Entrepreneurs
Joy riding! Bernie Baird-Browning drives the golf-cart for a video shoot at her Malibu cottage.
You step into another world at Small Wonders, the amazing educational toy store on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Rolling Hills, California. The place is a work of art that’s a world of toys, as unique and spirit-lifting as its owner and creator, Bernice Baird-Browning, who discovers fun treasures from merchants all over the world.
Bernie married a doctor before the age of 20, and raised two brilliant kids who’ve launched successful careers of their own. So she’s also a grandmother-made-in-heaven! Can you imagine the thrill of dashing over the meadow and through the woods to such an enchanting place?
And just as in a fairy-tale, Bernie met—or rather re-met—her current husband Ralph Browning at a high-school reunion in the late 1990s, and they’re living, traveling, and prospering happily ever after!
The source of Bernie’s passion for joy and fun and letting kids learn as they play might come from having started school in first grade. She longed for kindergarten ever since, so maybe skipping it was the twist of fate that led to the blessing Small Wonders is to the world. There, where everything has been so carefully searched, selected, and displayed by a mother, grandmother, businesswoman, and grownup kindergartener, you’ll find yourself warmly embraced in quality, charm, and just plain fun.
Fun, in fact, sums up Bernie Baird-Browning in a word.
AN EXCERPT FROM ROB’S BOOK, Pronoia Is The Antidote To Paranoia: HOW THE UNIVERSE IS CONSPIRING TO SHOWER YOU WITH BLESSINGS
Have you ever been loved? I bet you have been loved so much and so deeply that you have become jaded about the enormity of the grace it confers. So let me remind you: To be loved is a privilege and prize equivalent to being born. If you’re smart, you pause regularly to bask in the astonishing knowledge that there are many people out there who care for you and want you to thrive and hold you in their thoughts with fondness.
Animals, too: You have been the recipient of their boundless affection. The spirits of allies who’ve left this world continue to send their tender regards, as well. Do you “believe” in angels and other divine beings? Whether or not you do, I can assure you that there are hordes of them beaming their uncanny consecrations your way. You are awash in torrents of love.
As tremendous a gift it is to get love, giving love is an equal boon. Many scientific studies demonstrate that whenever you bestow blessings on other people, you bless yourself. Expressing practical compassion not only strengthens your immune system and bolsters your health, but also promotes self-esteem, enhances longevity, and stimulates tranquility and even euphoria. As the scientists say, we humans are hardwired to benefit from altruism.
What’s your position on making love? Do you regard it as one of the nicer fringe benefits of being alive? Or are you more inclined to see it as a central proof of the primal magnanimity of the universe? I’m more aligned with the latter view.
Imagine yourself in the fluidic blaze of that intimate spectacle right now. Savor the fantasy of entwining bodies and hearts and minds with an appealing partner who has the power to enchant you. What better way do you know of to dwell in sacred space while immersed in your body’s delight? To commune with the Divine Wow while having fun? To tap into your own deeper knowing while at the same time gazing into the mysterious light of a fellow creature?
A lot of us are lucky enough to get hit with occasional strokes of genius. Not too many of us follow through and put a brilliant idea into form. And almost nobody:
- ceaselessly sees truths that habit and culture make most of us wholly blind to,
- leads revolutions in thought and lifestyle that (if we’re lucky) actually have the credible potential to transform us all into a species of happy beings,
- magnetizes an entire community of like-minded truth- (and beauty-) (and joy-) seekers who, like little lost lambs from a scattered herd, have been wandering, nameless and leaderless, for years,
- commands superior talent not just in literature but also in music,
- and prolifically — every single day — churns out art and philosophy of the highest quality.
But Rob Brezsny does.
Rob Brezsny Sees
It’s true, too, that genuinely unique beams of original light have been known to be overlooked by most of their contemporaries, praised by some, and scorned by others (maybe people who have either never attempted to do anything difficult, or have tried, given up, and, whining all the way, settled for the mediocrity Brezsny’s genius inspires us all to free ourselves from).
Rob Brezsny is one of the most talented, far-sighted, creative people of our day, and we wouldn’t be surprised if what he hasn’t done yet proves him to be one of the most creative, admirable, joy-inspiring people ever.
Amen!
Om!
Hallelujah!
Shalom!
Namaste!
More power to you!
Ron Dunham is an enormously successful man: father, husband, creator of both spiritual and financial wealth… and a survivor of a near-death-experience. He’s the author of the following message. And under this message, you’ll find video of Ron talking, among other things, about his extraordinary visit to “the other side.”
YOU HAVE FOUND YOURSELF
YOUR SOUL IS ALIGNED
YOUR SPIRIT IS FREE
YOUR MIND IS OPEN
YOUR HEART IS FULL
YOUR END IS YOUR BEGINNING
YOUR LOVE IS UNCONDITIONAL
YOU ARE FULLY SELF EXPRESSED
YOUR CHILD IS ALIVE
YOUR CREATOR IS BEFORE YOU
GRACE IS FLOWING THROUGH YOU
COURAGE IS YOUR HONOR
FULFILLMENT IS YOUR DESTINY
LIGHT IS THE ORDER OF YOUR DAY
LAUGHTER IS THE VOICE OF YOUR HEART
KINDNESS IS THE MOTHER OF YOUR EXISTENCE
COMPASSION IS THE QUIETNESS OF YOUR THOUGHTS
YOU ARE THE ONE AND THE MANY
YOU HAVE BEEN CALLED FORTH AND ANSWERED
WE THANK YOU FOR BLAZING THE PATH
WE THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE
See that photo? It’s a picture of success. Your success. Because you might say your success is Lorna Riley’s business.
The world discovered Lorna’s sales talent when she was in the middle of a career in education and raising a family. She was put to work – first on a sales team, and then, when she broke all records in closing deals, in managing that sales team.
So, a trained teacher, Lorna did it “by the books.” That is, taught the way she’d been taught to teach. Break it down into elements, spool it out in rational order, start with the fundamentals, prepare thoroughly, speak clearly, and keep it interesting.
What resulted was a massive collection of original training material, and Lorna flying around the country delivering fun, funny, intensive, and effective week-long courses in sales, customer service, and management.
She designed coordinated systems on those topics, with extensive (over a hundred or more) sets of modularized lessons on each, and used them in:
- in-person training (which earned her a CSP, the most prestigious certification in the country for professional speakers),
- published audio recordings (about such topics as time and memory management, and the three most important skills for creating success), and
- a series of books (like 76 Ways to Build a Straight Referral Business, ASAP!, Quest For Your Best, and Off the Chart Results for Organizational Development).
And that was just the beginning!
Lorna has now turned the whole spectrum of that knowledge, experience, and educational material into an online training system, enhancing it with all the added benefits of the internet.
Lorna wanted to provide people on sales, customer service, and leadership teams not just with a way to learn the training skills they need to succeed, but also with a systematic plan that enables you to take responsibility for that success. Your own, and the entire company’s. (Clear proof of her management experience, isn’t it?) So hundreds of Lorna’s carefully crafted lessons are structured into what’s called a Managed Accountability Plan. They can be watched, tracked, assessed, and reviewed on line.
“Chart Learning Solutions delivers high-impact performance results that train & retain sales, customer service, and leadership talent. Through our unique blended solution, we build a culture of continuous improvement, common language, guarantee accountability, and foster meaningful dialogues between employees and managers to ensure skills and behaviors meet business objectives. Chart’s Sales Cycle “Managed Accountability Plans” (MAPs™) saved GMCR over $3.5M and are required for all their “AFH” sales people. With our on-demand on-line courses, we create continuous learning accountability, enhanced employee/manager relationships, build a common language, integrate a unified sales, service, and leadership process among a geographically dispersed workforce, reduce costs, and produce measureable results. This is achieved with Chart’s blended eLearning multimedia tutorials, online quizzes, Application Activities, Accountability Application Meetings, Goal Action Planners, on-line reporting, coaching guides and live Coaching.”
Any description of Lorna Riley would be completely unfinished if it didn’t include a bit about one of her one-of-a-kind works of art: The Movie Lover’s Cookbook aka Reel Meals. It’s a coffee-table cookbook with page after page of photographs of unforgettable eating scenes from world-favorite movies — next to the recipe for what they’re eating in each “reel meal”! (What comestibles did the Marx Brothers clobber each other with in Duck Soup? What hors d’oeuvres did Audrey Hepburn dine on in Breakfast at Tiffany’s?)
Lorna wrote and produced this gem pre-internet, when specific photos from specific scenes in movies were really hard to get your hands on, and even harder to get legal rights to use. Tragically for lovers of cool things, it’s a classic that’s out of print now. Just had to mention it because it might be the best example, beyond her success as a success guru, of the brilliant creativity Lorna cannot keep a lid on.
Strong Qi, Gentle Flowers
Kayoko Yoshikai is one of those people who’s always running into her pals when she’s out and about. Even in big cities like San Diego.
And not only is she a friend to many, she’s also a business owner, an athlete (judo expert), a mother, a daughter of zen-master flower arrangers, a descendant of Samurai, uncommonly wise, and extremely busy.
Grownups used to tell her she was a “strong-qi” child. Surrounded by flowers, she’d transform her parents’ garden and the living creatures she met there into adventurous companions and playmates. (Some things really don’t ever change.)
In the same way still waters run deep, she’s quiet. So when you pause to listen to Kayoko, delightful stories about her remarkable life start to unravel. Conversation with her will probably be enhanced by some excellent, gently-imparted suggestions from her knowledge of health, wealth-building, and spiritual teachings.
Kayoko Gets A Bear HugTo network with her is to increase your community by big numbers. One of her current projects is helping to pioneer a large, extensive, international on- and off-line business/charity/social network, which is scheduled to launch in the fall of 2009. (I’d ask her about it if I were you.)
This just in: THE WILD SIDE OF KAYOKO YOSHIKAI!!!