Sonia Marsh - Gutsy Living

One “Gutsy Goal” One “Gutsy Winner”

March 6, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 18 Comments

One “GUTSY GOAL”
One “GUTSY WINNER.”

After asking you to respond to the question below

What is your One biggest “Gutsy Goal” for 2014?

one sentence
one photo

The idea of asking others to share their 2014 “Gutsy Goals” came to me when I started working on my own 2014 goals. So before I announce the winner below, I want to quickly share my own 2014 goals.

MY BIGGEST Gutsy Goal for 2014 is to kick my business up a notch.

Here’s what I’m planning, and what I’ve accomplished so far:

Webinars and Workshops on book marketing for authors. 1st one done. (Check it out here.) Sign up for the 2nd Webinar here.)

Gutsy Google+ Interviews. I’ve done 6 so far this year, and plan on more. Check out the most recent exciting videos with the following. Click on links to view them.

Ian Mathie (memoir writer about his 30-years in Africa.)

Alissa Everett about her exciting job as a photojournalist in troubled parts of the world

Film Director and screenwriter, Lance Nielsen about his indie movie based on a true story that deals with love, loss and bereavement.

Volunteering in Spain in May with VaughanVolunteers

Create a BIG EVENT to launch the 2nd My Gutsy Story® Anthology in the Fall of 2014.

Presentations: “Gutsy Living and not postponing your dreams.” REI stores in Orange COunty, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara. (Dates to come.)

Here are the results of the “Gutsy Goal” contest.

1). Sharon Leaf says her “Gutsy Goal for 2014 is:

“To travel through France, Spain, and Italy via train with only a backpack–and my husband.” Sharon’s website:www.sharonleaf.com

2). Mike McLane, says his “Gutsy Goal for 2014 is:

To live by “Lombardi Time.”

If you had an appointment with Coach Vince Lombardi at 11, at 10:45 you were late. In honor of that policy, which came to be known as Lombardi Time, the clock in the tower at the stadium is set 15 minutes fast.

3). Jeffrey Crimmel says his “Gutsy Goal for 2014 is:

“To write a good query letter and find an agent who will find a publisher. Keep sending until I find one.”

4). Shirley Showalter says her “Gutsy Goal for 2014 is:

“To pitch a story to The Moth radio program/live event and get selected.” Her website is: www.shirleyshowalter.com

5). Carol Deshayes says her “Gutsy Goal for 2014 is:

“To become who I am, and be myself, as everyone else is already taken!”

6). Greta Boris says her “Gutsy Goal for 2014 is:

“My goal is to send at least one query letter to a magazine. The reason it’s gutsy is because I think it’s an important step for me and I’ve been procrastinating!! Probably fear but I’ve been blaming business. Check her Amazon page here.

7). Tamara Severin says her “Gutsy Goal for 2014 is:

“To get my book about my Outrageous ordeal with Breast Cancer finished and published.”

Email: trainertam@sbcglobal.net

8). Cynthia Smith says her “Gutsy Goal for 2014 is:

“To create a travel show for people with disabilities.”

I do have a disability! I broke my neck in three places, my back in two, my pelvic and my left femur in a car accident in 1982. I am diagnosed as an “incomplete paraplegic”. It’s a miracle I can even walk!

www.freedomtotravelshow.com

9). Darlene Goodrich says her “Gutsy Goal for 2014 is:

“To see implementation of formal Sign Language classes in Belize, as well as deaf services.”

THE WINNER WITH THE “GUTSIEST” GOAL GETS:

1. FREE COPY OF Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of gutsy Living on a Tropical Island
2. FREE COPY OF My Gutsy Story® Anthology: True Stories of Love, Courage and Adventure From Around the World
3. A GOOGLE+HANGOUT INTERVIEW WITH ME

Who do you think should win the 2014 “Gutsy Goal” contest?

Please leave your answer in the comments using the numbers # 1 through 9 in the comments below.

Share and ask your family, friends and other online followers to vote.

VOTING ends on Monday March 10th

Next Expat Stop-Tanzania by Yelena Parker

March 3, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 9 Comments

Next Expat Stop- Tanzania

“My Gutsy Story®” by Yelena Parker

Have you ever shared your story with new and somewhat eager listeners and got the reaction: “Wow, that was such a brave thing to do!”? Last year I started feeling as if anything I had done that was remotely brave was in the too far distant past. I wouldn’t quite call it a mid-life crisis but more of a realization that something has changed. Then, in a serendipity moment, there was a tweet in my timeline “When was the last time you did something that was the first time?” Indeed.

