Why I Love What I Do

I am a weight loss/fitness coach for Beachbody.  I offer free weight loss and fitness coaching to anyone interested.  You may know this company from P90X, Slim in 6, Insanity or other similar workout programs.  I just got back from the annual coaches summit which was in Los Angeles, CA.

I had a fabulous time and I learned a lot more about the company, and about myself.  I’d like to share with you my biggest takeaways from both.

 I already knew a lot about this company.  Such as the CEO and staff has a passion to reverse the alarming trend of obesity in this country and they are generous with their coaches in time, training, advertising, support, and compensation.  I have this passion, too.  In fact, I will not stop because I don’t want to see one more woman left a widow early, one more child left fatherless or motherless at a young age, one more life cut short in its prime due to obesity.  But I learned at the summit  that this company has integrity as well as passion.

Here’s how I know this.  They sell a product called Shakeology, in two current flavors of chocolate and greenberry.  Here is the link, if you wish to learn more about Shakeology.  http://www.shakeology.com/debstevens  The product has 70 healthy ingredients; most of which have a strong, possibly unwelcomed flavor that is a challenge to mask.   The ingredients are all natural, nothing artificial, and no preservatives, gluten and caffeine free as well.  They undertook the task to develop vanilla which is a much more subtle flavor than chocolate or greenberry.  They had worked and worked to come up with a great-tasting vanilla and were to unveil this new flavor at the coaches summit.  But then two weeks before the summit, they discovered, due to an FDA loophole allowing for a percentage of artificial ingredients and still be called organic and natural, that the vanilla used in the shakeology included a chemical common with antifreeze and other artificial ingredients.  In fact, they learned that there is no vanilla product on the market, even if they claim the ingredients are all natural, that does not include artificial ingredients and harmful chemicals.

They decided that in order to remain true to their commitment in making this product healthy and nutritionally sound, they could not release the vanilla as it was and are back to the drawing board.   Being a CPA, I naturally started wondering about the cost of that decision for them.  Now, they were at the end of the process and while they never mention this in the telling, I’m sure they had to have already invested a large sum of money into the product at this point.  My respect for the company has grown by leaps and bounds as a result of their decision to stand by their principles no matter the cost.

I also learned something else about myself.  If you have read some of my blogs, you may know that I have struggled with some things in the past year or so.  One of them, is that while I am a social media butterfly, I really have isolated myself from being around people outside of the online arena.  You know, real life.  I had a great time at the summit meeting people face-to-face.  I met a lot of great people.  I danced and danced and danced.  And discovered, that I have been missing so much by isolating myself.  So I’m considering this as a coming out party for me, of sorts.  It took a lot of determination on my part to fly across the country and put myself out there.  But it was just what I needed.  So I’m declaring that I’m done isolating myself.  I had convinced myself that I didn’t need the contact.  I was wrong. 

How about you? Do you tend to consider your online life your social arena?  Have you isolated yourself from people?  It’s time to become more balanced and venture back out into the world.  You need them and they need you.  You’ll be much better for it.