When you look around at what life has dealt so many people, it’s difficult not to feel RICH. I just finished speaking to participants at the Melanoma Research Foundation volunteer training weekend in Chicago. I’ve met so many people who have been impacted by Melanoma. Some are living with it’s cloud around them daily. Some struggle with low energy due to medication and chemo; others are reminded each day of the waging war with visible scars from an aggressive cancer with no cure.  These people are my hero’s and they are making the lives of others more rich with their giving. In the last twenty-four hours, I have heard about golf tournaments, comedy nights, walks, runs, nights runs, raffles, musical events and other ways people touched by melanoma are raising money and awareness. It’s rekindled a desire I have to use a foundation I serve to make an even bigger difference.

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August is an important month on the calendar for many. It marks back to school for students. It signals the end of summer. The days are starting to get shorter and fall is creeping up on us. It also happens to be the 20th anniversary of starting my business full time and it marks the anniversary of the death of my grandmother Richardson who died five years ago this month. I’ve been thinking a lot about her and the legacy she left and I’ll be posting her story soon. I hope it will inspire you to think about the people in your life who have created a legacy and who made a difference to you.

What would you do IF you found some money that wasn’t yours? My speaking colleague and friend Barbara Glanz has a solution. See her blog post titled a lesson in giving. Barbara has the unique distinction of being the first professional speaker on record to speak on all seven continents. She also discoved Johnny the Bagger, and amazing story of a young man with Downs Syndrome who has touched the lives of many.

Tomorrow is the 2nd annual Jeff Roth Cycling Foundation Crit race in my little town of Maryville, TN. Tour de France it may not be but it is great fun and local entertainment IF you happen to live in the “ville as I do. It’s a great example too of the kind of people I write about - people who take tragedy and turn into triumph. People like Kathy Roth who lost her husband Jeff in a sensless cycling accident almost two years ago. No doubt, Kathy could have sat around and done nothing, been paralyzed with grief, and cried herself to sleep. She did have her moments but it didn’t take her long to raise above and do something. She is actively working to help prevent the kind of sensless deaths when people are careless on the road and DON’T follow the 3-Foot Rule. She and the foundation she started are helping young people know about cycling safety and educating drivers about sharing the road.

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.

I read about a cool idea in the July issue of Guidepost magazine. New Yorker Meghann Stepan and her fiance John want people to spend a lot of dough on their wedding gifts for their upcoming marriage. Not for them but for charities like Safe Horizon, Improve Your Life Skills and others. Through an organization called changingthepresent, wedding guests will make donations to charities that Meghann and John support. Cool huh?

So if you are thinking about getting married and don’t want the oft used fondue set, the Ginzu knife set, or the Ronco Bamboo steamer, join John and Meghann and ask for something that keeps on giving - a gift for someone else. I am so inspired I want to get married again (to the same woman of course). 

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.

This story makes me feel greedy for wanting a house with one more bedroom and bathroom for my family of seven. Buried behind all the news of John McCain, Barack Obama, the summer Olympics, and Nicole Kidman’s new baby  is this story posted on www.CNN.com today. Thanks to my friend Charles for emailing me the link (Charles, if you read this in the next 60 seconds and email me the names of ALL seven dwarfs, you’ll win a brand new car!). Anyone else want to play?

Here’s the story:

Hannah’s Lunchbox was created by the Salwen family in Atlanta, Georgia, as a way to make a small difference in world hunger. Our belief is that we have more than we need while others don’t have enough; so we decided to sell our beautiful, large home (that’s a picture of it on the left side) and move into another one half the size and half the price.  We are giving half the sales price of our old house to a life-changing program run by The Hunger Project that is helping hundreds of thousands of people in Africa  move from poverty to self-reliance.

What financial worry do you have today? How could you think “differently” about it? You MIGHT not want to sell you house and give the profits away BUT there’s probably something you could do that would help others. Let me know what you are thinking…

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.

I was at a meeting tonight at my church where we discussed starting a new Saturday night service. As we discussed some possibilities, one of the things that came out was designing a service around needs that weren’t be met in other more traditional churches or services. One idea explored was to survery a few people, try some different things, and invite people at some level to give input on creating an experience that would keep them coming back. In that spirit, I’d like to hear from some of you including ”lurkers” who read but NEVER comment on this blog. You know who you are and it’s time to come out of the closet! If you don’t think you are a lurker ask yourself if you have been to the site more than once but you haven’t commented. If that is you, now is your time. What would you like me write about in this blog that fits under the theme of living rich? Would you like personal stories of people living rich in the ways that matter? How about some video clips? or more pictures? A little humor thrown in for good measure? Exerts from my upcoming book? What? Tell me, tell me!

