Though this does not directly have to do with presentation, I have been sending this talk on to so many clients and to so many friends, I decided I should post it here.  This is a TED talk.  I repeatedly recommend that presenters watch TED talks. This one is no exception.  Note how much information is powerfully conveyed in a mere 18 minutes!!

On December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor woke up to discover that she was experiencing a rare form of stroke, an arterio-venous malformation (AVM).  As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke.

This talk is a first person account of the difference between the right and left brain hemispheres.  Taylor watched as her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness ...   Amazed to find herself alive, she spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk.  As a brain researcher she was able to observe, and now convey, the hemisperes operate separately and how we ourselves can choose to use both sides more effectively and in balance.

Taylor has become a spokesperson for the possibility of coming back from a brain injury stronger than before.  She has written a book detailing the shutting down of her brain and what she needed to recover completely.  The book, titled “My Stroke of Insight,” serves as a guide for recovering brain function.