Disability Dialogue with Bill

Courage to Live and Create Meaning

Has anyone ever hit a roadblock that seems impenetrable? Have you been unable to sleep because the day’s challenges keep racing uncontrollably through your mind at lightning speed as you anticipate tackling challenges all over again the next day? Does your mind uncontrollably contemplate solutions, strategies and actions to solve your challenges as you try to force sleep? Does stress and anxiety ripple through your body?

I believe we can all help each other meet such challenges we face in an ever changing and complex world we live in.

Like others, I have faced many challenges, some small and some critical.

Skills learned during hard times can be transferable and leveraged to help us in our every day life. Have the attitude that such painful and uncomfortable learning’s are a blessing in disguise. We need to be observant as not to miss out on how we can gain knowledge from our difficulties and learn to live without fear.

With our shared experience, and lessons learned in handling such challenges we can help each other in our personal and professional lives.

A few key lessons learned from my experiences

Some thought they should unplug my life support when I was in a coma for 3 months.

• Trust your inner instinct, have faith like my wife Kathy, family and primary care doctor did when they decided not to end my life

• When you enable a life to live you never know how many others that life will have a meaningful impact on.

All medical specialists said I had no hope of ever walking again.

• Believe in yourself and do not fully rely on the opinions of others.

•Dare to live, have faith, take chances and do not believe all negative comments directed towards you.

I recently listened to the recording of an excellent dialogue: Putting Our Differences to Work: HARD TIMES: Gifts of INSIGHT hosted by Debbe Kennedy. Many insightful and passionate leaders discussed and shared valuable lessons about difficult times and the value of learning and accepting these as a new opportunity for a new beginning.

I hope we can all have the courage to live without fear and create meaning in our life.

How can we help each other confront and defeat our roadblocks, fear, challenges and other obstacles’ that prevent us from fully flourishing as the person we want to become? Any insight to help put our restless minds at peace when we try to regenerate in our daily needed sleep? Do you have a story to share with lessons learned?

Bill Tipton

Contributing Author

Global Dialogue Center

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

Thankful For Unexplainable Guidance

        
I believe all things happen for a reason. Most of us have had unexplainable circumstances at some point in our life that have had underlying meanings.

One unexplainable event happened to me very soon after I got home from the hospital. I was in the hospital  for seven months and lost all of my vision and ability to walk, due to an extremely critical medical condition that hit me without warning.

Very shortly after getting home from the hospital I received a telephone call as I laid in bed recovering. The voice on the telephone asked “ is this Bill Tipton?”. I said with some hesitation, “yes, it is” Then the person on the telephone asked, “are you blind?” I answered “who is this? They quickly responded I am John Doe, from a church I had never heard of. John Doe  said a member of his congregation had found a Braille bible in one of their pews after a service. The Braille bible had my name and telephone number hand written in it. John Doe  said they were calling me to return my Braille bible. I responded with astonishment, my name is Bill Tipton and I am completely blind. I told them I had never been to or heard of their church. I also told them I just got out of the hospital after a seven month stay and that was not my bible and I did not know Braille. I graciously thanked them for taking the time to call, as we both were in wonder of who the bible belonged to. 

I felt sensations of bewilderment and amazement run throughout my body wondering with astonishment how this bible with my name and telephone number got into their church. I wondered  why that apparently lost bible was left on a seat in the pew of that church. I thought this unexplainable event must have happened for some very special reason.

To this day I never found out how that bible got in that church. Every time I think about that Braille bible with my name and telephone number written in it I am in wonder. When I think about that telephone call those same sensations I had when I got that mysterious telephone call run through my body all over again. 

Some incredible events in my belief that followed that mysterious telephone call.

 • I returned to church in my wheelchair without any eyesight.

 • Learned how to use a screen reader to allow me to use a PC and applications without eyesight.

 • Learned grade one and grade two Braille.

 • Learned how to walk again and left my wheelchair behind after many doctors from multiple hospitals said I had no hope of ever walking again.

 • Joined three non-profits in my community to help others.

 • Returned to work after a tremendous amount of re-skilling to enable me to contribute my very best to my employer  as I help many customers and employees from all over the world.

