Day Off = Time to Reflect, Rest, & Sea-Doo

Hi this is Ryan Gill... and this is my first Blogging experience. Exciting stuff!! haha..

Well this is year 3 for me with the Suitcase Interactive team and our initiative Project Smile (www.projectsmile.ca), and the 6th year I have had the priviledge personally to be here to help the poor and impoverished children of Mexico.

As some of you may know, our company has grown considerably in 2007. This has been an amazing ride, and one of the big benifits, besides the obvious benfits of being part of a dynamic growing company, is that with a bigger team this year we are able to accomplish so much more. Triple the amount of work can be done in the same amount of time. The people we are helping down here couldn´t be more happy. We are getting so much done.

As a leadership team we couldn´t be more excited to have such a great bunch of people to work with at Suitcase Interactive, and each of our staff are showing their true colors and it makes me emotional at times to see everyone being so kind spirited and helping these children out with such authenticity. Working long hours but still taking the time to just sit and hang out with the children. It`s quite touching. They just want to help these kids, and they just want to see them *SMILE*

For those that know me well, you know that I like to reminiss. I often get jeered by my good friends because I am always looking back and remembering the good times... its kinda funny when they bug me. But with my friends and business partners Trent, and Joel I really like to think about the stuff we have done, and how that has had an affect on what we are doing now.... And today was one of those days. We had our first day off, and I got to thinking about the early days of Suitcase Interactive, and our beginnings. We said when we started our company, we wanted to make a difference, and that one day we would do something really cool for this world. Hence Project Smile was born out of Suitcase Interactive and we are doing something so cool... and I am so happy to be a part of it!!

I was talking to a tourist here last night and he made an off the cuff comment to me that got me thinking. He said..."it must be great to be rich, so you can do the stuff you are doing"... it kinda made me laugh. None of us down here consider ourselves be "rich".. So...to that comment I thought, there may be some people that think that our group is generous because we are rich. Which probably isn´t the case... however you could make a strong arguement that we are rich compared to the people that we are helping, I think the clear truth is that we are rich because we are generous!

I love being generous. It brings me such contentment, and affects every part of my life in such a positive way. Business, social, spritual, and my personal well being.. It does more for me than making me feel good (the warm fuzzies), its who I am, when i am generous i know i am being everything I was created to be. Some people are born to make people laugh, others are here to counsel people going thru tough times, and those acts are absolutely amazing... but my mission in life is to be generous, and thats why Project Smile was born and thats why we are here, to do my best to live out that personal mission.... and I know my business partners share that same feeling. To be generous to those that have nothing, to give of our time, money and serve the people of Mazatlan. It´s really great!

Like the well know pebble story, where the little stone is dropped in still waters, I feel generosity generates ever-expanding ripples of benefit that move over many layers of society. It produces a virtuous cycle of self-reinforcing benefits. I hope Project Smile impacts you in a way that will encourage you towards action. Be generous, in your way, and see the differnence it can make.

To those reading this blog...Thanks for all your support and for following our team on this journey! Thanks to the team from your leadership. This is "our" trip... and together we are making a difference.