**  Decem­ber 25, 2009:  Win­ners from the Hol­i­day Prize Pack­age Give Away Announced  **

•    1^st Place:  Stacey Ship­man and Nadia — Happy Lotus  (there was a tie, so two win­ners were awarded the prize pack­age)
•    2^nd Place:  Sami — Life, Laughs, and Lem­mings
•    3^rd Place:  Mind­ful Mimi and Eve­lyn Lim (there was a tie, so two win­ners were awarded the prize pack­age)
•    Newslet­ter Signup Win­ner:  Nadia — Happy Lotus
**
On behalf of both Lisa Marie and myself, I would like to extend our thanks to every­one who com­mented, every­one to signed up for Lisa Marie’s newslet­ter, and every­one who read these words.  Your time here is deeply appreciated.

“The degree of health, hap­pi­ness, suc­cess, and mean­ing in your per­sonal and pro­fes­sional life is a mat­ter of choice, com­mit­ment, and dis­ci­pline, not chance or cir­cum­stance. You are Where You Choose to Be. As you stand at the thresh­old of unpar­al­leled suc­cess, remem­ber, a whole, clear, glo­ri­ous life lies before you. Are you where you want to be?” ~ Lisa Marie Platske

See­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties in life!  Today I have Lisa Marie Platske with us.  Lisa Marie runs a lead­er­ship devel­op­ment com­pany, Upside Think­ing, focused on her speak­ing engage­ments, con­sult­ing ser­vices, and per­son­al­ized coaching. 

Lisa Marie is some­one I “met” online about a year ago.  We spoke sev­eral times after first con­nect­ing, and she was there to give me a real belief in what IS pos­si­ble.  Since those first begin­nings, I have used Lisa Marie’s coach­ing ser­vices, and have had the oppor­tu­nity to con­nect both per­son­ally and pro­fes­sion­ally with her.

Today, I sit down with Lisa Marie, and we talk about life and where she is at today. 

Hol­i­day Cheer Prize Pack­age 1

Through a very gen­er­ous offer from Lisa Marie, there are sev­eral prize pack­ages avail­able:
Please answer the fol­low­ing ques­tion in the com­ments:  What does “design­ing your des­tiny” mean to you?
•    1^st Place:  One ticket to attend Lisa Marie’s Lead­er­ship Suc­cess Sum­mit in Jan­u­ary AND one hour of one-on-one coach­ing with Lisa Marie + a copy of her book “Design­ing Your Des­tiny”
•    2^nd Place:  Choice of one ticket to attend Lisa Marie’s Lead­er­ship Suc­cess Sum­mit in Jan­u­ary OR one hour of one-on-one coach­ing with Lisa Marie + a copy of her book “Design­ing Your Des­tiny”
•    3^rd Place:  One copy of Lisa Marie’s book “Design­ing Your Des­tiny”
**
NOTE:  Win­ners to be cho­sen based answers in the com­ments sec­tion — by Jo Della Penna, small busi­ness expert at The Busi­ness of You, and Lisa Marie.
**
Win­ners to be cho­sen from all received entries on Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 19^th, 2009.

Hol­i­day Cheer Prize Pack­age 2
                                      
As well, for any­one who signs up for Lisa Marie’s newslet­ter, one ran­dom win­ner will be cho­sen, receiv­ing all of the fol­low­ing:
•    One ticket to attend Lisa Marie’s Lead­er­ship Suc­cess Sum­mit in Jan­u­ary OR one hour of one-on-one coach­ing with Lisa Marie
•    One copy of her book “Design­ing Your Des­tiny”
•    One Star­bucks gift­card val­ued at $20
**
NOTE:  The sign up for the newslet­ter can be found at the bot­tom por­tion of the Upside Think­ing web­site.  Win­ner cho­sen from all entries through Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 19^th, 2009.

Please join me in wel­com­ing Lisa Marie here.

1. Tell us a lit­tle bit about who “you” are (fam­ily, career, any spe­cial life expe­ri­ences you’d like to share, etc.)
I’m hap­pily mar­ried to a sup­port­ive and lov­ing man who brings out the best in me. We were both work­ing as Fed­eral law enforce­ment offi­cers when we met and I resigned 2 months before we mar­ried. (On a side not, we met sit­ting next to each other in a lead­er­ship train­ing class as my maiden name was “Palan­sky”. After we mar­ried, if I would’ve hyphen­ated, I’d be Lisa Marie Palansky-Platske. LOL ~ Say that fast, 3 times in row.)

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  That IS a tongue twister!  And hav­ing had the oppor­tu­nity to meet both you and your hus­band, I know how much you both deeply sup­port and love each other.  What a great life con­nec­tion you two have!

