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.

I had a GREAT learning lesson today.

I had to go to Western Union earlier this afternoon. I just found out a friend had been robbed and I wanted to transfer some money to him.

When I got there, the lady running the counter didn’t know exactly what she was doing. She was flipping around her screen and asking ME what she should type in for different things that I had no idea about.

I gave her my best guesses, and it seemed to work…. but when I went to pay with my PayPal card, it came up declined.

I KNEW I had money in there, and even double checked my balance on my cell phone to make sure.

The lady told me my PayPal card was a “pay as you go” card, so it wouldn’t work.

I told her (in a VERY nice way) that the card works as a debit all the time, and asked if she could please try again.

She became very agitated and told me, “Ugh, fine”.

When she did it, it came up denied again.

At this point she became VERY hostile with me and rude. I told her I was concerned because I had no other debit card, reminded her that my friend was robbed, and told her I was just trying to think of something because he had no money. I was still VERY nice about it.

Maybe she wrote me off because she thought I didn’t have funds or something, but she was so rude. She basically told me I was out of luck, reiterated that PayPal will never work because it’s “pay as you go”, walked away from me, and was really unfriendly.

When I left, I was pretty mad. I don’t know if I’m explaining well enough how rude she was, but she was extremely nasty for no reason.

I left the building seething, thinking about how I would go to another store, have it work, and then have my assistant call Western Union and the Safeway she worked at to tell them how rude and unhelpful she was.

(I NEVER complain about people, especially since people have bad days and I’ve worked retail, but she was so mean!)

I went to Fred Meyer, another grocery store, and as I figured, the PayPal card worked fine. The cashier at Safeway did something wrong.

Something in me decided to call the first cashier and tell her what happened.

When I called her, I was very nice about it. I said, “Hey, this is Rachel. You were just helping me with my Western Union. I went to Fred Meyer and it worked. I think what happened was that the other cashier put in my friend’s middle name, just so you know for next time!”

She was VERY nice and sincerely thanked me for helping her.

What did I learn out of this?

1. After I called her, I felt like the situation was resolved. Any residue of anger I had just dissipated. It was magical.

2. I stood up for myself in a “confrontational” yet kind way, which felt nice. (Normally I’d probably do nothing and just “eat” the anger, which would never REALLY go away….)

3. I actually got to help that cashier! She seemed very grateful for me telling her what happened.

All in all, it was a great learning lesson. I’m really proud to have stood up for myself and to lift the situation to something where we both left much happier.

Just made a video blog post on why the retreat I was at last week has forever changed my life.

I did a “Top 10″ style, and I’ll post the main reasons under the video. The video just goes into detail on some of the things.

At the end of the video, I also posted an idea for a fun exercise we did. It was VERY profound and I think you’ll get a lot out of it, so let me know if you do it and I can tell you what it means.

Here’s the video:

…and here are the top 10 reasons:

1. Being in a circle with AMAZING women (This was so nourishing to my soul!)

2. Feeling so much more clear about my purpose (Wow – I walked away with SO much insight that I didn’t have before.)

3. Cleaning up throat chakra (In the form of 3-4 blood curdling screams… talk about liberating!)

4. Breathwork to the ultimate meditative “universal intelligence” state

5. Delicious food created for us

6. Photo shoot with hair + make-up people and the amazing Alexa Miller…

7. Was out in a GORGEOUS canyon in Ojai, California…

8. Out-of-this-world massage work

9. Fire circle (I used to hate those but this was AMAZING!!!)

10. The tarot card exercise that shocked me in its accuracy (see the end of the video for details)

Overall, I am extremely ecstatic about it and am SO HAPPY I did it.

Today’s video goes over the 3 reasons why today is AWESOME!!!, including a $10,000 prize I just won…

…And then a question Emma sent in about how I stay positive.

I’m definitely not into the new-agey “must be positive 24/7″ any more, but I do have some tricks up my sleeve for when I need a little pick-me-up!

Video below!

I’ve been reading Richard Branson’s “Business Stripped Bare” and I really think a point he made about many entrepreneurs being one-dimensional and only about the bottom line.

