It is quite obvious that today, your brand and business must innovate and take things steps further. From a business perspective, today's communication world is shifting towards reputation management especially on social media platforms. I have previously discussed the shift in the market and leadership here.

Today, It takes a single negative Tweet, Facebook post, Youtube video to burn fast through a brand's values, equity and company. At this moment, brands have become at such a big risk that grows by the minute (not even by the day) with brands acting as media in real time, this is being called Brand Journalism.
These are major reasons why reputation management has become a very important element of social media. A few reviews on a blog, a few Facebook comments without a brand's presence and engagement in the conversation could and most probably would hurt the brand without a doubt. Customers or consumers who were to consider any kind of interaction with the brand would simply decide not to do business with it upon any negativity or slacking. It is important to mention that virtually every study shows that people trust peer recommendations more than corporate marketing, therefore a brand's (or company's) approach to the conversation plays a major role.

Reputation management (online) requires 3 things: planning, proactive listening and well-defined response mechanisms. Therefore, in essence, its quite simple to understand and do.

Below are a few points to consider when building an effective strategy:

- Understand that people are talking openly online about brands and companies, and defining them as time passes. Therefore, managing your brand is a must.
- As mentioned above people are talking, and its time to listen and start doing the necessary tweaks and changes to get your brand or company to level great. As you listen, fix and let people know what's happening, what's developing and changing. Effective brand management has a human element to it.
- Brands and companies cannot control conversations, but can be part of it.
- Honest, caring conversations and reactions, with the new social media, old school business practice returned.
- Press releases as a reaction to crisis (regarding a brand) are a thing of the past. So the time is right to set a standard and commit to customers. Business as usual doesn't cut it anymore.

Remember: social media is not marketing, its not a media. Its a relationship.

So, an effective online reputation strategy is essential in our world, knowing that powerful consumers are defining your brand, Today.


If you believe the time has come for you to shine and want to take your brand and/or company to the next level of wow, in a changing world filled with challenges and wrong information CLICK HERE

What you're about to read puts things in perspective when it comes to our human experience as a whole.
You see, everyone wants instant gratification these days and no one seems to realize that it takes time to get results in anything. But in life, there are cycles and when you are in these cycles you will always be in one of these four seasons in any given area of your life.

Winter
The most difficult season of them all, winter is a season that you just have to tough out, but you should always be preparing for. When you are experiencing winter in a part of your life you should always keep the good times in mind. The main thing to keep in mind about winter is that winters don’t last forever so you just got to hang in there and always thing about summer through winter.


Spring
Spring is the opportunity to plant a harvest. So its the season of opportunities.
When you plant in the spring you are not guaranteed a harvest, but it is the chance to plant one. Spring is a time for fresh starts and looking forward to what can be achieved.

 Summer
Summer is the time to reflect on winter. Think of ants.
The reason ants get so much done during the summer is that all summer long they’re thinking of the coming winter. Summer is the time of the year that you have to fight for your harvest. All summer long you have to fight off the bugs and the weeds that are trying to wipe out everything that you’ve worked so hard to plant during the spring. Summer is a time to get busy to help ensure you’ll have something to harvest in the fall.

Fall (The Harvest)
Fall is the sum total of all your efforts over the spring and the summer. If you’ve been sticking with your plan of action and doing the work of summer you should have a good harvest, but there is no guarantee. The best way to guarantee a good harvest is to keep doing the work, yes persist.

The main message of the four seasons is to always be productive no matter the season you are in and to keep a positive outlook on the future.

I believe the time has come, its approaching fast and I decided to make this serious decision once and for all.
It's time to say goodbye, to let go of the past resentments and make place for the magnificent future.
It's time:
- to sing the brilliant song that my life was meant to sing.
- to experience the natural power that inhabits me, to do great work and achieve great things.
- to inspire, become the example and touch the hearts of many along the way.
- to transform adversity into victory.
- to leave this world better than I found it.
- to leave a trail of excellence behind and know that one day my name will resonate with the big ones out there.
- to speak the truth, to be the truth no matter how blunt it might be.
- to go beyond the good enough, beyond the better and go for the best.
- to sing, dance, smile and celebrate life in its simplest forms.

