Sending Love From the Heart

From an early age, I learned by the actions of my mother, to send thank you notes and letters, instead of calls or emails. I love to write, and have a special box with stationary, greeting cards, and thank you notes on hand, so I can concentrate on writing a special message, not on running and picking a card ASAP. My other favorite activity is cooking, and I have several notebooks with clipped recipes I have been collecting since the age of 16. Some recipes are typed and added by me or grandma, and some are trimmed out of food magazines. Life is beautiful when you can put down your words on paper. Whether you keep the notebooks you write in, or send letters to loved ones, you can heal your life, and the life of others with words from the heart. 

Sorting Out Your Priorities

I'm always amazed at the number of people I constantly meet, who feel drawn to my ideas! I just returned from Miami, this weekend I will be teaching in NY, and everything I put my mind to is a success because of one simple reason - I have my priorities sorted out correctly. 

So many people live their lives in constant stress, because money is their main priority. Getting more money, spending more money, having money only to help others, having money only to show your status, spending money on others because they have spent on you, believing money is difficult to come by, etc. 

Are you allowing yourself to have fun with your money? Why not? It's just a means of exchange, that's all it is. This constant stress is what I feel, has created cancer in my mother's perfectly healthy and beautiful body, and (adversely) has helped me realize how to set my own priorities. For the past 2 years that I have been taking care of my mother and grandmother, while running a corporation, I have realized that prosperity thinking has nothing to do with marketing, making money, or having any special system of living. Prosperity comes when we realize that we are stable and have all the wealth we need when we know our next breath is provided for us. Just in the same matter, if your bills are paid, and you are safely asleep in a comfortable bed at night, trust that your stress will not aid you to make more money. 

I am completely aware that I don't have the ability to cure my mother's cancer, and this doesn't mean I have to break down and mourn her illness. Having my priorities sorted out, means that I take care of my family first, uphold the integrity of my business, take care of my own mental state by releasing anxiety, engaging in positive activities, helping the less fortunate, and doing my best not to project into the future. Who knows what is going to happen next? Just make the best of the time and sort out your priorities.

Why I Dislike the Word "Follower", and You Should, Too

As a business person, and a lifetime student of mentors and influencers, I often think about simple marketing flaws that companies make, and completely miss their mark because they underestimate the size of their audience. All messages that come out of your account, be it twitter, Facebook, blog, YouTube, Instagram, or Pinterest speak to MILLIONS of people, even if the majority of your audience seems to have a very small following. Many companies and public figures refer to their audience, customers, and fans as simply "followers". I dislike the word "followers", and make sure it doesn't creep up into my lexicon. 

Let's look at twitter. My biggest mentor and influencer, Gary Vaynerchuk, for example, has 126K tweets • 1796 photos/videos • 1.12M followers, and follows 7,624 people. I am one of his 1.12M followers, and (amazingly so) he is following me back. In fact, Gary Vaynerchuk and I follow each other on Twitter  since I met him at his #jjjrh book signing. My personal twitter has 1.3K subscribers, and my business twitter has 10.5K, but I don't like to call these people "followers", I prefer to call them "like-minded people". Every time you say a word, or write something, you are connecting to "like-minded people", who gravitate towards you because something you believe in resonates with them. I don't see a reason anyone would subscribe to my blog, Pinterest, or Twitter, other than receiving information they believe will resonate with them, and that is why these connections matter. 

Businesses and public figures who connect with their audience on a human level are always more successful and more influential than those who send out generic messages to "followers" and never reply to fan comments and questions. We are all people, when you connect with like-minded people, they will feel compelled to re-tweet, re-post, or otherwise share your content with their group of like-minded people ("followers"). Someone finds out about your philosophy or product from a friend, or someone they are subscribed to on twitter, they like it and re-post to their network, and all of a sudden you are exposed to a whole community of people who think what you have to say is valuable to them and their audience. This is how things work on social media - it's just like the old concept of "word of mouth", but this time, you are reaching millions of ears and making valuable connections no ads can rival with.

Book Review: "The Paris Architect" by Charles Belfoure

Those who know me, usually see me carry 2 or 3 books in my purse... Last month I switched books, leaving "The Paris Architect" on my nightstand, but I revisited it, and finished it in two days! Belfoure's heart wrenching novel so intensely drew me in, that I couldn't put it down, no matter how much I tried. 

This book is an incredibly intense, heartfelt story set in wartime Paris, of a young Frenchman who didn't consider himself a good Christian, but agreed to conspire in a plot to hide Jews from the Gestapo.  The dangers Jews faced, the conditions they had to live in, the persecution, the pain of families being separated, and the courage of the gentiles hiding and rescuing people they hardly knew just because they were fellow human beings. This book will open your heart, and prove that people are inherently good, they can nurture, love and care for others, no matter the religion. Tears rolled down my face as I read the last chapter, and a warm feeling of pride for the human race came over me. Who could have known that an architect could write in such a genius manner. Bravo, Mr. Belfoure!