July 29, 2004, Vol. II Issue 16
Dear Friends,
Summertime, and there aren’t many meetings going on, are there? Unless you’re attending a professional conference like the National Wellness Institute (NWI) Conference in Stevens Point, WI, or you’re a speaker there, like Jana Stanfield, Dr. Deborah Kern and Dr. Karen Wolfe, and/or at the National Speakers Association (NSA) where Jana Stanfield and Zonya Foco both received their CSP honors as Certified Speaking Professionals this month. I’m so proud of them and want to share what this means to you as meeting planners.
Summertime, and I got stung by a yellow-jacket a couple of weeks ago. The welt on the inside of my thigh was the size of my hand, it was hot and oh, did it itch. Seeking some relief, I went to the internet and searched for “bee sting remedy.” I found one article with a very thorough analysis of pharmaceutical and home remedies, but ended up accessing my inner “knower” who helped me remember I already had a possible solution in my cupboard. What about alternatives? Read about a new study that tells us who is using CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) and why.
Yours truly,
Barbara
CSP: “Connotes Stress Prevention”
As the event/meeting planner, your neck is on the line when it comes to making that BIG DECISION about a keynote speaker. Is the process fun or filled with misgivings, stress and fear? Will the speaker really deliver? Will he/she be easy to work with? Will you get bang for your bucks? Don’t you love the feeling that comes when you’re totally confident you have a winner?
You get that confidence when you hire a speaker with CSP after their name.
The Certified Speaking Professional designation, established in 1980 by the National Speakers Association (NSA), is the speaking profession’s international measure of professional platform skill. It is earned by meeting strict criteria. They must get excellent ratings from past clients on professional performance evaluations. Indeed, you, their clients and your audiences are the ones who give them your stamp of approval. The criteria include serving a minimum of 100 clients during 5 years and a minimum of 250 speaking engagements within the same period. (I’m proud to say that I booked a lot of those engagements!)
So why might it be important to you? It will make your job easier! The success of your event/meeting will be judged largely on the caliber, professionalism and appropriateness of the presenter(s) you select. Choosing a CSP speaker gives you the closest thing you can get to a guarantee that your speaker’s message will focus, elevate and enhance the mission of your meeting and stick firmly in the memories of your attendees.
It means that the speaker is dependable, consistent, and savvy about what it takes to be great in serving their clients. A great speaker has a lot more than the ability to make an audience laugh and learn. A great speaker also has the skills to end on time no matter how late the program started. Great speakers demonstrate the integrity of their message both off the platform and on.
Only you can determine which speaker will best fit your needs. A Certified Speaking Professional provides a solid place with which to begin your search.
I am extremely proud of Jana and Zonya for earning their CSPs. It is a lot of work to apply and it is a lot of work to qualify. Many of you have already worked with Jana and Zonya so I know you can verify all of the above qualities in both of them. I’ve known them both about ten years and am proud to count them as dear friends who have made a huge difference in my life both personally and professionally.
And, finally, we’d like to say thank you to all of you, for participating in this process by both booking them and recommending them to your peers. CSP: “Connotes Stress Prevention,” or, better yet, CSP: “Creates Super Program.”
What’s the Alternative?
What can I say? I’m addicted. Need a phone number? Go to the internet. Need a recipe? Go to the internet. Laundry stain? Go to the internet. Bee Sting? Yep . . . I’m a googler.
The bee sting analyst I found on the web (he actually got stung on purpose to test various remedies!) pretty much nixed pharmaceutical options, other than Caladryl and I didn’t have any of that in the house. That said, the most promising home remedies were toothpaste and ice. I tried both and can’t say either gave me much, or any, relief. Then I remembered I had some All Purpose Salve in my cupboard from a previous injury, recommended by a naturopathic student who was apprenticing with my medical doctor at the time (an interesting concept, don’t you think?).
Applying it, the swelling started going down immediately from the perimeter toward the center. I read the label: Calendula, Comfrey, Vitamin A and Vitamin E in a base of extra virgin, organic olive oil and beeswax! Isn’t that interesting, the beeswax piece, in particular? Hey, it was greasy, but it worked!
Which leads me to the whole idea of going beyond our traditional ways of finding solutions to health and healing issues.
The results of a 2002 nationwide survey by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine were recently released. They showed that 36 percent of U.S. adults aged 18 years and over use some form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). CAM is defined as a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine.
Interestingly, when prayer specifically for health reasons is included in the definition of CAM, the number of U.S. adults using some form of CAM in the past year rises to 62 percent.
The survey, administered to over 31,000 representative U.S. adults, was conducted as part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2002 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Developed by NCCAM and the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the survey included questions on 27 types of CAM therapies commonly used in the United States.
I ran across the study in a newspaper article. I gasped out loud when I read this paragraph, “Alternative medicine, including yoga, meditation, herbs and the Atkins diet [HUH?], appears to be growing in popularity in the United States . . .” To check my response, I phoned my friend and speaker and expert on complementary medicine, Dr. Karen Wolfe, and she gasped in the same place.
“The Atkins diet, or any other diet for that matter, is definitely NOT alternative medicine,” she said. “It’s an alternative, but it’s notalternative medicine. That is giving it way more status than it deserves.” Consequently, we were both puzzled when we looked up thestudy and found that diets had indeed, been included as a category in
this study.
“I find that very interesting,” Karen said, “because, I think what they’ve really done, is classified the Atkins Diet as a nutritional therapy, and I would caution people against considering that eating plan as a balanced nutritional therapy. I think possibly they did that to keep the study up-to-date, so to speak, with consumer trends. My prediction is, that the low-carb craze will end soon.”
Interestingly, the survey also found that about 28 percent of adults used CAM because they believed conventional medical treatments would not help them with their health problem; this is in contrast to previous findings that CAM users are not, in general, dissatisfied with conventional medicine.
Karen noted that the study showed CAM approaches were most often used to treat back pain or problems, colds, neck pain or problems, joint pain or stiffness, and anxiety or depression. However, only about 12 percent of adults sought care from a licensed CAM practitioner, suggesting that most people who use CAM do so without consulting a practitioner.
If you are interested in the official definitions and descriptions, visit the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine website, http://www.nccam.nih.gov.
There you’ll find an abundance of information, including treatment information by treatment or therapy or by disease or condition. You may also download the above referenced study there.
Dr. Karen Wolfe is passionate about helping people become more knowledgeable about complementary and alternative medicine. She is adept at communicating with the public, as well as doctors and other health care professionals. If this is an area you want to explore, give us a call at 503-699-5031 or email me at barbara@speakwellbeing.com
Look Who’s Cashing in on Carbs
Today, our health headline tidbit or irony, actually, comes from Dr. Karen Wolfe. She spotted this on the front page of the L.A. Times Business section last Sunday.
The headline read, Restaurants Gobble Up Savings as Customers Cut Down on Carbs. “There’s at least one beneficiary of the low-carb craze, with the bun-free burgers and thinner crust pizzas,” the article said, “It’s the restaurants who are cashing in.”
“But those of us who are more savvy about what we eat, realize this fad needs to end,” Karen notes, “for our health. For example a fast food chain that we will not mention by name, is bolstering the company’s bottom line with a new egg-based breakfast bowl for only 5 grams of carbs (hello, it has 73 grams of fat!!!). The company is excited that the low-carb offerings are attracting new customers who had not been to their restaurant before and who hadn’t eaten fast food at all!”
There you have it. What a culture we live in! Customer beware, especially when it comes to food marketing!
Until next time, be good to yourself, stay out of the way of bees, listen to yourself when it comes to healing, for your well being and those you love.
Yours truly,
Barbara
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My vision for The Speak Well Being Group is to be a connector for speakers I know, love and believe in, with the audiences who will be inspired, motivated, and transformed by their perspectives, knowledge, empathy, compassion, information and, most importantly, capacity to enjoy the process, laughing at themselves and with you along the way.
You’ll find many of our speakers on our website.
http://www.SpeakWellBeing.com
Or please call anytime and let us assist you: 503-699-5031
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