Unstoppable: How Author Naseem Rochette Has Redefined Success While Navigating Society With Traumatic Brain Injury

An interview with Kelly Reeves

Sometimes a physical disability is tied to physical pain. If I share that I am in pain, don’t react with pity, react with generosity. Kindness does wonders for pain.

As a part of our “Unstoppable” series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Naseem Rochette.

Naseem Rochette is a speaker on trauma and transformation, as well as a seasoned sales executive, having worked for global leaders, including Google, Microsoft, and Ernst & Young. She holds a master’s from Columbia and an MBA from Rutgers, is a mother of three teens, four cats and two dogs (one husband). Throughout her career, Naseem has been helping people solve problems, ideate possibilities, and foster collaboration; however, it wasn’t until her near-death moment that she found her real courage and most impactful gift: the strength to appreciate — and share — the imperfections and insights that inspire transformation in all of us.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! It is really an honor. Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?

My backstory is almost a transformation, part one. I went from being an awkward Indian girl growing up in New Jersey in the 1970s who was always insecure and hated being different to a woman who was proud and happy with herself.

It wasn’t an easy journey; it took years and a lot of deliberate effort — but I became someone I really liked. Someone who worked hard, had a great family — three kids and loving husband, a wonderful career in technology — worked at Microsoft at the time of the accident– and was still physically fit, had a robust social life, traveled, laughed and just lived with lots of joy and lots of stamina to juggle it all. “No help needed Naseem.” In a way I was so self-sufficient and “together” someone once called me an unsympathetic character. . . then just after my 47th birthday, on a beautiful sunny day the person I worked so hard to be, was shattered.