We shall find peace. We shall hear angels.
We shall see the sky sparkling with dia­monds.
~ Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Today I have Evita Ochel, from Evolv­ing Beings, here.  Evita is a won­der­ful and dear friend, and really a beau­ti­ful soul who touches other’s hearts with her car­ing and com­pas­sion­ate love. 

Read along, as I sit down with Evita, and she shares a bit about who she is, and where she is at on this amaz­ing jour­ney of her life.

1. Tell us a lit­tle bit about who “you” are (fam­ily, career, any spe­cial life expe­ri­ences you’d like to share, etc.)
I am a being, who cur­rently lives in Canada. I was not ini­tially born here, and no mat­ter where I live  on this planet in the future, I sim­ply con­sider myself “Earth­ian” today. I love trav­el­ing and explor­ing this Earth, and to date have vis­ited over 15 countries.

Inter­nally, I am a pas­sion­ate truth seeker. I have a very pro­found love for nature. In fact, I have a huge pas­sion and respect for every sin­gle species on this Earth. I am called to one­ness with all and hold deep grat­i­tude for this amaz­ing planet and how it sup­ports us.

I am mar­ried, but more than this, am in an incred­i­ble unity with an amaz­ing being who not only brings out the best in me on a daily basis, but inspires me to con­stantly grow and expand to my high­est potential.

In terms of career, as a teen I always had a strong inter­est in the health and sci­ence field and after my for­mal edu­ca­tion became a high school sci­ence teacher. I loved being a teacher, and had no doubt that this was not only my call­ing but also one of my life’s pas­sions. How­ever, as I taught and took very seri­ously to prac­tice what I preach, I grew in many ways. It was at this time that I began to feel the lim­i­ta­tions that this posi­tion had on my per­sonal evo­lu­tion, and so in June of 2009 I resigned from this posi­tion to become a teacher on a global level. I got some more cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in the areas of holis­tic health and nutri­tion and today am a writer, researcher and speaker in those areas, as well as in the areas of spir­i­tu­al­ity and con­scious­ness expansion.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  I’m drawn to your descrip­tion of your­self as a “being”.  Just the way you say that, it feels like you are much more than just your human self.  There’s this real feel of con­nec­tion to every­thing in this uni­verse, and to this idea that we share this Earth we live on with every liv­ing thing.  What a beau­ti­ful view of the world!   

2. How long have you been blog­ging, and what led you to start writ­ing?
I started the first of the three sites I cur­rently run, 2 years ago. That was Evolv­ing Beings.

Hav­ing gone through amaz­ing per­sonal trans­for­ma­tions in the 2 years prior to this new ven­ture, there was so much inside of me that wanted to be shared with the world. I felt a very strong call­ing to have a chan­nel through which I could reach as many peo­ple as I could world wide. I felt like I dis­cov­ered the secrets to inter­nal peace, ful­fill­ment and hap­pi­ness, and wanted to help as many peo­ple as I could out there.

My hus­band knew that I had a pas­sion for writ­ing, as well as what “blogs” were (I didn’t before this time) and so he sug­gested that I start a blog. Between his web devel­op­ment skills and my writ­ing skills, Evolv­ing Beings came to life.

A few months after that I felt the same strong call to have an out­let for my health, sci­en­tific and nutri­tion knowl­edge to help peo­ple lead health­ier lives. This gave rise to Evolv­ing Well­ness.

Finally, later on that year, being a nature lover, and poet at heart, I started Evolv­ing Scenes where I share my pho­tog­ra­phy and short inspi­ra­tional pas­sages, in hopes of awak­en­ing a deeper love and respect for nature and life in people.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  I first con­nected with you on your Evolv­ing Beings site.  What I’ve also found since that first con­tact, is that all of your sites just com­ple­ment one another so well.  I see that as the care with which you show in each of these places, and how it all con­nects back to you in very mean­ing­ful ways.     

3. What is the deeper pur­pose of your three sites?
That would be to awaken peo­ple to their high­est state of being in every aspect of life.

Too many of us live and have lived on auto pilot for far too long. We don’t act con­sciously, we don’t speak or even think con­sciously. The major­ity of thoughts in our heads are neg­a­tive, com­pletely sub-conscious and virally dri­ven. We are dri­ven by many col­lec­tive fears, greed and other var­i­ous soci­etal pressures. 

And all this would be com­pletely fine if we were happy, but we are not. The major­ity of peo­ple live in unprece­dented stress, emo­tional pain and do not truly know who they are or what true peace and hap­pi­ness really feels like.

I didn’t have to wait till I got diag­nosed with a dis­ease or suf­fered some tragic loss in my life to wake up and start mak­ing the most of life. Thanks to the right mate­r­ial, I “woke up” and com­pletely trans­formed my think­ing, my habits and my lifestyle from every angle. I achieved peace and hap­pi­ness like I never thought pos­si­ble. For the most part, I felt like I tran­scended fear and pain.

And that is what I want to help oth­ers with, through my writ­ing on the sites. I want to inspire peo­ple to feel that same heaven I feel each day too, for I know it is possible.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Evita, know that you have a such a car­ing way of touch­ing upon these deeper parts of the human soul.  This is a beau­ti­ful gift you have.
 
4.You live in Canada.  Tell us about some­thing amaz­ing that you have done or place that you have vis­ited in this coun­try you live in. 
What I love about Canada is the lush, vast­ness and diver­sity of its land­scape. I have been to the Gaspe coast and seen some whales jump. I have vis­ited Que­bec City and appre­ci­ated its intri­cate Euro­pean like appeal and archi­tec­ture. I have been to Nia­gara Falls and enjoyed its breath­tak­ing mighty pres­ence. I also travel to our so called “up north cot­tage coun­try” almost on an annual basis, and expe­ri­ence some of the most beau­ti­ful and serene places on Earth.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  You make me smile, Evita.  Up north!  Hmmm…I think for myself and most of the read­ers here today…you already qual­ify as up north, just by the fact that you live in Canada!!  I know what you mean though.  That’s a com­mon say­ing here to, to go “up north”, which is really about get­ting back to nature, leav­ing the hus­tle and bus­tle of daily liv­ing behind, and really feel­ing a stronger con­nec­tion to this amaz­ing Earth we live in com­mu­nity with.  So, I wish many moments of con­tin­ued beauty “up north” and in all the journey’s life takes you on. 