I truly believe others have experienced unexplainable events that have taken them on similar paths as mine. If you have not, maybe we need to take life slower, so even the dimmest simplest of signals do not go unnoticed. Even if you do not fully understand the underlying meaning, your heart and attitude needs to be open to let your inner self accept the signals. Unexplainable events if associated with proper timing to your calculated planned events can catapult your success. Just a few examples of the planned events  I talk about are  learning from co-workers, friends, observing others, networking, work experience, formal education and doing volunteer work to help others.

With everyone attempting to accomplish more in less time in their personal and professional life, it is vital to pay attention to your unexplainable events  as much as your planned events. This frame of mind is needed to take advantage of the catapult  effect I described when you associate different types of learning opportunities together. This is even more critical during our unstable financial and economic situation our world is in today, when we are asked to do more with less, some are loosing jobs and their homes. In some parts of our world some are fighting for the bare necessities of life to enable them to live without enough food, access to medication to fight critical deadly diseases, lack of shelter  and other very unfortunate situations. .   If you do not take advantage of unexplainable events, it is like throwing away a free learning opportunity.

In the US we celebrate Thanksgiving Day this week. This Thanksgiving Day one of my many things I am grateful and thankful for is the ability to accept help from unexplainable sources with humbleness and gratitude. Live with an attitude of faith and expectance to help your dreams become a reality. 

Has anyone else had a unexplainable event happen? If so, after the event happened did that event trigger any special learning’s to help you? Do you see any explanations from my mysterious telephone call? We all look forward to hearing from you.
 
 Bill Tipton
Contributing Author
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

            

Uncertainty and Fears During Unstable Times

Are you fearful and uncertain in these volatile and unstable times we are all facing in the world today? With financial meltdown, corporations letting employees go, small businesses going out of business and shutting down. Family owned and operated businesses loosing everything and having to start life all over again. Non-profit organizations struggling to keep their doors open to serve others who terribly need their services during these unstable times. Families and individuals loosing their homes, belongings and facing uncertainty and fear as they wonder where they will live. As our world’s population ages the elderly and disabled services are being cut, or completely eliminated.

With the instability in today’s world I believe we have a reason to fear the uncertainty in our live’s today.

I have personally seen family members loose their jobs, their homes and belonging’s. I have seen friends and co-workers loose their jobs from the companies they unselfishly worked for loyally for years. I have seen nonprofit organizations drastically trying to find ways to stay open to help the people who need their service, even more desperately during these unstable times. Throughout these difficulties with money, housing, lack of employment, medical problems, taking care of our elderly family members or friends, all cause stress, anxiety and fear of the unknown. This tends to put extra strain on friendships between family and friends.

Having a disability can add greater complexity into some of these difficulties. I am completely blind, and even though I use assistive aids or technology, I still need help reading my postal mail, filling out paper forms or the other things a sighted person does in their daily life. During these challenging times the help I might have been able to find in the past from a sighted person might not be available due to them taking care of more time sensitive critical needs. For some blind and visually impaired people, sighted help is provided by volunteers in some areas. Volunteers are not as abundant during these challenging times, probably because they are trying to take care of their own needs. People with different types of disabilities might be facing other added challenges that compound the difficulties others are experiencing.

During my challenges I am facing I have found the following to be useful.
• Do not be afraid to ask and accept help. Asking for help does not mean you are weak. We all need help at times.

• Helping each other if you can is critical. If you have family or friends it is best to band together to solve and handle some of the immediate challenges and plan for the long term obstacles and difficulties you know are in your future.

• Some of you might have gone through difficult challenges in past. It is time to remember what you learned from going through those complicated and undesirable times and put those lessons learned into actions now.

• If you are still working, be open and flexible to the changes that will come your way.

•If you are working, or not, learn new skills that will be valuable to you and your employer to help each other through these difficult times.

• Always be reinventing yourself with current knowledge and technical skills that keep up with this ever changing world we live in.

• Think about the others in the world who never had a house to live in, do not have enough food, or shelter, are experiencing fatal or critical medical conditions and have no family or friends.

• If you have religious beliefs turn to your spiritual beliefs and/or your faith for confidence and guidance.

•Do not give up! Believe in yourself and your abilities and values; even if others tell you differently.

