I took another six pages of notes today, but I’ll blog about them tomorrow morning. Meanwhile here continue the highlights from Thursday’s Opening Session:
- Dr. Tim Wood – USANA’s Vice-president of Research and Development – His “Top Ten Amazing Facts about the Human Body” underscored the body’s need for the highest-quality building blocks. Every ten years we completely rebuild and remodel every bone in our body; children’s skeletons are rebuilt every year. Every three months we replace our blood supply, and every month our skin turns over. I’m glad there is so much science that goes into USANA’s products.
Between the morning and afternoon sessions, I attended one Training Stage titled The Art of Prospecting. Michelle Merriwether, USANA’s Vice-president of U.S. Field Development, was an energetic and entertaining presenter. Prospecting is the process of developing a list of names and sources of leads. According to Michelle, “Power prospecting is the art of networking, a way of starting new relationships and a way of developing and expanding your business anytime, anywhere, anyplace, anyone.” I took extensive notes of this 45-minute session, so I’ll save the rest for future blog posts.
The afternoon’s General Session included:
- Announcement – The U.S. Ski Team is now sponsored by USANA. More and more Olympic teams are choosing USANA for their nutritional supplementation needs. At the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, if Team USANA was a country, it would have come in third in overall medal count. In London in 2012, we are expecting Team USANA to come in first.
- Billie Jean King – Professional tennis player and founder of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), of which USANA is now the official health supplement supplier – One quote of hers that stuck with me was, “Pressure is a privilege, and champions adapt and adjust.” And her mom wisely told her, “You gotta keep moving. If you stop moving, it’s over.”
- Announcement – USANA is once again featured in Success from Home magazine, on store shelves in September. I purchased a package of ten here at Convention, so if you can’t get your hands on one of these while they’re available in stores, just let me know.
- Lyle MacWilliam – Biochemist and founder of NutriSearch and The Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements – There’s a new 2011 Consumer Edition of The Comparative Guide, and a complete revision of the comprehensive Guide is coming next year. USANA leads with the science and not with marketing hype.
- Rudy Ruettiger – former Notre Dame football player and inspiration for the motion picture Rudy – I haven’t yet seen the movie Rudy, but we saw the last five minutes of it and it looks good. Rudy spoke one gem after another. Here are some I wrote down:
- “You can change your thoughts right now.”
- “One thought can change your life.”
- “Do the right things and everyone will be attracted to you.”
- “Persevere through the goofy thinkers.” (I shall start using this term.)
- “Thank everyone who smiles. You’ll never know where they can lead you.”
- “Never give up on someone who has talent and who has dreams.”
One of the speakers put up a famous quote by Aristotle. I had only seen the last part of it before, but I like it even more in context:
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. —Aristotle
This very full day was capped off by an inspiring Awards Ceremony. As has been the case in prior years, it was rather underattended. I suppose many people were burned out by such a full day of great speakers—and sitting on one’s butt for extended periods of time gets old fast. But with my current mindset of setting my sights on Gold, I asked myself, “What would a Gold Director do?” And the answer was clear: attend the Awards Ceremony. So I did.
There was a lot of well deserved recognition. As a choral singer, I was most delighted by their choice of musical entertainment for the evening: Rockapella. They are a five-man a cappella group that performs their own versions of a variety of musical styles. A complete list of Convention speakers and performers can be found here.
As always, I am so glad I found a way to make it here. I’ll be back next year, and this time I’ll be one of those walking across the stage at the Awards Ceremony.
