I started writing, writing, writing… and before I knew it, I had a HUGE list.

It felt so empowering to create that list. So freeing. So… LIBERATING.

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I know we have the power to create anything we want.

And I feel I’m so much closer to my “order” now.

I know the process works.

Have you seen my boyfriend test?

A few years ago I’d created a boyfriend test.

People left comments on my blog post saying I was being “delusional”. That I would need two men to fit everything I wanted into one man. That it was “absurd and unattainable”.

But, as expected, I got everything I wanted.

Otto fit every single thing except for blue eyes (he had green).

So I’m confident in the process. But I did realize I have to change my process around. So…

…I supercharged it.

While I am VERY glad I met Otto and love him dearly… what I learned from the process is I don’t need to control so much.

The universe has a much bigger imagination than I do.

It can give me WAY better than what I even know to ask for.

So now my list is (mostly) about FEELINGS. I want to FEEL a certain way. My ultimate man doesn’t need to have read specific books, or gone to certain camps, or whatever else I had before.

I just need the chemistry. The attraction. The deep rooted love.

And I know what people might be thinking…

“Who do you think you are, Rachel?”

So many people say that when you’re clear about what you want in the opposite sex, you’ve got to judge yourself. See if you’ve got what it takes for your Ultimate to come along.

I’m not sure how I feel about this right now.

For example… I feel I have a lot of things together. I’m successful, meet friends easily, am generally well liked.

But the one thing I thought I’d need to “fix” before my man came along was to release the weight I had gained in the past few months.

I figured… a man of THIS caliber would want someone with an incredible body.

But then Jaime reminded me that it’s very possible for Him to find me beautiful just the way I am.

(The thought honestly didn’t enter my stream of possibility. I figured sure… some people could find me beautiful… but HIM?)

Once I acknowledged that as a possibility though… holy moley. I just got back from two stores. I was feeling bloated, tired, and dehydrated. But FIVE men showed interest in me at TWO stores. I found 3.5 very attractive. One guy stuttered, told me he was very attracted to me, and said several times he couldn’t believe he was being so shy around me.

I say this because I think so many people feel they need to be someone or do something else before they can be happy.

I don’t feel that’s true.

“Why are you sharing this?”

Two reasons:

1. When I got off the plane I emailed my list to two of my two best friends.

One of them told me it completely changed around her mood from super-depressed for a week…. to EXTREMELY liberated.

She said she’d never given herself permission to ask for everything she REALLY wanted. That she didn’t want to say “I want to travel first class”. It didn’t feel like she was “allowed” to ask for that.

She immediately made her own list, which she said she really feels is bringing her man in much quicker.

If it could help her, I’d love to see if it could help you too.

2. I know I haven’t answered any messages from the divorce blog post. But please believe they have touched me in a HUMONGOUS way. I was too drained to respond, but wow… the responses people gave me blew my mind.

Several people told me they were in the same situation and my post gave them courage.

One woman forwarded the post to her 19 year old son. She felt he was getting ready to marry out of obligation to his high school sweetheart.

Another person told me he could see himself settling in the future and my post may have saved his future marriage.

It goes on and on and on.

Each communication around my posts touched me PROFOUNDLY.

And because of it, I just feel like continuing to be vulnerable might help someone somehow.

Also… I’d like to acknowledge that we’re all just learning. If I’m missing something in this list, or I’m being shortsighted somehow, or whatever… I put in the last line…

“And if there’s anything even BETTER for me than what I can create on my own… I request that, please.”

Here’s what I want in my man:

(Note: As I realize new things, I’ll edit this.
It’s also pretty much unedited from the plane.)

I desire someone who will ravish me. Worship me. Look at me with looks of deep, passionate love, or lust, depending, but have huge mountains of depth of feeling on both sides.

Someone who penetrates me with his stare.

Who I feel extremely safe with. Who I know would always protect me. Would look wounded if I felt pain. Would do anything to protect me.

Who would make me feel like I can lay back and feel comfortable. He would take care of me if I needed. Is financially abundant. I can work if I want to but I know it doesn’t matter… He has enough to support me should I choose to stop working at times.

He respects me, adores me, loves me with the fiercest love he’s ever felt.

He makes me feel like I’m the most incredible woman in the world.

He supports me. He’s extremely spiritually connected. He has a deep sense of intuition and trusts mine too. He respects my femininity.

He is strong masculine.

He’s a rock.

I can sway, swirl, feel everything I need to feel, and he stands there, lovingly, receptive to anything I feel. He does not swirl in response to me… He just lovingly remains a rock.

He is delighted by my free spirit and finds it endearing.

He loves to travel and we do it often. First class. We go to beautiful places.

I can take him to events and feel like not only does he fit in everywhere, but people absolutely love him. I am so proud to call him my man.

He’s very direct but with a softness. He would never knowingly hurt my feelings. He takes my needs into consideration very deeply.

He takes care of himself but makes space for me to shower all my love onto him, which he gratefully receives.

He’s passionately romantic. Forever. He says sweet things, constantly compliments me and makes me feel beautiful, loved, smart, respected, sexy, endearing, powerful, and like I’m making a difference in the world.

He is extremely positive by nature though he isn’t afraid to surrender into other feelings.

He doesn’t let me get away with anything but my best. He calls me out when he thinks I can improve somewhere and lovingly holds my hand through it. He encourages me. I feel so supported.

I feel I can just lay back. It feels easy. I feel he’s safe, I’m safe, we’re safe. Our material needs are met abundantly and I don’t have to push for that to happen.

He’s extremely passionate about making sure I take care of myself. He loves to draw baths for me. Call my friends and ask for their help if necessary. He brings me flowers and doesn’t let me work too hard for too long. He helps me stay charged up and dynamic.

He loves my magnetism.

He loves me.

I feel I can stay myself with him. I don’t feel any need to change. If anything I just want to illuminate even more who I am. He draws out the best in me. He sees things in me I’ve never even seen.

He’s extremely generous. He is lavish at times. He supports me and my feelings.

He’s brilliant. He finds me brilliant but our relationship is not cerebral first. Once in a while he’ll ask me for hits on business stuff but our relationship is a magic place where that’s not the center. The center is creating new experiences, creating new things, loving each other, being present with each other, bringing a ton of joy into the world. We work on charitable causes and get fueled by it. We love to make an impact on the world.

I can lay back. I can lay back. I can lay back.

Not forever – but if I need to, I can. I am supported!!!

He would be honored to have children with me. He’s a phenomenal father. We have the same values. He can’t wait to take his children around the world. He’s patient, caring, non-attached to minor things and lets everyone just blossom without any control.

He knows how to surrender.

He’s open minded. He realizes we all do the best we can with what we have.

He wouldn’t dream of asking me to pay for things, especially in the beginning. It would almost disgust him.

He would raise our children to be entrepreneurial. They could do whatever they wanted, but they’d have the values instilled in them just in case.

He’s tall. At least 6 foot. With blue eyes preferably. Open to other eyes if I can get lost in them.

He respects me. He sees me as an equal, but with different skill sets. He trusts my opinion.

He playfully teases me. We goof around at times and laugh. A lot. I find him extremely funny and he’s generous with his jokes.

I feel better whenever he’s in my presence. We energetically feed each other. Not in a codependent way… We just relish each other’s energy.

We absolutely love eating healthy foods. We have access to fresh fruits and vegetables. We’re not obsessive about our health but it’s certainly something we’re cognizant of.

He cares about himself a lot. He’s constantly striving to be the best man he can be.

He doesn’t feed into drama. He will openly listen to me if I’m frustrated about something and make me feel heard and accepted, but he just stands firm and loves me. He doesn’t move around with my emotions… Though he’ll laugh when I laugh, get pissed if he feels I’ve been wronged, and instinctively want to make me feel better.

He is open and honest and communicative. He can identify his needs and ask for them. He lets me love him.

He laughs at my jokes. He thinks I’m very funny and just gets tickled by me.

He sees the best in me… Sees positive things I never saw.

He deeply feels I am his Queen.

He can’t wait to see me when we’re apart, even for a few hours. He’s okay by himself and doesn’t NEED me… But he’s still very excited to see me, and I, him.

He is worldly. He’s either from another country or comfortable going to places around the world.

He doesn’t let me push him around, yet he still deeply considers my needs and desires.

He tells me he loves me often.

We are blissful.

We hug a lot. Deep, soulful hugs.

Sex is out of this world incredible. He devours me, ravishes me, loves and adores my body.

I feel so nourished when I’m with him. My soul feels nourished. It feels so… right. We give each other energy back and forth and feel consistently fed by each others’ presence.

He courts me.

He feels I’m very special – not in a way that serves my ego, but he just feels very lucky to be with me, and I, him.

Life is magical with him in it.

He is perfect for me and I am perfect for him.

And if there’s anything even BETTER for me than what I can create on my own… I request that, please.

This experience has been crazy.

Not fun.

Emotional.

Embarrassing as all get-out.

I’ve hyperventilated a few times. One time for over an hour.

But… I know it needs to happen.

Otto and I were flawed from the beginning.

Neither of us ever got the feeling the other was “The One”.

We had so much love for each other though… so much respect, such a deep soul to soul connection… that we tried to override the fact that we never had the passion, the romance, the stuff that separates lovers from best friends.

It’s been 3 years and 3 days since we first got together.

And even on January 11, 2009, I remember sitting in a car with Otto, talking about if we should get together.

He was torn. He said he really liked me, we had so much in common, etc… but I just wasn’t his “type” and it was really messing up his mind.

Now before you judge that… please realize that most men have a “type”. It might not be a specific body type, or hair color, or whatever… but most men are hard-wired to be drawn to a particular type of woman.

And since men are visual creatures… this is important.

I don’t know why we got together even then. I think it’s because we both knew we had things to learn from each other.

Since we got together we’ve had 4 or 5 conversations about us breaking up. We even did break up for a few months.

But we ultimately kept getting back together.

I guess we had more to learn.

Through our relationship we’ve always had impeccable communication. We’re both always incredibly honest with each other and I know we’ll still be there for each other no matter what.

My family loves Otto and he loves them.

Otto and I will still do a few biz things together (which was another flaw I think… I don’t want to do business with a romantic partner again in the future. It can be a real passion-slasher.)

I just know we need to not be together in a marriage capacity. That it’s time to transition our relationship.

I have zero desire to settle.

And both of us would be settling.

Bigtime.

I know I have a lot to do while I’m here on earth.

A LOT.

And while I don’t know what all of that is yet… I do know that having a relationship that I don’t feel completely congruent with isn’t helping me find out my purpose any time sooner.

And having a husband who has never really been that attracted to me is terrible for my sense of self-confidence and esteem.

We both deserve better than that. We deserve passion. We deserve total head-over-heels in love.

I’m not crazy. I know that things aren’t always going to be rosy. I know that marriages need to be worked on. I get all that.

But this isn’t about a rough patch.

Our relationship has always had this undertone.

I think the universe agrees with us. The day after we decided to divorce, after Otto had been having a string of bad luck business-wise, he closed $10k worth of business and acquired a big piece of a company.

I might be coming off as nonchalant about all of this, but trust me, I’m not. I’ve been extremely eaten up about it. Like I said, I had my hyperventilation sessions. I cried in the middle of Starbucks (more than once). I had my screaming sessions. I cursed the universe (with real “OOMPH” on the f-word.)

I felt like a FOOL. We’ve only been married 7 months. And I know people have such judgment about divorce, how people don’t give it enough effort, etc etc…

But we really have tried. We’ve been together for 3 years.

Both of us had huge freak-out sessions the day before the wedding. I think we both knew it wasn’t right… but our love for each other on a best friend level made us do it anyway, because we didn’t want to hurt the other person.

At the end of the day though… my heart knew it was coming. Otto and I made 2012 goals on December 31st. Last night we were talking about how Otto never included me in his. And mine said, “I am in the relationship of my dreams” and “My man worships me and I worship him”.

