Young people constantly amaze me. October first, I shared the story of young Dalton Sherman and how he is a gifted public speaker. Today, I want to share a story about another extraordinary young man who just handled a possible life-threatening situation like an old pro.
His name is Max Farias. He's fifteen years old and a sophomore at Sunnyslope High School in Phoenix. He lives with his mother and father, Tammy Patrick and Jeff Farias, and their dog, Brutus. Oh, and he's my nephew. Here's a picture of Max and me in the Badlands of South Dakota two years ago. Yes, he was only thirteen years old! Max was held hostage for about two hours Wednesday afternoon in the family's home by an armed gunman as helicopters circled above, police cordoned off all the surrounding streets and SWAT teams encircled the house!
During the entire ordeal, Jeff was doing his radio show in their studio in the back yard. To hear Jeff tell the story, I encourage you to listen to the first fourteen minutes of The Jeff Farias Show from yesterday, October 23rd's podcast. You can listen to the podcast by clicking here.
Am I a proud uncle right now? Absolutely! Is Max a hero? In my mind, absolutely! Could the situation have ended differently? Absolutely, and many of the scenarios could have been bad! The critical thinking skills he demonstrated are truly astonishing!
It's just another example of how many of our young people are being nurtured by loving parents who are teaching their children to do the right thing. Like I've said before and will say again, "Young people may not always tell you how important their relationship is to you as parents, but you are the most important role model in their young lives!
Julie Smith, Ph.D., has done it again. Her latest project, When "It" Happens To Your Health is a comprehensive program which consists of a process with five action steps people can use when "It" happens to their health. You can read the flyer on this project by clicking on these images to enlarge them:
Julie asked my mother and me to be a part of the project and interviewed us for the DVD which is an integral part of the support kit. I am happy to say Mom did a great job speaking as a mother who has shown how to be Change-Resilient when your son's world literally gets turned upside down.
The change-resilience support kit is based on this book and is an excellent tool to help both patients and families take control of their recovery after "It" happens to you, or someone you love.
It will be available soon and you can learn more about it by clcking here to go to LifePath's website.
If you contact the people at LifePath, please tell them, "Mike sent me." Thank you for doing so.
On a side note: after our interview, Julie incorporated a few of my statements in Jerry, the book's main character. That was kind of cool.
I'm always looking for more material to share with you and it constantly amazes me what we can find online! Besides doing my own research, people are often sending me links to sites I have used as the basis of a post.
A friend sent me this humorous video the other day, and I laughed out loud several times while viewing it three or four times. The thing that really struck me however was, the number of people who have viewed it and commented on it. With more than 67 million hits and almost 100 thousand comments, I believe it is the most watched video I have ever seen!
Imagine, 67 million times someone has watched this funny video!
Here you go:
Personally, I like dark humor. I think this is funny as well as amazing so many people have viewed it!
Imagine you are standing on a small stage in the middle of an arena filled with over 20,000 teachers, staff and administrators, and you are the keynote speaker for the back-to-school convocation of the Dallas Independent School District. How do you feel? Oh, and there's one more thing, you are ten years old!
Your name is Dalton Sherman and this is what you said:
A friend sent me this video the other day and didn't suggest I post this, he said, "You have to post this."
He was right. This precocious young boy gave me shivers up my spine, and that's hard to do because I'm paralyzed! I certainly couldn't have done this at ten. I couldn't do this today!
He has a gift and I hope he is nurtured and taught well to enhance his gift so he reaches his fullest potential. In my opinion, he has a tremendous future as a professional speaker. I wish him well, and I plan to follow him as best I can. With YouTube, that should be fairly easy.
During the entire ordeal, Jeff was doing his radio show in their studio in the back yard. To hear Jeff tell the story, I encourage you to listen to the first fourteen minutes of The Jeff Farias Show from yesterday, October 23rd's podcast. You can listen to the podcast by clicking here.
