Category Archives: Optimism

The Day That Changed My Life

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Dear visitor,

If you are here, you probably care about the world.  I need your help to spread the word about this unique and sustainable approach to poverty.

I’ve been working at iDE for nearly 2 years, but the moment that changed my life—the moment when I truly experienced the impact of our work first-hand—was the day I met Anita Mwembe in Zambia…

Back in 2007, Anita and her family were living in a thatched roof hut on a small plot of land. She was making only $1-2 per day by selling packets of sugar and chickens outside the front of her hut. After becoming an iDE entrepreneur, she learned farming practices and invested in a drip irrigation system, which now allowed her to grow year round and sell crops for a better return.

Today, Anita is a full-scale entrepreneur. Not only has she quadrupled her income in only 5 years, but she’s also started a seed collective, purchased a car to get products to market more quickly, and even setup a women’s micro-lending network to support others in her community grow their businesses. But most important of all, is what this has provided…

Anita can now afford to send all of her children to school, she has built her family a new brick home, and she is even giving back to her community.

In short, through working with iDE, Anita’s entrepreneurial spirit has been unleashed. Her dreams are flourishing.

Since my trip to Zambia, I have traveled to Bangladesh and Cambodia also and I continue to be incredibly inspired and touched by the sparkle in the eyes of the people we work with – those who have invested in their future and with iDE’s partnership, brought themselves and their families out of poverty.

Please join me in spreading the word and help me reach my personal goal of $10,000 this holiday season. Our board is matching up to $50K dollar for dollar, so your investment is doubled.

It would be the greatest gift I’ve ever received if I reach my goal – which means we can help 500 individuals out of poverty.

So please give what you can, or help me spread the word. You will make more people happy than just me.

Thanks, and with great hope and love,

Heidi Cuppari

Donate Now

 

What does it mean to you to operate from a heart-centered place in business?

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This summer, I was asked to do a 14 minute “TED” style talk at Harvard’s Igniting Innovation Summit on October 1 by the enterprising undergraduate chair, Kara Kubarych.  Earlier this year, I had conducted a guest lecture in David Ager’s Social Entrepreneurship class about iDE, and Kara had been moved by our work.

The theme of the summit was ‘movement’ and ‘action’, so I was asked to speak about bold actions for social change.

As I prepared in the weeks prior and thought about what I wanted to talk about, it came to me.  I want to talk about a different way of being in the world. A different way of being in business. To not accept the status quo of conformity and actually operate in business from a heart-led place. To me, it means operating from a place of fearlessness, open-heartedness, and authenticity.  What would it look like if everyone operated that way? If all business owners and leaders operated that way?

I wanted to gain some insight and inspiration from other business leaders in Colorado where I live.  The perfect opportunities presented themselves right as I needed them as I flowed through meetings in Boulder, and in the form of a w1sd0m gathering in downtown Boulder, CO.  I grabbed my iPhone, launched the video camera, and started asking the question without them knowing what I was going to ask. The responses I got astounded me.  I just had to include them in my talk. These leaders are successes in the fields of social enterprise, renewable energy, green/fair trade products, philanthropy, and asset management. My brilliant volunteer intern, Jenny Wardell, created an amazing video from these compiled clips to include in my talk. I thought you’d enjoy seeing the incredible consciousness and leadership in this field exploding in Colorado.

Now, I ask you, the reader of this blog – no matter what you do, please consider this question, and please post your answer. I want to hear from you!

How to change the world one laugh at a time

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As a human being on this planet, I feel that my purpose is to spread happiness, one laugh at a time.  My ideal life and world is one in which there is no separation of work and home life, there is no drudgery or misery in our lives, and making money is not such a struggle. This blog is going to explore, learn and teach us all how to do this. The first thing that shifts all energy, I feel, is laughter. So i’m going to be posting a lot about laughter and its healing qualities, and how to let laughter be a part of your every day life.

So I thought it was appropriate to promote WORLD LAUGHTER DAY!!

