What makes you happy?

One of the lessons Chef Lala shared with us is to simply Be Happy.  She told us about a friend of hers who works as a clerk at Wal-Mart.  Her life goals are different than Chef Lala’s (all our goals are different from each other’s), but the key is she’s HAPPY with what she’s doing. 
 
I know sometimes my audience are so blown away by our guests that they may feel intimidated or like they’re not doing "enough."
 
Lala’s advice was a good reminder that our lives are NOT a competition — it’s simply about figuring out what makes YOU happy and doing that.
 
So this week, be HAPPY with where you are, who you are, and all that you’ve accomplished in your life.
 
Because I know for *sure* that you are an amazing, wonderful, powerful woman and you deserve all good things to come into your life.  Just be happy…
 
In joy and peace,
 
Aurelia 

P.S.  In case you missed the interview, you can purchase either the audio or the transcript (or both) of the interview at the special pre-sale price until next Wednesday.  Click here to find out more…

Chef Lala

Laura Diaz-Brown, better known to her fans as Chef Lala, has devoted her life to her two passions: mastering and refining Latin cooking, and educating about how to enjoy this complex cuisine in a healthy way.

Chef Lala is a world class chef, author, food consultant, and business woman running her own first class catering company, Savor! Caterers which serves A-List Celebrities, VIPs in entertainment and politics, including two U.S. Presidents and a President of Mexico, Vicente Fox.

>> Join us as I discuss with her the various aspects of her exciting career, and which parts of it she enjoys most

Her love of cooking comes from her father, and she grew up with her family in the restaurant business. But Lala didn’t always know she wanted to be a chef. At the age of 12, she became part of an all-girl singing group that traveled with Menudo.

At the age of 22, LaLa was on the verge of stardom. She had just struck out on her own and was close to signing a record deal. She was being courted by several record companies and did a concert at the Houston Astrodome in front of 75,000 people.

Then, before her singing career took flight, she was in a bad car accident. It temporarily affected her ability to walk – and it permanently affected her ability to dance. Unable to adhere to her strict gym regimen, her svelte figure quickly gave way to a rounder silhouette, leaving her depressed and deflated.

At this point, she re-evaluated and had to decide how to focus her life. As an entertainer at heart, she combined her love of food and cooking with interacting with the public. She’s gone on to become a celebrity chef and does many demonstrations, including showing kids how to eat healthfully.

>> What strategies did Lala use to turn her life around at the point when she realized she’d have to do something very different? What can we learn from her difficult experience?

Two forces in LaLa’s life profoundly influenced her thoughts about food and her career: One was her constant battle with her weight. The other was her family’s history of diabetes, the complications of which claimed the lives of both of her grandmothers and one of her grandfathers.

LaLa’s interest in health was never far from mind, even as she enrolled in the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu and attended classes at both the Southern California and Paris campuses.

As she got more involved in her culinary studies, Lala was struck by the need she saw for someone to link what she had learned about health and nutrition with her cherished Latin cooking. Today, as both a chef and a certified nutritionist with a specialty in weight management, Lala has become that link.

>> What resistance does Lala encounter when she encourages people to eat healthfully, and how does she respond to that resistance?

Lala is a lifelong learner and is always looking for ways to make cuisine more healthful, sharing that knowledge in a number of realms. Learn more about Chef Lala’s projects at her website, www.cheflala.com.

The idea that any ethnic cuisine or any cuisine, really, can be good for you and still retain its sabor, or flavor, has become her mantra and her practice as a celebrity chef and author, and also as a spokeswoman for organizations including the American Diabetes Association.

>> What lessons has Lala learned in the kitchen that she applies to her life? What can we learn from her wisdom?

Lala takes part in a number of community efforts and philanthropic projects, including teaching nutrition or providing support in other ways to charities as diverse as the American Heart Association, the Liver Foundation, Casa Para Los Niños, L.A.’s BEST and V.I.D.A.

She also shares the message of combining health and flavor in her cookbooks, Latin Lover Lite and Best Loved Mexican Cooking with Chef Lala.

She recently received Macy’s “Community Star Award”, as well as General Mills “Corazón de Comunidad,” (literally, “Heart of the Community.”) And California’s First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Lala into the state¹s Museum for History, Women and the Arts.

