For the first time since I began my speaking career, I’ve partnered with someone from the local Cleveland/Akron, OH area to put together a seminar that we are calling Driving Your Business to the Next Level: Inspiration and Common Sense For Business, Marketing and Life. It takes place exactly one week from today, May 21, 2008 from 8:00 am to 11:45 am but seats are limited!

This seminar was conceived months after I got to know Jim Cermak, a 20 year marketing veteran who has worked with a large variety of companies including Roadway Express, Alltel, Original Cookie Company and many others. When we met at a networking event earlier this year, we clicked immediately. Right then and there I knew he and I would be working together but didn’t know in what capacity.

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Peter first came to my attention months ago when he was hosting “I Will Change Your Life” blog, the title of which caught my attention.  It was direct, daring and unusual. He’s since changed the name to “The Change Blog” because for one thing, he was uncomfortable with the previous title for a long while, causing him to lose motivation at times.  So one day he decided to change it, which immediately injected vitally needed energy back into the blog.  I have to say it’s quite fitting!

I’ve been meaning to write this post ever since I read “17 Lies That Are Holding You Back and The Truth That Will Set You Free” by Steve Chandler. The book made me smile because some of what I read in there were self perpetuating little white lies I’ve told myself over the years. (Photo credit: “mangu” wanders by)

We all do it.

But that doesn’t make it right. We create our own adversity when we try to get away with lies we tell ourselves. There’s a saying that we might try to fool others but we can’t fool God or ourselves. Sooner or later those lies come back to bite us. Hard.

Continuing with Part I of Friday’s gratitude post, I have much more to share with you. I’m still reeling from attending this year’s SOBCon08.

Like Liz Strauss mentioned in a comment she left at Part I, I was largely ambivalent about attending primarily due to the added expense of going because I had allocated a large portion of funds towards the creation of my first-ever professional speaking demo tape (you can see the 10 minute video here if you haven’t seen it yet).

Because this gratitude post will be the longest I’ve ever written, I’ve decided to break it up into two parts with the second being aired over the weekend. I know I risk missing some of you because of the weekend, but I’ll take my chances.

The longer I stay connected in the world of blogging, the more I see other writers, bloggers, speakers, authors and business leaders finding ways of expressing their gratitude. It seems like an exploding phenomena. And that, my friends, is a very good thing - the more the collective consciousness expresses gratitude, the higher all of us are lifted from a cosmic standpoint. It increases the overall energy, bringing much needed positive light to the world.

I just got back this afternoon from Chicago, a full two days after the SOBCon08 conference was officially over. The extra days gave me a fabulous opportunity to spend quality time with the likes of Karen Putz, Wendy Piersall and Lorelle VanPossen all of whom were among those I bonded with over the long weekend.

The love and support from these three was incredible. Karen and her family generously offered me a place to stay for two nights (saving me a bundle on hotel expenses - THANK YOU KAREN!) while Lorelle and Wendy decided to kidnap me for several hours last night (Monday) so that Karen could tend to her parential duties without me in the way (i.e. take the kids to the baseball game and other motherly chores).

Today is the last day of the “blogging biz school” and yesterday’s presenters were great - each of them had a unique slant on how to establish your blogging platform and what to expect from your blogging efforts.

Before I tell share with you a summary of what I learned, let me point you to Phil Gerbyshak’s Make It GREAT! site where he posted a photo of us at Macy’s where each of us had a free customized notebook made on site for us. I was impressed - if you’re ever in the market for a customized notebook, you should give these guys a try.

Update: I am now making another attempt to give you an update on the conference so here goes……

Well, here I am in Chicago, using the laptop of Stephen Smith, a fellow blogger who specializes in Productivity issues. I tried to use the hotel’s computer earlier this morning when posting this gratitude article but for some reason it wouldn’t take.

Since Stephen and I have to meet some people in a few minutes, I am going to have to come back and continue this gratitude post later on today but I wanted to let all of you know that I arrived here safely and that I am having a great time making new connections with bloggers I’ve met online but never met in person.

Now that Adversity University is happily nestled in its new home with Top Hosting Center as its server, we are ready to move forward!

Moving on, this week we have our first international guest, Alexander Kjerulf from Denmark. Did you know the results of a survey done in Denmark revealed that the majority of the people living and working there considered themselves genuinely happy? I know it’s hard to believe but there’s ample evidence backing it up. It was an Internet news piece that was floating around when I first saw it. I’ll bet if you googled “Denmark, happiness” you’ll find some of those surveys.

This is a quick update to alert everyone at the Adversity University community that if you left a comment (to which I responded) over the last few days, it may no longer be here because I was in the midst of a transition to a new hosting server (THC).

If you have a website of any kind and you’ve made at least one transition to a new server, then you probably know how technical glitches have a tendency to appear along the way. That’s normal these days because of the multitude of different platforms, servers and programs out there. While I was aware of this, I still had to force myself to remain calm and detached throughout the process (”Let Go and Let God”), trusting that the dedicated professionals at the new server would do their job and work diligently through whatever problems came up.

Here I am, giving this photo thing another try. I don’t know what happened last night but at one point I managed to get all the photos in yesterday’s gratitude post but Wordpress decided to get all screwy and messed everything up. So I deleted several of the photos and decided to try again this morning.

Upclose view of MGM Hotel

Hotel From One Block Away

Stephen inside MGM Hotel Lobby

Check In MGM Hotel

View from Room - Daytime

View from Room - Nighttime

$7 Billion Construction on the Strip

Evening Stroll on the Strip

Self Portrait B4 Presentation

It’s been 25 weeks since I started the weekly gratitude posts at Adversity University. I continue to be astounded over the fact that regardless of how my week went, I always manage to find something to be grateful for.

This week I went to Las Vegas to give a closing keynote presentation for the Michigan-based Risk Management Institute. They sponsored a national conference for hospital CEO’s, nurses, doctors and other health care professionals.

My topic, “Transforming Adversity into Success,” was very well received and for that I am exceedingly grateful.

Since it was my first time there, I booked myself an extra night at my own expense so that I could enjoy a bit of sightseeing.

Did you enjoy the first part of my interview with Wendy last week? If you haven’t seen it, you can go here to read up on it.

Let’s welcome Wendy of sparkplugging back to the university!

11. What books, blogs and/or mentors have influenced you and why?

By the time you read this, I’ll be 35,000 feet in the air, heading for Las Vegas, probably stuffing myself with tasteless airline food and reading “17 Lies That Are Holding You Back and The Truth That Will Set You Free” by Steve Chandler. (Photo: Varyamo)

It’s a book that was first recommended by my good friend Michael Werner, CEO of InfoSource Learning. Because of his recommendation, Christine O’Kelly of Self Made Chick got herself a copy, which inspired her to write a fabulous post called Lies I Told Myself That Kept Me Broke and Lazy. When I read that, I immediately ordered it on Amazon because it made me curious about what lies I might have told myself over the years! I might even do a post on it - stay tuned!

I purposefully waited an extra day before writing the end of the week gratitude post because I wanted to give everyone a chance to digest the previous article on how I made $2500 simply by making a comment at another blog.

My goal at Adversity University is to leave enough room in between posts to give you a chance to breathe and enjoy them one at a time. (Photo: Gabo)

Here we go:

The Book

Lately, many of you have been telling me how much you’ve been enjoying updates regarding the birth of my first book so I thought I would start off by giving you one: