ItStartsWith.Us

Napa Valley Trip (Part IV)

2010-03-12T17:24:31Z

Yesterday we went to . . . wait for it . . . a couple more wineries! Yeah, there seems to be a theme here. What was really cool about the first one we went to was that we got to experience what it’s like to make a bottle of wine by hand. They have a bunch of different wine varietals in barrels, you do a bunch of research, test stuff out, then mix whatever you want together to make a blend. Once you’ve found something you like, you bottle it up, make a label, and BAM – you have a bottle of wine of your own creation. Pretty cool. What really made me smile was the fact that when Alison of Hard Rock turned her bottle around to show me what she had done, it had “Love Bomb” on the label. I’m smiling now even as I write this. I love how strongly the group has embraced this idea . . . it’s made me feel like I bring something unique and meaningful to the trip, and I’m happy to share.

In fact, I’ll share a personal story from last night that moved me to tears. All 13 of us were eating outside at this burger joint for supper, and about midway through the meal, all of a sudden it seemed that everyone had their cell phone out and was playing with it. Now, this isn’t an uncommon occurrence, since most of us stay in touch with work or social media or whatever on our devices, but to see what I thought was most of the table (it was really everyone but me) doing it at once was a little strange. I and a couple other people made a joke about it, and then I went back to eating. But right away my phone started buzzing in my pocket, and when I went to check it, I saw that I had 12 new text messages. At first I was really confused and thought I had just gotten a bunch of spams, because most of them were from unknown numbers, but as I looked closer I noticed that each one of them was a unique message of love, encouragement and friendship from each person at the table with me.

I got Love Bombed by my own group.

That’s never happened before, and I have to tell you guys, it means a lot. I am so fortunate to have friends and colleagues like this.

Thank you.

Love Bomb wine!

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Napa Valley Trip (Part III)

2010-03-11T16:50:56Z

This morning I woke up around 6:00am, walked through some vineyards until I found a slight rise in the land, and then turned to the east to watch the sun rise over the hills of the Napa Valley. Serene, beautiful, peaceful. I spent the morning talking to a few of my cottage-mates, and now I’m sitting in a comfy chair, packed and ready to leave this house and move on to our next place. I have an hour to kill before we leave. Today’s post will be short and sweet, my own little break from ItStartsWith.Us writing and working on this trip.

Yesterday we went to a couple of wineries, one of which was fantastic: Robert Mondavi. I was really, really impressed with the beauty of both the land and the structures. I’m not a wine guy, but I gotta say, they did an amazing job with this place. Their wine cellar was probably the coolest thing I’ve seen on this trip so far.

I feel privileged that I’m able to be here right now, talking to intelligent, inspiring people about big ideas. But much more than that, I’m happy to be here making new friends and hanging out with old ones. It’s been a long time since I’ve taken a break of any kind, and I’m enjoying this one.

And it’s all thanks to Jim Knight. Love this guy.

Thanks, bro.

Awesome.

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Napa Valley Trip (Part II)

2010-03-10T16:37:42Z

My front porch

The Napa Valley is breathtakingly, achingly beautiful . . . even at the end of winter. Yesterday I met up with the group in downtown San Francisco and we drove up here to visit a winery and get situated in our cottage.

I only have a few minutes to write this before we hit the road for the day, so I wanted to spend it talking about the caliber of people I’ve already met. I was just talking to Alison, one of my new friends here, and I mentioned that I have worked with a lot of different groups over the last year of ItStartsWith.Us, and my favorite one by far has been the Foodservice/Hospitality group. I’ve never met so many individuals with such a passion for people, even when it’s not technically in their job description.

It energizes me to be around people like this – people who share my excitement around touching lives and transforming ourselves along the way. The ItStartsWith.Us concept of micro-giving, doing small, focused actions that make a difference in the lives of the people around us, is one that resonates with just about everybody, so it’s really cool to see it land in the minds of people who are in a position to make big things happen. Sometimes when I talk to people, I can see them stop paying close attention to me as their mind starts churning with ideas about what this is, and what it could be . . . what they could do with it.

And that’s exactly what I want.

I want to help people give their ideas wings . . . I want them to be able to see some of the massive effects that can result from a large group of people making a small, focused effort. I want them to change the world.

I get the most excited in this job when I talk to people about their specific community, and the possibilities available for them to do something incredible. This is so cool because each group is different. Each group brings a unique skill set or passion or opportunity to the table, and when you sit down to think about what would happen if that group were a cohesive, organized body ready and willing to give back to others, the implications are staggering. They can transform their environment. They can change the rules and break the status quo. They can change the world.

And I’m here to help.

