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mousedetective · 7 years

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Want a fic from me? Now’s the time to buy coffees!

So there are myself and two of my friends who are in dire need of funds right now. In order to make donations of coffees through Ko-Fi a little more enticing, I've offered to write a 1K word fic for sending any of us three coffees, and an extra fic/extra 1K words for any additional three coffees sent per individual. So, say you send me three coffees, you send @whclocked three coffees and you send @the-consulting-strange-vidder three coffees, and then submit proof to me for the coffees sent via my submit. You're entitled to either 3 1K word fics OR 1 3K word fic. If you send one of us six coffees and the other two three? Then you're entitled to 4 1K word fics OR 1 4K word fic. It can be split up in any way between the three of us, depending on how much you want to donate.

Reblogs of this post/any of our help posts entitles you to a 100 to 250 word drabble.

A little bit about our situations:

@noregretsnotearsnoanxieties (my Ko-Fi here) - I am currently homeless, living out of my car with my mother and our three cats. I'm in a waiting game to get money back from someone who seems to have scammed me, but in the meantime living in the car is not optimal to my mother's health (she has heart problems and diabetes; I myself have psoriatic arthritis and fibromyalgia) so the longer we can stay in a hotel the better. However, we also have to pay for car insurance and to get the car smogged and registered, which comes first, or else we'll lose the car. I believe we need at least $400 for the smogging, the registration and the insurance; anything over that will go to a hotel room. I'm aiming to be able to get a room the weekend of the 16th so I can have my son for the weekend when his adoptive mother goes out of town, as she would prefer I hve him than put him into hospice care.

@whclocked (their post here) - A few days ago I received a lawyer’s letter freezing my bank accounts because I’ve collected more debt that I hope to pay (translation, I don’t even make enough to even pay for the interest as of now) and guess who doesn’t have a bank account now? Yes, me.

The bank staff that was in charge of my case is currently helping me to restructure and appeal my case. That means either of two case a) I get to pay minimum amount for the next four years — which is still high by comparison or b) I would be forced to pay every last dime by the end of this month and loses access to my bank accounts for the foreseeable future.All in all, they were trying to be helpful. I managed to pay some of it off courtesy of my mum, but it was still lesser than I had hoped. Turned out new interest was applied and instead of owing roughly (after my mum’s help) USD2,500, with the new interests I was told I now owe USD2,900 which is not great for me.

@the-consulting-strange-vidder (their post here) - After our visit to the vet we confirmed our suspicions that the lump (on her dog’s throat) is indeed a tumor. It needs to be removed after we treat it with antibiotics for a few days. The surgery is going to cost 250 euros. While it costs less than we were affraid it would, the money are still more than we can pay on our own with all the bills and taxes we have to pay. So if anyone can spare some money or can share this post i will be forever grateful.

To send coffees to each of us, go to the linked posts (my Ko-Fi is linked above) and then submit to me proof you sent at least three coffees via my submit. Include your request for a fic (my fandoms & will/won't write list is here) and I will get to it ASAP.

#signal boost #ko-fi request #donate #please donate #commissions #please reblog #please help #moving saga

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beinglibertarian · 6 years

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The Libertarian Argument for the Right to be Forgotten

Libertarians talk about our inherent rights such as self defense, property, free speech, and so on all the time. What about our right to our own data and online privacy?

In Europe, they have the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which is a regulation that allows European Union citizens to find out and remove any and all data a company has on them.

I’ve been a staunch privacy advocate for many years as it’s a core principle of the free, Libre, and open source software movements.

I am that guy who goes through every application, analyzing what, and how, data is collected from the accounts and applications I use, and I almost always take extra steps to secure my privacy and security.

In fact, I have been well on the way to “de-Googling” myself for years, having deprecated my Gmail and Google services, to the point I only use Google Voice because the several numbers I have there have been well established in my circles, and I can’t port those phone numbers. But my Gmail is solely for Google Adsense, YouTube, and Voice.

I have long stopped using the actual Gmail and Drive components, in favor of building my own private email and cloud storage server.

My Facebook has been locked down severely, and, to be completely honest, if it wasn’t for my team at Being Libertarian being heavily reliant on Facebook, I would have killed my Facebook account long ago; all because Google and Facebook are two of the biggest violators of personal privacy and of my capability to own my personal data.

I have spent a good deal of time making sure my search results on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Duck Duck Go have been really clean of most sensitive personal information, which has been really easy at times and at times hard, due to my name being extremely unique.

It’s well known that Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and many companies earn money by analyzing, gathering, and compiling information on you. Every email, search, upload, message, voice call, video call, video upload, etc. to Facebook, Google, and Microsoft is scrutinized to see how it can gain money from you.

While monetarily many of their services are free, your price is your privacy.

Even diving into Microsoft Windows you can see in Windows 10 that there are options to analyze what you are doing on your own computer, so they can target ads to you, and it’s because of the ways Microsoft invades privacy among many other reasons outlined in “Free(dom) Software: Why Your PC Should Have Liberty”. I use Linux as well as other free, Libre, and open source software in my everyday life.

Many internet service providers also do this by analyzing your internet traffic, and some have been caught injecting ads of their own while you are browsing.

So, with that all said, it’s not surprising there are people like me who spend a lot of time, effort, and some money to retain our data privacy.

I personally spend about $50 per month for my private email, contacts, and calendar (powered by mail-in-a-box), cloud storage (powered by Next Cloud), WordPress blog, and three VPN services to retain my privacy and security.

But I have at times been paying for third party services such as Abines DeleteMe to scour public databases to prune my private information, although they do offer a free DIY tutorial to remove your data.

In case you are wondering why I use three VPN services — each serves a different purpose:

1) VPN Unlimited which I have had for years, is a lifetime subscription to allow my devices to use Netflix and other streaming platforms whilst traveling or using public wifi to secure my devices and grant some extra privacy.

2) Private Internet Access which I pay yearly, is paid for in Bitcoin and focuses on security and privacy in general browsing. I use them especially when I am torrenting files or browsing the internet via Tor as an additional privacy and security step.

3) Private OpenVPN is a server I made so I have a static IP address no matter where I work from to know I have a guaranteed IP address to access all my and my clients’ servers successfully in case I lock myself out.

But there is a problem with a lot of VPNs too in terms of data privacy rights. A lot of them log and track your usage, also in an effort to make more money off of you. So you have to be careful of the VPN service you use, because the free VPN services, especially Onavo which is offered for free by Facebook, will give a false sense of privacy. I chose Private Internet Access because they open source as much as possible, and donate to many organizations whose jobs are to promote data privacy and the free, Libre, and open source software community.

Libertarians like to regularly talk about an inherent right to privacy, especially when on our own property. But we seem to fall rather silent when it’s a business, not the government, invading our privacy.

We willingly sign away our privacy and security to a business in exchange for “free stuff,” the very same way we make fun of liberals for wanting to do the same when Bernie Sanders talks about us getting free stuff.

But, because it’s a business, it’s totally okay, apparently, even though it’s well known and documented that U.S. and other governments will easily approach Google or other companies for data on specific people because that is a path of less resistance as I touched on in my prior article, “It’s Time to De-Google Yourself: Email”.

The fact is, for an Orwellian style of government, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook are an authoritarian wet dream for data collection.

