Invisibilia – The Blind Can See

Today's episode goal is to invite you to go and listen to a different podcast - really :) This is one of the things I love about the podcasting world. Like authors and professionals speakers, we know that people who read a book, listen to a speaker, or a podcast, will enjoy reading others books, listening to other speakers, and subscribing to other podcasts. We don’t see each other as competition. Cavett Robert, the founder of the National Speaker Association, said it best: "As speakers, we never fight over the size of our slice of the pie, we build a bigger pie." Since my podcast is all about expanding possibilities, I want to introduce you to Invisibilia, a NPR podcast, launched in the beginning of 2015. Invisibilia is a latin word that means "all the invisible things”, and this podcast explores the intangible forces that shape human behavior – ideas, beliefs, assumptions, and emotions. There is a particular episode of this podcast that I would love you to go and listen to. It’s titled “How to Become Batman” and was released on January 22nd, 2015. This episode is all about expectations, and how these expectations can limit what we can do and be. I have to warn you, that this hour-long Invisibilia episode can blow your mind, and really make you think about how we limit ourselves and others by accepting expectations without questioning other possibilities. The show starts by describing how when scientists are doing experiments with rats, if they think that a particular lab rat is dumb or clever, that affects how well that rat will perform the experiment. But this is just the beginning. Then, they focus their narrative on Daniel Kish, a blind person who destroys every stereotype you may have about blindness. Daniel Kish lost both eyes when he was a very young toddler, yet he grow up to be able to navigate is world independently, and with confidence. He developed a system that allowed him and other blind people to see - really. He is a blind person who guides other blind people, as well as those of us who have normal sight, to see so many new possibilities in our lives. When I listened to this show, I questioned so many things: - How expectations can limit the possibilities of people with disabilities - How I can limit myself with my beliefs and expectations - How my expectations for my daughter can limit her from achieving what she is capable of. This reminds me of the episode 7 of the MINDSET ZONE podcast, where I spoke about a powerful quote that Viktor Frankl mentioned in one of his lectures: “If we take man as he is, we make him worse, but if we take man as he should be, we make him capable of becoming what he could be."– Goethe (1749 – 1832) Please go ahead and listen to “How to Become Batman” from Invisibilia podcast. Click the player below to listen to it. [smart_track_player url="http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/specials/2015/01/20150122_specials_invisibiliabatman.mp3" title="How to Become Batman" artist="Invisibilia" download="false" ] TEDx talk by Daniel Kish [leadplayer_vid id="55426B1DBFDA2"] Love to hear your comments about this. If you want a weekly mindset workout, make sure you are subscribed to this podcast :)