Diva Maverick Mavens

Diva Maverick Mavens Video Choice Janet Jackson Runaway

I couldn't resist sharing this Classic Janet Jackson song "Runaway".

 

 

 

8 Steps to Your Inner Diva -- Diamonds and Masters

 

8 Steps to Following Your Inner Diva to Empowerment

Carbon pressurized in the earth's crust through millions of years becomes a diamond. With continuous buffing its many facets over time and with painstaking care becomes visible. Discovering your self-worth begins with learning to appreciate who you are now, just as you are now, till death do you part now, with all your imperfections now. Even the most magnificent diamonds have carbon deposits within. The journey doesn't include ridding yourself of these carbon deposits but in polishing your veneer. "Diamonds are forever." Debeers.

It was T.S. Elliot that said, "We shall not cease from exploring." If we cease exploring we no longer grow and we die. Exploring our imperfections can be a painful process until we realize that no one wants perfection. Why do collectors pay so much money for handmade originals with imperfections, museums are filled with imperfect works of art, and archaeologist happily dig in the drudge to find a piece of a vase, because they know the value of a gift made by the hands of a master. You are a gift fashioned by the master. Several years ago the Sistine Chapel went through a major restoration project. The paintings in the main gallery after many years of exposure to the environment had yellowed and darkened. The restoration was painstaking, it involved removing years of soot and layers of paint to reveal the original vivacious, celebratory vision that Michelangelo had originally intended.

In the great vastness of our corner of the Milky Way there are over 100 billion earth-like planets and in all of this there is only "one" of you. Wendell Holmes said it best, "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Upon closer inspection of a work of art you can see the masters thought process, what strokes he has taken, which direction he was planning and so it is with us. All that we are, all that we hope to be, bears closer inspection, not to scrutinize, but to be inspired by the mind of the master.

Diva Empowerment ACTION Steps:

Diva Exercises Group 1

1. Ask a group of friends and not family to write down 5 personality traits about you they admire? Then ask them to write 5 gifts they believe you possess.

2. Read these statements and put them away for a few days. You need time to digest what is written.

3. After you have waited a few days "gently and lovingly" inquire as to why your friends wrote what they did.

Diva Exercises Group 2

1. Journal about the vision you hold for your life. Do not censor yourself. Do not judge.

2. When you have retrieved the comments from your friends, in a journal write about your past experiences with the gifts and personality traits that were mentioned.

3. Next journal about what you consider to be your unique gifts and compare your friend's points to your own. Are you living an authentic life? Are you representing yourself in a way that is in harmony with the vision you are holding for your life?

4. Journal about the person you are today. Journal about who you want to be in the next 5, 10 or 15 years. Are there any incongruences in your life scripting? How can you change your present life scripting to be in harmony with your vision? What is the cost of not honoring the vision you hold of yourself?

5. Come back to your entries in a few days or a few months and do the exercises again. Repeat the exercises quarterly throughout the year. Learn to course correct until your life becomes the Diva Maverick Mavens vision you hold for yourself.

http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Angelia_Miller

Angelia Miller is the founder of Diva Maverick Mavens www.divamaverickmavens.com a new bread of feisty, non-conformist adventure loving adrenaline-high entrepreneur. The tagline is: Empowering Women by Interviewing Empowered Women...Inspiring "You" to Take ACTION! Casting exceptional dynamic talent for fresh content is the mission of Diva Maverick Mavens. Diva Empowerment Articles are written by Angelia Miller.

 

Diva Maverick Mavens Powerful Woman Quote

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say: I used everything you gave me." Erma Bombeck

Alana Winter Stiletto Spy School the Bootcamp for Bond Girls

Alana Winter of Stiletto Spy School teaches you how to get in touch with your inner Bond Girl. Through her classes you will learn Navy Seal hand to hand combat, gaming lessons, mixology lessons, martial arts, sword fighting and just about everything else and have a glamorous makeover. In Stiletto Spy School the mission is to empower women by introducing women to situations and circumstances that take them out of their comfort zones. www.stilettospyschool.com

Pictures provided on Diva Maverick Mavens are provided courtesy of Alana Winter.

Angelia Miller is the founder of Diva Maverick Mavens www.divamaverickmavens.com a new bread of feisty, non-conformist adventure loving adrenaline-high entrepreneur. The tag-line is: Empowering Women by Interviewing Empowered Women...Inspiring "You" to Take Action! Casting exceptional dynamic talent for fresh content is the mission of Diva Maverick Mavens. The interview is in the original transcript form with minimal editing to preserve the integrity of the content.

Tell me about yourself and how did you get interested this type of business?

Alana Winter

I have always been an entrepreneur and have always had varied interests. Stiletto Spy School was about a fantasy I had as a child watching the Bond movies, Emma Peale in The Avengers, and Charlies Angels. I saw all these really cool women up on the screen. The typical women icons was the homemaker or business woman but there was this subset of really sexy, tough kind of bad-ass but very feminine very glamorous women in these movies and it was something that I thought was really, really cool. In my spare time I started investigating some of the skills that these women had and thinking about it and that's where it came from. That's how I was able to get into it; it was really pure imagination.   

You've traveled to 40 countries by yourself tell me about those experiences?

Alana Winter

Even when I was little I was fascinated by the concept of the whole world being out there and I always wanted to see it. I would joke with people I just wanted to take a walk in life to all these different countries and different parts of the world. The first time I traveled by myself was right out of college. I had traveled some with my family but graduating from college I was talking to one of my girl friends and she said hey do you like the Rolling Stones. I said yes. She said great I've got a ticket for you for this concert and I said wait your in Paris and I'm in Connecticut where is the concert? She said oh it's in Paris and you've got 10 days to get here so I called my parents and told them I figured out what I wanted for graduation a plane ticket to Paris. The next thing I knew I was off on a plane flying off the Paris by myself. I got off the plane and discovered her Dad was there to pick me up because she had gone off traveling so I was literally alone. I took a deep breath and knew I had to figure out the language and where I needed to go. It was really quite an experience because I was nervous and anxious but tested. I had to learn to adapt and get by in situations and I discovered that I just loved doing that.

You make an important point, you feel those impulses of nervousness but yet you were able to conquer that love enough to pursue your desire to go to Paris. What kind of advice can you give to women who feel the nervousness but will not "Act" on what it is they want. 

Alana Winter

I think that, that happens to all of us all the time. I think what is important is looking inside and knowing what your core values are and what you want rather than getting caught up in a specific role or circumstance. It's actually much easier to "Act" when you are tied into your core values. My values at that time was curiosity and wanting to understand the world around me and all the different cultures that make up the world.  Knowing how much I wanted to achieve my core values it helped me to get over the nervousness and be in that situation and achieve the goals I had for myself. I think that, that applies to everything whether you are running a business or going for a job interview or traveling off to Europe by yourself.

