We shouldn’t talk about money!

“The single biggest difference between financial success and financial failure is how well you manage your money. It’s simple: to master money, you must manage money.”  – T. Harv Eker, author, businessman, and motivational speaker.

“We shouldn’t talk about money!”

How many of us heard this growing up in our families?

So many of us are either uninformed or misinformed when it comes to money due to a variety of reasons: it was taboo to talk about growing up, there was no formal education in the school system, we had parents or families that didn’t understand how money works, it created tension and possibly fights in our families, and other reasons.

But we don’t have to continue in financial illiteracy.  It doesn’t have to be a scary or overly-emotional process.  The complexities of finances, managing the ins and outs of money, paying off debts, investing for retirement, and other financial topics can be learned.  And we are excited to have one of our coaches helping us with this!

Meet Diane Kingsley! . . . a financial advisor and one of CityFam’s amazing coaches!  

She loves to help teach people how money works!  She takes the complex and makes it simple and easy to follow, helps decrease the stress around money that comes with a lack of knowledge, and assists her clients in understanding how to make good decisions with their money coming in each month so that they can create everyday habits and choices that help them to grow wealth for their family!  With over 2 decades of experience helping hundreds of families . . . I think she may know a thing or two!

“Wisdom outweighs any wealth.” Yes, Sophocles, the ancient Greek playwright, might have been right . . . but an equal truth is that wisdom and financial literacy can truly be a catalyst for achieving wealth . . . and it starts with learning to manage your finances!

Are you ready and willing to learn?  

“If you want to be financially free, you need to become a different person than you are today and let go of whatever has held you back in the past.” – Kim Kiyosaki, entrepreneur, and author

Let’s talk about money!

JOIN US this Monday, March 27th for our CityFam Coach’s Call with Diane!  

• If this is your first time, we would love to sponsor your attendance for FREE!  Visit the CityFam Facebook page or the CityFam Facebook group to find out how to join us!

• For CityFam Tribe members at the Champion level, you get this call for FREE every month!  Sign up today!

JOIN US for the Book Club call as well (right before the coach’s call)! 

• This month’s read is “Rich Habits. Poor Habits: Learn the daily habits that separate the rich from the poor.”  by Tom Corley and Michael Yardley.  

• It’s FREE for Tribe members at ALL levels and as first-time guests.

One of the CityFam annual Rise Goals Summit attendees shared this about her time with Diane - “After her call and retirement recommendations, I changed all my allocations.  My account was pretty stagnant and not making much. Now it’s making some small gains which, for this moment in time, is great!”  - Lisa

What changes do you want to make this year in your finances?  

Post a comment below!  We want to partner with you on those goals and desires! 

Let’s do life together! - Lori

An Unforgettable Night! NIGHT TO SHINE 2023

“On this Night to Shine, life showed me that there are some things and experiences in this world that money just cannot buy . . . because a price tag does not exist!”

 - Christian (volunteer Buddy)

Imagine riding in a limo and walking the red carpet while being cheered on by excited and loving fans and paparazzi who are there . . . JUST FOR YOU!  You then enter into a dream space filled with music, beautiful decorations, dancing, karaoke, laughter, a delicious dinner, gifts, and being honored with a crown or tiara . . . just because you are YOU - a King or Queen!  

How would you feel?  

Most likely - AMAZING, loved, seen, cherished, and celebrated!  

It might feel like a dream come true!

These are some of the memorable experiences the special guests at the annual Night To Shine event have . . . but the blessings don’t stop there!  

The caretakers of the guests are blessed with a respite room for the evening, and many express gratitude for the care, compassion, love, and attention their guest receives from their volunteer Buddy - “making the night so special!”

On February 9th, 2023, CityFam members in 5 different cities across the US excitedly volunteered at the annual Night to Shine event sponsored by the Tim Tebow Foundation - “an unforgettable prom night experience, centered on God’s love, for people with special needs, ages 14 and older.”  

Not only were the guests blessed, but CityFam members shared that they were equally as blessed and thoroughly enjoyed volunteering for this event!

