Feature Article

Be The Ripple You Want To See In The World

If you spent years building a multi million dollar company would you sell it for £1 (about $1.30)? Probably not, but Sammy Blindell did just that; now she’s living the life that she wanted. Now, I’m sure you’re wondering, “How somebody can basically give away the business she has worked so hard to build?” Let me tell you Sammy’s story, and you’ll understand why she had to do that and why it was the perfect thing for her to do.

Sammy Blindell is the CEO of How To Build A Brand and the Chief Visionary Officer of The Brand Builders Club. She is also the founder of the One Drop Movement. If that wasn’t enough, she is also an award-winning international speaker and best-selling author. So, yeah, she has already accomplished a lot in her life.

You see, Sammy’s an incredibly high achiever who launched her first business in 2002. After 13 years in branding and marketing, she has also built six more companies in the business growth sector. However, after working herself nearly to death for 12 years, she finally got to the point where her health was deteriorating and she was completely burned out.

Sammy explains, “I was done. I was cooked. I remember the doctor pulling me into his little consultant room and saying to me, ‘Ms. Blindell, you have to change what you’re doing. I’ve seen you in here just too often. This has to be the last time because I cannot guarantee that what you are doing to your body is going to be reversible. You have tochange.’ He said it and he got up as if he was going to walk away, but something must have snapped for him because he turned around, sat back down, faced me and he said, ‘You’re free to make your own choices. But you’re not free of the consequences of those choices. You have to change what you’re doing.’”

After that visit to the hospital, Sammy decided to sell the business and call it a day. Her business partner also wanted to step away because of his own health problems, so they decided to give the business to someone who would take good care of it. So on the 30th of September 2013, they sold the company for £1.

After she sold the business, Sammy went through a grieving period. It was really hard for her to let go of something she had built from the ground up. It took a while for her to discover what she wanted to do next; something she really loved. Once she figured that part out, she decided to build this businessaround the life that she wanted.

So in 2014, Sammy launched How To Build A Brand and took it from £0 to £18,000 of monthly revenue in 12 weeks. Then in 2017, she launched The Brand Builders Club, which currently has hundreds of members globally.

Her most recent business, the global movement One Drop, was founded in April 2019 to celebrate the ripple that Changemakers can achieve through collaboration rather than competition. It was a noble idea that Sammy first thought of back in 2002 when she saw a quote by Ryunosuke Satoro that says, “Individually we are One Drop. Together we are the ocean.”

Sammy explains,“When I started my first business back in 2002… I had no experience in business. So I started my business and I go on this business course, and I couldn’t even remember what this (business course) was. It was probably bookkeeping or something that I knew I had to do, and I was going to master this thing. But the first slide on this guy’spresentation had that quote.

I didn’t hear a word this guy said through his entire presentation because all I could think about was, ‘What’s a One Drop then? What does it mean to be a One Drop? And if I were a One Drop, then what would I need to do? So can other people be One Drops? If I’m a One Drop and they’re One Drops, what could we create together?’ I was just in this whole daydreaming thing.

So I made a commitment. I was going to be a One Drop. So I wake up every morning and I do my blessings and my gratitudes, and I ask, ‘Who am I going to be the ripple maker for today? Who is my One Drop? Who can I pay it forward to?’ That’s all I focus on. How can I be that One Drop?”

However, the movement didn’t become a reality until 2018 when Sammy spotted a teardrop pendant browsing an airport crystal shop en route to Los Angeles. She thought it was a perfect representation of One Drop and she bought it immediately. The pendant got a lot of attention wherever she went, and Sammy found herself talking about One Drop whenever people asked her about the pendant.

Then everything came together in January 2019 by accident while she was speaking at an event in Palm Beach.

The person running the event was one of her Brand Builders Club members, and Sammy was there as a guest speaker. Everybody at the event was supposed to make a vision board, but since Sammy was one of the speakers, she thought she didn’t have to participate. She only wrote two words on the blank sheet of paper that was given: “One Drop.” Well, the funny thing was that her friend did ask her to share what she wrote, and what she said that day spurred an entire movement.

Sammy remembers, “I just started talking and I said: I have a dream. If we could create 1 million OneDropreuners, who each contribute $1 a month so that we can invest in ideas that are stillborn because those people that have these amazing worldchanging ideas don’t have the money, they don’t have the mindset, they don’t know the marketing, theydon’t have the map, they just haven’t got a clue how to measure anything. But with the power of our collaborative network, we can stop fighting, start uniting, and we can collaborate instead of compete. I want to live in that world. If no one else is going to create it, One Drop is.

I just came out with this thing. I was glad they recorded it. I didn’t know what came out of my mouth. Luckily, I wasn’t speaking that day because I just walked around in a daze and I had all these people coming to me saying, ‘How do I sign up to it?’ I haven’t created it yet.

It got to the point where all the people at the event were coming up to me and asking me about this. So now I’ve got over 500 people on my list that want a pendant. I’ve got 400 people at this event who want to be part of One Drop, and I said to myself, ‘I’ve got to create something. How do I do this?’”

Sammy couldn’t find the pendants anywhere but her friend had a brilliant idea.

“She said, ‘Didn’t your mom have a glass fusing workshop in France? Can’t she make all these One Drops and you could keep it in the family?’” Ultimately, that’s what happened.

“I called my mum from America. She’s in France. I sent her pictures of this One Drop and I said, ‘Actually, I like this One Drop, but it’s not the rightshape. I want it like this, and when it hits the light it needs to glow. Your whole heart area just needs to light up. And I want everybody to be able to wear this One Drop. Men can have lapel badges, and women can have rings or pendants or whatever, and we can create a whole range of things so that everybody is included.’”

So after 11 months of glass fusing, they managed to create the symbol for the movement that Sammy had in mind, and in November 2019, the first 1,000 pendants were made.

Would you like to be part of this movement? Would you like to inspire change? You can by purchasing a One Drop pendant at

https://onedropmovement.com.

In fact, it will benefit one of our own Success Champions dreams! Thirty percent of the sales from each pendant goes to The Blue Family Fund (BFF) because Sammy and Donnie believe in paying it forward!

BFF is a nonprofit started by Stacey & Michael Magovern that raises funds to support the dependents of law enforcement officers everywhere. The organization provides financial assistance for families of fallen law enforcement officers, and it offers financial support through higher education scholarships for dependents of law enforcement officers. *It should be noted that a dependent must be a senior in high school in order to be eligible.

Fifty percent of proceeds go to Sammy’s mom for making the pendants, and 20% gets reinvested back into the business for future projects.

The One Drop Movement is still in its infancy, but Sammy already has grand plans for the future. Her mission is to turn innovative ideas into reality. That’s what One Drop is all about. It’s about the things that can be achieved if we all work together. It’s the power of collaboration over competition. So, we encourage you to be the ripple you want to see in the world!