Summer Internships - Don't Be Shy

I sit here on a bluebird day in Mill Valley and feel happy it's Friday. I've been thinking alot about not only all of our new fans in facebook, but also these awesome brand ambassadors we have representing us on college campuses across the country.

Amanda, Brittny, Amber, Roya, Renee, Ryanne, Sarah, Amy, Katie, Brooke, Lindsey, and others, thank you for joining us on our mission to engage and inspire girls to just keep playing. I love Ellen deGeneres as Dorie in Finding Nemo, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming". Today's society seems to be trying to make girls conform to some ridiculous skinny version of "beauty", and we are here for all the real girls of the world. The ones who will take over the world. 15 million who play sports in the US alone!

But I am hopeful with this space to share something of value for our vivoGirls. As I ran yesterday, I realized that getting meaningful summer internships is not that easy to do. But "not easy" should never stop you!

I suggest that you ask yourself, who is the company, who is the leader, who is doing things that just make your heart sing? If you could work anywhere at all, knowing that all day your "work" would be play to you, where would that be?

Then call, send a beautiful written letter with your beautifully written resume, email, the very top most person in that organization. Ask them if they provide summer internships. If they say no, say, "I want to work for you so badly, I will empty your trashcans."

How will they say no to that? Chances are, if they are an established business, they will even muster up some kind of minimum wage to engage you for 8 weeks. This becomes your perfect opportunity to work within an organization that believe fits with your personality and your goals for yourself. Don't worry if you get there and you hate it... you have to stick it out, and do the best job you can, but then check that off your list!

I thought I might want to work in banking, til I worked in a bank one summer. I thought I might want to go into sports/fitness, til I worked in a gym. I like hospitality/restaurants, til I realized how hard that was to work every night (but everyone SHOULD wait tables at some point in their life... you will respect waiters for ever more.) But when I got to Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta the summer before my senior year at Carolina, I realized I belonged. I LOVED it. This was the start of CNN, MTV, HBO, all of what we now know is 10 gazillion niche channels of "cable TV". It was a blast.

Now here I am, still in media, but combining all of my passions, all of my experience, everything that I love in one awesome job. Keep in mind, sometimes you have to create your own favorite job. And I'm here to encourage young women to go for that too.

Go for it. Don't be shy. If you don't believe in yourself, no one else will.

Elective surgery and other scary places women go

So, I'm reading Elle magazine recently, which my daughter and I bought for some beach reading last week, and I totally love Fergie. She rocks. And she admits that keeping her body fit and strong is an ongoing exercise in diligence and responsibility. Like, if you want to feel good and strong, then you have make little decisions every day to eat healthy food in moderation, work out nearly every day, say no to those things that may bring that momentary satisfaction but that don't contribute to your overall longer-term happiness and sense of well-being.

The Dalai Lama talks about the distinction between short-term pleasure vs. an internal sense of happiness and self-worth. I believe that participating in sports, sweating every day, contributing to a team effort, training yourself to reach the next level, lead more to that internal sense of self-worth and happiness, than if I fixated on the wrinkles around my eyes that are now there to stay (literally laugh lines), or the ready availability of short-term "fixes" that abound in our society that promise pleasure or some immediate gratification. Fast food, drugs, even cosmetic procedures which belie nothing...

Can we talk about this whole direction our society is going in for women, where plastic surgery is like the new, fast way to "beauty"? I'm troubled that teenagers today are entering womanhood, only to be confronted everywhere they turn with women who have had so much altered on their bodies they all start to look the same. I mean do we really think that Heidi Montag is happier in her soul for completely and permanently altering her appearance so drastically? And what kind of husband encourages and supports this full scale attack on her body and face? What happened to for better for worse, did he not love her fully just as she was?

Horse poison injected into your face? What is up with that? I mean really. Large and hard breasts on an otherwise slender body? You undergo elective surgery, pay thousands of dollars, and for what?

I think it is time someone had the courage to stand up and say, yes, a little make-up is tons of fun. Women have had fun with make-up for centuries. I love lipsticks and eyeliners and all of it as much as any girl (in moderation please). But when do we say no to undergoing the knife to have your fat sucked out, your face pulled taut to beyond recognition, breasts that are obviously not what your parents and God gave you?

Girls, just say no. Love your bodies just how they are. And take care of them. Eat good food, get that run in, and hang out with friends and guys who love you just like you are.

You are magnificent.

P.S. Someone please tell me Fergie hasn't had cosmetic surgery...

Facebook Fan Page Joy

Facebook contest today was a hit. Before I even knew the post was loaded up, we had 3 girls already commenting! Sharing their most favorite food! Not happy about all the food choices :-), but very happy with the responses.

I just felt like giving away some t-shirts and other assorted swag today to our vivo girls.

It was so much fun, we're just going to keep doing it.

Fan page is a blast. Can't wait to hit 10,000 fans. What other contests can we do? We're open to any and all ideas.

vivoGirls love summer sports camps

So, seeing our Vivo Girls Sports fan page take off is exhilarating. Here at the beach for spring break with my family, I am desperately trying NOT to check my iPhone, with new facebook app added my daughter, constantly to interact with the new fans there.

