Do It Myself Blog – Glenda Watson Hyatt

(Photo credit: Marco Michelini)

The clock strikes midnight on a new year, filling people with renewed hope and optimism. They excitedly make resolutions, oftentimes after enjoying the festivities a little too much, of how they will change and what they will achieve in the coming year. By mid-January, the newness has lost its shine, credit cards begin flowing in, and it’s back to the same old grind. Those good intentions, enthusiasm and optimism fade away.

For this reason, I’m joining Christine Kane’s Resolution Revolution. The basic idea is to choose one word and let it guide you to take action throughout the year.

Reading Christine’s post, FOCUS was the first word that came to my mind loud and clear. I bounced around a few other words, while multi-tasking, before settling down to respond with a comment, but FOCUS kept shouting at me. To me, FOCUS entails minimizing my technologically-induced ADHD, decluttering and simplifying my surroundings, multi-tasking only when appropriate – tasks requiring my full attention will receive it. With FOCUS, I feel I can accomplish more of why I was put on this earth, and that will create inner peace because I’m doing what I’m meant to do. In turn, that will create a variety of wealth. I’m sensing FOCUS will be quite a powerful mantra for 2008.

What is your word for 2008?

Leave your word in a comment below or join us today at 4pm pacific / 7pm eastern to share your thoughts at Readers’ Café. Hope to see you there.

(Photo credit: Daniel Boros)

In Christy Brown’s My Left Foot, he shares traveling to Lourdes, France, in hopes of his cerebral palsy being cured. Nowadays, parents are making similar pilgrimages with their children afflicted with cerebral palsy to China for stem cell treatments. I admit I do not know enough about this latest treatment to know whether it is a bona fide treatment for cp or another empty promise, but I am certain about one thing: these parents are searching for hope. Just like the cancer patient who travels to a foreign land for an alternative treatment, the low income earner who buys into a money-making scheme, or the mourning father who lobbies for changes to the justice system so no more children are harmed needlessly. They are searching for hope.

I have often pondered: What exactly is hope? How do you truly define it? What are people actually searching for when frantically searching for hope? While watching the Hour of Power this morning, a thought struck: maybe HOPE is an anagram for something like:

• Help with their individual struggle.
• Optimism that there is something better out there, that something more exists.
• Possibilities for an improvement, a solution, a cure.
• Empathy from others, to feel others understand and that they aren’t alone in their struggle.

This may not be the complete answer to my question, but it is an answer that works for now, for today.

What do you think? How do you explain what hope is, other than essential?

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. — Thomas Edison

When I was a young girl with the occasional bit of pocket money, I bought books such as Black Beauty and Alice in Wonderland at a small independent bookstore Black Bond Books. I dreamt that one day my book would be on those bookshelves too.

Last year, while I was still writing the manuscript for I’ll Do It Myself, I emailed Black Bond Books and asked if they accepted self-published books. (In hindsight, that was probably not the best way to ask the question.) The response was they typically don’t accept self-published works. Disappointed but not surprised because I was learning the self-published book was the illegitimate child of the publishing industry, I continued writing and proceeded with my plan to self publish my autobiography.

More recently and with encouragement from the Surrey Writers Group, I asked again if Black Bond would consider my book. This time I focused on the book’s message rather than on how it was published. After a delay of a few months and a gentle reminder from me, the response was positive! It was another “fall on my knees” moment along this book writing and self-publishing journey.

Yesterday I dropped off ten copies, which they are taking on consignment and will evaluate in sixty days. I’ll Do It Myself will be in local stores in time for Christmas! Please let Black Bond know they made a good choice!

Some times a “No” is not the final answer. “No” doesn’t necessarily mean failure. Some times you need to ask again, perhaps in another way or another person or at another time. Being persistent and driven, without being annoying, leads to success!

A few weeks ago, I shared the magical W-List, which began as a list of powerful PR and marketing professional women bloggers compiled by Valeria Maltoni and to which other bloggers have added, including Liz Strauss at Successful and Outstanding Blogs adding me. Since then, the list has taken on a life of its own, with results including a continuing conversation and meme, a wiki page, and a Facebook W List Group (registration required).

Sunny Cervantes, Confessions of a Marketing Addict, and Toby Bloomberg, Diva Marketing Blog, sparked a way to add value to the growing community: support and promote women bloggers by featuring a W List blogger each week on Facebook and discussing the blog. Sunny calls this “Sort of like Oprah’s Book Club except it’s our blogs.” The woman profiled then chooses the following week’s blog. How awesome is that! And what a great way to build community using social media!

Sunny kicked off this latest addition to the W List by profiling the Left Thumb Blogger. With so many truly amazing women bloggers that she could have chosen, I am sincerely humbled that she chose me. Being included in this community fills me with a feeling of warmth. Thank you, Sunny.

But, my intention of this post is not to boast about being the first blogger profiled on Facebook’s W List Group; but, rather to encourage you to take action on your ideas. You never what your idea may grow and evolve into or how it might impact others. What began as a relatively short list of powerful PR and marketing professional women bloggers has morphed into a supportive and inclusive online community. How powerful is that!

What idea have you been delaying taking action on? Who might be positively impacted if you were to take action? You’ll never know until you take action, so…go take action! And then join us tomorrow right here for Readers’ Café at 4-7pm pacific time to share the action you took and what further steps you plan to take.

City girls just seem to find out early
How to open doors with just a smile
~The Eagles, “Lyin’ Eyes”

A smile is quite handy, literally, when there isn’t an automatic door opener!

Besides opening doors, smiling has numerous physical and psychological benefits:

• Research indicates that optimistic, smiling people have stronger immune systems and are actually able to fight off illness better than pessimists.
• The British Dental Health Foundation found a smile gives the same level of stimulation as eating 2,000 chocolate bars. The same result without the calories: that is definitely something to smile about!
• Smiling is contagious. Psychologist Dr. David Lewis says, “Seeing a smile creates what is termed as a ‘halo’ effect, helping us to remember other happy events more vividly, feel more optimistic, more positive and more motivated.” One bug that is okay to pass on.
• Smiling people are more attractive. Frowns, scowls and grimaces push people away. Smiles draw people in.
• Smiling reduces your blood pressure. Dr. Mark Stibich offers this suggestion, “Give it a try if you have a blood pressure monitor at home. Sit for a few minutes, take a reading. Then smile for a minute and take another reading while still smiling. Do you notice a difference?”
• Less muscles are used to smile than to frown. Conserve your energy!
• Smiling and laughing is good medicine. Life coach Lisa Branigan writes, “Some doctors are using laughter therapy to replace anti-depressants and to reduce the use of painkillers. According to researchers faking laughter will also produce the same health and wellbeing results as real laughter.”

Yet, look around you. How many people are smiling? A smile costs nothing to give, but can mean the world to receive.

“Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.”
– H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Smile, it’s Tuesday and you are alive!