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PASS OR FAIL?
 Hi Everyone,
I don’t know about you, but I’ve found that on many days it’s easier to smile at total strangers than to smile at that person at home. However, I’ve learned that if I want better relationships with my family and friends, I need to practice every day with total strangers. The curriculum I’ve designed for myself categorizes my experiences with others as either a “pass” or a “fail.” Here’s how it works.
Imagine that you come across 50 people a day, including strangers in the parking lot, waitresses at restaurants, bank tellers, and drivers in traffic. You pass when you smile at that stranger in the parking lot, wish someone on the elevator a nice day, go out of your way to cheer up a grumpy waitress, or choose not to react when a driver flips you off. You fail when you come across those strangers in the parking lot or elevator and do absolutely nothing. You fail when that waitress has a worse day after her experience with you.
Several years ago, I was riding in a taxi with a horrible driver. He was weaving in and out of different lanes, honking and yelling at other drivers, and cutting people off. Finally, I yelled, “Quit driving like a maniac! Slow down, and get me to my hotel safely.” Was my response a pass or a fail? Definitely a pass!
Improving your relationships and learning to be a decent, nice person doesn’t mean letting people walk all over you while you bite your tongue. Unconditional love doesn’t mean unconditional abuse. Had I said nothing to the driver, I wouldn’t have been honoring the most important relationship I have: my relationship with myself. Had I physically or verbally attacked him, that would also be a fail. Instead, I used a technique I call “clearing” with him (you’ll learn how in this month’s Do Something article). In my book, that’s definitely a pass.
If you want better relationships with your family and friends, you need to practice all day, every day, with total strangers. So, which will it be—pass or fail?
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!
On December 14, 2005, page A-1 of the San Francisco Chronicle reported a highly unusual and very nice story. It’s circulating around the Internet, and I wanted to share it with you. The daring volunteers definitely earned a “pass” that day!
While migrating between the Northern California coast and Baja California, a female humpback whale became entangled in a mass of crab trap lines near the Farallon Islands, about 18 miles off the San Francisco coast. Rescuers were called to the scene and quickly realized that the only way to help would be to dive into the water and cut the ropes by hand—a very risky maneuver because one flip of the whale’s tale could easily kill someone.
 Forty-year-old James Moskito was the first diver into the water. He counted about 20 crab-pot ropes wrapped around the whale, each about 240 feet long with weights every 60 feet. They were cinched so tightly that they dug into the whale’s blubber and left visible cuts. Rope was also wrapped at least four times around the tail, back, and left front flipper; there was a line in the whale’s mouth; and at least 12 crab traps, weighing 90 pounds each, hung from the whale and pulled her downward.
“I really didn’t think we were going to be able to save it,” Moskito said. As he and three other divers worked for an hour to cut the ropes, the whale floated passively. “When I was cutting the line going through the mouth, its eye was there winking at me, watching me,” Moskito said. “It was an epic moment of my life.”
When the whale was finally freed, she began swimming around in circles. She swam to each diver, nuzzled him, and then swam to the next one. “It felt to me like it was thanking us, knowing that it was free and that we had helped it,” Moskito said.
To read the entire article, go to:
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/14/MNGNKG7Q0V1.DTL
BE NICE News
Paul Mitchell Schools Launch FUNraising Campaign
For the fifth consecutive year, Paul Mitchell Schools will spend the months of January, February, and March raising money for worthwhile causes. In the past four years, the schools have raised over $1.4 million through cut-a-thons, fashion shows, and a host of other successful “FUNraisers.” This year’s proceeds will benefit four amazing organizations:
 THE LEEZA GIBBONS MEMORY FOUNDATION provides vital education, empowerment, and energy programming to an ever growing population of family caregivers and resources for those newly diagnosed with chronic illnesses through its intimate, community-centered Leeza’s Place locations.
THE LARRY KING CARDIAC FOUNDATION provides funding for lifesaving treatment for individuals who, due to limited means or no insurance, would otherwise be unable to receive the treatment and care they so desperately need.
FOOD 4 AFRICA strives to supply at least one vitamin- and mineral-enriched meal each day to the children of South Africa, where more than a million preschool children do not receive sufficient food.
THE ANDREW GOMEZ DREAM FOUNDATION provides new salon professionals with educational experiences they probably would not otherwise have for many years to come and helps disadvantaged or hard-hit cosmetologists and cosmetology-related enterprises.
The campaign’s highlight will be the annual Magic of Memories dinner and auction, held April 26, 2008, at the Island Hotel in Newport Beach, California, and hosted by Leeza Gibbons, Larry King, and John Paul DeJoria.
Monthly Audio Message
Lisa Nichols
 One of the leading teachers in the hit DVD The Secret, Lisa Nichols is a dynamic international motivational speaker and powerful advocate of personal empowerment. She is the founder and CEO of Motivating the Teen Spirit, a comprehensive empowerment skills program for teen self-development. Despite being labeled “one of the worst writers” by her English teacher, Lisa landed two major book publishing deals with the bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul series. She has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, and as an expert life coach on NBC’s hit show, Starting Over.
Lisa’s highly sought after, no-holds-barred messages are delivered with powerful intensity as she connects with employees of major corporations, members of empowerment groups, entrepreneurs, small business owners, educators, teens, and anyone who attends her presentations.
