Project Me

Thank you to She’s the Geek for the acknowledgement of my contribution to empowering women in technology. This is the interview that marks a very proud moment in ‘project me’:

Hanging out on twitters and most social networks as @jodenecoza

Jodene, tell our readers a little about yourself and what you do?

I’m a born and bred Jo’burg, single and 30 something girl with the passion for watching people flourish and for eating ice cream. I’m the proud owner of a company called Lifeology, promoting courage, consciousness and a sense of humour and co-own it with my best friend Greg Arthur.
Being a life achievement facilitator, I redefine the life coach in that I have the belief that we are able to ‘coach’ ourselves as long as we have the correct tools with which to take responsibility for our own lives. Yes, I believe we are that powerful.
I am the passionate advocate for taking responsibility for your own life, your happiness and most importantly your choices.

Has technology changed your life in any way?
Technology has more than changed my life; it has helped me mould my life choices and dreams. I began as business management teacher in a beauty school and eventually opened a day spa and recruitment agency for the spa industry. On the sidelines I taught metaphysics and found my passion for writing, but never thought I would do much else that revel in the hobby. After realising the power of social networking and the audience reach that it opened up, I completely changed the direction of my dream and chose to take a once was hobby and build my empire as a writer and teacher. I have subsequently resigned as a partner of the spa and am literally living the dream while social networking and writing my days away.

Take us through a typical day in your life.
The streaming sunshine through my pretty, yet impractical curtains wakes me at around 6ish and I go straight into my morning mediation. Being totally unbound my rules of spiritual practice, I choose to meditate in my bed by curling up under the covers and placing a massive crystal about the size of one of the first cellphones ever by my chest. That technique was born from my inability to spring straight out of bed, and has now become special and grounding.
I then do my daily ‘project me’ blog (still in bed) with one eye on the time to make sure I’m at the gym just after the crowds have dispersed, but early enough to have a full working day (one of my joys of not having a boss).
My dressing routine always including Country music and a bowl of creamy oats filled with almonds, berries and cinnamon while I multi task and try avoid running late because I’m checking emails and tweeting in between.
I work from Greg’s house … at the dining table in his super sized kitchen including couch, gas stove and an abundance of tea. He is about ten steps away in his humble office and our work day begins. We may pop out for a meeting or two, otherwise it’s endless cups of tea and working on all of our Lifeology products.
A day in never incomplete without me taking a brain break to cook lunch … yet I eat while getting straight back to the laptop.
Night usually falls before I have left ‘the office’ and I return home to my mom (because I’ve downscaled the life to live the dream) where I whip up dinner and climb into her bed that is snug and warm (that’s her wooing technique in the hopes that I will never leave).
We watch tv, chat and both sit with our laptops on fancy dinner/laptop trays while she does her work and I fall prey to chatting away to friends around the world … a few on skype, one or two on msn, another on facebook … thank heavens for multi-tasking.
With a fair amount of discipline it’s lights out just before midnight with dreams of another exciting day ahead.

What are your current projects?
Lifeology is all about awareness and Greg and I have our separate products within that. We do, however co-teach and are currently running a course called ‘See the world through new eyes’, based on the archetype work of Carl Jung and Caroline Myss.
Under the umbrella of Jodene.co.za My projects are ‘manifestation myths’ – teaching people that, with the right understanding of the tools, we really are powerful enough to manifest the exact life we choose.
‘Organic orgasm’ is an answer to the much needed cry for help in order to drop the veil of fear, mistrust and shoddy self esteem around the most fun a person can have … sex!
Together, our company is developing an interactive and animated children’s website that gives them the platform to enter the world of consciousness from a very young age. Step Aside is the interactive blog that guides parents and guardians and gives them the tools to ‘step aside’ and allow the children of the world to discover.
Behind the scenes I have written my first children’s book which is being illustrated and I’m plodding along at the second draft of my first novel.

Everything I do is also linked to talks and courses so that my passion for teaching is fed while the life achievement facilitator in me revels in my life purpose.

Why do you Blog?
Half of it is my absolute passion to write and teach and the other is the strategic plan to use the power of social networking and establish myself as a brand and launch my products into the world. I am patriotic and love being a South African blogger, but I am also aware that we are still catching up with the rest of the world on many levels. I have decided to maintain my positive attitude towards this country and use all of these factors to my advantage. Blogging is a smart and super fun way of getting to the top of the South African searches, which in turn catapults into the big ocean of the net.
What is the best gadget you ever played with?
Mine is one of envy … yes, the really green kind!
Greg owns an Apple Mac and I’m blown away by all that this amazing machine can do. I sit humbly by his side and wangle my way through windows while he touches a button here and clicks another there and … magic! We’ve created videos, slide presentations, websites … you name it … all at a smooth sailing and totally kick ass few clicks of a button.
Oh .. I have to throw one more in … my blackberry!!! My favourite of all is the ability to snap a pic of a moment, send it off to my inbox, blog about it later and whip it into my blog … cleva!

