True Appreciation and Genuine Intent

Wanna know how to get me pumped up? Wanna connect and engage? Then take notes.  I'm about to introduce you to someone who approached me from out of the blue and intrigued, inspired and captivated me from his very first tweet:

What? I'm being offered something by someone I've NEVER engaged with? Normally I would be skeptical...what's the hook? But when he phrases it so lovely and he's clearly taken a moment to determine a little bit about me and read my bio I'm clearly going to respond. He's also instantly made an emotional connection with me when he  lets me know my message resonates with him.  Hmmmm... perhaps we have shared values?

Meet Eric Harr ~ Founder and President of Resonate Social Media and

"...award-winning, traditional PR and communications executive with 10 years of experience—and is widely-recognized as one of the leading social strategists in the world."  

Not to mention a few other minor accolades: triathlete, tv and radio host, and author of the new aforementioned book The Real Truth About Social Media. 


And he wants me to review his book? Well gee.....Color me flattered!! What the heck just happened here? (review will come shortly! Book is in the mail!!) 


Here's the thing ~ for the second time this week I'm engaging with an extraordinary human being (Read also about AJ Leon in Reach Out and Touch) Eric is someone who I think we'd all aspire to be! Successful in business, appears to have his priorities totally straight and focused on family and friends and lifting up others and he's reached out to ME! 


There are a lot of people that are anti 'Rah Rah' right now....but you tell me if this wouldn't make you feel fabulous! 

You think I am moved to help him? You're darned tootin I am!  And why did it work?  

Wasn't this all just a strategy? Of course that's part of it..but it works because I believe that Eric is genuine. That his intent is to connect on a real level and bolster fabulously rich mutually beneficial relationships.  

I can assure you that I'll be keeping in touch and from everything I've witnessed I'm pretty sure I've been blessed with this new and amazing connection. And what do you suppose is the ROI of that? :)

How are you reaching out or are you? Are you offering real value, or finding a common ground? I've used this quote a million times and I'm going to again: 

Clearly Eric gets this. :)

Reach Out and TOUCH!

Every once in a while I come across something/someone that inspires me! Just before I went to bed last night I saw this tweet by Internet Marketing genius Lewis Howes:

This led me down a bit of a rabbit hole! Off to http://revolution.is/aj-leon/ where I was introduced to AJ Leon for the first time! A renegade or self prescribed "Nomad"as he refers to himself! His story is awesome....about to marry and settle into a life he truly didn't want (although he was earning 6 figures and promising future) he made the scary choice and walked away from it all! Bold move my friend! 

Of course the story is so inspiring...AJ is living his truth. He's turned off the noise from the rest of the world telling him what success should look like and is pursuing his own path. LOVE IT! 

Well now you've really peaked my curiosity! Have to go find out more about this ballsy kid! So I visit his company site:  Misfit Inc. OMG ~ tell me you're not inspired when you land here!! 

"WE ARE ridiculously despicably dangerously obscenely disgustingly CREATIVE."

How can you NOT be inspired by THAT!??

For someone who is in the process of redefining my mission and getting clear about my message and building a new business focused on telling the good stories and creating buzz online but authentically and in a meaningful, inspiring way, AJ's story and website were a gold mine for me!  Naturally I signed up....for everything I could find! 

Then I went to bed....my mind RACING! Woke up at 2am and HAD to do a massive mind dump! 

Came downstairs this morning to get right to work on all my new ideas and inspiration and found THIS email waiting for me!!

Are you kidding ME???  I signed up for an email newsletter like I have a million times and I got a PERSONAL RESPONSE welcoming me to the Tribe!! That blew my mind! 
I immediately wrote back expressing my true appreciation for the unheard of, never... ever... EVER done, personal response and explained that while I'm in transition my tlchome site is in fact down as I'm building my new one....to which I received yet ANOTHER personal (and immediate) response!

"It takes an enormous amount of time" ~ Ya no kidding! But holy cow is it worth it! Clearly I've discovered some greatness here and that is why I must share it with you!

Live your truth...follow your path....Be good to people....Reach out and touch someone.  IT MATTERS!

Thanks for being the awesome example that you are AJ! I'm watching you closely and can't wait to learn more about your other project: The Pursuit Of Everything. :)
Cheers!

