Pay It Forward
At 17 yrs old I was planning my wedding and moving to Seattle. I didn’t have a thought about creating an empire or making a difference in the world.
At 17 yrs old Madison is paying it forward partnering with various charities around the world, donating items from her footwear and clothing lines. She also is teaming up with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to support its Saving Animals from Extinction campaign, by donating a portion of every sale to help protect some of the world’s most endangered animals. She is at 17 yrs old, already a well established LemonadeMaker.
What are three things that you would do with your money if you were a teenage millionaire?
When Madison was 7 she came up with designs for flip-flops featuring sea creatures. Her designs in the past 10 years have evolved into entire footwear and clothing lines. With over $1M in sales, she has already has her entire college education paid for.
At 14 yrs old when she saw a Tweet that Nordstrom was looking for new product lines, Robinson wrote a letter to a buyer at the retail giant, which resulted in FishFlops being sold in 64 Nordstrom stores by July of 2012.
I printed an application about a month ago to start writing articles on a pretty major site – it is still in my to do box because of my procrastination about being a “good enough” writer to be on their site. She has inspired me to be more confident in my ideas and dreams and get the dang thing filled out and apply to be approved.
See More: http://kwhs.wharton.upenn.edu/…/fishflops-style-inspires-o…/
Stomp Out Bullying
Were you or a close family member bullied, or are they currently being bullied at #school?
Someone you know could be #bullied.
Someone you know might be a #bully.
October is National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month. Marlo Thomas is committed to the belief that no child should EVER be a victim of any type of bullying,,, EVER.
Her program launched in 2005 is having its annual Blue Shirt Day, which raises funds for all of the programs they do with kids and schools. More than 95% of the funds raised are used for the program.
For more information, the website is stompoutbullying.org.
My Lemonade Story
In April of 2010, my family was devastated by the murder of my 19 yr old nephew Carl. Carl’s day had started out with him surfing and he was so excited because he was finally able to execute a maneuver that he had been working on for some time, and one of his friends caught it on video. He then went to work at O’Neil’s Surf Shop and later went to spend the evening at a friend’s. They walked across a park to visit with some friend at a neighboring apartment. Around 11 PM they went to walk back across the park to his friends condo, so he could pick up his bike and go home. As they left the apartment complex a gang banger stepped out of the bushes and shot Carl three times, he passed away in the ambulance on the way to the trauma center.
Word on the street is that the apartment complex that Carl had just left, has some gang members that live there and that this guy was from a rival gang and was supposed to be killing some member of this other gang and shot Carl by mistake.
Carl was my younger sister’s only child and she was devastated. I had to come to terms that there was nothing I could do to fix this, I couldn’t take her pain away and make everything better as I had when she was young and would skin her knee. With our encouragement, she started a nonprofit called “Mother Grizzlies Against Gangs”, and they had some marches and rallies to draw attention to the gang problem in her town. After a few months, she ran out of money and the nonprofit went silent. As I am sure you have experienced in your own life, it was one of those moments that caused me to take a look at my life and ask, Do I make a difference? Carl’s murder however sparked something down deep inside my soul and I knew that no matter what, I was going to find a way to make a difference in our communities – not just the one that I lived in, but every community, in this nation, and around the world.
This took a lot of meditative thinking – what could I do that would lead to a real impact? I did a lot of research when my sister’s nonprofit went silent, and I discovered that this happens a lot. So I came up with the idea of creating a company that would work with the individual “mom and pop” charities that we all have in every town (like my sister JoAnn had started), and help them to raise the funds they needed to make an impact in their communities individual social needs. In addition; we would teach them how to become a celebrity for their charity and raise awareness and get people in their community really involved with them. We would create a community forum where the LemonadeMakers can get together and help support each other with successful ideas and brainstorm new ideas to raise awareness and community involvement to support their charities.
At BraveHeart Women’s annual convention in Los Angeles, Rise 2013 we announced to a crowd of 1,200 women LemonadeMakers was being created. It is a website platform that will give a base for all of those women and men out there, who are what we are calling Lemonade Makers. Life gave them a lemon, through a loss – it could have been a death, a devastating illness, the unbearable sadness of children who suffer from lack of food, healthcare, homelessness, drug or alcohol addiction, mental illness – any one of a myriad of things. These women and men took that lemon of what seemed like unbearable heartache, and they formed a charitable foundation and have set about helping others. They are trying from that heartfelt place of passion to make a difference in their community and to the world at large.
This base will help them to educate themselves on the missing pieces they need to bring their visions to the world. It will provide a place to create a bigger impact and to collaborate with other Lemonade Makers. We will celebrate each other’s successes, and we will lighten the loads they carry so that they can keep on impacting and changing lives for the better. We will look at the near misses and see what we can do with out of the box thinking to make a bigger impact on our world. We will create videos and interviews, and leverage social media to the fullest extent, so that these Lemonade Makers create the positive changes in this world that we all need.
