His passion was technology. He spent years struggling and even starving in the early going. The people around him thought him mad for the work he pursued. But he proved them all wrong and in the end achieved unimaginable wealth.

Do you know who it is?

It’s not Bill Gates. He had a garage to work in. He was lucky.

Not Steve Jobs. He had friends’ couches to sleep on. Luxury.

This is the story of William Kamkwamba, a young man from Malawi. His father was a farmer, and thus, William helped in the fields throughout his youth. One year the crops failed and famine struck his country. His family gradually had to reduce their food intake to one meal per day, just a few mouthfuls. They sold off possessions, all money going to feed the family. William had to drop out of school because they lacked the funds - about $80 US - to pay the school fees.

He began hanging out at the library - 3 shelves of random books donated by the US. Among the books he found Using Energy and saw a picture of a windmill. He decided to build one of his own. He used this book for guidance despite the fact that the book wasn’t even in his language.

Using scraps he found in a garbage yard he began to build. The people in his town, the other children, even his family thought he was crazy. He had no local Home Depot. He had to create his own screwdriver and wrenches. He had to build his own generator and circuit breaker and light switches. And he had to build a tower atop which he would place his windmill. And he did. He did all of that.

And he did it all by the age of 14.

The full story is told in his inspiring, tremendous book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. In the meantime you can get a flavor for his wonderful personality from his Daily Show appearance. We should all appreciate that heroes like William exist in this world.

The Kindle app for the iPhone was my reading source for this trip. In the past I’ve lugged along anywhere from 1-3 books on my travels. This time, unencumbered by excess paper I feared I would tire of the little screen, become frustrated or annoyed or worse – headachy.

In fact reading entire books on the iPhone turned out to be quite pleasing. It was easy, comfortable, convenient. I am left with just one dilemma – one for which I’d love your help.

The question – what are the best things to do during takeoff and landing if you aren’t packing paper reading material?

The electronics have to be turned off. This used to be primo reading time for me. So now what? Any ideas?

Of course not.

The point and power of gratitude isn’t that you maniacally accept a miserable existence. It’s that you find sources of strength that lift you up so that you are better able to face your challenges.

There is a parallel in exercise and music. Costas Karageorghis is an associate professor of Sports Psychology at Brunel University and has studied the effects of music on exercise for 20 years. His research has shown that higher tempo music leads people to exercise harder and longer and even enjoy the exercise more than with low tempo music. The soundtrack leads to a more or less pleasant experience and higher or lower performance.

Your word choices are your daily soundtrack. “No worries” lightens your load. “TGIF” leads you to dread Mondays. Positive words aren’t there to push you to stay stuck in a job or marriage or home or relationship or setting or life that you don’t want. Just as up-tempo music isn’t there to lull you into not working out. The positive words give you a foundation of energy from which to act to change your circumstance.

I recently said, “Hi. How ya doing?” to a toll booth operator. He responded with a big grin and what I perceived to be a completely sincere, “Sensational!” It offered an incredibly unexpected burst of positive energy. Clearly it wasn’t the first time he had given that response.

One of my heroes is Marshall Goldsmith. I saw him speak in 2003 and he explained that he signs off every speech, every email, and every correspondence with, “Life is good.”

Tomorrow I’m going to write about the importance of the common phrases in your lexicon, but today I’m curious just to know what they are. I invite you to respond to this post and tell me. If you can’t think of any - no worries. Incidentally, “no worries” is one of my common phrases. What’s yours?

The following day they were discussing a project and another group was mentioned. Immediately they joined together in an outcry of frustration and criticism.

“The other group is political.”
“Their work isn’t as good as ours.”
“They don’t try as hard as we do.”
“They’re manipulative.”
On and on it went. Finally I stopped them.

I said, “Wait a second. Don’t you want to be The Collaborative Team? You can’t be that team if this is the way you talk about your peers.”

There was silence. So I continued.

“If they were meeting somewhere this week and your names came up, what do you think they would say about you?”

After a long pause their leader finally said, “They’d probably say the same things about us.”

What followed was a highly energized discussion about what had led them to these views and how they could avoid falling into such beliefs in the future. They finally came up with an idea that was part slogan, part policy, part mantra.

Assume Best Intentions.

Any time someone on their team became frustrated with someone else or questioned their motives, every other team member had the right and the responsibility to remind them to Assume Best Intentions. They would ask each other, “What would you say about that person if you assumed they had the best intentions?” It permeated all of their relationships within their team and between them and their peers, clients, and management.

A year after that meeting the manager of that team told me they had had a banner year. And yes, they were making their name as The Collaborative Team. He didn’t attribute this to their hard work, dedication, or skill. He said every single success they experienced came back to assuming best intentions. It increased information flow, broke down silos, healed damaged relationships, helped them bounce back from and respond positively to frustrating management decisions. He said it helped every facet of their relationships and their work.

So what would happen in your work and your life if you assumed that the people around you had the best intentions?

