Last week, LifePath Unlimited had a record number of “New members joining in a single day”, not once, but three times. Monday, Tuesday and again on Friday a record number of people got started in our business. Our community continues to grow around the globe with new countries being represented almost weekly. Kudos everyone, we are truly a global company building speed around the world.
On a related note, new members are welcomed to our community with a personal phone call from out staff at headquarters, and with a Getting Started Kit in the mail which includes the LifePath Unlimited Passport, the Cup a Joe coffee mug and Getting Started instructions. We think there is no substitute for the personal touch.

LifePath Unlimited Co-Founders, Dave, Patrick and Joe presenting Maisie DeVore with a gift for her pool.

At LifePath Unlimited’s recent BreakThrough conference in St. Thomas, all in attendance had the extraordinary privilege of meeting 90 year old, Maisie DeVore.

At 53 years of age, Maisie DeVore decided that her hometown of Edkridge, Kansas needed a swimming pool for the kids. “For the kids who didn’t want to play baseball,” she told our audience. To raise the necessary $100,000 to build the pool, she began gathering and crushing aluminum cans.
She would make the rounds in her town and surrounding county – in her beat up old pick up – to gather every can she could find and sell them for money at a recycling center in Topeka. She was often seen digging through the trash for cans. She was quickly nicknamed “Crazy Maisie”, to her face, by neighbors and family. “Maisie, you’ll never raise enough money for a pool,” they would say. She did not let the naysayers deter her. She told the LifePath audience, “my philosophy is just keep on keeping on.”
Maisie gathered cans, scrap metal, and car batteries. She sewed items she could sell. She made jams. And she just kept on keeping on year after year, slowly putting money away for the pool she was determined to build. At age 83, she finally accomplished her goal – thirty years after she began. When she did, her nickname changed from Crazy Maisie, to Amazing Maisie.
LifePath Unlimited’s Sanctuary made a donation to help keep Maisie’s Community Swimming Pool open for kids this summer, and in the swim.

The participants of LifePath Unlimited’s BreakThrough IV event raised more than $35,000 help the village of Emori Joi in Kenya. As a result, all the resources called for in this LifePath Unlimited special video presentation will be in place in the village by September 2009. LifePath would like to extend a special thank you to all who aligned behind this mission and made it possible to accomplish such a worthy goal.
Soundtrack: “Tears of Angels” by J.D. Boucharde. www.myspace.com/jdboucharde. Granted permission by J.D. Boucharde, all rights reserved.

It began with a talk from Cynthia Kersey, best-selling author of Unstoppable, via a videoconference. I remember her quoting how much American’s spend on cosmetics and pet food. A lot.
Then a video rolled introducing a village – Emori Joi, in Kenya – and kids without a school, clean water, and medical care. Mothers without a vocation. And quoting prices; $8000 for a school. $5,000 for medical. $3,500 for a well. All told, $25,000 desperately needed. A lot.

LifePath'rs raised $35,000 in 30 minutes to help a village in Kenya.

And then with the slightest suggestion from Cynthia, it happened. The LifePath’rs in attendance – 200 of them – took up the challenge, many with tears in their eyes and all with determination in their hearts.
I stood on the stage with an elevated view of the long line all the way to the back of the room. LifePath’rs stepped up as heroes, financially pledging their help and inking it with a Sharpie on a flip chart. Whatever amount they could: $ little. $ lot. $ medium.
The pages on the flip chart kept getting flipped for the 603 children we’d all just met on video.
Then I saw the video camera in the cameraman’s hand shaking as if the camera was too heavy for him to lift any longer. He simply couldn’t hold it up, nor steady it.
I looked. Tears were cascading from his eyes. He was losing the battle to hold them back so he could keep filming. He saw me noticing and struggled to say, “I’ve been to Africa. I’ve seen the mother’s and children suffering. You have no idea how important what you all are doing is.”
Then his tears turned to hard sobbing. So I relieved him of his camera. “I’ve been there. I’ve seen the AIDS. The mother’s carrying their babies miles for water or medicine. I’ve seen babies die. I’m sorry I lost it. I’ve never lost it in 30 years of shooting. But it’s so important what you’re doing here and there’s pure love in this room.” He wiped his sleeve across his eyes and resumed filming.
Next to him, people were still pledging their help and beaming like beacons of hope.
A half hour later it was done. $35,000 raised. We exceed ourselves. Enough to help even more. Perhaps mosquito nets. And more health care. Or another well for another village.
Can a small group of people change the world? It’s the only thing that ever has.
This half hour I’ve described, personally speaking, was the finest half hour of my life thanks to all my friends in LifePath Unlimited who showed me what a family of caring people can do with the leverage of a purpose-driven community. LifePath would like to thank Cynthia Kersey’s Unstoppable Foundation and Free the Children, our two strategic partners in helping the people of Emori Joi. LifePath Unlimited’s charitable efforts are done in the name of LifePath Unlimited Sanctuary.
At LifePath Unlimited, you also get to change the world.

BreakThrough IV was code-named “Astonish”, and many are telling us that indeed their experience was exactly that: “Astonishing.”

A "Jedi" astonishing herself at BreakThrough in St. Thomas

(The word that you heard most often in Group Share to describe the event was, “Awesome!” Even the Aussies and the Brits, reluctant to use the American slang, confessed that “Awesome” was the word that came to mind to best describe their experience.)

Nonetheless, BreakThrough IV’s code name was “Astonish”, but perhaps not for the reasons you might guess. We didn’t chose the word because we anticipated that the event would be astonishing. We chose it because BreakThrough is designed to give participants daily opportunities to astonish themselves. David Blaine, well known for his record breaking physical feats, said, “In truth, the only restrictions on our capacity to astonish ourselves and each other are imposed by our own minds.” At LifePath Unlimited, we embrace this Truth.

At BreakThrough IV participants seized many opportunities to astonish themselves. They broke arrows with the tip embedded in the soft spot of their throat, bent steel with their necks, and walked barefoot over long beds of fiery and hot coals. Participants also  raised $35,000 among themselves to forever change the lives of 603 forgotten children in a village in Kenya. Think you can’t make a difference in the world? At BreakThrough, with the leverage of a like-minded community, many – if not all – astonished themselves by providing the necessary money for a school, medical care, clean water and vocational training to people in great need – in less than 30 minutes.

At BreakThrough you are continually given the opportunity to astonish yourself because when you do so you awaken slumbering forces deep within yourself, trigger larger forces to come to your rescue, and you free yourself from limiting beliefs that chain you to a smaller life. When you astonish yourself, you save yourself from a life designed by fear. Thomas Edison said, “If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves.”

At BreakThrough even the children astonished themselves. It was “awesome” to behold.