Happy New Year! Meet Social Strength

Welcome to 2014. I have to say I am happy it has arrived. I had a pretty rough 2013 and I just want to put a ton of things behind me. I'm also happy to present to you my new Startup.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/social-strength

As I launched my first startup DigiThin last spring I do not have the funds I need to build this so I am running a campaign on Indiegogo. I'm asking you to please pass around, retweet and post this link http://igg.me/at/SocialStrength the next 40 days.

Now why should you help me? Because I know you care about people and I know if you could you would like to help humanity in some way. What does it hurt or cost you to post, retweet and email? A moment called a click. I need you. I'm asking kindly with all my love, will you please help me and my team? 

Graciously join me and my team in building a unique social network, one that will have an undeniable impact. Even you can change a life. 

Check it out. http://igg.me/at/SocialStrength

Resolutions Are Like Friends You Cannot Depend On

When you have a good friend you can count on that person. If they say they are going to do something then they do it, or they give you acceptable reason as why they cannot. Resolutions are like friends you can not trust. Resolutions are flaky friends that usually let you down.

I was trying to figure out why I fell into superstitious beliefs about 2013 being nothing but a bad year for me. If I really dig around in it, it had just as many great moments as it did bad. It's just that the bad moments always seem to outshine the good ones.

I thought about the start of it on New Years Eve a year ago my resolution was to get that hard sought after six pack. I did not make that resolution. I tried. I worked my butt off in the gym. Here is the reason that I believe I didn't get my six pack. FOOD. Yes abs are made in the kitchen and I proved that. I did not want to change what and how much I ate. I didn't want to follow my own weight loss program. DigiThin. Of course DigiThin works, but I had the excuse that I don't want to listen to my own voice. Rubbish! It doesn't bother me anymore to hear my own voice. I've had to edit it a million times over. All I did was make up an excuse to eat excessively.

The hard thing about weight loss, or the real problem as to why so many of us fail at it, is because of the crap in our minds. Yes, that liar in the head, took control of me and sabotaged me the whole entire year. If I continue to listen to her I will stay on the path of self destruction. Of course her trick is her lies. She tells me that delicious bag of salted dark chocolate is good for me. I believe it and dive in and eat as much as I want. Then that just spirals into another food binge. I have to stand up to her. When I do that, it always works.

In 2013 I launched my very first startup, and that was an amazing achievement for me. It was a ton of work and I have the best team ever ChopdawgStudios. In fact launching that was well something I never thought I could do. So how can I say the year was so bad? Most people will only talk about there ideas, few will make them come to life.

Yes I had a serious foot injury that finally took me out of commission. I could barley walk for more then and hour by the time I hit the surgery floor in July. Then I spent months rehabbing it. As horrible miserable as that was, I am happy now that my foot is almost healed.

I think what really bothers me is that I failed at the food thing. So I beat the hell out of myself because I couldn't live up to being a clean eater. You know what, very few of us can do that. People like me who have used food since childhood to cope with life, well, the battle is ever so hard for us. Listening to that liar in our head is the biggest struggle. That's why I invented DigiThin. I needed more power to fight against her. And it works. When I listen to all the weight loss coaching tracks I created, for some reason I have power. I can stand up to her and all her justifications and excuses as to why it's okay for me to eat a bunch of crap do not work. I am set free from the addiction to food.

This year I'm not making a resolution, I'm making goals. Goals for some reason are more attainable then resolutions. Yet they are the same thing in a way. Resolutions seem to fall apart and dissolve. Where as goals, well those seem to stand up. I think the word goal is stronger then the word resolution. You get a goal in football and hockey but can you get a resolution in those sports? See that's the problem with the word resolution. A goal is reachable and attainable, but a resolution has no prize at the end of it. It just seems to fizzle.

Cheers and to all a Happy New Year!

