When you have a few minutes free, follow the story below to witness one of the most inspiring ways to face death that you’ll ever see. This kid is amazing, and so is his family. Here’s hoping that our own last days are so full of joy and strength and light and love…

1) Zach is 17, and he’s had cancer for years. He was recently given months to live. He writes and produces a cool little song that gets good attention on YouTube.

2) SoulPancake goes out to do a “My Last Days” feature on him and his family, and the director says, “I came out here and was expecting to meet a great kid who had a cool YouTube video, but I was not expecting to meet a 17-year-old who would change my life.”

3) Rainn Wilson of “The Office” is one of the founders of SoulPancake, and when he and his crew started telling some of their friends about Zach, a bunch of them pitched in to do a celebrity-stocked lip-sync to his song.

As many of us do, I deal with sickness and death all the time in my professional life – it’s the nature of my job. I know that for me, I sometimes put myself into “work mode” and block out all emotion in order to get that job done effectively.

But I think that every once in a while it’s good to fully embrace the magnitude and finality of it all . . . and highlight the beauty of a life well-lived, and a strong, steady, even joyful walk to the end.

This is the good stuff.

Four years ago this month, I started a little blog called ItStartsWith.Us (links to the first post ever written on it). You know how in the beginning, only your mom reads your blog? Well, I don’t even think she did at the time. But I wanted to change the world, and this is how I decided to start.

I wrote on it for a few months before I wanted to try something different . . . treating my readers not just as consumers, but inviting them to join me as a team of action-oriented producers – people who would join me in making a positive impact in someone’s life, in just 15 minutes per week.

The team started with just 18 members, whom I had to email (and BCC) by hand each week, copying and pasting results in for the rest of the team to see. In the next few months, however, it had grown to around 500 members participating weekly, and we had plenty of stories to tell, so I put out a Year in Review PDF to showcase what we had done for others.

Over the next couple years as I led the team each week, it grew to over 5,000 participating members worldwide, with around 30,000 pageviews per month on the private community forum I built for us to share our stories with each other. Not a week went by that I didn’t shed some tears of joy, grief, and everything in between for all that I learned about the human condition from that group, and the beauty of being intentional about the things you say and do to bring love to others’ lives.

Along the way I’ve gotten the opportunity to meet, work with, and become friends with some of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. People that not only have incredible talent, but a giving heart for others as well. They’ve all helped me to become a better person, and I appreciate that more than they’ll ever know. There are far too many to list, but I do want to say a special thank-you to one person, Kat Cole, for becoming one of the original founding members of the ISWU team, and for giving me chances and opportunities when I was just starting out and had no idea what I was doing. Because of you, Kat, I now have a number of people in my life that I love dearly, and it’s all because you decided to say hello one day on Twitter four years ago.

ISWU was the first project I built on my “Change the World” mission, but I always had more to do. So after two years of leading the team, I retired and turned leadership of the group over to my buddy Josh Opinion, down in Florida. He had been with the team since the early days, and had become my right-hand man in terms of volunteering and helping me with the things that needed to be done. I interviewed a number of people for the new team leader position, and secretly hoped he would throw his hat in the ring. He did, and he ended up winning the job as well.

For the past two years he’s been at the head of ISWU, evolving the group away from old-school forums and more onto the ItStartsWith.Us Facebook page, which now has most of the day-to-day activity. Josh has always been solid, dependable, and has a giving attitude toward all of our team members. He’s been ISWU’s MVP for a long time, and I’m happy to have been able to work with him for such a long time.

And so today I would like to announce that I am officially giving the entire ItStartsWith.Us project, in its entirety, to Josh Opinion to continue and expand now and in the future. No one on the team has worked as hard as he has, and no one deserves the opportunity more. I am clearing space in my life to continue developing other projects, and I can think of no better future for ISWU than to give it to the man who’s been nurturing it for the past two years.

Congratulations Josh, and thank you so much for your years of service. I will remain an active part of the team, and you always know where to find me should you need me.

To all the rest of the team, I would like to say thank you so very much for allowing me to spend my time with you each week, especially in the beginning years. Collectively, you helped mold me into the person I am today. You taught me so much about love, loss, joy, teamwork, and empathy for others. I would not be where I am today without each one of you.

I am so grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to be a part of your lives. I leave you in good hands.

Thank you, sincerely.

Nate

Just over three years ago (which is a long time in Internet years), I decided to build a team based around the idea of leaving encouraging comments of love and hope on the blog posts of people who were going through a difficult time in their lives. You can take a look back at the ItStartsWith.Us blog to see where it all began, and then check out the Love Bomb site to see where it all ended up. The project grew from one small email request to many thousands of team members worldwide in a very short time. It was lovely to watch and be a part of.

