Gratefully, I Go Red to Save Lives!

The first week of Project Purpose 2010, a 90 day program I am participating in, is coming to an end and I just opened an email referring to it as Hearts of Purpose. That name really resonates with me this evening as I just returned home from having the honor of speaking to the 96 beautiful sorority sisters of Alpha Phi, and their families and friends, at the Go Red Gala that this sorority puts on each year. It was a beautiful evening at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA.

The photo above shows the four Go Red for Women Ambassadors that spoke this evening and our friend from the American Heart Association, in the center, that introduced us. They are from the left: Kara Moore, Nadine Kelley, Connie Hara, Tina Blackett and Dyann Lyon. Each of us has a powerful and compelling Go Red story of survival to share and we are all passionate about sharing our story with people, groups and businesses that invite us to speak. 

The Go Red program is a program of the American Heart Association. I learned about it when I approached Connie Hara in the summer of 2009 to see if I could get some material from the Heart Association to use as handouts at offices I wished to speak in. I had the idea of sharing my story along with the warning signs of heart disease and how to prevent this largely preventable disease. Connie said that was a perfect Go Red for Women project and that there was no one leading Go Red in Tacoma. Would I be interested in leading it? I must admit that I balked at the idea in the beginning as I didn't want to limit these talks to women and my story is definitely a story for men too. Well, after talking more with Connie I really got the impact of heart disease being the number one killer of women, more than the next five diseases all added together! After several meetings with other women in the community, that have their own stories of survival to share, the Go Red for Women Ambassador program in Tacoma and Pierce County was off and running.

The photo to the left is of the six Go Red for Women Ambassadors and our friend, Connie, of the American Heart Association who all gave up their Saturday night to be able to speak to the ladies of Alpha Phi and their family and friends. They are from the left: .Victoria Doyle, Mary Harrison, Kara Moore, Connie Hara, Nadine Kelley, Dyann Lyon and Tina Blackett. We have other Go Red for Women Ambassadors and we are always looking for more. Whenever we have an opportunity to speak we accept the engagement. We then notify the group to see who is available to speak for that event. Each one of us has a different story to share and we always leave an impact on our audiences. 

There is so much I am grateful for in this story. First of all I am grateful for the nearly twenty wonderful years I had with my husband, Lee Oberbeck, who died suddenly of a heart attack at 50 years young. I am grateful to have met Connie Hara and for her passion and commitment to help get a Go Red program off the ground in Tacoma. I am grateful for the passionate women who have stepped forward to share their Go Red message, on their own time, to help save lives. These women have become special friends and I am grateful to each of them for the wonderful passionate hearts they share with others. I am especially grateful for my amazing and dear husband, Wild Bill Jones, and his passion and compassion in joining me on my quest to serve. He was the one that took pictures all night and helped each of us on and off the stage. Wild is our Go Red Mascot. Here he is with two beautiful women, Lindsay Ingaldson and Laura McQuay, Red Dress Gala Chairwomen, Gamma Zeta of Alpha Phi. These two did a wonderful job of putting on the Red Dress Gala 2010. Great job ladies!

With love and gratitude,

Dyann

Filled to the brim!

What I love about being in gratitude is the feeling I get, and the wonderful energy that comes, from being in gratitude on a daily basis. At the moment I am filled to the brim with gratitude, energy, excitement, purpose, anticipation, commitment and love! WOW! That is a lot of great stuff to be filled with! Would you agree?

I am so thankful for Patti Roney, for the inspiration I receive from her and for her leading Project Purpose (PP) again this year. As I mentioned on Monday of this week, the first day of the 90 day program she created, I am happy to have created The Gratitude Room blog last year during the early days of PP 2009. I realize that even though I have loved writing this blog I tended to take on some pretty heavy, and often emotional, subjects. Being the creative person I am I also wanted to post pretty pictures, mostly beautiful flowers, as inspiration. I found that all of that seemed to bog me down and I was writing less and less. I thought I really needed something special to write about and it often became daunting to even get started. As of this week I have an entirely different approach to this blog. I am taking on a daily habit of writing what I am grateful for and keeping it short and sweet. At least that is my intention. If I have something on my mind that deserves more attention, I will gladly have at it!

With love and gratitude,
Dyann

Surprise!!
That was the first line of an email I received today with the word surprise in red.

In the subject line it read: "SURPRISE! YOU ARE A WINNER WITH USANA!!" WOW! I already knew that, because being in USANA makes me a winner. Yet this seemed to mean something different.

The next sentence of the email had another word in red, it read: "You are a winner of the FREE airfair drawing for the 2010 Celebration at Sea!"

Yippee! I won! I won free airfare for the USANA cruise that Wild and I are going on in December 2010!

When I happened to see the email, notifying me of the free airfare, Wild and I were on the tail end of a coaching call. I didn't want to disturb him but I couldn't help grinning from ear to ear and he couldn't help noticing. Just now, I asked Wild what he thought when he saw me grinning so big earlier today. He answered, with a huge grin of his own: "I didn't know what was going on but it was gratifying to see you looking so happy." Since I am a pretty happy person, being happy is not unusual. Big grins, like the huge one I had today out of the blue, are unusual! What fun that was! Thank you USANA!

