Business
“What you think of as an impossible dream might be reasonable if you thought differently.”
~ Harry Palmer
Choose more for your business. Learn to create success outside the constraints of time and space – beyond the monkey mind.
Business Experience and Result with Avatar Training Course.
By Stephen Spears, Avatar Master and Former Executive Director of Kauai Habitat since 2007
I began working as the Manager of Kauai Habitat for Humanity, Inc in 2007 and the organization was building an average of three to five homes a year, with a gross income between 1 to 1 ½ million gross income a year. This continued about the same level until 2014, although we were working towards increasing capacity.
In February 2014, I attended an Avatar training course. After returning from the course, I noticed that my ability to manage my attention increased, I began to see more possibilities to grow the organization and I had a significant increase in enthusiasm for and satisfaction with my Job. The Board of Directors and I began looking for ways to increase home building capacity, as we had over two thousand families that applied and were in need of affordable housing. We had a great need to increase our production from the average of three to five homes a year.
In May of 2014, I proposed to the Board of Directors to add funding to the training budget for Avatar training. In July of 2014, two managers attended the training, the Restore and Construction managers. In October of 2014, the manager of the Family Services/Loan Processing Department went to the training. The managers found that the training was so beneficial that all three continued taking additional Avatar trainings and paid the tuition and expenses themselves. Kauai Habitat continued to invest in the managers by paying their regular salary while they were at the training courses.
Changes and observation the first two years after the Avatar training:
Restore
• Restore sales increased from $375,000 in 2014 up to $405,290 in 2015 up to $498,538 in 2016.
• Customer satisfaction increased, customer complaints reduced significantly and staff turnover diminished.
Family Services/Loan Processing Department
• Reorganization took place in the department and the funding for 10 homes was received, doubling the funding received in prior years.
• A plan was developed to further the growth by hiring an extra part-time person to handle the increased workload.
Construction Department:
• Communications issues between Construction and Restore were resolved that were impeding cooperation in handling donated materials and sharing of the common warehouse space.
• The Construction Department started 10 homes, doubling average production.
The overall organization ran smoother and the overall moral increased. I attributed the large improvements at the organization to the gain in ability of the managers to manage their attention, improved memory, compassion and listening skills, the recognition of how their beliefs affects the outcome of their efforts and success. The increase in teamwork and ability to view problems and challenges from many viewpoints lead to new ideas, better methods, a willingness to increase and align efforts towards the organization goals.
As of April 2019, almost five years later, the organization has grown to have a budget of 8 million, is producing 25 to 30 homes and year, Restore gross sales are at the $500,000 level and all the managers that have attended the Avatar training are still working and supporting the Habitat Mission. We continued to send managers and staff to take the training. To date ten staff members have received the avatar training.
Inspired by and having experienced for myself a quote from an Avatar Brochure I have concluded and experienced“That Avatar is the most powerful, purest self-development program available”. The results of the program training for managers and staff has been an increase in personal responsibility, increase in will power and ability to focus attention, ability to manage their beliefs, become more compassionate and are more open-minded.
And I just received a text message from our Construction Manager that the last group of 17 homes were just finished and that he projected we could finish 35 homes next year and he finished the text with ‘Let’s go for 50”.