Of all the things I’ve ever built, this project is the closest to my heart, even though I have deliberately remained the farthest from it in terms of leadership. I love the simplicity and effectiveness of the concept, but running this project specifically has always taken a large emotional toll on me. I am now entering a new phase of my life, and it’s time to clear the table of some of the older projects to make room for the new.

I could talk for a very long time about all the things this project has meant to the world and to me, but I want to keep this brief, so I’ll just mention one example from each:

It touched, changed, and saved lives.
Every week Love Bomb gave two gifts – the gift of love and hope to the recipient, but also the gift of shared connection to thousands of team members. It had a dramatic, sometimes instantaneously life-changing effect each week on the person who received the Love Bomb, but it had an equally life-changing effect on us team members over time. Every week, Love Bomb gave us the ability to step into someone’s life during their darkest hour, make a human connection, and truly make a difference. The impact of this cannot be overstated. For an investment of just five minutes per week, we got to see lives changed (including our own) in real time. Love Bomb was the best return on investment of any project I’ve ever seen.

It brought me closer to people.
I mean this both literally and figuratively. In a very literal sense, Love Bomb brought people into my life that I now consider dear friends. Lauren Lankford Dubinsky led the team in the early days, bringing both a heart for others and a good sense of humor to the project. We shared much laughter and many tears during those early days, and it’s been so cool to see her success with a meaningful project of her own over the past couple years.

For the most part I was able to maintain a professional distance from the people we reached out to with the project (lest that sound harsh, keep in mind it was for emotional protection), I couldn’t escape the impact of the most inspiring person we ever bombed, Laura Lawson. Over the years we have become infrequent communicators, but very real friends. I’m happy to say that she’s marrying the love of her life, and I had the privilege of providing some edits on her first book recently.

Lastly, and most importantly on a personal level, Love Bomb helped me develop a deeper sense of empathy than I ever had before. You know that phrase, “be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle?” Well, it’s true. We get so caught up in our own personal day-to-day stuff that we sometimes forget or don’t even notice the life-breaking things our friends, family and neighbors happen to be going through at the moment. Love Bomb helped me open my eyes to the larger world around me. A world of trials and suffering and pain, yes, but also a world of kindness, connection, hope and love.

To all of our members over the years, a very sincere thank-you for giving of your time and joining us on this mission to change lives in just five minutes a week.

Mission accomplished, friends, and I hope to see you on the next project.

- Nate

Much love to some of our biggest team players

Katie
Sasha
Amanda
Emmy
Jo
Matt
Emily
Mare
Sarah
Joni
Arie
Brianna
Jim
Paige
Kat
Chad
Alison
Michelle

Over the past four years, I’ve had a lot of success in building global movements, which is a fancy way of saying that I’m good at getting people to believe in an idea that’s important enough to get them up off their couches to go do something to help.

I have a skill set that people in the nonprofit world desperately need, but no matter how many times they’ve asked me to come work for them, I’ve turned them down. Here’s why:

“I want to talk about how the things we’ve been taught to think about giving and about charity and about the nonprofit sector are actually undermining the causes we love and our profound yearning to change the world.”

Dan Pallotta
TED Talk, “The Way We Think About Charity Is Dead Wrong“

^What he said. Seriously. His entire video is great, but if you’re crunched for time, watch from 1:00 – 5:00, and 17:00 on. You’ll also find some more quotes sprinkled into this article.

Whenever I entertain the thought of joining up with a nonprofit, it takes about three seconds for my mind to come back with the biggest reason it’s never going to work (all my friends in the sector may want to cover their eyes for this part): most nonprofits are risk-averse, small-minded organizations, and always will be. I see this problem as being equal parts the organization itself and equal parts society’s view of what a nonprofit should be.

“The third area of discrimination is the taking of risk in pursuit of new ideas for generating revenue. So Disney can make a new $200 million movie that flops, and nobody calls the attorney general. But you do a little $1 million community fundraiser for the poor, and it doesn’t produce a 75 percent profit to the cause in the first 12 months, and your character is called into question. So nonprofits are really reluctant to attempt any brave, daring, giant-scale new fundraising endeavors for fear that if the thing fails, their reputations will be dragged through the mud. Well, you and I know when you prohibit failure, you kill innovation. If you kill innovation in fundraising, you can’t raise more revenue. If you can’t raise more revenue, you can’t grow. And if you can’t grow, you can’t possibly solve large social problems.”

I literally cannot work in an environment that stays conservative and fears failure. My nature is to do creative, original things that have never been done before, and this naturally carries with it a high potential for failure. I’m not gonna lie, I fail a lot. I just do. But it’s all part of the game, and every time I fail, I learn something valuable from it and come back bigger, better and stronger. I also hit some home runs along the way, and over time I end up raising the bar for just about everyone. That’s how my skill set works.

