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Interview with Barbara Garro

Guest post by: Evan Carmichael

Article Overview: As the author of Grow Yourself A Life You'll Love and From Jesus to Heaven with Love: A Parable Pilgrimage, Barbara has been coaching people to achieve their goals as writers, artists and believers for nearly fifty years. Along with her Business, Finance & Economics and Business & Professional Communication degrees, she also has a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies, and a Certified Property & Casualty Underwriter, and graduated from Corporate Coach University and Coach Training Institute. People say that her workshops and books have helped them stay on their goal tracks by knowing what to do when life gets in their way.

Interview with Barbara Garro

1. Why did you start your business and who was your first customer?

In 1989, in my forties, I had a severe accident and a five-year recovery, which gave me a lot of time to think about who I was and where I was going in my life. In the beginning, I spent lots of time in bed looking up at the ceiling, unable to see well enough to read or even move much of my body. I had been in the corporate world in various financial positions: Shareholder Relations Manager, Credit Manager, Corporate Insurance Administrator, Assistant Tax Manager, Director of Risk Management for Comcast Corporation, and Vice President running a risk and insurance management consulting firm for an international accounting firm, the position I held when I had my accident. In addition, since the 1970s, I was a freelance business writer,for newspapers, the Insurance Special Section of the NY Journal of Commerce & Commercial, and international magazines. All thistime, whileI held my Chartered Property & Casualty Underwriter designation, much of which is graduate-level work,I had no college degrees. While I was still moving through various therapies, I decided I needed a degree foundation for wherever I landed. In 1989, I founded Electric Envisions, Inc., a Saratoga Springs, New York private corporation. Already mentioned areseven careers; well, my ceiling contemplation wanted to know who needed my talent? The answer: children and seniors. My answer to that revelation: I became Mother Goose, ventriloquist, storyteller, writer and producer of The Mother Goose & Gander Show, a half-hour show for children up to eight that ran on cable television stationsup and down New York state. With my three vents (puppet characters: Gander Goose; Sky, a unicorn; and a Red and Yellow Ostrich), I also created God's Neighborhood. Alas, I never became the next Mr. Rogers or the next Shari Lewis. Next, I became a personal and business coach, having taken training from Coach Training Institute for personal coaching and training from Coach University's Corporate Coaching Program for business coaching, for career number eight. After 9/11, I remembered that my first choice of career was fine artist and I asked myself, If not now, when will I take back my art? I had studied at the Philadelphia Art Museum under master Morris Blackburn as a teen, had always painted. Off and running into career number nine, studying with master Tom Vincent until his death in 2011. On my website: http://www.ElectricEnvisions.com, you can see evidence of my fine art, writing, and teaching.

2. What is the best advice you can give to new entrepreneurs on staying pro active?

Do what you love,love what you do, and let your clients/customers know you love them, too! The philosophy I live andalways share early on with my clients is If your feel don't like where you are taking them in the morning, take them someplace else as soon as possible and practical. Living that, I have had nine careers.

Care always about yourself body, mind and spirit. Care always about those your love, your business and personal communities, and your world. That means live a healthy lifestyle. Practice actively some kind of higher power belief system. Keep abreast of what is going on in any world you are involved in and take whatever action you are capable of to make a difference in those worlds. One person can make a difference. Vow to be that one person when you are the best one person to do it.

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Related Forum Posts
Re: New forum - online businesses! - Thanks Evan for this great Interview and I will be pleased to be part of the new forum on online businesses!
Sharing Google Adsense revenue - Martin, Barbara is correct - you need to set up an Adsense channel to track the data. Otherwise you will be earning the revenue but will not know how much of it came from my site. Barbara, Yes, the way the code works is that the revenue is shared with the person who initiated the post. As long as it remains hot and people keep coming back to read it and reply, you will get credited with earnings from the post.
Re: New Year - New Resolutions? - Hi Barbara, I too have plenty of goals for 2009 but like GT I want to get my Alexa Rank down to under 500,000 and also plan to start a niche website with the help of NPG. I have also just started a new website with Matt Belock and will be promoting and adding content to that so that one is going to take a lot of my time for the start of the year. How about you Barbara, have you set any goals yet? Take care, Carol
The Game Inventor's Guidebook - by Brian Tinsman, 2002 I checked this out of my local library today and its pretty interesting... didn't address what I wanted to know, which was how to actually design an online gaming system (indeed this doesn't cover online games at all), but for board games etc. it's pretty good. Here's the TOC: 1. How they diid it: Trivial Pursuit Magic, the Gathering Dungeons & Dragons Pokemon Trading Card Game Interview with an inventor Interview with a publisher 2. How the industry works 1. What's in it for you 2. How new games happen 3. Anatomy of a publisher 4. Markets for games 3. Games and companies you should know 1. Mass market games you should know 2. Mass market companies you should know 3. Hobby games you should know 4. Hobby companies you should know 5. American specialty games and companies you should know 6. European specialty games and companies you should know 4. Self publishing 1. What am I getting into 2. Before you print 3. After you print 5. Selling a game step by step 1. How to invent a game 2. Game design 3. Game development 4. Targeting publishers 5. Before you submit 6. Eight submission strategies 7. Contacting publishers 8. Protecting your property 9. What to do if they don't say yes 10. What to do if they do say yes! 11. The game industry's dirty little secret 6. Resources and examples Publishers and mnufacturers Distributors Brokers Game conventions and trade shows Industry publications Sample query letter Sample record of disclosure Sample licensing agreement Sample option agreement
Re: Kevin's Case Study #7 - How do you promote your new book? - [quote="BuzzAroundBooks":mhks6s7p] Hi Barbara, In the past, I've tried requesting books from authors or their PR staff to review or use as Forum prizes with marginal success. Only 1 out of 3 or 4 authors actually wrote back via email. Do you have any tips you can share? Thanks[/quote:mhks6s7p] Hi, Buzz... Well... I have my own email (Barbara@thethunderchild.com) rather than a generic one such as yahoo or AOL, I assume you use one with an evancarmichael.com suffix? I say, Hello, my name is Barbara Peterson, I'm the publisher of The Thunder Child and I'd like to request a review copy of ____________ (whatever book I want.) I then give the URL of the main page, and of the Book reviews index page, to add my credentials. Then I give them my address, then and there, and end with "Thanks for your consideration in this matter." And of course, once the review is complete and online, I send them the URL so they know it's been done. In order to get books to use as prizes... I'd do something similar. Always write them and give your home address in the same email, and use a business email. I'm sure you give the URL for evancarmichael, but maybe include the monthly stats for the site so they know how much exposure the book will be getting if they contribute it, and how about throw in the fact that you'll review it as well (which may also increase our own visitor's efforts to win the book, if they can read a good review of it right here on the site.) Hope some of this is useful!


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