~ Jana

Wanting To Be Mean During The Holidays

Holidays - yes they annoy me. They disrupt my routine and force me to show up dressed up to places I'd rather not go. Talk to people who sometimes really upset me, and eat a bunch of crap that I really didn't want to, but it was a great way to pacify my mouth instead of saying what I really wanted to say. Screw you! Oh, I'm sorry, that was my Dexter mind talking. 

I've recently found myself engulfed in the show Dexter, about the blood analysist, whom is also a serial killer. In the show his "mind voice" often says what he really thinks, but that is only to himself. I think the reason the show is so popular is that many of us find ourselves to be a lot like Dexter. But were not serial killers and we would never do such a thing. Yet why, do I find myself relating to this loner? 

Entrepreneurs are loners. Sometimes we get really depressed and suicidal. Yeah we think about the kill but it's always our self we want to hack, not someone else. 

I like Dexter because he supposedly has no feelings about anything. But he does have a feeling about killing, he likes it, it sort of makes him feel super satisfied and gives him energy to live. All though every other feeling in life he has to fake, like his love for his future wife. 

Wouldn't it be nice to have no feelings, I think to myself. That would be a gift, then I wouldn't be upset when I have to face so many rejections about my startups.

It would also be handy during the holidays. For some reason I've been extra sensitive during the holidays this year, and I do not know why. It's like if someone ignores me or doesn't trust me, I see it and I'm pissed off. You little dirty M***** F***** why did you disrespect me? I'm like some mafia dude ready to carry out a hit, just because someone made a mistake and treated me like I can't be trusted. I just want to be like Dexter and have no feelings. That would come in handy for me.

There was this Doctor who I worked with and everyone hated him because he was such a dick. Oh yeah he was like the Indian Doctor that I talked about before. Yet he would look, and say mean things. He was the meanest Doctor around. And I wanted to be like him. 

Yes, this is what I wanted to be like. I wanted to be mean, why? Because I was to soft and people walked on me or bullied me. I wanted to learn how to be a bitch I guess. But that never worked out for me. I just could never be unkind or hurtful to others. It's just wrong to me. Yet some people in the world have no problem doing it. 

Even Dexter, a man with no feelings has the decency not to kill someone who does not deserve it. He has feelings. He cares about his code.

I want to be like Dexter because I do not want to be hurt. I want to look at someone who says some hurtful thing to me and have my mind think "Yeah, go ahead asshole, the parking lot is a dark place" 

Happy Holidays from an Entrepreneur.

~ love you!

Social Strength - A StartUp Taking Shape

I have been working constantly on my new startup. It doesn't really have a name, but I call it Social Strength, so maybe that will stick, and that is what it will be called. When I first created it I called it Razzy. That was my beloved pet who passed away a year ago.

He sure was a great dog. I loved him more then I love any humans. Sorry people, he just had a way of getting into my heart and well most humans just break my heart down. He only broke my heart because he died before I was ready to let him go. Other then that he was the perfect love. : - )

Yeah, well I do love humans even if I try not to admit it. In fact I usually love them more and care about them more then they know. For some reason this caused me trouble in life because my kindness attracted bullies to me. I would be going along in what I thought was a great friendship and then the human turned into a bully and cut me into little pieces of trash. 

Just like my first startup, this one has been plenty stressful. It's had all kinds of highs, and lows, and today even I felt like, just forget it! Stop being a entrepreneur, who the F*** cares? I was so upset today that I wanted to throw the towel in. I was done with every startup ever! I wanted to be a normal person and do normal things. 

Yet I know that will never happen. I'll never be normal. You know I talk about this being my second startup, but even my first startup was not my first one. My first startup happened years ago, but it never left my head and it never turned into anything. I've had so many startup's in my head over the years. Some of them get onto paper, and others lived in my filing cabinet. Some turned into actual products that decorated my desk. Some made it to the sales floor. I think I call DigiThin my first startup because it's the one I'm taking all the way. I have not thrown the towel in on it. I have not given up on it. And giving up on your startup is a problem with entrepreneurs. If you give up before it has time to ripen, then you will never know what it could have been. It's a hard place to be, walking along what you don't know. Is it going to be a failure or a success? How long will it take to ripen? 

Yea, so now I'm building another startup Social Strength. You know what I don't think this post makes any sense, I think it's the insanity that comes along with being an entrepreneur. I'm just talking in circles! Ahhhh I haven't told you anything about Social Strength. Well I'm going to launch it shortly after midnight on New Years Eve (Denver time) Well at least launch the idea, the finished product will take time. And you can help. You can be a part of Social Strength and I do hope you will. It's going to be incredible. 

Get Strength or Give Strength ~ 

Was Columbine The Start Of This Evil?

School shootings have been a plague in America, since Columbine. I don't know if Columbine was the first school ever to have this problem or was it just one of the worst massacre's of beautiful human lives that made the impact on us?

I live in Denver, and I did walk the graveyard of all those beautiful young teenagers and one teacher that died in April 1999 at Columbine. Not only that, but I went out there in the days after and placed flowers in the piles of thousands of flowers, Catholic candles, handmade gifts of sorrow placed to honor those beautiful young adults. I also took my precious young son who was 4 years old with me. What did he think all those flowers at a park meant?

He doesn't remember me taking him out there, but he KNOWS what Columbine means and what it was. He learned that from school. I didn't know they teach a class about it. Maybe they don't, maybe it's just one of those things that get's passed around from generation to generation, like the game Simon Says or ring around the rosy.

Since Columbine how many darn times have we gone through this? Not to mention one of the most heart breaking, those little tiny most precious among us - Newtown.

Everyone including me can not think of of what to do to stop it. And this recent one here in my town, at Arapahoe High School and the beautiful Claire Davis being taken away from her parents and her friends for no other reason then stupidity. There is no reason to kill another person unless you are defending yourself or another. That's it! No other reason!

So if you go shooting people because you want to make some statement as to how great and cool you are, well, you are only a fool, a worthless human being, you're nothing. All you did is create hate towards yourself and your family, and of course you will be dead because you're too much of a coward to kill and face the consequences of it. So you leave your family to take the beating of hate they will get because of you.

Going into any building and shooting people at random for no reason other then you think it's such a great idea, is stupid.

Take the Aurora theater shooting. I do not even know the shooters name, but he has some story that he is insane and of course he does look like he may have some kind of mental illness, when I see him on t.v. Yet this bothers me, because how does mental illness plot, gather, plan, and carry out a super killing of innocent people? How can the mental illness carry out the execution of human lives? Why doesn't the mental illness just cause the person to commit suicide? Did Columbine create a new outlet for people with mental illness? “Oh instead of killing myself because I hate life and I hate people and I am miserable, I think I will go kill a bunch of innocent people then kill myself.” Yeah that makes sense. It's stupid!

It's frustrating. I know that I worried day after day for years about my son being at school. Would he come home to me? Would his school be the choice of some stupid idiot? I thought about home schooling him, but I could never protect him from all of life. College's get attacked too. It seems that no where is really safe. There is always going to be some stupid person who thinks they are smart, but really they are not; they will always be there ready to ruin some innocent beautiful life. I guess we have to call it EVIL. That's what it is. PURE EVIL. And of course with a dollop of stupidity on top!

We all want an answer as to how were going to stop this stupidity. I think the answer is EDUCATION, and by that I mean. Lets start talking to them in kindergarten about not pointing guns at others and killing them just because we think it's cool and the fact we have access to guns, and that we feel sorry for ourselves. It's stupid. What person wants to be labeled as stupid? None of them.

Okay, I have solved nothing with this rant. This problem really bothers me. I want to solve it. I know you want to solve it. There has to be an answer. We all know there is, but why can't we find it?

