Myself and Ryan Brolliar are excited to host a fun Holiday Tacky Sweater Party at Moondoggies Pacific Beach on December 6, 2013, from 5 to 8 pm. (Address & Phone below) Proceeds will go to my fundraising for The 2013 Jingle Bell Run/Walk 5k for Arthritis.
Continue reading “You Stay Tacky, San Diego – A FUNdraiser for The Arthritis Foundation”
Continue reading “The Only Place Anyone Should Ever be Judged”
I’m at the Scripps Mercy Hospital Infusion Clinic and Cancer Center today, getting my bi-monthly dose of Remicade. It typically takes about four hours from start to finish. It’s kind of my peaceful time. I love it because it helps me feel better (sometimes), the nurses that work there are like my second family now (I heart them), and it gives me a chance to really sit back and think.
It still blows my mind that in order to be even somewhat functional, I need to sit in a chair for four hours while medication gets infused into my bloodstream. Continue reading “Peace, Love, and Other Drugs”
I originally posted this on Medium, and it’s been much more popular than I ever expected, so I wanted to share it with this community, as well.
You’re publicly welcome. Welcome to the world of social media and the online community. It’s like one big party, and you’re hosting this one. Just the beginning…
Want to publicly thank Monet Diamante, for setting up this blog and my twitter account. Linking it all to FBook, etc. Have quickly realized through her how much connecting means through “social media”. How much more of an opportunity we have to reach out to even more people than I can, just physically.
We can learn from everyone.
Connect with everyone.
Everyone has an opportunity for you.
Everyone has a gift for you if you listen.
If you look. If you’re open.
7 billion gifts and opportunities walking around..
That’s a lot connecting to be had.
I had the pleasure this week of going out to El Centro, California, for the Imperial Valley Higher Education Week. They do an amazing job of setting up the opportunity for about 30 college representatives to visit a couple handfuls of schools and thousands of students over a few days.
While at Southwest High School, a student approached my table and sort of just looked around. I asked him a few questions like “What schools are you looking at?” and “What are you passionate about?” To the latter, he replied, “I don’t know.”
Me “If you don’t mind me asking, what are you planning on majoring in?”
Student “I’m not sure, yet.”
“How are you going to decide?”
“I don’t really know. I guess I’ll just roll the dice and see what happens.”
My heart totally sank and my eyes got wide. “Do you mind if I give you a tip?” “Well, I guess not. Go ahead.”
“When I was in high school, I was obsessed with the Hospitality Industry. I made it my career and I loved it. Until I got exhausted and realized I lost my passion for it because I did nothing but work. But, you see, I pigeon-holed myself into this Industry. It was the only experience I had. No one out of the industry would hire me because it’s all I knew and the only place I felt I could add value in the world. I became like you, not sure what my future would hold, not even sure what I was passionate about anymore.
I began writing – every night or every other night or once a week. One thing, on a piece of paper near my bed. I would write down whatever happened that day or week that inspired me the most, or that I was the most proud of. After several months, I looked at the list and not surprisingly, nothing on it had to do with food or drinks.
Instead, it said things like ‘was able to promote the line cook to kitchen manager, thus allowing him to earn more money, better support his family, and be more productive at work because he was happier.’ Everything on the list had to do with people – personal development, building people up, helping them grow, connecting them to each other.
It was then that I KNEW that whatever job I took or whatever course I went in my career, I had to be in a position where I was helping people”
His reply was very sweet, something like “that is some pretty interesting advice you gave me. I may have to look into that.” Such a nice young student, who is obviously very bright and does care about his future, but simply because he doesn’t know how to figure out his passion, was willing to roll the dice.
What about you? Do you know what you are passionate about… really? If you don’t, I encourage you to try to find it by really doing some self-exploration and figuring out what drives you. What would you do if you were tired, angry, fed up? What do you value? What is the most important thing to you in your life? Not everyone wants to change the world. There is no “stupid” passion. Maybe you love marshmallows and you’re Jewish. So you find a way to make kosher s’mores and share them with the world. Or maybe you’re obsessed with your keychain collection that’s been growing since 1995 – find the other people in the world who are obsessed with keychains and start a video blog. Do whatever you are excited about provided you’re excitement is passion (see below.). All that matters is that it’s real and you aren’t leaving your future to chance.
If you can’t decide what to do with your career or even what to major in in college, I urge you to spend some time in thought. Write things down. Just don’t leave it up to the dice.
I hate when people say they have the “Secret to Success.” If you believe this, you need a reality check. There are no secrets. Stop looking for the “secret sauce” and start looking for opportunities to use your talents and knowledge to help you build your brand or your business or product.
The internet and even the new Social Media platforms like Vine and Snapchat make it possible to meet and build relationships with virtually anyone if it is a two way street. Why does it matter to me? I’m obsessed with the ability to connect and network with people through the Internet. I love meeting and learning from experts in their field. On the flip, I want people to know who I am and what I’m passionate about because I’m competitive by nature. I’ve met people in real life who follow me on my blog, Instagram, and Twitter, who I’ve built friendships with on those platforms. It’s amazing to me.