I’ve always found that when I’m experiencing the richness of life and doing business to help people, I am WAY happier… and I ended up making a video blog to explain that further

(Excuse my voice, for some reason it’s been sounding weird the past couple days!)

I have been doing a lot of personality studying lately, and one thing I really noticed about myself is I’m pretty conditioned to doing things for other people’s approval.

I never really realized it before, but after studying the eneagram (more posts coming soon on that), it was quite fascinating to see just how much I do so other people may like me.

I never realized approval was the reason for my doing nice things but after learning the eneagram it became very apparent.

Truthfully I know most people do this at one level or another, but I’m not OK with being “most people” – I want to push myself as much as possible.

After learning the eneagram I started to watch my patterns from an observer’s standpoint without shame or judgment attached. It was very interesting to realize not only do I expect everyone to like me,  but if they don’t, I tend to want nothing to do with them.

That’s a shame since people who dislike me are probably the ones I could learn the most from (and they, me).

When my mentor Piperlyne shared the poem “The Invitation” with me yesterday, it seemed to fit everything I have been thinking about lately. I had seen it before but it never spoke to me on such a soul-screaming level as it does now.

I am using this poem to remember:

• Even if I already committed to something I have the right to change my mind (And not think of myself as a liar.)
• It’s OK to put myself before others (And I’m really just taking the easy way out by putting others first.)
• What other people think about me really doesn’t need to concern me. I can learn from it or I can ignore it – but I definitely don’t need to personalize it.
• When talking to people I should talk about what *I* feel. I no longer choose to watch people’s facial expressions and body language to gauge approval/disapproval and move the conversation accordingly.
• It is not “spiritual” to put other’s in front of me all the time. In fact it’s pretty fake and not at all honoring my highest self.
• I can still be nice to others. It’s just that it needs to come from a place of wanting to do it for the love of them/the world and not for approval.
• Sitting in pain is FINE and not something I need to hide from. I am allowed to feel sad, angry, or hurt and it’s a beautiful thing.
• It’s perfectly OK to look like a fool =)

Without further ado, here’s the amazing poem:

The Invitation by Oriah

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

WARNING: If you did not yet do this exercise, please do it NOW.

If you read this post before doing the exercise, you’ll lose all benefit of it. It only takes 5 minutes and can give you tremendous insight – so please go do it NOW!

Keep reading ONLY IF YOU’VE DONE THE EXERCISE…

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Okay, so as I mentioned, Eben mentioned that Joe Polish taught him this exercise, and it’s supposed to reveal your life purpose.

The top 3 things are things you need to accept and develop, and the bottom 3 are your shadows – things that exist in yourself but you don’t yet want to recognize.

If you write “liar” for example, remember that it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re lying to others (though that could be true) – it could also mean you lie to yourself.

Here Were My Results:

The 3 people I admired were:

Mother Teresa – unwavering faith, dedication to goal

Albert Einstein – open-mindedness and intelligence

Piperlyne (my mentor) – not accepting fear, being OK in the face of anything

I thought and thought and could only come up with 2 people I didn’t like:

A popular “guru” that I’ll leave nameless – scammy, willing to do anything for money, doesn’t care about people

A copywriting client I once worked with  – unnecessarily aggressive, liar

After I Saw My “Shadows”, I Had To Do A Double Take.

I thought, “I care about people! How could that make sense?”

Then it hit me. Hard.

I’ve been telling people I want to get out of internet marketing for years now. Being totally transparent, the whole “make-money” market kind of disgusts me most of the time.

My pattern has been that I’ll want to get out, think of a new idea that can make a good amount of money and “help people”, and convince myself that if I’m helping people, it’s OK.

Don’t get me wrong here – I believe in the products I put out, knew they worked, etc… but still – those products are NOT my greatest gift to the world. At all.

After doing the exercise I realized that putting out 99% of my make-money products is not coming from my heart. A factor is helping people, yes, but there’s also the factor of wanting instant money without having to do that much work. It’s amazing how so many people just automatically buy products without even thinking about it, and it’s beyond easy to make 5-6 figures with a good information product.

Then I started thinking…

How Can I Feel Good In A Market That Disgusts Me So Much?

My first thought was, “I know I can still help people with some of my products.  How can I do it from a heart-centered place? Or do I even WANT to?”

The first thing I thought of was to do more webinars and teleseminars so I could follow up with people to ensure their success. After thinking about that though, I realized I really don’t want to tie myself down to any weekly commitments.

Then I started thinking… why do I make products in the make-money niche?

I had a few answers:

• Good money
• Helping people
• I love when people tell me they quit their jobs
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And I asked, why do I hate the make-money niche?

• Feels sleazy often
• Many people hand me money they need in order to get something they’ll never use
• I would hate if someone I just met were to Google me and see long-form sales letters that just scream of “Scam” (even though they’re not.)
• Making money is important when you’re in survival mode, sure… but it’s not that big of a deal once you’re “comfortable”. There are a lot more important (in my mind) things that could be done to help the world – such as having people do nice things for others, inspiring people to push themselves, and really pushing their SPIRIT.
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I also realized I usually put out the make-money products when I’m in survival mode (bank account getting low, want to pay for something, whatever). Sure, I could do the offline tactics that I teach, and they work – but internet marketing is pushbutton. Put out a product, put a price tag on it, send it to the list, and bam – tons of instant money.

Again I want to be clear here that I NEVER put out crap and really worked hard to ensure quality – but still – the point is, it wasn’t coming from a super-heart-centered place, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise.

So if I ever do internet marketing again…

Here’s My Commitment To You:

I don’t even know if I will make a “make-money” product ever again.

If I do, though, it will be different.

Every product I have will have an application process with a few questions people need to answer in order to get the product. I feel this step alone will knock off 50% of people who just buy on autopilot without even thinking about what they’re doing.

If my assistant and I approve the application, I will give access to the product for free and then the customer will pay what they feel it’s worth.

If they pay nothing, it means they never went through the product. That bans them for life on all my other products.

I may also allow people to do nice things for other people as payment.

This makes me a lot happier to do internet marketing products, *IF* I ever do them, because I work with only qualified people and will only hear from those who are actually going to do something with the information I teach.

I want to mention 2 things with this:

1. Nobody has this model yet. I may continue to recommend other people’s products that ask for a set price, and they will only be products I have used and 100% believe in. I will find these ON MY OWN, so marketers… please don’t send me joint venture requests any more.

2. I have already committed to an event series with several marketers to give in-person conferences. I will continue to do that, and those conferences will have a set price. I am continuing to do this because:

a) I already committed to it
b) The price is very inexpensive compared to the value
c) I will speak about outsourcing, which is something that I could believe in, since I know outsourcing gives people the power to live a more fun-filled life. It’s just not just about make-money rubbish.

I am also not sure if I plan on changing my old products out or not. As I think about it I will continue to keep the old prices up. Most of them are with partners and I don’t want to shove this down other people’s throats.

That being said, I don’t think I’ll be doing a lot of marketing any more. It’s just not that stellar to me.

My True Goal Is This:

I want to get 5,000 people (short-term) to post on my blog with something nice they did for the world.

THAT is something that gets me jazzed and pumped. It comes from my heart and aligns with the exercise.

For the next few weeks I need to focus full time on a specific short term goal I have, and when I’m done, I’ll be doing a ton of work on this blog.

I want to get it redesigned and have it tracking people who do nice things. There will be prize giveaways and other awesome motivations, and I’m super-excited to get those rolling out.

I feel it’s high-time I started doing what my heart and spirit want again, and NOT what my bank account feels good about.

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.

I used to write down 10 things I was grateful for every day. I had stopped for a bit, then started again once I joined Red Carpet Ready.

I really love the practice because whenever I do it, it feels great. If I’m ever upset about something, by the time #10 rolls around, I can’t be unhappy anymore. It just isn’t possible.

Anyway… a few hours ago, I was super-stressed about some work stuff. Things had been going a LOT better with some things I was working on, but once I got home from a mastermind meeting today, everything seemed to just… not be great. I took a shower, I sang a bit, I wrote… and I thought I felt better… but when Otto got home and innocently asked if everything was okay, I got upset all over again. He sat, let me cry, and just listened. He couldn’t have handled it better, and I’m so so SO grateful for him… and inspired to write even more about what I’m grateful for.

So, here goes… 100 things I’m appreciative of:

1. TAJWAR ALEXANDER
2. Carrie Underwood – Cheesy maybe, but I’m listening as I type and it was the first thing I thought of. Her lyrics are just so uplifting, I can’t help but feel happy when I listen to them.
3. Jason Mraz’ “Life Is Wonderful” – awesome song.
4. And “Lucky” with Colbie Caillat – I love that one, too.
5. My near-daily conversations with Brian.
6. The fact that he laughs all the time!
7. The Hayhouse seminar I went to this weekend.
8. The AWESOME speech by Sonia Choquette
9. …and the book of hers I’m reading now, “Diary Of A Psychic”. I’ve read many of her others and I never fail to be in love with them.
10. The great text message I got from Mike Hill while I was there
11. And all the incredible people I surrounded myself with there!
12. Balboa Park, where I read a lot of the book today (that park is beyond amazing)
13. And there’s an awesome frozen yogurt place right near it – you go get yogurt, and then you pick your own toppings from a toppings bar near it… so freaking yummy…
14. I love that I haven’t wanted to over-indulge there! Everything in moderation.
15. When stressed today, I didn’t crave ice cream like I used to in the past. In fact, I craved a nice big SALAD!
16. Speaking of salads – hung out with an amazing couple of guys yesterday, David and Sean… super-healthy, incredible guys that I just LOVED being around.
17. And Sean cooked up tons of amazing raw and vegan salads that were insanely delicious
18. They gave Otto and I a care package when we went home
19. I thought it was awesome that Otto stopped everything he was doing to listen to me before, and just let me cry. He’s launching soon and very busy…
20. And I’m happy I let myself be vulnerable enough around him!
21. I love these lists, because I’m getting to be in such a super-good mood…
22. My new V.A. seems great!
23. …And some other people from odesk, too. I already have a few people on my team, but wanted to test out some more and I’ve been in love.
24. The ones I do have already – dude. The one guy just constantly thinks of new things to do, works super-hard… is SO knowledgeable… I’m so lucky for him…
25. I’m looking at my “293″ sign from the 5k I ran a few weeks ago. I love it!
26. I cleaned up the second bedroom/my office, emptied out 3 trash bags full of clothing, and decorated the room with really positive things. It feels great in here!
27. One of the things I have up is my list of feedback that I got from Toastmaster’s. Every time I spoke, people would give me individual feedback forms… I ended up making one “Master List” to save all the paper I was lugging, and it makes me feel so proud that I came so far… so I hung it up.
28. Another thing I have hung up is Otto’s business card. On his card, he has a list of his businesses. The last link he has on there is to my meditation site! How sweet is that?
29. I totally don’t want to be THAT girl, but… I have another Otto thing to be grateful for. On date night, we went and painted pottery. I picked a hot air balloon because I want to go over France with one, thought it’d be good inspiration… and we painted it together. Anyway, he painted “O.R. + R.R.” on there. Groan if you want, I’ll be swooning…
30. Another thing I have hung up is a woman named Kath’s phone number and address. She was a woman I met over in Dallas on one of my road trips. She was amazing, and I’m so lucky to have met her… the paper just reminds me of our great conversation.
31. Something else I hung up… a note that Valerie Waters sent me a little bit ago. I went to Philly for a few weeks and didn’t have my ValSlides. She sent me a free pair, to keep me going, and left a really sweet note too. She totally did NOT need to do that and I’m ridiculously appreciative (and by the way, her ValSlides are incredible).
32. Something else I have hung up… I went to my friend Mona and Gio‘s a while ago, and when I got there, they gave me a “What’s Your Pleasure?” menu. It had different things I could choose from – different activities to do, different foods they’d give if I wanted, and different drinks. It was so sweet!
33. I have a note from my sister hung up too… she sent me an awesome “dreamcatcher” box when she was over in Arizona. =)
34. Also have a picture of us on my shelf from when we were in Cancun. I love that picture!
35. I’m on #35, and I haven’t paused at all. I love that my life makes it so easy to be grateful!
36. Bubble baths (I think I used some of the same ones in RCR, but I can’t help it… these things rock!)
37. The moonroof on my car… I love opening it, the windows, blasting music, and driving around
38. And my car period… so glad to have it back. I love it!
39. Looking at a business card from someone I met at a mastermind today. That was a great meeting!
40. And I got to see Dr. Mike and my friend Joanna… Joanna and I decided to do “Date Night” on Wednesdays, so we make sure to hang out more often. Psyyyyched!
41. We can also share clothes, now that I’m down to a size 8.
42. Red Carpet Ready
43. BOOKS! I took all my books out of the closet inside the hall and put them underneath my window here in the office (well.. the excess ones that didn’t fit in the bookshelf – I still have to buy another one – or two). I like looking at these though, books make me happy.
44. Ooo, Dr. Mike has a bunch of awesome books and said I could borrow whatever I wanted!!
45. Met some stellar people at the “W” hotel on Saturday night. One guy invited Otto and I to San Francisco for 4th of July, so we can sail under the fireworks then. Pretty rad!!
46. I think Otto and I are going on a Europe trip starting September, with some other marketers perhaps. That should be AWESOME.
47. And how can I not be grateful that I can go and do something like that, whenever I want? I LOVE not having to answer to anyone!
48. Got some more meditations back for my site. I’m loving them.
49. AND I sent some sneak peek meditations to an incredible lady I’m working with, and she was in love with them… AND the book that I had written for the site, too. The great feedback made me feel awesome.
50. Met a stellar publicist this weekend, she was giving me tips on publishing my book.
51. Looking at this foot cream on my desk… makes me feet nice and soft.
52. Pedicures!
54. And manicures, too.
54. Date nights
55. Broccoli (especially with slivered almonds and feta cheese! I may transition out of dairy soon, but for now, I’m enjoying it. )
56. Alphabetical ordering my some of closest friends, starting with: Alison
57. Brian K
58. Brian M
59. Chadwick
60. Desi
61. Evan
62. Jaime
63. Jason
64. Jen
65. Laura
66. Otto
67. Rodney
68. Ryan
69. The fact that I didn’t do that to add onto the list or anything… I just really am super-appreciative for them. I could probably go to 500 things I was grateful for, if I wanted.
70. I looked at my cell to make sure I didn’t forget about anyone … I didn’t, but was reminded of some new great friends that are sure to be super-close soon… Joanna and Jason, for sure.
71. Mona and Gio Am looking forward to hanging with them more, because they’re wonderful wonderful people!
72. The fact that I grossly overuse “amazing”, “incredible”, “stellar”, “fascinating”, and most frequently, “awesome”
73. Going on a cruise to Alaska with Jaime, Matthew, and his girlfriend soon. Will be SO FUN!!!
74. Going on a cruise with my mom soon too
75. My family!
76. Erin Pavlina
77. Steve Pavlina
78. I have a Gmail extension manager on Firefox, and it always tells me when I have new email. For some reason it isn’t working right now, and I’m pretty grateful for that, because I don’t need to be checking email anyway.
79. There’s sooo much to learn… it’s so exciting.
80. DUDE. Otto and I are doing evaluations on each other and our relationship soon. Who does that!?!? We’re psyched to continue making our relationship even better… I love it!!
81. The fact that the beach is a BLOCK from our house. At night we’ll go walking along it, it’s secluded and basically our beach… LOVE that… and during the day, it’s just so beautiful to watch…
82. I know I shouldn’t have them that often, but… acai bowls are mindboggingly delicious.
83. I’ll balance that out by saying I love my Valslides.
84. I have date night with Otto on Tuesdays, Joanna on Wednesdays, and Jaime on Thursdays. On one hand I hate making plans, on the other, it’s so rad to have so many people that I love and want to make sure I keep in my life on a daily basis.
85. I was debating between doing this as a blog post, or a blog post about how I go back and forth about being an IMer. I’m glad I went this route because it’s seriously like a drug. I recommend it to anyone!
86. Just turned my head and saw a mini VW bug (toy car) that I have hanging on my shelf. When I was a manager, the people I managed bought it for me and said I should drive that (I used to get in accidents a lot). It was a joke type thing, and I loved that I had such a good relationship with everyone I managed.
87. …and that I’ve gotten in pretty crazy accidents, and was protected every time.
88. Also have a bracelet on my shelf from one of my best friends… she made it for me back in 2nd grade. Every time I see it, my heart smiles.
89. My sister needed her own line (“family” just doesn’t encompass it well enough)
90. So does my brother
91. And my mom
92. And stepdad
93. Even though I don’t talk to him much, I’m grateful for my dad
94. Iron Mountain (so fun to hike up there!)
95. Belly dancing
96. Any dancing, really… makes me very happy. Even if I’m not so stellar at it.
97. Taking sewing classes with Joanna soon!
98. The fact that I have all bills paperless, so if I get mail, it’s only GOOD mail.
99. San Diego is really amazing.
100. Writing
101. The “Feel Good” playlist on my ipod
102. The “Workout” list, too
103. I’m going to go read for a little bit… but I find it absolutely spectacular that I’m at #102, finished this in less than half an hour, and haven’t even begun to feel at a loss for things to write about.

