Welcome to the Note Project Blog!

Gavin Hoole created the site Unlock Your Happiness as a means of sharing with others some of the insights he has gained, and the key strategies he believes will turn words and inspiration into real results.

Gavin believes that most of us will never know it all in this life, but each day we can know more than the day before.

Gavin hopes that Unlock Your Happiness will give you just one little hint or idea, or resolve just one question or one desire that you may have, then he will have helped you take one more step in your own journey towards increasing peace and contentment. And that adds to Gavin’s joy.

On his site Gavin suggests two keys to happiness, two keys he believes will improve your life greatly.

Do-able Key # 1: Access your Inner Being every day

Do-able Key # 2: Follow your inner feelings to make the right choices

Gavin writes much more about these two keys on his site.  There is a ton of great information on improving your happiness as well as achieving a stress-free life, or at least a less-stressful life.

Learn more about how to unlock your happiness by clicking HERE.

There is a natural fit between literacy and the idea of writing notes of appreciation. That’s why the Note Project has pledged to make donations through GlobalGiving and GlobalGivingUK to charities that promote literacy.

The Note Project donates 10% of each month’s proceeds from Note Project Kits and eKits. Your participation in the Note Project will be supporting multiple charities efforts, and making the world a million times better. Literally.

One of the charities that the Note Project has decided to support is San Antonio Public Library Foundation in San Antonio, Texas. The project, Born to Read, aims to provide 25,000 bilingual literacy kits, one to every baby born in Bexar County. The kit includes 2 books (1 bilingual), a library card application and helpful tips on how to raise a reader.

San Antonio ranks 7th in the United States in population, yet 60th in literacy with a 25% illiteracy level. The families of the approximately 25,000 babies born each year need to be equipped with the skills and knowledge of how to encourage a lifelong love of learning and reading in their children.

Born to Read partners with the San Antonio Public Library and area hospitals to distribute 25,000 bilingual literacy kits when parents and newborns leave the hospital.

Born to Read hopes to raise a generation of readers who love learning and will become educated, healthy, self-reliant members of the San Antonio community.

Total Funding Received to Date: $20,956

Remaining Goal to be Funded: $29,044

Total Funding Goal: $50,000

To find out more about this great charity, click HERE.

Read more about The Note Project Gift Set and buy yours today by clicking HERE.

Get a free copy of The Note for Kindle! Now through midnight Sunday, January 29, Dream of Things is sponsoring a free giveaway on Amazon of the Kindle edition of The Note.

The Note is the book about the power of appreciation that inspired the Note Project, and it was named Best Gift Book of 2011 in the Living Now Book Awards. So don’t delay! Get your copy now by clicking HERE.

The Note Project is proud to call Beauvais Ballet one of our sponsors. Beauvais Ballet takes pride in reinventing ballet thereby increasing its legitimacy, understanding, and appeal across the world. Ballet is a dance that moves you.

The company’s vision is a community of diverse, thriving people that are enriched, excited, and inspired by contemporary ballet performances. Beauvais Ballet’s community finds personal development through the passionate study of contemporary dance and other art forms.

Beauvais Ballet’s mission is to bridge social and cultural divisions between people and close the gap between audiences and the artists-dancers-performers. They do this by being a nationally recognized world-class dance company that offers live and digital media performances and education in Contemporary Ballet.

Their objectives include:

• Develop new works in live concert dance and digital dances;

• Increase the number of performances offered on a regular basis;

• Create a year-round company that attracts the best talent;

• Produce a wide range of dances that appeal to a variety of tastes;

• Build a strong touring program;

• Provide concert dance to the entire community including productions that

appeal to specific ages and ethnic groups;

• Build a pre-professional and recreational dance training program.

Learn more about Beauvais Ballet by visiting their Facebook page, HERE.

It’s a new year and why not start things off by celebrating appreciation and gratitude. I stumbled upon a site called Gratitude Training. The site celebrates getting in touch with yourself in order to celebrate gratitude every day and appreciate every moment. The creator of Gratitude Training has put together a program that promises transformation.  Here’s more information:

Gratitude Trainings constist of a 9-day transformational workshop in two parts (Part I & Part II) followed by a 3 month Leadership Program (Part 3 – Masterful Living).