From this platform we will then create the reality T.V. show which will be televised internationally, as these Lemonade Makers show the world what is possible when a visionary is given the right tools and encouragement to fully expand out their vision and change not only the situation in their own town, but the situations that we all see on the world news every day in our living rooms, into something positive and world altering. I think that you will all agree with me that this is something that we need in our world – the encouragement to be the difference
Five Years Ago
Many of you know that five years ago in April, my family was devastated by the murder of my nephew Carl. As I am sure you have experienced in your own life, it was one of those moments that caused me to take a look at my life and ask, Do I make a difference? It was a defining moment because I realized that with all the giving that I do to charitable causes (what I had convinced myself was making a difference in this world), wasn’t really coming from the heart. It wasn’t that I didn’t care, because I did. I gave a lot to cancer research over the years because almost every member of my family that has passed on, has had cancer. Even now today, there are seven members of my family either actively in treatment or in remission from some sort of cancer.
Why I say it wasn’t coming from the heart, is because it wasn’t coming from a passionate desire to roll up my sleeves and do anything I could to make that difference. I wasn’t really fully invested in making a difference for anything. Carl’s murder however sparked something down deep inside my soul and I knew that no matter what, I was going to find a way to make a difference in our communities – not just the one that I lived in, but every community, in this nation, and around the world.
This took a lot of meditative thinking – what could I do that would lead to an international impact? I came up with the idea of creating a company that would work with the individual “mom” charities that we all have in every town, and help them to raise the funds they needed to make an impact in their communities individual social needs. I would help them to fundraise; make a celebrity of their charity and raise awareness and get people in their community really involved with them.
So I thought, how do I do this? I reached out for some coaching with Kim and Vito, the creators of BrandU – and they helped me to expand this vision out to a Reality T.V. show. They helped me to see the impact that a T.V. could have as it was something that could be seen around the world. Sage Lee with Small Business, Big Brand helped fill in the vision even further. I saw that my vision was much bigger than I had dared to dream for myself. In fact it was so big, that I realized that I needed to step back and start working on a network for myself. I was a nobody, sure I had achieved success in my career at the bank, but in the world at large, no one knew who I was.
So I put that vision on a back burner and went out to start meeting as many people as I could. I went to seminars and educated myself with several training programs and started introducing myself to all of these individual networks. It is probably how I met you.
I became very active in BraveHeart Women and collaborating with the wonderful women I have met there as well as other communities that I joined. I know that Sage, Kim and Vito probably thought that this was a step backwards and were afraid that this vision was probably going the way of a good idea that never gets expressed.
But here I am two years later from that initial vision and I am still going strong on bringing it into reality. I call the past two years phase one. Now I am ready for phase two. A lot of people have listened to this story and are supporting me in bringing this off of the vision board and into reality. One of them is Ellie Drake the founder of BraveHeart Women. With her mentoring I will be unveiling at Rise 2013, a website platform that will give a base for all of those women out there, who are what we are calling Lemonade Makers. Life gave them a lemon, through a loss – it could have been a death, a devastating illness, the unbearable sadness of children who suffer from lack of food, healthcare, homelessness, drug or alcohol addiction, mental illness – any one of a myriad of things. These women took that lemon of what seemed like unbearable heartache, and they formed a charitable foundation and have set about helping others. They are trying from that heartfelt place of passion to make a difference in their community and to the world at large.
This base will help them to educate themselves on the missing pieces they need to bring their visions to the world. It will provide a place to create a bigger impact and to collaborate with other Lemonade Makers. We will celebrate each others successes, and we will lighten the loads they carry so that they can keep on impacting and changing lives for the better. We will look at the near misses and see what we can do with out of the box thinking to make a bigger impact on our world. We will create videos and interviews, and leverage social media to the fullest extent, so that these Lemonade Makers create the positive changes in this world that we all need.
From this platform we will then create the reality T.V. show which will be televised internationally, as these Lemonade Makers show the world what is possible when a female visionary is given the right tools and encouragement to fully expand out their vision and change not only the situation in their own town, but the situations that we all see on the world news every day in our living rooms, into something positive and world altering. I think that you will all agree with me that this is something that we need in our world – the encouragement to be the difference.
Lemonade Makers
A lot has happened in my life in the past 6 months. In November I was privileged to be on stage with the BraveHeart Women’s Conference and present information on my launching of my nonprofit called Lemonade Makers to over 1,200 women and then to introduce Marianne Williamson as the next speaker. My speech was very well received and it took me three hours to leave that evening, because so many women were excited about the program. Lemonade Makers is going live in March and I am currently seeking Board Members for my nonprofit. I am hoping that you will consider being one of the board members.