2. How long have you had your busi­ness, Upside Think­ing?  And what led you to go in this direc­tion?
I formed Upside Think­ing, Inc. after get­ting mar­ried. I remem­ber sit­ting at my desk 6 months into the ven­ture and think­ing, “Lisa Marie, you just moved to a new state, 3000 miles away from any fam­ily or friends to sup­port you, and you’ve opened a busi­ness. What do you know about busi­ness? You don’t have a busi­ness degree or busi­ness back­ground. What were you think­ing?!?” But here I am, almost five years later, look­ing back and real­iz­ing it was one of the best deci­sions of my life. As I tell my clients, “A jour­ney of 1000 miles starts with a sin­gle step.” Most peo­ple, how­ever, are afraid to take the first step.
Inter­est­ingly, I never had a desire to start my own busi­ness. I formed Upside Think­ing, Inc. because as I looked at my unique tal­ents, skills, and abil­i­ties in devel­op­ing lead­ers through my work in the Fed­eral gov­ern­ment, com­bined with my desire for the free­dom to spend time with the peo­ple I love, it seemed like start­ing a busi­ness made the most sense. Ulti­mately, I decided to take a leap and trust that a net would appear. I had no idea what I was get­ting myself into, oth­er­wise I may not have taken the first step. And, I think it is also why I’m pas­sion­ate about help­ing aspir­ing and devel­op­ing entre­pre­neurs become savvy in their businesses.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Lao-Tzu really was onto some­thing with that quote!  It’s tak­ing that first step that is going to get us mov­ing in the direc­tion of our dreams.  With­out the steps, our dreams remain just that — dreams.  And Lisa Marie, I know you sup­port oth­ers in deeply lov­ing ways, myself included.  That pas­sion for see­ing oth­ers achieve their dreams shines through so brightly in all you do!

3.  I’ve had the won­der­ful oppor­tu­nity to use your coach­ing ser­vices you offer through Upside Think­ing (they’re great!).  Tell us a lit­tle about this ser­vice, and is there any­thing else you offer?
Gosh, Lance, you’re mak­ing me blush. Thank you.
While I am an inspi­ra­tional speaker, write a killer newslet­ter — the Upside Thinker, and am the author of Design­ing Your Des­tiny, I also offer group and one-on-one lead­er­ship coach­ing ser­vices.
There are tens of thou­sands of coaches out there. What makes me dif­fer­ent is that I truly do care about the well-being and suc­cess of my clients some­times even more than they do. There­fore, I only accept work from up to 10 incred­i­bly com­mit­ted indi­vid­u­als per year.
When I work with a client, we enter a part­ner­ship that enables them to make pro­found shifts in their thought processes which in turn pro­duce mea­sur­able results in their per­sonal and pro­fes­sional lives. I teach my clients how to clar­ify their vision, beliefs, and val­ues, as well as iden­tify and over­come the inter­nal and exter­nal obsta­cles that have kept them from reach­ing their full poten­tial, so they can ben­e­fit from a larger sphere of influ­ence, spend more time with their loved ones, and increase their wealth build­ing capacity.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Your words spo­ken here are words that I have been per­son­ally touched by.  Your care and love shine through, Lisa Marie.  I think back to our first few tele­phone calls…conversations that you offered out of the deep good­ness of your heart.  I still go back to those days, now a year ago, and how your belief in me was so touch­ing.  And from that we have forged not only a pro­fes­sional con­nec­tion, but also a very mean­ing­ful per­sonal con­nec­tion as well.  I am hon­ored to know you, and to call you friend.

4. You have a con­fer­ence you host in Jan­u­ary.  Could you tell us a lit­tle bit about that that’s all about?
Oh, this is my baby so for­give me…and stop me….if I ram­ble. I LOVE this event for so many rea­sons and I cre­ated this event for those same rea­sons.
The annual Lead­er­ship Suc­cess Sum­mit: Get­ting Results in Chang­ing Times is for savvy, entre­pre­neur­ial women in busi­ness or strong busi­ness­men who under­stand the value of col­lab­o­rat­ing with smart businesswomen.

The two-day event is com­plete with INSPIRATIONAL speak­ers who will share their SECRETS of suc­cess. This year the line-up includes:
• Rene Reyes, Inter­na­tional Poet Lau­re­ate, Legal Prac­ti­tioner, Author and Radio Host
• Eve Yen, Founder of Multi-Million Dol­lar Ven­ture, Dia­mond Wipes Inter­na­tional
• Nancy Mar­molejo, One of the Top 50 Most Influ­en­tial and Pow­er­ful Women in Social Media
• Lisa Marie Platske, Award-winning Entre­pre­neur and Lead­er­ship Expert
• Jo Della Penna, Small Busi­ness Coach and Life Bal­ance Expert
• Lau­ren Solomon, Image Expert for Career TV and the Real­ity Makeover TV show, ReMake My Life
• Chel­lie Camp­bell, Author of The Wealthy Spirit and Zero to Zil­lion­aire
• Mary Can­tando, Men­tored thou­sands of Women in Busi­ness to Reach the Mil­lion Dol­lar Level
• And more…….

