Rachel Rofé

Unbelievable.

There’s no other way to describe everything that’s going on!

I guess I’ll start from last night, and then backtrack to L.A. and San Francisco, and then some new developments in San Diego (and I’ve only been here for an hour!).

Okay, so here we go.

I was driving from L.A. to San Diego last night, and stopped in Laguna Beach to get some gas. I decided to go to a bar called the White House…. it looked fun, and it was a “sleep-in-my-car” night, so I was in no rush.

Anyway, I met this guy there who told me that he was on vacation and hanging out at his friend’s place. He kept telling me how amazing the place was, and asked if I wanted to come over… but he had been coming on far too forward the entire time, so I kept telling him no.

I started talking to his friend though, and it turns out that he’s a very successful entrepreneur from NYC. He’s very big into real estate, and also owns a gigantic nonprofit company that raises money for other nonprofits.

Listen to this… he works closely with Bill Clinton, the Pope, and other huuuuge people. He goes to these global meetings all the time (HAS to go actually!) and meets all sorts of high profile people.

(We figured out that we had the same birthday, and we mentioned that both of us had never met someone with our birthday before. I ask him if he’s ever met Barbara Walters (she has our birthday too), and he nonchalantly says yes. Is that not crazy!? He knows everyone!)

Okay, so anyway, I was getting slightly frustrated by the first dude, the one that was coming on too forward… so I asked if I could take a picture with him and be on my way, and just remember it as a night at a bar in Laguna. My camera batteries died though, so Steve (the entrepreneur) tells me to come by his house for a little bit, charge my batteries, and leave whenever. I’ve been trying to listen to my intuition more, and something tells me it’s a good idea, so I do.

DUUUUUUDE! I got there and he had a freaking ELEVATOR inside his house. It’s a BEACH HOUSE, and it has an ELEVATOR! Are you kidding me?! The house was just insane! It was a 5 bedroom, and he had mini-bars inside the bedrooms… and told me that the only rule in the house was the rule of “Yes”… if I wanted anything, the answer was “Yes”.

Oo, and he had an AMAZING view of Laguna Beach. Absolutely breathtaking, and there were multiple telescopes throughout the different levels of the house to check things out.

He asked me if I wanted to crash there (and volunteered the fact that there were locks on the doors), so I agreed. It’s 10x better than my car obviously, and the place was SWEET!

AAAAND… the forward guy from the bar ended up doing a complete 180 when we got to the house, and was 100x more fun to be around. He woke me up at 3:30ish a.m. and we went and watched the lunar eclipse through the telescope!

I left while Steve was sleeping (had an early appointment in San Diego), but I did write down his cell phone number that he had listed in his elevator, so I’ll call him and thank him again. How cool is that though!?

——————-

Los Angeles:

I left Jaime’s house yesterday afternoon. I’m going to miss her!

After that, I met with Raam, which was very interesting (in a great way). We met online and were business partners on a site, but I had recently left the partnership (on very good terms). Since I was going to be in L.A. where Raam lives, I asked if he wanted to get together and finally meet.

Not only did he want to get together, but he told me to let him know if I needed a place to stay or a car to drive around in.

(I have the most amazing freaking people in my life. Who leaves a partnership and still gets that kind of treatment?)

Annnnnyway, we went to a really cool cafe and walked around for a while. It was wonderful to finally meet him! He’s a great guy, and definitely an inspiration to me.

——————-

San Francisco:

To sum it up… I got a little too… erm… buzzed… talked to Tim Ferriss for a while… go to put my phone number in his cell phone, and somehow decide it would be a good idea to call my phone from his, to “steal” his number.

What the heck was I thinking?!?

I woke up at 7:30 am, wide-eyed and completely shocked at myself.By the end of the day though, I had to think about the bright side… at least I’m his most fascinating groupie, right? I bet nobody else has ever stolen his phone number! (For the record, I felt bad and deleted it.)

——————-

San Diego:

I found someone on Craigslist who was going to barter a few weeks worth of office space with me in exchange for my building him a website.