What was your second trip that you took alone?

Alana Winter

I was with my friend in Paris and I had another friend who was in Amsterdam and I was going to be traveling up to Amsterdam to see her and I was also going to spending a day alone. My friend in Paris put me on the train in Paris and again I was kind of nervous. She told the conductor, like I was a little to kid, to make sure I got off the train at the right stop. 

During your solo travels abroad how did you contend with the issue of safety? Was there ever a situation where you were concerned?

Alana Winter

I think it's about listening and following your instincts. I think it's very important to be very aware of the surrounding your in and the culture your in and to fit in with that culture. I mean if you are going off to Morocco by yourself yes, you can wear a mini skirt in Marrakesh but come on the local women aren't so why would you do that, come on. You can were your mini skirt at home or is San Tropez. You don't need to wear it in Marrakesh. I think it's important to fit in with the local culture in terms of dress and in terms of behavior. It's very easy to say I'm an American woman and I can look men in the eye and I can be aggressive but maybe that's not the way women act in different cultures so I think that is a hugh part of keeping safe. If I'm in a foreign country I don't go out to a bar by myself. I really conscious and I follow what the locals say are the neighborhoods that are safe to walk through. I'm looking around at people. Looking to the eyes of people around you and gaging what's going on and taking in the action, the atmosphere and all the clues that are there that we sometimes don't pay as much attention too. Did I ever have a concern for safety only once. I was in a taxi in Bangkok and the taxi driver started to get a little bit crazy and started driving in the wrong direction. One other tip actually is really know where you are going. Make sure you find out so if you get into a taxi you know if they are going in the wrong direction or not. Get a map and study it and have the hotel or the local people really give you an explanation. Once I realized we were going in wrong direction, I hung out the window screaming at the top of my lungs and he finally pulled over and got out of the car. He pulled a crowbar out and I saw it out of the corner of my eye and ducked. I got the license plate and called the police; they were amazing and in Bangkok which is a crazy city. They tracked the guy and he was arrested they called me back to go to court and they really took care of it; they don't stand for foreigners being messed with. That was the only time I had any safety issues when I was traveling.  

You started a business in Australia, tell us about your experiences in Australia?

Alana Winter

That was really a funny story about the accidental business. I had gone to Southeast Asia and I was going to go for just 6 weeks. I was going to visit some friends in the Philippines and then I decided I wanted to travel around noticing all these other amazing countries. I went to buy my ticket from the travel agent who said yeah, 6 weeks. I selling you this ticket that's open for a year of travel and it was a couple of hundred dollars more. I said yeah but I don't want to go want to spend a couple of hundred dollars more. I don't need a ticket that's good for a year of travel and the travel agent looked at me and said your not coming back in 6 weeks and I'm not going to sell you a ticket that's good for 6 weeks. I bought the ticket because I wanted to leave the next day and I wasn't that happy about it so "p.s." I start traveling and I get on a plane and I land in Denpasar, Bali at midnight by myself. There are only a few other people on the plane.  I start talking to this other woman on this plane and she asks me where am I going I tell her I don't know and she says well who are you staying with and I say well I don't know. Your landing at midnight and you don't have a plan and I'm like not really. She says, "Oh my God. Stay with me and I'll introduce you to everybody here and it turns out that she went to Bali regularly and knew all the ex-pat business owners. We stayed up all night long. It was amazing and I met all these incredible creative people from all over who were doing amazing businesses in Bali so instead of staying for a couple of days I wound up staying for weeks because it's such an amazing culture and people were doing incredible things. I realized that you could only stay in Indonesia for 2 months and I wanted to come back. What was I going to do? There's all this cool stuff so I work with this and I'll sell it some place and I'll make some stuff and sell it some place. I looked on the map and Australia was the closest place I could go to and sell stuff. I worked on designing a line of costume jewelry and beautiful belts with hand crafted belt buckles etcetera. I mailed samples and then flew off to Australia. I met some people the night before that gave me some addresses of their friends and I went and rang the doorbell and they took me in and suddenly I was in Perth, Australia. I rented a car and was driving around taking orders for the stuff I had created. It was great. It was challenging. It was amazing in every way seeing a culture from the aspect of not being a tourist but working within the culture was absolutely fascinating. I had to learn business over there. Why people would want to buy things? What approach works best there? You know you can't go in with the same approach on selling you would use at home. It was a great learning experience and it was really fun. I went to Sydney and sold to some shops and even the difference between Sydney and Perth was enormous.

What was the biggest difference between Australian and American business?

Alana Winter

Australia is so much more laid back. I from New York and everything is boom boom get to the point. In Australia, people really wanted to hear the back story. I realized that people were fascinated when I told them I was from New York so that added to the cache of the designs and they wanted to talk about that. I guess slowing down some was the biggest difference.

You've had many different kinds of businesses. What type of personality does it take to make it as an entrepreneur?

Alana Winter

I think that the general personality of being an entrepreneur is a lot of determination, preservation and mixed with a bit of insanity, ADD and openness to change. Being able to run a lot of different businesses it's about being able to see opportunities but listen to what people are saying or wanting and understanding how markets function. Even as I said in the business in Australia learning to be adaptable which is a skill we need even if we are not in business. It's a skill that you use in many areas of your life. Adaptability is crucial to run any business let alone many types of businesses.  

How many of your businesses have had a creative vent to them?

Alana Winter

I think that all business is creative. I don't care if you are making paper clips. You've got to be creative in your marketing approach. You got to be creative in why you make it a great place to work for your staff. You know there is the creativity that we see where somebody is artistic or as I was working with people on the jewelry design or even creating the Stiletto Spy School which is really outwardly creative but I think all business is creative or it doesn't survive.   

There are some businesses that are traditional and some businesses that are non-traditional. Tell me more the Spy School. 

Alana Winter

We have so many different components to the spy school. I'm always working with developing new course work and creating new things for the school to do. I spent the morning with a woman who works with breath control and hypnosis and figuring how we could tie that into the spy school. If we think about any of the Icons or say James Bond...you know it's about knowing just enough about everything to be able to handle just about anything. Everything is fair game for spy school. I try to focus on what skills we can narrow in a 2 or 3 hour segment that we can give you a real taste of that skill. We can give you a take away value, a since of accomplishment and achievement that has greater life lessons. I think that all of these things are about pushing our limits and doing something that is outside the limits that we ordinarily do. They are really cool skills to learn. As one of the girls said, "Some of which you hope you'll never have to use and some of which you will be very happy to use. Whether it's a McGuyver survival skill of learning to live out of your purse or mixing a Martini or Swat team training. We work with Israeli Special Ops and we get into the full gear and we do Swat team training and we learn trip wires, lasers, night vision goggles, how to clear a room, how to rescue a hostage, poker lesson and Navy Seals close quarters hand to hand training.   

