Be the change

Our group, the Species Restoration Project, deals with reintroducing organisms back to the wild.  However, for this post, I want to digress.

A couple of months ago, my son-in law, Jason, suggested I join him at a conference in Las Vegas.  He said that since I was not working I had the time, and he thought this conference may be helpful to our fledging not-for-profit.  I thought at the very least I would get some time with Jason, and at the best it would be beneficial to our organization as he suggested. Therefore, a couple of weeks ago I went to Las Vegas for this conference.

The name of the conference was "Be the Change".  It was organized by a woman named Suzanne Evans.  Suzanne Evans is a life coach who has turned her business into a multi-million dollar company. Just a few years ago she was just starting out and posted on her web site "Broke, fat and gay."  This obviously took a lot of guts, but since that time her business has flourished.

I went to this conference a bit skeptical, but Suzanne Evans is a dynamic individual.  To begin the conference, she brought in the Broadway cast of Chicago to do a number.  It brought down the house.  And that was just the beginning.

The basic themes of the conference were "Get out of the audience and get on the stage."  This obviously refers to taking control of your business and life and making things happen; do not wait for things to happen.  Suzanne illustrated this point in a powerful way.

She showed an episode from the Ellen DeGeneres show where a inner city Detroit school was trying to get their choir to a competition with the "happy" song by Farrell.  The choir director was spending large amounts of time trying to achieve this, and it noted that she had been doing things like this for many years.  Suzanne brought this choir director out to Vegas and gave her a spa day, a great dinner, and an Elton John concert, because she was helping her kids get out of the audience and onto the stage.  There was not a dry eye in the crowd of close to one thousand people.

The other major theme of the conference which I noticed was the emphasis on taking the money you make from having a successful business and do some good with the money.  Suzanne herself has a non profit which works with women in Zimbabwe to help them with their businesses.  These are extremely poor people, but Suzanne and her group are making a large impact on these peoples lives.  This is the connection to our group- we are also trying to make a difference.

To say that Jason was right that this conference may do some good for me would be an understatement. I did get to spend some time with him which I would not trade for anything, but I also made some contacts that have already helped our organization. 

Yesterday I had a strategic meeting with Directpay.  They had some great advice, and we are going to talk again next week after they do some research into items we discussed, DESPITE the fact that our organization has no money.  As Suzanne was saying, use your success to do some good.  Also, tomorrow I have a phone meeting to discuss our web site.  He works with IntrigueIT in Syosset, NY and his friends, who are accountants with TPS in Lake Success, New York, want to work with us as well, and they know our financial situation.

Jason already knows this, but this conference was infinitely more beneficial than I imagined.  Not to get over dramatic, but it did to some degree restore faith in the human species, and I hope someday to be able to be as good to someone as some of these people have already been to me.