One of my favorite and probably one of the most intuitive people on using “Social Media” (which is a huge percent of internet traffic) to help you build your brand is Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary is an incredibly successful entrepreneur who started working at his dad’s wine and liquor shop when he was just a kid. He got passionate about wine, later took over the store, tasted wine for his viewers on WineLibraryTV, and started selling wine on the internet when e-commerce was merely a suggestion. Gary now runs VaynerMedia, a Social Media Consulting group.
I was first introduced to Gary through his 2011 INC 500 Keynote Speech (below). My initial impression was that he was obnoxious but SO RIGHT I couldn’t ignore him. There is a line in his speech where he is trying to explain to someone the ROI of Social who just refuses to agree, so Gary finally replies “What’s the ROI of your mother? Because mine is everything.” I loved this because even when I was working for a Restaurant Company in Atlanta a few years ago and part of my JOB was Social Media, I was laughed at and told Twitter was a waste of time. So hearing this lit a spark inside of me.
Gary recently posted this article about using Snapchat to grab your customer’s attention and has been Snapchatting with his followers for the past couple of weeks. With over 900 mil followers on Twitter alone, I imagine it would be tough to get his attention. That’s when a box of Nilla Wafers he posted a picture of looked a lot less like cookies and a lot more like opportunity to me. (Keep reading, but I’ll be so grateful if you take this poll and tell me how you feel about Snapchat. Please? Thank you. 🙂
Know your audience and get creative
The comments below the Nilla Wafers Gary posted indicated that they are a client of VaynerMedia’s. A few months ago I watched an old WineLibrary video on “what wine pairs best with cereal”. So, when Gary Tweeted that he was taking Questions via Snapchat, the wheels in my head spun. I’ve sent him a few SC’s before that he hadn’t opened, so I knew I needed to poke the box. I went to Vons, grabbed a Nilla Wafers box, and took a video on Vine asking Gary “what wine pairs best with Nilla Wafers?”, furthermore setting the box of cookies on the shelf next to the Clicquot, Landmark Chard, and Riesling, the three wines he picked a few years back that go with cereal. Later I realized you can barely tell what the wines are in the video, so I doubt he noticed, but that was certainly intentional. I uploaded the video to Vine and tagged Gary, and then sent him a Snapchat posing the same question.
A few hours later, Gary like my video on Vine and no more than twenty minutes later, sent me a Snapchat back.
For one second imagine someone you follow, you are a fan of, or you are inspired by, sends you a text message just to shoot the shit. That’s basically how I felt.
It was five seconds long. That’s all it took for me to get excited that he noticed the video, & that my creativity worked. My goal was to get a reply and I did. So now if I ever meet him in person, I can tell him I was the girl who asked him what wine pairs best with Nilla Wafers, and maybe, just maybe, he’ll remember me.
We are building brands, names, and products. Your brand is yourself. How will YOU be remembered?
So… What IS the Value of a Snapchat?
Gary has a new book coming out called Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, about how to tell your story in a noisy, social world. It won’t be out until November but it is up on Amazon at a lower pre-sale price. After the Snapchats that day, I decided to preorder my copy. I would have eventually ordered it, anyway, but I know how much he wants to be #1, so I wanted to help.
Gary sent me a Snapchat for free. What is the ROI on that 20 seconds of his life? Whatever he makes on the sale of one book, plus another connection and follower whose respect for him just grew.
You may have seen that Nilla Wafers box and just saw a cookie. I saw an opportunity. And Gary saw another book sale.
By the way, the wine that pairs best with Nilla Wafers? It’s Sauvignon Blanc.
Gary’s Keynote Speech: (warning: there’s a little…err…a lot… of cursing.)
“Never give up what you want most for what you want now.”
In the late 1960s, The Marshmallow Experiment was conducted by researchers at Stanford University. Children were presented with a marshmallow and told that when the adult left the room, the child could eat the treat OR, wait 15 minutes until the adult returns and be presented with ANOTHER, thus enjoy two instead of one. Most did not eat the treat immediately, but only 1/3 of those waited any time at all waited until the adult re-entered the room to give them another.
15 years later, each child was reviewed based on SAT score, BMI, and other measurements. Turns out, the children who waited for the second treat overall had higher test scores, were healthier or more fit, and were considered more “successful” than the ones who ate the treats sooner, or overall higher achievers in whatever professional field they had chosen.
The ability to delay gratification, or be more future-focused, is proven to be a quality of many successful people. If you have a tendency to be more present-focused and have a tendency to act on impulse, or struggle to persist without distractions toward your long-term goals, only living “in the moment,” do some research on how you can become more future-focused. For example, try writing down your goals and then working BACKWARDS to determine the actions you must take and a timeframe for them, similar to what you would do if you had an appointment and had to be on time.
It’s important to have balance, too. If you think you are too future-focused and find that you sometimes lack enjoyment in the present, find techniques you can use to develop that as a strength. For example, force yourself to stop and listen to the sounds around you, identify specific scents in a room, and put your cell phone away when you are walking or waiting for something.
I’m interested – what have you done to help yourself become more focused in the present OR in the future?
Monet Diamante | Create Your Legacy 