Disability Dialogue with Bill

Believe in Your Vision for Success

Do your goals ever seem out of reach? Have you had challenges or unexpected set-backs on your way to reach success? I sincerely hope we never stop stretching our self emotionally, physically, and educationally. As part of lifelong learning, we need to continuously increase our understanding and ability to value, accept and respect the differences in others, including the disabled, to help increase our successes. If we stop growing, one tendency might be to settle in a place we are familiar with, that requires no change or extra effort on our behalf. Settling for anything less than our clear vision for success will prevent us from fully flourishing in our professional or personal life.

To live with vitality, drive and positivity I believe we need vision and passion for life and work. Vision and passion can be considered fuel for our body and mind. If we are lacking in either of these sources of positive energy, it is very difficult to live up to our best potential.

How can we keep focus directed on our vision and believe in our abilities for success? How can we maintain our passions when we are at times, exposed to negativity, misunderstandings, experience difficulties and perceived road blocks? All such challenges need to be put into perspective or they will distract and blur our vision. How can we embrace the attitude to expect and dare to believe our vision will become a reality?
If we listen and believe the words of negativity spoken, and about doubt by some in our abilities and value, it could be possible for these words to suffocate our passions and drive.

Anything that diminishes my vision and belief in success and recovery I describe in the analogy below.
The smoke that occurs when a forest fire’s first embers smolder can be the first sign one is losing vision. Soon more and more wisps of smoke fill the air. Shortly after, if left unchecked, there is a blazing forest fire out of control. It is very difficult to get your vision and belief in success   back until the fire is out, the smoke has cleared, trees and brush have grown back and all of the wild life has returned, bringing the forest back to a place filled with life and tranquility.

Restoring the forest back from such a set-back can take as long to recover as recovering our vision, once we have lost our way. Therefore it is critical not to loose focus or be distracted by negativity or non-believers.

We should not hold negative past experiences in our hearts when we relentlessly, tactfully and ethically pursue our goals. This diminishes our effectiveness for success. Forget the past and those who did not understand and were critical, and pursue ahead confidently with a clear vision. Partner and network with others who share our passion for life and positivity. These partners will keep our forest of life strong and vital keeping any minor set-backs and embers of doubt from igniting into anything that cannot be easily contained and managed.

Remember on our journey to our vision’s success, we will not be able to please everybody our work touches. This mind-set is one of the more difficult lessons to remember for me when I drive to produce quality and beneficial work.

Just imagine what we can accomplish if we keep our vision and passion alive!! Do not give up your vision before you allow your seed of vision to mature, take root and turn into a forest of success.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions to help us to have ever increasing expectations of our vision. We can benefit from hearing how your vision of success has become a reality and celebrate with you. 

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

Discovering Your Unique Transferable Skills

During challenging times when jobs are being lost and some organizations are re-structuring, it is crucial to discover, re-evaluate and recognize our unique skills to enable us to truly represent our values. When corporations are re-evaluating their work-force and individual employee’s skills we should take this opportunity to be proactive. It is critical to recall our past experiences, difficulties and successes. We need to formulate our past life lessons into words that can clearly articulate our values and what we can offer as transferable skills. Internalizing and appreciating such skills and directly correlating these values to align to new opportunities will help in any interview or resume writing activity.

When looking to find other meaningful work, this list will help our prospective employer, our sponsor, stakeholder, or our customers to quickly recognize the values we have to offer that will help us all succeed.

When describing transferable skills to those who do not understand the value of utilizing the differences and abilities of the disabled and others who are perceived to be different can be more challenging. Consider when talking to others who do not value differences, that some skills are unique and rare and if leveraged into transferable skills can be highly valued and a unique selling point, in my opinion. An example of some of my transferable skills (•) I humbly note as an example from my life’s experiences (-) are listed below.

• Strong technical background, unique innovational viewpoints

- 25 years of technical experience. Becoming completely blind instantly has enabled me to develop a rare unique innovational viewpoint.

• Delivers innovative solutions to complex technical and organizational problems.

