What do you wish you would have known when you were younger? When I asked that question to Darlyne Bailey, professor and dean of the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr college, she told me that she wished she’d known years ago that it was okay for her to be totally and completely herself:

“I’ve always brought the whole person to what I do, but I did it with some trepidation," she explained. "I was always wondering if I laughed too much or if I hugged too much, or as I was told once, that my heart was just so wide open I was going to get hurt."

Darlyne says that she used to spend a lot of time trying to determine how to "cover herself up”--how to let only the good in and out. But as she discovered, if you close up too much, even the good stuff won’t be able to get in--forget letting it out!

“Being your whole self is really about accepting who you are and spending time with yourself,” she advised with a smile. “It’s about taking time to discern what your essence is, who you are and why you are.”

Of course, who we are is constantly changing because our lives are constantly changing. That’s why Darlyne advises taking time to check in with yourself to make sure that all of you is really showing up.

Watch my chat with Darlyne Bailey below:

"Lord, I just want to say thank you because this morning, I woke up and knew where my children were. This morning my home was still standing. This morning I am not crying because my husband, my child, my brother or sister needs to be rescued from a pile of concrete; because this morning I was able to drink a glass of water, because this morning I was able to turn on the light, because this morning I was able to take a shower, because this morning I was not planning a funeral, but most of all I thank you this morning because I still have life and a voice to cry out for the people of Haiti. We here are truly blessed!!!!!" This is a prayer from Kim Simplis-Barrow, the first lady of Belize.

I can still feel the rough grip on my skin of the gray-haired woman in tears who stretched up from her wheelchair and grabbed my arm.

"Bless you, boy!" she wept. "You've given me freedom for the first time in my life!"

It was a wheelchair that had set her free, although I had always thought of my mother's as a prison. In this moment, however, I came to appreciate how a wheelchair could mean mobility to people who had never had it before. When the first lady of Belize saw this interaction, she walked over to greet us. She had come to a ceremony where the Wheelchair Foundation was presenting 280 chairs to the needy in her nation.

But this week all attention turned to the holocaust in Haiti. We're sending 600 wheelchairs and as many more as we can with your help--just click on the link: http://www.wheelchairfoundation.org.

Stopping in NYC for a night at the Leader to Leader Institute, I had the honor of meeting the extraordinary leader, Brig. General Belinda Pinckney. She's another inspiring yet humble American with a big dream: she became the first African-American woman to be inducted into the Officer Candidate School's Hall of Fame. She's also one of only two African-American generals and one of only a dozen or so female generals in the United States Army.

"We need to continue to tell the stories of our past, so that every generation will know and learn from them, because we as a country are not particularly proud of some of this history," she noted. "We don’t want to repeat the bad history, and we want to tell the stories of the good history."

As the general begins her thirty-second year in the military, she has an impressive collection of honors to her name: the Defense Superior Service Medal, two Legion of Merit medals, six Meritorious Service Medals, four Army Commendation Medals, two Army Achievement Medals, the Office of the Secretary of Defense Staff Badge and the General Staff Identification Badge.

In September 2004, Colonel Pinckney was nominated by the Army to become a general. She was the first woman in the history of the Army Finance Corps to be promoted to general officer. She again emphasizes the importance of passing along stories such as hers, so succeeding generations will know and grow from them.

"Many contributions of women have gone unrecognized, the stories of their struggles and triumphs remain untold," she said earnestly.

As the first woman to head the Family and Morale Command, General Pinckney now has many sleepless nights. She sees no soon end to the war and worries constantly about the families of the soldiers serving in the Middle East and around the world. She can often be found visiting with wounded soldiers and their families in Washington's Walter Reed Hospital.

Even in the midst of our fast-paced, ever-changing digital world, one of the great fundamentals of society remains central: storytelling. It plays a major role in the innovation Dr. Henry Tirri and others are developing at the Nokia Research Center.

“We’re merging together the physical experience with the digital experience and turning that information into a story,” he explains. “Storytelling in the world of wireless communication is only emphasizing its importance.”

In fact, Dr. Tirri believes that the world itself is lived mostly through stories: “Stories often take on a life of their own!” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “Some stories can bring down empires, some stories have the power to build empires.”

So don’t bother speaking without a good tale to tell. People won’t remember your message unless it’s packaged in the form of a good story.

Check out my video interview with Henry Tirri below:

I was in Las Vegas yesterday when I heard the good news about our iPhone music application maker! Here's an article about it, by Timothy Hay, which appears in today's Venture Wire newsletter:

SonicMule Inc., creator of several wildly popular "social music" applications for the iPhone, said it has raised $8 million from a new investor and previous backers as it prepares to release at least five new apps next year.

"We were not looking to raise money, because we already exceeded our targets for our business plan in 2009," said Jeffrey Smith, co-founder and chief executive of the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company. Mark Thompson is an investor & board member.

For 2009, the company's target was 1.5 million paid downloads of its seven available phone apps. Smule got three million downloads, Smith said.

Smule is behind Ocarina, Leaf Trombone and I Am T-Pain, apps that enable users to not only play the iPhone like an actual instrument, but to record themselves and share the recordings with other users worldwide.

The company refers to its millions of users as a "sonic network," and will use some of its new funding to refine and upgrade this network, Smith said.

In addition to improving its network - which involves developing high-performance servers for a cloud-based system - Smule plans to release five or six new apps next year, Smith said.

While he declined to give details on the apps, Smith strongly hinted that another partnership with a top recording artist - like the collaboration the company did with R&B performer T-Pain - is in the works.

"All I can say is, we are enabling the users to create more expressive content and share it with others," Smith said.

Smith said the latest funding brings no new board members, but Smule is working closely with Tod Francis of Shasta Ventures.

"He was the brand manager for Tylenol during the whole poisoning thing," Smith said, referring to an incident in the 1980s when several people died after taking poisoned Tylenol pills. "Tylenol pulled through that. Not that Ocarina can be poisoned or anything, but it's good to be nimble. It's good to be able to handle curveballs."