| April 2006 In this issue... A BE NICE Story Monthly Audio Message People Profile Corporate Corner Do Something! Quote of the Month And on BeNiceOrElse.com: Featured Article Find Your Own Path Past Newsletters March 2006 Motivate Yourself and Others February 2006 Let Your Inner Beauty Shine January 2006 Teamwork 2005 Archives 2004 Archives And from the BeNiceOrElse Audio Archives:  Andrew ReidNo Excuses Listen in as the Canadian hand-cycling champion describes the tragic incident that changed his life. Send this newsletter to everyone you know or mean people will track you down! (Or Else!) identifies the factors that keep people from being nice — and how to overcome them. Learn More Testimonials Buy the Book Quantity Pricing Attention We’d love to hear your comments, suggestions, and stories! Send them to editor@
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FIND YOUR OWN PATH
 Hi Everyone,Whenever most people think about what it means to make a living, one word comes to mind: money. However, that’s just a small perception compared to the abundance found in who you are, what you are, and what your potential is. Making a living doesn’t just mean making money, it means awakening the “abundance machine” within you. I’m confident this newsletter is not the first time you’ve heard that when you focus only on the money, you fail to focus on true abundance. For me, abundance means making a lot of money (and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that) and working with people I love and respect. Abundance means learning new things, stimulating my mind, and building a reputation of integrity among my peers. Those things are certainly a lot more important than making money. Whatever your focus and journey are in life—whether it be a career, a stay-at-home spouse, or a full-time philanthropist—my desire for you, and hence the focus of this newsletter, is that you have the passion and support to find your own path, and that your path is full of abundance and makes a difference in the world. Thanks for helping me live my fantasy of spreading this BE NICE message and giving nice people a voice. XOXO, Winn A BE NICE Story Do you have a BE NICE story to share? Send it to editor@BeNiceOrElse.com. If it appears in the newsletter, you’ll receive a BE NICE T-shirt and CD!  The following letter comes from 35-year-old Bryan Marlowe. Bryan is a great example of someone who found and followed his own path in life, despite a difficult childhood.Hello Winn, I grew up in a home with an alcoholic stepfather who made my life seem so worthless. I spent my entire life in fear, seeing my mother beaten down repeatedly, fleeing our home for shelters, and wishing I could disappear most of the time. My dream as a child was to become an actor, but my stepfather crushed every dream I ever had. He told me I would never be anything, and I grew up believing that about myself. Shortly after I graduated from high school and fled to live with family in South Carolina, my mom followed, along with my three younger siblings. I see the damage that my stepfather created in each and every one of us. I have spent my adult life unhappy, going in and out of bad relationships, and struggling with my weight. I toyed with the idea of becoming a hairstylist for years, and last year I went back to school. I am a 35-year-old cosmetology student and I am loving it. I have made great friends, and my confidence is slowly increasing. I see myself making others happy by what I do, and to me that is the ultimate reward. I don’t know what the future holds for me, but one of my goals as a professional is to give back to the shelters that provide a safe night away from the storm of living in an abusive home. I remember being in a double bed with my mom and sister while the other two children had to sleep in a crib. They were both above crib ages, but it was safe, quiet, and free from abuse and hurt. I remember feeling so relieved to be there and wishing I never had to leave. That is definitely a cause I intend to devote some of my own time to. I want to do something important with my life—I want to make a difference in the world, continue to grow in my field, and eventually help others. I just need to keep learning and believing. Thank you for sharing such a powerful message with the world. Warmest regards, Bryan A. Marlowe
Monthly Audio Message
 Dean Robertson’s life adventure has taken him from homelessness, addiction, and violent antisocial behavior to living in the wilds of Alaska where he became a highly regarded river raft guide and master bone carver. With his replications of native artifacts now in museums and private collections around the world, Dean’s path in life has taken a new turn: he’s sharing his story and life lessons with others.“Throughout my life I drew inspiration from watching how others managed to change for the better,” Dean says. “It always gave me hope that such positive change was possible for me. Now, I want to pass those lessons on to anyone who might be able to hear them.”  