Meet Megan Meyers, Owner and Director of Expressions Dance Studio

Megan Meyers is a dancer who won national awards with high school team, the Napa High Spiritleaders. In 2002, Megan was crowned Miss Napa County and competed at the state level of the Miss America pageant. She graduated from the UC Berkeley with a Business degree in 2004, and was a cheerleader for the Oakland Raiders' Raiderettes for several years, even representing the Raiderettes at the Pro Bowl in 2007. Today, Megan is the owner and director of Napa's Expressions Dance Studio, which offers dance classes for girls ranging in age from preschool to high school.

1. How did your dance experience and your business experience come together in the founding of Expressions Dance Studio?

I've always had the entrepreneurial spirit. Even as a little girl, I would set up little businesses to provide services for family and friends. Everything from lemonade stands to car washing, house cleaning, and shoe shining services. I fell in love with dancing in high school as a Napa High Spiritleader. The two passions were joined when I was asked to teach dance for an afterschool program. That class was taught on a volunteer basis, but incidentally a local dance school closed down at the same time, and I was asked to start a couple of additional classes for pay. That provided me with my first dozen students and Expressions Dance Studio was born! That was 13 years ago, and it's been an amazing journey ever since.

2. What are some of the benefits of dance class for your students?

There are so many benefits to dance lessons, but the biggest benefit is that dance lessons are such a wonderful way to build up self-esteem and confidence in girls. Dance is taught as a group class, but development and progress of each dancer month by month, year by year is a very personal journey. Nothing builds confidence better than individual progress, growth, and achievement, no matter how big or small. My hope is that all of our students can benefit from dance lessons like I did. I went from being a painfully shy child to a fearless young adult, and I attribute most of that change to my dance lessons. The skills and values I developed in dance class such as persistence, having a positive attitude, learning how to set and reach goals, learning to work with others, and the ability to perform in front of an audience--it all helped me develop self-confidence, and of course that translated into success in all other areas of my life.

3. Would you tell us about what inspired you to develop--and expand--your Princess Ballerina Program?

I was inspired to create a fun and imaginative program for preschoolers. Often times, preschool dance programs are sort of an afterthought for many dance studios, so I saw a need for a quality program that specifically catered to this age group. My full vision for the Princess Ballerina program is pretty exciting. I'm currently developing a book series that will allow us to introduce story, characters, themes, props, and magical adventures into our Princess Ballerina classes. It's been a big project, but I'm very excited to start revealing all of the new themes and stories that will be coming fall 2015. There really is nothing like it currently in the industry. 

4. When starting a dance studio, what made you decide to focus on dance classes for kids?

I personally know the power that dance lessons can have on a young girl. I benefited in high school, but my goal for developing programs for children is to hopefully reach girls from a younger age so they can reap the benefits as early as possible. You're never too young to feel confident in your own abilities!

5. What are some of your favorite things about your job?

Well come on, I mean who wouldn't love to work in a world filled with sparkly costumes, glitter, music, and dancing? I think I was born to own a dance studio. I love everything about it, from the choreographing or picking music and costumes to the behind the scenes planning, staff training, and numbers crunching. I love it all!

Thanks, Megan!

Meet Marcelo Robalinho, Lawyer and Author

Marcelo Robalinho is a lawyer, with a Bachelor's degree from University of São Paulo – Largo do São Francisco, the most prestigious Law College in South America. He also has a Master's degree in Sports Law from University of Neuchâtel, in cooperation with the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES/FIFA). The author of Third-Party Ownership Of Football Players, Marcelo is partner of a Brazilian Law firm "Robalinho Alves Advogados" and partner in "Think Ball & Sports Consulting," one of the biggest football players' agencies in South America and Denmark, with clients around the world.

For more about Marcelo's book, visit this online bookstore, and see the book's Facebook page.

1. For those who may not have heard the term before, what is Third Party Ownership?

In soccer, this term means that one party, or more than one, hold a percentage of economic rights of a football player. The economic rights means the right to receive some percentage of money that club will earn when transferring the player to another club.

2. Why did you decide to write a book about this topic?

To try put more light over the topic.

This topic now creates big discussions in the "football world." The UEFA started one campaign to ban TPO, and some national associations of football (in England, France, etc) already ban TPO. On the other hand, a lot of clubs around the world use the TPO tool to survive and increase their competition level.

It's important to highlight that in transfer of many football stars, the use of TPO was involved; as a few examples, Neymar now in Barcelona; Falcão now in Monaco; Hulk now in Zenit Saint Petesburg; Tevez now in Juventus; etc. This puts the matter of TPO in newspapers every day, and sometimes the journalists write articles which convey big mistakes about the rules. My book attempts to try give more information to everybody.

3. What is your own experience regarding transfer involving TPO?

I worked as a lawyer or adviser in hundreds of transfers involving TPO, sometimes working with the selling part, sometimes with the buying part, and sometimes for the player. I have experience, too, with how to build investment funds in TPO.

4. What are some of the financial demands on football clubs that casual observers aren't aware of?

The casual observers think that the cost of football is only the players' salaries and transfers. This is a big mistake; each day the clubs are forced to improve the front office with specialists in several areas such as lawyers, social media, press, scouting, medicine, etc. The costs add up for the clubs from all sides, and for small and medium clubs it isn't easy to find sponsors and fans to buy products.

