Inspired to Act? Come On, Get Happy!

Deepak Chopra & Rudy Tanzi @ Chicago Ideas Week
Photography by Robert X. Fogarty @ Dear World

This week's Video of the Week is Deepak Chopra and Rudy Tanzi's "Super Brain". Need some inspiration to help kick start your happiness? Here are 5 ways to find the meaning of life and happiness:

1. Watch the film “Decoding Deepak”: Journalist and filmmaker Gotham Chopra spends a year traveling the world decoding his father Deepak Chopra. What starts as an intimate biopic becomes a deeper plunge into the meaning of identity itself.
2. Simplify your life by reading  “The Power of Less”. The Power of Less demonstrates how to streamline your life by identifying the essential and eliminating the unnecessary.
3. Check out the Omega Institute; a global community that awakens the best in the human spirit and cultivates the extraordinary potential that exists in all of us.
4. Pursuing happiness? Give “The Happiness Project” a go! Author Gretchen Rubin writes about her adventures as she test drives the studies and theories about how to be happier.
5. Is work bring you down? Get back up with these articles on How to be Happier at Work:
1. Forbes
2. Inc Magazine
3. Huffington Post

If you take action on any of our suggestions above, share your story with us! You and your story could be featured right here on our blog! Send your action stories to corey@chicagoideas.com. 

Chicago Green Festival: Free Tix!

Act now for FREE Weekend Pass to Chicago Green Festival –limited offer!

Green Festival has a special offer for CIW- a free weekend pass to Green Festival, May 18-19 at Navy Pier.

To accept your free weekend pass for
Chicago Green Festival… just click on the link: http://www.greenfestivals.org/chi-2013-giveaway and sign up with your unique promo code: CIWGREEN

Once you have received your confirmation email, your FREE weekend pass will be waiting for you at Will Call!

This FREE offer is limited to the first 250 people to sign up, so get your pass now!  You can see the entire Chicago Green Festival program of activities at http://grnfe.st/10q7yZm or by visiting  www.greenfestivals.org.

Inspired to Act: Support Veterans

Chicago Ideas Week: CIW Talk: Military

This week's Video of the Week is "The State of Our Returning Vets" featuring Tom Brokaw, General Colin Powell and General Stanley McChrystal. Leading up to Armed Forces Day (Saturday, May 18), here's 5 ways to support and honor veterans in your community all year long:

1. Join The Mission Continues movement - an organization empowering post 9/11 veterans to transition from the military to leadership positions at home. Serve alongside a veteran in your community or host a fundraiser to support veteran service and leadership. TIME Magazine just named Eric Greitens, Founder and CEO of The Mission Continues, to the 2013 TIME 100!
2. More than 200,000 deployed soldiers make five-star employees. Find out how employers can connect with those returning home by listening to CIW 2012 Speaker Major General Marcia Anderson’s Talk: Hire a Hero.
3. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), founded by CIW 2012 Speaker Paul Rieckhoff, has been hailed by TIME as the “most important organization representing the new generation of veterans”. Take action with IAVA today!
4. Show your support for our active military personnel serving overseas by sending a care package with Yellow Ribbon Support Group. This non-profit organization, headquartered in Palatine, Illinois, helps coordinate the shipments.
5. What if employing a veteran could also help solve the global food crisis? It can! Join CIW 2011 Speakers Karen & Colin Archipley’s veteran-led movement for sustainable farming: Archi’s Acres VSAT Program.

If you take action on any of our suggestions above, share your story with us! You and your story could be featured right here on our blog! Send your action stories to corey@chicagoideas.com. 

Inspired to Act: Celebrate Moms!

Zach Wahls @ Chicago Ideas Week
Photography by Robert X. Fogarty @ Dear World

This week’s Video of the Week: Zach Wahls' "What Makes a Family". In preparation for Mother's Day, here are 5 ways to celebrate all the wonderful mothers in your life:

1. Spread the word about LGBT rights and marriage equality by sharing Zach Wahls’ original statement in front of the Iowa House of Representatives.

1. If you were ever a Boy Scout, or any other member of the Scouting family, take action to lift their ban on gay youth and parents by joining Scouts for Equality. 

1. Consider donating your birthday to COLAGE, an organization aimed at uniting youth with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer parents into a network of peers. 

1. Parents who are LGBT care about the same things all parents do—hugs and homework, bedtime and bath time. Support the Family Equality Council and help change attitudes and policies to ensure that all families are respected, loved, and celebrated.

1. Celebrate your mom(s) this Mother’s Day by sending her a beautiful bouquet from Flowers for Dreams! For every bouquet sold, they donate a backpack (complete with school supplies!) to a student in need.

If you take action on any of our suggestions above, share your story with us! You and your story could be featured right here on our blog! Send your action stories to corey@chicagoideas.com. 