The Entrepreneurs Struggle With Choosing Risk And Facing Another Failure

As I have said in my last post, I am building a social strength social network. It's another one of those ideas that pop into my mind and I can't get away from it, because well, it nags me to death until I do something about it.

Which usually means I have to make an attempt to create it. Which then always leads to rejections and of course complete failure is the destination I do not want to go to as that always leads to a day of feeling sorry for my crazy ass.

Well I did a bunch of research and just about thousands and thousands of social networks are being created everyday and almost all of them are failures. So what makes me think mine is going to fair any better then then those? Nothing.

I never even thought about all the millions of social networks being created every day that fail. I was just thinking about the idea in my head. The idea that could be a ton of fun and help humanity along the way. Seems like a good fantasy to run wild in the brain.

Then it comes down to release the idea out of my head. That's when the fear came into me and said, “WAIT, Do not do it. You'll be on the list of failures and the laughing stock of town for sure” “ Even worse, those people who whisper about you will be whispering all the more”

Ahh but you see, I must take the risk, otherwise I will never know for sure if it's another failure. If I let fear, humiliation, and demoralization run the show then I will not be able to learn. I will never get to the one idea that humanity really wants and needs. Of course that idea is in me, it's what drives me everyday. Finding Gifts for Humanity. That's what I do. 

Working On Social Strength For You

I have not posted for a bit now. I'm working my fingers, mind and pc, almost around the clock. I feel like some game developer in some closed off dark room that reeks of stale nothingness.

Yaaa, at times I've felt like I was completely insane, I've left every responsibility I have to sit by themselves and wait for the day I am finished with this project, to tend to them. Who cares about dust, clutter and making dinner. This is the moment when you have to ACT upon your brains reveling of what you should create.

I am creating a gift for you - Humanity - The thing is I have to peal it out of my mind, form it into computer language, and edit the crap out of the jungle of thoughts, over and over.

It's a good thing I can go on hardly any sleep for days and not care about anything or anyone until it's done! 

I think your going to LOVE it when it hits the streets, or what I really mean is, the social streets of where I meet you, and that would be in the world your reading me in right now and a few other places. 

Oh, and least I not forget how many times I have said the F word in the last week. I can not believe all the weird pc problems that pop up when your working on a killer project. Did you know that if it's 7 below zero and you decide to plug in a tiny space heater, because the house heat is not enough, well it can run havoc on your project. Yep, everything was fine until I wanted a little heat. Then all of a sudden all my code was turning into distorted weirdness. 

I thought I'd been hacked. How could countless hours of work be destroyed in a matter of seconds! Ahhhhhhhhh I unplugged the heater and everything was fine. LOL

Okay I'm going back to the project now. If you wonder what has happened to me. I'm working, that's all.

Love ya! Keep coding and creating gifts for Humanity........

Uppity Funders and The Doctor From India Who Used The Caste System On Me

I'm looking into funding, as all startups usually need funds if they want to grow fast. So I've been around a few sites and I came across this one site, and I just thought they were perfect. Everything they said sounded like an exact match for me and my two startups.

Well, they have a problem.

Of course they dressed it up in disguise, but I saw it right away. All I could think was, are these super intelligent people falling victim to the human condition of ignorance? I had a tiny bit of hope they were not, so I hit enter to find out. Yep, the results were. “You did not get excepted into our program, if we open it up in the future we will contact you” LMAO, super smart people being ignorant? Yes, they can fall victim to it, and they did.

You see they only asked me 4 questions.

• Did I go to college?
• Am I planning on going to college?
• Will I be enrolled in college soon?
• None of these apply.

How could you know who I am or what my startups are with those 4 questions? Now your site did not say, we only want college educated people. No it did not say we only want young people in college. Or we only want people planning to go to college. No, you knew that would be inappropriate so you hid your ignorance, just like the doctor from India.

