What can five smart women do?

I'm about to embark upon a journey with four other women.

It all started after I read The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris, and then The One Minute Millionaire by Hansen & Allen.

It seems that if these two systems could be synthesized, you'd have yourself a perfect system.

Both books are wonderful and horrible. Timothy Ferris could be the perfect genius or the perfect asshole. And if you read the reviews of One Minute Millionaire, one of the biggest criticisms is how they can brag about how ethical their questionable methods are.

I won't give you a detailed summary of each book. Rather, I'm going to identify the points that for me are the most compelling.

In the 4-Hour Work Week, Ferris illustrates the following points:

The most successful people do what they do best, and that's all they do. They don't file, they don't often run menial errands, and so on. Those of us who have been on the bottom rung think this is elitism. But think of it a different way. Those of us who splinter our time between work, family, errands, housework, hobbies, and so on never get really far on any one thing. Even at work, if we have to do a multitude of tasks that divert us from our core purpose (the reason we were hired), we're not going to be as good as we would be if we could devote 100% of our energies to our core purpose.

Two techniques he uses are following the 80/20 principle religiously and outsourcing everything in his life that he doesn't have to do or doesn't want to do.

In The One Minute Millionaire, Hansen & Allen illustrate the following points:

It is far more effective to build wealth through partnerships than to go it alone. When two people with common goals come together, you don't get twice the impact - you might get 4 or 5 times the impact. There are synergies. Both brings their strengths and ideas to the table. And you also get the power of combined & leveraged capital. And of course, you get access to each other's rolodexes, so your networking & connections capacity explodes exponentially. In the book, I believe they formed a group of 4 or 5 people.

When you are in it to do more than just build wealth, and are in it with a higher purpose, the Universe, God, the Divine, etc. is on your side, and again, everything is multiplied exponentially. You get more and better ideas, opportunities open up, your intuition works better, and so on.

So I was talking with a colleague about how much easier it is for rich people to launch their philanthropic ideas. Sure, you can do it without money - you fundraise, you submit grant proposals, you hustle . . . it's a very common way for the common person to launch a cause.

Because we work in a social services nonprofit, we can't help noticing something:

People with good ideas are a dime a dozen. Most of them fall into the "Somebody oughta . . . " category, but there are a few gems who actually work their butts off and get their ideas launched. But for every one who launches a good idea, there are at least 50 people who run into road blocks. They can't find other people who believe in their ideas, or they can't raise enough initial money to get the idea started. Often, good ideas fizzle out because they're just another good idea.

People with a lot of money and good ideas are another story. Where we work, if one of our very wealthy donors comes in with an idea, they also come in with some money to launch it. The success rate is very, very high. Most of our city's very best philanthropic programs came about because someone with money saw the need.

Well, my colleague has grand visions about some societal ills she would like to see addressed.

And as for me, my daughter has been talking for three years - yes, THREE years - about the orphanage she is going to run when she grows up. She's only seven years old, but she's been talking about this in great detail for three years - what the kids will eat, how they'll each get a present for their birthday, how she's going to have a HUGE bed so that the children who are scared can crawl in with her to sleep, etc.

So I proposed the idea to a colleague of mine that we join forces and explore wealth-building. Neither one of us have much to start with, except that we're out of debt and we're employed. I have the advantage of co-owning a home, and being in a marriage that provides another income. (Well, he's worth a lot more than that, but that's another post.) She has the advantage of having access to some immediate capital.

We decided that our first goal was to make ourselves financially independent, meaning that we don't have to work full-time to live, basically. Then we'll turn our attention to building wealth for our causes.

We decided to invite three other women to join us. We're having dinner together next week to talk about the vision and mission of this group. We selected the other three women very carefully. The three criteria were: 1) They had to have some philanthropic visions of their own, 2) They believed in a higher power - God, the Divine, whatever, and 3) We like them.

They each bring talents & skills - one of them is a real estate agent who also has her facilitations certificate and her conflict resolution certificate, the other is a top-notch admin support person who is very close to getting her Communications degree, and the third woman - well, I don't know her that well except that she's sharp, smart, funny, and kind.

Anyway, this ought to be a good adventure, or at very least, a learning experience!

Corteo - Cirque du Soleil

Last night my daughter & I saw the magical Cirque du Soleil during one of their final Calgary performances.

My daughter's favourite was when the charming Valentyna Paylevanyan performed the helium dance, which is almost something you have to witness in person to believe.

Although the entire show was intense and magnificent, as Cirque always is, I must confess that I enjoyed the bouncing beds acts - I think it's everyone's fantasy to be able to jump on their beds like that!

License to blog

One really ought to have a license for the privilege of blogging.

Take this blog, for instance. This blog would never make it past the application desk. It's totally disjointed - the only continuity in the whole work is the scatterbrained topic-jumping. Oh, and the self-absorbtion. (Absorption?)

The posts are far too infrequent. Most of them are too long. And they're pretty much all about me.

On the other hand, since I'm quite secure in the fact that nobody actually reads this blog, I feel unencumbered by the notion of editorial & judgemental readers. Augusten Burroughs wrote that writers ought to be able to pick their readers. One way to sidestep the problem of pain-in-the-ass readers is to ensure nobody is reading my writing.

Yet, I'm still beleaguered by the notion that I should write something that someone, anyone, other than myself would be interested in reading.

I've started four other topical blogs, but as my interests ebb & blow like the wind, the blogs are abandoned when my interest fades.

It seems the only thing I'm interested in over the long term is myself.

I should work on that.

Somewhere in India, a woman named Lisa wants a hamburger.

It's been too long since I've blogged. I seem to be the queen of launching blogs and abandoning them. Thank goodness I don't parent this way!

Two things:

1) I said in one of my first posts that I have a way of becoming very passionate about a new interest, delving into it 110%, then dumping it like a hot potato for something else. I used to think it was a character flaw, but I'm finally beginning to see that it's just a thing about me, and it's okay. After all, my fleeting passions are always very harmless, and always very fulfilling during my entrenchment in them.

For instance, within the past several years, I've been extremely focused on the following, but only one at a time:

- rubber stamping & card making
- scrapbooking
- tarot cards
- breadmaking
- gardening (this one lasted about a week)
- Flylady (see www.flylady.com for info on what this is)
- walking
- running
- sewing
- shoes
- painting
- retro furniture
- vintage clothing
- dieting/weight loss (I keep coming back to this one)
- particular genres of literature
- blogging (I thought this one should get a laugh.)

So what am I into now?

It began with head coverings. I was momentarily curious about how Muslim women wore their hijabs, so I had a few minutes between things at work, so I googled it. Well, this led me to website after website of extremely fascinating things. There are very conservative hijabs, very elegant and ornate hijabs, very cute & youthful hijabs, and a whole array of accessories from under-hijab headcovers to hijab pins.

This led me to modesty websites - yes, they exist! They're predominantly for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim women.

Then I meandered over to the Jewish sites. I watched a video demonstrating 6 ways to tie a headscarf (tichel), I saw all kinds of snoods and caps, and read articles on why married Jewish women should cover their hair.

And then I bought 5 scarves and 3 snoods.

Here are the snoods I bought: SNOODS

Then I began to look at modest clothing, and I became quite excited. If you know me personally, you know I don't have an easy-to-fit body. I'm tall and I tend to carry my weight in my belly. I have a very square figure. The cute empire waist shirts du jour really don't flatter me - they make me look pregnant. And I really, really need a top to go at least as low as my crotch. If they hit anywhere higher, they jut out at the belly.

Most women's tops at the Muslim sites seem to do just that - they go down nice & low . . .

Which somehow led me to Kurta sites, which are Indian tunics. To see what I mean, go here: KURTI-BLOUSES

And of course, this led me to SALWAR KAMEEZ, which I think is an absolutely beautiful way of dressing.

Which led me to SHOES! With shoes like these, who would be looking at my belly anyway? Check these out: KHUSSA SHOES

Well, then I had to get back to work. But at home for the next few days, I feverishly raked through all kinds of websites and have decided that I need to incorporate some of these elements into my style. Clearly the clothes I want and need are not available off the rack at Sears - ha ha . . .

Which brings me to the title of this blog post.

My name is Chandra, which is a Sanskrit name, and in India, is often all or part of a surname. I knew in my heart that I was a vegetarian before I even knew there was a word for such a thing. My favorite cuisine has been Indian cuisine for most of my life.

(Sideline to brag - two weeks ago, I made naan for the very first time, and last week I made rockin' eggplant bartha. I love me!)

I was born in a small town in northwest Ohio. What the hell is all this about, anyway? One might say I just want attention or I want to be exotic and different and sophisticated - sure, I've wanted those things for my whole Caucasion, Midwestern life.

But these are the real reasons. The real reasons are:

I think most non-Caucasion (for lack of a better word) cuisines totally leave White People food in the dust.

I think most non-Western forms of dress are far more beautiful than the stuff we're expected to buy and wear. Even a plain abaya has a sweeping grace that a typical ladies office outfit can never achieve.

I think revealing styles aren't that attractive. I don't like seeing a woman's leg almost all the way up to her tochus. I don't even like seeing most women's upper arms. I don't like those sleeveless things that allow us to see right into their armpits.

Of course, I believe that attire is a matter of choice, so I would certainly never want society to go all Taliban and demand the complete invisibility of women. I'm merely commenting on my own personal preferences.

So I figure my soul was switched at birth.

