Disability Dialogue with Bill

Succeeding in the New Year: Don’t be Afraid to Walk a Tight Rope

Hello all,

I hope you will be prepared to experience the New Year with all the exciting emotions and possibilities including fear, uncertainty, challenges, joy and wonderful surprises.

As each of us takes a unique path in our life experiencing this year we are privileged to have many choices that will affect us. Our decisions not only affect us they affect the people around us that our life touches.

Some choices we have on any action we take are easy and mundane. Others are difficult and may take considerable planning to accomplish our goals with success. Some opportunities we have require taking planned risks to achieve the fruitful benefits. Other responsibilities that some people need to prioritize into goals are to assist family members and friends who may require additional assistance. It is best to understand some people we attempt to help do not realize they need help or even more perplexing some people do not want to accept any assistance due to a variety of reasons. In my opinion the most difficult thing to do when faced with the heartbreaking experience of attempting to assist people who do not realize they need assistance or do not want it is to let go and stop attempting to assist within reason, no matter how difficult it is to see these people in need. This letting go is critical to preserve energy and limited time for the many other goals you want to successfully accomplish.

With the abundance of choices available I realize prioritizing my time to worry about what I can and want to have an effect on is a balancing act.  What I want to accomplish and what may help me and my family, friends, colleagues and employer for goals is also a part of the balancing act. I can compare this balancing of priorities and goals to walking on a tight rope under a colorful big top tent in a circus while balancing on a rope far above the ground even though I have never attempted walking a tight rope. One false step or incorrect choice and I can lose my balance and fall to the ground thus completely failing at my attempt to achieve my goal. Without proper preparation, concentration and a sense of confidence I could slip off the rope however with luck quickly grab the rope and pull myself backup into the standing position thus wasting precious energy and time completing the goal. With the proper tenacity, attitude and skills I can successfully accomplish my goal of balancing and walking across the tight rope with ease and grace. I understand that not all people have the ability to physically walk on the tight rope I describe just like I can’t physically see the colorful big top tent I am walking under (I am completely blind). In my example I hope you can imagine my analogy no matter what your ability is. 

Like many others I plan to complete goals this year that include balancing priorities, taking calculated risks, learning new skills and accepting new challenges/opportunities to improve my positioning for success and happiness. One of my goals I plan to complete shortly is to have surgery on my right hip and have a total hip replacement due to Avascular Necrosis.

After my surgery and recovery my goal is to get relief from continuous pain and enjoy my family without the distraction of the pain or the inability to be as mobile as I need to be. I intend to participate in activities such as enjoying hiking blind and concentrate on my professional and personal life without the distraction of constant pain. I also plan to accept and complete the rehabilitation needed to give me the best possibility of walking again with minimum of limitation. For those who are not aware of my history I have had the opportunity to learn to walk again after a critical medical condition took my ability to walk for approximately one year. That previous challenge was much different than the reasons I will need this time to relearn how to walk again. Hopefully I will be able to leverage the lessons learned. 

Let’s all climb up a ladder under a large, brightly colored big top tent and walk across the tight rope with confidence and a perfect balance of priorities in order to make it safely across to our rewarding and gratifying goals in this new year.

Does anyone have any goals you plan to accomplish and want to share along with the reasons why they are important to you? We all look forward to hearing from you to start our new year together.

Bill Tipton

Contributing Author

Global Dialogue Center

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

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

Facebook: http://profile.to/wdtipton

Twitter: http://twitter.com/wdtipton  

Helen Keller Achievement Awards & Exploring NYC Without Eyesight

In June, I was grateful to be invited by my employer to attend a Helen Keller Achievement Awards Ceremony / Dinner presented by the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) in New York City, NY (NYC), with my wife Kathy, colleagues and other attendees. This trip was my second opportunity to travel on a commercial airline since losing all of my eyesight. After I received the invitation to attend the event, I immediately started my planning and preparation to facilitate a successful trip that would hopefully be as trouble free as possible. I describe my trip preparation in a past blog post I wrote entitled Employee of the Year.

At the Helen Keller Achievement Awards Ceremony / Dinner I truly enjoyed listening to the people who introduced the award recipients, describing the work the recipients do to assist the visually impaired or blind by improving the quality of life, enhancing job opportunities by reducing barriers by increasing accessibility. I also enjoyed listening to the recipients humbly accept their awards and explain some of what they did to achieve this meaningful recognition.