How did you actually get the idea and the impulse that maybe this might actually work?

Alana Winter

I was sitting with a friend of mine and we had just finished watching a Bond movie. I turned to her and said it's too bad there isn't a place where we could go for the weekend and learn all these cool things like a little boot camp. She turned to me and said, "Wow that's a really cool idea. I'd like to go to that." I thought that, that was just my thing. She said, "No. no. I'd love to do that." She actually called me really early the next day and she said, "I was serious. I would really, really like to do that." I thought that was interesting and I started asking every woman I know and basically they said yeah I'd wanna go sign up for that. From my 10 year old niece to my friends eighty year old Mom whose eyes lit up and she said can I go too. I thought maybe there really is something here so that was the flash.    

What types of women actually sign up for your classes?

Alana Winter

It's really mixed and that's what I love most about it. It would have been easy to only make this for girls in their 20's and in amazing shape but what really drives me is that it should be for every woman. Every woman has an inner Bond Girl. Every woman can be strong and sexy and I don't care whether your 18 or 80 so women that come to our classes are women in their twenties through sixties. Half of them are married and half of them are single. Some of them tend to be adventurous. I've also had women who come to the class because their husbands or boyfriends bought the class as a gift and these women aren't terribly adventurous and this is really pushing into challenging territory for them. I love it when they come in and go through the day and really emerged transformed knowing that they've done all these things thinking never in a million years could they do all these things. And that's really cool to see. What's really neat also is that women of such different backgrounds, such different age ranges, some that are housewives and some that are major entrepreneurs that run large companies, that they can bond together at the end of the day and find similarities and share a common language together. It's a great mix of women.     

What types of relationships are they forming at the end of this experience?

Alana Winter

Just a few days ago I was with a woman from Albany who had been in a program that I had in September and she mentioned that next week she a meeting former graduates from Dallas and Arizona in San Francisco. I was really surprised. She said, "You didn't realize that we all keep in touch?" I said I had no idea these women were traveling around and meeting in different cities every couple of months as a result of meeting at Stiletto Spy School. It's really, really cool the bonds that are formed. At the end of every class I send something around to all the women so that they have the contact information of all the women that were in the class. One of the women wrote and this is on my website, " I now have friends that can cover my back all over the country." I love that quote and I love the idea that they are the Stiletto Sisters from all around the country. You never know and it's like the secret handshake. The women who have been trained in hand-to-hand combat, who has been trained in poker a woman that could take down the house and you'd never know as she sits their elegantly in her black dress sipping a cappuccino but they know who they are.    

With a business that is unconventional, what has been your biggest obstacle?

Alana Winter

As with all of my businesses, my biggest obstacle has been in finding the right people and building a team.

How do you alleviate stress?

Alana Winter

It's always about stress and the balance in our lives and ideally we would find that balance on a daily basis. I do my stretching and my breathing techniques that I have learned through some of these classes which are incredibly helpful. I go and spend some time with friends and make a Martini before I go to spy school classes. Some of the stuff we do like practicing some of the fighting techniques that we tie into breathing are great stress relievers. I power walk and try to remember why I doing it all.

What advice would you give to women who want to open a business as unusual as yours?

Alana Winter

It's really, really important to follow your dreams. It's important to have your dream thought out. You need to have an idea that is really grounded and do your homework to know where you are going and why. And that is important for so many reasons. You are going to have people tell you that you are crazy and that it can't work. You have to have a back up to know why it can work. You have to know when your fighting windmills and when you have an idea that's so unusual that will work. Sometimes people just can't see it and you have to have this homework to draw on when other people tell you, your crazy. Have a network of people that you can count on. People have the idea that networking is connecting with all these random people on Link-din that they don't even know and so there in there quote unquote network or they go to some networking event and it's a shower of business cards. I've got your business cards and your in my rolodex. That's not a network; that's the yellow pages. A network is a group of people that you really have a connection with. It's so important to have fewer people in that network but deeper connections to really reach out and help those people and that's how you build your network. Have a network of people who are bold and courageous and doing interesting things. I've had really cool women find me on facebook and write to me and I solute these women. They tell me I'm doing something that's really unusual or I'm writing these books, or I'm giving these seminars and I see what your doing can we meet for a cup of coffee. I'll go and we'll meet and their bold and dynamic also and that's fabulous to have that network of other women you believe in each other and can offer support to each other.

Is there any other advice you would like to share?

Alana Winter

We can all take ourselves just a little too seriously. We have to put things in perspective. I was a very serious child and I was about 10 or 11 and I went to my Dad. I asked him what is the meaning of life? Why are we here? What's this all about? What am I supposed to do in life? I just remember he looked down at me and said oh, honey that's simple. There's a simple answer to all of this. I was having an existential crisis at 10 or 11. He said there is one reason for all of life there is only one thing you've got to remember and only one thing you have to do. He looked at me and said just remember you only here to have a good time and that's it. 

Anything else you want to share about the Stiletto Spy School?

Alana Winter

It's fricking fabulous. Come and sign up. It's just so much fun. 

If you want to listen to the entire interview, please visit the Adrenaline Living archives  at http://www.divamaverickmavens.com/main/podcast.html. 

Stephany Alexander Woman Savers "Research & Rate B4 U Date"

What do Kim Khardashian and Maria Shriver have in common...Stephany Alexander founder of Woman Savers, and author of "Sex, Lies and the Internet", has been the leader in on line men's database ratings since 2003, making us the first and most established of its kind. If only there were a way you could talk to men's exes BEFORE you got involved and be able screen your dates free and easily. Well, now you can "Research & Rate B4 U Date" to promote safer dating worldwide. Millions of women have posted their experiences networking together to help women worldwide avoid dating alleged cheating men, lying men or abusive men. Website: www.womansavers.com

Pictures provided on Diva Maverick Mavens website are courtesy of Stephany Alexander.

Angelia Miller is the founder of Diva Maverick Mavens www.divamaverickmavens.com a new bread of feisty, non-conformist adventure loving adrenaline-high entrepreneur. The tag-line is: Empowering Women by Interviewing Empowered Women...Inspiring "You" to Take Action! Casting exceptional dynamic talent for fresh content is the mission of Diva Maverick Mavens. The interview is in the original transcript form with minimal editing to preserve the integrity of the content.

