Three pretty big projects have come to completion this month, and I'm excited to share them with you.
Saren (my Power of Moms co-director) and Desi (from Unconventional Kitchen) have done the bulk of the work on this beautiful online event (wow, it's been a huge project), but I had the chance to do five of the video interviews, and my life has been SO blessed because of them.
The conference officially ends tomorrow, but there's an extra replay day on Friday because of some technical issues that happened yesterday, so if you haven't signed up yet, please do! You won't want to miss this.
Register here for the Mom Conference (totally free!)
(2) The SANE Show
I wrote about SANE awhile back, and it's now been more than a year since Alia and I totally changed our diets--cutting out sugar and processed foods. We're still working on getting the whole family on board (#theylikesnickers), but we have never been healthier and happier, and Alia wants to devote her life to helping other children (and adults) learn that being overweight is a choice--that doesn't involve starving yourself.
As I have emailed back and forth with Jonathan Bailor (founder of SANESolution.com and NYT bestselling author of The Calorie Myth), I shared my appreciation for his research and program and explained how I feel a kind of calling inside to help share this with the world.
Well, we collaborated on and launched our SANE Families program a couple of months ago, and now I am the new co-host of Jonathan's podcast, "The SANE Show."
I'll be writing more about this in the future, but for now, I'd love to share the video trailer (Alia's before and after is in there!) and invite you to subscribe for free via iTunes. We have a new show every week, and I so wish I'd had this information when I was a little girl. It would have saved me years and years of struggles.
If you have a child who is overweight, or if you are counting calories and working out every day to try to lose weight (but only ending up tired and hungry), please join us. I don't want to come across as a crazy person, but I really, really, really think this is the solution to our country's obesity and diabetes epidemic, and I want to get this information out there. :)
(3) LearnDoBecome and the STEP Program
I also announced a few months ago that Eric and I just launched our brand new website, www.LearnDoBecome.com. This has been a dream of ours for years, and while the content and podcast will be resuming soon, we've been doing a lot of thinking, planning, and building behind the scenes.
It's been a gift to get to work side by side with Eric, and it's been fun to see him in "running-a-website" mode while we take turns managing the household and running the carpools. He's super cute behind a laptop... We're creating a platform that we plan to build for the rest of our lives.
I don't know if you've read Good to Great, but it's an amazing book, and one of my favorite parts was about identifying your "hedgehog." What can you do BEST in the whole world? What are you passionate about? What can drive your economic engine? (Great questions, don't you think?)
As we discussed where we can be most helpful in the world through our efforts at LearnDoBecome, Eric expressed his deep love for "Life Architecture"--helping others to map out what they actually want to DO with their lives. More on that in the coming months...
And as we talked about MY hedgehog, we decided that it was time to take my love for GTD and organization to a new level and build a program that works for moms and dads, husbands and wives, grandmothers and grandfathers, students, singles, professionals, and anyone who is interested in creating a seamless system to manage all the "stuff" that comes at us--so we can use our time and energy in ways that fulfill our deepest purposes.
I've been working with thousands of moms on this over the past 8 years, and of course I'll still be working with my beloved Mind Organization for Moms community at Power of Moms, but here's the situation: no matter how great the program, a man/student/single/professional doesn't feel super comfortable logging into a website for moms (I don't know why!). Our new program, called Steps to Everyday Productivity (STEP), is co-taught by me and Eric, and it's designed to help people achieve a balance of personal and professional development. I'll share more soon, but the first few modules are up and running, and I am really, really excited about it.
If you haven't yet joined us at LearnDoBecome, please pop over and sign up for our free guide and audio download, "Five Life-Changing Habits Most People Overlook." You'll get a good feel for LearnDoBecome, and then we'll email you when our other resources are ready to go.
So there you go. Three invitations that I hope will be helpful for your life.
I look forward to writing more soon and having time to share pictures of my cute parents and stories about what's been happening with our family. (Everyone's doing really well, by the way.)
Thank you so much for your continued prayers for my mom. I've still been going every week, and I hug and kiss her and sometimes crawl right into her hospital bed so I can hold her in my arms for awhile. Last week she fell asleep on my shoulder, and it was the cutest thing ever.
Now, if you don't mind me sharing my heart for a second...
Sometimes, when it's just the two of us, I push my cheek against hers and say, "Mom, there is so much going on. I didn't know it would all get this big. The projects I'm working on are scary for me. I don't know if I'm up to all this."
She always gets a concerned expression on her face, looks me in the eyes, and then starts a sentence with something like, "Oh, no, you musn't..." but then she trails off and gets distracted by a noise in the hallway or a snag on the corner of her bed sheet or something colorful hanging on the wall, and she forgets what she was trying to say.
But, like I've written before, I know what she would have said.
And so one quiet morning, a few weeks ago, I actually wrote down the best advice that my mom and my Heavenly Parents have given me over the years when it comes to facing hard things, and I made an audio recording called "Daily Reminder" that I listen to each day before I jump into my day's work.
Oh my goodness... That has been one of the most beautiful gifts in my life.
I don't know how I forget these things from day to day, but every time I hear those reminders, they fill my heart and help me to keep going.
Because it's not about me.
Our work is never about us.
It's about those who can be helped by what we can offer, and it's about listening closely to that Voice who is gracious enough to allow us to be instruments in His hands.
Okay, I think that's all for tonight.
Love to all of you! I've missed you.
April