The following day I was invited to go to AFB’s corporate headquarters and take a tour through the Helen Keller archives museum and meet with AFB. Being completely blind myself and belonging to some blind / low vision organizations in my local area, I have heard a few things about Helen Keller. During the tour I was pleased to learn many new things about Helen Keller. Now I have a better understanding of what a wonderful and remarkable person she was, and how she has helped change the world to assist blind, visually impaired, deaf, and hard of hearing, as well as many other people.

SIGHTSEEING with My Wife: The Art of Using All My Senses
This was my first trip to NYC, therefore I wanted to take advantage of my short time in-between meetings and award ceremonies to see (sense) some sights. With my wife Kathy’s assistance we walked on foot paths next to the Hudson River near the 911 Memorial towards Battery Park. Kathy described many wonderful statues, memorials, flowers, trees, old iron fences, old fashion street lamps, and other beautiful and distinctive old style architecture built with many bricks. I took the time to touch some of these objects so I could sense their texture and physical size. This enabled me to more accurately imagine what these objects looked like in my minds-eye. She also described the color and perceived depth and width of the river, as she also described the Statue of Liberty at a distance across the river. She also described the many ferries and boats on the river, and helicopters flying above the river. The same day after our AFB meeting and tour we walked from Madison Square Garden and Pennsylvania (PENN) Station to 26th Street then towards 51st Street, Madison Avenue, Broadway Avenue and many streets in-between. On 34th Street Kathy described Macy’s department store (the largest in the world we were told). She also described the Empire State Building, Time square, Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. We went into St. Patrick’s Cathedral and since it was a warm day the cool temperature in the Cathedral was an exhilarating and pleasant treat. We walked throughout this remarkable large old Cathedral as Kathy described the many carvings, statues and stained glass windows. To help me visualize how large this Cathedral is in my minds-eye I felt one of the very large columns that held up a portion of the large roof. The column was so large I could not wrap my arms around it, and it felt like it was made of stone, or a concrete material. I took this opportunity to sit down on one of the many pews in the Cathedral and prayed. After we left the Cathedral we passed Radio City Music Hall, many other landmarks and numerous stores. I truly applaud my wife’s site guiding technique and expertise, walking through NYC, evading hundreds of people, obstacles, yellow cabs, cars, and crossing busy streets with a variety of Hard (90 degree angles) and (Soft) curb cuts that gently sloped down at each intersection. All of this navigation was accomplished while at times I could not hear Kathy’s verbal instructions warning me about upcoming obstacles due to the loud traffic, and sirens from police cars and fire engines. Luckily I have learned to feel Kathy’s body movement with either my left hand on her right shoulder, or right upper arm with my right hand on my support cane while she sight guides me. With this technique I can react to her body movement and not rely on any verbal cues. By the time we did our very quick walking tour of mid town New York, it was getting close to dinner so we searched for a taxi. After observing which streets had the most taxies driving down the streets, we strategically placed ourselves on one of these streets in a location in which a taxi could easily pull up to the curb. By using this technique we soon found a taxi to take us back to our hotel in time for a wonderful dinner with a co-worker. After our wonderful meal and great conversations we went back to our hotel and prepared to leave for home the next day.

The Rest of the Story
Kathy and I had an incredible time listening to the remarkable people who were recognized for their work and received the Helen Keller Achievement Awards, listening about the valuable work AFB is doing to help the blind, visually impaired and visiting NYC briefly. Everyone we met on our trip was thoughtful, courteous and seemed to celebrate life and companionship.

A few days after we returned home we celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary. We honored and celebrated our life together, our companionship, devotion and our never ending love that will continue for all eternity. Read another blog post I wrote about our 20th Anniversary entitled:
Anniversaries: What they mean to you.

Have you had the opportunity to take a tour with assistance? This assistance does not need to be sight guiding or verbal descriptions, like the invaluable assistance I received. Maybe you have other challenges or disabilities which require other types of assistance when traveling and sightseeing you want to share? Has anyone attended or received a Helen Keller Achievement Award? Any other thoughts or comments?

We look forward to your comments to help us all grow personally and professionally, and expand our knowledge and awareness.

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author,
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wdtipton
Facebook: http://profile.to/wdtipton
Twitter: http://twitter.com/wdtipton

Value of Prioritizing to Achieve Work Life Balance & Enhance Productivity in Your Career

We are fortunate that in most cases we have choices on how we can manage our time, priorities and ability to decide what tasks (opportunities) we will accomplish to meet our goals. Some tasks are pushed to the front of our priority list by necessity and criticality, and others are less time sensitive.

 

I have been fortunate to have had the ability to experience a wide range of opportunities to practice priority management as I continue to accept new opportunities to learn.