Do any of you have ideas to overcome our challenges we face today? How did your faith and inner strength help you through uncertainty and fears? Are any of you facing uncertainty we might be able to give virtual help with? Do any of you have other suggestions to help us? Like I talked about, wee need to band together to solve some of these complex global issues we face today.

We all look forward to hearing from you so we can stick together to help each other.

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

Design For Change - Sakena Yacoobi

Hello all,

This interview with Sakena Yacoobi fit perfectly into our theme we started with: Are Social and Ethical Problems Important to You.

Social Innovation Conversations - Design For Change
Sakena Yacoobi, Founder of the afghan institute of learning, creates hope for afghan women
While in power, the Taliban implemented the "strictest interpretation of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world," and became notorious internationally for their alleged treatment of women. Women were allowed neither to work nor to be educated after the age of 8, and until then were permitted only to study the Qur'an. Women seeking an education were forced to attend underground schools, where they and their teachers risked execution if caught.
Without equivocation, starting an enterprise to educate women during this time period would not seem like a likely scenario. However, sometimes out of the most extreme conditions courageous leaders respond with innovation. As Sakena Yacoobi explains in this interview with host Sheela Sethuraman, "When you see the need ... you just feel like you have to do something."
In this interview you'll hear Yacoobi describe how she founded the AIL, list key management strategies that lead to its success, and state her long-term vision for AIL and Afghanistan. Yacoobi provides proof of how working from the heart with clear objectives can be a powerful source for social change.

Listen to Social Innovation Conversations - Design For Change - Sakena Yacoobi by Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

What did you think of Sakena Yacoobi’s interview? Did her work give you encouragement to pursue any goals you might have? Any new ideas generated from the work she does and her values? Do you have any new thoughts of the value of education? Did her program management philosophy and her management style help you? Did you learn anything from listening to her talk about her life and her work ethics? We all look forward to your thoughts.

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

Collective Intelligence: Include The Disabled for Success

Hello everyone,

Want to be more productive at solving complex problems in groups? Work better in teams? Utilize all of your resources at their fullest potential, no matter how different some individuals might be perceived to be? Maybe you should study the way some ants bury their dead, ways fireflies in some parts of the world light up in synchronization, or the way field honey bees fly from flower to flower, collecting pollen and sweet juices, or nectar to produce honey. Read on; I am serious!

Have you ever been in a meeting and hardly anyone talked? Maybe the few outgoing people were the only ones voicing their opinions. As you might be sitting back in the meeting and listening and thinking to yourself, my thought is not valuable because it is quite different than all the other ideas that are being brought up; so I do not speak up in fear of being different.

I’ll bet you do not know how much your different point of view helps to make the outcome better for all! Without your different perspective the complete group may fail because you followed the opinions of only a few in the group; right or wrong.

If you have a disability or other unique viewpoints on the topic in discussion, or project, or program you are working on, it makes your input even more crucial to produce the very best output possible. I might even argue that if you are disabled, or have other challenges your thoughts are more important, since others do not have your unique viewpoint to offer such help or guidance.

This is true with software or hardware development as well. You would not want to develop inferior software or hardware products that are not accessible or usable by all people. In this highly competitive global market it is best to not limit your customer base to only a portion of the world’s population allowing your competitors to gain an advantage in which you may never have the opportunity to catch up. Include people with disabilities, we are brimming with innovative ideas!

With so much room for improvements in the current approach to working together, some groups and organizations have started to look at nature for resolutions and new ideas. Nature has done well when many members interact with each other with no one person directing, like the ants, fireflies and bees I mentioned

Do you wonder how such positive collaboration can happen?

Have you ever heard of swarm, or collective intelligence?

Swarm, or collective intelligence in one definition; is interacting as one large, self-organized group of computers or groups of people with all individuals fully participating, without infrastructure limitations. This is an emergent behavior, where complex group actions arise from simple local rules.

From Stephen Strogatz: Who Cares About Fireflies? We see fantastic examples of synchrony in the natural world all around us. To give an example, there were persistent reports when the first Western travelers went to South East Asia, back to the time of Sir Francis Drake in the 1500s, of spectacular scenes along riverbanks, where thousands upon thousands of fireflies in the trees would all light up and go off simultaneously. These kinds of reports kept coming back to the West, and were published in scientific journals, and people who hadn't seen it couldn't believe it. Scientists said that this is a case of human misperception, that we're seeing patterns that don't exist, or that it's an optical illusion. How could the fireflies, which are not very intelligent creatures, manage to coordinate their flashings in such a spectacular and vast way?

The answer on how this can happen is swarm, or collective intelligence.

In the May 1, 2001, Harvard Business Review, Swarm Intelligence: A Whole New Way to Think about Business by Eric Bonabeau and Christopher Meyer talks about the following.

What do ants and bees have to do with business? A great deal, it turns out. Individually, social insects are only minimally intelligent, and their work together is largely self-organized and unsupervised. Yet collectively they're capable of finding highly efficient solutions to difficult problems and can adapt automatically to changing environments. Over the past 20 years, the authors and other researchers have developed rigorous mathematical models to describe this phenomenon, which has been dubbed "swarm intelligence," and they are now applying them to business. Their research has already helped several companies develop more efficient ways to schedule factory equipment, divide tasks among workers, organize people, and even plot strategy. Emulating the way ants find the shortest path to a new food supply, for example, has led researchers at Hewlett-Packard to develop software programs that can find the most efficient way to route phone traffic over a telecommunications network. Southwest Airlines has used a similar model to efficiently route cargo. To allocate labor, honeybees appear to follow one simple but powerful rule--they seem to specialize in a particular activity unless they perceive an important need to perform another function. Using that model, researchers at Northwestern University have devised a system for painting trucks that can automatically adapt to changing conditions. In the future, the authors speculate, a company might structure its entire business using the principles of swarm intelligence. The result, they believe, would be the ultimate self-organizing enterprise--one that could adapt quickly and instinctively to fast-changing markets.

Listen to NPR: How Ants Bury Their Dead by John Nielsen - All Things Considered, December 9, 2006, the weekly Science Out of the Box segment considers the well-ordered world of ants. Their knack for carefully stacking their dead has sent researchers scurrying to see if humans can learn lessons in efficiency from them.

Ants work together in large groups performing very complicated task with no one leader. They fight battles find food and stack their dead in intricate precise patterns; and re-stack them sorting them as they do so. This research is helping to build robots that have intelligence like ants, among many other very exciting projects.

At the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence they are bringing together faculty from across MIT to conduct research on how new communications technologies are changing the way people work together. They are collaborating with other educational institutions, organizations and individuals to better understand and find new ways to leverage collective intelligence.

Just a few of the factors that facilitate collective intelligence from MIT’s Handbook of Collective Intelligence.

• Diversity

• Shared vocabulary and other infrastructure

• Awareness

Some of the factors that inhibit collective intelligence from MIT’s handbook.

• Biases

• Implementation issues

As you have read or listened, swarm or collective intelligence can be interactions between computer to computer, computer to people or people to people just to name a few of the possible interactions. I would like to focus our discussion on improving collective intelligence between people to people and people to computer.

Collective intelligence can facilitate increased productivity in community, global (multiple organizations and individuals) and corporate project, or program teams. Can aid if you do work in Diversity, looking to leverage all employees uniqueness’s effectively or work in Human Resources and you desire your highly skilled and valued workforce to be agile to allow your employees to use their talents when and where best needed at any particular moment. Explaining why it is essential to develop, maintain and procure accessible and usable applications with universal design following such standards as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and leveraging resources like the ones at Trace Research and Development Center and Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) special Interest Group on Accessible Computing to facilitate and allow all people to contribute equally and effectively. Such standards can leverage IT investments, save time, money and reduce duplication of efforts. It is best to leverage what nature has already perfected. People are just starting to understand and utilize techniques to improve outdated processes. Focus your efforts on actions that will facilitate collective intelligence and resolve any barriers which will inhibit your positive results!

If all people cannot equally participate fully with accessible and usable tools you are inhibiting collective intelligence. You need to create ways to facilitate collective intelligence so you can more easily find highly efficient solutions to your most difficult problems. Then you can adapt automatically to changing markets and environments with agility and grace. Make sure the disabled, or others with challenges can fully participate like all others efficiently. These individuals are your most valued path to your success in fully utilizing the benefits of collective intelligence.

