I'm Trying to Be The Change

Suzanne Evans, bless her heart, is a wild woman.

And she's wearing me out.

Who is she, you might ask?  Well, she's the owner and founder of Suzanne Evans Coaching, LLC.   Determined to be all that she could be, she started with a secretarial job to build a business that  surpassed the seven-figure mark in just over three years. Today, she supports, coaches, and teaches over 30,000 women enrolled in her wealth and business building programs.  She has a huge coaching and money making team, and she's all about showing everybody else how to do it.

This weekend she hosted her 4th Be The Change Event,  a conference that gathered 900 plus business owners and entrepreneurs to teach them how to make the most of their businesses.  Because I'm training as a Profit From Your Passions career coach, I was invited to come.

Even though I haven't actually started my new business yet, I thought, why not?  I'd never heard of her before my coaching course, but Suzanne seemed determined to get everybody to come to Orlando.  I instinctively knew I could learn something while spending a little time in a nice hotel - maybe get a little sun and a swim at the pool.  I also knew these conferences could wear one out if you're not prepared for an intensive schedule so I came ready for bear - but I wasn't prepared for Suzanne's energy and drive.

Her event has gotten so popular she was able to get enough sponsors, big and small, to create an almost one million dollar 4 day weekend, and she filled every minute of it with activities.  It's now Saturday and I'm worn out.  So far today we covered email sequencing, product offers and having your own events.  We listened to an Infusionsoft spokesman (Infusionsoft is a marketing software company that Suzanne speaks highly of and is a big part of the sponsorship of the event) and broke for lunch.  There's much more to come after lunch.

I arrived on Wednesday so that I could take my time registering for the event and exploring the Peabody Hotel, famous for it's twice daily duck walk through the lobby.  In the 1930's the general manager of the original Peabody Hotel decided to let ducks live in the fountain. It became a popular attraction for tourists, and ever since then they've let farm raised ducks lounge in the fountain by day and sleep off their hard work in the arboretum at night.  Every morning and evening the ducks are led to and from the fountain with musical fanfare as if they were the royal family.  People love to watch the duck parade and line up along the red carpet to take pictures.  Today I was one of them.

I finally got to see the royal ducks arrive this morning, but Thursday morning, because I had a little time before the first event session, I got to go swimming with a pair of ducklings in the pool on the recreation level.  It was almost as fun as swimming with the dolphins - something I did years ago in the Bahamas and want to do again.  I glided through the water so not to scare the little tykes away, and together we swam up and down the length of the pool until I ran out of energy.

After that, though, my time to lay back and enjoy life came to an end.

The first thing we did that afternoon once we finished settling down in the giant conference room was stand to the Star Spangled Banner.  A high school marching band filed down the isles, playing very well I might add, followed by a troupe of cheerleaders waving flags and marching to the music.

Then an announcer read the names of all of the sponsors, speakers and coaches that were contributing to the event as they filed onto the stage as if they were the team football stars.  Finally Suzanne Evans came on with great fanfare - "And Now, The SENSATIONAL Suzanne Evans!"

She has a big personality and a Minnie Mouse voice, perfect for an Orlando conference.  Smart and exuberant, she also cussed like a sailor.  I found her entertaining as well as informative.  She proved to be a pretty good teacher and through the course of the rest of the weekend I learned a great deal from her.

There were two big video screens on either side of the main stage, which branched out into the room in three directions, runway style.  Suzanne used every inch of it as she walked around talking and motivating us.  She welcomed us to the game of business. The music flared as the marching band

played it's way out of the conference room with somersaulting cheerleaders trailing behind.

She talked through the afternoon, introduced other speakers who just happened to be part of her coaching staff, had a DJ in the back of the room playing very loud dance music during the breaks, and had us working through a series of workbooks she left under our chairs.  Suzanne announced, "I'm definitely not the smartest person in the room, but I'm definitely the most awesome person in the room!"  She was alluding to the amount of teamwork it took to help her create her successful business with her leadership.  She said she had to turn away 25 sponsors to the event because they didn't represent what she wanted to portray as a business woman and announced that she didn't care if we didn't like her.  She just hoped to help us grow our businesses exponentially.

