IT'S ALIVE!

The beta site for the Million Dollar Body Game is alive, pretty much mostly.

With a ton of work, patience, and rework, by the Million Dollar Body team, they saw the project through to launch yesterday.

Today we are wrestling with the many surprises and glitches that happen when you fast track a technology overhaul like this.

It's actually a great week for it since so many people are away, eating, drinking, not thinking about fitness this week. And the pressure is on to get all the functions working as well.

But here's the real point: The Game IS ON! Get out your DVD's and meal planner and rev up your transformation! (And help other people achieve theirs!)

That means:

1) Make sure you surround yourself with support to workout in WOWY every day for your chance to win $300, or $1,000 on the WOWY mystery day. (Inviting people to workout is the best way to add a little pressure to yourself to "push play" instead of the snooze button!)

2) Club members, if your before and afters and success story is all in place on your profile page, make sure to submit it on January first 2007!!!! We're giving away $26,000 to the best transformation stories in four age groups, including $10,000 to the best male and female success stories of the month!

Like I said, a lot of the links are still being activated while the site is still in its "beta" format. But I can already tell you from the feedback this morning, people are excited to workout and play this game! It's on!

Don't forget to enter your success story by the end of the day January 1st!

The Miracle CEO Weight Loss System

These are my personal before and after photos from July 2000 when we created Power 90. It's literally the first time in my life I stayed consistent with a fitness and weight loss program and got in REAL shape.

Besides being a great program that made it simple for me to get results, what helped me stay consistent was the additional factor that, as CEO of Beachbody, my results could help inspire a lot of other people.

If the CEO did it, potential customers could see that they could achieve the same with this program. And they have, by the thousands with Power 90 and our other programs.

My CEO motivation was to become a "walking billboard" for the business, and it occurred to us that my CEO-motivation to succeed could be replicated by other customers if we created a "business opportunity" model making customers the CEO of their own fitness and weight loss store. The result is The Million Dollar Body Network - where customers become coaches, with their own storefront, a steady flow of prospects, and the best pricing on the most visible fitness systems on television.

What is exciting about that is, there is no shortage of prospects. We hear a lot about the growing epidemic of obesity. 60 Million people in the US qualify as "obese", and tens of million more as overweight. Now with your participation on this new level, by finding your inner CEO-motivation to succeed, we might have enough incentive to replace the epidemic of disease and debt with an "Epidemic of Fitness, Health and Wealth".

The Million Dollar Body Network (MDB) is an exclusive peer-to-peer business opportunity giving coaches a commission for helping us keep new customers on track and for generating sales of Beachbody's products. It is a bold initiative in an industry that is hypnotized by its thinking the only marketable solutions are gym memberships, equipment gimmicks, and diet fads. In this way, I hope MDB will represent a redistribution of millions of dollars of wealth from gyms and fad brokers to the people who do the REAL heavy lifting of motivation; To the customers-turned coaches who help people to keep pushing play and eating right each day!

That's how MDB is the first network marketing business of its kind - rewarding members for getting results through the Million Dollar Body Game, and rewarding coaches for helping every individual stay with it, to stay true to their desire to get lean and healthy!

The only people that lose in this scenario are the ones who still don't get it, who continue to chase every miracle pill or diet fad expecting to get different results. The MDB Network is about encouraging participation in what works: Fitness, proper nutrition, and peer support. That's the combination that has lined the walls of Beachbody with incredible success stories.

Peer support works. Whether you are trying to change how you eat, get active, quit smoking or change any stubborn habit, by surrounding yourself with people who help you stay on track your odds of success are a lot better than if you try to go it alone. And MDB was borne from a desire Beachbody co-founder Jon Congdon and I share to increase the role the community plays in helping people find those like-minded people. We've seen over and over again that the customers who have the most dramatic transformations tend to be those that seek and provide real peer support within the message boards, WOWY, and the MyBeachbody Club (soon to be Million Dollar Body Club.)

Imagine how the momentum of real lifestyle change could build if more people were helping each other achieve their goals, and this simple and effective model really catches on! If you see more people around losing weight, and earning a substantial paycheck each week for doing so, wouldn't you be motivated to become a coach, keep pushing play, and become your own walking billboard too? Now you can see the epidemic I'm talking about!

The management team of MDB, led by experienced network marketer (and now Power 90 enthusiast) Chris Simonian knows the important balance between business opportunity and the legacy of non-judgmental support within our community.

Nobody wants to be out of shape or overweight. But a closet full of meal replacement powder is not the answer to long term weight loss. That's why our solution is so marketable where people are otherwise suspicious of peer-to-peer marketing. We know our model actually works. And if you've done it, the proof stands undeniably right in front of you.

That's an easy sell, and a healthy, worthwhile sell.

Here's a note I got from Anne Dovel, an incredible Power 90 and P90X success story and her reaction to the Million Dollar Body concept:

Dear Carl,

I have so much to say, but know you are really busy. So, I'll try
to keep it short! We've been in networks before and the last time, I just
said....never again.

But then MBD comes along and it's something I've been doing for years now. And finally a network has a product that I can and do believe in with all my heart. I can be myself and do something I find truly rewarding for my family and for others around me. What's really cool is I know the product. I know the struggle and the rewards.

Deciding to be a part of this was like putting on a nice pair of running shoes. The fit just feels right.

Thanks.

Anne Dovel

We are committed to making the pursuit of fitness, proper diet, and peer support more interesting and rewarding than ever. And the people that help us build this into a national, and then international revolution, are the people who deserve to be rewarded; a legion of coaches, helping people stay on track.

When was the last time you participated in a real revolution? It only happens if you participate, on the individual level. If you keep pushing play. If you pursue good nutrition. And if you help others use these tools to do the same.

