18 November 2012

carribean love

when someone says "I love you"
they will never push nor rush you.

when someone says "I love you"
they will never taunt nor crush you.

when someone says "I love you"

they will never circumvent you.

when someone says "I love you"they will always think about you...
they will never pause to doubt you... 
and their world will die without you...

©2012 cynth'ya lewis reed 
all rights reserv'd

Beginning Thanksgiving Day!Experience Reed's Caribbean & More Travel Blog
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20 October 2012

A Triad of Thoughts for Midlife Matters

Getting close to another milestone in your life? Pull out a pen and pad...and copy the following words by hand, EXACTLY as you see them:

3. If there are no shortcuts to the weekend, why do people you & I know feel a sense of entitlement to shortcuts for a balanced living? 

2. CelebrationS! TheY arE onlY valueD tO thosE arounD yoU durinG timeS oF celebratinG...& yeT dO noT thE mourningS surelY comE?

1. Who thinks what and WHY do they think it?
Does it really matter to your #holiday progress? #butterflyeffect



© 2012 cynthya lewis reed. All rights reserved






03 July 2012

IF AGING WERE A BOOK

Our lives are books walking around inside a frail human frame. Our lives are reviewed everyday by those who speak to us directly, and those who keep their thoughts to themselves. So how is it that people who know absolutely nothing about who we are, our backgrounds, our experiences, our aches pains triumphs and trials dare judge us based on "a recommendation from a resume'?" Why do people seem content to sell themselves and their $50,000-in-debt college education to someone who owns a business who never went to college?

Even more intriguing, is how is it that our "human books of living"  can be fully researched when all of us has yet to reach our potential, based on experiences not yet realized, and from lessons yet to be learned and absorbed into our personal and professional development?

Finally, what are the success stories of those who would not recommend "your human book?" Those of us who are #babyboomers have had our books either shelved or ignored with each passing year in a generation that values eye contact with an inanimate device rather than eye contact with someone who has a soul. But experience is a funny thing, because those who are INEXPERIENCED in writing their own book of life end up often discovering that those books of knowledge called "precious elderly resources" being shelved in nursing homes or retirement centers, with each passing year, tend to know more about "been there, done that" when we are in the midst of penning the experiences in our own hearts. (Too bad there is no white-out for memories gone sour.)

What happens during the aging process can only be experienced going through the aging. And sometimes that means wrinkles can be a badge of honor, not something to be "reviewed" as insignificant.


P.S. Since the "go to college get a good job" fantasy is dead for 90 percent of Americans, if one wanted to do "comparison studies" who would have ever guessed that time ever stands still for anything, including someone reviewing "Life Coaching" on a subject that creates more billionaires and multi-millionaires than anyone working for 40 years plus, for 40 hours plus only to HOPE to retire on 40 percent of what they couldn't even live on in the first place?

Read "The New Professionals: The Rise of Network Marketing As the Next Major Profession. Authors: Dr. Charles King and James W. Robinson. Kudos to Dr King who received his business adm degree from Harvard, and kudos to Mr. Robinson who advised as a senior officer for the United States Chamber of Commerce on penning this book. My money is on "the experts."



cynth'ya lewis reed
July 3, 2012

www.BetterThanDonuts.com. Let's make a difference in your community.

17 May 2012

Time is not yours, but could THIS be your time?

"Those who are not serious about their success are not serious about the next breath they may not be blessed to take. Wake up. Life ain't all about your job." cynth'ya lewis reed, author on a mission.

Video recorded by Cynth'ya Reed in Chicago Illinois, March 17, 2012. Speaker: YTB National Sales Director Nakia Muhammad (Detroit Michigan USA), self-retired real estate millionaire club professional, now on the way to being a millionaire in the YTB International family.



