Dude, these videos look so ghetto… like back in the day when webcams first came out.
I’ll have to work on that – but I looove this “record a video” thing on Viddler!
P.S. I can’t wait for my cold to be over!!!
I started answering comments on the”Free Will” entry and it put me in the writing mood, so now I just NEED to make another blog entry.
Anyway… the road trip was great, as usual. Some highlights from the trip…
Portland was an AWESOME city. So many great things there. The first that springs to mind is that I got to meet Rebecca Dean. She’s a really cool girl… I wish I got to spend more time with her!We went hiking in Multnomah Falls the first time we hung out, which was really great. It’s a beautiful area that has 11 different waterfalls, and you can either see one from the very base (making the trip a half hour or so), or you can hike to the higher ones. Rebecca and I chose a 7 mile round trip hike which was pretty challenging… but INCREDIBLY rewarding.
The next time we hung out, we went to a Greek restaurant where we danced, broke plates, and ate ridiculously good food. After that we went to the Portland City Grill where we got to see a breathtaking view of Portland at night!
My favorite place in Portland, by far, was Powell’s Books. It’s a HUGE bookstore – takes up a block – with just 3500 SECTIONS of books. It’s seriously incredible. I felt like I was living a different life with every section I went to… some sections I’d delve into psychology (great book that my friend Chad recommended, btw – Mindless Eating – love it!), into palm reading, astral projection, business… whatever. It was great. I even allowed myself a guilty pleasure and read some chick lit – “Fat Is The New Pretty”, I think it was called. 
I ended up at the SE Powell’s (smaller) almost every day.What else… I saw a really cool extinct volcano at Mt. Tabor, right near the place I subletted. I was walking around there for a while… started walking on a new path… and ended up catching the tail-end of a wedding. That was really special.The culture of Portland was fascinating to me. The first night I got there, I saw some guy putting food from the grocery store into his backpack. He took it all out at the register, and then put it back in when it came time to pay. That would NEVER happen in Philly… people would think he was stealing! PDX (they call Portland that because of the airport code) is really laid back.
People seemed to be pretty friendly, too. Honestly, I found L.A. to be more “surface friendly”… but the difference is that the people in Portland who want to be friendly mean it. I dug the people there a lot.One of the other things I LOVED about the city is that I felt compelled to exercise everywhere. I took yoga classes, walked all the time…The culture’s pretty active, too. People walk and bike all over. They don’t even have cross-lights in many areas… they just trust the drivers to let them go, and the drivers do. I was taken aback when I got there and didn’t even know I was supposed to stop. Oh well… I quickly learned.What else… ahhh, I signed up for Greenpeace while I was there. Really awesome organization that donates $.90 out of every $1 to the cause.
When I went to Montana, I was planning on just sleeping and leaving. I ended up meeting a guy at my hotel though who told me about this special area inside Yellowstone that I absolutely had to see. It was an hour or so out of the way, but he promised it’d be worth it… and it was.I drove up this goooorgeous cliff (the roads seriously had brick walls next to them so you wouldn’t fall off… it was a SCARY drive), and the views were absolutely spectacular. I’m so glad I met that guy. Yellowstone’s a beautiful place… my 2nd favorite in the country, I think (next to Grand Canyon).
Minnesota was awesome because I got to meet up with Brian McElroy. I stayed at his place for 2 nights and we had a LOT of fun!I got to meet his mom, first of all. She’s a great lady… I didn’t think she was going to like me (she told Brian I was a “bad influence” because I like to travel all the time ), but we got along great.The first night I got there, Brian and I went to a movie… inside… THE MALL OF AMERICA!! Yes, that’s right… I got to go. Haha… I’m a little less of a shopper than I used to be, but it was still really neat to see the roller coaster inside!
The next day we went to the Minnesota State Fair. DUDE. Brian said it would be an eye opening experience and he wasn’t kidding. When you first go in, they have tons of just-born animals inside the Miracle Of Life Exhibit. We saw one birth happen in real-time. It was awesome!
(Side note: I refuse to ever count up how many times I use the word “awesome” in anything I write… I think I’d be red-faced.)