Yes, time to say goodbye to the old ruined victim of the past for it will not prevail. Its time to love the people around you in the simplest of forms, and respect their existence for it was in a moment of love that they were created and were given the privilege to live.

The time has come to dust ourselves up and start walking again. Towards a better future, better people and more positive transformation, taking out every challenge we face for on its other side lies our greatest selves and our expanded realities.

May this year be filled with the most magical surprises, the most magnificent stories and the very best for you and your loved ones.

2011 saw a major shift in business from Business-to-Business equation to a Business-to-People one, and a major shift in Leadership mentality and market economy.
Markets and businesses are keeping this momentum and now starting to slowly shift towards a People-to-People equation as social platforms, social designs take over a major part of our lives and interactivity shifts from the business to personal even more. I've previously talked about the new business model HERE.

It has become obvious that the quality of a brand is determined by the number of people surrounding it, by the mass following it has and by the reactions and interactions happening with it or through it. Which makes the customers an essential part of the Brand itself (in other words customers make the brand). Therefore, it has become clear that companies need to let go of the brand as a self-centered media object, and embrace it as a dynamic collaboration between the company, community, and the people of influence.

Today, a customer doesn't just buy a product, customers are also buying the people.

“Information is inseparable from the people who are creating, consuming, and sharing it. And the web is no longer anonymous – it’s built on real people and their connections, opinions, and ideas.” - Think with Google

 Today, it is vital for companies to maintain and nurture their customers and communication networks because people buy from other people, they trust other people and communicate with them not their logos or corporations. Simply put, what all the concepts, strategies and technologies come down to is simple people-to-people communication.

"Any marketing pieces today should not be just an announcement - they should be a conversation"

 As 2011 closes its final pages, companies project numbers, assess and set up short term and long term goals and take a look at their yearly plans, losses and gains.
This past year, a lot of companies shifted towards becoming digital, and organizations take clear steps towards digital communication, towards crowd-generated content, and empowering both their external and internal teams of influencers. It is now the time they shift towards thinking like journalists when creating stories around their brand. This is when we talk about what is being called "brand journalism".

What is Brand Journalism then, and why do we need to distinguish it from content marketing? 

Brand journalism is being described as a nonfiction attempt at advertising and an editorial approach to brand building which focuses mainly on real time marketing, and having brands acting as media in real time. Brands and professionals are now thinking more like publishers.

 The whole purpose is to tell a story. While content marketing emphasizes a neutral tone, this new form of communication does not lean towards your brand, nor is every piece promoting an aspect of your company directly. Instead, stories could be about anything considered newsworthy for an audience, in the editorial sense.
Simon Sproule, head of global marketing communications at Nissan, says, “It’s about killing press releases. We decided that if we’ve got good stories to tell, we’ll tell them ourselves.”

The goal with branded content, explains social media expert Shel Holtz, isn’t necessarily to solicit profits, but to make companies visible, because these days, if your business doesn’t have content on the world wide web, you’re essentially invisible-even if you have a company website

Last year, companies and brands started becoming media houses and we see that continuing next year maybe even going a step further to convince media people to make the switch from journalism to PR.
As a communicator your content should be focused towards noteworthiness and value while thinking of all audiences, not just journalists, and sometimes without focusing on oneself.



Therefore, keep in mind is that branded content isn’t interested in covering the news (political campaigns, crime stories, etc); instead, branded content is interested in reporting the stories relevant to that brand’s industry. Brand journalism is about starting a conversation and inviting others to take part, its all about storytelling.
Brand journalism develops credibility for your brand across a variety of channels. In a world filled with poor marketing and loud advertising, better stories are needed today more than ever.

Sitting in her vase, a rose slowly bows with respect to the time passing by, to the love that grows or shatters, to the reason for its being.
With every second that passes, it bows even more, respecting the time it was given on this earth, and its head filled with the magical brilliance of a powerful red force gets slowly polluted by the agony of its passing, those dark black spots of an ending life.Taken over by these black spots, she surrenders herself to the adoration of her beauty. Simple and pure.