More mentorship videos at www.EZasYTB.com 
Whatcha waitin' on....life?
Wellness in #Coffee Fundraising: #Ganovia is "BetterThanDonuts.com"

10 March 2012

AND NOW, A WORD FROM A BELIEVER

Two men. Attended Anderson College. Both dream big dreams.
One of them is my dad: The late Jay Lewis
The other loves us all as if he were our dad. Coach Tomer, #YTB

ANNOUNCING: MY LIFE ATTITUDE CHANGE.


First, a major MAJOR LIVE International Telecast in Lititz (a small Amish community just outside of Lancaster PA)

ANNOUNCEMENT: Date: Saturday March 10, 2012
 6pm ET 5pm CT (Cancun Central Time) 4pm MT 3pm PT England/West Africa:11pm GMT Australia and other nations: For the right time zone in your part of the world,
Click on The World Clock at
www.EZasYTB.com
http://www.ytbpulse.com Click JOIN COACH LIVE button at that link a few moments before 6 (suggested 5:30 pm ET because it may be overloaded.) 

And now I explain the photo:
Some may wonder why I took a photo of coach next to a man very few of you recognize. I’ve known Coach twice as long as the man on the right…I was 10 months old when he was called away to the Heavenly Paradise Zone. His name is Jay Lewis. He grew up in Harrisburg PA after moving from a small country town in Mississippi called Collinsville.

Why do I have his photo at age 20, next to Coach Tomer’s photo at age 17? (Please note the difference in the ages…please. It’s critical for someone at this time,  not sure where or why, that they pay very close attention to my story….)
The photo of James Lloyd Tomer is found on page 18 of his book “The 4th Quarter.” (Book info at www.CoachTomer.com which this writer, Cynth’ya Reed, strongly suggests and wholeheartedly encourages you and anyone you bring into the YTB family, adding it to your life attitude library.)
On January 23, 2006, my husband and I made a decision that we know hurt a lot of people who loved us as long as we did what they did, and we did everything they said. But we never got paid for our efforts. When it came to gatherings, we were there. When it came to long uncomfortable road trips crowded together in a van, we were there. Why? Because Amway taught you how to DREAM! They talked DREAM BIG! Our first Amway convention was actually at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta GA. We didn’t believe it until we saw it with our own eyes. A literal SEA OF PEOPLE! Totally, 80,000 people to quote the news reports that talked about it on the nightly news.  It was un-REAL! Too good to be true but we saw it. People were excited. People were friendly. People even may have forgotten their belongings and around all those people, someone ALWAYS turned it in, and it was announced from the stage of that gargantuan arena in the heart of one of the Oldest Cities in the United States…that some lady lost a purse…or some gentleman misplaced his hotel keys….it was amazing.
We didn’t mind the long hours, but when we came back from every single convention, four times a year, year after year, 10 years straight….we never made more than $720 in a check. It was always enough to just go out to dinner maybe, and that would be a McDonalds. But we loved the feeling of being loved, and we loved the idea that the people who WE had as our UPLINE (I used to abhor that word because it seemed we were always left down the line when it came to getting those big bonuses)….it got to the place where we said “we’re doing these things, but nothing’s happening. No one is really supporting us. We’re doing  everything on our own.”
So one day, we got this phone call. It was from a man who had the same first name as a person I was writing for who started an Atlanta marriage magazine for men called “Sophisticated Groom.” They were in Atlanta. Did I plan to write for this magazine? Did I look for some want-ad for extra income? No…let me tell you how thin threads and shadowed blessings work:
The way I found out about the magazine, it was in its DREAM STATE by a man who literally went thru many challenges to make his dream come true. We were still in Amway at the time (this was 2005, our 9th year. When the magazine celebrated its First Year Anniversary (August) we got a phone call from the publisher ( named Kevin P. of P2PMedia) who was very excited about being part of a radio talk show, also a dream by a man who happened to be from, of all places, Indianapolis Indiana, working in Atlanta. He was known as “Mike R.” A single dad who left a strong communications position to go after his dream to be on the air with internet radio known for its slogan “All Around The World,” and it’s often bubbly shows about relationships between men and women.  
Oh…I forgot to tell you how I found out about the magazine. I was from an email that I ignored from my sister for nearly 5 months that never got deleted. After all the junk mail I received in my old aol account, this email never ever got deleted. One day, I opened it, made a phone call, spoke to the wife of the publisher working on his dream…and before you knew it, I made $17.50 for four articles total because Kevin P. didn’t have the money to pay us, but I was planting seeds to become what I wanted to do…become a writer where people would read my work all over the world. That was just one phase outside of the local writing I’d done in Muncie for a local community minority news paper, The Muncie Times. If not for the visionary woman giving me a call on my corporate job, I would not be writing this to you today. Why? Because I was afraid of what people thought I thought about things they might not feel the same about….aint’ that interesting (to those of you who follow www.facebook.com/cynthyareed

