I published my first book, Strong Words and Simple Truths: The Courage to Communicate, on Amazon today.
To those who have been following and reading my blog over the past 8 years, I thank you for your interest and support of my thoughts, ideas and stories.
Words can not express the joy and elation I am feeling today. This is my baby. My legacy. My tribute to my family, friends, fellow veterans, and Toastmasters.
Over the last few months I have created new content and stories to weave the last 8 years of articles together. The book has 8 Chapters (Epics/Themes) where I grouped the over 80 blogs.
The chapters are: Communications, Toastmasters, Creativity, Veterans, Gratitude, the 1980s, Agile, and Science/Health.
What is the book about?
Courage, Communication and the American Spirit
Strength, Tolerance and Respect
Balance, Perspective and Change
Science, Health and History
Gratitude, Remembrance and Joy
Truth and Common Sense
Heroes, Adventure and Fun
Veterans, Poppies and Honor
Creativity, Toastmasters and the 1980s
An amazingly talented young woman illustrated the book with a fun circus theme that my mascot Ernie the Hedgehog endorses. Kudos to Alex Delit Garcia for her great work.
I don’t know what is next but boy am I excited and energized to share this news with you.
If you would like to purchase this fun compilation with a new, creative adventure throughout, please click on the image below for your very own copy. Here’s the book’s website.
Since 2013, I’ve been sharing my thoughts, ideas and stories on this blog. I enjoy writing and will continue to post here with fun and interesting photos that are harder to share in a printed book.
As I have stated in my last post, I am about to publish my first book on Amazon and have been mentally preparing for the inevitable question- What is the book about?
Since Strong Words and Simple Truths is a compilation of nine years of articles on a wide range of subjects, the answer to that query is not fitting into my normally pithy response box.
During my bike ride this morning, I came up with the following bullets to describe what the book is about.
There are over one hundred and seventy thousand commonly used words in the English language, but most people employ just a fraction of them in their daily lives. Many people yearn to find and articulate the truth. The courage to communicate has many meanings; each of us struggling to get our voices heard brings our own understanding and desires to the process. I bring my understanding of communication and wish to be heard to this book.
Growing up in a large family in the northeastern United States, I learned the value of direct and powerful communication. I still appreciate the emphatic and heartfelt style of my New Jersey upbringing and have spent my adult life honing my skills through key programs, paths, and career choices.
I believe that strong words have the power to catalyze change, that direct communication has value, and that words have energy.I believe that words are best when they are consumable, easily understood, and impactful.
I also believe that simplicity in communication is elegant. Simple is clear and honest and true. The most delicious recipes have five or fewer ingredients. My Mom’s delicious rice pudding comes to mind. But alas, communication is not always as simple as a recipe.
From this understanding came the title of my first WordPress blog, Strong Words and Simple Truths, which I began writing in 2013. The title encompasses everything I believe about communication, and I have not changed the focus or intent of the phrase in my nine years of blogging.
I always have an idea that I’d like to share, so I’ve continued thinking, speaking, and blogging about communication since 2013. I am rarely at a loss for words.
Some of the articles I published on my blog were adapted from speeches I gave at Toastmaster meetings. Other times, I would challenge myself to convert a blog article into a speech. I found the challenges of the back-and-forth creations fun and fascinating. This process taught me the important lesson that the spoken word is quite different from the written word, and through this hard work I learned to be more flexible and creative in my communication style.
This book invites you to accompany me on a journey of discovery through a curated selection of over eighty articles from my blog. When I decided to compile these articles into a book, I knew that the same title, Strong Words and Simple Truths, would perfectly express what I am trying to convey. Little did I know when I started writing my blog that the extreme events of 2020 and 2021 would make my pithy title and subtitle all the more relevant and important.
So here I am, sharing in the most powerfully vulnerable way I have ever attempted. Blogging and public speaking are one thing, but publishing a book has brought me to a whole new level of commitment to my beliefs and my message.
The format of this book was inspired by author and fellow veteran, Ed Latimore. His book, Not Caring What Other People Think Is a Superpower: Insights from a Heavy Boxer, was an outstanding compilation of his tweets, which includes strong and powerful lessons of life.
In this book, I blend the creative power of agility, communication, history, and science to create a patchwork quilt of my ideas, stories, and dreams.
I am honored to share the stories of the people and personalities who shaped who I am today. While I may not have been completely fearless as a child, the role models I emulated were feisty, strong, and spirited. Many of the themes in this book were inspired by my mom, Virginia, my brother, Bill, and my sister, Barbara. During elementary and high school, I was encouraged and guided by many amazing and motivational teachers and coaches.Ihad role models from the entertainment world as well. I desired to be as daring as Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett and as strong as Wonder Woman and The Bionic Woman.