My “gutsy” story began almost exactly 15 years ago when I left Ukraine with $600 dollars in my wallet and a one- way plane ticket to study for a Master’s in Business Administration in California. On my first international flight to Amsterdam, before connecting to San Francisco, I sat next to one of those American men who came to Ukraine in search for his fiancée. We talked about his desire to find love in an obscure small town where women have no prospects and my dream to see the world on my own. This was before I knew that the flight etiquette strongly advises against engaging into annoyingly long conversations with people who you are stranded with. I was chatty, naïve and ready to take on the world. What I didn’t consider at that time that it was a gutsy move. When you have nothing to lose, an opportunity to come to the US on a scholarship, work and study, with a chance to see if you can make your American dream come true, is really a “no brainer” – at least that was how I saw it.

Fast forward and my dream has become more global than I could have ever imagined. Getting an MBA in Silicon Valley during the dotcom crash was far from perfect timing. While we were learning about innovation and planning for rapidly and ambitiously building our big international careers, the economic climate changed dramatically. One day my fellow students and I had visions of choosing any cool company we wanted, and the next thing I knew I was working as the lowest possible status of sales rep generating leads by walking door to door to sell copiers in the spookily empty tech parks along highway 101.

Having got over the disappointment that many over-educated and underemployed MBAs experience, I fell into a sales operations career in high tech, pretty much starting at the very bottom. In retrospective, it was the best move I could have made which took me to see the world and led to opportunities to work and live as an expat in Switzerland and United Kingdom. None of these moves I thought of as brave at the time. Once you are on a serial expat path, new relocations get easier. You already had to adjust once or twice to a new environment, pick up the pieces of friendships left behind, introduce yourself to new people and learn or improve a foreign language. You are a chameleon, an international wanderer and a global citizen. Surely you can do it again!

Last year I looked at a career map that my accidental mentor put together with me 6 years earlier over coffee. Senior manager responsibilities- check; director level- check; expat assignment- check; executive education program at Oxford University-check; vice-president role at a smaller tech company- check. All done. 3 years ahead of schedule. What’s next? I have finally uncovered that it takes more guts to change direction and do something completely out of character when you have something to lose.

I quit my job and focused on writing a book about expat and life abroad success. Over the last year I kept comparing experiences of my friends, women expats, who made their own moves without fear. And there it was, “Moving Without Shaking”. At the same time, I started reevaluating what the meaning of work was for me. Should I join the movement of solopreneurs? Should I go volunteer while I am thinking about what to do next? What do I really know a lot about, besides running sales operations in tech and going to school abroad? I looked for what I truly had become passionate about in my 15 years of corporate adventures and living abroad.

I wanted to do something for the first time again but it had to be not for my career. March 1 I am starting on a volunteering journey in Tanzania. I have signed up with African Impact, a wonderful organization placing many volunteers in programs all over Africa. The first community project is based in Moshi, on the foothills of Kilimanjaro, and focuses on women and children empowerment. The second project is for a community in Zanzibar, teaching English, and helping the local school. The local communities are in need of educational resources that we often take for granted. My first career was in teaching English at a university level in Ukraine. This is an opportunity to take everything that I was good at before I started my journey abroad, add in the business experience and give back in the form of time and knowledge. I was able to move abroad because I met an American professor volunteering in Ukraine, willing to help me with a scholarship abroad. It is my turn to see if I can help someone in one of the countries that my academic mentor is passionate about. I am excited about the learning opportunity, the chance to make a real impact in people’s lives, the challenge and the longest break from paid work I have ever had.

YELENA PARKER is a founder of expat and executive coaching consultancy, Moving Without Shaking Ltd. She is a serial expat, living in the UK, her fourth home country, as of this writing. She blogs about expat and life abroad success at www.movingwithoutshaking.com

Her first book, Moving Without Shaking, is coming out in spring 2014.

Check out Yelena’s Website

Follow Yelena on Twitter: @yelenaparker or @movingwtshaking

SONIA MARSH SAYS: You are living life to the fullest and stepping out of your comfort zone. I am sure you will have so much to share after your experience in Tanzania, and I cannot wait to do a Gutsy Google+ Hangout with you for an update when you return.

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Do you have a “My Gutsy Story®” you’d like to share?

Would you like to submit your “My Gutsy Story®” and get published in our 2nd anthology?

Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

VOTING for your favorite February 2014 “My Gutsy Story®,” starts on February 27th, and ends on March 12th. The WINNER will be announced on March 13th.

PLEASE VOTE AND SHARE THESE STORIES USING THE LINKS BELOW.

Vote For Your Favorite February 2014 “My Gutsy Story®”

February 27, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 2 Comments

Get ready to VOTE for your favorite one of 4 “My Gutsy Story®” submissions. You have from now until March 12th to vote on the sidebar, (only one vote per person) and the winner will be announced on March 13th, and will select a prize from our generous sponsors.

