I write this to share with you my vision, values, methods, obstacles and measures for 2017. This is a personal deep dive into what I believe in, the obstacles that will stand in my way from achieving my goals, and how I will show I have been successful. This is me being vulnerable and sharing my story. The easiest of these categories for me to write was the obstacles. There are so many doubts that could potentially stand in my way from achieving my goals. I want you to remember that yes there are more  roadblocks, but you must learn to overcome these challenges to obtain what you desire.

What does 2017 look like for you?

Vision

My vision for 2017 includes traveling for the first time internationally using a wheelchair and spread FSH awareness internationally, continue to deep dive at work while growing my network and establishing deeper relationships with my coworkers, and give my time through volunteering in the community to help build a more rollable/walkable Atlanta.

Values

FUN

I’ve got many fun adventures planned for 2017 and I believe it is important to enjoy life regardless of your disability or ability. Taking life to seriously and forgetting to explore the world  while I can is not a rut I want to get myself into.

TRUST

I value being honest and transparent in life and work. Peers, family and friends depend on me and I have to remain committed to them and show them I can be a resource of assistance and love.

TEAMWORK

I value synergy, learning from others and my own mistakes and building others up. In order to take on life and accomplish my goals, I must rely on other individuals to lend a helping hand. I also have to remember to be open to receiving help. I can’t tackle life on my own and must remember there is a strong support system behind me.

GROWTH

As my physical strength continues to decline, I value learning how to achieve greatness despite my obstacles. Leaning from others is an incredible opportunity and I believe in the power of sharing this wealth of knowledge. In order to grow, I value staying grounded remembering those who helped to build me.

Methods/Measures

• Become a WHILL Ambassador for the Model M wheelchair and showcase it to the world and complete by the end of February
• File a class action lawsuit with the city of Atlanta for failure to maintain #equalAccess of sidewalks
• Take on our 3rd Reebok Spartan Race in March via piggyback
• Apply to the Administrative Board of Directors for the FSH Society in hopes of being the youngest board member by May
• Travel Europe for 10 days in April with a previous coworker from Apple
• Take the Piggyback Adventure crew up Mt. Kilimanjaro by October
• Make a documentary about Piggyback Adventures, conquering FSH muscular dystrophy, overcoming barriers, and working on a team of family and friends and submit it to Sundance film festival and Netflix for EOY 2017 submissions
• Expand my consumption of various herbal teas to provide a wholistic healing approach to my health
• Begin to learn Japanese and enroll in a class
• Become a Salesforce Certified Administrator by May
• Have lunch with 30 new individuals at work by the EOY to  build a trusting relationship with my coworkers and grow my network
• Continue to be the top new-hire onboarding ambassador for all of Salesforce and bring positivity into the workplace
• Strengthen my relationship with God and dive daily into the word
• Visit the park on a regular basis
• Open up to others by sharing my vulnerabilities
• Remember to live in the present

Obstacles

• Once my WHILL ambassadorship is over, I know I won’t want to go back to my scooter. It means I have to accept the fact I need a more durable chair to do the things I want to do and being 100% reliant on a device is a hard pill to swallow for someone who is very independent.  As WHILL currently isn’t covered by insurance, finding the funds ($10k) to purchase one seems near impossible for a single individual.
• Finding time to roll around the city of Atlanta and take pictures of bad sidewalk and report them takes up a lot of my free time. Sometimes also it feels like a black hole as I don’t always see the change right away and also it just never ends. I am just 1 individual going around the city and reporting areas that need improvement and this often seems daunting.
• Filing a lawsuit takes time and energy and I feel I won’t have the patience for possibly a 2-3 year lawsuit. Also, finding other individuals who want to testify with me is difficult as I feel no one wants to help or has a story to share. This is just me not putting trust into my lawyer which is not such a good idea.
• The Reebok Spartan race opens up the door to potential near hypothermia as I got my first year. It is also exhausting holding onto someone for 5 miles and runs the risk of tearing muscle fiber which is not good for my condition.
• Traveling internationally will be a first since getting a wheelchair. I traveled to Boston and my scooter was damaged on the plane. I am concerned my chair will get damaged in route and will have difficulties getting around. I also do not know how accessible Europe is and since I plan on visiting many historical monuments, many of these are not accessible.
• Mt. Kilimanjaro is 19,400 feet and I am worried about my a ability to prepare for this height as I am unable to adequately train for this elevation. I am concerned with the technical aspects of the trail as it is unknown territory and it being unsafe to climb. When hiking the trail, we had new friends join us for day hikes, this won’t be the case as everyone who starts will or won’t finish. There are no day hikers on this adventures, thus I am worried that the people carrying me won’t have adequate enough rest in between carries. I worry about the accessibility in Africa, traveling across the world and the cost of the trip.
• The producer that is leading our documentary lives across the country so finding times to film poses a challenge. Getting funding for the film and sponsors is all new territory for me as I don’t know this network of individuals. What if no one wants to watch our documentary or we end up losing money from it?
• As I explore new and different herbal teas, I do not know if my body is allergic to them or not or how it will react. I have a sensitive digestive system and do not want to disrupt it.
• Learning a new language is difficult and it is easy to give up. Kanji has thousands of symbols and learning all of them will be a challenge. It will take thousands of hours to dedicate learning a  new language and it can be put on the back burner if I do not stay dedicated to it. Also not having anyone around me as a native speaker to practice speaking poses a roadblock.
• Taking the Salesforce Certified Administrator exam for work will be a challenge as I do not have a good history of test taking. I failed my Pardot specialist exam 2x prior, thus why I am concerned this stress will happen again. Finding time to study for this exam and stay focused is not easy for me.
• Finding enough time and scheduling lunch with individuals is harder than one would think. I worry I am being too ambitious for this goal. Also opening up to coworkers on a deeper personal level is challenging as I don’t want to overstep and work/personal boundaries.
• Remembering that being an on boarding ambassador is not my primary role or what I get paid to do at work, it’s volunteer. I have to remember to keep a work/volunteer balance and also not burn myself out by striving to be the best.
• I have to make it a priority to dive into the word of God and often times I get too caught up in reality and forget what’s important. I worry that as my church is moving locations and Marta buses don’t travel over there that I will fall out of the loop at church.
• It rains often in Georgia and I have to take a train and roll 0.5 miles to get to the park. Distance and weather brings potential challenges.
• Living in the present is difficult for someone who wants to do some much and plan various adventures.

I walked out of the doors of SeventySix Capital shaking. It was May 20th, 2016, and I was in Philadelphia on a work trip where I had just left a conversation that changed my life…

As an entrepreneur, there are some conversations that leave you feeling worthless, leaving you feeling like your idea isn’t good enough. And there are conversations you walk away from and realize there is so much work left to do. It’s at these moments you question whether you should keep going. And these conversations happen far more often than the other type.

But there is another type of conversation, one that inspires.

These people touch you in a way that is so profound that you cannot articulate the words to describe your visceral reaction. The type of conversation you walk away from where your dreams are more tangible. These discussions come few and far between.

But when they do happen, they give you that feeling anything is truly possible.
This happened when I talked with Wayne Kimmel, founder of Seventysix Capital, Philanthropist, and Author of Six Degrees of Wayne Kimmel.

I walked into doors of Seventysix Capital, a Venture Capital firm in Philadelphia where the digital and physical worlds merge. I sat down, was offered a water, and waited for Wayne to meet me. For some reason, I was more nervous than usual. With the entrepreneurial journey, you have to meet so many people, and meeting new faces becomes second nature. But this conversation felt different as I was talking to a bonafide innovator. To say I had butterflies would be an understatement.

Wayne sat down, carefully analyzing me, and asked “So, how can I help?”  I stuttered a bit, not expecting a question like that right off the bat. I began telling him about my vision for Wish Dish.  The conversation continued, and Wayne kept asking me questions.

I wasn’t in this meeting to talk about myself. I wanted to learn more about him and his journey. I had so much to ask! Such as … how did you start a venture capital firm? What makes you get up in the morning? How did you bring the Microsoft Center for Innovation to Philadelphia?

There was a brief lull as he stared at me patiently and leaned back in his chair. Here was an opening for me to ask my questions.

I began by asking Wayne about a project he had once only dreamed of bringing to life: to bring a center for innovation to Philadelphia where people of all races, colors, and backgrounds could come in and see the forefront of technology. This center would one day connect the city of Philadelphia through entrepreneurship and technology and shape the future of innovation in Philadelphia. This center ended is now the Microsoft Reactor which opened up this past summer.

While Wayne had a large role in bringing the Microsoft Reactor to Philadelphia, what impressed me was not that he pulled off bringing this center to Philadelphia. What caught my eye was the electric nature of his voice. The passion he spoke with about making this happen and how it could impact the city for generations to come was infectious.

I thought to myself, how lucky am I to be here right now, hearing this story and seeing someone who took his passion and made it into a tangible accomplishment. I can only imagine the pride he must have felt the day the center opened. What if I could have the same impression on those I’m around? When I had the opportunity to ask Wayne about his Venture Capital Firm SeventySix Capital, the glow in his eyes came through once again. He remarked,

“I have the most amazing job in the world. I get to work with the most incredible entrepreneurs shaping the future of tomorrow, those who have huge dreams to change things and make the world a better place.”

And then a series of goosebumps tingled down from my back. We live in a world where so many people are miserable with their jobs, and Wayne sits on the other side of the table where he can help people realize their dreams to assuage that misery. He’s in the business of improving people’s quality of life if they want to take the leap.

I slowly began to ask myself, what could be more fulfilling than a life with purpose, a life to help others’ dreams succeed? And then I started thinking about what that looked like for myself twenty years from now and realized … I could do it too.

We at Wish Dish have a dream to give millions of people a voice and connect them to others around the world in a meaningful way. If we are successful, we will be able to invest back into those in our community that serve our mission and into the lives of entrepreneurs who are pushing onwards for the betterment of society. When I think about Wayne and his mission at Seventysix Capital, it seems we are aligned in our pursuits.

The conversation concluded by Wayne telling me a story about going after things he believed in and doing what it takes to make it happen. Wayne mentioned how he once had needed to get in touch with Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, and now the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers for one of his portfolio companies.

He found out that Mr. Ballmer was going to be the morning keynote speaker at a tech conference in New York City. He showed up at the conference and stood in the hotel lobby to meet him. As Mr. Ballmer walked in, Wayne walked right up to him and introduced himself. He handed Mr. Balmer his business card.

Mr. Ballmer was certainly caught off guard, but Wayne had a plan. Wayne told him that they had a mutual friend and that immediately set Mr. Ballmer at ease, especially because it involved a funny story. Mr. Ballmer asked Wayne what he could do for him, and Wayne asked to be connected to one of his top lieutenants at Microsoft.

Mr. Ballmer did it for him before noon that day!

I proceeded to tell Wayne about the depths and lengths I went to meet Mark Cuban during my early days when I first started Wish Dish.

Walking out of the room to the car, I felt pure excitement, not only because of what I heard but also because of the connection and bond we had formed.

While Wayne, who is 46 years old, and I may be 23 years apart in age, what we have in common is the mindset, passion, and desire to shape both our own future and the future of others for the better. We believe in the power of people and that their ideas can truly change the world.

Six Degrees of Wayne Kimmel

Wayne Kimmel wasn't always a venture capitalist, investing in game-changing companies alongside the likes of Richard Branson, Steve Case and Mark Cuban. He was once a 29-year-old law school graduate with no connections who obsessively networked his way to success.

Time is the most valuable asset on earth.

Many of us depreciate the value of time and it’s impact on life. I spent this weekend reflecting on the power of time and the value of life. The knowledge I gained from this experience was powerful. On one side of the spectrum, it was demoralizing. On the other side of the spectrum, it was enlightening. Perception is key.

My grandmother was diagnosed with dementia 3 years ago. On Thursday, my mother informed me that my grandmother wasn’t doing so well. She was unable to eat, drink, or speak. I instantly rushed home to spend time at the nursing home with my family. I know one thing for certain. Our existence is real, but the length of it is unknown. We live in a world full of possibilities and opportunities. We are obligated to act.

“The power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being.” – Plato

With vision, belief, and action, any individual can transform a mere dream into reality. The symbolism of Plato’s quote strikes me in a sense that we are born into a world of opportunity; but these opportunities do not become reality until we envision their existence, devise and prepare for a meaningful journey, and strive towards success through initiating action. If you build it, they will come. Promote your vision and lead others to join you on a mission to make a difference.

Each individual has the ability to achieve their goals (learning, knowledge, etc.) through the practice and ability of self-discipline, habit, and belief. These goals hold high value when pursued and shared with others.

“Action is the foundational key to all success.” -Pablo Picasso.

I believe that vision, belief, and action are the building blocks that fuel individuals to find meaning and purpose in their life. Enlightenment is unattainable until you vision it, believe in it, and act towards achieving it. When you put action to intent, your belief could become a reality.

Life is an experience. In order to grow mentally, physically, or spiritually, you must experience and overcome whatever life throws at you. No matter what happens, you are in control of how you react to any given situation. You can control your emotions and you should strive to minimize regret and stay clear of remorse. Learn and grow from your mistakes. Strive for greatness and understand what you can and cannot control.

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain

No human being is forced to believe or view anything in a certain way. We have the power to understand and interpret through cognition. The mental capacity of a human being is unparalleled. We are blessed with the ability to constantly learn and improve ourselves. Don’t be afraid to sway from the status quo. The ability to innovate is an obligation, not an opportunity. Character, principle, and positive perception are important aspects of living a natural and balanced life.

Lead with honor, character, and integrity.