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

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.

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.

No it’s not, it’s called growth and I have a confession to make, I attended or will be attending two Dream Nights this week.  Yup, it’s true.  Out of our own free will without any cohesion, guilt, pressure, etc… we attended last night and will be attending tonight.  Both nights, different venue’s and different speakers, in fact because of growth they’ve had to move one of the nights to the Shaw Conference Centre.  If there wasn’t growth in this area that would seem like overkill or a waste of money to put it up there don’t you think?  To be honest I don’t know how many people are attending each event as I’m not function hosting and who’s going to more than one, quite frankly I don’t care.  I care about my wife and our business only.

(Just incase you didn’t understand the first paragraph that was some sarcasm for some of my most devoted loyal readers )

Tonight will be quite the night as Ron and Georgia Lee Puryear will be one of the speakers and as far as I know this is their first visit to Edmonton.  I have no doubt they want to see the growth and excitement going on in the Edmonton area and the hard work the leaders in this organization have done over the last few years.  We are excited as we have a few guests coming out to check out what Dream Night is all about but more importantly my wife’s parents are coming out.  They want to see a bit more of what it is that we do, the excitement, the association and everything that World Wide Dreambuilders is about. 

I’ll leave you with this as you start your new year; don’t gauge your future potential based on your past disappointments.

I smell fitness in the air!  Yup, it’s that time of year where the gyms are singing people up at lighting speed and where people are looking to get into shape.  People tie this losing weight into their New Year’s Resolution and sad fact is 78%-88% fail to obtain those goals.  I’ve had a gym membership for a year now and I’ve used it maybe 50%. I had a really good streak going from March for 5 months where I had a personal trainer.  It was the birth of my son that helped derail me and while that’s somewhat of a valid excuse for awhile, it’s not an excuse almost 6 months later.

I’ve been inspired again not only by the new year but by one of my friends and his challenges with getting into shape.  He posted yesterday here on Bisonweb.ca his transparency with the battle as well as his new workout called Insanity.  He’s back on track and I wish him huge success this year.

So what’s up for me then?  Getting back to the gym and being consistent.  I’m no longer intimidated about the gym as I was before going earlier this year.  Having used the personal trainer I paid for has instilled a lot of knowledge in ensuring I use proper form and doing the exercises properly instead of going to “bang out a few reps”.  I’ve also been able to figure out a time that works best for me which may not be the ideal time any more since that time is the only time I get with W during the week.  When I get home from work I see W between 5:30 and 7pm which is my time with him.  On a side note, that’s quite sad out of the whole day that’s all I get to see him? If I work late or work OT, I won’t see him at all. 

With that I’ll be working out either during his naps on the weekend or in the evenings after dinner or when we are not out showing the plan or meeting new people.  I will get to my goal of under 200 lbs. with a reduction of 10% body fat.  I’ll increase my muscle mass as well (not sure how much yet) and I’ll feel a 100x’s better with more energy.  That’s something I felt right away last time I worked out, a huge energy uplift.  I’ll also eat more healthy as W is now on a pretty decent schedule that will allow us to make better meals with proper prep time. 

Regardless of what your goals are this year if you follow these few steps in creating your goals you’ll be 10x’s more likely to reach them then if you don’t.  Its basic success principals you’ll read anywhere and not specific to just our business.

1. Make your goal specific
2. Make your goal realistic
3. Make your goal known – (Like what Liam did on his blog, letting people know!)
4. Make your goal measurable by time
5. Make your goal fun and rewarding

The last point is probably the best one of all.  We are creatures that require reward for our accomplishments.  Make sure you do this step otherwise if you never reward yourself you’ll end up falling off track and probably miss your goal all together.

Success brings more success, so what are you waiting for?

There are a lot of things out there and really where do you start?  I figured I’d start with people and names I know and then fan out from there and see what is available locally as well as on a larger scale.  So I started with John Maxwell, I’ve mentioned him before and read a lot of his books.  If you do a quick search for leadership guru’s you’ll notice he’s at the top and rightfully so.  World Wide Dreambuilders is very fortunate to have a great partnership with him as he speaks at the Spring Leadership conferences every year as well as Taste of Diamond weekend and always has a huge impact.  I wanted to see what resources he had for the general public and potentially any conference or seminar style of teachings.

John offers what he calls the Maximum Impact Club which can be found here (http://www.johnmaxwell.com/development-training/maximum-impact-club/) and entitles you to his monthly CD along with notes.  Total cost per year is $179 for the online only version and $259 a year for Online + CD in US/Canada.  I’m also going to assume his company is making a profit off of that, which would make sense and is normal.

I went on to find that John offers a 2 1/2 day event called “Exchange” found here (http://www.exchangegathering.com/) and the cost of that event is $8,000 per person and does not include your accommodations.  That’s quite an event however if you wanted to attend a smaller workshop you can do that as well located here (http://www.johnmaxwell.com/speaking-events/public-workshops/) for $299 per person.  So that’s a quick and dirty of what I found for John Maxwell.  Glad we may nowhere near those prices to see John at our Spring Leadership event or for his CD’s.

I thought to take a different approach on someone I’ve heard of for many years and I’m sure all of you have as well.  Tony Robbins.  He’s more of a life coach, mentorship, power within you type of person and he has lots of books and CD’s and what I found was his “Power Within You” event which has MANY different ranges in prices. (http://www.tonyrobbins.com/holiday/power-within.html) Starting with the basic package of $995 going right up to $2,595 for a 4 day event. He’s also got CD’s like John Maxwell however I won’t bother posting that as it’s pretty much the same.