If I were to bring this mentality and work style to a nonprofit, odds are I would quit or be fired within six months. Probably both. If you’re worried about creating goals that are easily identifiable and easily accomplished within a set of parameters, or worse, if you’re concerned with looking bad to the general public if you don’t do these things in a certain way, then I can’t work for you. Because I can’t tell you exactly what’s going to happen when I come up with something completely unorthodox and release it out into the wild. And what’s more, I don’t want to know what will happen. I want to see some beautiful chaos at first, and then out of that we can pull whatever gem might emerge. These two approaches don’t play nicely together, and it quickly becomes a bad fit for both sides.

I’m not going to worry about the fact that our target demographic mainly cares about this certain thing, and only tends to donate in this certain type of situation, blah blah blah. I’m going to think about what’s going to happen when the entire world knows about and cares about the problem we’re solving. That’s when things start to get interesting, and that’s when you can start to effect major change.

“So we’ve all been taught that charities should spend as little as possible on overhead things like fundraising under the theory that, well, the less money you spend on fundraising, the more money there is available for the cause. Well, that’s true if it’s a depressing world in which this pie cannot be made any bigger. But if it’s a logical world in which investment in fundraising actually raises more funds and makes the pie bigger, then we have it precisely backwards, and we should be investing more money, not less, in fundraising, because fundraising is the one thing that has the potential to multiply the amount of money available for the cause that we care about so deeply.”

It’s really that simple in my mind – it’s a big world, with limitless possibilities. Let’s make the pie bigger, any way we can (within ethical limits, of course). We should not be afraid to do things that matter, things that force people to acknowledge our existence in one way or another, and most importantly, force them to think about the things we are saying, and come to their own conclusions. The last thing we should be is ignored, which unfortunately is where most risk-averse nonprofits live. But when you get to the stage where you can’t be ignored, you can start working on scalable solutions to world-sized problems, instead of just talking about them.

“This is what happens when we confuse morality with frugality. We’ve all been taught that the bake sale with five percent overhead is morally superior to the professional fundraising enterprise with 40 percent overhead, but we’re missing the most important piece of information, which is, what is the actual size of these pies? Who cares if the bake sale only has five percent overhead if it’s tiny? What if the bake sale only netted 71 dollars for charity because it made no investment in its scale and the professional fundraising enterprise netted 71 million dollars because it did? Now which pie would we prefer, and which pie do we think people who are hungry would prefer?”

It’s no secret that I don’t have a lot of love for nonprofits, and that’s really too bad, because people like me would be great additions to their teams. But people like me aren’t going to join their teams until we start seeing more boldness, creativity, and even a touch of fearlessness out of them.

I never thought twice about the clean water problem in Africa until I started seeing the incredible creative marketing of charity: water. I never thought about aligning myself with a team helping people raise money for medical need until I saw the personal stories and life-changing results generated by the GiveForward team (disclosure: GiveForward is a for-profit social enterprise, and my new employer, but that’s a story for another article).

People like me don’t always do what we do for the money or the title or the recognition. We often do it because creation is how we express ourselves, and we capture our joy from those moments where we get to break people out of their traditional ways of thinking and doing things, and pave the way for countless new stories to be told.

In short, we strive to change the world.

“Now we’re talking the potential for real change. But it’s never going to happen by forcing these organizations to lower their horizons to the demoralizing objective of keeping their overhead low.

Our generation does not want its epitaph to read, “We kept charity overhead low.” We want it to read that we changed the world, and that part of the way we did that was by changing the way we think about these things. So the next time you’re looking at a charity, don’t ask about the rate of their overhead. Ask about the scale of their dreams, their Apple-, Google-, Amazon-scale dreams, how they measure their progress toward those dreams, and what resources they need to make them come true regardless of what the overhead is. Who cares what the overhead is if these problems are actually getting solved?”

Amen, brother.

I was only bullied for one week as a kid.

Just one short week, the week of Super Sports Camp, a daytime program run in Milwaukee each summer. That’s all it took to leave scars on my heart for the rest of my life.

And I’m one of the lucky ones.

My mom signed me and my brother and sister up for the camp, and we were all pretty athletic, so no one made fun of us for being clumsy or overweight. But we didn’t have any money when I was growing up, and there were five kids in the family, so everything was stretched pretty thin, up to and including our clothes.

We all wore hand-me-downs . . . even I did, as the oldest. I would get them from friends, or cousins, or sometimes rummage sales, and the younger siblings would get them from me. And not only were we in hand-me-downs, but we didn’t have many to choose from either, so we would always wear the same clothes for three days in a row before throwing them in the wash.

On Day Two of the sports camp, one of the kids started calling us The Unchangeables. I was embarrassed. That night I said “Mom, I want to wear different clothes tomorrow.” She said I still had one more day to go.

On Day Three of the sports camp, other kids joined in mocking as the three of us ate our lunch together, still wearing the same clothes from Monday and Tuesday. I wanted to hide, but couldn’t.

Thursday finally came, and we were able to change into different clothes. The kids were quiet, maybe thinking we had finally given in.

On Friday they realized that we had not given in, but were just on our second set of clothes for the week. The taunting and laughing started again, even more hurtful than before. I prayed for the day to end.

On Saturday, the last day of the camp, I felt like I was going to throw up. I was so scared to go back. I tried not to cry in front of my brother and sister, but I think I did. The jeers came again that day, all day, until it was time to go home. I was counting down the minutes. When I got home, I wept. I can still remember the feeling of shame and fear and pain even now as I write this.

And I’m one of the lucky ones.

But I’ll tell you one thing: to this day I HATE being judged by the clothes I wear. I didn’t take that pain from childhood and go in the direction you would think – always trying to be the best-dressed person in the group. I went in the opposite direction, dressing down and daring you to judge me by my clothes. To this day I still do that. It’s foolish, I know. And yet there it is, that chip still on my shoulder after all these years. Usually I wish it wasn’t.

Watch this. All of it. And think about the ones back then who were not so lucky. Or the kids you know who are not so lucky today.

Maybe this was you. Maybe it’s one of your own children right now. These are the real casualties of bullying: the woman with the loving husband who still can’t believe she’s beautiful . . . the teenager who attempts to kill himself rather than keep facing the pain. These stories and millions more pass by our lives every day, largely unnoticed by the majority of parents who will offer a quick “kids can be mean,” and then resume their hectic lives.

Please don’t be one of those parents.

Talk to your kids. Make sure they’re okay at school, at day care, with their friends, and wherever else they live and play and grow. Make sure they know that you deeply care about their lives, and that they can talk to you about anything and everything, and you will always take the time to listen and love.

And please, model good behavior for your children. Show them that you love and accept others, and defend those weaker or more vulnerable than you. They will do the same in their own small lives. Instead of a legacy of pain and suffering, they can give those unlucky ones the gift of hope and love.

Sometimes that’s all it takes to change a life.

– Nate (one of the Unchangeables)

Let me say right off the bat that I have no idea how this is going to work, or if it will even work at all. But let’s give it a try and see how it goes, okay?

A few days ago I wrote the following email and sent it out to my personal newsletter email list.

Well friends, it’s 1:00am on Wednesday night, and I just finished cleaning out every last piece of email. My Inbox is sitting pristine and empty right now, so I thought I’d check in with you guys and try a little experiment. (Yes, this is what I do instead of relaxing, watching TV, reading, or sleeping. Sigh.)

First of all, let me just say that I want to hear from you. Whoever you are, whatever you want to say, just reply and let me know. I’m looking forward to connecting with as many of you as I can over the next few days. So hit me with something, k?

Secondly, here’s something new I want to try . . . a little test that may help a lot of people out. If you’re up for it, I’d like you to tell me two things:

1) What you could USE help with right now (e.g. you want to talk to someone in the film industry, you need to find an accountant, you want to talk to someone who’s beaten cancer, etc)

2) What you could GIVE help with right now (e.g. you’re a financial planner, you do logo/site design, you love to listen and talk to people, you knit wool scarves)

I want to see what I can do with a bunch of people willing to give and receive help in absolutely any area at all. Do you think we can figure out a way to do a bunch of one-to-one connections to match people up with exactly what they want/need? I don’t know, but I’d like to try.

If I do anything public with this (make it a blog post to get more connections, etc), I’ll keep everyone anonymous unless/until I can do a personal introduction, so don’t worry about that.

‘Tis the season, guys. Let’s see how this goes!

Hit me,
Nate

I’m going to post some of the results here, and split them into two sections.

If anyone else wants to join in, just leave a comment with your 1) and 2) thoughts as well. If you want to take someone up on their offer, or if you want to fulfill someone’s need, leave a comment stating that as well.

I’m going to do the heavy lifting of personally connecting most of you, I guess, unless anyone can think of a better (and still simple) way to do it. If you have ideas, drop a comment too.

And with that, let’s get this Christmas gift exchange experiment started!

People who could USE some help

1. I just moved to San Francisco for work. I work with some great people, but I haven’t quite found ‘my people’…and I know that might take awhile, but I’d love to meet interesting people in SF! (web tech / social media community)

2. I could use help getting my eLearning business growing. Having been a consultant/contractor for several years, the majority of my projects are obtained through another eLearning Consultant who is based in Connecticut (I’m in Grand Rapids, MI). She is able to procure a ton of work based on my experience, so I know the work is out there and that I am capable of providing excellent results. I am ready to take on my own clients and grow a successful business. Problem is, though, that I’m more of the “creative” type (aka not great with time management; finances; etc.).

3. I inspire people with my story. I am currently working on my book and am featured in a documentary which it’s author hopes to go to the WI film festival. So I am positioning fairly well at the moment. But I need the opportunity to speak at churches, women’s groups etc…which I would gladly do for little or no cost other than expenses for travel.

4. As for what I need help with, I would not know where to start! Perhaps that is the thing, is there anyone out there who could help me prioritise and/or stay accountable? As an example, I should not really be replying to your excellent e-mail at present. I have a piece of work that I really need to have done within the hour – but your message just looked too inviting!

5. I am Wendy from New York and I need help organizing my home.

6. I wrote a book – I even sent you two copies – Nate is a great book – look at the Amazon early reviews and only three of those are close friends – my “little” book has the potential to change people’s work lives or at least how they look at life and work. It is short with a familiar tone and I am certain the more folks who know about it – the better we will be as a whole society. No lie. I need help spreading the word. Here the link: http://amzn.com/1475083564 (not an affiliate link)

7. I’d love to connect with anyone in the Milwaukee area involved in marketing and/or copywriting. I do a lot of copywriting on a freelance basis and continue to grow, but my Milwaukee connections suck – most of the area doesn’t seem to be that thrilled with talking to freelancers for some reason. I’m thinking it’s a relationship issue. Maybe if I had an “in” or two that I could massage for a few months, I’d have better luck. Either way, I want a more prominent local presence.

8. My husband recently started a new company, and they don’t have a lot of overhead (it’s sales-on the road, no office.) I think they need an accountant. I say this because they are a force of two, and they have been paying themselves when they get around to invoicing, etc. Also, personally, we need a non-judgmental tax advisor. We lost our home to foreclosure after we lost our last business to the recession. So we were delivering papers for a few years, to pay the rent. We found ourselves falling behind in all areas, including filing taxes. Now we are several years behind, and it’s scary. We need help with this. We live in NJ.

9. One of my side gigs is copyediting manuscripts for aspiring authors before they pitch to agents. I’ve made several rounds of revisions for a particular author, but his book still isn’t polished enough to pitch. I need to pass him off to someone who can give him a fresh set of eyes on his manuscript — I’ve seen how far it’s come and so can’t be objective at this point about whether it’s any good, and I also don’t have the background to judge whether the material’s age-appropriate in addition to being grammatically correct. I’m looking for someone a) with publishing experience, ideally in the kids/YA realm, and b) who does freelance editing and is willing to work directly with an author as opposed to getting an assignment from a publishing house. I know that’s very specific, but if you can connect me with someone, it’s a paid gig for them and I don’t have to leave this guy hanging! I do job search coaching — resume review, interview prep, that sort of thing. I haven’t had a lot of luck getting clients (which I guess is something else I could use help with — advice on where to market!)

10. I could do with talking to an English teacher because I need to know if it’s really what I want to do when I leave university -.- (UK)

11. I could use help finding a new job, as I was just laid off for the winter. I am looking to make the switch into the geotechnical or natural resources industries with a position related to soil/materials testing or permitting. I am looking in the Northern Colorado area, but will consider down to Denver.

12. I could use help with some minor digital photo editing – very simple stuff, like making a handful of pictures look “better” and blurring out the backgrounds…. I guess maybe that’s not “simple” stuff… I have no idea what goes into photo editing

13. I’ve gone through a period of anxiety (to the point where I’ve isolated myself from life and people). Though I am getting better I sometimes get frustrated with the pace of my progress and ‘set backs’ along the way. Maybe to be able to correspond with someone who has been through something similar and how they have dealt would be useful? Only 1 or 2 close friends know the full extent of my illness (I think a lot think I’ve gone AWOL!) which I know only adds to the stigma of mental illness but I’m not willing to make myself that vulnerable to people while I’m still healing.

14. I have a 13 year old piano student whose mother told me she is self-harming and I got the impression she somehow wanted my help. So I could use some one telling me what to do. I still don’t know what I can do to help her and I’m not going to be seeing her for 6 wks. A piano teacher’s job is not that of a therapist though I somehow view music lessons as therapy for everyone and I know the difference kind words and acceptance can make to some one who’s feeling fragile. Your email made me realise that maybe it’s good that I am her piano teacher and maybe I can make a difference.

15. I would love to talk to someone who could help me get out of debt. Put me on a budget so to speak, we have way too much credit card debt and though we have paid off three of them(YAY) I would like to get the other 3 gone too, it seems almost overwhelming when I look at them.

16. i feel socially awkward so could use someone to coach me on how to be amidst unknown peoples and not do the adult version of the wallflower. there tends to be a waiting period for me with people – i have to be around and observe them for a bit before i venture into the conversing phase. i’d like learn to carry on conversations with random strangers without being fumble-tongued and/or halted. just writing this brings up my insecurities

17. I’m trying to find a tech cofounder for a media startup which I’m hoping to get into a tech accelerator. Already met with tons of people and gotten positive feedback. I’m looking for someone who knows javascript, jquery and node.js or any server-side language.

18. So what could I use help with…… being more organised – tips for organisation – i thought I was good at organsiation but for the last few weeks…

19. What I may need—friendship. Just a friend (since I can never have too many). I could also use help in securing personal health insurance for myself. I really need it and don’t know how to get started looking for it. I am also seeking a really good/proven flaky Christmas cookie recipe.

One of my selfish desires is to learn how to use my Canon EOS Rebel XS and all the features it has so that I do more than take pictures on Auto. If anyone can teach me I would be most grateful.

My husband and I have two children (22 & 18) and we cannot afford to buy either one a gift this year. We also don’t have money for groceries or for Christmas dinner. We would appreciate prayers to help us provide something. It has been very difficult since Oct. We are praying for better in 2013.

People who can GIVE some help

1. I heart my job but I think I want to try my hand at consulting (on the side). I’ve helped a lot of my friends get their businesses off the ground and have helped my company develop our City Marketing Manager program, which just went international! Not looking to make $$$, I just want to help people do more/make their businesses/ventures more successful.

2. i can give pet advice (to an extent), i can give away free jewelry or pet related items, and if anyone writes that they need christmas toys for their kids, hit me up

3. I love crafty-type stuff: knitting, crocheting, bead work and jewelry, scrapbooking, etc. I also like helping others in any way possible. Oh, and I was a single, teen parent of a bi-racial child. I have experience counseling young women who may find themselves in a similar situation. Now that I’m older (will be 39 in February and my daughter will be 21 next month), I can help by sharing my experiences and offer advice.

4. just checked my emails and found your message. I’m at work (it’s 9.15 am here), which is a college in the Midlands in England. The weather has been cold and frosty but not bad. There is nothing I need ( I just want my washing machine to last into the New year – which I think it will!!). I don’t know how I could help anyone – I have no talents to speak off – but quite happy to listen or even do a few chores: shopping etc.

5. What I can give if someone gives me the opportunities is ‘ideas and creativity’. I can help people compose a resume, write up a bio, put together a speech, coach someone towards their dreams. I can be a great cheerleader. I am also licensed to marry people in WI and will put together a very nice ceremony. My offerings: speech writing, performing wedding ceremonies, public speaking, my story, resume production, seeing other’s gifts and guiding them with ideas. (ahem, Encouragement)

6. I’ll start with what I can give. I have worked in the field of Mental Health for a number of years, and have battled – and beaten – depression on a personal level. I would therefore like to offer a listening ear, or computer screen, to those who could do with some encouragement.

7. I can teach others how to use social media, as well teach people how to enter sweepstakes for fun and profit. I also am am Occupational Therapist so I can help with setting goals and making goal plans as well as informal consultation on rehabilitation as well as pre vocational readiness for the chronically mentally ill.

8. I’m strategic business consultant – I connect people – my business is all about partnering with people to advance life and business. It comes in many forms – sometimes it’s marketing consulting to small and non-profits other times it’s strategic planning services – sometimes it’s merely connecting people that need to be connected with no transaction involved.

9. What I can give help with – I love to listen to people and help brainstorm through tough stuff (I can fix other people’s lives. Just not my own.) I’m a great editor, and provide excellent constructive feedback. Need help writing a resume? I just helped someone with his. Want a pretty picture to hang in your house? I’ll give you digital rights to print one of mine (I’d print it for you but hahahaha money is stupid). Need to know what to bake for your gathering? I can tell you. I can probably also give you an amazing cookie recipe. Want my bone marrow (I’m a registered donor. Booyah.). Want me to write you an uplifting lunch box note like I do for my kids? I could do that also. If someone nearby (MI) really wants family pictures and can’t afford ‘em, I’d shoot ‘em (everyone should have photographs if they want them). I don’t know. I have nothing monetary I can offer anyone right now – but I have a lot going on in my head and heart I can share.

10. I could take photos of a scientific experiment, survey, study, whatever, free of charge. (Los Angeles)

11. I’m a copywriter – mainly focused on direct response in the finance/investment industry, but I can apply my copywriting to a wide variety of industries and topics.

12. I can offer editing. I read all day long, and I am dismayed at the blogs that are sent out into cyber space that seem to have never been proof-read. And I probably would have fixed that last sentence I just wrote. I also bake soy-free, corn-free super-delicious chocolate chip cookies. My son is allergic to corn and soy. These cookies are the best chocolate chip cookies you will ever taste! I actually bake many things, and I’d be happy to bake for others.