Right now I think I have the best job in the world.

These guys will change the world.

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Napa Valley Trip (Part I)

2010-03-09T17:35:27Z

Nate and Jenny at Google

I’m going to try something a little bit different this week. Instead of sitting down and composing a well-crafted article, I’m just gonna write an off-the-top-of-my-head journal entry for every day of this trip. At least I’ll try, and hope I don’t get so busy that I can’t do it. This way you can all get a feel for how the ItStartsWith.Us project gets out and about in the community.

So, here’s the entry for Monday (which was yesterday. bad start already).

Rarely does a day work out much better than you think it will (at least in my experience). Yesterday, however, was one of those days. Oh, backstory: I’ve been invited out to Napa Valley for the week (Tuesday – Friday) to hang out with some folks in the Restaurant/Hospitality industry. It sounded like a good opportunity to chill with some really cool people, and I could use a vacation, so I accepted. I then got in touch with my good friend Jenny Blake to see if I should come out a day early and say hi to her and a few other people in San Francisco. She squealed with delight (I’m not totally sure about this, but knowing her I could see it happening) and told me to come on out. So now you’re up to speed. This is Day I of the Napa trip, which takes place entirely in San Francisco.

Jenny and I had planned to meet up for lunch at Google headquarters, where she works. She emailed me to say that she had invited a couple other people along as well. My very first instinct, since I’m a card-carrying introvert, was one of slight disappointment. Sometimes it’s hard for me to meet new people. We’ve discussed this. But within three seconds I told myself, “Self, you’re always reluctant to meet new people, or go to group meetings, and things like that. And then afterwards you’re always really glad you did it. So shut up and be happy.” And so I was.

One of the people Jenny invited was J. Money, a financial blogger from D.C. Just for the record, J. goes incognito. I’m not kidding – I don’t even know his real name. He goes by X or J. He puts a lot of his personal financial stuff up on his site, and he doesn’t want everybody knowing his business. I agree.

I knew that J. had already rented a car, so I called him when I landed and asked if he could pick me up, which he graciously did. We arrived at Google at 1:00, right on time. Then we looked for parking for 4 minutes. Not quite on time. Da well.

I’m a fan of good campus layouts already, and when you combine that with the fact that I live in Wisconsin, and hadn’t seen the sun combined with a temperature of over 40 degrees in close to 6 months, I was ecstatic to be wandering around the Google campus in shorts and a tee shirt. A tee shirt from Teecycle.org, by the way. The day before I had gone over to Tim’s house in Milwaukee and picked up a few to take on my trip.

Google Earth room

If you want to get a feel for what the campus looks like, you can check it out here. It’s just a fun place to be – lots of creativity all around. One very cool thing that I never knew existed was a small circular room with a joystick standing in the middle. The room panels were all monitors, and it was hooked up to Google Earth, so you could fly around the world and feel surrounded by the terrain, 3D buildings, etc. Very cool.

We were joined at Google by Jun Loayza and his girlfriend, Kim. Jun has done more things than I care to list here, so you can check out an interview with him if you want to learn more.

So here’s where we get to the really good stuff. We had lunch in one of the cafeterias . . . hold on. Before I go further I want to say that everything you’ve heard about the amazing food at Google is absolutely true. There’s food everywhere. And it’s good food, too – much of it fancy restaurant quality. It’s like being in the college cafeteria, with all the different stations, you know? Except each station is like a mini specialty restaurant, and everything is free. BAM.

So anyway, we all sat down to lunch, and it was so cool to hear what everyone was up to with their respective projects, talk about plans for the future, bounce ideas off of each other, etc. I know we were at Google, surrounded by a lot of great minds, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that we were competing for Most Interesting Table Discussion in that cafeteria.

I have to throw out a big thank-you to Jenny Blake for getting us all together for lunch yesterday. I feel that the ideas and knowledge shared at that table jumped me ahead a couple months in my project planning, and helped me think about some things in new and different ways.

After we left Google, J. and I took care of some of our respective business stuff, then headed up together into the city and over the Golden Gate Bridge to a tweetup at the Pacific Catch Fresh Fish Grill, co-hosted by the fantastic Amanda Hite, founder and CEO of Talent Revolution.

It was a lot of fun being up there and connecting with some of my old friends (including running into Kacy from People Report, yeah!), and meeting new ones face-to-face for the first time. First and foremost among these new people was Tom Hanson, COO of Pacific Catch, and one of our newer team members. He was a gracious host and a very cool, down-to-earth guy. Good times.

Remember how in the beginning I said that some days just seem to work out better than you expected? Well, the biggest reason yesterday turned out to be one of those days was because of the conversation J. Money and I had in the car on the way up to the tweetup. He and I share a lot of the same ideals and have a lot of passion around what we do. We both want to be able to help others give back in new, unique, and meaningful ways. My focus is on micro-giving, and his is on personal finances. Those two areas are teeming (yes, teeming) with possibilities for a joint project. There’s nothing set in stone yet, but we had a great discussion, and will have more in the next couple of weeks. So watch out for that.

Big ideas, guys. Big ideas.

Oh, and another thing. I LOVE seeing unconventional people making a difference in this life. We’ve reached a point in our society where you no longer have to wear a suit and work for a large corporation to get big things done. The web has leveled the playing field so much that people like us, if we use the tools well, can truly change the world.

Let’s get it done.

All of us at Google

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How Do You Define Success?

2010-02-24T03:25:14Z

Today’s guest post was written by Emily Wood, a blogger from Winnipeg, Manitoba. I’ve been trying to think of the right way to describe her, and about the best I can do is to say that she’s REAL. Most blogs I read bore me after about three minutes, but I can get lost in Emily’s for an hour. She’s a good writer with an honest voice and a kind heart. I’m honored to give her the platform today.

If you want to hear more from Emily, you can visit her site at http://emily-jane.net.

I first moved to Canada when I was fifteen years old, leaving behind England, the country that had raised me, enveloped me in rich culture, history, and left an insatiable appetite for all things British. My childhood was filled with visits to old cathedrals, quality time with my grandparents, and spending as much time as I possibly could outside. When I wasn’t playing football with other kids on the street, we were choreographing dances and orchestrating fundraiser talent shows for the neighbours. I remember feeling an incredible sense of pride when letters from the British Red Cross and the World Wildlife Fund arrived, thanking us for our donation which, looking back, could only have been miniscule – but we didn’t care. We were helping, and it made us feel like pretty decent kids.

Soon after I landed in Canada, I turned into a little bit of a recluse. Overwhelmed by culture shock, I retreated into a shell, worried about being judged, about being different – all the while observing just how different things were here. I’d come from a school where students were scolded for having their shirts untucked, or for wearing more than one pair of earrings. Here, kids were in designer hoodies and jeans, with highlights in their hair and fake tans, their faces masked with heaps of lip gloss and eyeliner. At the time, I remember feeling so different, so out of the social loop. Everyone was so focused on being popular and liked, and I didn’t know what to do. Every teenager wants to fit in – but I’d come from leading groups of kids where we’d spend our spare time singing, fundraising, and trying to make a difference in the world – and here I was, surrounded by people spending their parents’ money on fancy clothes and trying to look cool. Our priorities clashed, and I was overcome with a longing to fit in, but to also stay true to my beliefs. I kept quiet and observed.

I got my first job at sixteen, and like many teenagers, worked my way through a series of corporate, hierarchical retail jobs where emphasis was placed on money, and success was determined by the number of additional things you could sell to people who didn’t want or need them. It made me uncomfortable, but it paid the rent for years before I landed my first office job. It was in a little print shop, and I was the graphic designer. I was told I was to charge customers “by the minute”. Sweet old ladies would come in asking for Christmas letters to be typed, and I’d do it with a smile – but was punished if I made their couple of word changes without charging them extra. I stayed there for two years before landing my current job – at my first non-profit organization.

Where does your success lie?

The culture shift was incredible. There was zero focus on money – this place was simply in existence to help people, to teach them skills they could use to move forward in life. Success was determined by the number of people who found employment – people whose lives were changed for the better. I’ve never been happier – in a world which seems so focused on climbing the corporate ladder, on being popular, on making more money – society seems to be dominated by a self-focused mentality. We have to be more attractive, thinner, live in bigger houses, make more money than everyone else, and then what? We’re “successful”? As I’ve grown up, especially in the last few years, my definition of success has changed drastically. Success, to me, is no longer defined in monetary terms or by possessions. I’ve seen so many people in my work whose lives are affected by bad circumstances, poor choices, peer pressure, domestic abuse… the list goes on. There are so many people out there who face such hardships behind closed doors, and in this self-serving world in which we live, sometimes a shift in what we deem important can make all the difference on earth. Your smile may be the only one someone sees all day. Your small act of kindness or compassion – asking them how they are, holding the door open, carrying their bags – may just be the most touching thing they experience all week. Taking a few minutes in a day to take the focus off ourselves, and onto making a small difference in someone’s life, can go a long way. That’s why I was thrilled when I heard about the ItStartsWith.Us project. The more people making small changes in the world, the better off the planet. We’re so privileged, sitting in our warm homes, accessing the internet with anything we desire at our fingertips. There are so many people out there affected by so much adversity, and I think if we could all make a little shift in focus, from ourselves to helping others, the world would be a very different place.

