First Class Tech on My Travel: Fedex Kinkos NYC

I have to say that technology makes it so easy to live a glamorous soccer adventure with entrepreneurial endeavors. Here’s a quick example for you.

While my Amtrak trained sped past the snow covered hills, I was able to make the final changes to a newly designed business card, handle a few important business calls, research the closest Fedex location to The Mave Hotel and coordinate my print job with a sales clerk at that specific location.

As you can see technology was working with me to make sure I was prepped and ready for my 9:00 a.m. arrival at the British Airways Face of Opportunity Conference.

My brisk walk up to the Fedex location was a little too fierce for me on the afternoon that I arrived to New York so I opted to pick-up the completed print job the following morning. I definitely took my chances being that the news was predicting more bad weather for the city.

I had faith that the weather would cooperate, and it was something that I had to keep reminding myself of as I stood outside of a closed Kinko’s at 7:20 a.m. It was 96 minutes before I was scheduled to be on a different side of the city, in something other than jeans, snowboots, a sweatshirt and a pea coat.

My 20 minute wait finally ended when a guy appeared out of nowhere to open the door, and retrieve my box of cards. Victory! I quickly and carefully tipped my way through the ice slush back to the Mave to hop in my incubator of a room (insert Lady Gaga cocoon here) to emerge as an excited, entrepreneurial soccer maven heading to a world of opportunity at the Sheraton Hotel & Towers!

MTV quite often serves as my background music, and this was no exception. I was alternating between the bathroom, my laptop and a really good blueberry muffin from the lobby as I got ready in record time.

My check-out was fast, and a front desk clerk was kind enough to brave the rain to flag down a cab for me. My new umbrella refused to live up to its bargain price. The clasp would catch so the shade kept trying to collapse on my hair…what was a girl to do?
The arrival of a taxi, with a nonfunctional trunk compartment, quickly caught my attention. I tip toed through the drizzle to the backseat, helping the hotel clerk pull my bag onto the seat beside me.

Cab Driver: Where would you like to go?
Me: I am going to the Sheraton Hotel & Towers, Sir. Do you think we can get there pretty quickly?
Cab Driver: I am not sure in this weather, but I will try. What time do you have to be there?
Me: I have to be there by 9:00 a.m., about 25 minutes from now. By the way, how are you doing today?
Cab Driver: Where are you from?
And this is where my cab ride gets interesting. Check in for the next entry. Let’s just say that it wasn’t the Cash Cab, but it was very, very close!

Meet The Mave

Some people have a space issue when they check into a NYC hotel room. Personally, space is the least of my concerns. I have stayed in some interesting places, and so I set my standards according to the location. The Mave provided me with clean, crisp and modern accommodations in a space the equivalent of a shoebox. It was tiny, but the shower was fairly sizeable considering remaining area. Here’s the video as I promised!

Pop Quiz from the Professor: The Michael Eric Dyson Show

Although I don't think that I will be ever to fully calculate the value of my Face-of-Opportunity Contest win with British Airways, I can say that it has been a calling card form promoting my mission of making soccer more commonplace in the United States.

At the top of the year, I notified the executive producer of The Michael Eric Dyson Show about my national award win. This email set into motion a whirlwind of events that landed me in the Georgia Public Broadcasting studio on the Friday of that week speaking with none other than Dr. Michael Eric Dyson.

In case you don't know Dr. Dyson's background. Let me give you a brief synopsis courtesy of Wikipedia. Dr. Michael Eric Dyson is an American academic, author, radio host and ordained baptist minister. Currently, he is a professor of sociology at Georgetown University. His previous academic posts include DePaul University, Chicago Theological Seminary, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Columbia University, Brown University, and the University of Pennsylvania. You can commonly catch him as a commentator on National Public Radio, CNN, and Real Time with Bill Maher. Most importantly, he is considered one of the great thinkers of our current time.

It was an understatement to say that I was beyond excited to serve as a guest on his show. It's moments like that I have to say make all the hard work worth it. When I think about all of the research, writing and press release promotion, the time I spent, to get those 10 precious minutes to talk with a man who I consider a mentor, makes it all worth it! Here is the link to the January 18th show. My segment is around the 30 minute mark. Enjoy!


http://dysonshow.org/?p=3824

Scoring Goals In 2010, Tackling New Opportunities in 2011

Happy 2011! We are 13 days into the start of an amazing year, and I hope that you are taking all those small actions and steps that can have you right where you want to be.

I keep what you call a reminder, tracking, accomplishment list that documents all of the actions that I take each year to help me capture the goals that I have set for myself. There have been times when I felt as if things were stagnant, and I realized that this is a great way to put things in perspective. Sometimes we can be hard on ourselves in our quest to pursue our dreams and passions, so I encourage you to write your own accomplishment list. I track everything from new risks taken, such as sending out press releases to new media outlets, to accepting invitations to meet with new business associates in the soccer community. All of the little things add up! You'll be amazed much like I was at the end of last year. I had to admit that I had taken so many small actions to get a big leap on my soccer journey.

With that being said, I know I have been in my soccer lab and not blogging on this site for 7-8 months. In this time, I have been blessed to produce my first documentary, Perfecting the Footvolley. Also, I won the British Airways Face-of-Opportunity Contest. It was a national program that will allow Eat Soccer to offer "bucket list" soccer adventures for adults at some of the top clubs in the world.

There are quite a few things in the works for 2011, which definitely include more international playing. I was getting a little antsy to say the least on this front, but I am trusting that all of the 'foundational' work that I have been doing, will allow me to walk into the bigger role within the global soccer community that I am destined to occupy. More playing opportunities can be created, and my journey is allowing these things to happen-not just for me but other players who will one day be able to use some of my experiences for their own blueprints.

P.S. I am uploading full excerpts of my electronic report, Soccer In Translation on the Eat Soccer blog. If you know of an athlete, coach, business person or backpacker that needs to learn how to stymie the effects of culture shock, send them on over!

If you have a question about how you can use some of my gsl lessons to assist you in following your dreams, send me a message. If you are a business or individual and you want to talk about a collaborative partnership for any of Eat Soccer's upcoming online, mobile or inflight programming, you can do the same!