Let me tell you about this doctor. I worked in a hospital, and my job at the time was a nurse assistant. Which is a wonderful job that I absolutely loved. I love taking care of people. No matter who they are. So it was in my first few months at this hospital, and I noticed this cute really short woman from India. She most likely immigrated to our great country, because she still had a very strong Indian accent.

I would see her talking to her patients and she was absolutely lovely, and wonderful and charming and I could tell her patients really loved her. So one day I came around the corner and entered the doctor dictation area. I was two feet in front of her face and I smiled and said hello, how are you?

This is what happened: She gave me the look of “how dare you talk to me” The look of “You are below me” The look of “You are scum of the earth and the scum of the earth have no rights to talk to me” She refused to say one word to me. Yep, she made sure that in the 4 seconds that she looked at me that I understood, I should never speak to her, because I am a person way below her, and basically I do not exist. I was astounded. How could this kind person I've seen be so pleasantly polite to her patients, treat me as if I do not qualify to talk to her? How could she treat me like I have no rights to be alive in the country I was born in?

A few weeks later, I was on the elevator, and some visitors to the hospital were on it with me. The door opened up and low and behold there stood the cute little Indian doctor, she had to get on the elevator with us, and you know what I did? I put on a great big smile and said Hello. Well, she was in a dilemma, she hated me because I was way below her, and I was not to talk to her, but if she did what she did to me before in the public view she knew she would be judged. So she had to succumb, and grumble a hello to me.

Oh Yeah! It was so sweet. Her ignorance exposed. You see, what is she going to do, the day her car rolls and I'm the one who pulls her out of the wreckage, and ties a tourniquet around her bleeding, dangling body part? Then I go back to the car and get her grandson out before the car explodes into a fire? She will probably scream "I'd rather die, then have you touch me" I mean after all I have cooties. 

What is she going to do when a human being she believes to be lower then her, helps her, in her time of need? What if that person is me, the one she so rudely disrespected, because of her ignorance? She believes that not all humans are the same. Not all people deserve respect and dignity.

Yep, America has it's scar, Racism, and the way we enslaved Africans and treated them like they were so different from us. India has outlawed, the Caste System, yet it still is ingrained on the people. We have outlawed slavery, but we still have had to, and have struggled with racism.

What the hell is wrong with people? Why do we walk right into ignorance and pretend were so smart? “Oh were not judging humans, were being business like” Yeah Right. By not letting me into your little funding group because I refused to answer the college questions, you just did an Indian Caste system/ American racism ignorance behavior.

You see I have been to college, but college never worked out for me. They mostly wanted my money and they had no idea how to shape my gifts. And I have gifts! And really, come on, Bill Gates, Mark Zurkerberg, okay I'm not smart like them. Yet, there are so many people that are successful and they did not complete college. Why would you focus on this? Every idea is an opportunity. Not just the ones from people who go to college, or graduated from college, or intend to go to college. Are you crazy? How can very intelligent people be so ignorant? Well, that doctor was super smart, but she had her countries history ingrained into her being. Maybe your funding group has something ingrained in you?

I would never be interested in your group in the future, because you lack the human condition: passion for all beings. Oh you can judge on skin color, birth placement, education, age, male or female, all you want. The truth is: the ignorance you displayed has only accomplished one thing ~ not looking at the idea. 

Give Trust A Chance When Doing Business Long Distance

I'm in this funny position, stuck between the new technology and the way it was done in the past. Sort of like the day my mother decided to retire when her company announced they were going to get computers! My mother was terrified of this new thing called a computer. She was so scared that she retired a few years earlier then she had wanted to, just to avoid learning about this new scary thing.

Myself, I embraced it, even though I had a lot of struggles with them. I was determined to understand this new thing. I wasn't scared, but I have a friend who has never owned one and knows absolutely nothing about the internet. WOW, she is missing so much. She could be in my Facebook group with all of our childhood friends and find that keeping in touch has never been easier. Yet she is sort of like my mother, she likes to hold onto the old way of doing things. She likes to call you and talk on the phone. Not that that is a bad thing, it's just that we could be in touch a whole lot more often in the social network world. But she knows nothing about it.

