Some inspiration from a man that discovered passion after personal crisis

Subject: Some inspiration from a man that discovered his passion after experiencing personal crisis

I wanted to share my new goal with you - I have decided to help a young man I met in Colorado last month. Alexey Talai is a dynamic and driven young man who is on a quest to bring wheelchairs and services to the disabled children and orphans of his small Eastern European country: Belarus. Alexey also happens to be a quadriplegic amputee himself.

When Alexey and I sat down and talked last month, he told me how when he was brought back from the hospital he was "planted" on a couch, just like a "flower". His family watered and fed him, just like they would to care for their other plants and flowers. He sees the disabled children in his country facing that same stigma. No way to gain independence. There are no chairs for disabled in Belarus. There are not even accessible buildings. Belarus is only 100km outside of Chernobyl. There have been many birth defects, as you can imagine, as well as injuries caused from left over land mines.

I honestly feel compelled to assist Alexey in reaching his goal to get chairs for the children of Belarus. I have made this my personal goal for this year. I have been reaching out to local connections to try and find one which Alexey can partner with. I contacted the Executive Director of Wheels for Humanity and have begun the process of bringing Alexey to Los Angeles to solidify a partnership agreement. If that agreement is executed, we will only need to raise $50,000 to bring 200 custom fitted chairs and other durable medical equipment to Belarus.

Right now Alexey is touring the East Coast speaking to various groups to raise awareness and to gather assistance for his quest. He has a phenomenal spirit and one of the most inspirational people I have met.

One of the local papers in Texas featured Alexey in a recent issue 

(http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/cleveland/news/article_79d3616c-dfc8-53fc-b4c5-442b9b3e4604.html)

 and I wanted to pass this on to you. If you know of any audiences that would benefit from his speaking, let me know. His goal is to raise awareness of the plight of the disabled children and orphans in Belarus. You can read more about Alexey's dream on his website: http://cafeindependence.webs.com/

I attended an abilities exposition and conference this past weekend and was able to meet with a business owner from Northern California who has a warehouse to store chairs until we can get them deployed. This business owner has been actively helping the disabled left in the aftermath of a war-torn Afghanistan. He owns a few dealerships and has promised me a loan of an accessible van so I can transport Alexey when he is here.

I met with the publisher of a magazine which focuses on active disabled, and he would like to run a feature story on Alexey.

I have also called my alma mater - California State University in Long Beach and spoke to the director of their disabled services program to try and schedule Alexey to come and speak to the students. CSULB has a student body of over 35,000 students.

I am very optimistic that we will be able to do this over the next year.  It is funny how before I came out of the closet about my own disability I tried to not even think about my disability or about others with disabilities. I viewed my disease as a condition. Now I see it as an opportunity.

If you know if any speaking opportunities for Alexey, please let me know.

  Best regards,

  Valerie

         

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Are you going to renaissance faire

Without laughter, life can be so boring. I participate in Renaissance Faire as a re-en-actor. To say I love faire does not fully express my feeling - I would have to say it is one of my primary passions.

This ode was created for me by a woman I met on FaceBook. We share a common bond. We both have  FacioScapuloHumeral Dystrophy (FSHD). This happens to be the most common form of muscular dystrophy, but lucky for us, is a very slowly progressing disease. My friend created this montage from photos that I have on my FaceBook account, and wrote very creative lyrics to describe who I am.

I am in awe of her talent and wanted to share this here.

Enjoy! 

Fighting the darkness of indifference

Without passion life becomes indifferent. Sometimes we have to fight off the darkness to maintain our hold on light. Today was one of those days. Today I had to reach inside and find a glimmer of hope to hold onto.

The song that comes to mind when I think of indifference is Eleanor Rigby, by the Beatles. Eleanor clearly is missing passion in her life, which I believe is the norm for our society. We give in to the darkness instead of allowing the light to take over.

I must experience passion in some form at least once a day. Today's passion was fleeting, but at least it was there. I realized that I have been less than my normal optimistic self these past few days. I found myself barking for no apparent reason. Today I stopped and took a look at what I was doing. I saw who I was affecting and realized I needed to rekindle the flame. 

I set out on a quest to find something to get lost in. A worthwhile project, or even one that would just devour my time. Of all places, I found it at work. Earlier this week I decided to develop a training program for my staff. My goal is to engage, empower and develop a culture of innovation.

I am basing the training on self assessment using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator in conjunction with using the theories and practices developed by Stephen Covey in his book: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. 

It was quite exciting to see the energy created the team as I led them through a series of self assessments as well as a group exercise. The synergy released in the group was exactly what I hoped for. 

This was my first attempt to develop this type of training and I must confess that I was exhilarated after the session. 

I even decided to be brave and sent out a satisfaction survey to my staff to determine effectiveness of the training. I love using Survey Monkey. I had the results within a few hours of sending the link and was able to adjust my next training segments in response to feedback received. I have committed to developing and conducting a 10 week series of 1 hour training sessions. I think I may have found another outlet for passion: teaching.

Next week we embark upon the first habit: being proactive. 

Stay tuned!