The story of Sonia Vallabh is an extraordinary one.
She and her husband Eric were successful lawyers when Sonia’s mother started to decline rapidly. She died painfully and quickly. The autopsy turned Sonia’s life upside down, her mother had died of genetic prion disease. Sonia had a 50/50 chance of developing the same.
How would you respond to a diagnosis like this?
You are fine one day and aware of a ticking time bomb in your brain the next. Do you stop working and just enjoy life? Assume that it won’t be you and continue as normal? In Sonia’s case she retrained as a Biomedical researcher (as did Eric) and got their PhDs in biological and biomedical sciences.
They’re now leading a lab of twelve people at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, devoted to developing a therapy for prion disease. She doubled down on trying to beat Prion disease for herself and for others like her.
What Sonia found was her life’s purpose (no offence to the lawyers out there – each to their own).
Not all of us are lucky enough to live a life so filled with purpose but it is often helpful to reflect on how we are spending our time (working or retired). We sometimes help clients to frame this question for them and their family, by getting them to reflect on what they would feel they had missed out on if they themselves had a diagnosis like this. Asking them to list what they feel they would have gone without.
This is not to be morbid but to give people the prompt to think about how they could change their routine to make sure they don’t miss out.
You can listen to Sonia’s TED talk here.
She also featured on the TED Radio Hour from NPR here.
We are currently helping clients to live happier lives and retirements, across the South East and Nationally from our offices in Hook, Hampshire.