These role models were heroes to me, and they inspired me to branch out and achieve the substantial and audacious goals I set for myself. I hope they will inspire you to do the same.
As a young adult, I had two different career aspirations. In high school, I wanted to be a medical doctor. After college, I considered becoming a science teacher.The common thread through my life is the desire to help people, share knowledge, and train others to learn new skills.
In this book, I’ll also share lessons from mymilitary service, which taught me the importance of KISS- Keep It Simple Soldier (or Stupid as some would joke). As a US Army Signal Corps officer, I supported combat and support units on the battlefield with precise and effective communication infrastructure and procedures.When lives depend on clear, concise, and timely messages, you learn to value their quality greatly.
My wish is that you find this book entertaining and educational, and I hope that it motivates you in creative and unique ways. I also pray that these words, thoughts, and expressions pay adequate tribute to the brave and selfless heroes in our world.
I have grouped the blog articles into eight sections. Each article includes the original publication date and appears as it originally appeared on the blog (with some proofreading to correct minor issues). I stitched the articles together much as a quilter would piece together colorful fabrics to create an intricate and appealing pattern. To keep things fun, I chose a theme from the magical world of the circus.
The sections of this book represent the main interests, influences, values, priorities, and passions in my life, each linked to a symbolic element from the circus.To aid the reader in remembering the sections and their symbols, I created a brief tall tale to open the book.
Ringmaster—Communication
Big Tent—Toastmasters
Juggler—Creativity
Wheels—Agile
Strong Man—Veterans, Remembrance and Traditions
Laughter—Connections and Gratitude
Unicycle—The 1980s
Animals—Science and Truth
When you read the Table of Contents, you can think of it as a menu for a smorgasbord dinner which allows you to select the topics that most appeal to you. It’s a collection of various perspectives, angles, and tastes.
Come on, let’s run away and join the circus for a few hours!
My team at work spends the majority of their time conducting Incident Reviews and Root Cause Analysis sessions where we investigate and discover what went wrong, why did the IT system fail and what can be done to prevent reoccurrence. The most important part of the process is the peeling back of the onion by asking multiple Why questions. The Five Whys is an effective methodology that can be applied to all aspects of our lives.
Top of mind for the majority of the planet’s population is the concern and fear of COVID-19. How can we best treat it? How do we prevent it?
While I am hopeful that the new vaccines will stem the spread of the virus, I wish that more attention would be given to the underlying health conditions that are severely hurting (and killing) certain populations in a disproportionate manner. Instead of obsessing over masks and lockdown effectiveness, why aren’t the WHO, the CDC and our government officials screaming from tops of the trees that a healthy weight and lifestyle are the best weapons against this disease. The word comorbidity seems like a polite, PC way to say unhealthy. The underlying cause of the most prevalent health risks are a poor diet and exercise habits and unfortunately, being in lockdown does not make it easy to eat well and work out.
If the root is not known, the cure won’t be shown.
Oh how I wish we would spend more time and energy to identify the underlying reasons of why a problem or bad condition has occurred.
Remember, the cause is the key to protect you and me!
Each day we make hundreds of choices and decisions regarding our health and safety.
If there’s one thing I learned in the year 2020 it is that every human being has a different risk tolerance. Everyone on this planet has a unique set of personal scales and internal measurements when it comes to assessing the risk of any given action versus the benefit or reward of it. Each person has their own fears, neurotic tendencies and defense mechanisms. Every individual is as distinct as a snowflake when it comes to Risk Management.
Welcome to Risk Management where in the real world there is little conformity among billions of inquiring minds!
Looking back, I realize that my first lesson in risk management (risk vs. reward) occurred when I was 10 years old. While riding my shiny new Huffy ten-speed bicycle, I took a turn too quickly and hit a patch of sand. This resulted in my crashing to the asphalt and receiving my first, full arm road rash. I suddenly understood that risky actions can sometimes lead to unpleasant consequences. I soon realized that I had to improve my bike handling skills and look out for hazards in the road in order to be safe and prevent bodily injury.
The risk of crashing aside, my passion and love of bike riding has continued throughout my adult life as I pursued numerous criterium, cyclocross, track, road and mountain bike races. All of these events had a high of level of risk for injury but my desire to have the thrilling reward outweighed my concerns. I was willing to take my chances knowing that I had prepared, trained and did what I could to mitigate bodily harm. I always wore a high quality helmet to protect my head but that didn’t help when I faceplanted onto a rock in the mountains of southern California. The helmet didn’t do much when I crashed in the final turn of a road races and got run over by the rider behind me. If you race bikes enough, you will crash but that is the risk that many people take for the reward of the experience.