- I was blessed with the opportunity to now live as a blind person, learn how to walk again, become skilled very quickly in many new technologies enabling me to return to work after a very critical life threatening event. Overcoming many other obstacles has heightened my ability to be innovative at solutions I deliver to complex problems.

• Passionate leadership style and skills to direct or create effective trusting dialogue.

- I am the leader of a business group of over 100 employees from over 15 countries. Collaborate with CEO’s, CIO’s, VP’s and Directors, internal and external to my organization and corporation to enhance and accelerate positive results.

• Experienced in working in networks of interdependent global workers that must share information, act under severe time constraints, and establish effective relationships at a distance.

- The teams and individuals I work with are usually all virtual from many countries and time zones. We have very tight deadlines to deliver our work which requires effective relationships and flexibility working across many time zones.

• Skilled in working on a wide range of projects, domestic and international

- With over 300,000 employees from many countries in the corporation where I am employed has given me many opportunities to work on a wide range of projects. I work with a diverse group of individuals, which always enhances our deliverables.

• Not afraid of taking risks; excellent entrepreneurship and innovative ideas.

- Have accomplished many firsts. Helped to establish first ever internal accessibility group where I am employed by pursuing on my own until I received buy-off for my idea and received sponsorship.

• Enhanced listening, auditory and other interpersonal and physical senses.

- Now that I have no eyesight my other senses have been heightened. My special and unique senses allow me to employ this talent in business collaboration and negotiations.

• Developed written communications that have been published in a variety of sources to educate, inspire and give readers new insights.

- My weblog, where thousands have read and participated, "Networking Forum", "ACM Ubiquity:", "Careers and the disABLED ", "Blind Californian" and other publications.

• Exceptional at networking across businesses, organizations and corporations; maintaining long lasting professional relationships and connecting with others.

- The pioneering work I have accomplished required me to walk alone not allowing the false walls, boundaries of organizational and business structures to stand in my way for success. Maintaining long lasting professional relationships while accomplishing entrepreneurship work.

• High regard for excellence with relentless determination to deliver it

- My relentless determination to deliver value has been documented in many publications, books, articles, videos and by nomination of Hewlett- Packard, and Nationally recognized recipient of Employee of the Year awarded by The Careers and the disABLED Magazine.

• Extremely adaptable, able to handle immediate drastic and critical changes.

- Went from going into a coma in May 1999, losing all vision instantly, in hospital for 7 months, having to learn how to do everything all over again and returning to work in May of 2000, took extreme dedication to re-skill myself, will, desire and passion to succeed.

If we review past life experiences, translating into transferable skills, we can leverage to find exciting, rewarding and gratifying opportunities.

Do you have any tips to help us discover transferable skills from our life’s experience and articulate into words? Any techniques to increase success of describing skills to people who do not understand the value of utilizing the differences, and abilities of the disabled and others who are perceived to be different?

We look forward to hearing your thoughts, ideas, success stories and best practices to help educate all to acknowledge our valuable unique transferable skills.

Bill Tipton

Contributing Author

Global Dialogue Center

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wdtipton

Facebook: http://profile.to/wdtipton

Valuing Abilities

In today’s world with cost cutting initiatives, the demand is to do more in less time, often sacrificing quality for quantity to achieve quick profit over sustainable profit. In this environment, it is easy for some people to be pushed aside. Have you noticed this trend in your organization?  Unfortunately, pushing people aside, commonly happens, because it is the easy thing to do. Some decision-makers do not have knowledge about those put at risk by their actions. I'm not suggesting it's personal, but rather than taking time to truly understanding the differences, skills, and value each individual employees brings, some are routinely pushed aside in cost-cutting initiatives; their valuable skills and contributions are discounted by lack of knowledge and understanding.

One demographic facing such challenges, in my opinion, is people with disabilities. They are often seen only for being disabled, which overshadows the abilities, value, and skills they possess. I believe during these challenging times, it is even more critical to educate leaders and decision-makers, who do not understand the value of utilizing the differences in everybody. Why? Vast pools of talent, innovative advances, and significant profits will be lost when we need them most!