Life is good.

My father used to have a bumper sticker in the garage that said, “The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.”

This seems to be my life story – especially as of late. The more I grow, the more I realize I have SO MUCH MORE to learn.

It’s really hard for me to come to terms with this! I’ve always had the attitude that I’d like to work super-hard at first, get to desired solution, and then sit back. With growth though, it just doesn’t happen that way. It’s never-ending.

I met a guy I really, really respect back in June. He’s super-successful and full of amazing advice. I thought he was absolutely brilliant, wise, enlightened… and then I talked to his wife.

She was madly in love with him, which I expected… but she also told me some not-so-stellar things about him. Things that revealed a lack of confidence, insecurity, etc…

It left me feeling so unsettled!

I know nobody’s “perfect”, but it’s almost like… like, I’ll continue to do this growing… and there will never be a “stop” point. There will always be something I need to work through.

I mean, I could sit back and be happy with where I’ve come in a few short years – I used to tear up (even in casual, party-type situations) whenever I had to talk with two or more people at once. I felt so unworthy of attention. One-on-one I was awesome, but forget about more than that. I used to be ridiculously judgmental and used my book smarts as a shield to hide my insecurities. The list goes on and on…

But now that I’ve gotten past that, there’s whole new levels of things to go through – such as why I’m so picky, why I place my worth on some really foolish things, and so forth.

And I totally understand the benefits of continuing to grow – you raise your vibrations, you attract higher quality people, you can serve more people, etc…

But it’s still hard to come to terms with the fact that there’s no “end goal” (unless you count enlightenment).

I recently did an exercise with a good friend that I really trust. We’re both incredibly into development, so this was a super-fun exercise for both of us. We filled out categories about each other and then about ourselves. We promised each other that we’d be extremely vulnerable, and figured we’d have an average of 1-2 paragraphs for each section.

Here were the categories we used:

Business
Friend Relationships
Love Relationships
Self confidence
Goals in life
Direction
Self awareness
Emotional Life (how in touch with emotions you are)
Character
Spiritual Life
Quality Of Life
Top 5 Challenges
Top 5 Strengths

The exercise was unbelievable. My head’s still going into overdrive – both with the results he gave me (which were incredible, and it’s great to get someone else’s view – especially if that someone is empathetic and intelligent enough to not only see/feel things and put himself in my position, but to articulate them), but with what I ended up writing out about myself.

I realized that I have way more to get through than I ever thought, especially confidence-wise… but I also was given new focus, and understood a lot more. Coupled with some recent feedback I got from someone I met on a message board, and… wow.

The results are going to dramatically improve who I am, my relationships, and my business… which in turn will help me serve others more.

I highly recommend doing this exercise with someone you trust. I’ve read a million books, sites, etc… but very little (the only thing that comes to mind is Warrior Camp) has given me such concrete, power-packed information like this.