Life in a rose is taken away from her to be given to us, humans. In adoration of our mundane, fake personas. Our masks so beautifully set to the perfect rhythm of deceit and plastic lives. Our needs, animalistic as can be, take over our sense of self and pride. They shatter the reasons for our lives, a celebration that links us back to this beautiful, innocent rose.
This rose knows why its given life, and bows in respect for what it was meant to show, so innocent and pure.
But what about us? As we present our dying rose, we hold a somewhat egotistical self, animals of wants and needs, we destroy what was given to us in shear self-love and worship to grow with what we will leave behind.

Sitting in her vase, this dying rose knows, that part of her is living again, in a heart, in a soul. And that this magic that created her in the first place is formless and pure, and it is now the time to move on.

The sun left the scene silently sleeping in the vast ocean.
And I brought the ocean side, to its rushy knees. Deep in my shallow dreams, I heard a gorgeous sound, of a sensual serene angel that sang a beautiful song to the clouds. A song for the stars to fall asleep and silent trees to dance with the winds of life as they blow away, those hurricanes of dreams coming towards me, to crash again on my soul.

The silent moon, shines brightly, quietly. It sits there in the dark with her light caressing the leaves of the fellow trees so lightly, so honestly.  A sensual play of forms, from up above to down below.
A small picture of life is painted forever, for life. So honestly, by the magic of creation. The impression of something beautiful takes over, something beyond compare.

This silence isn't so bad, when the world in front of you shares its magic. When life brightly shines upon your heart. When the whole world rejoices for your being, and shares it simple secrets with you.

Its in my dreams that the moon smiled, and she resembled you. So wake me if you're out there.

I woke up to the news of the passing of a great man today. Yes, Steve Jobs. A genius who has changed the world in so many ways, a visionary, a true leader.

I'm honored to have lived in a time to see the shifts in our lifestyle based on his great ideas, and so I have to make a small tribute on my blog to a great man.

Below a few sayings from Jobs:


“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

“I’m the only person I know that’s lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year…. It’s very character-building.” 

“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” 


“Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”

 In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”

“We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them.”

 

This is an audition by an Emmanuel Kelly on The X Factor.This is beyond amazing. It made me speechless.

From his story, to his performance, I think he puts back everything we worry about in our lives into question. I think everyone around should have a look at a fighter with so much passion and so much drive towards what he wants to achieve that nothing can ever stand in his way.
This is a perfect example of the leadership message I try to scream out and of the magical potential of every single one of us no matter his story.

I hope you share this post around, I believe its really worth it.

Where do I go from here? What can I do?
In what color should I see life? What perfume does it all smell like?
Like a lonely dancer on a black, empty theater I dance, to the sound of a saddened violin, crashing through the emptiness of the night. A scream, a shriek, a cry. An orchestra in front of me, silent and waiting for its cue to start a melody of a dream.

Slowly, the sounds of every note cut through the silence as a celebration of what once was, memories woven into aspirations of the future only to die their sudden death. Like every breath the violin takes after a screaming plethora of notes. Like a frustrated poet, spilling his empty words on torn pieces of wet paper only to find them gone at the very moment they come out of his heart.

How do you say goodbye to a dream? How do you scream your lungs out into this world when you've got no voice to scream. How do you put to rest the ideas of a passionate self? The thoughts that were once able to shake you from your incomplete past, empty present and unknown future?

As the notes move out of the way, as they find their own conclusion, as the rush of an epic surrender to what is takes over, I look at the crowd and I see nothing.

Maybe its just me playing all along, maybe it was just my addiction, my music.

A moment is all it took to find that glistening look in her eyes. That delicate touch on her skin.
A moment is all it took to take her from desire to craving.
A moment is all it took for him to realize he was made to give her love again.
A moment is all she needed to feel her wild womanhood all over again.

A moment was all that mattered to surrender to his touch, his sweaty palms running all over her dripping skin, with every movement, every turn.
A moment was all that mattered to take him back to his roots, a wild beast of love, adoration and admiration.
A moment changed the way she felt about him, feeling him inside her core, lifting her up taking her down and bringing her back to life again.
A moment was all she needed to feel she's on a cloud again, taken to the highest levels of bliss and expressive joy.
A moment, and her moans took the form of a melodic piece of masterfully crafted music, an orchestra of joy.
In a moment, she was about to release herself to the epic culmination of her existence. In a moment, that was all that she felt, her own majesty driven by him, taken from his very core.