I never specifically said Otto’s name.

When I mentioned this to Otto yesterday, he said “I do worship you, but not in the way you want.”

Case closed I guess.

Edit: We’re getting annulled. We just learned that since Otto doesn’t know if he’ll be ready to have kids in the 3 years he initially promised, we legally fall into an annulment. That was another huge reason for us to lean this way.

I was very excited about the hike part, but not about the hot springs. I didn’t want to wear a bathing suit.

(If you haven’t read, I’ve gained a lot of weight since eating meat. And I am FINALLY OK with it… so much so that I’m a little embarrassed to recount this story, but feel called to, so I am.)

Here’s what happened:

I am very aware that everything I say comes true. The power of our subconscious is HUGE.

When I was younger, if I ever tried to get out of going to school by saying I was sick, I’d get sick. Even if I was totally healthy before.

When I was working as a cashier in high school I wanted to call out of work. I knew that I’d get sick if I told them that, so I decided to go a different route. I had my stepfather name a random car part. He told me “catalytic converter”, so I called and said my catalytic converter broke.

The next week… boom,  my catalytic converter went out.

I’d never even heard of that before.

So while I know lying isn’t that great anyway, this fast manifestation stuff ensures I generally don’t do it.

But I was so worked up about the stupid bathing suit that Saturday night I told Otto I was sick. I figured I’d get myself sick real quick so I could avoid having to go on the hike the next day.

(I am not proud of this.)

I felt very bad for lying, and so in the morning, the first thing I did was wake Otto up and (tearfully) confess. I hate lying and feel bad that I did it. It’s amazing how much emotion and power I had been giving to this weight gain.

After I confessed I realized I was being ridiculous and I went on the hike. I had an AWESOME time. In fact, I think it “clicked” me back. I’d been having a not-stellar few months, and after the hike I feel like I got “me” back. No more cranky, miserable Rachel, thank you.

But I guess I’d already set the process in motion for getting sick, because on Monday, boom… runny nose, sore throat, laid around for 3 days because I couldn’t work up any motivation to get out and go to the cafe.

(As a side note, it was kind of nice to be lazy. I drew, journaled, and drank lots of tea.)

Last night I was sicker than any other day.

I was sick of feeling yucky, so I decided I was finished.

Before I went to bed, I told my mind that I wanted to wake up feeling good, with enough motivation to go to the cafe, no more runny nose and no more sore throat.

I still have a slight runny nose (much less than yesterday), woke up with no sore throat, and am at a cafe right now. Motivation is running through my veins.

It’s fascinating how much power we have over our minds.

And to make myself feel better about the fact that I’ve been so whiny about my weight… I’d like to mention I’ve made tremendous strides to stop being so upset.

I bought a pair of jeans yesterday in a new size. I was resisting buying new clothes because I didn’t want to admit defeat, that this size is the new size I’d be…

But I decided yesterday that I’d feel better if I wore something that fit well and made me feel good.

So I got a new pair of jeans in a size that would’ve been unthinkable for me in the past.

And I am OK with it.

So I am moving forward, and definitely using the “power of my mind” to make magic happen.

Next up… changing the world.

It does seem like the biographer went out of his way to look objective with his book, maybe to the point of making Steve seem more of a jerk than he is…

But dude seems like a total asshole.

Other things I’ve read/heard confirm that.

I know he made the Mac, and I know people love it, and I know he is behind a lot of things that make my life better. I love my iPad and my iPhone.

I have a Mac too. I bought it because every marketer seemed to be talking about how great the Mac was… and so when my (AMAZING) PC got stolen from my car, I took it as a sign to buy the MacBook Pro.

Now I’m used to it, and love programs like Screenflow… but I really don’t understand what the cult following is about. Truthfully I prefer the PC.

In reading Steve’s biography, here are some things that really stood out to me:

1. Steve had a great friend who stuck with him for YEARS… even when he abandoned his daughter. His friend lived with him, helped him with Apple, etc… and then when it was time to give out Apple shares, Steve insisted his friend didn’t deserve the shares because he wasn’t upper level enough.

