Just made a quick blog post on what I’m up to, a great book I’ve read, and more…

Here were the photo shoot pictures I was talking about. =)

I don’t have too much time to blog, but it was killing me that my last post was a promotional one.

Annnyway, at Glen Hopkins’ seminar in Seattle. It’s great! Lots of awesome people, and I finally got to meet Glen Smith in person.

Here’s a picture that Bob “The Teacher” Jenkins took of me and Rebecca Kepple:

..Especially considering Stephen Dean’s blog entries.

Until then, here are some updates.

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Thank you for the Toastmaster’s comments! I really appreciate them, and to John – you should totally do it.

People there are warm, encouraging, and they want to see you succeed.

I had my first speech a couple weeks ago and it went GREAT. I got awesome feedback… the only thing I was told to work on was the fact that I talk super-quickly.

I kind of like talking quickly… … but I took the feedback and used it in my prepared joke the next week, and they said I delivered that with great timing.

Overall, not perfect yet, but definitely learning. And it’s been SO nice to surround myself with those kinds of people.

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Random: I’m taking an improv class on Saturdays soon. That’ll help with my extemporaneous Toastmaster’s speeches, and just be an overall awesome thing to do.

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I was talking to one of the guys at Toastmaster’s about the Myers-Briggs testing, and “feelers” versus “thinkers”.

I was telling him that Myers Briggs labels me as a feeler, but I feel like I’m more of a thinker.

Anyway, he asked if he could give me feedback. When he did, he pointed out that I always say “I feel” versus “I think” (i.e. “I feel like I’m more of a thinker.)

I thought that was pretty interesting. He says that within a few minutes, you can usually tell which one someone is, just by listening to how they start those opinion sentences.

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Last random thing, then I’m going to make a new blog entry and post-date it since I seem to only do blog posts every once in a while…

Jaime and I are both going to be here in June (if you decide to go, let me know!), so we’ve been super-conscious about eating healthy so we look good for the pool.

Since we’re doing calorie cycling, we had a cheat day on Thursday. We were so excited that we actually had our waiter take a picture of us eating the “bad” stuff:

The picture came out blurry, but here it is anyway:

Alright, time to make a new blog entry.

Before I get started, I’d like to once again reiterate that I really do love Los Angeles. The area that I live in (right near Santa Monica and Venice) is amazing, and in my opinion, the best part of the city by far.

But this is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while, have talked with some people about… and still can’t get over.

—

When I moved to L.A., my friends and family warned me not to “turn California” – meaning, not to become image obsessed, superficial, etc… and I rolled my eyes. I mean, how can an entire state be that way?

But I’ve got to say… what they said about “California” is ridiculously true of Los Angeles.

It’s fascinating.

You can get any cosmetic procedure you’d ever want here. I was getting a pedicure, and one of my toenails was broken. The lady offered to put in a fake toenail while it grew back.

You could also get fake eyelashes glued on for $200 plus $50/month maintenance… Mommy Makeovers” where you get a tummy tuck, breast lift, etc… butt lifts… I think half of the women here have hair extensions…

It’s neverending.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Some of this stuff’s cool. A friend got the eyelashes done and they look awesome. When my “blow account” (10% of my monthly income that I blow on random crap every month) gets big enough, maybe I’ll do some of it. It’s fun to play dress up.

But DUDE. I just can’t get over how image-conscious people are as a way of life.

Interesting story:

I went to a seminar for a few hours last weekend (great time!), and I ran into a guy I had met at Idea Incubator. He asked me if I had been working for someone, and I told him no… but that a lot of the marketers there thought that Jaime and I were Playboy Bunnies (we told them we met at the Playboy mansion, so they assumed…)

So anyway, he says to me… “Honey, I know better. If we were in Iowa, you’d be an 11… but this is L.A.”

Then he starts to tell me about how sister was just serving in Iraq, and how a lot of the guys there liked her because there weren’t a lot of females there. When she got to L.A., she expected a lot of the same attention. He proceeded to tell me that his sister isn’t even that beautiful, and she’s crazy if she expects that kind of (or any) attention in Los Angeles.

…And you know, that’s how it is. While I hate that anyone would talk that way about their family, the fact of the matter is – that’s how most people here think.

I think that’s where the whole “flake” thing stems from, too. It’s very easy to become captivated by the next shiny thing that passes by.

