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The 2018 North American Global Scrum Gathering kicked off with a keynote presentation that was incredibly unique and inspiring. Billy McLaughlin is a professional guitar player who spent his life working to reach a level of success most musicians only dream about. But just as he reached the top, the tools that got him there began working against him. \n\nBilly suffers from focal dystonia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_dystonia). You may not be familiar with this condition, but for a professional guitar player, it is one of the the worst things that could possibly happen because it means you can\u2019t do the one thing you have spent your life mastering. \n\nWhile something like this might cause a lot of people to give up on their dreams and find something else to do, Billy found a different path. He learned to play the guitar left handed instead of right handed. (Just for frame of reference, imagine learning how to write again, using your opposite hand, but having to write everything backwards\u2026 what Billy had to do was harder than that.) \n\nIn this interview you\u2019ll hear Billy explain what focal dystonia is, how it impacted him and how he worked through relearning to play guitar all over again. \n\nThe story is inspiring all on it\u2019s own, but for me, there is something deeper in this story. In the interview you\u2019ll hear Billy talk about the struggle of working through all the relearning and how he stayed motivated and kept at it. While it doesn\u2019t touch the level of complexity that Billy had to work through, there are some parallels to what traditional PMs go through when they have to relearn how to do their jobs using Agile. For me, that journey felt like I was being forced to unlearn everything I had spent years trying to master, and then start over from scratch. Maintaining some level of motivation and not giving up hope was one of the hardest parts of the transformation. This is something Billy and I discuss in the interview, and for any of you who need inspiration from time to time, my hope is that his story will help. \n\nThere is contact info for Billy below, but if you\u2019d like to check out his keynote presentations from other events, you can find them here: http://www.billymclaughlin.com/keynote-speaking/keynote-videos/. \n\nLinks from the Podcast \n\nBilly McLaughlin \nWeb: http://www.billymclaughlin.com \nFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/billymclaughlinmusic \nTwitter: https://twitter.com/BillyMacMusic \nYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BillyMacFan \niTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/billy-mclaughlin/537883 \n\nFocal Dystonia \nDystonia Medical Research Foundation: https://www.dystonia-foundation.org/what-is-dystonia/forms-of-dystonia/musicians-dystonias/focal-hand-dystonia\nThe Dystonia Society (UK): https://www.dystonia.org.uk/musicians-cramp