After a nutty week of travel to Florida, Illinois and Indiana, yesterday I took a crack ‘o dawn flight back to Denver to attend some important conferences.  Yesterday was the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network (@YNPN) conference, which brought together social entrepreneurs from across the USA to talk about strategy, progress and change. There were some awesome workshops, and I was especially moved by the lunchtime keynote given by Robert Eggers, founder of DC Central Kitchen. He was so smart, so excited, so fond of young people. He believes we can – no we MUST – lead the charge for social enterprise in the U.S. and abroad. Robert’s awesome non-profit combines several major areas of social innovation into one kick-ass organization including helping the homeless, food recycling, job training and empowering young people. (Read more about DC Central Kitchen here.) After he was done speaking, I kinda wanted to kidnap him for the weekend and ask him ten million questions, because his fresh take on banding together and working efficiently spoke volumes to me. (Don’t worry – he’s not in my trunk.)

Last night I could barely sleep with all these new and innovative ideas swirling about. Today at 7am I awoke bright-eyed (or more like puffy-eyed) and ready to volunteer at the Women’s Funding Network conference. Women from all over the WORLD came to this weekend gathering to discuss necessary measures to get money into projects and non-profits that will advance women’s safety, economic stability and overall gender equality. Being in a room with so many people from around the globe is intoxicating in it’s ability to make you think bigger and wider…

For me, the highlight of today was listening to one of my personal heroines speak, named Zainab Salbi (@zainabsalbi). She is the Founder/CEO of Women for Women International which is a non-profit that helps women who have been affected by war, in rebuilding their lives. They have programs active in Iraq, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Afghanistan just to name a few.  Zainab was incredibly inspiring, and spoke of the need to affect a woman’s economic status, the imperative of working with MEN to help women and collaborating with others to make change. Afterward I bought one of her books, and met Zainab during the book signing. She was kind enough to answer some of my questions about teaching self-defense to women in war-torn regions of the world. I asked her if she believed it was something we should investigate as Girls Fight Back begins talking to major funders about expanding outside the USA. Smiling energetically, she responded, “Why not?!”

Do you have a big idea that could change the world? What’s holding you back? I say do it.

After all…why not?

Last week was wild, and I’m just now recovering.  First learning point: I can’t run around the the country like I used to!  My journey began in St. Louis at the Association of Fraternal Leadership and Values conference, where I was asked to give our new Greeks Fight Back program to fraternity and sorority leaders.  It was late on the first day of their arrival, so everyone was a little tired. But it’s amazing how much people perk up when you start throwin’ eye jabs.

While I was at AFLV, I saw some awesome people and good friends.  I was especially excited to spend some quality time with my friend and creator of Response Ability, Mike Dilbeck. Response Ability is an exciting new program that addresses bystander behavior of college students.  I think his message is incredibly important because it affects most problems facing our campus communities today from drinking to violence to eating disorders.  It’s so easy to say “It’s none of my business” and not get involved…Mike challenges that and I really admire the film he produced, and the movement he started as a result of it.

I left St. Louey and flapped my wings to Boston for a big conference I’ve been looking forward to for a very long time.  It was the annual convention of the National Association of Campus Activities, and this year I was selected for the lecture showcase.  Now I’m not sure how many hundreds or thousands of speakers apply for the 14 coveted slots. All I can tell you is that when I got the news last Fall that I’d been chosen, I was driving and had to pull over on the side of the highway because I was doing the happy-shreik-cry-scream-hyperventilate thing…and it just wasn’t safe for me to be operating a vehicle at that time.  So needless to say, this was a big deal and a huge honor. *bow*

