Announcer: Welcome to the Real People, Real Stories podcast brought to you by The Paciello Group. Bringing you the interesting and diverse stories of individuals working to make the world a more inclusive place. Mark Miller: Hey, welcome to the IAP, the Interactive Accessibility Podcast, brought to you by the Paciello Group and its affiliate Interactive Accessibility. I am your host, Mark Miller, thanking you for keeping it accessible. Do us a favor. If you're enjoying the IAP, share it, tell someone about it. Hey, even link to it from your accessible websites. Welcome everybody. Thank you for being here today. We have several people. I have my wonderful co-host Todd, producer Marissa, and our really exciting guest today, Morten, and I'm going to try this, you ready? Bonde? How did I do with that? Morten Bonde: Yeah. Mark Miller: Close? Morten Bonde: That's it. Mark Miller: Yeah, I got it. Morten Bonde: You got it. Mark Miller: And who I learned earlier doesn't mind if you call him Bond because who wouldn't mind, right? So, but Morten's a really exciting guest for me, and I've got to admit this upfront. Morten, you are the Group Senior Art Director at LEGO. Is that, do I have your title, right? Or is it ... Morten Bonde: Yeah, I'm one of the many Senior Art Directors at the LEGO agency in Denmark, Billund, the headquarters of the LEGO Group. Mark Miller: So I have to tell you upfront that we are a huge LEGO family. I have a bag of LEGOs, my mom made me this. It's imagine like a circular piece of cloth with a string that goes around the circumference of it. So when you can gather up the string and pick up all your LEGOs, and I used to bring those back and forth to my cousin's house when I was a kid. I saved my LEGO collection and passed it on to my oldest son who has added to it in an unbelievable way. He is 22 years old and to this day still gets a LEGO at Christmas as a tradition. So we're- Todd Waites: Actually your wife and kids- Mark Miller: What's that? What'd you say? Todd Waites: Actually Mark's wife and kids are actual LEGOs. Mark Miller: When I say LEGO family, I mean literally. I'd like you to meet, this is my son right here. I have my LEGOs over here. My favorite LEGOs that I have on display in my office, which I will show you guys. So from that perspective, it's really in all seriousness, we do love LEGO over here. It's got to be an incredible job. But the reason you're here to talk to us is because you recently, recently being relative term there, lost sight and had a struggle with that. So I'm real curious to see how somebody who's in a job that we would all assume is so visually oriented makes that kind of adjustment. And we here at the Paciello Group work with individuals who are blind every day and they never cease to amaze us and inspire us. So no pressure, but that's what we're hoping for from you today. So tell us a little bit ... Give us a little bit of a background, just in terms of what your job was like, what happened to you, and then I'd love to dig into kind of how things changed and how you coped with it. So if you can just start off giving us your background a little bit, that'd be great. Morten Bonde: Yeah, yeah. I've been working for the LEGO group for 11 years now, so I've been working mainly with coming up with the stories and the concepts for some of the awesome play themes that our LEGO designers and builders come up with. We are an agency that develops all the stories and the whole content around a model. So figuring out how the packaging should look like and the TV commercials and the mini movies. And for many years I was the Senior Art Director for the LEGO City theme. So I came up with, together with my coworkers, came up the stories and the storyboards for the TV commercials and also the two minute animated mini movies that sort of tell the story about the heroes of LEGO City and the features of the awesome, great models. So that was for many years, my job at the LEGO group. And next to that, I was living a somewhat secret life with a visual impairment with a disease called retinitis pigmentosa, which is a tunnel vision. I can test it here. It's not going to work that well because I have a background, but it's almost like watching the world through a tube. So imagine watching the screen, you can only see a little round circle of it and everything else sort of hidden behind a veil of the flickering, bright light. That's the way my retinitis pigmentosa is manifesting. And I was diagnosed with that disease in 2002. And back then it was really a minor problem, because I almost didn't detect it. It was when I was invited to play a match of badminton after 10 years of a break and I experienced that the ball was disappearing all the time and I was diagnosed then and basically decided that, let's just put it away. Let's put it in the closet and pretend it's not there and then continue living life as if nothing happened. And I did that then for 14 years, and in '16, I finally collapsed under the enormous pressure of being so dependent on my eyes to do my job. And my body simply said, you are driving us into the abyss, so you have to stop. And then my body just simply snapped and said no more. So I suffered from stress and depression, and that was sort of the reboot of my life basically. Mark Miller: Wow, that's an incredible story. Listening to the way that you describe your job. First of all, as a LEGO fan, it's really interesting to stop and think about the fact that you guys are constructing stories around, the LEGO, the different LEGO, I don't know what you call them themes or whatever that we all enjoy. That's really interesting. And how visual that sounds when you talk about storyboards and you talk about commercials. So it's so understandable that ... It's almost as if ... Listening to you talk, this is how it strikes me. It's almost as if the fact that you're slowly kind of going blind through this tunnel vision. It's like, literally like kind of the world's closing in. Is secondary to the mental effects of that happening. That the blindness is one thing, but the impact it's having on you mentally, because of ... Well, because you're a human being to begin with. And that would affect anybody. It would be difficult in anybody, but also because your life is set up in this visual world and I can really understand. So what I'm curious about ... We think of LEGOs and it's all happiness. But this is your job, and this is real, and I'm sure that you love your job. I mean, is the first bit of your difficulty and depression, I'll say, did that really come from the fact that you thought that this job that you were enjoying might not be a possibility for you anymore? Was that kind of the paramount fear that you had? Morten Bonde: Yeah, I think a lot of the problems that I experienced were very much mental, and I think I had sort of created this image, or you can say identity that was so dependent on me being the Senior Art Director at the LEGO Group, this driver, the father, the guy who had everything in control, he had the dream job. I was so desperately trying to cling on to that and keep holding onto that. I never on that journey stopped and tried to accept that I was slowly losing my eyesight. I was just trying to cope with it all the time and not really facing it. So, I think that the fear and the worrying was really present in my life, because if I didn't, if I wasn't this guy, the Senior Art Director, who would I be? Who would I be? And who would I become? So stopping and looking at myself and being realistic about the situation was a bit more difficult. It was more frightening than living this exhausting life that I was living. So you can say that, yes, it's a mental thing. And that's also primarily what the book is about. It's not that much about being visually impaired or losing eyesight. It's about how to discover where you are in life, and then changing your perspective on the problems that you have. I think that's a very universal message. Because I realized that it was really not losing my eyesight that was my problem. It was how I was dealing with that. So the book became my journey or my diary through this process of reinventing myself and teaching myself to see life from a different perspective than I was doing until I was '16. Marissa: Morten, let me ask you- Mark Miller: And we should mention ... Just one second. We should just mention the book you're talking about is Sentenced to Blindness, Now What? And you released that on September 4th, is that right? Morten Bonde: Yeah. Yeah. Here it is. I released in Denmark on September 5th, last year, so in '19. And then I spent a year translating the book together with Sinead Quirke Kongerskov who is an Irish translator. We sort of spent half a year translating the book and mostly her and I was proofing and stuff like that. Mark Miller: [inaudible 00:11:29] Morten Bonde: Yeah, and then we released the book the 4th of September on Amazon. It's out there now and will be out also as an audio book, which I narrated myself. So it will be also available on audio. Mark Miller: Marissa, you had a question? Marissa: That's really exciting news about the book and the audio book. I'm really impressed that you managed to actually write a book. It just, it seems like just a very intimidating act. But what I wanted to ask you is, did you, when you were going blind or at any point before you came to accept your new reality, did you know anyone who was actually visually impaired or blind and who was living a life that seemed to be somewhat normal or similar to yours? Because what I've found since working for the Paciello Group, it's amazing how normal a life people with visual disabilities or who are entirely blind can live because of all the assistive technology that's out there. And I think that, maybe if you had known some people with visual disabilities and how they're living, it may have made the process easier for you because prior to being at TPG, I had no idea that all this technology was available and I would be terrified if I knew that I was going blind because much like you, I'm sure, if you don't know what's available, you picture yourself, am I going to need help 24/7? How am I going to actually live an independent life? And it's just, it must've been terrifying. Morten Bonde: Yeah. And I didn't know anyone. I was I think extremely lonely actually those years because I have a beautiful, lovely wife that I love and I have two wonderful children, and a supporting family, but I was the only one with this condition, and no one in my surroundings could sort of imagine how it would be and how it was to sort of walk around with a vision only of four degrees. So it was extremely lonely and it was only until, yeah, '16 when I was ... The story is quite crazy because it was my wife who noticed that I was suffering from stress and depression, had been on sick leave for a year. Not a whole year, but back and forth, I was sort of getting back to the work and then I hit the barrier again and I went off and we couldn't figure out why. And then she said, one day, just coincidentally, we have been on a vacation in Crete, Greece. She noticed that I've been very clumsy on that holiday. And she said, "How is it with your vision?" Because I never really went to the ophthalmologist because every time I went there for the first couple of years, they said, "Yeah, you lost a little more of your sight and yeah we can't do anything about it, so let's see you next year." And I said, "Why go there even?" So we went to the ophthalmologist and he examined me and he looked at me and said, "Oh my God, do you know that you are legally blind?" And I said, "No, I didn't have a clue." And he said, "You are legally blind and your next step is totally blind." And I was like, "Okay." And then we sort of figured, could there be a connection between the stress and depression and the visual impairment? And I didn't have a clue. It was such a surprise, which today, I can't understand why I didn't make that connection. That being limited all day long by vision I had to do, everything that I did, I had to do with like 400% of efforts compared to my colleagues that it wouldn't be a problem at one point. But again, that's amazing thing about the human mind. It kind of copes and it tries to find ways to stay in the path that it's sort of used to be in. And just the idea of changing path, changing lane, is so frightening. That was when I kind of, okay, I had to stop driving. I was driving until that point. And the way I did that was that I simply scanned everything new with my eyes. All the time my eyes would just flicker, doing like that. So I had sort of an image in my head around, and a then of course we said, no, that was the end of my driving career. And that was also a huge blow, I would say, just from one day to the other, not being able to just go where you want to go and be independent on public transportation. And I live a little outside of the ... on the countryside and there are really poor public transportation here. So that was a problem. And I still, I think that's one of the loses that I feel have impacted me the most, not being able just to do what I want right now, just to go out. I have an idea. Oh, I need something from the market and I can't go there. I had to call someone. I have to be ... So that was a difficult thing, I think. Mark Miller: Go ahead Todd. Todd Waites: Well, what I really love about what you said and man kudos, first of all, to you for clearly taking this on. Three words that you said, changing the perspective, is huge because your situation didn't change, right? You're not going to get your sight back. In fact, it's going to get worse, which would think that your perspective would get worse. But it didn't. And I know, I mean, I'm an arm amputee, but I've toured the world as a keyboard player, but it's because of that attitude and the way you presented it is so, it's just so good. And I truly believe there are people with way more disabilities than you have that have no disabilities, right? Because their perspective is bad. They have everything going for them. They don't really have a lot of challenges, but yet you'll accomplish more than them with less. And so I just, man, I just love your take on this. Mark Miller: Yeah. Todd, it's interesting that you bring that up because I think that your story as an arm amputee, which we won't dive all the way into that today, but it's out there, if people want to see it, you can YouTube Todd Waites and- Marissa: It was a shark attack. Mark Miller: It was not a shark attack. Marissa: Spoiler alert. Mark Miller: That's what Todd tells people because it's cool. But your story's out there. And just in what I know of you and being around you, it's very similar to what you're saying right now, Morten in that there was an initial period of depression of why me. And then somewhere along the way, a revelation of this is the situation I'm in and I'm going to have to deal with it. And I think that a lot ... What you're saying, Todd, is that crucible that you end up in, and that you come out of forges a different human being too. Just the fact that you've been through a challenge like that in both your situations, it's not a joke. It's not like, oh, I went and did the Tough Mudder. It's a big deal. It's one of the biggest deals I think that could happen to somebody in their life and to come out the other end of it and manage it, it creates a stronger human being for sure. And it's impressive for both of you guys. One thing Morten I'm really curious about is that, you're going through this with your family. You're starting to come to these realizations. You're starting to come out of what sounds like to me to be an initial real denial phase and you're faced with the reality. And like we mentioned before, the biggest fear you probably