So with those two people you could be looking at some pretty hefty investments if you’re looking into personal growth and leadership material.  All well respected people who’ve helped a lot of people gain success.

I started looking at some local support structures and seeing what Edmonton had to offer it’s Entrepreneur community and found a MeetUp group called The Edmonton Entrepreneur Meetup.  My wife and I have been to these a few times now and there are people from all different walks of life and business’s.  It’s a great networking event getting around like minded individuals looking to do something more and work for themselves instead of working for someone else.  I’ve talked many times about association and who you get around, it’s important.  Why else would Entrepreneur’s gather together, so they could bounce ideas off each other or get around other successful people and ask them what they did to get where they are at.  Sounds familiar to me.  Cost for these events are typically free or the cost of your favorite coffee beverage.

Corporately, I know a lot of business’s subscribe to this Harvard ManageMentor program (http://corporatelearning.hbsp.org/corporate/products-and-services/reference.html) that has teachings on everything from time management, leadership, finances, to goal setting and everything inbetween.  The cost for something like this in a corporate environment is not cheap.  I was able to find for 51+ users it works out to $99 per license.  Each employee needs to have a license so for a company of just 500, that’s $49,500 a year.  A rather large investment for something that’s typically not mandatory but strongly suggested by your employer.  I’m guessing Harvard is getting some kind of kickback from those prices.

Books books and more books, holy crap there are a ton of books you can find in the Health and Well-Being section at your local bookstore.  You can literally find a book on any part of your life that you’re looking for help in. Marriage, Finances, Leadership, the list goes on.  The well known saying goes “Leaders are readers”.  Ask any successful person to see their library and they will show you a ton of books they’ve read.  Ask them for their favorite most impactful book and read it!

I could go on but the fact is Support Systems are out there for a reason, its to support those involved in whatever it is they are doing.  Be it the World Wide Dreambuilders support system, the Harvard’s ManageMentor program, or John Maxwell’s Workshops, you’ll only get out of it what you put in.  The best thing about all of these types of systems, they are all optional, nobody says you have to take them or follow them.  However without partaking in these systems you won’t get the benefits of what’s offered through them.

I encourage you to do your research on whatever support system you’re looking at getting involved in.  If that’s World Wide Dreambuilders make sure whoever is taking you through the process explains everything in detail.  Make sure you actually read through everything in the information system that was given to you as it contains a lot of answers to your questions.  If there are questions, ASK them.  I can only speak of what we do and that’s full disclosure of those we are looking at going into business with and are going through a qualification process.  Nothing bothers me more than people who hide and twist the truth, its not a great way to start out a partnership that’s for sure.

Again Happy New Year and Much Success!

I love the first day of the New Year because its really a hard tangible “line in the sand” to start over.  While success principals will teach us that we should be able to draw a line in the sand at any point in the year, the New Year is that pretty obvious line that anyone can get behind and I love that.  Besides it’s a great way to kick the post-Christmas blue’s that I typically get.

In looking ahead you need to take a quick look back and reflect on the year that was.  The things you did, the things you accomplished, and the things you set out to accomplish but didn’t.  There is nothing wrong with not accomplishing things because that’s where you grow and learn and reset your goal for the next year.  People who don’t understand success principals will look at you and say well you didn’t do that like you said you would.  So?  At least you get up and try again. A Chinese / Japanese proverb comes to mind – “Fall down 7 times, get up 8”  It doesn’t say fall down 7 times and stay down, it says GET UP.  That’s where successful people succeed and those not willing to “get up” fail.  It’s proven many times but those who are successful in any type of industry.

So this year we will reset some of our goals that were missed and look forward to the new goals that we want to achieve.  Our focus as always is to build a great life for our growing family and all decisions we make will be towards that focus.  I’m excited for a lot of things but the largest is being debt free with cash in the bank so that we avoid the next downturn in the economy that is being predicted by credible sources.  If anything has taught us over the last two years that’s to get as liquid as possible.

I hope that all of you out there reflect on the things that went on in 2011 and that you look forward to 2012 with anticipation that it will be the best year of your life.  Whatever it is that you have set out, write it down, keep it in the forefront, put it on your fridge, whatever.  You’ll be more likely to achieve them if you do so.  All the best to you and yours in 2012!

Why am I talking about this camera and posting this video?  This video came across my inbox as I think I subscribed to something around these cameras so I get weekly videos.  Jeb Corliss and Roberta Mancino are well known in the base jumping and wingsuit flying community and they share some pretty awesome perspective on life.

What really fascinates me on this video is after the scene you see below it starts off with dreams.  I love how Jeb describes his nightmare as “sitting at an office working on a computer, that’s a nightmare, I cannot even imagine something more horrifying”, then Roberta says “or any other job”. (Amen to that!)  Jeb goes on to say that “every individual person has their dream, and every individual person has a right to live their dream”. Lastly he says that his dream is no better or worse than anyone else’s, but it is his.  Well said.  Basically to sum it up, as I’ve mentioned before, it means don’t steal someone else’s dream no matter what it is or what they do to obtain it.

Jed quotes this perfect quote he heard when he was a kid. “The key to happiness is having dreams, the key to success is fulfilling those dreams.” – Anonymous

Lastly Jed ends off by saying, “There really are no limits, the only limits are the ones you place on yourself.” Well said, well said.  Whatever it is your out there trying to achieve don’t let anyone stand in your way, don’t take it from me, watch the video and be inspired!