Our 1st “My Gutsy Story®” is by Susie Mitchell

SONIA MARSH SAYS: Susie shows how exercise did not stop her from training and winning a gold medal a few months after her baby daughter was born.

Our 2nd “My Gutsy Story®” is by Leanne Dyck

SONIA MARSH SAYS: Inspiring to all those who believe that dyslexia prevents you from accomplishing your goals of becoming a writer.

Our 3rd “My Gutsy Story®” is by Viki Noe

SONIA MARSH SAYS: I agree with Viki when she says “Gutsiness is a choice. It might be a conscious one, with a specific goal, like changing careers. It might be completely unconscious, other than the acknowledgement that sometimes you just have to keep trying your best to get through it all, in the hope that something better awaits you.”

Our 4th “My Gutsy Story®” is by Mariana Williams

SONIA MARSH SAYS: This reminded me of my best friend in Denmark, Lilian, whom I’ve known since I was 3-years-old. She is like a sister to me, and she even flew to visit me from Copenhagen to Belize, when I lived there.

Do you have a “My Gutsy Story®” you’d like to share?

MGS FINAL COVER Small — Click on cover to go to Amazon

Would you like to submit your “My Gutsy Story®” and get published in our 2nd anthology?

Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

VOTING for your favorite February 2014 “My Gutsy Story®,” starts on February 27th, and ends on March 12th. The WINNER will be announced on March 13th.

PLEASE VOTE AND SHARE THESE STORIES USING THE LINKS BELOW.

“Gutsy Girl Power” by Mariana Williams

February 24, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 35 Comments

Gutsy Girl Power

“My Gutsy Story®” by Mariana Williams

I’m getting off the plane feeling nervous. Having sat in the last row, it took a while getting out. The pilot was walking way ahead of me when I noticed a text came in on my phone. “Where are you?”

I sighed and slowed down. Maybe contacting someone through a private detective after a forty-year gap wasn’t such a good idea. Was Danelle impatiently tapping her foot at baggage claim? Was she eager to return to her life—after meeting me? And, what is that life? Aghhh, maybe the text simply indicated she might not have recognized me walk past.

I’d been a writer for ten years now, and after penning three novels, my colorful life of peaks and valleys became the focus of my memoirs. The boldest early memories took place with the girl I met at summer camp. We were fifth graders and rode horses, swam, sang, and built a language of laughter that I was betting would be worth the 2,627miles sojourn across the Pacific Ocean.

Danelle was the friend that always pushed the limits of what was allowed. Now, decades later I suspected my gutsy friend would either be serving a prison sentence or the head of Wall Street. She hadn’t shown up for any reunions and no one had heard a word after high school. My mild obsession about the outcome of her life had me searching the Internet and even looking for her in a crowd. Danelle was my daring alter ego.

Ages twelve through seventeen it wasn’t sex, drugs and alcohol for us—we were just merry pranksters exploring the limits of travel without a car. Armed with imagination and a thumb we escaped the hot San Fernando Valley, often hopping off a bus in a random city. Danger was always around the corner and we saw its shadow, but I trusted my street-smart friend and aside from getting picked up by the police as runaways—all was bitchen’.

After a few capers we were restricted from hanging out. Oh, sure. That always works. Ask Romeo and Juliette. The last warning to stay away from Danelle was delivered in my mother’s low guttural growl—at three a.m., walking me out of a police station, picked up as runaways. Danelle and I feebly explained that we were vacationing at the Beverly Hilton Hotel that weekend. “What’s your room number?” barked the policewoman.

“Well, we don’t have a room exactly,” I stammered. “Our stuff is behind a big ol stack of chairs in the banquet room. We hang out at the pool in the daytime and crash behind the chairs at night. Really, nobody even cares.”

***

My husband’s golf buddy was a private eye. It was a gutsy move but I hired him. It took him about ten days—longer than he predicted. After a few phone conversations, I made plans to fly to Kauai—before one of us died or my fascination lost momentum. Curiosity led to sentimentality and now just the sweaty-palm of embarrassment as the twelve-year-old in me looks for my friend’s brown curly mop-head, somewhere by the baggage carrousel.

photo (6) — Danelle Dizon & Mariana Williams Sept. 6, 2013

I catch the familiar eyes and serene smile immediately as I come through the door. She’s dressed in a feminine, white hippy blouse, jeans and a sporty hat; something straight out of my closet. My first thought was, I wish I had coincidentally worn that same outfit—it would have been a funnier moment. But it wasn’t about being funny. We hugged and surprised ourselves, I think, by holding the wordless embrace for a long while. A few tears flowed and I can’t say why. We had not gone through a war together, or donated a kidney to keep the other alive. However, Danelle and Mariana were, pound for pound, the best combination of laugh and adventure I’d known. Was there still room for more adolescent merriment?

