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“A balm for the soul”
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GOOD PEOPLE Book
upworthy

Erica Williams Simon

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A limitation just might be your liberation.

When Phil was in art school, he developed a shake in the worst possible place: his hand.

He thought it meant the destruction of his dream to become an artist, so he left art school and quit art altogether.

When visiting a neurologist years later, Phil learned that the shake was the result of permanent nerve damage and could not be corrected. He was right to have given up. Or so he thought. But the doctor had a different outlook on what that prognosis meant for Phil's art. He said the seven words that Phil will never forget: "Why don't you just embrace the shake?"


And from that day on, that's exactly what he did. Letting his shake run free, he discovered new ways of drawing, used new materials, and completely changed his perspective on the type of art he wanted to create. When he embraced the shake, he realized he could still make art — he just had to get creative. And that's when he learned an important lesson:

Embracing a limitation can drive creativity. A limitation just might be your liberation.

Boom. Mind blown.

In the talk, Phil goes on to give examples of how he applied that principle to his work and life, with some pretty amazing results.

No, really. They're incredible.

But this isn't all about Phil.

It's about you too.

What would happen if you "embraced your shake"?

Watch the Ted Talk video by Phil Hansen below:

This article originally appeared on 08.26.15

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Microsoft Philanthropies

On April 20, 2016, 11-year-old Mikaila Ulmer walked onto the stage at WE Day, a star-studded event celebrating youth who are sparking change in their communities and the world.

Dressed in a white shirt, white pants, and a sparkly belt, with a bright yellow flower in her hair, the sixth-grader stood in front of 15,000 cheering people and confidently told the story of her journey to become a successful social entrepreneur who in 2014 closed a national deal with Whole Foods Market.

How does a little girl — who sells lemonade — end up here?


All photos from Microsoft and WE Day, used with permission.

It all started with a bee.

When Mikaila was 4 years old, she was stung by a bee. Just days later, she was stung again.

Two bee stings in one week would be enough to make any little girl terrified of bees, and Mikaila was no different. She wanted nothing to do with the insect ever again.

But her mother, in a stroke of genius, encouraged her to learn more about bees instead of being afraid of them. Through her learning, Mikaila discovered just how valuable honeybees are. She learned they are the main pollinators of many major fruit and nut crops as well as makers of honey.

But it wasn't all good news. She also learned that, thanks to a variety of factors including commonly used pesticides that may be lethal to bees, they had been dying off at an unprecedented rate for over a decade.

The important honey-making insects that she was now in love with were in serious danger of becoming extinct.

And with that, her fear was transformed into a passion and desire to help save the bees.

Around the same time, her great-grandmother, Helen, sent Mikaila's family an old 1940s cookbook. In it was her grandmother's special recipe for flaxseed lemonade.

Mikaila, who was planning on entering a local children's business competition, suddenly had a bright idea.

What if she could make lemonade using her great-grandmother's recipe and help the bees at the same time?

Mikaila decided to use honey in addition to sugar and entered her concoction into the competition with the goal of spreading the word about the importance of bees — and donating money to help save them.

That's how Me & The Bees Lemonade was born.

In the years since, Mikaila has grown her Me & The Bees Lemonade (formerly Bee Sweet Lemonade) into a thriving business and used a percentage of the profits from every sale to support international organizations working to save bees from extinction.

Her passion to make a difference and turn Me & The Bees Lemonade into a successful social enterprise has garnered the young business owner quite a bit of attention and success.

She secured a $60,000 investment on the popular ABC show "Shark Tank" from investor Daymond John.

In 2014, her hard work paid off when Me & The Bees Lemonade secured a deal with Whole Foods. Her lemonade is now distributed in 55 stores.

She was one of a select few children invited to the White House Kids’ State Dinner.

And, she was chosen as one of tech coalition MVMT50’s top 10 innovators of 2015.

Mikaila's just getting started.

She's excited about coding and is learning Java and is working with Microsoft to continue to scale her business. She’s even building her own computer and has aspirations to create apps so she can share her business acumen with others. She inspires kids at conferences like WE Day all around the country but is also focused locally, helping her classmates and friends with their own business ideas.

What does she tell them? According to the Austin Chronicle, she gives one of her favorite pieces of advice: "Don't be discouraged by life's little stings. You can be sweet and be profitable." She's the living proof.

More

How a video of a metal puppet hand eventually turned into an idea for accessibility.

This may seem like a story about technology, but it's actually a story about kindness.

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Dignity Health old

This is a cool kid named Ethan.


Image via Upworthy and Dignity Health.

This is his pretty cool hand.

Image via Upworthy and Dignity Health.

And the story behind cool Ethan and his cool hand is one of those stories that makes you say, "I'm really glad to be alive right now because this kind of thing could not have happened at any other point in history."

It's a story about YouTube videos and 3D printers and random Internet connections. But more than that, it's all about how one single act of kindness can lead to another. Which leads to another. Which leads to another.

And before you know it, those kindnesses (along with that technology) can make pretty amazing things happen.

It all started back in 2011.

Check out the video below for the full story, or scroll down to check out the six acts of kindness featured and how it goes beyond just Ethan's story to help hundreds of kids like him.

First act of kindness: Let's make a finger.