• “Night to Shine, was such an amazing experience, not only for myself but also for my “Buddy”. Who could have ever thought, one could give and receive God's powerful blessings at the same time?. . My Buddy and I danced the night away and had some great food, great smiles, and some very cool conversations. We truly enjoyed our time together. Just two guys kickin' it, all night long. Thank you, Buddy, for showing me such a wonderful time. It certainly was my privilege and pleasure.” - Christian

• “My Buddy’s favorite part was the karaoke. I loved seeing how happy she was singing along with her friends and being carefree. Her own performance was amazing, complete with a mic drop at the end! She literally raised her arm up and dropped the mic to the floor! I loved being a part of this and seeing how happy everyone was. What I saw was a lot of pure joy!” - Stephanie

• “Night to Shine was so amazing to me because I could see how much happiness and bliss there was in my Buddy's eyes. I got the opportunity to support somebody to have the most amazing day of their life! My Buddy got full hair and makeup done by the stylist at the event. She had practiced for an entire month to sing a song from the Disney movie Frozen, and we sent it to her professor. She was incredibly proud and excited.” - Michella

• “It is a fantastic event, it has been the highlight of my year! I was so happy to be a part of this special night. The participants were so excited to be there, they had a very memorable night. The red carpet experience and the limo ride made them feel so special. I love the whole idea behind this event, that they know their life has value, they are special and loved. . . . I highly recommend it for every group.” - Monette

The culture of CityFam is not just about having fun at social events with each other . . . but a big part of this community is generously serving within our local area (and having FUN doing it!).  

We do this every 3rd Saturday of the month at Soul’d Out Saturday service events in various US and international cities.  

What a treasure and privilege to have CityFam members from across the US all serving on the same night at the same event - coming together in unity to love on and bless these guests and their families!

Make sure to join us next year, on February 9th, 2024, to serve at Night to Shine in a city near you!  

And until then . . . check out the local service events in your nearby CityFam chapter!

As always - please post a comment below!  We love connecting with you!  And if you participated in this event - tell us your experience!  We’d be honored to hear about it!

Let’s do life together!

Don't Do Life Alone

Hi there!

It’s been a minute since we’ve said hello in a blog post - hasn’t it?  Well - that’s changing this year!  :) 

Welcome to CityFam 2023!  We are so glad you are here! 

My name is Lori, and I joined CityFam as their blog manager this year.  We are looking forward to connecting with you all!   

Please leave comments below and let us know where you are reading from, how you found us, or any other comments you’d like to share!  

We love hearing from our members and those that are just checking us out!

RISE Goals Summit 2023

Welcome to CityFam!

CityFam is on a mission to end loneliness by creating a way for people to start, find, join, and create a community and culture of “Friends with Better Benefits” that have “Fun Without Regrets”.  This cultivates a safe place for anyone to find the love, sense of belonging, security, and significance in relationships they need to become the best version of themselves!

So - you are probably wondering . . . what exciting things do CityFam have planned for 2023 to help end loneliness, and develop community and relationships?

• January 2023: We started the year with our annual Rise Goals Summit in Destin, Florida. People from all over the US came in person and online to learn, grow, develop goals for the year, make friends, and of course - have some fun!  More than one attendee stated, “I feel like I’ve known you forever!” to someone they just met.  This is because we are family in CityFam - with similar hearts and desires to connect and develop friendships in authentic, honest, transparent, and vulnerable ways through fun social and service events!  As Rob has said, “You just have to experience it to understand!”    

Next year’s Rise Goals Summit will be in New Orleans!  Registrations are open! Don’t miss it!

• February 10th: CityFam chapters and SocialFam groups across the US will be participating in the Tim Tebow Foundation’s Night to Shine event- pouring back into their community while developing deeper connections with their CityFam group members.

• February 11th:  JOIN US for a Vision Call on zoom at 11 am EST.  This is for everyone interested in learning more about CityFam and how to get connected to people in your area.  Currently, there are over 86 groups of at least 3 people in a city/area that are forming community groups to do life together!

• March 1st:  We are launching our 5th CityFam Chapter in Harrisburg, PA!  More chapters to come this year - maybe in a city near you!

• ROAD TRIP!  RV Tour: Join the vision call on 2/11/23 to find out how you can bring Rob Kowalski, Nicole Duhon, and other leadership team members to your city to hang out with you and your friends!  

• October 2023:  Leadership Retreat in Arkansas.  Want to join us?  Join the Vision Call to find out how to start and lead a CityFam chapter!

• CityFam Podcast: Stay tuned for this fun, engaging, and informative podcast - where we will not only interview leaders, authors, experts and more - but we want to discuss topics that are relevant to YOU!  

We would love to hear your ideas for topics (anything from dating, relationships, cooking/cleaning, physical health, business, and more!)  

* Put your ideas in the comments below!
Many more fun events to come! Stay tuned so you don’t miss these!  

And the best way to do that is through a . . .

• CityFam Tribe Membership! We have 3 monthly levels to choose from - but the top 2 get the FREE Anniversary T-shirt (only available as a gift for members) and other bonuses!  CityFam’s anniversary is coming up on February 14th - so JOIN TODAY to get your GIFT!   

With each level, you will have different access to our monthly group calls - Book Club, Coaching Call, and Accountability Group (Honor Society).  These have been amazing!  

CHECK IT OUT and SIGN UP for one of our Membership levels today!

SO many exciting things are happening within CityFam this year and I wanted to give you a glimpse and whet your appetite for more of what’s to come!  

****

Lastly, I want to leave you with this thought . . .

“All of my best friends that I have now I didn’t even know a year ago!” 

- Julie Dolf, OKC CityFam

If this is the year you desire to take intentional steps to develop new friendships (or deepen old ones) as Julie did - come join us at CityFam!  (And tell us in the comments one thing you want to do this year to be intentional with your relationships?)

Remember - a stranger is just a potential friend you haven’t met yet!  

LET’S DO LIFE TOGETHER!

- Lori West, CityFam Blog Manager 

Ps.  Don’t forget to leave us a comment below!  We LOVE hearing from you guys!

How Do You Take Care Of Yourself?

Hey CityFam!

I am so glad to see you guys. I'm Nicole, your executive director, and we have been spending this past weekend from Thursday all the way until today “retreat-ing”. It's been more like working like crazy. We have been planning and writing goals for the rest of 2020 and 2021.

I just wanted to make sure that every one of you got to meet these incredible girls and highlight the subject of this month’s coaching call for contributing members with Lori Lockemy.

Lori Lockemy, from The Focus Life Group is our life coach, and she's going to be doing a call this month about self-care. We thought it might be a really good idea for us to go ahead and start talking about it and give you an opportunity for you think about how this applies to you.

I’m thrilled to introduce you to these wonderful people! Mindy is our Central Regional Director. She works with all the chapters in the central US. And then next to her is our Western Regional Director, Cami. She does the Pacific and Mountain time zone for CityFam -which is growing SO fast. And then we have Alycea, who works with all of our international chapters as our International Director and Angel, the OG, where it all started in the Eastern region.

These ladies all come to you not as perfect, but as people who have strengths in some areas and want to encourage everyone on their journey. We have all been talking about what we do for self-care and are learning from each other.

Mindy: I feel the need to feed my spirit each day: For instance, at the beginning of the day, the first thing I do is read a devotional. That’s self-care in my book. Next, I do a zoom exercise right after that with a good group of people. And another thing I've implemented recently is eliminating pop and increasing my water. So I drink four 24 ounce water bottles (or 96 ounces) a day. Such a big difference! It's really helpful.

Angel: Well, we usually have to focus on self-care in the beauty industry. I’m used to helping people with ideas on how to take care of themselves. So this is definitely my jam right here! Now I get up an hour before I'm actually supposed to get ready; I LOVE sleep, but I want to be nicer to people around me and I need that time! I get up an hour beforehand or read, watch a video, or whatever I need to do.

Another part of my self-care -I just have to say it- is my coffee. So me and my coffee barista, we've got a good relationship and that helps me to make sure everybody around me is good.

When I didn't take care of myself, I would run myself too hard. I would make sure my clients got every piece of me and I didn't get time to take a lunch break or take a little time to recharge.

Then I realized that my daughter needed to see me taking care of myself. I needed to be an example showing how to care for myself. I am a super-busy business owner but I've scheduled little blocks in there where I get a break. Taking breaks throughout the day means that my self-care is constant. That's how I work now. How about you?

