Very interesting position for someone like Doug DeVos however I’m not surprised due to the huge success and wealth of experience he has.  What’s even cooler is the quote by the National Constitution Centre President and CEO David Eisner; “Amway exemplifies good corporate citizenship, and the company’s core values of freedom and opportunity are strongly aligned with the Center’s mission of illuminating constitutional ideals and inspiring civic engagement."

I don’t know many companies that truly live by that statement.

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2012/02/learn_which_devos_now_heads_th.html

I’m not going to go over the whole report, you can do that here.  What you’ll be shocked to learn is overall TV viewership has increased 22 minutes per month per person over the last year.  The highest quintile is clocking in nearly TEN hours per day!  The newest trend that is starting to take note is streaming video online and this too is measured since more and more people are doing that.

You’ll see on the above report the highest quintile in 2011 Q1 is 598 average daily minutes for 2+ people.  Divide that by 30 days and divide that by 2 and you get the nearly 10 hours per day they are talking about.  The report is quite interesting however the overall summary on time spent watching TV is that people spend a lot of time doing it!

Those who say they are to busy for the gym, to busy to hang out, to busy to change things about their life, to busy to read, to busy to cook/eat healthy, to busy to involve their kids in other activities or join them in activities, to busy to clean, to busy to walk the dog/take are of animals, to busy for your spouse/date night, and the list goes on and on.  People use this wimpy excuse of “I’m to busy” and for the most of us that’s a crock of you know what.

If you’ve ever said your to busy for whatever, check your TV watching habit and I’ll bet you you can cut out just a few hours a night or even a week and you’ll have more time on your hands for those things that are more important than the boob tube. 

Lets do a little math for fun…(I’ll round down to 9 hours and keep that constant)

• 9 Hours a day x 7 days a week = 63 Hours a week of TV
• 63 Hours a week x 52 weeks in a year = 3,276 hours of TV a year
• 3,276 hours divide by 24 hours = 136.5 days of TV watching
• 136.5 days x 10 years (10 years is within that demographic range) = 1,365 days of TV watching
• 1,365 days of TV watching divide by 365 days = 3.74 years of TV watching in 10 years.

Now that is pretty damn scary when you get down to how many years of TV watching are in 10 years.  Something to think about, however no matter how slice and dice the numbers, people are watching WAY to much TV.

This is a major milestone for Artistry I think as it unites the brand across the world.  Artistry is already one of the top 5 prestigious brands and this helps put that recognition in line with other major players advertising.  This along with the recent Miss America 2012 winner Laura Kaeppeler has Artistry very busy at the start of 2012!

Amway Insider quoted Teresa by saying “I’m delighted to work with a brand like ARTISTRY that provides independence to so many women around the world, and does so with amazing products that help us look good and feel good about ourselves,”

Here is a a video introducing Teresa for Artistry.

The word is continually getting out there and receiving huge press for Fulton Innovation’s wireless charging.  Talking with the guys at work this is something we will definitely look at as soon as it hits mainstream.  A lot of people at work have multiple devices and constantly come to the Help Desk looking for replacement cords and extra charging blocks, etc…  Having this technology built into every day life would make things so much simpler.  It’s probably still a few years away however as stated in this video below, the foundation is making it’s way into our LTE devices right now.

http://www.fox17online.com/videogallery/67482758/News/Fulton-Innovation—1.19.12

The article talks about a few different rules that have been passed down by the generation before us.  The older generation that used to think the following:

1. Finish school, get a job, get married, have children, and buy a house as quickly as possible. Delay saving for retirement until your 50s.

2. Buy the biggest house you can afford. Have a big family and pay of your mortgage fast.

3. Find a steady job with a good pension and don’t worry about investing for retirement. Stay there for 35 years and retire with a guaranteed monthly income.

I love all of these because I see so many people doing exactly that.  While some people are starting to save earlier, most are spending it and their credit like they are drunken sailors.  The second one is so especially true because it also ties in with status and buying that huge house, although nobody is paying it off fast. They get the largest mortgage they can with the lowest payments, only to find themselves in deep doo doo when they renew and the interest rates have gone up. Say bye bye house.  Lastly the third one, there is no such thing as a steady job, job security is dead.  I’ve seen it first hand where I work and if anyone actually pays attention to the news or where they work they’d understand that as well.  Gone are the days where people work 20-30-40 years at one job.

So what are the new rules according to this news article?

1. Recognize that life unfolds differently now. If you have no home or family and spend your way through your 20s, saving for retirement will take longer.

2. Consider whether – and  when – home ownership makes financial sense. Think about buying a smaller house or renting until you have a big down-payment.

3. Recognize that you are in the driver’s seat. If you don’t have a job with a secure pension, you have to make sure you plan and save for your retirement.

A lot of these make simple sense yet sometimes people cannot wrap their heads around it or they are counselling with their parents on the old style rules which is only causing people to fail in life.  Now this doesn’t apply to everyone however if you’ve been keeping up with the news you’ll see that debt to income ratio is at an all time high of 153%.  One positive note is credit debt is finally slowing down, but its taken a very long time for that to happen. 

The key to this story is right here “recognize you are in the driver’s seat”. That is why so many people are looking for other opportunities outside of their full time job.  That is why so many people are looking at an opportunity like Amway or other Network Marketing Opportunities.  That’s why when I talk to some people they are already involved in something else part time outside of their job be it another job, Network Marketing, Home Business, or starting their own traditional business.  Amway North America and Network Marketing is growing and that trend isn’t stopping despite what you may read elsewhere.  It’s growing so much they are actually teaching it in College now.

So get in the drivers seat and take control of your finances, stop relying on the government or your job to take care of you because they won’t.

For a hockey player, they too are fanatical or have to be in order to make the World Jr. teams.  It requires a lot of dedication and time away from friends and family.  It means a missed Christmas and New Years for those kids who without a doubt would give that up to play on a world stage like the World Jr.s  I remember that like it was yesterday, the practices multiple times a week (early morning and late night), the games, the travel all over the province(s), the many broken sticks, and on and on.  I enjoyed it and sometimes look back and miss it, I miss that competitiveness and that devotion to the sport of hockey.  I gave up a lot during my childhood to play hockey and so did my parents, but it was something I’d never give up as it built my character and leadership qualities that I have today.

My brother and I playing on the same team back in Midget AA.

A very rare photo. I’m on the left as Captain and my brother is on the right.

So what is the definition of fanatical and why am I talking about it?   Fanatical is the adjective of Fanatic and Fanatic is “marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion”. A synonym of Fanatic suggest excessive or overweening devotion to a cause or belief. Devotion is exactly what I applied to hockey and for me it was excessive.  I ate, slept, played hockey for my whole childhood.  You have to be in order to play the level of hockey that I did when growing up.

Being fanatical about Hockey or any other sport is great and wildly accepted.  People don’t look at you funny or criticize you for that at all because that is accepted by society.  However if you turn that fanatical behaviour to your life, dreams, goals, personal growth, finances, etc… your looked upon with scepticism and considered to be weird.  Why is that?  Being fanatical about the possibilities of things you can accomplish in life should be celebrated and not looked down on.  If more people actually cared about things that really matter instead of things that don’t matter and don’t move our lives forward we’d be a lot better off.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love watching hockey and some sports however I won’t put those ahead of my family or things of more significance.  They help release some of the stress of life and is a form of entertainment.  Its just a matter of putting things in check and saying to yourself what’s more of a priority.  You need to figure that out for yourself, I cannot and will not tell people what those priorities should be. 

Its time people start being more fanatical about their lives instead of other peoples lives (Survivor, Jersey Shore, Saskatchewan Rough Riders, etc..) Again to each their own, but something to think about.

Tonight is the Miss America 2012 pageant which Artistry from Amway is a huge part of.  The Miss America Organization is the world’s largest provider of scholarship assistance for young women.  The Artistry brand is the exclusive skincare and cosmetics provider for Miss America.  Giving back to such a large organization and providing scholarships for these young women is quite an awesome thing. 

Teresa Scanlan has been the official spokesperson of Amway and Artistry where she has brought even more recognition to a great brand of skin care around the world.  She reflects on her year in the below video.

Check below for some behind the scenes videos from Day’s 1, 2, and 3.  I didn’t know they did all this work days before the actual T.V. show.

Todd Woodward recently joined Amway as Vice President, Global Amway Brand and Public Relations and has some pretty high credentials from past employers.  University of Notre Dame, Weber Shandwick Worldwide, Harley Davidson and the National Milk Processor Board.  I’m glad to see someone like Todd take over this position as I’m sure he will take Amway’s reputation and only increase it as it already is. 

Just doing some searching on Amway or even World Wide Dreambuilders has changed since I first started.  There are many companies that help repair reputations and remove old or negative publicity and it seems like Amway is making strides there.  I don’t blame them as people that hide behind anonymous or alias’s really don’t lend much credibility to be honest.  Why hide?  If you believe 100% in what you talk about then you should be able to use a real name, at least that’s my opinion.

Today’s blog post on the Amway Insider was a good one that talked about online reputation management and some thoughts from Todd about Direct Selling Companies and Amway.  This comment really resonated with me because I really do believe this to be true at least with our business. “Direct selling is the most human of businesses. . . we believe that helping humans – not companies – to be successful is a world-changing approach. Translating that online is critical to improving our reputation”. While some may think it’s crazy to think a business like ours helps “humans”, it’s the people who are crazy enough to think that that actually make it happen.  We help others become successful before we become successful and that’s very fulfilling.  If you can serve others before you serve yourself you will become successful. Don’t believe me? Ask people like Warren Buffet, John Maxwell, or anyone that is very successful, they got there because they served others first and that’s exactly what we do.

Just today I had two different counsel sessions with different members of our team.  They had various questions, some business related some non-business related and I didn’t get paid for those two hours.  I could have used that time to do something else however  I served on them because they needed me, they needed to talk to me about whatever was on their mind or heart.  That’s just one way of how you serve others and do exactly what Todd was talking about, “helping humans”.  I love that quote.

Click the link above to read the blog entry to see some other quotes from Todd on what is going to be hugely impactful for Amway in the coming future.

This was from 2011 however is still very impressive.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/09/fulton-innovation-displays-wireless-power-within-your-handbag-i/