After one year of being published in several magazines that went all over the country, mostly in Atlanta salons, restaurants, church lobbies and hotels to start…it was a great experience to know that Kevin P was going to be interviewed about his magazine on, of all days, the same date as my wedding anniversary: August 23. This also happened to coincide with the date that POWERTALK FM hit the airwaves: August 23.
Coincidence? Keep reading….

Using my background as a writer and newsletter designer I was so in love with the idea of helping up and coming rising stars like Kevin P. and Mike R.  that I called myself ‘the background girl.” That is until one day Mike found out about my poetry writing and spoken word, and the few self published books that I had in my possession for “keepsakes for the grandkids” so I told myself. But he asked me to read for an entire 30 minute show, and to promote myself.  (Promoting myself was something that was very difficult for me to do, mostly because of my own, as I realize now , “warped idea” that a good Christian never speaks up to promote themselves in anything. Always be a servant mindset. Be happy with what you have. Never stand in the spotlight.” I had to remind myself one day that Christ was lifted up from the earth to draw all men unto Him. And so I figured, would Christ give His life on the cross for someone who considered themselves just an average nobody?
Because I stepped out of my comfort zone, I discovered that I LOVED being on the air! It reminded me of the community public access tv program (that actually aired at 6 p.m. and not 6 a.m.) I did on various days after working my job, sometimes not getting home until very late in the evening. Oh the rush that I felt and still feel to this day when other people share THEIR stories. It was a rush that I never felt doing network marketing. Only problem was, I didn’t own the studio, I didn’t have access to content editing, I didn’t OWN what I loved. Therein lies the challenge for so many of us…we can’t own what we love and get paid will for it….or can we?”
Well before Facebook became glamorous and MySpace was all the rage (which I couldn’t stand the idea of, and figured “all this social chatty stuff is just a passing whim) Mike started up a chat line on his radio website. BOY WAS IT SLOW!!! This was later on after they celebrated their first anniversary on the air.
One night after another anniversary show had come and gone, Mike and his cousin Wanda opened up the chat line. So I warily gave myself a user name (MsCocoDrama) which I figured was better than Gryselle Leah Bayer, my moniker for an independent underground newspaper I once edited because a friend made me once again, “get out of the shadows and into the light” with my writing….not to mention my sometimes irreverent saucy wit about political goings-on which often created quite a stir in the local Muncie paper (wondering I’m sure they were about who in the world was this 30-something community independent militant Mom?)  I eventually gave up writing opinion editorials because, hey, I didn’t want my thoughts in print to be the cause of their myocardial infarctions on a Monday morning. 
Up in the chat box, and a very primitive chat box it was, pops a name  (KEVIN).  He was very friendly, but for a moment I was thinking it was publisher Kevin from the wedding magazine.  And he wanted to know all about me.