have is your work. And Marissa brought up a good point. Like, did you know anybody who was blind, which you didn't, because there's that support and understanding that's not present at least at that moment. What was it like when you brought this to work and what kind of reaction and support or lack thereof did your colleagues give you when they first had the same realization that you were trying to cope with, that maybe this was a threat to your career? Morten Bonde: Yeah. I think, now first of all, I was really lucky to work for a company like the LEGO Group, because I think I would probably have had some problems sticking to, or keeping my job with this transformation time that I needed to have to adjust. And they were just so supportive and I'm really, really grateful for that. But it's really part of the journey. The subtitle of the book is called A Journey From Hopelessness Street to Possibility Road. And I think what the book is showing and telling is how I, until '16 kind of was in this denial phase. That's pretty much part one of the book. And then the second part of the book is trying to figure out how do you reprogram yourself to see possibilities rather than limitations? That's what I talk about when I give lectures. Because what I realized was that that is a choice. We have so many choices in our life that we don't think we have. And what I did was that I gave myself four challenges to prove to myself that I actually have a choice every time I label something as bad. Every time I point at something and say, "That's a shitty this and the shitty rain and the shitty bus is too late," I realized all of a sudden ... And that was through a lot of meditation and mindfulness practice that every time I label something, that's a choice I make right there in the moment. But if I'm not there in the moment, because I'm thinking of something about that's going to happen tomorrow. If I'm in the past, something that happened to me once and I'm not there right now to make that decision, I will probably do what the autopilot has been programmed to do. And what I programmed my autopilot to do basically my whole life, but especially the last 16 years was to always anticipate problems. So I had this sort of bias program in myself that I would always see something as problems. So what I did, I gave myself four challenges and the fourth challenge was actually to share this whole journey to all my LEGO colleagues. And I said to myself in four months after completing these four missions or challenges, I'm going to share how I decided to see possibilities instead of limitation, even though that I'm going to be blind. And I phrased that so it was no doubt in my mind that it would happen because I was telling myself that in the present tense. And I did. I shared the story. It was really something that kept me strictly to all the things that I learned in part two of the book, which I write about in part two of the book, basically a lot about how you change your habits, how you reprogram the subconscious mind, learning about what is stress, why do you get stressed? A lot of it is because you have a thought about something and then you don't notice it. And then you start to send signals from the brain to your body and it creates the circle. And all of a sudden, you're sort of in this thinking circle cycle. So it was really much about reprogramming myself and the response was really overwhelming. Because a lot of people didn't know and it was a relief actually, because when I was walking in the office building, I had learned that I very often just ignored people. And people thought that I was like this arrogant idiot didn't say hi to them, but I couldn't see them. So when I shared that, a lot of people came up and said, "Okay, now it makes sense. All the times I was wondering why, I was doing like this and the canteen and you've just totally ignored me, you couldn't see me." So that was a huge relief. So all the worries I had about sharing the story, it was just such a relief to just get it out of the system, sharing it. And that's also what I feel from writing the book. And today I know it's so easy for me to just to do things because I don't have that fear anymore. Every time there's something I'm afraid of or get worried about, I know that's just because it's unfamiliar and that's a great opportunity to learn something new. And if it goes totally wrong, I can say, "Awesome. I learned something and the next time I'll do it in a different way." That's just a ... such great way to live instead of living in fear all the time. Mark Miller: Right. Right. That's amazing, and I think that, you bring up mindfulness, which is ... I'm glad that you did, because that's, I think a lesson that you had to learn that other people could benefit from and learn, who haven't already obviously, just in their regular, everyday life. And it's that, like you said, sort of recognizing what your executive center's doing, and getting control over that. I think that that's an amazing, amazing lesson. And I think mindfulness is ... I hear that resurface quite a bit in stories like yours. And I think it's and just for people in everyday life to manage stress and stuff like that. So talk to me. We've established, I think that we all love LEGO, right? I have my ... I'm going to show you. I'm holding up the Beatles Yellow Submarine and I've got the Fab Four right here with it. These are gifts from my kids. Oh, he's going to leave and get here. We're going to have a LEGO show and tell. I'll show you. This is one of my favorites too that ... Marissa: Oh, that's awesome. I love it! Mark Miller: Ship in a bottle LEGO. Morten Bonde: Oh, sorry. Mark Miller: Oh, the Mustang. Morten Bonde: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Marissa: Cool. Wow. That's really nice. Mark Miller: Oh man, now I'm jealous. Forget my stuff. Morten Bonde: Yeah. Mark Miller: But, and he- Morten Bonde: I have so much LEGO. I don't know where to put it. Mark Miller: I'm sure you do man. Well, that's what we have. I literally walk down in my basement and it's filled with, because when you build something like the Yellow Submarine or the Mustang, you keep it. It doesn't go into the pile. And you get ... You don't count, right? Because you have your own piles of LEGOs at work. I'm sure that you can just grab. I've always been jealous of those piles. Todd Waites: Let me interject. I have a question here. Now, Morten, you've probably not done this, but who admits that they've tried to take shortcuts and cheap imitations and tried those and they never snap together. Mark Miller: Oh no, they, yeah. It's got to be, it's got to be LEGO. Todd Waites: Yeah. Mark Miller: And by the way, I'm going to go off on a tangent here. I was actually heading somewhere with all that but, one of the things that, and I wonder to Morten, if you thought about this, because I thought about this since I've been working in this industry, LEGO is a completely accessible toy. You can give LEGO to somebody who's blind and they can understand all the individual components, they can construct with it. There is no limitation. It's a hundred ... I mean, even in a sense has a Braille-like aspect to it in that you can even tell ... If you were communicating with somebody and you're saying, "Hey, can you give me the brick that's ... " I don't know how, you probably have a way to communicate it, but that's four long or whatever, you can feel that out. It's a completely accessible toy. Marissa: Don't they have Braille LEGOs, like to teach- Morten Bonde: Yeah. I was going to say. I thought you knew that. I just assume that everyone knows it. Mark Miller: I don't. I didn't even know to be fair. Morten Bonde: But we actually, we just launched the LEGO Braille Bricks System and that's ... Mark Miller: What does the Braille do in that? Morten Bonde: Well, imagine, it's sort of, so intuitively, you just take the two by four brick and then you modify the bricks so it corresponds with the Braille alphabet. So we created this set that is going to be ... It's the LEGO Foundation, so it's not something you can buy. We're going to give that to visually impaired children all over the world. And then it's a playful way to learn Braille. Instead of struggling with- Mark Miller: It's a learning toy? Morten Bonde: Yeah, exactly, so you can play, but it also have the letters and numbers on it. So you can play together with sighted peers. So it's an inclusive toy where you can ... if you can't see, you can sort of utilize your superpowers to write codes that the sighted peers can't see, but it's just a really cool way to modify the LEGO bricks to accommodate the Braille letter alphabet. So that's just out there. I haven't received my prototype or my set yet. I really wanted to show it to you but ... Mark Miller: Yeah. I'd love to get my hands on one of those, if it's possible. I'm not. I'm sighted, so I don't qualify, but I would love to get my hands on one of those. And it's, one, because it sounds like a great way to learn Braille, which I've tried to do. And it's, I can't even feel the Braille. It's my brain doesn't want to do it, but that's fantastic. And was that inspired by your story within LEGO for that? Or was it a Braille initiative? Morten Bonde: No, not at all. It was actually something that's been brewing for many years and it was just in recent years that LEGO Foundation had the resources to go and produce this. But I was brought in quite late in the process as a consultant because they ... When I was starting to speak up about my disability, they learned about me, because I'm in a whole different department of the LEGO group. So they invited me and showed me the model. And they brought me to a test in Birmingham last year where I was just blown away by seeing the kids playing with the Braille bricks. It's just so amazing. So I was brought in as a sort of a spokesperson to provide some insights in being visually impaired. So that was just amazing. I think it's going to do so much good. Mark Miller: And do you read Braille yourself now? Did you learn Braille? Morten Bonde: No. In recent years I've come to believe that sometimes there is something more than you can see with your eyes. So I was kind of laughing internally when the Braille bricks were just put in front of me because I've been avoiding, confronting myself with the possibility that I once maybe have to learn Braille. I'm a stubborn guy. So when I say, no, I will pick that up the day it's necessary. That's how I do things. When I'm in a position where I need to learn something, then