>> We’ll be discussing her community involvement, and some of her latest efforts to teach healthy eating to children!

The one constant through it all for Lala has been her family, her two sisters, Myrna and Veronica; her brother, Danny; and her parents, Luis and Raquel, who have been married for more than 40 years. Lala now has a family of her own — her husband, Jeremy Brown and young son, Maddox. They currently live outside Los Angeles.

Whether she’s teaching nutritious cooking at a Farmer’s Market or on a television show, LaLa is on fire with her desire to share everything she has learned to make people’s lives healthier and happier–one meal at a time.

The message in writing…

We’ve been talking about writing lately, and Jamie Martinez Wood, this week’s interviewee is also a writer, with seven books to her name (so far)!
 
She shared many interesting insights with us, and one of them was that she becomes a different person when she’s done with each of her books.
 
I thought this was so interesting because it shows that it’s not just the message you’re trying to convey to *others* that is key, but the message itself changes US in the telling and re-working and the creating of that message.
 
For Jamie, she told us that throughout the course of writing each of her books, there was a specific message or lesson that she needed to learn or something to be worked out in her life.  And during the process of writing, these issues came forward and had to be dealt with (and sometimes they were scary things that Jamie wasn’t sure she was ready to deal with).
 
Nevertheless, the process of writing was cathartic for Jamie, and in every case, the outcome of the writing was something wonderful.  And incidentally, the outcome in her life was pretty great, too.
 
I wanted to highlight this particular insight of Jamie’s since many of us read and write without the self-conscious awareness of what it means to us — and to others — outside of the written word that gets captured.
 
Reflect upon your writing, and how it changes YOU in the creation of the message.  And also, each of these creations may lead you to learnings that may not be easy, but are always worthwhile (if you’re paying attention).
 
Good writing…

Aurelia

P.S.  In case you missed Jamie’s interview, you can purchase either the audio or the transcript (or both) of the interview at the special pre-sale price until next Wednesday.  Click here to find out more…

Jamie Martinez Wood

Jamie Martinez Wood, a Mexican-American native of Orange County, California, is an inspirational speaker and empowerment specialist.  She teaches workshops, leads retreats, and gives performances on personal power, earth spirituality, seasonal living, and ritual ceremony.

Jamie also conducts classroom visits and assemblies on writing, publishing, and self-esteem.

>>  We’ll be discussing her career path, the kinds of speaking she does, and what led her to her passion.

As a young girl, Jamie struggled with the pressure to adhere to proper behavior. In spite of this, she forged a whimsical connection with nature and fell in love with the art of writing and telling stories.  This theme of connectedness with nature, telling stories, and being true to oneself runs throughout Jamie’s work.

At the age of eleven Jamie started the lifelong habit of keeping a diary and she has every diary she ever wrote in.  This came in handy later when she started writing for teens.

In spite of her other loves, Jamie forced herself into the world of corporate public relations for five years, but never left her passion for writing, which she pursued by penning articles for children, teens, and the environment during this time. Her first published article, entitled No Way Out, is a fictional story based on fact about a girl dealing with her friend’s bulimia.

>>  I’ll be asking Jamie why she decided to take a job that didn’t fit her spirit and energy, and how she had the courage to leave and do something different.

After a few career twists and turns, Jamie started to learn the ins and outs of the publishing world. One of her articles led her to describe California in the mid-1800s, and was followed by years of intense research into Early California, native peoples, and her Californio ancestors, Spaniards and Mexicans who lived in California beginning in 1767.

Her study of history dovetailed again with her writing when she co-wrote a screenplay about a Los Angeles Indian shaman, Toypurina, who raised a revolt against the Spanish Mission system in 1785.

>>  How has Jamie’s study of history been both a personal and a professional journey, and what can she tell us about what she’s learned?

Following this, Jamie was recommended to an editor to write The Wicca Cookbook.  She enlisted the help of her sister-in-law, a Ph.D. candidate in Early Modern European History, and together they devised and wrote the recipes, rituals, and lore that went into her first book.

She next wrote The Hispanic Baby Name Book. Around this time, she became active in promoting literature in her local community, in part by participating and speaking at the Latino Book and Family Festival, the Festival of Books at UCLA, elementary schools, and other writers’ events.

