Tag Archives: Success

National Constitution Centre’s New Leader

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Very interesting article came across my twitter feed today.  Doug DeVos is now the executive board chairman of the National Constitution Centre.  While I’m a Canadian and the US constitution is well just that a US constitution, it does share similarities with Canada.

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

 

225Constitution

My Have the Rules Changed

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money-finances3Last week in the Globe and Mail there was a great article on the old rules and new norms for personal finance.  The old go to school, get a good education, get a job, get married, have kids and buy a house as quickly as possible is not cutting it in today’s society.  I’m starting to see it now that I’m into my 30’s and hearing about people’s finances and where they are in life and how it’s not living up to what they expected.

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.

Online Reputation

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online-reputation-Online reputation is if not already, becoming a big deal.  So a lot of organizations are looking to protect their image from bad press or even untrue information portrayed about them.  With some of the IT associations I belong to this is starting to become a bigger and bigger concern and more and more talked about.  Social Media is playing a huge role in the creation or destruction of reputations and managing these reputations is vital for many organizations. 

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.

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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.

2012 Dream Night(s)

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Wait wait wait, did you say Dream Nights as in plural? More than one? That can’t be, how can you possibly go to more than one Dream Night? My upline must be forcing me or cohering me into attending more than one and after all it’s just the same thing each night.  Just who does World Wide Group think they are having these multiple Dream Nights, two in Edmonton and one in Calgary, and others across Canada.  But wait, there’s more!  A Dream Night in Saskatoon?? What? Growth in another province?  It must be all those Edmonton people driving 6 1/4 hours, 525 KM’s just to make that dream night happen earlier this week.  So does that mean people are attending 4 different dream nights? When does it end? Will the excitement ever stop?  I better contact Amway, World Wide Group, The Police, FTC, Alert the presses cause this is just madness.

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.

Fitness Goals

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Fitness

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?