The Secret of Why I Wrote ‘The Vision Board’

Twenty years ago I had an extraordinary opportunity that changed my life and much to my surprise became well known nationally as a contribution to both American popular culture and community outreach programs.

During a freelance stint at a major advertising agency, The client and the agency owner asked me to create a marketing campaign to introduce a major supermarket chain to Southern California. Rather than organize just another grand opening promotion with clowns and balloons, I was able to gather a team together to launch what is now best known as The Missing Kids on the Milk Carton campaign.

That effort, which started as a promo for Ralph’s Grocery stores, ended up being a prototype for the rollout of dozens of similar programs nationally. I myself was inspired to create the campaign based on a tiny article I had seen in a regional newspaper about a small dairy that had hand-labeled a few hundred of their own cartons with pictures of local missing children. My vision was to spread the program nationally. Of course, no one had ever done this kind of a promo to introduce new supermarkets. Without realizing it, I was delving into what today is called ‘social capitalism’ defined as business efforts based on innovative solutions to social problems.

One of my visions in blogging on Gather.com and sharing my new book “The Vision Board: the secret to an extraordinary life” is to inspire readers around the world to realize that you too can bring positive change in your life and in doing so make the world a better place for all of us. No matter what your circumstances, whether you are recently divorced or you’ve just been laid of from your job or you are happy in your life but yearn for something more –your time is now!

For the past decade, I’ve been involved in launching new companies and major new sites on the Internet but with success came pressure. About 18 months ago I ended up in the hospital briefly with a stress-related illness. I realized it was time to change my own life and go back to my first love writing. A few days later, after seeing an OPRAH show on the Law of Attraction I realized that people were waking up to the power of visioning and vision board creation --both practices I had long followed. I checked online and didn’t see any books on vision boards, so I decided I’d write a great one.

My vision was to write create a new genre of book that combines art, design and self-help. In weeks, I got an agent, we developed a book proposal and in months it sold to the prestigious Collins Design, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishing. It’s my pleasure to reveal that last weekend the book hit #1 on Amazon’s Spiritual Bestseller list. I am totally grateful for the talented team that joined with me to realize my vision and see the book at more than 6,000 bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders and of course to feature it on Gather.com where you too can explore its wonders.

I created, wrote and produced ‘The Vision Board to fulfill my life’s motto “To Live the Possible Dream’ and to continue to express my own vision statement “to open doors for others and walk through them first”. What started as a personal project expanded to become an open book with more than 75 wisdom leaders including 7 of the featured teachers in “The Secret” including Bob Proctor, Jack Canfield, Marie Diamond, Bob Doyle, and Dr. Michael Beckwith, Lee Brower, and Mike Dooley.

By tapping into the power of what today is called ‘crowd-sourcing’ (getting input from hundreds of people across the country who provided input) combined with social networking online and offline I was able to get support and help during writing the book. Soon contributions flowed into my email address --including quotes, tips and artwork from other best-selling authors and even Olympic athletes and TV personalities on such shows as NBC’s ‘Deal or No Deal’ and CBS ‘Survivor’. Artist vision boards and defining images came in from around the world including 38 cities and 9 foreign countries.

Now it’s my time to share some of the many case histories and vision board samples with you.

Do you think about starting your own business? Are you dealing with a chronic illness? Would you like to take the family sailing around the world? Are you yearning to bring more love into your life or wish your family were closer? What’s on your wish list? What do you dream about?

Share your vision, so that I can share some of the many true stories in The Vision Board that will inspire you to create an even more extraordinary life. Have a vision board already? Wonder why it’s not working – I’ll try to resolve that for you too!

Learn more about this book throughout November in the Bright Ideas from Bestselling Authors group on Gather. Click here to join.

Click here to buy the book.