A man named Ivan Owen posted a fun video on YouTube of himself wearing a metal puppet hand he had made as a costume. Thousands of miles away, a South African carpenter named Richard who had lost his finger in a woodworking accident saw the video and was intrigued. He reached out to Owen to discuss what he made.

Image via Ivan Owen/YouTube.

The two ended up spending a year collaborating on building a replacement finger.

Second act of kindness: Let's make a hand.

The mother of a 5-year-old boy named Liam heard about their project and asked if they could also try to build a small hand for her son who had been born with no fingers. After a lot of hard work and the idea to use a 3D printer, they ultimately developed the first ever 3D-printed mechanical hand. It was badass, and so was Liam.

Image via MakerBot/YouTube.

Third act of kindness: Let's share what we know.

Here's where it gets even more interesting.

Instead of patenting the design for this new hand (can you imagine how much money they could have made?) in January 2013, Owen generously and unselfishly decided to publish the design files as open-source and public domain so that anyone, anywhere could download the files and use a 3D printer to make the same type of prosthetic.

Fourth act of kindness: Let's connect the dots.

Several months later, a professor named Jon Schull (featured in the video) stumbled upon a video of Liam and his 3D-printed hand and saw that people were leaving comments under it, offering up their own 3D-printing skills to help make more hands.

So Schull came up with bright idea to start a Google+ group and an online map for them to share their locations. That way, people who were seeking prosthetics (namely hands) could find the closest volunteer.

He left a comment on the video and invited people to join him in the Google group and put a "pin" on the map marking their location if (1) they wanted to print hands or (2) they knew where a hand was needed.

Fifth act of kindness: Let's build a community.

Well, it worked. By the end of the first day, there were seven pins. In a few weeks, there were hundreds. And the numbers kept growing and growing.

Image via Upworthy and Dignity Health.

It turns out there weren't just a lot of people in need of prosthetic limbs, but there were a lot of people who were able and willing to make them!

That simple idea grew into what is today known as Enable, a nonprofit organization and community made up of teachers, students, engineers, scientists, doctors, designers, parents, children, artists, philanthropists, coders, and everyone in between creating 3D-printed hands and arms and giving them away to those in need of an upper-limb assistive device ... for free.

Sixth act of kindness: Let's make it free.

That's right. Enable gives away the 3D prosthetics at no cost to the recipient.

Those six kind decisions have now made it possible for hundreds of children to receive prosthetics.

And remember our cool kid Ethan? He was one of them. His mom stumbled upon the community online, reached out, and Enable ultimately helped Ethan get the hand that he now just can't stop showing off.

His story (shown in the video above) isn't just amazing because somehow something positive actually came out of a YouTube comment section. And it wasn't just made possible because of the magic of 3D printing — although that, in and of itself, is pretty awe-inspiring.

It was made possible because of the kindness of the creators in the Enable community whose small devotion of resources and time can make kids like Ethan really, really happy.

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Toyota

"I don't think I'm different. I think how I interact with the world is different."

So explains Belo Cipriani, who was born with sight but lost it in adulthood. Like millions of Americans and people all around the world, he's learned to thrive in his new normal, savvily using the right tools to help him on his journey. A guide dog and sometimes a white cane help him get through his day.


All GIFs via Toyota USA/YouTube.

But what would an even more accessible world mean for him? How could he be provided with even more mobility and connectivity? What would that look like?

Hearing Belo discuss how he interacts with the world points us toward the true heart and soul of accessibility. Listen to him and then check out more of the story below.

The term "accessibility" is a common one. It is a sterile word that often conjures up images of ramps and chair lifts, parking spots and building codes. While it is indeed those things, it is also so much more.

Making the world accessible is about doing whatever can be done to ensure people with different abilities can be their full selves with the same freedom, confidence, independence, safety, and ease as everyone else.

It's about more than the occasional closed captioning and braille options or doing the bare minimum to ensure people with disabilities have subpar, insecure, minimally inclusive participation in the day-to-day activities of life.

It's about pushing the limits of what is and rethinking the status quo to give everyone the opportunity to participate in as much of the human experience as possible.

And if there's one sector that understands the value of pushing those limits and possibilities, it's technology.

That's where Toyota's Project BLAID comes in.

Their engineers in the Toyota Partner Robotics group have collaborated for more than four years with leading organizations and members of the blind community to better understand the mobility needs of the visually impaired and develop solutions to meet those needs.

Translation: They're creating technology to fill in the blanks left by current tools for the blind.

How innovative? Well, this new product is a hands-free, horseshoe-shaped device that sits on a person's shoulders. It’s easy to wear and comes with cameras, voice recognition, buttons, speakers, and vibration — all calibrated to help a blind or visually impaired person better explore and interact with the environment around them. Bluetooth technology pairs it with a smartphone.

With a push of a button, it helps identify signs for bathrooms, exits, elevators, stairwells, and other important places — giving people with limited sight a new level of accessibility so they can do more with greater independence and confidence.

Belo, who was invited to check out the product in its early stages of development, is quite excited about the potential and possibilities.

But he's just the first of many to come. Keep an eye on The Toyota Effect for more information.

Toyota's Project BLAID and other technology that is pushing the boundaries isn't a win just for Belo and others with visual impairments.

It's a win for anyone who believes that society is better when every person is able to freely contribute what they believe they are capable of giving to our world.