Measure and Report

Greetings,

I leave for Asia today and wanted to post a few thoughts before getting on the plane.

First of all let me offer a hearty congratulation to all of you for building a great May. The company continued its strong growth pattern in almost every market. Most of our markets were up double digits for the month as was the company overall.

One of things I was always aware of as a Franchise Owner was my own organization’s market share. In other words I would try to measure how my business was doing contrasted to the overall company. Eventually this became irrelevant as my business became 99% of the company’s business. However, in the early days this was not the case.

Being focused on where you are and where you want to be can make the difference between major success and just getting by. One of my favorite quotes is from Thomas S. Monson and goes like this:

When you deal in generalities you will never succeed,
When you deal in specifics you will rarely have a failure.
When performance is measured performance improves, and,
When performance is measured and reported back the rate of improvement accelerates.

This piece of wisdom has been a great benefit to me. When I find myself slowing down in my productive actions I can almost always find the reason why in this little quote. I get back to dealing in specifics and back to measuring my performance and my productivity comes back pretty quick.

ALL the best,

Stewart

Four Stages

Hello friends,

The other day I was reminded about a talk I heard years ago given by a leader in our industry. He spoke about the Four Stages of life. He said that at any given point in time everyone is always in one of these stages.

The stages are:

1-Building
2-Managing
3-Excusing
4-Blaming

Interestingly enough each stage easily leads into the the next stage unless disciplined action is taken. Only the first stage produces happiness and productivity. When we are "Building" we are in a state of advancement and that brings us the good things of life but more importantly it brings us deep personal satisfaction. During the "Building" stage we may be working like crazy and under all kinds of pressure but we don't find it unpleasant or unhealthy. In fact most people say that when they look back on their life it is the memories of those seasons when they were "Building" that bring them the most happiness.

The other three stages are a slippery slope leading to misery and disaster. When we slide from "Building" to "Managing" we are choosing to leave the role of leader and builder and become the person who says "Do what I say, not what I do." When we are honest with ourselves we know that example is more important than words and we go back to "Building" and set the proper example for others to follow.

If we don't break out of the slide and get back to "Building" we soon move from "Managing " to "Excusing". This is a miserable place. The person who is in this stage has an excuse for everything that goes wrong in his or her life. People in the "Excusing" stage are really unproductive because they spend so much of their time coming up with reasons why they are unproductive.

When a person is in the "Excusing" stage it is very hard to avoid the slide to the "Blaming" stage. That move is actually pretty short. It doesn't take much time to move from coming up with excuses for your failure to actually putting a name with the excuse or even as the excuse. When a person reaches the "Blaming" stage he or she is really at rock bottom. They have given up all personal accountability for their situation. As a result of choosing to blame others they no longer have confidence in their own ability to make things happen--it is always someone else's fault.

The good news is that any and all of us can decide in a split second to leave the "Managing", "Excusing" or even the "Blaming" stage and get back to "Building". We all have the ability to take response-ability for what happens to us and be a "Builder". At Unicity this choice carries huge implications because we are in the leadership business. What we do is what others will do. If we are "Managing" or "Excusing" or "Blaming" we will have many people in our organizations doing the exact same thing. But if we get back to "Building", and stay there, we will find the people in our organizations building too and that is what we call leverage.

People have asked me if it is possible to always stay in the "Building" stage and the answer is YES!!! In fact it is essential that you stay there, at least if you want to be happy and successful. So keep "Building", build new skills, build new habits and most of all build new leaders. You will feel great as you do!

All the best,
Stewart

The Time is Now!

Greetings everyone,

It has been a while since my last entry--no excuses just working hard and having fun.

As the world continues to muddle along in this recession Unicity continues to grow. We are seeing month over month growth in sales and new franchise owners. Slim is one big reason for that growth. Another is our incredible compensation plan! I hear amazing stories every month as brand new people join us and make more money in their first month or two than they did in the previous six months. One woman told me that she made more in her first month with Unicity than she did in her last 12 months in her old business.

Are you taking advantage of this truly great moment in time?
Have you made your goals?
Have you resolved to make the changes necessary to build a stronger and better life?
Are you investing in yourself?

I ask these questions because I know what it takes to break out of the cycle of mediocrity—you CAN’T do it by degrees—you have to bust loose much like a car gets free from being stuck in the mud. So bust loose! Make it your determination to be somebody special—to do great things and to no longer live an ordinary life. The power is in you!

Take a look at this new video the marketing department just produced—I love it. Better Way Video

All the best,
Stewart

PS—here is the book of the month:
The Oz Principle
Getting Results through Individual and Organizational Accountability
by Roger Connors, Tom Smith, and Craig Hickman

Greetings everyone,

I thought you might like to see a few pictures from the recent Japan National Convention.

This picture is of the Ikari family. They were elected MVP for 2008 by the other leaders in Japan. This couple is an outstanding example of leadership. There is a great feeling of team spirit in their organization which they support about as perfectly as it can be done. That is probably why they were selected by their peers to win the MVP award.

Here is a picture of all the new Presidential Sapphires. Congratulations to them!