"The way you do anything is the way you do everything," is Suzanne Evan's motto, which apparently means she does everything over the top.  She warned us that we need to pay attention to what we do in our private lives because it reflects how we will be with our businesses.

She topped the evening with a guest speaker and a book signing.  Bert Jacobs, the older brother of the "Life is Good" empire, came to lecture us on optimism, and even though he confessed he was not a professional speaker he was pretty damn inspiring.  He slipped off his shoes, threw a few autographed frisbees into the audience, and talked us into loving him and his company.  At the end of the evening he mentioned that he and his brother started a publishing company and sold us a book.  He got us with their children's charities - they didn't know what else to do with all the money they were making ("Life Is Good" was worth $100 million in 2010) so they decided to help children in need. He mentioned that 1/2 the proceeds for the book went to the kids.  We ran to the desk in the back of the room and bought all the books he brought.

10:30 that night he was still autographing the books for us.

The rest of the weekend was much the same.  Suzanne talked, her coaches coached, and we went on breaks with our heads spinning.  Friday night we were entertained by a family of Russian acrobats.  Tonight we're recognizing and giving awards to the members of her 10k club - people who payed to learn from her coaches and were able to earn $10 thousand dollars or more in a week.  Some of them earned 6 and 7 figure yearly incomes under her tutelage.  They're to be given awards and a champagne party later.  I may not be able to make it to the party.

All day we are fed lots and lots of information and somehow we're supposed to retain all of it.  We go to bed exhausted, but our brains are so busy we can't sleep.  I suspect that what Suzanne is doing is wearing us down so that we won't be able to resist her sales pitch on Sunday.  She is a smart woman with a plan. 

Next year Suzanne Evans plans to take over a whole hotel in sunny Las Vegas for her next Be the Change event and fill the whole thing with potential clients.  I wouldn't be surprised if she were to hire the Cirque du Soleil to demonstrate how teamwork works.  I don't think I'll be making that show, but I'm glad I came to this one.  Every business owner should experience Suzanne and her energetic business style at least once, if only to witness a master in action.

I'm so glad I took some time to enjoy the ducks.  They know how to live - gliding through life on a calm pool of warm chlorinated water without a thought about how to conduct business.

Oy, My Feet.

I had visions of filling up my free time walking a dog or two or pet sitting on the weekends and making a little extra money.  I found out something really important.

The dog walking business is not all it's cracked up to be.

You have to keep to schedules, walk for hours every day in good and bad weather, clean up after your dogs after every walk, stay cheery for the human parents, clean up messes if there are accidents in the house, dodge traffic, other dogs and unfriendly neighbors.

It's important to be trustworthy because everybody counts on you being there when you promised.  You need a back-up system in case something happens to you.  There's a lot of paperwork and key shuffling when you have several customers. You are needed day and night - there's morning walks, afternoon walks, bedtime walks, and in-between pee breaks.  You have to get out of bed early in the morning, go to someone else's house to walk and feed their dogs.  Then you have to stay up at night to go to someones else's house to walk their dog before bedtime.  Their bedtime - not yours.

You should know how to deal with difficult dogs.  You should be strong enough to handle difficult dogs.  You need to be patient with difficult dogs.

You really should be knowledgeable in doggy CPR, healthcare, and training.  

Like human children, every dog has their own issue and preference.  They might have health issues.  They might have personality problems.  They have fears, anxieties, weight problems, allergies, and favorite foods.  Some are food gobblers and will eat anything that fits in their mouths.  Some nibble and can spend all day eating a bowl of food.   Some like you.  Some don't.

Things get a lot more complicated if you offer other services. Grooming, over-night sitting, specialty treats, taxi services and weekly bed and breakfast services can add to your business, but make you seriously indispensable.  You end up working 16 hours a day and can never take a day off.

You need a good pair of walking shoes.  And hair resistant clothes.  And you can't worry about your own hair.  And you need a lot of poop-scoop bags. 

When I decided I wanted to try the business and supplement my income, I didn't realize how demanding tho job really was.  I was hoping to spend my days playing with other people's dogs and meeting interesting people, maybe lose a little weight with a few walks a day.