The importance of the rewards and/or benefits of an activity also varies greatly among people. No one has the exact same set of values.
I, like many cyclists, have modified my bike riding patterns to account for the increased risk of getting hit by a vehicle on the road. To save my skin and bones, I primarily ride on dirt paths on my mountain bike, far away from distracted drivers. At least the rocks and cacti are stationary and don’t come up behind me at 80 mph!
At this point you may be asking, what does Brenda’s story about biking riding have to do with the decision to take the COVID-19 vaccine?
Why am I comfortable with the decision to take a newly developed vaccine that only has Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the FDA?
It’s simple. It’s Risk Management.
Based on my experience and background in Biochemistry studies in college, jobs in clinical research/pharmaceutical companies and recent investigation and inquiry on the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine, I am making the best-informed decision for myself.
In a nutshell, below are the main reasons why I plan to take the new vaccine once available to me:
I want to be able to travel and visit my family without worrying about contracting and spreading the virus.
Messenger RNA has been studied and worked on for many decades and holds the potential to revolutionize vaccination.
The delivery mechanism of the mRNA using a Lipid Nano Particle (LNP) is way cool.
The immune response that is being enhanced is targeted for the specific spike protein on the “business end” of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus.
The COVID-19 virus is unpredictable and contracting the disease can result in unknown and longer-term effects that are not fully understood at this point.
The effects of revving up my immune system to defend against this novel virus is controlled and short lived. I’ll take 24 hours of unpleasant discomfort over 5-10 days of uncertain outcomes.
The FDA clinical research phases that were accelerated were primarily bureaucratic waste/red tape and the extended times it normally takes to enroll people into the clinical trial (phases 1 and 2).
The Pfizer and Moderna phase 3 trials were controlled, randomized and double-blinded studies with over 41.000 and 30,000 participants respectively.
So whether it’s the decision to ride a bicycle on the road, go to the holiday party, wear a mask or take the newly developed COVID-19 vaccine, we all need to weigh the risks and the benefits of our choices.
A Holiday Party with Toastmaster friends, Colorado 2015
How much risk you are willing to take is a very personal calculation based on your unique circumstances, fears and desires. Only you can make the determination regarding what is most important to you.
I encourage you to actively research and study on as many neutral, science-based sites and publications as you can find in order to fully understand the biology, the history and the implications of taking the new vaccine.
Listen to a wide range of medical, clinical research and industry professionals to get all sides of the story before you run the information through your personal Risk Management filter.
And lastly, follow your gut. I have found that the little voice inside your head that instinctively tells you what is safe and good is usually right.
Let me tell you a little about how I developed my keen interest in the study of the human immune system.
In sixth grade, I fell in love with reading science fiction books. My teacher, Mr. Gary Muschla, read the class Ray Bradbury’s “The Illustrated Man” and I was hooked. My passion for science fiction continued throughout middle school and high school as I devoured books by Ray Bradbury, Frank Herbert, and Piers Anthony.
In eighth grade, I decided that I would major in biochemistry when I went to college, which is rather unusual for a middle schooler. By ninth grade I set my sites on becoming a medical doctor. I remember the thrill of researching and writing a thirty-page term paper on cancer treatments for my advanced placement biology class. I concluded that immunotherapy held the greatest promise for a cure. In my mind, science fiction was swiftly becoming science fact.
At Rutgers University, I majored in biochemistry. Then, after four years serving in the army, I took jobs with pharmaceutical and Clinical Research staffing firms and worked with pharmaceutical giants such as Glaxo, Amgen, Genentech and Celgene. I truly was living my dream as I became a subject matter expert in antibiotic, allergy and asthma treatment protocols and the FDA approval process.
Then, in 2000, my life was upended when I was diagnosed with the auto-immune disorder known as Graves Disease. Over the next three years, I lost my mother, my father, and my eldest brother to complications from cancer, tragedies that transformed my passion into an obsessive need to understand the immune system that can either save or destroy us.
Every year, new immunotherapy breakthroughs are happening all around us. My desire to research, learn, and experiment is aimed at understanding the true root cause of disease and the ways we can recover from or prevent illness. We may not yet have nano-machines (nanites) traveling through our bloodstreams, helping our immune systems combat deadly illnesses, but science is getting ever closer to these science fiction dreams.
So while I love science and I love science fiction, I don’t want scientific facts to become fictions. But scientific facts and data are created and interpreted by humans and in these hyper-partisan times, control and politics have invaded what I thought was a methodical, logical and neutral world.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been told to “follow the science” and “listen to the experts” but many have become disillusioned by the contradictory information being shared and disseminated by our government and health organization leaders.