Two more comments: 

 2) I j heard about a new social networking site for charities and charitably inclined individuals. Check it out at IsThereSomethingICanDo.com. It was started by Akon and Peter Buffett, son of Richest Man in America Warren Buffett. Looks like it’s worth a look…even for a lurker!

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.

 Anyone who is alive, should celebrate today. The past several days have reminded me about the precioiusness of life. In my  ”My Stroke of Insight” post, I wrote about the tragic death of the brother of one of my best friends. Since then, the wife of another friend was killed in a head-on collison on the way to the grocery store and a friend of my twelve year old son, died while running too hard in the heat of summer. All this in a span of about 10 days.  These tragedies are difficult to understand.  While now is the time to grieve for those close to these families, there comes a time to heal.  While healing takes many forms and I certainly am not an expert on the subject, I like to weigh in. Below are some things I have done when I have experienced loss:

Cry - it’s important to let it all out, freely.

Remember - Spend some alone time thinking about memories that were created with the person who you lost. Watching video tapes, while difficult, can keep the memories alive and remind you of cherished times from the past. 

Write - start a journal both for the sake of posterity AND to help with healing.

Act - Ten years ago, I lost my best friend to Melanoma. Both to deal with my own grief and to help give him hope, I started a foundation in his memory. To date, our foundation has raised almost $500,000 to give away to people who can’t afford treatment and to try to find a cure for Melanoma.  There have been over 20 athletic events in Florida and Colorado to raise money for the foundation. Tomorrow, there will be an event in East Tennessee to Rayz Awareness, our mantra, about the dangers of too much sun exposure.  There will be something for everyone: a 1mile fun run, a 5K run, a 10K run, free skin cancer screenings, massage therapist, and music by a local group called Pistol Creek (they are a totally fun blue grass band). There was a story in yestedays Daily Times which you can read by clicking here: 5K and 10K run in East Tennessee.

Below are the other details:

When: Saturday June 14th

Where: The Rush Fitness Center in Alcoa (new Midland Plaza) Call 273-1360 or visit www.TheRush247.com for directions 

When: 7:30 pm (we are having it at night for OBVIOUS reasons!) Note: Registration begins at 6:30 

Why: Because skin cancer is the fastest growing, most preventable form of cancer.

Cost: $25 IF you print this and bring with you.

There will be t-shirts, free sunscreen, prizes, and more.

It’s Friday the 13th, go ahead make YOUR day. 

NOTE: The picture below is from our Colorado event. Kathy, Bill’s widow is on the left with a melanoma AND breast cancer survivor and her friend. That’s a whole another story!  

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.

As you may know, MAY is Melanoma Awareness month. Each May, I put on my clergy rob and become the “Minister of Melanoma”. You might too if you lost your best friend to this disease as I did ten years ago. Although losing your best friend is about as bad as it gets in relationships, I ferverently believe that on the other side of adversity is always something better. The something better is his death is that many lives have been saved and many people educated about the dangers of too much sun exposure. Our melanoma foundation has cosponsored symposiums with leading melanoma researchers from all over the world attending. An association of melanoma researchers has been formed AND people are getting it.

In the last few weeks, I have traveled to Daytona Beach, FL where we held the 11th annual Rayz Awareness run. I have also traveled to Fort Collins, CO where I ran in the Bill Walter Melanoma Research 5K that was held at the school Bill’s son attends. It was cool to see his son up on stage talking, registering runners, and finishing 8th out of 200 runners (I surprised myself and finished 24th - not bad for a VERY occasional runner). If you happen to be local and want to help, please let me know. We are having a 5K and 10K run June 14th at the Rush Fitness Center. Soon details will be up on Rayz Awareness website.  

I saw a clip this am on FOX News about super model Cindy Crawford and an organization called Thirsty for Change. Click on video of Cindy Crawford if you like to watch Cindy in action (and no, it’s NOT a Sports Illustrated Swim Suit video). It never ceases to amaze me how many cool things people are doing to help others.

I am sitting in the dark using only battery power from my laptop. Though I am a few minutes tardy, I am doing it for Earth Hour.  Earlier this week, I had read either in USA Today or Readers Digest about Earth Hour - an hour where everyone turns off their lights for one hour. I had forgotten about it until I received an email from professional speaker friend Karyn Buxman. I was reminded again when I signed unto to Google  as they were even dark (an all black background).

Often when I walk, I pick up trash in my neighborhood or the woods near my house. I most confess, I have often questioned what difference picking up a few pieces of trash makes. I thought the same thing when I first heard about Earth Watch. Watch the You Tube and you can see what difference one person can make. Someone had this idea after all. Let there be light, but only when we need it. I kind of like doing it (writing that is) in the dark.

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.