Yesterday was a great day.

I finally got to meet Alexis in person (after partnering on a business together, haha!), see Craig again (who is so nourishing to my soul), and see Steve Pavlina again (who rocks).

I also got to meet Alexis’ two kids, Kaia and Noah, who are great.

Steve was talking about his blog, and I just got such an overwhelming urge to start blogging again.

So here I am.

A really fascinating concept Steve mentioned yesterday is “social currency”… and how people with social networks online are canceling out the need for money in a lot of cases.

For example, with Steve… he just did a 30 day music trial. And when he talked about it at his workshop, he got tons of help from people who read his blog. He got free Skype sessions, one-on-one help, and lots of feedback on the music he was producing.

When he went on a road trip, people who read his blog offered him places to stay as he drove along. (I was one of them – he stayed with Otto and I in Ashland.)

It’s truly a very fascinating way to look at things.

I’ve been noticing it too. The other day I had a wonderful woman contact me and offer to talk with me on the phone. She said she’d been noticing I was going through some tough times lately and wanted to offer some ways to make me feel better.

(Turns out she is a very well-read therapist, knows a lot about Myers Briggs and was using my temperament to teach me some interesting things, and has family connections that give her very “cutting edge” health information that’s about 2 years ahead of the media.)

I would have paid to connect with her if I knew all of that beforehand.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize I’ve been offered a lot of great things actually, just from people who knew me online.

It’s kind of a very empowering way to look at things.

There are many people (understandably) worried about the state of the economy. But I think a lot of people are forgetting that even if the money system goes completely kaput… we’re still all human. And social connections will save us.

Granted, I’ve always been an idealist.

But that being said – sure, we may lose material things… even maybe homes… but our basical survival needs can always be met, without having to rely on any bigger “outside force” like the government. We have our neighbors.

I remember once reading a story about Mother Teresa (she’s one of the top 3 people I admire most). She talked about when she came across a family who hadn’t eaten in days. They were STARVING. And when she gave them a (tiny) portion of rice, the first thing they did was split it in half to give their neighbors, who also hadn’t eaten in a while.

And then I remember this email from an American living in Japan, after they had that huge earthquake.

Wth all this fear-based talk, I think remembering things like this are very empowering.

I woke up this morning with energy running through my veins, still so excited about what we accomplished last night.

$50k. With less than 10 hours or so hours worth of work. 100% for charity.

Here’s the back story:

Back at the last Practical Profits event, another speaker, Wil Mattos, and I were sitting on a couch and talking about how much we like to do for charity. I was telling Wil of my dreams to build a school, then he mentioned how he wants to go help underprivileged children in Brazil (where he’s from).

We were feeding off each other more and more, getting more and more passionate about things that could be done to help the world. We decided we wanted to do something ASAP.

Our first idea was to get backpacks filled with school supplies to severely underprivileged children in Brazil. Wil sent me a video of the situation for some of those kids there and it was absolutely heart wrenching.

We asked the rest of the Practical Profits team if they would be interested in helping and they immediately said yes.

At first we were going to start a nonprofit. We did apply for it, but the paperwork takes a long time and we didn’t want to wait years to do something (though the paperwork is still in progress).

Wil mentioned that he knew of a charity, Spirit Of A Giving Heart, and that we could help them for our first project.

Spirit Of A Giving Heart helps children in an Indian reservation in Arizona. There are 618 kids in this school and they’re extremely poor.

• 90% of them don’t have electricity…
• They’re bussed up to 40 miles (one way) to get to school
• 90% of them are eligible for the free lunch program
• A substantial % of their families are below the poverty line
• Many children are so poor that they have to live at the school, going home only for weekends and holidays
• 50% of the children who start kindergarden are not ready for it
• The children get a package of “Tribal” clothes once a year. The packages are becoming smaller and smaller, and last year because of funding they didn’t get their coats until February – way after they needed it….
• Every year they’re allowed to ask for 2 or 3 things for their Christmas wishes. They ask for things most children take for granted – like pens, pencils, and notebooks.

Wil and I decided we would get backpacks for every single child in that school, filled with school supplies appropriate for their age level.

I had my assistant research some prices and we thought we’d have to pay $30k or so, shipped, for everything. We knew we could raise that and were happy with it. But one day Wil randomly mentioned to someone what we were doing and they mentioned told him of a nonprofit that specifically creates and fills backpacks for nonprofit charities. He followed up with that company, and they gave us a HUGE discount.

$14k for all 600+ backpacks, filled and shipped right to the school.

WOW.

Our plan to create the money was this:

1. Ask our marketing friends if they’d donate products at a discount
2. Create mini sales pages where each product would be displayed
3. Sell limited quantities of the products, discounted, on a live webinar (with the money going right to the charity’s PayPal)

It was absolutely beautiful how many people were open to donating.

Here’s everyone who ended up donating, in alphabetical order of first name:

• Brian Johnson
• Brian Koz
• Brittany Lynch
• Dan Hollings
• Dennis Becker
• Jaime Mintun
• James Jones
• Jason Fladlien
• John Rhodes
• Keith Dougherty
• Maria Gudelis
• Matt Rhodes
• Rachel Rofe
• Shane Melaugh
• Tim Castleman
• Wil Mattos

Everything came together so seamlessly and easily.

We kept getting pleasantly surprised. Marketers were donating products that were worth $1,000, $2,000… even $4,000.

I ended up creating mini descriptions of each product and then Wil plugged them into his shopping cart. He had it set up so that there was one main sales page, and people would just have to refresh it every time a product ran out to get to see the next product.

It was SO easy! He really did a knock-out job.

When we started the webinar, James Jones, Maria Gudelis, Keith Dougherty, and John Rhodes came on to support everything.

James immediately said he was going to eat all the PayPal fees for every single product bought so the charity would get 100% of the donations. (He is one of the most generous people I have ever met.)

We started selling products, and WOW. It was unbelievable. People were so excited to be there, to support the cause, and to get such great discounts.

Wil MC’ed everything (he was GREAT at it!!) while I announced the products.

At the end of the webinar sales were showing up slowly. There was so much activity on the PayPal account! The webinar ended up going 3.5 hours!

At the end of the webinar, Wil finally announced we were at $36k in sales.  Keith Dougherty spoke up and said, “I don’t like $36… I like $37. I’m going to donate another $1,000.”At that point I guess a few more sales came in, and we got to $38k. James said, “We should push for $40k!”

Wil said he would put in $1k, then James said he would match him. I said I’d put in another $1k, and then so did Maria and John, which got us $5k even more.

Then, with all the cash donations from other marketers we got even before the webinar… we were able to round up to $50k with donations.

It was UNBELIEVABLE.

So magical.

This whole experience has forever changed me. I told Wil and Otto… I’ve had a lot of achievements in life. I’ve been a cover story in a magazine, wrote a book, lost 100 lbs, and a slew of so many other things… but this is what I am the most proud of, by FAR.

It’s just amazing. I am so grateful for everyone who supported this.

It’s incredible. This went from Wil and I sitting on a couch to asking Practical Profits to help to a few hours worth of calling people, doing some tech stuff, writing a little copy, etc… to the webinar.

We worked a grand total (including the 3.5 hour webinar) of less than 10 hours.

And it didn’t feel like work.

Most people didn’t even get to mail their lists for us. At the peak of our call we had about 250 people. If we would have pushed more, who knows what would have happened?

All I know right now is that education is huge. Knowledge is power. And everyone who helped took part in possibly rewriting a child’s destiny.

Absolutely magical.

I feel so inspired and amazed at what humans are capable of. This has forever changed me.

Today started out great, then went downhill fast. I course corrected and am ending up with a superb night!

I have a new friend who does palm readings. I got mine done and thought it was pretty neat.

I’ve been finding it super-interesting lately about how so many things that I study match up. My Myers Briggs matches up to my palm reading which matches up to my Wealth Dynamics which matches up to my “Strong Suits” from Landmark Forum, etc…

And it’s all not just regular stuff. For example, a lot of them mention I don’t like abstract thinking, which is not a general thing that can make sense for everyone. The lust for life is also not something everyone experiences, or life getting progressively better from childhood (a Myers Briggs expert pointed out that that’s common for my type – INFJ’s).

The reason I’m into these things is because if accurate, they help you understand yourself and why you do things better. It’s easier to play with your strong suits versus try to push yourself into doing things you’re not innately good at (like abstract thinking for me). The palm reading thing is cool for me because I’ve been finding more and more lately how much wisdom is in our bodies.

Here’s what my palm says about me (along with a picture of my palm so you can follow along):

You have a cone shaped hand, with fair skin and long, tapered fingers. This indicates a sensitive nature, a strong appreciation for beautiful things and a desire to create and connect things that you love. Your strong knuckles, though, indicate that although you are very thoughtful and can become completely absorbed in your own observations, you are grounded in your relationships with others and will at times sacrifice your own feelings to maintain relationships that you think are important.

Your life line, which is the curved line that goes down your palm, is somewhat faint but extremely long with a nice curve. It gains strength as it continues. This indicates that at the start of your life, you were somewhat timid, and separation of your life line from your head line indicates that you did not feel as supported as you would have liked as a child/adolescent. Eventually, though, your desire for self-discovery led you to gain confidence and strength, and the large curve of your life indicates a strong lust for life and a desire to find answers to some of life’s more difficult questions.

Your head line is the horizontal line that begins right above your life line. Your is somewhat short and straight. When making decisions, you tend to get directly to the point, and have a very strong rational ability. You don’t like to be distracted by too many details, and you have the tendency to resist abstract thinking. Others look to you when they need someone ‘with a good head on their shoulders’ and you like to fill this role.

Your heart line is the horizontal line that crosses along your palm closest to your fingers. Yours is particularly strong, and in fact is the most defined line on your palm. You have a huge heart and are extremely skilled at connecting with others and understanding their issues. In fact, this can sometimes overshadow your own problems, and you can get yourself into sticky situations trying to help others when they do not wish to be helped. The crosses at the start of your line indicate that you have been through some difficult romantic and/or family relationships. It’s important for you to focus on your own needs first and evaluate relationships from that perspective so that you can find the partnership that your heart deserves.

—

If you’re interested in having your palm read, the cost’d be $10 or something, and you would need a clear picture of the dominant hand you write with. Leave a comment on here and I’ll get the details.

At about 8:29 pm, I saw 2 Facebook posts from Mona and Joshua about “Earth Hour“.

I didn’t know what it was but pretty quickly learned it was an hour, starting at 8:30, where everyone was supposed to shut their lights off to help decrease energy consumption. I quickly decided to take part in it.

My intent was to do something good for the world, but man – it felt really good to have to be home and away from the computer for a bit.

It seems like lately if I’m home and don’t have a friend over, I’ve gotten into a habit of wanting to check my email all the time. I think I trained myself when Burn Your To Do List was in constant crisis mode, and I haven’t been able to reel myself out of it.

After I visited Elysia and Andrew in Mexico (AMAZING time there btw), I thought I had kicked the habit… but no such luck. I came back to the computer in full-force.

Earth Hour was super-awesome, though. In one hour of solitude (after not allowing myself to check email via my cell – I was tempted!) I was able to:

1. Write out a few pages of ideas for a marketing concept I’d been completely stuck on all week

2. Understand how to approach a situation better

3. Do some deep stretching (made myself to go through poses that are normally uncomfortable, and feel super-loose now)

4. Get some good meditation in

…and I’m feeling GREAT.

Before BYTDL, I used to make sure that I shut my computer off at least an hour before bed. It helped me go to bed calmly (they say you should never go to bed while your mind is still in “alert” mode). This was another habit I lost once I felt I needed to be at the computer all the time to fix any crisis. It was really quite fantastic too though – helped me make sure to get reading or journaling time in (both two things I really love to do).

I am getting back into that now… and I am also hereby proclaiming “Earth Hour” for myself once a week (so maybe I’ll call it “Rachel Hour”. ). I will be shutting off all my lights, computer, and taking time out for me. It’s probably going to be one of productive hours (if not THE most productive hour) of my week. Not only will I be able to stop my automatic “get to work!” tape and think about things in a different view, but I’ll be able to replenish myself.

This is the first step in getting back to pre-Burn Your To Do List Rachel. Next step is re-joining all my classes (or trying fun new ones). Soon after that, I will conquer the world.

If you did Earth Hour, how did you feel about it?

When I was at Landmark, one of the things they taught us was how to identify where our “strong suits” (the “best” parts of ourselves) came from.

You’d probably think that the best parts of yourself would be pure awesome – and to an extent they are – but it was really fascinating to learn that any of our strong suits are all compensating for something else.

The premise of strong suits is that when we come into this world we don’t yet have a personality. Our experiences make up our personality – and there are 3 distinct events that happen throughout our lifetime to form 3 huge parts of our personality.

Understanding your strong suits explains why you have the job you do, why you have certain hobbies, and a lot about what you do on a daily basis. As you read on you’ll see how the father of Tae Kwon Do got started – and it’s pretty funny.

I just got a Myers-Briggs profile, and interestingly enough, the strong suits that I learned at Landmark coincided very well with the Myers-Briggs learnings.

I am going to give some examples of peoples’ strong suits, including mine, so you can see how these strong suits show up for different people. To set the record straight before I begin, I am VERY HAPPY with how my life turned out. I am ecstatic that I had to endure so much when I was younger, because everything was a learning lesson. I’ve moved on. I understand I put my meaning on everything and have chosen to make my meanings that struggles make me more experienced, understanding, and better equipped to deal with the world.

Initially I was hesitant to give examples from my own life because I didn’t want my parents to start blaming themselves or feeling bad about certain things. I also didn’t want to feel judged from people who read this blog. The only reason I’m letting this go is because I think you could possibly benefit from learning about strong suits and so I don’t want to let selfishness stand in the way of what might be an empowering experience for some people.

With that out of the way…

a) You may not remember what happened during the timeline for each strong suit right away. That’s fine – several people at the forum needed to think hard about them.

b) It’s very possible to have multiple strong suits – but these are just the biggest 3.

c) You don’t need a horrible childhood to have strong suits. EVERYONE has strong suits – different people will make different things “traumatic” to them. I’ll go into more detail shortly.

With that said, let’s get started.

So for example, the father of Tae Kwon Do went to a Landmark Forum and realized that it was during this time period he got beat up by a 4 year old girl. He spent his entire life trying to compensate for it.

There was another person who went to Landmark whose brother switched out the apple juice in his bottle for urine. After the kid drank it, his brother told him what he did at the family dinner table, and everybody started laughing. The kid grew up to be one of the world’s foremost experts on water purification.

For me, mine was when my parents were having a huge fight. My dad said he was leaving for good, and stormed out to his car. I ran out after him, trying to make everything better. For some reason I told him he should just go on a vacation with my mom and everything would be better. (I have no idea where I got that). He seemed to calm down, so I felt on top of the world, thinking I singlehandedly saved my parents’ marriage. When I told my mom what I did though, she was very emotionally charged and upset with me. She said, “How could you do that? We don’t have the money to go on vacation!”. (I am not faulting either one of my parents for anything – what happened is what happened – but my father was prone to unbelievably crazy tirades/physical violence and my mom was afraid he’d get violent with her after realizing they didn’t have the money.)

From that situation, I learned to always look for win-win solutions and to be as objective as possible. I’ve learned how to word things wonderfully. It’s helped me a lot in identifying great marketing offers (I can really get in the head of prospects and go into their point of view) and copywriting. I very rarely get into arguments with people because I can see where the other person is coming from. There are a lot of AWESOME things that have come from it. There are ALWAYS awesome things that come from these situations.

This happens when you’re around 12 and a situation happens where you feel like you no longer belong.

Remember when I said that it doesn’t need to be that something traumatic has happened? A perfect example is how one guy at the Forum ended up having this happen because his father told him he loved him too much.

His father would say “I love you” all the time. One time, he said it in front of his friends at soccer practice. The kid asked his father to please not say it in front of his friends because it embarrassed him, but a few months later, the father did it again. From there, the boy decided that his father must NOT love him. He “learned” nobody loved him and to be very independent and get his love from himself.

Mine was looking around my classroom in 7th grade… I think it was when I weighed the most (around 250-265 pounds). I remember always just knowing that everyone in school was better than me. It wasn’t something I questioned – I just felt as if they all had a lot more value than I did. It was a fact in my mind that they were all worth more than I was. It’s hard to explain, but it wasn’t something I felt like I could decide – it just was.

Again, awesome things happened from feeling that way. Because I just “knew” that everyone was worth more than I was, I was super-nice and super-generous. I figured it was the least I could do to all these people that were so much better than I was. Because of that, I have always made friends very, very easily. And since generosity always comes back around, my generosity has landed me some phenomenal things. People are ALWAYS giving me incredible stuff – either experiential or tangible. And it’s helped with business, too. Tons of people tell me they buy my stuff because they like ME.

This happens when you’re around 18 and something happens where you realize you’re on your own.

For one lady in my Forum, she said her parents had taken care of her all her life. When she went to college though, they lost their money and had to claim bankruptcy. They told her they’d still pay for college, but she had to come up with her own spending money. This was crazy to her, and she started feeling very resentful when her friends asked her to go to the movies or do anything involving money. Because of that she ended up becoming extremely frugal. Now she’s a realtor and excellent at finding the best deals, scrutinizing contracts to make sure nobody’s taking advantage of her clients, and always getting the best possible bottom line.

Mine was after I had moved to Pennsylvania. My stepfather (who I get along with great now) had been hitting me. It wasn’t the first time, but I was more upset than usual about it. I think it was because I was super-resentful of moving to PA, and I felt like he was trying to be my father (my father used to be violent too, but with him, I figured it was OK because he was my dad and that’s what dads did). Anyway, my stepdad wasn’t stopping, in my mind nobody in my family was doing a thing about it (even though they were all in the room), and out of fear, I called the police. After I did, my stepdad stopped, so I calmed down and figured the police would solve everything. By the time the cops got there, because I had been so calm, I guess they didn’t believe me. They asked me, “Can you walk? Can you talk? Then don’t bother us.”

Obviously I felt ridiculously powerless at that point, and knew that I was on my own.

Because of that experience, I became very, very independent. I got promoted with a quickness at work. I’d work multiple crazy 36 hour shifts when I was a salaried manager because I wanted my area to be in tip-top shape all the time and didn’t feel like I could depend on the overnight managers. I drove cross country several times, sleeping in my car when I had to. I walked on tightropes. Broke an arrow against my throat. Quit my job to go into business for myself full time. Lost 110 pounds. Won best speaker at Toastmaster’s. That’s just skimming the surface – I have a TON of fantastic accomplishments under my belt. I’m saying that to reiterate that these crappy situations enable us to do PHENOMENAL THINGS. I am grateful for them. I love both of my parents very, very much. I’m sure I’ve done stupid things that have unknowingly hurt people. When I have kids – man, I don’t even want to think about some of the things I might unknowingly do.

There are a few ways in which you can gain by knowing these.

First of all, this really helps you see that YOU put the meaning on things that happen.

For example, if a friend tells you, “I can’t hang out tonight”, you can make it mean “He doesn’t like me as much as he used to” or “He doesn’t want to spend time with me”… OR, you can take it at face value – your friend can’t hang out tonight.

Going through the strong suits is sometimes hilarious. The father of Tae Kwon Do created his entire life because a 4 year old girl made him feel not good enough. There was a woman who ended up becoming an insect doctor when she killed a bug at 5 years old, and her mom yelled at her because that was one of the “good bugs” that helped the garden. Some stories we talked about at the Forum were really, really interesting.

Once you identify WHY your strong suits are strong suits, you may be able to back away from them a bit and go into things more objectively.

I can say for me, identifying my strong suits helped me not live in such an automatic “tape” mentality. In most situations, my “tape” before I identified my strong suits was to say, “No, I’ll do it myself.” I didn’t need anyone else to help me with anything. Now that I understand WHY I chose to be that way, I can release it.

Since identifying this strong suit, I have hired an awesome coach who I can learn a lot from. I probably wouldn’t have done that before, figuring that I could read books on my own, go to seminars on my own, etc. I am now feeling more willing to accept help from others.

Strong suits also help you realize that the strongest parts of your personality are often compensating for something else (ie if you’re frugal, you’re afraid to spend money. If you’re the father of Tae Kwon Do, you’re really just scared you’ll get beat up again. If you’re always looking for win-wins, you’re afraid to be selfish. etc.) Identifying these things, and then working to release them can help you push out of your comfort zone bigtime, and get a much wider-view experience of the world.

All in all, I was pretty fascinated about this concept, learned a lot, and hope you’ve got some use out of it too.

I just finished my first 3 days at Landmark (I have “graduation” tomorrow), so I figured I’d post a wrap-up to how my experience was.

First thing’s first… it took me a long time to get to the Forum. I had a lot of friends that went there and recommended it, but for every positive recommendation, there was an atrocious review online. I twittered that I was considering going once and got all kinds of warning messages back.

Nobody I knew personally had anything bad to say about it – but for some reason I just kept trusting the reviews. When I asked my friends who went about the mind control I kept reading about, they admitted there definitely was some. They also said since I know influence tactics well, I should go and just be cautious, but that the overall content was phenomenal.

In retrospect, even Warrior Camp – which lord knows I recommend wholeheartedly – had mind control tactics… most things like that do… but for some reason, I was just really bothered by it this time. I think it’s because my “I freaking hate to be manipulated” meter was up… whereas with other things, the mind control comes unexpectedly so I can’t be cautious in advance.

…had I not seen a blog post that Lori Painter made. She mentioned that someone who studied a LOT about psychology told her that in order to conquer her self worth issues, she needed to go to Landmark.

That was the final push for me to go, and so I signed up.

I am always looking to push myself to the next level, and self worth is something I could work on.

But before I tell you about that, in order to understand this post, you need to know the forum runs for a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then a Tuesday night “graduation”.

With that out of the way –

When I first got to the Forum, I went in with a different mindset than I ever have before. I was skeptical from the getgo. I was so on the lookout for mind control stuff that it was incredible. The first thing I did was count the chairs in each row, multiply by how many rows there were, and calculated how much money the seminar was bringing in. I analyzed every word the leader said. I felt like a detective.

Initially when I signed up for Landmark I had planned on staying the entire seminar duration. During Friday afternoon when we were asked to write down if we were able to commit to the whole seminar, I wrote down that there was a possibility I couldn’t stay that night. I figured I’d be bored and that the good stuff didn’t come till later on, because that’s what one of the reviews said.

Because we had assignments during each one of the breaks and dinner breaks, I ended up being finagled into staying that night. Our first dinner assignment was to go to dinner with some people from the forum. Once I committed to going with them, I felt like I needed to follow them back into the building when we got back from dinner.

To be honest, the entire theme of the weekend for me seemed to be committing in small chunks. On Friday I thought I wouldn’t go into the Friday night session, on Saturday I thought I might just quit, on Sunday I thought I wouldn’t go Sunday night, and it was today (Monday) that I decided I’d go to the Tuesday night graduation.

At the end of the day on Friday I decided…

I mean, you can justify anything about anything… but my “mind control meter” didn’t ring at all during Day 1.

On Day 2, I didn’t outright see anything mind control-y either. I mean, there is some talk about “enrollment” which is getting people on board with the possibilities you create, but anyone’s going to tell you to have people in your life that support your goals. It’s common sense.

During Day 2, something cool happened.

He mentioned that he read the reviews and went full-on discussing how the possibility that Landmark uses crazy mind control techniques, manipulates people, etc.

The Forum leader engaged him and talked to him for probably about an hour in front of everyone.

I definitely had the feeling that the leaders were trained for these kind of things since ours (Jeff) seemed to have an answer for everything. Regardless of that though, the answers were good (enough), with the exception of one (in my opinion).

It may be a small detail – one I would have never even picked up if I wasn’t so on the lookout – but I’ll mention it anyway.

The dude at the mic, in an attempt to explain why Landmark would have a reason to use mind control techniques, mentioned that Landmark obviously makes a lot of money.

Jeff started talking about how he said the same thing when he was a student, and that he mentioned it to the people he went to dinner with on the Saturday night of his forum. Apparently some guy he was at dinner with was the VP of Training at a Fortune 500 company and told him that he had studied through hundreds of training programs, and that if Jeff knew “the truth”, he’d be shocked.

Jeff talked about how the VP was talking about how he had been through hundreds of the best training programs, and when he found out the price of Landmark, he thought it was per hour. When he found out it wasn’t per hour, he thought it was per day… then was shocked when he found out it was per weekend.

Then he started mentioning overhead, and almost making it sound like Landmark was not making anything or possibly even losing money.

The guy at the mic mentioned that you could go on Wikipedia and go through a tour of the San Francisco headquarters, and how magnificent it looked. He said he didn’t care that Landmark made money, but he just wanted to acknowledge that they did. Jeff said, “Have you ever been inside of that building?” The way he said it was like the headquarters were crappy inside or something (which I do not, at all, in any way, shape or form, buy).

Jeff was clearly trying to paint a picture of Landmark not making that much money. Most people just accepted what he said, and I think they really believe that Landmark is almost some kind of charity. That’s easy though – most because most people accept any reason why. It’s the classic Xerox example from Influence – “Can I cut in front of you to make a copy because I need to make copies?”.

I think Landmark makes a ton of money, and that’s fine – but I just don’t like to hear it being denied. I know that they don’t charge that much, but it doesn’t mean they’re not profitable. I have one word for that rubbish: Wal-Mart.

Anyway, towards the end of Day 2, I started learning some stuff. I definitely think I was blocking myself a little bit because I just kept being so suspicious of everything… but I did learn some stuff and I was very happy.

I would not have recommended Landmark to anyone at that point, but I did learn some cool stuff and figured it wouldn’t have been a total waste of time and money if that was the best it got.

On Day 3, the course changed for me – a lot.

The content on Day 3 was AWESOME.

Of course, that’s also the day when some ‘mind control’ stuff happened, although in all honesty, it was no worse than a pitch at the end of a seminar.

After we got back from dinner on Sunday night, Jeff tried to have us share with a partner the “creation of a possibility” about how our graduation on Tuesday night could go. Because you can invite people who haven’t yet been to Landmark on Tuesday (it’s when they recruit the new people), people were getting up and shared stuff like “I am creating the possibility of enrolling a million people and spreading the love”.

When I had to share – even after I had learned some AWESOME STUFF – I was still very cautious and on guard for mind control. I told my partner, “Sorry, but I’m not creating any possibility. I’m not bringing any friends, and I don’t think I got enough out of Landmark to recommend it.”

At that point I was also 99% sure I would NOT go to graduation. Despite the fact that I learned a lot and got an amazing new perspective change, I was still on guard and almost resentful of the forum. I figured mind control was looming around the corner, and since I hadn’t seen it yet, it was coming at any minute.

(I am normally not a conspiracist like this! … in fact, I’m usually the opposite.)

Today is Monday morning. When people asked me how I liked my experience, I told them I didn’t want to give them any judgments until a month or so down the line. I told them I wanted to see how much I implemented before giving my word on anything.

With Warrior Camp for example, I saw immediate and enormous life-transforming changes, and I was measuring Landmark against that. Like I told my friend earlier today – even on my millionth recommendation of Warrior Camp, I still get just as passionate as I did the first time I told someone about it, and it’s been years.

I felt strongly that I was not willing to give a recommendation of Landmark until I had some time to digest it.

In the hours afterwords, I had lots of time to think objectively.

I was still very on guard this morning. I was still thinking that mind control was looming, ready to taint my views of what I had learned. Because of that I was not ready to give Landmark credit yet. I was honestly not ready to allow myself to accept getting a lot out of Landmark because I kept thinking about those damn reviews.

In all honesty, I expect that graduation is going to prove that a lot of those reviews have merit.

That being said, I also realized that I need to take a more well rounded view of things.

I know that for a FACT because people have posted negative reviews about one of my companies – and I’ve investigated their claims! So many people feel it easy to make an anonymous post (I consider a handle on a forum “anonymous” still). It’s no problem to sit behind a computer when there are no repercussions against how much they slander a company. What do they care if they lie?

So that being said, I’m a bit disappointed in myself that I let those negative Landmark reviews affect me so much. I’m especially disappointed that I wouldn’t allow myself to be OK with Landmark considering:

1. I’ve seen firsthand that people lie when reviewing companies

2. All my friends that went – personal, real life friends – SAID THEY GOT A LOT OUT OF IT

It’s now Monday night. I have the graduation tomorrow and I am stone-cold positive there’s going to be a lot of strong-handed tactics to get people to recruit friends. There’ll probably be enough to frustrate me. I don’t doubt it at all – my friends told me there were mind control techniques and I didn’t see enough yet to warrant their comments.

That being said, I will wholeheartedly recommend Landmark anyway. That’s because I DID see immediate and (for me) beyond drastic changes in my behavior already.

First of all, I’m going to Mexico tomorrow. I was in such diet mode for the past few weeks, thinking I needed to look good for my bikini, and that I wouldn’t look good until I reached a certain weight. I tell you, I have NEVER… NEVER, EVER, EVER been 100% OK with what I looked like. There are definitely days when I have “I look cute!” days, but in the back of my mind, I still saw myself as 250 pound Rachel. Today when I looked in the mirror, not only did I feel beautiful and confident, but I ate whatever I wanted – even though it’s thisclose to Mexico and I would have told myself before that potential bloat could ruin a bikini.

Also, I decided to NOT take my computer to Mexico. Burn Your To Do List had been kicking my butt for a while and I was making myself feel very guilty about taking a week off – like I’d be letting down people on my team, that I didn’t deserve to take the time off yet, etc… but Landmark really helped me see that I create my reality in a way that no book has been able to.

Obviously I cannot tell you what’s going to happen a month down the line – and I will do my best to make a follow-up post (feel free to prod me along if I’m taking a while) – but I can tell you that as of this point, I would recommend Landmark, that I think I am forever changed (time will tell for sure), and not to believe everything you read online.

I would also say to take what you want from it and disregard the rest. Like I said, I still do expect heavy recruitment techniques during graduation – no doubt about it – and I hope it’s not so obnoxious that it takes away from the content of the forum. At the end of the day though, I decided that I am going to take what is useful for me from the forum, disregard what is not, and stand by my recommendation.

Look out for more posts down the line about some cool things I learned.

A few months ago, I decided to start BurnYourToDoList.com with Otto.

When I first started it, it seemed easy enough. A team of 33 trained assistants basically fell into our laps, so I thought things would go incredibly. We were going to charge entrepreneurs a marked up fee to work with our already trained assistants, and we’d basically get money for being the matchmakers.

I thought we would just sign up clients, assign them to already trained traffic assistants and virtual assistants, and everyone would go on with their merry lives.

I figured entrepreneurs would be happy because they got trained team members to work with them, team members would be happy because they’d get secure, stable income, and Otto and I would be happy because it looked like a lucrative, easy business model where we could help out our team members.

My initial intent was to work hard through January 1st, make BYTDL my 100% focus until we got 100 clients, and then start traveling again.

Easy enough, right?

WRONG.

I basically sold my soul for a few months. It was absolutely AWFUL.

Top 7 Reasons Why I Was Beyond Miserable:

In no particular order…

7. The way I had it positioned, I was basically responsible for everyone’s traffic and sales. People would ask me what they should do to get more traffic, and I’d give them advice. If it didn’t work, I was the one to blame. Awesome.

6. I was on the phone ALL DAMN DAY with clients. I freaking hate the phone (I’m getting frustrated again just as I’m typing this).

5. Because the service was high end, even if I didn’t position it as me being responsible for people’s traffic and sales, I still would have taken responsibility. I felt like everyone’s business was my personal business because they were paying us so much money.

4. While Otto and I are completely OK now, it definitely took a toll on us then. I was always super-stressed, sending a million emails a minute, and getting upset when I wasn’t getting responses back quickly enough. I’d get mad at Otto when the stuff he was responsible for wasn’t done right/according to what I wanted, and he was probably just as mad at me for being overbearing.

We eventually decided to stop being partners and I took on the company myself – which I think worked out very well for both of us. He had owed me some money, so we called it even and then went our separate ways business-wise.

3. Each of our team members was trained on different things. In my effort to make the clients happy, I told them I’d train the team members on anything. This worked out in some cases. In others, it didn’t, and then I felt like I was giving sub-par work to clients. I’d then go and spend money on correcting the problems through other service providers, and… blech.

2. Every time a client complained – even the smallest complaint – it would absolutely devastate me and ruin my day. I take client satisfaction REALLY seriously, and any complaint would just ring in my head for the entire day.

1. I had a big argument with one of the team members in the beginning. We ended up splitting up, and she tried to get all the team members to stop working with me, leaving me having to cover all the clients with NEW assistants.

She also ended up hijacking one of the clients.

In the end I was able to resolve mostly everything, but it was just a really miserable period. I haven’t been that stressed since my management positions in retail. I’m normally super-laid back, and in love with the PASSIVE income I usually make from my internet marketing efforts… but this was just awful.

It was time-intensive, miserable, and NOT hands-off.

So anyway, I REALLY wanted to get rid of this godforsaken site. I just felt like I couldn’t, though.

The Reason I Couldn’t Let It Go:

I felt really badly for the new team I was working with. Excited by all of the new clients I was bringing in, two of the project managers started to feel like it was their life’s mission to provide jobs for Filipinos.

I felt awful taking that from them.

One week the girls went and posted ads all over the place for Filipinos who were looking for reliable income. They rented out a venue – ON THEIR OWN, with their OWN MONEY – and held a training for all prospective employees. They figured we’d be set as we grew the business and brought on new clients.

They felt so strongly about being able to do this, and I had so much emotionally invested in being able to help them, that I couldn’t just let it go.

After considering all options…

I Decided To Turn My Business Upside Down.

When we first started BYTDL, we were all about having a high-end service. We thought we’d have a bigger profit margin this way, not deal with complainers (usually the cheaper people are, the more they complain), and be ready to leave the business after 100 clients.

It was also the model that other people used, so I figured it had to work.

After a few months of wanting to shoot myself more often than not, I decided to try a different strategy.

I started reading people’s emails, combined different pieces of advice I got, listened to my intuition…

And instead of sticking with high end, I started offering LOWER prices where people would pay for TASKS, not for HOURS.

I ended up changing the company around so people would purchase memberships for “X” amount of credits, and then they could use the credits towards jobs they wanted to have done.

Why I Thought This’d Work Better:

1. It seems as if things get done slower than I want when my team does things versus when I do them. The clients felt the same way. I felt if my team was working on a TASK basis, it wouldn’t matter how long projects took them because the clients would be paying for the end result.

2. I figured if new clients asked for tasks, then they would go to a central “pool”. This way whoever was best for the job would take the task, and I would no longer need my team members to be jacks-of-all-trades.

3. NO MORE CONSULTING. Clients would ask for the tasks they wanted. If the tasks didn’t get them more traffic, they could request new tasks. This new model allowed me to stop consulting or be in charge of traffic results. All I accepted responsibility for was the fact that the tasks got done correctly.

4. I didn’t have to promise too much this way. People can only ask for jobs that I KNOW we can do well. If we can’t do them well, they’re not on the task list.

5. I thought this would help my girls provide jobs for Filipinos. This was actually the real and main reason I decided to go this route.

To be completely honest, when I started this new direction, it was more so I could leave BYTDL without feeling guilty about it. I was going to pay my girls on a task-based model where I would have broke-even at best every month.

I really didn’t care though – I just wanted to be done with the godforsaken site and not let my girls down.

What Happened Next Was AMAZING.

First of all, I launched the offer on a Saturday. In less than 5 days, we had about 125 clients.

For months, I’d been staring at this wallpaper I put on my desktop:

…and then in less than 5 full days, it came true!

Then, I touched base with the team to see if they would rather get paid on a salary basis versus a task basis.

At first, they seemed hesitant.

When I pushed to find out why, they told me they were legitimately worried that if I paid them on a salary basis, I wouldn’t make enough profit.

(Do you see why I love my girls so much?)

When I explained the difference, they were more than happy to go a salary route. Not only can they get secure income now,I don’t have to worry about losing money (in fact, I’m getting a pretty nice TRULY PASSIVE profit margin now).

They’re going to make more money this way too. My original founders are getting a salary increase after every 50 clients sign up, and then I’m making sure they all get at least 2-3 weeks vacation a year (if not more).

We have also been able to give 9 more Filipinos a full time salary (not counting the ones who were already working with clients).

Talk about a win-win-win. We’ve helped Filipinos get more jobs, increased their salaries, gave 125 (and counting) entrepreneurs who couldn’t afford an assistant a leg up, and I’ve made great passive income.

My Biggest Takeaways From This:

I learned a LOT from this, and that’s why I wanted to blog about it.

Here are some of the things I discovered:

1. I wanted to go to a lower-end route from the beginning, but everybody had a “better idea”. People said it didn’t make sense to work with lower end clients… that my profit margin would be better if I kept it up the way I was going.

The same thing happened when I started internet marketing. I’ve mentioned this before, but when I first started, I was literally making between $500-$800/day my very first day (and then weeks thereafter). It wasn’t until I started getting on internet marketing lists and doing what everyone else told me to do, that I started losing a lot of my profit.

My learning lesson from this was – Screw everyone else’s opinions. Go with what YOU want to do. Test, tweak, and modify accordingly.

Even when I wrote my sales letter for this new offer, I got flak for it.

Thing is, I was completely honest in the offer. I had limited pricing to 100 people.

As a copywriter, I’d been trained to make “reasons why” all the time. “Make up a great reason why pricing needs to be limited! Use that sense of urgency! Make people move fast!”

On this sales letter, I explained to people that yes, I was limiting pricing to 100 people, but I had no reason to do so other than I thought it’d make them move faster. I was COMPLETELY honest.

People told me I was losing my touch, what happened to my “kick-ass” sales-letters, etc…

But I chose to go with MY WAY, and it worked out perfectly.

2. ALWAYS BE IN IT TO OFFER VALUE. I honestly didn’t think I was going to make any profit from this whatsoever. It was really about emotionally letting myself feel OK about not putting too much attention into BYTDL any more. I wanted to support my girls while not having to sell my soul.

AFTER I made that decision and took action, amazing things happened.

Like I said, I’ve been able to help my girls provide jobs to phenomenal people in a third world country, give 125+ entrepreneurs a leg up, AND make profit from it. Who gets to say that?

3. This is less important, but still a discovery. I say SCREW HIGH END. I know I used to say the opposite before, but I’ve changed my mind. The market’s changed, too.

Yes, it’s true – you’ll get more complaints from the cheapskates – but if you tell people exactly what you’re going to do and then deliver on it, it won’t matter. Just make sure expectations are completely clear. If a client gets moody or demanding, just quickly fire them and move on.

4. Even in your darkest, most miserable moments (hehe – I am NOT overexaggerating!), there’s a win-win solution that can come from it, if you’re open to it.

I decided to quit the juice fast after 4.5 days. It just wasn’t working for me.

I made the first video a few hours ago, and then spoke to my friend Joshua, who inspired me to add more – hence the 2nd video.

(I’m sorry about the lighting the second time, I wasn’t thinking about any of it as it was totally impromptu. I’m wearing my PJ’s in it. )

This was an excellent learning experience for me and I thank you for letting me share it with you.

I posted this from my 5am – 9am experience:

This morning wasn’t super-awesome.

I woke up, sat at the edge of my bed for a while (because every time I got up yesterday I blacked out for a good 30 seconds), and got up. Luckily today I could see, so I thought today might be a better day. I know Steve Pavlina mentioned his Day 4 was much better than Day 3, so I hoped for the best.

When I went to go stand up to make juice, I had very little energy. I put the first bunch of celery in and found myself dwindling. I put a cucumber in and was REALLY dwindling. When I went to cut up the second cucumber, I knew I was about to pass out so I went to go sit down on my couch for 5 minutes. After I got up to try and finish, I had to sit down again. Finally I was able to finish the juice, but I had no energy to drink it so I put it back in the fridge and went back to bed.

Oddly enough, during the juicing this morning, I had almost no motor skills or brain function. It was very weird. I went to go throw some cucumber mash away and put it right in the hole part of my cutting board, so that when I lifted the cutting board, the cucumber fell right through again. I went to go pick up a plate in my sink and didn’t account for all the water on it, and ended up soaking myself. Those were just some weird things that obviously normally I would remember to do.

After I took my nap, I felt a lot more clear-headed but still didn’t have a lot of energy. I put one sock on, finished some emails, and then put the other sock on. I couldn’t do them both at the same time or it’d wipe me out.

On the good side though, I’m not feeling nauseous or light-headed today if I sit down… only when I exert any energy on anything.

All of this is making me strongly consider how long I should fast for. I started out intending 30 days, then thought 14 days at minimum, but now I’m thinking maybe I’ll do 7 days this time and then next time I’ll do another 7 days. While I know it’s very healthy for all this to be happening, I also don’t want to overwhelm my body.

I mean, I have no desire to eat or anything (even though I keep having food dreams. Last night I dreamt about these popcorn chicken things I used to eat all the time when I was 16-22)… it’s just that I read that these days are supposed to start getting better, and so far, no dice.

I know Jaime said after 7 days she started feeling worse and worse too…

Hmm, I guess I’ll play it by ear.

Oh, and I’ve lost 6 pounds in 3 days.

From 9am – 2pm:

I was randomly crying a few times throughout the day. I knew there’d be a lot of emotional detox from the getgo so I was prepared for it.

The thing is, any emotion one feels is really meant to last for a short while. Normal people are supposed to feel through an emotion and then let it be done. When you emotionally eat, you block those emotions and that energy stays stuffed in your body. Since I emotionally ate my weigh into being over 100 lbs overweight before, I clearly have a ton of stuff to detox. I knew that going into this.

I also forced myself to drink some more juice (36 oz so far) and also 40 oz of water. I’ll be drinking more of each later.

In the beginning of this time period I couldn’t even sit without feeling lightheaded, but now I can sit for a few hours… I just can’t stand for more than a minute or two without wanting to collapse.

I’m thinking more and more about ending this after 7 days. That’s because:

a) I don’t want to screw up my metabolism, and quite frankly, I’m afraid I’ll gain the weight I lost with a quickness if I do this too long. It’s well known that this fasting WILL slow down your metabolism. Advocates of fasting say that if you eat an all raw diet afterwards, it won’t matter.

I don’t want to eat an all raw diet after and don’t think that’s what’s best for my body.

I was also thinking it might be nice to do 7 days now, maintain my new weight, and then do 7 days later.

b) The idea of laying around in my bed for 30 days is a pretty crappy one. I know there are times when I’m supposed to feel euphoric, but I seem to be having the same reactions Jaime did… and she said she was bedridden from the middle of week 1 through day 12.

I have work to do.

c) Most people say they love green juice during the fast and want tons of it afterwards. Everything about that damn drink nauseates me right now (and I used to drink tons of celery, cucumber, or celery-cucumber juice pre-fast).

d) Even though I set up some conditions to make this easier than normal, they’re still not optimal. When Jaime did her fast, she was able to have a plethora of spa treatments to help make things easier – tons of massages, oxygen treatments, a sauna, elixirs to ease the pain of detoxing, and a full staff of support to help her with any concerns that came her way.

Maybe I should go to a retreat or set myself up with better conditions in the future.

e) Most people that do best on extended fasts do it when they’re eating raw or vegan for a while. This wasn’t the case for me.

I guess my hesitancy is that I don’t want to look like a quitter. I talked to Jaime about this though and she made me feel a LOT better. She too, ended her fast a few days earlier, and was worried about what people would think. She ultimately decided that it was HER body and she knew what she was feeling better than anyone else could.

I know I’ll probably be judged if I end the fast after 7 days, but to be honest, unless someone has gone through the fasting themselves, I really could care less what their opinions are. This is a very intense, grueling process that I underestimated.

Even if only do 7 days (the bare minimum), I’ll be really proud of myself.