DESIRES PERFORMS THE IMPOSSIBLE

As Blair grew older, he took notice of things around him and never doubted that he would hear and speak one day. His father was convinced that if he could even hear slightly, he might develop a hearing capacity.

The little deaf boy went through the grades, high school, and college without being able to hear his teachers, excepting when they shouted loudly, at close range. He did not go to a school for the deaf. His parents were determined that he should live a normal life, and associate with normal children.

Eventually, Blair acquired limited hearing with the help of a phonograph, picking up sound vibrations via bone conduction, enabling him to “hear” music. Blair had tried hearing aids, but had never found a device which worked for him. In his last year of college, he tested an Acousticon hearing aid, which was specifically designed for him by the Dictograph Products Company.

The hearing aid proved to be absolutely perfect for Blair, improving his hearing to 100 percent, and thereby enabling him to hear and to converse at normal levels of conversation.

This was the most important turning point in Blair’s life, for his and Napoleon’s dream of normal hearing and speech was now fulfilled.

Blair next sought was to determine a practical plan for converting his former handicap into an equivalent asset of value to others. He wrote to Dictograph to provide grateful feedback on their design. In response, he was invited to visit their headquarters and to tour their factory.

One of the most inspiring stories in Napoleon Hill’s life was his own son’s. Blair was born without external ears; doctors feared that he would be deaf and mute for his entire life. Hill, of course, refused to accept this negative diagnosis. “The outlook was far from encouraging,” he wrote, “but desire backed by faith knows no such word as impossible.”

Hill challenged the doctor’s opinion and decided that Blair would hear and speak – he did not accept the reality of his son’s affliction. “More than anything else, I decided that my son would not be a deaf mute,” Hill exclaimed. He wanted to find a way to transplant into the child’s mind the burning desire to convey sound to his brain without the aid of ears.

Through a positive mental attitude and a burning desire for a specific outcome, Hill set about helping Blair. As soon as he was old enough, his father filled his mind with a burning desire to hear. Every day, Napoleon renewed the pledge he made to himself, not to accept a deaf mute for a son.

Napoleon’s plan included: creating bedtime stories for Blair with themes designed to develop in him self-reliance, imagination, and a keen desire to hear and to be normal, as well as to establish the belief that his affliction was not a liability, but an asset of great value.

PHD STUDY CAN HELP THE BLIND & VISUALLY IMPAIRED

Blind or visually impaired persons access documents by using a screen reader that reads a text out loud or displays it on a special hardware braille device. However, a large body of technical and scientific material remains inaccessible to them because mathematical equations and diagrams are represented as images and not as text that a screen reader can read.

This is according to Dr Rynhardt Kruger who recently obtained his doctorate in Electronic Engineering at Stellenbosch University (SU). For his PhD, titled technical document accessibility, Kruger developed methods that could make it easier for blind or visually impaired people to read non-textual graphical information in electronic documents.

As someone who was born blind, Kruger says he knows first-hand how difficult it is to read equations and diagrams in scientific documents. “During my studies, it was not always easy to access the material in my textbooks. I realised that many technical documents do not adhere to existing accessibility standards for blind or visually impaired people.” Despite this, Kruger became the first blind person at SU to obtain both his BSc honours and master’s degrees in computer science. For his Honours project, he developed a programme that allows blind musicians to study music notation. For his master’s degree, Kruger researched methods to allow blind people to access online virtual worlds.

He is passionate about broadening access for people with disabilities and says it is important to continuously search for assistive technologies that blind or visually impaired people can use to read equations and diagrams in scientific texts.

Next, Blair devoted a full month to researching Dictograph’s marketing system and to devising a two-year plan for reaching out to those with hearing difficulties worldwide. Accepting Blair’s proposal, Dictograph promptly hired him to implement the new plan. Thus, Blair’s long journey to wholeness found fruition, as his seeming limitation finally, through faith and perseverance, was converted into a priceless asset, of value not just to himself, but to multitudes.

Life Lesson: The starting point of all achievement is to have a burning desire, followed by a persistent desire, backed up with enduring faith and belief. No matter what happen to us, our thinking and thoughts make us who we become.

Who was Napoleon Hill? In 1937, Napoleon Hill published his most famous work, Think and Grow Rich, which remains one of the leading books on personal motivation and self-help to this day.

Hill’s focus was not simply wealth, however; he provided tips and ideas for achieving any goal through self-confidence, enthusiasm, cooperation and tolerance.

ZANDRIA-SIMONE POST

Road To The Crown

Bloubergstrand’s own gorgeous Zandria-Simone Post can now add Mrs South Africa Semi-finalist to her impressive resume as she joins the class of 2023.

Following the announcement, the semi-finalists took part in a jam-packed two-day conference filled with motivational talks, workshops, upskilling sessions, socialising and networking opportunities, and an introduction to the famous Mrs SA sisterhood.

“I expected this result as God has placed me in this amazing opportunity, and I am working towards the crown, at the end, so Semi-finals is the first step getting there,” Zandria-Simone said.

Mrs South Africa is foremost a self-discovery and empowerment programme that celebrates diversity, ambition, and confidence while showcasing some of the country’s most phenomenal and talented women, and giving them the skills and tools needed to achieve their dreams.

Sharing more about her decision to enter, Post says, “After years of procrastinating this destiny that was put aside for my life, I finally had no more excuses. I decided that this is my calling and I will follow it. After 13 years of not being a mother, I feel I share the heartache of infertile woman and I want to do my part in creating hope for these women out there. If I can contribute to helping just one woman to carry the title of a mother, my journey was completed and successful.”

As part of her journey, she hopes to take the title of Mrs South Africa and part of this journey she wants to create awareness on anxiety and fear and most of all awareness and support systems for people suffering from infertility. She wants to support and advocate for Fertility clinics and support further studies in this field.

Zandria-Simone Post fully embodies the values that Mrs SA holds most dear, and is representative of their tagline for the year: #EveryWoman. Be sure to follow Post’s journey on the Mrs South Africa Instagram and Facebook pages.