The most amazing four days of my life since Kyra was taken started out with me being in the bathroom at the worst possible time … and ended with Tony Robbins bowing to me in front of thousands. You just can’t make this stuff up! I want to share with you what happened to me and Kyra at Business Mastery last week.
Business Mastery is one the seminars Tony Robbins offers for high-achievers who want to employ leading and cutting-edge practices at their companies. At the seminar, everyone is broken up into teams for the “Team Challenge.” The rules are simple: Your team is to provide value to those in the room while also helping the outside world.
When Tony made the announcement to get into teams of eight people for the team challenge, I was in the bathroom. When I got back to my row, the people I had gotten to know earlier that day had already formed a team. So, I moved a few rows ahead and joined a team with folks who were, for all purposes, strangers.
Until they heard about Kyra.
Kyra’s story inspired them to take action. I found out later, moments before I joined their team, that they were debating if they were going to go all in with the challenge, as it requires a lot of work, time, and effort. Everything has to be done before and after 15+ hour days of lectures. It’s a serious commitment and endeavor to take on. And there were 328 teams forming in the room at that very moment.
When I approached my team, they had just broached the subject of which charity to potentially work with…and I immediately chimed in with Kyra’s story, and about how I wanted to help change a badly broken family/divorce court system. In an instant, Kyra had a team behind her. They were all in.
To be successful, our team leader told us that we needed to build critical mass quickly – to merge with another team and find more team members. So, I put up a post on the internal network page telling Kyra’s story asking if anyone wanted to join our team.
By Day 2, we had joined forces with team Soul Glow. Soul Glow was started by a Tony Robbins veteran who is known for hosting pre-event mixers for charity with a neon color theme. We were drawn together by their dynamic energy and their wish to create a positive experience for everyone in the room. This was something Kyra embodied during her too-short life. To Kyra, a stranger was just someone she hadn’t met yet. Kyra was always smiling and giggling and engaging with everyone around her. It was the perfect fit.
We got decked out in neon construction vests and garb and made it our mission to create a positive energy in the room. We formed receiving lines and high-fived everyone when they entered the room. We were the first up to dance – something you do often at a Tony Robbins seminar – and the last to sit down. Every night, Kyra requested “moo-sic” so she could dance around the room. I know if she had been there, she would have been giggling, dancing, and having so much fun. It felt like part of her was with us.
And, Kyra’s story, coupled with Soul Glow’s energy, began to attract an army. Three men who were seated behind me and saw my post asked to join us, and very quickly we had many others on our team. By Day 3, we had a team of more than 35 people who wanted to help.
We had morning and evening meetings and side meetings during breaks. I would talk about Kyra and tell new recruits what happened to my sweet baby girl, how the family/divorce court system failed her and so many other children, and how she was taken far too soon. Someone would always cry, and others would linger behind to tell me that they, too, were victims. Some were Moms, some were Dads, and a number were former children who had been court-ordered to be in a home with an abusive parent. And, they would tell me of the hell they needlessly endured.
Kyra’s story inspired others to do more, to be more, and to take more action. People were happy to help – which was wonderful, because we had a ton of raffle tickets to sell to raise money. The prizes involved winning meetings with top business titans – all of whom are friends, knew Kyra when she was alive, and were happy to help us raise money for her charity.
People from other teams also wanted to help out. My roommate only learned about Kyra a few days before the event. She convinced her team, Team BOOM!, which created an awesome photo booth for team pictures, to donate all their proceeds to the Kyra Franchetti Foundation. I was truly touched.
Kyra also inspired other teams. Wild Wons, who were raising money to send cancer patients to Tony’s Unleash the Power Within, offered me one of the spots to give to a Mom, Dad or child who had been hurt by our family/divorce court system. They have since pledged to give us 20 spots next year.
I would get messages at all hours, asking if other Business Mastery participants could join our team. And, the answer was always YES!
One morning, a woman who had just joined our team told me she was the “AirBnB of digital billboards.” If I wanted, we could have Kyra on billboards from coast to coast. I called my graphics partner, who was a Godsend that week, and he designed the billboard. I was in tears the first time I saw the picture of my sweet baby girl shining up in the sky. I just know she was looking down from heaven and smiling.
By the final day, we had attracted more than 90 people to team Soul Glow. We ran out of construction vests and neon shirts, and at one point someone asked me how many members we had, and I said I had lost count.
And then it came time for Tony to announce the winner. Team Soul Glow won! All 90+ of us went on stage. I got to talk about Kyra and the Foundation in front of 2,500 people from 30+ countries. While I was speaking about Kyra, the audience started to sign hearts. We all became one team for a moment in time.
At the end, Tony gave the “original 8” team members trophies. In a “wow” moment for me, Tony bowed as he presented me with my trophy. A true honor for a Momma who misses her baby girl every second of every day.
If you want to help us, let’s get our team of 90+ people to grow even bigger and have even more of an impact. You can help us by doing any or all of the following:
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- Join us and volunteer to be part of our team – Sign up here.
- Like and share our pages on Facebook and Twitter – let’s get us to 4,000 followers and really build Kyra’s army.
- Donations can lovingly be made here: KyraFranchetti.org
Thanks to the incredible people at Business Mastery, we were able to capture Kyra’s love for life, her ability to connect with people, and her joy at making people laugh and smile. While hate took her life far too soon, love is what has brought her spirit back for us all to embrace and share.
No one at Business Mastery will look at a neon construction vests the same way. I like to look at is as though we are paving the way for change in Kyra’s memory.
To my Soul Glow teammates – I love you, I thank you, and I honor you. I am forever grateful for your love, your determination, your resourcefulness, and your drive. Special thanks to Mark Bentz and Christian Pluma, our team co-captains, and to Cherilyn Jones, creator of Soul Glow. I’m especially thankful for the way you’ve shown the world that anything is possible!
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