 

For me, completing projects or tasks provides a feeling of satisfaction and a sense of contributing. Completing tasks or projects as quickly as possible “just to get them completed” can lead a person to complete a greater amount of tasks, however, these tasks might not be the most critical ones for the greater benefit. If you stop to consider what is most valuable in the long run, you might consider focusing your efforts on completing a task that is more challenging and might require learning a new skill set or accepting a risk of failing before you begin the task.

 

We all have opportunities to make choices, such as choosing to spend quality time with our loved ones, visiting with friends or relatives instead of staying at home, utilizes priority management skills.

 

Managing priorities is even more critical in these times when we are asked / expected to complete more tasks in less time.  If you need to incorporate caring for the elderly, having a disability, the need for medical management or assisting others in need, in addition to your normal tasks, your obligations may seem overwhelming, which reinforces the importance of priority management.

 

EXAMPLES OF UNPLANNED PRIORITY ADJUSTMENTS:

Discovering I have no eyesight, unable to walk or speak, sit up in bed or feed myself after a critical medical condition.

 

ADJUSTMENTS TO ACHIEVE RESULTS:

Learned how to walk, talk and feed myself. Enrolled in and completed many blindness related skills to enable me to live and work as a completely blind person.

 

EXAMPLES OF PRIORITIES WHICH TAKE LONGER TO ACCOMPLISH, BUT MAY HAVE A BROADER REACH:

After learning how to use my assistive technology; I found the tools needed to perform my job had usability / accessibility barriers. Therefore, I realized I needed to reinvent myself to find a new career.

 

ADJUSTMENTS TO ACHIEVE RESULTS:

Took the initiative to complete courses in project management, Microsoft Office products in conjunction with screen reading software, locating and reading accessible books on a variety of computer topics and business and leadership skills to enable me to be proficient and productive in a new career

 

EXAMPLES OF CONSISTENT PRIORITIES:

Completing every day activities you are comfortable with for your job or personal life without the need to learn a new skill set.

 

ADJUSTMENTS TO ACHIEVE RESULTS:

Demonstrate discipline to put some of these “easier” tasks you know you can achieve with ease on hold, postponing a sense of accomplishment and complete some of the larger more complex goals.

I feel that time management is critical to work/ life balance, health, and well being, in addition to enhancing productivity and accuracy in your professional career.

I am grateful to accept help to continue to learn how to enhance time management.  I hope these comments provide ideas to help us all grow our skill set in this critical area.  

We look forward to hearing your valuable comments to help us manage our time and priorities.

Bill Tipton

Contributing Author,

Global Dialogue Center

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

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

Facebook: http://profile.to/wdtipton

Twitter: http://twitter.com/wdtipton

Courage: Enabler for People with Disabilities or Perceived Differences

Increasing your courage to take calculated risks can improve your general well-being and attitude in life. Learning to transform the negative reaction of fear of failure to a positive sensation of opportunity can enhance your chances for success. I believe people with disabilities, or perceived differences, get more opportunities to demonstrate and practice courageousness.

 As a person who went completely blind instantly, lost the ability to walk for one year and had the opportunity to overcome other obstacles has provided me many opportunities to practice courageousness. When it is essential to adapt to living life with a new disability, experiencing traumatic life changing events or being perceived to be different than others can aid in increasing the ability to demonstrate a courageous attitude. I believe this is true because you are somewhat forced to learn the skill of courageousness, instead of having the option to choose when you will take risks and practice courageous behavior.

I listened to an excellent dialogue called Courageous Leadership with Bill Treasurer online at the Global Dialogue Center. This reinforced the value of adding courage to our skill set to help propel us to our next level of success. 

Valuable Leadership Skills and Attitudes I Learned from Listening to Courageous Leadership:

• Increasing your courage requires taking calculated risks.

• Accept the fact that you will fail at times when you extend yourself out of your comfort zone to take on new opportunities. This is particularly true when you’ve not attempted a certain task, or you are not completely skilled “yet” in your next opportunity.

• Leverage past experiences to increase your skills in courageous and effective leadership. If you have a disability, or are perceived to be different or have experienced other challenges, you probably have plenty of past experiences where you have demonstrated courageousness you can recall to get strength and courage to handle your next risk with less apprehension.

• Have the courage to provide your own opinion regardless of how uncomfortable you might feel, even if you are the only person who verbally agrees with your opinion. Keep in mind if you have had unique life experiences, you will have certain skills nobody else has in the group, and therefore unique and valuable opinions.

• Work and live your life with confidence and courage to increase your performance. Working in fear, anxiety and intimidation leads to poor performance and distorts your judgment and can impact your health negatively.

Additional Resources to Inspire Courage: 

What did you learn from listening to Courageous Leadership? How will you demonstrate and practice courageousness in your personal and professional life?