I encourage you to take a moment today to really count your blessings, because despite the curveballs life throws our way, we have so much in our lives for which to be thankful. Take a moment not to think about what you’re going to have for supper tomorrow, or where you’re going to go out on Friday night – but about what you can do to make someone else’s day that little bit better, no matter how small. You never know how much of a difference it could make.

Photo Credit: Stuck in Customs

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I Guess I’m Interested In People

2010-02-16T18:54:13Z

It’s funny sometimes how we are able to grow and change in such a short amount of time. About eight months ago I went to meet someone at Alterra Coffee on the lake (when we say “the lake” in Milwaukee, we mean Lake Michigan). I was really nervous because I had never done anything like it before. I was headed over to meet Ryan Graves, the very first face-to-face contact I made as a result of working on ItStartsWith.Us. Before I went to meet him, I looked at all his sites, read a bunch of his writing, watched a couple of videos he had made, and studied an interview someone had done of him. And then when I found him in the coffee shop, all that pretty much went out the window, and we just sat down and talked about stuff. Nothing I had to prepare for at all. Both of us had (and have) big ideas about life, and it was exciting just to hear about what he had done, tell him what I was doing, and see where our interests overlapped. Turns out they didn’t overlap too much, but that’s okay. He kept doing his thing, I kept doing mine, and we kept in touch here and there as we went along. I’m happy to report that he’s turning the corner on an exciting new time in his life, working with a cool new company. And I’m doing pretty much the same in starting mine. Awesome.

Contrast this with my meeting last week. Also at Alterra Coffee on the lake (we still mean Lake Michigan), but this time I wasn’t nervous at all. I have eight months of meeting new people under my belt, and even though I’m a big introvert, I’ve really gotten used to doing it. In fact, I’m now so used to doing it that as I parked the car and walked into the building, I found myself double-checking to make sure I even remembered the name of the person I was meeting, much less her life story. Oh, and by the way, Caroline was the one who asked me to meet there after work that day, and I found out that she was really nervous, because she’d never done anything like that before. Ah, see how we’ve come full circle? It was good to be on the other side this time. Except circles don’t really have sides. Whatever.

I’ll tell you something I’ve learned in eight months of talking to people. The most fun I have in a conversation is when I ask people, “What do you get excited about? What do you love doing?” Because telling your story (in my case the story of ISWU) is fine and dandy, but it does tend to get a bit old, at least to yourself. After all, you’ve heard all your stories before. But when you ask people to tell you what they’re interested in, you learn something new every time. And there’s something very cool about that. I get to hear about exciting new places and activities from people who actually live them, and not just from a book or TV or the web. In Caroline’s case, I got to hear about her three-year stint in Africa, living in a village and working on microfinance initiatives. Watching her eyes light up as she told me stories about the people she got to interact with there was the highlight of my evening. And you know what’s awesome? You can have conversations like that with just about anyone. Most people have something that they love, something that gets them energized when they talk about it. So go ahead, ask somebody and see what happens. And even if you’re not really interested in the topic they bring up, you can switch your focus from the actual story to their eyes, their facial expressions, and the tone of their voice. Pretty cool stuff.

Eight months down the road, I wonder what the next meeting at Alterra will bring.

Do you have a favorite question to ask or something you like to do when talking to a new person for the first time? I’d love to hear it.

Photo Credit: scottfeldstein

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Dropping Love Bombs

2010-02-07T15:43:24Z

Last week the ItStartsWith.Us team tried out a new kind of mission. We wanted to find a person online who seemed to be going through a rough patch in life, and let him or her know that there are people out there who care about them.

The idea behind this type of mission is to amaze someone with the generosity of the human spirit and the kindness of strangers. They may be going through a really tough situation, but if they get a massive love bomb dropped on them by hundreds or thousands of people from all over the world, they’re going to remember this time in their lives not only for the pain they endured, but also for the love shown to them and the increased hope in humanity they will gain. And who knows? Something like that could change a life.

So last week I asked our team if they knew someone we could do this for – preferably someone writing about their experience on a blog so we could all leave a comment. I received dozens of submissions from team members, and I spent four hours myself searching the web for someone to help. I finally settled on a gentleman named Bill who was back home visiting his mom during her last week of life. He wrote a post on his blog about the difficult day he was going through trying to interact with his mom with the knowledge that she was slipping away. I’m not going to provide the link to his blog post right here, because it was a very vulnerable and personal moment in his life, and I don’t want to make a public example out of it.

What I will tell you, however, is that we found a way to do something very meaningful for him, and it was beautiful to behold. During difficult, emotional times like these, most of us don’t want others all up in our face about things, but at the same time, we do want to know that we are heard, understood, and cared about. So I just encouraged our team to simply leave an encouraging and comforting comment for him to read when he logged back in the next time.

We dropped over 200 comments on his blog that day – it was amazing. They ranged from small notes of comfort to touching personal stories of love, loss, pain, and ultimately joy. When I went back to check the post and see what the team had done, I hit the down arrow, and the page scrolled for over a minute. There was no way I could read them all. I did some quick calculations, and found that if each person who participated spent a total of five minutes to read his post and leave a comment, then we spent over 16 hours on his site that day, listening to him and providing support. I am humbled and honored to be part of a team that can do something like this for a stranger.

I was brought to tears by the overwhelming response of our team . . . and so was Bill. The next day he wrote a thank-you post, updated us on what he had done with his mother that day, and in the last line told us that the day we left all the comments had been his birthday – and he’ll never forget it.

Bill’s mom passed away two days after we did all this. In his final blog post on the subject, Bill once again told his readers how much all the kind words meant to him.

Once a month (or more often if there’s interest) the ItStartsWith.Us team is going to do something like this for a stranger. It’s incredibly easy and incredibly meaningful . . . a perfect way to help us accomplish our mission of changing the world. If you’d like to join us on this project, just put your name and email address in the box below. No spam, no hassle, no pressure. Signing up here just puts you on the list to receive any new bombing missions, and does NOT put you on the larger ItStartsWith.Us team (although you will have an opportunity to do that if you want). *NOTE TO CURRENT TEAM MEMBERS – The larger team will still be doing a shared Love Bomb mission once a month, but if you want to do more, you should sign up below, since this subgroup will operate independently.

We all come together for a brief moment in time, we flash a huge amount of love, then we disappear. Love Bomb.

Who’s in?

Photo Credit: decadence_creative

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Guest Post On “Escaping Mediocrity”

2010-02-04T15:03:39Z

Yesterday I was invited to write a guest post for Sarah Robinson on her “Escaping Mediocrity” site. It’s part of her “30 Days To Changing Your Game” series, with a guest author every day.

My article is titled “Changing Your Game, Changing The World.” Check it out, and feel free to join in the big discussion afterwards.Similar Posts:

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ItStartsWith.Us 2009 Year In Review

2010-02-01T02:27:18Z

I would like to pay tribute to all the members of the ItStartsWith.Us community who joined the team in 2009 and spent 15 minutes a week making a difference in the lives of the people around us. Because of you, we were able to accomplish some amazing things for others this past year. Below you’ll find a yearbook of sorts, highlighting some of our best work from 2009. Take a look; you may find yourself in there.

It is an honor and a privilege to serve on this team with each and every one of you. Thank you so much for your help this year in making ItStartsWith.Us a success.

This is how we change the world.

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Small But Meaningful Actions: My Kids Show Me The Way

2010-01-26T07:02:04Z

Earlier this evening I was eating supper with the kids, and I told them I was going to write an article tonight, but I didn’t know what to write about. I asked them what they thought, and the boy said, “Maybe you can write about people helping other people.” I said that was a good idea, but I still didn’t know exactly who to write about. We all sat around puzzled for a moment, and then I said, “How about we each do something after supper to help one other person, and then I’ll write about what we all did?” There was an excited chatter of agreement, and the matter was settled.

After we finished our supper, I asked the oldest what he was going to do to help one of us. He said that he wanted to do something for everyone, and then went around and said “I love you” to each one of us.

I then asked the girl what she wanted to do, and she replied that she wanted to help do the dishes, so she led in the washing, and we all pitched in to help.

Finally, I asked the little guy what he wanted to do, and he said he wanted to give us all hugs, so he went around and did that.

The oldest then asked me what I wanted to do, and I said that I wanted to spend time with all of them. So that’s what we did for the rest of night . . . four-player Super Smash Brothers on the Nintendo 64, and then reading books together (including The Tale of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter).

What struck me about this little exercise was the fact that I prompted them to do something nice for one person, because I thought it would be too much to think of something nice to do for all of us. But the kids surprised me by doing something small and easy that they could do in a meaningful way quickly and easily for everyone present. It seems they know the theme of this site better than I do sometimes. Their ages are 8, 5 and 3. I’m impressed.

Have a good night, all. And if you have little ones around, cherish every moment you have with them.

It doesn’t last forever.

Photo Credit: Soulfull

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