12 Ladies In A Tent - GO TRAIN Pull Challenge (yes, seriously)

In the name of the Barrie Food Bank and Charity we were very honoured to be able to seriously pull this rather large commuter GO Train. We were timed for 60 seconds. Don't believe me...take a look.
Thanks to Kevin Frankish of BT for being host

Empowering Women - Financial Independence & 4 Types of People today...

Which one can you relate to? Sure there must be a quadrant that you can figure out that you fit into. Here's a video as explained by "Rich Woman" Kim Kiyosaki. It's relative to today as it helps you to understand people in business and every day life. Know where you fit and who you're dealing with

Empowering Women, Young Ladies and inspiring Change

This is just great! It's a "high brow/low brow" test with real person and celebrity Mayim Bialik previously of "Blossom" and presently "Big Bang Theory". I've had the opportunity of chatting with her via social media and love watching and reading her posts. She's not only an actor but smart enough to have put that on the back burner when a child star and explore her passion of Neo Science. So to say she's a "brainiac" would be true words. Watch the video below as her knowledge of pop culture vs science in "high brow" is tested. In addition to her intellectual talents, she is true to herself in her opinions of raising her children, being vegan (just released a book) and her faith (personal blog at

The Official Mayim Bialik Blog at Kveller

www.kveller.com/mayim-bialik/

In addition to that, Mayim Bialik is partnering with DeVry University for National HerWorld Month to show high school girls how they can make a difference in their world through STEM. Bialik will host a HerWorld event in New York City, one of the over 20 HerWorld events taking place across the country this month.

I'm Not This Frog, Are you?

Question: There are 3 frogs on a leaf. If one of them decided to jump off the leaf into the water, how many frogs are there left on the leaf?



Answer: Three! Why? The frog only DECIDED to jump but it didn’t!

Dreaming of achieving personal accomplishments or goals, most people make the mistake of waiting.
Waiting until they’ve been trained more
Waiting until someone says they are ready 
Waiting until they have the proper tools
Waiting until they’re better
Waiting until they’re hired
Waiting until they’ve been given the assignment
Waiting until they're successful
Waiting until they have more money
Waiting until the New Year and make a "resolution" to get that gym membership

Think about this my friends. Are you like that frog who decides to do this, decides to do that, but then end up not doing anything?

In life we have to make many decisions. Some are easy and some are definitely challenging and seem hard.

Most "mistakes" are not made by wrong decisions and sometimes they're not even "mistakes" but meant to take us to a different path, even if we can't see its value at that time.

Most "mistakes" are made due to our inability to take a right decision at the right time. You can educate yourself all you want to as knowledge is power but if you don't do anything with that learned education then what's the point?

We have to live with the consequences of our decisions. And that is RISK. The best thing that is going to happen to you? Success and happiness.
Happiness and success are truly your own measurement of what you want. Others don't walk in your shoes and can't define you. You're the one in control of your own thoughts, emotions and desires so why are you passing off your control?

If you have your own true level that you want to be at and not happy with results or daily life, then it's in your control to stop "deciding" and take action. It doesn't matter what area of your life it is whether financial/wealth, fitness/health, business, career, family, relationships, whatever it is in your life. It's personal and only you know. You deserve every happiness and success there is in life and the power to empower and create your life, on your terms is now. Don't just "think" or "decide". 

Thanks for viewing! As always, have a great day and remember to "Empower yourself and inspire change in others"

Re-Defining Being a Princess

I love this video! It's what being a great role model is about. Here's a wonderful excerpt from DoSomething and Disney - not just Barbie Dolls anymore!

When we think of Disney Princesses, we likely think of little girls dressed up in pastel-colored costumes, trying hard to look beautiful, and perhaps to look older.  Disney is currently trying to change this image.  Here's everything your heart desires to know about their rebranding:

• Disney is rebranding their princesses to emphasize qualities such as trust, bravery, and kindness, over beauty.

• They recently released a video about celebrating the princess inside every young girl. You can check out the video here!

• In recent years there has been a lot of criticism about the effects of princess figures on young girls.

What do you think? Do Disney princesses make good role models for pre-teens? Who do you think young girls should be looking up to?

Disney presents the 'I Am A Princess' video. This is a celebration of what it truly means to be a Princess, today. To be brave. To be kind. To be generous and compassionate. Join Disney as we celebrate the Princess inside every young girl. Long may they reign! 

Barrie Realtor gives time and energy to inspire

A Realtor who took to the boxing ring for abused women, who engineered a flash mob downtown for International Women’s Day and who assembled a team of women to pull a train is this year’s Spirit Catcher Award winner. 

