It was with great anticipation that we began the 2011 college football season here in Austin. What would the Longhorns look like this year? Gone were the days of Greg Davis. Will Muschamp decided that a head coaching job in the Swamp was better than waiting for Mack brown to retire. With new offensive and defensive coordinators, 2011 was a fresh start.

Although the Longhorns ended the season on a slump, they did get a big ego boost (and win-for-the-ages) against Texas A&M. A 7 – 5 record also “earned” them a bowl bid. It was onwards to San Diego for the Holiday Bowl against the 7 – 5 Cal Golden Bears.

On paper, this game looked, well, pedestrian at best. In reality, the game was, well, pedestrian at best. But this game did serve as a great season summary of the 2011 Longhorns.

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The storyline started a few weeks ago as a simple tweet: physical therapists "are highly educated, doctorate level professionals". Sounds reasonable enough, yes?

However, last time I looked, I am a physical therapist - a highly educated health care professional with 25 years of clinical experience and one of about 350 clinicians in the world with the highest level of training in Mechanical Diagnosis And Therapy. But I am not a doctor.

I replied with a simple "And what are the non-doctorates?". I will admit, I was curious to see what the response would be. Deafening silence awaited me.

It was the Three Musketeers that said "Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno", or "All for one, and one for all".

The physical therapy profession would do well to take notes.

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It could be an athlete returning from what was thought to be a career-ending injury. It could be an Iraq war veteran who returns from a third tour of duty. Countless stories of courage make their way onto the front pages of the newspaper, social media, or the like.

What is easily forgotten  - or goes unnoticed – are the stories of courage that take place on a daily basis, stories that are being written by people like you and I. They could be stories of illness, personal victory, disaster, or epiphany – we all have stories to share.

“Courage” is defined as “the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear”. Courage crosses our path every day – we just may not realize it. So many people think that their story isn’t special, or isn’t grandiose enough, or is just simply dull and boring. But that just isn’t the case. Courage is all around us, it resonates within us, and it inspires us to live fully – on a daily basis.

Here are a couple of people who have shared their courageous journeys with the world, stories that resonated with me, stories that I wanted to share with you.

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You are sitting in a room with some colleagues or friends, having a nice relaxing discussion about work, or politics, or college football. Before you know it,  some innocuous disagreement in principle or practice has evolved into a knock-down, drag-out heated debate. The room's net blood pressure rises. What happens from there is, more often than not, highly unproductive.

As long as we all have opinions, we will always run the risk of disagreement. If you live on planet earth and interact with others, you will at some time or another be faced with a similar scenario. However, moments like these can provide us with a great opportunity for learning and growth. They can provide us with the potential for open dialogue and depth of understanding.

If you can check your ego at the door.

When we find ourselves knee-deep in disagreement, how can we turn it into an opportunity for discussion and dialogue instead of diatribe and derision?

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