One challenge the disabled face is those needing to be educated about the abilities of the disabled, choose the easy way out. It does take a little extra effort. Educating themselves is not important enough to put out the effort to gain accurate assess an individuals value and level of skills. People with disabilities are seen only for their disability, which overshadows their abilities.

Some of my observations that work against valuing abilities:

• Inaccessible tools lead to job retention, attraction and promotional opportunity challenges.

• Lack of knowledge about assistive technology and how it works and interacts with technologies by individuals who might be trying to help.

• When you’re in the minority, your voice is often squelched out and disregarded as inaccurate by the majority.

• Fear of the unknown and working with people who are perceived to be different.

How can we overcome the discrepancy of full inclusion? Get to know people for the value and skills they bring. Build considerations for people with disabilities into cost-cutting initiatives. Demonstrate the importance of taking the time to accept and understand the differences in everyone as a benefit and not a hindrance.

Do you have any ideas of how to educate the people who do not have time or feel it is important?
Do you have any thoughts to help others value the abilities of the disabled and others who are perceived to be different?

We look forward to hearing your thoughts, ideas, success stories and best practices to help educate all to acknowledge and value the abilities in everyone.

Bill Tipton

Contributing Author

Global Dialogue Center

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

Embrace the Gift of Positivity

It is hard to believe we have already traveled through ½ of the year. I hope you have found your journey filled with excitement, joy, friendship, love and any difficulties you may have experienced has not stifled your positive attitude, energy for life and pursuit towards your goals. With the challenges many have during these uncertain economic times it is easy to fall into negative feelings and attitudes.  When we see and hear about all of the humanity injustices, our world resources being depleted and degraded, lack of jobs, the gap between the rich and the poor / middle class growing, causing many individuals to slip into poverty and become homeless and hungry can make one become negative. Extreme immediate changes in one’s life causes some to go into “Fight or Flight” mode and act and engage in battles for their own survival. Several feel this is the only way to act to survive. A few will even emotionally abuse the disabled and others in these trying times to get ahead. Some of the people who may make hurtful comments   may not be acting in such a way if times were not so challenging and difficult, in my opinion.

I hope you have accomplished positive work in these difficult times. With a positive attitude, courage and believing in your skills, talents and letting your inner beliefs and passions hold true, you can make a difference! 

It may be hard to break out of a negative frame of mind if your negative thoughts get a tight stranglehold on your inner beliefs in yourself. One good way to keep positive in what seems like challenges is to look at the difficulties and obstacles from another perspective.

An immediate way I can ground myself is to ride on paratransit. Paratransit is a service to drive the disabled who cannot drive themselves, provided in some areas. I am completely blind and ride paratransit to get to some locations. When I ride paratransit I ride with many people with a broad range of disabilities. Just the other day on the way to work I was sitting in the back seat. I was the only person in the car and was holding a pleasant conversation with the driver when it was time to pick up another passenger. When the driver helped the passenger get in next to me, I cheerfully greeted the person as I looked towards their face, with a heartfelt “hello, how are you today?” I did not hear an answer, so I asked again. The driver then told me the person sitting directly next to me cannot speak. I thought to myself as I looked towards this person, I wonder if they had any expression on their face of acknowledgment of what I had said. Since all I can see is blackness, I had no idea if they were even looking towards me as I attempted to greet them. Before I reached my destination this person got out of the car with help from the driver, without my being able to communicate with them, for whatever reason, I never knew why this person could not speak. These true to life, real experiences always make me think about what priorities should be most important in my life and what should be valued. This experience brought back memories of when I did not have the ability to speak for a while after I lost my vision. I wondered if this person’s lack of ability to speak was permanent or temporary.