Is anyone seeing results with swarm, or collective intelligence? Are you having implementation issues? What parts of your personal or professional life is this helping with? Do you see how it can help the disabled or others with special needs in their personal or professional life?

I look forward to hearing from you.

To read more about Swarm Behavior look at the excellent resources on Learn More - National Geographic Magazine.

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author,
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com

Decorating a Christmas Tree with a Disability

Hello everyone,

If you have not read my story Special Thoughts During Holidays I hope you take the time to read.

You can read about some very special and meaningful thoughts that come up for me each Thanksgiving, Christmas and New years. You might relate to some of my thoughts, or maybe they will bring back memories you have? We have quite a few great comments you can read as well. Read Special Thoughts During Holidays.

One thought that came out of topic is some disabled might have special challenges during the holidays. There are a great variety of obstacles we can talk about and help each other out with I am sure. I want to start us out by talking about how the disabled might decorate a Christmas tree.

Since I am blind my prospective might be different than others facing different challenges or obstacles. I look forward to hearing other’s thoughts so I can learn.

I will talk about one of my easier challenges around a tradition for me that occurs each Christmas.

Decorating a Christmas Tree With No Eyesight

I live in the US and with my religious practices one tradition some people have during Christmas is putting up a Christmas tree. Once the tree is up we decorate the tree in many different ways; I think each family has their own style and type of decorations they put on the tree. The variety of decorations or ornaments is endless.

I just finished decorating our Christmas tree. If you are not blind you might wonder how you can decorate a Christmas tree without any eyesight.

I personally decorate the tree by feel. To decorate the tree I put down both of my canes; my long white cane and my support cane I use for stability. I have neuropathy and muscle problems in both legs. I store all decorations in multiple smaller cardboard boxes all within a larger plastic tote. I then open one cardboard box; reach in and feel what decoration type I might have. It could be a brightly multi-colored glass fancy ornament with some special shape. It could be a solid colored plain round glass ornament. It could be many other shapes made from many types of materials, including wood, metal, plastic or even cloth. I never know what I will find when I reach into each box and pull out an ornament. Some times the decorations are delicate and are individually boxed or wrapped with tissue paper. After first feeling the ornament I make sure the ornament has a hook on it so I can hang it on a branch. Prior to starting this project I have strategically placed the package of extra hooks so I can get to easily when I need. Then with an ornament in hand I slowly walk towards the tree with no canes; I have the larger plastic tote close so I do not have to walk far. When I find the tree I search for a suitable branch where I do not feel a cluster of other ornaments too close together to place the ornament. When searching for this suitable spot I slowly side step around the tree feeling all over the tree, up and down, and from side to side. After I place that ornament on the tree branch I go back to the box; once I find and continue this process, box after box until I have completed emptying all boxes. I will need to take multiple brakes to rest my back during my decorating experience. After hours of decorating the tree my back is hurting. At times I want to quit, but I press on and on. When I am finished and all boxes are empty I make sure I do not have any ornaments too close to each other by going all around the tree and feeling every inch of the tree and adjusting where needed. Very time consuming, but extremely gratifying!! I would not miss this pleasure each year for anything.

Then the real enjoyment comes when family and friends come over to share in each others caring and thoughtful company. My family and friends while over can enjoy the visual festive tree I have created with no visuals myself.

Does anyone have any special challenges with possible solutions that come up during the holidays you want to share? Need any help we can assist with? We would all love to hear from you.

Look forward to hearing from you All.

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author,
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

Special Thoughts During Holidays

Hello everyone,

Not sure what holidays you celebrate where you are in the world in the fall winter time frame? Not sure what religion you practice?

I think during holidays it brings up special feelings for most people no matter where you are in the world or what religion you practice. I think that these feelings might be a bit different for people who might have special challenges or have a disability. Do any of you think this is true?

I personally have some very special feelings during the November - December holiday season. I will explain some.

Thanksgiving; A Lot to be Thankful For

Thanksgiving of 1999 I will always remember. I had been in the hospital since May because of a serious illness which caused me to go into a coma for 3 months and go completely blind. Illness also caused a few other undesirable conditions that affected my life forever. When Thanksgiving had come I was out of coma and able to eat solid foods again. I could not imagine what it would be like to experience Thanksgiving in a hospital. In preparation for my Thanksgiving Day dinner the thoughtful nurse ordered an extra dinner for my loving wife Kathy. Knowing I would be able to share in the delight of my Thanksgiving Day dinner with my wife made me very happy.