We look forward to hearing from you as we take our calculated risks to grow our courageous skill set together.

Bill

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author,
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wdtipton
Facebook: http://profile.to/wdtipton
Twitter: http://twitter.com/wdtipton

Value of a Personal Branding Phrase

What distinguishes you apart from others?

How can you leverage these differences to demonstrate your scarce value and unique perspective as a branding phrase to help sell yourself and ideas?

The human population of the world is estimated by the United States Census Bureau and The United Nations to be over 6.8 billion people.

Currently around 10 per cent of the total world's population, or roughly 6.8 million people, live with a disability as noted on Disability WorldDisability Facts and Statistics.As the population ages, this figure is expected to increase.

If you do have a disability, or a perceived difference, with the number of people with disabilities continually rising in our world today, how can you leverage your unique differences, skills and passions to demonstrate who you are as a person?

I wrote "Discovering Your Unique Transferable Skills" to help us develop some ideas and provide some examples of how life’s lessons can help us.

I hope we can all take ideas and examples from that resource and expand to develop our unique branding phrase to distinguish us from others. When I talk about a "unique branding phrase", I mean one clear concise phrase to describe your skills, values and passions. This phrase is not your job title, position or profession. This is beyond those titles to describe who you are as a person, and what makes you unique.

For a humble example I could say I am a passionate problem-solver, a caring and trustworthy leader dedicated to excellence, determined, and not afraid of taking calculated risks, and have the will to never give up, no matter what others say, or think.

Break down of branding phrase to show linkages to life:

• Passionate - Always looking to help others.

• Problem-Solver - From living most of my life with eyesight and suddenly going completely blind I have had many opportunities to solve many "problems".

• Caring and Trustworthy Leader – Grew a global business network group from 5 employees from 1 country to over 120 employees from over 15 countries.

• Dedicated to Excellence - Working as a person who is blind and can’t physically see the work I deliver, I need to insure excellence so the results are accurate and visually appealing to all.

• Determined - After losing my vision and the ability to walk, some at the hospital I spent 7 months at, thought I should spend the rest of my life in a convalescent home.

• Not Afraid of Calculated Risks - Walking across the street with no eyesight (get orientation and mobility training first)

• The will to never give up, no matter what others say, or think - Read: "Learning to Walk Again".

We are all one-of-a-kind, luckily. Let’s not be clones and leverage our differences to truly develop our unique branding phrase.

What will be your unique branding phrase to set you apart from others when looking for new opportunities? Do you have any tips, or stories to share to help us create our own unique branding phrase? We all look forward to hearing your ideas and suggestions to help us be the best we can be.

Bill Tipton

Contributing Author,

Global Dialogue Center

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

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

Facebook: http://profile.to/wdtipton

Twitter: http://twitter.com/wdtipton

Letting Go, To Accept the New You

Letting go of the way one is comfortable experiencing and interacting with life can be difficult. People who become disabled in life or have other dramatic life altering changes could have additional challenges with letting go of their old life to move forward. Some of these changes might be losing a loved one, having a serious medical condition or illness, losing a job, losing one’s place of residence, or many other life altering experiences. Changing attitudes and thoughts of what one used to be able to do, and the realization of the new way one needs to accomplish tasks can be overwhelming and fearful for some.

I do not know why some individuals can more easily move ahead without the distractions of how life once was.

I can only share my thoughts and feelings about how life once was for me, and what it is like to move ahead. I hope others will share their thoughts and feelings, so we can all better understand what attitudes will help us move forward, and not dwell on the past..

After a serious illness caused my complete vision loss, I was given the opportunity to learn how to do everything differently than the way I was accustomed to doing with vision.

I had fears and concerns at first, wondering about how I would accomplish life’s tasks as a newly blind person. I did not stay in that frame of mind long. I immediately began to surround myself fully in educational opportunities and positive people. This enabled me to learn the most efficient and effective way to be as successful as possible in my new life. I work very hard and put in long hours. I think this is one way of not focusing or dwelling on the past I once knew. When I am being productive at my place of employment or enjoying daily routines, I do not even realize or notice I do not have any eyesight. Only when I am relaxed and not active late at night I sometimes think to myself, "I cannot see a thing, and never will again".

For that moment I still have thoughts of how drastically my life has changed. I think about what never seeing another person ever again really means. In my mind’s eye all faces of everyone I know are frozen in time for ever and will never age. I then put my hands closely in front of my eyes, move them away, and do not see any difference in the darkness, to really emphasize what a changes I have experienced

I am grateful my positive energy and ability to adapt and transform myself far outweigh the thoughts of how my life once was. Even though now all I see is darkness, my inner sight is much clearer and filled with more light than my physical eyes were ever able to see when I had eyesight.