Let’s work together to fight off negative attitudes, incorrect perceptions and thoughts that will hinder our ability and others to do work at our best potential. If I was not open to considering the possibilities of others, I might assume incorrectly, just because I could not communicate with the person I rode with on paratransit they were not capable of positive work, but in reality they could have been ingenious and were on their way to work to do very valuable, creative and important work that benefits all of us. Try not to let the distractions of the challenges make you lose your focus on what you really value. Do not stifle and blow out the flame of the positive energy of people you do not understand. We need all of the positive people working together to solve our complex problems we currently have.   I hope with the help of other positive and courageous people we can all draw from our strengths to help us pursue our goals and dreams in these extraordinarily challenging times. I believe positive energy can flow through virtual connections.

Has anyone noticed increased challenges for the disabled during these challenging times? Does anyone want to share your accomplishments this year,that you are grateful for? Any lessons learned? Anything you need help with during these difficult times?

Remember we are all extraordinary people. No verbal words or misinterpretations can tear down our true inner souls. They can only put superficial wounds in our outer body that will hurt terribly at times, although these assaults should not be treated as fatal and bring us down. Embrace the gift of positivity!!

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

Adaptability and Attitude is Crucial for Success

Have you ever awoke and found yourself unexpectedly in complete darkness and discovered you were forced to immediately change the way you do everything in your life, including the way you work?

I recently had an opportunity to participate in an interview that was published in Careers and the disABLED that some might enjoy and find useful in their professional and personal life. In addition to my interview, you can read about other positive individuals that are truly making a difference in the world they live in.

The interview with me has dialogue on the value of networking, reskilling techniques, ideas for selling oneself, proper attitude for success, and other valuable lessons to be successful in what ever a person chooses to accomplish in life. A positive attitude and willingness to accept unexpected changes can help us during hard times. Adaptability and re-skilling to accommodate change is an especially critical and necessary skill needed to resolve the complex social, humanitarian, ethical, environmental and business challenges we are facing with so much uncertainty, and in some cases, fear in the world today. Accepting change, help and holding determination in our hearts and having the courage to walk alone at times in uncharted territory with self confidence is necessary so we don’t slow down any transformation we might be going through in our fast paced world.

I sincerely hope none of you have to overcome going into a coma for three months, loss of all vision, give up the ability to look into people’s eyes, and see the person looking back with thought and meaning in their bright eyes and expression on their face. Also, never again being able to look at a computer monitor with one’s physical eyes, while using a computer and other challenges I briefly talk about overcoming in the interview in the Winter edition of the Careers and the disABLED publication.

This publication is shared electronically with the permission from CAREERS & the disABLED -Equal Opportunity Publications.

 

What did you learn from the interview that you can use in your life? Any suggestions to help us handle critical changes with a positive attitude and willingness to accept unexpected challenges? I wish you the very best in overcoming what at first looks to be insurmountable barriers so when you come through your struggles you can be even more productive, have the ability to help others, and yourself more successfully than you ever dreamed could be possible. We all look forward to hearing from you.

Bill Tipton

Contributing Author

Global Dialogue Center

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

Have Trust; Take Your Next Step

We all at times have to make difficult decisions that will significantly change our life and family and friends around us. Some times we are forced into actions. Other times we voluntarily make changes to seek out a more meaningful life where we can be respected for who we are, and our unique skills and passions are valued.

I use the analogy of our options in life as stepping stones. The stones are evenly placed with equal spaces between each one on the path of life as we move through our normal daily routines with no obstacles or unplanned events. Each step is easily reached with no effort. Most of the time the path is so easily walked upon, we can step from stone to stone without even realizing we are moving through life as the years pass.

At times we need to stretch our limit and experience some discomfort to reach the next stone when things are a little more difficult. Other times unexpected challenges will cause us to loose our balance and temporarily stumble as we attempt to step forward, making us feel a bit unsure of ourselves.

