Our Day at Amway: The Ripple Effect

On Wednesday, on our way back from Family Camp in Newaygo, Michigan, we stopped by Amway Corporation. After visiting, all too briefly, with some old and new friends, including all from The Amway Insider, we popped in at the World Headquarters Welcome Center.
On the second floor are the doors leading to Amway's President Doug DeVos and Chairman Steve Van Andel's offices.

Steve, just a few minutes earlier, had been touring the Welcome Center with some guests. While I would have liked to have met him, I'm glad we missed him. My kids were on a major sugar high from all the goodies Beth Dornan gave them, so he was spared their singing and dancing around the lobby.

Below, carved in to glass, with water cascading over these pillars, are the founding principles of the Amway Corporation.

FREEDOM - FAMILY - HOPE - REWARD

Amway supports the fundamental FREEDOM of people to determine their own future, allowing them the time and resources to protect and nurture their FAMILY. Offering HOPE to individuals and the opportunity to receive REWARD in proportion to their efforts.

The Leadership wing of the Welcome Center acknowledges the distributors, IBOs, and ABOs from the 80-plus countries and territories where Amway operates around the world.

Along the walls are screens that one can search Diamonds and above by Market or by Pin Level.

The kids got comfortable in the 70-seat theatre

and we watched The Ripple Effect, a  five-minute visual story. Our lives form ripples. Our actions and decisions and words do affect others. What kind of ripples are you creating?



(to be continued...) Amway Visit Part Two

New Look = Messed Up Formatting

Yes, I am fully aware that some of the posts before this one look terrible.
I am using a new template from this day forward. And all posts before this one were formatted using a different layout/template.

SUPPORT: Often The Missing Ingredient for Success

Here is a two-hour talk condensed in to three minutes.

My favorite is his acronym for C.R.A.P. :)

While this is spot on info, I find that what is often missing in these recipes for success is SUPPORT.

And when I say "support" I'm not talking about providing more information to consume. Seventeen different ways of saying the same thing, packaged in twelve different formats.

I'm talking about accountability from another person or other people. Most people understand forced-discipline, but very few possess self-discipline.

Helping another person stay accountable to their goals is one of the most time-consuming endeavors. It is much easier to write a book, give a talk, hold a seminar, than it is to actively mentor someone.

And it's much less confrontive to read a book, listen to a talk, attend a seminar, than it is to actively be mentored by someone.

What To Do With 27 Cents...

I received my lowest residual check ever. A whopping 27 cents. Actually the gross is 41 cents, but Uncle Sam took his 34% cut and left me with 27 cents.
There was an enclosed letter from SAG (Screen Actors Guild) explaining how I can donate my residual check. Great to see this. Oh, but wait...I would have to mail it out to donate it. Do you think I should pay 44 cents to mail a 27-cent check?
I don't, but obviously Entertainment Partners (the payroll company) and SAG did, each--EP to SAG and then SAG to me.
Ha!

Urban Prep - We Believe.

100 percent of school's first class college-bound
CHICAGO — For each boy, the new school offered an escape and a chance at a life that seemed beyond reach.
Krishaun Branch was getting D's, smoking reefer a lot, skipping school twice a week. His mother was too busy working to know what he was doing. He liked to fight and hang out in the streets; having relatives in gangs was his armor.

This is the beginning of an AP story I just read about a high school, started on Chicago's south side four years ago, with their first graduating class--ALL young men are heading to college.
Given the reality that only 1 in 40 African American males will finish college, Urban Prep having a goal to send 100% of their students off to college seemed far-fetched.
But when you have a vision, like the founder of Urban Prep, Tim King does, anything is possible.
As I watched the video of these young men, describing where they came from, what their mindset was, and then their transformation over the last four years, I am inspired.
It's a mini-lesson in success, including:
*the effect of positive self-talk
*the importance of dress
*the power of association
*the result of perseverance

Who knows what the future holds for these men? They may not all graduate college. Or they may not all be able to find their dream career afterwards. But I do know that they are different people, equipped with a different way of thinking, than who they would be without these experiences over the last four years.

Experiences of:
*being shown another way to live
*having a purpose, a goal, a target
*working hard and not taking anything for granted
*belonging, having a sense of community
*being valued, loved, and encouraged
*having others believe in them
and finally,
*believing in themselves.

Homework? Isn't That Like Bringing Work Home From The Office?

It's summertime and the kids in school are excited that they have a few months of freedom from homework.

My kids don't know what homework, in the traditional sense of the word, is.

What do the kids in school do for seven hours a day, that prevents them from getting all their work done?

Just as I don't think consistently bringing work home from the office is healthy for an individual, nor a family; I don't think bringing work home from school is healthy for an individual, nor a family.

Why is homework an acceptable practice? And what kind of pattern, habits, attitudes, is it teaching our future adults?

The Practical Side of Creativity

Recently I’ve mentioned to a few, my decision to be intentionally creative.

I have been fortunate for most of my formative years including going to a performing and visual arts high school, and being a theatre major in college, to be “allowed” to be creative.

Because I am now homeschooling my children, I've been challenged in a way that I haven't been in a long time. And I realized that, while yes I’m still creative, I’ve allowed myself to get in to a bit of a rut. I’ve allowed the distractions of the world, as well as the “musts” and “shoulds” to hinder my creativity.

Then I came across this talk on a website I recently "discovered" TED.com. After seeing this (entertaining) talk by Sir Ken Robinson I realized just how critically important creativity is.
Not for creativity's own sake, but for how it heavily influences the way we view life, the way we view challenges, and the way we navigate through life and through such challenges. There are practical implications to the creative process.

As I watch my two children play, work, rest, eat, everything really, I am captivated by what they discover, how they discover, and then what they do with that information.

Why are more adults not like this? What happens as we grow older that this ability is lost (or greatly reduced)? And how does this affect the world in which we live?

Here is a link to the talk which engagingly addresses these questions. Ken Robinson on TED.com