Archives for May 2010

Upon arriving in Los Angeles from Detroit we decided to take advantage of the corporate office tour Beachbody was giving. We picked up our rental car and made the 18 mile trip to Santa Monica from LAX. Had my first experience driving in LA and must say it was very depressing. It was noon and my average speed was 22 mph.

As soon as we arrived to the 3rd floor of the building I was immediately impressed. The Beachbody corporate office is very ergo friendly. Everything is clean and neat. It has a very wide open feel as it looks like it used to be a warehouse because of the open ceiling layout.

We showed up a little late and jumped in with a tour already in progress. They showed us where they come up with a lot of the ideas for upcoming workout programs and products. I kept looking at all of the cool computers they had. It seemed every employee has a iMac. Must of been the creative department that we kept walking around.

It did not surprise me to see a gym inside the place and some of their employees doing P90X together. They even had a locker room with showers making it easy to get a quick workout in during lunch or after work.

When the tour was over we headed to the hotel where Coach Summit was being held. Upon checking in we received a goodie bag full of cool stuff including a P90X hat that said Diamond Coach. They had a room full of shirts, workout gear, and everything else Beachbody sells in there for purchase. Most of it was picked through by the time we got there. I did manage to find a P90X workout shirt and bought that.

After making our purchases we headed up to our room to get changed for the group workout. It was going to be a hour of working out with Debbie Siebers (Slim in 6), Brett Hobel (RevAbs), Leandro Carvalho (Brazilian Butt Lift), Chalene Johnson, Shaun T, and Tony Horton.

Upon arriving to the room where it was going to be held it was evident it was going to be packed. There must of been 600 people in this room trying to workout. Each trainer did about 10 minutes of workouts with a little bit of motivational speaking. Doing Insanity was tricky because of how crowded it was. It was fun, even with all of the sweat being thrown around the place.

From there we had a couple hours of down time until the Diamond Coach “Shine Party” that night at the “X Bar” (really, that’s what its called) inside the hotel. Only Diamond Coaches were invited to it. With Andrea and I both being Diamond Coaches we were able to bring my friend Gianni as our guest. I was really excited to see him come out to LA with us so he can see what I’ve had a taste of with the Top Coach trip in Hawaii.

Beachbody had a red (blue) carpet entrance where they were interviewing and taking photos of the people walking in. The night included saying hi to Tony Horton, Carl Daikeler, Jon Congdon, catching up with coaches we met on the trip, and meeting new ones. I even met fitness icon Debbie Siebers. She’s been in the fitness business for over 20 years creating popular workout programs like Slim in 6.

We partied for as long as we could until the time change started to take over on our bodies. Day 2 of the Coach Summit was going to be action packed including a 7 am Insanity workout with Shaun T.

Day 2 – Its Time To Party

Day 2 started with me waking up at 5 am after getting 4 hours of sleep because of the time change. I was “feeling it” a little from the Diamond Coach party but knew the best remedy for a hangover would be an hour long Insanity workout with Shaun T at 7am.

The room they had us set up in was a bit small. Sweat was going to be flying around every where. Told Gianni to be ready as he’s never done Insanity before. Upon getting started I could tell he was like “really?” He almost passed out during the warm up. Insanity is no joke.

The workout ended up being a lot of fun as Shaun T got us working out in groups trying to challenge each other to do as many “high knees” as we could for a minute along with a drill where one person stays in a “plank push up” for a minute while the other person jumps laterally over that person.

Nobody was stepped on so that’s cool. Anything that I was feeling from the night before had been sweated out for sure. Look at how dark my shirt is from the sweat.

The next thing on the agenda was the business part of the Beachbody Coach Summit. There was a 3 hour meeting where CEO Carl Daikeler discussed how the amount of coaches has almost doubled since last years summit.

One highlight of the meeting was when they unveiled the “Diamond Pack.” Its a package coaches can buy that has a lot of Beachbody’s top selling products like P90X, Insanity, Power 90, and Turbo Jam along with business building materials and supplements. I bought one because of the deep discount.

The other highlight was when they revealed Vanilla Shakeology. However, they went on to inform us they found out a secret amongst the food manufacturing companies where they don’t use all natural products to give it that vanilla taste. When Beachbody found out, they decided to axe that flavor until it could be produced with all natural products. Its good to know that Beachbody decided to take the honorable route and not allow a product to be sold just to make a buck.

President Jon Congdon introduced the corporate team. Chalene Johnson gave us a run down on how social media works. Michael Niemend told us how much money we could theoretically make. Brett Blake told us how much Beachbody is spending on advertising and how they plan to grow Team Beachbody. Somebody even proposed.

When the meeting was over I ran into Brett Hobel who is the creator of RevAbs. There were rumors Brett was going to be the celebrity trainer on Season 11 of the Biggest Loser around Summit and those rumors ended up being true.

I have not done RevAbs yet but Gianni has and loves it. His wife has been doing RevAbs and lost 3 dress sizes since starting it. This has caused Gianni to have a  man crush on Brett. He told Brett to “Rev it Up” and they had a moment. I got a photo with him and then headed to a business break out sessions planned for the next 3 hours.

Beachbody asked me to share a couple of tips on how I keep in contact with my customers and getting the word out about Shakeology. Its been awhile since I had to speak in front of a crowd so it made me a little nervous but I pulled through.

There was a lot of great info shared during each of the three sessions. Most of it was new to me so I really enjoyed it. When the breakout sessions were over it was time to get ready for the party that night.

The party was a dress to impress occasion and was the first time I had worn a suit to a job/business related event in over two years. Some of the highlights included Andrea and I both going up on stage to accept our Top Coach awards and me getting recognized for making it to 2 Star Diamond Coach. They gave us a Tommy Bahamaish shirt that said Top Coach on it.