I believe to make a dramatic jump forward in our life, sometimes we have to leap through the air a little bit higher and leave the security of a solid stone, if the next stone is just out of reach. When this happens we need to leave the security and familiarity we know, leaving the ground and flying through the air to the next stone. Before anyone makes their leap, they should not hesitate, once they have made up their mind. Hesitation will drain their momentum causing them to fall short of their goal. The leap requires trust and confidence in a person’s abilities and skills. Such a leap into the unknown does not come without fear and anxiety. However, at times it must be done to realize our full potential in life. As we fly through the air in-between stones, wonderment might be dwelling on our minds, anticipating if the next stone we land on will be level, sturdy enough to hold us safely, and will have catapulted us to a place of joy and fulfillment. Instead of making the leap into the unknown, we could have taken the road of least resistance and found a closer stone to reach for. I understand that for some, if we are not forced into making the step into the unknown, the risk is not worth the potential benefits.

I hope you can trust your abilities, skills and your personal values to make such a leap without hesitation when you need to.

Is anyone taking a leap into the unknown? What made you make such a decision, instead of taking the road of least resistance? Do you have any tips to share to help others to trust themselves to take the leap with courage, faith and well being?

Bill Tipton

Contributing Author

Global Dialogue Center

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

Simple Holiday Gifts of Great Importance

                    
During December we have many opportunities to celebrate cultural, spiritual or religious holidays in our own unique and thoughtful ways. Just a few examples are Sinterklaas, or St. Nicholas Day, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year’s Eve.

How do you enjoy celebrating your special holidays?

If your special holiday tradition requires the purchase of material gifts, I understand such traditions and partake in such customs as well, like I talk about in Decorating a Christmas Tree with a Disability.

I have found the simpler, non-material gifts have more meaning and are just as valuable as anything that can be purchased, in my opinion.

In   Special Thoughts During Holidays I talk about the gratitude and joy that can be experienced from non-material gifts, as I laid in a hospital bed for 7 months.

In Holiday Traditions I talk about how after I went completely blind I am still able to experience my enjoyable traditions that include family and friends.

It is far more important to be grateful and find meaning in simple meaningful gifts of human companionship and helping others when we celebrate our traditions. With the global instability in the world we are experiencing, these attitudes and actions are even more important to help us enjoy the holidays and others during this time of joyful and caring celebrations. 

Even a simple gift of a glass of lemonade can be cherished with extreme joy! To learn how and why a glass of lemonade can taste so good and be the best gift of all, if this was your first drink of cool liquid in many months, listen to Lemonade on the Road to Recovery on Podcasts at the Global Dialogue Center.

My Thoughts Of Valuable Simple Gifts Of Appreciation

 • Give the gift of  your personal companionship by spending time with others.

 • Offer your expertise to others to help them. In return, you will find the person you help can help you equally and mutualisticly.

 • Work to help the less fortunate, or those who are in need.

 • Offer some of your time and energy to help others in your community and in the world.

 • If you are in a position to give, give to others and organizations that can use your aid.

 • Teach, mentor and give guidance to people in your personal and professional life.

 • If in your professional life you are in direct contact with customers, treat them with respect and caring, like you should do for other co-workers.

 • If you are working, educate yourself for innovation and leadership thinking, even if you’re in an individual contributor role.

These gifts I list are equally reciprocal  as gifts to yourself. When you give the gift of oneself, there are others that receive your gifts through the people you touch you will never know benefited from your generosity. These gifts of ones self spread from person to person like wild flower seeds blowing through the wind and sowing an open field of dry grasses with the seeds of life. With kindness and gratitude and helping to create a better place for all I picture the gifts of California Poppy, Purple and pink Lupine seeds covering the hillsides for miles and miles. Soon a field of beautiful bright orange,  vivid purple and vibrant pink flowers cover the fields where once only dry grasses, rocks and dirt  in a variety of brown and tan hues existed.

During this holiday season, let’s plant some wild flowers of joy for others by giving the unselfish gift of our self.

How do you like to celebrate your special holidays? How might you celebrate this year? Will you be the one who gives the gift of a drink of lemonade to a person who was not able to drink any cool liquids for many months and make their day?  We all look forward to hearing from you, so we can celebrate this enjoyable season together.

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

Insight Without Sight

Like a terrible storm with blustery winds blows out the flame of a candle or knocks out a city’s power, a storm hit me without warning one day. The strong winds from that painful and fearful storm blew out my candle of eyesight forever. My terrible storm was the critical medical condition that left me completely blind forever.