After my nephews death, my sister started a nonprofit called “Mother Grizzlies Against Gangs”. After a few marches and rallies it sort of died out. What I discovered as I researched other families who had lost a loved one to a violent death, is that a lot of people try to create something positive from losing a loved one, and like my sister they sort of fade away after a year or two. While they have the best intentions, they don’t really know how to run a nonprofit as a business, and so once their money runs out, they end up closing up the charity. They are missing some part of the puzzle to create a successful nonprofit.
What I am creating with Lemonade Makers, is a forum/community where they can gather together to learn from each other. We will create online training classes to teach them the basics of the business; how to fundraise; create a steady cash flow through several streams of income; how to get corporate sponsorship; how to use social media; etc…, whatever they need to be able to become successful in their passion of making a difference in their town and in the world. We will be able to help each other copy what works, and figure out how to make what didn’t work out as planned better. As we create and build this community around the world, (within 1 yr to 18 months) we will begin filming a series for a reality show that is sort of like the show that was on TV several years ago, called “Home Improvement Makeover”, and instead will film how each charity grows from struggling to make a difference in their town, to figuring out how to engage their own community to step up and help them make a difference. What we want to highlight is that one person taking a stand can make a difference, because they inspire a community around them to join with them to make that difference.
Part of the creating of community around Lemonade Makers will be those who join the forum because they want to support those specific causes that the various charities will represent. They can become Ambassadors with volunteering time and resources as they are needed, or they can become fans, who want to be supportive but not as physically hands on in their support.
I hope that you will consider being a board member as I believe that you would be a valuable member of our community. Please feel free to reach out with any questions, and thank you for taking the time to consider my invitation.
Breathe In the Love
Breathe In the Love
Words and Music By Mark Piatelli
Verse
Bitter is the heartache of a pain beyond despair
Living with a sorrow, feels like more than you can bear
You’re not alone
Others have known
A life gone to black
They found their way back
With a helping hand
Chorus
Breathe in the love
From those who live
In the beauty of
The love they give
Breathe in the love
Forgive and then
Breathe in more love
To live again
A community of love
Chorus
You feel there’s no tomorrow, in your sorrow lies a seed
Bring this seed to life and be the light for those in need
They too feel alone
In what you have known
Their life gone to black
They need a way back
Give them a hand
To breathe in the love
From those who live
In the beauty of
The love they give
Breathe in the love
To forgive and then
Breathe in more love
To live again
A community of love
Bridge
Rise up in the gift of life and
Bring the gift your light to shine for
all who need to
Chorus
Breathe in the love
From those who live
In the beauty of
The love they give
Breathe in the love
Forgive and then
Breathe in more love
To live again
Breathe in the love
Go deep inside
To the deepest love
Hearts open wide
Breathe in the love
Connecting all
To the wisdom of
Love standing tall
A community of love
Yesterday you were so alive riding the oceans waves
Yesterday you were so alive riding the oceans waves, yes, life was so simple and innocent
But now your soul has left behind your flesh, and your bones lie there just an empty cage
Help me, I can’t breathe as this news fractures my life, I am so unsafe, I just can’t balance
And grief engulfs me, and anger rages, and I just can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe from hearing the news on T.V or reading the printed pages of your murder
I feel the thunderous storm of emotions pass through me as lightening strikes my heart
The senselessness of your passing, the gunshots of a stranger who tore our lives asunder
And so I grieve, and the sorrow burns as it drowns me, and I can’t breathe.
The hours pass into days as I stumble down this long road breathing with heavy sighs
The days spent in crying, and the primal screams of the dark nights merge into numbing weeks
Yet storm clouds break up as I begin to see the healing of the rainbows blessings
And so I grieve and I begin to breathe, I breathe love.
Life carries on with unending support of love that is surrounding me and protecting me
Forgiveness is the answer, so I move past the limitations of grief, rage, and sorrow
To live in limitless love, light and joy, and my heart-lines align to the universal love
And so I breathe love, and I add grace, I breathe, I breathe grace.
Love from Carl’s heart washes through me, cleansing and healing every part of my body
A warm wave it ignites an inner fire of transformation that love is the ultimate expression of grace
It illuminates the greater vision for my life to emerge from within me, a graceful unfolding,
And so I breathe love and grace, and I add forgiveness, I breathe, I breathe forgiveness.
I release the need to blame you Carl, myself, or anyone else for your ending.
I release fears grip on my soul, and I choose to walk this path with love
I have experienced a grace inspired event that challenged me and I have awakened
And so I breathe love, grace, forgiveness, and I add joy, I breathe, I breathe joy.