 CLICK HERE for Lisa’s candid MASTERS interview with Susie Fields, Executive Director of Salon Training International. Find out how to live a life of abundance, overcome fear storms, and create a strong team.
If you enjoyed this month’s audio message, you’ll love our MASTERS Audio Club. CLICK HERE for more information.
People Profile
Kim Garcia
Wanting to make a difference in the world, 22-year-old Kim Garcia researched nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and discovered Vidya, an NGO serving women and underprivileged children in India. She volunteered to spend two months with the organization and sold nearly everything she owned to raise money for the trip.
 Kim spent last February and March teaching health, basic nutrition, and first aid in the shanty towns of Delhi. “You can see opulence and extreme devastation within the same minute,” she said. “You can look at a high-rise building and a woman essentially dying, sitting out in front of it with a baby, begging for change. The women get water from a hand-pumped well. The water leading into it is where they tie up goats, and pigs run through. The alleys are lined with garbage, and people used a hole in the alley as a toilet. When I gave a lecture at the school, children sat in the corner eating dirt and playing with towels because they had no toys.”
 Despite the deplorable living conditions, Kim says the experience changed her entire outlook on life and she has become a tireless advocate for change. “The first world is encouraging the problems in the third world,” she says. “We tend to exploit their poverty. We use women in shanty towns to test drugs. We sell our garbage to them so they can house toxic materials for us. All of these things are affected by the choices we make as consumers.” Kim suggests three ways to help bring about change:
- Think about how your product purchases affect other people. For example, you may choose to buy organic products from your local farmer’s market and support local businesses rather than buying from multinational corporations that exploit poorer workers.
 Buy products that carry the Fair Trade label. It indicates the manufacturer’s compliance with Fair Trade criteria such as fair price, fair labor conditions, direct trade, and environmental sustainability. Fair Trade certification is currently available in the U.S. for coffee, tea, herbs, cocoa, chocolate, fresh fruit, sugar, rice, and vanilla.
- Donate to organizations that make a difference.
Corporate Corner
Start a Be Nice Or Else Team
 After reading Be Nice (Or Else!), school owner Tina Black decided to form Be Nice Or Else Teams in her two Michigan-based Paul Mitchell schools. “It’s as critical as having a Design Team or Student Council,” she said. “It’s what we are all about.” Tina’s teams have helped other schools form teams, and one of her students leads a monthly national conference call for all the teams in their network.
Winn Claybaugh says, “There’s only one reason to start something like this: to find a cause, raise money, and make a difference. For more than 20 years, my companies have gotten involved in all sorts of different causes and charities, including AIDS, breast cancer research, mental health, homelessness, firefighters, battered women, abused children, the elderly, the 9/11 tragedy, leukemia, and more. Some of them were causes that I personally am passionate about, so I rallied up my team to help me make a difference. But the majority of our philanthropic pursuits were the causes and charities that individual staff members were passionate about.”
To start a Be Nice Or Else Team in your workplace, school, religious organization, or even your family, follow these steps.
- Read Be Nice (Or Else!)
- Recruit members and set some guidelines. When, where, and how often will you meet? Will you have a leader? Are there any limits on the size of your group?
- Download the Be Nice posters. Get permission from your company to display the posters that support your message.
- Get your team together and decide what you’re passionate about. Then ask, “What do we do? How can we make a difference?” Your projects can be as simple as spending one Sunday a month at a nearby retirement home or as elaborate as setting aside three months a year to raise money for worthwhile organizations.
“Some organizations get together just for fun, or they hold fundraisers solely to support their own activities,” Winn says. “To have a club that doesn’t have an outlet, that doesn’t do something, just doesn’t make sense to me. When you identify something you’re passionate about, you have an outlet for forming a Be Nice Or Else Team.”
Do Something!
Let’s Be Clear
I used to believe that if I had a grievance, an opposing opinion, or a legitimate complaint with someone, I had to bite my tongue in order to be perceived as a nice guy. On those rare occasions when I chose to tell the person how they’d wronged me, I felt as though I was attacking them. In long-term relationships, you’re going to have disagreements and do the wrong thing on occasion. To make sure your relationships grow and flourish, you need to practice being clear with people. Here are some guidelines.
- Keep It Between the Two of You: In the small confines of a family home, you must be aware of all your words, actions, moods, and attitudes, because every other family member could easily be placed in awkward and uncomfortable positions trying to keep peace and harmony.
- Always Clear Privately: One-on-one feels like communication from a friend and loved one. Two-on-one feels like a firing squad.
- Stick to the Facts: Only share with the person the actions and words that upset or hurt you. Let’s say the person said something mean or unflattering about you at a party. Simply describe how you felt when you heard their comments.
- Focus on Your Desired End Result: Decide in advance how the best possible outcome would look and feel. Imagine the two of you talking it through, confirming your love and appreciation for each other, and ending the chat with a hug.
- It’s Never Too Late. Perhaps you didn’t have a chance to clean things up with someone before that person died. That doesn’t mean you can’t do the work now. Journaling and letter writing are two powerful exercises for expressing thoughts, beliefs, and intentions of the heart. If one person (you) decides to heal and mend a relationship, the other person doesn’t have to participate. In fact, even if the other person decides not to participate, the work that you do to make your apologies, forgive that person, forgive yourself, and express your love and gratitude can be all that is required to proclaim, That relationship is healed. I can now move forward with peace, love, and resolve.
Quote of the Month
“Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor . . . Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.”
— Mother Teresa
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