Total self-improvement focus of athlete-run business

By Doug McPherson

Business Report Correspondent

BOULDER ? It’s been said that there are few things more spacious than the room we have for improvement. And in a capitalistic society, that sounds like an opportunity.

Enter Ultimate Journey Productions, a Boulder-based business designed to help people improve themselves.

“We help people and groups get what they want out of life,´ said Traci Brown, the company’s vice president. “This could be an athlete trying to go to the Olympics or a CEO who wants to take his business to the next level.”

And she said the results are fast and permanent. “We work with the unconscious mind. That’s the part of you that beats your heart, controls your breathing, regulates your habits and when properly trained, can move you toward any goal you chose to set. It’s very cool stuff.”

Brown said clients can reduce stress, lose weight, quit smoking, relieve depression, increase confidence, improve communication skills and improve grades, among other tasks.

She also said it help both amateur and professional athletes raise their games to new heights. The company’s list of services is long. It includes athletic performance training, custom corporate training, personalized success training, fantasy sports camps, corporate incentive trips and athlete brokerage.

Its client list is equally as long. Here are just a few: Rich Coady, St. Louis Rams; Yurgen Zeck, triathlete; Lotar Leder, triathlete; Hannes Blaschke, ironman coach; Donna Weinbrecht, three-time Olympian and gold medalist; Ben Husaby, Olympian; Jen Douglas, world champion skier; and Julie Hanson, road cyclist.

Three former athletes run Ultimate Journey Productions, formerly called Positive Changes. Maggie Connor, a former U.S. ski team member, started the company in 1999, after six years of working with business owners and sports teams. Chuck Snowden, a former running back for the University of Colorado, heads up relations with the NFL. And Brown, a three-time national collegiate champion in road cycling, focuses on sales and marketing.

Connor, a skier who was consistently ranked in the top five in the world for more than a decade and a 1992 Olympian, helps large and small businesses, sports teams and individuals achieve desired goals and enhance performance. She uses neuro linguistic programming, time-line therapy and hypnosis to help people let go of anger, sadness and fear. She said this method “allows clients to create the future in a way that they want.”

Connor has worked with Olympians and other world-class athletes in several different sports, including pro baseball and football, skiing, cycling, running, triathlons, golf and even wind-surfing.

Connor formed Positive Changes in 1999 to offer a hypnosis facility, therapy and training center that would provide individuals and companies with the opportunity to shift habits and behaviors that no longer served them well. But in late 2000, Connor decided to change the name to Ultimate Journey Productions to reflect the company’s new marketing direction and to move away from individual training sessions and focus more on sport performance training, fantasy sports camps and corporate training.

Connor uses neuro linguistic programming (NLP), which is the study of language and how it affects the physical, emotional and mental bodies, to help clients

“I believe the U.S. Olympic Committee should consider offering NLP,´ said Bill Koch, a four-time Olympian. “Any athlete can achieve dramatic results in very short time periods. NLP unburdens a person’s mind from limiting beliefs and emotions. It’s effects are realized immediately, like flipping a switch, making it so much more efficient and exciting than traditional psychological techniques.”

The company also uses time line therapy to get clients to release negative emotions and limiting beliefs from their pasts quickly and discreetly. Hypnosis is used to help clients change patterns of behavior. Brown says hypnosis is relaxing, reduces stress and improves sleep patterns.

Huna is another tool Ultimate Journey Productions uses. It’s the name of the teachings used by the ancient Hawaiian people with which it originated and is said to increase the balance or harmony of the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual parts of people.

The company also creates customized training for companies. Brown said the training helps a company’s employees limit “decisions and beliefs that block them from success and maximize their profitability, efficiency and productivity.”

The business also conducts corporate incentive trips where Connor or other athletes will help “align company and employee values or negotiate the finer points of the deal between you and your future business partners.”

Ultimate Journey Productions’ athlete brokerage program also sets up pro or Olympic athletes to speak at special events and sign autographs.

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