Grace has opened a door whose light illuminates my next step as I step out of the darkness
I share this, your gift to the world, that love is the ultimate expression of grace
As I practice this belief, practice will yield to insight, which yields to reimbodiment, which yields to manifestation.
And so I breathe love, grace, forgiveness, joy, and I add hope, I breathe, I breathe hope.
As I breathe love, grace, forgiveness, joy and hope, life becomes a celebration again
And as I let my light shine, I unconsciously give others the permission to do the same
I will live like there is no tomorrow, I will live like there was no yesterday
I will breathe, I will breathe love, grace, forgiveness, joy and hope and manifest it out into the world.
How to Make a Difference
Lemonade Makers is where community, collaboration and action come together to create change on a grassroots level. Making a difference is as easy as visiting the Lemonade Makers Community page, promoting your story or project and witnessing its growth as more and more people become aware. Alternatively, you can explore ways you can contribute to the projects of others in your local community.
What is a Lemonade Maker?
A Lemonade Maker is someone whose tragedy has changed the trajectory of their life! When life handed them lemons, they made lemonade! And so can you! By joining Lemonade Makers interactive community, you can raise awareness for your cause, project or organization, as well as discover what others in your community to create a better world. No one is alone in their personal tragedy, and others are looking for causes just like yours to transform pain and trauma into healing and support for those with similar struggles.
Making a juicy difference!
In this moment, there are amazing people doing amazing things in your community. Do you know about them? Lemonade Makers is your place to discover and get involved with the people, projects and organizations that are working to make a difference in their communities and in the world.
NonProfit
The local nonprofit will join the community, promote their story/project on their own webpage that is provided to them. This webpage will have a forum that they can create to update their followers on what is happening. They will have a community calendar to post events; a place to post their videos and programs that they offer, a blog to share with their community and we will be actively adding “fans” to their database by own presence in the online community. Each month three different nonprofits will be recognized for their work, by having a revolving front page presence, so that everyone who goes to our site will see them revolving across the front page. The website is a free service, as well as the forum and mastermind community that is solely for the nonprofit owners.
In addition we will be recording video classes to help them be successful in their nonprofit business. We will have business classes, social media classes, how to fundraise successfully and use out the box thinking to promote them into a town celebrity to help make sure that everyone is aware of the good work they are doing and to help support them in whatever needs they may have. We are going to be interviewing masters for each one of the classes, and they will have the opportunity to hire these master teachers to provide additional support. The classes will have a small fee, to help offset the cost of producing and monitoring the classes. In addition LemonadeMakers will receive an affiliate fee should any of the master teachers be hired by the nonprofit for additional support.
An example of fundraising would be for a nonprofit to partner with several aligned businesses in their local community. So you might have a car dealership that would agree to donate $50 for every test drive on a particular weekend sales event. In addition they would partner with a financial institution to donate $50 for every new auto loan; a insurance agent to donate $50 for every new auto policy written that weekend; and a car detailer who would produce a booklet selling 5 details for the price of 4 and donating the price of one detail to the nonprofit. The auto detailer would have the opportunity to upsell the customer to a higher detail when they came in with their “prepaid” detail (which would be an easy upsell, since they would only be paying for the difference). This fundraiser creates a win for the nonprofit; a win for each business involved in supporting the nonprofit that weekend, and a win for the community member, who just had to come take a free test drive – everyone gets the great feeling of supporting a great nonprofit and each business would get new customers.
We will be marketing to the BraveHeart Women Community with a speaking event at their 2014 conference to around 2,000 women from around the world and to their online community of over 500,000 members worldwide. In addition we will be actively promoting LemonadeMakers to the online community at large. Membership is not limited to just the nonprofit owner, but to what we are calling their fans and ambassors. A fan is someone who helps support them as a project that they are interested in, whereas an ambassador is “invested” as this is someone who is actively working with the nonprofit, by volunteering hours and money and promoting the nonprofit to everyone they meet.
As LemonadeMakers becomes more well known, this will be the website that people think of when they become passionate about a certain cause, such as saving the rain forest. Here they will be able to do a search for “saving the rainforest”, review the various nonprofits working in this area, and choose the one that really appeals to them.
So we will be helping the individual nonprofits to grow and expand their reach to people, as well as educating them to be more successful. I hope that this gives you some insight into what we are doing, and if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me anytime. I also wanted to give you a brief bio of myself – I am a Senior Vice President of Bank of America, having worked in the Calabasas office here in California for the past 10 years. I have been in the financial industry on the mortgage side of banking for over 30 years, and will be retiring in the beginning of next year to promote LemonadeMakers fulltime.