Brainworks® - The Eight Alarm WAKEUP Call
Success Stories
The Eight Alarm WAKEUP Call
D.J. came to Brainworks while he was in 8th grade. Organization was definitely not his strong suit. On days he managed to remember to do his homework, he'd probably lose it. If he didn't lose it, he'd still neglect to turn it in to the teacher, but as bad as that was, the endearing quality that about had his mother on the verge of smothering him was that he was late for everything.
His day almost always started the same way - sleeping through his alarm. It took forever to get him out of bed and off to school every morning. Of course, his mother was tired of yelling at him every morning to get him up and at 'em. And of course he was tired of getting yelled at. Starting each day with six rounds of angry verbal sparring was putting a strain on their relationship.
When Brainworks' founder, Carla Crutsinger, met D. J. Capener, she asked him how old he was. "Thirteen."
"Well we need to make you a responsible teenager."
She asked if he liked how his mother talked to him each morning. "No. She's always mad at me because I can't get out of bed since I'm so sleepy."
She asked if he wanted to know a trick to wake him up without his mom saying a single word to him. "YES!"
"Here's what you do. Since you sleep through one alarm. Set two. If you sleep through two, set three. Keep adding alarm clocks until you get out of bed without your mother's help."
A week later he came back to Brainworks beaming with pride. He'd solved his wakeup woes. He stood there and announced "I'm an eight-alarm guy!"
Now it's hard to say whether his fate was sealed that day, but that "eight-alarm guy" now fights five-alarm fires. When he was in the Brayton Fire Academy of Texas A&M, the penalty for being late was a swift boot out of the program. He was not late once.
All the organizational skills he learned at Brainworks were put to use at the fire academy. He'd decided that he was going to be #1 in his graduating class. All of his papers were kept in a notebook with tabbed dividers. He became an aficionado of order and mastered everything the academy threw at him. Sure enough, he went into his final exam ranked #1 in his class.
Unfortunately one of his classmates beat him by one point and knocked him to 2nd, but D. J. knew he had the skills he needed to learn whatever he felt passionate about.
While D.J. was still training at Brainworks, R. L. Turner High School opened a Biomedical Academy. He asked the staff to help him write his application letter. The teacher listed off what D.J.'s strengths were based on the diagnostic test scores he'd taken as well as the staff's observations. Armed with an inventory of his best qualities, he put together a letter that cinched his acceptance to the academy.
If the alarm clock revelation didn't mold his destiny, getting into that Biomedical Academy certainly did. He became a certified Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). The internship he took on in the program put him to work in Parkland, RHD, and Trinity hospitals and had him doing "ride-alongs" with the Carrollton Fire Department.
Today, he's a firefighter in Bryan, Texas but still going to school. He's now a licensed paramedic and pursuing a major in Non-Profit Administration with a minor in Fire Protection. As if that weren't enough, he's seeking a second minor in Aviation (he should receive his pilot’s license soon).
Even though she's been helping people with the Brainworks program since 1981, Carla is still amazed to see how far some of her students have come. D.J. is making A’s and B’s in the on-line classes he's taking from the University of Nebraska! An on-line degree program like that takes more self-discipline than most people can handle. Carla knows that now D.J. has the inner drive to be a member of a very elite club of successful people.
Recently D.J. and several of his fellow firefighters, were awarded the prestigious Firefighter of the Year Award by the 100 Club of Harris County. His crew had pulled off the heroic rescue of an unconscious 9-month old baby who they found under the mother’s bed in an apartment complex engulfed in flames. The child was rushed to Houston by Care Flight, and today the mother and child are fully recovered.
D.J. is now 24 years old and lives in College Station with his wife Kristen. His mother sent Brainworks a picture of him with his award in an e-mail to make sure they knew that that kid who couldn't even get out of bed all those years ago had turned out pretty alright.