#IdeasChat: Entrepreneurship @ Universites

We had an enriching #ideaschat today inspired by Brad Keywell's Wall Street Journal article: 

Entrepreneurship at Universities — 311 Years Late

The discussion sparked amazing conversation on #entrepreneurship. Take 5 minutes to flip through the conversation:

Inspired to Act: DIY Bio

This week’s Video of the Week: Andrew Hessel’s “The Next ‘I.T.’ Industry: Biology”.

Inspired to take technology and biology to the next level? Here are 5 ways to join the next “I.T.” industry - biology:

1. In the Chicago area, biotech companies support more than 45,000 employees. The City of Chicago is working collaboratively on a startup biotech incubator space in 1871! Learn more and get involved here!
2. Join Chicago’s Adler Planetarium on Tuesday, April 30 for to hear a panel of three scientists with online citizen science projects tell us about the exciting research they are able to do thanks to the international efforts of over 800,000 volunteers. “From Lions to Black Holes: How Citizen Scientists are Changing the Face of Research” begins at 7pm in the Samuel C. Johnson Family Star Theater.
3. Explore the intricate biology and physiology of some of the world’s most spectacular creatures in Animal Inside Out, a Body World’s Production, making its U.S. premiere at the Museum of Science and Industry! Tickets on sale now through September 2, 2013.
4. Get to know your DNA! Personal Genome Project aims to advance medicine, human biology and knowledge of human origins. Participate or volunteer for the PGP so we can make personal genome sequencing more affordable, accessible and useful!
5. We have personal computing, why not personal biotech? Bring scientific exploration to the masses with Genspace, a nonprofit DIYbio lab in Brooklyn. Genspace offers a nursery for explorers, entrepreneurs and students where you can go and tinker with biotechnology.

If you take action on any of our suggestions above, share your story with us! You and your story could be featured right here on our blog! Send your action stories to corey@chicagoideas.com. 

You're Invited: Live Below the Line Kick-off & Cook-off

I sit here in my cozy Lincoln Park apartment as my West Elm coffee table supports my reclining feet. Art adorns the walls, shelves are cluttered with books on photography, business and travel, and I’m eating a meal of fresh vegetables with steak. As a small business owner I feel the constant struggle of living in the city and chasing my dreams. But when I read a few more pages of a young Cambodian woman’s story of escape from a brothel in Half the Sky, the tears begin to fall. Most days I have no concept of just how valuable are the opportunities I have. I get to pursue what makes me feel alive. I am a single woman with the choice to marry or not, and I’ve been afforded the opportunities of education and entrepreneurship. Why should my life be so drastically different than the 1.5 billion others who are living in extreme poverty and oppression? I do not feel guilt for my abundance- only sadness at the realization that there is a disproportionate number of people, mostly women, that haven’t ever had the opportunities I take for granted.

Last month I joined Chicago's local chapter of Young Ambassadors for Opportunity. YAO is part of an international development NGO,Opportunity International, whose mission is to end global poverty by providing microfinance solutions and education to developing nations around the world. Through this incredible organization I've learned that providing education and training, small business loans, and insurance (particularly for women) is the key to making a tangible, sustainable difference in ending global poverty. When a woman is able to support herself and her family, she creates new opportunities for her own life and experiences a sort of transformation economically, socially, even spiritually. An empowered individual is a generous one, and Opportunity International exists to equip new entrepreneurs to thrive and give.

I am so proud and honored to partner with an organization that is making a lasting impact, and particularly excited for the upcoming event that we’re hosting to help kickoff a global anti-poverty campaign happening at the end of the month. Come be a part of the movement by helping us kick off the Live Below the Line campaign in Chicago!

YOU’RE INVITED!

Chicago: Live Below the Line Kick-off and Cook-off
Professional chefs from restaurants and businesses around the city will join us to participate in a cook-off where they’ll be challenged to serve meals that can be prepared for less than $1.00. Learn how to spice up your rice and beans, enjoy a great night with friends, and be inspired to act in the fight against poverty.

Thursday, April 25, 2013
7:00 - 9:00 PM
Kitchen Chicago
324 N Leavitt St. Chicago, IL 60612

Check out the event on Facebook and buy your tickets today!

Live Below the Line is a global campaign that's challenging the way people think about poverty. People who sign up for the challenge will commit to eating $1.50 a day for five days (April 29 - May 3) to raise awareness for the 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty and to raise funds for an international development charity of their choice. I will be participating in the Live Below the Line campaign to raise awareness and money for the work of Opportunity International. I know it's going to be incredibly hard, but it's not enough anymore for my heart to merely ache for others in need. I want to do something. I truly believe that to really fight poverty, we must partner with organizations that are doing something meaningful in the world. Will you join me?



Jenn Gaudreau is an Ambassador for Chicago’s chapter of the Young Ambassadors for Opportunity (YAO) and owner of Jennifer Kathryn Photography. http://blog.jenniferkathryn.com/