I had no idea I might die that day.

I was in New York; I had spent 10 days of the beautiful Manhattan autumn holed up in a hotel room, shouting at my assistants to get work done for the press tour for seven of our clients. I had worked hard to be successful. I had made a lot of money incorporating my copy written “Make, Bake, Shake, Rake & Fresh” strategy into the marketing plans of business owners who were desperate to succeed. I also helped over 50,000 small businesses share their messages online. My strategy had never failed to bring clients who adhered to it great success, yet I missed being home with my kids and sleeping in my own bed.

Have you ever worked so hard to make “enough money” that you could you didn’t have time to even think about spending it? I was there.

With my client’s business successfully accomplished and I was the last to head home and had six hours before I had to catch my flight out of JFK. There is a unique sensation to autumn in Manhattan, the trees were turning, the sun was out and the air was crisp and clear. I was determined to enjoy it.

What always happens when you finally decide to relax?

I left my hotel on 59th and walked down 6th Avenue towards Bryant Park. As I was stepping into the cross walk with nine or so other pedestrians I heard a large resounding crack. I looked up to see what looked like a city-block sized piece of cardboard wafting down over me. As I looked up wondering what was above, a voice, the spirit, my guardian angel, the voice in my head, whatever you want to call it, suddenly shouted “Run” and I knew I was in danger.

I shouted “RUN” to my fellow pedestrians and took off cross town mid-crosswalk towards oncoming traffic. As I ran, I heard a big crash. Glass shards, nails in 2 x 4 bits of wood flew past me. In my suit and high heels I ran like I had never run before . . . for my life!

All I could think was, “this is how it ends? I work hard to make $30,000 in one week and I do not get to enjoy it and I never get to see my family again?” I was being showered with debris but it didn’t really register as I kept running it was like I was in a slow-motion world; I could hear nothing but my own feet on the pavement and the beat of my heart. It was just like what you see in the movies, only this was real and really happening to me!

As the glass shattered I prayed a promise.

I vowed as I ran that if I lived through this I would change my life. Instead of working hard to make more money I would spend more time with my kids, treat people better, live a better life, and leave a legacy. How many times had I turned clients away who needed my help because they could not pay my fees? If I died now what would there be left of me? 10 days in a hotel room to make clients happy and no further income for my family?

I knew then exactly what I should do! I would write down everything I knew from my 17 years of marketing success and share with small business owners at a price they could afford. I would teach them how to do what I do so that they could do it themselves instead of without the exorbitant rates. Duplicating myself and sharing my talents could actually allow me to spend more time with my family enjoying success. We would all win! I had always felt prompted to do that, why hadn’t I listened? Was it too late?

I prayed for this as I ran. I promised that if I could be saved from being crushed I would share my talents, I would give back. I prayed as I never had prayed before. I prayed to God, the God I now know is very real. I prayed my promise of living a better life if I were only given another chance.  All this I asked as glass and boards screeched past me.

Suddenly, just as glass shards showered and bounced en mass, a hand reached out and pulled me under a concrete garage. Under the garaged there were two pedestrians I recognized from the crosswalk, a guy with a backpack and a girl in a 5th avenue suit I had admired earlier while walking behind her – now her suit was covered in dust and her stockings were blood stained and torn. The guy with the backpack pointed and said, “Look, there is where we were standing! If you hadn’t of yelled we would have been there! You saved us!” I looked and in the crosswalk there was a pile of debris at least a story high. A cab had come up over the curb when the glass fell point down right into the passenger seat of his car.  The cab  was in the crosswalk too.

Under the shelter of the garage, we watched people running and shouting something about 9/11! The world seemed to come out of slow motion, sirens started wailing and construction workers steamed out of a building yelling, “Is everyone alright?” The glass had settled but we were hesitant to come out of our shelter. When we did we watched as the cab driver sobbed his story to someone who was helping him out of his cab, “it came out of nowhere . . . I jumped the curb. I could have hit someone. The glass could have crushed me!”