Think about it. In the USA, not only are businesses free to collect any and all data on us on and offline, but there is no way for us to remove our data should we choose to in the future.

So, despite being observant of my data for a little over a decade all those companies still have, and in many cases, continue to collect my data without me being able to do anything about it; whereas, if I were in the EU, I could invoke the GDPR laws to get Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and more to remove my data from their systems.

One of the counter arguments I have heard is that you agree to use the company’s services and therefore shouldn’t have a right to complain as they can do as they please, and you can choose not to use the service. This is a fair argument, however, I should still retain the rights to my data, so should I opt to stop using a service, that my data is guaranteed to stop being used, or I can specify what data is allowed to be tracked.

For example, I have stopped using Gmail for receiving any emails. My account is purely for sending log emails from some servers, Google 2 Factor Authentication, Google Voice, and YouTube. Maybe I am okay with them getting my data and usage statistics for YouTube but want to keep my email, 2FA, and Voice services unable to be tracked and logged for security and possibly legal reasons.

This is an issue, as one thing I have regularly come across in my job of being IT systems consultant for small and medium businesses, is an inordinate number of doctors’ offices are using free Gmail accounts which is actually a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Due to the data collection tactics of Google, you have to sign up for G-Suite and sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) to make it HIPAA compliant.

But that also means private correspondence with your lawyer, accountant, family, and more is also available to advertisers or anyone willing to pay Google.

The same HIPAA issues come to light with really any free email provider, because those free providers more often than not are making their money back by scouring your emails for any valuable bits of your personal data to make money.

I believe, as a libertarian, we should have a right to our data, whether it is from the government or a business. I should have the ability to choose whether to disclose any or all information to any business, and should I end my use of a service, or choose for them not to have access to some data, be able to request for my data to be permanently deleted.

It also shouldn’t be a complicated process. A simple form or email submission is all we should require; not to go the routes I have gone where I have to constantly stay on top of what platforms have my data. But that still doesn’t help me in the case of Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and others. This is why we should fight for GDPR in every country and embrace the right to be forgotten.

The post The Libertarian Argument for the Right to be Forgotten appeared first on Being Libertarian.

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#IFTTT #WordPress #libertarian #beinglibertarian #being libertarian #freedom #free market

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bpcparents · 5 years

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Intimate Connection Paves the Path to Independence

As parents of high school grads know well, that diploma doesn’t mean young adults have learned all they need to know to enter the wider world. Whether moving on to college or heading directly into the workforce, adult children continue to require loving guidance, and an empty nest doesn’t mean the job is done. Rather, it signals a new stage of parenting -- one that’s widely undertreated, incomplete, and imbalanced, but full of surprising and uniquely touching opportunities for deepening our relationships with our kids as we parent them into adulthood.

Conventional wisdom on parenting newly-adult kids (18+) emphasizes boundaries and exhortations on the importance of parents “letting go,” so that just-launched offspring discover independence. Focused on avoiding the pitfalls of helicopter and snowplow parents who micromanage or remove obstacles in their kids’ paths to a fault, much of the literature reasonably warns against stifling or controlling young people.

These are understandable cautions; after all, as even The Wall Street Journal reports, “Baby boomers are far more immersed with their own grown children than their parents were with them“ (13 Jan, 2019). Indeed, Karen Fingerman, a professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Texas, Austin found that “parents in the early 2000s offered about twice as much counsel and practical support (which could be anything from babysitting grandkids, running their grown kids’ errands or reviewing their résumés) as parents did in the 1980s.” To this, I would point out, however, that there’s nothing objectively better or worse about the relative merits of either generation’s degree of “immersion.” What we should be addressing is the quality of parental involvement after kids hit legal age.

IT’S PERSONAL My own observations as both a parent and an educator teach me that too much emotional distance can sometimes rob young adults of the intimate connection to trusted family that they need to effectively transition to independence. In fact, I would argue that the “holy grail” of independence has been traded out too often -- albeit inadvertently -- for estrangement and alienation, to the unnecessary and avoidable detriment of the very kids their well-intentioned parents aimed to serve by stepping back.

Impersonal contact can also occur as a result of parental discomfort facing what some people feel as the “awkward” areas of human development that accompany late-teens and early-adults. Emerging identity naturally takes that age group into territory that traditional cultural conventions consider taboo in “polite company,” namely: sex, drugs, politics, and money. But allowing space for young people to make their own discoveries and decisions is not the same as getting a free pass to bag out of what may be uncomfortable parenting responsibilities altogether. Suicide rates among youth aged 15-24 increased by 50% over the last decade in the US (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention), signaling the intensifying urgency to reconsider how we cultivate meaningful connection and sustaining ties that bind youth to the love in their lives.

SEX TMI? Get over it; young people need candor without judgment, and avoiding the topic has real health consequences, both physical and emotional. Whether or not they decide to become sexually active, as humans, young people are certainly sexual beings and need understanding to navigate effectively in integrity with themselves. The availability since 2006 of the HPV vaccine for kids as young as nine-years-old has offered the benefit of parents and kids matter-of-factly discussing sex as a health issue even before reaching double digits. Protecting a young person’s privacy on this front must be absolute. They also set the boundaries, but don’t necessarily wait for them to raise the topic and definitely don’t be squeamish when they come knocking for advice. The pervasive messages and misinformation on social media stoke fears and insecurities, increasing the necessity for sound, accurate, and trustworthy information. Consent is the watchword, and sons need protective guidance as much as daughters do.

& GENDER In fact, when it comes to the separate but related issue of gender, the younger population is way ahead of most of those of us currently parenting. Awareness and understanding about gender as a spectrum that transcends binary categories is vital and literally life-saving. GLSEN and Gender Spectrum are two leading national organizations that have accomplished progress across the country toward creating greater understanding and safety for students in increasingly gender-inclusive schools. Young adults are more advanced in their comprehension and conduct, so now’s the time to catch up, Mom and Dad!

DRUGS News headlines abound with dire statistics about the heroin epidemic in the US, but the American Academy of Pediatrics reports that the broad social acceptability of alcohol in typical households continues to make booze the nation’s gateway drug. Their data document that “physiologic vulnerability to substance use is aggravated by environmental factors, including the availability, promotion, and modeling of substance use behaviors” (AAPpubs, 2/2019). For example, children who initiate drinking before age 14 are five times more likely to develop an alcohol use disorder compared with those who initiate at age 19. A similar pattern is seen with both marijuana and the misuse of prescription opioid medication. Indeed, delayed substance use initiation into adulthood is associated with a substantially reduced risk of ever developing a substance use disorder, underscoring the importance of prevention and early intervention strategies designed to delay initiation and reduce substance use in this group. Nonetheless, the peak ages of substance use initiation occur during adolescence and early adulthood, and programs designed for adolescents and young adults are almost entirely absent.

The good news is that parents have it entirely within their control to limit their children’s exposure to alcohol in the first place by abstaining themselves and making home a substance-free zone. Sound extreme? It’s actually one of the fastest growing and most popular trends on college campuses across the US. Whether out of religious piety, personal preference, military duty, or because they’re recovering addicts, increasing numbers of entering freshman are competing for housing in substance-free dorms. Given the rising surge of a substance-free reality for university students, why not start the same at home?

