Marketer Exposes Herself For Charity

When I say that my wife is prob­a­bly the strongest woman I’ve ever met, my words don’t do jus­tice to show how strong she really is.

Since her chemo was sched­uled to start next Wednes­day, rather than embar­rass­ingly lose clumps of hair over the next few days, Sylvie has decided to turn her loss into some­one else’s gain.

She decided to cut her hair before the treat­ments and donate her now use­less mane to a char­ity called Locks of Love, which cre­ates wigs for dis­ad­van­taged kids with long-​​term med­ical hairloss.

But there’s more to this story…

Sylvie wanted to make an event out of the whole thing. But more than that, she decided to turn it into a fundraiser for her favorite breast can­cer char­ity, Avon’s Breast Can­cer Cru­sade, by video­tap­ing the event and “sell­ing” real estate on her head.

Yes, much like the “rent this chest” or web­page pixel ads we see all to often these days, Sylvie will be trans­form­ing a pic­ture of her newly shaved head into a click­able graphic, with links lead­ing to web­sites of the top donors from the event.

There’s more to it than this. For the com­plete story, check out my wife’s lat­est blog entry describ­ing exactly how it’s all going to hap­pen — and how you can support.

We’re video­tap­ing the whole event, turn­ing it into a viral video, along with my wife’s link­able “scalp” men­tioned earlier.

A lot of the top mar­keters and copy­writ­ers who are dear friends of ours have shown their sup­port by email­ing their lists. (Thank you guys, it means so much to us.)

The fun­ni­est one comes from top copy­writer Clay­ton Make­peace, who mailed his list with this gem (the woman on the left is Clayton’s wife Wendy, who he affec­tion­ately calls the “Redhead”).

But an inter­est­ing prob­lem has since occured. A good prob­lem, to be more spe­cific. You see, Sylvie has already raised over $8,000 (and still grow­ing). What’s the prob­lem? She over­sold her scalp space!

So we’re going to cre­ate sev­eral “head­shots” of her scalp to allow all the links from all the top donors, as promised.

And then, a few “National Enquirer” head­lines started stir­ring in my head, which would be per­fect for a press release we plan on writ­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing after the event…

“Inter­net Busi­nesses Demand Marketer’s Head!” “Woman Clones Head, Cap­tures It On Video.” “Get A-​​Head To Keep A-​​Breast Of Things.” Or, “Woman Sells Head For Breasts.”

(Sorry. Couldn’t resist. Blame it on Makepeace.)

Bot­tom line, my wife’s unde­ni­able courage is meant to drive home an impor­tant mes­sage: that can­cer doesn’t have to be a death sen­tence. And by “death sen­tence,” I don’t just mean fac­ing an inevitable end (which we all face, any­way), but that we don’t have to become morose, depressed and dejected.

Laugh­ter, hap­pi­ness and a pos­i­tive men­tal atti­tude are incred­i­bly pow­er­ful heal­ing tools avail­able to us all. Con­trary to pop­u­lar opin­ion, such health chal­lenges do not — and should not — rob you of your hap­pi­ness. They give you an oppor­tu­nity to bring it to your life. And like Sylvie, to the life of others.

As Wayne Dyer once said, “There is no way to hap­pi­ness; hap­pi­ness is the way.”

As my wife so elo­quently put it in the com­ments sec­tion of that same post:

“I refuse to go through this expe­ri­ence for noth­ing. I refuse to accept that this strug­gle will be a waste or be point­less. Just as I refuse to waste my long hair, I also refuse to waste this chance to do some­thing good with my life. This expe­ri­ence is, in my opin­ion, an oppor­tu­nity to cre­ate a miracle.”

Again, here’s your chance to be part of a unique event, get expo­sure and donate to a wor­thy cause. Check out my wife’s lat­est blog entry and make a pledge, won’t you?

About the Author

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