It's really hard work!

If you're considering supplementing your income with a little dog walking, I recommend working for someone else for a while first.  You may make only ten dollars an hour, but you'll get a good taste of what it takes to run a successful business.  You might decide, like I have, that you should try to be happy with a dog of your own and find another business that easier on the social life.

I'm still walking dogs, but it's become a way to explore a different avenue of pet care - Reiki.  I can become a Reiki practitioner and have access to some potential patients. It's my next new interest, and as you can tell from my previous posts that I have a lot of new interests.

Reiki promises to be the next big thing in pet care.  It's a Japanese healing technique that practitioners use to transfer universal energy through their palms to induce stress reduction and relaxation.  Even though it was developed for us humans, Reiki allows for self-healing and a state of equilibrium that works as well, maybe even better, for animals as it does for people. 

Yes, our pets get stressed.  And like with us, stress leads to health issues and emotional problems.  The difference between us and our pets is that our pets are more open to the energy flow of their environment.  Their ability to block or ignore environmental stressful situations is nothing like our

ability.  It's almost non-existent.  It makes them more susceptible to health disrupting negativity.  Reiki, which is as beneficial to the practitioner as the client, attracts a positive "life force" energy flow to help us heal ourselves. 

It's been a popular practice since the 1920's and I've known about it for years.  I can't believe it's taken me so long to decide to do it.  Even though my primary reason for learning it is to help animals,  I hope to make a daily practice that I can use to help me with my other new business, becoming a creative career counselor.

A whole new set of blogs to come.

Anyhoo,  if anyone out there is thinking dog walking may be a fun new career, think some more.  Be prepared for the hard work and dedication you're going to need.

Remember that those dogs are going to become dependent on you.  So will their parents.  Be ready.

And have a good pair of shoes.

Mark Romero, Musician Extraordinaire

We are energy.  We are magnificent expressions of a field of energy that is unlimited in it's potential - so says Mark Romero.

markromeromusic

With all of our modern technologies, our man-made chemicals, modified food, microwave signals, EMF producing products and more, we have interrupted our connection to that field of energy.  It's causing stress, compromising our health and well-being, and blocking our focus, intuition, and creativity.  The things we use every day are weakening us physically and mentally.  We've put ourselves into a state of disharmony because of our environment.

The good news is you can heal these connections with the right energy and audio frequencies.

Mark Romero

This is where Mark Romero comes in.  He has learned how to combine his natural healing ability with a little guitar playing to shift, energize and optimize your connection to the higher frequencies that can help you live a healthier, happier, and more productive life.

And he's pretty good!

Mark's music can raise your frequency above the frequencies of these energy blockers so that you no longer receive the lower frequency signals.  You bypass the unwanted signals and tune into the higher frequencies that reduce stress and benefit your health and life.  Your connection to the universe strengthens to allow you to heal your environment.  The music also cancels out the static that interferes with your thought patterns and is good for meditations and healing modalities like Reiki or a good massage.

I bought a set of his CD's and downloaded some MP3's.  I want to reduce my stress and nurture my creativity while listening to a nice tune.  Since I need to listen to Mark's music regularly I was happy that I liked his stuff - acoustic guitar with Latin, jazz, and classical rhythm.  While waiting for arrival of the CD's in the mail I found I could create a relaxed and happier atmosphere with the MP3's.  So far my favorite CD is "Beyond the Wall." 

The goal is to align with my highest good without effort; to attract and do things that transmit a high frequency because my frequency has shifted to the higher vibration.  The thing I like best about it is that I can play the CD's in my car and raise my vibration during rush hour.

It would be nice to make my trip to work a more enjoyable one.  I can't wait.

You can listen to some of his music on his website, markromeromusic.com.

He also partners with his wife, Dr. Lara Romero, in some guided meditation CD's to help you create positive shifts in your way of life.  Lara's smooth and calm voice guides you to relax and become receptive to Mark's energy boosts.  They make a great team.

Not to mention a cute couple.

Mark's motto is, "Change your energy, change your life!"

I agree wholeheartedly. 