In this month’s audio message, Dean shares an important truth: Regardless of life circumstances, we all have the ability to find your own path, take action, change for the better, and find harmony in any wilderness.If you enjoyed this month’s audio message, you’ll love our MASTERS Audio Club. CLICK HERE for more information. People Profile  In a past newsletter and in my book Be Nice (Or Else!), I featured my good friend Kate Caussey. I call Kate my “emotional fluffer-upper” because she seems to have a knack for saying and doing the right thing to “fluff” me out of my bad moods, and for that I have always loved her.This past January, Kate was diagnosed with breast cancer. As she faces a future that includes chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, radiation, and possibly more chemotherapy, Kate continues to be everyone’s emotional fluffer-upper. With her indomitable humor, she frequently cracks jokes about her cancer, just to put people at ease. “I eventually wanted to get a boob job,” she says. “I guess this is one way to get the insurance to pay for it.” And, “I didn’t get one of the best perks of cancer—I’m actually gaining weight through my chemo. I asked my doctor, ‘Where’s my perk?’”  Kate explains, “Showing people that I can deal with this and make fun of it makes it easier for them to relate to me. Cancer seems to be one of those diseases that people don’t talk about. You hear the word cancer, sort of like a whisper. If the powers that be wanted cancer to stay that way, they gave it to the wrong person because I have a mouth.”In facing cancer, Kate has displayed a level of strength, courage, and humor that I wanted to share with you in this issue. I wanted to support Kate on a personal level and to make a difference by raising some money for breast cancer. I also want to support Kate’s goal of encouraging every woman who reads this newsletter to have a mammogram by the end of this year. Just 36 years old, Kate had not yet reached the recommended age to start getting mammograms. She considers herself lucky: She noticed a lump, went straight to her doctor, and caught her cancer in an early stage. “I recently read that one out of every eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer,” Kate says. “I can’t get that statistic out of my head. Everywhere I go, whether it’s shopping, lunch, the doctor’s office, I can’t help it, I start counting off everybody in the room. How many of them have it, are denying it, haven’t been checked, or are afraid to get checked? If I can get women to get checked, that makes me very happy.” Corporate Corner By Lyn Christian Master Coach and CEO of Soul Salt Inc. In his book Good to Great, author Jim Collins described a type of leader he called “level 5 executives.” These are the people who never stop trying to become qualified for the job of being CEO. They find out the one or two things their company can do best and that the market needs and that the employees are passionate about delivering, and then they have the guts to say, “That’s all we’re going to do.” Level 5 executives are the type of leaders who can take a company from good to great because they channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. It’s not that these leaders don’t have self-interest; on the contrary, most leaders are incredibly ambitious, but level 5 executives think about creating enduring greatness for the company, not themselves. They downplay their role as top executives and put the spotlight on the company as the embodiment of their own dreams. For level 5 executives, finding the right path means doing what’s best for the company. The example I like best is Darwin Smith, who became the chief executive at Kimberly-Clark. When Smith took over in 1971, the company’s stock had fallen 36% behind the general market over the previous 20 years. Yet Smith turned Kimberly-Clark into the leading paper-based consumer product company in the world. How? By doing what was best for the company, not what would he thought would make him great. Today, a lot of people know Kimberly-Clark but they never heard of Darwin Smith. To be a great leader, you have to put your ego on the side. Dream for the company, because a company can’t dream on its own. Use your personal will and intelligence to see the overall vision and passion for the company and its big dream. See yourself as a steward who stands between people who need what the company can provide and people who need to earn money while they work there. It takes a very mature leader to dream for a company instead of yourself. Do Something! DEFINE YOUR “PERFECT DAY” Lyn Christian, master coach and CEO of Soul Salt, Inc., has trained hundreds of coaches across five countries. Her “Perfect Day” exercise will help you uncover or rediscover your dreams and take concrete steps toward bringing them to life. “Dreams can’t come true unless you take time to really dream,” Lyn says. “Too often, we get in a churn-and-burn mode. We forget to stop and ask, ‘If I could have my life just the way I want it, what would it look like?’ Allow yourself to stop and dream for a few minutes, and you can have exactly what you want.” Click here to download Lyn’s “Perfect Day” exercise. Quote of the Month “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” — Mark Twain 
Walk the talk and wear the talk.
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Winn Claybaugh’s Be Nice (Or Else!) The Newsletter! |