How One Age-Old Principle has Defined Our Success

Whether you’ve seen this, heard of it, or have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, The Secret is incredibly powerful. The Secret to success, happiness, and prosperity pivots on the time-honored new age notion of the Laws of Attraction: That is, think positively, and positive things will come to you.

Rhonda Byrne’s discovery of The Secret began with a glimpse of the truth of life within a 100-year old book. She went back through the centuries, tracing and uncovering The Secret that lay at the core of the most powerful philosophies, teachings and religions in the world.

What Rhonda discovered is now captured in The Secret, a film that has changed millions of people’s lives across the planet. No matter who you are, no matter where you are, you can change your life.

This is The Secret to prosperity, health, relationships and happiness. This is The Secret to life.

It’s helped us be better entrepreneurs, go-givers, and members of society in general.

Check it out:

Bill Clinton, Jillian Michaels Join the Movement to End Obesity

Bill Clinton Speaking at the Health Matters Conference

As you may have heard, last Monday and Tuesday marked important days for HUMAN Healthy Vending, and the country as a whole.

HUMAN had the pleasure of being invited to the Health Matters conference that kicked off the HUMANA Challenge. Andy and Sean joined the front lines in Indian Wells, California, along with nutrition experts, athletes, A-list celebrities, and President Bill Cliinton. All speakers made sincere pronouncements about the importance of health and fitness.

Tuesday’s discussions organized by the Clinton Foundation were based on the health problems facing our country--primarily those that are preventable--like obesity and type II diabetes. The most outstanding messages of the day were to educate, keep it simple, and move more and eat less.

The newly named Humana Challenge -- formerly the Bob Hope Classic -- began with talks on ways to make America healthier -- and a panel of well known faces.

Clinton moderated the discussion between health and fitness experts about the best ways to cure America’s obesity problem, one of the biggest health concerns facing our nation.

“One out of two Americans have diabetes or prediabetes,” said Dr. Mark Hyman with the Institute for Functional Medicine. That can be prevented by eating the right kinds of food.

Fitness Guru and Biggest Loser trainer, Jillian Michaels, encouraged Americans to get moving. She put that advice into action with a 7:45 am workout Tuesday morning. Let us tell you, she kicked our butts! She had us working up a sweat with jumps, pushups and lunges. Yeah baby!

Check out this video of Michaels giving advice and addressing some BIG problems.

Michaels addressed two main problems--lack of convenient access to healthy foods AND resources in our schools--that we at HUMAN are tackling by placing healthy vending machines in the areas that need them most.

NBC NEWS Chief Health Correspondent, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, also spoke at the health conference. She stated that obesity is the biggest health problem facing Americans.

“There is a real chance to make a difference, but goes back to simple things in life. You have to eat well and make food affordable to people, get outside, and in this area -- no excuses, and unplug from all tech suff we are stuck with,” said .

It’s advice that has been known forever: eat less, move more…and you’ll lose weight and be healthier. Simple stuff that most Americans have a hard time following.

Did you know that this is the first time in history where children are expected to live shorter lives than their parents? That’s a scary statistic that we can’t let become a reality.

That’s why getting involved in these types of conferences is so important to us. At HUMAN, we believe in our mission and will do everything it takes to increase access to nutrition, make healthy foods more affordable, and educate people on the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. It all starts with changing habits. Education is the driving force behind changing unhealthy habits.

Finding “Flow” Produces Optimal Results and an Optimal Life

What Makes Life Worth Living?

“Imagine that you are skiing down a slope and your full attention is focused on the movements of your body, the position of the skis, the air whistling past your face, and the snow-shrouded trees running by. There is no room in your awareness for conflicts or contradictions; you know that a distracting thought or emotion might get you buried face down in the snow. The run is so perfect that you want it to last forever…”

The picture painted above describes an instance of “flow.” They are the words of  none other than Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the man behind the theory of “flow.”

Have you ever found yourself working on something so intensely that you actually forget what time it is? Have you ever been so immersed in focus that you actually forgot to eat? There are so many things we do in life where time seems to fly by, and we don’t even realize 5 hours have passed. We refer to it all the time…being “in the zone,” or in our case, “CRUSHING IT!”

It’s full immersion in flow, not happiness, that makes life worth living. Sure, we can be happy lounging in the sunshine with a piña colada, or relaxing in bed watching TV, but this kind of happiness depends on external circumstances. We need the beach or the television set, in these cases, to be happy. The happiness that follows flow is of our own making, and it leads to increasing complexity and a greater challenge.