Life Optimization Training

I passed my test!

I've been certified by Joe Rubino's Center for Personal Reinvention to be a life optimization coach.

Dr. Joe Rubino has a great program for self esteem elevation for adults and children, and I couldn't resist the chance to learn and grow.  Not to mention it was very affordable.

"Become a Certified Life Optimization Coach and Learn the Skills that Changes Lives!"

That's what I'm talking about.  Learning skills that changes lives.

Joe Rubino is the CEO of The Center for Personal Reinvention, a company that provides life-changing and success-enhancing books, audio programs, courses, and personal and business coaching to champion people to be their very best. He is an internationally acclaimed personal development trainer, a transformational success coach and best selling author of 9 books and 2 Audio sets on topics ranging from how to restore self-esteem, achieve business success, and maximize joy and fulfillment in life and productivity in business.

Joe's on a mission to impact the lives of 20 million people, so he created a system to teach people how to teach people to create a successful life. He even created a system for becoming a self-esteem coach for kids. 

I signed up, watched his videos, listened to his audios, read his transcripts and took his test.  Now I have a certificate to prove I learned something.  Just another step toward my bigger goal: becoming qualified to give advice to people.

Now I'm studying with Valerie Young to be a career coach. 

One of my biggest complaints has always been that I've lived a lot of years, accumulated tons of life experience, learned many skills and can do many things, yet I still don't know what to do when I grow up.  I have a job in television because it's where I was led to in my early twenties, and it seems I'm good at it so that's where I've stayed.  It's not necessarily where I want to be, especially since all of the fun has been squeezed out of the profession by money hungry corporate executives, yet I don't have any idea where I really do want to be.  I've found I'm not alone in this dilemma. 

This is where Valerie Young and her Profiting From Your Passions program comes in.  She specializes in helping people think outside the box and hone in to creating a career from what you are passionate about.  I thought this was such a great idea that I wanted to be a part of it.  I want to be a career coach, too.

So now I'm training with her system to be part of her coaching team.  I've just started the classes; I've committed to 3 days a week for the next two months in webinar training and I'm psyched to see what we'll do with the system.  I'd love to be able to help other people move on with their lives with a proven method, even if it's not mine.  Valerie's web site is www.changingcourse.com; her motto is, "Live life on purpose, work at what you love, follow your own road."  Words that rang true for me.

I'll let you know how it goes.  Maybe I'll learn something valuable to pass on to you guys.  This could be a start of a whole new and interesting year. 

Not to mention learning a whole lot of new things to write about.

Love Your Letters!

I saw a kind and gentle young lady on The Jeff Probst Show the other day, and she impressed me.  So much so I decided to check out her website and maybe join her cause.  Then I went to her blog site to find out more about this amazing person and read this:

"Hi.  My name is Hannah Brencher. I am 24 years old but I harbor a soul that is old & thick like the hands of Navajo grandmothers that swoop upward by the fire at night." She's in the business of broken hearts - her words.

Wow.

Hannah's cause is love letters.  That's right.  She likes writing love letters.  To strangers.  

She began writing them in 2010, when she moved to New York.  Feeling lonely and depressed, Hannah decided to pour out her feelings in letters and left them all over the city.  Addressed to no one in particular, she believed that every letter was meant for someone, and it was up to them to pick it up and read it.  It didn't take long for Hannah to realize what valuable gifts she was giving to these people, people she never met, and New York paid her generosity back by asking for more.  

So she started The World Needs More Love Letters and recruited her friends to help her write more love letters.  Soon she was getting requests from all over the world for her letters.  People everywhere need love, and love reading about how much they are loved, even when total strangers tell them they are loved.

Love is love.  And it makes the world go round.

I've always enjoyed giving people things.  Giving on the sly is especially invigorating; I'll leave a coin on the sidewalk where I know children like to play.  I'll smile at passersby when walking around town.  I'll crack open walnuts and leave them out for squirrels, or hang grapes out in the bushes for the birds.  I love to buy things for the neighbors and leave them on their porches.  Just to confuse them. 

The best gift I've found is greeting people when they walk in the door as if they were cute little puppies.  "Richard!" I squeal with a smile on my face. "Diana!" People love it because it makes them feel welcome and appreciated.  No matter how bad they feel before you greet them like that, they always walk away with a smile on their own face.  You should try it, it's great!

When Hannah told Jeff Probst that she started a web site because of the rising popularity of love-letter writing, my inner giver became intrigued and I decided to try this letter writing gig, so I looked into her site, www.moreloveletters.com to learn more. Then I signed up to receive love letter alerts, and checked out her starter kit to find out what I needed to do.  

It seems I'm better at giving things than writing love prose.  Practice makes perfect, though, so I'm going to gather my stationery and write.  This is fantastic - I get to use my pretty stationery - another good reason to write love letters!  

Hannah Brencher is changing the world one letter at a time, and I want to be a part of that.  Who knows, this might be my next favorite hobby!

My Brain Deserves Sugar

Sometimes I'll stop mid stride and stare into space.

I'm not having a stroke or a seizure, I didn't fall asleep or lose my mind - I just started thinking.

My brain has a tendency to work overtime.  I can be drying off after a shower, looking at apples in the grocery store, walking in the park or sitting here writing, and my motor skills come to a halt while my brain scans, files, accesses, and organizes information.  It's a real problem when I'm driving.  I have to stay in the moment while on the road or my foot relaxes from the accelerator and my car will slow down to a crawl before I notice that other drivers are getting irritated with me.

The mornings are the worst.  I get to thinking about my day, which turns into reevaluating the day before, and leads into thinking about new possibilities, then I wander down life is beautiful lane.  Before I know it I find myself standing naked in the bathroom holding my towel and staring at my bathtub and 10 minutes have disappeared.  Usually I'll wake up in the morning, look at the clock, decide to get up, turn over to stretch, start thinking about my next step - and when I blink a half an hour goes by.   Because this happens regularly, I have to give myself lots of extra prep time in the mornings so that I can get to work on time.

I'm a sugar addict.  I admit it.  I love my sugar.  I don't necessarily like sweet things - in fact if something is too sweet or is sugary without flavor, I won't want to eat or drink it; but I'm definitely a cookie, cake, and chocolate covered nut monster.  Because of my weight battle I try not to eat too much of it, but I have to sweeten my tea and cereal in the mornings and have a cookie for lunch if I want to stay in a good mood all day.

When I had my Access Bars run, I learned that this may not be a bad thing.  Apparently people who think a lot need sugar to keep the brain running smoothly.  Apparently when you crave sugar or salt you're supposed to listen to your body and go for it.  Sugar feeds the brain.  Salt helps your electromagnetic energy flow smoothly.

At least this is what they told me.

Even though I was glad to hear being a sugar addict wasn't all bad, I wondered about it for a while and decided to look into it.  It turns out that moderation and fiber is the key.  A high fructose diet (soda, pre-packaged baked goods, candy) is really bad for you in many ways, but a little fructose (fruit, vegetables) balanced with the right amount of fiber is good for you. 

Your brain, however, needs glucose, a sugar formed from eating carbohydrates.  You can still eat too much glucose, but the right food with the good carbs and fiber is what your brain needs most.  I can do a whole article about this, but think fruit, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. 

Mental activity requires a lot of fuel, and glucose travels through your bloodstream to fuel our brain power.  The key is to eat the right foods that have glucose and try not to eat too much, because too much can hinder your brain activity.

Sugar, the kind we make sweets from and sprinkle in our coffee, is sucrose and is made from sugar beets or sugar cane.  Sucrose, a carbohydrate, is also found in fruit, and is okay in moderation if eaten with a balanced diet.  You might think that because we use beets and sugarcane, nature's bounty, table sugar is good for you, but by the time we process the sugar crystals from nature's bounty we've completely stripped any food value from the sweetener.

You could use turbinado sugar, a less refined sugar from sugar cane.  Some say it's healthier than white sugar, but I like it because it adds a nice flavor to my tea and coffee.  It would be better to just eat beets and chew on the sugar cane.

So the tidbit I got about eating sugar for my brain was partially true - I just have to get it from a diet rich in fruit and vegetables.