As Beachbody continues to attract millions of customers in 2007, we're asking MDB coaches to help those new customers set their start date in WOWY, and then to follow through to achieve their goals. No hard selling. No inventory. We're rewarding coaches just for getting their own great results and helping new customers get the most from the program. That's the win here, for everyone. And that's the point of the Million Dollar Body Network.

Whether it's to earn a few extra bucks (or a lot of extra bucks), or to give you the discipline to lose a few extra pounds (or a lot of extra pounds), I really do hope you get involved. We need you. This trend of weight gain needs you.

Of course, the message boards, WOWY and club are still available without engaging in the network. But from my CEO perspective, I know the prospect of creating a scalable business opportunity was exciting enough to push me to get me in shape. I bet it could do the same for you and millions of others.

We'll be publishing the first group of coaches soon, and hopefully kicking the doors open to the business opportunity by January 1st to see a bunch of new "CEO's" make the health of their community, their business. 2007 is gonna be fun... let's watch dreams come true.

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that
no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Great Vendors, Run By Great People

Product Partners, the parent of Beachbody.com, is lucky to not only have exceptionally professional vendors supplying us with state of the art service, but some of them are the nicest people you can meet.

That fact is demonstrated by the effort made today by our West Coast fulfilment vendor, Imagine Fulfillment Services (IFS), a company which has been loyal, reliable, and which has acted more like a partner than vendor since we got started with them in 2002.

IFS founders Andy Arvidson and Jim Heffernan proved that not all vendors are created equal today when, in response to our holiday card (shown left) asking vendors to donate to Tunahaki instead of giving us a basket of cheese, chocolate, wine or other gifts, donated $1,000 to help the kids of Tunahaki build their new orphanage in Tanzania!

That's truly significant, because corporate holiday giving can be a nuisance, and most companies have carefully budgeted and spent their money to acknowledge the companies they work with.

I appreciate all our vendors, but this gesture was "above and beyond", and truly demonstrative of how lucky we are to be working with these kind of people.

To the extent others of our team have donated, I will add their names and information here, because we are so grateful to them for their service and their acknowledgment of our goal to help these kids. Of course, if YOU want to give, feel free to click here. It's good for a healthy jolt of holiday spirit that you can't get from egg nog, without a doubt!

Hip Hop, Beachbody Style

If you want a fun way to get incredible abs, we gotta hot one!

I hinted about a program in development at the company beach party last summer, and now its almost here: Shaun T's Hip Hop Abs... our first comprehensive aerobic/dance dvd system completely committed to shrinking and tightening your waistline without a single crunch or sit-up!

We discovered Shaun a few years ago when he would substitute-train during the Project: YOU! test group. He is a regular instructor at one of LA's premier gyms where the line to get in on one of his classes starts forming as early as an hour before it starts. When Shaun teaches, people show.

Shaun also is one of the most in-demand dancer/choreographer/instructors in the world, appearing in a different country on a new stage every month.

In the last few years, Beachbody has experimented with the fitness and music combination, and learned from masters like Teigh and Gillian and their mind-body-spirit sweatfest Yoga Booty Ballet and Chalene Johnson and her calorie torching Turbo Jam. Music, combined with the right kind of movement can help neutralize your resistance to exercise because it's just plain more fun. Add to the that the constant desire people have to achieve great abs and it clicked. Shaun was the right guy at the right time, because when you see what he can do with his simple "Tilt-Tuck-Tighten" foundation for moving in a way that strengthens your core and abs, you'll feel like we did; like getting out of your chair and trying it for yourself! It's THAT fun, and you really will feel it in your abs like no other program!

At the test group we ran last summer, people who didn't think they could dance, much less get great abs, lost as much as 58 pounds (yes, for real, 58 pounds in a test group!). Good stuff!

Shaun T's Hip Hop Abs is going to (finally) make getting great looking, tight, ripped abs, FUN! If the test group was any indication, it might even make exercise addicting! And each DVD has a chapter on it where they take the exercise moves and put them into dance form.

We welcome Shaun to the Beachbody team, and look forward to launching the product in the next couple weeks!

Honestly, It's Not Easy

This morning, as so many mornings, I contemplated blowing off my workout, and blowing off those members I had committed to join in WOWY.

I hadn't slept well. My ankle, still healing from the summer tragedy on the kite tube was tight and painful, and the bed was alarmingly comfortable.



"What's one day?"
"Who's gonna miss me in WOWY?"
"I deserve the day off."
"Exercise in the morning just plain hurts."

That fricking inner voice is never exterminated. Lucky for me, I have the financial incentive of running the company to get me out of bed, because it's easier for me to promote fitness if I am walking the talk. Plus I have a stubborn/rebellious streak, that once I give in and really give myself permission to blow it off, my ego reverses on me and says "oh no you won't, you promised those people you'd workout this morning. Get up".

Once in my shorts and logged in, the momentum to make the workout count builds, but staring at the TV, there's still an inner fight going on.

"Screw it, let's watch the news.
"You're logged in so nobody will be the wiser."

Then I retort "Hit play you shmoe. You like feeling fit more than you like feeling lazy."

Over and over. Every morning.

As I get about a quarter into the workout, the bickering in my brain is so annoying that I funnel that energy into the workout, and by the last half I am generally cruising. But MAN it is not easy to get there.

I know I have shared similar experiences here, but as we contemplate some announcements in the coming weeks to help people get more motivated and to support each other, and as we look forward to the launch of the Million Dollar Body Game January 1st, I just wanted you to know that, even for me, it's the community and the desire to keep my end of the bargain to myself and you guys that gets me into that gym on the hard mornings. Thanks for being there for me.