Not an Optical Illusion but a reality.

No. It's not an optical illusion by a book written by a profoundly deaf man. The title of the book is "Obstacle Illusion: Transforming Adversity into Success." It went officially live today on Amazon where it has rocketed from 746,000th place at 5:30 am to 3,800th place by 10 AM this morning. Numerous well known writers such as Marci Smimoff, the # NY Times bestselling author of the widely known book "Chicken Soup for the Soul," writes:

"Obstacle Illusions is a powerful account of Stephen Hopson's life experiences ranging from defeat to triumph. Readers will find themselves laughing and crying and contemplating life in a deep, meaningful way."

My favorite soup is in fact chicken soup along with some diced celery, egg whites, and a handful of green onions to make a delightful and hand-warming soup to eat and enjoy. Stephen Hopson isn't an illusion. He has made his obstacles in his life as nothing more than a series of challenges to overcome. Mind over matter as some people would say. It's also all about perspective in life and how you deal with it.

I met Stephen through email a few years back or so and corresponded with him several times and I even blogged about him a few times. This was a guy worth keeping an eye one. And sure enough. He wrote a book! People with the right thinking and attitudes are what attracts me to them regardless of their level of hearing hearing loss or background. It's the "can-do" attitudes that count and not a defeatist attitude blaming everyone and everything, always complaining. Negative attitudes suffocate the soul when one says, "I can't" when in fact you....can!  Just like how I continue to face my own kind of adversity. I even had the audacity to become a forest fire fighter and help fight 100,000 to 200,000 acres fire on the front line with my ax and shovel. I'd say that's certainly a different kind of adversity in its own right on fighting wildfires with my fellow fire fighters on the front line in Washington, Idaho and North Carolina. It's not about overcoming oppression, it's about overcoming obstacles in life successfully. Sometimes you have to take risks in life to know what it really means to overcome obstacles life. Even if it means you're the only one to have done that like fighting forest fires for two weeks at a time.

You can order Obstacle Illusions through Amazon. Order one today!

And, oh, I just now ordered the book. It should arrive on March 23. I'll be looking forward to reading it!

UPDATE:  It is now #9 in the Happiness genre and #23 Self Help and #793 overall (out of 8 million books)!

UPDATE II:  Since the book is in the top 1000, Stephen Hopson now qualifies as a "bestselling author" with his book.

UPDATE III: Read in the Huffington Post "Obstacle Illusions: A Conversation with Author Stephen J. Hopson" on their interview with Stephen Hopson. 

Adversity - a perspective from a deaf/hh person.

Here's my video blog discussing "adversity" and what it means to me. A chance for the Deaf community to see my side of my communication preference. This video is also a message of support to deaf and hard of hearing people, everybody. And a message of hope to parents of deaf/hh children as well that in life, anything is possible.



Transcript for the signing part:

What is adversity?

It is not the same thing as overcoming oppression. It's about overcoming obstacles in life successfully. Here I produced a video blog about 3 years ago in the desert landscape of New Mexico to discuss adversity. My vlog was a message of support to the deaf and hard of hearing community, and parents of deaf or hard of hearing children. A message of choice, support, and respecting those who choose to communicate differently. A message about respect. Mocking those who choose to face adversity in a different way lack imagination. Reserve your judgement while you watch my 6 minute video. The video is subtitled. And there is no signing involved. I hope you enjoy my vlog.

Adversity and...the audacity of hope?

Location: Dog Canyon on the Sacramento Mountains in New Mexico near Alamogordo.

Here's another deaf guy named Stephen Hopson of Adversity University who prefers to use his voice in his (first ever) video blog, too. He's also a motivator and a professional speaker who travels alot doing speaking engangements. Check out his first video blog post of him speaking and him thanking me in his blog on helping him get started with the subtitling idea. Thanks to my captioned video blogs of me speaking that intrigued him about me. One thing for sure, people like me and Stephen Hopson are not afraid to use our voice to speak in front of a video camera or a crowd of people.

Adversity, we all face them at one time or another. For deaf and hard of hearing people, their adversity is hearing loss. The ability to speak and/or listen shouldn't be about the "audacity of hope" on achieving those things. Not with technology we have today and better educational understanding when it comes to early intervention for a deaf child or baby on developing better listening and speaking skills. Those things should be expected as achievable and very reachable goals and not some mundane "audacity of hope" kind of thing we're hearing about today. Maybe 40 years ago but certainly not today. And even less so 10, 20 and 30 years down the road when technology and, especially so, biotechnology will continue to change the landscape for those with hearing loss.

UPDATE: See an updated or a "redacted" version of "adversity" here.