What social media tools do you use?
Oh boy … I’m the bag lady of social networks and have strategically linked myself to so many that my spreadsheet which records user names and passwords is longer than my arm.
Of course I need a little help keeping them all in check and so I love Digsby and MyBlogLog(from Yahoo) to link them all together and make it easy for me to control all my accounts.

I also love a comment tool called ‘intense debate’ that keeps a log of how I fair as a commenter and contributor to other people’s blogs as well as my responding to people on mine. (The downside is that it only tracks comments of those blogs who also use ‘intense debate’, but the upside is that it forms communities and people support each other. Now is a great time to point out that my personality thrives on beating my own score and racing to the top, so watching my points grow as a commenter is a great inspiration that fairs me well as a communal blogger too.

How many hours do you spend on the Internet?
Including checking facebook and twitter and chatting on skype and msn all through my Blackberry? Um … let’s say I’m not on when I sleep. Here’s a confession … I wake up in the middle of the night I have been known to send a quick tweet or check the website stats … oh and ‘poke’ a friend or two. I feel the need to jump in and say I do have a beautiful family and amazing friends … and do have a life!

What advice would you give to a newbie starting out?
Social networking is something that we watched the birth of and rules where made up as people went along. Don’t be intimidated by the ‘rules’ and blogs about ‘how to’. It was all new for everyone once, even the friends and ‘experts’ who are pulling you in all different directions and telling you what to do. Some theories work and others don’t, so just keep going until one works for you. If people don’t like you they will stop following you or ignore you … although some throw out a derogatory tweet or comment. Take if from whence it comes and go back to your mission … which I hope is all about having fun while you watch your dreams come true.
One more thing … become a part of the community and interact with people because we are all more than our avatar, tweet or blog post and we begin to support each other and take each other’s success seriously.

What are your top 5 favourite websites?
No one actually counts facebook into this list do they? It’s like a given … well for me at least. So when I’m not poking or updating my status, I do use it as an awesome social networking tool with fan pages linked to my blogs.

As a social networking tool, twitter is the bomb and has single handedly helped me grow my brand and my ranking. Needless to say, it’s up there with my best of all time favourite sites ever.

Next on the list is my trusty Afrihost control panel. This is one smart website where I have full control of my websites, my blogs and my stats. Believe it or not … this is where I draw inspiration.

When I first joined twitter and discovered the retweet button, I was fascinated that a website called Mashable (which is a techno, social networking, info site) got so many retweets. It’s now grown into my trusty source of all that is going on in the world of the net and technology.

Where would I be without my daily dose of inspiration from ‘Tut.com’. Mike Dooley sends out ‘notes from the Universe’ on a daily basis, armed with personalised messages where your dreams and aspirations are inserted into messages from ‘Universe’. Most days the irony of the synchronicity of the message and the goings on in my life literally make me gasp. I love this site!

Last .. but not least, there’s a dating site or two lingering in the bottom corner of Chrome and I shouldn’t slander them seeing as though a significant other was found on one of those very sites.

Where do you look when you need a little inspiration?
Honestly … I do dash off to my control panel and refresh my stats. I also google my ‘meta tag keywords’ and see my ranking. I see that as the best inspiration in the world  … after all, my message as a life achievement facilitator is to get everyone to stop looking outwards and focus on themselves for their own motivation and of course … inspiration.

So what can we expect from you in 2010 and beyond?
Loads of blogging in the form of my daily ‘project me’ and the blogs associated with my products: ‘manifesation myths’ and ‘organic orgasm’.
The launch of the long awaited children’s website bubbles under the radar while I hope to finish and be in the publishing process of my first children’s book and the novel.

Look out for me, book me or chat to me more about my talks on ‘project me’, ‘manifestation myths or ‘organic orgasm’.

Beyond 2010 I intend to be up on a stage, in a book store or in a classroom somewhere, empowering people of every age to never give up on their dreams and equipping them with the one tool that works … choice! Yes … we are that powerful.

My contact details:

Mail: manifest@jodene.co.za
Cell: 0741 jodene (563363)
web: http://jodene.co.za
I am jodenecoza on twitter and most social networks and all my blogs can be found by linking into my home site http://jodene.co.za. Blogs include ‘project me’, ‘manifestation myths, organic orgasm, life of a writer, and monthly news.