Enter Gryselle.
Anyway, as standoffish as I was this guy was persistent! I even called Mike up one day and asked him “should I be concerned about this guy? He sends me emails all the time and is just so blasted happy…is he high on somethin’ or what?”
Mike just laughed and said, “Nawww…Kev’s cool  He’s just happy like that.” All the while I’m hinking to myself  Gee whiz if we could only bottle it up and sell it we could buy the Falklands and make it a place happier than a penguin doing the  Happy Feet dance. )
“Kevin’s cool!” Okay. Maybe God really did create the proverbially happy person who happened to live four decades and still act like a teenager on American Band Stand. And the more I got to know this guy, and when I told my husband about him, all was well with our conversations….UNTIL!
One day the phone rang around December 2005. It was Happy Kev. He wanted to show us some “product.” I said “no thanks” without even hearing him out. We were already “Happily Amway” and going on 10 years broke, but happy. Hey, we did get to travel anyway and write off those business trips three to four times a year, right? I mean the business had to amount to something more than selling our church Amway coffee and selling local group Amway gift albums and buying good old Amway tried and true products that took care of you if your last name happened to be connected to the Amway empire founders. Nice guys, but just a bit “untouchable.” Can’t hug ‘em, can’t shake their hand too long…but we did stay in the Amway Grand Hotel a couple of time…best expensive sleep even at a group rate we ever had!

By the way have you seen the size of some of their body guards? It made me, at the time, NOT to want to have a lot of money if those sumo wrestlers looking dudes would follow me around everywhere I went. Talk about being a major bummer on a cruise?!? Mercy me!
We renewed faithfully year after year…basically spending close to $600 just for the ability to sell a few products that made us very little--if any- money.  We spent between $800 and $1,000 FOUR TIMES A YEAR for national and regional conventions. We stayed in the cheapest hotels that we could find. We ate out of thermal carriers. We got a lot of indigestion, lost our direction more times than we could count (where were GPS systems when we needed them) and never seemed to do better from one year to the next.  Plus, we noted a scant bit of diversity ethnically speaking in the audience, but never any “big pin levels” who looked like us (black/brown) up on stage.
After getting fed up with more product stock than bonus checks…regardless of the fact that we personally sponsored 24 people into the Amway business….there was something missing. It was no different than going to a job every day for us.

That’s when we decided to not attend an Amway convention, and use our $500 which was very hard to come by even for a man still working and a woman who couldn’t find anything except temporary clerical work, to join a company then called Your Travel Biz. That’s all we had…Travel. And travel was something we truly did not do a lot of unless it was at a family reunion, or a business convention. We met some wonderful people in the many networking businesses we’ve been part of….actually since 1979 when our Amway sponsor came by our home, showed us some products, never showed us a business plan, left the business kit, took our check…and that was it. Our sponsor, God rest his soul, Dr. Foster, was a trailblazer in the Muncie community, and for a man of great educational accolades, teaching at a university, we knew that HE knew that there is no real freedom in a job of any kind as long as you are not working on Plan B…which we call Plan “BE” because you see a job will tell you what THEY want you to be, and you never may have the opportunity unless you stop OUT of your comfort zone, we realized, if you wanted more than just a paycheck to barely cover the bills.

Well, at least we had so REALLY GREAT CLEANING PRODUCTS!
So Kenny (my husband) and I prayed about it. And we gave Happy Kev a change when he sent us this link “WHY I FIRED MY BOSS DOT COM” It was forty-three minutes worth of stick figures. But we did like the second slide of the presentation with the dry tone white bread voice: “You get paid for travel, for tickets to events…then I just blanked out and didn’t understand one thing other than “You mean we coulda gotten PAID to go to all those conventions? We could have gotten PAID when people we KNOW went on vacations…and we could WRITE IT ALL OFF ON OUR TAXES!?”
As long as we didn’t have to talk to anybody I was game. But then,Happy Kev sent a visitor to our home. I didn’t like strangers coming into our home. Found out later on that our stranger didn’t think we were all that familiar either. But we treated her special. And in spite of her quiet demeanor, and in spite of the fact that we had this travel party on February 18, 2006 in our home when it was icy, 8 degrees above zero and a minus 25 degree wind chill, the 24 people I called within three days of our shy stranger’s arrival: We had 12 people in our home. One hour later while I’m serving up chicken and dumplings in the kitchen and getting out the hot cocoa and tea for the pot luck carry in (I didn’t know how else to invite people because I hated the word NO) we made our first $100. We didn’t make that much our first three years in Amway! It was just all very strange to me, but Kenny and I were excited, and the check cashed just fine. Only took it a week to arrive too!

 Inside of 60 days we were at the highest paid rep compensation plan in the company. Did I know or did Kenny know or our team of 12 people knows how the compensation worked? (Three of whom we personally sponsored, it just GREW to 12 EVEN BEFORE WE GOT OUR SIX PERSONALS SO WE COLD HAVE OUR $50 FEE WAIVED BACK THEN)…meaning our site was free.  AND we were getting 50% matches, everyone got paid for how well they plugged in and put the system into action is all we knew. How? WE HAD NO IDEA! But we had fun, and our team grew, and we saw names in our genealogy that we never even heard up, and it grew to a team well over 100 people.
Then we got scared! We thought “That’s an awful lot of people to train. What if they don’t likeus? What if we don’t like them? What if What if? What i-i-i-i-ph-ph-ph-phf ….Break Time!)
What I was doing was going into “management mode.” That, ladies and gentlemen, is a symptom of “job performance-itis” and remembers this is a business. No boss is looking over your shoulder. This is YOUR BUSINESS! You are not alone unless you choose to be. Don’t complain if you get frustrated because you choose to be by yourself and do that song Sammy Davis Jr sang “ I DID IT MYYYYYYYY WAYYYYYYYY!” Not only will you be alone but you will more than likely run the risk of talking to yourself when there ain’t no one to talk to….

So, that began our YTB journey.  We really did like the result. But without action, prayers mean nothing. And without prayer, actions won’t lead you in the right direction.  
Sometimes people ostracize others, and I know I’ve been guilty, when people choose another path. I had to repent more than once because you know, THEY didn’t know what we were going thru, and they never really seemed to want to question why it was that so few people of color were able to do well at least here in Indiana…or anywhere else other than the south when it came to network marketing.
We did not know our sponsor, we did not know the first young lady who, to this day—and we’re sure that will change in time as well—became the youngest female to retire her corporate job. Both our sponsor and the woman who was our mentor, treated us as if it was the most important thing in their lives to make sure we were well taken care of, and to make certain we had THE RIGHT information. When we needed them, they were there for us. Now remember the song lyrics “Everything must change….nothing stays the same.” (Donnie Hathaway)  Now recall what YTB Director and proud US Military Veteran Orlanda Moore says as he built his YTB business while in the dangerous mountains of Afghanistan…(paraphrased) “When things change they may not always improve, but nothing improves unless we decide to change.”