Jamie also shot a treatment as the host of a cooking show and taught earth spirituality at retreats, specialty shops, and festivals.

>>  What were the career connections between the cookbook, spirituality, a baby name book and TV?  How did she choose what projects she pursued and what can we learn from her experiences?

The Wicca Cookbook enjoyed such acclaim that she was asked to write a book for teens. For this project, she referred to her early journals and a box full of notes passed in class.

Reading her notes and journal entries when feeling disempowered and victimized motivated her to create visualizations and affirmations to move into a place of power. These new perspectives comprise the “spells” of The Teen Spell Book. Building on the success of her books and teachings, she wrote The Wicca Herbal and The Enchanted Diary.

Years after they met, an editorial consultant recommended Jamie to write a book about Latinos and magic for teens which turned into Rogelia’s House of Magic, a story about three not-so-ordinary Latino American teens who learn magic and life lessons from a shaman curandera (healer), which was released earlier this summer.  This novel is currently being considered for treatment as a film (see the beautiful preview on her website).

This young adult novel, Rogelia’s House of Magic, marks her return to the world of fiction. She enjoys writing for and empowering young people on their life’s journey and to that end has created an interactive Teen Page on her website, and also has led a classroom project to transform her novel into a play by and for teens.

>>  I’ll be asking Jamie about her teen work, why she’s so drawn to this audience, and with which of her characters she identifies with the most.

When asked how all her diverse books fit together, Jamie points first and foremost to her desire to motivate others to find the greatness within themselves and encourage them to share these unique talents with the world.

Another of her recent books, The Latino Writers and Journalists book, a collection of 150 biographical essays, won the 2008 International Latino Book Award for Best Reference Book at the Book Expo of America earlier this year.

>>  Jamie did a lot of interesting preparation work for the Writers and Journalists book.  What insight can we gather from the interviews she conducted?

To add to Jamie’s joy, she has two sons, ages 9 and 11, who enjoy soccer.

To learn more about Jamie, visit her at www.jamiemartinezwood.com.

Writing Is All About the Message

While writing a book is one way to convey a message, a strong, clear message can come from all sorts of writing.  Last week I highlighted women who’d been or are journalists, and those who’ve written novels, as well as leadership, and self-improvement books.
 
This week I’ll discuss a few of the other kinds of writing our guests have done.

Women write for academic journals and books, to convey new ideas to their intellectual peers. Women write legal briefs to argue a point and try to win a case.  Women write screenplays and scripts — treatments for the stage, TV and the movies.
 
Women write poetry, and women write grants.  But in all of these instances, the writing is done to convey a message, to get across a point, or to evoke a feeling.
 
This week’s interviewee, Jamie Martinez Wood, early in her writing career, penned a letter about the Tatshenshini River in Alaska.  That letter, along with over one hundred endorsements, proved to be useful in stopping copper mining and saved the lives of many
animals.
 
Rocio Cordoba, Executive Director of California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, told us about her first job which was to write corporate communications — messages from a company to its customers and clients.  Now, she writes about her own organization to encourage women to get involved and to encourage funders to support her mission.
 
In each case, the writing is done to move people to *action* — to take a specific, clear step toward a goal.
 
Naomi Quinonez, Chicana poet and educator, writes poems to move people in a different way.  She writes poetry to reflect the world around her, to showcase her observations and to hopefully connect with those same or similar feelings in others.
 
Sandra Robbie, writer/producer of the Emmy-winning documentary Mendez vs. Westminster: For All the Children / Para Todos los Ninos, tells the Mendez saga to expand the stories in our history books to include those who have been historically left out.  Mendez tells the story of the Orange County school desegregation case that ended legal school segregation in California seven years before Brown v. Board of Education.
 
Christina Sarchio, partner at the law firm of Howrey LLP, and Eva Plaza, partner at the law firm of Garcia, Calderon & Ruiz, each have to write legal briefs, memoranda and other documents to convince others to agree with their clients and to treat them favorably.   Their writings are to advocate on behalf of others.
 
Nancy Mirabal, professor of History at SFSU, writes academic journal articles and edits anthologies as part of her intellectual pursuits.  Other professors who’ve made up our interviewee panel have been Raquel Aldana, human rights attorney and author of Everyday Law for Latinos, and Elma Gonzalez, cell biologist and Professor Emeritus at UCLA.
 