In Part 1 & 2, participants will hear talks, be actively engaged in exercises and be exposed to life altering concepts including the importance of making distinctions. Humans have been aware of many of these ideas since before the dawn of written human history. Sages and seers have understood these concepts and used them through the millennium. You will rediscover ancient truths and the 21st Century technology to integrate ancient and modern thought. Because each of us is different in our life experience, these workshops will be different for each participant. We all share common experiences and aspects of our history that may stand in the way of waking each day with a sense of possibility and in Gratitude for the opportunities we have every day. The subtle difference between what we “get to do” rather than what we “have to do” can change lives, both our own and those we touch. Each participant will experience the training differently, finding new paths and possibilities that have been neglected or “forgotten.”

Masterful Living (Part 3) is the practice and practice field to solidify, into your life, the profound lessons you have learned in Parts 1 and 2. In other words, this 90 day training is an opportunity to go after the things you have been dreaming of and making it a reality by creating tangible results. Here you generate these “tangible results” directly from the value you have created in Parts 1 and 2. The major distinction in Part 3 is that it is mostly done in your life, outside a training room, with coaching. Masterful Living is, like Part 1 and 2, set up as a transformational and experiential environment enhanced with the challenges of your every day life. You learn to make a habit of the “ways of being” and characteristics that you can be to effectively create the results you desire.

While aspects of Gratitude Training may assume a spiritual tone, we are not affiliated with any denomination, sect or religious belief. Our aim is to enable participants to discover what in their life is working and what might be standing in the way of greater possibilities. We will introduce tools conceived to support shifting attitudes and priorities and choosing differently. The Gratitude Training does not teach the answer rather evokes the answer from within each participant. The Gratitude Training itself is a beneficial tool that immediately enables a more persistent state of gratitude and joy. People have discovered or rediscovered passion and possibilities in their lives down through the ages from concepts we will explore together. The circumstances we all face today absolutely require rethinking and reinventing ourselves again and again. The Gratitude Training will give you some of the tools to rethink and remake this process so it serves you and positively affects those around you.

So you may not be able to commit so much time to this cause, but Gratitude Training’s site has many helpful links and is loaded with information on appreciation and gratitude.  Take look by clicking HERE.

Happy New Year!

Freelance-Zone.com is a great tool for freelance writers.  It’s loaded with tools and helpful information for freelance writers of every level.  Visit the blog daily to stay up to date with the latest news in the freelance world.  Check out the advice section which offers helpful hints for blogging, editorial writing and podcasts.  There are multiple resources available through the site, including updates for freelance jobs.  Lastly, Freelance-Zone.com has compiled a list of writers groups organized by state.

Information from the site:

Since 2002, Freelance-Zone.com has offered articles and advice for freelance writers, but since freelancing is both a career choice AND a lifestyle, they’ve expanded to cover anything related to living in the freelance world.

Freelance-zone.com topics include social media, writing and career resources, getaways for writers and great ideas on how to spend your time off. The site also covers gear, computers and other essentials. Are you a full-time freelancer or trying to get there, working for some extra cash or trying to change careers? Freelance-Zone.com has something for you.

Be sure to check out Freelance-Zone.com.  It’s a great site for freelance writers and is chock full of information.  Visit now by clicking HERE.

Christmas is my favorite holiday.  I look forward each year to putting up my tree, decorating with red and green, listening to Charlie Brown christmas music, admiring neighborhoods where each house is decorated with colorful lights..the list goes on.  To celebrate this Christmas with all you Note Project supporters and fellow bloggers, I thought I’d share some Christmas quotes.  Even though I know we don’t all celebrate Christmas, I think these quotes could go for any holiday.

“Christmas gift suggestions: to your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.” -Oren Arnold

“Christmas is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas.” -Dale Evans

“The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.” -Burton Hillis

“Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.” -Charles Shulz

“The way you spend Christmas is far more important than how much.” -Henry David Thoreau

“Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.” -Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Note Project began in April with a star-studded, three-day telesummit that featured best-selling authors and experts on the subject of appreciaton. All three sessions included thoughtful and entertaining discussions, plus practical advice you can use to make appreciation a part of your daily life.

Meet Gail Goodwin.  Gail participated in the Note Project Telesummit and has been supportive of the Note Project ever since.

Gail Lynne Goodwin is the founder of Inspire Me Today. She have always been a seeker of information, especially that of a spiritual or motivational nature. She believes that daily performance is directly tied to the level of inspiration she surrounds herself with each morning.

