Be Brave in the Attempt


Book Description

Special Olympics Texas started small in 1969. By its 50th anniversary year, more than 58,000 athletes enjoyed the benefits of SOTX sports. The look on their faces during competition is a window to happiness and self-worth. The organization itself describes its mission as providing "year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy, and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills, and friendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes, and the community." The purpose of this volume is not only to chronicle some uniquely compelling stories of Special Olympics Texas, but to raise important funds for the participating athletes, as well. This beautiful book will enable future Special Olympics Texas athletes and their families to attend state meets. The result can change a life forever through the enduring gift of self-confidence. As one SOTX parent put it: "If everyone could share the outlook of these athletes, we'd live in a very happy world."




Let Us Be Brave


Book Description

A dramatic bush plane crash in coastal Alaska leaves the pilot injured. The passengers, a team of Special Olympic Athletes, must fend for themselves to survive. An Alaska storm first threatens to overwhelm them during the night as they care for their unconscious pilot. Each must confront the challenges of survival in the wilderness, while transcending their limitations. Forced to overcome their habits of dependency and help each other, the group finds courage in the Olympic oath: “Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”




Fully Alive


Book Description

On a quest for what matters most, Timothy Shriver discovers a radically different, inspiring way of life. At a time when we are all more rudderless than ever, we look for the very best teachers and mentors to guide us. In Fully Alive, an unusual and gripping memoir, Timothy Shriver shows how his teachers have been the world's most forgotten minority: people with intellectual disabilities. In these pages we meet the individuals who helped him come of age and find a deeper and more meaningful way to see the world. Shriver's journey begins close to home, where the quiet legacy of his aunt Rosemary, a Kennedy whose intellectual disability kept her far from the limelight, inspired his family to devote their careers to helping the most vulnerable. He plays alongside the children of Camp Shriver, his mother's revolutionary project, which provided a space for children with intellectual disabilities to play, and years later he gains invaluable wisdom from the incredible athletes he befriends as chairman of the organization it inspired, Special Olympics. Through these experiences and encounters with scholars, spiritual masters, and political icons such as Nelson Mandela, Shriver learns how to find humility and speak openly of vulnerability and faith. Fully Alive is both a moving personal journey and a meditation on some of the greatest wisdom and the greatest contradictions of our society. Is disability to be feared or welcomed, pitied or purged? Shriver argues that we all have different abilities and challenges we should embrace. Here we see how those who appear powerless have turned this seeming shortcoming into a power of their own, and we learn that we are all totally vulnerable and valuable at the same time.




Brave


Book Description

Live every day with greater clarity, confidence and courage. Brave is a handbook for being more courageous. Written for busy people on the go, its short, focused chapters provide practical tools and empowering perspectives to help you build your 'courage muscles' in your work, relationships and life. Drawing on her background in business, psychology and coaching, author Margie Warrell will guide you in moving past the fears, doubts and beliefs that keep you from making the changes, and taking the chances, you need to enjoy the fulfillment and success you desire. Courage is a habit. Practicing it daily, even in quiet small ways, unlocks new possibilities, creates new opportunities, grows your influence and enables you to meet your challenges with more resilience and self-assurance. So whether you're stuck in a rut, struggling in a relationship, overwhelmed by your daily juggling act or uninspired about your future, Brave will provide you with a regular dose of positive and practical inspiration to: Clarify what 'success' truly means to you, and be more purposeful in your daily efforts to achieve it Speak up with greater confidence, and be more assertive in dealing with difficult people, getting what you want and changing what you don't Define the person and leader you aspire to be, become more resilient under pressure, decisive in uncertainty and adaptable to change Scrap the excuses (your age, education, gender, busyness or children) that sabotage your future actions Dare more boldly, passionately pursuing the goals that inspire you most, no matter how daunting Courage begets courage. You build it every time you choose to leave the safety of your comfort zone for the sake of something more important. Day by day, brave action by brave action, you can Brave within you to create a life rich in all that you seek. If you want to live your life more powerfully and purposefully, this book will become your trusted companion.




Be Brave, Be Brave, Be Brave


Book Description

A man of Native American descent contemplates what lessons he will pass on to his newborn son in this heartfelt, expansive exploration of fatherhood, identity, and legacy. Based on the true story of the birth of his son,Be Brave, Be Brave, Be Brave recalls the thoughts of author F. Anthony Falcon upon holding his child after the baby and his wife endured a life-threatening labor during Hurricane Harvey's landfall in Corpus Christi,Texas. Having felt adrift from his Native roots, Falcon found himself with a deep desire to understand his heritage so that he might better bestow it upon his son. A meditation on what it means to "be brave," this is the tale of little Lakota's perilous arrival into the world, of Falcon's struggle to reconnect with a heritage that was lost to him, and a father's attempt to describe what it means to be a Native American man in America today.




