Words of Wisdom from Larry Zimberg

Last Saturday I attended Beachbody's Game Plan Training event in Fort Worth. The Game Plan is a ten-point business plan that Beachbody encourages coaches to follow in order to make their business a success.

The audience was full of prospective, new, and veteran Beachbody Coaches of all ages and sizes. Some were at the beginning of their commitment to lose weight and get healthy, and others had been doing P90X or another program for years.

The training was hosted by Larry Zimberg, Beachbody's National Game Plan Director. He gave a great, practical training on how to talk to people about health, fitness, and Beachbody's products. And I dug his pearl-snap shirt with holey jeans and flip flops. He was the perfect Californian.

Along with some valuable business advice, Larry was full of facts and wisdom that made me both laugh and think about life in general. Many of them can apply to any situation, so I thought I'd share a few of them.

First, a few facts:

• Right now, 2/3 of Americans are overweight.
• Beachbody has 240 hours of advertising on television every day. (Pretty nice for Beachbody Coaches trying to promote the products!)
• 73% of people who order Shakeology keep it.
• Beachbody needs 1 million coaches to handle the volume of customers it expects to have in the upcoming years.

Now, some words of wisdom:

• "People want to rain on your parade because they don't have a parade of their own."
• "Managing people never got anyone to do something they weren't going to do anyway."
• "Success is a ladder, not a couch."
• "Fear is the thief of your dreams."
• "Ignorance on fire is better than intelligence on ice."
• "There is not one path to failure, and another path to success. You have to pass through failure to get to success."
• "You can have excuses, or you can have success. You can't have both."

I continue to be impressed with Beachbody's mission to help people live healthier lives. They encourage their coaches to challenge themselves both physically and mentally -- the eighth step of the Game Plan is "Commit to Personal Development" by reading books and listening to audio CDs (otherwise knows as "Drive Time University").

Of course this is a business, and Beachbody stands to make a lot of money through its sales of exercise programs and nutritional supplements.  But everyone has to make money -- I think helping people who are struggling with nutrition and exercise, and hopefully helping them live a fuller life because of it, isn't a bad way to do it.

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Signing up to be a Beachbody Coach usually costs $39.95, but that fee has been waived until Dec. 31, 2010. If you want to be a part of my team and help people "Bring It!" -- and also get a 25% discount on everything Beachbody -- visit my site at www.beachbodycoach.com/coachsusanh. Just hit the Coach button to read more about it.