1 Year ago today my beautiful baby girl Sadie Loren Reyes came into this world.  That day completely changed my life FOREVER.  I wrote about “The Most Important Day Of My Life”

The day after she was born I did a Live Video Broadcast (go to 26:00 in the video below) for my friends and family and what happened next was pretty crazy.  You gotta understand that before this I had barely just started my blog and was trying to “make it happen” online…

I ended up tweeting that event and a lot of marketers, bloggers, & other folks from twitter ended up coming to watch this ustream.  This wasn’t a marketing ploy or anything, I was just really excited that I was able to utilize Social Media to show off Sadie to my friends and family.

The next day, I got soooooo many emails, tweets, dm’s, phone calls from people saying “Wow that was the coolest thing ever,” “I love your authenticy Alejandro” and my following online grew because of my daughter.  Pretty crazy huh?

Ever since then I knew that the key to making things happen in the Social Media arena is simple:  Be transparent, invite people into your life, and if you can put a smile on their face, you’ve won their hearts.

So I attribute a TON of my online success to my Sadie!

Sadie, I love you so much, you’ve changed mine and your Mother’s life FOREVER.  Happy Birthday Princess!!

Here’s some videos and some pictures of Sadie over the last year

Thanks!

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The Video that started it all

sadie is dancing on 12seconds.tv

about to feed sadie & watch “From G’s to Gents” on 12seconds.tv

sadie just loves touching my face on 12seconds.tv

Sadie Loren is a Bee for Halloween. She has 3 other costumes on 12seconds.tv

Sadie trying to battle daddy on 12seconds.tv

Sadie dancing part deux on 12seconds.tv

sadie loves chris breezy on 12seconds.tv

sadie & daddy dancing on 12seconds.tv

Today I would like to throw a third and final way we can approach our uniqueness into the mix.  I’m sure there are many other ideas so please share them with us via the comments or directly.  I hope you continue to see more opportunities for your teams, families and clients.  Thank you for your feedback.

I was recently asked to bring my 2 cents worth to a discussion regarding reward & recognition. An interesting point raised was different values placed on possible rewards, often motivated by demographic or our uniqueness.

For example, a young lady who is a few months out from getting married & moving out of home for the first time stated that she is motivated by shopping mall vouchers so she can set up home.

An older guy with school age kids may be motivated by paid time off so he can have the rare but valued experience of being the school taxi driver or even attending a mid day school event.

I think there is worth for our teams & families to explore this aspect of our wiring ie. incentives & motivations.

I value quality time together.  For my upcoming trip, I am keen on sitting in cafes & restaurants with particular people. Sure, I will see some sights along the way but for me, that’s bonus!

I have a friend who isn’t motivated by lengthy time together but gets “pumped up” by encouraging words.

What can we be intentional about today regarding reward, recognition, motivation & incentive?

Could it be affirmation, time together, or even giving something material/tangible?

]]> http://successfool.com/wired-part-3-of-3/feed/ 0 http://successfool.com/random-day-off-may-20th/ http://successfool.com/random-day-off-may-20th/#comments Tue, 20 May 2008 22:58:23 +0000 Alejandro Reyes http://successfool.com/?p=63 Today I decided I’m going to take a Random Day Off.

Gonna hang with my new baby and have a nice dinner with my wife.

Look for the Gary Vaynerchuk Post tomorrow entintled “You Gotta Find Your Hoopla Factor.”

Looking forward to connecting with ya soon!

LIVE SHOW TONIGHT – At 8pm pst I will be going LIVE tonight on http://SuccessfoolTV.com sharing the play by play experience we just encountered. Invite your friends & watch!

Hey there family and friends! It’s Thursday morning and I’m sitting here in the hospital watching my beautiful wife our beautiful daugther Sadie Loren Reyes sleep (my Mother-in-law Stella and Sister in-law Ashley are sleeping as well).

If you didn’t already hear, Sadie Loren Reyes was born yesterday at 6:24pm. This birth experience and the events leading up to it has definitely changed my life forever.

First off, I gotta say this and if you never read this blog again because of it, carry on…

Alright, here we go: You have got to be out of your mind not to believe there’s a God.

Having been through this experience, it has completely opened my mind up to WHO God is and WHY he loves us so much! Now this is not going to be some post about me telling you what’s right or wrong, or some guy in a mohawk preaching to you and if it feels that way…lighten up, relax your neck a little bit, and get over it.

So here’s how our daughter came into the world.

