"YAHGODDAWANNA!"

What a great start to our Camp Out! Our teams lost 818 pounds in one week beating all the previous 11 Team Challenge records! I'm excited to see what this group of campers will do in 9 weeks! We introduced some new things this week to make our camp out even more successful. Our Alumni filled up a stew pot with positive affirmations of all kinds to encourage our challengers. Our thinking in these next ten weeks WILL determine our outcomes, so sometimes we need to "stew on it." We will have discouragement and frustrations along the way, so reaching inside of the stew pot and pulling out a thought to turn our thinking around will be necessary. I invited all of our participants to contribute to the stew pot in the weeks to come. We also announced the WAYPOINTS of this team challenge. WayPoints are necessary to point us in the right direction. We've got a great list of activities from walks to bowling to participate in outside of the Team Challenge to experience life with like minded people and build friendships with other campers. I encouraged everyone to participate in as many WayPoints as they can during the next 9 weeks! Our winning teams at noon and 6PM got to take home the weekly immunity idols for the very first time. This CAMPOUT Team Challenge called for some walking sticks to make the journey easier. Congratulations to our top teams of the day who not only took home the walking sticks to decorate, but took home the $100 cash prize for winning the very first week! Team 'Ax Men', Joe and Ron won at Noon with a 4.65% of weight loss for the week and team 'Thunder and Lightning' celebrated by running a victory lap with a 5.36% for the week! Congratulations Debbie and Peggy! A great big 'THANK YOU' to Glenda Bigalky and Barry Brandenburg for sponsoring our teams this first week! We appreciate your support and commitment to us and the team challenge! I was able to share one of my very favorite camp stories with everyone this week. I and my family ran into a mountain man years ago in the woods who taught us a valuable lesson. He was a talented man with amazing abilities. He had created things that were far above his resources. He told us that a long time ago he had learned a single ancient word that seemed to have powers. He explained that when you understand the word, it unleashes immense strength, makes your mind clear and your imagination run with ideas. I had to plead with him to tell us the word that was so powerful. He finally shared it with us...leaning forward in a whisper..."YAHGODDAWANNA." In order to accomplish anything, whether it's big or small, easy or difficult, trivial or very important...you've got to want to! The reason people don't succeed at what ever...is that they really don't want it bad enough. By deciding what you want and focusing on that, you come up with ideas, you make plans and then you do it! yahgoddawanna! It was a fun story to tell, but an important one. We spent the rest of the hour talking about the kind of stories we like to hear around the camp fire. The great stories all have one thing in common, they have a character who wants something really bad and overcomes conflict to get it! They goddawanna! Our challenge for this week includes another Healthy Weigh announcement. This is our first Team Challenge to go digital! My CD series is now available by going to our website and clicking on STORE. Each weeks lesson can be downloaded there. So...Your challenge for the week: Listen to week # 1 Understanding Your Beliefs~ The Key to Permanent Change" and do the homework provided. Bring that back in next week for a ticket in the drawing! We are off to a powerful, but fun start to this Spring Team Challenge! I'm looking forward to the surprises ahead of us all in the weeks to come! Until next week, Always encouraging you, Letha