Gail’s challenge was to find a continual supply of dynamic, high-quality daily inspiration. In 2004 Gail booked the name InspireMeToday.com with the intention of launching the site in early 2005. Before she could do this however, Gail went on a trip to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where she was challenged by a Marine who lamented that America had forgotten the troops. Inspired to prove him wrong, she set out on a trip across America. Gathering personal messages of love and support on newspaper scrolls, she amassed more than 18 miles of messages on the Baby Come Back Home Soldier Scrolls.

Just after Congress signed the scrolls on the floor of the US Capitol building in Washington, D.C, we departed on a 29-day tour to Iraq and 6 other countries in the Persian Gulf, literally wrapping the love and support of America around each of the 18 bases on the musical tour.

After a concert at Al Q’aim, a remote base in Iraq, a young Marine named Jesse approached Gail with a simple request for a “mom hug”. He explained that he’d been off the base for 37 days, hadn’t had a shower and asked if he could still have his hug. He explained that he’d just turned 19 and hadn’t been touched in 9 months and 4 days. As I hugged him, wiping tears, Jesse explained that his job required him to live in a ditch-alone for 30-40 days at a time. More than 800 other Marines guard this stretch of desert and do the same thing, coming back to the base for only a few days every month or so. Jesse explained that he survives the solitude by listening to his iPod and shared that he’s “always looking for good inspiration”.

Feeling like she had been hit by lightning by Jesse’s request for inspiration, Gail returned home and followed her dream, founding InspireMeToday.com in April of 2008. InspireMeToday.com is a website which provides great inspiration from a different luminary each day.

In an effort to give to a special cause each year and as a thank you to Jesse, InspireMeToday.com gave free Premier Memberships before our launch to our troops-all 2.5 million of them-so that Jesse’s iPod will always be full of great inspiration.

Soon Gail realized that she wanted everyone to be able to fill their cup from our little stream of inspiration, without any barriers-especially financial ones. Knowing the difference quality inspiration can make in our individual lives and collectively, we decided to make the daily content on InspireMeToday.com totally free for everyone.

Visit Inspire Me Today by clicking HERE and start getting your daily dose of inspiration right now!

There is a natural fit between literacy and the idea of writing notes of appreciation. That’s why the Note Project has pledged to make donations through GlobalGiving and GlobalGivingUK to charities that promote literacy.

The Note Project donates 10% of each month’s proceeds from Note Project Kits and eKits. Your participation in the Note Project will be supporting multiple charities efforts, and making the world a million times better. Literally.

One of the charities that the Note Project has decided to support is called 100 Mothers Literacy Program. The project provides 100 mothers in rural villages in Afghanistan with basic literacy program for a three month period of time per term.

100MLP addresses the greatest means to all other issues: illiteracy. The main focus of 100MLP is rural areas of Afghanistan that never had school before. However, our project has began in a small village, Eskar located in the northeast of Afghanistan. The project provides teachers, books, stationary, facilities, and anything necessary for basic literacy training.

100MLP provides a classroom of 10 – 15 mothers with a teacher, and supplies for 100 mothers per term. Long term, this project will enable 350 mothers to learn how to read and write resulting in self-sufficiency and better household conditions.

Total Funding Received to Date: $12,448

Remaining Goal to be Funded: $37,552

Total Funding Goal: $50,000

Find out more about this charity by clicking HERE.

Get your Note Project Kit or Note Project eKit now by clicking HERE, and know that you are supporting this and other charities.  Tis the giving season!

It doesn’t cost anything to tell someone you appreciate them. But if you need a little help getting started, or if you want a great gift for family and friends, you can purchase the Note Gift Set for $10, or a Note Project e-Kit for only $1.

When you purchase either kit, you’ll receive multiple free bonus gifts.  One of those gifts is a copy of Saying Goodbye.

Saying Goodbye is a collection of true stories about saying goodbye to the people, places, and things in our lives. This is a powerful book that includes a number of sad stories, as well as some very funny ones. Taken together, the stories serve as amazing examples of people saying heartfelt goodbyes with grace, dignity, and good humor.

Saying Goodbye includes stories contributed by thirty-one authors from the United States, Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. These stories show that there is sadness in goodbyes, but there is also irony and humor. It is perfect for book groups that want stimulating conversations about saying goodbye, a topic that touches us all in one way or another.

Saying Goodbye is the first anthology in a new series from Dream of Things intended to fill the gap between popular anthologies of stories that are “short and sweet” (sometimes so saccharine-sweet they are hard to swallow) and the Best American Essays series, which are much longer. Instead of short and sweet, Dream of Things anthologies are intended to be short and deep.

Get your Note Project Kit now by clicking HERE!