Mark: Fun Times and Spiritual Growth in the Desert Metropolis of Vegas (baby)

I have just returned from 4 days of fun and growth in (of all places), Las Vegas. The fun part is to be expected, the unexpected part is the growth. My wife's sister's 21st birthday happened to coincide with the Hay House "I Can Do It" conference in Las Vegas. It seems that spirituality and "alternative" healing has become mainstream.

I was excited to hear Bill Philips, the founder of EAS and author of numerous books on nutrition and fitness, speak about his "Second Chance" organization and "Transformation". He shared his "11 Tenets", each powerful single words that resonated with me: Move, Care, Give, Feed, Talk, Know, Live, Hear, Heal, Grow and Love. The room of several thousand cheered and seemed inspired.

The conference included exhibitors of assorted new age paraphernalia: books (we spent $300), a chakra balancing device ($290) and the chance to meet some leaders of the spirituality movement: Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, Dr. Darren Weissman of "Infinite Love and Gratitiude" as well as the renowned Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto, recognized for his leading edge research in photographing water crystals while exposed to positive and negatives words and music (he also enjoys Karaoke, as we witnessed).

Of course, we found time to enjoy ourselves in the emerging desert metropolis, enjoying fabulous cuisine at some great restaurants and kicking up our heels at the busy nightclubs. Our poolside cabana provided air conditioning to those inside as well as the desert air, which I must say felt a bit like conspicuous consumption!

The conference was inspiring to me at the personal level because these are people who are talking about the vast benefits of putting spiritual principles to work in one’s life. And from a business perspective, I was equally inspired because the speakers, authors and companies remind me that it is possible to do well by doing good. Ever since I have committed, with Roy, to building NourishLife and making a difference, I have been getting continuous signs that we are on the right track. My trip to Vegas (baby) was more of the same. Back to work…

Roy: Putting Down New Roots

I close on a house in Lake Forest next week. It seems like it all happened very quickly. I joined Mark last summer and commuted from my home in Rhode Island on a weekly basis to Chicago. That started to take its toll, so my family moved out with me toward the end of ’06, and we rented a house. After a bit of time, renting just didn’t feel right, so we decided to buy. And before I knew it, I am scheduling a closing date.

Making the decision to move to Chicago from the East Coast and uprooting my family has not been an easy one. And it is certainly not the easiest thing for them. I am lucky to have their support. I believe so strongly in what we are doing here at NourishLife that I wanted to be fully committed and present – both physically and mentally.

I am interested to hear from anyone else who has had experience with this kind of transition. I assume that a move like this will have its interesting periods of adjustment (and yes, I am laying on the euphemisms pretty thickly).

Roy: The Wild West of Affiliate Marketing

Mark and I just came back from the Ad:Tech Conference in San Francisco. Were any of you there? Share your impressions if you were.

If you have not been to this conference and you are in the business of marketing through the internet, I highly recommend that you attend it next time. You can check out their website at:

http://www.ad-tech.com/

We are partnering with another company to launch our affiliate marketing campaign, and so we paid them a visit at the conference. Three days and my head was spinning. The place was certainly full of energy, ideas and innovative young business people. I must confess that I felt like a bit of an old-timer at times.

Obviously, there are people and companies making money in the affiliate marketing space. That is clearly the primary objective. And that drive for profit is bringing out a tremendous amount of creativity, but there was something missing. I have seen the development of these kinds of market niches before, and through all the excitement, I picked up on something that I have seen in the past. This space is ripe for a major player to come in and bring corporate structure to it. If I were a betting man, I would bet that that will happen within the next year or two. I don’t know who it will be – big ad agencies looking for new growth areas, perhaps – but my gut tells me it’s going to happen.

Share your hunches if you have them, or disagree with me if you think I’m nuts. Either way, we’re going along for the ride.

Mark: It’s Amazing What Enthusiasm Will Do

Roy and I have been working on a deal with a major player in the healthcare arena. I’m not at liberty to share the details right now – I’ll fill you in more when the time comes. I bring this up now to share something that never seems to amaze me.

On paper, it is highly improbable that a company like this should want to work with us. They are big and we are relatively new and small. They have an incredibly established brand, and we are just beginning to build ours. So there we were on a conference call with them, discussing our ideas, and talking about the ways that we could build a win-win partnership, and it occurred to me that none of those “paper” factors make all that much different.

We brought something of value to them: a great product in an exciting growth space (Omega-3s), our creative ideas for how to work together to bring their customers more value, and most importantly, our enthusiasm. I guess that the infectiousness of enthusiasm never fails because they want to get going with us immediately. It was fantastic to see how quickly smart and positive people will go with you into co-creation when given the chance.

I would love to hear from any of who have had similar experiences. I learned a long time ago that nothing can happen until you pick up the phone, or put yourself out there, and to this day, the things that happen when I do are still amazing to me.