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Barry Shore: Coming from Personal Trauma to Success and Helping Other Succeed Barry Shoreis an ambassador of Joy. Because of his successes in business and recovery from full body paralysis he has built an “Eco System of Good” internet platform that enables people to Give to their Favorite cause at No Cost. Barry was an instructor in the Diamond Program at the GIA, an author of a world wide resource book on diamonds and an international wholesale diamantaire with sales exceeding 100 Million dollars. After a brief retirement at age 33 he returned to business and built an international telephony company. From this grew an innovative process in 1999 that enabled faxes (sic) to be sent and received via email (think dial up) to 17 countries for FREE (!). Barry was awarded Two Patents in this space and built a stellar executive team. He then sold the Company 18 months later for more than $10 million dollars and the acquiring Company is today a $2 Billion market cap. Then he built a predecessor to Skype (enabling people to call to 17 Counties for FREE) which was funded and then bought within 9 months by a NASDQ company. Then on 17 September 2004 Barry became a quadriplegic (paralyzed from his neck down!) overnight from a rare neurological disease (GBS). His journey since to regain mobility caused him to GO MAD: Go Make a Difference. He envisioned a Platform that enables People to GIVE Money to their Favorite CAUSE at NoCost to the Giver and attracted smart caring talented successful players to build the System. He has been granted a Patent in the process and has found the Formula to Create the “ECO System of GOOD”: where Supporters, Brands, Causes All Participate for Mutual Benefit. Barry’s Mission is to Make Everyday Giving Effortless and his Big Audacious Goal is to facilitate the Giving of One Billion Dollars without costing any Giver a penny. He is the Founder of the KEEP SMILING Movement (thedailysmile.com) which has distributed more than 1.2 MILLION KEEP SMILING Cards throughout the world in 27 languages. He is the Founder of the MOL (minute of Love) Podcast produced 6X/week. He has become an avid swimmer (2 miles/day/6x/week) and has accumulated enough miles over 9 years to swim from Venice CA (his home) to Shanghai, China. Barry is focused on transforming the giving space. More Information at https://www.dlyted.com Here's the Transcript for the Interview Hugh Ballou: Greetings, it’s Hugh Ballou again on The Nonprofit Exchange. As usual, we have quite an amazing guest today. This guest and I have met passively over the last ten years here and there, just touching base. Recently, a mutual friend connected us, and there was some real synergy. I got to hear Barry’s story again. We all have stories. Very few of us are as good as telling the story as Barry. Barry, today, instead of my normal routine of giving us a bio and telling why you do what you’re doing, I think we are going to build this conversation around your story and what you have created. I’ll tease people: it’s called Dlyted. We won’t tell them about it yet. Introduce yourself, Barry Shore. You’re in California. You take it from there. Tell them about yourself, and then let’s hear your story. Barry Shore: Thank you, Hugh Ballou, for being here, being who you are, and being a conduit for good and channeling. Here is my greeting to everybody out there listening. Hello, beautiful, bountiful beings, and good-looking people. How can I make the statement that they are good-looking, Hugh? I know the people who are listening and watching are always looking for the good. Hugh: Outstanding. Barry: The story about Barry Shore is a young, dynamic, debonair, 69-year-old chronological being. The 17thof September, in the year 2004, a mere 14 years ago, I was standing up in the morning just like everybody I hope, watching this Facebook live, and listening to our story. That was in the morning. In the evening, I was in the hospital, paralyzed from my neck down. I became a quadriplegic overnight, in a matter of hours, from a rare disease, not an auto accident, a rare disease called Guillain-Barre Syndrome, GBS, for the cognoscenti. I went from being a healthy, happy, wholly, hearty, dynamic 55-year-old who had been extremely successful in business, married 27 years to a wonderful wife, had a 17-year-old son (at the time), traveling around the world, came back to California for holidays, and now I am paralyzed from my neck down. Here is a great part of the story. The other day, I saw my doctor who has been treating me for a number of years. He likes to recall every time we see each other, “Shore, I remember the first day you called me from the hospital. You said, ‘My name is Barry Shore. I am coming in to see you. All I can move is my mouth.’” Imagine that. In the morning, you’re up and doing, and in the evening, all you can move is your mouth. I will give you the back of the baseball card statistics for the moment, Hugh. That’s how we live in this world, giving people ideas of some things. I am in the hospital for over four and a half months in various kinds of rehabilitation centers. I was in a hospital bed in my home for over two years. Couldn’t turn over by myself. I was in a wheelchair for four years. I had braces on both legs from my hips down to my ankles. Today, thank God, I