What’s dif­fer­ent is that this event brings busi­ness build­ing tools, con­nec­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties, and empow­er­ment strate­gies together.  And, the speak­ers actu­ally hang around to con­nect with the atten­dees rather than shar­ing and bolt­ing like many of the con­fer­ences I’ve attended.

In a day in which we face unprece­dented changes — locally, nation­ally and glob­ally — far too many lead­ers are stand­ing in the shad­ows. This is YOUR oppor­tu­nity to LEAD!

Here’s some of what you’ll learn by attending –

* The “Miss­ing Ele­ment” that most entre­pre­neurs FAIL TO EMPLOY in their businesses!

* EASILY get amaz­ing results in sell­ing your prod­ucts and ser­vices in a way that feels fun for you and the prospect!

* Learn the SECRETS to expe­ri­ence mas­sive suc­cess in start­ing or expand­ing your busi­ness using uni­ver­sal prin­ci­ples that get results!

* IGNITE a pow­er­ful process to MAGNETIZE the resources or peo­ple you want to bet­ter lever­age your time!

* Need cash FAST? Learn how to CREATE a Wealthy Spirit that will turn you into a cre­ative money generator!

* FEEL a greater sense of peace about finances and learn how to nav­i­gate the eco­nomic bumps so you can attract those that want what you have and will PAY you gladly for it!

* LEARN the con­cept of energy man­age­ment and how it can help you get more done in less time and have more fun in the process!

* Find out how vibra­tional out­put can SOLVE any busi­ness or per­sonal prob­lem fast! Learn a process that takes less than 5 min­utes a day to imple­ment and you will see and feel the changes in one week!

This event will not only trans­form and uplift atten­dees, but will pro­vide incred­i­ble new ideas and con­nec­tions. Most peo­ple leave with a new friend, lots of con­tacts, and words of wis­dom, encour­age­ment and enlight­en­ment that moti­vate action. Atten­dees should come open to trans­for­ma­tion both per­son­ally and professionally.

Ohhhhhhh.….and right now I have a 50% off HOLIDAY SPECIAL.…..Only $297 or save $100 and bring a client or a friend — 2 tick­ets for only $497!!!! (Offer expires Decem­ber 30, 2010.)

For more infor­ma­tion and to SIGN UP TODAY, please visit www.UpsideThinking.com.

5.  You’ve recently moved across the coun­try – from one side of the United States, to the other.  Touch upon what the chal­lenges and joys in this have been.
I’ve moved a few times in my life and so this wasn’t new to me. I find the biggest chal­lenge to any move is leav­ing the cir­cle of sup­port­ive friends that you have. How­ever, the biggest joy has come from leav­ing that cir­cle of friends as every move forces you out of your com­fort zone. In my case, this move allowed me to con­tinue cre­at­ing a big­ger ver­sion of myself and my business.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  I love this thought, and how it really applies to all of us — and not only to phys­i­cal moves, but also to mov­ing through all phases of our life.  When we are doing this with a con­nec­tion to some­thing greater, that really is about cre­at­ing a big­ger ver­sion of our­selves.  And that’s pretty great all around!

6. Tell us one unex­pected thing that has hap­pened to you in the last year.
That’s a tough one. Life is full of sur­prises and I think my whole life is one “unex­pected” adven­ture. For exam­ple, over the past few months, I won con­tracts I didn’t think I’d get and lost con­tracts I thought were a sure thing. I was fea­tured as an expert on a tele­vi­sion show (never thought that would hap­pen) and then the fol­low­ing month the pro­gram­mers per­ma­nently deleted the file of my inter­view (major bum­mer). I trav­eled to Argentina in Sep­tem­ber but didn’t take a trip back to PA in Octo­ber for the first time in 20 years. One unex­pected thing? Heck, from my per­spec­tive, my list is never end­ing as every day brings the unexpected .

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  The truth is, we never know exactly what is going to hap­pen in the moments of our life.  We can plan, but still there are moments that will waver in both direc­tions from what we have planned and expect.  Lisa Marie, I very much appre­ci­ate your hon­esty with this answer.  Things don’t always go as planned, for any of us — some of it’s in a very good way, and some not so good.  Or maybe…it’s our per­spec­tive on this too.  When things don’t go as planned, this is really another oppor­tu­nity for us to grow and chal­lenge our­selves.  You do!  Always…

7. If you had to pick one thing as your great­est achieve­ment, what would it be (and why)?
Becom­ing an upside thinker. Because I didn’t always see the best in oth­ers or myself, this trans­for­ma­tion has cre­ated real and tan­gi­ble results in my life. Upside isn’t the same as pos­i­tive. Upside is about see­ing, and act­ing upon the unlim­ited pos­si­bil­i­ties in your life. It’s about tak­ing respon­si­bil­ity for your choices and hav­ing the com­mit­ment and dis­ci­pline to cre­ate a life full of hap­pi­ness, suc­cess, and mean­ing. It’s also about real­iz­ing that whether or not it is clear to you, every­thing in the Uni­verse is unfold­ing as it should.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  I love your def­i­n­i­tion of “upside”!  Kind of gives new mean­ing to the term “upside down”!!

