10/27/2011......

I think it's quite apparent what I'll be updating you guys on if you've been following my blog at all. Life is great right now. I'm loving my wife, SMS, School, and many other things!

My wifey

Brie doesn't like when I do stuff like this but I highly doubt she reads this blog, so I'm free to write anything :). Simply said, i'm married to the most amazing girl in the world! We've been able to spend a lot of time together now that business is going well. We spent all last week in Nevada and will be spending all weekend in SLC for a global convention. I love her for who she is and for who she's striving to become. I owe everything to her, and couldn't have accomplished have of what I have without her support. Thanks Brienne for being my biggest example and best support, I love you.

Sponsor Me Slim

Wow, things are really getting exciting. I'm so proud of those of you who have made the decision to live a healthier lifestyle. The program in itself is very simple, but many of you are taking it an extra step receiving extraordinary results. I'd like to recognize Preston Carter for his extraordinary results over the last three weeks. Preston has lost 15lbs 25in and has raised $875 for starving children. That $875 will feed and nourish 39 children who otherwise would have died of malnutrition/starvation. I'm proud of you Preston for making your weight loss bigger than yourself.

Things continue to grow rapidly with SMS. Tuesday night we attended on of our Health Awareness Seminars and I counted 61 people in the room. It's crazy to see where this has come in just six weeks. The stories are incredible! I look forward to my close friends and family experiencing the same results in the near future.

Rocks to Riches

Just to give you all a quick update on our progress with our school project. Last Saturday we ended up with a 60" TV, Bowflex Machine, $50 gift certificate to the University Mall, $100 gift certificate to Sierra West, Wakeboard Bindings, Bluetooth headset, Cordless phone, and a Sky Caddy. If any of these things sound appealing, feel free to make an offer and maybe we can work out a trade!

Good Friends

I've really appreciated my friends lately. I realize how important it is to surround yourself with great people. Just like Jim Rhome has said, "you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with." I'm lucky to have met some amazing people in the last year. I look forward to building these relationships and creating even more. I'd like to thank Alex Paulos publicly for his friendship and all that he is doing for helping others. For those of you who don't know Alex, he is an extremely intelligent and caring individual. He has studied extensively human traits, personalities...etc. It's been great to have him explain my personality type and how I can be more aware of others' feelings. I can't thank him enough for what he's done for me and my family. I look forward to spending time with him, learning what he does, and helping him share his gift with others. I know that it's something that can really help a lot of people.

That's it for this week, thanks for following!

10/21/2011.....

Wow, what an amazing week! Where do I begin? Lets give you guys an update with last week's news.

Rock to Riches

As I mentioned last week, we were given an assignment last week in school to trade a rock for eventual riches. We started with a rock that weighed less than a pound. We traded that rock for a bunch of stuff that Haylie and Brett Nowell were going to get rid of. We left our first trade with wakeboard bindings, poster, bags, blankets...etc. In 20 minutes we will be trading some of those things for a computer scanner. This ends tomorrow, so if you guys have anything to contribute, it would be much appreciated. This has been exciting!

Sponsor me Slim

I just got back from an amazing Sponsor me Slim weekend. We spent the week at Pirate's Cove in Boulder City Nevada. If you don't know where that is, please watch this video on YouTUBE. It's the coolest house known to mankind!

We took a bus down there with around 30 people. We left Monday morning and arrived around 7pm. After we got settled in, we spent the night swimming, jumping off of the pirate planks, and going down the water slides. I can't leave out the all you can eat ice cream and slushies that I enjoyed. I know, I need to be a better example to my clients that are losing weight. Every time I ate a cone, I saw somebody look at me with disgust. haha, I'll be better! The next two days we spent eating and playing. It was very relaxing. The only thing I could compare it to was a theme park and cruise ship combined. If it weren't $5000 a night, I would recommend that everyone go there! Or join us and lose a bunch of weight and we'll get you there for free :) The last day was my favorite. We spent the day with some incredible people and received great counsel on how to build a sustainable long term business. A special thanks to Craig Tillotson, Kenton Worthington, and Peter Lavery. With out you guys, we wouldn't be seeing the rapid growth that we've seen thus far. Thanks to you, hundreds of people are losing weight and many hundreds of children are now being fed nutritious meals! The most impacting moment for me this week was actually on the bus ride down there. Peter Lavery made us watch the movie "Schindler's List." If you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend the movie even though it isn't a fun movie to watch. It tells the story of the Jews that were placed in the camps during WWII. Very sad to see how those Jews were treated and how many were killed. Over a three year period, close to six million Jews had been killed. No one did anything about it. What would you do if you lived in Germany at the time? Would you stand by and watch that happen? The takeaway message for me was this. In three years over six million Jews were exterminated and nobody did anything about it. Every year six million children, not adults but children, are dying of starvation. This is totally preventable! Am I just going to stand by and watch it happen? The answer is no! Lets keep up the pace....help people achieve their weight loss goals with a purpose. To feed the world's starving children. It's up to us. Take care guys!

10/10/2011

Ok guys, I have an exciting blog post for you all this week! As I've mentioned previously, I am studying Entrepreneurship at BYU. This week, we've been given an assignment called "creating value." Have you heard about the red paper clip? Check out this video if you'd like to see what it's all about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE8b02EdZvw

We are pretty much doing the exact same thing. Instead of starting with one red paper clip, we are starting with a rock. The purpose of the assignment is to see how well we can barter with people to change one rock (under 1 lb) into something great. I'd like everybody who reads this blog to send me an email (erickson.kelsey8@gmail.com) just to let me know that you've seen this blog. It will take two minutes but will be very helpful. We are open to any offers to get started. Do you have something at your house, in your garage, or just lying around that you don't use anymore? Please let us know and we can start with something of value. I'll be updating you all weekly on our team's progress. Also, please check us out on facebook! I'll be throwing up a post to try and get everybody's participation. Even if you aren't willing to trade something with us, you can like us or post on our post. This way more people will see what we are about. Thanks so much everyone for your participation, this will be fun and exciting!

A little update with "Sponsor Me Slim". We have more people on the program than I could ever imagine in such a short time frame. Tomorrow I will have a weigh in with some of our new comers and with their permission I'll update you all! I also haven't asked my mom if it was ok that I put up her numbers but she has had great progress! Contact her to hear how much weight/inches she lost in only her first week! Proud of you mom!!! Two really exciting things happened this last week with "Sponsor Me Slim." First, we got corporate's attention. In the last 1.5 weeks of September, we generated more volume in weight loss than competing programs in last 3 months combined. Corporate called us up to ask what we were doing. Instead of telling them, we invited them to one of our seminars and they were blown away with the testimonials. Over 25 people stood up and shared their weight loss and health success. It was truly inspiring! I also noticed that we had over 20 Nourish the Children Ambassador's in the room. That means that over 120 children were fed last month because of our efforts. Because we had such great success in September, we all went to celebrate. We stayed at the Zermott in Midway, Utah. We ate dinner and swam Friday night, then had a full day of training on Saturday. What a fabulous weekend. Thanks everyone for your support. Well that's all that I have time for right now, have a great week!

10/3/2011 update....

Hey guys! Another week has passed and there's a lot to get you all updated on. First, lets start with a personal achievment. I have not bitten my nails for two months! Ha ha. This sounds funny but it's something that I've struggled with for over 15 years. It really helps me relate to people with any addiction. Unfortunately, biting my nails is my addiction. Thanks to the wifey for the help!
Brie and I have also been looking at houses this past week. We met with a loan officer and were pre-approved to start looking at houses. Also, we met with a real estate guy and have started the whole process. It's kind of funny! We recieve about five emails a day with pictures of houses on the market. Our real estate guy is wanting to move much faster than we are. We are looking into places near Springville area with a basement apartment that we can rent out to young married couples. We have found a few houses that we like and will probably go and visit them soon. It's kind of funny the timing of it all actually. This week in my Personal Finance Class, we are learning strategies on buying a house. Already I've realized that we need to slow down and consider a bunch of other things. We may not even move into a house. We are most likely out of Utah after I graduate from BYU in two years. Some questions that we're considering. Will our house build enough equity in two years to sell it? If not, will we be able to rent out our house to cover our mortgage and create another avenue of residual income? Will it be a lot of work to rent out the house while we are not living nearby? We're in the process of considering these questions and are open to any input that you guys have! Feel free to leave a comment with your opinions.
Things with "Sponsor me Slim" are going fantastic! It's been so fun to see some amazing success stories in just one short month. Ilia is down 16 lbs in 16 days and 12 inches. Jim has lost 3lbs and 1 inches in his first four days on the program. Alex has lost 27 lbs and 12 inches in his first month on the program! Another great thing to see is how many people have become ambassadors of Nourish the Children. At least 100 starving children have been fed this last month due to our efforts and this number is continuing to grow! My mom started the program yesterday, and I'm excited to see her progress! It's been a blast to work so closely with Peter Lavery. He's having me do questionnaires, 1 on 1 interviews, training and much much more. He has already had a huge impact on my business and can't hardly wait to see how things will be in only one months time.
Lastly, we had a blast this conference weekend. My in-laws rented a cabin in Sundance and we stayed the weekend up there. Conference was a great excuse to get away and enjoy time with the family and pondering the words of our leaders. I felt like 5+ talks were written just for me. Saturday I enjoyed going out to eat with Rick, Andrew, Brennan and Landon. After Priesthood session, we returned to the cabin and had an awesome spa experience. We spent time in a hot tub, steam room, and sana. To finish things off, Brie had me wear a Glacial Marine Mud Mask. Haha good times!