I am very grateful to be so blessed that I survived my storm of a critical medical emergency to live and experience life’s joys and challenges to the fullest. 

Now even though I do not see any physical light through my eyes, does not mean I do not have any sight! My sight is now experienced through many other senses and sensations.  Having no eyesight has enabled me to see things other people with eyesight might overlook or have challenges sensing. Some people with eyesight might be interpreting their surroundings and other sensory input through their eyes and might not allow their other senses to experience what the eyes can not pick up on.

I can now sense new ways of accomplishing tasks, taking advantage of dealing with  opportunities, obstacles in my path to my goals, and insights into personalities’ I could not see when I had physical eyesight. Others who do have eyesight might be able to pick up on these senses, but in my situation my other senses were enhanced and enriched to allow and provide me with valuable new uniqueness to enhance the quality of the work I do in my professional and personal life.

Now, when I have an obstacle that seems overwhelming at first, I am finding with my new senses and skills I can take my newly acquired approaches to handle my obstacles and difficulties with tactfulness, strategic thoughtfulness and grace.

Not being able to read peoples facial expressions I now rely on voice tones, volume, fluctuation, hesitation, vocabulary, and other auditory senses and writing styles to help me interpret how to best accomplish my professional and personal work.

I believe I can now grasp easier the inward or hidden nature of things and perceive in an intuitive manner as I go about doing life’s activities

I know other extraordinary leaders who have such senses who did not need to loose any of their physical senses to hone the skills I have talked about.

Do any of you have techniques to help us have better insight to keep us on our path of life? Did any of you loose any senses which enhanced any of your other skills?

We look forward to hearing your thoughts, comments and suggestions to help us all have better insight.

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author
Global Dialogue Center
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/

Opportunities, How to be Prepared

Do any of you feel like others get better opportunities than you do?

It can be easy to fall into this thinking when you are working many, many hours and are putting your heart and soul into your work, and you are not seeing the results you expect. It may seem like your work is not valued or noticed.

During times of global instability in some corporations, organizations, non-profits, local communities, our environmental degradation and other challenges it is easy to get discouraged and doubtful of your value, or the work you are doing.

I believe we need to pay attention to opportunities that demonstrate our value and skills to work towards our goals. We should be ready to engage in and jump at the chance to participate in any worthwhile opportunity to demonstrate our skills, learn by doing or learn from others.

These opportunities may come your way, if you are aware of what is going on around you and are ready with the correct skillset. Others you will have to search out. If you are pioneering a new and different opportunity, you will need to create this opportunity yourself.

There are many ways you will come across your opportunities in your professional and personal life.

Some skills that will enhance our readiness to accept new opportunities
List of 10 items.

• Embrace and learn from changes in your professional or personal life.

• Use and learn new technology to increase your value as an employee or to yourself.

• Find ways to further your skills by education, or learning by doing.

• Increase your personal and professional skills by networking and learning from others.

• Constantly be aware and be looking for new opportunities in everything you do.

• Think ahead about how one opportunity can open the door to your next opportunities that may be better aligned with your end goals.

• Know how and when to turn down new opportunities if you are too overloaded to complete them successfully. Adjust your current work load to accept new opportunities that better align with your goals and stop others as needed if possible to fit into your schedule.

• Learn to value your differences and use them to enhance the successes in your opportunities.

• Work with others ethically and value the differences in all when you are pursuing your opportunities.

• Do not be afraid to do something you have never attempted before and are not quite sure how you will accomplish the task. If we wait until we are sure we can accomplish the task with the precision and ease of accomplishment we feel comfortable with, we will miss the opportunity. That opportunity we miss might have been the one that will advance us to our next level of our desired goals. Be ready to accept the challenge with passion and courage!

Does anyone have any suggestions or comments to help us increase the amount of opportunities we find? Any suggestions to help us be as ready as wee can be to accept the opportunities with eagerness and passion? Do you have suggestions’ to help us take advantage of every opportunity we get?

We all look forward to hearing from others.

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