There’s always a moment in your life when you come across something that just humbles you to the core.

For me, this was one of those moments.

Ben Underwood is a 14 year old boy who, due to serious eye cancer at age three, had his eyes surgically removed. For most people, life would have ended, but not for Ben Underwood. With his mother’s help and a perseverance beyond belief, he has taught himself to use echo location to navigate around the world.

By making a series of clicking sounds, he can use the echo to detect obstacles and move around in the real world. He goes to regular school, plays basketball, rollerskates and can even play video games.

See the videos for yourself.

Offtopic:

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”
- Anatole France

“Time is not measured by the passing of years but by what one does, what one feels, and what one achieves.”
-Jawaharlal Nehru

And I thought Carlo’s template was pink.

Ladies and gentlemen, the one, the only, brilliant Knights of the Edge student, crazy girl, silly, bubbly beyond belief and a genius in the making.

I give you, the The Rising Page.

Show some love like only the Blogren can.

Man, tis becoming one heck of a party, this blogging bidness.

Rock on bloggers, you guys rule!

The self evaluation madness continues. I know I have talked much about fear, etc, but it not the fear we all identify with, it’s a different breed of fear. Maybe The Apprentice and Mr B2B and The Emrys can identify, plus most of you anyways.

So.

Two profound things I’ve read on bravery and courage, one I read today, the other I read a couple of years back.

Bravery is not the absence of fear, but the will to overcome it.
- John Berridge

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
- Ambrose Redmoon

Allow me to use and quote a couple of metaphors, borrowed from Zen Buddhism (no, I am not converting) to illustrate something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.

Shoshin

From Wikipedia:

A concept in Zen Buddhism meaning “Beginner’s Mind”.

It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would.

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.

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Abba, You pulled off an impossible miracle yesterday.

I almost cried. I love you so much.

Thank you.

I’m sure you’ve had this experience many times:

You mess up or screw up something. It may be huge, it may be small, but somehow, something went wrong, and you’re to blame.

Or you have this riotous argument about something, you insist and swear you are the right one and the other person is wrong. You even have facts to prove it. Wrong facts.

What happens when you realise you were wrong, or that you are the one to blame?

Our instinct is self defense, we go round and round in circles trying to make excuses, blaming someone else or telling even more lies or worse, adamantly refusing to admit our guilt…

Have you ever realised how absolutely liberating it is to simply say, “I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

A few words, a million lies saved, a new bond made, and one giant leap in the right direction.

Think about it.

“I messed up. I’m really sorry.”

—

Offtopic:

“Never ruin an apology with an excuse.”
- Kimberly Johnson

I humbly apologise for reality Television.
- Cilla Black

This is the second part of a series of business tips that I felt I should share, all from experience, of course. The first part was about the realities of owning a business. Hard brutal facts.

So you’ve thought long and hard, you’ve worked out your plan, had a reality check about the disadvantages of owning a business and you’ve decided you have what it takes to start a business. You’re good to go.

But first, let’s look at the other side of the coin. What are the actual advantages of owning or running your own business?

I wasn’t going to cover this, since I thought it was pretty obvious, but since Dante hinted at it in the comments section, let me list down a few reasons why owning a business rocks.

Presenting, the sunny side of Entreprenuership Street:

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A little food for thought, from recent events.

You spend an endless amount of time at Big Corp Inc. Steadily working 9-5, bringing in money, making it rain on their business.

You do customer support, you answer the phone, you deal with clients, you handle their accounts. All this, of course is for a reason, most likely because at the end of the month, Big Corp Inc. is paying your salary.

You value your job at Big Corp Inc. because of the the reward you get at the end of the month. And because of this, you work very hard at it, hoping for a promotion, or a raise, or a better job at Bigger Corp Inc.

But do you know what the bottom line is? Do you know what you’re actually doing? You’re making Big Corp Inc. look good.

With your every action, or inaction, you, my friend, are branding Big Corp Inc.

But there is a bigger and much more important entity you need to seriously think about.

It’s called Me Inc.

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This is the first of a series of business tips that I felt I should share, all from experience, of course.

When The Apprentice and I first started NVGOR8, we had a dream. We would do things no one had done before, we would be the best in the industry in Uganda. Heck, we would change the industry.

The good news? We did all that and more.

The bad news? Nothing in this world had prepared us for the rigors of running a business.

We all have that look in our eyes every once in a while, the thought of being your own boss, working on your own terms, doing things your way, having fun and getting filthy rich while at it.

Well, before you quit your day job and paint a “Now Open” sign across your home gate, or pimp up your garage with 32 inch monitors and a desk, or squander your family fortune on that gold-digging business, take a brief moment for a small reality check.

I give you, 10 reality checks about owning a business:

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It’s 3:39 pm, Monday afternoon. I haven’t had much sleep since Friday night. One of our clients is holding a huge multinational conference, so I’ve been running up and down. Since I’m in a zombie like state, I can’t work much, so I’m chilling, listening to Spanish classical guitar music (not the Braxton song). I love the way these guys make their guitars talk, sing and serenade.

Learning the guitar has taught me a lot about discipline, about routine, about practice. The mastery you hear from Carlos Santa or Jimmi Hendrix is not from waking up one day and doing wicked guitar licks. It’s about fingers that hurt when you start out, but you ignore the pain and learn to live with it. You seek out the pain, and let it teach you, until you become numb to it, until you rise above it. It’s about practice, about being clumsy with your first picks, your first strums, you first chord changes, and sticking to it until your fingers get a life of their own. It’s about dedication, about setting your goals, deciding what you want and what style you’ll choose.

I’ve chosen classical guitar, because, obviously, it’s more romantic, and more exploratory. And it requires rigorous discipline and practice. It’s also therapeutic. Listening to the slow or fast licks and picks of a master classical guitarist can be quite an experience. Especially spanish guitar or flamenco guitar.

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