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| Topic: Mind-Teasers :-) | |
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Beautiful! 
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Note To Self:
Don't forget, always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember her, you are not alone. 
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A Lesson In Courage: The Story Of Cam
David K. Williams ,CONTRIBUTOR (I write about my life and business lessons.) Of all the challenges I've had to overcome in my life, none come close to the loss of my son. To this day, five years later, it is still something incredibly difficult to share or write about. When great challenges or tragedies arrive on our doorstep, we have to just keep moving forward as best as we can. Fish that stop swimming die. Many books recommend that we pause, evaluate, and reflect, but it would not have worked for me. I knew then ��and I know now ��that if I had stopped, I would never have started again. When I pause to remember this time in my life, I continue to ask myself: Did I handle it well? Did I do the right thing? Well, I did the only thing that I could. I tried a little bit every day to discover (truly discover, because modern medicine didn't have the power to heal him) how to help my son fight and to remain upbeat, positive, hopeful, faith-filled, and most of all, courageous. In my book, The 7 Non-Negotiable of Winning, I share the full story of my son Cameron, the original 'Cam' who has inspired our company's service and philanthropic arm, the CAM (Courage Above Mountains) Foundation. As I talk about the Non-Negotiable of Courage this week with my Forbes column readers, I think it is also appropriate to share a little of Cam's story here. Joining the Fishbowl Family When I came to Fishbowl in 2004, Cam had been home from a two-year service mission to Italy for about six months. I knew early on that I needed people who I could trust and who had the courage to help us turn the fledgling company around. My daughter Lindsey was the first person I hired, despite the fact that she had just finished high school. I knew she had organizational skills and enough confidence to help me. I also began talking to Cam about possibly joining the team. He had a good job as an Italian translator, and I didn't necessarily want him to leave a well-paying job while he was still in school. But I also needed his presence, his participation, and his great 21-year-old's wisdom. So eventually I asked him to trade his secure job for the risk of coming to work with his dad. He was Fishbowl's ninth employee, and my third hire. Cam quickly became the all-purpose man and go-to guy who figured everything out. We didn't have a marketing department or any type of Web analytic Wing or Google expertise. We also lacked any official-looking marketing material or product packaging. Cam worked with our small Fishbowl team and created something professional we could send to our customers. Cam designed our marketing materials, ranging from brochures and envelopes to letterhead and logos, learning his way on the fly, ��unflinching, courageous, and undaunted. He had no professional experience but he was willing to learn and he produced beautiful products. He was the one who got us started in the use of Google and Yahoo! pay-per-click ads. He figured out how to use the keywords and phrases the search engines were looking for and essentially put us on the map in the world of online marketing. Cam was fearless in his desire to contribute to the company and figure things out, ��so much so that he always worked more than he needed to each day. Because he was also attending school full time, he would leave for classes for a couple of hours here and there; however, he always put in a full week of work, whether it was late at night or early in the morning. He never wanted to be a part-timer; he always wanted to be a full-time student and a full-time employee. It wasn't about the money - he just knew he could contribute, and he did. Cam's fearlessness and devotion to the company was contagious. In all he did, he was an example of the 7 Non-Negotiable: Respect, Belief, Trust, Loyalty, Commitment, Courage, and Gratitude. Cam introduced the employee appreciation of the year award called "The Angler". We now call it the CAM Award in his honor. Cam's Courageous Fight Beginning sometime in 2007, Cam wasn't able to eat much. His work ethic and attitude hadn't changed, but we noticed that he was looking feeble. When he began losing more weight, we knew something was wrong and started seeing physicians and specialists. His condition progressively worsened to the point where he could hardly eat anything. We eventually learned that his life was in serious danger. With tears streaming down his face, the doctor said that he had found a tumor growing underneath Cam's esophagus. Finding a tumor at this point was very serious, he told us. I can't remember his exact words, but I had known this doctor for nearly 20 years, and he is not a man who cries very often, if at all. When he showed this much emotion, I knew something was terribly wrong. Cam underwent an ultrasound endoscopy to scan through his stomach. We discovered that the cancer had spread through the entire stomach lining. The tumor had been found at the spot where the lining had become the weakest. The doctor who performed the endoscopy told us, "He has zero chance of survival. We give him less than two weeks to live." That was in the middle of August 2007. From that point on, Cam was left to our family's care. There was no protocol for this rare gastric cancer, as it typically occurs in men around the age of 72 who are sent home to die. We knew of one surgeon who agreed to operate about a week later. We hoped that somehow he'd prove the other two doctors wrong. It