All these women write to communicate with an audience and convey a really important message. 
 
Why is writing such a different mechanism to convey a message than to do so by other means?  In part, because writing forces one to clearly articulate her thoughts.  Where verbally, one can meander a bit or jump around, in writing, the medium is a bit less
forgiving.
 
The written word also has power because it is memorialized.  Whereas a thought can vanish into thin air, the written word bears witness to what a woman might have been thinking and what she wanted to convey.
 
For all these reasons and more, I encourage you to think about what YOUR message to the world is, and write a few notes about it this week.  For example, does your life have a mission statement, a "tag line" or even a theme song?
 
Write a few words this week, and join other authors in sharing those words with others — even if only with a close friend or family member.
 
Until next week, may your writing be meaningful and convey a message that’s important to YOU!

Do you ask?

Just ask!  Arisa Batista Cunningham, this week’s interviewee and Vice President, Global Diversity, for the Johnson & Johnson Comprehensive Care and Surgical Care Groups, told us some incredible stories this week.
 
One of the important messages she shared with us was to just ask (!) when you need help or assistance. For example, Arisa did not have the money for a plane ticket to get to college in Virginia from Panama, even though she’d received a full scholarship.  So what did she do?

She spoke to the manager at a local airline in Panama, told him of her plight, and he got her a free ticket to get to the U.S. — and not only a regular ticket, the ticket turned into a first class airline ticket!  Along the way, Arisa encountered many other "angels" who helped her.
 
But what’s the moral of this story?  Many, many times there are folks out there willing, waiting, and WANTING to help, but we need to ask them to do so!  If someone doesn’t know what we need, the can’t offer it to us, right? So make sure and ask.
 
And if you’re not asking, and you need help, why not?  What’s holding you back?  Is it pride, fear, or some other reason?  Remember that YOU are powerful, and your request might be just what someone *else* was waiting for, to be able to help.
 
I think I promised a couple of weeks ago to share with you all what I did to go out of my way to help and support other women.  Well, I’ve been going through some major reorganization in my house.
 
So a couple of weeks ago, I sent out an email to a bunch of friends letting them know I had some stuff to give away.  Now get this…  One of my friends came and took an old lawnmower but she didn’t know what she was going to do with it.  She picked it up from my house, got home and guess what?  Her aunt called her *within the hour* telling my friend that her lawnmower was broken and she didn’t know what she was going to do.
 
So, of course, my friend offered her aunt the lawnmower.  Is that wild, or what?!?  Wow — what a cool "coincidence."  So…  Ask for help, offer help and realize that BOTH of those actions are a gift — give another an opportunity to give.
 
Until next time,

Aurelia

P.S.  In case you missed Elena’s interview, you can purchase either the audio or the transcript (or both) of the interview at the special pre-sale price until next Wednesday.  Click here to find out more…

Arisa Batista Cunningham

Arisa Batista Cunningham is Vice President, Global Diversity, for the Johnson & Johnson Comprehensive Care and Surgical Care Groups. In this role, she is responsible for the comprehensive global diversity strategy and action plans within all franchises of the $21 billion plus groups to accelerate the achievement of the global diversity vision throughout the J&J enterprise.

>>  What has Arisa learned in her role of responsibility over diversity strategy for a huge company?  What has been difficult?  What has been easy?

Arisa has extensive experience in U.S. and global management, marketing, strategic planning, business development and advocacy across various product categories with major consumer and pharmaceutical companies including Procter & Gamble, American Can Company, Revlon, Chesebrough-Pond’s/Unilever and Whitehall Labs, division of Wyeth.

>>  We’ll be talking about her background business experience and advice she can give women from her various corporate roles.

Her work has been acknowledged by many organizations and she has been honored with several awards for creativity, business excellence and leadership.

>>  How does Arisa make sure her contributions are noticed, and what can she tell us about her awards?

Arisa has also made significant contributions in diversity as a member of the Johnson & Johnson Steering Committee of the Women’s Leadership Initiative, co-chair of the Women of Color/Multicultural Women subcommittee, chapter leader of HOLA and winner of the J&J Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Award.