The tidbit about salt - well here's what I found out:  Your body relies on electrolytes, which comes from sodium, potassium and chloride, and table salt is sodium chloride.  A Journal of the American Medical Association study showed people with the highest levels of sodium in their bodies lived longer than people with the lowest levels.  Too little sodium and your body and brain function suffers.  The planet is covered with salt - there is salt in everything, and the way we mine the salt from underground mines and sea water keeps it in it's natural state.  We don't have to process all of it's benefits out like we do with sugar.

When I thought about it, I realized that I've spent a lot of my life trying to keep my salt intake low - maybe that's my problem.  Maybe I'm  eating the wrong junk food.  I need to stay away from the brownies and eat my potato chips - and learn to like chewing on sugar cane. 

So even though my brain deserves sugar, I'm better off with salt.

I still have to have my cookie for lunch.

Go Pee in the Rain

Over the years, with all of my dogs, I developed a habit of getting up in the middle of the night to let them out to relieve themselves.  I figured that as long as I'm up because my own bladder has a call, I might as well take the extra step for the dogs.  I think they appreciated it, especially since I rewarded them with a treat when they came back to the house. 

I slept better afterwards knowing we were all more comfortable.  It also meant that I could take my time getting out of bed in the morning, and I hate rushing around after a good night's sleep.

I now have a puppy and I'm house and crate-training her.  She's doing pretty well with going outside to pee, but she refuses to go out in the rain and sometimes when it's dark outside, both of which happens a lot here in D.C. in the winter.  Even if I pick her up and carry her out to the yard, tell her to go pee and wait in the rain for something to happen, she'll refuse to do anything except find something to chew on.  Whether it's day or night, if she feels uncomfortable she looks around nervously, picks up a stick or a leaf and heads back to the house.  The result, of course, is that her bladder fills up and she ends up piddling on my carpet.

So now we have a plan.  If she relieves herself outside, she gets lots of positive validation and lots of free time in the house.  If she doesn't, she goes straight back to her crate.

Nine times out of ten, she refuses to pee.  Out of fear of the unfamiliar she'd rather stay in her crate and suffer with her full bladder.

I eventually realized that this was a good representation of what a lot of us humans do.  Instead of embracing new and unfamiliar experiences, we tend to retreat back into our boxes.  If we don't get the right encouragement or the right training when we're young we never learn to get past our fears and gain the courage to reap our rewards.  We have deep rooted belief systems that keep us from stepping out of our comfort zones.

It's hard to feel safe when facing the unknown.  We are wired to protect ourselves, even when it means living with pain because it's a condition we are already familiar with.  We already know how to deal with our pain.  We don't know if we can handle an unfamiliar experience.

I don't like to conquer my fears; it's more helpful to me to try to break through my fears.  I think of each fear as a door with an invisible deflector shield and a hard-to-step-over threshold that takes extra effort to cross.  The trick is to change my perspective.  The door can look pretty scary at first - overwhelming, repelling, and unfriendly - but if I can look at it as interesting, inviting and beautiful, the door becomes an entrance to a new adventure or at least an interesting opportunity.  Sometimes crossing that scary threshold takes a bit more psychological effort, but it's usually worth it.

 It's hard to get past our fears, but it can be done.  We need to adopt a mindset that invites us to trust our intuition and our ability to deal with anything that comes our way.  It helps to have a support system, something or someone that will back you up and cheer you on when you need to open a new door, but ultimately it's up to you.  You are the one who's exploring new territory, so you are the one who has to handle whatever shows up when you open that door.

My puppy may prefer to wait for those sunny, clear-weather days to squat in the yard, but I know with the right encouragement, en-courage-ment, I can help her get over her fear of wet grass and cold raindrops and empty her bladder.  I'm banking on her desire to get over her setbacks and live a fearless life of passion and joy, a life every puppy should live.

It's also a life every human should live.  Somehow we lost track of our ability to embrace our growth process.  For some reason we've used fear to achieve a feeling of safety and comfort.

Ask yourself what you really have to be afraid of.  I encourage you to open your door to relieve your pain and go pee in the rain.  You might learn to like it.