What has Jason Bourne got to do with ghostwriting, you might ask?
In the second movie, Bourne Supremacy Jason Bourne tracks down Irena Neski, the daughter of the first person he ever assassinated. His assignment was to kill Vladimir Neski, a vocal opponent to the oil privatisation in post-communist Russia…
Neski was supposed to be alone but his wife was with him. Bourne was forced to adapt – killing them both. Irena, a little girl at the time, grew up believing that her parents died in some bizarre murder suicide.
As Bourne gets his memories back, he is racked with guilt and finds Irena in Moscow. She arrives home one day to find him sitting at the kitchen table, gun in hand. Understandably terrified, her fear gives way to shock and disbelief as he explains who he is and what really happened to her mum and dad. Adding, after his confession, “It changes things, that knowledge, doesn’t it?”
This is what I call the Jason Bourne Moment.
It is that moment when we get new information or knowledge and it changes everything. It can feel like an internal recalibration of experience, learning and beliefs that immediately presents a new reality or new way of looking at the world. For Irena Neski, her life changed when she was told the truth. Understandably, she had been scarred by her sense of betrayal, abandonment and possibly even guilt which went on to polluted her life. Of course, her character is fictional but many of us believe stuff that just isn’t true. Or we just don’t have access to the type of knowledge and insight that could make our lives better in some way. Books can be a powerful source of this type of important knowledge. They offer us a door to a different perspective.
As a ghostwriter, I am constantly on the look out for people who have knowledge that can provide a Jason Bourne Moment for their readers. The irony of being an author is the people who actually have something worth saying often don’t have the time to say it! And that’s where I come in.
The Ghostwriting Solution
I read a lot – books, academic papers, research papers and industry journals. What strikes me, time and time again is how much of that information should be common knowledge but rarely is. Instead, it is buried in needlessly long books or expressed so obscurely that even the most committed reader never gets past page 18.
I was reminded of this again recently when I read The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk. It’s a truly brilliant book but it’s over 400 pages long. It’s not an easy read and yet its contents should be known by everyone who has experienced trauma or is helping those who have.
Through the advance of science and brain imaging capability we now know that trauma changes the brain. When animals are abused over a long period of time, they give up. When human beings are abused – we do the same thing. This is why people trapped in abusive relationships don’t leave. This is why people freed from slavery will often return to their captors. It’s not weakness or because they secretly enjoy it – it’s because of their altered biology.
Everyone who has ever experienced trauma should know that! That information would change things for them. Why? Because like Irena Neski someone who has been abused or witnessed horror or trauma made that mean something that further damaged their entire life. If people understood that their brain may have been changed by their experiences it might open a door to self-forgiveness. We already know that brains are much more plastic than we first thought so it is possible to change their brain again in a positive, life affirming way.
My passion today is collaborating with technical experts or people who have experienced something that someone else could learn from. I am looking for people who can deliver a Jason Bourne Moment to their readers so that they can reassess their lives and make positive improvements in areas that are important to them.
For too long, genuinely insightful information has been trapped in dusty textbooks or overcomplicated inside industry journal that never make it out to the people that actually need it. If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “Everyone should know what I have discovered” – then contact me. I would love to talk and see how we can get what’s inside your head into the hands of people who need it, in an easy to read, accessible way that makes a real difference.