was to be an eight- to nine-hour surgery. However, within 45 minutes, the surgeon came out of the operating room, shaken. He told us the cancer was everywhere. It had metastasized through all of Cam's internal organs. Everyone assumed that Cam was going to die fairly soon thereafter, but Cam had other plans. He had shown his sense of fearlessness throughout his entire life ��and he did the same, even more so, during the last six months of it. He never complained about his circumstances; in fact, he was quiet the first couple weeks. We found a doctor who also practiced alternative medicine in her own clinic with miraculous success. The day after her first consultation she invited Cam into her care. She took care of him tirelessly; sometimes well into the night, ��using IV therapy to restore his health and destroy the cancer. Cam strengthened and was even able to do a little bit of work on his laptop. I accompanied him to this wonderful MD, whose clinic was 75 minutes away, every single day. At night his mother and sometimes his siblings would care for him so I could sleep a bit. I did not go physically into Fishbowl once over the next six months. I stayed connected through my computer and my cell phone, taking care of financials, making decisions, conducting meetings, and organizing things remotely while sitting with Cam. Our entire family made the decision to do everything we could to fight the odds. We expected a miracle. Cam suffered from pneumonia several times; he'd have to go to the hospital because his temperature was 106 or 107, and his heart rate would occasionally race to 170 or 180. These are things that people don't survive; yet they were nearly everyday occurrences for Cam. He persevered, fought, never doubted, and was enormously courageous - each moment of every day. The only thing Cam asked for was back rubs. His lower back was agonizingly sore because he'd lost all of his muscle. He would let us know he needed a back rub by wiggling his feet; anyone who was with him would also rub his feet to ease his pain. Toward the end, he lost the ability to do more and more things, but he would continue to do anything and everything he could. Cam never backed down from his hope of survival, even on the day when he couldn't breathe anymore. They had to insert a ventilator and tape his mouth closed. Then they had to place a drainage tube in his nose for the blood that would build up in his stomach. He was also put on dialysis because his kidneys had shut down. With all of the artificial mechanisms keeping him alive, he was fairly listless and didn't move much. His eyes would stay open, but he would stare off into the distance. When we spoke to him, he would acknowledge us with a slight eye movement. I recall, two days before he passed, that I leaned down to Cam and just said, "Cam, is there anything you want to say or anything you want us to do?" It was obvious what was happening, but we'd already resolved that we would never ever think or speak of anything but a miracle. We'd never even contemplated Cam's dying. When I said this to Cam, he must have used all of the energy that he had to stare at me and give me a frown that said, "How dare you give up now, Dad!" I quickly backed away from asking him more questions and continued to pray for a miracle, right up to the last moment. Eventually, the dialysis machine stopped because there was not enough pressure to keep it going. We didn't know what was happening; no one was telling us anything, so we had to ask about everything. I asked the nurse, "What does this mean?" She said, "They usually just last up to an hour." It was two o' clock in the morning, so we figured we had until about 3:00 a.m. I asked her what would happen and she said that the heart rate would pick up speed, and then drop dramatically. And then he would pass. I don't know how many nights we'd gone without sleep because we'd had to watch him so closely for the last several weeks as we did everything we could to help him. But now every member of the family was there - ��surrounding him, hugging him, trying to stay awake or sleeping on the floor. When the dialysis machine stopped, we all hung onto him. Three o' clock came, then 4:00, then 5:00, and his heart was still beating at a normal pace. I kept waiting for it to start to go up even as the nurses popped their heads with a look on their faces that said, "He's still alive?!" But they didn't know Cam. His heart rate started to go down at about 5:00, but it immediately came back up, and we thought, "Here's the miracle." We believe our Creator can cause a miracle to occur at any time, so, in spite of everything, we still believed Cam could be healed. But it was not to be. This was Cam's time to leave. At about 7:00 a.m., Cam's heart rate finally accelerated as the nurse had described - ��four hours after anyone in that condition is supposed to survive. My perception was that he wasn't in pain, and that he had already left his body, even though he hadn't yet died. After picking up speed, his heart began to slow. Then, according to the heart monitor printout I took home with me, he gave us a tremendous last heartbeat at 7:19:55. Cam's Courage Inspires Fishbowl Cam had a lion's heart, a brave heart. We called him 'Iron Williams' after the movie "Iron Will" - ��he simply had a heart that was full of goodness and love in life and that was difficult to stop, even in the face of death. Because of Cam, I believe we all have the capacity to discover our own brave heart. Part of Cam's great legacy, and one of the most important leadership lessons he taught me, is that I could care for everything at Fishbowl the way he had. Most people think that when you hire a family member, you treat them differently. Today's leadership books generally advise against treating your family member employees as special. But