I start learning. That's the best way I'm being motivated. But here, there are signs from somewhere saying, "Maybe you should learn Braille. We have a playful way for you to learn it. Why? Why don't you start now?" Mark Miller: Yeah, that's excellent. Marissa: Morten, I wanted to ask you. Would you say that with your new mindset, prior to really accepting your disability, you said that you had a more negative mindset and your autopilot was really just kind of set to a negative, which a lot of people have. Would you say that now you are in a better place despite your disability, because of this mindset? Or is it more, now you feel a little bit more centered, like where you were maybe prior to 2002, when this all started happening? Morten Bonde: I was much more disabled when I could see actually. Marissa: Really? Mark Miller: Wow. Morten Bonde: Yeah. I could always feel that I had a lot of potential to do great things, and I think we all have, but what I learned when I was ... I describe it in the book as I had the gift of dying before I was dying. In '16 I was sitting in the municipal office with these people around me. We were talking about how my retirement plan should be. And I was sitting there and all of a sudden I heard this very clear voice in my head saying, "What do you want to do with your life, Morten?" And until then I have had that voice all along, but I never noticed that I had a voice that was whispering in my ear that, "No, you shouldn't do that." You get a great idea and then you had that voice saying, "Yeah, maybe you shouldn't probably do it. It's not safe. And, people would probably say you're stupid," and all that. All of a sudden I realized, I literally died in there. Not literally, of course, but metaphorically, I died in there because I felt I lost everything. I lost my job, I didn't even lose it, but I felt that I lost my job because I openly said I can't do it anymore. And I lost the ability to drive. I lost the ability to be me. And then I felt more relief than ever before. I felt like, oh, what a relief, getting rid of all those identities. So I said, "Okay, if I can, in one second, get rid of all those identities, I can create whatever identity I want." So I had this sort of distance from what I call my real self to that avatar that we walk around looking at from a distance. And we are so entangled in that identity. But I sort of realized that I can take one step back and be the observer of that thinking mind that is doing all the thinking and the thinking is just happenings. It's a very Eastern philosophy kind of way of thinking. So today, when I get an idea about something, I act on it before five seconds have passed. So I just, I get this idea, I know it's great, I go do it. And then sometimes I even managed to write an email, and press enter, and then I say, "Oh, that was quicker than my inner criticizing voice could say, 'Oh.'" Like just do it. Marissa: I love it. Mark Miller: Incredible. Morten Bonde: That was also the reason why I could write a book, but that's a heck of a job to do. And I couldn't find a publisher because they said, "No, you should ... Well, it's too much about. We can't figure out is this a self-help book or is it a book about a blind guy?" And I said, "It's my journey. It's my story. You can't just change it." And then after seven editors I said, "Okay, I'm going to publish it myself. Just get out of my way. I'll do it myself." And then I did that and then I said, "Okay, we need to translate this book for the world." And they said, "Well, it's going to be difficult." "Then it's going to be fun." And then I just went on. Having no idea about how, just deciding to do it. And then doors will open automatically and magically when you just start walking. I think that most people don't start walking. They just get stuck. And it's not said in a negative way. It's just said in a, I really want to share this with people that they can actually make up their mind to do awesome stuff the moment they stop listening to that inner critical voice that is speaking all the time. Mark Miller: I mean, amazing stuff. You have that metaphor of sort of dying and it makes sense because as you talk, it's clear that there's the other side of that metaphor, where there was a rebirth. You were able to reinvent yourself. I'm sure all three of us are doing the same thing. We're sitting here wondering what am I in my own way of right now? Now that I've heard that, what am I in my own way of? We're getting to where we need to wrap up here soon, but what I really want to get into is what it was like to reinvent yourself at work. Going from this thought of, I can't do this anymore, and I'm going to lose this all to realizing that didn't have to occur. And I would imagine that it's not just in your own head that this transformation has to happen. You also have to have sort of the buy-in and the support of the people that you work with as well, right? They've got to be confident you can do this job. So how did that evolve so that you're now where you are today, where you're still doing your job? Todd Waites: Can I add a question to that? And hopefully this one doesn't put you on the spot, but ... And there's no wrong answer. Do you feel that you're better at your job than you were prior? Mark