This is a picture of Asada-san receiving his special scuba diving vacation. Just one of the rewards for earning the Presidential Ruby rank.

Here is Kimura-san receiving his special deep sea fishing vacation for earning the rank of Presidential Ruby.

Both Kimura-san and Asada-san also received a beautiful Clerc watch! There were only 12 of these watches in Japan before last Saturday. Asada-san and Kimura-san got numbers 13 and 14!




Here is Kimura-san sharing his feelings after receiving his rewards.

Here is Asada-san sharing his feelings.

The guest speaker, an Olympic Gold Medal winner, gave a very powerful talk about using your challenges, and even your short term failures, to become stronger and to succeed long term.

This was a wonderful event and just the beginning of great things in Japan!

All the best,

Stewart

Japan Convention

Greetings everyone,

We have just concluded the Japan National Convention. The theme was "Make The Future". It was a great event with about 2,000 people attending. We recognized two new Rubys, three new Sapphires and 4 new Presidential Executives.

The keynote speaker was the Gold medal winner in Olympics for Judo. He taught life is always about choice. A person can use failure to make him stronger and prepared for greater success or to justify quitting the pursuit of his dream. We choose what will be!

He then shared some very powerful experiences from his own life supporting the principles he had taught. I found his presentation absolutely great!

The Japan Management Team had also invited Dr. Neal Secrist, a Presidential Diamond from the US, to attend and present at the Convention. He did a great job teaching about the power of Slim to help people avoid many health problems, in addition to burning fat. Neal also briefly talked about why a doctor would want to build a Unicity business. Dr. Secrist was joined on this trip by his wife Kim and I understand they were both treated very well by their new friends in Japan!

It is great to be around people who are focused on being positive--I love this business.

All the best,
Stewart

Kent and Keiko Yoshida

Honor for Unicity!

Greetings everyone,

With the travel schedule I have had since the first of the year visiting our leaders around the globe, I almost can't believe it; I haven’t been in a hotel for two weeks! I am fully adjusted to the Mountain Time Zone. I don’t have an airline reservation for another 4 weeks. I think I may have stepped in to someone else’s life—but I like it. Hopefully you are doing and feeling as well as I am.

There are always minor glitches that happen in our lives. For instance my computer just crashed and I have lost all my future appointments and reminders. I started to feel a little irritated and then I remembered that I have been using a computer for 20 years and this is the first time I’ve had one crash—that’s not too bad. If I can go another 20 years until it happens again I will feel pretty blessed in the computer department.

Sometimes you get some pretty cool surprises too. This past week I got a letter from the Governor of the State of Utah congratulating Unicity for being selected as one of the Top 500 privately held companies in America. I was pleased to find that we had been selected as #87 out of the top 500 in the USA and #1 out of the top 100 in the State of Utah. We will be sharing more about this recognition in the coming week but I thought you might like to see the letter from Governor Jon Huntsman. Click on this link to read the letter. TOP 500 LETTER

Another fun thing that happened this past week was getting to listen to an audio presentation I had done 14 years ago when I was working as franchise owner. My good friend Paul Kero sent me this MP3 file he had found of me making a conference call presentation to potential new partners. I wasn’t too sure I wanted to listen to myself from 14 years ago but my curiosity finally overwhelmed my fear of feeling ridiculous. I quickly found myself transported back to 1994—some great memories. After listening I decided I was ready to sign up all over again. So if you ever wanted to know how I built my business “back in the day” go ahead and click on this link. It will take about nine minutes to hear it all. 1994 Conference Call

I am currently re-reading Napoleon Hill’s classic book “Think and Grow Rich” – for about the 50th time. It is as inspiring to me as it always is — I fully recommend it to you. The first three chapters hold the key to getting your business off the ground. The rest of the book will tell you how to achieve dreams that you didn’t believe were remotely possible for you. I have been reading this book since I was 21 years old. The title sometimes puts people off but don’t let it bother you. The book is not really about money it is about learning how to turn dreams into reality. If you haven’t read it already - or if you haven’t read it in the last 12 months - you should do so immediately.

Great things are happening in Unicity right now. Make sure you are getting your share of the growth.

All the best,
Stewart

Dear friends,

This past weekend Todd Smith hosted a Diamond Leadership Summit for our top North American leaders. 100 leaders from all over the continent gathered in Todd's hometown of Sarasota, Florida to learn the principles that will propel them to Diamond status. The speakers included all the current NA Diamonds along with one of our Double Diamonds from Europe. The presentations were excellent and jam-packed with practical information that had me taking notes along with everyone else.

We welcomed a brand new Diamond to the club as Jan Bloom showed that she has the right stuff. There were two great nights of entertainment and fellowship. We had a sunset cruise in the Gulf and an evening in Todd's clubhouse on the beach. This was an event that helped everyone in attendance to catch the vision of the Unicity opportunity. I have been taking calls since I came home from leaders that have decided to take their business to a new level as a result of the vision they got in Sarasota.

Watch for information on the next Leadership Summit in Deer Valley, Utah. I hope you join me there. All the best,
Stewart