MONEY On the financial front, young adults are usually still dependent, but many of them feel irksomely so. Of course, it’s possible to help without making them feel on the dole. Most healthcare plans allow parents to carry their children on their plans until the age of 26, but that doesn’t mean that the young adults themselves can’t contribute toward their share of the costs. Similarly with auto insurance and cell phone plans; gradually, they can contribute increasing amounts toward their portion of those key programs. Doing so educates them to real world expenses, but there’s no reason to lord over them any sense of feeling beholden. Don’t make them ask, don’t make them “grateful.” Engage them as partners, discussing details of available options. Model money as a river rather than a pot of gold to be won. Encourage them as agents who can make and manage the flow of money, not as custodians of fixed sums, which can feed a shortage mentality. Encourage them to earn, save, donate, invest, and spend wisely. And if that doesn’t work out, restrategize with them rather than shame them, so that they can recover a footing and work their way back to solvency. Co-banking is a great way to start kids out while they’re still at home, displaying all accounts in a online single window, and the practice paves the way to skilled credit, debit, checking, and savings management that can become increasingly independent.

POLITICS In this era of heightened political division, it’s especially important to model citizenship, curiosity, tolerance, reason, fairness, and commitment to due process. Spouting opinions does nothing to quiet the din of distortion on social media that surrounds our children’s generation; we owe it to them to demonstrate an allegiance to facts and a genuine interest in how they see the world and what they value. Ask rather than pontificate, and by all means get that absentee voter ballot in the mail on deadline!

CLOSING ABOUT CLOSE-ING Engaging our adult children at such deep levels in the very areas of life that people often feel most private about actually equips them with the self-knowledge and confidence to take fully independent strides into the world -- and into connection with others as well. Parenting is love, and love is personal. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote that ”it is a process...that breaks down human isolation.” The wellbeing of our young adult children depends on the willingness of their parents to engage in this inimitably intimate process because, she notes, “we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.”

Elizabeth Messinger is a former journalist with NPR and The Economist of London. Through her educational consultancy, Mind in Motion, she guides children of all ages to think for themselves, and she teaches Humanities at an independent school in Stamford, CT. She raised her son in Bedford, where together they ran the Toddler Room at the Presbyterian Church for nearly a decade. She continues to parent from NY as he attends college in California.

#ElizabethMessinger #Parenting #independence

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anupsingh11-blog · 5 years

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Surrogacy Charges In Mumbai | What is Altruistic Surrogacy? | ElaWoman

There Are Kinds Of Surrogacy — conventional surrogacy and gestational surrogacy. In traditional surrogacy, a surrogate mother is artificially inseminated, either via the supposed father or an nameless donor, and carries the infant to term. The child is thereby genetically related to each the surrogate mother, who gives the egg, and the intended father or nameless donor.

Gestational Surrogacy, an egg is eliminated from the meant mother or an anonymous donor and fertilized with the sperm of the intended father or anonymous donor. The fertilized egg, or embryo, is then transferred to a surrogate who includes the baby to time period. The child is thereby genetically associated with the female who donated the egg and the supposed father or sperm donor, however not the surrogate. Some lesbian couples locate gestational surrogacy appealing because it permits one woman to make a contribution her egg and the other to hold the child.

Traditional Surrogacy is more arguable than gestational surrogacy, in large part due to the fact the biological relationship among the surrogate and the kid frequently complicates the statistics of the case if parental rights or the validity of the surrogacy settlement are challenged. As a end result, maximum states restrict traditional surrogacy agreements. Additionally, many states that allow surrogacy agreements prohibit compensation past the price of medical and felony costs incurred due to the surrogacy agreement.

What is Altruistic Surrogacy?

When a female is of the same opinion to be a surrogate without being compensated, that is known as altruistic surrogacy. In most surrogacy preparations, the surrogate gets reimbursement for her effort and time on top of well known expenses related to the pregnancy. Altruistic surrogates are generally assisting a person they recognise, which include a close buddy or member of the family, and will probably simplest acquire compensation for clinical costs.

What Is Independent Surrogacy?

Much like conventional surrogacy, independent surrogacy runs an entire host of prison risks. An independent surrogate is operating without the support and expertise of an agency – once more, frequently going through the method for someone she already is aware of.

And whilst it may seem affordable to take the organization out of the equation, you could by no means underestimate the value of a informed 0.33 birthday celebration. When the technique gets complex and emotions run excessive, the business enterprise is there as an introduced layer of support and protection for each parties.

Surrogacy is simply too complicated a system to move it on my own; from clinical selections to insurance to compensation, a reputable corporation has actually been there, executed that and may find a solution for even the maximum tough state of affairs.

Surrogacy charges in Mumbai

There are several elements that decide the real Surrogacy Charges in Mumbai, which a pair has to pay till the a success transport of the toddler. These factors encompass legal system and formalities, the experience of the health practitioner, the vicinity of the sanatorium and once the being pregnant is attained whether it’s a excessive-threat being pregnant or now not. Surrogacy Charges in Mumbai ranges from Rs. 14,00,000 to Rs. 23,00,000 which varies with doctor experience and past success quotes. The pleasant surrogacy centres in Mumbai are Saraogi Hospital and IRIS IVF Centre and IVF Spring Fertility Centre which give low-priced surrogacy strategies for welfare of patients.

ElaWoman team has carried out an extensive studies across all of the facilities in Mumbai to find out surrogacy fees. One can use Fair Treatment Calculator (FTC) to calculate the cost of various fertility treatment throughout numerous cities in India.

Saraogi Hospital and IRIS IVF Center

Saraogi Hospital and IRIS IVF Center became set up in 1980 with the goal of supplying international - elegance obstetric and gynaecological health care to all. Under the steering of our chairman – Professor Dr. Rajendra .M. Saraogi, they've got had the fortune of treating & improving the excellent of life of severa women over the past 34 years & turning in infinite toddlers. Saraogi Hospital and IRIS IVF Center paintings philosophy revolves round customized fitness care, with elevated emphasis on medical doctor - affected person courting. We consider in guiding & accompanying you at each step of the manner thru all of your gynaecological and obstetric requirements.

At Saraogi Hospital they've the fine device, infrastructure & college under one roof, for this reason making it a one - prevent vacation spot for all obstetric and gynaecological related problems. Our scope of services include recurring antenatal checkups, deliveries(pregnancy related offerings), endoscopic techniques ( minimally invasive surgery), open gynaecological procedures, oncology surgeries (cancer related surgeries)& infertility answers. All our practices are according with the modern pointers & suggestions as set by way of International Obstetric & Gynaecological agencies.

IVF Spring Fertility Centre

IVF Spring Fertility Centre is reputed call in Surrogacy and IVF treatment. It is a dependable medical institution mounted in 2014 at Global Hospital Annexe Building, Dr. Ernest Borges Road, Near ITC Grand Central, Parel (E), Mumbai. They have superior infrastructure facilities and are equipped with current scientific device and instrument. Supported via well-skilled body of workers and experienced doctors, they have a file of 68% achievement fee.

The IVF Spring Fertility Centre medical institution is specialised in IVF, Surrogacy, IUI, ICSI, Egg Donation, Embryo Adoption, Semen Freezing, and DNA Fragmentation. The health facility is likewise visited with the aid of Dr. Anjali A. Deval, who plays complex treatment in Normal Vaginal Delivery (NVD), Hysterectomy (Abdominal/Vaginal), Gyne Laparoscopy, In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) and Intrauterine Insemination (IUI).

Bavishi Fertility Institute

Bavishi Fertility Institute is one of the nice Surrogacy and IVF clinics. It is the biggest and the most advanced fertility centers in India. It is located in M G Road, Ghatkopar East, Mumbai at Rajawadi Signal and has the top notch connectivity of roads. The clinic is supported with the aid of expert body of workers and relatively skilled docs who deal with complicated instances of infertility. Bavishi Fertility Institute makes use of advanced IVF gadget and generation to make sure high success rate of fertility. Dr. Lekshmy Rana, a expert in Obstetrics & Gynaecology, performs High- Risk Pregnancy Care, Normal Vaginal Delivery (NVD), Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) and In Vitro Fertilization treatment at the Bavishi Fertility Institute.

Dr. Ridhi Doshi, an In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) and Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) specialist having an experience of four years, is also associated with the institute. Dr. Sonali N. Tawde is also one of the high-quality docs in Obstetrics & Gynaecology related to Bavishi Fertility Institute. She is specialized in IVF, Obstetrics / Antenatal Care, and Infertility. The clinic is open Monday to Saturday from 9 AM to ten PM.

Parakh Hospital

Parakh Hospital gives satisfactory centers and offers the entire gamut of clinical offerings to patients. Despite being a multi-area of expertise health care company, Parakh is renowned centre for Nephrology. they are devoted to presenting you with excessive satisfactory clinical services, compassionate care and cutting-edge amenities to make your stay a comfortable one.

they stay up for serving you, and we welcome any hints you could should assist us improve our service. If you have any questions or worries, please do not hesitate to ask your physician or your nurse or touch the medical institution. Again, thanks for choosing Parakh medical institution. Parakh Hospital has been imparting healthcare of the highest quality to the sufferers for the reason that last seven years underneath the guidance of leading group of first rate expert physicians and surgeons. It offers a wide range of healthcare services, from prevention to early detection and to complex interventions.

Aarush IVF And Endoscopy Centre

Aarush IVF And Endoscopy Centre in Malad West has mounted the sanatorium and has won a devoted clients over the past few years and is likewise frequently visited with the aid of several celebrities, aspiring fashions and other honourable customers and worldwide patients as nicely. They also plan on increasing their enterprise similarly and presenting services to numerous more sufferers thanks to its success over the past few years. The performance, determination, precision and compassion presented on the health facility make certain that the affected person's well-being, consolation and desires are kept of top precedence.

Aarush IVF And Endoscopy Centre is a certified surrogacy and IVF middle placed in Malad West, Opposite Orlem Church, Off Marve Road, Mumbai. The medical institution has a nicely-maintained infrastructure with exceptional clinical facilities like Separate Andrology lab, IVF lab, Ovum pick up OT, Embryo switch room & IUI room. The carrier they provide consists of Consultation & examination Of each Husband & Wife, Ultrasonography, Hormone analysis & another recurring blood test, Endoscopic surgical treatment for ART(hysteroscopy & laparoscopy), Pathology lab tests and plenty of extra.

For more information, Call Us : +91-8929020600

Visit Website : Elawoman

Elawoman contact

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gethealthy18-blog · 4 years

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Let’s Talk About Racism + The Wellness Industry

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/lets-talk-about-racism-the-wellness-industry/

Let’s Talk About Racism + The Wellness Industry

We all want to believe we’re not racist. Even people who engage in overtly racist behaviors don’t see their behavior as racist. Our egos are a powerful thing that prevent us from seeing how our words, our actions and many times our silence and inaction can be harmful to other people. But that doesn’t make it right. And I am certainly not immune to this. This past year, and in particular the past few weeks have really woken me up to how I’ve both contributed to and benefitted from racism in this country. The wellness industry is no exception.

Now I could certainly address how our entire country is built around systemic racism, I wanted to focus on the wellness industry, because it’s my industry and the one I’ve dedicated my career to for the past 8 years. It’s also the area where I feel I can have the greatest impact and I sense this is the case for you too. They say that any lasting change must begin in your home and well, this place is my home so let’s start talking.

The History of Wellness

The Oxford English Dictionary first recognized the word “wellness” in 1654 as “a state of being well or in good health”. The term wasn’t given much thought or use in literature until the 70s with the establishment of The Wellness Resource Center in Mill Valley, California in 1975. The center brought together followers of Dr. John T. Travis’ concept of the Illness-Wellness Continuum.

“Moving from the center to the left shows a deteriorating state of health. Moving to the right of center indicates increasing levels of health and well-being. The Treatment Paradigm can only take you to the neutral point, where the symptoms of disease have been alleviated. That is all it is designed to do. The Wellness Paradigm, on the other hand, which can be utilized at any point on the continuum, helps you move toward higher levels of wellness.” (source)

Ironically, the group was profiled by Dan Rather in a 60-minutes segment as being more of a cult than a group looking to better their health. Wellness was very much still a fringe concept. Also yes, the irony is not lost on me that this all unfolded in my own backyard. These “wellness hippies” were enthusiastic with the concept of “self-care” i.e. caring for our own minds, bodies and nature as the means to enduring health and happiness. They were also weary of conventional doctors and medicine – two concepts that remain a central position of the wellness industry today.

There’s debate as to when “wellness” made its comeback but one thing is certain, it’s jumped from the fringes to being mainstream. According to the Global Wellness Institute, the wellness industry is a $4.2 Trillion Global Industry – with 12.8% Growth from 2015-2017 (source). That was just 3 years ago. This is more than 3 times the growth of the global pharmaceutical industry! Rather than a war between conventional medicine and wellness culture, we’re seeing more integration and cooperation. No doubt, these are all good things, but that doesn’t mean everyone feels included in this change.

Is The Wellness Industry Racist?

Before jumping into this question I think it’s probably fair to assume that yes, the wellness industry is racist. Just look up the hashtag #wellness on Instagram and you’ll see an overwhelmingly amount of images of thin, white women. Though the tides are changing, it’s overtly clear who gets to participate in #wellness and those who don’t. While the images may speak for themselves, let’s focus on the facts:

Black women are 3.4 x more likely than white women to die in childbirth (source)

Only 1 in 3 Black Americans who need access to mental health care actually receive it – despite being affected at the same rate as their white counterparts. (source)

Less than 10% of participants in medical studies come from minority groups – despite making up almost 40% of the US population (source)

In the US, approximately 11% of African Americans are not covered by health insurance (source)

The Death rate for African Americans is higher than whites for heart disease, stroke, cancer, asthma, influenza and pneumonia, diabetes, HIV/AIDS (source)

Clearly health outcomes for Black and minority populations in the US are not good, and this is just looking at health outcomes. BIPOC are not receiving the same access or level of health care as White Americans. But this just barely touches the wellness industry which oftentimes comes one step before or one step after conventional healthcare.

People tend to engage in wellness practices as a form of preventative medicine or an alternative approach to conventional medicine when they feel conventional has failed them. These practices include everything from supplements to workouts, various diets to body care products. Perhaps not always rooted in medical science, proponents of the wellness industry look for anecdotal or occasionally spiritual evidence to support their claims. I’m not here to tell you that conventional vs. alternative (namely wellness practices) are mutually exclusive. I think there’s room for both. They both however are exclusionary.

For one, a central tenant of wellness is the idea of “self-care” as the key to health and happiness. Put simply, BIPOC don’t have the same luxury to engage in self-care practices as their White counterparts. When you’re busy working twice as hard as your fellow citizens for positions which still offer less money, less access and less overall support, the idea of caring for yourself is simply a luxury you quite literally cannot afford. The cost of supplements, workout classes, special foods and body care products is a barrier to entry for many, especially when the wage gap between Black and White Americans is over 26% (source).

Not to mention the fact that minorities are grossly underrepresented as wellness practitioners. I don’t have exact facts to back this up but walk into any nutritionists office or yoga class and I can almost guarantee you they will be white. The cost of most training programs (including nutrition, coaching and yoga) ranges from $3000-$7000 dollars. This requires expendable income that many minority groups simply don’t have access to and aren’t given appropriate reparations to get access to. And when you can’t feel seen in class or by a coach or teacher, it feels hard to believe these practices apply to you.

The ironic piece of all of this is that many of the wellness practices can be attributed to communities of color. White people have appropriated these practices and then limited access just for themselves. It’s wellness colonization of sorts.

How to Be Anti-Racist in Wellness

So what are we going to do about it?

I am certainly not a anti-racism teacher or academic so I will be deferring to resources from Black and minority voices and teachers to share how we can become actively anti-racist in the wellness community.

The first step is to uncover your own racist biases.

I encourage you to start with these two resources:

Read both. Learn. Listen. Fill out the writing prompts. Let it sink in.

The next step is to implement change.

I’m not going to repeat the actions listed in the Diversity Workbook as you should really consider financially supporting them to get access to to their suggestions. Instead I’ll share how we are implementing change to be anti-racist in wellness.

Making sure this space is inclusive of all backgrounds. This includes all of our messaging, images and anything we promote. If it doesn’t support people of color and/or isn’t accessible to them, we will not promote it.

Not working with any brands that do not also support BIPOC and/or aren’t including BIPOC in their messaging, influencers or promotions.

Utilizing the blog and social media to promote stories and work from BIPOC. We don’t need another white girl teaching you how to make matcha 😉

We have always offered a sliding scale to BIPOC for Camp Wellness, however we will officially be offering Camp Wellness for free to communities of color until further notice. We consider these reparations for generations of abuse and not gifts or donations.

Taking consideration of where a wellness practice was created and if credit is appropriately applied and/or if there’s a better voice to share it.

Staying in my own lane. While I want to ensure what we share is inclusive, I cannot understand the pain and the hardship of people of color so I will not create tips and resources to speak to those communities. I will certainly continue to promote and amplify the people who do.

A huge overhaul of THM to be more inclusive of voices from different backgrounds – stay tuned!

Black Women in Wellness to Follow

I wanted to highlight a list of Black Women in Wellness to follow for inspiration. I’ve had the opportunity to chat with many of these women on the podcast and some I’ve followed for years. This list is not exhaustive. There are MANY more voices of color in the wellness space. Please share any you love in the comments below and of course, check out this list for inspiration.

Koya Webb – Koya is such an inspiring voice in the wellness space! She is a yoga teacher, health coach, author and speaker who promotes a few of my favorite things: self care, eco-friendly living, mental health and social injustices.

Alex Elle – Alex is one of my favorite IG follows. She is such a light in that space – her words are so powerful! Alex is an author and wellness consultant that teaches workshops and retreats. Her mission is to build community and self-care practices. She’s also an author of multiple books… highly recommend!

Lauren Ash – Lauren is a trailblazer in the wellness space for the Black community. She is the founder of Black Girl in Om where she creates content and experiences speaking directly to Black women and women of color. She is a meditation guide, yoga instructor, speaker and host of the Black Girl Om podcast.

Latham Thomas – I had Latham on the podcast ins 2018 and loved our conversation! She is changing the conversation when it comes to women and childbirth. She is the founder of Mama Glow, a company that supports women through fertility, pregnancy, after birth and into new motherhood.

Lalah Delia – Lalah is the founder of Vibrate Higher Daily, a wellness company dedicated to helping people to live a higher vibrational life. She helps people return to their empowered, whole selves.

Maryam Hasnaa – Maryam’s focus is on teaching other’s to live their soul’s purpose. LOVE THIS! She incorporates ancient wisdom with new information to teach deep transformational healing.

Tiffany Ima – I am here for Tiffany’s message! She shows up in her real, authentic voice and image to help others embrace their body. She shares simple tips to help build your body confidence and become the woman you always dreamed of becoming.

Arielle Lawrence – I still think about our conversation regularly… it was so impactful! Ariel has lived with diabetes for 12+ years and has made it her mission to use her platform, Just a Little Suga’ to support and educate people of color about diabetes. So so important!

Erica Chidi Cohen – Erica worked as a doula in the San Francisco prison system – working with pregnant inmates. She has since co-founded LOOM to “empower people as they navigate their sexual and reproductive experience.” Erica is passionate about helping people cultivate body literacy and sex positivity. If you’re pregnant, check out her book, “Nurture: A Modern Guide to Pregnancy, Birth and Early Motherhood.”

Jessamyn Stanley – Another podcast guest! I love Jessamyn and her message of body positivity! She is a yoga teacher that focuses classes around body positivity by encouraging students to ask “how do I feel?” rather than “how do I look”.

* * * * *

We have a long way to go in making the wellness space more equitable and more importantly, just. I also acknowledge how much work I need to do personally to unravel my own biases and ways in which I’ve benefited from white privilege. But I’m a firm believer that none of us can be “well” if only some of us can be well. We have an opportunity to redefine what wellness means. I hope we can expand beyond the notion of “self-care” to be inclusive of all care. We are committed to this process. We hope you will be too.

LOVE THESE NATURAL BEAUTY TIPS? Join the THM Community!

Join 10,000+ members of the THM Community to get access to exclusive info about natural beauty, products I’m loving and how to transition to a more natural lifestyle.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheHealthyMaven/~3/Sl1SgwxebfY/

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podcastcoach · 5 years

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Top Five Way to Make Money with your Podcast

I keep seeing statements like, "Well, I've done this podcast for 2 years and it's time to start monetizing." With this type of mindset, I can see many podcasters getting discouraged or even burned out. I played music in local bars from the age of 16 to 50. 34 years I played music, but I never fell delusional enough to think I would make the big time playing local bars in Northeast Ohio. If I wanted a career I would've had to move to a city like Los Angelas, Nashville, or anything that wasn't Akron, Ohio.

While it's commendable to commit to something for a long period, it's not the longevity that inspires people to share your episodes. It's the content. Nobody has ever said, "Hey Dave you have to listen to this show!" and when I ask why they say, "They've been podcasting since 2014!"

With that said, as I write the updated version to my book More Podcast Money, here are the ways you make money with podcasting.

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[click_to_tweet tweet="The Top Five Ways to Make Money With a Podcast @davejackson " quote=" The Top Five Ways To Make Money With a Podcast" theme="style3"]

The Top Ways to Make Money With Your Podcast

Sell Your Own Products or Services

This is the top way to make money with your podcast. You harness the power of influence.

As you have lived and breathed in your target audience for a while, you should know what they need or want. I was amazed at a WordCamp I attended recently that the documentation for the new Gutenberg is sparse at best. Everyone hates it. Nobody understands it. That is one learning curve that needs to be flattened and if I had time I would dive into it myself.

Why some of your audience will buy from you is due to you bringing value on a consistent basis. This triggers the law of reciprocity. You've done something nice for them, and now your audience feels a need to do something nice for you. If you've shared a little about yourself then they probably like you (if they didn't they wouldn't be listening). If the information you provide is solid then they trust you. When you are known, liked, and trusted the buzz phrase for this is you are an "influencer."

When you launch a product or service you can influence them to purchase your product.

This could be a book, a course, a membership site, a crowdfunding campaign, a live webinar, etc. These products should fill a need in your space, or entertain them.

Sell Other People's Products or Services (affiliate sales)

Affiliate sales are when you sign up with a company to promote its products. You are given a link (or a code) that proves the traffic/customer came from you. If a sale is made, you earn a commission. When you match the right product with the right audience, you can make decent money. I once made hundreds of dollars a month promoting fitness cards on my weight loss show. The commission was $1.50 per deck. This product fit my audience.

I later would do the same when the Fitbit first came on the scene. I bought one and loved it. This is a great place to start. Find a product that you love that your audience ( a weight loss show in this case) would love. I was able to openly and honestly talk about how I loved my Fitbit and ever since I bought it I was more active. Again, I was earning hundreds of dollars per month when the commission was $9 per sale.

Pat Flynn makes a TON of money with Affiliate sales. He created a video tutorial showing how easy it was to install WordPress on a web hosting company. The video was short. It made building a website look super easy, and his affiliate link was right beneath the video.

Find the right product for the right audience and affiliate sales can be a nice source of income.

Crowdfunding / Donations

This form of income requires an extremely engaged audience. When people donate their motivation is one of two things typically

They want you to continue to create content and have the freedom to keep going. They believe in your message/content

They want additional information or content.

Adam Curry and John C Dvorak called the donation model "Value for Value" model. Their show the No Agenda Show dissects the media and helps you understand what is really going on in politics and in some cases society and culture. They produce two episodes a week that are roughly two hours long. They have a segment at the beginning thanking people who gave over $250. They have a segment in the middle to thank anyone who donated over $50, and they have a ceremony to "Knight" anyone who has donated over $1000 and welcome them to be a "Knight of the No Agenda Roundtable" and you also get a very nice ring (which of course people can wear, and have other people ask "where did you get that ring).

The No Agenda show is so engaged they are now holding meetups without the hosts. Adam and John provide any tools to their audience that they can use to promote the show.

Jennifer Bryney also does a show about politics called Congressional Dish. She started the show by reading every bill that went through the US Congress. Every American should listen to at least one episode of Congressional dish. Jen thanks all of her supporters at the end of the show.

Both of these shows provide information that you (sadly) can't get any place else. Both are done in an informative and yet entertaining fashion.

The No Agenda Show accepts checks and paypal. They have a jingle that promotes the website to go and donate ( www.divorak.com/na ). Congressional Dish will take your support using whatever payment tool you want

The top reward people offer at Patreon (the top crowdfunding tool ) is additional content.

When is the best time to add a Patreon campaign? When a listener asks you to start one.

Host Read Ads

While currently, less than 10% of podcasts get 5000 downloads per episode (the metric advertisers are looking for, although some need 20,000 per episode) this doesn't mean you can't get a sponsor. I've had sponsors on this show that fit my audience. While some advertisers use an old way of advertising held over from radio where you pay a rate based on the number of downloads ( CPM price per thousands ) this doesn't' work with podcasts who have a smaller - but more engaged - audience. I charge per episode (not CPM). This is sometimes called a "flat rate."

When using the CPM model of (for example) $30 per thousand downloads and your show gets 200 downloads per episode that episode earned $6 (which is why CPM doesn't work for most podcasters). The more niche your audience, and the more niche the product the better the match. The better the match, the higher you can charge.

Dynamic Ad Insertion

While the technology behind dynamic ad insertion is not bad, currently podcasters who are using some services are getting the shaft in my opinion. For me, generic dynamic ad insertion is the equivalent of Podcast Welfare. One system I am checking is paying my .0017 (not a typo) per download. If we go back to that show that has 200 downloads per episode they are making 34 cents per episode.

When you see companies saying "You can make money from DAY ONE" this is what they are using. Yes, you will earn money. However, you might be better checking your couch cushions.

People That Make a Living With Podcast Have a Few Things In Common

I've noticed a few traits with those people who make a living from the income that was generated from podcasting activities.

They have MULTIPLE income streams. They sell products, affiliate sales, ads, etc. They have a combination of the above. The people that JUST have ads HAVE HUMONGOUS audiences. That take DECADES to build.

They often have a spouse/partner that has a decent job with health benefits (not all but many)

Had an audience before they started podcasting (not all, but many).

There are Other Ways To Measure Success

It's not all about downloads and its not all about money. In some cases, you get paid in confidence. You get paid in speaking gigs, or maybe even a permanent job. In some cases, you get paid in friendship, and peace of mind knowing you belong.

Quitting Your Day Job

There are tools online you can use to see how much money you need to have a certain take-home pay. I live in Ohio and using https://us.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php

I live in Ohio and in Ohio 60,000 will put you in a place where you don't have to worry about your bills. If I want to have a take-home pay of $60,000 a year I need to bring home $75,576.62 (as 20-30% of this is going to taxes). However, if you’re married with children you might be paying for health insurance via COSE (which can be around $1700 a month) which would mean you would need to have $98,192.92 in gross revenue to take home $60,000. Apparently, I'm also never going to retire (as I'm not putting any money away - just a thought).

Now if we break that down that is $1888.33 per week. Assuming you are working 40 hours a week that is $47.21/hour. There are some things to keep in mind. This means your calendar is booked from morning to night if you are doing consulting. This also means you’re never taking a vacation. Wait, you want two weeks of vacation? Then you need to make $101,969.58 in gross revenue (as we will assume you are not making money while you are on vacation. This then means your hourly rate is $49.02/hour and you are working 40 hours a week.

Why You Need Multiple Streams of Income

In a post on their blog, Patreon mentions that only 1-5% of your audience will become Patrons. The average donation is $7. I checked mine, and it was $5, but we will stick with $7.

If I use the gross number from above of that would mean I need to make $8,182.74 a month. If the average Patron donats $7, I will need 1,169 Patrons. If only 5% of my audience becomes Patrons I need a total number of downloads of 23,379 per month so 5% of them will become patrons. While you could say that 23,379 a month is 5845 downloads per week, but that 23,379 should be unique listeners.

Question of the Month

What do you like about the show? What do you wish I'd change? What do you want to hear in the future? Upload/Leave your answer on the contact page.

Please take the online survey (with a chance to win a price) at www.schoolofpodcasting.com/survey19

Mentioned in this Show

More Podcast Money Book

More Podcast Money Podcast

Fast Pitch Softball

Useful Resources

Graphtreon (shows how much people are making on Patreon)

Patreon Crowd Funding

Work With Me

Join the School of Podcasting or let me be your podcast mentor

Check out this episode!

#podcasting #podcast #coaching #new media

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topicprinter · 6 years

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Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Sarah Gross Feoli of Rescue Chocolate, a brand that makes Dog-themed chocolate.Some stats:Product: Dog-themed chocolate.Revenue/mo: $12,000.00Started: January 2010Location: Brooklyn, NYFounders: 1Employees: 0Hello! Who are you and what are you working on?I’m Sarah Gross Feoli, the founder and owner of Rescue Chocolate. While our products are only for humans to enjoy, we donate all profits to various animal rescue organizations. I began the company in January 2010, and in the past 8 years have partnered with hundreds of different rescue groups on fundraising.All of our chocolate bars and truffles are vegan, fairly traded, organic, handcrafted in small batches in Brooklyn NY, and delicious. Each flavor highlights a different issue important in the realm of animal rescue. For example, Peanut Butter Pit Bull calls attention to the fallacies of breed-specific legislation. The Fix urges people to spay and neuter their dogs and cats as the most important step in reducing the numbers of homeless animals. There are links on our website where our customers can get more information about these issues.Our retail customers are chocolate aficionados, animal lovers, local foodies, and anyone with a sweet tooth. On the wholesale side, we are carried at gourmet groceries, pet stores, veterinarian offices, vegan shops, and natural food stores.What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?I’ve always been interested in animal welfare, and grew up with at least one or two dogs in the house at all times. During middle school and high school, I volunteered at my local animal shelter in Shreveport, Louisiana. I also became a vegetarian and then a vegan during those years. (I chose the vegan lifestyle primarily out of compassion for animals. Later I learned that it is also beneficial to the environment and one’s health as well.)My love for chocolate didn’t happen until my mid 20s, after I had moved to New York. I enjoyed visiting the artisan chocolatiers in the city and sampling exotic varieties. For a short time, I worked at a raw vegan chocolate factory in Queens where I developed a best-selling flavor.Then I adopted a homeless pit bull.Rescue Chocolate was born, and started turning a profit in the second month of its existence. I had no business background. In fact, I had been a professional ballet dancer in college. But I learned the business basics on the fly. It helped that I did not have to set up my own factory and train my own employees. I use a co-packer, and I can run my ideas through the executive chef there.Describe the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing the product.When coming up with flavors for the bars, I usually just go with what I like. Occasionally I’ll run a very informal focus group or online survey to get input from others. I pay attention to trending ingredients. For example, for awhile there was a bacon craze. You were finding bacon in every kind of dish from entrees to desserts. I came out with a soy-bacon chocolate bar called Fakin’ Bacon. Another example is artisan salt. My Mission Feral Fig bar contains one called fleur de sel. My line of Like White bars and truffles contains chia seeds and other "superfood" ingredients. I don’t go this route only to get in on fads but also because all these ingredients are really tasty!My husband is a graphic designer, so he is responsible for the branding and the look of the products and the website. My pit bull is the company mascot, so her photo appears on almost every label. The bars are wrapped in colorful metallic foil with a white paper oversleeve, which allows for a fun yet luxurious look.I found my manufacturer through a chocolate consultant. Yes, there really are such people. The relationship has been great over the years. The co-packer is convenient to me in Brooklyn, and is fairly flexible in accommodating my manufacturing runs.There were very few start-up costs. I put the initial outlay for the first run on my credit card. Since this is a sole proprietorship, I did not have any legal fees for setting up the structure. I do pay for liability insurance, to which riders are attached each time I go out to food festivals and sell direct to the consumer. When I outgrew the storage space at the factory, I rented out a small storage facility. This is where I do all the packing and shipping. (Someone else might be able to operate out of their home, but I don’t trust myself to have all that chocolate stock at my fingertips!)Describe the process of launching the online store/business.To create a website, I used one of the templates on Shopify. I then had a series of designers customize the look. I can add and subtract products, change prices, offer various discounts, and track where the sales are coming from, all very easily. In the beginning, I paid a photographer friend of mine to take mouth-watering shots of the chocolate; now I can do that on my own.Originally, I used Paypal to process payments. Then Shopify created a system of its own, which I use for the online sales. I still do some invoicing of wholesale customers through Paypal. For email blasts, I like MailChimp. Our e-newsletters go out a couple of times per month, and they have a very upbeat vibe.Aside from the cost of goods sold, the biggest cost for running the business was and remains postage. Sometimes people don’t understand why they have to pay shipping, since Amazon and the other big players offer it for free. But I don’t do the kind of volume where that makes sense. When people pay for shipping, that means there is more money available for me to send to the animal rescue beneficiaries. Shipping gets pretty expensive in the warm-weather months, because I have to express-ship with ice packs and insulation. Therefore, sales do tend to slow way down in the summertime.I launched in the days before Facebook had its draconian algorithms in place. Every time I got a "like" I could be sure that new people were learning about Rescue Chocolate. It doesn’t work like that anymore, so probably advertising would be an important component of launching a business today.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?I post on social media platforms as often as possible. The e-newsletter is particularly effective, especially when it includes a discount for loyal customers. Getting our name out in mainstream/traditional media is helpful too. I try to respond to all media requests for quotes or articles. Rescue Chocolate is also able to appear as a sponsor for many festivals and fundraisers if I make an in-kind donation of chocolate.We also have 2 specific ways of spreading our message when we partner with rescue groups. The groups then take it upon themselves to do the marketing for us, because it benefits them. One method is similar to the Girl Scout Cookie model. We sell our chocolate to the group at below-wholesale rates. They then resell to their own supporters at the regular retail rate, keeping the difference. The second method invites all the groups’ supporters to order Rescue Chocolate online, and indicate the name of their rescue group at check-out. We give the group $1 back for each bar ordered that way.Even without a storefront, I like to sell to customers in person at various pop-ups and events. Not only does this lead to sales on the spot, but my booth will always have an email sign-up sheet so that I can continue to contact those people and close sales down the road.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?Rescue Chocolate has been profitable from the very beginning. However, as with most food items, our margins are not very large. When we add in the mandate to donate a portion of every sale to charity, the margin gets squeezed even further. People know they can get mass-produced chocolate at the big-box stores very cheaply, so not everyone is willing to spend more for higher quality. Our fair-trade and organic certifications are fairly pricey, and the market simply will not bear increasing the price of a 2-ounce chocolate bar to compensate fully. For these reasons, we are not in distribution. There is not enough room in the model to pay a distributor.About half of our sales are online, and the other half is wholesale. We have drop-ship arrangements with a few other online sellers (that specialize in either vegan products or pet-related products). We are no longer available on Amazon or in Whole Foods. In the past, we did bow down to those giants and tried to play by their rules. But we found that the few pennies we earned did not justify the headaches of dealing with them.We plan to continue to expand gradually so that we can keep the focus on a quality product and on raising money for even more grassroots animal welfare groups. At the moment, we only ship to customers in the United States. If we can find a non-exorbitant shipping option, we would like to ship internationally as well.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?While our co-packer is known for accommodating small runs, sometimes we would prefer to order even less of a certain flavor than is possible. In trying to meet the factory’s minimums, we might wind up with too much of a perishable product at a slow time of year. Conversely if we try to compensate for that and don’t insure the next run in time, we might find ourselves with dozens of orders that we can’t fulfill.From time to time we have hosted student interns. For the most part, I’d advocate not doing so. Even though these are not paid positions, the amount of training time they required--and the mental space to worry about them--turned out to be a net loss. Except for the very first intern I ever had! He was a firebrand from Lyon, France. He brought in quite a few new customers. I hadn’t realized at the time that he was the exception to the rule.We make our animal welfare donations every month, and that is a way of erasing the negatives. Even if our profits are way down for a given period, at least we know we are still making a positive difference in the world.What platform/tools do you use for your business?Shopify provides the forward-facing website and a simple back end. The only 3rd party app I use regularly is Converso which is fairly good at convincing abandoned carts to return by utilizing a small automatic discount. For shipping I really like Ordercup which is fully integrated with Shopify and can find the cheapest shipping method for any size order. As noted above, Mailchimp does my email blasts. I also like good old Google Alerts for keeping on top of the trends in the chocolate business as well as for finding media mentions of Rescue Chocolate. And unbelievably, my accounting is all done on Excel.What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?My inspirations are not specifically related to my chocolate business but to my life in general, of which the business is a big part.An early influence in my understanding of what happens to unwanted animals in this country was the No Kill Advocacy Center website. The director, Nathan Winograd, pioneered strategies for getting the kill rate way down at animal control facilities all over the country. (There used to be 18 million dogs and cats killed every year in America. Now the number is down to 4 million.) He shares his innovative ideas through conferences and on-site visits. He and other people like him give me hope that the problem can be completely solved one day, through all kinds of incremental efforts. My contributions through Rescue Chocolate are small but important.For me, a ground-breaking book on the health benefits of a vegan lifestyle was The China Study by T. Colin Campbell. Since it was first published back in 2005, there have only been more and more scientific studies adding to the chorus. This continues to validate my decision to sell a vegan food product such as dark chocolate.Influential podcasts are: The Tim Ferriss Show (along with Ferriss’s book The Four Hour Work Week , This Week In Startups, and How I Built This (for continued inspiration).Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?You don’t have to know every last detail of running a business before you launch. You can learn on the job. Even if you have the best MBA credentials in the world, there will still be problems that arise that can only be straightened out using common sense.Find something that you are passionate about, and keep that fire burning underneath all of your everyday activities. Your passion will drive you to increase sales, and master bookkeeping chores, and make cold calls, and do whatever else it is that you might not otherwise care for. Going through the motions as a disinterested automaton might work when you’re somewhere in the middle of the corporate hierarchy, but it doesn’t work at all when you are running your own businessLiked this interview? Check out more founders that shared their story on StarterStory.com.

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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advancetaxreliefexperts · 7 years

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4 WAYS TO GET ORGANIZED FOR THE 2018 TAX SEASON

With tax season finally over (unless you asked for a tax extension), this is good time to reflect on what you can do for next year in order to make preparing your returns a more pleasant experience.

Need Help? Call Advance Tax Relief LLC (800)790-8574

Preparing tax returns, gathering the necessary documentation, and double-checking that everything you filled out is correct can stress out even the most organized person. This is even more important if you are in a little need of upgrading your organizational skills, and let's face it, we could all stand to be a little more organized.

One of the best tips that I can offer someone who is looking to reduce their stress levels around tax time and concerning their tax return is to try to get more organized for the coming year. An often-cited phrase and mindset is that the more organized your surroundings are, the better you will feel, and the better you will perform workplace activities. Especially with everything, and everyone, clamoring for our attention, focus, and energy on an almost daily basis, it can be difficult to decide what items to actually prioritize.

Figuring out what your priorities are in life is not something I can advise on, but what I can say for certain is that picking these priority items, including your finances, will help you become more organized, less stressed, and more confident come tax time.

Tax time only comes once a year, but it can feel like it lasts for months -- here are a few of my favorite ways to reduce the stress and time spent on tax, and financial documentation in general.

DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT TO ITEMIZE

As an individual, you basically have two options, itemized deductions or a standard deduction, with how you want to file your individual 1040, and making that decision now will help your figure out what you need to save and keep track of during the year. One thing to keep in mind is that not every dollar you spend will be deductible -- for the 2017 tax years (filing in 2018), the expenses you are seeking to itemize (specifically medical) must exceed 10 percent of your adjusted gross income (AGI).

Another thing to remember is that everyone, whatever your filing status, is eligible for a standard deduction. For single filer taxpayers, the standard deduction is $6,300 -- it is important to work with your CPA or tax professional to make sure you do not end up getting less. Fortunately, the IRS has a form that helps you figure out if you are better off itemizing or taking the standard deduction.

If you choose to itemize your deductions you will, in general, have to keep track of more documentation during the year. Some of the most common itemized tax deductions include, but are not limited to medical expenses, charitable contributions, state and local taxes, foreign taxes, mortgage interest deductions, mortgage points, health insurance if you are self employed, and losses related to natural disasters. There are many more options out there, so be sure to work with your tax adviser to stay current.

TRACK YOUR DONATIONS AND DUES:

If you donate to different charitable organizations and groups, or even pay dues for professional organizations, which can range from animal rights groups to dues paid for for realtors and even CPAs, you might be able to take that contribution, or a portion of it, as a tax deduction. You will either receive an email at the end of the year letting you know how much you had donated, or will receive a receipt explaining how much of your payment or contribution is tax deductible. In my experience these organizations are very good at providing this documentation, but if you have not received your documentation by the end of January I would follow with an email or phone call.

FILE YOUR FINANCE DOCUMENTS

We all get way too many emails during the course of the year, but taking a little time to auto-file where these emails go can save you a lot of stress come next tax season. Bank e-statements, credit card e-statements, retirement account information, and any business expenses should either be stored in a tax file in your inbox, or put in a tax folder during the year. A little time now will save you a lot of time next tax season.

KNOW THE TAX DATES AND DEADLINES

April is well-known as tax month, but there are several other dates that are important during the year. Quarterly taxes for your business, for example, are due the 15th of April, June, September, and January, so make sure to file and pay if you need to. Lastly, you should have received all of your tax documents, including W-2's and any 1099's, by January 31st. If you find yourself missing documentation be sure to reach out to keep yourself from falling behind. Your outreach efforts might include your IRA program manager, former employers, or companies you did some consulting for during the year. Again, most organizations in my experience are very good at getting these documents out the door, but it is important to keep an eye on where these documents are.

Sometimes the most painful time during tax season is opening a shoebox full of mismatched and unorganized documentation, and trying to make sense of it. That is stressful for both you and your tax preparer, and might actually result in your missing out on an important deduction or credit that you are due. Taking some time during the year to get, and stay, financially organized can really pay off the next time tax season, or some other big financial occasion, comes around.

Get Tax Relief Help Today

If you think that you may help filing your 2017/2018 tax return, you may want to partner with a reputable tax relief company who can help you get the max refund. Advance Tax Relief has a offices in Houston, TX and Los Angeles, CA and helps many individuals just like you work with the IRS to solve a wide variety of issues, including penalty waivers. Call our team today at 800-790-8574 for more information. For a free consultation, schedule an appointment with us online.

If you live in Los Angeles, contact us locally https://www.inglewoodtaxlawyers.com/ and if you live in houston, contact us here www.advancetaxrelief.com. However, it doesn’t matter where you live, we service taxpayers nationwide.

Advance Tax Relief is a BBB Accredited A+ Rated Business.

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