A moment and her heartbeats were no longer hers, but his, and time has lost its meaning....for a moment.
This very moment, changed his life forever, her looks, her screams, her passionate surrender, her moves, her joy, her craving for his very touch made him feel like her man, her God for a moment.

In a moment, things seemed perfect, like nothing could ever change.
In a moment, that very truth redefined itself and changed him forever.
For in a moment she disappeared, like a ghost disappearing away into the night as daylight breaks.

Looking at her for a moment was all it took to remember her magic, her magnificence before that box was closed, before it all was taken away. All it took was a moment to release her back into the Earth, into the truth of her existence, a wandering saint.

All that matters now is a hope that he would someday be at peace again, for a moment.

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:


If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

There's something beautiful in the way your eyes whisper to mine, sweet tender sentences of admiration, passion and adoration.
There's music playing inside your soul that for some reason nobody else can hear. These small notes of a solo piano dancing softly through your magical self.
There's a story in your eyes, right there with this shining light of your soul, a beautiful endless tale of magnificence in the making, a formation of a truly grand self.
There's passion in your body, a quenching powerful surge of emotion, creating desire and lustful sensations in the most humble of men.
There's a radiant smile on a sensational face, guiding its spectator into the world of untouched dreams, a world of grand majesty.

There's this thought of you in the middle of all my chaos that never leaves. This addictive trip inside your tender core that sticks unto me, into my heart, and leaves its sensual marks on my skin.
And then, there's the fire that burns when we're together. The wind that blows away the rest of life, when time takes a stand to admire beauty in its lustful, purest forms. Life stops to indulge and enjoy a smile, a hug and a tender caress.
Suddenly, the world doesn't seem to care for the rest of it, suddenly everything is like notes on a piano, unique, simple and touching. Taking the listener on a ride into his own self indulgence, a story written in melodies and notes. Suddenly, everything falls into place, no matter how twisted it may seem. Like everything was happening to reside in this moment right now.

And in all this madness of life, suddenly, there's this real, beautiful you.

“I think we like to complicate things when it is really quite simple; find what it is that makes you happy and who it is that makes you happy, and you’re set. Promise.”

“The saddest people I’ve ever met in life are the ones who don’t care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there’s nothing to make it last.” ~ Nicholas Sparks

“We don’t always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly—as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth—the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives.” ~ John Irving

“You are a perfectly acceptable human being right now, this minute. You are just as valid as any other human being, without changing a single thing about yourself. That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to want to grow, evolve or improve yourself, or you can’t do better sometimes, it just means right now this instant, you are worthy of your own self love. Even if it is hard to love yourself sometimes (and boy, is it!), or you’re struggling with some really difficult stuff in your life, you still deserve it. So dearest you, be kind to yourself, be kind to others, and give the best version of you that you can give, but know that even in the tough times, you are still valid, worthy and deserving”

“Many films diminish us. They cheapen us, masturbate our senses, hammer us with shabby thrills, diminish the value of life. Some few films evoke the wonderment of life’s experience, and those I consider a form of prayer. Not prayer “to” anyone or anything, but prayer “about” everyone and everything. I believe prayer that makes requests is pointless. What will be, will be. But I value the kind of prayer when you stand at the edge of the sea, or beneath a tree, or smell a flower, or love someone, or do a good thing. Those prayers validate existence and snatch it away from meaningless routine.” ~ Roger Ebert on Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life

“I learned something important that night. You shouldn’t try to stop everything from happening. Sometimes you’re supposed to feel awkward. Sometimes you’re supposed to be vulnerable in front of people. Sometimes it’s necessary because it’s all part of you getting to the next part of yourself, the next day. The diary wasn’t always right.”

They sit there silently, whispering, releasing secret messages of passion into each other's glowing eyes. They speak of only the exceptional, the grand, the majestic.
Hours dissolve into the sensations of joy, laughter and the feelings of having it all perfectly in sync, they are finally home.
Peace reigns the days, meaningless hours that go by as they drift into each other, a passion so grand, so powerful that it flows directly into each other's heart without a trace, without a mark.

The peace that they have been waiting for is finally here, moments of celebration of life in silence, after the passionate blissful storm of sensations has slowly started to drift away. The peace that comes with a journey flowing like the water in a stream, so pure and fresh, so welcoming and beautiful. Nature celebrates this peace with them as it quiets down and gives way for their souls to play. Its colors shining brightly into the days, the sounds turning so tender and melodic. The orchestra of life sits back and lets things take their toll, angels playing their tunes to the world.

