On The Advisory Board For Turkish Women International Network

I'm pleased to be on the advisory board of Turkish WIN, a global networking platform for women with family, cultural or professional ties to Turkey with regular speaking events -- a cross between TED and A SMALL WORLD. Featured here with founder Melek Pulatkonak and my fellow TRWIN speakers at KAGIDER  (Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey) headquarters, Istanbul, June 2011, AKTUEL magazine. Nakiye Boyaciller next to me is the dean of Sabanci University's business school, and Sedef Koktenturk on the far right is a Turkish Olympian in the sport of sailing.

Theory Into Practice

Hope you're enjoying the nature in your part of the world, and as you make your mid-year plans, you're using the playful travel buzzwords bursting out all over: (palidays! set-jetting! buddymoons! frightseeing!) +++++ AT expat+HAREM

Those April showers have us blooming too. We've got a new video section at the site, with some golden oldies like the Expat Harem editors on NBC's Today Show with Matt Lauer, a steamy talk with Martin Anthony on The Crossroads, and recent material like my "Evolution of a global niche" slideshow (about how to use an identity crisis to your advantage!) and a talk at Microsoft Turkey for Turkish Women's International Network last month.*

Hybrid life coach Amna Ahmad shows us how to "decolonize your inner world" with a simple writing exercise, while Rose Deniz grapples with a unique lingo as she leaves her native tongue behind. Sezin Koehler calls for essays about Third Culture retirement issues -- a pressing concern for Baby Boomers and adult-onset Third Culture types like many of us.

+++++ AROUND THE WORLD & AROUND THE WEB

We're intrigued by the concept of Trunk, a global culture magazine "in the spirit of a Hemingway novel" which proclaims "there are no foreign lands", but we can really use the real-life logistics of expat women packed into a just-released book from ExpatWomen.com (download a sample here). Check out author Andrea Martin's $5,000 launch lottery too.

+++++ *BTW, these fresh videos offer a sneak peek into expat+HAREM's newest initiative -- Globalniche.net --  a private and practical membership community to learn exactly how to operate professionally and personally independent of traditional limitations. Putting theory into practice. Join us on Facebook and Twitter!

+++++ YOUR THOUGHTS

What would you want to learn in our new educational community? Which expert do you want to hear from? Your votes will determine the topic of our first (complimentary) webinar...coming soon!

Click here to share your most burning question.

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Perennially yours,

+++++ MISS LAST MONTH? Check out April's Upheavals +++++

Findings From A Lightning Round Of Masterminds

Along with Tara Agacayak, I run a private mastermind group on LinkedIn (it’s a subgroup of my Creative Entrepreneurs & Social Media group). She asks, "Now that Round Two has ended, please let us know:  how you liked it (what worked, what didn't) and what has changed for you (something you implemented, a transformed thought or behavior...)." Here are my thoughts on the second round, which was a weekly affair.

I liked the swifter pace because I think the longer things are stretched out the more disrupted they have the potential to become. So, the mastermind experience felt more cohesive, and potent to me. The swifter pace also meant it was my turn before I was ready.

I'd call that a bad thing -- except for the fact that it required me to just spit out what would otherwise have been revolving around inside my head for weeks longer, and maybe I would have chosen a different subject matter if I'd had more time to think about it.

Spitting out the first problem you can think of -- because it's 'easiest' -- is a useful first step. Doing the easiest thing first has a way of pointing to the next easiest step.

So, the faster paced mastermind got me to bring up the Global Niche plan that I meant to work on more slowly (and in a different order), and that led me to make it the focus of the Turkish WIN talk this month, and that precipitated the making of an extended slideshow to support the talk, both of which are now public videos (and on expat+HAREM and SlideShare and Scribd and Vimeo and my Amazon author page and my Facebook pages). And this also precipitated the creation of a Global Niche twitter account, a Global Niche facebook page, a Global Niche logo...see, just got me 'off the pot'.

What I like most about this turn of events (and the FAB discussion of the second round masterminds -- *thank you everyone*!) is that it's forced me to iterate early and often on a big project that now I can let seep into a larger consciousness, while the next step percolates.