And again – this isn’t to complain, be upset, whatever. I truly don’t even get offended anymore. It’s a way of life. When someone tells me that they’re going to call me, I believe it when I see it. It’s not even that I’m bitter, it’s just something I’ve come to accept.

When that dude told me I’d be an 11 in Iowa… I wasn’t offended. I don’t even WANT to be one of those “drop-dead gorgeous” girls. It’s too much work. I met a porn star here on Wednesday, and she told me she wasn’t eating for 3 days because she had a shoot on Friday.

She was 100% serious.

And I have friends that are super-image-conscious… it’s just a lot more effort than it’s worth, in my opinion. I prefer to surround myself with people that want bigger things. People with an insatiable curiosity for life. People who want to learn. People who want to help people. So I take a positive spin on the whole image-crazy thing and appreciate it, because it’s a good way to weed people out.

But it doesn’t mean the whole thing won’t continue boggling my mind.

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I’m going out to Laguna Beach tonight to hang out with the guys I met on my road trip back in August (You can view the blow post here – probably my favorite night from the trip. )

Should be fun, I’m excited to play with the elevator again.

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Toastmaster’s has been AMAZING. The first time I had to get up and give a speech, I was freaking out. Last time was a lot easier… and I only expect it to get better and better.

And man… it’s SO liberating to not worry about having to stand up in front of a group of people and speak. Not only is it good for communication and leadership, the confidence benefits are huge.

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There’s a lot more going on, but I didn’t expect to type so much out about Los Angeles. And I didn’t even make a dent in my observations. But oh well – back to sales letter tweaking.

Oh, and here are some odds and ends pictures from the Master’s Seminar:

Brian McElroy, me, Jason Moffatt

Jaime and Chad

Brian and Me

I signed onto my MySpace account earlier today. I very rarely go on MySpace anymore, and for some reason I decided to look through old pictures (will leave some at the bottom of this post). It was fun to go through and reminisce, and now I’m really looking forward to visiting home for a few days.

It also makes me happy to have a blog… one day I’ll come back, read all this stuff and feel nostalgic.

Annnyway, here’s some news:

1. I’m famous! And I love Andrew Wee. Find out why and how here.

(Bonus: You get to listen to a 25 year old who sounds like she’s 7! Rock on!)

2. I made some February financial goals. Actually, they were due February 26, which is the day this post will come out… so maybe I’ll meet them by then.

One of the goals was to have all of my credit card debt paid off, and the other was to be making a certain amount of PASSIVE income per month.

Annnnyway, as of right now (a few days before the 26th), I’ve officially paid off 5 of my 6 credit cards. I’ve been cutting them up one at a time, with no intentions of using them again (minus a random charge here and there that I’ll pay off immediately just to keep them active). It’s SUCH a liberating feeling.

As far as passive income – I haven’t met the goal just yet, but I had a fantastic idea yesterday morning (if I do say so myself ). I emailed a really awesome guy and fast implementer, and we should have the groundwork laid out and orders in by the time this post comes out. I can’t see how I wouldn’t be able to reach my goals after this… and I’m SO looking forward to it.

3. I drove to Vegas this weekend to meet up with a potential project partner for yayFOOD, Steve Clayton. It was a great experience. First of all, he’s just an awesome guy. I had a really fun time talking to him. He used to be a Vice President for a Fortune 500 company, and then decided to quit the corporate world and get into Internet Marketing. It was very interesting to talk to someone with such success in the offline world, and to see how he applies some of his corporate training principles to online.

More important than that though, he’s so fun! He ended up taking Jaime and I to Nine at The Palms for dinner, where we had the most delicious food ever. I seriously didn’t think I was going to eat for days after that meal…

And lastly, we came up with some AMAZING ideas for yayFOOD. That site is going to be ri-di-cu-lous.

I guess that’s it for now. It’s 3:44 in the morning and I still have a few things on my to-do list before I go to bed. I’ll leave you with some of those old pictures.

Jen and I on our “hick” road trip to Memphis…

A picture Nathan Gilder made last year when someone said I reminded them of Yoda…

My first job, back when I was 16 (pre-yayFOOD )…

When I first met my good friend Alison

Being silly on another road trip with Jen and Alison…

My prom Halloween costume 2 years ago (worked out much better than this year’s costume – a tree)

So I’m back from Joe Polish’s seminar, and I had a FANTASTIC time.

I had to wait a day to make a blog post because I was literally braindead from all of the partying and learning… but it was SO worth it. And soooo fun!

I got to meet (and hang out with!) tons of incredible, successful people. It was fascinating to me… I keep saying it, but hanging out with all of those super-successful people is like being on a different plane of life. They’re all just so happy, friendly, nonjudgmental, fun and… good at life.

I have a trillion things to catch up on, but here are some pictures that Ralph (wonderful guy) from In Search Of Heroes took for the meantime:

Tim Ferriss and Jaime:

Tim Ferriss and I:

Jaime, Joe (awesome guy who works for Eben Pagan) and me:

Me, Richard (Joe’s brother who also works for Eben… and is very good at life), and Jaime:

Raha (aweeeeesome girl! She does PR for Chet Holmes), Vanessa (Love her! Joe Polish’s girlfriend), Jaime, and me:

But I can’t sleep.

I’m so excited for this photo shoot!

I think I would’ve been fine… but I was doing some research yesterday and found out that Woman’s World is apparently the 50th most circulated magazine in the country. According to this, it’s more popular than Rolling Stone, the New Yorker, Forbes, and Vogue!

I had no idea!

In other news, here’s some random pictures…

A few from San Diego zoo:

They have traffic lights in San Diego that tell you when to merge!!! Tell me that’s not ridiculously cool.

And this is even cooler!!! I started pumping my gas, and the gas pump started singing to me. After it was done, it put on some CNN!!! I just had to take a picture:

…alright, I’m going to try and get some work done now or something.

So at the Playboy Mansion, I met this AMAAAAAZING girl named Jaime Mintun.

Pretty much ever since, I’ve been hanging out with her. She’s like my long lost best friend (although I still adore and love all of my other friends very much. )! We’re both VERY similar… young female workaholics, love a lot of the same things, have a lot of the same goals…

We’ve been having so much fun!! She’s showing me all the fun places around Los Angeles, and realllly making me want to move here.

(There’s a sugarless bakery in L.A.!!!)

I went to this cool open mic last night in Venice. It was really interesting… I’d never been to anything like it. It was a very free, happy vibe, for the most part. Good times.

The most important news of all - Jaime and I are going to go to San Francisco this weekend to see Tim Ferriss (author of 4 Hour Workweek). If you’ve ever talked to me in person, you’ve heard me rave and rave and rave about this book, so you know how ecstatic I am about this!! We already got on the guest list for the club that he’s going to be at… !%@%$#@#!#@… I simply cannot wait!

In one day from now, I’ll have met Tim Ferriss!

!@%#%!$@##%!

(I’m going to make him fall madly in love with me, and will post pictures from our honeymoon A.S.A.P.)

Next week, I’m going to San Diego. I bartered for some office space there, so I’ll be able to access it 24/7. I’ll just sleep in the office, which is WAY exciting… and I just have to build an amazing website in return. No problemo!

This month is going by so quickly… it’ll be over before I know it! Boo!

BTW, if anyone’s going to WIME, I’m trying to organize a skydiving trip during one of the days. Jason James and Dan Kelly are confirmed so far… let me know if you want to come.

BTW again, here are two pictures that Simon Leung gave me (I was wearing Jason Moffatt’s hat in them. I think I stole a lot of people’s accessories that night.)

I don’t mean to sound so sickeningly positive all the time… but wow, it’s only 8:30 am and I’ve already had quite a few GREAT things happen so far! The power of “positive mindset” is HUGE.

I was having a miserable morning… slept in my car last night, and could only sleep for 3 hours, despite the fact that I was exhausted from the past few weekends. I was cranky because of that, and also because I had to drop Jason James off to the airport the night before. We were having so much fun and I didn’t want to go back to being by myself!

I went to go find the gym around here (I ADORE LA FITNESS! Because I’m a member, I get to go to any LA Fitness in the country), and ended up inside a parking lot, which I couldn’t back out of. I was cranky because I didn’t want to pay for a parking lot for my gym in the first place, and also because I didn’t think the gym was even open. I was going to work on my laptop until the gym opened, but I didn’t get any signal from my Verizon wireless (even though I do in other parking lots). Anyway… you know how they say that once your day starts going bad, your mindset changes and everything goes bad? That was definitely what was happening…. I tried to leave the parking lot and ended up slamming my car against a wall… asked for help and met rude people… couldn’t figure out how to get out of the parking lot… ended up staying there anyway while people looked at me like I was crazy…. waited till gym time… had to go up an elevator and across a bridge to get into the gym, had to find the locker rooms which ended up being in a building outside of the gym (so weird)…realized I forgot my sneakers, had to do it all over again… etc. etc. etc. Anyway, I was getting crankier by the minute.

On the way back to the gym again, I reminded myself that my day would continue getting worse if I didn’t change my mindset. When I got on the treadmill, I forced myself to work really hard. I ended up having a GREAT workout… much needed after spending so much time in my car!

After I showered, while I was straightening my hair, I asked a woman if there was a Barnes & Noble nearby. She told me where that was and then we ended up talking for a while. To put it shortly, she’s going to introduce me to her friend in San Francisco. He’s apparently a really cool guy with a “sense of adventure”, and we’re going to hang out. I’m excited, she said he’ll show me around the city!

She also told me about this great Farmer’s Market that I could head to before B&N opened… I’m actually sitting inside of it right now. It’s such a nice area, I really love it.

After I left the gym, I asked someone about how to pay for my parking ticket. While he was telling me to go visit some clerk, the lady that I had originally talked to heard the conversation and told me to go back to the gym, because they validate the tickets. Parking ended up being free, after all.

Anyway… maybe not huge significant things, but going from my absolutely abysmal morning to sitting in a beautiful Farmer’s Market with happy people all around me is big enough for me!

In other news, like I said, I had a ton of fun with Jason (and Brian McElroy when I got to see him ).

On Thursday, we walked through Beverly Hills. We got to see Rodeo Drive and other assorted neat things. At night, Brian, Jason, and I went to Pink’s – an apparently infamous hot dog stand in L.A. that everyone raves about. On Saturday, Jason and I went through Hollywood Boulevard. We went to a wax museum (pictures to follow), saw the stars on the “Walk The Stars” sidewalk, went to the Chinese theatre and saw the handprints and footprints, got some fun pictures with Borat, and drove on the hills to get closer to the “Hollywood” sign. After that, we went to a cool seminar where people were teaching guys how to pick up women. I’m so fascinated by psychology, it was an awesome time.

After the seminar, Brian, Jason, and I went to grab something to eat and then to a bar. We ended up not getting in anywhere (long story)… buuut, I did get to try my very first “In N Out” (Jason kept raving about it).

Since Brian went home early on Sunday (:(), it was back to Jason and I on Sunday. We went to the Santa Monica Pier, which was BEAUTIFUL. There were all sorts of neat street vendors and performers… an amusement park… and just an overall great time. There were some vendors doing handwriting analyses, or people who would carve your face out of clay (Jason got that done to him)…. and lots more, but I don’t want to say in case the person that I bought a gift for reads this.

After that, we drove to Palos Verdes (gooooorgeous beach). We went on a top-secret stalking mission after that, and ended up successful. I can’t say much more on my blog, but I will say that we’re super sleuths!

Anyway… Barnes and Noble is about to open and I have a lot of work to get done, so without further ado, here are some of the pictures that we took (the ones of Jason are on his camera):

He’s in love with me, he just doesn’t know…

This man’s sign was funny. I gave him $1 and he asked if I wanted a picture with him. I found that somewhat demeaning… but asked if I could take a picture of his sign, and this is what happened:

He had his own star!

He was AWESOME:

We kept sneaking behind the cautioned off areas and taking pictures with the wax people…

I got to meet him after all!

This should teach you not to mess with me (ignore the fact that my hands were completely not in the right position ).

And for the Philly folks…

Okay, off to B&N!

BTW, I have a ticket to go Deal Or No Deal tomorrow, and Price Is Right on the 28th!! I have a Jeopardy one, too. I don’t know if I’ll end up going to all of those, but yay anyway.

Playboy was really fun!

My roommate, Jason James and I… (he has a lot more pictures that he’s going to send soon.)

Brian McElroy and I

Mad Mike from Pimp My Ride and I..

Magic Ryan (The Rich Jerk’s “Right Hand Man” and I)

Mystery (guy who teaches guys how to pick up girls) and I

Paulie Shore was there!

Red carpet pictures!

Blurry bird pictures…

Jason Moffatt and I (he’s SUCH a cool guy!)

Simon Leung and I

Tina, George, and I

More pictures of the mansion coming soon… we didn’t get to go inside, but we did get to see some of the sex rooms!