Music of passion and devotion plays in silence, whispers clues to a never ending journey into life, and releases itself to the sensations of living in total surrender and utter joy. Smiles draw the pictures on their lively canvas, created from life to celebrate life and to grow, together in complete divine creation of life in its purest and most magical forms.
Magic glistening in their inviting eyes, thirsty for each other, in need of a touch, of a smile, of a way to surrender. A need for life in its basic form, a need to let go to let loose and to let out. The residue of love, life and passion itself. In music, in words, in movements and in life.

I hold with me what is now left of myself with me, for I have given you a part. And I have let go of it in my celebration of you. Take it, leave, just go. But take care of it please, keep it with you and never let it go. For its the very essence of me that I gave you, for you to cherish and adore. And I'll keep the residue of your magic in my heart, on my skin and in my eyes. A part of your soul that will always stay with me, that will never let me go. So keep moving, keep going, I'm all around you. I'm with you as you go. Keep growing, keep expanding and spread your wings for me.
I'm holding on to your residue, to the memories, to the thoughts of you. I'm holding on to your glances, to your giggles, your smiles, your heart. I'm holding on to your love and to your passion. I'm holding on to your magic and your blessings. I'm holding on to you and I'm waiting.
For everything to get back together again in the near future and to reunite with your soul and taste your magic inside me. I'm holding on to you, to us, to life as I've never experienced before. And I'm waiting, for a chance to celebrate it again.
So angel, wherever you are, however form you might take, whatever thoughts you might have, I'll always be there, sitting, admiring, waiting....and I'm holding on.

Most people, most of the time, don't buy things if there's a free substitute available. Less than 1 percent of the people who listen to a certain song will actually buy the album or single. Music online for example is an all-you-can-eat buffet that only costs the price of a device to access the web and the fees you pay to your Internet provider.

As more commercial activity involves the digital (web, ebooks, music...) the temptation to spread the idea for free is actually economically easy and possible while trying the strategy that notes "giving out something for free will lead to more revenue in the long run". Nowadays, a culture of free digital consumption set itself as a standard in our everyday life and is being adopted by a huge section of consumers (mainly from teenagers to the upper middle class). Therefore the concept behind the strategy of the free bases itself on that the source of this free product will be discovered, attract attention, spread and lead to some category of people actually buying something.
For a while, one could use free to promote an idea and have leverage to turn that attention into paid sales of a similar item (I use my music mixes as a free way to promote myself as a DJ for example which I can later use to get extra revenue at a certain point and/or for a certain reason).
In our recent times, people start to feel foolish when they pay for something and the free substitute is easily available and perhaps more convenient.

Therefore, people with something to sell are going to have to invent things that can't possibly have a free substitute. Take for example Armin Van Buuren. His tracks and productions are easy to acquire and enjoy but his live shows, eccentric performances and grand productions will always be payed. A few years ago, Armin would play around 2 to 3 hours live and earn a certain revenue that is mixed between track sales and event shows. Nowadays, Armin as a brand became active on social platforms, giving the word out of events, productions and locations. That way he's giving extensive and constant free promotion to his name (his brand) and trying to earn a potential following as much as possible since these are the people who will be interested in experiencing his live shows, earning him the money. His radio shows and music have become the promotional hook, a tool to capture audiences and potential spectators to shows that have evolved from simple to an audiovisual spectacle with unexpected surprises, technology and more.

Another example is Lady Gaga. Her music is basically free, it's the concerts that cost money. Another example is playing basketball at a health club.  That's free, it's membership that costs money.

Creators don't have to like it, but free culture is here and it's getting more pervasive. Armin Van Buuren's Armada label noticed that and tried fighting it at first, but today Armada makes heavy use of YouTube as a marketing channel for example. If you watch their tracks on YouTube you will notice they include plenty of branding and calls to action to bring a listener into the world of the label. The end result is massive exposure, with a huge global following, leading to sold out gigs all around the world (which are not free).

