BlessBack In Action | Julie Saffrin

Meet Bonnie McGrath: Writer of 800 Christmas Cards Each With Handwritten Note

December 18, 2013 • Julie Saffrin • 1 Comment

Meet Bonnie McGrath: Writer of 800 Christmas Cards Each With Handwritten Note EDINA, MN — Think you have a big Christmas card list? You haven’t met Bonnie McGrath. Not only will Bonnie send 800 Christmas cards in December 2013, she’ll write a personal note in each one. “For me, it is just very meaningful that I put something in the note that lets the person know how I feel about him or her,” Bonnie said. “I feel it’s the only time I might have to talk to a person and I want to stay connected.” Seems a lot of us…

To-Day

August 2, 2013 • Julie Saffrin • Leave a Comment

To-Day I know of two newscasters, one on broadcast television and on the other on cable, who end their on-air segments with the phrase “On This Day,” then recap what has happened in years past “on this day.” I love to discover a word’s origins. The word, “today” comes to us in Old English as todӕge, or to dӕge meaning “on (the) day.” “To” and “day” were separate words until the early 1900s. In German, we get *hiu tagu “on (this) day,” with Latin’s influence of “on this side.” When I think of the Latin combination of words to describe today, I…

Little Things

June 1, 2013 • Julie Saffrin • 6 Comments

Little Things It’s been said that a turtle cannot move unless it sticks its neck out. Yet sometimes, with our necks out, we’ve tried to make headway, only to find we’ve made circles in the sand. I wouldn’t call myself a computer expert by any stretch of the imagination, but on two separate occasions in one day last week, two friends were overwhelmed by their tasks at hand. They had tried countless times to figure out their computer problems, but with no success, they were on the verge of exasperation. “I’d be so grateful if you could just stop over…

Teacher Appreciation Day

May 7, 2013 • Julie Saffrin • Leave a Comment

Teacher Appreciation Day May 7, 2013 Dear Friends, In T. S. Eliot’s poem, Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, the narrator lived life all boxed in. Societal expectations and self-made cardboard sides prevented him from venturing out into the world. Near the end of the poem, the narrator asks tentatively, “Dare I disturb the universe?” There was a time when I was afraid to disturb the universe. But the sought-out advice of some good people encouraged me to finish my book and disturb the universe. BlessBack: Thank Those Who Shaped Your Life released in February 2012. In February 2013, a year…

Reversed Thanks: Client Sends Hairdresser Flowers

May 3, 2013 • Julie Saffrin • Leave a Comment

May 2, 2013 will go down in history as a day where Minnesota experienced a narrow-banded snowstorm that closed schools and dropped 18 inches of snow in an area that stretched from Owatonna in the south part of the state, through northwest Wisconsin up to Lake Superior. But the day will also be a unique day to remember for Kathryn Paradise, co-owner of Salon Spatoria in Victoria. For out of the blue, Kathryn received a BlessBack. As I sat down in Kathryn’s styling chair, to my left, on the mirror, I saw a promotion, advertising buy-one-get-one-free in haircare products. Kathryn…

May Day Basket of Gratitude

April 29, 2013 • Julie Saffrin • Leave a Comment

Step-by-step instructions and a free downloadable pdf for you to use. I had the privilege to speak on gratitude at a women’s morning event at Faithpoint Lutheran Church in New Prague on Saturday, April 27. After I spoke, my sister-in-law, Debbie Trewartha instructed us all on a fun and easy craft. I loved her idea to use it as a May Day Basket of Gratitude. Use them to give to your children, a friend or place them on co-workers’ desks while they are at lunch or in a meeting. Or, pretend you are a child again and place one…

Making Dreams Become Real

January 21, 2013 • Julie Saffrin • Leave a Comment

There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed dreams could become real. He, like Anne Frank who coined a beautiful phrase, were the forerunners to not “wait[ing] a day longer to bring change to a world they wanted to see.” I was 10 years old when Pastor King was assassinated. 1968 was the same year in which Robert Kennedy was assassinated. I did not understand these killings…

A Teacher’s Lasting Impression, a guest post by leadership coach, Barb Dusek

December 19, 2012 • Julie Saffrin • 2 Comments

Today’s guest blog post is written by Barb Dusek, founder of CorSpective and creator of the DIAL ClarityTM methodology. She is a presenter, trainer and meeting facilitator with experience in corporate management and human resources as well as holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology. I am honored to have her today as my guest blogger. Welcome, Barb! A Teacher’s Lasting Impression by Barb Dusek At a leadership development conference in November 2007, the workshop speaker asked those of us in the audience a seemingly innocuous question. “Who,” she asked, “is one of your earliest memories of good leadership?” With hardly a…

Time, Distance and a BlessBack

December 12, 2012 • Julie Saffrin • Leave a Comment

Today’s guest post is by Sue Bradley, author of the delightful book, Who Knew? The Inside Story of Being a Mom, a humorous and encouraging look at the joys and frustrations of parenting. Sue is a freelance editor and proofreader in Eagan, Minnesota. If you know of a new mom, this is the book to gift to her for Christmas. It will put a smile on her face and remind her that though the journey of raising kids is at times hard and exasperating, it is a road worthy of our pursuit for the countless treasures found along the way. Books ($9.00 plus postage)…

Do it Afraid – Give a BlessBack

December 6, 2012 • Julie Saffrin • Leave a Comment

In my book, BlessBack®: Thank Those Who Shaped Your Life, I tell the story of Elisabeth Elliot feeling compelled to return to the very tribe in Ecuador that took the life of her husband Jim. Elisabeth told her friend, “I want to go back, but I am afraid.” Her friend said to her, “Do it afraid.” And Elisabeth did. These past two weeks at Hope Presbyterian Church in Richfield, Minn., we’ve learned about gratitude and the power of a BlessBack and how it changes our lives as well as the people we go back and thank. We have shared our stories of…

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