Feathers A Flyin'

The boys are fixin' to go racin' and the Sacred #99 car is ready for the left turn marathon that is the Daytona 500. I can not believe the popularity of NASCAR and the excitement that the marriage between Carl Edwards and the Duck has generated.

Enjoy the newest commercials debuting this weekend.

http://wms6.streamhoster.com/pebennett/Video/AflacCommercials_020509.wmv

Putting Your Best Foot Forward

I am going to begin posting excerpts from my weekly newsletter to my sales teams on this blog. I hope you likey, comments and contributions are welcomed and potentially will be plagiarized. Thank you in advance.

As I get older, more things make sense to me. Mark Twain said, “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” A funny take on perspective. I am hearing more and more each day the troubles of our economy. I hear of job market woes. I hear of people’s budgets growing while their income is shrinking. I interview people daily who feel beaten and tired. However, I also see hope. I see positive attitudes. I see people succeeding. Like Mark Twain as he grew older, I HAVE A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE. I believe your attitude attracts a similar outcome. I know that was a heavy statement (I had to read in nine times to make sure it made sense). What I mean if you think you will fail then you will. If you believe, you will make that sale YOU WILL. Your confidence is a silent indicator to those around you, and potential customers can read any sign of doubt. Growing up I participated in the Boy Scouts. I am proud to say I achieved the Eagle Scout award. During my Eagle “Court of Honor”, my scoutmaster gave a speech that to this day has influenced my life. He stood and showed dozens of photographs from the troop as we participated in camp outs, merit badge work, and fun activities. He paused on several that showed me in “scouting” action and in every picture, I had one foot in from of the other. This became the theme of his message, “Living life with your best foot forward.” Doing everything, you can with your very best effort. Leading with your best and expecting the greatest outcome.
I believe with the right perspective we are great. In sales and with Aflac I want this team to be leading with their best foot forward. My perspective is positive. I see great people winning. I see a team that reaches their goals. I see confident sales people helping others in an economy that is begging for our policies.

We are confident salespeople and we need to have an attitude of success. We need to put our best foot forward and AP will be a product of our efforts.
Have a great week with your best foot forward.

-Judd Law

Did You Know?

We live in truly exciting times and I am grateful to be a part of it. I have often wondered what technology my grandchildren will experience in their lifetimes. After viewing this clip I will now wonder what my children will experience in their lifetimes. Change is good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U&feature=related

This is an ironic post. I gush and marvel about change and technology yet I have not figured out how to post a clip of this type. Until my feeble brain figures it out please copy and paste link for the viewing goodness.

Motivating the masses.

I was sent this from my corporate HQ with tag line of, "Team Motivation: The 40 greatest speeches for making an impact". Enjoy!

Are you going to finish strong?

As I toddled into work this brisk Spokanian morn, I found myself squinting through my shoddily scraped icy windshield into a sea of morning fog that has seemed to envelop this valley every a.m. for the last week or so. My thoughts were floating between the sports talk radio I was listening to, and my sales teams performance this month. It was any other wintry day. As I enter my office my routine is the same, call to life my Dell beast, log into my Aflac websites to see my weekly sales numbers, then turn to my baby, my little nugget of hope, my cyber mattress where our money is hid, my glorious stock portfolio. I have always secretly dreamed of rising to the semi lofty realm of day trader. Wielding my financial muscle as I stock pile millions into my various bank accounts dotting this great land. Alas, my dream is unfulfilled, other priorities keep creeping in (like life).

Being a west coast baby now when I awoke this morn the markets had been open for hours and - gasp - the damage had been done. Nooooo, I screeched as my real time stock ticker looked like a kamikaze nose diver heading for the ground. I know the market has been shifty the last several months and I know everyone has lost at least something. But in my genius head, I thought I was resistant. Several strong investments here or there and my baby had been able to withstand the beating the market has been taking recently. This morning it caught up, a 36% loss and a two day total of 46%.

What does this mean? Absolutely nothing. Life is still good. the market will rebound. Two months from now business will be back to normal. A small hiccup. It is all temporary.

But somethings in life are not temporary. I don't mean this to be a weird of unsympathetic segue (I dig the random parable) but as I was experiencing this silly moment of me losing a little money in the market I was sent this message and video that showed me again what life is all about and what true happiness is and where it comes from.

See Nick Vujicic.

What do you do when you fall down? You get back up. Sometimes in life when you fall down you don’t feel like you don’t have the strength to get back up…

Do you feel like you have hope?
I will try 100 times to get up and if I fail 100 times do think I am ever going to give up?

It is not the end it matters how you are going to finish.

Are you going to finish strong? If you have hope you will find the strength to get back up.

Next time you feel bad, lose hope or want to quit, remember this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0JqQeSNjsw&feature=related

You know that insurance...

For 6 years now I have been working for a little company called Aflac. It has been a very rewarding career. It has taken my family across this country, developed an incredible book of business, a life changing income and allowed us to have flexibility in our lives.

Before I found the duck my career search was built upon a set of core values I developed from past jobs, schooling, and future goals. I desired to find a position that would fit these values. My values where very specific and almost overwhelming.

I wanted a career that would be the means to provide me a very comfortable living and not be the end of my life. I wanted to represent a company that had a great reputation. I wanted to fulfill a promise. I wanted to represent a company that people were passionate about. I wanted to truly help people. I wanted to become a better person through the work I was doing. I wanted to get paid what I was worth. I did not want to punch a time clock or have a ceiling above my head limiting my potential. I wanted my family, my church, and myself to come first. I have an entrepreneurial spirit that I wanted to cultivate yet still have the opportunity to have the support from a major organization. As you can read they are very specific that fall, sometime, into the personal aspects of my family life. I looked at these core values and was concerned that I was too demanding and that my search would be in vain. Fortunately through a good friend I was introduced to Aflac and before my first interview was over I asked when do I begin. This job compliments, perfectly, every value I was looking for in my life. It has been a dream come true to work for this company and as I have developed my career I have had the fortunate opportunity to give this dream to others. Aflac products save lives, The Aflac job changes lives, and it gives those looking for a something different a new life.

Long live the Duck.

Whoa...that was a heavy post. I simply started this post to share with you Aflac's newest commercials but it turned into a recruiting pitch. Forgive me and enjoy the duck doing crazy things.

Shake it off and step up.

A neat little ditty I heard at a sales conference.

A parable is told of a farmer who owned an old mule. The mule fell into the farmer's well. The farmer heard the mule 'braying' - or - whatever mules do when they fall into wells. After carefully assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the mule, but decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. Instead, he called his neighbors together and told them what had happened...and enlisted them to help haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery.

Initially, the old mule was hysterical! But as the farmer and his neighbors continued shoveling and the dirt hit his back...a thought struck him. It suddenly dawned on him that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back...HE SHOULD SHAKE IT OFF AND STEP UP! This he did, blow after blow.

"Shake it off and step up...shake it off and step up...shake it off and step up!" he repeated to encourage himself. No matter how painful the blows, or distressing the situation seemed the old mule fought "panic" and just kept right on SHAKING IT OFF AND STEPPING UP!

You're right! It wasn't long before the old mule, battered and exhausted, stepped triumphantly over the wall of that well! What seemed like it would bury him, actually blessed him...all because of the manner in which he handled his adversity.

THAT'S LIFE! If we face our problems and respond to them positively, and refuse to give in to them...THE ADVERSITIES THAT COME ALONG TO BURY US USUALLY HAVE WITHIN THEM THE POTENTIAL TO BENEFIT AND BLESS US!

"SHAKE IT OFF AND STEP UP" out of the wells in which we find ourselves!

- Author Unknown