For 24 hours I couldn’t process what was going on. I woke to the New York Times app push notification at 6:15 AM, just as my godson woke me up, antsy and unable to stay asleep. He was much too excited about playing with his cousins while he, his dads, and I were on a long-weekend trip out of the city.

I thought, “Jesus Christ, another one.”

But this time the words “gay club” were clearer than the rest in my half-awake, blurry-eyed reading.

Still, I was jaded and cynical, and freely admit that I calculated, “Twenty is a lot. But not that much compared to other shootings.”

I did a quick scan of updates, but there wasn’t enough detail, and so I put it aside because I wanted all the facts before trying to comprehend what happened. Because that’s what you do when you live in a society where mass shootings are the norm. You wait to feel something until you know the magnitude and the meaning. Because really, it’s all just too much. And so I went on with my day, feeling good and happy with people I love. The sun was shining with a cool breeze while my “family of choice” and I horsed around on a lush, grassy field before saying goodbye and going out into our familial diaspora–idyllic really. As my friend put it, I was a New Yorker doing a really good job, “pretending crazy isn’t happening” right in front of me.

During the long car ride home, I did what everyone else was doing, thumbing through my Facebook feed, reading the handful of articles available, along with the commentary on gun control, love, pride, and more than anything, just sadness. I became nauseated and had to stop reading probably due to both motion sickness and emotional butterflies. By the afternoon, I flipped on the TV news networks to see the coverage, and witnessed what can only be described as confusion–mostly confusion about how to cover the attack. It would seem to be the case that the media didn’t know how to cover a topic that was both about terrorism, and about homophobia and violence against LGBT people. We’ve seen them cover both independently, but even the media, with all their analysts, fact checking, producers, etc. couldn’t process the confluence of disparate motives. But I don’t think anyone was all that surprised. I think that even after Newtown, San Bernardino, and Charleston, we knew that any day now another vulnerable group would be targeted, in their sanctuary doing what they’re supposed to be doing, whether learning, praying, volunteering, or in this case dancing and being their truest selves. That day has passed.

The TONY Awards broadcast and the viewing party we hosted proved to be a good distraction, but not for long. During a commercial break, I came across a friend’s Instagram post of Robert Mapplethorpe’s “Two Men Dancing” (1984), and my eyes quickly welled up at the sight of two young men wearing crowns, embracing each other in a dance pose. It’s a close shot, with a dark background, giving the illusion that it’s just them in their own little world. Someone had captioned the image, “For those who just wanted to dance.” And it finally hit me, why it all hurts so much.

For the past 12 hours, what has played in my mind over and over again is one cold night in New York City in January 2003, when I stepped foot for the first time in a gay night club. I was 18 and had just come out. I was attending a retreat with other queer Christian youth, when a handful of the other young gay men and I decided to hit up Heaven, an 18-and-over club in Chelsea (I know, there’s a lot in that sentence that needs unpacking.). I borrowed a pair of Diesel jeans from one of the chaperons and put on a black shirt–the uniform. I’ll never forget that feeling of walking into the room filled with other boys like me, holding hands, dancing, kissing, and being young, wild, and free. It felt euphoric, liberating, and downright fun. It really was heaven. More than anything I felt safe. And to this day, gay clubs are the only place where I and so many other LGBTQ people feel absolutely safe and can be honest to ourselves and others. They’re our sanctuaries. I think we can assume there was at least one LGBTQ person at Pulse who also witnessed the bubble, the sacredness, and the dream come true that I and so many of my friends and allies also experienced in our coming out and youths. Gay clubs are our prom, and we’re the kings and queens.

The numbness ended and the tears finally started flowing nonstop this morning after I received a text message from my college chorale conductor and his wife who have since become close friends. And because they’re older, in a way they are surrogate parents to me. Reading their message only came an hour or so after I saw the final, tragic text message exchange between one victim and his “mommy” while he was trapped in Pulse’s bathroom. I hate to type the word “trigger,” but that’s what my friends’ message was. My mom called not too long ago, whose first words were, “Are you alive?” It came out in a humorous way; we’re not so great at talking about our feelings. But I knew deep down inside she was genuinely worried, and knew it could have been me, or Aaron, or DJ, or Nick, or Jared, or Jack, or Jane, or Shay, or Heather, or Grey, or countless of other young men and women–someone else’s children.

You see, we LGBT people didn’t exactly get to experience our childhoods and teenage years in the way that others did. So we spend our 20s and 30s living that out. To others we are fierce and fearless, young and energetic, strong and courageous. But underneath all that we are still children: always vulnerable and in constant need of safety and protection. And that was not found on Saturday night, nor were they found on December 14, 2012, June 17, 2015, December 2, 2015, and countless other days and nights when all else seemed normal.

On our way back to the city, my friends and I stopped to grab a bag of doughnuts at one of those quaint New England shoppes. As we were pulling out of the driveway, I couldn’t help but notice another man who stared a little too long at our car with no woman in sight. For a moment I thought that I hadn’t felt that fear and suspicion in quite some time. But then I remembered I do every day. It’s just that we who are–unjustly–at the receiving end of violence, discrimination, and hatred condition ourselves to give people the benefit of the doubt, to forgive, and ultimately to love ourselves and one another. But for now, we have been boomeranged back into a place of hyper awareness, vigilance, and vulnerability after the doors to our sanctuaries have been blown away. The history of the gay rights movement, however, tells us that the violation of our sacred space isn’t the end. Like the night of June 28, 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, not only will we reclaim what’s been taken from us, but we will take it to the streets.

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Hire just one military spouse for remote employment and it can save you more than $15,000 each year, according to a telework calculator provided by TeleworkResearchNetwork.com. For the employer these savings are attributed to employee-related overhead costs. This isn’t too good to be true, it’s just not mainstream. My mission is different than my husband’s Army mission. Mine is to change the rules of employee “engagement” and make remote employment mainstream by asking companies to Hire Just One military spouse for remote employment.

Outsourcing is a corporate phenomenon rising with the increased connectivity of our global world and the demands of cutting employee related expenses. Companies frequently produce outsourced services overseas only to be sent back home for the services to be provided over the internet or telephone. This is done to stay competitive in our changing market by integrating technology, collaboration and global mobility to support our 24/7 economy. We are lucky in today’s world in that we are able to harness technology and use it to gain a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, companies aren’t utilizing all the technology and talent at their disposal because the processes aren’t yet mainstream and therefore it takes some time, energy and resources to fill that void. Remote careers reduce employee-related expenses, channel the technological resources at our fingertips and support our 24/7 economy because regardless of geographic location a remote employee is hard at work.

Finding dedicated and talented employees is a major task and keeping those employees is even more challenging. There is a major push within the corporate sector to find new ways to retain employees who share common values. Companies want to go back to the “old days” of retaining employees through their career lifecycle and have spent millions trying to determine what makes an employee stay. Work/life balance is a top contender and more and more people will take a job that pays less if the position is a remote position because it provides greater flexibility. Jonathan Spira, Chief Analyst at Basex, a New York research firm, estimates companies lose more than $650 billion each year due to employee related distractions at work with employees coming in early and staying late to combat the daily distractions. However, companies see increased productivity from remote employees because the distractions are significantly reduced. The solution is clear, hire dedicated and talented employees for remote employment. Companies task entire HR departments to resolve the disconnect, but the cycle still continues. Stopping the cycle and resolving the disconnect is so simple. Companies need to hire just one military spouse for remote employment to realize the difference.

The Military Spouse Employment report of 2014, found that compared to the general public, military spouses have a higher level of education with 35% of military spouses having an undergraduate degree, post-graduate degree or advanced degree. Yet 85% of military spouses are currently seeking employment. Military spouses are unemployed because we live such a transient lifestyle and consequently traditional careers are nearly impossible. Our world of technological advances goes beyond borders and geographic location. Remote careers are the simple solution to military spouse unemployment and a company’s bottom line and retention rate.

There are more than 6 million businesses across America and nearly 1 million active duty military spouses. Companies can still use the outsourcing model to save money, but instead of going overseas to find those remote employees, “insource” and hire America’s Military Spouses. Hire Just One military spouse for remote employment and a company will save more than $15,000 each year. Military spouses are inherently committed to our Nation and loyal to a cause, an absolute benefit for employers worried about retention rates. Stop the revolving door and Hire Just One military spouse for remote employment and embrace the technological advances at your fingertips.

Help me help America’s Military Spouses and Hire Just One.

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As someone who does content marketing, I’m always looking for new tips to learn how to improve my writing and the ROI on these efforts.

I like to pass these lessons on, specifically to the realtors we work with at AgentFire and on our list so that they too can get more out of their real estate websites and content marketing. It’s not easy to build a “tribe.” That’s why I constantly lean on my friends for advice.

As fate would have it, I picked up a friend of mine, Alon Shabo’s eBook the other day.

As I started to read, I realized something. Every sentence made me want to read more. It was like I was hooked.

I knew that Alon was a copywriter… But I never knew how powerful these tactics were. It was like a magnet drawing me in more with every word I read.

From that moment on I knew I wanted to figure out how he was doing it and apply it to my own writing.

Luckily Alon is a friend.

So he said “yes” when I begged him to give me the low-down on how he was controlling me so strongly with just his words. Now I want to pass these lessons onto you. Hopefully you get some value out of them too.

1. Do The Research

“The most important part of copywriting isn’t the writing – it’s the research. Deep, dark research into the hearts and minds of your target customer.” Said Alon

“You need to know things like what their biggest fears and desires are, what motivates them, what keeps them up at night, what kind of books they read, what products they own, and what their daily life looks like.

When you do your research properly, your sales letter pretty much writes itself.”

Alon explained to me that “you must enter the conversation your audience is already having within themselves”. When you do this, you can craft the exact content that will get you get you leads.

Why? It speaks to them directly about their problems AND allows you to position your service as the logical next step.

2. Make Your Content Your Best Stuff

“I would recommend that your free content be some of your best content – as this is what people are judging you on. When your free content is super high value, people wonder to themselves ‘hmmm, I wonder what the paid stuff is like'” Said Alon

“A good piece of content should be high value information (and also have a voice that is unique to the brand — too many people are publishing boring generic stuff — you need to be not be afraid to be as unique as possible)”

Applied to real estate content, this means you need to be leading with juicy ‘secrets’ about the market, how you’re going to sell a home faster than any other realtor etc. Use any information that you can to get your audience hooked.

This leads into the next piece of advice.

3. Create a hook.

“A ‘Hook’ is what draws someone into your content, and leads them all the way to the sale.

Once you understand your readers pain, and describe it better than he could… trust is established. You can consider the reader “hooked” into reading the rest of your content.

From there, you want to trigger more positive emotions, using the hopes, aspirations, and motivations of your reader.

With this, you can move into painting the picture of your services’ benefits, and how much better your service will make the life of your reader“

If you were targeting FSBO’s for example, you may sympathize with the fact that “most realtors don’t know what they’re doing.” Or don’t know how to sell a house.

Using this connection, you can build trust and hook them with your content about why they SHOULD use your services, and why you won’t fail them like their last realtor did.

4. Make a call to action.

“Each piece of content should have a relevant call to action, which is the next logical step for your reader.”

If your article was about selling a home for top dollar, you could offer a downloadable checklist that homeowners must follow to ensure they maximize their listing price potential. This will ensure you generate a targeted lead, build more goodwill and create an excuse for follow-up.

You can also go the route of simply asking that the homeowner get in touch with you.

Simple stuff right?

In Conclusion

As a person who basically writes for a living… this is powerful stuff.

You can have the world’s best product or service, but if you can’t communicate your ideas properly, you have nothing.

The ability to produce attention grabbing, desire building, and persuasive sales writing is a critical element of starting (and scaling) any business. And that’s exactly what I learned from this interview with Alon.

You can grab the eBook that inspired this article on his website at AlonShabo.com.

It’s called “Write Well and Seduce Profitably” and will show you exactly what goes behind powerful and persuasive sales writing (with real world examples).

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While floral robe-clad bridesmaids are busy getting their make-up and hair done, the groomsmen are usually up to all kinds of silly antics.

See what goes on behind the scenes in the photos below.

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When the names of the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando were read this week at press conferences, vigils and on news broadcasts across the world, it became clear just how profoundly the tragedy had affected the Latino community in particular.

Latino community leaders report a staggering 90 percent of the 49 people killed were Latino or of Latino descent; of those, 23 were Puerto Rican. At least three of the victims, two of whom survived, are undocumented.

While much has been done to raise money for medical and domestic travel expenses in the wake of Sunday’s tragedy, many of the Latino survivors and victims’ families continue to face a mounting number of unique challenges, such as dealing with language barriers, obtaining visas and organizing repatriation logistics for the deceased. 

In the hours following the shooting, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Metro Orlando received a request from the city of Orlando to recruit bilingual certified translators and licensed mental health professionals. “We put out that call to our community and were inundated with the response. We were getting an email every second,” Diana Bolívar, the chamber’s president, told The Huffington Post.

Still, Bolívar notes, many other immediate needs loomed large — particularly for legal, medical and financial assistance. 

Enter Somos Orlando, a coalition of nonprofits with an accompanying bilingual website launched by the Hispanic Federation to help Latino victims find legal, medical and mental health resources in their own language. The services provided by the volunteer mental health and legal professionals through Somos Orlando are especially invaluable, as undocumented survivors are not eligible for state programs beyond emergency care.

Similarly, Equality Florida is working to connect survi and their families with resources that may help mitigate or offset the financial burden of medical bills, legal fees, travel costs and the cost of ongoing care to survivors and victims’ families. They initiated the primary donor fund, which has now raised more that $4 million.

“Every penny of that is going to the families,” Cindy Brown, the Miami development officer at Equality Florida, explained in an interview with The Huffington Post. “That fund will be facilitated with a series of lawyers with the National Center for Victims of Crime in order to specifically address things like travel, burial costs, ongoing medical expenses, mental health treatment for not only people who were shot, but people whose friends died in front of them. There are a lot of needs that are known now and there are even more for years to come.”

Those needs include things like ongoing physical therapy and counseling for PTSD.

Then there are pressing legal and immigration needs. In the days since the massacre at Pulse, Sasha Westerman-Keuning, P.A.,co-chair of the LGBTQ Affairs Committee for the South Florida Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, says she’s already received inquiries for legal assistance for family members of victims who are non-U.S. citizens. Some of them need tourist visas or humanitarian parole documents to enter the U.S. to see loved ones in the hospital, or to travel to make burial or transportation arrangements.

Westerman-Keuning says the committee also wants to make sure undocumented survivors of the attack qualify for “certain types of immigration relief.” For example, some might need asylum if they’ve been outed to family back home and it would be too dangerous to return; others might qualify for widow or widower benefits if their immigration status is based on marriage to a citizen; still others might qualify for U visa status as victims of a serious crime in the United States.

“We want to ensure that all victims and their families receive the highest quality legal service from qualified immigration attorneys,” Westerman-Keuning said. “This is our small way of being able to give back to the community and support of LBGT brothers and sisters as well as their families in this dire time of need.”

For more information on the resources available to survivors and victims’ families, visit the website of SomosOrlando and Equality Florida’s Pulse page.

Donate to Orlando here:

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