His friend was shocked. He’d been with Steve and helped him out for a LONG time. He just assumed Steve would take care of him down the line.

Many people thought Steve’s friend was right… that Steve should take care of him. One person who did have stock went up to Steve and told him he’d happily match the amount of stock Steve gave his friend. Steve’s reply? “OK… I’ll give him zero.”

For someone who allegedly wasn’t about the money, that sucks.

2. When he was laying people off at one of his other companies (NeXT I believe, but it might have been Pixar), he wanted to lay hard-working people off with no severance pay and no two week notice. These are people that worked VERY hard for him (lots of hours, and also a lot of aggravation considering how hostile Steve was).

When someone told Steve he should at least give the people he was laying off two weeks’ notice, he said “Okay… we’ll do that. The two weeks is retroactive from two weeks ago.”

I know he had been overfunding the company, but dude.

Again… for someone who is allegedly not about the money, that’s really messed up.

3. He treated people like CRAP!!! Stories of people getting him birthday presents he left in his hotel room, talking down to people, trying to oust people from their positions, cheating Wozniak out of bonus money that wouldn’t have even been made had Wozniak not done the work…

He just seems like he has very little integrity and is NOT someone I would respect.

I know he made a big impact and transformed the world, but so did Hitler.

I’m not saying he’s like Hitler. I’m just saying that solely transforming the world isn’t a reason to idolize someone.

He does have some great products that I love. He’s an amazing marketer. He (allegedly) cares a lot about user experience (though part of me wonders how much that is just his ego loving the control).

Ugh, and that part about how he felt he was enlightened… makes me feel sick.

I’m not saying he was some evil dark force, but I definitely don’t find him enlightened. I find him selfish, an egomaniac, completely devoid of empathy, and mindblowingly self-centered.

Does this say something about me? Am I getting frustrated about some “shadow” part of me?

Possibly. I don’t think so though. I don’t feel an emotional charge around this. I just feel sad that this is the type of person people are idolizing.

If someone wants to aggrandize a person for changing the world, there are many better choices. Why not go with Mother Teresa? Gandhi?

ANYONE who seemed to think beyond themselves.

My lord.

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

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

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

So here I am.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Granted, I’ve always been an idealist.

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

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

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

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

Why did Otto tell me this? I don’t know. Probably because I push too much.

When he told me, I had several thoughts at once:

The one I verbalized: “I never liked that guy… I told you the minute I met him that I didn’t like him.”

“This is why I hate southern California! It’s so f*cking superficial!”

“I wonder who else feels the same way?”

“Let him come to me and try to get me to promote something of his. Just let him try!”

“What has he done with HIS life? I just launched 2 #1 best-selling books, am co-running a million dollar business, and raised $50k for charity last August. He’s still an unevolved asshole!”

…but mostly, I felt hurt.

If this was 6 months ago, I probably would have forgotten it by now.

But because I’ve gained so much weight since eating meat (like 10-20 pounds… I don’t know exactly how much because I’ve been too afraid to step on the scale), I’ve been incredibly sensitive about anything looks-related.

My mind has been going to how I’m probably the same weight now as I was when I first met Otto.

How the world probably sees me the way his “friend” does/did.

I told Otto about a guy I met the other day who invited me to be on his radio show within a few minutes of meeting me, but weirdly seemed to lose interest once I told him how I traveled so much. Otto told me the guy was probably hitting on me and it completely threw me for a loop.

The idea of my being hit on hasn’t even entered my realm of possibility lately.

I forgot that could actually even happen.

For a while it was my every day reality. But every time I go into coffee shops NOW, I find myself silently willing people to not look at me.

I know I “shouldn’t‘” feel this way.

And I know that looks “shouldn’t” matter so much.

But the fact of the matter is, we’re 99% chimp. And female chimps need to know that they are desirable. It’s a mating thing. If they can’t mate, they’re totally screwed.

So even if “intellect” tells me not to care… I don’t know how I can help it.

Yes… I’ve been exercising. And I’m signing up with a personal trainer this week.

The old me would just go on a juice fast and be done with this. But I’ve committed to eating the way my body wants.

See… the crappy part of all this is I’ve FELT so much better since I started eating meat.

My mind is much more alert, on focus, and I’ve been really productive.

My moods have been much more consistent.

But this f*cking weight has been the bane of my existence.

I’m going to stay with this meat-eating plan, because I FEEL (mostly) better and I’m holding on to hope that the weight will eventually come off.

The nutritionist said she gained weight initially too, and so did some of her clients, but it came off eventually.

She also told me to “love” the extra weight.

I am trying as hard as I can, but it’s not easy.

Otto gave me his sweatpants to wear the other day.

When I put them on, they felt “off”.

Tighter.

Normally I love wearing his sweatpants.

But this time I got so upset that I just lay in a ball, bawling, for a good 20 minutes.

I can’t wait for this phase of my life to end.

$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 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.

This blog post is another one that I tried to make on the plane, but unfortunately, it was WAY too loud.

Someone recently asked me about my SEO strategy and what I do to get ranked.

Truth be told, I am NOT a big SEO person. I don’t know very much about SEO and I don’t really care to. I do know enough to get top 10 rankings for niche sites though, and that’s the main thing I use it for.

If you’re interested in how to get ratings for competitive sites, I think the best resource out there, from what I’m told, is Bring The Fresh. A lot of SEO products will tell you not to try to rank for super-competitive terms, but the guys at BTF not only did it… but they ranked for it very quickly. They say most people make SEO look a LOT harder than it is, and I think that’s the case too. And the guys at BTF teach SEO in a way that’s not overwhelming at all.

Anyway, what I do, that works pretty well, is:

1. I use Angela‘s and Paul‘s backlinks. If you’re not familiar with them, here’s how it works: these places are basically services that show you where you can post links that Google thinks highly of. For example, maybe they find an NBC article that has a high page rank. They’ll tell you about it, you can post on there with a link to your website, and then Google sees your link associated with NBC. Google sees you as more of an authority site and thus rank you higher in the search engines.

I use an amazing guy named Shaon to post links for me. He happens to have more availability, so if you want to hire him, scoop him up! The guy is INCREDIBLE and was Bangladesh’ top freelancer of the year. His email is shaon@privateoutsourcing.com (I get nothing for sharing that).

2. SENuke is a GREAT tool I have my traffic outsourcer do. I don’t know a lot of the details but I know whenever he uses it, our rankings go WAY up.

3. We convert all of our articles into Powerpoints, read them out loud and make videos of them, and then post them to video sharing sites. This helps us leverage the same content in many different formats. (You could also post them as podcasts, which I *think* we’re doing but am honestly not sure).

This alone works pretty decently, especially in small niches.

Honestly though, we do a LOT better with our affiliate program than SEO. If you missed the (free) post I created on how we got 2,536 affiliates, you can check it out here.

And if you have any other internet marketing questions, please feel free to ask them! I’m happy to answer (almost) anything!

1. I lost ALL contacts on my phone. If you’d like me to have your number, please message me on Facebook. My VA is going to compile one big list and give it to me. That’s because…

2. I’m overwhelmed with Facebook messages! I’ve been getting so many messages for things I do NOT use Facebook for (people wanting me to promote their products, random event invites, support tickets, etc)… and I end up getting so many that I miss the good ones.

My VA will be checking all messages. If they’re personal to me, she’ll forward them on.

I hope this doesn’t offend anyone, but I don’t know what else to do. The alternative for me has been ignoring everything which is probably way more offensive.

I just don’t have an extra hour per day to sort through messages (or more correctly, I’m not willing to create that hour, because it’s my highest choice to be OFF the computer).

If anyone happens to have any other ideas of how to best handle this, please let me know.

I’ll still be responding to all comments/wall posts… those are much easier to navigate and I quickly de-friend anyone who spams on my wall.

Thank you for understanding!