Miller: Yeah, that does put him on the spot. Good question. Morten Bonde: I think today I'm not doing the same job as I did before '16. I actually transformed myself from being very much a regular Art Director doing what an Art Director does, into now being more of a internal motivator, speaker at the LEGO Group, working closely with the HR department, people in the organization, departments in the organization, book me for internal talks, so if they have a day, like an away day, and they're going to talk about how do we manage all the changes we are facing right now, then I'm being booked as this storyteller who comes in and tells and shares my story, basically. And it is transformational. So that's what I do a lot of at LEGO Group. But then I'm also still involved in campaign development, but more as the guy who uses his brain than using his eyes. So I adjusted. But I think it's not easy to do that because when people know you for one skill or for something, and you, all of a sudden, very dramatically changed who you are, that's going to make people ... "What the heck is going on, who is this guy? I thought I knew him. Now he's talking all this guru, sort of self-help stuff. What's going on? Like, he's so different then." So that I can also feel that some of my colleagues are like ... Some don't speak to me that much anymore because they know I'm not the same guy anymore. But I had this idea that my kind of mission right now is to show people that they have potential that they haven't discovered yet. And the mission of the LEGO Group is to inspire the builders of tomorrow. So that's very close to each other. So I kind of had an idea once in a meditation. I came out of it. I said, "Now I know what to do. I have to sort of make my path and LEGO's path synchronized somehow." And I've been working on that for a couple of years now. I feel often that I'm very lonely on this journey because I'm basically inventing every step of that journey as I go. Mark Miller: But that makes you a pioneer. I mean, that's a wonderful position to be in. Maybe lonely, right? Anybody who's pioneering and at the top, they're a little bit lonely, but not for long, right? What an amazing story. And I really appreciate the motivational, the mindful. Those are the golden nuggets I think that come out of your story. And it's wonderful that you discovered them yourself, but it's even more wonderful that you're out there sharing it with the world. Because I know personally that I've been inspired by a number of people with disabilities because of what they overcome and because they're as successful or more successful than I am given a challenge like that. And I think that if you are out there showing that to the world, that that's just a wonderful, wonderful thing to do. We got to wrap this up soon because I have a book to buy and a LEGO Mustang set to buy. Now that you've shown me that. But do you guys, any ... Todd, Marissa, do you have any last ... Marissa, you've come up with two great questions this podcast. Anything else that you want to wrap up with? Todd Waites: I have a comment, unless Marissa has one first. Mark Miller: Go for it. Marissa: No, I just wanted to thank Martin for joining because I really, really enjoyed this podcast a lot. Mark Miller: Me too. Todd Waites: Yeah. Morten, I [inaudible 00:42:57] you man. Thank you for being honest. Thank you for doing what you do and for the passion that drives you. I look at you as I made up a word that I can't imagine you'd want to steal, but you're welcome to. People get hit with something and they say, "You know what? I can survive that, I'm a survivor." I think there are sur-thrivers, right? You didn't just survive. You're thriving. Marissa: Todd why are you not on the marketing team? Mark Miller: Todd that's a word that describes you. That describes you. How parallel is your path with Morten's, right? You had a similar challenge. You speak. You motivate. You've pursued your passions. So when he says that, I mean, it's coming from a special place because you and Todd do share a lot of that same thing. And it's been great. Todd Waites: You know how I came up with that word? So I don't mean to be a name dropper, but there's a band called Styx. It's one of my favorite bands. Their bass player and I are friends and he's gone through crazy stuff in his life, a bunch of cancer, a bunch of ... just everything. And he's ... I'm like, "Man, you're not just surviving. You're still touring the world and you're still doing this and that." And I'm like, "You're like a thriving." Something I said. "You're sur-thriver." So that's kind of how it went. Mark Miller: Sur-thriver. New word. New word. See, in your next book, you'll have to use ... Make sure the word sur-thriver sneaks into it. How does that sound? Todd Waites: Well the difference in our intelligence, Morten, is that you came up with a whole book full of words. I came up with one word. I mean, we're kind of the same, really. It's pretty much the same thing. Mark Miller: Yes. One word versus a whole book. Todd Waites: Morten, I'd love to connect with you offline and chat. All right, we'll do that. Mark Miller: That's only because he wants us to get that LEGO Mustang from you, but- Marissa: Yeah, exactly. Don't buy that. He has an ulterior