<h2><strong>In a word... <em>wow.</em></strong></h2>
<blockquote>"I just wanted to let you know... I am genuinely impressed by the level of honesty, integrity, and care in this company. You guys have something special here... This company has... soul."</blockquote>
Those words are pretty much what came out of my mouth about 24 hours after arriving at the Eaglewood Resort &amp; Spa in Itasca, IL. I like to think I'm a pretty smart guy... but sometimes I still manage to get caught off-guard... and by the time I was leaving my the 2 day "Influencer Immersion Event" at NOW Foods headquarters... well... I'd say I was not only caught off-guard... but thoroughly blown away. No, not because of an impressive facility or big revenue numbers... something else. Something much more important and, frankly... rare in corporate America...<!--more-->
<h2>Sometimes the best things are unexpected.</h2>
I do "influencer" campaigns whenever I can. They're basically where companies work with "influencers" to share a product with the influencer's audience. The influencer will either get paid for their time / effort / exposure given to the company, compensated with product, or both. Generally, the opinions expressed are always honest and always <em>solely</em> that of the influencer. The posts and opinions always tend to be good because, well, <em>you sign up for these campaigns</em>... and you're probably not going to set yourself up for a bad review, now are you?
<h2><strong>I didn't even know what NOW Foods <em>was</em> before this.</strong></h2>
I did some reading online prior to flying out to Chicago, and I got a really good impression of the company. It seemed like they really cared about their products, their customers, their people and their product. They seemed like they went to some heightened efforts to ensure quality and transparency, and they made a big effort to share information and engage with their customers.
<h3><strong>Then I got there... and I started to find out just how serious they were.</strong></h3>
I had arranged, ahead of time, to meet with the CEO (Jim Emme) for a <a href="http://sothisisfitness.com/2017/05/doing-the-right-thing.html">one-on-one interview/chat</a> for <a href="http://www.sothisisfitness.com/podcast">my podcast</a>.
<h3><strong>Dinner that night was more of the same.</strong></h3>
We were brought to an exceptionally nice restaurant not far from the resort. They had a custom (healthy) four-course menu arranged for us ahead of time. We had four large tables in the room, and after we all sort of chose tables the NOW leadership members present sort of divied themselves up among us. Jim ended up at my table,
<h2><strong>Day 2... they put their money where their mouth is.</strong></h2>
We started our day off with a pretty solid boot-camp workout at the resort's fitness club before getting going because... let's be real... you bring a dozen-and-a-half health &amp; fitness influencers together... it's just kind of a thing you do, right? And of course there's that jerk (me) that goes for a run BEFORE the hour-long bootcamp (pro

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