Tell me about your background and how did you start Woman Savers?

Stephany Alexander

I started Woman Savers in 2002. I have experienced all forms of abuse: emotional, physical, sexual and verbal throughout the years. I experienced sexual abuse as a child and then emotional and physical abuse in college. I was date-raped; thereafter, I had to file a restraining order against somebody I was dating. And then I started internet dating and then I had a series of very bad on line dating experiences where people completely misrepresented themselves completely and wasted my time. I then actually met someone through an associate I knew and was involved with him for 3 years and then we had a bad breakup. I was living in New York City at the time and I thought wouldn't it have been great if I would have had the opportunity to speak to one of their ex's before moving so fast, putting my heart on a platter and basically uprooting and changing my entire life. I came up with the idea of Woman Savers and it works like this if you date someone you can put your experience on the website be it positive or negative and if another woman has contact with that guy she can contact the author and ask what was that guy like with you. It's like a little black book but now its gone to the internet and it's now internationally accessible.

What was the actual moment when you went from being a victim to being a victor?

Stephany Alexander

When I started helping other women, I started healing. It's a magical thing. What it does is put your situation into perspective because there is always a person out there who has it worse. When I started reading some of the stories of abuse on my website and started guiding them, I couldn't believe what I was reading. I was reading stories of women whose dates molested their children and on and on. It made my situation seem like nothing. It helped my healing to speed up and thereafter it empowered me because I was changing things in a big way.

Tell me about a specific story that was really disturbing to you?

Stephany Alexander

There was a story of a serial bigamist. He was married to 7 different women in different states and marriage records are currently interlinked in Nevada, Texas and Florida. He targeted older women who were insecure, wanted to get married and they were lonely. He knew exactly what he was going after. They were so happy to have a man in their life they wouldn't question why he would be working on all these holidays like Christmas. They found out about each other thought the website and started talking to each other and became empowered. One of the women wrote a book about her experience and the guy got into a lot of trouble. Women can empower themselves by research and being more informed about their decisions. If you run around blindly trusting people without doing your research, your gonna get burned. Why the guy would want to have that many wives is beyond me but different strokes for different folks.

The movie "Obsessed" with Ali Larter and Beyonce is about stalkers. Can you tell me about some of the celebrities on your websites that have had these experiences?

Stephany Alexander

Stalkers are very common today and even more so with the internet. You can find anything out about anyone. You can do a background check on websites Intelius.com for under $50. Knowx.com is another good one. You can google their name find out what their house looks like what their neighbors are and who their relatives are, if they own a boat or plane, if they have professional licenses. You can find out pretty much everything about them and that's scary. If you've got somebody who wants to stalk you, the internet gives them an open door. They can trace you on face book or twitter so you have to be very careful if you are a politician or have celebrity status. Politicians and celebrities have to be careful with what they let the public know because you never know who is going to snap. Barbara Niven who is an actress on Young and the Restless I met her in LA I'm a friend of hers and she did an endorsement for Woman Savors. She had a stalker. He was a reporter and he had done a story about her 10 years ago. He had been stalker her and showing up at locations where she was at and it got ugly. She had to get a restraining order. She said he seemed extremely lucid. You never know who you are dealing with. And I've had stalker women and men.  

You said that you have had death threats. What have you suffered bringing this information to women?

Stephany Alexander

I haven't really suffered. It hasn't been an easy website to create. Basically Woman Savers is a search engine that categorizes women's information so we don't author it, edit it, we don't do anything to it. It's the author that creates it. The laws that govern the internet currently go like this: your free to state your opinion like I think John or Jane is a jerk but if you say something that could be libel such as John or Jane gave me Aids you had better have factual proof that you could prove in a court of law. So if you are anywhere even on a blog you need to make sure you state your opinion and tell the truth and that will help protect you. I've had a lot of legal threats because people thought I could be sued or the company and websites, blogs owners and message board owners are protected under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which basically states that third party providers can not be held liable for what somebody else says. We're not authoring, we're not writing it, so we are not liable for it. The internet wouldn't even exist if the owners were liable for everything that other people wrote. Those are some of the troubles I have dealt with besides the stalkings and the threats. 

That is a hardship. You had a life where you didn't have that and now you have that.

Stephany Alexander

That's true I've become a little hardened. In the beginning, I was very sensitive I guess and now I have learned to use the delete button pretty quickly.

What advice can you give to someone who may be potentially dating someone who is an abuser.

Stephany Alexander

If a woman is really strong, she walks at the first sign of abuse. When she sees those red flags she turns and walks away and doesn't give it a second thought. Some women are already in to deep. Once a woman becomes intimate with a man she becomes emotionally attached and in the very beginning a lot of men don't show their abusive behavior if they did there would never be a second date so this is something that happens slowly. If they're strong enough maybe walk away if they aren't maybe give that person a second chance but many women are nurturing and they want to go in a fix these people. It's not our jobs to fix them, it's their job to fix themselves.

What is the biggest mistake women make when they are dating?

Stephany Alexander

Moving too fast and trusting blindly. I know a lot of women who meet somebody and just because he talks a good game he's a wonderful guy. Well sociopaths, narcissist, con artists and abusers already have their game down. They know how to charm people. They know how to get people hooked. If they weren't as charming as they are they would never get to point B. If you meet someone you think is great or too good to be true then it's time to do your research. I compare dating to doing a research paper. You find out the person's real first and last name. You google it in quotes. You do a full background check on them. You do a character check on websites like Woman Savers and if you are a single mother you do a sexual predator search. The internet is like a candy store to a predator. These women will take pictures of their children on line and immediately that gives a predator instant access to a mother's child. I have countless stories of pedophiles. There was a woman who date a man she met on line. She thought he was the most wonderful man who showed a lot of interest in her 6 year old son and wanted to spend time with him and offered to baby sit him. Well, suddenly her son started acting out. He started wetting the bed, throwing tantrums and not wanting to hang out with her boyfriend. She didn't put 2 and 2 together; she thought her son was just acting out because there was a new man around. The boyfriend suddenly moved away and didn't want anything to do with her. After 2 months of therapy her son told her that her boyfriend had been abusing him boy and if he told his mother, he would have killed her. Her son was scared out of his mind.

Let's switch gears a bit. What has been your biggest stumbling block to getting this type business up and running?

