“Don’t let fear win.”  That’s the third lesson that Virginia Jacko and I discuss in Part Three of our new book, The Blind Visionary, which is due out in mid-January 2010 from Governance Edge Publishers.  You’ll recall that The Blind Visionary is about Virginia’s incredible journey. It begins at Purdue University, where Virginia slowly but surely goes blind while working as a senior financial executive.  Virginia’s journey continues at the Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, where she starts all over as a vocational rehabilitation student and only four years later is the Lighthouse’s president & CEO.

I think you’ll really like what Virginia has to say in The Blind Visionary about not letting fear defeat you.  Here’s just a small sample:

“Maybe it’s kind of too obvious to mention, but I really do think that being a positive thinker has helped me get over fears.  It’s really close to the idea of believing in myself.  I don’t think I’m being – what do you call it? - a Pollyanna, when I try to see the glass half-full.  To me, it’s simple:  You waste precious time and energy on negative thoughts.  You’ve only got so much energy and you’ve only got so much time.  And so you can choose how you spend your time.  You can choose how you spend your thoughts.  And so spending much time on something negative is not really productive.  And I really think it comes more from that attitude than that I’m such a bubbly, Everything’s Okay!, type.  Because I don’t think that really is me; I’ve always been a pretty hard-headed realist.  But that doesn’t mean I’m negative.  I just think that when you see a bump in the road you assume you can deal with it, you don’t expect it to defeat you.  So you tackle the bump realistically, you get over the bump, and you go on.  Because that’s your life.  That’s life.  That’s what it is.”

That’s pretty good advice, isn’t it?  You’ll find lots more in The Blind Visionary.  Check it out at www.GovernanceEdge.com.