What a joy it is to be feeling gratitude, for simply doing what I love with the company I have so much admiration for, and winning a prize while doing it. Good things seem to come in threes. Just yesterday we had a call from a friend that requested we speak to her sister, who lives in another state, because her sister has absolutely no energy. Her sister wants us to arrange for her to get what our friend has, because our friend "has the energy of an energizer bunny!". What a pleasure and a gift it is to be able to help people feel better! The third good thing happening is that tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of Wild becoming an American citizen. If you want to know more about that story please read my blog entry dated April 13, 2009, with a post scipt I wrote earlier today.

With love and gratitude,
Dyann

Grateful for Blogger

I am feeling a flood of gratitude for Blogger today. Last year I created this, The Gratitude Room, blog, believeing it would be the perfect place for me to express gratitude. I have many gratitude books around my home, I'll fill one and start another. Even though it is wonderful to express gratitude with pen and paper, inside of a beautifully bound journal, this blog gives me an endess supply of space in which to share my thoughts of gratitude. I am grateful for that.

I have wanted to create another blog for many months. I have actually started two different blogs in wordpress and I have never created any traction to get either of them off the ground. Within the past week I started a second blog on Blogger at: http://dyannsexcellentadventure.blogspot.com/ and I look forward to expressing my thoughts and ideas there, on topics other than gratitude. What I am grateful for today is the ease in which I am able to access both my blogs via the Dashboard. Until this week, after creating my second Blogger blog, I never fully understood or appreciated the concept of the Dashboard on my Blogger account. Thank you Blogger for making my blogging experience so easy! I believe that now I will find it much more comfortable to maintain two different blogs and have two places to express myself.

With gratitude and ease,
Dyann

Gratitude as a place to Be.

As I get ready for my day it occures to me that Gratitude is not just a list of the many things I am grateful for. Gratitude is a place to be. I feel Gratitude all around me as though I am in a room full of it. I am sitting in it as I type these words, like sitting on an invisible cloud of goodness. I am immersed in it as I become conscious of the birds singing outside my office window. Gratitude opens up a world into the many blessings that are all around me and allows them in. I am Grateful for those singing birds today. They remind me of the beauty of life that surrounds me and how precious it is. I am Grateful for the reminder that it is up to me to do whatever it takes to focus on the goodness around me.

Have an unlimited day!
With love and gratitude,
Dyann

Day #1 of Project Purpose 2010

Today is Day #1 of Project Purpose 2010, created and led by Patti Roney. Our first assignment is to start a Gratitude journal. I have one by my bed, already, that I love writing in and I have The Gratitude Room blog which I created last year. So, starting today I will be sharing my gratitude, for the next 90 days of Project Purpose, right here.

Today I am grateful to be alive, enjoying all the blessings of a healthy body, having a husband I love dearly and a life I cherish. Thank you for the gift of health that I enjoy in every part of my body, inside and out. Thank you for helping me to find USANA, the gift that keeps each cell of my body healthy. After seven plus years on the USANA supplements, meal replacements and advanced skincare I have a USANA body from cell to cell!

With love and gratitude,
Dyann

Grateful to Bob Burg and John David Mann

Recently I finished reading "The Go-Giver", by Bob Burg and John David Mann, after finally getting to it in my pile of books I intend to read. Rather than go on to the next book waiting for me I immediately ordered their newest book, "Go-Givers Sell More" and began reading it the day it arrived by mail. I have read a lot of wonderful books and do not normally comment on or review them. I haven't finished the second book, yet I want to share some thoughts as these books immediately came to mind when I sat down to write today.

Like most people I have been in sales all my life, whether I knew it or not. It wasn't until I was in my early 30's, which was quite some time ago, that I got into selling as a profession. That was when I started selling real estate, which I did happily and successfully for many years. In all that time I always wanted the best for my customers, clients and business partners. I learned early on that by focusing on the other person and their needs I was actually taking pressure off myself and I would be a lot less nervous on presentations and in negotiations.

After reading "The Go-Giver" I was thrilled to see The Five Laws Of Stratospheric Success so beautifully told through a wonderful story that is easy to read. The lessons of each law are experienced through Joe, who starts out as a go-getter and becomes a Go-Giver by the end of this wonderful little story.

As I am in the early years of a new selling profession, in network marketing, it is with great pleasure that I read these two little books. I am reminded of the purity of selling which I have always thought of as helping people get enough information in order to make a good buying decision. I am learning there are so many more ways I can help people get what they want and that I can do even better than I have in the past. By giving to others, in ways I had not actually thought of, I can help even more people in many more ways. I am inspired by the following quote from "Go-Givers Sell More": "Selling is giving: giving time, attention, counsel, education, emapthy, and value. In fact, the word sell comes from the Old English word sellan, which means - you guessed it - "to give."

Helping others has always given me a joyful high. Helping them get what they want even from a competitor, will now also be a joyful experience. Just this week I was talking to a friend about a product I sell. She said it sounded great but she hadn't shopped it yet for pricing. To make it easier for her I narrowed down the field, and her potential effort, by giving her the name of the only other company I could think of that could possibly give her the same quality. I had never done that before. It felt great!

Thank you Bob Burg and John David Mann. I am grateful to be able to read your two Go-Giver books and add value to others as a result. Thank you for the wonderful work that you two are doing together to make the world a better place to be. You make a difference!

With gratitude and admiration,
Dyann