Yesterday my mentor went to Cuyahoga Community College to speak for the Women In Transition Program, I think it is awesome that no matter how busy she is she continuously gives back. She recognizes the importance in sharing her story to encourage others to push forward. She began giving background on her humble beginnings and obstacles that could have changed the course of her life but how she overcame them in spite of the cards life dealt her. She talked about her her business came about and how there were times and even still are times when she thinks about leaving it all because it can be overwhelming but she knows that she is in purpose. She discussed how she recognizes know that past experiences and specific people that were placed in her life by God for a purpose greater than she. She concluded by talking about the impact the fitness has not just on physical health but mental health including, stress, mood, and behavior. She also discussed what ingredients harm you and natural alternatives. The women were very receptive and there was a lot of Q&A. I really admire how she does not make excuses she really practices what she preaches and leads by example.
I have been working on the layout for the media kit, I want to make sure that it is appealing to the reader and organizing the content is also extremely important. I have to be sure to capture the necessary information in the most straight forward way. So I have been going over notes, emails, site etc to make sure that I include the important information as well as its position, placement, and clarity. It is a very time consuming process but it is something that my mentor really needs for her business. It has been one of my ongoing projects and I am excited to see how it comes together to meet the company's needs.
No matter how many times I have created programs for people it is always a little nerve wrecking for me to present a concept that I have come up with from someone else's idea, so when it came time to share my vision for my mentors vision I hoped that she would like it. I do not mind constructive criticism at all I just do not like to be completely off target. I conceptualize a lot of things for people and I am actually pretty good because I am typically right where they were trying to go, now of course I do not always nail the exact vision but I am generally along the lines and I do not mind having to go back and tweak plans at all. I actually like bouncing things back and forth because I feel as if it is not a one sided concept. I also love when I am able to get someone thinking in a direction they may not have been thinking. So as my mentor and I discussed the concept for her program I was pleased to know that she enjoyed my idea and will be moving forward with it for her program that I had been working on for several days.
This week as I continued to work on projects that my mentor and I discussed she wanted to me to work on I decided to create a letterhead to make things that I am working on more uniform. I was not sure if she would continue to use my exact letterhead but I wanted her to have a letterhead draft until she came up with a final letterhead form. I know she runs her company as a corporation and having a letterhead is a small but essential to the overall professional culture of any organization.
I also began my research for a project that my mentor mentioned she wanted to implement, one that involves her encouraging and motivating high school females to workout. She also mentioned that she would like to take it to the collegiate level and make it a movement. I thought this was an awesome project when we first discussed it and I am very excited to come up with options on how she can move forward with the program. My mentor and I also discussed she and I meeting over the next two weeks so that I can ask her more in depth questions about the business side of things because she wants to ensure that I have some more take aways from this experience. I am really glad that she wants to make sure that I am getting the most out of the experience as well. It further lets me know I chose a great mentor.
My mentor is constantly thinking of ways to make getting healthy and staying healthy fun for her members. She continuously gives her members tools to succeed at eating to live and not living to eat and gives tips and examples of how to create fun healthy meals and snacks. My mentor thought it was ideal to not just tell her members what to do but involve them through a workshop.
The Vegan Vicki's Workshop is for members to come learn how to eat and cook vegan dishes. This opportunities allows member to learn natural ways for them to keep their systems clean. They will also learn about veganism whether they want to become vegan full time or if they want to do it periodically to flush their systems. This event was featured in the newsletter that I created as well as an informational flyer that I created. The workshop is free and provides food and healthy tips and recipes from experts on vegan eating.
My mentor is in the process of re-branding her company and the timing of my mentorship works out well for where she is in the process, I am able to assist her by giving her advice from my business experience. For example she wanted to know different ways to get more of a social media presence and one thing I told her was that she needs to build a rapport and become accessible by creating posts that will influence interaction between her and her followers. Such as having contests, posting more before and after photos, meal tips, workout tips etc. have specific days and/or times so people get used to get their advice via your site. Social media is an opportunity for you to show the fun side to getting healthy because it is not natural for everyone to just eat right and workout but you can encourage others to keep pushing the more they see how being healthy does not have to be a task and how create you can become with workouts and meals.
As I edited the newsletter I also had to draft four flyers to be put up throughout the different facilities. My goal was to get the correct information and add creativity to make them eye catching. I did not want them to be too informative as people do not like wordy flyers so I made sure to get to the points to give enough information for people to inquire more about the different events taking place at NuLife. All in all it worked out well and they were very satisfied with my work.
During our initial meeting my mentor and I discussed her needs for a monthly newsletter to be sent out to her members, we went over different items she should include in the newsletter as well as how she should have her staff plan ahead so that her newsletter can be drafted and sent out on a regular schedule. I worked closely with my mentor and the manager to gather the content for the newsletter. I was used to working with another program to create newsletters so I had to adjust to the one that the company currently uses. It was not hard the features and capabilities were not the same as the program I am used to but I was able to figure out the layout of the newsletter and get the links set up properly. I was happy to see that from our first meeting I suggested that she acknowledges National Health months in an effort to unite the community, companies, and clients to get enthusiastic about impacting health issues.
After a few phone conversations and email correspondence my first tasks were to create press releases for a summer program and to help flesh out the details of another program she wants to get started for college and high school students. I was excited about the programs because they are all geared toward getting the youth healthy and I think that is a great idea because what is instilled in the youth now they can take with them into adulthood. I also was asked to go in and review the current news letter and create a user friendly template and a news letter for April and help come up with some ideas for future news letters so that her staff can go in and have a guide moving forward. I suggested that she find ways to bring health and fitness close to home by recognizing national campaigns and incorporating tips and facts to make being fit feel more attainable and like less of a burden for the average person. In doing the Press Kit for the business I decided to go ahead and update the company bio and my mentor's personal bio.