why not look at it from a different perspective ��and treat everyone as special? Instead of lowering the bar, consider raising it. I also discovered how tenderly we treat another human being when they have a serious illness. Why does something traumatic or dramatic have to occur to bring out the best in us? Why can't we skip 'the stuff' and simply care for one another at all times? Cam's illness and passing was a very difficult experience for our family to endure, as well as for the Fishbowl employees who knew and worked with him. I have deep gratitude for all of those who worked at Fishbowl through those six months, whose support, both professional and emotional, allowed me to care for my son. Because our employees knew Cam was fighting for all he had, he inspired them to go above and beyond, too. They exhibited an incredible ethic. Everyone displayed the 7 Non-Negotiable in every way they could, and in ways I could never imagine. They made it possible for me to serve my son and be with my family through that horrendous experience. I was never judged negatively for not being there, even by the majority shareholder, who was the first to try to contribute personal funds for the cost of the alternative medicine Cam received that insurance didn't cover. Learning the Courage to Live for Other People We've all heard the question countless times throughout our lives: What would we do differently if we knew we only had one day left? How would we treat someone close to us if we knew we were going to lose them? It's not necessarily a pleasant thought, but it's one we should consider every day. It's a difficult practice to incorporate on a daily basis, but that makes the response all the more rewarding. Deep down, we all know the answer: We would do anything for that person. Most of us remember to do this for our families, but overlook an important fact: We also spend 40-plus hours a week with our colleagues. We rarely think about bringing that spirit of care into the workplace, ��but we should. Remember: You may never know everything that another human being is going through, but we can still relate to them due to the simple fact that they're a fellow human being. All of us, whether we realize it or not, are in the people business. We need to remember that our relationships with our coworkers far outlast the work experience itself. The way we display the 7 Non-Negotiable will outlive the projects we completed or the money we made. The experience of helping our company succeed against all odds was a lot like the experience we endured with Cam. We never spoke of anything but a full recovery, and we believed right up to his last heartbeat there was a chance for a miracle. We used the same approach to turn Fishbowl around, and we have the same outlook today: Never think of anything but success. Are there tough moments? Certainly. But they compel us to take a step forward rather than back down. When other companies were shutting down or standing still in 2009 and 2010, we turned everything on. That effort propelled us ahead and put us in the position we are in today. We also learned that there is immense power in committing to your team and your partners. They are the people who will rally around any member who's injured and help them to get back up. We are all in the people business. We have the power and the courage to close ranks to protect any member who is injured until they get back on their feet. For every one of these lessons, I will be eternally grateful to Cam. And today I also thank each of you for allowing me to share with you the story of Cam. Amazon has named David Williams' book, 'The 7 Non-Negotiables of Winning', one of its Top 10 Business Books for July. Additional reporting for this article was provided by Fishbowl President Mary Michelle Scott. Author: David K. Williams!
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AGE WITH GRACE Age with grace and dignity, The years have served you well; With years came strength and wisdom, That youth could not foretell. Seek what makes your heart sing, Find what brings you peace; Fill your life with joyful dreams, And find there, sweet release. Reach out for the brightest star, To fill your life with light; Hold it closely to your heart, To light your darkest night. Dance among the moonbeams, Share secrets with the stars; Sing upon the whispering wind, A song of who you are. Celebrate the years now past, And the joy more years will bring; Find what brings you peace in life, Seek what makes your heart sing.
[Allison Chambers Coxsey - �2001 ~ All Rights Reserved] |
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The beauty inside you. With every glance, your eyes become more striking, Your bones become more lovely, you reflect more beauty. All the colors in the world, seem to glisten in your eyes. And I can see so much in you, no one else can see. My head's on your chest, our hearts beat in sync. It's then I realize, I love every part of you, with every part of me. Life can be so cold and dark when the sun shines in the sky, But things become so simple, and life becomes so warm, When the whole entire world, fits perfect in your arms.
[� Colleen, 3 years ago - written about my lost love.] |
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Note To Self:
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Edited by
Kaustuv1
on
Wed 09/30/15 02:54 AM
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Note To Self:
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Beautiful
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Edited by
Kaustuv1
on
Wed 09/30/15 04:02 AM
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Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening [BY ROBERT FROST]
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
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