motive. Don't believe him, Morten. Mark Miller: That's right. Morten, any last words from you, anything you want to wrap up with or make sure that we don't miss in this before we sign off? Morten Bonde: Well, no. I think the last thing probably would say, you can get the book on Amazon. Right now it's available there and it will be available on Audible and iTunes and Amazon, as well as an audio book, as soon as they get to my book in the COVID madness right now the time it takes to get it through the machinery and all that. But it is done, it's written, it is narrated and produced and everything. It just needs to be uploaded there and then it will be out there as well. So on Amazon. Mark Miller: Great. And I think an important point too, is in case you've missed it through this whole podcast is that this book is not for someone who's blind necessarily. This is for everyone. These are the lessons that you've learned that can benefit us all. I know I'm going to be grabbing a hold of it and I hope that- Morten Bonde: Yeah, I think you can actually ... I did a poster once where I'd sort of crossed out the word blindness, because you can say sentenced to and then you can put in your own sort of problem. And I think that's what it is, because you can put in everything and this is about growing bigger than that problem that you think you can't surpass, that you can't survive. I just want to show that you can actually overcome everything when you decide to. That's the essence of the book. Mark Miller: We appreciate it, and definitely, especially as a self-publisher, I'll give you my support. I've been around that publishing circle myself. And I know that's difficult and you're on your own when you do it. So we'll see if we can give you help there as well. And hey, thanks for LEGO too. It's it's a great ... It's brought a lot of joy to my family and it sounds like a great company, especially. There he is. Morten Bonde: I've got my ... Mark Miller: I've got my. This is me, by the way. Before we go, this is me. So Morten, this is one of the guys in a tuxedo with the head has sunglasses on, he's holding a coffee cup. But my kids constructed that and said ... Where is it? There it is. Dad, that's you in LEGO. Morten Bonde: Oh yeah. Marissa: Oh, that's beautiful. Mark Miller: That's a LEGO me, according to my kids. And then of course I have Darth Vader too. Todd Waites: I hardly recognized you today without the tuxedo. Marissa: He's usually in a tuxedo. Mark Miller: I usually wear a tuxedo, yeah, to work, but when you work from home, who doesn't wear a tuxedo? Morten Bonde: You were showing the coffee mug. Once there was joke going on when we did the commercial and we did the animated movies. Yeah, the police guy, the chief, he always had a coffee mug. We're so stupid every time. The most busy and most difficult situation that he was holding his cup. Mark Miller: [inaudible 00:48:04] I love my coffee. I can't blame the guy. I don't mind saving your life as long as I can have my coffee with me. Morten Bonde: Yeah, that was sort of a joke. So we had the coffee mug every time that we were showing this chief officer. Mark Miller: Well, one of the characters that you guys do, I'm going to hold up The Beatles here. They're amazing, right? I always am amazed at how you can take this kind of LEGO figure that doesn't look like it should be able to change much and turn it into something recognizable. Morten Bonde: Yeah. But we are amazed as well because we just received the stuff. We help and we have meetings with the designers, but sometimes just, my mind is blown by when they construct things. And I just, "Oh my God, this is brilliant." Mark Miller: Hey, when you get information on the LEGO Braille too, please send that our way. We're going to post, along with this podcast, we'll make sure that we have links to your books. Any other links that are important to you, Morten that you would like us to have, please send them to Marissa. She is great about making sure all that stuff gets pulled together, but we'd love to have information on the Braille LEGO as well. And anything else that's important to you. Morten Bonde: Yep. I'll send you links. Mark Miller: We have to wrap it up. Like I said, I got a couple of purchases to make here. So I got to go. Todd Waites: I just want to say, Morten, I'm glad that everything is awesome in your life. Morten Bonde: Well, yeah. It's not always awesome. I think I'm always ... I always have to be diligent and be mindful about what's going on and often it wants to take me to dark alleys, but I constantly have to disagree with that direction. So it's never ending, sort of exercise and staying positive. Todd Waites: And we all have had peaks and valleys, but I was doing a play on The LEGO Movie, Everything Is Awesome. That's right [inaudible 00:50:09] Mark Miller: Good job. Good job with that one, Todd. Marissa: That was over my head. Mark Miller: I do know what you're talking about, I guess. All right. Well, everything is awesome. And this is Mark Miller, thanking Todd, Marissa, and Morten and reminding you all to keep it accessible. Announcer: This podcast has been brought to you by the Paciello Group, the experts in digital accessibility. Stay tuned for more Real People, Real Stories podcasts coming soon.