It drove Joannie Rochette, the Canadian figure skater whose mother suddenly and unexpectedly died days before the Olympics, to compete to honor her mother and walk away with a bronze medal. It drove Edwin van Calker, the driver of the Dutch 4-man bobsled team, to withdraw from the Olympics, enraging his coach and dashing the Olympic hopes of his teammates.

Joannie is being hailed as a hero, a triumphant athlete who stood tall under tremendous adversity. Edwin is being branded a goat, a coward who has disappointed a nation.

This is unfair. Edwin watched the Georgian luger perish and saw 30 other competitors crash on that same track. He listened to commentators repeatedly expressing the view that this particular track was dangerous. He thought about himself, his wife, his kids, and he decided the competition wasn’t worth the risk.

Have you ever been in a near death experience? Have you ever witnessed a fatal accident?

Many winter sports have inherent dangers. The athletes who compete exhibit bravery every time they take to the snow or ice. Van Calker’s decision took a different kind of bravery.

So who is the real hero?

In their own ways, they are each heroic, for different reasons and for different people. Rochette is a hero to her family and her nation for her performance and achievement under adversity. Van Calker is a hero to his family for coming home to them safe and sound.

Canadians will honor Rochette everywhere she goes. That’s easy for them. How will the Dutch respond to van Calker? Will they lift him up? Will they honor him? Those who do are also heroes.

BTW, regarding yesterday’s post, the Leopard can stand tall, having beaten skiers from such snow producing countries as Sweden, Canada, USA, Switzerland, Russia, Norway, Italy, Finland, and Austria. Congratulations!

Yesterday I read a short article about the “Snow Leopard.” Reminiscent of the Jamaican bobsled team, Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, AKA the Snow Leopard, is Ghana’s only Olympic athlete in Vancouver. Asked what he is trying to achieve he said, “My goal is to try and beat some other countries who have snow.”

His event, the men’s slalom, is scheduled for today at 10 AM Vancouver time. That is TV worth watching. I for one will be routing for the Leopard.

So it became shotchocolate.

Instead of ow! Ooowwwww!!! OOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!!

The sound was owmmmm.

It worked brilliantly. Afterwards my daughter wanted to know why we did this chocolate thing. So we talked about how the brain can only pay attention to so many things at a time. If you give it other stuff to pay attention to it won’t be as aware of the pain and you won’t feel it as much.

In the same way when you listen to music during a workout you are less aware of the pain of the workout.

And this concept plays out in all aspects of our lives. When you become aggravated, angry, bitter, sad, upset, what is your chocolate equivalent? What do you use to distract your brain?

I’m not saying you shouldn’t process or pay attention to problems in your world. But when you are fixated on the problems and focused on your pain, your brain becomes a super processor of negative emotion. It’s time for you to find some other input for your brain.

Now unfortunately I am stuck, focused on the painful notion that my mother-in-law is a genius. Someone, please, give me some chocolate.

EXTRA: Tomorrow I’ll share a related experience that has dramatically changed my life and eliminated one of my biggest regular fights with my wife.

The essence of heroism is that you take action. You relentlessly believe you can influence a situation and you take actions based on that belief. But what happens when the influence you want is to tear someone down? What happens if what you really want is revenge?

Companies beware. This can happen too.

This is a cautionary tale for corporations and an inspiration for disgruntled customers. This video has received over 7 million views. United offered compensation once the video went viral, compensation that the musician refused and recommended that they give to charity. He is staying true to his promise to produce three videos about his experience of haggling unsuccessfully with the airline.

True, this experience hasn’t exactly hurt him financially. But before you view this as a quick cash grab, understand that he spent over 9 months trying to resolve this more amicably.

So yes, even vindictiveness can be heroic, especially when it is authentic and tongue in cheek.

Yet he also had experience as a director, know-how in movie making. What can you do if all you have is grit and determination?

Karen Silliter had just that. Her two kids were in college and her husband owed her years of unpaid child support, money she desperately needed. Meanwhile, he was living in a wealthy community in another state and had claimed to have no money.

So what did she do? I’ll give you the short story. Her efforts brought her to the DMV, real estate offices, voter registration, the tax office, the county registry of deeds, the Department of Revenue, newspapers, the DA’s office, banks, the courts, her Senator’s office, and more. There were warrants, letters, and faxes. There were dumb blonde routines (her words) and unexpected helpers. There were liens, subpoenas, and flight risks.

In the end she discovered that he had covered his own wealth by starting and running his business under his new wife’s name so he could maintain his unemployed status.

So what did she do then?

She changed the law. With a heroic effort she worked with attorneys and legislators to change the law so that anyone who conspires to help a delinquent parent hide their assets will be liable for the same fines and jail time as the delinquent parent.

They even had a signing ceremony with her, the Senator, and the Governor.

None of us needs any special talents to be heroic. We don’t need superpowers. Just find your grit and determination and that can be enough to take on the world.