WHERE TO FIND FLOW

Flow happens when 1) you face a clear set of goals that 2) require appropriate responses. Imagine playing a game of chess, for instance. It’s easy to enter flow because chess requires goals and rules that make it possible for the player to act without questioning what should be done, and how. During the entire game, you live in a self-contained universe where everything is black and white. The same thing happens when you play a musical piece, write a computer program, climb a mountain, or perform surgery. In contrast to normal life, these “flow activities” allow a person to focus on goals that are clear and provide immediate feedback.

Flow also happens when there is a perfect balance in challenge and skill. If challenges are too low, one gets back to flow by increasing them. If challenges are too great, one can return to the flow state by learning new skills.

How often do people experience flow? If you ask a sample of typical Americans, “Do you ever get involved in something so deeply that nothing else seems to matter and you lose track of time?” roughly one in five will say that this happens to them as much as several times a day, whereas about 15 percent will say that this never happens to them.

A better way to study flow is the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). This method provides a bird’s eye view of a person’s daily activities and experiences. At the signal of a pager or watch, which goes off at random times within each two-hour segment of the day, a person writes down in a booklet where he is, what he is doing, what he is thinking about, and whom he is with, then he rates his state of consciousness on various numerical scales.

“The ESM has found that flow generally occurs when a person is doing his or her favorite activity--gardening, listening to music, bowling, cooking a good meal” says Csikszentmihalyi. “It also occurs when driving, talking to friends, and surprisingly often at work. Very rarely do people report flow in passive leisure activities, such as watching television or relaxing.”

Almost any activity can produce flow if the right ingredients are mixed together, so it is possible to improve the quality of life by making sure that the conditions of flow are a constant part of everyday life.

FLOW AT WORK?

I think it’s safe to say that many people don’t actually “enjoy” their job. Thus, how can they possibly find ways to achieve flow?

Actually, there are many ways to make one’s job produce flow. Turning a dull job into one that satisfies our need for novelty and achievement involves paying close attention to each step involved, and then asking: Is this step necessary? Can it be done better, faster, more efficiently? What additional steps could make my contribution more valuable? If, instead of spending a lot of effort trying to cut corners, you spent the same amount of attention trying to find ways to accomplish more on the job, you would enjoy working-and probably be more successful. It’s all about optimization, baby!

The same type of approach is needed for solving the problem of stress at work. First, establish priorities among your tasks. Successful people often make lists or flowcharts of all the things they have to do, and quickly decide which tasks they can delegate or forget, and which ones they have to tackle personally, and in what order. Successful people live by the 80/20 Rule.

The next step is to match one’s skills with whatever challenges have been identified. There will be tasks we feel incompetent to deal with. Can you learn the skills required in time? Can you get help? Can the task be transformed, or broken into simpler parts? Usually the answer to one of these questions will provide a solution. That transforms a potentially stressful situation into a flow experience.

I bet you’ll take a whole new meaning to the phrase “go with the flow.”

Shreveport, LA Operator Donnie Hudson Strikes Gold

3 Days Worth of Money Collected from Donnie Hudson's Healthy Vending Machines

With anything in life, you have two choices: take initiative, or wait for an opportunity come to you. For Donnie Hudson, the latter was never an option.

After attending the HUMAN Business Building Bootcamp (HB3) in October, Donnie didn’t waste any time locking down the best locations to place his healthy vending machines. He used the tools he learned at HB3 to target (and secure) specific locations in the Shreveport, LA area.

How did he do it?

Donnie pounded the pavement the moment he got back to Shreveport. With his energy from HB3 still pumping through his veins, he went to every potential location and dropped off a bag of sample healthy vending snacks. While he was there, he built a rapport with the decision makers and set meetings. Essentially, Donnie kickstarted the LDA process by taking initiative.

Talk about having a passion for your business! Just this past week alone, Donnie has experienced MASSIVE success at his newly-launched machines.

“Yesterday (Dec 30) I averaged 45 vends per day across my machines,” Donnie reported. “They had a basketball game at Calvary and my machine was emptied! Plus, the Broadmoor YMCA has been unreal. I had 35 vends yesterday and averaging just under 20 per day. I cannot wait until next week when Byrd [High School] comes online! Just wanted to share the good news, this is just an awesome experience!”

Two days later, Donnie reported even more crushing stats. On his first day of operation at Byrd High School, his machines had 115 vends by noon. At the end of the day, his machines had 240 vends. Not to mention, the students only get to use the machines during two different 30-minute lunch periods!

Overall, 2 of Donnie’s healthy vending machines are doing between 130-140 vends a day each, and another 2 are doing 100-110 vends a day each.

Way to go, Donnie! It just goes to show how having a passion for your business and a drive for success can amount to monumental results. By taking initiative and harnessing the energy and knowledge learned from HB3, Donnie was able to take Shreveport by storm.

Interested in achieving the same success as Donnie? Kickstart the process of becoming a HUMAN Healthy Vending partner operator here.

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Napoleon Hill on Personal Initiative

How to Aim for Success Above Mediocrity

Check out this classic video from Napoleon Hill, author of one of the most influential books in history, Think and Grow Rich:

As Hill says, “If you aim for success above mediocrity, you will need to learn to act on your own personal initiative, because your success is something which you must achieve for yourself without someone telling you what to do or how to do it.”

Taking initiative is extremely important. It separates the greatest successes from everyone else. Those who get ahead most rapidly are those who promote themselves to a higher place in life by acting on their own personal initiative.

Taking initiative gets you places you could never get by waiting for things to happen. Every day we have a choice: to actively create our destiny, or let our destiny be created for us.

Carpe Diem! Sieze the day!

Kick Out the Junk -- Keep All the Commission

Orchard Park High School Principal, Jon Wolf, took a leap of faith by replacing junk food machines with HUMAN Healthy Vending machines. He made an amazing discovery: You can earn the same commission on healthy products, while improving the lives of students!

Check out the interview:

As you can see, HUMAN Healthy Vending Orchard Park NY has instated a massively successful healthy vending program in Orchard Park High School. Principal Wolf loves the fact that his school is able to provide healthy options to students, and it isn’t at the cost of fundraising for the clubs. Wolf also comments on the cutting edge technology with which the machine is equipped. The students and faculty love it! 

Food Service Manager Praises HUMAN Program

Check out this testimonial given by Dan Witkowski, Regional Food Service Manager for Nutri-Serve, which serves schools in the Haddonfield, NJ area:

Witkowski commends HUMAN Healthy Vending Haddonfield NJ for its dedication in ending the obesity epidemic. He notes that students are very sports-oriented in the Haddonfield area, thus their decision to incorporate HUMAN vending machines was a no-brainer. Witkowski discusses the benefits of HUMAN partner operator-hosted sampling events, which introduces kids to the healthy products offered in the machines. He also loves the idea of accurate sales reporting from the HUMAN machine.

St. Joseph Catholic School in Greenville SC

Director of Advancement at St. Joseph Catholic School, Gina Turcotte, sat down with co-founder Andy Mackensen to discuss the positive impact HUMAN Healthy Vending Greenville SC has played on students.

Check out the interview:

Since St. Joseph offers many after school sports, programs, and events, she knew that providing students with healthy snacks was a top priority. Students at St. Joseph were intrigued with the products in the machine and the machine itself. There were also a lot of parents who were really happy with the placement of the HUMAN machine.

Thanks, Gina!

Hawken School Nurse Weighs in on HUMAN Experience

Check out this healthy school vending review:

Hawken School nurse, Bridget Harrison, talks about the positive impact HUMAN Healthy Vending Cleveland OH has had on her school. The students absolutely love the machine. She discusses how the other, traditional vending machines at Hawken continually break and don’t offer the convenience of credit card readers as HUMAN machines do. Thanks, Bridget, for an inside view of the HUMAN Healthy Vending program from a school nurse’s perspective!

HUMAN Partner Operator Paul Marston Weighs in on his Experience

Check out this testimonial:

You’ll see a HUMAN Healthy Vending North Hampton NH operator’s perspective on launching his HUMAN Healthy Vending business. Paul Marston gives some great advice to those interested in a healthy vending business.

Partner Operators Brett and Jessica Chance

Check out HUMAN Healthy Vending Houston TX operators, Brett and Jessica Chance, give their testimonial on the HUMAN Healthy Vending process, team, and mission:

The Chances are starting with 10 machines and had a great LDA experience. In Jessica’s words herself, “Go big or go home!”