girl next door on exercise ball

The Queen of Stock Photos

Just looking at her, you feel happy, uplifted, somehow better about yourself in that moment.
You don’t immediately register her age (very youthful), her beauty (symmetric), her build (slight), her race (Asian, perhaps mixed). No, she is just the embodiment of happiness, satisfaction, promise. In that instant, her smile makes you feel warm, worthy, safe. Who is she? She’s the girl I call The Queen of Stock Photos. Read More

Welcome to the Gigabody Blog!

We’re so excited to launch our blog today to share fitness & health news, inspirational content, insights and relevant reviews with you, from our staff and incredible guest bloggers.

As you know by now if you follow us on social media, we’re huge fans of everything fitness, empowerment though movement, tips and tools to find health and happiness. Everyone’s journey is different, but there’s inspiration and knowledge that we can all share. Read More

Top 5 Tactics of a Successful Public Radio Pledge Drive.

1. Carrot & Stick

Carrot: “If you pledge right now, an anonymous donor will match & double your pledge!”

Stick: “If we don’t meet our quota, we’ll have to (offer to) give the matching funds back.”

Not long ago, they used to say they’d actually have to give the funds back. Maybe their legal department made them change that.

2. The Unreachable Goal

This technique elicits both the underdog will to triumph against adversity & the crippling fear that you’ll lose NPR & your beloved [favorite radio show here].

“Today we must raise $250K to stay on the air. So far we have raised $21K.”

Then at the end of the day – a miracle! They magically cover the difference with donations they already had but didn’t disclose.

“We did it! $250K reached!”

(thanks to $195K in pre-existing, non-call-in donations)

3. Guilt & Shame

With this psychological tactic, they play recorded messages from people who’ve listened 6 hours a day for 40 years and never supported public radio…. until TODAY, when they realized the error of their ways. (The error of your ways, hint hint.)

4. Prizes!

Tote bags! Cook books! Stickers for your Volvo Subaru Prius!

5. Promises with Underlying Threats (or vice versa)

“If we raise enough money, we’ll stop having 4 pledge drives a year and only have 1!”

(If we fail, we’ll need to have at least 17 pledge drives a year to make up the difference.)


Disclaimer: I am a lifelong support of public radio. Financially and emotionally. These are simply my learned observations as a long-time listener. Shout out to Terry Gross – Love ya & looking forward to an interview with you one day!

Things My Obituary Won’t Say

  • She was a terrible friend, but very codependent. Only truly happy in the company of others.
  • Her kitchen should have had a Michelin star for its creations.
  • Despite not believing in herself, she had amazing on-stage presence and lived for the spotlight and podium.
  • Perpetually late and hater of mornings.
  • Every day she drank a huge glass of milk, between meals of cucumbers & fast food.
  • Never met a dog she liked.
  • Immediately warm to strangers, but an utter teetotaler who abstained most of all from caffeine.
  • Extremely unloyal, traded jobs & friends like last year’s fashions.
  • Lover of rolling in grass, dusty rooms, hairballs from all breed of animal.
  • The patience of a saint, wonderful most notably with toddlers.
  • Avid board game player who never met a tabloid she didn’t buy.
  • Wearer of expensive perfume and elegant lady shoes (the higher the heel the better).
  • Never cracked a book except to see if it had pictures.
  • Utterly risk averse. Unwilling to go for her dreams, lest she never be hired again.

How will you NOT be remembered? Happy Friday!

The deceased live on LinkedIn

In the relatively young landscape of social media, one awkward area has to do with the accounts of the deceased on LinkedIn.

I now have 2 friends on LinkedIn who have died unexpectedly young. Both are still active on LinkedIn, and show up as still working at their last job. I dread the day that I am prompted to Congratulate one of them on their n-year anniversary at their ‘current’ employer. As time goes on, the number of dead on social networks will inevitably grow. And grow.

There’s a part of me that rejoices in seeing my friends’ names again, having a way to visit their pages and feel the idle connection come alive. But on the heels of that feeling comes the inevitable knife-in-the-gut, the remembrance of the loss: a cruel, insensitive reminder.

LinkedIn provides a way for members to report accounts of the deceased to initiate account shutdown. Generally, I would hope that a family member would get to make this decision, and not a colleague.

These accounts are living epitaphs. Miss you guys.

Life Lessons

I have a theory. I believe life’s downs are critical lessons to make us appreciate life’s ups. To teach us gratitude.

When things go wrong, loved ones die, projects fail, dreams are dashed, relationships end, or an illness knocks us out, it puts into perspective just how special and precious normal is. 

Seize the day. What if this is your last year? What do you want to have accomplished or seen or shared in your life story?

Enjoy the moment. Time flies, just slow it down for a second here and there. Stop and smell a flower, close your eyes and inhale the fresh air, savor a bite of delicious food, squeeze a special hand.

Use your words. Contrary to how it sometimes feels, everyone can not read your mind, not even the people closest to you. Tell someone how much they mean to you. Say thank you. Say I was thinking of you. Say hi. Say something nice.

Celebrate your health.  Normal is normal, nothing special. Until an illness breaks you down or a loved one dies too young, then you fleetingly realize that normal is so incredibly lucky and glorious when it comes to health.  Don’t squander it. Use your body because you can, feed it well, revel in the miraculous luck of normal.

Jeremy

One day I wrote her name upon the strand
But came the waves and washed it away
Again I wrote it with a second hand
But came the tide and made my pains his prey…

Edmund Spenser

Dedicated to my courageous friend Jeremy, whose name can’t be wiped from my heart.