Alycea: Although I want to be beautiful, the last thing on my list as far as self-care is my face. This weekend, I learned from Angel that if you go to bed with your makeup on – you age your skin by 5 years! I’m inspired to take better care of myself now!

I have been thinking about how when you’re on an airplane, they tell you to put the oxygen mask on yourself before you help others. I like that because you can’t give what you don't have. For me, it starts with filling my spirit.

If I don't have time in the word, if I don't have time in prayer and take time just to be quiet, I can't even make it throughout the day being merciful and humble and all the things I want to be for other people. Just getting that cup refilled is so important for me.

The other part of self-care that I'm really big into now is working with a counselor to set up boundaries, because I’ve suffered a lot from not doing this in the past. There’s a book called “Boundaries” that I’ve been reading and you would be surprised how many people think setting boundaries is a mean thing! In reality, it’s the opposite! If you don't have healthy boundaries for the people in your life, it can actually have a negative effect because either you expect too much from them out of an expectation of what the relationship was supposed to be, or they expect too much from you. So for my mental and emotional health, I’m working on identifying what healthy boundaries look like in relationships, and then putting those into practice.

Cami: It seems as if it comes in waves doesn’t it? When I was in the worst yuck of struggles in my marriage, I was also not very good at self-care. There were lots of nights that I would just fall into bed in an exhausted heap. I did have to learn what healthy boundaries looked like for me and my relationships. It definitely was a process.

Lately, I have been working on a healthy morning routine and a healthy evening routine. I want them to become habits so that don't have to think about it too much, but my soul, my body, my emotions are getting rest and getting fed all those things so that they need. So I guess the self-care that I’m working on is self-discipline?

I wanted to share this with you guys because also part of my self-care is wrangling in my finances and working with what I have now. So that, in combination with taking better care of myself, led me to an interest in making some of my own skin care items. I found a person talking about skin care on YouTube and she shared how to make some serums by yourself for pennies. It's kind of fun! So vitamin C serum and HLA serum are things I would buy for myself but it’s just not in the budget to spend a bunch of money on them. I’ll share a link to the recipe for you!

Remember what Nicole was saying earlier about the coaching calls? We're working on expanded benefits for our contributing members! At the Champion and Big Timer levels, you get a free monthly coaching call with a life coach. She will help you take a look at your life and figure out areas of growth. So it's super cool and a huge value. I'm so stoked about this! We offer for our contributing members at the Champion level and the Big Timer for free! Still, no matter at what level, everyone can check it out one time for free.

Really consider the benefits of becoming a contributing member! We work at creating the environment for people becoming better versions of themselves.

And please let us know if you have questions. We love you right where you are. Everybody's accepted. There is no qualifying thing to become a CityFam member. We are all on our own journey. You're not going to get judgment from anybody, but we all recognize that we all want them to become and better versions of ourselves. And we want to provide you with the tools to do that.

Alycea: So that's what CityFam is all about. We also recognize that it is a two-way street. There are things that I can pour out if you want me to. But then I know there are things that you're amazing in and they pour out on me.

Financially, I'm learning! I'm in my forties and yet I have very little experience being allowed to handle finances. I definitely have a lot to learn in that area! That's one of my areas that needs to be my greatest focus. I think there's different seasons to focus on different areas where we're lacking.

Mindy: That's part of the beautiful thing about the life coaching. She's going to give you tools to work on those things and encouragement. It's awesome! Since we use high level terms and scientific terms, it's called a symbiotic relationship. Dropping the knowledge! And it's me, dropping my symbiotic relationship.

Cami: Yeah! Well, we absolutely love you. I hope that you reach out to one of us or Nicole with questions. And please, just let us know if you have any questions about becoming a contributing member.

So, as part of your self-care routine – we would love to offer good friendship and community here within Cityfam! We want you guys to all experience that in your own cities no matter what version of quarantine you're in. Make sure to hop on the zoom calls and the CityFam online events. Just knowing that you've got friends, who've got your back, it's a beautiful thing. Please stay connected because we don't want you to miss out!