8. Let’s say you’re vis­it­ing Wis­con­sin, and get stranded because of a major snow­storm (it hap­pens!).  There’s no tele­vi­sion and no phones.  What do you do while you wait out the storm?
Well, I don’t have a tele­vi­sion at home so that wouldn’t be any dif­fer­ent. And, while I do love my cell phone, I also appre­ci­ate life-long learn­ing. I imag­ine I’d seize the oppor­tu­nity to read a good book or two and, since I’m incred­i­bly social, I’d make a friend or two.
I’ve been stranded at an air­port before so that isn’t a stres­sor. How­ever, being phys­i­cally stranded in the snow­storm brings visions of the movie New in Town to my thoughts ~ LOL!

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  In a day and age where tele­vi­sions are as promi­nent as they are, I applaud you on choos­ing to skip this.  There are a myr­iad of oth­ers ways to actu­ally engage our minds, and I know you ARE doing this!  And the movie “New In Town” sure does seem to fit here!!  Might I also sug­gest snow angels and sled­ding?  Lots of fun!

9.  Define love – what does that mean to you?
Well, this ques­tion sure caught me off guard as it has baf­fled philoso­phers for cen­turies. To me, love is as love does. Peo­ple who love each other are capa­ble of bring­ing out the best in one another. Choos­ing love and choos­ing to love are deci­sions. I also know that you need to love your­self wholly and com­pletely before choos­ing to love another.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  So, what I’m read­ing here is that love is a verb!  I love that!  It’s more than just pay­ing lip ser­vice to the word “love”, it’s acts that we do with love behind them that really IS love.  Wow!!

10.  Deep down, what makes you uniquely “you”? 
My com­pas­sion, upsid­ed­ness, and energy are the three things that make me uniquely, “me”. I have expe­ri­enced my share of heartache, dis­ap­point­ment, and pain and through it all have devel­oped a com­pas­sion­ate heart for peo­ple. I’ve also learned how to live an incred­i­bly upside life as I men­tioned ear­lier. And, my energy enables me to change the feel in a room just by my pres­ence. I don’t know how or why, I just know that I’ve been told that again and again through­out my life.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Lisa Marie, I have per­son­ally been the recip­i­ent of that com­pas­sion from you, and so I know what a gift this is that you have.  Your heart is so big, and you give so deeply when you con­nect.  What a light you are unto the world!  What a light you have been in MY world!

Clos­ing Com­ments:  It’s been great hav­ing you here today Lisa Marie!  Just like all of our emails, phone calls, and meet­ing in per­son — every time we con­nect, I’m drawn into the amaz­ing love you give of your­self.  Today is no excep­tion, and it is an honor to have you here. All that you say here, I know to be YOU.  You have opened your home to my fam­ily and I, you have been our tour guides (the sun dial still amazes me!), you coach from your heart, and you care deeply about those you know.  That’s a recipe for a beau­ti­ful life!

Lisa Marie, your pres­ence and gen­eros­ity here today are deeply appre­ci­ated.  More than that, though, know­ing you are there, always, as a friend, is a real gift!  As you go forth, know that I wish you only the best as you con­tinue down this amaz­ing path you are on!

What does “design­ing your des­tiny” mean to you?

Answer this ques­tion in the com­ments, and sign up for Lisa Marie’s newslet­ter here — for entry into some won­der­ful gifts (see above).

“Don’t take life too seri­ously, you’ll never get out of it alive.” ~ Elbert Hub­bard

Chee­tos?
Lla­mas?
Wine?

What’s the con­nec­tion here?

The answers (and ques­tions) are shocking! 

And…to find out, you’ll just have to hop on over to the Jan­nie Fun­ster Blog. Jan­nie her­self, is inter­view­ing me (wow!) — with ques­tions that range from deep and thought-provoking to off-the-wall and just plain “Jannie-ish”.  So if you have never vis­ited Jan­nie, you are in for a treat!  She is a wealth of fun and light-heartedness…all wrapped up with a smile and tons of warmth!

She sings.

She writes.

She mis­spells words.

She is a fam­ily gal.

And…today she plays the part of ace reporter (along with a lit­tle help from some of her crew)!

Keep up with this amaz­ing woman, and all she’s up to by sub­scrib­ing to her blog.  You won’t be disappointed!

Com­ments are closed.