I did a video a couple of weeks ago, asking you what is your "why"?
Because having a why — a sense of purpose — is really important.
You need to know your why.
And if you didn't happen to see that video, I'll post a link to it at the end of this
video.
But as a result of that I was talking with a woman about that, and in the course of that
conversation, she asked me, what is my why?
And I thought, what a great question.
I've been doing these video for a while now, and I've done more than 70 of them,
and yet I have never talked about that.
So today, I want to introduce you to my why.
Carla Dearing.
My mother.
The woman whose memory inspires everything I do to try to help people with cognitive
loss.
Hi, I'm Tony Dearing of GoCogno.com, the website for people with mild cognitive impairment.
So I want to talk to you today about how I came to begin writing about cognitive impairment,
and I want to be very candid in saying that it was a journey that began from a place of
complete ignorance and profound sorrow.
It began with the death of my mother.
I've been thinking about her a lot lately because we're coming up on the fourth anniversary
of her passing away.
She was a remarkable woman.
She was a great mother.
She was a very successful businesswoman.
And she was a tireless community servant.
In fact, her whole life was devoted to service to other people.
You know, some people want to help, so they volunteer at the food bank.
Some people want to do a little more, so they might serve on the board of the food bank.
My mother founded the food bank.
She said, there are people going hungry in our community, we need to feed them, we don't
have a food bank, so she started it.
So when a woman that brilliant and that accomplished begins to slip, you see it.
There was something wrong with mom.
And we all watched it, and we watched it in dread and fear, hoping it wasn't what we thought
it was, but it was what we though it was, and she went through a long, agonizing period
of cognitive decline, she was diagnosed with a fairly uncommon form of dementia called
frontotemporal degeneration, and on December 7, 2014, she passed away.
I handled it, all of it, so poorly.
I knew nothing about brain health or dementia, and I was in denial.
I let that lack of knowledge and that fear paralyze me.
And after she passed away, I knew I had failed her.
I knew there was so much more that I could and should have done.
And every day for about six months after her death, I beat myself up.
And then one day, I just said, enough.
Something good has to come out of the loss of such a wonderful, brilliant woman.
And that day, I resolved that I was going to learn everything I could possibly learn
about brain health and cognition, and share it with anybody who might possibly benefit
from that information.
AS a journalist, I'm in a unique position to do that.
Whatever it is I want to know about, I can call the top expert in the country and talk
to them, and gain their knowledge and share their knowledge with you.
So that's what I do, on my website, and in my weekly brain health email, and in these
videos that I do every week.
So that's my why.
That's my purpose in life.
Every word I write is penned in the memory of my mother.
She's not here any more, but she's still here.
And in all the work I do, I feel her looking down on me, and I know approves.
So thank you for joining me today, and I'll be back next week to do what it is that I
do, which is to share with you scientifically proven information which you can use right
now, today, to give you the best possible chance of slowing cognitive decline, or perhaps
even halting it or reversing it.
I appreciate you listening to my why today, and I encourage you to find your own why.
If you didn't happen to see my video last week, I welcome you to watch it now, and you
can do that by clicking on that box up in the corner there.
I'll see you again next week.
Until then, as always, be kind to your mind.
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