Stephany Alexander

I think it's because I'm not a large corporation. In a way it's an asset because I don't have to do a lot of paper work to make decision. Decisions get made quickly. We are a small company and sometimes we don't have the manpower to deal with the development that I want to do. I am a work-a-holic as it is 7 days a week nonstop. I had become a little unbalanced but that has changed now. I am now taking time out for me and not basing my entire life on Woman Savers. The amount of work was a stumbling block. I had no idea how much work this would take.

What advice would you give to someone that has a big idea they want to get off the ground?

Stephany Alexander

If you don't have passion, and you aren't 100 percent sure that this is what you want to do don't do it. You have to be so driven to be success because it so competitive out there right now. If you don't love it and believe it 100 percent you might fail. I was driven to point of obsession early on and that is kind of what it takes. It takes obsession and complete devotion. It's almost like you are married to your project.

Is that the reason why you've become a vegan and changed your lifestyle to promote more health and well being in your life?

Stephany Alexander

As I evolved emotionally, I evolved physically also. I am very experimental so when something works, I stick with it. I didn't want to support a world that supports animal abuse, or torture, or force feeding or hormones or pesticides or anything like that. I don't want to support that with my dollars. It has made a hugh difference in the way I look and the way I think. I believe that an truly empowered woman has a complete life on her own. She's got interesting work or maybe school, hobbies and family and friends in her life. That is where you need to be in life before you even consider allowing someone else into your life.

What is the work you were doing with Kim Khardashian and Maria Shriver?

Stephany Alexander

I met Kim Khardashian at a film party. She has had some rocky times with some men in her past and when I told her about the concept of Woman Savers she loved it. She said she wished she would have had this resource when she was dating. She said that she is in a solid relationship now. Maria Shriver was primarily concerned about her daughters. She wanted to use the screening tool to screen her daughters dates. She was worried about the safety of daughters since she is very high profile.

If you want to hear the entire interview, visit this link: http://www.divamaverickmavens.com/main/podcast.html

 

 

 

Elizabeth Gilbert Author of Eat, Pray, Love and Oprah guest

Elizabeth Gilbert author of "Eat, Pray, Love" and guest on the Oprah show gives us her insights on what it takes to follow your muse.

Diva Maverick Mavens Powerful Woman Quote

"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open."  Jawaharlal Nehru

Diva Maverick Mavens Powerful Woman Quote

"Life is like paragliding, you have to jump first and then you can soar." Angelia Miller

Susan Sparks Comedian, World Traveler and first Female Pastor in 160 yr History

Susan Sparks was a trial lawyer turned comedian who traveled from the Arctic Circle to the Cape of Good Hope, run a dog sled team, sung country music in Nashville, worked with Mother Teresa’s mission in Calcutta, trained as both a wilderness guide and a fly fisher woman and ridden across the country on a Harley, climbed Kilimanjaro, drove her jeep wrangler across Alaska before she decided to make a change in her career... She is the Senior Pastor of Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City-- the first woman in its 160-year history.

Pictures and videos on Diva Maverick Mavens provided courtesy of Susan Sparks.

Angelia Miller is the founder of Diva Maverick Mavens www.divamaverickmavens.com a new bread of feisty, non-conformist adventure loving adrenaline-high entrepreneur. The tag-line is: Empowering Women by Interviewing Empowered Women...Inspiring "You" to Take Action! Casting exceptional dynamic talent for fresh content is the mission of Diva Maverick Mavens. The interview is in the original transcript form with minimal editing to preserve the integrity of the content.

How were you raised in regards to humor and religion?

Susan Sparks:

I was raised in the South which you can probably already tell with my accent I'm from Charlotte, NC. I came out of a religious tradition where humor was not apart of it at all. In fact, it was the kind of place where you would go in and come out about three or four inches shorter because you were so bent over from all the guilt, so comedy was not apart of that in anyway shape or form. This was hard for a kid like me who was the class clown and who came at the world with a lens of humor. We all have a way of seeing the world and mine just happens to be with laughter, humor and joy. It's a hard lesson for a kid when in the holiest of places, the most respected of places your told that, that part of you is not welcome and so I ended up leaving the church for almost twenty years after that for a number of reasons that being one of the biggest reasons. It has been an important journey for me to come back to the spiritual path in an authentic way where who I am as a human being a little jokester, a person who likes to laugh, can actually stand in a pulpit, or be in a church, a place of organized religion and know that it's welcome; this has been a hugh journey for me.  

How did you get into law and then ultimately leaving the law to pursue your passion?

Susan Sparks:

I wanted to say that it was a big bad wrong turn but that isn't fair. I think that we all make choices and take turns in our lives and while of them don't seem like the right thing but once we look back on it; it's always a stepping stone. Bottom line I went to law school because the folks wanted it. There were no lawyers in my family and I was a debater in high school and college. It just seemed like the natural thing to do. Maybe some of your listeners can relate to this. There is always a point in high school or college where you sort of reel out a possible career path and you can see your parent's eyes start to sparkle and your like oh, that's it; that's what I should do. So many times, we take that path because it makes the family and the friends happy and unfortunately early in life we don't ask ourselves is that what I want. Is this what really makes my eyes sparkle? Long story short I ended going to law school and making everyone happy but me. I did it for ten years. It used the skill set that I have. I was a decent speaker and I could pull off a jury argument pretty well but it didn't use the skill set in a way that made my heart happy. I found myself waking up after ten years of this career thinking what have I done or what will I do today that will make the world a much better place. I couldn't answer the question and that's not to say that there isn't great public interest law out there; I just wasn't in it and that was a turning point for me.

Would you say that humor was apart of your family?

Susan Sparks:

I had a family that would appreciate a good joke but it wasn't something that they held up as important. When I was practicing law, I started dabbling in stand up comedy. I studied stand up because I thought it would make me a better lawyer and a better speaker but what I found when I stood up in front of an audience I loved it. I wanted to pursue comedy as a career and not just as a lawyer and when my family found out they thought that's kind of cute. My family thought: That's something you put in a Christmas card to the relatives but that's not a career. Why are you doing that it makes no sense?  I think there is a point when your heart starts to speak and you head down a path and people get a little shocked because they don't see it as an acceptable or predictable career path in their eyes. Again, this is neither good nor bad I just think that's just the way they were wired. The comedy started coming out and then I started doing musical theater and singing. All of the Arts started to come out of me and wow that's when I knew I had to get out of the practice of law. Just as a side story, I guess it was year ten and I was working in a bank when somehow one of our card members got through to me on the phone and announced to me that Jesus had appeared to her in her living room and that her Visa bill had been forgiven. She wanted know if I as the lawyer at the bank could help her get it straightened out. Angelia, I was laughing so hard and then I realized she was serious. I told her I hadn't seen Jesus. I don't know anything about your credit card bill and I really can't help you and I hung up the phone. I told my boss and maybe a few other people and my boss told me that maybe that was a sign. I kind of look back on it maybe it was a sign. I looked at that guy Jesus who can mediate twenty- first century City Bank and first century Palestine and I thought maybe I ought to go work for him. Yeah, that was the point where I decided that maybe I ought to look at the spiritual side of things that I am being drawn too.

I love the quote that I've heard you mention. "God is a comedian that is playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh." Can you elaborate on this?

Susan Sparks:

That's a great quote by Voltaire. When I was in seminary trying to write my thesis on humor and the sacred if you can imagine a hundred pages on that, I found that Christianity lacks joy. We have lost the ability to laugh at ourselves. I found that other world religious traditions grabbed on to that sense of joy and laughter: Hinduism, Buddhism, Islamism and Judaism. We, Christians have lost it somewhere and I saw that quote and thought that's it. We're scared to laugh. We're so scared it might be considered blasphemous or dangerous. Humor can be subversive in people's minds and I would say humor can be dangerous but so can sanctity. I think the bigger concern is pride and sanctity rather than humor. I love that quote and it drives a lot of what I do today.      

After you came out of law, you decided to take a trip around the world. Tell me about your experiences?

Susan Sparks: 

A lot of folk have a path in front of them that is crystal clear and paved like a big interstate and mine was like a big muddy twisty tourney back road that I couldn't figure out. I knew I was being called into a place of non-profit work or some type of work in the spiritual realm but because of my background I couldn't possibly see a place for me in the church. I was a woman. I came out of a place where they didn't ordain women. I was a comedian for goodness sake. I like to drink a beer. All of these things don't combine into someone you would think should be a preacher. I didn't know what I needed to do next. I knew I had to get out of the law so I did what I do best which is basically cut and run. I packed a backpack, put everything in storage. I left the country and I ended up in Calcutta and I worked for Mother Teresa. Part of the trip, I wanted to see the world and I also wanted to engage in other world religious traditions. I wanted to see other cultures and I wanted to give back. I thought what better way to help than to start with Mother Teresa's orphanage so I wrote a letter and showed up. I stood in the threshold the orphanage and I was literally stunned, Angelia. I can't even begin to describe to you...four and five kids to a bed, some tied to the crib and not out of spite but because they didn't have enough people to take care of the children. The next thing I know I felt a tug on my leg and there was a little girl about four years old. I didn't know what to do so I sat down and she crawled into my lap and started laughing. One of the nuns came over and said this is Anna and she has been blind and deaf since birth but the one thing she can experience is vibration. If she feels someone walked past her she will reach out and grab them. Laughter is something she can experience. If you laugh she will laugh and put her head up against your chest and if you hum she will hum. Her whole life was through the experience of vibration. We sat there all afternoon. Anna would squeal and laugh and then she would put her head against my chest and I started laughing with this raw sort of tension with her. I thought there is the answer to my question humor and the sacred made manifest in this little girl that had no family and no life expectancy yet every single person that came into her life she exuded this brilliant joy. I thought I'm going back home and I'm going to seminary. I going to put laughter and joy into the church kicking and screaming if I have to. Anna was one the many experiences I had where laughter and joy was a core part of people's lives. It's almost as if God or the greater presence or whatever you want to call it was saying to me this is what you were meant to do. God said, "Do you need to see another example? Go home and make this work."  

What other types of experiences did you have abroad?

Susan Sparks:

I had some very powerful experiences. I had the opportunity to spend some time with folk of the Hindu tradition and I learned about there traditions and spent some time in their temple. It's a fascinating religion in that God is mirrored in so many different faces. It's not multiple gods but multiple faces of god which I find to be beautiful and creative. Many of the faces are laughing. There is the Ganesha which is the elephant head over the doorways which is the god of new beginnings and the face of god that welcomes people into new journeys and it's laughing. There is Krishna the mischievous baby face which is the side of god that is mischievous or the trickster that laughs. The fact that someone would welcome that as the organic face of God is so beautiful.  I had some wonderful experiences with Zen Buddhism sitting with some monks and talking about the power of humor and the journey of disengaging from self. The journey of no self and disengaging from life and earth is the Buddhist tradition. Humor was kind of way to cut that cord. The idea of what is the sound of one hand clapping is so crazy and then you laugh and you think oh, this isn't about rationalizing life it's about letting go and disconnecting. Of course, Judaism wins hands down for religion with best sense of humor. You can see it through all the hebrew bible traditions. I do stand up with a Rabbi Bob Alpert. Bob was sharing with me that the Jewish population in the US is 2% and yet 84% of the stand ups are Jewish.  

Can you tell us about the world creation myths and laughter?

Susan Sparks:

In my thesis, I tried to find ancient traditions where laughter and  religion were brought together. The tradition of humor and religion goes as far back 14th BC. There is a story from the Arcadian era that talks about the conversation between the gods and a priest called Ada-ba. It's written about humor and trying to get eternal life who would think that someone would write that kind of story in 14th Century BC. There are the stories of the Mesopotamians and the Greeks but the Egyptians actually had a creation story where human beings and the human soul was laughed into being. According to the Egyptian creation theory, there were Seven Bursts of Laughter. The story parallels the story of creation in Genesis. The first burst of laughter god's light was birthed, on the second burst of laughter the waters were born, and on the seventh burst of laughter god laughed the human soul into being. I think that is so beautiful because most of the hebrew scriptures talk about spirit, and wind and air and breath being the same thing. In the Egyptian story, we actually see the breath and laughter actually creating the human soul--this is what creates life, joy! Most people tell me how can you read the bible it's not funny. Are you kidding; have you read this thing? My favorite bible verse is I Samuel 5:9, King James Version. The Philistines and the Israelites got into a battle over the Arc of the Covenant and the Philistines won and God got mad."...And the Lord smote the men and they had hemorrhoids both small and great in their private parts." You can not make this up so when people say that God doesn't have a sense of humor, really I think you need to read this again. I checked the hebrew word and it does mean hemorrhoids.

You climbed Kilimanjaro?

Susan Sparks:

I did. I'd love to say that I got all the way to the top but I got 5 ft from the top and got hit with some nasty altitude sickness and had to come down the last day of the summit which was disappointing but who cares. Your still up there and you can see the Serengeti and experience all the amazing wildlife. In fact, my guide came to the church last week and gave an amazing presentation. Kilimanjaro was an important thing I wanted to do and in Nepal I wanted to go to the Everest Base Camp. I made a list, sort of a bucket list-- not end of life hopefully, of the things I wanted to do. I always wanted to do an archaeological dig so when I was in Israel I went down to the Dead Sea and signed on and did an archaeological dig down there. I really wanted to do an Safari and I was fortunate enough to go out and do that and then there was apart of me that wanted to go to South East Asia and study the religious traditions there too. After I got back from the year of traveling, I was fortunate enough to get into Seminary but I don't know I wasn't quite ready to go yet. I took the backpack off of British Air and threw in the back of my Jeep Wrangler and basically I drove to Alaska and I took another year off. I know that a lot of people are listening to this are thinking this woman is crazy. She's just certifiable and maybe that's true but I've found if you have a window to do something healing for yourself even if it is for an hour do it for yourself. I found myself in a two year window where I knew I would never see it again. The odds are I wouldn't have the means or the time to do this again so I thought you better go do it now so I did. I drove up to Alaska and fly fished went to every national park in the country and hiked and had some wonderful experiences with the Native cultures up there. Of course, the Aboriginal cultures have such a rich tradition of laughter in their ceremonies and in their rituals.

If you want more of this hour long interview, listen to the audio: www.blogtalkradio.com/adrenaline-living.  

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Ritu Sharma of Women Thrive First Generation American Legislative Maven

Ritu Sharma is a woman with a vision to succeed in changing legislation enabling the world's poorest women to pull themselves and their children out of abject poverty. Her organization is called Women Thrive Worldwide: www.womenthrive.org. She will be discussing how having a heart and a vision for helping impoverished women and children around the world can move legislative mountains.

Photographs provided on Diva Maverick Mavens are courtesy of Catherine Lahti, "Women Thrive Worldwide"

Angelia Miller is the founder of Diva Maverick Mavens www.divamaverickmavens.com a new bread of feisty, non-conformist adventure loving adrenaline-high entrepreneur. The tag-line is: Empowering Women by Interviewing Empowered Women...Inspiring "You" to Take ACTION! Casting exceptional dynamic talent for fresh content is the mission of Diva Maverick Mavens.

Tell us a bit about your background I read you are the first born in your family of East Indian Heritage in America? Can you tell about your families background and heritage of violence and poverty in Punjab, India?

Ritu Sharma:

My family both of my parents came from Northern India and they were both born in Lahore, Pakistan. And actually they remember walking across the border from Pakistan to India during the Partition in 1947. They didn't have much to carry with them. They both came from pretty poor backgrounds and their families ended up settling in an area of what became then India. Both of my parent's families had some incredible violence in them especially my father's family. His father was an alcoholic and a very violent man. My dad has told me some really heralding stories about what happened to his sisters and his cousins. My Dad lost his mother when he was just a year old. She was married when she was fifteen and she had a baby every year until she was about twenty-one. My Dad was the sixth child and when she was pregnant with her seventh child she had a back street abortion and died within 24 hours so I never had a grandmother on my father's side or on my mother's side either.  My Mom's Mom was an educated woman and this was very unusual in the 1930's in India. She had a masters degree and I think she suffered from a very deep depression and when my Mom was about seven years old she poured kerosene on herself and lit herself on fire and committed suicide. My Mom witnessed this event which had a hugh impact on her life. From either side of my family there was a very intense history around women and what happened to them. I grew up just knowing that I wanted to do something about this to make a difference.

What was your first experience with poverty and suffering to actually see there in front of you?

Ritu Sharma:

I was very lucky to be born in Canada and raised in the United States. The first time I really experienced poverty was when my parents took me back to India when I was five years old and I vividly remember driving through New Delhi. In those days it was pretty much total mayhem gridlock congestion. You really couldn't  move the car anywhere and I'd look out the car windows and there were people living on the streets. I remember asking my parents: what are these people doing, why are all these people lying down everywhere on the sidewalks and on the streets? My parents said that's where they live and that was very shocking to me as a young child. And I will never forget also the people who were handicapped or maimed. They would come to the car windows and beg for money and I always wanted to roll down the window and give them money or give them candy or whatever I had. My Mom would say you can't do that. We don't have enough coins to give everybody and if you open the window and give a coin to someone the whole car will be surrounded by people. It was a very strange and very scary experience as a young child to realize there are places in the world where people live on the streets and they come up to your car windows and beg for money.

How did you come honor your impulse to be fearless? I know you had two paths before you. You could taken a traditional job or you could follow your heart and follow its direction. Could you tell me more about this?

Ritu Sharma:

I think like most immigrant parents my parents really wanted me to get a good education. That was absolutely important to them and I am so grateful for that. They wanted me to get a very good high paying job--really make it in America, really achieve the dream. They achieved so much of the dream in this country and I was the beneficiary of that. They really wanted my brother and I to take it farther and achieve more than they did. I think that's true for all parents anywhere. My Dad would always ask me, "What's your mission in life...What do you think you're here to do?" At the same time he would tell me you've got to make good money and become an investment banker. He would say, "Each of us is hear for a reason so What's your reason?" He loved to ask us these questions around the dinner table. I remember answering these question over the years as I was growing up. I was always clear inside of myself that I'm here to make a difference. I'm here to make the world a better place. I'm here to do something to help other people and I don't know exactly what that is but I know that's why I'm here. I'm not here to become an investment banker. I'm pretty sure of that and as I grew up and began to explore the world a bit. I had the opportunity to go to an international school in the UK in Whales called the United World College of the Atlantic and this was an amazing place. This was a school where they would take  kids between the ages of sixteen and eighteen so at this age you are still pretty malleable but old enough to be away from home. There are 360 students from 65 different countries and you're living together and eating together and schooling together-exciting times. The outward bounds school was designed for outdoor activities like Cliff Climbing and Kayaking so you were really pushing yourself to your limits and that was an incredible experience. I was only one of 4 Americans that was there and to be with kids from all over the world left a lasting impression on me. There were kids from Africa, Asia, Israel,Italy, Palestine and all over the place. I got to see how they viewed Americans both positively and negatively and that was really eye opening. I really came to understand what a powerful actor our country is in the world. There was so much energy and passion directed towards us, Americans again good or bad but I didn't observe that sort of passion being directed towards the Irish or Swedish students. I came to understand that our country had a hugh impact on the rest of the world in ways that other countries do not. That was sort of an awakening in me that you know if I want to do something to help maybe I ought to be doing something about how my country conducts itself in the world. After I came back home to the states in Washington D.C. to study at the university, I wasn't so happy with my university but I just fell in love with Washington and politics and the whole intrigue of the place. Through internships, work experiences and friendships, I realized this is a place where people are here to change what our government does and they're successful at it. You can get the US government to do the right thing. You can get congress to pass a law that benefits people. You can get the state department to pass a bill that assists poor people around the world and since that time I never really looked back. I knew this is where I want to be. This is what I want to do.

