Whether you’re an advocate for or a protestor against off shore, drilling none of us wants to see the loss of life, our beautiful American shores ruined, wildlife suffering and dying, and our fellow Americans losing their livelihoods.  We’ve had enough of the later, thankyouverymuch.  Here’s a simple way to help and it’s painless, it’s inexpensive, and anyone can do it.

You can donate your hair and your pet’s fur clippings and, old panty hose to the cause.  Today, I was at my hairdressers, Siggers Hairdressers, located at 2166 Northlake Parkway, Atlanta, GA 30084, 770.491.0800 when the owners Carol and John Siggers told me about a call they received from a friend of their son, Chad.  The call was a plea for them to send hair clippings to the coast to help clean up the oil spill. At first, it was thought to be a joke, but these items are needed and needed now.  Here is the website for more details:

Matter of Trust

While teaching a female ESL student from Asia, we got into a discussion about equality for women in the workplace.  Well Surprise!, Surprise!, Surprise!, it appears that inequality is everywhere, however after reading this, you may think you’ve got it pretty easy.

I told her about a business colleague of mine, *Lya Sorano,  who had written a post on her website about the success of women or lack thereof in other countries.

One woman was the first female to be hired by her company. However, she didn’t go to work for the first three months until a woman’s restroom could be built!

My Asian student holds a high level position with a globally known company headquartered in the southeast. She informed me that even in her company in her country, where there are many females employed, restrooms are on every floor except those for women. These can be found on every other floor.

I suppose some progress is better than none at all. Do you know of any stories like these? Write a comment!

*LyaSorano is the Founder of Atlanta Women in Business and CEO of the Oliver/Sorano Group. Here’s a quote from Lya: “When we talk about equal pay for equal work, women in the workplace are beginning to catch up. If we keep going at this current rate, we will achieve full equality in about 475 years. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait that long.”

For example, when we make statements like, “I need to get more organized.” or “I need to implement better time management.” or “I need to lose weight,” the word “need” throws us into the arena of victim thinking and we give up control. How, then, can you accomplish any of these tasks if you, number one, feel that something or someone outside yourself  has determined what is best for your life? Secondly, how can you cope when you feel like a helpless, hopeless, victim? Who wants that? I hope that you’ve answered, “Not me!”

Here’s the point: It’s semantics and this is one of the many reasons why self-talk is so important. For example, let’s say during your last review that your boss explains that you need to acquire better time management skills. As you exit his or her office, you run into a couple of your friends and they ask you how your evaluation went. You tell them that you need to acquire better time management skills. Your friends and you, immediately take on a downtrodden, victim, and woe is me attitude. You might ask, “So what’s the big deal?” After all, you may think your time management skills are fine and your friends are just trying to support you and demonstrate their empathy for the burdensome task someone has placed on your shoulders. Let’s look at this scenario again with a different perspective.

You come out of your boss’ office after the evaluation and your friends ask how everything went. You tell them, “You know what? I want to work on my time management skills because then I can be better at my job and eventually get that promotion I’ve been wanting.” The energy level changes from depressive to upbeat. Your friends – and you – are excited over the decision you’ve made and the way you’ve taken charge. Your friends will probably immediately begin to think of ways to help you achieve your goal.

What’s the difference? Acquiring time management skills has now become your decision, your goal, and you’re life is now taking on a direction that you want. So who’s in control now? You are the one in control and not victim thinking. It’s all about semantics.

As you know, semantics is the language used to achieve a certain effect on an audience. In this case, you and your friends are the audience, you being the most important member of the audience. Attitude is everything. A good attitude and persistence are the perfect mix of fuel to propel you through life to take you where you want to be, who you want to become, and bring you success that you can only imagine. Now, 1 – 2 – 3, take charge of your thinking and take charge of your life!

To help you prevent those feelings, my good friend Joe Gandolfo, parenting expert and author of The Great Teenage Myth, is holding a FREE teleseminar that will give you parenting insight you can use. Here are the details.

5 Keys for Successful

Monday February 15, 2010  9:00pmEST

In Search of That Elusive Parenting Manual: Got Kids? Did yours come with that elusive instruction manual? My two sure did not…or so I thought! Joe Gandolfo – Teen Life & Parenting Expert, Professional Speaker, Author, Seminar Leader, Licensed Counselor and Visionary – has found THE MANUAL! He will clue you in on his discovery and share 5 Keys to Successful Parenting.

Joe will discuss:

1. Understanding the Greatest Challenge of Parenting

2. Forecasting your child(ren)’s future

3. Lessons from the game Chutes and Ladders

4. The Great Teenage Myth

5 . The most valuable “Gift” a parent can give their child(ren)

If you’ve got kids or teenagers, you won’t want to miss this informative and inspirational TeleSeminar.

WHEN: Monday February 15, 2010 / 9pmEST; 8pmCST, 7pmMST, 6pmPST

WHERE: Your Comfy Couch

WHAT: TeleSeminar

How to Attend: Pick up your phone – Dial 1-507-726-4248 Then dial in these numbers followed by the pound key: 100483#

NOTE: Please dial in 5 mins before the top of the hour.

You can learn more about Joe here:

www.josephgandolfo.wordpress.com and

http://www.JosephGandolfo.com

Martha has written a book about the challenges she has faced – and stood up to – in the past couple of years. The title of her book is Pink Lemonade and it can be purchased at http://PinkLemonadeBook.com. You will be inspired and motivated to meet your challenges face-to-face and come out victorious!

Here’s the interview, enjoy:

Despite this cold weather it will soon be spring and the earth will refresh herself with new growth and life. And guess what?

We get to do that everyday. Everyday we’re allowed to wake up on this beautiful planet we are given a license to begin a new day in a new way. Of course, if the old way is workin’ for ya’ don’t get ride of it. But if something needs to be changed, today is the day to do it!

Begin with small steps, but begin. Start working on your dream. Life is short and precious so don’t waste a minute of it. So let’s begin.

1. Write out your dream on some 3×5 cards.

2. Place the cards in different spots around your house where you can see them several times everyday.

3. Write out IN DETAIL how your dream life will look. Where, how and with whom (woo hoo) will you wake up? What is the first thing you’ll do, what will you eat for breakfast, etc., etc., etc.

4. Be sure to write it in the present tense so that your subconscious will think it’s real.

What’s your dream? What does your dream life look like?

A desolate space where  nothing happened, there’s no life, and no accomplishments.

This picture was taken this morning here in Atlanta after our “big snowstorm” last night. It looks like the planet is empty and devoid of people and life in general.

However, when walking up the driveway we found all kinds of animal tracks. There were rabbit, raccoon, cat tracks, and one we couldn’t even decipher! There was life! We weren’t alone. What’s the point?

The point is that Liz is correct. Even if you haven’t accomplished anyhting in life (and I’ll just bet you have), it doesn’t mean you can’t now.

Because you’ve done things in the past you shouldn’t have done or because you haven’t done things in the past you should have done, doesn’t mean you can’t be successful in the future. You DO still have potential.

As long as you’re still breathing, you have potential. The trick is to utilize your past to build or enhance your potential. Yes, I’m speaking of lessons learned. Take what you have learned from mistakes you’ve made or lessons learned from what you might have done or done better and build your future and your potential.

Got potential? Yes you do. How are you going to build on it?

She has her own business called The Knit Witch. Please visit the site.  At any rate, she dyes yarn, knits, and her husband, Wayne Newberry makes beautiful pottery. One of the items he makes is yarn bowls.

Write and let me know what plans you have to knit a beautiful life for yourself in 2010! Tell me what you want to do and and if you get stuck along the way, write a comment and we’ll discuss. Happy New Year!

Patty wrote a piece about light and another friend of hers -  she has many – placed it in a unique setting and put it on Youtube to share with us all.

I’m sharing it with you in hopes that it will provide a source of strength, light, and hope that will carry you through this season and into the coming year.

Readers, please leave a comment on how you plan to share your light and if you feel you have no light to give, how do you plan to find your light?

If you’re a parent, be sure to look for Patty’s new book: Parenting at WARP Speed. Heeeeer’s Dr. Patty’s special message for you.