They announced the winners for Success Club will be going on a cruise in the Caribbean. You can view it at the Coach Destinations site. I’m in the video on the site describing the Top Coach trip to Hawaii from this year.

I have my eyes on the trip they announced for the Top 10 Success Club point earners who make it to Beachbody Elite status. Its a 10 day biking trip through France. I’ve got my sites set on being there and getting my Tour De France on. Pablo Bressan was recognized for winning Top Coach of 2009 and received a $10k bonus check. Congrats Pablo.

The best part of the night happened when Beachbody gave away $25k each to Jeremy Yost and Cammie Lusk for having the best transformations. Jeremy lost over 173 pounds doing P90X. He said he had to modify almost every move during his first couple rounds of P90X because he physically could not do it. Jeremy just stuck with it and kept “Bringing It.” If you think about it, he lost a full grown man.

Cammie’s story was inspirational. She has MS and is confined to a wheel chair. Her and her husband worked together to modify P90X so she could do as many of the moves as she could. Cammie ended up losing a lot of weight but had bigger gains in her overall health. There were lots of tears in the room as we all got to see her transformation video.

When Debbie Siebers was done handing out bonus checks (this does not include their week to week earnings) to Yolanda Harris and Christine Dwyer for over $100k (for reaching 15 Star Diamond Coach (nice work ladies)) and Carl was done talking, the party started. Everybody hit the dance floor and some did “Airborne Heismans” from the P90X Plyometrics workout.

Tony Horton hit the floor with his girlfriend and battle danced a couple guys. The women (including my girlfriend Andrea) all wanted to dance with him and jumped in whenever they could. We partied until 2 am and called it a night. Festivities would not start until 10 am the following morning so we made the most of the night.

Day 3 – Back To Work

The third day of the 2010 Beachbody Coach Summit was not going to be as action packed as the first two. No workouts today. Only a couple hours of speeches and business building techniques. Tony Horton started it off with his “11 Laws” speech.

1. Variety – Be creative, curious, and committed. Change up your workouts and activities by doing cardio, resistance, weight training, yoga, core, and sports. (Sounds a lot like P90X huh)
2. Consistency – The more you do the better you get.
3. Intensity – The training begins when you can’t do anymore.
4. Purpose – Tony’s is better health, improved fitness, quality of life, right plan for the future.
5. Reality – Truth will set you free.
6. Sport – Go outside and play.
7. The Plan – Create accountability. Plan 30 days in advance. “Make a appointment for a better life.”
8. Stress & Sleep – Choose wisdom and forgiveness over anger and blame. Write your issues down before you go to bed so you can tackle it tomorrow.
9. Love it or leave it – Fitness or in life.
10. Flexibility – Fountain of youth.
11. Food & Supplementation – You are what you eat.

Tony mixes health, fitness, and life in his 11 Laws. The ones I struggle with are 3, 7, and 11. I workout at least 4 days a week when I’m not doing a program along with the sports I play but getting intense has never been apart of my identity. Planning isn’t my thing and what I do plan I tend to forget about it. I eat well but I tend to over eat.

The next speaker was Craig Holiday who was hired as a consultant for the Coach Network. Craig has built multiple million dollar mlm businesses. His speech was informing. The one nugget I took from it was when he said “Become Great. Don’t Fail.” It got me thinking about the Be Perfect halftime speech from Friday Night Lights.

Last speaker for the Coach Summit was CEO of Success Magazine, Darren Hardy. Beachbody invited him to speak at the Game Plan Event a couple months ago but I missed out on it as I had to leave early. It became evident very early into his speech that he knows what it takes to be successful.

Darren was a real estate agent in his early twenties and went door to door asking people if they were selling their home or if they knew of somebody trying to sell. He developed a system where he knew it would take 10 no’s before he got a yes.

So every time he got a no he smiled and told them thanks as he was 9 no’s away from meeting his next yes. Darren made his first million and broke company records by the age of 23. I took 4 pages of notes. What I like about his speech was he broke down being successful to its roots. Some of what he said was:

• 90% of millionaires start at the bottom or broke
• The 3 Core Strategies are 1. Difference (The X Factor) 2. What it is not – The company, products, comp plan. 3. YOU are the variable.
• You need to put 100% effort in expecting 0% in return.
• “Every outcome in your life is your fault. What you did. What you didn’t do. How you responded to what you did.
• “What you sell is YOU.”
• Best network marketer of all time said “You, follow me.” – Jesus
• Fortune favors the bold – Learn to love failure. Celebrate failure.
• “The key to success is massive failure.” – Tom Watson – Pres. IBM

Darren told a story about people winning the lotto and how we always hear about them being broke in a year or two after winning millions of dollars. He said its because people are always trying to seek their “set point.” Basically, a gas station attendant making $8 an hour is comfortable at that point.

The person is not comfortable having millions of dollars. So that person does whatever they can to get rid of the millions of dollars to get back to the $8 an hour lifestyle. In a weird way it made sense to me. People need to build up their set points. It can’t happen over night.

Darren ended his speech with some impressive slides of people he has interviewed over the years including Richard Branson. I really enjoyed it because while he was speaking I started to reflect on the success I’ve had with the Beachbody Coach business and pictured myself going through my failures and what I did to respond to it.

Summit ended with CEO Carl Daikeler giving a speech about the future of the Coach network, some of the upcoming products including P90 neXt. Yup, an updated P90X series is in the works. If I remember correctly I think there was mention of another Insanity coming out too.

I had a great time at Summit. Met a lot of people, had fun with people I met at other trips, was recognized on stage, worked out with a couple hundred people, and learned why people live in LA. I didn’t see a cloud in the sky the 3 days I was there. Beachbody has created something very special. I’m excited to see how the Coach network grows before the 2011 Coach Summit.