museums / galleries / architecture landmarks around the world which has really sparked her curiosity.

What are your passions in life?

I love to work out and run, cook and work on my mental and spiritual health by going to lots of museums and galleries and embracing creativity on every level. I love sketching, painting, listening to music, reading about technology and materials.

Adding to that list – lying by a pool, sleeping, thinking about the world, about love, about social human behavior, about peace, about beauty, and about one romantic engaging fulgent energetic seductive inspiring place we call ‘Earth’.

What kind of legacy do you hope to leave behind?

I preach about how design shapes the future and culture. I believe that design is extremely consequential to our daily lives and can positively change behaviors of humans. Good design can touch you and embrace you. I hope my legacy will help the public understand that good design can shift and change human behavior, creating new social conditions for the benefit of mankind.

VIEWPOINTS

How do you think the advancement of new technologies like AR/VR and AI, will impact and influence design (In general) moving forward?

People like to assume that design moves with more superficial trends, but it is technology and humanity that drives us. Industrial design and Interior design are driven by designers embracing new technologies, whether it is material chemistry, production method, or mechanical invention.

It’s amazing what kind of spaces, images, artwork you can create in digital spaces, renderings, VR, etc. We need to make the physical world as beautiful and seductive as those AR images.

You mentioned that for a long time, design existed only for the elite and that for the last 20 years you have been striving to make design a public subject. Could you elaborate on that?

My enduring philosophy is that anything we touch, enjoy, or engage should give us a better experience. I was educated on the philosophy of universal design – a good object, furniture or space should work for both an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old alike. The big challenge of design is to create something that, although accessible to all consumers, touches people’s lives and gives them some sense of an elevated experience, pleasure and is original.

A bit more pleasurable. A bit more positive. In other words, it makes your life feel better. I think there needs to be some sort of engagement – be it visual engagement or aesthetic function – that you enjoy that just makes life better.

What is your advice to someone who may want to become a professional designer?

For young designers I always give the advice: be smart, be patient, learn to learn, learn to be really practical but imbue poetics, aesthetics, and new paradigms of our changing product landscape. You must find new languages, new semantics, new aesthetics, experiment with new material, and behavioral approaches.

Also always remember obvious HUMAN issues in the product like emotion, ease of use, technological advances, product methods, humor, meaning, positive energy and incorporate a proud spirit in the product.

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