13. I do have a great ability to cook Cajun food, I crochet and give great free veterinary advice. So if anybody has need of any of these skills please send them my way.

14. I do job search coaching — resume review, interview prep, that sort of thing. I haven’t had a lot of luck getting clients (which I guess is something else I could use help with — advice on where to market!) so I’d be happy to help out a couple of people who are job searching if they’re just willing to give me honest feedback and then spread the word if they’re happy with me as a coach.

15. I don’t have any real skills or anything that makes me particularly useful, but I’m good at listening and being supportive if people need someone to rant at.

16. I can give help with anyone trying to get an ebook ready for indie publishing on Amazon or other platforms.

17. I could help with nursing tutoring. I’m certainly not the smartest person on Earth. And I’m not even a nurse yet. But I am pretty smart at many nursing-related things Other than that, that’s about all I’ve got… my brain has been consumed with nursing school!

18. At a really basic level I simply love helping people! I’m a good listener, non-judgemental, compassionate and really love being able to help people in life (no matter how big or small) and encourage them to see themselves for the amazing people they are and all the possibilities life has to offer. (excuse this if it sounds like a cv for a bad motivational speaker-ha!)

19. As for helping others, having suffered depression from age 12 and through my teen years, I came to the conclusion that, whilst questioning my life’s purpose then maybe it was to be there for others who were having a hard time.

20. I am an awesome listener, I feel like sometimes all we ever really need is someone to listen and to share with us. I also feel that I was put here on earth to help my fellow man in any way I can, whenever I can. This time of year is tough for so many people, just feeling lonely or hopeless. I especially like to show kindness to the homeless who live here in Albuquerque. I came from a small, small town in Montana and we never had homeless people, we always helped one another and cared for everyone. It’s been hard for me to move to this big ol city because so many people just don’t care and really, Nate, we are all in this together so why not lend a hand when we can?

21. not sure how this would apply, but i’m good at pep talks. if someone is feeling down on themselves i’m good at reminding them not to buy into the negative bullshit they’ve been telling themselves; reminding them that they are valuable, important, and extraordinary in their own right. with my friends this has sometimes translated into a love note. for something a little more tangible, i’m good at organizing – anything from spaces to documentation to…

22. What I can help with: Writing, editing, proofreading, content strategy, etc.

23. While my skill set is quite diverse, I believe the one that I might be able to do a lot of is listening…to anyone. I feel like my compassionate heart makes it possible to share endless supplies of love. So maybe, I could be just a listener to someone who is depressed or lonely or be a “pen pal”. I have suffered some pretty major traumatic events in my life that give me experience to understand someone else’s pain. I’ve been lucky enough to move past my own pain with the help of God. Time helps too and support of family and loved ones. But some people don’t have those available. Even if they do, it’s scary sometimes to admit to your family and friend that you have a problem.

24. What can I give – well I love crochet – I started learning back in the summer and its stuck – I have a baby blanket to do between now and February but if it’s a little/medium project I should be able to squish it in.

25. I enjoy doing anything artsy and craftsy. I sew, embroider, crewel stitch, paint and do most any type of craft. I would be happy to offer my services if anyone needs something for Christmas.

I am a Nationally certified pet therapy partner and am willing to offer my partner (Oscar Wilde–bunny) and my services to sit, talk, etc w anyone (NC area).

I am well-organized, detail-oriented and articulate. I am offering my writing talents to anyone in need.

Add anything you want below, and let’s see if we can do a good old-fashioned gift exchange of good connections this holiday season!

(p.s. I wasn’t thinking about it when I wrote it, but in deciding how to handle the responses, I realized it’s looking a lot like something The Bloggess did a couple of years ago, which was amazing, and just goes to show that you never know what will happen with these things, especially when your heart is in the right place.)

Yesterday NASA released new hi-res, night-sky images of Earth. The collection is called Black Marble – City Lights 2012; you should check it out.

While looking at the image of the United States, it struck me again, as it always does, at just how much power and influence is concentrated in such small areas. I’ve traveled all over this country, and one stereotype I’ve found to be true is that most people from the coasts know the coasts, and don’t really know much about what’s “in the middle,” which is the lumped-in term I’ve heard used for the Midwest, the South, the West, the Mountain States, and even the Pacific Northwest.

I’ve marked up one of the maps to illustrate (click to enlarge).

When people talk about the East Coast and West Coast, they’re usually not talking about literally all the cities along those coasts (even though they may not know it). They’re actually talking about an idea, a certain way of life and thinking. And that’s exactly why these four cities are so powerful, which we’ll get to in a minute. But first, let’s define the areas:

- East Coast (basically the northeast coastal cities): Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D.C.

- West Coast (basically the California coastal cities): San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, sometimes San Diego

- The Middle: everything else

You’ll see the areas above outlined in gray on the map. Within those outlines, you’ll also see the specific pockets of greatest power and influence in red. These are:

Technology: San Francisco Bay Area
Entertainment: Los Angeles
Media: New York City
Politics: Washington D.C.

These are the four cities that define America. And when I say “define,” I’m not talking about four places that are truly representational of how we as a country live. They are a big part of the way we live, but they’re not the only way. I’m certainly not downplaying or attacking these cities – they are some of the best things this country has to offer, and they help make up who we are as a nation. I do need to point out, however, that they wield an extraordinary amount of influence over the way that we see ourselves, and the way the world sees us.

These four cities define America because they define perceptions of culture. It’s true that the culture of a place like New York City is vastly different than Wichita, Kansas, and neither is “right” or “wrong” . . . but only one of those places gets to showcase their worldview on TV for everyone to see. Think about what that means for a minute.

When you think of any place in the world, of course you think about the geographical landscape, but what if you’ve never lived there, or spent any appreciable time there? More importantly, you form an idea of a place, and that idea is shaped first by your own experience, and if that’s limited, it’s shaped by things you’ve seen, heard, or “know” about that place.

So for the majority of Americans and the rest of the world, the idea of America is shaped by what we can see, hear and “know,” gathered through external sources. And for the United States of America, those sources are people and organizations that live the majority of their lives on the East Coast or West Coast, and most likely inside those four small pockets of influence in their respective fields.

And that’s why New York City, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area get to define America.

It’s not good or bad, but it is what it is, and we would be wise to consider the source. After all, take a look at the map again. There’s a whooooole lot of different ways of life being lived outside those little red circles.

Agree? Disagree? Discussion welcome.

This guy who just posted his Powerball lottery winning ticket to Facebook is pulling a prank on the world. I don’t have the time to go into a full blog post on it right now, but here’s just a copy/paste of what I’ve been discussing on Facebook off an on for the past hour or two. Judge for yourself, but I’m calling it out.

If it turns out to be real, I’ll give all my friends on Facebook $1.00.

Check this out. One of the huge powerball winners (am I saying that right?) from last night. He put this on his Facebook. There’s no official news or even blog writeups about it yet. Question: do you think it’s real? Why or why not?

Looks like I won’t be going to work EVER!!!! Share this photo and I will give a random person 1 million dollars!

Last month I launched Take Our Stuff, a giveaway site designed to not be boring like most of the other giveaway sites out there. I wanted to give out unique things that you can’t get anywhere else, have a lot of fun, and introduce you to interesting people along the way.

It’s been a big success so far, with a ton of people signing up to get cool free stuff each week. So far I’ve given away a working antique 1940s microphone, a time capsule, and a complete old-school Nintendo package, with three full systems (NES, SNES, N64) and 39 games.

So many people have been telling me what they want for Christmas, and last night it gave me an idea – I want to buy a $100 Christmas present for someone, and give them a little extra happiness in their holiday. Just look at the festive Santa hat I’m wearing, and you’ll see that I’m serious.

If you want an extra present for yourself or a loved one this year, just get on Santa Nate’s “Nice” list below. It’s the Take Our Stuff giveaway newsletter with no spam, just free stuff.

Merry Christmas!

Nate

Name:

Email:

We respect your email privacy

This is the first time I’ve actually been disappointed to be working on a new project. It’s not even something I want to share with you, but unfortunately I have to.

I’ve been in hearings since I perpetrated the mass-media Lincoln Invented Facebook hoax earlier this year, and the High Court has finally doled out my punishment.

To fulfill my community service sentence, I have to help Dr. Anthony Martin give away a certain amount of items and value, mostly from his personal fortune. He is serving a (much bigger) sentence for a global hoax that he did years ago. It’s ridiculous, so I’m not going to link it here, but you can find out more on the site. Specifically, my job with this new project is to build and run the website that will allow him to give all this stuff away “in a fair manner, and open to the public.”

So that’s what I have to tell you today. Take Our Stuff is open for business, and the first thing Dr. Martin is giving away is a time capsule. I don’t know what the exact giveaway schedule is, but it’s probably gonna be every week or two.

I want to note that you may not like the writing on the site, since it’s all Dr. Martin, and he’s a Grade-A douchebag. The only thing I control is the platform development and tech stuff. Dr. Martin puts together everything else, including a particularly unflattering description of me in the About section. But there’s nothing I can do about it, so hopefully we can just get this stuff given away and I can take my leave of him.

The only good thing I’ll say is that this guy is filthy rich and also a bit eccentric, so you stand to get some cool stuff if you sign up to get the updates each week.

That’s all I got, folks. Have fun.