What communities are you involved in?

Caribou, REI, Cabelas, Starbucks, Woofda!, Archivers, Apple Bee's, Life Time Fitness, Twitter, Facebook, Cub Foods, Fleet Farm, Barnes and Noble, GAP, The Limited, Michaels, Buckhill.

The list goes on and on. What is this list? Well, venture on!

We are each involved in a part of a community that we so choose to be involved with. I think it's vital to pick one, just one if you're unsure of how you feel about which one you want to interact with and pick a minimum of two people you want to get to know better. You can interact with those people weekly whether it's through an e-mail or sending them a private message from your online community group, if that's possible.

Here's why I'm bringing this up.

If I'm not engaging, interacting or talking to people daily or doing something to try better myself every day, this feeling of "I'm getting behind" comes over me and it drives me nuts. That's why I have a white board, two actually, in my room, so I can see everyday what is it I can do to be a better individual. How can I drive and inspire...me? No one else has control over that. If they did, I can guarantee I would not appreciate how they'd tell me how to interact or go about living my life.

Everyday, I try and think of something new I can do or I'll think about the way a company is interacting with their customers/audience and how they can do it better. Or maybe a company isn't quite sure how to interact and need help getting there. That's where the white board comes in among another thing I've creating with a business partner of mine. That business project is still under wraps, but I believe I'll be able to make an announcement within the next month regarding what it's all about. I'll also be using RachelRyanPR as a platform and yes, I realize how inactive I've been with that account in comparison to ryanr09. What does my RachelRyanPR twitter handle have to do with anything? Stick with me long enough and you'll see!

One community I so choose to involve myself with: Life Time Fitness. Besides the fact that I work there, I'm in love with my running shoes and my Mizuno's have changed the way I think about exercising. Maybe I've brainwashed myself into thinking these are the best running shoes in the world. Hey!! It works for me because it gives me motivation to get my butt out of bed, or even after a long day of work, if I want to put these shoes on, I get this huge urge to run. They make me feel amazing and unstoppable. I have no explanation for why except that it's a cute tennis shoe, that's extremely light weight, supports my feet and within 30 seconds of trying the shoe on back in January 2010, I was sold.

I've been keeping HORRIBLE track of my 'training' progress on my blog to the point where I just signed up with FriendFit tonight. I also filled out my paper work tonight and I'm running in LTF's Turkey Day 5K. I'm excited about their sponsors:
Clif Bar & Company (I've had some of their stuff & it's pretty good!!)
J.R. Watkins Natural Products
Muscle Milk (this actually looks super delicious)
Sketchers
KS95
TRIA Orthopaedic Center
Nature's Prime Organic Foods, Inc.
Caribou Coffee (they'll be at the Target Center the morning of race -yesssss!!!)
REI.

The cool thing about this Turkey Day 5K? You can also donate money towards great causes like the Life Time Fitness Foundation that's partnered with Heart and Hammers for the last five years where they find ederly and/or disabled homes whose homeowners need help with basic repairs. Also, Second Harvest Heartland will be collecting nonperishables the day of the race I believe.

In a nutshell, being involved in a community of your choice and being active in it weekly or monthly is not a lot to ask. If we don't support each other we all suffer. But what's most important is letting the reason you'll want to support a community find you. Yes, you read that right. Sounds backwards doesn't it?? Allow me to explain myself.

When I put my running shoes on, I feel really, really good. Yes, LTF pays my bills, but something else it's done for me? It's given me a reason to WANT to get out there and run. And after checking out FriendFit, I'm pretty excited to go outdoors and run. That's the reason I've been so pumped about this Turkey Day 5K. It seems so simple to some people...3.1 miles. Whoop tee ding do?!
Well, for me, excuse my cheesiness of using part of LTF's mission statement, but it's a healthy way of life for me. Also, I've found something through a corporation I just happen to work for, that's going to allow me to do good in a community that has found me...unintentionally. I graduated from college in May 2009 and needed a job and this is the path I've intersected with. Also, not to mention I've met amazing individuals (remember the part where I said you should pick two people to interact with??) who keep me laughing along the way; a couple people I can name off the top of my head, both who happen to work for LTF (not the reason I'm choosing them) and they also happen to be on Twitter (that's why I'm choosing them): Bob Stanke and Lindsay May. Oh, they also both happen to be runners.

Running isn't my only community I choose to be involved with. I've become more user-friendly with the library that is one block away from my home and if I want a more "lively" environment to go find some reading material at, I'll just head over to Barnes and Noble. If I'm feeling fashionable and having some extra cash I'd love to spend on something that I know will fit me very well, I'll head over the mall and hit up The Limited. Besides, I really like the one manager who works there; she's extremely friendly and helped me pick out the perfect dress I needed for a wedding. Next time, I'm asking her her name.

So, what communities are you involved in? Please include a link to share. I'd love to know more about them. :)