It’s December 2020 and most of the world’s population has been living in a bizarre state of pandemic fear, stress and uncertainty for 10 months. A legion of medical, scientific and biotechnology professionals have been hyper-focused on understanding the unpredictable new virus (SARS- CoV-2) and how it can be eradicated. We have witnessed very significant progress and worldwide cooperation which has led to epic innovations in vaccine development.
It’s the end of 2020 and although we don’t have nano-machine enabled immune systems like the ones depicted in the best selling science fiction series “The Rho Agenda” by Richard Phillips, two pharmaceutical companies have requested emergency use approval in the US for messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines to protect against the novel coronavirus. This breakthrough has me thrilled and excited for the future of immunotherapy.
This year’s flurry of research and activity on the virus vaccine front brought back memories of the intense focus and effort in the 1980s and 90s on the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which caused the AIDS epidemic. I remember learning about the important role of T Cells in the immune system and how remarkably adaptive and fragile these human defense mechanisms can be.
While I am hopeful and excited to watch the private/public collaboration of numerous biotech companies and governments across the world, my positive mood sours as I watch cable news, read newspapers, Facebook and Twitter with sensationalized stories to exaggerate the numbers, trends and statistics and exploit people’s fears.
The scientific method and my understanding of the immune system was turned on its head as I listened to the countless world experts and health leaders give their press conferences and statements.
What I was hearing didn’t always make sense and I soon came to realize that the world health organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) were political bodies more than they were health advocates.
I was dismayed at the politicization of the COVID 19 response in the United States and wish that our government officials would focus more on common sense approaches and the basics of good health and strong immune systems. Instead, many have weaponized the data and the science to support the agreed upon narratives.
I couldn’t believe it when I saw some US medical doctors being censored and threatened for speaking about certain therapeutic treatments.
As the distrust of the federal and state governments and centralized health organizations increased, the public began to question the validity of the statistics and metrics. There is continued uncertainty about the risk and the best prevention strategies for containing and combatting the virus.
So this all brings me back to my passion and interest in the human immune system and how it can help us cope and survive the madness that is 2020 and the COVID 19 pandemic.
Now more than ever, I marvel at the amazingly adaptive and effective human immune system. If we nurture and support our bodies with proper nutrition, exercise and healthy lifestyle habits, our innate and acquired immune systems can protect us well from most pathogens.
Knowing that the human immune system is a robust and multi-level system with two main types of cells can help us understand, appreciate and support their functions.
Innate immune cells are the 1st line and include macrophages and other pac-man-like cells including neutrophils and basophils ( see image below). If this first response doesn’t neutralize the invading bacteria or virus, the special ops cells are activated. B and T cells are lymphocytes and use past behavior and exposure to identify and eliminate foreign threats in the body. This is our acquired or adaptive immune system.
B-cells fight bacteria and viruses by making Y-shaped proteins called antibodies, which are specific to each pathogen and are able to lock onto the surface of an invading cell and mark it for destruction by other immune cells.
There are two types of T-cells: helper T-cells and killer T-cells. Helper T-cells stimulate B-cells to make antibodies and help killer cells develop. Killer T-cells directly kill cells that have already been infected by a foreign invader. T-cells also use cytokines as messenger molecules to send chemical instructions to the rest of the immune system to ramp up its response.
Types of Immune Cells
Knowledge of our amazing immune systems can help us understand why the vast majority of people have mild symptoms when they are exposed to coronaviruses. Many peoples’ adaptive immune systems have naturally responded to the foreign invaders. Unfortunately, there are millions of people around the world whose immune systems did not respond in a positive or productive way, and this has resulted in far too many deaths. This is where medical and health officials can do a better job to educate people on the importance of maintaining a strong immune system and the risk of having a comorbidity.
So as we listen to and follow the science, remember that Science is not an Oracle and he doesn’t write blogs or do podcast interviews. Science is not an all powerful, all knowing entity. “Rather we have a mountain of research and data that is correlated, extrapolated and interpreted by a multitude of flawed and biased human, each with their own personal and political perspective.”
Human biases aside, I am still optimistic that sci-fi dreams of nano-machine enabled immune systems may one day become a science reality. Until that day, I will continue to share the important message about our body’s amazingly adaptive defensive system and how we can help improve and shore up our internal protections.
To the world’s health, medical and political leaders, I implore them to set aside their control based and non-common-sense policies and let scientific research and experimentation be the methodical, logical and neutral world where it can best thrive, discover and innovate to save lives.
Strong Words & Simple Truths 