The Competitive Edge


Book Description

At work, in sports, and in everyday life, you're constantly surrounded by the pressures of competition. In The Competitive Edge,celebrated sports psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Brown offers principles you can use to guide your character towards victory. He shows how to become a legitimate winner every time you compete—regardless of whether you come out on top. Whether you compete against others in sports or business—or compete within yourself to achieve personal goals—the means by which you win tells the real story as to whether or not you are a champion. Teaches the reader to redefine victory and aggressively pursue it in every competitive situation. Demonstrates the importance of maintaining strong integrity and high character. Strategies for winning appropriate for court and field, workplace, and home. Illustrates the challenges, risks, and rewards involved in doing what is right through examples from real life, biblical history, media, and popular culture




The Brave Athlete


Book Description

The Brave Athlete solves the 13 most common mental conundrums athletes face in their everyday training and in races. You don’t have one brainyou have three; your ancient Chimp brain that keeps you alive, your modern Professor brain that navigates the civilized world, and your Computer brain that accesses your memories and runs your habits (good and bad). They fight for control all the time and that’s when bad things happen; you get crazy nervous before a race, you choke under pressure, you quit when the going gets tough, you make dumb mistakes, you worry about how you look. What if you could stop the thoughts and feelings you don’t want? What if you could feel confident, suffer like a hero, and handle any stress? You can. The Brave Athlete from Dr. Simon Marshall and Lesley Paterson will help you take control of your brain so you can train harder, race faster, and better enjoy your sport. Dr. Marshall is a sport psychology expert who trains the brains of elite professional athletes. Paterson is a three-time world champion triathlete and coach. Together, they offer this innovative, brain training guide that is the first to draw from both clinical science and real-world experience with athletes. That means you won’t find outdated “positive self-talk” or visualization gimmicks here. No, the set of cutting-edge mental skills revealed in The Brave Athlete actually work because they challenge the source of the thoughts and feelings you don’t want. The Brave Athlete is packed with practical, evidence-based solutions to the most common mental challenges athletes face. Which of these sound like you? Why do I have thoughts and feelings I don’t want? I wish I felt more like an athlete. I don’t think I can. I don’t achieve my goals. Other athletes seem tougher, happier, and more badass than me. I feel fat. I don’t cope well with injury. People are worried about how much I exercise. I don’t like leaving my comfort zone. When the going gets tough, the tough leave me behind. I need to harden the f*ck up. I keep screwing up. I don’t handle pressure well. With The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion, you can solve these problems to become mentally strong and make your brain your most powerful asset.




The Unwanted Gift of Grief


Book Description

Learn how to embrace the painful gift of grief and use it for transformation and healing as you journey through the wilderness to a promised life The Unwanted Gift of Grief is a passionate, practical guide through the grieving process for those who have suffered loss—and those who suffer with them. Rather than talking people out of their grief and pain as a way to make them feel better, this unique book invites them into the grief and pain as a way to healing, transformation and hope. Using real and in-depth ministry and counseling conversations, it identifies the journey through the wilderness of grief. This powerful book is equally valuable as a gift from a minister to a grieving person, as a professional guide for ministers and counselors, and as a training tool for lay ministers and congregation members. Built on the ministry concept of “sojourning,” The Unwanted Gift of Grief offers guidelines to be used in helping people in their journey through the adjustment period that follows a loss, a time that may include the darkness of disbelief, frustration, anger, sadness, depression, and healing light as they make their way through the wilderness of grief. Topics examined in The Unwanted Gift of Grief include: grief as gratitude and gift how family and culture can affect grieving different pathways through grief everyone grieves differently sudden loss, slow losing, rejection and suicide identifying the agony and characteristics of depression grief factors that affect marriage and sexuality saying “Yes” to death factors of faith, science and miracles the labor and contractions of dying and death the hope for healing and cure how to help: the Sojourner’s Process Guide the Grief Date: A Guide for Couples fifty ways to make it through the wilderness and much more The Unwanted Gift of Grief is an essential resource for anyone lost in the wilderness of loss and grief, and for professionals, lay ministers, family, and friends who care for them.




Brave, Not Perfect


Book Description

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Inspired by her popular TED Talk, the founder and CEO of Girls Who Code urges women to embrace imperfection and live a bolder, more authentic life. “A timely message for women of all ages: Perfection isn’t just impossible but, worse, insidious.”—Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit Imagine if you lived without the fear of not being good enough. If you didn’t care how your life looked on Instagram. If you could let go of the guilt and stop beating yourself up for making human mistakes. Imagine if, in every decision you faced, you took the bolder path? As women, too many of us feel crushed under the weight of our own expectations. We run ourselves ragged trying to please everyone, pass up opportunities that scare us, and avoid rejection at all costs. There’s a reason we act this way, Saujani says. As girls, we were taught to play it safe. Well-meaning parents and teachers praised us for being quiet and polite, urged us to be careful so we didn’t get hurt, and steered us to activities at which we could shine. As a result, we grew up to be women who are afraid to fail. It’s time to stop letting our fears drown out our dreams and narrow our world, along with our chance at happiness. By choosing bravery over perfection, we can find the power to claim our voice, to leave behind what makes us unhappy, and to go for the things we genuinely, passionately want. Perfection may set us on a path that feels safe, but bravery leads us to the one we’re authentically meant to follow. In Brave, Not Perfect,Saujani shares powerful insights and practices to help us let go of our need for perfection and make bravery a lifelong habit. By being brave, not perfect, we can all become the authors of our best and most joyful life.




Walker


Book Description

Walker By: Tom Walker In this heartwarming historical educational piece, Tom Walker gives readers a glimpse into the world of public special education, with its many rewards and challenges. He shares insight into the way it grew via trial and error – and a lot of patience, compassion, and good humor, from its infancy in the 1970s up through the 1990s. When Walker started teaching, he began writing down funny things that happened in the classroom. One day, he was reading with Stephanie, one of his students. She became tired and irritated. She looked up at him and said, “Walker, put a sock in it.” She had a frontal lisp, and instead of saying sock, she said “thock.” Walker hopes his book will reflect some of the humorous as well as encouraging times he experienced in and out of the classroom over those two decades.