You're in Control

Have you ever said, “He makes me so mad?”  Have you ever declared, “That depresses me?”  Sure, we all have.  However, I have come to learn that NO ONE or NOTHING can MAKE me do, say, or feel ANYTHING without my allowance! 

I have a declaration to make, “YOU’RE in control!”  You can choose how to react in ANY situation and it is your responsibility to do so.    You have the ABILITY to RESPOND anyway you CHOOSE.  No one has power over you except that which you give.  No one can make you mad; you choose to get mad.  No one or nothing can depress you unless you give them, or it, the power to depress you.

Isn’t it a wonderful thing that you have power over YOU.  You have power over your responses and NO ONE else.  Try to be conscious of this fact and your life will begin the change for the better.  Don’t let others or even circumstances have power over you.  Don’t give your power away.  Take charge of your life.  Choose to be happy.  Choose not to LET others control you.  Chose you this day if you will exercise your power or let others take it from you.  Remember, it’s your choice!

Ideas to Action

Napoleon Hill said, “What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”  I would like to take the time to break this quote down for all to understand.

“What the mind can conceive,” is a most precious statement.   It is a fact that our human mind has the ability to conceive an idea.  It is through ideas that great things happen.  Thomas Edison had an idea about a light bulb.  Henry Ford had an idea about mass-producing the automobile.  Abraham Lincoln had the idea of abolishing slavery.  Our founding fathers had an idea of a constitution that would be the foundation of one of the greatest and most powerful countries on earth.  Every success, great or small, came from an idea that was birthed in the mind.

An idea is great, but it is necessary to take the next step, “believe.”  Belief is necessary for the idea to be fueled with passion.  Belief in an idea makes us passionate and causes us to get excited about the possibilities and even the certainty of the workability of the idea we conceived in our mind.  Without belief an idea will die as fast as it was birthed.

Belief comes by holding the conceived thought in our mind constantly.  We think about the idea and even see it in our minds eye as already ours.  We think about it, we talk about it; we dream about it until a red-hot belief that it is ours overcomes our 5 senses. WOW!

Now comes the challenge…”Achieve.”  We have to achieve and achievement comes by taking action!  It is not good enough to conceive and idea and just believe it.  We have to achieve it through action.  As you dwell upon your idea and it comes the predominate thought in your mind, you will be prompted from within with thoughts of actions that you can take to bring that idea into reality.  Some of these promptings may seem ridiculous, but do not ignore them for each action will pave the way for more action that will eventually lead to the reality of your conceived idea.

The Bible says that, “Faith without works is dead.”  You can have an idea and believe that you will realize that idea.  However, without action, nothing will happen.  When Jesus healed the man with the withered hand he asked him to take action by stretching forth his hand.  The man who had the withered hand had the faith to take the ACTION and thus received the healing.  This was true of all such events in the Bible.  Faith requires some kind of action. 

Most people, especially of the Law of Attraction persuasion, miss this point.  You may condition your mind to focus on what you want, but without action, what you want will not come to you.  As you focus on what you want, you will receive inward promptings to take certain actions.  Again, do not ignore this.  Taking action solidifies your belief  and causes the things you want to appear in you life.  The process is simple:

·      Think with your mind

·      Ideas will be conceived

·      Focus on that idea until you believe that it is already yours

·      Take action based on the inner promptings

·      Each action will lead to further actions until your idea becomes a reality

If you want to experience one of Mr. Hill’s greatest teachings, learn to take action!

The Value of Mistakes

Most people HATE making mistakes.  They think they are the “unforgivable sin” when they make them.  People “feel” like idiots or just plain terrible when they goof-up.  However, I would like to give you the other side of mistakes: They are for our LEARNING!  As I have mentioned in past posts, there are ALWAYS two sides to EVERYTHING.  This is the “dark” side and the “bright” side.

I recently read an article about a lady who turned bankruptcy into a cottage industry.  She was a legal assistant and worked as a paralegal for area attorneys.  One day she came up with a way to input debtor’s data into a bankruptcy petition from anywhere in the United States, freeing her from the constant interruptions she endured when she worked in law offices.  Here idea birthed a “virtual bankruptcy assistance” that earns her about $250,000 annually.  No school or course ever provided the training and thus the service she offered.  In the article it said, “Ring credits her business success to her willingness to learn from her mistakes and never shying away from challenges.”  She said that, “It takes a person to enjoy making mistakes and figuring out new solutions to run a company.”

The point is this:  Most people look at mistakes as something awful and to be avoided at all costs.  Ms. Ring saw them as opportunities to learn new lessons and challenged her to think of new solutions.  All I can say is WOW!  It takes a person with a vision to see this.  It takes a person who understands the Law of Duality to see the bright side of a seemingly dark situation.

The next time you make a mistake just ask yourself, “What can I LEARN from this.” or “What GOOD is there is this?”  It is so exciting to know that every mistake contains a challenge to learn new lessons.  Don’t waste a perfectly good mistake on self-abasement.  Cease the opportunity to learn, for that is what mistakes are for!  Therefore do not be afraid to make mistakes, rather embrace them!  Learn the value of mistakes.

Failure is Necessary for Success

Without failure we could never know success.  Without fumbling and falling and getting back up to do it all over again, and again, and again, a baby could never learn to successfully walk.  Recently I “talked” to a 1 year old.  I didn’t understand a word he said.  He was failing as a great communicator!  However, one day, after repeated failure he will “learn” to talk successfully.  If you understand how the brain works, you will understand that this “failure to success” thing is normal.

When you learned to ride a bike, you wobbled and fell and got back up and tried again until you had a success.  The same was true when you learned how to drive a car or literally anything you can now do with ease, automatically, and successfully.   Failure is just part of the success process.  Actually, very successful people just fail more often and much faster than less successful people do.  Therefore, if you want to experience faster success, just fail faster!  It is awesome to be able to look at failure as part of success.  It’s the dark side of success.  Dark is necessary for there to be light just as failure is necessary for there to be success.

Look at Thomas Edison.  He “failed” over 10,000 times to create a workable filament for the incandescent light bulb.  Without those failures, there would not have been a success in his endeavor.  However, once he succeeded, just one time, he could mass produce that success and by doing so, he became rich.

Did you learn how to use the computer the first time someone showed you?  Probably not!  You had to be shown again and again and then you had to learn some things through trial and error.  That’s just the way the brain works! 

The same will happen to you in your network marketing business.  No matter what others tell you, you will have to learn some things on your own through failure.  You have to fail and succeed “your way.”  You could be taught how to ride a bike, but you still had to fail in order to ride that bike.  You could be taught how to drive a car, but you still had to experience some level of failure before you could successfully drive.  You can be taught how to build a successful network marketing business, but you still need to experience failure before you can reap the reward to success.  It’s awesome that we have mentors and teachers in this business, but they cannot succeed for you.  Eventually you have to do it yourself.  Their successes, however, will lessen the severity of your failures, for you can learn many things from them.

The reason that others cannot succeed “for you” is because you are you and they are they.  You are unique and have to experience success in your unique way based on your unique gifts and talents.  As a result, you have to experience some unique failures in order to accomplish unique successes.  Learning from others is great, but you still have to practice and in that practice you will fail.  Do not worry, however, for all failure will lead to success if your are determined to succeed and not give up.

Success and failure, in my opinion, are the same.  They are just two sides of one thing.  The only people who do not fail are those who do nothing.  And those who do nothing will never experience great success.   So, if you don’t like failure, sit back and do nothing.  Oh, by-the-way, you will never accomplish anything great either!  If you are tired of failing, quit!  Quitting, however, is the worse thing that a human being can do.  Quitting is a tragedy and many have quit just one or two failures from reaching the success they were seeking. Don’t let that be you!   

I wish you great success (and failure)!

How to Choose a Good Network Marketing Opportunity

Many people join businesses online with little understanding of what they are joining.  Some are excellent opportunities that will build lasting residual income for many years to come.  Others are just jobs that look like true network marketing opportunities, but are not.  Then there are the affiliate programs that can be very lucrative, but require lots of up-front money and know-how to make them work successfully.

Personally, I don’t want to work forever.  I want to build a business that will produce residual income even when I decide to retire or take an extended vacation.  I want a business that I can operate from anywhere in the world with a laptop and mobile phone.  I want a business that I can do just a few hours a day and then spend time doing other things important to me.  I don’t want a boss.  I have had it with others telling me what to, when to do it, and how to do it. 

I will not address affiliate marketing in this post.  Rather, I would like to discuss true network marketing opportunities that are built through people.  Network marketing is a people helping people business.  It is rewarding on many levels.  You can become financially independent while helping others to do the same.  If you mean business about YOUR business, you will grow personally in the process.

So what should you look for in a network marketing opportunity?  Here is a list of things I think are important:

Reputation—The company, and it’s leaders, have to be reputable.  They should have a history as network marketers themselves.  They should not have skeleton’s in their closets as so many company leaders have these days.  It’s easy to find out, just Google their name and put the word “scam” after it.  Don’t stop at the first few pages.  You will have to dig a little.  However it is worth it, especially since you are putting your money and reputation on the line.

Timing—How long has the company been in existence?  Is it a start-up or prelaunch?  Does it have a track record?  It is a fleeting fad?  So many people get an idea and automatically think it is a network marketing opportunity.  They start out with little understanding of the industry and are out-of-business in two years or less taking unsuspecting, hardworking people with them.  Don’t join the “new thing.”  It’s not worth it.  Give it a couple of years before you jump in because most of these “start-up” fail within that time.

Pricing of Products—Are the products more expensive than the average “Joe” can get at GNC or any local establishment with similar products?  If you have to join the company to get discounts, don’t do it.  You can’t build a big business counting on affiliates alone.  You need customers and customers won’t purchase products that are over-priced.  Would you buy a 30-day vitamin pack for $75.00?  I know I would not.  Would you purchase them for under $40.00?  That is more reasonable, don’t you think?

Products that People Want—The products you promote should be what the masses are already using.  I am in a nutritional company.  There is a demand for our products.  For example:  How many people do you know that have a weight problem?  How many people do you know that drinks energy drinks?  How many people do you know that are diabetic?  Just from these three categories I bet you know plenty of people in such a situation.  Shoot, energy drinks alone are a $10 Billion industry!  So, look for a company that promotes products that are already used by the masses and you will be far ahead of the curve.

Streamline Business Model—Is the company heavily invested in buildings, call centers, corporate jets and the like?  If so, run baby run!  Guess who is paying for all that stuff?  If you say the “company,” you are sadly mistaken.  It is the affiliates that bear the burden of those cost through less compensation for the hard work that they perform.  The company’s main responsibility is to provide product and ship product.  If they can do that with the least overhead possible, that is money in YOUR pocket.

Don’t be awed by all the “assets” of a company.  Don’t be awed by celebrity endorsements (Guess who is paying for those endorsements?).  They are costing YOU, not the company.  Look for a company that puts the affiliate first, for they understand that that is the way to build a huge business.

Also, don’t fall for a company that is publically traded.  Guess who gets preferential treatment?  It is the stock holders.  Stockholders are taking money out of your pocket.  They call the shots and don’t even understand the business.  They only understand money. 

Compensation Plan—There are a ton of them out there.  Look for a plan that allows you unlimited width and depth. Stair-Steep break-away plans, matrixes, and binaries are not the best.  They all have limitations and appeal to specific personality types.  Most of these plans drive me nuts!  I like my plan, its’ simple.  All you have to do is figure out how much you want to make and you will know how many affiliates or customers that you will need to make that kind of money.  With my company, if I want to make $10,000 a month in residual income, I will need to have 500 (or less) people in my organization (customers or affiliates).  Some people have done this with as little as 300 users in their organization!

A Duplicatable System with Team Support—If you have to go it alone, you will fail.  You need a system that you can plug into to help insure your success.  You also need a system that you can plug others into to accomplish the same.  It has to be simple.  So many tell you they will be there for you, but they are so busy helping others they couldn’t help you if they wanted to.  If there is a system in place, that system will do all the training one would ever need to succeed.  What a relief!

Again, this is if you are looking for a network marketing company with residual income that will be there when you stop doing the business.  Other opportunities are available, but they are just jobs, trading time for money.  That is if they don’t produce the residual income.

Affiliate programs are great as well, but they need larger amounts of capital for advertising and knowledge on how to advertise effectively.  For example, don’t attempt using an Ad-word campaign without proper training.  You could go broke in a hurry!  To me, it is worth getting into a pay-program to learn how to do affiliate marketing effectively, if that is the way you want to go.

Please, if you have any questions, contact me.  I am here to help.

Putting First Things First

History is a great teacher.  Not just our personal history, but what can be reaped from the historical experience of others.

I recently saw a wonderful program about the founding of our great country: The United State of America.  I have also been to Washington D.C. and visited all the main monuments and memorials there.  I was awestruck at the realization that our founding fathers possessed.

Our founding fathers had a strong belief in God and realized that all blessings come from Him.  They realized that for our nation to succeed, God had to have a preeminent place in this country’s leadership and among its citizens.  As a result, God has richly blessed this country, but I believe that is changing.

Here are some examples of what our founding fathers wrote:

“ God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that built it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel”
~Thomas Jefferson

“It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” ~Patrick Henry

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
~James Madison

"To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. . . . Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all blessings which flow from them, must fall with them." ~Jedekiah Morse

“ It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.”  ~George Washington

"In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book."  And…

"...I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side." ~Abraham Lincoln

These are a VERY few examples that show the mind and heart of our founding fathers.

The reason I am writing this on my MLM Success Coaching Blog is I believe that in order to succeed in ANY area of life, you cannot deny the Source, the Creator God.  I believe that all success and failure rides on how we relate to, and treat the Almighty.  I also believe that this nation is suffering what it is today because it has, in general, forsaken God and His Word.  Our businesses will ultimately fail if we act as our political leaders are acting—in defiance of the living God.  Thinking that THEY have the power and take NO blame for what is happening with our country today.

I have a friend who has a very successful business.  One day I asked him what was the secret of His success.  His answer was simple: “I pray a lot!”  He said nothing more after that.  There was no other secret.  He did tell me that as he succeeded in the past, he somewhat didn’t honor God and ended up losing over a million dollars in a failed deal.  After that, he learned the lesson to NEVER leave God out of his decisions.  That is why he now “prays a lot.” He now runs a debt-free company that is diversifying and growing. 

This is a New Year.  My advice is (if you haven’t already) to put God in the equation.  Make Him part of all your decisions.  Who knows better than the All-knowing God?  Who has been more successful than He?  Give this year to Him.  Give your business to Him.  Believe me, He is qualified to help you, and He will.

Learn from the success of our founding fathers.  Learn from the failures of today’s politicians.  Our country is suffering from a failure to honor God.  We have taken Him out of our schools and wonder why murder and suicide among young people is at an all-time high.  We have mocked Him and disregarded Him in our government and wonder why this country is such a mess morally, and financially.  Diseases, mental illness, catastrophic weather conditions, crime and such all indicate a disregard for our Creator.  Why would he bless a people that mocks Him and has no time for Him?  We call Him The Universe, Nature, Infinite Intelligence, Higher Power, Higher Self, and everything other that what He truly is.  He is God and there is NONE beside Him.  People call Him all these things as not to “offend” others.  What a joke!  I would rather offend others then offend God. 

 I have decided to put Him first.  I want to give Him my business and ask for His guidance in every aspect of my life.  Our founding fathers got it right.  Many truly successful people have it right.  Put God first and you will be guided rightly.

I am not a religious fanatic.  I am a person who has tried many things and failed.  I have observed what is going on in the world today and don’t like what I see.  I have known the Lord for many years, but even I have forsaken Him in many ways.  For this I am sorry.  I am giving this year to Him.  I will let you know how it turns out.

I have received a lot of help from many success coaches.  I have studied the Law of Attraction and believe in it just as I do the Law of Gravity.  I also know who created these laws.  It’s good to know the Laws of success, including the Law of Attraction.  However, it is better to know the Creator of all laws!  We enjoy these Laws in light of Him who created them.

Let’s all start the New Year out right.  Let God take his rightful place and just watch what will happen.