The possibility to allow to a third party to buy one share of the economic rights for a player gives small and medium clubs the chance to keep better players, make money and share the risk, because the big majority of players aren't sold.

5. Is your book intended for lawyers, or can all readers understand the subject matter you're covering? In other words, who is your intended audience for your book?

This book was written in easy language, not lawyer "language." One of my targets is to help the market to better understand this tool that is very common in south America and Iberian countries, and with this understanding, TPO could become more easy and allow fast transfers around the world.

I believe that the book can be very helpful to lawyers, journalists, advisors in investment funds, managers of clubs, agents, players, members of football associations and federations, etc. For sure a soccer fan will enjoy the book to understand better what happens with his favorite club.

Thanks, Marcelo!

Introducing BigFREEbets

While online gambling isn't legal the US, it is allowed in the UK, and there's a lot of information out there on gambling on football (soccer) matches.

The website BigFREEbet offers a list of the best online bookmakers with information about odds, promotions, and other relevant factors for those in the UK (and elsewhere that online gambling is legal) who wish to look at different venues for placing bets.

For the different betting venues, you'll find reviews of each site, starting with a summary, then giving information on the requirements for joining the site, the design and features offered by the site, and then ending with an overall recommendation.

In the words of BigFREEbet, "As an online bettor, you are trusting these companies with your money so it's important that they are trustworthy and you feel safe while betting with them. After all, betting is meant to be an enjoyable thing!" The reviews are concise and to the point and will tell you about bonuses, ease of use, and other factors that might add to your enjoyment.

Meet Charles Mahoney, Author of Story of The Ghost

Charles Mahoney is the author of the novel, Story of The Ghost, available 1/15/14 on Amazon Kindle. This is his debut novel, one that has been in the works for 2.5 years. The author has a football background, having played for the University of Arizona. His story incorporates his experience in football with his love for the hero's journey--stories about extraordinary people who need mentors to help them along the way in overcoming their challenges.

1. What inspired you to write Story of The Ghost?

The inspiration is from my own experience when I was in college, playing football at the University of Arizona. Someone came up to me one day and called me "The Ghost." I had never heard that name before and sort of shrugged it off. Years later, I had the thought of what it would be like if someone was "put upon" like that, meaning: what if there were expectations placed upon a person who wanted to achieve a certain goal that were outside of that goal? What if things got out of hand and the person (hero) had to deal with the ramifications of what others thought about him and what he was doing? I used this as a way to build my story from the inside out.

2. Would you tell us a bit about your process of shaping the book, over the course of 2+ years?

I started from a visual sense. A scene was occurring over and over in my head, and I felt stronger each day about what I was feeling--that there was something good enough to write about. So I started to write from where I thought the story should begin. After a year, and maybe 50k words, I started over again, keeping things here and there and trying to write better. I then used flashcards to write my chapters, rather, ideas about them. Then I made note of the characters' world, whether it was my hero, antagonist, or any other. Using the flashcards helped me to spread them out over the floor (literally) and rearrange them according to dates and times. After about two years I was finished with the story, but from that point I had to go through it multiple times to flesh it out. A lot of times I had to delete what I call "long writing" and try and simplify it for the reader. Some of the stuff I thought was so great to begin with I had to cut it out. I wanted mainly to "show" rather than "tell," but some of my beta readers wanted more of that telling aspect, and I ended keeping that in mind as I went through it time and time again.

3. Where does your own experience intersect with that of the novel's main character?

My own experience has to do with playing football. My hero gets involved with the game, and I used a lot of my knowledge to write some unique sequences. I know a lot about the game, and I wrote from a very unique aspect of playing it. What I let my hero do in the novel has never been done before in the game of football--on screen or in a book--and I think it all worked out very original and how I wanted.

4. How does the landscape of Arizona feature in your book?

The desert landscape of Arizona, specifically Southern AZ, is vital to my story. The San Pedro River might even be a character in itself. I created fictional towns here and there and used Sierra Vista and Fort Huachuca for anchor points. Sunsets are important as well in my story since they are so wonderful in Arizona.

5. Now that your debut novel is complete, what project(s) are you working on?

I am looking to be inspired by another story, and I hope to start something soon. SOTG is what I call a "little story with big themes." I don't think I could write something like it again right away. My hope is that I can find another story close to me and bring it to life. And hopefully I can use everything I've learned to write faster than I did!

Thanks, Charles!

A New Blog by Jeff Grimes

Recently retired and making a new start in online business, Jeff Grimes has just begun blogging and asked me to share the link to his site.

Married to his high school sweetheart, Jeff and his wife have three boys and five granddaughters. Jeff describes himself as having been blessed, and he's looking forward to this new chapter in his life. He's always wanted a business of his own, but kids changed that a little. No regrets, though. Jeff is now entering the entrepreneurial world and working toward having a successful internet business.

He grew up in Wisconsin, and his father was a businessman. He and his twin brother always had some type of business going on; Jeff, along with his brother and cousin, worked in all of them growing up.

Jeff says that he'll be blogging about various news items, including national news and sports, as well as some of his everyday encounters. He currently resides in a small bedroom community called The Colony, Texas, just north of Dallas. He enjoys several sports, and he truly enjoys being with his family. He warns that he's a big Green Bay Packer fan, so Bear fans, beware!