5.  Evita, when I think of you, I draw upon a deep spir­i­tual ground­ing that you have.  Could you elab­o­rate on this spir­i­tual path, and what it means in your life?
I am really glad I have to say that you used the words “spir­i­tual ground­ing” Lance, for that is exactly how I feel. I love expe­ri­enc­ing myself as a spir­i­tual being, while respect­ing this phys­i­cal expe­ri­ence. I try to be bal­anced in both places at all times in my life today, and this has served me very well in every aspect of my life.

That deep spir­i­tual path is the foun­da­tion of my life today. It is my rock. From it I draw my thoughts, words and actions. From it I draw my courage, con­fi­dence and faith.

For the first quar­ter of my life I lived very much like the major­ity of peo­ple today, see­ing only the phys­i­cal, with some small hints or flashes of some sort of spir­i­tual aspect. Ever since I embarked on my spir­i­tual jour­ney how­ever, life has taken on a deli­cious new depth. It has allowed me to tran­scend so many typ­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions and con­straints. It has made me a much bet­ter per­son. It has drawn out of me a deeper love and respect for all things and beings. It has made me more under­stand­ing, per­cep­tive, open minded and non-judgmental.

Today, I can­not imag­ine liv­ing any other way, and I love where this spir­i­tual path con­tin­ues to take me.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Evita, one of the many things that comes to mind when I think of you is love.  It’s a love that just shines with such deep respect for life.  And that is life in many forms — from the great­est to the small­est.  And in that, I see this deep spir­i­tual con­nec­tion you hold dear to you, and how that is really the basis for the life you are liv­ing.  And that’s a life — in every aspect that I have wit­nessed — that is filled with beau­ti­ful care and com­pas­sion for all liv­ing things.  Evita, know that I see your spir­i­tual essence as a part of your soul…and a part that shines brightly out into the universe. 

6.  One more thing that I’m drawn to is your health-conscious liv­ing.  Have you always lived this way?
On a smaller scale yes, but in no way to the level that I live it out today.
 
Fast food or processed food was never really a part of my upbring­ing so that really helped me get on the right path of health. How­ever, up until just a few years ago I lived with the com­mon par­a­digms that most peo­ple hold, those being that: the four food groups are a must for good health, that doc­tors and drugs make peo­ple bet­ter, that sick­ness is inevitable and that we are vic­tims of our genet­ics, fate and environment.

It wasn’t until I started to really exam­ine each of those pieces on a deeply con­scious, as well as  aca­d­e­mic, spir­i­tual and eth­i­cal level that I real­ized a whole other world and truth. I immersed myself in a lot of research and looked inward, only to real­ize that there was so much to health and well being that we were los­ing out on.
 
Today, liv­ing in bal­ance, or striv­ing always for bal­anced liv­ing is key to me, and I can­not imag­ine hav­ing a won­der­ful spir­i­tual expe­ri­ence, with­out also hav­ing a won­der­ful phys­i­cal expe­ri­ence, and vice-versa. It has become a whole pack­age deal for me to focus con­sciously on the mind, body and soul.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  I’m not sure if you are famil­iar with the study of epi­ge­net­ics (many per­sonal thanks to Katie West for the intro­duc­tion to this field of study), or really how we can change our genetic makeup at the epigenome level.  This is good news!  And it fits so well in line with every­thing you are talk­ing about — and how we CAN change our genes, on some level, and really make strides in our health, for instance.

7.  You are out for a walk one day, and winds of change blow over you.  What hap­pens?
Ooooh – excit­ing things hap­pen! I love change. This is one of the other perks that I have inte­grated into my life in the past few years. I no longer fear change, I embrace it. In fact, I often look for­ward to it. Nature changes con­stantly with such peace and ease, it is only us as human beings who try to resist any kind of change. But change is a part of life, it helps us grow, expand and rise to our high­est level of being.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Just look­ing at our nat­ural world…what a great view of change!  

8. Tell us one unex­pected thing that has hap­pened to you in the last year.
Hmmm, just one eh? Well, I guess that would have to be, being approached by a pub­lisher to write two books for them. Com­pletely out of the blue one day I got a mes­sage if I would be inter­ested in writ­ing these two books a pub­lisher wanted. I mean I knew I wanted to be a writer, but this was a beau­ti­ful sur­prise of hav­ing a pub­lisher con­tact me, instead of me con­tact­ing a pub­lisher. It was a great oppor­tu­nity that gave me some prac­tice with how the pub­lish­ing world works, and also to build up my con­fi­dence for when it is time for me to approach pub­lish­ers with my own book titles.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Evita, that is won­der­ful news!!  Hav­ing read your mate­r­ial now for well over a year…this pub­lisher is onto some­thing!   Your writ­ing is deep and mean­ing­ful.  More than that, though, it touches upon some­thing that includes a part of your soul. And this is where you shine, in the heart and soul you put into all that you write.    

9. If you had to pick one thing as your great­est achieve­ment, what would it be (and why)? 
It would have to be hands down attain­ing the inter­nal spir­i­tual peace that I have found to date. Lance, not a day goes by hon­estly where I don’t feel amaz­ing grat­i­tude for where I am in my life at such an early age. Some peo­ple may not see this as an achieve­ment in the typ­i­cal sense of the word, but for me it very much is.

At this point in my life, it is not about what degree I got or what job, car, house or what­ever the sim­i­lar case may be. I am not a seeker of fame or for­tune. Today for me, it is about whether or not I found a way to live my life with peace, integrity, authen­tic­ity, love, joy, and bal­ance. And for the most part that answer is yes, and that is what makes me the most happy today.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  This answer is so filled with beauty and love.  Evita, you radi­ate this grat­i­tude in all that you do!  And the beau­ti­ful thing about this is that your sin­cere con­nec­tion to what mat­ters, this very deep spir­i­tual peace, is some­thing that helps oth­ers to feel more peace in their own lives.  I per­son­ally feel this every time we inter­act.  So, know that I com­pletely see you liv­ing your life with authen­tic­ity, peace, joy, and love.    

10. Deep-down, Evita, what makes you, “you”?  And what does a typ­i­cal day with your hus­band involve?
Well, I will start with what a typ­i­cal day looks like for me and fin­ish off with what really makes me who I am…

Our typ­i­cal day can be explained by 5 words: love, peace, cre­ation, seren­ity and laugh­ter. Our days typ­i­cally begin some­where between 8 and 9am. From there we go to the kitchen together to have break­fast, whose sig­na­ture ingre­di­ent is always some sort of a green smoothie. There is no rush­ing or stress of any kind. Nor­mally, we have nowhere to go or must do’s. Some­times break­fast lasts 15 min­utes, and some­times up to an hour, as we began to dis­cuss the joy and pos­si­ble cre­ations of a new day.

From there we go to our “work room” where we have 2 desks that face each other. We both work from home and this lets us spend a lot of qual­ity time together, as well not be tied to any par­tic­u­lar loca­tion.  We cre­ate our pas­sions, we talk, we laugh, we bounce ideas off of each other. Nat­u­rally we have lunches and din­ners together and some days are inter­spersed by yoga classes. I can­not tell you how blessed I feel to spend each day with not only my hus­band, but my best friend and an amaz­ing co-worker.

As for what really makes me “me”.… my strength, inde­pen­dence and calm state of mind, as well as love and pas­sion for life. Life is a pre­cious gift, and I love expe­ri­enc­ing it every­day to the fullest!

—–

Lance, thank you so very much for invit­ing me to this inter­view with you. I appre­ci­ate so much all the work you do here on this site and in our world today. You truly are a light­worker, as you spread so much love, joy and kind­ness wher­ever you go. It is really such an amaz­ing honor to be fea­tured here on your site and call you a great friend.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Evita, I’m going to share my take on what makes you “you”.  Our paths crossed well over a year ago, and in that time, I have truly come to love the per­son you are.  And that is because of who “you” are.  I think of this peace and calm­ness about you…one that makes oth­ers feel at ease in your pres­ence.  And then there is this gen­uine warmth.  A warmth for life…although deeper than that…really a gen­uine warmth and car­ing for every liv­ing thing on this earth.  That is a warmth that touches me at my core.  You are so real, so approach­able, so uncon­di­tional in the love you share from your heart.  That is “you”.  And that is true beauty. 

Clos­ing Thoughts:  As I have touched on above, you have such a beau­ti­ful view of life.  It is a view that feels so con­nected and grounded in the depth of your soul, Evita.   In every inter­ac­tion we have had, I always feel a deep sense of peace.  That is you, shar­ing the purity of your heart.  That is you, car­ing with every ounce of your being.  That is you, shar­ing the love that is beau­ti­fully within you. 

The sky does indeed sparkle with dia­monds.  Evita, know that you are a bright and sparkling dia­mond in my life. 

You can keep up with Evita by sub­scrib­ing to Evolv­ing Beings, and fol­low­ing her on Twit­ter.

photo credit: bump

“Con­ver­sa­tion should touch every­thing, but should con­cen­trate itself on noth­ing.” ~ Oscar Wilde

Today I am sit­ting down with Lori, from Jane Be Nim­ble, join­ing her as part of the Front Porch series she has cre­ated.  I have had the priv­i­lege of really get­ing to know Lori and her sweet soul over the last sev­eral months.  Today, it’s her turn, get­ting to know me a bit bet­ter as I dis­cuss a fam­ily camp­ing trip gone awry.

Lori’s heart shines through in every post she writes, every com­ment she leaves, and every con­ver­sa­tion I have had with her.  She touches the world in some amaz­ing ways, and it is an honor being on her site today.  Please join me there.

You can keep up with Lori by sub­scrib­ing to her blog and fol­low­ing her on Twit­ter.

Com­ments are closed.

**  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.

“Youth is not mea­sured by the age of a per­son, but by the curios­ity a per­son keeps.” ~ Sal­vador Pániker

Rolling in the grass!  Yep, I’m guess­ing that’s a typ­i­cal day for Kim and Jason Kotecki! 

It is with great enthu­si­asm that I intro­duce you to this amaz­ing cou­ple, a husband/wife blog­ging cou­ple from right here in Wis­con­sin!  And today I sit down and ask them a few ques­tions, as we bounce around between the philo­soph­i­cal and the goofy.  And that’s right up their alley, a good mix of what makes life worth liv­ing while hav­ing fun doing it!  Kim and Jason are the pro­pri­etors of the very suc­cess­ful and deli­ciously fun Escape Adult­hood web­site.  Escape adult­hood?  What’s that all about, any­way?  Read on, as we dig more deeply into what truly makes life grand!

NOTE: We’re hav­ing a give away here today!  For the price of a com­ment, one lucky win­ner will be cho­sen to receive a copy of Kim and Jason’s recently released book, “There’s An Adult In My Soup”.  Win­ner will be cho­sen at ran­dom, from all received com­ments – on Fri­day Octo­ber 16^th.

And with that, please help me in wel­com­ing Kim and Jason here today!

I ask the ques­tions, and they answer with a mix of light­heart­ed­ness and wisdom…

1. Tell us a lit­tle bit about who “you” are (fam­ily, career, any spe­cial life expe­ri­ences you’d like to share, etc.) 
Jason: I am a lot of things. I’m a dad, hus­band, son, and brother. I sus­pect I could be bet­ter in all four areas, but I’m work­ing at it. Pro­fes­sion­ally, I’m a car­toon­ist, author, and speaker, which is a far cry from my early ambi­tion of becom­ing a super­hero. But at least I feel like I’m mak­ing a dif­fer­ence, which is some­thing I share with my leotard-clad, cape-donning col­leagues. I drew a comic strip called “Kim & Jason” for about seven years. It’s now offi­cially “retired,” but the char­ac­ters still serve as mas­cots for our com­pany. My mis­sion in life is to help peo­ple strug­gling with Adul­ti­tis and get them liv­ing with less stress and more fun.
Kim: I share the same mis­sion as my hus­band, but my offi­cial title in our com­pany is the “Direc­tor of Every­thing.” I am a work-at-home mom, wife, and youngest of four girls who some­how man­ages to con­tinue to feel five-years-old, while being six times that (okay– a lit­tle more than 6 times). I am a for­mer kinder­garten teacher who also moon­lights as an author and sales direc­tor for our speak­ing side of things. 

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Nice title, Kim!  And the word “adul­ti­tis”, it just sounds like a dis­ease, doesn’t it!  Which, speak­ing of adul­ti­tis, if you’re curi­ous whether you’re affected, I see the Adul­ti­tis web­site has a ques­tion­niare to help you deter­mine that.  Hmmm.…I won­der what it says about me?

2. How long have you been blog­ging, and what led you to start your site?  
Jason: I started blog­ging back in 2002, before there really was such a thing as a blog. I started out on a mes­sage board we hosted on our site, and it was just a per­sonal jour­nal about the early days when I was doing the comic strip and we were start­ing our busi­ness. It has evolved quite a bit since then.
Kim: Our blog is a good exam­ple of what hap­pens when you take baby steps towards your inter­ests and pas­sion. Lit­tle by lit­tle it evolved right before our eyes. 

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Gosh, Jason — you’re like an Inter­net pio­neer in blog­land years!  Your ded­i­ca­tion and pas­sion shine through in all you present, and I espe­cially love the videos you’ve cre­ated.  My per­sonal favorite is your Water Bal­loon War­fare — although I’d only want to be a spec­ta­tor, Kim, when you’re launch­ing those bal­loons!  Ouch!

3.  Kim and Jason, when I think of you two (and the name of your site – Escap­ing Adult­hood) – I think of tun­nel­ing out of a jail cell with a Tonka truck – escap­ing the mun­dane that we too often let into daily life.  Maybe I’m off-base a bit.  Tell us what “Escap­ing Adult­hood” is all about.  
Jason: I love that con­cept of the Tonka Truck. Nice. I think that when we were kids, we had this ide­al­ized notion of what adult­hood would be like. It sounded so awe­some, and we were eager to grow up and take advan­tage of al the perks, like stay­ing up late, being able to drive, and eat­ing dessert first. Of course, there’s a lot more that comes with adult­hood, like work, bills, and respon­si­bil­ity. It’s easy for Adul­ti­tis to sneak in, rob­bing us of the joy and hap­pi­ness we had when we were younger. Stress piles up, and way too many peo­ple live lives of quiet des­per­a­tion. Our mes­sage is that no, we’ll never be six again, but we don’t have to set­tle for the “adult­hood” that seems to be so com­mon. We encour­age peo­ple to “escape” the busy­ness that comes stan­dard with most mod­ern lives, and rekin­dle some of the secrets from child­hood that make life more ful­fill­ing, excit­ing, and fun. 

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Ah, yes…adulthood!  That place we yearned for when we were kids.  To be “older”, and be able to do all the cool stuff!  And then to find out…the cool stuff also involves bills, and work that isn’t always fun and games…  So, keep­ing fun in daily “adult” life, that sounds pretty sweet!

4. You’ve just pub­lished a book – “There’s An Adult In My Soup”.  Tell us about this book, and what inspired you to write it. 
Kim: “There’s An Adult In My Soup” is a col­lec­tion of essays we’ve writ­ten over the years. We wanted to cre­ate a book that was easy and fun to read, some­thing rem­i­nis­cent of “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff,” in which you can open it up in the mid­dle and just start read­ing. Prob­a­bly the best way to describe the con­cept is by shar­ing a poem Jason wrote for the back cover: 

When I was a kid, my soup was just right,
Yummy and tasty, a ver­i­ta­ble delight. 

Two cups of dreams and a full pint of play,
A pinch of curios­ity for the per­fect bouquet. 

Pas­sion and won­der and faith it had, too
I’d dare you to taste a hap­pier stew! 

But when I got older, my soup it did turn,
Enough to war­rant a cause for concern. 

It’s gunky and goopy and lack­ing in fun,
It’s not nearly as tasty as when I’d begun. 

It’s bland and it’s bit­ter and tastes just like poop,
The prob­lem is clearly the adult in my soup! 

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  I’m cur­rently read­ing this book, and it’s great!  And one thing I really love are the short chap­ters (it fits my atten­tion span well!).  More than that, though, I think it’s really a great “idea gen­er­a­tor”.  You two share real-life exam­ples of liv­ing Adultitis-free, and those are exam­ples that spur thoughts in me of how I can be more kid-like myself.  And that right there is the real “meat” in that soup!  And don’t for­get, every­one — one of these fan­tas­tic books will be given away — so com­ment away!

5.  So you author a blog, have writ­ten a cou­ple of books, sell “fun” toys on your site (for any age), have a weekly video series, and do speak­ing engage­ments.  What are the joys and chal­lenges with all of this, and what have I missed? 
Jason: That pretty much cov­ers it. The joy lies in wak­ing up every morn­ing in love with what I do for a liv­ing. The chal­lenges are mak­ing sure we’re focus­ing on the right things, keep our lives in bal­ance, and just like every busi­ness, fig­ur­ing out the best ways to mar­ket things with­out break­ing the bank.
Kim: A big job for me is being able to work from home and tag team child­care for our lit­tle one between myself, Jason and our asso­ciate (our daughter’s god­mom). With this joy also comes the chal­lenge of know­ing when to close the lap­top and when to answer the phone. We do well with this over­all, it’s just always at the fore­front of our efforts. 

6. And you’re recently new par­ents (hi Lucy!).  How has that changed things both in your house­hold, and in writ­ing and speak­ing engage­ments?  
Jason: We have a lot less time to work on the busi­ness than we did before Lucy. Bal­ance has become a big­ger chal­lenge. But I think it has made us much sharper and effi­cient with our time. I also believe this expe­ri­ence of par­ent­hood has added a level of rich­ness to our writ­ing and speak­ing that allows us to con­nect with peo­ple on a whole new level. Par­ent­hood has made us bet­ter team­mates and bet­ter peo­ple. 
Kim: We always joked (BL– before Lucy) that the busi­ness was our first baby, and I still believe that in a lot of ways. Both require tremen­dous effort and pas­sion to con­tinue to man­age in a Adultitis-free man­ner. Lucy is along for the adven­ture. By the time she was four months old she had joined us on 25 flights. We’re includ­ing her in on the journey!

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Lucy is one well-traveled lit­tle girl!!  And yes, an addi­tional lit­tle life in your house­hold sure does change things!  Enjoy the “moments” with that lit­tle won­der in your life!

7. Tell us one unex­pected thing that has hap­pened to you in the last year (Lucy doesn’t count!). 
Jason: We bought our first house! We spent almost nine years in an apart­ment, build­ing our busi­ness. Then we had Lucy last Decem­ber and were just focused on try­ing to get our legs under us as new par­ents. My dad started pes­ter­ing us to look into what was out there on the mar­ket and what we might be able to afford. Like I said, it was prob­a­bly the last thing on the radar for us, but he was very per­sis­tent. We started the process in Jan­u­ary as our busy speak­ing sea­son kicked off, and by mid-April we’d found, financed, and moved into a house we absolutely love. I guess it goes to show that some­times it pays to lis­ten to your par­ents, no mat­ter how old you are!  

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Ah yes, our parents…they’re always our parents…and some­times they really do know what they’re talk­ing about.  Now, if I could just con­vince my daugh­ter of that.  For some rea­son, as she’s quickly approach­ing the start of those teenage years…my “words of wis­dom” just don’t hold the same value they used to!  It won’t stop me from shar­ing, though!

8. If you had to pick one thing as your great­est achieve­ment, what would it be (and why)? 
Jason: I sup­pose it’s a big cliché to say hav­ing Lucy is our great­est achieve­ment, but it is right up there, although it’s not com­plete. It will be even big­ger if we can accom­plish the job of help­ing her to grow into her full poten­tial as a per­son, some­one mak­ing an impact on the world. That’s our goal. I’m also very proud of being able to build a busi­ness from the ground up, cre­at­ing a career that I enjoy so much. It’s been harder and scarier than I ever thought it would be, and we’ve had so much help along the way that I can’t take much of the credit, but there’s a great feel­ing of fulfillment.  

9. A fun day as a fam­ily – tell me what that might con­sist of.  
Jason: Hmm. Very low key, that’s for sure. Loung­ing around. Being goofy. Good food. A nice walk by the lake or a visit to the zoo. The elab­o­rate and more expen­sive expe­ri­ences are great, but I quite like the sim­ple fun that can be had doing every­day things. Most peo­ple are liv­ing life too fast to notice some of the Cracker Jack prizes hid­den right under their nose.
Kim: Jason hit it on the head. Peo­ple think of us as the adven­tur­ous type and in many ways we are, but we sure love to be lazy together as a fam­ily. I’d add to his list– movies, a drive to get Dairy Queen, and some home­made cheesy beer and brat soup– hey, we DO live in Wisconsin! 

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Hey, I’m all for being goofy!  And we have this killer cus­tard stand just down the road from our house, that’s a fam­ily favorite here.  And being fall is in the air (brrr…it was chilly this week­end in Wis­con­sin!), that soup sounds about perfect!

10. Hypo­thet­i­cally speak­ing, you’re stranded in the mid­dle of Wis­con­sin for a year (maybe this isn’t hypo­thet­i­cal!).  You have enough food to eat, and you have shel­ter.  What do you do to keep your­selves con­nected and engaged and lov­ing life? 
Jason: Stay­ing curi­ous and ask­ing ques­tions. As an intro­vert, I like to get “deep.” The more quickly I can move past small talk and get to a meatier and more inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion, the hap­pier I am. Like a cross-country road trip, I sup­pose being stranded would be a great cat­a­lyst for that.
Kim: I imag­ine there to be lots of made-up games and silli­ness. We all love to have fun and a large part of what we do in our mis­sion is to give peo­ple per­mis­sion to do this. When we were kids we would “get bored” and even­tu­ally get cre­ative, using our wild imag­i­na­tions to cre­ate worlds and chal­lenges that we’d tackle with courage and zest. Now, peo­ple just turn on the TV or video games to be enter­tained. Being stranded would force you to dust off the ‘ol imagination.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  You two have a great pre­scrip­tion not only for a stranded day in Wis­con­sin, but also — a great pre­scrip­tion for life in gen­eral!  Con­nect­ing more deeply, and using your imag­i­na­tion — wow!  Good stuff!  And now, I’m also in the mood for a cross-country road trip!!  You won’t even notice me in the back seat, singing clas­sic Willie Nel­son songs (“On the Road Again…”).…

11.  Deep down, what makes you uniquely “you”?  Kim?  Jason?   
Jason: Deep down, I think I am as curi­ous and cre­ative as ever. That’s the lit­tle boy in me shin­ing through. I have a great sense of won­der about things, about peo­ple, and about God. I hate struc­ture and I hate rules, but I love to learn.
Kim: Deep down, I am a spunky lit­tle five-year-old girl that refuses to grow-up into a grumpy ‘ol adult. I like wear­ing mis­matched clothes. I hate mak­ing the bed and doing the dishes. I’ll eat three rows of brown­ies if no one is look­ing. I’m just look­ing to have as much fun as pos­si­ble while I’m here. I think this life is a gift and I’m not going to waste what I’ve been given.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  What I love here, is that you both relate back to those early years in life, and to the kid in you!  I guess I shouldn’t be sur­prised, given the premise behind every­thing you do!  Still, I think it’s part of the cul­ture we live in today — that this is NOT the norm.  So hear­ing you say that — proudly — is refresh­ing!    Keep on being spunky and curi­ous!  And a reminder to self:  bring extra brown­ies the next time we visit!

Clos­ing Thoughts:  Kim and Jason, this is all sorts of awe­some­ness!  And what’s so great, is that our fam­i­lies have had the oppor­tu­nity to meet recently.  So, I know that what you’re say­ing here is much more than just words on this page — it really is how you live your lives!  It can be one thing to say some­thing, and another alto­gether to fol­low through and do it.  And you guys do!  You exude child-like won­der, love, and play­ful­ness in all you do!  That shines through so brightly!  And there’s a gift in that for every­one whose path you cross.  You give oth­ers the belief that you CAN lis­ten to our heart, you CAN love what you do, you CAN be happy on many levels!

It has been an honor to have you both here today.  Kim and Jason, I wish you much suc­cess and hap­pi­ness as you con­tinue to share your mis­sion with the world!  It’s a mes­sage that is so worth hear­ing…

photo credit: James Jor­dan

“No jour­ney car­ries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal dis­tance into the world within” ~ Lil­lian Smith

It is with deep honor and appre­ci­a­tion, that I ask you to join me today over at the Evolv­ing Beings web­site.  Evolv­ing Beings is one of a series of sites run by Evita, a kind and car­ing soul, and some­one whom I have the great­est of respect for.  She is a con­stant source of good­ness in our world, and her writ­ing is always real and mean­ing­ful.  Evita writes from a place deep within her soul, and that is one which is so con­nect­ing for me.

In inter­view style, Evita and I sit down to dis­cuss what it means to be an evolv­ing being, right here.

And while you’re there, check out some of Evita’s other works, including:

When Words Are Not Enough — Sim­ply Allow

The Chal­lenges of Expectations

And you can also check out all three of her sites:

Evolv­ing Beings

Evolv­ing Scenes

Evolv­ing Wellness

Evita, it is a great honor to be invited into your space, and to offer up a bit of my life and where’s it’s taken me on this jour­ney.  Thank you!

Com­ments are closed.

 “Becom­ing a leader is syn­ony­mous with becom­ing your­self. It is pre­cisely that sim­ple, and it is also that dif­fi­cult.” ~ War­ren Bennis

Build­ing lead­ers from the inside out.

Today I’m hon­ored to share with you Dr. Holly Latty-Mann, pres­i­dent and co-founder of The Lead­er­ship Trust®.  The Lead­er­ship Trust is a train­ing orga­ni­za­tion based in Durham, North Car­olina.  Holly, along with the late Dr. Jim Farr, cre­ated this unique train­ing orga­ni­za­tion in 1998. Of spe­cial note, is that Dr. Farr was the ini­tial found­ing direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Cre­ative Lead­er­ship, back in the late 1960s and sold his pre­vi­ous firm, Farr Asso­ciates, mak­ing The Lead­er­ship Trust his last lead­er­ship initiative.

The basis behind the train­ing that Holly and her group offer is that lead­er­ship is built from the inside out through a highly psy­cho­log­i­cally dri­ven process.  Regarded as life-changing, nearly all past par­tic­i­pants have called this the best train­ing they’ve ever had – both per­son­ally and pro­fes­sion­ally.  And this is evi­denced in the many video and writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ni­als of their grad­u­ates, found at The Lead­er­ship Trust web­site.  I encour­age you to check these out, even just for the inspi­ra­tion they offer, given they do not fit the norm.  It is so worth reading/viewing some of these – just take a cou­ple of min­utes to really let this all soak in.

Holly has cre­ated a learn­ing envi­ron­ment that truly pro­motes fun­da­men­tal change, in a safe and car­ing envi­ron­ment.  With a rich his­tory of alliances that include Duke University’s Fuqua School of Busi­ness, their Coach K Cen­ter for Lead­er­ship and Ethics (COLE) as well as Wake For­est University’s Bab­cock Grad­u­ate School of Man­age­ment, The Lead­er­ship Trust cur­rently enjoys an infor­mal part­ner­ship with NC State’s Orga­ni­za­tional Behav­ior pro­gram where their col­lab­o­ra­tion has pro­duced research find­ings on lead­er­ship behav­iors that work and don’t work.

Please join me in wel­com­ing Holly here today. 

1. Tell us a lit­tle bit about who “you” are (fam­ily, career, any spe­cial life expe­ri­ences you’d like to share, etc.)
Lance, I notice you ask about fam­ily first before career in your ques­tion, and I say you have your pri­or­i­ties right!

While most peo­ple tend to offer pos­i­tive spins when asked about specifics of who they are (fam­ily, spe­cial life expe­ri­ences, etc.), I’ve found those sen­sa­tional life events, includ­ing the ones where I made mis­takes, have turned out to be won­der­ful train­ing grounds for not only help­ing me become my best, but also help­ing oth­ers do the same.  So here are some spe­cial life expe­ri­ences that molded and shaped me because of my responses to them: I lost my brother Michael when I was almost 3, and he was almost 9. Michael was my every­thing. My father was an alco­holic, albeit a suc­cess­ful busi­ness exec­u­tive. That’s because his drink­ing started when he came home in the evenings.  I went steady with Billy Graham’s son for two years in high school, but he broke up with me because I was a “goody two-shoes,” and he had dis­cov­ered “wild” girls dur­ing his prep school years at Stony Brook.  Years fol­low­ing my divorce at the age of 30, I saved myself from a sec­ond mar­riage. Don’t laugh when you hear my doc­toral dis­ser­ta­tion was on mate selec­tion. After years of being mar­ried to my com­pany, I’m now finally ready again. Con­tin­u­ing to speak to spe­cial life expe­ri­ences, I’ve had one super­nat­ural expe­ri­ence that has nur­tured a meta­phys­i­cal ori­en­ta­tion to my faith. Another “super­nat­ural” expe­ri­ence was my los­ing half of my hear­ing overnight in 1992 due to a virus. But most impor­tantly as a result of work­ing steadily on myself over time, I can say with grat­i­tude in my heart that I am a happy, secure per­son who loves life and believes the best in humankind! No, I am not naïve. I have watched thou­sands of peo­ple go from anger, despair, inse­cu­rity, arro­gance, and self­ish­ness to happy and peace­ful. I am a true believer that peo­ple change, and my pas­sion is play­ing a role in sup­port­ing mean­ing­ful, last­ing change in others.

You’ll learn from this link about my career, edu­ca­tional back­ground, and what I do in the name of show­ing lead­ers how to inspire and moti­vate. It was only this past year that I asked all fac­ulty mem­bers to add what they do for fun in the last para­graph.  As for me, that includes for­eign travel (52 for­eign coun­tries so far), play­ing the piano, play­ing ten­nis, hik­ing, and most fun of all, bik­ing! I feel like a free child as soon as I start to peddle!

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Holly, I love the approach you took with this ques­tion.  Life has bumps for all of us, and those bumps along our jour­ney really can lead to last­ing change.  You are doing won­der­ful things on all lev­els, and I’m sure that’s in part to what your past expe­ri­ences have taught you. 

2. You are the pres­i­dent and co-founder of a pretty inno­v­a­tive orga­ni­za­tion.  Tell us briefly about “The Lead­er­ship Trust” and what it is? 
How about our mis­sion state­ment for starters? The Lead­er­ship Trust® is an orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to sup­port on a global basis the cre­ation, devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of highly effec­tive, high integrity lead­er­ship serv­ing the ulti­mate well-being of all per­sons everywhere.

3. What is the deeper pur­pose of your orga­ni­za­tion?
Our deeper pur­pose is to sup­port the growth of the human spirit in order to con­tribute toward a kinder, gen­tler world.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  The human spirit – what a deeply mean­ing­ful pur­pose.  Holly, I think this answer alone speaks to just how “right” what you are doing is.  The more con­nected with our deeper self, the more we see life through the lens of human­ity and what is pos­si­ble!  What a great place to work toward, and you get to help oth­ers do this every day – how awe­some!

4. Who is your typ­i­cal stu­dent in these pro­grams?  Who can this apply to?
A typ­i­cal pro­gram has a diver­sity of stu­dents, so it’s dif­fi­cult to say we have a typ­i­cal stu­dent. We do have more male par­tic­i­pants except dur­ing the sum­mer months. And it’s funny you should ask this ques­tion.  We are await­ing results from an inde­pen­dent research firm who gath­ered data over sev­eral weeks to offer us a pro­file of the “typ­i­cal stu­dent,” so that we can tar­get that audi­ence. Truth­fully, our most robust work­shops have peo­ple play­ing dif­fer­ent roles (CEO, IT, HR, CFO, tech­ni­cian, project man­ager, etc.) from dif­fer­ent indus­tries  (seri­ously, you name it) of any size (any­thing from a Mom/Pop enter­prise of one per­son to huge global cor­po­ra­tions). We also have on occa­sion some­one in school, between jobs, or fac­ing retire­ment. Because these pro­grams are per­son­al­ized, mean­ing one size does not fit all, we encour­age this diver­sity because effec­tive lead­er­ship involves relat­ing to peo­ple rep­re­sent­ing var­i­ous tiers and roles within any organization.

Lances’ Com­men­tary:  Holly, I know your class sizes are very small – and I’m sure this facil­i­tates a very highly per­son­al­ized expe­ri­ence for every­one going through your pro­grams.  That’s what I think is so unique about this, is that  it’s some­thing we can all get some­thing from.  It’s lead­er­ship.  And yet it’s so much more than that, on a per­sonal level, and how really so many of your par­tic­i­pants have real­ized a myr­iad of life-changing  ben­e­fits both pro­fes­sion­ally and per­son­ally.  And I think that really speaks to the impor­tance you place on mak­ing this truly a life-changing expe­ri­ence for everyone.

5.  You do one thing (or a sub­set of that one thing) and do it very well.  Lead­er­ship train­ing is your sole focus.  What makes your train­ing unique? 
Our unique self-awareness work­shop (SAW) that is sub­sumed within our hall­mark 5-day pro­gram offers processes on the emo­tional intel­li­gence aspects of lead­er­ship that explains our highly unusual tes­ti­mo­ni­als. Our grad­u­ates on video also talk about how we’re dif­fer­ent.  Sec­ondly, our unique 360 feed­back process has every­one primed to give their best to the Self-Awareness Work­shop that starts the evening of the first day. The atten­tion to group cul­ture, keep­ing it safe with each person’s dig­nity held intact, is key to how a group of strangers bond into a tight team within 28 hours from onset.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  The tes­ti­mo­ni­als are so affirm­ing to read and lis­ten to.  And this idea of bring­ing together a group of strangers and cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment that builds real and strong bonds — I just really sense how this adds so much to this experience!

6.  Self-awareness is a big part of the learn­ing devel­op­ment that goes on with par­tic­i­pants attend­ing your pro­grams.  Tell us more about the impor­tance of this.
Well, if you don’t know, you can’t fix. And if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, then you’ll keep get­ting what you’ve been get­ting. Root cause to what­ever is hold­ing us back tends to be housed in the sub­con­scious (your unaware­ness). It’s a mat­ter of bring­ing cru­cial mate­r­ial from your unaware­ness into your con­scious aware­ness so that you can make choices regard­ing what to do about it. It’s a rare per­son who doesn’t want to change that which is hold­ing him or her back. The biggest out­come in terms of emo­tion is joy along with a pro­found sense of relief.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Or peace, maybe…  This whole idea of being more self-aware, I believe is hugely impor­tant.  In get­ting to know our­selves bet­ter, we become more open to the world around us.

7.  I am fas­ci­nated by the many tes­ti­mo­ni­als you have.  Specif­i­cally, how pro­gram par­tic­i­pants draw such deep mean­ing out of your pro­gram.  Is there some­thing spe­cific that’s a real eye opener for these peo­ple? 
Yes, there is. I once play­fully told an inter­viewer who asked the same ques­tion, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”  A bet­ter response is this:  If I were to tell you, it would con­t­a­m­i­nate an oth­er­wise opti­mal expe­ri­ence. This is akin to the notion if we humans would just get our­selves out of the way of divine inter­ven­tion, we may stand a greater chance to grow and prosper.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Ha!  I’m glad you’re not going to kill me, Holly!!  This reminds me of a retreat I attended a few years ago, where there were sev­eral things that occurred which I was unaware of, and that just made the whole expe­ri­ence that much more mean­ing­ful.  So, the bot­tom line is:  sign up, right!

8. Tell us one unex­pected thing that has hap­pened to you, from going down this path of start­ing the “Lead­er­ship Trust”?
My co-founding part­ner died just days before our sec­ond work­shop. This was dur­ing the time we were in part­ner­ship with Wake For­est Bab­cock Grad­u­ate School of Man­age­ment. So the dean asked if I would do both Jim’s part and my own. Not only did I take on that chal­lenge, but dur­ing the 3^rd day of the work­shop, they sent a limo to take me to the church to deliver my eulogy on my co-founding part­ner and friend, only to turn around and fin­ish the work­shop. The eval­u­a­tions were unusu­ally favor­able and strong, and I later learned WFU had  won­dered if it was because of the emo­tion of the inter­rup­tion. Months and months passed with the same level of tes­ti­mo­nial inten­sity which inspired talks of fran­chis­ing this pro­gram to offer nation­ally, even globally.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  An emo­tional response can def­i­nitely trig­ger bring­ing out the greater good in every­one.  This reminds me of for­mer Green Bay Packer quar­ter­back Brett Favre a few years back – play­ing before a national audi­ence only a cou­ple of days after unex­pect­edly los­ing his father, and hav­ing one of his great­est games ever.  Yet, the truth is, you’ve main­tained this same deep con­nec­tion with your par­tic­i­pants, and I really believe that speaks to the qual­ity of this pro­gram, and the ded­i­ca­tion of you and your staff to make this as mean­ing­ful as it has been for every­one.

9. If you had to pick one thing as your great­est achieve­ment, what would it be (and why)?
I am involved in ani­mal wel­fare and have been since the early 1980s, and while I’m sure my dona­tions and let­ters (includ­ing let­ters to the edi­tor) have made a dif­fer­ence, I once was instru­men­tal in sav­ing lit­er­ally hun­dreds of dogs from inhu­mane treatment/death.
Why did I choose this as my great­est achieve­ment? I value all life, and I guess it was the enor­mity of this project and the nature of the pain these ani­mals were sub­jected to suf­fer­ing.  It’s impor­tant to add that this achieve­ment would not have hap­pened at all had it not been for the power of prayer, and how the solu­tion could not have been attrib­uted to coincidence.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Holly, I love this achieve­ment you’ve listed.  It can be easy to look at acco­lades we’ve recieved, or pres­tige we’ve achieved.  Deep down, though, what really mat­ters is human­ity, dig­nity, caring…basic prin­ci­ples within us all.  Your help­ing to save so many ani­mals from a life of mis­ery – what a gift not only to those ani­mals, but also to humankind.  Through your actions, oth­ers have been lifted up in what our core val­ues are.  And that’s pretty wonderful!

10.  Going back sev­eral years, I know that you co-founded this orga­ni­za­tion with Dr. James Farr.  And then he sud­denly passed away after your open­ing.  Were these dif­fi­cult days, for you to con­tinue on?  Or were you inspired by what Dr. Farr had helped to cre­ate?
These were very dif­fi­cult days, mainly in light of it how Jim died a lit­tle more than a year before 9/11 hit, and peo­ple were not trav­el­ing, and con­tracts for Gray­lyn Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence Cen­ter had been signed with painful penal­ties attached for can­cel­la­tions. Fur­ther­more, Dr. Farr had made arrange­ments with WFU to bring to a close our part­ner­ship after 18 months had gone by – and wouldn’t you know this was only days before 9/11! So here I am on my own not sure how to run a com­pany, much less make one grow. Inter­est­ingly, I had an advi­sory board telling me to bring in an Exec­u­tive Direc­tor to run things for me, but the Trust didn’t have the monies for any of their sug­ges­tions, and I was so naïve at the time I didn’t even know the right ques­tions to ask of this board. I had no fam­ily nearby to help me, and my hear­ing impair­ment made it next to impos­si­ble to net­work at social gath­er­ings.  It was a low point in my career, and it lasted for sev­eral years.

So what pulled me through? I felt a call­ing to do this work – it was that strong. And indeed what Jim and I had cre­ated together was all the inspi­ra­tion I needed to never give up. 

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  The human spirit at work!  Holly, thank you for shar­ing about these dif­fi­cult days.  What you have today is a sure sign of your per­se­ver­ance, your ded­i­ca­tion to mak­ing our world a bet­ter place, and your real belief in the mes­sage your orga­ni­za­tion is delivering. 

11. Deep-down, Holly, what makes you, “you”?  And what does a typ­i­cal day away from the “Lead­er­ship Trust” involve?
My pas­sion for life, a joie de vivre is a big part of who I am. Per­haps what makes me “Holly” is like a recipe, and all of us humans can boast a unique recipe. My ingre­di­ents would include com­pas­sion, courage, ethics, gen­tle­ness, sta­mina, ser­vice, intu­ition, humil­ity, indus­try, play­ful­ness, and adven­ture. I believe I am as accept­ing and non­judg­men­tal with myself as I am with oth­ers. I see the best in myself no dif­fer­ently than how I see the best in others.

Typ­i­cal day away from The Lead­er­ship Trust® usu­ally involves both the mun­dane and the fun side of life. Mun­dane is main­tain­ing house and yard and all the errands that are a part of that. I have won­der­ful friends, top qual­ity friends, authen­tic “no airs about them” friends, friends with great depth who love to poke fun at life so as not to take our­selves too seri­ously. I am an avid reader and love word games,  and work my cross­word puz­zles in ink. I love stay­ing fit while I enjoy the great out-of-doors. I am blessed being able to spend ample time with my spir­ited 91-year-old mother, an amaz­ing woman who is extremely active to this day. I have an unshake­able faith and am for­tu­nate to have found a church that is not elit­ist in its out­look on the human race. I enjoy sup­port­ing my church in a num­ber of dif­fer­ent ways. I love my cat “Romeow” whom I res­cued  (despite greater appre­ci­a­tion for dogs’ personalities…sorry, Romeow!). Oh, and I’m writ­ing to com­plete my first book this sum­mer, “Lead­ers Stripped Naked: The Power of Expo­sure” (I hope this doesn’t scare any­one away!)!

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  What a won­der­ful pre­scrip­tion for life!  Life is about liv­ing.  In all the ways that are mean­ing­ful to each one of us.  Holly, your “recipe” for life is what really draws me to you, and what you offer.  And I love the name of your cat – Romeow – how creative!  

And you have a book com­ing out, that’s very excit­ing.  And that name, no – we won’t let it scare any­one away!

Clos­ing Thoughts:  Holly, thank you for shar­ing so openly here today.  You have cre­ated some­thing very spe­cial in The Lead­er­ship Trust.  Help­ing peo­ple to become more aware of them­selves, and really let out that leader within is such a great thing for our world.  And you seem so bal­anced at where you are in your life right now, which I believe is an impor­tant part to over­all per­sonal health on so many levels.

And I’m tempted to pack up my bike and come for a visit!  I love to get out and ride the trails!

For any­one inter­ested in learn­ing more about the Lead­er­ship Trust, check out the very information-packed web­site they have.  If you have any fur­ther ques­tions, or would like more infor­ma­tion, Holly and her team can be reached at:

The Lead­er­ship Trust
Phone: 888−313−2750
Email:  info [at] leadershiptrust.org

NOTE:  There is a cur­rent spe­cial Holly is offer­ing, with 50% off the tuition for the first attendee per com­pany. Hard costs still apply. To take advan­tage of this sav­ings, you can down­load from their blog their dis­count schol­ar­ship coupon using this link.

Holly, thank you for join­ing us here today, and shar­ing a bit about you and your approach toward lead­er­ship and life!

photo credit: Joe Pen­nis­ton

“Joy is not in things; it is in us” ~ Richard Wagner

Today, I’m hang­ing out with the very awe­some Brandi Reynolds over at the Joy Rebel­lion.  Brandi writes about the joy rebel within each of us, and offers weekly mis­sions to help bring that out.  Today, she’s sit­ting down and ask­ing me some ques­tions on what this all means in my life.

So what is the ‘joy rebel’ con­cept all about?  It’s about being uniquely and authen­ti­cally you.  What’s it mean to me?  Check it out right here!

And while you’re there, a cou­ple of recent posts by Brandi include:

Mis­sion Mon­day:  Receive

The Unof­fi­cially Offi­cial Joy Rebel Day

Thank you Brandi!  You ARE a rebel, and with a cause that bright­ens the world many times over!  Keep shin­ing your light, you’re mak­ing our world a bet­ter place every day!