Hello

Over the last three weeks, I have been experiencing a different world.

Why? Because I lost my contact lenses three weeks ago and I literally lost my 'sight'.

My sight got worse and worse since I was very young and now it's all blurred if I do not wear lenses. So, I've spent over 25 years wearing contact lenses to have a 'normal' life.

So, why am I sharing this story with you?

Living with blurred vision for 3 weeks (I didn't get a chance to go to optometrist!), I realised there were things I was not seeing because I could see.

When I walked into a shopping mall to get new lenses last weekend, I actually saw a group of people standing at the corner of the mall (through my blurred vision). They were moving in an unusual way, so I went closer to see what they were doing. As I walked much closer to them, I noticed the sticks they were carrying. Yes, it was a group of blind people shopping together with a helper.

I stood there in silence for a while thinking of how it would be to not to have any sight at all – not even a blurred one.

I came to see how I was complaining about my poor sight because of the inconvenience instead of being grateful for the sight I had.

And I also remembered all the other things I had – the legs to stand on, the arms to do things with, the ears to hear all the beautiful sounds, the voice to express my thoughts and feelings…

When we can remember the gifts of all the things we have before we lose them, we can use our life in a more effective way to give gifts to others as well.

There is indeed nothing missing in our lives. Those blind people do not live their lives thinking of the lost vision. They live with what they have to weave their lives with, special magic – magic to remind us of the gift we all are.

Thank you for continuing to support Buy1GIVE1 through reading our newsletters. You will see some great news and updates in this issue. We look forward to hearing from you and experiencing more and more of your participation

  Masami Sato
  Founder
  Buy1GIVE1 - B1G1

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We would like to introduce you to this person who didn't postpone it and made a massive difference in just 9 months. His name is Alan Hewitt.

Finding the 'Right Fit'
Alan runs a company called Earth Star Publishing (www.meditate.com.au). One of his company's major products is this very innovative meditation CD set that helps us get into deeper meditative states to effectively help release stress coming from many of the inner issues we have. He talks about his journey of finally finding the right match through Buy1GIVE1 in the interview we did earlier this year.

"I had been looking for an organisation we could partner with for sometime when I met Buy1GIVE1's concept. The attraction really was having the service that could match us with an organisation that is a right fit for us. For me, feeling passionate about giving is not just about giving money away. It is having the meaning behind the giving I can totally resonate with.”

"Most customers who come to us usually have issues like depression, anxiety, stress and sleeping disorders and these are usually caused by past traumas. So, helping the girls who have the same issues really resonated with me.”

This was how it started for Alan. But the reason we are writing about him in this issue is because we really saw the power of taking the first action and continuing to do so regularly. Just 9 months after Alan started his monthly contribution to All One Foundation (www.all-onefoundation.com), we noticed he has already provided a staggering 2,126 healing sessions to sexually abused young girls in Cambodia. These are the children who were sold to the sex-trade by their parents because of the poverty.

Listen to the interview with Alan.

Being 'Sold' to Being Healed
All One Foundation's approach is to give special healing sessions to the girls using the technique of light touch chiropractic called NSA. They work with other local organisations already rescuing the children to their shelters. There was no treatment provided for the girls after being rescued before All One took action. The founder of All One Foundation, Lynelle Kerr is a doctor and she immediately saw the urgent need for the treatment for the girls whose entire bodies were stiffened by fear and pain when she personally visited the shelters.

If you see the before and after photographs of these girls, you will immediately recognise the effectiveness of this treatment.

The girls open up to the practitioners through these sessions and start trusting again.

And without Alan's regular and consistent contributions to All One automatically through the power of B1G1 transaction-based giving, hundreds of these children would have been untreated – most likely left feeling hurt for the rest of their lives.

Working Together for a Cause
The impact of Buy1GIVE1 only comes with a small yet determined choice a business-owner makes to integrate the giving into their business transactions. And of course, the 'processional' effect is dramatically increased resonance and attraction to the customers' of the business. That's part of the magic.

Contrast that simplicity and effectiveness with the many businesses spending thousands of dollars on marketing, advertising and PR ('getting before giving'), and you instantly see that Buy1GIVE1 Business members focus more on creating a deeper sense of connection around the products and services they offer ('giving before getting'). And the business owners who give first are finding out how this transaction-based giving benefits their lives and businesses in a deeper way than they ever imagined before starting their giving.

Every story creates connection to a different cause. Together we really can achieve so much more.

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Life-Changing Film About the Power of Giving

Although it's small, the impact is huge. Buy1GIVE1 has released a short film that expresses the depth of the message this giving movement carries.

What Are We Looking For?
If you know 'The Law of Attraction', you already know that the key to living the life we want is all about feeling good. But there is something we could miss if our focus is only about visualising and believing in the life we want to lead.

The new movie released from Buy1GIVE1 shows the simple resonance of giving. We will become ever more aware why giving is a crucial part of our lives – something we are meant to do naturally and automatically. Forgetting this is the source of emptiness many of us often feel inside – feeling the lack of something.

33 Minutes that Impact Your Life
This 33-minute movie features 'What we are looking for' and takes you through the journey of finding the eternal abundance through the simple and beautiful story of a bumblebee travelling and meeting 'others' along the way to find the 'Mythical Flower'.

You can be one of the first to watch the pre-launch version for free. Do send us your comments (for every comment we receive a child will be fed).

You can watch it now by clicking here.

This film will soon start screening regionally at different events, so if you want to host a local event of any size to show this movie, please contact us at info@b1g1.com

Now we can share the joy of giving with others through this simple yet powerful story. Please share the link with many others!


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Not Only Human – A Word from Horses

One of the B1G1 Business members we recently interviewed showed us another interesting perspective. It was about horses' perspective.

Why horses?

The Voice of Animals
Holly Rutter owns a business that produces natural horse care products (www.hollysstables.com). The products carry the wonderful label 'Tested on humans'!

Recently, Holly took us to a horse rescue organisation she supports in Western Australia. She passionately supports horses as a part of her lifelong journey to be the voice of animals in the world.

To our surprise, she even tests all her products including the natural horse shampoo and natural fly spray on herself before putting new products on the market. She says a horse's skin is more sensitive than a human's. Her own horse, Zulu, had had stress issues because of vicious fly bites and she did not want to keep spraying the chemical based products on him that were clearly irritating his skin even more.

Holly's passion is seriously contagious. She puts it this way:

"Animals don't have a voice. So, us humans can be the voice for the animals. Supporting what we can support, even doing just a small thing, creates the ripple-in-the-pond effect that eventually creates much bigger differences. For me, supporting horses resonates deeply.”

Ripple-in-the-Pond Effect
So, here again, it is all about the story behind the giving (the processional effect' we mentioned earlier) that holds the power. We became aware that there actually were so many abused animals that were abandoned by the owners. Visiting the organisation that rescues those horses and finds caring owners to look after them, we have realised that there had always been a never-ending supply of stories literally everywhere.

We cannot do everything on our own. But we can at least be the ripple on the pond to create more resonance to attract others so that together we make a difference.


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Applying 'The Natural Law of Giving'

By Louise Gillbert (www.your-purpose.com)

The More You Give, The More You Get
I have been working with Buy1GIVE1 as a freelance writer and have had some great opportunities to interview incredible individuals.

In one of the interviews, a successful entrepreneur, Mark Falzon - CEO of The Ark Group (www.arkgroup.com.au) and key supporter of the Buy1BUILD1™ initiative, told me why any businesses including small businesses could afford to get involved with Buy1GIVE1:

“I've been in small businesses and I know how hard it can be at times. I've also found in my life that there is a natural law and from my experience, you can't out-give.

The more you give, the more you get, and if you can find a way of making a contribution, find a way of giving, and if you do that without expectation of receiving, in my experience, it comes back in abundance.

My relationship with Buy1GIVE1 is very fluid and we support one another as we move forward. I would like to introduce the Buy1GIVE1 initiative to lots of other businesses and I think it's a very mutually supportive and beneficial relationship”

Listen to the interview with Mark.

Trust and Faith
I was only thinking this morning how we primarily drive business from the head. And this is very necessary to create a vision, plan, execute and monitor our performance. Yet a business is a living, breathing entity. Business is an outward expression of what we desire at a much deeper level.

When we are challenged to give, without consideration of what we might receive, we are also challenged to have trust and faith that this is the 'right' way.

What role does trust and faith have in business, if at all?

It's an intriguing subject that we can explore much more together. Write to us and share your insights at louise@b1g1.com

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Vision Without Sight

Nicole is a passionate blind lady who works for one of the B1G1 Worthy Cause Partners called St Nicholas' Home for the Blind (www.snh.org.my) in Penang, Malaysia.

Did you find it strange that we said “who works for”, not “who is supported by”?

The Most Surprising Job Application
Mr Ooi, who is the director of this organisation, told us this story when we were visiting the centre.

“One day, we put an advertisement for the position to teach blind children music as we started music classes at our centre. Soon we received an application which really attracted us because we saw the broad experience and passion of this particular applicant.

We communicated by text messages and arranged an interview. Next day, I went to Kuala Lumpur to meet her and was totally astonished to find out this lady was blind herself. She smiled and said that she didn't tell me she was blind because I didn't ask!”

Nicole is an excellent piano teacher. She has an amazing presence, vitality and graciousness around her that makes her look so alive that no one would think she is 'disadvantaged' in any way. She speaks about her passion for art and how she is into paintings. But how can she see…?

We wonder what our sight actually is for? Is it for seeing something ordinary or seeing something extraordinary in life?

Values We All Have
As we walked through the large centre of St Nicholas' Home, we met many other blind people who are learning to gain different types of work skills. We saw the computer training room, the kitchen for training bakers (so that the blind can get to work at bakeries), the reflexology training room, the running field for professional athletes (one of them won GOLD at the Paralympics games, still another one completed the Boston Marathon in 4 hours), the swimming pool, the laundrette operated by blind people and so on. Seeing the joyous smile on Mr Ooi's face, we got the gift of 'seeing more by not seeing'.

“Blind people are more talented in many things like programming than most individuals because they cannot see, they can program without being disturbed by visual distractions. Their concentration well exceeds what most of us have.”

Several Buy1GIVE1 members are already supporting this cause. And we can certainly see why.

When we start seeing beyond our sight, we can connect to something that really enriches our lives. This is the real secret of finding the 'eternal abundance'.

We look forward to seeing more with you through our sights and insights.

Welcome to the world of Buy1GIVE1 - B1G1!