***

A few years after leaving high school she dropped out of the mainland’s fast lane and opted for the gentle lifestyle of the tropics. She found her niche in the Garden Island of Kauai, and stayed after a brief stint at the hippy colony, “Taylor Ranch.” She married a local surfer and has two beautiful daughters and three grand girls. With animals in the yard and shells on the windowsill, their life is an endless summer and their home as comfy as a hammock swinging between two palms.

Once inside her house she tossed me a few floral sundresses from her closet to replace my “haole” wardrobe of black and white. Then we did what we do best, hit the road. As we tore around the island in her car, she seemed like a Guidess, half guide-half goddess—leading us into new adventures. We caught up on decades while we bobbed in the surf of hidden beaches and picnicked on cliffs.

We discovered we are both happily married; each had two children about the same age, one easier than the other. We cracked up knowing the more difficult child was the most like ourselves. Another coincidence—world travelers, we each had collections of rocks and crystals from foreign lands.

The week passed quickly nibbling shaved ice by day and nights under the Hawaiian moon whispering personal stories of unexplainable mysteries, coincidences, and magic moments. Instead of the Beatles, we tuned into the island music. It wasn’t Don Ho. It was the beat of waves crashing, the harmony of porch-chimes tinkling and always—girls laughing.

It was a gutsy move to put my ego in my back pocket and bet on girl power, and a friendship that could span years and miles.

MARIANA WILLIAMS is the author of the Veronica Bennett Series of romance, comedy, and accidental crime. Happy New Year, Darling, The Valentine State and Stars or Stripes 4^th of July, which won a 2011 Indie Excellence Book Award. Her book of memoirs will be out in 2014. Mariana was a Moth Grand Slam finalist in the acclaimed story-telling competition held in Los Angeles. She is the Producer of Long Beach Searches for the Greatest Storyteller, an event in Long Beach, California, in its fourth season. She lives in So. California with her husband, Oscar-winning songwriter, Paul Williams. Website: www.Marianawilliams.net.

Please follow Mariana Williams on Twitter: @WErSTORYTELLERS

Facebook: MarianaLovesStories

Check out Mariana Williams’ books:

Mariana Williams Three covers — Click on cover to purchase on Amazon

SONIA MARSH SAYS: What a beautiful story of love and friendship that grew and remained etched in your heart from fifth grade. I love the way you hired a private detective to find your long-lost friend. I hope you make a point of seeing one another at least once a year, from now on.

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Do you have a “My Gutsy Story®” you’d like to share?

Would you like to submit your “My Gutsy Story®” and get published in our 2nd anthology?

Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

VOTING for your favorite February 2014 “My Gutsy Story®,” starts on February 27th, and ends on March 12th. The WINNER will be announced on March 13th.

PLEASE SHARE THESE STORIES USING THE LINKS BELOW.

How Do You Ask a Well-Known Person for an Interview?

February 20, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 1 Comment

A Gutsy Google+ Hangout with Alissa Everett

One of the best things about networking, especially online, is the ability to connect with people.

As an indie author, the Internet has become a goldmine for opportunities to interview people, whether famous authors like Nigel Marsh, or photographers like Alissa Everett, who was featured in Oprah magazine.

So often we think famous people aren’t accessible, and that there’s no point in trying to get in touch with them. I don’t believe that. I’ve found that asking people for interviews, and showing them that you’re interested in what they do, and how you’d like to help promote them, is a wonderful way to get in touch.

I discovered Alissa Everett, a well-known American photojournalist who is known for creating beautiful images in the world’s most troubled areas, through an article I read about her in the Oprah magazine. After checking her website and discovering that unlike other photojournalists, Alissa focuses on the positive stories in conflict zones like Syria, DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), Darfur, Gaza and many other parts of the world, I asked if I could e-mail her some questions about her unconventional life. She agreed, and I’ve followed her ever since knowing that one day, we would reconnect.

Now Alissa has a non-profit, ExposingHope.org, and raises money at her photography exhibitions in the U.S. She donated $50,000 towards helping the rape victims in DRC and offers micro loans and safe houses for these women and their children. Alissa Everett is truly a “gutsy” woman and I hope you watch this moving video interview as she describes her work, being ambushed in DRC, and what she would like to see happen in our world.

I just donated $50 to support 5 children at the hospital in DRC for one month. Alissa’s non-profit ExposingHope.org sends 100% of all the money towards helping women and children in DRC. AS little as $10 offers HIV testing for 5 victims of violence. $20 provides 10 days of hospital stay.

Why don’t we all help Alissa Everett by sharing what she does, and how she risks her life in order to help others who are suffering in our world.

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