I believe with this mind-set we have the ability to better put our heart and soul into what we want to accomplish.

Do not give up on your dreams. Let go of the past and allow your inner strengths to grow, blossom and propel you forward. Have faith and trust in yourself and, others... Do not be frustrated if your transformation does not happen on your timetable. Other possibilities might be in your path to your success and happiness which may require more time to develop into your reality.

Learn from your life altering events, and leverage skills you had the opportunity to learn to help you in your professional and personal life. The skill-set of quickly overcoming challenges, handling changing priorities, focusing on what is most important, developing innovative techniques to adapt and solve problems and move forward is highly valued.

Do you have examples of how you have let go of the past to move forward in life? Any examples of how skills you acquired helped you in your professional and personal life? Do you have any examples of difficulties letting go of the past that you want to share with us? Any other thoughts and suggestions you would like to share with us?

We all look forward to hearing from you.

Bill Tipton

Contributing Author,

Global Dialogue Center

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

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

Facebook: http://profile.to/wdtipton

Twitter: http://twitter.com/wdtipton

Reflecting and Embracing Another Year's Passing

As we approach the end of this year, I hope we take the time to reflect, learn from others experiences, and embrace another years passing in celebration. Life’s experiences are too precious to waste. I feel that difficulties and challenges can accelerate positive personal growth. Reflecting on success is also beneficial to learn what worked, leverage strategies and attitudes for future successful years.

To facilitate a rewarding year requires one to be observant, act ethically, reflect on past experiences and be ready to accept opportunities.

Below are a couple of reflections from my past that help me continuously learn and embrace life this year.

A Dancing Santa Claus Can Bring Joy and a Positive Attitude:

During a lengthy hospitalization a few years back I was able to experience Christmas in the hospital. I remember the joy of listening to a person in a nearby bed playing a dancing Santa Claus, over and over again. Santa would dance to the song "Jingle Bell Rock". Since I had just become completely blind during my hospitalization, I could only imagine the toy Santa dancing; wriggling his body to the music as the joyful sound filled the hospital. The elderly person who’s Santa was entertaining our section of the hospital would get very excited when Santa would dance and the music would play. He called all the nurses and technicians over to listen, multiple times over the days. As his visitors came to comfort and keep their friend, and or relative company I came to know part of this person’s life and how he was loved by his many visitors. I could tell from the medical procedures he received and conversations he was not going to get better. I listened as he planned to give away his house with joy and gratitude in his voice as he talked about his caregiver, who was the recipient of his house, a gift of love.

Doctors Who Are Never Too Busy to Help and the Power of Spirituality:

To conclude the hospital’s celebration of Christmas, one of my Nephrologists (Kidney Doctor) led the Christmas program in the hospital chapel to bring spiritual hope to the patients and families. I was too weak to leave my hospital bed; but had the privilege to listen live on my television in my room to give me hope I would eventually be able to leave the hospital I had been calling my home for the last 7 months. This Nephrologist also led the Center for Integrative Medicine to help blend the healing of the mind and body to enhance the healing potential of the patients’ he helped. He taught other Nephrologists; one who saved me from going back on dialysis when I was rushed to Intensive Care and my kidneys shut down for the second time during my hospitalization. First time I was on dialysis for ten weeks; but luckily, or unluckily I was in a coma and felt no discomfort

What helped me embrace the past year with passion and drive from reflecting on, and learning from these experiences:

• No matter how difficult our situation is; we can always learn from others who are suffering greater, to help us create a positive year.

• If we are perceived to be, or feel we are too busy, we can always find time to make a difference in other people’s lives.

• Be aware of others around you and be accepting to educational opportunities by observing their actions and the reactions they get from others.

• Do not be afraid to ask for help, accept graciously and reciprocate.

• If you have skills; share with others they can help. You never know who that person will help and the difference you can make indirectly.

• To help me overcome adversity and create a positive year, I had to grow spiritually and emotionally, to confirm the importance of awareness of others and to increase professional and personal skills.

How has reflecting on past years experiences helped you? What have you learned this year that will carry over into next year, to increase the chances next year will be more positive than this year? Did any successes come from observing and learning from others? What have you learned from the challenges if nothing went the way you planned?

We all look forward to ending a wonderful year together by hearing from you.

Bill Tipton

Contributing Author,

Global Dialogue Center

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

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

Facebook: http://profile.to/wdtipton

Twitter: http://twitter.com/wdtipton

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/