What age where you when you came to this realization?

Shama Ritu:

I was probably about twenty, twenty-one years old.

Statistically speaking, seven in ten of the world's poorest people are women. Can you discuss this statistic?

Ritu Sharma:

One of the things that we know that anywhere there is poverty women are the vast majority of the poor. It's because of the discrimination that women face in many countries they're held back from going to school and they're most often the victim of violence. There are so many obstacles in the way of women and girls that it makes since that they are the vast majority of the world's poorest. I see many kinds of statistics and this is one of the most powerful ones that seventy percent of the people who are poor on this planet are women and their children. There is no equality in poverty. Poverty does discriminate and it discriminates against women much more so than men.

What are the challenges your facing with US International Aid?

Ritu Sharma:

The biggest challenge we are facing with US Aid is that the whole system that governs the way we deliver our aid around the world was developed in 1961 and I don't know of any program that was developed in 1961 that still functions well today. It was a system that was set-up during the cold war which was a very different world with very different problems. This was before our climate changes and the Aids epidemic that transcend borders. Our world is much smaller place than it was in 1961. A lot of our aid is designed in government buildings in Washington D.C. rather than in the communities that we are trying to help around the world. There are many many good people that work in government aid but their hands are tied; they don't have the flexibility to go to these communities and ask people what they need. Women Thrive has been working with other organizations to modernize this whole system to make the system more responsive to the people we are trying to help.

Tell us about some of the worst areas around the world for violence and poverty against women and children and how can we help? 

Ritu Sharma:

Violence transcends borders; it's something that women experience in all countries. Violence is much more accepted in some cultures. In Africa, eighty to ninety percent of women have experience violence in there homes and there is a real acceptance of it. Every country has signed the Declaration of Human Rights. Violence against women is a human rights issue. Everyone deserves to live free of violence. We can get our government to do the right thing. No foreign diplomat wants to be called out about there human rights issues against women. The International Violence Against Women Act is legislation that increases the resources our country uses to assist protect women against violence in areas such as the Congo and Bosnia. 

What advice can you give to women to make a difference in a global format?

Ritu Sharma:

The first step is to learn more about the issues and find ways to listen to the voices of women around the world. They can sign up on the website www.womenthrive.org and they'll get information about when they can speak out and be heard in Washington. The most effective thing you can do is take out a piece of stationary and write a letter to your congressman. If a letter is written by hand, that note will go straight through to a member of Congress. They get hundreds of thousands of emails and phone calls and they count the number of emails and calls received although emails and phone calls are perceived as important, one letter has the weight and value of ten thousand phone calls. 

   

How often do you travel to get the personal perspectives of women and children in their countries of origin? And tell us about your website?

Ritu Sharma:   

I try to travel overseas twice a year but since I have two small children it's hard to pick up and leave the country for 2 weeks at a time so for the past couple of years its been once a year. Many of the people in my office go overseas and they interview women in their villages and video tape them to record their voices. In the past year, I have gone overseas to experience how it is to live on a dollar a day for a few days at a time or a week at a time. At Women Thrive, our sole mission is to represent women in Washington D.C. so we are traveling overseas at least once a month with staff members in my office.

We have a shop the cause section on our website that partners with local women's cooperative to bring international products to support women worldwide. There is an educational section on the website to take a quiz and learn more. You can sign a petition to assist women and children around the world. The most important thing is to just do something. When we learn about these issues, we often feel helpless. Just do something, you can transform what is done in Washington to assist impoverished women and children abroad.

If you feel inspired reading this article, listen to the full interview at  Adrenaline Living...And move to ACTION!

Honoring your Impulses to Greatness in 3 Easy Steps

Have you ever roamed the aisles of your favorite bookstore and out of the corner of your eye a book catches your attention? Today, I was roaming and found the answer to a question I asked God in a book, in the form of a quote. Wallace Wattle said, “By thought the thing you want is brought to you. BY ACTION YOU RECEIVE IT.” Pardon the caps but we all know that we have been guilty of not taking action on an inspirational thought that was given to us.

I once heard divine inspiration defined as a flash of illumination and in an instant it fades. These divine photographic flashes are different from the ego-driven thoughts of:  I ought to do this or that. How many times have we received great ideas that we didn’t take action on IMMEDIATELY i.e. procrastination? DIVINE INSPIRATION IS TIME SENSATIVE. You must act quickly so that the next inspirational thought of divine guidance can be given. These actions are like a ladder and if you miss a step you may stay stuck on that step for years.

Don’t allow the ego to rationalize why you shouldn’t take action with statements such as: “Lots of other people have done this before”, “No one wants to hear from me”, “Who would listen to me” and so on etcetera. This advice is in alignment with the advice my brother, Charles, has given me. He is an action oriented- person and I am a let- us- think- about-this person.  Sure, I’ve acted without haste on what I thought was inspiration (most likely ego) and have gotten burned but the interesting thing about these experiences are I actually felt like I was living a passion- purpose life.

My brother believes in taking action first and taking care of the details afterwards and his life has been a passionate adventure. He will not die wishing he had taken advantage of this or that opportunity. There is beauty in this kind of living and if we are to embrace the most sacred profound belief in our life’s purpose we must be willing to jump into the unknown, take a risk and figure out the details afterwards. I know at times this can be scary but if you want to have the kind of success that the Oprah’s of this world enjoy your going to have to take calculated risks-big risks.

You must be willing to be stretched like taffy in all directions until you believe you will snap and even then you will be called to stretch yourself even more. This is what living a purposeful life is about. It’s the secret success trait of WINNERS. Embrace your inner warrior and move to ACTIONwhen divine guidance whispers.

Jump start exercises:

1. Think of 3 activities you haven't done before or have always wanted to do and schedule them all for this month.

2. Live on the momentum of doing something new and exciting and push yourself to do 3 things that will challenge you both physically and mentally.

3. Honor 3 small impulses of guidance this month and see how much you will grow.  

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Angelia Miller is the founder of Diva Maverick Mavens www.divamaverickmavens.com a new bread of feisty, non-conformist adventure loving adrenaline-high entrepreneur. The tagline is: Empowering Women by Interviewing Empowered Women...Inspiring "You" to Take ACTION! Casting exceptional dynamic talent for fresh content is the mission of Diva Maverick Mavens. Diva Empowerment Articles are written by Angelia Miller.

 

Diva Maverick Mavens Powerful Woman Quote

"The most successful people make decisions quickly and change them slowly." Napolean Hill