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Pay it forward – Tahoe style

By Rachel Flower
This is not an easy time. We all know that. But for all the uncertainty and chaos I’m choosing to see this year as an opportunity for the community to come together more cohesively. We need each other more than ever. We need to support each other in our businesses, our life, our relationships, our spirit. Our ups and downs.

And what a ray of hope it is when I see, despite the trailing financials, people starting up awesome projects to benefit our community.

Here’s just one, and I focus on it because it’s hugely time sensitive.

Meet Gia States, visionary and philanthropist. I met her at an ewomen networking program in Truckee and was immediately drawn to her. Not just because of the beauty of her calendars (although they speak for themselves - see www.soulbeautiful.org ) and not just because of the worthy cause (funding a wilderness retreat for foster kids in the Truckee area) but because of her passion and spirit. She had the guts to think big, enroll a whole team of volunteers – including professional photographers - put her own money down…. and trust. Bigtime.

Now she needs our help.

I call it the motion light phenomenon. All is dark, you can’t see very far, aren’t quite sure where to tread, but all you need to do is step – just one step. Suddenly on comes the light, and voila, the way becomes clear. If you don’t step you don’t get to see.
Gia stepped. Actually she leapt, and now, two months down the track, and coming into Valentine month, it’s reaching calendar sale deadline. And she has a bunch still to go to reach her goal.

I told her I’d help get them all sold by Valentine’s day. One of my passions is networking. I’m incurable. I love linking people that I feel need to know each other. I think I even do it in my sleep (so my husband tells me!) I love finding worthy causes and helping shed light onto them. I love meeting the quality people that I do each day, who are making the world a better place, one smile, one hug, one project at a time.

So I’ve been sharing her website with my database. I have a lot of friends, male and female, that love inspiring images and quotes (look no further for the perfect valentine’s gift !) and who like to buy meaningful gifts for their friends. Gia bravely committed to creating 1500 calendars and whilst she’s done fabulously in getting them out, she doesn’t want any left in her garage after February… so she needs our help in moving the last few hundred.

Gia is the founder and director of Re:Mix, a non-profit that empowers foster youth to express their voice, take risks, and encourage them to dream in a safe and supportive environment in the magical wilderness of the Truckee/Tahoe area. Did you know that there are 1760 foster kids in the Sacramento, Nevada and Placer counties who will, at 18, age out of the systems without a family and without support? Did you know that 51% of foster youth are unemployed, 25% are homeless, and 40% have been incarcerated. It doesn’t need to be like this. These children need support. What Re:mix does is create wilderness expeditions, creative exploration activities and healthy lifestyle lessons to help give these kids a fighting chance and the support of a loving community.

It doesn’t take much to spread the word. I’ve been taking calendars to local shops and many of them are thrilled to participate in this great project. I also have friends that are contacting their friends. Here’s what one of them said:

“The calendar is hanging in my office and I enjoy looking at it. I am going through a rough time right now and it gives me inspiration - and also I like to help out a good cause like this.”

Think about organizations, retailers, friends who might enjoy this. People that want to be inspired, that love beauty, and that like to make a difference in the community. Send them an email, buy them a calendar, invite them to the website.

Here’s an inspiration that someone else had after her car was rear-ended. True to ‘pay it forward’ style. There are always creative ways to reframe situations:

Hi hope you are doing well. A few weeks ago you lightly rear-ended my car on Riverside. I have been staring at your contact information in my car and thought of a good karmic “pay it forward” idea this morning. Instead of paying me to touch up my bumper, I would like to ask you to help support a good cause – my friend Gia has recently started a non-profit to serve California’s foster care youth called RE:MIX and is selling beautiful calendars to raise funds. The calendars would make excellent gifts for your female friends and family. Could you commit to purchasing at least 5 at $10 each and helping to spread the great word?
The calendars can be bought at www.soulbeautiful.org

At $10 each (and every cent goes to the kids) you know what to do!!!

Written by Rachel Flower, www.senssoma.com
www.oneworld.hubhub.org

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I’m sharing this uplifting story with you - it shows what’s possible when we show appreciation to those that are not used to it…. and it speaks to me of the spirit of the solution to our current economic issues.

