Beautiful Mind : Graeme Cowan

I came across Graeme in a bizarre manner. It’s another example of what the internet has made us; I love to call it “the neighbour effect”. I’ll not get into that story because here I intend to talk about another Beautiful Mind who became an online acquaintance of mine a few days back, Graeme Cowan.

He is a survivor, an author and a life mentor. I found his story very interesting and inspiring and immediately wanted to interview him for the blog. He obliged and I am really thankful to him for that. Graeme had a history of depression bouts and the last one which lasted from 2000 – 2005 was the worst one which even his psychiatrist acknowledges as one of the most difficult cases he had ever treated. But, he came back from the brink and since then he has tried to make an impact on all the depression ridden people in Australia with the help of his books, BACK FROM THE BRINK and BACK FROM THE BRINK TOO. In the interview I learnt from him about his plans to take the book and his endeavours outside Australia and reach out to millions of depression sufferers around the world. His long struggle against the world’s 2nd most fatally consequential disease prompted him to write these books which comprises of more than 250 interviews with people from different strata’s of life who have all gone through the anguish of depression and how they overcame it. These stories are possibly the best medicines to recover from depression. As Graeme puts it, stories of such people who overcame depression made him get better with every such interview.

His plans to take the books outside of Australia are what keeps him busy these days. I discussed with him, his plans which includes a trip to the US later this month. He hopes to find a publisher in the US so that the books are available in the US, by the end of this year. He would be visiting New York for the Book Expo America and signing copies of his books. Catch up with him there if you want to. He would also be meeting my friends in Chicago who would try to help him with his fine efforts. Interestingly, he has tried a lot of ways to promote himself and the books he wrote via his website www.iambackfromthebrink.com and visual media interactions in Australia, but he is yet to start-up a whole hearted social media attempt for promotion. I was particularly interested to know what kept him away and he reaffirmed the issues like lack of time and staff to manage a social media campaign as the primary concerns. It was a very interesting chat with him where he could foresee the effects of social media and I too was thrilled to help him. You can get in touch with Graeme by mailing him at graeme@graemecowan.com.au and on Twitter @DepressionCure.

This is a very precise interview that Graeme gave to the show, Wake Up ! WA