1. Help Your Garden Grow: Bananas are naturally high in potassium and encourages plant growth. Use banana peel or puree entire banana and bury with soil.
2. Shoe Polish: Use the peel to make your kicks nice and shiny.
3. Stop the Itch: Rub the inside of a banana peel on a bug bite helps itch relief.
4. Pain Reliever: The oil in a banana peel will help relieve the pain from (sun)burns and scratches.
5. Wart Removal: Tape a piece of banana peel on a wart, continue until it’s gone.
6. Make Houseplants Gleam: Just like peels can shine shoes, they can also be used to make the leaves of plants shine.
7. Removing Splinters: Similar to wart removal, tape a piece of the peel over the splinter. The enzymes will help dislodge the splinter and heal the wound.

Of course, I did some extra research and found a couple of extra Genius Shortcuts for reusing bananas:

8. Tender Chicken: Bake skinless chicken breast with a banana peel over the top. It replaces the skin and keep your chicken more tender.
9. Teeth Whitener: Rub your teeth with a banana peel for 2 minutes daily.
10. Face mask: Mash up a banana and put it as a mask on your face for 20 minutes. Works even better with yogurt and honey added.

So, now you know everything you need to Go Bananas!

Sources:  re-nest, curbly

So, I thought about creating a special Genius Shortcut about bananas. By the way, do you know the difference between a monkey and a human? No, then watch this video…

Enjoy every day and let’s go bananas

By the way, did you know that Go Bananas was voted as the number 1 charity at Computer Support? Fantastic!

Besides this great news, I  would like congratulate Computer Support with their 30th Anniversary last week! I don’t know a lot of IT companies, specializing in bespoke administrative software solutions, who exist this long! Well done!

Oh, and did I mention that we have won 200 € with Quizt’t, a radio quiz on Radio 2 at Easter? Yes we did!

I am so grateful that we can help so many children and give them a chance for living a “real” life. Do you want to contribute too and do good for others? Get in touch now!

Let’s all Go Bananas,

Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker & Life Coach

- Voltaire -

Wise words from François-Marie Arouet, also known as Voltaire. Initially this quote was about how ministers should rule France. Today, I use it to inspire friends and clients to contribute to good causes. Being honest, I also apply it to myself. What can we do today to do good for someone else? It may be something big or small. What good did you do lately? What’s your excuse for not doing it everyday?

I am dedicating a percentage of my time to charities, like “Go Bananas“. On top of that I am giving away a percentage of my profit to local charities of the countries I visit to deliver speeches, trainings or seminars. For my trip to New Zealand, I am talking to volunteers of a Maori village. I’ll visit them and besides providing resources will discuss with my team what we can do to help them even more.  Get in touch if you want to contribute too

Of course, it’s easy to give away when you have plenty, but even when you have little it’s important to do good and help others too, even if that means sharing with others. A lot of people have excuses for not sharing with the needed. This is where my quote fits in : “By letting go and through effective giving, we get whatever we want”.

The thing is, can you afford not to give to others? What happens if you don’t do your part? What impact does it have on their lives? Did I tell you not to take yourself so seriously?

So, instead of focusing on myself, I now look at what it is I can do to help others. Not just by giving absurdly, but also by always looking for doing things better, so there is more to give away. If I settle for mediocracy, I am guilty of not creating enough wealth and good for others, denying them of a better life. By stepping up and playing my game at a higher level, the world becomes a better place. Everyone can make a difference! The question is: are you up for it? Or are you guilty?

Give absurdly, start today,

Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker & Life Coach

In 2008 I have dedicated about 10% of my time to contribute to these initiatives.

Our main charity projects is Go Bananas. Our goal was to find a way to help Kevin Allen, the Banana Man, with his amazing goal of providing 1,000,000 meals for the forgotten orphans in Zululand, South Africa. We decided to step up and set ourselves an ambitious goal of 10%, which is a whopping 100,000 meals.

As most of you already know we created a challenge for ourselves to walk 100 km (60 miles) in 1 day. Supporters could sponsor us for every km we walked. We also found a number of corporate sponsors and presented several banana deals.

With additional help and events, we received more money. We finally calculated the new total and we are so happy!

We gave € 6,417 to Banana Appeal in total!

This means that we surpassed our ambitious goal and more children will be fed thanks to all our sponsors and supporters. This eye-wathering result made us realize how great we have it in our own life. Not only do we have a roof over our head, but also plenty of food, drinks and even a car. We go on holidays and enjoy time with friends and family. I feel so grateful every day! Do you too?

Coming back to Go Bananas, we enrolled to participate in a radio quiz Quizt’t on Radio 2. This Thursday 26th March, we’ll be headed to the studios in Ghent with several supporters. So, if you are willing to support us, you are most welcome to join us too! We need at least 20 supporters! Mail me and I’ll send you the details. The winner of the quiz takes € 1,000, which would be a great start for 2009!

Of course, we are still accepting gifts for Go Bananas as well. This year will be a special year and I’ll be back with updates and plans for 2009 later.

In the meantime, think about your own actions to step up and give back to society and charities. Now would be a great time to take that extra step! And if you can’t choose which one, give me a call, we always welcome extra support for Go Bananas!

Have a great week,

Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker & Life Coach

Weersverwachting is redelijk veel regen, maar morgen beter, afwisselend bewolkt en zon, locale buien…We zien wel!

We zijn goed voorbereid. Ons team staat klaar om ons te ondersteunen, maar tegelijkertijd ook Bananenbier, Go Bananas pennen, Banana Guards en het boek van Kevin “Banana Man” Allen te verkopen aan supporters en voorbijgangers. Online bestellen kan uiteraard ook!

Volg ons online via de website van de Dodentocht. Bert is nummer 4379 en Tonia is nummer 4378.Je kan ook bellen naar het nummer 03 889 35 45. Liefhebbers van SMS kunnen zich inschrijven door een bericht te sturen naar 3507 met de boodschap NL4379 om Bert te volgen of NL4378 voor Tonia.

We gaan ervoor…see you at the finish

Let’s Go Bananas,

Bert & Tonia

He bought all the fruits from local merchants and started to feed the children, who nicknamed him the Banana Man. Once back in the UK he took on a second job to continue his contribution to save as much children he could. He started a charity and I felt like stepping up and give Kevin a hand with his big yellow mission

Let's Go Bananas and save a life!

So, Tonia and I will participate at the Dodentocht (“March of Death”) on the 8th-9th of August in order to raise money for Banana Appeal, Kevin’s charity. Many people think we are nuts taking on a challenge of walking 100km in 24 hours, so that’s why we created a special website called Go Bananas! Let’s go bananas and save a life!

Our goal with Go Bananas is to raise money for 100,000 meals! Impressive, but if you know that Banana Appeal needs a mere 0.07 Euro to feed a child for 1 day, what’s keeping YOU from stepping up as well? Donate money today to this charity and also buy Kevin’s book, a unique Go Bananas ballpoint pen, a Banana Guard or taste our Award winning, genuine Banana Beer!

With just € 0,07 Banana Appeal can

1. Feed a hungry child fresh fruit for a day at school.
2. Help them gain an important education, as they attend school to receive the food.
3. This provides the children with a more stable environment at school.
4. Being fed regularly brings the children away from begging or prostitution.
5. This helps stop the children from contracting AIDS from infected adults.
6. This has a positive impact on the children’s mental and physical health.
7. Combined this gives the children hope of a better future.
8. It also provides many of the parents dying of AIDS a little comfort that their children won’t be left alone to fall into a cycle of poverty and abuse – but be fed, educated and looked after, once they have passed away.
9. The project also provides much needed trade to the local fruit sellers.
10. All whilst uplifting the spirits of an entire community.

Check out the website and start contributing NOW! For as little as 0.07 Euro (also £ and $ will work just fine!) you can help one child for at least 1 day. So, start giving and contribute to a really great cause…

Thanks for helping out the forgotten children in Zululand! For them it really makes a big difference…

Thanks for your support,

Bert Verdonck
Create, Connect & Contribute

Zoals je weet, doen we mee om het GoBananas-project te steunen. Kevin Allen, alias de Banana Man, heeft dringend ondersteuning nodig. Vele AIDS wezen in Zululand, Zuid-Afrika zitten zonder opvang en sterven uitgehongerd. Lees er hier meer over…

Help ons om de Banana Man te steunen, zodat hij de vergeten kinderen van Zuid-Afrika kan helpen!

Ik heb gisteren ook een speciale Banana Deals-pagina gecreëerd. Verschillende sponsors doen extra moeite om ons te steunen. Geniet vandaag nog van hun uitzonderlijke kortingen!

Let’s Go Bananas,

Bert Verdonck
Create, Connect & Contribute

Hoe ver zou jij gaan om een kind te redden?
De meesten onder ons zouden tot het einde van de wereld gaan én terug om een geliefde te redden.
Maar hoe ver zou JIJ gaan om een wanhopig kind te redden?

Wij stappen alvast 100km voor de Banana Man! Doe zoals onze huidige sponsors en doneer een bedrag per afgelegde kilometer. Gewoon een bedrag naar keuze storten mag uiteraard ook!

Vandaag werd de nieuwe website van Go Bananas gelanceerd. Binnenkort volgen nog updates…

Stay tuned,

Bert Verdonck
Create, Connect & Contribute