Listen to the smooth vocals sung by the very talented MarcLo.

This is Lotus Hill's performance at the WOW Center in Miami. 

"The goal of The WOW Center is to provide quality programs and support to individuals with developmental disabilities in order for them to lead meaningful and productive lives, explore their potential, develop a sense of community and pursue independence and jobs if able."
This performance was apart of WOW Que Musica's short music series presented by "Love Hope" and "Itawe" from the band Locos Por Juana to bring awareness to developmental disabilities. 

Love Hope's mission is "To create a bridge between the love of fashion and self-expression, and the hope of social consciousness."

“It is not true that nice guys finish last. Nice guys are winners before the game ever starts.” – Addison Walker

This past week I sent an e-mail to a friend. I thanked him for helping me over the years and being a significant factor in Becoming Minimalist’s success. He wrote back, “If I have helped you succeed, I am happy.” It was a short e-mail response, but it communicated an important truth: Our greatest successes in life are often found in helping others succeed.Our most lasting and fulfilling achievements are often earned by helping others fulfill theirs.

This is foreign thinking to a culture that often sees the world as one giant competition. In their mind, there is a set number of winners and losers. And if somebody else wins, that’s one less opportunity for me. But I have come to realize the mindset of competition is based on a faulty premise. It assumes there is a finite sized pie – that one more success in another’s life equals one less success in mine. But quite frankly, this thinking is incorrect.

​There is wonderful freedom and grace in realizing the size of the pie is not finite – that in reality, the pie keeps growing. Another’s success does not mean I have less opportunity. In fact, another’s success can actually be my success if I had opportunity to enable, encourage, and promote them along the way!

There’s tons of tutorials out there on how to curl your hair, but we are here to give you the complete guide in super simple steps. Once you know the different looks you can create with a curling wand, curling your hair is actually pretty simple. Check out the four ways you can curl your hair.

But first….

What is a curling wand and how is it different from a traditional curling iron?

Curling Iron vs. Curling Wand
A curling iron features a lever-like clip that helps to hold your hair in place when curling. A curling wand has no clip, and instead is just a barrel which you wrap your hair around. An iron will give more of a polished and neat curl, whilst a wand often gives more of a relaxed, messier and looser looking curl. We prefer curling wands because they are often easier to use and very versatile.

​How To Prepare Your Hair
Before we get to it, it is important that you are aware of how your hair needs to be before you go straight into curling it:

Listen to the amazing lyrics by Tobe Nwigwe, then watch the dope visuals that accompany it. Hip Hop has a new star!

With so many health "experts" and new documentaries *cough "What the Health" cough* speaking on nutrition, I get lost in the sea of it. I try my hardest to pick and choose which ones that seem to be valid, but they all seem to contradict each other. I thought maybe the young and powerful entrepreneur, Kasey Render, of Family Dreams Fitness (FDF), might be able to guide me to a better understanding. His knowledge of what it takes to be healthy is portrayed through his many clients. Listen to Kasey explain how, fitness only scratches the surface, on what FDF does and plans on doing. ​

Crystal therapy is an alternative medicine technique that involves the application of crystals or gemstone to facilitate healing. Amethyst is one of them. It is a violet variety of quartz that contains iron and other minerals within its structure. It has been often used in jewelry because of its hardness and stability. It is the birthstone for February and known as the zodiac stone for Pisces. The crystal has been used for a variety of health condition throughout the ages. The Amethyst gained its name from the ancient Greek word meaning “Ametusthos”, meaning “not intoxicated”. The ancient Greeks wore amethyst and carved drinking vessels from it, in the belief that it would prevent intoxication. While medieval European soldiers wore it as protection in battle, believing that Amethyst heals people and keep them cool-headed.

Spiritual Benefits of Amethyst
Amethyst is also known as one of the great problem solver stone, and it offers plenty of spiritual benefits. Listed below are some of them:

Encouragement. It sounds like such a small thing. Subtle. Cute. It’s what we do with timid kittens.

But encouragement isn’t cute—it’s fraught and powerful. When you’re encouraging, you’re instilling courage. That’s huge. And that’s hard. And it’s way more compelling than motivation.

Motivation doesn’t depend on circumstances. Motivation is for people who are already inclined to try to succeed.

​The commencement addresses that go viral are always more encouraging than they are motivational. The speakers recognize a specific concern—like needing to get a job or facing an uncertain future—and discuss ways it can be overcome. They don’t offer some vague challenge like “surmounting an obstacle” or “seizing upon your dreams” or “surmounting your dreams by seizing upon an obstacle” or whatever the current motivational clichés are. Do these addresses involve motivation? Yes. Are they “motivational” in that unctuous way that motivational things are? No. Commencement addresses make listeners accountable. Encouragement inherently involves accountability—and not just for the one being encouraged. The encourager is accountable, too.