am able to be vertical and ambulatory with the help of a six-and-a-half foot walking wand that was made for me by a zen master. But I still have help 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and I can’t walk up a stair by myself or a curb. But hear my voice. Feel the passion of life that flows through me because the good Lord has been so kind and giving to me that he activated in me something that enabled me to become a real giver. Here is an example, Hugh. Before all this happened, I had built two Internet companies, one of which I sold for many millions of dollars, was doing very well. Of course, I am a giver. I am generous. I wrote checks. But it was all part of what you do. You help people. You write a check. That’s it. You think you’re a giver. That’s not what a giver is. A giver puts the other beings first. What can I do to be of benefit? It wasn’t part of my very soul. That was the genius and the benefit, what others call adversity. This test and a testament to the good Lord in being able to show me a path that I was able to go from complete, total paralysis to literally being able to now get out of bed, albeit with difficulty, and stand up, albeit with help, and to be positive about that, and to be thankful, and to turn that energy into a channel of goodness. That is the beginning of the story. What I’d like to do as we speak is tell a few incidents along the way that helped me gain this insight. Hugh: Sure. As you go on, some people are listening to this that have problems that pale in comparison, like me. I am listening to it trying to understand and learn about myself. What are the motivational factors? What inspired you to not give up to this disease that had a lock on your very body? This is fascinating. Please continue. Barry: Thank you, Hugh. I truly hope that this is beneficial to people listening, and that we all recognize these great words: Never give up. I am living it. I am only here as a channel to be of benefit so that others can say, “If he can do it, I can do it.” Let me give you two small incidents that I think may be of help. The first one occurred after I had been moved out of the ICU, where I had been for about 11 days. They put me in a telemetry unit. A telemetry unit is where nurses can watch you from monitors and such. I had this great run. I was a single occupant in a great hospital. Not moving anything of my body, I am just there. They had to set up something special on my bed just to bump my head because I couldn’t hit a call button. Here I am in bed in the telemetry unit. A nurse came in at midnight or so. I am not able to sleep because you are not moving a lot. They have to inject drugs in you to get you to sleep. The nurse said, “Mr. Shore, would you like to watch a movie? Maybe that will help put you to sleep.” I assented and chose a biography of Abraham Lincoln. Of course, we all know how that turns out. Not so good. Toward the end, I had tears in my eyes. Imagine you are lying in bed with tears in your eyes. Everybody knows that tears are salty. They hurt. What do you do? You wipe them away, right? Well, I can’t move my hands. I can’t move my arms. I am new to this stuff. Nothing in my body is moving. I couldn’t move my head left or right enough to move the tears out, and the button that had been put up behind my head had been moved somehow. I couldn’t reach the nurse. Of course, I can’t just sit there because it hurts. I resolved, I am going to call out. I did. “Help! Help! Please!” My voice had been compromised also. I could barely speak. I resolved to count to ten and then call out again if the nurse doesn’t show up. I got to four, and the pain was too much. So I called out, and I mustered all of my strength, “Help! Nurse, please!” By the time I counted to four, the nurse was at the door. “Mr. Shore, did you call?” “Yes, my eyes!” She came over and saw there were tears in my eyes. She cleaned them and fixed the button behind my head. Looks at me and says, “Is that all?” “Yes, thank you.” I recognized then no one really knows the pain of another. She didn’t know how much it hurt. I couldn’t express myself. Thankfully, she came in and cleaned it up. About a week later, I am being wheeled on a gurney from a test they had run on me. People picked me up, took me on the gurney, ran the test, and brought me back. There was a male nurse taking care of me. I had interacted with him three or four times over the past few days. Pleasant fellow. He looked down at me and asked, “Mr. Shore, can I ask you a personal question?” I said yes. He says, “I am a male nurse. I see people in your condition frequently. I have never met anybody who is not angry and bitter. You’re paralyzed. How come you’re not angry and bitter?” I realized he was asking me the great existential question: Why me? Why dear Lord did you do this to me? But I wasn’t thinking like that. I was asking the question: Why me in the sense of who am I? I am just a guy. What do you want from me, dear Lord? What can I do? At that moment, Hugh, I reached deep inside of me, and I asked the good Lord, “Please help heal me. Please show me my purpose.” A wave of serenity and calm came over me that I had not known in 55 years. I was now determined with the good Lord’s help to walk again. That was a major turning point in my life. Hugh: So nothing gets Barry Shore down. That was how