World Laughter Day, held annually on the first Sunday of May, is designed to instigate premeditated hilarity around the globe. According to the World Laughter Day website, the goal of the event—started in 1998 in Mumbai, India—is to “change the world in a peaceful and positive way.” So mark your calendar for May 2, 2010, bring your best jokes and get ready to start changing the world—one laugh at a time. For information on how to join the fun, go to worldlaughterday.org.

World Laughter Day

How Intentions can explode (or implode) your business

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I found this fascinating quote recently by Dawn Todd, a brilliant, powerful woman and entrepreneur success coach who I’m working with as a volunteer for the Angel Capital Summit.

Prior to reading this and learning about Dawn, I’ve begun to apply intentional tactics to my business as well. Every time I got a result after thinking/intending it, I was almost surprised. However, the more I actually NOTED when I received something I asked for, the more it started happening.

It was all working well until I started getting thwarted by technology, wrestling with my computer, getting wildly frustrated, and out of my ‘power’. More and more terrible roadblocks were recently thrown my way, and the more I thought about them, the more they happened! Its a strange synchroncity because, just as I was in the thick of it, I read Dawn’s interview and realized that I might be the one causing more of these problems. And that’s all I needed to do to turn it around – change my thoughts.  That’s why this resonated so much with me and why I felt I had to share it on my blog.

I’ll be posting more on this topic, so enjoy this and look for more in the future!

I had learned to become what I call “intentional”. No kidding, business would literally just fall in my lap if I thought about it long enough. I learned this technique from a friend of mine whose business was also booming. He told me that the human mind was like a pie and we all had a limited number of pieces of the pie. He showed me that our mind could only focus on a few things at once, but what we focused on we got. When our attention was on business development, business just showed up. When our attention became diverted into non-essential things, business would slow down. (ask me later what my friend’s KISS is)lindambhughes.com, Linda MB Hughes

Click on the link to Linda Hughes’ blog to read the whole interview. It’s fascinating.

How laughter meditation can bring you peace and joy

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One of my favorite magazines is “Ode” – it’s where I got the inspiration for this blog. I’ve often thought that laughter is the best medicine.. it can heal your mental state, relationships, change energy, and actually heal your body. I have always had a very deep ‘belly laugh’ where I just let it OUT. Anyone in my life who has ever told me to ‘keep down’ my laugh, I would know right there that the person was not going to be in my life for much longer. I feel that laughter is my true ‘essence’ and it really lets you BE yourself completely.

But I had no idea there was an actually CENTER for promoting laughter! This in of itself made me laugh, but with love and appreciation. Check this out! Excerpt of article with link below:

Want to get in touch with your inner giggler? Try Dhyan Sutorius’ laughing meditation. by Max Christern.

Laughing is a group activity. “It gives you a feeling of solidarity,” Dhyan Sutorius had already explained to me on the phone. That’s why he asked if I was interested in doing a short laughing meditation with the staff during his upcoming visit to Ode’s Dutch editorial offices in Rotterdam. Three of us were there that day, so it was intimate, which was fine with Sutorius. The point is to experience laughing together. “Laughing is extremely conducive to cooperation,” according to Sutorius’ Dutch-language website, which features a link to a brochure in English. That got all three of us chuckling.

A few days later, the 70-year-old founder of the Center for the Promotion of Laughter appeared, surprisingly spry as he climbed the three flights to Ode’s waterfront offices. Our interview couldn’t take place until we had completed his exercise, so Sutorius went to work as soon as he walked through the door. “Are your bladders empty, ladies?” he asked my co-workers. “That is an absolute must for an effective meditation.” An empty stomach is also advisable. As my two colleagues hurried to the bathroom, giggling, Sutorius pushed four chairs into a small circle and quickly drank two glasses of water. “A good laughing session makes you lose a lot of fluid,” he remarked, with evident confidence in the strength of his own bladder. He then asked us to focus our attention on his area of specialization for 30 years: the laughing meditation.

Click here to continue reading this article http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/65/laughter-meditation