Friday Morning Story: “The Oddest Football Game in History”

They played the oddest game in high school football history last month in Grapevine, Texas. It was Grapevine Faith High School vs. Gainesville State School and everything about it was upside down. For instance, when Gainesville came out to take the field, the Faith fans made a 40-yard spirit line for them to run through.
Did you hear that? The other team’s fans?
They even made a banner for players to crash through at the end. It said, “Go Tornadoes!” Which is also weird, because Faith is the Lions.
It was like rivers were running uphill and cats were petting dogs. More than 200 Faith fans sat on the Gainesville side and kept cheering the Gainesville players on-by name.
“I never in my life thought I’d hear people cheering for us to beat their kids,” recalls Gainesville’s quarterback, Isaiah. “I wouldn’t expect a parent to tell us to beat their own kids. But they wanted us to!”
And even though Faith won by 33-14, the Gainesville kids were so happy that after the game they gave their head coach Mark Williams a sideline squirt-bottle shower like he’d just won the state title. It had to be the first Gatorade bath in history for an 0 - 9 coach.
But at the end of the game you saw the uniformed officers escorting the 14 Gainesville players off the field and everything began to make sense. They lined the players up in groups of five with handcuffs ready in their back pockets and marched them to the team bus. That’s because Gainesville is a maximum-security correctional facility 75 miles north of Dallas.
This all started when Faith’s head coach, Kris Hogan, wanted to do something kind for the Gainesville team. Faith had never played Gainesville, but he already knew the score. After all, Faith was 7-2 going into the game, Gainesville 0-8 with 2 TDs all year.
Faith has 70 kids on their team, 11 coaches, the latest equipment and involved parents. Gainesville has a lot of kids with convictions for drugs, assault and robbery and many of whose families had disowned them. They were wearing seven-year-old shoulder pads and ancient helmets.
So Hogan had this idea. What if half of our fans cheered for them? He sent out an email asking the Faithful to do just that. “Here’s the message I want you to send:” Hogan wrote. “You are just as valuable as any other person on planet Earth.”
Some people were naturally confused. One Faith player walked into Hogan’s office and asked, “Coach, why are we doing this?”
And Hogan said, “Imagine if you didn’t have a home life. Imagine if everybody had pretty much given up on you. Now imagine what it would mean for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you.”
Next thing you know, the Gainesville Tornadoes were turning around on their bench to see something they never had before. Hundreds of fans. And actual cheerleaders!
“I thought maybe they were confused,” said Alex, a Gainesville lineman (only first names are released by the prison). “They started yelling ‘DEE-fense!’ when their team had the ball. I said, ‘What? Why they cheerin’ for us?’”
It was a strange experience for boys who most people cross the street to avoid. “We can tell people are a little afraid of us when we come to the games,” says Gerald, a lineman who will wind up doing more than three years.
“You can see it in their eyes. They’re lookin’ at us like we’re criminals. But these people, they were yellin’ for us! By our names!”
Maybe it figures that Gainesville played better than it had all season, scoring the game’s last two touchdowns. Of course, this might be because Hogan put his third-string nose guard at safety and his third- string cornerback at defensive end. Still.
After the game, both teams gathered in the middle of the field to pray and that’s when Isaiah surprised everybody by asking to lead in prayer. ” I had no idea what the kid was going to say,” remembers Coach Hogan. But Isaiah said this:
“Lord, I don’t know how this happened, so I don’t know how to say thank You, but I never would’ve known there was so many people in the world that cared about us.”
And it was a good thing everybody’s heads were bowed because they might’ve seen Hogan wiping away tears.
As the Tornadoes walked back to their bus under guard, they each were handed a bag for the ride home. A burger, some fries, a soda, some candy, a Bible and an encouraging letter from a Faith player.
The Gainesville coach saw Hogan, grabbed him hard by the shoulders and said, “You’ll never know what your people did for these kids tonight. You’ll never, ever know.”
And as the bus pulled away, all the Gainesville players crammed to one side and pressed their hands to the window, staring at these people they’d never met before, watching their waves and smiles disappearing into the night.
Anyway, with the economy six feet under and Christmas running on about three and a half reindeer, it’s nice to know that one of the best presents you can give is still absolutely free.
Hope.
~ The Author is Rick Reilly who writes for ESPN Magazine and has a column called “Life of Reilly.” You can see this story and many of his others by clicking the link below, going to the 52Best story, and clicking his link at the bottom of it. ~

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Tips for maximizing your marketing performance:

Here are a few main things you need to make sure are in place to maximize your exposure in the marketplace:

Get your website search engine optimized
Create opt in ezines and autoresopnder emails (a series of 7 is good)
Use facebook and linked in and other social media (keep updating your profile and build your list, so each time your profile changes, lots of people get noticfied.
Follow up and then follow up some more (at least 7 times of contact - say 3 emails, a newsletter and 3 postcards - stay in front of them.
Do affiliate programs with others in the same arena
Piggy back on launches of other people’s new products - offer something free and build your platform
Offer free stuff that builds trust in who you are and what you do. Build your name
Create ebooks - they are cheap to produce, eay to offer free or at low cost, and help to build your brand.
People need to see you everywhere - I want them saying ‘That Senssoma, it’s ALL OVER it MUST be big!’
Create announcements and ezines and post them on the various social media networks (facebook etc)
Start a blog
Write in other peoples’ blogs

Perhaps before you do any of that - HAVE A SYSTEM IN PLACE that works night and day even when you’re sleeping. That means a way to capture leads, follow up appropriately,

And here’s a great FREE WEBINAR ” SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING EXPLOSION” on 27th Oct where you can learn much more. I’ll be attending because I still have lots to learn.

Discover the “Attraction” Secrets of the Marketing Elite that generate flash floods of traffic to your web site, explode your sales of products and services - and elevate YOU to “Rock Star” status as The Authority in your industry (whatever your industry is)…

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=2624106

It’s all about combining the best of both worlds…Attraction and Social Media marketing to create that ‘rock
star’ presence in your business.

Love

Rachel

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We’ve all heard how important it is to eat right and exercise right. Greens, fiber, fresh stuff, power walks. All fabulous. But how many of us are aware that what goes on in our heads is just as important, if not more so? Bones, for example, are directly affected by anxiety.

Our bones are designed to carry our weight. This helps ensure a healthy distribution of minerals. Muscles are designed to move us. When we’re anxious our muscles tense up and over time they stiffen and begin to take over the role of our skeleton. Minerals are redistributed, which in turn creates a loss in bone density. Before long, there’s a broken hip.

Anxiety and stress also affect the way we digest our food, so we don’t absorb all the nutrients, or worse still, acids deteriorate stomach lining. Left unchecked this can even lead to stomach ulcers. We’re literally eating ourselves. Our bodies age not just because of time, but also because of how we inhabit them. So how do we work with the mind/body connection and thrive in terms of our health?

This area of personal growth is of particular interest to me. I’ve been studying, researching and working with this theme for many years. I’d love to connect with more folks for whom this is a passion. Share ideas, resources. How do you work with clients in the arena of body wisdom and consciousness in facilitating change, particularly in the area of health?

For complete article go to www.senssoma.com

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Great leaders inspire. They carry a vision and are able to enroll others. But what gives that vision wings? What makes it so real and believable that others are able to engage in the dream and make it happen?

It’s the power of purpose. Martin Luther King painted a picture so clear still today his speech is seared in the memory of all who heard it. Leaders have passion. Their vision lives and breathes and carries a life of its own.

Why then do so many people find it hard to find that sense of purpose? Why do so many feel frustrated with their lives yet unable to transcend the mediocrity? The missing ingredient is embodiment. And that involves the body! Most people forget this and set goals and visions from their mind.

But you can’t ‘think’ your way into a sense of purpose and engagement. It has to be experienced, embodied. Setting goals and strategies from an intellectual space is unlikely to evoke a lasting sense of enthusiasm. In fact, sometimes what you think is important to you, may indeed not be.

The body is unflinchingly honest. It offers clarity for even the biggest of life decisions. What if, as a leader, you could identify and ‘try on’ each important element in your life, test it for accuracy and ultimately build a ‘Purpose Blueprint’? What if you could experience the balance and interplay or all the uplifting elements at once? Imagine how it would inform your decisions, your interactions, your sense of vision.

That’s the arena that fascinates me. I’d love to hear from people that work in the area of mind-body awareness as coaches, consultants, therapists. To me it’s the piece that so many overlook, but if it became more accepted, if people realized how important their body awareness and their sensory awareness is, they would change the way they lead. And change a lot about our communities. We’d be more aware of others feelings, we’d be more clear and true to our values, we’d probably notice our neighbors more.

So here are some questions:
* How can we create more awareness of the importance of body awareness in life, at work, in important decisions?
* What tools do you use to bring people to a deeper state of self awareness? What do you do to deepen your own sense of purpose?
* What do you need by way of support, ideas, etc to take your work to more people?

Rachel Flower is a speaker/author/trainer based in Tahoe and the San Francisco Bay Area.
www.senssoma.com

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