NACA is the most glorious little fun-land, time-warp, freak-show circus with some of the most interesting and inspiring people.  Case in point, the Lectures Showcase I was part of on Monday morning.  Here was the line-up, each of us having 15 minutes to present our program’s most interesting highlights. (Which by the way, is the absolute hardest thing for a speaker to do…especially those of us accustomed to having 90 minutes to yap our trap!)  First up was Teri Nicolai, a victim of domestic violence whose ex-husband kidnapped her, sealed her inside a garbage can partially packed with snow and left her in an unheated storage unit. Her miraculous story of survival and strength was so inspiring. Next was Dan Clark, who you may better recognize as “Nitro” from American Gladiators. One of my childhood heroes, me and Nitro became buddies and I’m hoping one day to jaust him. (He was undefeated on the show in this event.)  I spoke after Nitro – and what a rush! Over a thousand people in attendance, and so little time – a no-fail formula for sweaty pits.  After me, Blake Mycoskie spoke. He’s the founder of Tom’s Shoes and in my opinion, one of the greatest social entrepreneurs of all time!  For each pair of Tom’s Shoes you buy, the company donates a pair to a child in need. Genius.  After Blake, my dear friends Shawn Decker and Gwenn Barringer took the mic, speaking about their marriage (and sex life) with Shawn being HIV positive (or as he calls it, being a “positoid”) and Gwenn being HIV negative.  If you want to read one of the greatest books ever, check out My Pet Virus – written by Shawn. Memoirs about growing up with HIV are not normally described as “hilarious,” this one is. Read it and get ready to pee your pants.

Anyway, there were more speakers but I’ll stop there. You see what I mean – just awesome, inspiring people with messages that can really make this world a better place. It was an honor to be part of it. I was in Boston for about 5 days total, having a blast and working the Girls Fight Back booth along with GFB speaker, Megan. The final night, Megan and I took a picture with another childhood hero of mine, Dennis Haskins – better known as Mr. Belding from “Saved by the Bell.”  Way to end this conference on a high note…thumbs up all around!

It’s been awhile since I posted on my blog, mostly due to all the insane travel I’ve been doing.  Soon I’ll be posting a photo album of the all the places I’ve been and the people I’ve met, but for now I want to address the things happening in our world.  Many people who are in my network and who read this blog are what I call social entrepreneurs.  You’re in the business of making this world a better place, and doing your best to make a living while doing so.  While these hard economic times are difficult for all, they especially challenge the do-gooders.  In the face of layoffs, funding cuts and foreclosures, it’s easy to lose sight of why we are on our respective missions.

Nearly everyone I know (myself included) has either personally or professionally been affected by these economic hard times, and it’s our challenge to see potential in this new reality.  Not to be Pollyanna, but I sincerely believe (and have proof from my own life) that behind every closed door lies an open window.  The breeze outside is warm and welcoming, as if to say, “Come see what new and fun opportunities I have waiting for you!” You then have three choices. #1: Look at the window in disbelief, assume it’s a farce and don’t investigate.  #2: Walk to the window, stick your head out and think about scaling the rope ladder out – but are held back by your fear of heights.  #3: Choose to believe the sun is shining brighter outside, and it’s time to find a new playground.

Times like these are bigger than tests of our finances.  It’s a test of our faith.  Faith in ourselves, in each other, in the future and in the possibility of taking this meager time to figure out a better way of doing business.  As Gavin de Becker says in his book The Gift of Fear, “Americans worship logic.”  We have a hard time believing anything without hard-core evidence that is guaranteed to come true.  But if we look to the logic of stock markets or banks or government for reassurance right now, it’s not a pretty picture – and it probably won’t become one for quite awhile.

If a door in your life was just slammed shut, what is the open window beckoning you to do? If your business is down, perhaps this free time will allow you to re-vamp your website?  If funding just got pulled from your non-profit, what fundraising strategies can you create to become more self-sufficient?  If you just lost your job, what dream will this new-found free time allow you to pursue?

It’s all about the open windows.  Look outside, take a deep breath, make the leap!

Today’s article by Paula Span in the Washington Post hit on a big issue for the feminist and women’s safety/self-defense community.  (Click here to read it)  The writer talks about attending a kickboxing class taught by a woman who uses ‘girly’ language and visualizations when teaching punches and groin strikes.  Instead of explaining a right hook to nail someone square in the jaw, she has the class re-enact “clearing off their dresser.”  Instead of kneeing a rapist to the groin, she has the class act as if they are “doing yard work and breaking sticks over their knees…so hard that the neighbors look at them funny.”  Paula explains most of the class is middle age, none of them too interested in causing pain, disability or death in anyone…possibly not even to someone threatening their personal safety.  So this method of teaching kickboxing works for her classmates.  They are learning the moves, but not threatening their fragile feminine psyche. <sarcasm> Let me also note: Kickboxing is not self-defense, and should not be confused with training that prepares you to fight back in a truly violent confrontation.

In the women’s self-defense community, we walk a very fine line.  Convey the fighting material too lightly, and people don’t take it seriously.  You also run the risk of a woman not being emotionally or mentally prepared for a real attack, and then freezes under the adrenal stress in a real situation.  Furthermore, as women, can’t we handle a little tough talk?  Feminists from the 1970s must be throwing a fit over this article, to insinuate women need such a soft touch in learning life skills.  But if you teach too hard-core, you run the risk of turning the women off…and possibly never learning about self-defense again out of fear of taking a class. I’ve seen this many times at countless self-defense courses around the nation.  A bad-ass instructor doesn’t mince words, and you can actually see the faces of the women in the audience gloss over and they shut down.

Most instructors in the world will tell you it’s very difficult to make a living teaching personal safety and self-defense.  Unless you twist in fitness or black belt achievement, most women simply aren’t interested.  How do we make women realize how much they need this training, how important it is to understand intuition and fear, even if it makes you uncomfortable?  And after we help women understand this, how do we ensure they act upon it and take a class?  That’s the hardest part…the action and then the follow-through.  When I owned a self-defense studio in New Jersey, we’d have full classes signed up weeks in advance of the class start date, only for half to cancel the day before the first night of the course.  Yeah, life gets crazy.  But self-defense seems to always fall to the bottom of our to-do lists for so many personal and emotional reasons too.

There isn’t an easy answer for getting this training to women, but I think the women’s self-defense community has to come together, each of us offering our niche speciaities.  For example, at Girls Fight Back we have found a niche of providing one-time, 90 minute, live seminars at high schools and colleges using humor and empowerment.  While our seminar is intended to be introductory, our message throughout is to sign up for a class in their geographic area.  For free, we supply a vast list of women’s self-defense classes around the nation where our audiences can sign up.  Is this system perfect?  No. Do I wish we could teach each of the 100,000 women I speak in front of each year true down ‘n dirty instruction that could save their life?  You bet.  But our niche is connecting with young women, making safety and self-defense appear unthreatening and “cool” within their social norms…then providing them with resources to take the next step.  It’s just one tiny piece of the big puzzle. What’s you’re niche?  And how can we work together to solve this social issue?

As we develop our vision for 2009, keep this  mantra in mind:  “Know what you are, know what you’re not.”  Regardless of what industry you are in, you can never be all things to all people.  What makes you different or special?  What do you enjoy?  What audiences seem to really connect with you?  Who do you connect with?  Concentrate on them…they are your niche.  Once you find them, start partnering with people in other niches, and that’s when real change starts to happen.

Let me tell you about my new favorite website…it’s a one-stop-shop for managing all your finances, and it’s totally free.  Check it out at http://www.mint.com. The set-up process only took me about 10 minutes yesterday, and I was able to upload all my account information from my bank, credit cards and investment accounts.  The website is clean, easy to use, and worth mentioning twice:  It’s Free!

In this craptastic economy, I believe that everyone (especially entrepreneurs) need to get smart and responsible about money.  I often given seminars to budding entrepreneurs called Business 101, and the audience is usually comprised of non-profit professionals or small business owners.  There seems to be a feeling that we shouldn’t make money, or that money is bad in some way.  Abuse of money is bad and greed will destroy all, but money itself is our friend if handled responsibly and used for good.  We live in a capitalist economy, with money being the mechanism of how the economy thrives or dives. Embrace it for what it is.

So this year, I challenge you to examine your relationship with money and start understanding how to manage it.  Start with Mint.com to get an idea of where you are, and where you need to go.  Now I’m off to go spend way too much money for final Christmas shopping…happy budgeting!

This year I have spoken at several conferences on a topic not related to women’s safety or self-defense.  Instead, I have been asked to give seminars to social entrepreneurs on business and marketing.  It’s not easy to change the world without a business plan, and good intentions will only take you so far.  So for those in business for themselves, are thinking about starting an organization or need to improve the current state of their career, here’s a few tips for you.  Thank you to our brilliant business coach, Greg Walker, for teaching us this system…it’s worked wonders.

Step 1: What is your big vision?  In other words, where do you want to be in five years?  You should have a Big Vision for your personal life as well as your business/career.  Don’t be scared to dream big about the life you want.  But here’s the catch: it has to be under 100 words.  We wrote the GFB Big Vision by making a list of words that best represent what we’re trying to accomplish: (ex: Educate. Safety. Self-Defense. Global.)

