go public global leadership forum for cancer control

this is exciting!!!!

i was just asked to lead a "conversation" on cancer control. it will be compiled with other "conversations" from all over the world and presented in ottowa, canada sept 23-26, 2009.

thinking about how i should go about this, i have decided to host one in milwaukee and one in chicago.

i am going to limit it to 50 people in each city. bringing people together to talk about cancer is going to be emotional, heartbreaking, joyful, and loving. my hope is that i will be able to host people living with cancer, families living with cancer, people in remission, and how this has affected them and how we can change it all over the world.

please keep your eyes open for more information, i should have places nailed down in the next 3-4 days. both cities will be towards the end of april.

please visit their website www.controlcancer.ca/gopublic


love you,

sarah

work in groups

great minds think alike!!!
i am here with gwen, cheryl, maria and tasha.
we are getting on the same page with how to add names to our list. we are adding to the traditional ways of working our warm markets. networking online, twitter, plaxo, facebook, etc.

in two days i added 240 names. arbonne is in australia, canada, the uk and the us.

so now i start emailing and calling. it is not so personal to have people that you don't know say no, you just move on to the next person on your list. sometimes you take it to heart when you know someone who needs the paycheck or their time back and they say no, or i don't have time.

none of us have time and it is scary to jump in and put yourself out there.

i have to tell you honestly that i have not ever been this happy. i can truly say i love my job.

love you!

i should back up

it is so like me to jump right in.
i want to let you know a little bit about me. some of you have known me for 30 years and some have never met me.
dallas was my first stop on this earth. i lived there for 17 years and went to maryland institute college of art for photography then later switched my major to painting. continued to paint and went to slade school of fine art in london for painting as well. had a blast, did some of my best thinking there. my dad died while i was there and that fueled a lot of good stuff.
moved back and decided that i couldn't go back to working retail-60-80 hours a week for what seemed like a rental. you buy or you rent and i wanted to own.
so i went to dallas and came up with the grand idea that i would teach myself to make slipcovers. interesting is what i would say about the 1st 10 slipcovers i did. soon i did become good at it and would drag my machine to clients houses and sit for 10-12 hours and make slipcovers on site.
soon people started asking for pillows, duvets, drapery, etc. then paint colors and rug ideas. then i thought you know i should just do it. so i became an interior designer and learned a lot on the job. i had great mentors. amazing mentors. if you ask people for help-9x's out of 10 they love to teach you what they know.

so for 11 years i worked 80-100 hours a week. then i decided after many dollars and hours at the therapist's couch i was ready to get married and have kids. mind you i was 36 and had really thought i would be alone (in a katherine hepburn kind of way) and have my nieces to spoil. i went on match.com and thought it was great, like shoe shopping. i would find someone interesting and put them in my cart. i only allowed myself an hour a night. i emailed erik an told him he had a nice smile.
well it turns out we lived 2 blocks away and we went out for sushi and he says he knew.
we got married 4 months later in telluride ( i was finishing up a house there for a client) off season by a lady judge and her dog. i had tulips from walmart and we both wore pink and brown. i was pregnant 2 weeks later and we had gladys in december of 2006. this whole time i had sold my condo and we had bought a three flat to convert back into a single family. erik was the corporate chef for the archdiocese and i was still working crazy hours. mind you making a 6 figure income.

after many moves during the rehab and figuring out how to work and have a baby (very interesting) we finally moved into our house in sept of 2007. i didn't know that i was pregnant again with gracie. we had it made, a beautiful girl and one on the way making good money and living in a house i made every decision on from doors to how wide the flooring was to be.

i had slowed a bit on the clients and i did feel like some where not working with me because i was pregnant. i just moved on like my normal bull in a china shop way. then in april, when i was in the hospital having gracie it all came crashing down.

i had a client (mind you i had been taking charge cards for years-too many clients wanted the miles or the points) charge back 130,000.00 they claimed it took too long and they had not received anything. only two weeks earlier i was there at their house having custom rugs, drapery and 60% of the furniture installed. i was, well i will not swear on this, i thought this is a mistake.

i sent my bank 90 pages of documentation proving otherwise and 8 months later they told the client that they had ruled in my favour. they had the balance of the furniture in storage for that whole time waiting to be delivered. i went through depression like i had not felt before. all i wanted to do was crawl in a hole.
the charge back affected all my other clients as the 130,000 was covered in my account by my personal money and my clients money. so i could not purchase their goods. it was a nightmare.
i called them all and let them know what was going on and they fought for me. called their attorney's and got what they needed.

i told you this would be short though i am rambling.

so we are at 12 weeks ago. i decided to close my corporations and do very small jobs and build this little business i had been playing with called Arbonne.

i joined arbonne to get the fabulous products for my daughters. their baby stuff is what got my attention. then i started in on the anti-aging for myself. years of climbing and adventure racing had taken their toll. it was actually reversing the damage i had done.

so.... i was getting nice little checks for 200,300-500.00 a month and after all the chargeback stuff i really looked at how much i loved arbonne. i loved teaching and training. i missed it from under grad-teaching freshman how to mix colors and how to paint outdoors.

people ask me all the time what i do. i listen and guide people to make the paycheck they need and want. the products are amazing and they work. i wouldn't even entertain doing it if they didn't.

i just became an area manager last month and i can will the business to my daughters, god forbid something happen, they will always get my paychecks. this became real when our executive area manager, dr stacey bean's husband was on the life flight chopper that crashed in march, 2008. she holed up with her kids and did not work in the er or her arbonne business for 4 months. her paychecks got bigger and she became a regional vice president 2 months after she came back to us. the company, the people, the spirit, the will is so much bigger than us.

i went to erik and we talked about me scaling way, way back. doing arbonne full time and if a small job comes up and i want to do it... then okay.

this came at a price. the 8 months that we waited for mc/visa to rule in our favour we couldn't pay our mortgage. we since have declared bankrupsty and have lost our home. honestly, i was a relief. with the economy, my work was an extra. you cannot get a mortgage. let alone have the cash to redo anything. though my arbonne business has been growing every month by a minimum of 100%.

erik and moved to milwaukee-we got a house from a couple of angels that were willing to owner finance. we get to start over. the girls can go to public montessori school 4 blocks away. we eat outside and don't have to rush to do anything.

i am grateful and blessed, i know. i know this much is true.

i love you and hope that you to find your way. if i can help please let me know.

forever grateful,
sarah

just getting started

sitting in the new kitchen (you cannot swing a cat in) with gladys as she is eating her third bowl of cheerios

looking around at all the "stuff" that needs to be put away and...well.... maybe i will start or maybe not.
thinking about arbonne meeting with DM's on friday in chicago.