This brings me to my point about trust. In this new internet world we are in, I found that I had to learn how to trust doing business. Yes, it used to be that you did business primarily with companies in your own city. You would always generally just walk into a business and do business in a physical building, with real life people in front of you.

The internet changed that. Now I do business with people in many other states and other countries. And it's super AWESOME. Yet at first I did not trust them. Because I came from the old way of doing things, how the hell could I trust a business that I could not physically walk into?

Well I trusted someone only one hours drive from me and they ripped me off 3 thousand dollars. They never did one inch of code on the web site I wanted built. Finally I cut them lose and found another web builder.

ChopdawgStudios, I was interested in them building my website. But they were like 1,775 miles away. I could not visit them. I could not go and find them and beat them up if they did not deliver! So we discussed all the details, by phone and email. I really, really liked them, but I was terrified. Was it just a scam? Could someone be wanting to rip me off? Of course that can happen. How do you prove they are trustworthy? Get references. But those could be set ups themselves, if it's a scam. Check out legal records. Yeah I did that. Still, I was super terrified when I sent them a 8 thousand dollar check. All I could think was, I'm sending 8K to some stranger I met on the internet. Gulp! This could be an even bigger rip off then the loser who lives one hour drive from me.

It wasn't a rip off. It turned out to be a super great business relationship that I still have today with Chopdawg Studios. I found a great bunch of really incredible people who deliver what they say they will do, and more. I could not be happier.

Yet this is the world we live in now. You could be in some super small town of two thousand people and doing business with some people in a city of 19 million people. I think overall that most of us humans are good. Most people do good business, yeah your going to stumble upon the scam artist like I have. We can never rid our society of them, just cut your losses and get away from them as fast as possible, and even though it seems hard to trust the next guy. If your gut tells you it's okay, then it probably is.

My gut did warn me about the scam artist, yet I fell into it. Then my gut made me worry about the truthful man. Yet I took the chance to trust again and I'm thankful I did. 

My Cousin's Body Was Split Into Thirds By A freight Train.

One Minnesota morning, my cousin Van put his jogging clothes on and left his new apartment that he shared with his beautiful girlfriend. He would never return to it. He left his suicide note and headed for the railroad tracks.

The train conductor said he had no doubt it was a suicide, because he saw him lay down across the tracks. He didn't slip and fall, he wasn't trying to get out of the way of the train. Van wanted to die, and that day he did.

I was thinking about Van this weekend because his lovely sister came out to visit us here in Colorado. Van was her only sibling. She misses him dearly. I can see the great big hole in her, it's like a sadness that drips from her very being.

Now Van had a very special talent, he could remember and quote almost every statistic in any sport. He loved sports. I think he would have worked for ESPN one day if he had lived. Yet Van had the family curse as I like to call it. A depression so all encompassing that to survive it, well, it's tough. I know, I had to deal with the family curse when I was in my twenties. I had my suicide attempts. Somehow I made it through it.

You know that show Dexter about the serial killer? He has to pretend he has feelings. I had to pretend I didn't. I had to go on living and pretending that I wasn't depressed. I sort of just had to ignore my feelings. I rarely get depressed now, but it comes around for a visit every so often. The best thing I found to get rid of it is exercise. It's hard to be depressed when your almost dead from working out.

If you find yourself thinking about suicide, please reach out for help. There are lots of people you can talk to, there is plenty of help out there. The one thing that always kept me from killing myself is this: Were going to die anyway, why not hang around and see what life becomes? Why not set some goals and see If you can achieve them? Your sorrow and your depression may turn out like mine, it might just leave you alone and you'll be free to be happy, but you won't know that if you're not around anymore.

You don't have to worry about killing yourself, were all going to die, so take it off the table of choices and start living!

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline