Finally, you can talk to your kids

Looking back through history, there are several people in history that changed a generation.  Jesus, The Boston Tea Party, Mother Theresa, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr. jump to mind immediately when you think of positive changes to our world.  The social changes they made through their actions greatly impacted humanity for the better.  According to MIT, the most influential person in history is Aristotle. 

Aristotle was an Ancient Greek philosopher born circa 384 B.C. in Stagira, Greece. At 17, he enrolled in Plato’s Academy. In 338, he began tutoring Alexander the Great. In 335, Aristotle founded his own school, the Lyceum, in Athens, where he spent most of the rest of his life studying, teaching and writing. Aristotle died in 322 B.C. after being one of the most influential people to form western philosophy.  He did that through learning, writing, and teaching. 

Here we stand, in the 21^st century in a country where we are free to believe anything, to live out any possibility, and to love who we want to love, yet the statistics still remain that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused.  It’s a silent epidemic that affects nearly everyone in some way, either because they were abused, or they know someone who was. 

More than a year ago, a team was formed within a company called Damsel in Defense.  Even before Damsel in Defense became a household name, Co-Founder Mindy Lin knew there was a need to protect more than adult women.  From the beginning, she wanted to find a way to change the way abuse had always been silenced.

As an outspoken survivor, advocate, student of abuse, writer, and public speaker, when I started with Damsel in Defense, I knew in my heart there was a greater mission.  I tried to find where my passion was hiding by shadowing others who worked with organizations that fought sex trafficking, domestic violence, and sexual assault.  Those are all great causes, and they need every person they have working for them, but still I felt like there was more.  Every time I looked into the eyes of a victim of any of those things, I saw a lost child staring back at me, pleading for that one thing that was missing: prevention.

I began working with national organizations like RAINN (Rape And Incest National Network) by joining their speaker’s bureaus, and searching more locally where my impact could help my own community by working with OAASIS (Oregon Abuse Advocates and survivors In Service), but my legacy was still an enigma.

When Mindy Lin contacted me to work on a top secret project that would help children, I was all in.  After flying to Boise, Damsel in Defense’s headquarters, for a brainstorming meeting, it was clear the direction we were going and we went to work to answer the question that was presented to me as a survivor: What did I need to help tell?

The answer was validation.  I tried several times as a child to tell a teacher or a friend’s mom or someone who I felt could do something about it, and nobody knew what to do.  I didn’t come straight out and say my father was molesting me, but I clearly was trying to open up a conversation in hopes that someone would hear me.  By the time I was in the third grade, I already saw that it was pointless, and the threats from my dad became too much, so I endured.  The only programs about my safety that were offered through my whole life were stranger danger talks.  No one repeated to be COURAGEOUS and make the RIGHT choice, or to keep telling until someone listened.  No one said that the invisible line around me was for anybody, even if I knew them or they tried to make me.  

These things weren’t talked about, and to this day, more than 30 years later, I still see it being silenced.  The conversations aren’t happening because people either don’t know how to handle them, or they’re too scared to find out something is. 

It’s time to normalize the conversation and change the way society talks about the silent epidemic of abuse.

I was commissioned to write a series of children’s books to start the process of creating safe space for parents to open the conversation with their children.  Our team included amazing professionals from a psychologist, marketing team, illustrator, and focus groups. 

SAFE Hearts stands for Share Awareness for Family Empowerment, and begins with the release of the first 2 books, My Friend’s New Toy and Madison’s Big Brother as well as a Parent Guide.  The Parent Guide is key to navigating the conversations you will start opening up with your kids.  It will lead you through why it’s important, what to look for, and what to do if something in one of the books triggers your kids to start talking about something that happened to them or someone they know. 

My Friend’s New Toy is about a young girl who goes to play at a new friend’s house, where she finds herself in a tricky situation and meets the Heart Defenders, four kids on a mission to protect the hearts of kids in trouble. 

Madison’s Big Brother takes us to a girl whose best friend’s brother has a crush that might go too far.  Again, the Heart Defenders step in to teach children everywhere how to protect their hearts and the hearts of others. 

The interaction doesn’t just stop with a story.  There are interactive pieces in the back of each book to keep the conversation going, as well as puzzle packs to keep the Heart Defenders fresh in their minds, and a website filled with printable coloring pages, Heart Defender Certificates, and your child’s own Heart Defender badge.

SAFE Hearts has also partnered with Speak Your Silence, a non-profit that pays for counseling services for children who are victims of sexual abuse.  The mission is to empower as many children as possible to change an entire generation of children.

 The end product that was shaped behind closed doors in secret was just a group of people learning, writing, and teaching just like Aristotle did with the hopes that it will make an impact on the lives of families in bondage. 

SAFE HEARTS  can be purchased either directly from the website or by hosing an Empowering Kidversations class either online or in person, or find your passion in a career you love by joining us.  Find more information at YourDamselDiva.com.

It's hard to care for the careless but it's the only way to light the way out of the darkness

Full disclosure here, this is terrifying to me. There are some people in my life that I have known for a very long time who have been overtaken time and time again by drugs. Every time they come out of it, I pray that it's the last time their bodies will have to detox from the horrors of heroin.

This story has always been a haunting fear in the back of my mind. I know so many excellent people who work in the jail system, but I also know that there are several who aren't.

It's hard to care when you see people at their worst who have made the worst choices possible and done the worst possible things. I understand that it's hard to give dignity to a person who would stab you for your last ten dollars to score some drugs. It's hard, but it's necessary.

I have to wonder what would have happened to Madaline Christine Pitkin if someone showed compassion instead of annoyance.  If someone looked her in the eyes and said, "I know you don't believe me, but I believe in you."

Instead, she was left to die on a jail cell floor, written off as a heroin junky who didn't deserve any special treatment or special care.  

How terrifying her last days must have been.  How awful would it be to know there is help to save your life, but no one will give it to you.  How devastating it must have been to be her parents learning that her death could have been avoided, but the medical staff at the jail didn't stop it. 

My wish is that Madaline's story doesn't die with her.  My wish is that we never forget her name, and the next time we see a person addicted to something, we remember that they too were once the apple of their parents' eyes.  We may not be able to save them, but we can choose not to do nothing.  We can choose that the ripples we send into the world from our hearts are ripples of love and compassion, even when it's hard.

Tonight I will pray for her parents, family and friends.  I will pray for the staff that are left with the knowledge that they let a young girl die who they could have saved.  I will pray for the prisoners who watched it happen and prayed for her as she deteriorated.  I will pray for everyone who has ever been unable to sleep because the worry about their addicted child ate at their heart too much.  I will pray for everyone who can't put the drugs down and for everyone who fights every day not to pick them back up.  

I will pray that you never have to experience the pain that drugs bring into families.  

It's hared to care for the careless, but it's the only way to light the way out of the darkness. 

Find Madaline's full story here. 

Grow a business with integrity

I was talking with a friend about the amazing boot camp the Damsel in Defense has been offering the last 5 weeks, and I mentioned that I'm sure we're coming up on the week we have to recruit someone or be out.  He said, "why don't you just pay for someone's kit and sell the products?"

No way! I am growing an honest business with integrity and character I can be proud of. I could never feel like a real Damsel if I bought my way through! I would never let this business grow through false pretenses. Every rank I earn, every commission I make, and every product I sell will be with the same integrity our Co-founders set fourth when they formed this company. You can't be proud of what you've grown if it's dishonest and greedy.

If character is who you are when no one is watching, then my character wouldn't allow such business practices. I have already faced adversity set in motion by others who made choices to grow their businesses with those kinds of ethics. I've had more than my share of people demanding I reimburse them for Damsel products someone else sold them at nearly double the retail sales price.  I have faced clients who don't want to talk to a Damsel because of how they were treated by another Damsel. I will not do anything to send those kinds of ripples into the world.

I am proud of what I have built, and my team is made up of genuine humans who honestly wanted to invest in a business for themselves, and that is how they will grow their own teams.  I teach them to grow through the same values and integrity.

  

I can't wait for the next boot camp challenge, and I will take it on with integrity whether I move on or not, and I will be cheering my team on the whole way.

If you're ready to grow an honest business, let's talk. You can find more information at yourdamseldiva.com

As we put 2015 to bed and 2016 begins to stir

Ohmygosh....I have so many wonderful direct sales friends on my facebook and I have been watching each and every one of them post their goals for 2016.  I'm so blessed to be in on their excitement and so many of them I know will reach their goals!

Goals are SO important, not only in the direct selling industry, but in life.  Don't get them confused with New Year's Resolutions.  Those things are unrealistic dreams disguised as goals.  A goal has to be SMART.

You can always count on my team
for  laughter filled shenanigans

Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Timely

You can resolve to lose weight, but if you don't specify how much, how long, what your plan is, determine that it's realistic (40 lbs in a month is not realistic no matter how many people seem to think it is), and timely.  Will you lose ten pounds in three months or a year?  You have to put an end cap on your goal, or it just blows away like fairy dust.

Do not let our business blow away like fairy dust.  It happens, I've seen it, you won't like it.

Trying to get as many people as possible
in our Las Vegas conference
photo

That brought me to thinking of my own business.  In the 2 1/2 years I have been with this amazing company, I have not only been able to pay for things like Christmas gifts for my children and travel for my family, but I have been on four Damsel trips, I'm getting ready to go on # five to southern California for a weekend of amazement, I'll be on #5 in July to Florida, it blew me away!  I didn't realize that so much has been put in my path #becauseofdamsel.

It not only has brought me a ton of financial freedom, but it's created some of the strongest life long bonds humanly possible.  The people Damsel in Defense has connected me with are worth more than all of the diamonds in the universe.

The Red Hots are always
Red Hot on awards night

Not only that, but it has opened so many doors.  I am now on several speaker's bureaus, currently finishing up my book, and have been able to touch so many lives through my story.  That would have never happened had I not picked up the phone when I saw that Idaho number calling and said yes to one of the Co-Founders to speak at our second national conference.  If I knew the amount of balls that would be rolling that day, I would have never believed it.  Sometimes I still have to pinch myself to make sure it's true.  How did a broken, abused, wrong choice making crazy person like me get to this spot?  Goals.

Me with Co-Founder
Mindy Lin

Not only that, but I've been able to personally watch both friends and strangers who have joined my team grow in the same ways all because I had the courage to ask them if they wanted to join me, or to lead them through the enrollment process after they decided to follow a perfect stranger (me) as a business mentor.

So many more things are just around the corner.  My goals are laid out and currently being measured and cut down to size based on the year, the months, the weeks, and they days.

Always abide by the code

I can't wait to watch my fellow direct sales friends reach their goals.  We will be cheering each other on, because it's not about wanting everyone to join you, it's about leading those who do and cheering on those who are your colleagues.  I can't wait to feel their cheers as my goals come to fruition.  My facebook is filled with hope, excitement, and planning right now.  Just knowing that I have hundreds of friends who have made the choice to take their financial freedom into their own hands gives me chills.

What?  My team tried to steal the coveted pink
couch in Vegas?  I don't know what
you're talking about.

In speaking with my team today, I'm so excited about each and every one of them.  Their goals are my goals, because we've created not just a team, but a community.  I couldn't be more blessed to not have to answer to a boss, to decide how much time I want to spend on my business, how much I want to spend on my family, and how much I want to spend on others.  Not having to clock in and out for a job that I hate is amazing.

Hanging with my girl
at our Boise conference in
2014

What are your goals for 2016?  If it's to join my team, let's talk about what that looks like.  I would be excited to add you to my community.  I promise you'll come away a stronger person.