April 22nd, 2008

2:30pm – Dr. Rosellini informs us that Sarah is 3 centimeters dilated. Sarah calls her Mom to get on the next flight to make sure she’s here just in case anything happens.

11:00pm Sarah and I pick up my Mother in-law Stella from the airport.

April 23rd, 2008

2:00am – My wife Sarah wakes up as she’s starting to feel some contractions. She waits a little bit to wake up Stella and the contractions continued.

3:00am – Sarah wakes me up as I’m in the other room with my best friend Cj who was staying the night. You folks have to understand that up until this point, I still don’t feel like I’m going to be a Dad and that’s this is all real.

We started getting ready to go to the hospital as the contractions kept coming every 4 – 5 minutes.

5:30am – We arrive to the hospital and they tell us that my wife is 5 centimeters so they decide to admit us. I’m thinking…”this is going to happen today…OMG!”

We call my Sister in-law Ashley who goes to college out in the Bay Area (or as some folks call it “Yay Area”) so that she can figure out a way to get out here as she doesn’t have a car.

Sarah’s contractions continue and my wife handles them like a champion.

She dilates to 6 centimeters and the contractions start to get stronger.

9:00am Dr. Yiakis tells us that the baby is probably going to be close to 9 lbs!!! Not only that but my wife’s pelvis is very narrow as well. So Sarah decides it might be a good idea to have an epidural. So Dr. Hiyashi aka Dr. Rockstar comes in and sticks this 47 foot needle in my wife’s back as I put my hands on her shoulders. I decide to take a peek at the needle in her back and I passed out to the floor….just kidding…hahaha!

Sarah was feeling really good and I was extremely proud because she was doing really well.

1:00pm – Dr. Yiakis decides we gotta give Sarah Pitossin (or as Kathy aka the Best Nurse in the World calls it “Vitamin P”) as she stopped contracting.

4:00pm – Sarah starts to push and is doing a great job. She pushes for 2 hours, but unfortunately Dr. Yiakis tells my wife that she’s not going to be able to fit through birth canal.

6:00pm – They take my wife away from me to the room where they’ll be performing a C-Section. Stella and I put on scrubs and prepare to go into the room to be with Sarah during this surgery.

There’s about 5-10 minutes of time when they prepare Sarah and I was a mess. There was ABSOLUTELY nothing I can do for my wife at this moment. I was completely helpless. This is where I go back to folks not believing there’s a “God.” You see I was completely helpless.

All I could do was pray. As soon as I started to pray, I felt calm, I knew that there was “something” that was going to take care of my wife and my baby. I had faith that God’s hand was going to be there at every moment! I just don’t know what I would do personally in situations where I feel helpless? What do you do?

So they call us into the surgery room. We go in there my baby is about to be born. My wife is laying down and all that I can do is just sit there with her, pray for her, and know that the doctors would do their jobs.

6:24pm – I hear, “here she comes” and push one of the doctors out of the way to try and see my daughter. Someone ends up saying “don’t touch the doctor” so I move back trying to see Sadie.

I look at my daughter and she is SOOOOO beautiful!!! I cannot believe it. I finally feel like I’m a Dad! I cut her umbilical cord (which was pretty cool) and they take her to get weighed. Backing up, you gotta understand we all were guessing how much she weighed. I guessed 8.3 and I was right. Sadie Loren Reyes weight 8 pounds and 3 ounces and was 20.25 inches long. I got a big girl!

They finished the surgery, made sure my wife and baby was okay, and I was completely relieved.

There’s more to talk about as I’m going to probably be doing a Live Broadcast TONIGHT about this and take any questions you guys might have. I really wanted to share this one thing on my heart though…

For the first time ever, I really understand WHO God is and WHY He loves us so much! When I first held Sadie in my arms, I made a promise to myself and God:

That I will always love her no matter what she does
That I will always protect her
That I will always provide for her
That I will never ever leave her
That I will always love her mother
That I would even DIE for her!

I’ve never realized how much God loved me until I held Sadie into my arms.

He will always love us – no matter how ignorant we can become
He will always protect us – even though we might live in fear
He will always provide for us – even though sometimes it might get tight
He will never leave us nor forsake us
He not only loves me but also loves and takes care of my friends and family
He literally DIED for for you and for me

This has been the most important day of my life. My wedding was completely incredible and I love my wife dearly, but this experience has changed my life and thought process forever.

I’ll share more later on, but just had to update y’all on this life changing experience.

I love you Sarah – I love you Sadie!

Here’s my princess!