How To Spot A Liar

Pamela Meyer: How to spot a liar

Love this ~ We're living a more transparent world and the subtitles of human decency; character and integrity, is what really matters.  Be a little more explicit about our moral code.  Let's choose a world where truth is strengthened and falsehood is marginalized.  #feeltheshift


"On any given day we're lied to from 10 to 200 times, and the clues to detect those lie can be subtle and counter-intuitive. Pamela Meyer, author of Liespotting, shows the manners and "hotspots" used by those trained to recognize deception -- and she argues honesty is a value worth preserving."

Company Launches To Help You Zone in on your SWEET Spot!

You know when you meet someone and you immediately feel a connection? 

That's how it was when I met Andrea Shillington!

She was invited to join a very intimate meetup with some amazing friends of mine, Stephen Jagger and Jeff Booth and a few others and we were all immediately impressed with her beautiful smile, professional poise and dynamic conversation!

A Branding Professional having lived abroad in Dubai and England and now in Vancouver BC,  Andrea has a very global perspective. I've had the privilege of seeing her in action with one of her corporate clients coaching them in all areas of business. She is deeply intuitive, creative, strategic and articulate. She has the innate ability to drill down and pull out key elements, issues and goals of the client and I'm learning, branding has less to do with a pretty logo and more to do with understanding your core essence and then assigning a visual representation and creating an overall experience.

Coupled with her deep need to contribute and help others, I'm thrilled to announce that Andrea is launching her own company called

Brands for the people! 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE her tagline: 

Connecting entrepreneurs with brand strategy and design. To do, good.

Make sure to visit Brandsforthepeople.com to sign up for updates and be notified the MINUTE the site is ready so you can be empowered and get your FREE tools! (I've had a peek and you're going to LOVE it!)

Real Estate Weekly Takes It ONLINE!

REW.ca Launch Party!

Last night I was invited to attended the launch party of REW.ca in the beautiful downtown Vancouver Four Seasons Hotel.  Among lovely canapes and open bar, my fellow Vancouver bloggers, Realtors® and Brokers had the opportunity to hear/see 1st hand the goals and direction of the now online portal.  It was only a matter of time before Real Estate Weekly print advertising jumped into the online space with some other Real Estate data portals like Zoocasa, Trulia and Zillow.

(photo credit @CathyBrowne)

Duck canapes

@MeenaSandhu (ING Direct) Scott Dawson @SDD (Verico Morgages)

Salmon and cream cheese

Rudy Nielsen founder of Landcorp data corp shared his view of the market and importance of good data.

Rudy Nielsen of Landcorp
(photo credit @CathyBrowne)

 So how is REW.ca different?

At first glance its a super sharp, clean and easily navigated site.  I like the feature of most recent listings first vs price ascension or descension.

The most noticeable difference is that REW.ca will be hyper local in BC only. (for now I'm guessing)

I have to say I quite liked the breakdown of the neighbourhood details with Walkscores, school info, new developments, demographics and property stats. Its a great overview particularly if you're moving in from outside the area.  It could prove as a valuable resource for both Buyers and Realtors®.







They've also launched their mobile version simultaneously which was a wise decision in my opinion. One glaring issue right out of the gate is if you're searching for a Realtor® either on your desktop or on mobile you'll notice all Realtors® are listed alphabetically so unless your last name begins with an "A" you're likely not going to get a lot of traction and if you're searching for an agent there's no way to distinguish one from the other. It would be nice to see some sort of peer recommendation tool integrated down the road.

Matthew Collinge @604homesguy

It is a 'freemium' site which means all MLS listings will be available providing the Listing Brokerage is in agreement.  Yes that's right! REW.ca is able to pull data directly from the Vancouver Board and the Whistler Board but all other listings required agreements from each independent Brokerage! That's a lot!  Of course Agents will have the opportunity to further brand themselves by purchasing featured advertising.

General Manager of REW.ca Ian Martin presented to the group of local Realtors, Brokers and Vancouver Community Bloggers including friends Marc Smith of Amuse Events, Dennis Pang and Rick Chung of Vancouver is Awesome and the site seemed well received by the group.

Marc Smith @Amuse_Events

In the end what makes a site like REW.ca useful or not will be the amount of data shared and the functionality and ease of use!

So will you use the site? What would you like to see?  Check out the site and let me know what you think! 

(Video tour here)

REW.ca - Your New Local Source for Real Estate from REW.ca on Vimeo.

"REW.ca is an exciting new real estate portal that will provide real estate consumers and enthusiasts with a dynamic search experience for Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. We're owned by Glacier Media Inc. and also the online sister company of the Real Estate Weekly newspaper which is distributed weekly to approximately 450,000 homes throughout the Lower Mainland."