Our vivoGS girls seem to be in the summer camp mode NOW, and we hope they realize how cool their closest university or college camps just might be for them. Day camps, overnight camps, lots of opportunity for fun and bonding with other girls who also love to play.

Seems once girls are teenagers they are ready for more than crafts and kum-ba-ya. I actually love crafts and kum-ba-ya, but I also wanted to get better at the sports I played, so I can relate. The best sports camps incorporate lots of fun stuff along with the sweat and competition (which some of us think IS fun :-) ). Can't wait til they all go and report back to us their faves so we can form a summer sports camp "vivoGS Recommends" list for next year. Good and bad, we want to hear it all.

Oh, before I sign off, I have to tell you that we had Animal Planet live here in the low-country of South Carolina. We witnessed an alligator with a half-eaten mammal of some sort chomped down in his mouth. Like a 30-ish pound mammal, right there in his jaws! It was totally crazy. Glad it wasn't my dog Poppy, and that she is safe and sound in Mill Valley, where we don't have to worry about alligators. Guess a golfer here last week went to retrieve his golf ball in a pond and an alligator ate his arm right off! Truly! They retrieved his arm from the alligator but it was too mangled to try and put back on. TRUE STORY.

Okay, that's enough. I digress.

I don't think anyone is following this blog yet, but that's okay, since I'm not really sure what blogs are supposed to be all about anyway. Does anyone really want to read what I'm thinking or doing? I mean, who has time to follow these things? They tell us all CEO's should be blogging, so hopefully eventually some vivoGirls will jump in here and comment and ask me something meaningful.

I don't know much about much, but I do know about teenage girls who love sports. I was one, I coached a bunch of them, and I have two daughters who qualify.

Wonder if I post the alligator-eating-a-large-mammal if that will get some comments? I'll try it.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee + Me

Okay, I'm having my perfect day. Starting with... wake up, realize I can sleep in, sleep in.

Run with my daughter on a bluebird day on the beach. Make donuts with teenage daughters and friends who have never had a "home-made donut" (the special cheater way, and don't worry it is the once-a-year treat from Mom), sit in sun and catch up on all the reading I never seem to have time to do, listen to Michael Franti with handsome husband, and just now.....

Come to check in on vivoGS, which is rapidly approaching 5,000 facebook fans, and Jackie Joyner-Kersee noticed that I became her "fan", hoping she would dig vivoGS.com and she friend requested ME. I am now her "friend". She has no idea how much she influenced and inspired me as a teenage track runner. I ran the 60 and 110 yd hurdles and the 440 yd relay (before we had the sexier "meters"), and we all just wanted to BE Jackie. I hope the teenage girls today know about Jackie. Read about Athletes for Hope here. http://www.athletesforhope.org/jajo.html

I love my new job more every day. Seeing what the girls are writing on our facebook fan page tells me we are onto something very important and I am determined to get it right. My Olympic-level vivoGS team and I are committed to pulling the best that technology has to offer for the girls who love sports. Or even "like" sports.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but we'll keep trying til we get it right. Here is where my damned impatience can do the most good.

Hey girls, just keep playing.

I love girls who love sports. It's the reason for starting this business. I want girls who love sports now, as teenagers, to continue to play and have the same fun playing all their lives.

The teammates you have as a teenager will be your buds for the rest of your life. When I was a teenager, my sports were my sanity and my teammates were my saviours. Still, one of the primary ways I identify myself is as an athlete. Top 6, up there with mother, wife, sister, daughter and friend.

Watching the NCAA semi's now, the interview on the White House bball court with President Obama and Clark Kellogg. Yes, team sports get you "outside of yourself". They give you that time every day to play. Just play.

Have fun with your sports, girls. And just keep playing.

Bullies

So this whole bullying thing is really troubling. What can we as a community of girls do to try and prevent these senseless deaths in the future?

What if Phoebe Prince knew those mean girls were nothing but a short blip in her life? That they would become a distant, if painful, memory? What if she had even one bold upperclassman to depend on? What if one of the adults actually took disciplinary action against the bullies? What if someone had been monitoring the ridiculous activity taking place on facebook? The what'if's are agonizing.

We've all had our own experience with mean girls. It hurts. But you learn who your real friends are through the process. You learn to dig deep within yourself and rise above it. And for me, track practice after school and my teammates made all the difference. I think there is a confidence and strength from playing sports that can make a difference in your self-esteem and identity.

I hope the older teenage girls will mentor the younger ones and tell them they will get through it. The 15 year olds worship the 17 year olds. My own teenage daughters were lucky to form strong bonds with seniors when they were freshmen, largely through playing high school sports. That made a ton of difference in their lives.

It's not easy being 15, a freshman in high school. Are you keeping up with this story? What can we do to prevent this in the future?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/us/30bully.html?hp=&pagewanted=all