We also went on a ride that looked like a death trap (went up suuuper high, flipped you upside down, went ridiculously fast, etc.) to push ourselves out of our comfort zones. Haha… it worked.
I think my favorite part of the fair was all the crazy food they had. Chocolate covered bacon, teriyaki ostrich on a stick, fried fruit, overflowing buckets of cookies… the ingenuity was definitely there.(Can’t say I tried any of that stuff, though… was going to try the bacon but they gave you SO MUCH… I wasn’t hungry enough, especially after trying out cheese curds, walleye on a stick, Australian potatoes…)
All in all, it was a great time. It’s always a lot of fun to see Brian.
I stopped in Cleveland to see one of my high school best friends, Laura. She’s seriously the funniest person I’ve ever met and had me in tears pretty quickly.
We recounted all kinds of stories from when we were in high school… including the times we thought it’d be funny to leave watermelons on people’s cars… throw tomatoes at an ex boyfriend’s house… the time we got pulled over from a policeman who was only trying to get my phone number… geez, that stuff seems like so long ago. Glad I’ve progressed past the tomatoes. 
I’m back in Philly now, until late September. My childhood best friend is getting married on September 26 (day after my birthday!) and I’m going to be in the wedding.
Philly has been great so far… I always love to see my mom and family… and I’ll see my friends soon.Come late September I’m going to head out to Barcelona (well, probably October 1st), hang out in Europe for 3 months, and then move to Australia for the New Year….Guess that’s it for now, will post more soon.
EDIT: I forgot a really cool part – I’ve now been to 47 states (missing Alaska, Hawaii, and Kentucky)! I’ll get ‘em soon.
So it’s now Day 2 in Portland and I’m really enjoying it.Before I get to that though (which’ll probably be another post), I’ve been meaning to journal about the drive up.
(The post is kind of long, so I’m going to be writing it in copywriting-style. I’d be curious to hear if that somehow takes away from it’s authenticity for you.)
Okay, so…
The actual drive was really interesting. As I was listening to some of the songs on my iPod, they had a completely different meaning to me than they did when I took my other road trip exactly one year ago. I never would’ve anticipated that, but it was an awesome feeling. I grew a lot this year.
I got a speeding ticket on the way over. I’ve gotten out of like… 12 or so tickets, so I guess it was time to pay my dues. The weird thing is, we were having conversation before he even gave me the ticket. He was asking me about the states I visited, what I do with Internet Marketing, etc. Usually those conversations mean I get out of tickets, but I think he already committed to giving me one this time (he might have called for backup too – he thought I was transporting drugs at first) and had caught me on radar. Oh well.
So anyway, I was driving to…
As I mentioned on Twitter, I got an incredible sublet here in Portland. I got REALLY lucky, because the lady who owns this apartment had pretty much convinced herself she wasn’t going to be subletting. She interviewed 6 people via phone before me, and she couldn’t get a good gut feeling about any of them. She’s very into energy and was super-adamant about only letting someone she felt good about sleep in her bed. It was awesome, because she used the money I paid her to fund a trip to Hawaii. She kept saying “I can’t believe I’m really going!” and now when I talk to her, she says “I still can’t believe I’m really here!”
Anyway – she’s really, really cool. She was talking about moving stuff out of her closet for me, taking down spiritual messages from her wall, etc. to make me feel comfortable… I told her a) I’m happy to see spiritual messages! and b) I’m only here for 2 weeks, there’s no need for her to do any of that. It’s her home.
The sublet’s in the heart of SE Portland and right near a lot of incredible things. It’s a great location.So I tell you all of this because…
I talked with a hotel owner the day before I got here. I was telling him about the sublet owner, and he said “I guess there are some good people left in this world.”!?
That blew my mind.
He really meant it.
I don’t know… I just feel like… I think everyone I meet is a “good person”. Sure, there’s lots of flakes in L.A., but they’re still good people. And that’s not the whole “positive thinking” thing… it’s a fact. I’ve traveled cross country a few times, as you probably know – hit 40 states so far – and I’ve been positively surrounded by “good people”. What a self-limiting thought to really believe the majority of people aren’t “good”.
Now, trust me here…
…and I try to stay as grounded as possible. Sure, I journal about things I’m grateful for. I try to see positives in everything and am 100% confident that everything happens for our highest good. HOWEVER, I think those books delude a lot of people for 2 reasons:
1) People separate themselves from reality with all the “I KNOW it’s going to work out!” stuff. Sure – positive thinking’s awesome and I strongly believe you shouldn’t let obstacles stop you… but you have to do the WORK to get out of obstacles. I think a lot of people stop at thinking positive and then wonder why it doesn’t work out.I was reading Life’s Golden Ticket by Brandon Burchard. It’s a cool book where a guy goes through a spiritual journey, and you can kind of identify your own progress via him. There’s one point where the main character sees a montage of scenes in his life, and he’s doing a lot of things he doesn’t like. He screams, “That’s not me! I’m not that person!”
His “guru”, I guess, for the sake of your understanding, replied, “That’s psychobabble bullshit.” His point was that it IS him. If he wanted to change those aspects of himself, so be it… but he had to first understand them and acknowledge them.Most people don’t do that.And the other reason I don’t like those books, is…
2) “We must truly know the darkness before we can truly see the light.”
Jaime really helped me understand this. Before I moved to L.A., I intellectualized everything. I didn’t allow myself to feel pain, or anything sad really, because I figured it was a waste of time. I didn’t allow myself to listen to sad or negative songs, and surrounded myself with all things positive.
In retrospect, I think that’s delusional. Not only is it delusional, but it’s an absolute crime. After growing more and allowing myself to get pissed off, upset, etc. about things… when I feel bliss, it feels 10x more real than anything I ever experienced before.I just think most people don’t allow themselves to open themselves up that, especially with the whole “think positive! just think positive!” movement.
Now, I’m not saying they’re poorly intentioned. Sometimes you have to deliver messages in increments. For example, with yayFOOD, I tell people about calorie cycling. I don’t tell them about eating healthy or anything – if they ask, I’ll tell them – but for now, the first step is just for them to learn about the calorie cycling. People can’t feel overwhelmed. I get it.But still…having zillions of those ‘think positive’ books on the market, in my opinion, isn’t doing people as much good as they think.
So anyway,
Despite the opinions I just expressed, I still think it’s crazy to feel like most people aren’t good people.I was actually talking to Justin Zimmerman about this yesterday. Like I said, I’ve traveled a lot. I can immediately reference tons of amazing people that I’ve met. I remember meeting a guy at a coffee shop in Seattle who took an entire day off to show me around. Or the guys I met at Laguna Beach who made me sleep over (there were locks on my door ) so I wouldn’t sleep in my car. Or even the lady who owns this sublet – she made me a zillion maps and notes and everything to make sure I had the best time possible.To feel like the majority of people aren’t “good”… I don’t know, it just really got me thinking a lot.
There’s a lot more I could blog about, but I feel like I should end it here. I’ll have to write more soon, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the copywriting style, the “good people” comment, the positive thinking movement, and whatever else.
So I’m sitting here on my plane – free upgrade to first class, by the way – and decided to make a new blog entry.
Cancun was absolutely AMAZING.
It was the best trip ever. Jaime and I went for 2 weeks, and the trip was broken up into 3 parts. We got to one hotel for a few days where we partied like rockstars, then we went to Club Med for a seminar for a week, and then we went to another hotel where we just relaxed and settled down.
I’ll forever hold the trip as one of my best experiences ever, but here are some of my main takeaways:
1. Intuition trumps logic every time. I don’t know why I’ve fought so hard against this for such a long time, but it’s really true. Whenever I go with my gut instinct, things work out far better than what I “think” should happen.It’s true in business, with relationships, with everything.
It used to be hard for me to justify things on emotion – “But it just feels right” – but I don’t care anymore. And I feel like most successful people agree, based on the conversations I’ve had and listened to.
2.I will never again say I’m not sure about “spirituality”. Some of the experiences I had over the weeks were absolutely mind-boggling. The way things came together for me, the experiences I went through, and the growth that came out of two weeks time… just incredible. There’s no way there isn’t something bigger out there, it’s just not possible.
3. Relaxation is AWESOME. I didn’t have the Internet for a week at Club Med (there was a storm that blew it out) and my air card wasn’t working, so I had to learn how to relax.
That might sound easy, but I’m normally a very go-go-go person. In fact, I even wrote down what relaxation felt like in my journal. But I really realized on the trip that not only is relaxation a fun feeling, but when you actually stop and take time to THINK and LISTEN TO YOURSELF – that’s when everything comes together.
So many successful people say to “center yourself”, or “meditate”, or “quiet the noise”, and I never wanted to stop long enough to do that. It’s absolutely mindboggling, though, once you do it… how much you just inherently know.
The more I learn, the more I realize that the path to success is incredibly counterintuitive. (Counterintuitive to logic, that is – definitely not counterintuitive to your intuition.)
Guess that’s it for now. I did learn some good business stuff, too, but I just shared the much more important part.
I’m sitting in the parking lot of an Italian restaurant right now… about to go to a small celebration party for a Pulitzer prize winner and all his good friends.
Ri-di-cu-lous.
…That’s all.
I decided to hold off on Europe.
I kept going back and forth in my head. Up until the day before, I was 100% resolute that I was going to go.
And then at the last minute… I realized it was probably not a smart decision.
I’m still going to go… and SOON… but I think it’s more important for me to hang out and concentrate on yayFOOD for a little bit. I kept putting so much focus on copywriting and my other ventures, that I’d been neglecting the site that makes me the happiest, the one where I can REALLY make a difference in people’s lives.
So anyway, I’ve made some major decisions that allow me a lot more time now. And it’s been AWESOME.
I’ve been able to knock out so many things that have been in my mind’s “to-do” list for the site (including taking the letter from the professional format to a sales letter… memberships exploded with that, btw).
I hired a virtual assistant to help me, and she’s incredible. My programmer is ridiculous… he keeps taking it upon himself to make amazing changes to the site (who can say that about their programmer!?). And I’ve been getting amazing constructive criticism from lots of people.
So yeah, good news for yayFOOD… bad news for Europe… but I will go soon, mark my words.
Between work and FUN, I’ve been really busy lately. Here’s some things going on in my life…
1. EUROPE!!!! Dude. I’m planning out the different countries that I can go to via Eurail, and I’m SOOOOOO pumped.
Here’s some of the countries the Eurail covers: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland.
Ridiculous right!?
And even more ridiculous – I have not ONE – but TWO friends that want to meet me in London when I get there.
The one person, Tahir Shah, is someone that I just met at Vegas… he’s already found me two copy clients and has offered to drive to London, meet me at the airport, help me with accomodations, and hang out for a few days. I’m going to marry that guy.
And Alex Jeffries... he promises to show me how to party, London-style. He makes big promises, we’ll see if he can live up to them!
(BTW – I totally registered IMPartyGirl.com and InternetMarketingPartyGirl.com after multiple suggestions a week or so ago. They redirect to my blog at the moment. )
2. I love doing consulting. Sooo much fun. Random, but I just looked over at my to-do list and it was on there.
3. I have the photo shoot for my book soon!!! $#&#%$ I can’t wait! The Woman’s World photo shoot was a BLAST, I can only imagine what this’ll be like.
I have a hair appointment with Los Angeles’ #1 colorist on the 20th (I think this blog post comes out a day after). Those reviews for her are RIDICULOUS… people were calling their appointments with her a “spiritual experience”.
Love it!
4. Everyone always talks about reciprocation and how you need to give first… and I figured I’d share a personal story, because again, I’m seeing something on my to-do list that’s reminding me of it.
A while ago, on The Warrior Forum, I saw some dude offer a $197 sales letter Special Offer to “get his foot in the door”. He ended up giving 2 people in 2 different niches a 100 or so word article, at best… and the articles were almost exactly the same.
I kept watching the thread to see what was happening (the 2 customers and the dude were arguing in there and the guy refused to refund their money), and one of the customers ended up saying something like, “Come on… family man to family man, can you refund my money?”
Something about that made me feel really bad, so I wrote to him and offered to write him a free sales letter. I offered to write the other dude a sales letter too, even though I didn’t feel as bad with him… but I figured I’d be fair.
First interesting part of the story is that while both seemed excited – the family man guy never returned my questionnaire back to me, while the other one did.
So second dude gives me the letter, and it’s in the Forex market. Ugh. I never wrote a Forex letter before, and I slaved over that thing. It was seriously the hardest letter I ever wrote. I know nothing about Forex, it seemed boring, and I had to go research all these sales letters with Forex-language…
Annnnyway, like I said, I just did it because I felt bad for them. But what happened out of it was insane:
a) Turns out this guy’s a #3 seller on Clickbank for one of his products! I had no idea. His expertise is invaluable. I saw he was using a certain script on one of his sites and asked him about it, and it turns out that he had an in-house programming team make it. And…
b) He offered to give me that script for free (it’s normally $10 per sale recouped).
c) He went on to buy Phantom Opt In, another sales letter, and a package of autoresponders. Oh, and…
d) He referred me to another client.
And lastly,
e) That godforsaken letter converts at 40% for his prenotification list! Um, awesome testimonial?
In short… believe the reciprocation stuff. This isn’t the only story I have about it, but it’s one of my favorites.
5) I’m going to Vegas on the 22nd to meet with an INCREDIBLE guy that I was talking to via my Membership Challenge. I ended up writing a piece of copy for him, we were talking… turns out he gets 1000-3000 SALES for a competing product of yayFOOD’s per month via AdWords.
(SALES, not dollars.)
Annnnyway, we’re meeting to talk about project ideas. We’ve already exchanged a trillion ideas together, and we have a plan to completely dominate the weight loss market. And I’m soooo excited about it, because it means I get to help more people.
6) That reminds me of another reciprocation story, but there’s a good business tip included here, so I’ll mention it.
Whenever someone cancels their account on yayFOOD, I ask them a question that’s phrased the same way that Jack Canfield suggests in Success Principles. “What would it take for yayFOOD to get to a “10″ on a 1-10 scale?”
(I then chart the feedback and act appropriately.)
But anyway, when charting the other day, I offered certain people who gave me feedback free lifetime accounts. The one lady was really excited, and told me that “Word of mouth is the best form of promotion, and you have my word that I’ll be telling people about your site.” We talked a little more, and it turns out that the lady works with American Express. Even outside of that – even if she didn’t tell potential people on the phone – she said she works with 200 or so other people that sit down all day and want to know about how to release weight. Innnnnsane!
Alright, this is a long blog post. Again. I’ll leave here.
P.S. – I’m going to breakfast with Jaime soon… at a place where we saw The Rock a few weeks ago. L.A. rocks.
I was telling Jaime that I needed some excitement…
So I just booked a one-way ticket to London on March 18th.
Figure I’ll hang out in Europe for a few months.
SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!^##@^%$#@^$#@(*&
Spain, Italy, everywhere, here I come!!!
L.A. is SO AWESOME!
I’m writing a book for yayFOOD right now… and brought my recorder to the freaking beach! I was “writing a book” while strolling along the water. Can’t get any better than that.
In other news, I started belly dancing classes on Wednesday… had TONS of fun. The day before that I met a great girl at Starbucks who used to work at CBS radio. She asked me about my “Power Words” book by John Carlton, and we ended up talking for a while. Long story short – she’s going to get me a few radio spots for yayFOOD!
Businesswise, things are pretty stellar. JD, Brian and I launched a new challenge which has been going well. It’s all about membership sites, so I’m having a blast telling everyone everything that I’ve ever learned.
Some friends and I formed an awesome mastermind/goal accountability group too, which is going to be great. We had our first call on Sunday… and everyone on there is ridiculously talented and ambitious… so only good things will come out of it.
…think that’s it for now. Hope everyone’s having a great New Year!
So when I moved to L.A., the first thing that my friend Alison told me was “If you see Nick Lachey, you have to get me an autograph.”
And so I kind of thought… “Pfft. I’m not going to see any celebrities!”
Well folks, I stand corrected. Cuba Gooding Jr. hit on me last night!!!
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I’ll blog about other stuff later. That clearly takes precedence over everything.
Do you enjoy this blog? If so, feel free to send me a veggie
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