Getting excited about life in general.  That’s something that had started to dwindle for me and I have no idea why.  It could have been a gradual slowing down related to my hip dysplasia, the gradual wearing down of the joints and the physical limitations.  That happened over the span of – oh my gosh – 15 years. 

It all started on the tennis court one cold night in 1996.  I “pulled something” and my tennis match ended.  Then, the slow down began – physically at first, but eventually, it crept into my head and the “are you limping” comments started to weigh on me.  Yes, I’m limping; yes, I’m slower; yes, I have limitations now.  The pain started gradually, too, and the pain started to show in my face.  Smiling became an effort.  After the first hip replacement, people started to ask me if I’d “had work done” on my face; maybe I’d had a face lift or something.  Living with that constant pain had done more than I realized.  It had crept into my face, into my smile, into my eyes and I projected it outward. 

Now, 15 years and two total hips later, it’s time to crank up the smiling!  There is no more pain and no more reason to go slow anymore.  I want to run and feel the wind in my face; I want to take chances and not think twice when I see a small hill or a tall mountain.  I can go up or down and my legs will carry me. It’s time to get them strong – stronger than they’ve ever been, so that I can be like my little cat Rocky when he leaps – with grace and no effort whatsoever – over the fence or the table or the hot tub cover – his lithe and toned muscles carry him over any obstacle with the greatest of ease.  I love watching him.  He’s always looking UP – how high can I go?  Where is the next place I can get up even higher?  What a wonderful way to live, always seeking the next higher ground, always wanting to go higher and keep seeking the next platform above the last . . . how high can we go?  What might we all be able to attain if we just keep looking UP?  Thank you, my sweet cat, for teaching me.  And, thank you Dr. McPherson for healing me and giving me the ability to be whole again, to smile again and to go as high as I humanly can go.

Where did my FUN go?  That’s the line I had in my head when I awoke wide-eyed at 4:30 a.m. this morning?  Where did my fun go?  I thought, yes, where did it go? I used to have fun, to play, to run and laugh and challenge myself, fall down, make mistakes.  Somewhere along the way – I think it was fairly gradual – I started being cautious, taking less risks, worrying more about what others thought.  And today, when my eyes flashed open this morning like a shade being yanked up on a window – WHERE DID MY FUN GO? Hit me like a ton of bricks.  People like being around fun people.  They like hanging out with them, talking with them – why?  Because they’re FUN!!

So, this is my plan . . . looking for fun – real fun, silly fun. Ok, so I Google fun, taking risks and the first thing that comes up is an article about “fun hobbies” for women in their 20s, 30s and 40s – after 40, does the fun END??  I did spot two hobbies there though that I love – one that I’ve played with and enjoyed immensely, one of those things I always felt I’d go back to and do more of (photography) and then there was one that I always wanted to start – painting.  Just go to the art store, pick up some supplies and make a mess, make a picture, create something incredible with color, color and more color!!!

Aside from those things, though, most of the “fun hobbies” seemed a little subdued to me – blogging, gardening, reading.  Yes, those are wonderful, wonderful things, but I’m looking for something more crazy, more, well, FUN!  Perhaps I need to start a blog Fun things for women in their 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond!  After all, in the business I’m in (we help people look and feel younger) we are going to need a lot more fun a lot longer!!

So, I went searching . . . and this is the most impactful thing I found.  “10 Ways to Become a Risk-Taker.”  It begins like this:

An unsatisfying present continues until you step toward your new future. If the present satisfies, roll over and go back to sleep. Listen to discontent – it’s yelling, “Get up and get moving.”  Oh, my goodness . . . this is where I was at 4:30 this very morning!  Then, I read the rest of the article and realized that I was mean to find this quote:

To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” Soren Kierkegaard.

The article was packed with great quotes, this being another, “Success isn’t the path to success – learning is. “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it,”  Pablo Picasso ­– and, of course, it’s by Picasso, which links to my one dream of (water color) painting .  Today, as the rain comes down in buckets and our lovely backyard is awash with colors that blur and run together through water-streaked windows, I dream of my tubes of paint and a brush in my hand.

So, here I go!  Let’s all have fun together – no matter what our age!!

Ready, set  . . . GO!!!

This journey I’m on takes all sorts of turns, ups and downs and along the way there are big black holes one can fall into if they aren’t careful.  It keeps me on my toes!  Oftentimes, when people ask me, What do you do?  What kind of business is this?  What kind of job is this?  I will think of the little storybook I remember reading as a child. 

The Blind Men and the Elephant is a tale of six men who approach an elephant in different ways – one touches his side and thinks the elephant is a wall, another his trunk and thinks he is a snake, yet another his knee and thinks it is a tree, and so on. 

When someone asks me, “What kind of a business is this?” I think of the elephant.  If someone sees our BioPhotonic Scanner, they think this is all health care and high tech equipment; if they see our Galvanic Spa, they may think it’s all about skin care, and if they see our Nourish the Children program, they may think we’re a bunch of do-gooders.  They are all partly right, but as this little poem says, “Though each was partly in the right; And all were in the wrong!

This elephant called “Nu Skin Enterprises” is far more than any of these things, but it is all of these things.  One must stand back in order to see the size of the elephant, and one must climb upon his back and ride him to embrace the significance of his power.

When the cold of winter hit, doing its damage to tender plants that weren’t covered or protected from the biting frost, I watched my broad leafed fern turn from a glorious green beauty in its big oak barrel to a crispy, brown shell of its former self.  I let guilt climb into my heart and thought of how I should have covered it or watered it more when the cold came or built a little shelter around it, but I didn’t.

This morning, as I sat quietly looking at the brown leaves, dead and lifeless, I saw several small fronds, still curled tightly, down in the center, waiting, waiting.  As the air warms and the sun gently touches the tips of the plant and warms the soil, they will begin to unfurl.  The roots are strong.  I know that by the time summer is here and the dampness has left the flagstones and warm breezes will sweep through our backyard, there will once again be broad, green arms waving in the soft currents.

I think of my journey down the Road to Ruby and beyond.  When the day is long and there seems to be a plethora of those who say no, or the negativity is heavy or I just can’t seem to find anyone who is open or my shoulders ache from writing blogs on assigned topics that make my head ache (the latest was to write about UFOs orbiting Saturn!) I feel like that fern.  And what I see, on the outside, are brown, withered leaves.  This morning, I could feel the new fronds inside, waiting to unfurl, and I remembered something Dan McCormick  once said about “coiling” – that inside, there is all sorts of magic happening, the mind and the thought processes and the subconscious messages are working.  They are the warm rays of sunshine, the gentle rains, the warming soil, that – ever so consistently – gently nurture those tightly wound fronds.  Soon, we will both stretch out our arms, green and soft and fresh and embrace the day and our harvest will be full.

There’s a feature with some “VoIP” (voice over Internet providers) phone services referred to as “call hunting.”  With this service, if someone dials your phone number and you do not answer, the next number in your ring list will be dialed. This process will continue until either a phone is answered or the end of your sequence list is reached.

In my dream this week on my Road to Ruby journey, I was reminded of this kind of process as I go about looking for my team of 12.  In the dream, it was called something like “roll over calling” or something like that, but what it meant was that it doesn’t matter whether someone answers, or whether they say no, or whether they are rude or closed or too busy or anything else – the idea is that it’s on to the next . . . the hunt is on for the one who has open ears and an open mind and is ready for what I have to share with them.  Again, as this thought drifted through my sleepy subconscious, I remember smiling and I remember the feeling of knowing that my thoughts ARE changing, that I am on the right track, and that that even though – during my waking hours – when the frustration level is high and I continue to wonder where in the world I will find these 12, I know that I will.  They are all on my path and they will appear as the sequence continues, as I dial the next number, or bump into the next person – wherever they may be (at a coffee shop or on a walk along the river, or in the Goodwill store, or in the grocery store . . . or my neighbor right across the street – I know that there is no end to this sequence list.  One will lead to another and then another.

This kind of hunting takes me down a road of mystery where I never know what or who is around the next bend in the road.   And so, my hunt will continue.  And, as Og reminds me in The Scroll Marked III:  “The prizes of life are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning; and it is not given to me to know how many steps are necessary in order to reach my goal.”

Who is next in the sequence . . . perhaps Og knows, perhaps God knows, and perhaps my subconscious mind will tell me in my next dream.

We are on week 8 of The Greatest Secret by Og Mandino.  I’d read The Greatest Salesman in the World, but fell short on reading the Ten Scrolls.  It would have been a simple task to read them once through – but no, the assignment is to read each scroll 3 x per day for an entire month.  I never stuck with it.  Until one man named Jeff invited me to join his group and, together as a team, we all committed to reading these scrolls together.

The power of the group keeps me following the plan – three times a day, no matter what.  You wouldn’t think that reading something that takes all of 5 minutes, three times a day would be all that difficult – but it is.  This time, though, I had The Greatest Secret, which is the journalized version.  It comes complete with a “Success Recorder” where you actually keep track of your progress, marking each day how many times you read – or didn’t read – your daily scroll.  The introduction talks about the majority and reminds us that most will not stick with this task – and that was the difference.  I did not want to be one of the majority.  I did not want to fall out or fail, and so I am on week 8.  The thoughts and lessons and truths of these scrolls are beginning to seep into my subconscious.  It is a subtle change and it is starting to show up in my life and in my dreams now.

I went to bed feeling unhappy earlier this week.  I lay there and thought about all the things I used to do that I enjoyed, things that “made me happy” I reminded myself – tennis, photography, x/c skiing.  I stopped many of these things because of the issues I had with hip dysplasia.  Both my hips just wore out – like an old German shepherd.  You’ve seen them limping.  And, slowly, I stopped doing those things that challenged me, the physical activities. Then, those restrictions gravitated from the physical to the mental – I just stopped all these things that I said “made me happy.”  I reminded myself that I needed to get back to those now that I have two new bionic hips and no pain at all anymore.  Yes, that’s what I would do – then, I would be happy.  As I slept, a blue (index) card appeared in front of me, with writing on it.  Someone handed me the card and said, “You are either a happy person or you’re not – nothing you do or don’t do is going to make you happy.”  Just decide to be a happy person.  When I awoke, I remembered those words.  Little by little, the messages of the scrolls seep in, they change thoughts.  My reminders come to me at night, written out on blue index cards.

Last night, the card had two things written on it.  I couldn’t read the first one, but it was something about a job description for this business I’m in.  The 2^nd qualification was: “And the ability to give lots of hugs.”  Another reminder that this is all about giving, loving others and letting go.

When I first began my Road to Ruby journey, my excitement level was HIGH.  I had big thoughts and big dreams – I believed I was going somewhere and it was going to be amazing!  The journey can beat you down and it can bloody your knees and it can (well, it did me) make you cry.  It can make you wonder all sorts of things about yourself; make you reevaluate yourself even if you have confidence in other areas.  I do my best to remember a dream I had in the very beginning – when I was filled with optimism and joy and hope – when things hadn’t gotten difficult yet.  Still, deep down, I knew what was in store.  The dream started with a huge CRESCENDO of music – just like you hear at the opening of a motion picture such as Paramount, Columbia or Sony, that music that resonates, making the entire theatre vibrate and sending chills up the back of your neck, and the words appeared in front of my eyes:  BECOMING ME.  That was the name of the movie to come . . . that was the beginning of my journey down this Road to Ruby.

Last night, as I slept, I dreamed I was a little girl playing with my toy dump truck.  There was a huge mountain of dirt that I was moving, one little shovelful at a time, and there were words above, in a bubble like a cartoon, that said: Cumulative Efforts Move Mountains.  I remember feeling good when those words appeared as I drifted back into slumber.  When I awoke, I remembered the words of a new friend I had just spoken to.  He said he’d raised money for various charities and causes and they used the acronym H.O.P.E. – Helping Other People Everyday.  When my eyes opened today, that’s what came into my head and I smiled and thought of the nice stack of (still empty) journals I have in my office.  Journals I have been collecting, some that were gifts, some that I just had to have – and I smiled again, thinking of all the lessons and stories and principles and tips that will fill those pages as I journey down my road.  The words in these journals will help me to help more  people everyday.

Who will be featured on those pages as I continue my film: BECOMING ME?  Who will journey with me down the road to Ruby and on to Blue Diamond?  They say Blue Diamonds come in pairs.  Who else out there who wants to put on their own ruby slippers and dance on the stage, celebrating the fact that they pushed aside their fears and kept going?   Who wants to create a life and be whoever you were born to be?  There is room on this journey for anyone with the courage to take the first step.  Helping Other People Everyday is just what this journey is all about.

The Honolulu Coffee Co.

I have a special coffee mug that I drink from on special days, days like today when the air is heavy and damp, a bit balmy and still like it is on mornings in Hawaii.  This mug came from the Honolulu Coffee Company.  The logo (apparently not dishwasher safe) has faded and as I look into the soft, muted colors I see a woman with a pale pink hibiscus behind her ear, gently holding her coffee mug.  Her image is hazy yet I remember when she was bold and vibrant with rich colors. That was when I would sit in the courtyard outside the coffee shop in Honolulu, drinking my own coffee, with a hibiscus flower behind my ear.

The words HONOLULU COFFEE CO. are still bold and clear and remind me that if we let go of our dreams, they will fade just as this lovely woman has faded, but that if we keep the dream alive and keep working with consistent focus, always imagining our life’s painting in bold, bright colors, soon we will be inside that painting and life will be as we always dreamed.

As I travel down the Road to Ruby, I hold tight onto my dreams.  I smell the tropical flowers and I always hold an image of that clear turquoise water that rolls in down the hill from my home by the water’s edge.  This journey takes many turns and detours, but I know what is ahead and I will not let the image, or the dream, fade.

You just never know where you’re going to meet someone who needs what you have.  I wandered into the Goodwill Store last Sunday, looking for a little basket.  I didn’t find one, but I did meet Ed.  I overheard him talking with one of the sales guys in the store about how he had learned the importance of staying hydrated (in his big hand he carried a TALL bottle of water) and take care of himself.  He was advising this young man that, 20 years down the road, he just might wish he’d taken better care of himself, giving him some tips of what he could do right now.  My ears really perked up when he said, “I’ve even been able to reverse some of the wrinkles on my face!”  That got my attention because, of course, our ageLOC science does just that!  I had to go meet Ed.

We chatted a bit and I pulled my little Galvanic Spa out of my purse and asked him if he’d seen the little “wrinkle iron.”  He hadn’t.  We talked about Dr. Oz and he told me he’d actually met Oz on a train back east – in fact, he’d talked to him twice.  He told me he’d seen the show on the BioPhotonic Scanner and I let him know I had a scanner and if he was interested in learning his score, we could set up a time to do that.  I gave him my card and left.  I thought about asking for his phone number, but then thought, if he’s interested, he’ll call me.  And he did.

He came over two days later and scanned at 18,000.  That is an “F” on the antioxidant scale.  He was concerned and said that he just hadn’t been able to get the nutrition he needed through the foods he eats.  “I plow through a lot of food” he said, sharing that he takes a number of supplements.  He was aware enough to understand the importance of antioxidants and what they do, including protecting us from cancer.  Ed wanted to get that score up; he understood nano technology and he set up an order for three of the best products Pharmanex has, LifePak Nano, G3 and Vitality.  In 30 days, he’ll come back and re-scan and his score will go up.  I so look forward to seeing Ed feeling better and getting back to the workouts and long bike rides he used to take.  You never know who you’ll meet or where they’ll be.  On one Sunday afternoon, I met Ed and spread a little goodwill at the Goodwill.

How long has it been since you really listened to someone’s heart?  It’s not as easy as you might think.  You need to cancel out all your own thoughts and judgments and all those things that you are thinking you want to say as they’re talking.  You just sit quiet and listen.  You don’t say anything.  You just listen.  Ask questions, and listen some more.

It’s amazing the magic that can happen when you do this.  It’s all about trust and caring – it’s about love.  I read a quote once that said, “treat everyone as if their heart is breaking – because it probably is.”  That is so simple, yet, we don’t do it.  We still ramble on about ourselves and want to be interesting instead of being interested.

Try it today – just listen to someone and do your best to hear them.  It’s a gift that can make this old world new again.

Happy New Year!