StemCell Therapy

Author and Motivational Speaker, Chad Foster

Chad Fosters life took a detour when he went blind in his late teens. Now hes an executive at Red Hat, the worlds largest open source software company, an author, and a motivational keynote speaker. His memoir, Blind Ambition (published by HarperCollins Leadership), will publish in early 2021.

I had the opportunity to interview Chad recently. Here are some of the highlights of that interview:

Jill Griffin: Take us back to when you lost your sight

Chad Foster: I was studying at the University of Tennessee when my eyesight really began fading. I was diagnosed at three-years-old with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic eye condition, and doctors told my parents Id eventually go blind.

For me, it was really just an intellectual concept, because I played sports, drove a car, and other things people take for granted. I thought maybe Id be an outlier, but my eyesight started failing in college. Going blind changed the course of my life. It was a pretty dark time, but the fire inside of me didnt flame out.

Griffin: It must have been a challenging period. What was your response?

Foster: It was dreadful. Beyond the striking emotional challenges, I was a visual learner, which wasnt useful as a blind guy. So I changed my major from pre-medicine to business. My mom read all of my business books to tape, I recorded the lectures, and I listened to the books and lectures multiple times. It turned out I was a better blind student than sighted student. I made straight A's and the Deans List, and upon graduation moved to Atlanta to work for Anderson Consulting (currently Accenture). I was terrified my support system was gone, I didn't know Atlanta, I was working in an industry requiring significant travel. Ultimately, I had to decide which fear I could live with. The fear of failing, or the fear of not knowing my potential.

Griffin: So you became more comfortable with the fear?

Foster: I learned to get comfortable with discomfort. When I was in college, my well-intended parents built a basement for me, just in case I didn't make it in the world. I started thinking of it as the loser basement, and vowed to never spend a day there. If we let others control our expectations for ourselves, whether that be our well-meaning parents or society, where will we end up? We need to live life based on our own vision of greatness.

Griffin: Andersen Consulting is a prestigious Fortune 500 company. What do you think made them seek you out?

Foster: Outstanding companies look for intelligence, drive and a willingness to try. When I explained my journey during the interview, any doubts about my determination were extinguished. In tech its easy to find a developer, but skills have a short shelf life because what will technologies look like in ten years? Whats important is finding people who are smart, naturally curious, and determined. The landscape changes so quickly that hiring for skills is less durable than hiring for traits.

Griffin: Tell me about the software you developed that Oracle said was impossible?

Foster: I taught myself to engineer my own software, and I got so good at it that people would seek me out. One day a colleague called. They had a customer with a blind employee who couldnt do his job because of a problem between their customer relationship management software and screen-reading software.-

So, I said, Yeah, I'll talk to the client, and then I started doing what I always do, which is dig for a solution.

A year or two later, I got an email asking for help with Siebel, and I responded casually saying, I've done this before.

So, we all hopped on a call me, the prospective client and their technical account manager from Oracle, the vendor of the screen-reading software, and my former client and they said, Weve talked to Oracle and the maker of the screen-reading technology and, it's not possible. And then my client said, Actually, Chad's already done it, and I've been using the technology for the last two years. Oracle started sending me clients after that.

Griffin: You were the first blind graduate of the Harvard Business Schools Program for Leadership Development. What did you learn there?

Foster: There are no black and white answers in the world of leadership. Weve got to think about and manage shades of grey. We explored the nuances of real-world business cases and observed them from many different vantage points. I learned a lot from the faculty, as well as my fellow executive classmates.

Griffin: Youre publishing your first book. Can you tell me about that?

Foster: Blind Ambition is a memoir, because the best way for people to digest the lessons Ive learned is to hear the stories from my life. Fundamentally, we all become the stories that we tell ourselves. Its about how I learned resilience by attending the school of hard knocks, being able to distinguish whats inside my sphere of influence, such as my ability to use a computer, write code, and get on stage and deliver an inspirational keynote without notes, and learning how to accept and even embrace things that are outside my sphere.

If you tell yourself youre a victim, that's how youll be. If you tell yourself I've got this, I'm owning this blindness thing, and Ill make it look good, then that's how youll be. And its a self-fulfilling prophecy, because we all become the stories playing in our minds. We can choose to move our mindset from victim to visionary.

We have to be prepared to reinvent ourselves. My blindness came in terrible wrapping paper, but its a gift that enables me to help others in a way thats not otherwise possible.

Griffin: What are some of the major themes that you touch on in your workshops?

Foster: The number one pillar is dealing with change. When going blind, I had to deal with the loss of my self-identity. I never aspired to grow up and be a blind guy, so I had to create a vision of greatness that included my blindness. All of us have faced the question what do you want to be when you grow up? No one said, I want to be a blind guy. But when life changes, we have to figure out how to visualize success. Now, I provide a framework for building resilience. Creating some space to be mindful and intentional about that allows us to respond to challenges more effectively. Coupled with strategy, effort, determination and a plan, its a winning formula.

Griffin: What inspired you to give motivational keynotes in front of thousands of people?

Foster: My tipping point was giving the graduation speech at Harvard. I had a feeling Id be elected so, being a Type-A personality, I met with a professional speaker and prepared my talk before we even voted. When I was elected, I delivered a very moving keynote. One classmate was so moved that he decided to commission an opera inspired by my story. Several others shared how Id inspired them as they faced traumatic situations. I was also moved a feeling of electricity coursed through my body, and I knew I was doing the right thing. At that point I saw how powerfully I could help others if I were to be intentional about it.

Excerpt from:
To Win, Decide Which Fear You Can Live With - Forbes

This entry was posted on August 21, 2020 at 11:57 am and is filed under Eye Sight & Vision. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |