Live Into It!

Here’s a super fun video clip (C) 2005 from the love of my life, my fiance and life partner, Thomas Gorgas, Ph.D.. He is the Founder & CEO of Amakua Video, LLC (www.AmakuaVideo.com) a Hawaii Corporation specializing in Internet Commercials, award-winning DVD production and documentary production.

Here’s a cute picture of us taken recently while we were in Hawaii together this summer… Isn’t he HOT-T-T-T in his Save Our Seas Rash Guard? We sell them on www.GetFitWithAloha.com in case you want one for your sweetheart… Mine looks really good on me, too. An awesome choice if you want to match and see each other easily in the ocean. But I digress…

My life with Thomas is one of the dreams in my life [a loving relationship with my best friend and a fulfilling family life] that I’ve lived into, and I am grateful for my life with him and the kids every day… This is a “just for fun” video on Pumpkin Carving for Halloween. We hope you enjoy… To get an update on how things are going in San Diego, you can read my short update below.

The last week was harrowing with over 500,000 evacuations in the County of San Diego alone. California wildfires are a norm with the Santa Ana winds this time of year, but what we saw two years ago in 2005 with the Cedar fires and this year in the 2007 fires, we’ve certainly seen our end of global warming effects that Al Gore shared so eloquently in An Inconvenient Truth. Qualcomm Stadium was the refuge that reminded way too many people of the blessings here by comparison to Hurricane Katrina’s Superdome horror, but to our surprise, evacuees were back home on Friday and The Chargers won over Houston, Texas 35-10 in a home game on Sunday. We’re back to life as usual here in San Diego even though we’ve been warned that on Friday the Santa Ana winds will be picking back up again and to have our bags packed and ready to go as well as our cell phones plugged in for reverse 911 calls. The system worked beautifully and they got to people with 15 minutes or more time before the fires reached their homes, which was amazing under emergency conditions like that for a city our size. One final note, THANK YOU TO OUR FIREFIGHTERS and EMERGENCY CREWS and POLICE DEPARTMENT, but most especially TO OUR FIREFIGHTERS… Wishing you some rest this week and a Happy Halloween…

For some this is a time of new beginnings. For others it is a time to be grateful for what has been Remember, live into the life you’ve imagined…

Live Into It… :)CC
Christine N. Cibula, M.S.
The Live Into It Expert
www.LiveIntoIt.com

In my graduate school days at Notre Dame University, we would always get the course catalog before the new session, FALL-SPRING-SUMMER. I loved the course catalog. Sure enough, I’d spend hours (yes, I was a bit of a dork who actually really loved school) perusing the catalog to see all of the exciting courses. I’d look in my own field of study. I’d look in the other fields of study where there were cool courses that were interesting to me.

Inevitably, most of the courses I wanted to take would say, “PREREQUISITE” in front of them. Ugh… To get to the courses I really wanted to study and learn about, I had to take all of these lesser, boring courses that seemed like a complete waste of time. I hated playing by the rules, so sometimes I’d find a way to have the prerequisite waived so I could take the course I really wanted to take. EXCEPT I’d be in the course and find out that the reason I needed the prerequisite to begin with was so that I’d have the foundation necessary to excel in the higher level courses.

My best illustration was when I attended Notre Dame University and took graduate psychology statistics without ever having had an undergraduate statistics class in psychology. Somehow my undergraduate psychology program allowed me to graduate without a foundation course in statistics. To this day, I’m not sure how that happened. So there I was at Notre Dame University taking graduate statistics without undergraduate statistics as the foundation. It was like learning Russian. Plus, it took me half a semester to realize my vision was a little off (I needed reading glasses) and that I was in the middle of dyslexia-ville with all of the calculations we had to do by hand on paper to illustrate to the professor that we understood the process. One error in hundreds of calculations could throw off the answer. And folks, there is nothing intuitive about statistics. So it was a painful lesson. The great thing is that undergraduate statistics seemed like a breeze after that and it was never an issue again. Once the foundation was in place, it was smooth sailing.

This is such an important point, it bears repeating…

We need a solid foundation in order to excel in dynamic, fluid environments.
A solid foundation is the key to success.

Entrepreneurship has a couple of primary prerequisites that are the foundation of good business, and if you don’t have them, it is probably better to find solace in “Corporate America” by finding a role in which you can excel in your strengths. I know that probably sounds a little intense as a declaration, but it is true, because to become a successful entrepreneur, you really have to dig deep. You have to go longer than the other guy so it requires staying power. This means you stay in the game despite exhaustion and times and despite uncertainty of the future.

Notre Dame University College Football is an excellent illustration of this point. I was lucky to be there the year Lou Holtz rocked the house, and let me tell you, Lou was much more than a Notre Dame University College Football coach. He was a master of the winning mindset. The point is, despite rain, sleet, snow and sheer exhaustion, you keep going. And even if you don’t win this week, you’re back in swing for next week and for the rest of the season. And if you don’t make it to a bowl game this year, then you get back on board for next year. You weather disappointments and momentary setbacks, learn from your mistakes and keep going until you reach your desired outcome always focusing on what is important in the NOW. (Memories… GO IRISH! GO IRISH!!!! - WE ARE ND! WE ARE ND!!!!! - LOU! LOU!!! LOU!!!!!) So remember to ask yourself what is important in the now?

ENTREPRENEURIAL TRENDS

Most of the entrepreneurs I know have rags to riches stories. Some have pinnacle of success to bottom of the barrel to pinnacle of success stories. A few have doing okay in their businesses for a long time and then suddenly taking off stories. One thing is certain, they all have to stay the course and go the distance in order to reach the success they now enjoy.

ENTREPRENEURIAL PREREQUISITES

So what are these essential entrepreneurial prerequisites? Are you ready? Drum roll please!

The core of entrepreneurship is BUSINESS PERSISTENCE. This means come hell or high water, you don’t give up. You adapt. You revise. You correct course as you go. You follow a plan to fruition. It is essential. Better to mess up than to stop midway, change course completely midway or get most of the way there and then freeze up. Think of the horse that stops dead in its tracks right before the triple bar jump sending its rider over the top - eeeouch!

Along with business persistence comes the personal quality that must be developed and that is PERSONAL RESILIENCE. See, many of your best laid plans will fail miserably. You’ll experience financial failures, product failures, marketing failures, internal business infrastructure failures and major miscalculations along the way. You’ll learn. You’ll get better over time. You’ll improve. Be patient. The key is the ability to weather the storm and make it through to the other side.

Business Persistence includes:

1. Seeing concept to completion in the rough.
2. Making it nice and shiny with feedback from your most valued players.
3. Taking it to market until you method of marketing meets your prospective buyers.
4. Finding your turnkey system and then repeating your results on a larger scale.

Personal Resilience includes:

1. Facing the financials on bad days and good days.
2. Dealing with your critics who drain your most precious asset of creative energy.
3. Ignoring bright shiny object syndrome, also known as the distractor factor.
4. Staying the course and going the distance.

The good news is that you can live into these qualities over time. If you find that it is a challenge, remember that working with good coaches along the way is essential and can help you develop the foundation that will allow your dreams to flourish.

Live Into It… :)CC
Christine N. Cibula, M.S.
The Live Into It Expert
www.LiveIntoIt.com

I spoke too soon in my last entry. We were under mandatory evacuations in San Diego. The next day we were on the road trekking north after getting our reverse 911 calls. It is really scary to see a wall of black smoke heading your way. Luckily my girlfriend Jenny, Miss Bo Benny, was totally resourceful so we stayed at one of her friend’s homes up in Laguna the first night and then moved out to Palm Springs to a beautiful home… Like BEAUTIFUL… With a pool and spa…

I learned a few things in the process of the mandatory evacuations:

1. Remember your passport, birth certificate & social security card. You may not plan on international travel, but these items are hard to replace (as in time consuming), so be good to yourself and have that with you.

2. Take a few pics of the precious stuff. My girlfriend brought her photobook of her time with the twins and I was happy to see she had it with her. I realized I left every last picture in the house.

3. You can do a mandatory evacuation in beautiful locations with about as much ease as in really uncomfortable locations with a little resourcefulness and persistence. We were told to go to Qualcomm Stadium and I’m sure you’ve seen the reports on CNN. It reminds me of Hurricane Katrina and the Superdome. But honestly, all I could think of doing was driving to the beach or up North to San Francisco to my brother’s house. Instead, Jenny kept calling on this beautiful home and when he picked up the line he said, “Yeah, I have about 100 messages waiting I haven’t gotten to yet, so sure, it’s yours…” So persistence pays off.

4. Keep your most precious jewelry in one spot where you can easily access it on the way out and maybe even a little list including oxygen masks during fire and flashlights for nighttime, not hidden away, because you’ll forget where you put it and then be wondering what happened to it when looters are reported in your neighborhood.

5. Strong men with golf clubs can and do scare away looters, at least most of the time. Of course, if given the choice to be with your family or leave it, stay with your family, because they need you even if they don’t say it during the crisis…

K. Short post, because the owners of this gorgeous home are coming back tomorrow, so we’re heading out today to another gorgeous hotel that is comparable to the Hotel Del Coronado only in Palm Springs.

The funny thing is these beautiful places continue to anchor one thing in my mind’s eye… Success… Success… Success… Which is an irony in the middle of mandatory evacuations, threat of loss of home and looters and overall a really stressful time in San Diego history.

In an odd way, I am happy and grateful for this experience…

Live Into It… :)CC

P.S. The biggest lesson learned? I can take the entire core of my business with me in a backpack and still be working even when away from home. To learn how I do that and to work together to get you to that level of personal freedom, check out my PERSONAL COACHING.

We’re miles away from it (we live on the coast). But oh my goodness… The house smells like a wonderful campfire, the air in the house is actually noticeably dry and even a little smoky. I’m hoping the fire alarms don’t go off. The air outside is so thick with smoke, the moon is blood red tonight. The winds are whipping. Our Chief Meteorologist, Loren Nancarrow from ABC, shared that if the winds are 50mph, then that means that the fire moves at 50mph. Did you know that? I hadn’t put that together before. Earlier today the winds were 69mph, so the fire was actually moving at a rate of 69mph.

I find this interesting.

Simultaneously in the last 24 hours BOTH, not one but BOTH of our printers died. The first one had an irretrievable paper jam and after three years of service with my MAC, I let go without too much trouble. The Canon printer was affordable and came with my MAC but the ink refills were off the hook expensive and they needed to be replaced a lot. The second had a print head die after almost 8 years in service and it isn’t MAC compatible, so I decided it was time to let go gracefully. It was my HP Business Inkjet I spent $900 (a big business purchase at the time) when I lived back in New York. I really, really loved that printer and it performed exceptionally well for me on my projects and presentations.

A mutual friend had her printer die and her computer die all in the same 24 hours, too. Mercury in retrograde may be more than a KOINKI-DINK - just maybe…

Meanwhile, this weekend I purged. I went through most of my office and asked myself one question, “What is in these binders, in these drawers, on these shelves, in these boxes that will benefit me as I move forward in my business and in my life?” I dumped the rest. It was a brave move… Sometimes you need to let go of what no longer serves you to make room for what you are living into.

So the little lessons learned?

1. Back Up. Seriously, it is your business. If your computer dies, your business could die or at least be put on hold in a big way. Plus, who wants to tell a client that the projecct has disappeared? Who wants to wake up to discover the book they’ve been working on painstakingly for over a year of intense research and development has just VAMOOSHED?

2. When things fall apart, sometimes what comes out of it is so much better than you could ever anticipate. Let the old fall away and the new come into being. For me, the new is our brand new WIRELESS ALL IN ONE HP print, scan, fax, photoprints, legal prints, etc. printer… Prints 34 pages per minute in black and white and 33 pages per minute in color. I am so happy I’m thanking Mercury Retrograde for helping me out!

3. As yourself, “What’s important now for me to move forward with my current dreams, goals, and visions?” Be Brave. Dump the rest… Let it go, because it is an energy sapper and time vampire. If you haven’t come back to it, the likelihood that you will come back to it is sort of small. I’m not talking about your key educational materials that you reference. I’m talking about stuff that matched the old you but that doesn’t match or help the new and improved you that is taking charge of your business life.

A few more things I’d like to share?

* The notes they take at conferences or during discussions have the same light touch. Only the actionable items.

So I happily let go of two old printers and a desktop I’m no longer attached to in lieu of my laptops (both MAC & PC)… I shred 5 huge hefties full of stuff I no longer needed. I donated anything technological I own but don’t currently use. I cleaned up my vision boards.

This is too funny, so I had to share. A couple of days ago I shared the little business lesson of the Black Phoebe bird… Well yesterday, I made myself some lunch and went to sit and relax near the outside patio in the living room, and there he was again, sitting on one of the four chairs where I had been sitting outside the day I first saw him. We made eye contact for quite a while and then he headed off to do his thing.

The thing I find so interesting is that we spent about 10 minutes looking at each other, and in nature, that is quite a long time. I even went in search of some bird seed in one of the cupboards and came back to him and he was still there. He primped and stretched his wings to show me how beautiful he is. I think he really understands how much I appreciate him, which is a sweet human-bird or bird-human connnection. Gotta love his staying power…

Well, this morning, I was upstairs and kept hearing this bird song. When I found the illustration of him on the Internet, I listened to the Black Phoebe bird song, so I recongnized it. In wonderment, I went to the window, and from upstairs, I could see him sitting on the same spot on the chair again, with a huge fat worm in his beak. He was literally sitting there singing about it, holding it in his beak, looking toward the living room and waiting for me to witness it.

I called to him from the upstairs window, and he looked up at me and then he turned around few times, cocked his head up at me, and sure enough, he gobbled it. He fluffed his feathers and pushed out his chest nice and strong and kept cocking his head looking up at me in the window. He is such a special little birdie - an unexpected blessing who keeps putting a smile on my face and teaching me by example. I keep thanking him for my daily little lessons learned.

It reminded me that sometimes we need a witness to share in our experiences and to celebrate our success! Otherwise, it doesn’t always feel real. Or somehow it can feel hollow or less special.

It makes me think of my little brother in the summertime when he’d be doing water antics and calling across the pool, “Christine! Watch me!!!” Or when he’d be playing video games saying, “Watch this… Christine… Check this out…” The connection to what we’re doing often involves a witness.

I’m really blessed, because I’ve got the biggest cheerleading squad I could have ever hoped for in my life… My vision board in my office has love notes from the kids and Thomas reminding me to stay the course, go the distance, dream big, and be happy. Thomas tells me daily how proud of me he is and encourages me to keep going, even when I question myself. And we all do. Its natural.

My mom, Katherine Cibula - Madam Vice President & Most Valued Player (MVP), is always giving me feedback and cheering me on… Celebrating everything with me every step of the way…

Even as I write this, my MVP popped into my office this morning to share her AquaLogix workout with me. She’s so excited with her newfound discovery that she came into the office saying, “I want you to see my happy face… I had the best time today.” She laughed and even cried happy tears, because this experience is a confirmation of her living into her dreams here in California. We all need a witness…

My little brother is encouraging and sends me financial spreadsheets. His undergraduate degree in Business Finance & Japanese from Notre Dame University and MBA from Stanford Universtity gives him quite a foundation and I’m grateful for his guidance.

Dad says keep going… He belives in the power of my dreams and has always encouraged me to do what I love doing…

Lifelong friends who have no knowledge of the business per se encourage me all the time and have fun seeing me live into my dreams, even when the going has been tough. Somehow they seem to get I’m in this for the long haul and doing whatever it takes to make it work.

Friends who do have knowledge of the business, like Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero, Fabienne Fredrickson and Alexandria Brown encourage me to keep going through their enthusiasm, guidance and by their shining examples. It helps to have Ali say, “CC, you are so talented you should be a multi-millionaire. You’ve got everything it takes and I believe in you… I know you can do this!”

So yes, we all need cheerleaders, support and a witness as we live into the lives we’ve imagined… I believe we need it even moreso as Entrepreneurs because so many people don’t really get the life of an Entrepreneur and what it really takes in order to succeed in our own small business enterprises. One of the best places I’ve found is my personal coaching and mentorship connections with the people I admire and respect in our community.

So today, I encourage you to stay the course, go the distance and know I’m pulling for you as you live into the life of your dreams…

Live Into It… :)CC

Christine N. Cibula, M.S.
The Live Into It Expert
www.LiveIntoIt.com

There were times in my life when I noticed the computer would blow up or the car would break down or my cell phone would go funky. When we launched Strategic Living, Inc. two years ago, I was feeling rather vulnerable. I went to see an astrologer on the advice of a good friend who had great success with this woman. She was great. I’ve actually listened to my tape recording of that session a few times since and she was right on target.

One of the things she mentioned was that you should never sign a contract or start something new when Mercury is in retrograde. So I came home and did some online searches about “Mercury in Retrograde” and learned that most anything technological can and usually does easily fail. Then I started hearing other Entrepreneurs joking about it on group coaching calls or at seminars and so I began to take it a lot more seriously.

This time it is almost comical… I was smart and covered the bases. I backed up my computer and encouraged everyone else I knew to do the same. So what is happening this time around?

1. Our voicemail call notes died one day. Just plain dead. Sounded like we didn’t exist anymore. Turns out it happened over a large area here in San Diego and ATT was on it to get it fixed within 24 hours. It was a pretty huge outage. That has NEVER happened before.

2. My business partner and mom, Katherine Cibula, called me to notify me that her email disappeared completely. I download mine from the server into MAC MAIL, but she checks hers on the web. She lost EVERYTHING and called me in a panic saying she lost her flight information, client contacts, etc. and I gently reminded her that I did say to everyone to PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE back up their hard drives this last week before she left to go out of town. Luckily, GoDaddy had a back-up server with the emails on it. Whew…

3. They fixed the glitch at GoDaddy. But now I’ve had emails streaming into my email account over the last two days. I have about 18,000 emails that have continued to reload from 2005-2007. Not once, not twice, but three times… It turns out it takes a long time for the mail program to upload 18,000 emails from the server, so at some key moments I’ve turned my computer to sleep so that it can cool off. Of course, I turn it back on it and starts reloading from email NUMBER ONE… Ugh… I’ve even gone into my online email account and saved my 18,000 emails as “Mark As Read” but still no dice. Time to call GoDaddy in the morning.

MY MAC DIED???
In previous “Mercury In Retrograde” cycles, I’ve had my computer hard drive completely die. Luckily, I bought an external hard drive and backed up right before the computer died, so it was a great lesson without horrible repurcussions. Talk about being grateful… Now I have several external hard drives and back up regularly… When my hard drive died, it wasn’t pretty… Not once, but twice, so I do BACK UP, BACK UP, BACK UP… Hint: If you are reading this, BACK UP…

MY BLACKBERRY IS GETTING HOW MANY EMAILS INCOMING???
Year one I had just bought my Blackberry and was learning how to use it. It has something like 8 days of power to it, except when calling on it all the time. So at one point the battery died (during Mercury Retrograde). I recharged, turned it back on, and every single email from my OLD Yahoo account (much of it junk, junk, junk) uploaded into my Blackberry. It was a MESS… Thousands of emails… Slow uploads… Attachments… Ugh…

THE BANK COMPUTER & GROCERY STORE ATM TERMINALS BOTH WENT DOWN?
Yup. These are the days where you can’t make a deposit or take out funds because the bank’s computer system is down. This is the time where the computer places a hold on out of state checks when you’ve never had a problem depositing them before. This is the time when the sweet girl in the department store tells you that she can’t figure out what happened to the computer, but it looks like it is happening in several departments and of course it only happens after you’ve found the perfect ensemble. This is the time when the line at the grocery store is 10 people long and the automatic debit terminal takes a nap while the line keeps getting longer and the cashier starts to visibly panic. The same goes for ATM machines that are on the fritz…

I read a great post on what we should do during this time… It said anything having to do with “RE:” as the prefix… Review… Regenerate… Revise… Reorganize… Renew… Repair… Restore…

So on that note, I’m off to bed. I’ll make the GoDaddy call tomorrow to find out what the heck is going on with the email spool and how to handle it. Then I’m going to turn off the computer and focus first on my client coaching calls and then shift gears and focus on organizing my corporate papers and tie up any loose ends. After all, that is what this time is supposed to be about, so why not go with the flow?

Sometimes we need to regenerate to live into the life we’ve imagined… “Mercury In Retrograde” is a natural time to do that. Take advantage of the reflective opportunity provided and leave the technology for another day.

Live Into It… :)CC

Christine N. Cibula, M.S.
The Live Into It Coach
www.LiveIntoIt.com

P.S. If you’re up for it, please take a moment to share your MERCURY IN RETROGRADE story… We’d love to hear about it…

I was sitting in the back yard today relaxing and enjoying the cool morning. There is this perfect time of day when it is warm enough to sit outside, but the sun isn’t too hot or bright yet, so I love enjoying a cup of tea and sitting with my thoughts. Today I was mapping my business plan. Three times a year I revisit the model and make adjustments so I stay on course, or rather “correct course”, as Jack Canfield recommends. As I was looking at the plan I was mapping, I was thinking about what it is going to take for me to personally put myself out there in a bigger way in the next few months and especially in 2008. The backyard is full of beautiful tropical trees and bird of paradise, so our normal visitors are cheerful and chipper hummingbirds. But today I was greeted by the most beautiful Black Phoebe I’ve ever seen in my life.

Believe it or not, this illustration doesn’t even do him justice. He absolutely took my breath away he was so beautiful with a jet black head, slightly pointed crown, jet black wings with slight white stripes at the base of his wings and a pleasantly plump little snow white belly. He turned around several times to allow me to admire him. He studied me as he flittered from one leaf to another on the bird of paradise. He looked young, vibrant, healthy, curious and full of life.

Yoshi, my Shiba Inu, was sleeping peacefully in the sunshine about halfway between me and the Black Phoebe. He tested her a little to see if she would make any sudden moves or be quick to startle. She didn’t move. I was taking in his beauty and silently we studied one another, me smiling at him in appreciation and him taking a long moment to really study me.

Then it happened, he fluttered forward and then back once, then twice, and on the third flutter, he popped down into the fresh green sprouts of grass and back up onto a leaf of the bird of paradise proudly holding a very nice little worm in his beak.

He promptly threw up his head, released the worm mid air, and in one quick move it disappeared right there. He pushed out his chest as he celebrated his victory meal. In appreciation I responded aloud, “Oh, now you had to be BRAVE didn’t you?” He turned around a couple more times for me to admire him and then he flew up and away, stopping on the vines and foliage by the fence and turning one last time to look at me with a long gaze before he left.

I think God, The Universe or Source teaches us all the time if we’re open to it. In that moment, I learned a little (big) lesson of bravery. Living into our dreams means that we often walk right into the middle of our own 3-D dream, but the question is whether or not we have the bravery it takes to step out of our comfort zone (letting go of a previous sense of safety or security) and embrace a new sense of awareness and adventure as we live into the bigger us that we need to be in order to take on the life we’re living into.

What are the top 10 places where we need to stretch in bravery as entrepreneurs?

1. Converting your first one-on-one sale in person.

2. Converting your first online sale and making your first online income.

3. Following a system you’ve learned based on FAITH that it will work, and doing everything you need to do (trial & error) until it actually does work. If it doesn’t, it is time to revisit the drawing board until it does. Persistence and faith are essential elements of bravery.

4. Taking a deep breath and doubling your rates with your clients. Taking another deep breath and tripling them.

5. Mastering new technology or software that will grow your business substantially.

6. Admitting to yourself that what you’re doing right now isn’t working so that you can open yourself to find a path that will work.

7. Completing your first information product (creation, edits, formatting, graphics, order fulfillment, sales page, thank you page and customer follow-up). A lot goes into taking a dream from initial idea or concept to completion. Of course, when it is all said and done, it is very rewarding.

8. Marketing yourself and learning the art of shameless self-promotion.

9. Releasing control and hiring a virtual team while learning the art of delegation.

10. Feeling worthy to step into your greatness personally, professionally and financially.

The good news is that with perseverance and moments of bravery, you can do all of the above. Coaching is one method to overcome self-imposed hurdles faster and a good coach can really help to catapult your success. Sometimes is really helps to have someone who believes in you a little more than you believe in yourself and helps you stretch into the you that you both know you are becoming.

We’ve all known that the early bird gets the worm. However, we sometimes need to be reminded that the bird who tests the environment, assesses the calculated risks, decides to move forward and takes a deep breath in faith, perseverance and BRAVERY gets the worm, too.

Be Brave & Live Into It… :)CC

Christine N. Cibula, M.S.
The Live Into It Coach
www.LiveIntoIt.com

ATTENTION COACHES, CONSULTANTS & ENTREPRENEURS… TODAY IS THE LAST DAY FOR TWO-PAY! THERE’S STILL TIME (UNTIL MIDNIGHT) SO DON’T MISS OUT…

Hey Hey Hey!!! Are you going to join me this November for Alexandria K. Brown’s Once-A-Year Online Success Blueprint Workshop? If there was one event each year I’d have to say, “BE THERE OR BE SQUARE…” this is it! Pssst… Ali’s announcing her BIG vision at this event and this headshot is just the beginning of what’s to come… You won’t want to miss it!

Ali has been my BIGGEST ONLINE SUCCESS MENTOR. I use her system on my website(s) - yes plural - to connect with my clients. To see examples of Ali’s system in action on my sites, visit:
1. www.LiveIntoIt.com
2. www.GetFitWithAloha.com
3. www.LivingWithLyme.com

Now when I started with Ali, she was giving her first ever Online Success Blueprint Workshop. My mom and business partner, Katherine Cibula, called me and said, “Listen honey, I know you’re really busy with work, but I’m wondering if you can save the date for a yacht party?” It was a month away and a fun invitation so I agreed and plugged it into my calendar. Then just as we were hanging up, Mom says to me, “Are you at your computer? Good. Before we get off the phone, can you do me a favor and type in this URL? I need you to help me make a decision before midnight tonight!”

My response as I typed in the URL and saw a page with headline and copy was, “Mom, what is going on with you that you are getting sucked in by all this hypey stuff from these Internet marketer types? Oh she’s a friend of Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero’s from Red Hot Copy? Well Lorrie’s stuff was really great… …Okay, Okay, I’ll read a little, but I mean really!!!” About the time I saw Ali next to the Koala bear and her VW, I said, “We HAVE to go to this!!!”

That first event was magical for me and if you ever hear the CDs from that first event, you will hear me thank Ali at the end sharing, “You gave me my wings for my dreams to take flight…” We had just incorporated Strategic Living, Inc. when we went to her workshop and we had a blank slate to work with, so you can imagine that we came out of Ali’s seminar amazed by all of the things we could do with our business.

Here are pics of me (President & CEO) and Katherine Cibula (Madam Vice President and Most Valued Player) as we had just finished incorporating (the big green binder) the business. Ahhhh…. In the beginning…

After Ali’s rocking seminar, we celebrated Ali’s birthday bash on a beautiful yacht! She sang and danced the night away and we all had the absolute best time networking and hitting the dance floor to our heart’s content!

Then Ali invited us to attend her Holiday Soire to view the Parade of Lights, an annual holiday tradition in Marina del Rey, California. It was really fun to see and we had the best time with Ali and all her friends who came to enjoy the party including Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero, Kim Castle, Adam Urbanski, John Rooney, Dr. Mike Woo-Ming, Dr. Cindy Brown, Stephanie Frank, Richard Greninger and Joy Schecter. Ali knows how to throw a wonderful party and make all her guests feel completely happy and relaxed.

Ali offered her second Online Success Blueprint Workshop. She opened the event to previous attendees to attend again at a refresher course fee, so Mom and I went back for round two (joined by about 12 other first timers in reattendance) and had another absolutely amazing experience. By the way, all the previous attendees agreed they got so much more out of it by attending again and seeing where to take their businesses to the next level implementing additional strategies. At that meeting, she launched her Platinum Membership (this is an exclusive $15,000.00 per year membership program). As a result of that experience, mom and I were invited to be in a book compilation by one of Ali’s now Platinum members, Christine Kloser, in Inspiration to Realization: Volume III. Becoming a published author fulfilled a lifelong dream for Mom and me both. Ali is in there, too!

I was one of the last lucky clients who got to work with Ali one-on-one (yes, 100% undivided attention applied directly to my business model). Now ONE day of undivided coaching attention with Ali costs $10,000.00! We were also invited to be contributing authors in Power and Soul, a compilation by Alexandria K. Brown. That experience enabled me to really crystalize my vision for Strategic Living, Inc. about manifesting dreams from a concept to completion, which evolved into Live Into It!

Since then I’ve gone on to author my very own book Live Into It! Now I coach my clients on living into the life they’ve imagined by creating the roadmap to get from where they are now to where they want to be. When I work with personal coaching clients, we literally map a tailored plan to their individual business models, one-on-one, so all the guesswork is taken out of the mix.

In the process of coaching with Ali, she learned I’ve got some business development and project management savvy under my belt. My background in business and psychology is substantial. One session I was sharing how amazing I thought her marketing had been for the second seminar that she had SOLD OUT for the SECOND TIME IN A ROW… That day happened to coincide with her learning of my consulting and project management skills, and being the smart savvy businesswoman she is, she turned right around on the spot and brought me in to work with her on Workshop Marketing Secrets. The product turned out beautiful and it is selling like hotcakes! If you are even considering doing a workshop, this is your ticket to filling it to capacity. You can even hear me interview Ali on the Main Audio CD!

It turned out to be so much fun we started doing events together. I was with her at Dan Kennedy & Bill Glazer’s Info Summit in Atlanta, Georgia in 2006 and you should have seen the MAD RUSH to the back of the room to grab her products! It literally looked like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with all these people rushing us with their order forms in hand. Surreal!!! Talk about a powerful image to anchor internally…

Right after that, we pre-launched Workshop Marketing Secrets with amazing success at Ali’s third SOLD OUT ONLINE SUCCESS BLUEPRINT WORKSHOP. I volunteered my time at her event to do video success stories. You’ll see hand-picked footage in the video that is going to tell you all about this year’s FOURTH AND SOON TO BE SOLD OUT, ONLINE SUCCESS BLUEPRINT WORKSHOP!

This spring I worked with Ali at the Mark Victor Hansen MEGA BOOK UNIVERSITY. I even did the free giveaway on the stage (now that may have been Ali pushing me to step into my own just a little)…

Ironically, a couple of months earlier I was on a Gold Mastermind call with Ali and Dr. Cindy Brown (another Platinum member), and it was right before the holidays. I was struggling with being ready for my audience and Dr. Cindy Brown (who was also a first time attendee at Ali’s first workshop) said to me, “CC, imagine you are in a dark room on a cool stage. The room is filled to capacity. Look at all the faces of the people in the audience. They are there to see you and hear you speak. Take that in…” I imagined a huge stage, like the one Ali had been on in Dan Kennedy & Bill Glazer’s Info Summit, but instead, I imagined the room was darkened and the stage had a cool blue hue to it. I literally lived into that moment on the stage at the Mark Victor Hansen Mega Book University standing right next to Alex Mandossian on the stage… Someone from the audience even called me by name!

But back to This Year’s Online Success Blueprint Workshop! I was thrilled when Ali invited me to come again this year and you guessed it, if you come find me, I’ll make sure we get your success story on camera for next year’s promotion… And this event only happens ONCE a year! So I’m going to be there or be square. Now the real burning question is, ARE YOU?

THREE INCENTIVES IF YOU SIGN UP?

1. You leave with THE BLUEPRINT in hand… Not just THE BLUEPRINT, but your very own personalized blueprint, so you’ll know what to do when you wake up Monday morning.

2. You get great NETWORKING… Let’s face it, Ali attracts a great crowd of serious business owners in a variety of fields. I’ve met the most amazing people through Ali… Over the years her events have included Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero, John Rooney, Ari Galper, Melanie Benson Strick, James Roche, and this year we are going to host David Neagle and Bill Glazer, himself! Can we just say Ali puts on one amazing networking event?

3. THE PARTY! Okay, seriously, yes, the party. The first time it was the yacht party… The second time it was CHOCOLATE LOVER’S DELIGHT with chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate martinis. The third time it was an INCREDIBLE JAZZ LOVER’S DELIGHT with live musicians. You’ll have to show up to find out what is going on the fourth time, because its a SURPRISE, but let me tell you, Ali loves FUN…

BONUS OPTIONS

I’m going to give you TWO SPECIAL BONUS OPTIONS, but ONLY if you sign up through my promotion and send me a copy of your confirmation.

1. I’ll send you a FREE COPY OF POWER AND SOUL! This book was compiled by Alexandria K. Brown and authored with 42 successful entrepreneurs (including our fantastic Chapter 13 on Manifesting Dreams From Concept to Completion: Stratetic Living and the 5 Key Milestones to Manifestation

2. I’ll give a FREE STRATEGY SESSION for the group that signs up through me. This means that after you’ve attended Ali’s workshop and you get home and you are thinking, “OKAY WHERE DO I GET STARTED?” I’ll be there to help you answer your most burning questions and since we’ll do it in a group format, you’ll hear answers to questions you haven’t even thought of yet. Plus, I’ll be sure to record the session so that you can have your own personal copy of it even if you can’t make the session.

Keep in mind, I use Ali’s system DAILY…

I work with Ali’s techniques in EVERYTHING THAT I DO, DAILY…

Psssst…. It took Ali about 5 years to get comfy in her business and in the last two years her business has skyrocketed! I met Ali at 5 years into her business model where her life was really easygoing and comfortable being debt free with workouts, pampering, shopping, travel and clients. In the last two years, I’ve watched her go from a comfy six figure a year salary to over a whopping million dollar revenue stream last year and this year she’s close to doubling her income, and her life is still really easy and fun, only now it is even better with a beautiful beach pad, convertible Jaguar and her vacations are longer and more exotic. It has been fun to see Ali live into the life she’s imagined for herself. While we’re at her event, on the last day, we’ll work with David Neagle who teaches you how to JUST BELIEVE. Ali has helped me live into the life I’ve imagined and she can do the same for you, too…

Live Into It… :)CC

P.S. If you can’t make it to THIS YEAR’S ONLINE SUCCESS BLUEPRINT WORKSHOP, we’ll miss you. While I highly recommend live events for the networking and immersion, you get everything you need to succeed in Boost Business With Your Own Ezine and Online Success Blueprint Workshop and Workshop Marketing Secrets. I share this so that if you are compelled to learn more but really can’t make it to the seminar, each of her products are amazing and I highly recommend them.