Rx: just say 'thank you'

We are always on the lookout for "Extraordinary Comebacks", and Thank You Power by Deborah Norville doesn't stint in providing them, e.g.

• Mountain climber Aron Ralston who had to cut off his arm to save his life. He was able to see the amputation as a rebirth.

• Bicyclist Anne Hjelle, who was biking with a friend and attacked by a mountain lion who had just just attacked and devoured another cyclist. She sped up her recovery by creating a foundation to give bikes to kids who don't have one, in the tradition of the slain cyclist.

• A simple, non-violent (no blood) and touching story of one Sal Morales, a terminated TV station personality who took a chance, sent Deborah an email, gets an answer much to his surprise and goes on to correspond with our author by email (we are conducting the same experiment), find his inner resources and a way to salvage his self-esteem through his next series of ups and downs. (It never ends, does it?)

She could have recounted her own story as well, the dust-up some 20 years ago with NBC, and her resurgence as host of INSIDE EDITION.

Deborah is a Christian, and she lets you know, but to her credit, she doesn't beat you up with it, making it easy for readers of all stripes to make their way through the text without having a reaction.

At 150 pages, a slim volume, and goes down easy. A pleasing palette of anecdotes, science (lots of studies are cited) and Deborah, the personality.

Couple criticisms, and very small ones at that: I didn't "get" the story about Norville's tip to a stage manager she meets in Dayton to wear high heels to boost her self-esteem, seems kind of antiquarian and anti-feminist, no?, but I suppose it's a "girl" thing, and we'll give the author her space on that. After all, she is a TV celeb and Georgia Junior Miss (1976). Minor thing. Also, the book needs an index. A little less minor.

But here's the bottom line: if you're grateful for what you have, instead of grieving for what you don't, you're going to change your brain chemistry. More effectively than with Prozac or any of the other drugs on the market.

Hats off to Deborah Norville for reminding us of this simple and powerful medicine available to everyone without Rx and without charge: gratitude. Let's all try it together for 21 days....and make it a habit.....

PS D.N. ends the book with a tip to take the test at authentichappiness.org to find your "signature strengths." Should say "tests"-- they offer 17! at this writing. Excellent resource, very interesting, worth doing....

PPS One last thing: "thank you" for reading this.

Super Bowl 42 leaves us with more than empty pizza boxes and a pile of chicken wing bones....

Sometimes sporting events have little or no meaning, except maybe to the participants.

Sometimes there's a lot of meaning -- for all of us.

Take the Feb. 3, 2008 Super Bowl 42.

Glamor boy and ladies man to actresses and models Tom Brady and his undefeated Patriots vs. self-described "mama's boy", plier of the family business, Eli Manning, long overshadowed by his older brother Peyton.

Down for the most of the game, with four minutes remaining, Manning and his Giants mount a comeback. With one minute left, 3rd and 5 to go, Manning drops back, swarmed by a herd of Patriots, surely to be sacked, ESCAPES!, looks downfield, heaves the ball to David Tyree, who goes up and pulls the ball down on top of his head, while getting tackled -- but holds on!

But holds on! There's the operative phrase.

With 0:59, Manning and the Giants go on to score a touchdown, and win Super Bowl 42 by a score 17-14. The Patriots came into the game undefeated, 18-0, leave 18-1.

The Giants? They were 12 point underdogs.

Tyree, the hero of the game, had quite a back story turns out. He had just lost his mother, 59, to a heart attack six weeks earlier. Of the catch that was called one of the greatest plays in Super Bowl history, coming down with the ball pressed against the top of his helmet, and holding on somehow, he said it was: "Something that didn't make sense, and when things don't make sense, I attribute them to God."

He added: "If nothing else great happens to me in my career, it will still be all icing on the cake with cherries and ice cream on the top."

After a past that included major troubles with drugs and alcohol, Tyree and his mother became Christians several years earlier, and he cleaned up. She died while working for a ministry; he said she had experienced the presence of God, and while the loss hurt, he knew he would see her again. His faith made it bearable.

"God has a plan for everyone," Tyree said in post-game interviews. "My mother has gone to be home with her Lord, and since she's gone there, the team's been on fire."

When receiving condolences from teammates back in December, 2007, Tyree said: “I’m actually very excited for her. Because that’s what we’re working toward. We’re living to live again.”

After the former special teams member scored the first touchdown of the game, he pointed to the heavens in her honor.

Lots of Super Bowls are forgotten, but from this one we can take several things that are worth remembering.

Sometimes the dorky, plodding mama's boys can beat the glamor boys.

You can start over ---- and succeed.

And while sometimes life can be a battering one day, full of loss, and an exultation the next, the key, like Tyree, is to 'hold on.' Through it all.

Even if there's only one minute to go, great things can happen.

And if things don't work out that way, as David Tyree told his teammates, this life is not the end of the story.

====================================================================

You can see his great catch at ABC and on You Tube.

Emmy-winning sportscaster writes his wife's (and his) comeback story

If we have our way, this powerful story -- it will knock you on your back -- will be in a follow-up effort to our "Extraordinary Comebacks". We work on these all the time, and this one is slated for volume 2, chapter 168.

The life and love story of the Kings, Maggie and Rich:

You see members of your TV news teams every day. They come into your home, like family or friends. You think you know them (you don't), and that their lives are pretty charmed (sometimes), and breezy and effortless and glib as the jokes at the end of the late night itself (not for sportscaster Rich King or his Maggie).
Behind the video image, Rich King's wife Maggie was engaged for years in a titanic struggle against blindness, and hearing loss, and all that entailed, as as a result, so, too, was he. When breast cancer, then ovarian cancer joined the battle, it was nothing less than a life and death struggle.

