This post is going to be a bit personal so don’t be alarm by it’s nature and it might shock you too. But it’s best that I share it with you now since it’s something I’ve been meaning to touch upon for the last decade. And because of it’s relevancy to today’s topic to support Bloggers Unite, I want to embrace the beauty of Empowering People with Disabilities.

So in encouragement to those who are currently disabled and those who were, this post is for you. It’s told from my own experience but it goes to show that disability is not something that should limit you. It’s something that should empower you to get up, stand up and fight for your right as Bob Marley says. I hope you get something out of today’s post and I would appreciate it if you support the cause and pass it on! Without further ado, here’s my contribution.

Uncertainty

When I was in college I had frequent episodes of insomnia. I just couldn’t sleep no matter what I was doing. Who knows what was going through my head. Worries. Anxiety. Identity. It was my college phase and being that it is a crucial point in any young adult who questions their future, success was also part of the mix. Perhaps I wanted too much of everything but not much of anything was ever accomplished. For that, sleep didn’t exist.

During the last day of class and towards my Associate’s degree, a tragic thing happened. I broke down. Uncontrollably, I found myself in the ladies room unable to hold back the tears which resulted from liberating my thoughts. You see I had just written a play for Drama and it was so personal, I fell into the throngs of the pain. But I didn’t want anyone to find me that way. However, word did go out.

The next thing I knew, I sat with some counselors, still dazed by the overwhelming thoughts of coming undone, my head spun and I spoke in tongues. I began to mumbled and then suddenly, my body went into shock. The ambulance came to take me to their psychiatric center while I was still out of it. That day, my parents must have found themselves in the devil’s crutch because I don’t remember how it all happened. I only remembered I was tired, relieved and overburdened with having to deal with what’s going to happen next.

From that point on, I began to break down my life through living with minimal worries, burdens and strife. I decided to go M.I.A. with my journey towards graduating from college and take a dip towards me. Strangely, the only way I could have been through that point was to go on disability. However, here’s the upside. I was happy. I was so happy for being blissful even though it wasn’t real, it began to manifest itself each day more and more for over a decade.

The stigma of dis_ability

I found myself deep in the trenches of psychology for awhile even though I knew I wasn’t disabled, but the system which enabled me to get better consisted of it. So, rehabilitation as they said became effective. With my consent, I choked myself with psychotropic drugs to sleep better. For years it helped. Then suddenly, I didn’t want them anymore.

You can debate on how one can best determine a life but I’ve seen bodies so disabled through massive use of drugs, I learned first hand, that wasn’t going to be me. So I wanted out. I wanted nothing but pure breaths of fresh air and genuine mental candy to sustain me. Not some chemical high.

For the last 7 years I have taken control of my life and truly made a place for what I believe has allowed me to become free. I’m happily married and those uncertain thoughts no longer bother me. In fact, it has enabled me to live life beyond the stigma.

In the beginning, as I face the harsh realities that came with being disabled, I found myself resorting to the mental trap of thinking I’m on disability. While that may be true, breaking the barriers beyond the scope of your mind was harder, but I decided I wanted to break out. I wanted to fly over the cuckoo’s nest.

This is because I have seen enough to know that that’s not what I want to grow old as. There is more to life than the four walls and red chair I’ve frequently sat in. With that, I’ve learned to laugh stronger and be apart of what truly is worth living, life.

I’m no longer disabled today. However, the things I saw from that part of me I cannot forget. In part, it has a lot to do with opening yourself up to understanding the world and where you want to be. I’ve learned as humans, we are stronger than our weaknesses. Thus, you just have to be aware and find out as you’re experiencing it. For me, that was to write and that was how I got hungry.

Hunger
(12.17.1998)
I want to feed my soul, my body and my mind
With the beauty of life waiting just outside
I want to look at the world and think of the future
Cause I'll be around and I'll get hungry again

For nostalgia purpose, this is now over a decade and a half but I want to share it with you today so that you can see how my initial voice towards freedom shaped itself. Listen as I sang about the urge to break out.

Restoring hopes and dreams

There’s a certain power with words. I catapulted myself into music and wrote to empty out all the fears, anxiety and life of which made sense. It helped me put into perspective living for the moment. Thus, I was in bliss.

This monkish era resulted in the age of my enlightenment. I became one with the universe and decided to go back into the throngs of working hell. There is something about falling back down to earth and feeling the pain which makes us all human and acknowledge it’s beauty instead of the usual dread.

Even to this day, I can’t recall that blurry journey because it’s beyond me. It’s not apart of my life anymore and it’s not something I believe in. But this much is true, I’ve survived and live to tell that disability is something that is not you. You cannot take defects and define yourself on the grounds of handicapping your life. You can only take what it is you have mold and have blind faith in the spirit of being strong. Thus, you have to rise.

Wiping the dust off my shoulders

For the last half a decade, my life has shifted for the better. It’s a new day everyday and the internet has made it possible to reach out in more ways than ever. And it is in this age of mass information that anyone can put on multiple suits. So the opportunities to reach out are tremendous.

I don’t want to limit myself to any one way unless it works for me. You should consider that too. Be aware that there are many possibilities which awaits for you. All you have to do is take action and stand up, rise to wipe off those cobwebs.

Disability is not a way of life but it can be if you want it to. What you should do is put life first and immerse yourself in the beauty of the human condition. Let’s support each other for growth, community and outreach. Thanks for reading and remember we all have the power to empower the disability inside ourselves to get up and fight for what it is that makes us happy in life.

To your empowerment,
Thu Nguyen

What are your thoughts on disability and empowering life through illness or someone you know who’s disabled?

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2. Market Vietnam – A Personal Observation of a People (Part 3)
3. Market Vietnam – A Personal Observation of a People (Part 1)

If you were apart of history when AOL was around or you’ve created websites on Geocities, the experiences then were enough to send anyone towards greater networks in the years after. I covered that yesterday while I was looking back through time. If you haven’t read it so, check it out before we dive into part 2 today.

It’s amazing how fast life in the net lane travels. More so, the traditional networks no longer have as much of an impact on us today as they did then. This brings to mind, are all social networks a phase? As you ponder on that, I want to carry forth and continue where we left off yesterday. I know some of you have been around for a long time so it’ll be nice to share a little of your beginnings if any.

Zillionaire

When eBay started to emerge and Amazon started to share some of it’s profits, the money making community online started to surface as well. Remember Don Lapre? He was a big entrepreneur offline back then. The infomercials he had on television were so powerful I actually bought one of those kits. Sad to say, I couldn’t utilize it well because writing advertisements in my local paper was harder than he made it sound. Setting up a voice mail, researching the market and writing ad copy was all to much. Somehow, it seems to make sense now…15 years later.

So as selling old stuff caught on the net, resellers and creative marketers began to pitch probable ventures. One of the companies I was involved with at the time was called World Marketing Alliance who is now known as World Financial Group. They had this program called Zillionaire. The purpose was to try and distribute internet service rapidly and become the search engine of choice. Thus, the model to follow was AOL. Watch below as Hubert Humphrey discusses the possibilities with this company.

While it was far from being AOL, the dot coms started to pop up quickly. From every corner of the states internet services were being promoted with teasing packages to get customers to sign up with them. There were so many different vendors, the market then was kind of scattered. However, this created a lot of opportunities but unfortunately in the end, Google prevailed. Yahoo sold itself and soon the rest faltered. A lot of money was lost and the world watched as the next buildup started.

I decided to go back to life and experience my early twenties with work, parties and reality. As the years went on, the only thing I kept active was reading my e-mail. The world online was going through a depression or recovery I would say. Much like the economy is going through today. All else that I was doing at that time were lost, forgotten or left for dust. There wasn’t much interest networking online at that moment. Instead, reality brought frustrations with work. I was getting tired of the long hours and disappointing pay. The little time I had left was spent making music or hanging out with loved ones. Thus, I found solace in creating music.

MySpace

I had a copy of ACID from Sony. It was a windows program that allowed me to edit and mix sound files on a graphical interface. While I have never walked into a music studio, it made mixing and editing your sound clips so easy. That’s also because I couldn’t afford Pro Tools so this was an alternative solution. Along with Cool Edit, I was able to record my voice, guitar and added instruments. However let’s step back for a bit before the instruments and talk about my initial experiences.

I attempted to create some electronic music before I got into the raw editing of acoustics. I called my myself DJ Hai. It was fun because it propelled me to go online and look for ACID communities. This is where I found massive forums and also where I found other users’ sites who shared loops and services for FREE. I reached out and networked with many of them and try to get myself heard. Along the way, this helped with the creative process and soon I was eager to share my work.

Listen to a mix below of some of these classic creations.

What did you think? It actually got me a lot of good responses and encouraged me to continue further. Soon I found another program that challenged me to increase my mixing skills with ACID called Rebirth. The best way to explain this piece of ingenuity is through listening to the accelerated buildup on Children from Robert Miles. Through tweaking the knobs right you can establish the same sound. From a hobbyist perspective, I was quite eager to learn and it was to no extent. I did what I had to understand the process and integrate the knowledge into my already growing obsession.

It was around this time MySpace was catching on as the network to promote artists. I soon wanted to establish my presence online so I joined this thriving community. While my peers or younger siblings were connecting on Friendster or Xanga, Myspace was more suited for me. Thus, I mentioned the blog feature back when I talked about increasing your blogging experience. It was a great way to update your friends with what’s going on.

At the same time, I got heavily into paid to click networks so I was trying to establish a marketing plan as well. Little did I know that it would lead me to blogging seriously today. Thus, as I put up the music I created, I tried to gather a community and befriend other musicians on MySpace. The more friends you get gave you the possibility to be featured on the front page. Thus, I wasn’t aware of the MySpace adder tool but that would have helped tremendously.

Passion Network

In the end, I never got around to feature status but I’ve seen a lot who have successfully gotten their voice across and it inspired me to continue so with music. During the process as I went deep, I’ve learn it wasn’t what I really wanted to do. Sadly that’s just how hobbies are. If you’re passionate enough they only last you a couple of years. Then you’re back to finding something to fill up your free time. It wasn’t from a monetary aspect so I didn’t feel obligated to persist.

Now that I’ve found blogging, looking back at the social networks I was part of, it seemed like an ancient road, a phase. But there’s something to learn from them. No matter what it is you’re passionate about, there’s always going to be a community that’s more passionate than you are because they have been far and wide to establish themselves on the scene. And when you’re in that deep, you can’t really quit now can you?

It only makes sense to continue further. Especially if there’s an opportunity to make money and definitely if you can balance the life working from home and for yourself. This is a goal for most folks as they reach a level of understanding who they are and what they really want in life. The only difference is it requires a little bit of rendering within your thinking to actually succeed. Most importantly, the actions and network you surround yourself is also an influence.

I call this the passion network and while that is arbitrary, I don’t think that would be a phase now. In fact, it would be a journey worth exploring don’t you think? Stick with me throughout the rest of my blogging process as I touch upon passion as a reoccurring topic for most anything you write about online.

What were some of the early social networks you were part of? How has that shaped where you are today?

Related posts:

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For the first time, I got the opportunity to hear Yaro and Gideon answer calls for their coaching members. These were for the Blog Mastermind, Membership Mastermind and Become A Blogger members. Quite a collective if you think about it.

In order to get in I had to download Skype, which allowed me to get into the call for FREE. And since this call is for members only, notifications were sent early through e-mail. What really helped was the tweet I got recently. It reminded me because I was so caught up in blogging I forgot! So lo and behold I went to my e-mail and found the link which directed me to the chat page of the conference.

UPDATE: You can now listen to the conference call.

How the Conference Began

Where I’m at it’s about 8pm when the conference started. So after I installed Skype, I heard Gideon through my headphones and it’s amazing because he sounded so clear. I believe someone asked what microphone he used and he mentioned that he found his at Radio Shack for around $30. Not a bad deal for clarity. That’ll be on my next shopping cart.

So when I signed in, the chat room already had members buzzing. I was kind of hesitate to post remarks at first but I found myself at ease with suggesting ideas to members who were currently asking questions. At times Skype kind of slowed down my system but that’s because I had too many tabs opened reviewing other member’s blog.

Overall great content and conversation tonight. There were a lot of questions and I was surprise to see Tyrone Shum as well. I just had to shout out my respect and mentioned how great the article Yaro wrote today and how he mentioned him. I have been following Tyrone for awhile and his videos are one of  the few which states his topic well, outsourcing. His website MassOutsource.com is one I would definitely look into for the future. Check it out for some FREE videos on how you can work efficiently outsourcing as well.

So what’s up with the Aussies?

Nothing, just that they’re taking the blogging network by storm and they’re the only ones I only seem to be following at the moment. There isn’t any American blogger I have found resourceful as of yet besides David Risley who’s all the way in Florida. That’s a far drive from Chicago.

Some Topics Covered Tonight

Here’s a general outline of what I learned tonight.

• post titles and permalinks relativity to SEO
• marketing techniques for specific niches
• blog design basics for attracting more readers
• how rate of exchange is affected (if you’re out of the US and outsourcing)
• topic ideas for membership sites

The teleconference lasted for more than 2 hours and by the time everyone signed off I was still stunned with the information covered. I’ll have to post the audio download back here for reference. There were some concepts and tips which I didn’t take note of in time. But I’m definitely going to save some questions for the next call.

What I Didn’t Like About the Teleconference

I felt that there could have been more specific questions answered but since we’re all beginning, it starts off kind of slow. There’s a lot of um and ah and I kind of lost the point on some of the questions asked.

This made me resort to the chatting platform and find out what we’re talking about. But already making a name for himself, Tyrone Shum kind of made my experience greater. He put back the excitement and even Monique Wade’s personality made the call on voice and on chat more pleasant. This made my participation spike up and I had to control myself for the last half and hour.

By the time, the call ended, everyone went on their merry way with cheerful goodbyes. I miss them already. This was evident as the microphones were turned back on and Bella’s Lullaby from Twilight started playing in the background. This made the mood more melancholy.

So with my first experience in a teleconference, I was eager to explore the forums more. My head is swimming with questions on what have I missed previously. So in the next coming weeks I’m going to familiarize myself and start participating in the forums. The next step of relationship marketing. Calls like these are great conversation starter because the topic never ends. It’s a constant cycle of chemical bonding and self-improvement.

As I close this post with a big assumption, tonight my thoughts are validated. It was not as bad as I thought it would be. I’m going to participate more in blogging socials.

Have you experienced a wonderful webinar, teleconference or meeting elsewhere? What did you learn and were there relationships you’ve build from it?

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