My husband Kenneth Reed and I came into the business at a time where we never experienced a thing called “momentum.” But we were part of it, and we watched the numbers of YTB literally explode thru the roof…until August 8, 2008 when I had a horrible case of sciatica while attending the YTB National Convention. Alas the California lawsuit. And the Attorney General of California tag teamed with the State of Illinois where YTB was headquartered. But we know there was something about this company, and too many non-logical things about it that made no sense to the public, but made sense to me personally. Isn’t it interesting that there was nothing anyone could do…but EIGHT MONTHS LATER, CALFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL CALLS YTB. The company is squeaky clean and the judge even had it written up in documentation that no one could ever touch the company again. That’s what happens, in my personal opinion, when you have a company that truly respects God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, back to my Dad and Coach.
Non logical Thing Number 1: Both Coach Tomer and my father were born in January, (Coach on the 11th; my dad on the 13th). My birthday the 13th of September. So exactly 9 months after my father was born, here I show up.
Non logical Thing Number 2:
Coach Tomer grew up in Pennsylvania. Like my dad.
Non logical Thing Number 3:
Coach’s dad had many agricultural pursuits. So did my dad’s father.
Non logical Thing Number 4:
Coach Tomer went to Anderson College in 1957 without a high school diploma
My dad went to Anderson college 3 years earlier, the year I was born, and got his high school diploma 3 years before I was born.
Non-logical Thing Number 5:
Both Coach Tomer AND my dad were studying to be ministers, but death cut my dad’s studies short. Coach’s mother’s death was in his mind with his mother’s words on her death bed “Go out and  find something that will make this country a better place.”
Non-logical Think Number 6:
I would commute back and forth to Ball State University while living at home and just while growing up in Anderson IN, only minutes where both my dad, and Coach Tomer, went to college. I drove by the very places and can identify locations from Coach’s book “The 4th Quarter” where Coach lived, where he had businesses in both Chesterfield AND Alexandria, and especially the Church of God camp meetings that seemed like places to go where I couldn’t really run and play like I wanted to, because of all those frilly dresses. But the camp meeting at the Anderson Church of God headquarters was really a big deal in my hometown of Anderson, where my dad came and met my mom.
And Non-logical thing number 7, perhaps the eeriest:
I ask myself at 4:54 a.m. ET on March 10, 2012 “WHY LANCASTER PENNSYLVANIA?” My cousin in our powerteam says it’s just 40 minutes from where he lives in Harrisburg. Harrisburg is where my father graduated from high school in 1951. And he said Lititz is a small Amish community. But does anyone really recall Coach talking about where his maternal side of his family came from? Just a guess, but I truly believe that everything is about to go full circle around the world at 6pm ET when the once in a lifetime, changing all our families for many lifetimes announcement is made. And I could be incorrect, but I put the time down for a reason. It’s now 4:57 a.m. ET on March 10, 2012. The YTB convention for the first time is in September, the month of my birthday in the year 2012.
It will be our 7th YTB convention.
And is not 7 the number of completion in God’s eyes?
Hope my testimonial does something to help you move on in your business, and in your live.

Cynth’ya Lewis Reed
Wife of retired instructor Kenneth W. Reed
PowerTeam Leaders…building TEAM SPECTRUM
Muncie IN
Come see us and join us in #Indianapolis IN May 4-5, 2012 Click here...it's EXTREME!

© 2012 cynthyareed.com
All rights reserved.
 

05 March 2012

Traveling in "The Loop."


Check it out in Authors Den under "Stories" at www.cynthyareed.com
(Why I get in a writing mood before life changing experiences like funerals, I'll never know.)

Writing is such a purge. blessin's,
clr

06 February 2012

TOLD


Is there a red mark hiding ON YOUR 
COLORBLIND BACK?

CLICK THIS LINK NOW...to be "TOLD"....about the poem
Highlighting What No One "HOLY ENOUGH" wants to talk about in the
Traditional Religious Black Communty Regarding
HIV/AIDS Awareness Day 2012 Muncie IN


18 January 2012

BROKEN: A poem for RIGHT TO WORK

Separate the families
Work parents day and night
When their kids have issues,
it’s not the worksite’s plight
Give temps little money
Cut the hours on their jobs
Discipline their every move
Tax blind these mindless slobs
Keep ‘em workin’ constantly
Watch their face turn red
Work ‘em 80 hours plus
Work ‘em til their dead
© 2012 cynth’ya lewis reed
all intellectual rights reserved long live the creative spirit!

MASTERPIECE...by the Temptations.

SAMPLE LETTER TO YOUR CONGRESSMAN/REPRESENTATIVE TEMPLATE:
Message Subject: SOPA
Message Text:
Sharing this because people have no clue as to the mess that will happen if SOPA passes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VxPQ320jBLc Two IP Attorneys who deal with this all the time: NO one knows how much SOPA will take away American Freedoms. It's like protecting someone from a deadly disease by saying "Here, live life in this bubble. We don't know anything about the bubble, but we're going to put you in the bubble because the internet world is flat and we are afraid to listen to people who are hanging off the edge...i.e. the tax paying public among creative artists who understand the implications. Thank you for listening.