In his book, My Maggie, Rich recounts the story, and it will knock you flat on your back.

The story starts plainly enough. Maggie and Rich met a neighbor children in Pilsen, near West Side Chicago neighborhood. Awkward and gangly, Maggie wore hearing aids, starting age 4. While in third grade, she told friends she would marry Rich. He was nonplussed until high school, then he fell hard for her. By this time, Maggie had developed night blindness as well, but it didn't dissuade Rich. He loved her, all of her. Both afflictions would get worse.

Despite her hardships, Maggie got through high school and enrolled in Eastern Illinois University, but her poor vision brought her closer to home; sheattended University of Illinois at Chicago for a time with Rich, then found her way to a practical nursing program at a South Side Chicago hospital, then put in two more years to become a registered nurse at St. Mary of Nazareth hospital. Meanwhile, Rich finished off his broadcasting studies at UIC, and landed a job with CBS. He would stay for 20 years.

Despite her impaired vision and slowly declining hearing, Maggie, too, was able to work in her profession for 20 years. It would be their golden age -- stone crazy in love, with lots of trips, friends, dining and shopping adventures. With Maggie's health problems, no, they didn't "have it all," but they had a lot, and in the category of romantic love, more than most will ever have, or even come in contact with.

But then life turned unspeakably cruel. Maggie's sight declined rapidly, and her hearing followed suit. It was at this time, in her 40s, that it was determined that she suffered from Usher's syndrome, an exceedingly rare malady that attacks both sight and hearing, condeming the victim to a netherworld devoice of sight and sound.
Maggie and Rich were devastated, but amazingly Maggie determined to fight back. After a kick start from a brusque, loud, well-meaning and effective counselor (himself blind), Maggie was injected with the hope that she could get on top of her blindness and not allow it to rule and crush her life.

Indeed, she was so inspired she herself determined to switch careers and become a counselor to the blind. Maggie traveled -- by herself, assisted only by her cane -- to attend a seminar at the Helen Keller Institute, Long Island, N.Y., then enrolled in a two-year program to earn her degree in social work at Chicago's Loyola University.

An extraordinary comeback in the face of debilitating setback.
Fate was not through with Maggie, however. Breast cancer piled on, then ovarian cancer. Tragically, the latter metatasized, and could not be overcome.

Buoyed by her husband Rich and best friend Arlana, Maggie kept her love of life and fighting spirit intact all the way to her last breath.

In the book, gutsy Maggie becomes our heroine, yes, but Rich, too, becomes our hero, too, in baring his soul as the author. His recounting of My Maggie is not a sugar-coated idyll by any means, (he is plain spoken about her flaws and his), but a book of grit and stubble and devastation and overcoming and an ultimate triumph in the spirit realm, if not the physical. We all succumb, sooner or later, to that last one.

Someone once said of "Extraordinary Comebacks" volume one that when you're feeling down, 'read a few of these stories to see what's possible.' My Maggie is the nonpareil story in that regard. No one, and we mean no one we've encountered in these researches, does more with less than the extraordinarily courageous, indomitable Maggie King. As a counselor, Maggie had the power to change lives, and now that Rcih has captured her essence in this biography, she will keep on doing that for many years to come.

As Rich King would say simply, she would like that.

From hip surgery to dancing before millions -- in 3 months!

The flamboyant owner of the Dallas Mavericks had hip replacement surgery (June, 2007), then within just three months, began dancing! He competed in Dancing with the Stars (2007).

After making the cut for four weeks, the somewhat stiff yet enthusiastic and charismatic billionaire (#407 on Forbes Richest American, he sold his $100 million revenues, 330 employee broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.9 billion before the NASDAQ crash, then diversified his wealth, one of the few dot com wealthy to do so) was eliminated on October 23, 2007.

He didn’t go away empty-handed. He won a new legion of fans (several ESPN anchors call him their “favorite owner). And he lost 30 pounds during the competition.

CNN honors comebackers

Give a look to these remarkable stories....

Steve Jobs on life, death, getting fired, comebacks

Youtube.com

YE earns a "10" for comeback info

We came across an interesting web site and blog and thought to share it here:

Youngentrepreneur.com is a treasure chest of wealth including equal parts motivation, inspiration, productivity ideas and nuts and bolts advice for building your business. We daresay the ‘young’ in ‘young entrepreneurs’ is a state of mind, and anyone can profit from the advice contained herein.

Amidst the usual up, up and away fare, which, as the author of “Extraordinary Comebacks: 201 Inspiring Stories of Courage, Triumph, and Success”, we surely believe in, there is some refreshing fare about the “other side” of being an entrepreneur, e.g. how does one keep one’s motivation alive when there are so many compelling diversions strewn about? (See the link to the Rizvi blog, e.g.) YE makes room for these kinds of frank discussions via its links to actual YE blogs.

(That is precisely why I’m presently writing the counterparty to “Extraordinary Comebacks” which is “Extraordinary Comedowns.” Takes two sides to tell the whole story….)

Meanwhile, Entrepreneur University alone is worth the cost of admission (it’s free, just kidding), but YE also features a number of interesting categories.

Only problem: you could spend a lot of time navigating around here, all good time, to be sure, but better to actually get after the job of being an entrepreneur, and plan to consume YE in bite-size doses.

All in all, we give YE a no-holds barred “10!”