Barrie Realtor gives time and energy to inspire

Stan Howe

Shannon Muree will receive the Spirit Catcher Award at a Barrie Community Foundation reception tonight at the Southshore Community Centre. The junior winner is Mackenzie Oliver, founder of the I Love Me Club.

Shannon Murree, 43, will be recognized at a Barrie Community Foundation reception tonight, along with youth award winner, Mackenzie Oliver, who started the I Love Me Club which encourages kids to raise funds for charities.

Murree, a mother of three, said she’s honoured to be this year’s adult inductee into the Order of the Spirit Catcher – a city program that recognizes those who volunteer selflessly to the community.

“I think what clinched it was the diversity. It just wasn’t one thing,” she said.

“I’m passionate about our city and revitalizing our downtown and taking it back. I really believe in the One Billion Rising. Last February I took on the boxing for the Women and Children’s Shelter and slept in a tent. What didn’t I do?”

With sons ages 10 and 18, and a 16-year-old daughter, Murree has enough to keep her busy.

But as well as working for Re/Max, she’s also into real estate investment and property management. And she’s working towards becoming a trainer with the Real Estate Investment Network.

Still she makes time to give to Barrie.

“Everything I did was filled with passion. I’m always encouraging everyone to do a small thing. Every person doing one thing will have a ripple effect. I hope what I do will rub off on people,” she said, adding it’s important for her to set an example for her kids.

“I give a lot of my time and my time is limited. I just believe it’s the right thing to do. “We all have responsibilities. Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Laurie Watt, Barrie Advance

The inequality we don’t talk about

Everyone is worried about inequality. Everyone has a theory about why the rich are getting richer, while the gap between the haves and have-nots is becoming more entrenched. Everybody’s got a favourite villain – globalization, technology, greedy bankers with too much power, the decline of unions, and on and on.

But the roots of inequality are also social. And there is one gap no one likes to talk about: the marriage gap.

Two things happened in the 1970s. Family income began to stagnate and family structures began to change radically. Divorce rates soared and marriage rates began to fall. More women began to have children outside marriage, and the percentage of female-headed families began to climb. In Canada, about 25 per cent of babies are now born out of wedlock. In the United States, it’s 41 per cent. In Canada, just over 19 per cent of children live in single-parent families, mainly single mothers, and another 16.3 per cent live with parents who are common-law, according to Statistics Canada.

The confluence of these trends is no coincidence, says Russ Roberts, a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. The rise in female-headed households has helped create the great stagnation in family incomes. The rise of divorce, the decline of marriage and the growth in nonmarital motherhood have been much more dramatic among lower-middle-class and poor families than among the rich.

The marriage gap has created a vast amount of inequality. Lone-parent families in Canada are four times more likely to be poor than two-parent families are. The basic reason is obvious: Single mothers have far less in the way of financial resources, especially if they have less education and fewer skills.

Upper-middle-class two-parent families can invest far more time and resources in their children than lower-middle-class single mothers can, no matter how good their intentions. But the impact of family structure on children goes far beyond money. Kids from lone-parent families do worse on many measures. And the marriage gap is reducing upward mobility and sharpening the class divide. “Because the breakdown of the traditional family is overwhelmingly occurring among working-class Americans of all races, these trends threaten to make the U.S. a much more class-based society over time,” writes Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution.

Canada is not the same as the United States, and distinctions are important. But the general trends apply to us as well. And the children most at risk in lower-income single-parent homes are boys. In a widely cited report published last spring, MIT economists David Autor and Melanie Wasserman drew a direct link between the rising tide of fatherlessness and the growing failure of boys in school and the labour market.

“Males born into low-income single-parent headed households – which, in the vast majority of cases are female-headed households – appear to fare particularly poorly on numerous social and educational outcomes,” they wrote. It’s not just that the girls are outperforming them. It’s that the boys are doing worse.

Changes in the labour market are not the only reason these boys are in trouble – not even the biggest one. Boys without fathers tend to develop serious behaviour problems at an early age. They’re more antisocial and aggressive, more disruptive, more likely to drop out and get in trouble with the law – and become less employable than ever. They are far less inclined to get married, but quite likely to have kids. Which means that the class divide is likely to be self-perpetuating. As the authors warn, “the poor economic prospects of less-educated males may create differentially large disadvantages for their sons, potentially reinforcing the development of the gender gap in the next generation.”

It would be nice to think we could close the marriage gap with more income supports for single mothers, higher minimum wages and all-day kindergarten for their kids. Frankly, that seems like wishful thinking. Bribing people to get married probably wouldn’t work either. This is what’s known as a hard problem, and no one likes to talk about it for fear of sounding reactionary and moralistic. But if we’re really interested in the roots of inequality, ignoring it is a big mistake.

Originally posted Globe and Mail