Anyway, I ended up telling him a lot about different aspects of web marketing… and I guess kind of exposed him to lots of new things (it’s so interesting, this is the 2nd time that I’ve done this with a small business owner. I love how they get when they learn new things. I really want to do more consulting. Brian and I are thinking about it. I digress…)

I tell him that I pretty much want the office space so that I can crash here at night (I’m fine working out of Barnes & Noble, but I need somewhere to sleep :)). He asks me if I’m a morning person and if I like kids, to which I reply yes for both.

To make a ridiculously long blog post somewhat shorter… I’m now going to be a “nanny” for two hours a morning, and he has a basement bedroom that I can sleep at…equipped with a shower and everything. What an upgrade from the showers at L.A. Fitness!

And the even better part - drumroll please - he has an extra apartment that he owns right near San Diego… and he said that if I help him with his marketing and he can get some new customers each month… I COULD STAY IN HIS APARTMENT INDEFINITELY FOR FREE.

San Diego. Free.

Could I love my life more? I think not.

Geez, I have so much work to do. I found some new spy tools, I’ll post them later.

Here’s some pictures…

The bar on the fourth floor…

The outside view of the house (and Steve designed the adjacent houses)…

The lunar eclipse through the telescope… not an awesome picture, but whatever.

Amazing views…

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 have too much time to post, but I wanted to quickly get this out there.

I received a PM on The Warrior Forum from a guy named Richard today. He said that he was contacting me because he read my blog post about positive mindset, and he figured he’d try it out.

Richard is currently taking part in the Standing Start Challenge. Within this challenge, there are different contests. The first one was on copywriting, and Richard came in 4^th place. The second event is on promoting membership to the Standing Start Profits.

Due to illness, Richard wasn’t able to promote, and the contest ends on the 22^nd.

Even one sale will get him a point on the challenge… so hopefully somebody is interested!

Go here to check it out (this is with Richard’s affiliate link, obviously).

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!

Just wanted to make a quick blog post about last night… I have a feeling that L.A. is going to be so amazing that it’ll be hard to remember all the awesome things from Vegas!

I went to Penn & Teller last night with a guy that I met here. It was a GREAT show! It was really, really neat. Since I don’t watch TV, I hadn’t seen that Bullshit show that they have (it’s really called Bullshit :))…. I remember seeing a video of them when I was in school…  but didn’t really know what to expect.

They had some VERY COOL tricks! One of them was where they were trying to prove that all psychics, fortune tellers, mind readers, etc… were full of crap. They passed around 3 different joke books and told people to just keep passing them around, and whenever they said “stop”, 2 of the people had to find a joke that had some personal meaning to them. Using “cold reading”, Penn was able to guess the first one (it was out of an entire joke book!). Using “warm reading”, he guessed the third, and using “hot”, he had the audience guess the 3rd.

That was SO cool!

I had another favorite trick, but in case you ever go to the show, I won’t spoil it. For that one, though… they tell you what they’re going to do anyway, so I’m not ruining anything.

I went to dinner before that, and that was really cool too! We went to this Italian cafe at the Rio. It was SO neat! They had these different lights in there that kept changing colors… and at one point, they dimmed all the lights and a bunch of TVs came on. They started playing the Sopranos… completely out of nowhere. After a minute or two, one of the women shoots her husband…. in the restaurant, the lights start flashing different colors, and they start singing “I Will Survive”. The waiters start clapping, there’s a singer on TV, and people were encouraged to sing along. Just a really, really fun place!

Before that, right inside the casino, there were singers coming out in different contraptions (a hot air balloon, a dinosaur, a bus) and being brought down from the ceiling… and they were singing and dancing as people watched from the sides. Loved it!

IN OTHER NEWS, it looks as if my trip is going to be extended!! Brian and I are going to John Carlton’s “Copywriting Sweatshop” in Reno, Nevada, on 9/22 + 9/23. This is going to be ENORMOUS for both of us, and I can’t think of a better person to be there with. It’s going to be an absolute blast!!

Okay… guess I should pack my stuff up and head out to Loooos Angeles!

Cirque was AMAZING last night! Not only did I have a front row seat, but it was right in the center. I literally couldn’t have been in a better seat if I wanted!

I’m going to see Penn & Teller tonight with someone I met from here. Should be GREAT!!

I uploaded a lot of pictures… here are some of them:

Vegas:

One of the cool things inside the Bellagio:

The ceiling of the lobby of the Bellagio:

My camera doesn’t love me all the time…. Elton John at Madame Tussaud’s wax museum.

New hair from the fabulous J-Byrd! We’re going to stay in touch - she was so awesome!

Vegas at night

This was SO neat!!! It was pitch black outside… but the ceiling of the Venetian was painted like a sky, and it was so bright inside. SUCH a cool thing to experience!

The ceiling of the Venetian in another section

St. Louis (I really loved that city!)

Part of the Anheuser Busch tour:

The St. Louis arch:

They had those “Cardinals” champions signs ALL over. Maybe all cities do this when they win championships, but I would never know, since I live in Philadelphia.

Beautiful Colorado

Gorgeous Utah

I have about a zillion more, but that’s a good sampling.

In other news, Brian keeps racking copywriting jobs up for us! It’s VERY exciting! That WSO has propelled us into so many new opportunities!

I’m in Vegas…

AND…

I scored a FRONT ROW TICKET to a Cirque du Soleil show today.

FRONT ROW!%$#@$!#@!#

There’s something to be said for going to a show alone. There’s all the “onesies” left over.

Aaaaand I think I’m going to another show tomorrow with someone I met from here.

On Thursday, I leave for the Playboy Mansion! I CAN’T WAIT!

So, what else has happened since I last blogged…

I got to Vegas on Sunday!

When I first got here, I was kind of taken aback… it seemed really… not safe. I was getting bombarded by people asking for money… one of the hotels that I was going to inquire about had a sign saying “Go To Deli To Make Reservation”… It was so weird!

I ended up getting a great hotel though (from what I’m told, it’s on the “New Strip” - which is apparently a lot better than the “South” side where I had been), and have been having a blast ever since.

Vegas is AMAZING at night!!!

I went walking around yesterday at 9:30 pm (which felt like 12:30 am to me because I’m still in Eastern Standard Time mode) and before I knew it, it was 12:30 am P.S.T.!

There are so many AWESOME things to check out!!

The Bellagio had this beautiful water works demonstration with music…. and the Venetian is G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S!

I went to get my eyebrows waxed yesterday and ended up talking with a bunch of the locals who gave me some great tips on where to hang out, too. I think I’m going to hit up a bar tonight.

Annnyway… everything has been fabulous over here. I want to live in my car FOREVER!

I’m currently pulled over behind a gas station in Fruita, Colorado.

I had been driving on 70 West, and realized that I need to blog about everything that was happening so that I didn’t forget one single moment.

So anyway… from the last time I wrote… I did end up going to the Budweiser tour. It was cool! I got to see how beer was made, and the different machines and stuff that were used in the process. We also got free alcohol at the end.

I fell in love with St. Louis. The people there were GREAT! Everyone was so friendly… the drivers were AWESOME (I should’ve been honked at so many times… ;))

From there, I decided to reroute and head to Denver. My GPS had me going through Tulsa, Alburquerque, and Amarillo, TX…. so I decided to go west and hit Denver and Las Vegas instead.

I didn’t sleep at all the night that I went from St. Louis to Denver, because I was so exicited to get there.

I was there for 5 minutes… called 3 different hotels to see where I could stay… and they were all rude. I decided that I didn’t like Denver and kept moving. Maybe I was just spoiled from St. Louis…. but whatever.

I ended up sleeping in Parachute, Colorado last night. There wasn’t too much to explore there, but that was okay, because I was able to get a lot of work done as well as SLEEP!

I decided to go straight to Vegas today… but as I was driving, I randomly checked for “Attractions” in my GPS. I saw that there were a lot of wineries. Since I’ve never been to one, I pulled over and had my first wine tasting experience! It was fun! I learned how to do the sniff and whirl thing, too. Haha… I’m so uncultured.

Oo, I also stopped at a fruit stand and bought a peach! It was ridiculously good! I never see fruit stands in Philly! That was also the first piece of food that I’ve bought so far on the trip (I’d been living out of the stuff I brought from Philly).