In the hospital my wife and I were served a very delicious turkey dinner with all of the trimmings. I was very delighted with the quality and taste of all the food I had. The smell from our dinners seemed to drift all around my hospital room, just like I was experiencing a home cooked meal. It smelled and felt like Thanksgiving for sure. I was very grateful to be alive and be able to get to experience Thanksgiving again with my loving wife. I had very much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving for sure!

It's Christmas Time

The next holiday I was able to experience in the hospital was Christmas. This time of year in the hospital, where I was calling my home for the last 7 months, was very festive and cheerful. They had people come in and sing and play musical instruments for the patients. One person even played a harp while another person sang. I loved her beautiful and peaceful harp music. The singing and music made most of my pain and discomforts go away. As I would lie in bed each day I would love to listen to the joy in the other patient’s voices as they talked to their visitors. I could hear the loving and caring in the visitors voices as they talked with their friend or family member that was in hospital. I listened for so many days I got to know them by voice and learned all about their lives. I never talked to these patients directly, only listened to them; I had a lot of time on my hands. I was very much hoping to go home by Christmas. I found out I was still too weak and sick to go home. My first reaction was extreme sadness. I had been waiting so long to go home. Then I thought my spending Christmas in the hospital was for the best. I wanted my wife and other family members to have a peaceful Christmas without having to worry or take care of me.

Christmas day had come. I could hear a click clack noise coming towards me. The click clack noise was getting louder and louder. Then I heard some employees making cat call noises like some males do when they see a beautiful woman. Then all of a sudden I heard my beautiful wife’s voice wish me a merry Christmas and felt a kiss. Kathy was wearing a very luxurious and beautiful Christmas dress and high heels shoes with hard soles; her shoes were what made the click clack noises I had heard earlier. This was a very merry Christmas for sure!

Time for a New Year

New Years 2000 was a very special day. I had finally got out of the hospital on December 28, 1999 after 7 long months. I thought the day I would leave the hospital would never come. I had dreamed about going home for months and there was always some medical complication which prevented me from going home. Besides the extreme joy of being able to leave the hospital in time for new years, I was home in time to celebrate my birthday on December 31st. After I was released from hospital Kathy helped me into the car, put my wheel chair in trunk with help from others; then we drove home. My mind was overwhelmed by many new sensations traveling without any sight

I was soon home. My wife and others hoisted me up the steps in my wheel chair so I could get into the house. I was finally home again after a long, enduring and at times very painful and uncomfortable stay in hospital. When I was in house I called out to my cats; they did not come over to me at first. They probably did not recognize me since I had been gone for so long. Once Kathy brought our cats to me they let me pet and give them a loving hug. I was then wheeled to my real bed with real blankets. With help I crawled into bed and pulled up the many blankets all the way up to my neck. I thought how comfortable, safe and loved I was. I was very happy to be able to spend each night with my wife again instead of laying in a hospital bed all alone each night with nobody to talk to or be close to. I was also grateful Kathy did not have to drive to the hospital each day any more like she did each day during the 7 months I was in hospital. I was happy that I did awake from my coma so my wife could hear me talk to her again. During the 3 months I was in the coma the only way Kathy could hear my voice was to dial our home phone number and listen to my voice on our answering machine. The thought of her listening to my recorded voice; not knowing if I would live or die made me very sad. I could not imagine how hard it must have been for her going through what she had to not knowing what would happen to me.

I did not have to wait long after getting home before it was my birthday and I was eating cake with family members and talking on phone to many friends. This was a very Happy Birthday and a very Happy New Years for sure!! Being at home with my loving wife was the best present anyone could ever ask for. Just because I could no longer see anything, could not walk or sit up in bed without great effort did not matter to me or Kathy. I was out of the hospital and we were together again. I was so grateful to have another chance at life.

Does anyone else have any meaningful experiences you want to share about holidays? Do you have any challenges that come up during the holidays? Any tips for others to help resolve these challenges? We would be very much interested in hearing about what other holidays others celebrate in different parts of the world during this time and any special meanings they have for you.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author,
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/