Confidence

I sat down with a wealthy owner of a car dealership in Salem a couple weeks ago and before I had a chance to startup my software on my laptop, he said "Don't bother showing me the software, here's what I really want to know. Times are tough and you're a saleman trying to get a deal. What are you not going to tell me that your installer/trainer will have to tell me." It was a tough question and certainly put me on the spot, but I had no problem confidently responding to him without hesitation. Why? Because I know my product and the industry inside and out. I was confident because I knew how much I know.

Now in Advocare, my habit of relying on personal knowledge for confidence doesn't work. I'm not a nutrition expert, nor am I a trainer or athletic coach. Worse still, I'm new to an awareness of and desire to monitor and enhance my personal overall health (and most people that know me know that). I'm neither an expert nor an ideal poster child. So I have to trust somebody else to provide the intellectual and experiential prowess to base my confidence in. I don't have the answers and only get into trouble when I pretend that I do.

So... I have to trust somebody else (which doesn't come easy for me). The beauty of Advocare is that you don't need to know the details. They certainly don't condone nutritional ignorance but they also know that for the Advocare message and business to be transferable there can't be a high barrier to entry. Meaning, everybody can do the Advocare business and be successful even if they don't know a lick about nutrition. How is that possible? The 'Bullet Proof Shield'. This concept and training has been one of the best for me in my time with Advocare. We have the most esteemed and reputable researchers and experts in the field of nutrition that formulate the products. We also have some of the worlds top athletes both professional and amateur that put the products in their bodies everyday and have much more than you or I to lose by doing so.
I'd recommend all of you watch this training as soon as you can: The Bullet Proof Shield
It is very helpful both from a confidence stand point but also as a tool to preserve relationships, and deflect verbal mine fields when you share Advocare with people.

I'd also recommend you read the bios of a few of the Sci-Med board members. As a guy who completed a pre-med course of study in college and switched to a major in Chemistry my senior year (although I decided to have a life during my last year of college and switched back to business 3 weeks later), knowing the science behind the products was very important to me.

Here are 3. The Bio's are not from Advocare but are from the top University's or Hospitals that employ them:

Stanley Dudrick:
Bio: http://surgery.uthscsa.edu/grandrounds/dudrick-bio.pdf
See also this link from the American College of Surgeons: http://www.facs.org/news/jacobson.html
Advocare Link: http://www.advocare.com/science/board/dudrick.aspx

William Kraemer
Bio: http://www.education.uconn.edu/directory/details.cfm?id=44
Link to UConn press release on Dr. Kraemers involvement as the lead editor of
The International Olympic Committee's handbook on strength training
http://advance.uconn.edu/2002/020211/02021108.htm
Advocare Link: http://www.advocare.com/science/board/kraemer.aspx

Carl Keen:
Served 13 years as Chairman of the Dept of Nutrition at UC Davis (largest School of Nutrition in the US). Now Mars endowed Chair of Nutrition (funded by the Mars family - think Mars Candy)
http://nutrition.ucdavis.edu/faculty/keen/index.cfm
Advocare Link: https://www.advocare.com/9904246/Products/SciMed/board.aspx?name=keen

In this day and age it's not hard to get Dr's or PHD's to endorse a product for a price. Ethics is sticky even in academia. But... you can't get guys like these three (and there are more on the Sci-Med board), to put the kinds of reputation that they have on the line for something less than the best.

-Bryce