Somewhere in India, a woman was born in 1963, and her parents named her Lisa because it seemed hip and exotic. (Lisa was the most common girl baby name in the U.S. in 1963, the year I was born.) And in a small town in Ohio, some American parents felt the same way about the name "Chandra."

Chandra wouldn't eat her meat on her plate, and tried to live on side dishes. Lisa pushed the dal away and demanded a hamburger. Chandra wore long skirts in high school and went through a period where she refused to wear makeup. Her parents worried about her. Lisa insisted on wearing jeans and lipstick. Her parents worried about her.

I wonder if Lisa ever made it to the States.

Okay, that's the first topic. (Remember way at the beginning of this post when I said I was going to cover 2 topics?)

2) It's time for a gratitude check. I'd like to list 10 things I'm extremely grateful for.

Not necessarily in order, but here we go:

1. My daughter. (I'm tempted to list this 10 times.)
2. My health
3. We have plenty of food, and we have access to more food.
4. In this time of rising fuel costs, I can still put gas in my car and go places.
5. We have hot and cold running water. Man, doesn't that make life a breeze! When I start to focus on life's little inconveniences, I imagine what it must be like for people who have to carry water for drinking, cooking, washing, etc. And the water might not even be clean.
6. I live in a country where I can wear what I want. I could wear a burqa if I wanted to. But it would be my choice. No law says I must wear one. I can also wear a bikini (although it wouldn't be pretty) if I wanted to.
7. My husband. He's my best friend and buddy. And he makes really good coffee.
8. Really good coffee. I grew up in an era and a place where nobody knew the difference. We drank instant, fer cryin' out loud. Once you've had freshly ground, really good coffee, you never want to go back.
9. My mobility. I'm feeling the creep of age and severe lack of fitness catch up with me. I need to be grateful for the mobility I have, AND I need to maximize that.
10. My family. Both my side and my husband's. We're very lucky in the family department.

That's it for now.

It seems like it works.

This law of attraction thing seems to work. I've known about it for almost three years, but it's only in the past several months that I've set about to use it purposely.

I bought a small blank book to write in every time I notice it in action in my life, but I always forget to write in it. But here are some recent things off the top of my head:

1. We traveled to Ohio for the holidays. Expecting to lose a piece of luggage during the complicated layover that involved un-checking our luggage and re-checking it at Customs, I packed accordingly, putting a little bit of everything in each suitcase so that if even if we only got one piece at the other end, we'd all have clean underclothes and something to wear the next day. Eric, however, packed most of his stuff in one suitcase, and fretted the entire first leg about our luggage. That was the piece that was lost.

2. Christmas is the busiest time of year for people in the airline industry. Eric was certain the suitcase was gone for good. His theory is that if it doesn't turn up within the first 24 hours, the odds of finding it are pretty slim. And even if they did find it, they'd have to ship it to Detroit (our final destination) and then somehow we'd have to drive the 2 hrs back to the damned airport, because who was going to deliver it this close to Christmas?

So my sister, her daughter-in-law, and I set about to attract it to us before Christmas. I expressed profound gratitude for having made the journey safely, and then I expressed gratitude for the four pieces of luggage that did arrive. Then I expressed the intention that the missing suitcase should arrive on Christmas Eve.

It did. At 9:30 a.m. on December 24, a driver from the airport knocked on my father's door, bearing the suitcase.

3. Duirng our hectic two weeks in which we traveled back & forth from Ontario, Michigan, and Ohio visiting friends, we managed to see everyone we intended to see and eat what we intended to eat and shop successfully for everything we wanted and to experience everything we wanted to experience.

4. More generally, whenever I remember to attract a parking place before I go somewhere, I always have one. (I often forget to start attracting it until I arrive, and it's too late.)

5. We've reached the breaking point with this house. I decided to attract a better house. Coincidentally, a former colleague & friend reappeared in my life - she's now a mortgage broker. I had coffee with her, and we decided that in 2008, we would do business with her. At first we talked about moving, but Eric really wants to stay in this neighbourhood. So now we have to attract a renovation. It's more than just the money. We have to attract an architect who can help us clarify our vision, and bring wonderful ideas to us as well. We also have to attract a reputable contractor.

So what do I want to work on attracting this year?

I've decided that my two hobbies in 2008 will be health & wealth. Very specifically, I want to be able to run. And I want to grow our wealth while learning to protect the wealth we have.

In the past, I've thought things like "I want to lose weight" and "I don't want to be tired anymore." From now on, I will celebrate and be grateful for the health that I have and attract the initiative to maximize it.

In the past, I've thought "I wish we could get out of debt" and "I wish I were more savvy with money." From now on, I will celebrate and be grateful for the wealth that we really do have, and I will attract the confidence and skills to maximize it.

So that's my story.