Step 2.  What are the mini visions?  Meaning, what are smaller accomplishments that work towards the Big Vision, which can be accomplished within one year?  At Girls Fight Back, we decided upon 5 Mini Visions that we can focus on in ’09 that will inch us closer to the Big Vision. 

Step 3: What are the critical success factors of achieving the Mini Visions?  Make a list of the things that absolutely must happen for each one to be a success. 

Step 4:  What action steps are required?  Make a literal to-do list for each objective. Think of absolutely every tiny step that must take place.  Furthermore, assign each task a due date and specify WHO is going to do it.  Even if your business/organization is currently one person, get into the habit of assigning the task a due date and responsible party.  Put all due dates in your calendar and set up reminders.  And you must stick to the due dates to stay on schedule.

Step 5: Review often.  In our office, each of us has our Big Vision and Mini Visions pasted on the walls next to our computer monitors.  This way, our focus is always within sight.  Subconsciously and consciously, this keeps our team on track.  Reviewing the Vision Plan (Big & Minis) every month is key to staying on track.

The hardest part about vision planning is setting aside all the silly little tasks on your to-do list to carve out a significant time to adequately plan.  Today we rented a meeting space away from our office, to avoid phone and e-mail disturbances.  It’s critical to have uninterrupted time to dream big and plan to support the vision. Now, as the end of the year is upon us, is the perfect time to plan your vision.  Start off ’09 with a bang and a clear vision about where you are, and where you want to go.

Last night I had the awesome opportunity to attend a Warren Miller film in Denver, thanks to Mark & Chris Lacis.  Thanks guys!  For those of you who aren’t familiar with his films, they are basically crazy snow stunts, outrageousness on skis and snowboarding ridiculousness…all set to blaring rock music. For us snow-bunnies, Warren Miller films are the events that kick our excitement for the ski season into overdrive.  For me last night, I also made the decision to start boarding this year.  Click here to watch movie trailers to see what I’m talking about.  Beware, adrenaline and a yearning to hit the slopes will likely follow.

As many of you know, I have been traveling like a fool since August and my blog has been severely neglected.  I plan to kick things up a few notches next week, including a full photo re-cap of the Fall speaking tour and some major GFB announcements.  I will also start doing a lot more writing about social entrepreneurship, business and marketing good causes.  But for now, it’s still the weekend…meaning it’s time to hit the kitchen to start preparing for my dinner party this evening.  Ta ta for now…

When I meet fellow social entrepreneurs, they often ask me how they can turn their passion into a business or organization.  And my response:  If what you do, or what you know, can change this world…then you owe it to all of us to figure it out!  A great example of doing this successfully is my friend, Michele Merhib.  This woman took relaxation and pain managment and turned it into an international franchise!  Michele is the founder of Elements Therapeutic Massage, was featured yesterday on FoxBusiness.com. (Click here to read the article.) Michele started Elements after leaving the bank industry, going through a divorce, raising two little kids on her own and knowing she needed to try something new.  What she learned in massage school overflowed into her life overall with a certain calm and confidence. Michele is a great example for female entrepreneurs everywhere, especially those interested in healing and making the world a better place for others.  Kudos to Nancy Colasurdo, on yet another awesome and inspiring story of women in business.

I’d like to introduce you all to my new friend and soul sister, Lee Sinclair.  Lee started Africa’s first women’s self-defense program in the slums of Kenya back in 2001.  Lee is a writer and activist living in San Francisco, and was first brought to Kenya while coordinating a child care and sponsorship program for AIDS orphans. It was her experiences with these vulnerable children and their stories of rape, incest and sexual abuse that led Lee to realize that her own Self-Defense training could be lifesaving when applied to children living in the area.  Lee began teaching SD to small groups of local children but it quickly became clear that the problem deserved a larger effort. In February 2007, with the help of two US based Self Defense Instructors, Susannah MacKaye and Wendi Deetz, the first I’m Worth Defending team was formed in Korogocho slum Kenya. On February 26th 2007, after a month of specialized training, classes began. Since then, thousands of women and children have learned self-defense…and self-worth in the process.  Lee and I are planning some exciting international projects, so stay tuned.

Watch video about I’m Worth Defending.