Take It Bitch, TAKE IT!!!!

Ohhhh, haha, I just love my Monkey side... :D

The title alludes to my short post today: I am learning to take my own (and others') advice, instead of living my life only giving it out. I can't remember what it's called, but there's a new movie coming out on the 9th with Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston, and it looks like it will be the hetero version of my life lately, and I just can't wait to see it. The commercial for it awakened me to my life. Am I just waiting around hoping that the breakthroughs I assist others in seeing will just rub off on me someday? My answer is yes. I can be sad about that -- in fact, I was for a couple days -- or I can simply notice it and move on. I deserve better than to beat myself up over something so simple as noticing something about myself. So, my new choice is to take on my life. Make goals and accomplish them, and rack up a lot of positive evidence in my favor to show myself that I CAN do what I want to do, and that I AM worthy of everything I put my mind toward.

First up: Working my ass off between tomorrow and and September 5th, 2009 to pay for my Iceland trip, as I am leaving on the 6th! My goal is to earn $1500 and I am incredibly open to earning much more than that.

Thank you to all of you readers for your love, devotion and generosity. You are not only people who enjoy reading my blog, but you are all dear friends. In only one month, I have grown to 9 followers (AKA devoted readers) and have an average of 40 readers per day, as compared to the 3 per day I had when I first started out! I am awed by that, and totally grateful for it.

In Love and Gratitude for Your Gifts,

Ryan!

I need a neurosurgeon!

So I've been learning how to speak Farsi the last couple of days, and I don't know how to spell it yet, so that's kind of.........retarded haha, but anyway, I have been learning to speak it, and I keep running into a problem. The program is called Pimsleur, and it is the best program in the world apparently for learning a language. My brother Will has it on his laptop (admittedly illegally downloaded -- but I didn't do it, so oh well! haha) so one day I was over catsitting and I transferred it (as well as his program for learning Mandarin) from his laptop over to mine and have been listening to it randomly and pretty sprasely, actually. And I already know some phrases and words! For instance, I know how to say "It's 3:00" and a few other times and stuff, and it feels great!

Anyhow, the problem is this. It'll say, like, "How do you say The kitchen is green?" and I'll open my mouth and out comes "La cocina es verde." K, wait, slow down a second....It's teaching me Spanish too?? Wow, this is a wonderful program! Hahaha, no just kidding, I already know Spanish (and French). Haha, I seriously loved that joke...I'm still laughing at myself! Lol. AAAANYways, so it'll ask me to say something I was supposed to have learned in Farsi, and I'll say it in Spanish, or I'll say it in French. And I'm just like "Shit, no, I need to learn FARSI, Brain! Come on, keep up here!" So, the point of this story is that I need a neurosurgeon as a best friend, so that they can compartmentalize my brain for me so that French only comes out when I am in France or Quebec....and Spanish ONLY comes out when I am in Mexico or Honduras (or Spain...or Belize...or...eh, you know the drill lol) and Farsi comes out when I am learnin' it! Haha.

So I am loving my journey as a human lately, and I am especially grateful that I have this blog to remind me of all the things I am grateful for. Sometimes I will go through my day, even after I have had a great, inspiring day or experience, and I'll get caught up in the drama of a moment and carry that with me instead throughout the day. So reflecting on my journey, and on my gifts, ambition and love for self as I learn this new language and add this new spoke to my life, it is really fun and it feels really nice to accomplish something, especially something that I've wanted to accomplish for a while!

So what is it in your life that you've been wanting to accomplish forever? Or even for a month? Or even for the last 2 days?? Think of at least three things and make a list of them. Tomorrow's blog will go further with this concept, so be ready! :)

Until Tomorrow,

Ryan!

Your Personal Brand, Pt. 1

Many of us have probably heard of a personal brand. For those that haven't, it's high time you had, so here is the OFFICIAL definition:

"Personal branding describes the process by which individuals and entrepreneurs differentiate themselves and stand out from a crowd by identifying and articulating their unique value proposition, whether professional or personal, and then leveraging it across platforms with a consistent message and image to achieve a specific goal."
(Source: http://personalbrandingwiki.pbworks.com/FrontPage)

I have begun my own individual personal branding project. For me, it's like a very well-fleshed out way of reminding myself who I am and who I always want to be, for those times when I lose myself. It's also a way for me to remind myself of what my goals are, in the "doing" sense, as well as the "being" sense.

That same web site puts this supplement forward:

Personal Branding consists of three elements:

• Value Proposition: What do you stand for?
• Differentiation: What makes you stand out?
• Marketability: What makes you compelling?

So that brings us to our question of the day: What is your Value Proposition?
I haven't met many people in my life who can honestly answer the question "What do you stand for?" without having to think about it for quite a while. Most of us have probably heard the quote "If we don't stand for something, we'll fall for anything," but how many of us actually apply that quote into our life and CONSCIOUSLY DECIDE to stand for something?

In a few words, I stand for education, peace, free agency, and forward movement. Listed below are the qualities I stand for/want to be known to BE. (Hopefully the resolution is not too bad! Tell me if it is/if you can't read it, please.) As you can see, I am still working on being all those qualities :)



















So, that brings us to the end of today's blog. I look forward to seeing your Value Propositions in the form of a comment! WHAT DO YOU STAND FOR??


Until Tomorrow's Awesome Blog,

Ryan!