many years ago? Barry: That was in 2004, almost 14 years ago now. Hugh: You had a very successful career before that. Barry: Correct. Hugh: You sold that enterprise, you said? Barry: Yes. Hugh: And then this condition- how do you say it? Barry: Guillame-Barre syndrome. It is actually two French doctors, Guillame, which is the French for William, and the other doctor’s name was Barre, like Barry. Hugh: I have known people in the past who have had that, who have come through it. It’s quite a traumatic experience. Today, you are in a different place than you were with your business. But you have focused on doing good for others. Is that right? Barry: That’s correct. Hugh: I looked at a website called- Spell it for us. Barry: It is spelled D as in David, L as in Love, Y as in Yesterday, T as in Terrific, E as Enthusiastic, D as in Dynamic, DLYTED.com. I am Dlyted to be here. Hugh: I can see that. What is Dlyted about, and what was the passion and inspiration behind you setting up- Dlyted is more than one thing. It’s more than one program, isn’t it? Barry: Yes. Dlyted is an engine of philanthropy. Let me digress for just a moment because it gives the background as you want to hear. It’s very important. I was deeply affected by something that I learned from a great man called the Four P’s. Those four P’s are Purpose, Prayer, Perseverance, and Patience. Those four P’s have been active in my life. I was able through them to begin this process of healing, both in a spiritual and physical sense, and bring out through purpose and prayer, the great perseverance, which I will demonstrate in just a moment, and patience, this platform, which has a mission and a goal. Let me tell you how it came about. It has to do with my wonderful wife. I would not be sitting here as strong and capable and handsome as I am, speaking with you, if it was not for my amazing, dedicated, fabulous wife, Naomi. It’s hard for me to speak without choking up, but I am going to try and do it. I will just tell you a brief story as it deserves longer, but time is always of the essence. Released from the hospital about four and a half months later—they wouldn’t keep me there longer because insurance wouldn’t pay, and we had already racked up bills over half a million dollars—I was in the special hospital bed. When you are in the hospital, by the way, one of the more important things to be afraid and aware of is bed sores. They are debilitating. We had to get a special bed, which the insurance company didn’t want to do, but they were forced to because of circumstances. It is a special air mattress that allows the body to conform without the issue of bed sores. We brought this bed to our home. While in the hospital, every night, you have to turn people over who are paralyzed because if you keep people in the same position, the body deteriorates. They have a team who goes around the hospital every two and a half to three hours, two people with back braces, usually strong people. Together, they turn the person onto the side, then the other, to give some sort of normality to your process in the hospital. This happened throughout the months I was in the hospital. Now we come home. We had sufficient funds, so we were able to have help in the home 24 hours a day, seven days a week, except for one thing. My wonderful wife did not want people staying overnight in her home that she doesn’t know. She is very protective. We had help until 10 pm, and then help would come again at 7 am. But during the evening, she was going to take care of me, and she was in charge. Her home, her rules. Great. One small situation, though. My wife is all of 97 pounds, 5’1”, very beautiful. Remember, I just told you in the hospital, you have to be turned over every 2.5/3 hours. Here I am, almost 6’. Because of my situation, I had been reduced from 195 pounds to 137. But still, 137 pounds, and she is all of 5’1” and 97 pounds. She said that she is going to turn me over. She did. Every two and a half hours, throughout the evening, two or three times a night, night in and night out, week in and week out, month in and month out, for two years, this amazing woman turned me. That is love. I say this as a preface to the following incident. I mentioned also I was in a wheelchair for four years. Thank God we could afford it. I had a motorized wheelchair and a fancy Olympic-style wheelchair. Together, they cost almost $10,000. The lightweight wheelchair we needed because in addition to having private therapy, I also went to group therapy in the hospital. It’s important to be with other people who have situations and challenges when in a situation like this, just to be in comradery. At these situations in the hospital, I noticed not everybody could afford the kind of wheelchairs I had. One day, I came home and was still back in bed. I said to my wife, “Honey, would you please find a place that helps people get wheelchairs? Let’s send them a check for $1,000 and help out.” She said okay. She left the room. I am feeling great. I am just a quad lying in bed, but I am feeling good. I just gave $1,000 to help people get wheelchairs. About five minutes later, I called out, “This is dumb! This is dumb!” I didn’t raise my hands. I called it out. My wife comes running into the room and asks, “What’s the matter?” I sa…
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