The last time there was an extra 24 hours in the day, I worked it without pay.  More or less.  Being salaried, I just put in another day of the year without even thinking about it.

This time, it’s an extra 24 hours of fun.  I’m going to spend the day making it memorable. 

I’ll zumba in the morning.  Afterwards, I’ll indulge with chocolate chip pancakes and Coca-Cola lite.  And then I will spend the morning reading a book about a man who learned to surf at 48.  I’ll also spend some time writing  for a contest due at the end of the month.  After that, I’ll take a swim in the ocean and lay in the HOT Salvadorian sun.  I will eat yummy rice and beans at Erika’s with a frozen limeade for dinner, and I’ll watch the sun set with a walk on the beach.  After dark, I’ll make a couple of phone calls to special people and play a little PacMan before I head out to Open Mic Night.  And if so inclined, I’ll play the maracas or tambourine.   

And four years from now, I will remember how I spent my extra 24 hours. 

168it:  Make your extra day memorable. 

Love,  Kristi

Photo:  PacMan on my iTouch.  How I spent 15 minutes of my extra 24. 

“You have a very pretty face, but you need to smile more.”  I’m sitting at a café with my friend, when an elderly man approaches me with this. 

“You’re right,” I reply.  I have been spending too much time in my head:  researching social entrepreneurship, organizing volunteer opportunities in Central America, writing curriculum for my college-readiness class and working on my business plan.  I haven’t spent enough time smiling.

I pay for my chocolate chip muffin and CocaCola lite, drop all my valuables off in my room and head to the beach.  I am drawn to four girls attempting  cartwheels in the water.  One is pretty good; she just needs to raise her legs up more.  The others hop around with a twist.  They make me smile. 

I haven’t done a cartwheel since the Salt Pans in Botswana, 2007.  I look at the smooth mocha sand and go for it.  I do one cartwheel.  And then another.  And then another.  My legs aren’t as high and straight as I remember, and my arms are jolted, but it’s exhilarating.

I’m dizzy, but I make eye contact with the girls.  They’re giggling, clapping and smiling.  Girl talk for, “Come over here.”  So, I do.  And I hold the girl’s legs up straight, so her body understands what it feels like to do a full cartwheel.  And for the next 20 minutes, we splash in the water, do cartwheels and girl talk in my broken Spanish. 

Back in my room, I make my “to do list” for tomorrow:  smile, look for my new friends on the beach and study Spanish.  Thinking about tomorrow, makes me smile.   

168it:  Stop what you’re doing.  Smile.  And do something right now that will make you and somebody else smile.    

Love, Kristi

“You should marry him!” 

I ‘m with my super-creative friend who always has ideas for me that blow my boundaries to Timbuktu and beyond.  A place I haven’t been but is on my list.  She’s inspiring, focused and super-smart.  My kind of girl.

I look at the photo on TOMS home page.  “I don’t think he’s my type.”

We shift back to the important stuff-social entrepreneurship.  After reading the first chapter of Social Entrepreneurship for Dummies, I was discouraged.  She was excited.  She saw the potential and my potential and didn’t let my fear of “not knowing” stop me from what she knew would move me forward. 

After our night out, I went to his other website www.startsomethingthatmatters.com  and could see why my friend said I should marry Blake Mycoskie.  He was a world traveler with a purpose, he gave all his stuff away and lives on a boat and he doesn’t believe in fancy schmancy titles to label him.  And he was adorable. 

After traveling in Argentina, Mycoskie saw beyond the tango and all-night party scenes and noticed the national shoe  alpargata and then the fact that many children do not have shoes. 

Thinking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I had never really considered shoes a basic need.  Many marathon runners from East Africa run barefoot as an advantage.   And many children spend days in the summer without shoes as a liberation of sorts. 

But that was my point of reference.  I never thought about the inevitable cuts that would turn viral and cause sickness or death.  And I thought of myself, who won’t even walk around my hostel room without shoes for fear of stepping on a poisonous bug, nastiness from past residents and dirt which is always blowing around in the countries I stay.

Mykoski started TOMS shoes with the idea of ONE to ONE.  Buy one pair of his American version of the alpargata shoe, and one pair will be donated to a child in Argentina.  Simple.  It exploded.

“Easy peasy.  I can do this.”  I am transitioning 168Coaching into a social enterprise.  And in the process, I’m meeting a lot of cool “world changers” and changing myself.  Into something better.

And I will email Blake.  Not for a date.  But to interview him for a project I’m working on. 

168it:  On this Valentine’s Day, I challenge you to change this commercialized holiday that many people (single, dating and married) dread into something that matters.

With love,  Kristi

Photo:  Two children who I taught the “hokey-pokey” to on Pentecost Island, Vanuatu.  I am returning in Fall 2012 to present and run the first  Teachers’ Workshop for the whole country. 

What would the world look like if we treated each other with the core belief that “All lives have equal value”?  Would we kill?  Would we put others down?  How would prejudice exist?

It is The Gates Foundation’s (www.gatesfoundation.org)  bottom line, “All lives have equal value.”  And it brought tears to my eyes when I read it.  It is the golden rule, but beyond.  Because you are also called upon to see every person in the Starbucks I’m sitting as valuable as the other. 

The good looking man who comes rushing in, on his Smartphone, dressed in high-end jeans and a fat wallet is just as valuable as the man who asks, “Do you offer free coffee samples today?”  He holds a stained, tattered Starbucks paper cup.  Who’s  just as valuable as the biracial teen who comes in with his grandfather who orders from the employee with the gauged earring and pierced tongue.     

A man is reading the Sunday paper.

Violence Halts Monitoring by League in Syria

How Do You Defriend Someone Offline?

Occupy Oakland Protesters Clash with Police

Bracing for $40,000 at New York’s Private Schools 

I wonder how these headlines would differ if people lived like “All lives have equal value.”

What does it mean for me?  Being a life coach, educator, social entrpreneur, world traveler and writer, I feel like it’s my bottom line also.  I practice “giving second chances on first impressions.”  Reminding myself that even when I’m in a hurry, stressed, tired, crabby or the paying customer, “All lives have equal value.”   

How will I live the next 168 hours differently?  With less judgment.  With more compassion.  And more patience.

168it:  What is your bottom line?  How will you live differently?     

 Kristi

Photo:  Little girl I met in Laos in 2007 near Luang Praband on my trek to an overnight stay  in a local village.