We answered a construction worker who asked us if we had seen what happened. I said, “I saw it falling and thought it was cardboard!” The back pack guy, said, “We heard a crack looked up and she shouted run or we would have been there!” The construction guy said it seems they were lifting a large piece of glass by crane over 60 stories up, something snapped and the glass had come crashing down. They couldn’t stop it! The large glass side of the building slipped down right over the crosswalk, slammed into the building shattered with a piece coming corner down into the cab drivers front passenger seat. The rest of the glass, wood and nails flew in seconds across four city blocks. (Four-city blocks which they closed down for two days just to get the debris cleaned up.)

People began to come out from under cars, from out of buildings, some torn and bloody but as far as the construction worker could find, none were seriously wounded, physically anyway. As witnesses we were told to wait for the police, but even as I heard sirens and saw people peeking out of buildings to see if it was safe, I knew I could not just stand there.

Shaking I drifted without comment from the backpack guy and other pedestrians and walked into the nearest deli where people were asking people “what happened?” The deli guy gave me free soup after I told him I had been right there. He told me that I was lucky to be alive as he watched me brush glass bits out of my hair and then did not say another word. People swarmed around and another from the crosswalk joined me in answering questions. We repeated what happened to New Yorkers who were friendlier in this crisis than I had ever seen them. It was like the city I visited months after 9/11, everyone was friendly, everyone cared, everyone was curious.

I couldn’t eat much soup and tired of questions, I walked a few blocks to Grand Central Station and sat there for hours.  I was shaking and I am sure I was in shock.
Finally I had to walked the long way back to my hotel; everything was cordoned off for blocks but even so, I had no desire to walk near that area. When I got to the hotel and asked for my airport shuttle, the doorman and I talked about what happened. He said he had worked at the same place during 9/11 and when he heard the sirens and saw the glass shards (even from 2 blocks away) he flashed back to the day when he saw the dust, followed by people running. That day he had started running himself and had not stopped running or looked back until he arrived home. With sympathy, he watched over me until I left, and refusing a tip, put me into the best limo he could find.

Later I was home, watching news reports of the event in Manhattan, listening to the development company spokesperson, and telling my family, all the while knowing I was lucky to be alive. For weeks I jumped at the sound of any large cracking sound but I did not forget my prayerful promise. It has been over 18 months, since the glass fell and I have changed my life.

With life saving promises isn't there is always catch?

After New York I started putting my marketing and sales strategies down into a training series that would give business owners the opportunity to own their own marketing and sales fate, without the help of an expensive consultant as I promised. And, give me a chance to control my own.

I have kept my promise but it wasn’t as easy as you would think. When I asked to be spared so I could change my life I had no idea how difficult that would be. On one hand the writing of my Make, Bake, Shake, Rake & Fresh strategy flowed effortlessly and easily from me and my experience into an easy to follow training series. On the other hand, my life as I knew it fell apart all around me. Clients that used to pay the big bucks disappeared with unpaid invoices and businesses I owned with partners (that expected me to put the usual time in) fell apart. It took every ounce of strength I had to keep writing and not go back to the client model I had before to make money. I had made a promise and intended to keep it. After 18 months, I was out of money but my legacy was complete. My life was completely different, I was independent of any business ties but to my solely-owned Power Strategies company and free to anything I wanted with my life. I should have been scared but I was oddly exhilarated.

I then realized that I had become one of the company’s I was trying to help. I had a company with a product that I needed to sell but didn’t have the money to market it. As my strategy was ready to share with the world I decided to apply my own strategy to my own company. It was more than ironic that my own promise to save my own life would save my own business life later! What a humbling realization that was!

I then did two things.

First, I tested the finished training out on a few people who had previously asked for my advice and could not afford the answers! The people I shared it with loved it. One did so well that she turned her quilting material company, which had only been a hobby before, into a full scale online store. She applied the strategy and it worked so well for her that her husband quit his full time job to help her.

The next business owner’s response was, “I was so busy running my business that I did not take the time to promote it, I did not want to tackle that task or learn something new. I had thrown away a lot of money not understanding why I wasn’t succeeding at marketing my product. Once I took the training and I knew what to do, I simply added it to my list and the results were . . . fantastic! It was so easy, that I wish I would have done it years ago.” He also let me know I had a few edits to make, which I hope now I have fixed.

The Second thing I did was to apply my own strategy to market my own company. Sure I had won awards before but I had never won them for my own company.  I had on a shoestring budget and with every sale I made I put a few more dollars into marketing. I created my own strategy, did my own PR, built my own Website and marketed my own company.

The result?

Success! The kind of Success every business owner desires . . . sales. My strategy works so well that I even partnered with a group, Web Campus World Wide to facilitate the larger numbers of people wanting to learn the online eMedia training for their companies. I also won a little “Social Media Marketer of the Year” award from an elearning company and that was fun too. The legacy I am leaving is one that will help business owners market, sell and compete online. It is a 3 Step eMPowerment Series that you can learn through online eMedia courses or read yourself in guides, all available on the WcWW Campus I mentioned.

Have I kept my promise?

YES! I have not returned to my old ways and I am grateful to God and the powers that be to have lived. I won’t forget the fear that comes to New Yorkers from 9/11 and I won’t forget the chance I have been given to live my life better, with more compassion, less stress and with more meaning than the pursuit of money. I now spend time marketing my product but I also spend a lot of time with my kids, my dogs and even have time for hobbies – learning Gaelic, watercolor painting and water skiing. Who knew that living a successful life could be so much fun?

It is my hope that you use my legacy born out of a prayerful promise, for your business and that it will let you lead the life you want to live too. What you do with the success you achieve from following the eMPowerment Series is completely up to you yet I want you to have it. You don’t have to make a glass shattering promise for your life, yet I do hope you live to enjoy your success and live to share it with those you love!

The 5 Steps of the eMPowerment Series, give business owners or hopeful owners, the opportunity to start marketing their products on a bootstrap budget within 24 Hours! It’s an Internet, Web and Online Social Media Communications education for regular non-techie folk, the 3 Step series covers:

Step ONE: STRATEGY!
Create a marketing strategy for your business in 24 Hours.

Course: “24 Hours to Zero Down Marketing Strategy”
“24ZDM Hourly Workbook”

Step TWO: TOOLS! (2 courses!)

Social Media Introduction --Learn how Social Media can help your business.
Course 1: “What is Social Media and how will it help with my business?”
Social Media Tools & Terms -- Learn the basics.

Course 2: “Learn to Blog, Ping, Pod, Stream, Bookmark, Blast, Release, Wiki, Widget, Web, Link, Avatar, Tag, RSS, Twitter, Skype & Hulu!”

Step THREE: SALES! (2 courses)

Social Media Storefront – send people to your online store!
Course 1: “Setting up Shop Online!”

Social Media Sales & Advertising – Internet TV & Radio Sales
Course 2: “Talking to your Customers = Dollars! Put a Voice & Face on your Website!! A profitable guide to Internet Radio & TV Advertising”


Step FOUR: Freedom!   Learn to Hostage Proof Your Own Website!
This Step of the Series gives you 4 hours of LIVE training time with Tom Egan’s crew.  At completion of the course you will know how to maintain, manage and create your own Website.

Step FIVE: Velocity!  Launch your Business World Wide!
Learn to make global social connections and promote your business by hosting your own global radio talk show on the Web Campus World Wide Talk Radio Network and your own Website. 
*eMedia Training and Live Classroom instruction available on www.WcWW.com

Two Years Later?

I haven’t yet been back to New York (soon I hope!), yet I am now living the life I wished I had been living while running from the crashing glass.

My Gift to entreprenuers like me! Please accept this gift if you have or are thinking about starting your own business -- "10bucksolution" -- this will give you the $10 book "10 Questions You MUST Ask and Answer if you have or are thinking about starting your own business in the 21st Century!"  This book will let you know if you are ready for The eMPowerment Series!

Warmest Marketing Wishes,

Kim Power Stilson
Please contact me anytime at kim@powerstrategies.TV
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Go Back to eMPowerment Series for Options!