The end result we have today is a conglomeration of new media companies, evolving old-media companies, e-commerce, social voting tools, search engines, file sharing and good old word of mouth all driving how music is distributed. It’s complicated, but we’re getting closer to a model that works. Musicians and record labels, like us bloggers, are relying more and more on multiple streams of income, and the highest value product they have, is the face-to-face time they offer. In the case of music, that’s concert time, and especially at the very top end of most popular artists, the big cash is made from ticket sales to concerts.

Free has always been part of the equation. The bestselling book of all time, The Bible, has no copyright and has been shared freely for thousands of years. Musicians gladly show up to play for virtually free on the Tonight Show or Saturday Night Live for example (while taking into consideration the promotion & audiences watching). The line for using free as a discovery tool is shifting, and the best way to monetize is for the idea to be coupled with something that could never be free. Paying for content will ensure that more of it gets payed.

Consumers should be willing to pay for great content and I believe they are. They are now trained that a big portion of the market is now free. But creators, marketers and strategists should find ways to "package" these products so that they're worth paying for again.

One of those weird moments usually tend to happen every now and again. You think like you're prepared to what is about to happen, played several scenarios in your head. Thought things through before, but just like that and out of the blue, you get what might simply be considered the surprise of your recent life.

It takes you on a magical journey into herself, and on a road of magical self discovery, diving deep inside your own core.

You know, I've never really shared so much in so little time but something in you just flows like the water stream coming out from its source, dancing with the bright rays of the summer sun. And as those rays dance they pulsate into the unseen world of beautiful sensations, uplifting emotions and pounding beats of the heart. There's magic in the smiles you shoot at people around you, like the most enjoyable knifes thrown by a circus artist at his turning, blindfolded muse. The risk is just enormous but the passion and dedication, the subtle care and unlimited loving madness is too powerful for a mistake to happen.

I can still feel you around, although its been a while since you're gone. I can still remember those looks, those eyes trying to take in every single detail of the night and store them, hidden in your memory away from the judgements of people who can never understand.
I can sense your hand gliding around my neck as the day goes on, those tender fingers dancing on my skin speaking to every nerve possible, creating unforgettable pulses of sensations that I cannot but store inside me and long for in the days, weeks and months to come.
I can still smell you, your scent, your skin. You've left your marks on me, those small clues that belong to you and that only you can give away screaming to everyone that I've been possessed that you made me yours.
You've cast your amazing spell, through this smell of you and you left.
But you forgot your perfume, right there on my skin.

Her eyes speak secret stories in total silence. They're like a book, an endless series of tales to be told to those special people who can listen. Admiration fills me as I dive into an endless tale of woven mysteries and unspoken secrets. Filled with fascination, an incurable drug, her passion slowly reveals herself as we're there trying not to spill too much and drown in tears of deceptions and mysterious feelings carefully covered over time.

I can see her needs speaking to me, closure, and end to something so grand and shattering. A cry so innocent and loud yet totally silent and covered with smiles. And what a giver, in total surrender to the "what is" on her walk to the "what could be". Pieces of herself are scattered around the globe, inside the lives of so many people who seem to mean so many things in so many ways.

Never ending conversations flow so freely, so purely, so genuinely but those eyes they keep on speaking they keep on screaming with every move, every subject, every sip of the drink.

What a surprise, another unexpected gift that shows itself at the perfect moment. What a book written in memories that I have yet to read from cover to cover...and how honored I am to have open the vault to those secrets in those glittery eyes, aiming that one day they can sing again to the pounding beats of her pulsating heart.

“The universe doesn’t care if you’re scared. I know this is not news, but you need to hear this. I’m scared, you’re scared, and we’re all scared. The difference is whether you’re going to keep moving. I really hope you will.” ~ Merlin Mann

We're wired to avoid fear, when it surfaces we run, and try to escape it. But I believe sometimes we should just stop the mental processes and really look at fear as an opportunity. I've learned that on the other side of every fear is authentic power, pure greatness.To run from fear is to run from the brilliance you were meant to be. The things that scare you are spectacular opportunities to discover more of all you are meant to be. Therefore fear, when actually executed no matter the situation, leads to confidence, promotes growth and makes you better.

So today, at work or at home, if something comes up that causes you to feel like running, resisting or avoiding, embrace the opportunity and show up. Because what you resist will persist and what you befriend, you'll transcend.