The lens through which we see the world – our paradigms – are shifted through adversity. We’ve all seen it happen the hard way. As a family, we experienced personal transformation through a crisis not so long ago.
PARADIGM SHIFTING – THE HARD WAY
When we were able to put the pieces together, we learned that in less than 45 minutes, my sister Laurie had gone from slurring her speech to unconscious. After a perfectly normal morning the day after Thanksgiving, her son Chris called her from Chicago and knew something was wrong. He immediately but unsuccessfully tried to alert family on the west coast of his concerns about Laurie’s condition, which was concerning but not critical at that time. Within 45 minutes, Laurie made two phone calls – one to her husband, who was on a bike ride and didn’t get the call, and one to her daughter, who thankfully lives nearby. Laurie struggled to tell her she needed help and hung up the phone. Moments later, Laurie was found unconscious.
“There has been massive bleeding in the brain”, said the surgeon to her husband. “At this point, we’ve got to go in there and relieve the pressure on the brain as a result of the bleeding. There’s a good chance she won’t survive the surgery. If she does, she will very likely remain in a vegetative state”. I wasn’t supposed to be in the room to hear this. I had arrived at the hospital, wandering around in a daze looking for the ICU, just hoping to be there to provide support along with the rest of my family, when a kind and caring nurse told me to follow her. I was looking for the ICU waiting room, but suddenly I was standing next to my comatose sister in ICU listening intently as the doctor explained the gravity of the matter to her husband. Her life lay in the balance, and things were looking grim. Laurie was almost gone, and it looked unlikely that she’d live to see her two expectant granddaughters, both due within a month. Life, which was flowing so smoothly, had suddenly been thrown upside down. Everyone’s world was about to change.
Laurie has lived with a condition called AVM (Arteriovenous malformation – cerebral). Basically, it’s an abnormal connection between the arteries and veins in the brain that usually forms before birth. Although on medication since it was first discovered in her early teens, the condition and the risk has always been with Laurie. The reality is that she got more out of life than the doctors had predicted. The risk of a rupture always loomed large over Laurie’s life. But when you get more than 50 years out of life, you start to believe you’ve beaten the odds. Not this time.
Although the days and weeks that followed Laurie’s successful surgery were harrowing, she made it. Surrounded by dozens of friends and thousands of prayers, Laurie hung on. She fought through a 98% mortality rate and by the grace of God, 6 weeks later she was fully capable mentally, and in physical therapy working harder than she ever has before to regain full physical capability. All the while, Laurie was full of joy. As pained as we all her to see her under constant care in ICU for weeks on end, as Laurie was fighting like a tiger, all the while there was a little spark in her eyes. As she later told us, she was choosing joy, which was deeply inspiring to all around her. She had been dealt a likely fatal blow and yet was determined to drive through it with persistence and a positive attitude.
As a result of all of this, she has changed. A lot. As she said while still in the hospital shortly after regaining her ability to speak, this is the new and improved Laurie Version 2.0. She had been given a gift – a second chance, and it changed everything about her. She is now living every day – every minute, actually – with a different perspective on life. The game has changed for her, and although it has come at a very costly physical and emotional cost, she will be the first to tell you that life is richer now. Every moment and every breath is precious and something to be thankful for. Life is far too short to live superficially. It is fleeting, and it can be gone within a minute of everything seeming so normal – so permanent. She refers to herself now as “unfiltered”, and it’s true. I know, because she, like me, is genetically wired to filter everything. Embedded deep in our family’s DNA is a non-confrontational, peace-making gene. And it goes generations deep. How do I know? Well, for one thing, if you follow our family tree you won’t find a Carpenter or a Plumber – but you will find a Makepeace, a surname that I’m certain was well earned centuries ago. Yep – we are wired to make peace, and although that can be a blessing in many circumstances, like any strength it can also prove to be a curse, and specific to this trait, it tends to mute and temper real feelings and emotions in pursuit of avoiding a conflict. Laurie is not interested in making peace right now. She’s interested in sharing her heart and feelings with you – unfiltered. And it’s a beautiful thing. We got our first indication of Laurie 2.0 a couple of weeks after the incident. She was progressing well, able to open her eyes and communicate by giving the thumbs up or down to questions. And then it happened. She flipped off the nurse. Now, you’d have to know Laurie to understand how out of character this was. Laurie has never flipped off anybody – ever. She’s a Makepeace. Until now. These nurses were incredible by the way, but for whatever reason, Laurie felt differently about it all at that moment. Hard to blame her for running low on patience, with all of the uncomfortable yet necessary pokes and pains unavoidable with the constant care she required. This simple gesture, this middle fingered salute, is all the evidence needed to suggest that when you come back from the dead, apparently you drop all pretenses and choose to live life wide open and naked. The lens through which Laurie saw the world had forever changed, and although not of her choosing, the trade off is a richness and clarity of life that doesn’t come cheaply.
The renewed sense of perspective that accompanies adversity is common for those who’ve undergone a life-threatening crisis. In fact, business guru Jim Collins, author of “Good to Great”, “Built to Last”, and several other outstanding business books, concluded through extensive research that the most effective leaders in business are what he refers to as L5 leaders. These leaders, he points out, possess a rare combination of intense professional will (not so rare) and personal humility (very rare), defining humility as a sense of perspective and context – an awareness of how small we really are in the greater scheme of things. Through his research, it was discovered that nearly all of the great leaders of enduring, successful organizations possess this rare combination of traits and that almost without exception, each had gone through a crisis or calamity in life that brought them to their knees. In other words, their sense of perspective and humility came at a great personal price, the result of some form of adversity, whether cancer or divorce or the loss of a loved one – and it changed them. He goes on to note that when asked by leadership candidates how they can obtain that sense of personal humility necessary to be a more effective leader, he tells them that this is akin to asking if there is a key that can unlock the black box of inner development and that if there is, he doesn’t know what it is. If true, this is unfortunate. Personal growth and development that results in extraordinary leaders and personal transformation is available, but only when tested by fire? It’s effective, but it isn’t pleasant.
Those who’ve survived extraordinary adversity, while they wouldn’t wish it on anybody and they wouldn’t choose to go through it again, often also wouldn’t trade it for anything. Personal growth and development are undeniably valuable gifts. Unfortunately, they typically come at a price.