Oh, actually… I was falling asleep at the wheel yesterday, and since the roads were really curvy, I stopped at a 7-11 to get a Slurpee and super-spicy Doritos.

You know… speaking of Doritos… random note…

I’ve been keeping all of my food in the trunk of my car, including my snacks, because I know that I’ll unconsciously eat it if it’s next to me. I also made a decision not to waste money/calories on junk food. Because of this, when I end up at the Wal-Marts at 3am in the morning, I find it necessary to torture myself and go to the chips section and look at all of the stuff that I’m not going to buy. It’s INSANE how many flavors of chips that these Super-Walmarts have!! Bacon ranch? Bags of Doritos with two different flavors inside? Insanity!!

Then again, maybe this stuff exists near me… I don’t usually look at it.

Back to the trip…After the winery, I drove a lady to a nearby bike store because her tire was flat. She was really cool! I got her email and we’re going to stay in touch. There are a LOT of bikers around here, with some really rough terrain to work on! It’s all mountains!

So what else… I know there’s more, but so much is happening that it’s hard to remember everything.

Like I said, I’m on my way to Vegas now. I booked a hostel for four nights, because I’ve made such good timing on the trip! After that, it’s off to L.A. for the Playboy Mansion!

Workwise, my WSO with Brian is going INCREDIBLE! We have over 70 members so far.

I started driving from Philly to Los Angeles on Tuesday. It has been SO awesome!

I’m in St Louis now, and have stopped in Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio.

The drive has been going really well! My friend Dan Kelly gave me 7.5 gigs worth of products and audiobooks to listen to (over 100 hours worth of content), so I haven’t been bored at all. I ADORE HIM!

Actually… one of the things that he gave me was this awesome free teleconference
call between Rich Schefren, Stephen Pierce, and Alex Mandossian. It was unbelievable! You should have seen me… I was driving, with one leg curled under me, with a notebook on my lap, and taking notes as I was driving. I know it’s not the safest thing ever, but how could anyone listen to that call and not take notes!?!?

In other news, I have a newfound love with Wal-Mart. There’s about a trillion 24 hour supercenters within every square foot around here… it’s awesome for the weird hours I’ve been keeping!

For example.. the first night, I slept in my car at a park. I was ready to start driving again at 4:30 am, but had to go to the bathroom… so I was able to just drive to a Wal-Mart!!

(There aren’t any 24 hour supercenters in Philadelphia, so excuse me if I sound ridiculously ignorant.. hahaha)

SPEAKING OF IGNORANT!! I saw the coolest thing!!! My cigarette lighter blew up yesterday, so I had no cell phone charger. I pulled over somewhere in Illinois to ask them to charge my phone via electricity for a little bit… and in this big travel stop, there was a shoe-shining station!!

True story!

Someone actually had to climb up on a perch.. and there actually was someone sitting in one of the chairs… and another girl was shining his shoes!

I wanted to take a picture, but since they were charging my cell phone for me, I figured that I shouldn’t be rude.

Since my cell phone lighter died and I had no electricity for my laptop to charge or my camera, I decided to get a motel for the night.

Although the hotel is insanely vile, I’m still in love with it. I walked in and wanted to kiss the (dirty) walls. I’ve never appreciated a bed more in my life!!!

Hahaha… about the hotel: I’m really not complaining, I swear. It’s a huge upgrade next to sleeping at a park. But check out the shower!

It was AMAZING to have a bed, regardless, though

In other news… a few people have recently approached me to do some copywriting for them!!! SOOOO EXCITING$#@#!!@

And last but not least - my friend Brian and I launched a Warrior Special Offer that we’re going to convert into a regular membership site. It has been doing PHENOMENALLY so far!! You can check out the thread here. We have over 50 members already!

Okay.. I have to go see if I can get that cigarette lighter fixed… and maybe tour the Budweiser brewery around here. Budweiser originated in St Louis, so there are 5 million Budweiser signs all over the place! I’m not really a beer drinker, but it should be interesting anyway!

I’ll update as soon as possible as I make my next stop - I think I’m going to stop in Tulsa, next!