>>  In these decision-making and influential positions, what kinds of changes does she think have made the most difference, and which haven’t worked so well?

Among her many community and professional endeavors, she serves on the Board of Directors of The National GEM Consortium, Empatha subsidiary of the American Social Health Association and of The Committee for Hispanic Children and Families.

She is also on the Advisory Board for the National Hispanic Health Foundation, a Congressionally mandated project for HealthCare Disparities and is President of Madrinas, a national network of Latina leaders.

>>  How does Arisa choose her community involvements, and how does she balance her commitments with work and family?

A native of the Republic of Panama, Arisa has an MBA from Ohio University and undergraduate degrees from James Madison University and Sta. Maria La Antigua University.

>>  What did Arisa learn from her childhood in Panama and what lessons did she bring with her in life?

She lives in Chappaqua, New York with her husband and children.

The Enigma of Writing…

Is the pen mightier than the sword?   A number of our interviewees have used the written word to express ideas, tell stories and advocate for change.  Let’s look at the art of writing and what role writing plays for certain guests.
 
We all write in our everyday lives — emails, shopping lists, notes to ourselves — and yet the act of using the written word to communicate ideas has such an allure.  To be a published author is a triumph.
 
Many of our interviewees are writers in some function of their profession, and for some of them the act of writing comprises the *whole* of their career.  While some write non-fiction, others write fiction — and some write both!
 
Sylvia Mendoza, journalist, writer, and speaker, started out as a free-lance journalist because she realized, even in journalism school, that she did not enjoy writing the "hard news" stories as much as features about PEOPLE and how people’s lives have been
affected.

Even after winning journalism awards and being offered jobs at newspapers, she decided to write what she really felt was her calling.  Interestingly, this writing led into two other kinds of writing — Sylvia went on to both write novels (her novel Serenade
won the Latina Literary Hall of Fame award) and later The Book of Latina Women, a book in which she tells the stories of 150 amazing Latina women throughout history, chronicling their contributions, struggles, and triumphs.

One of the tips that she shared with the audience was to be persistent in getting your writing accepted, and secondly, she told us that she edits her own work mercilessly.

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, best-selling novelist of The Dirty Girls’ Social Club and godmother of ‘chica lit’, has written several novels for adults, and has recently branched into young adult novels and is working on a production of the story from her young adult novel for a Nickelodeon teen series. 

She shared with us that for her writing has been a way to get things out of her system when they’ve been bothering her.  She did this in her journalism career and went on to use "syncretism" to tell a story to an audience that they think is one thing but later
turns out to be another thing all-together.  For an example of this study her "Dirty Girls" novels that tells a story about Latinas that turns what we think about the stereotypical "Latina" on its head.
 
Alisa told us about the theory of the "writing gene" and the "curlicue in the brain" — that some people are born to write and have to write no matter what. The difference is that some people submit their work — like Alisa — regardless of the fear of rejection.  Others may hide their work and never share it with others…
 
Juana Bordas, President of Mestiza Leadership International and author of Salsa, Soul and Spirit:  Leadership for a Multicultural Age, told us of her need to tell people about different leadership models, other than the ones she’d been learning about in more mainstream leadership circles.
 
She told us that it was up to her to find the common themes and that with support and a lot of hard work she was able to do so in a book that pulled together the leadership lessons of Latino, Native American and African-American communities.

Cristina Perez, nationally recognized court judge/actress of Cristina’s Court, wrote a book of dichos, Living By Los Dichos:  Advice from a Mother to a Daughter, to share the wisdom that her family taught her.  This book not only shared lessons from one generation to another, but also crosses culture with the ideas an stories of one family’s lessons to the world.

Mabel Katz wrote The Easiest Way to share the lessons she’s learned from a spiritual perspective and has also contributed to other books, such as Thank God I…., to share the spiritual advice and lessons she has for the world.

Elena Bjorkquist, an author, historian and artist has written two books of  short stories, as well as co-edited an anthology in order to get women’s stories out there to change the histories that are told, as well as to teach lessons she’s learned from her own life.

Writing can fulfill different functions.  But in short, we write for varied reasons — to give ourselves some peace, to change the world, to tell stories, or to fulfill a mission.  Each of our authors have given us reasons to write and what they’ve learned from their own experiences of writing.

What do you write and why?  I’d love to hear from you if you’d like to share with me.  This week, reflect on what you write, what the purpose(s) are, and what you might like to write more of.

Until next week, may your writing be meaningful and your lessons be vivid. 

External Barriers or Internal Barriers?

One of the things that Elena shared with us this week was key, at least for me.  She said that a lesson she learned from her father, and then added to, was the following:  Don’t let anyone rob you of your dreams! And she added, "Not even you!"

How often do we get in our own way?

We often look at external barriers and they (seem to) keep us from achieving our goals or what we think we want to do.  However, are those barriers really external, or are we creating them for ourselves? Or maybe simply allowing others to keep them on us?

It is important, I believe, to evaluate what our dreams are — keep those goals present and real for yourself! And if you don’t have goals, girl, what are you doing? Are you done with your life?  What’s next?  Don’t you want the next best thing?  What’s that mean for *you*?

Ok, well now that you’ve got it in your sights, what is *really* keeping you from that goal?  Is it something outside of you — and if so, what can you do about it — or is it something within you?

Don’t be discouraged if it’s something within.  Yes, it’s tough to make personal change, but at least it’s 100% within your power to do so.  Go for it!

To YOUR power,
 
Aurelia

P.S.  In case you missed Elena’s interview, you can purchase either the audio or the transcript (or both) of the interview at the special pre-sale price until next Wednesday.  Click here to find out more…

Elena Díaz Bjorkquist

Elena Diaz Bjorkquist is a Mexican American writer, historian, and artist from Tucson. Elena’s two books of short stories, Suffer Smoke and Water from the Moon, are about the people in Morenci, Arizona where she was born.

Elena Díaz Björkquist is a former public administrator who developed and managed CETA, a federally funded public employment program for the County of Sonoma in California from 1974 to 1978.

In 1978 Elena switched careers to teaching. She taught K – 12 students English-as-a-Second Language and served as Bilingual Coordinator for the Anderson Valley Elementary School.  At Mendocino High School she taught Spanish and U.S. History.  Her last teaching position was at Sonoma State University where she taught Chicano Studies from 1996 to 1998.

Elena returned to her home state of Arizona in 1999 and is currently a writer, historian, and artist from Tucson.

>>  What has she learned from her different career twists and turns?  How did each position transition into the others?

Elena’s two books of short stories, Suffer Smoke and Water from the Moon, are about the people in Morenci, Arizona where she was born. Elena co-edited Sowing the Seeds; una cosecha de recuerdos, an anthology written by a collective of Latina writers in 2002. The project was funded by the Arizona Humanities Council (AHC).

Elena has also written a full-length play about Chautauqua Teresa Urrea, a curandera who lived in the 1900’s, which has had two readings in Tucson.

Currently she is nearing completion of another collection of Morenci stories entitled Albóndiga Soup and is co-editing a second anthology by the Sowing the Seeds Collective entitled Our Spirit, Our Reality.

>>  What can Elena tell us about being an author?  What has she learned from the different kinds of books she’s worked on?

Elena has been on the AHC Speakers Bureau for six years. She undertakes different kinds of speaking engagements at community centers, museums and libraries; for example, she performs the role of a Teresa Urrea, and also does two presentations about Morenci and one on Chicano Art.

In 2001 Elena became a SIROW (Southwest Institute of Research on Women) Research Associate at the University of Arizona and completed a project funded by AHC, “In the Shadow of the Smokestack,” an oral history project she did interviewing 10 elders from her hometown.

>>  What can we learn from Elena about getting arts projects publicly funded?

Elena has developed a website containing oral history interviews and photographs of Chicano elders living in Morenci during the Depression and World War II.

In 2005 she finished another project funded by AHC and the Stocker Foundation, “The Tubac 1880’s Schoolhouse Living History Program,” a teacher’s manual, lesson plan and short stories that wrote the Mexican experience back into the history of Tubac.

>>  What can we learn from Elena about how she organizes and records her projects?

Art has always been a passion for Elena, and in 1990 she found her medium in clay. She perfected her craft and teaches clay classes in her studio Casita TzinTzunTzan. She also teaches bookmaking and drum making classes.

>>  How does Elena combine her different passions?

Check out her website at www.elenadiazbjorkquist.net

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