No more whining, bitching, moaning, griping and complaining.
At a social function recently, 90 percent of the chitchat I heard were whimpers about the economy, how bad Obama is doing and how much the health care plan sucks, ad nauseam.
Finally, I had heard enough and I blurted out, “In the ‘80’s when the economy was booming, did you get rich?”
“Uh, well, no” answered the small crowd’s speaker.
“But Reagan was president and still you didn’t? What about when Clinton was President? He created a big national surplus, certainly you got rich then?”
“If you were standing in the healthcare haven of France right now, as you describe, would you be any healthier than you are now?”
Silence was his answer.
“Look”, I said, “stop worrying about the national economy and focus on your own economy. Don’t worry about who’s running the White House and concern yourself with running your house better. The only health care plan that matters is your health care plan… for you.”
In my observation, it is just as easy to fail in a good economy as it is in a bad one. And it is just as easy to get rich in a bad economy as it is in a good one. Why? Because the economy has nothing to do with it.
I know many good, capable, smart and hardworking people who have been whacked by unexpected consequences of the economic winter we are in. It happens to the best of people even in the best of times.
Join us tonight on our live webinar as we go over some of the features of the new meCard. This new service/tool can help you organize all of your social networks, increase brand awareness, build your contact base and much much more.
Yesterday as I was walking on a treadmill at the gym, reassuring myself that I would feel great after I was done, when I saw a guy wearing a bright orange t-shirt. The slogan on the t-shirt said “Procrastinators: Leaders Of Tomorrow!” When I read it I could not stop laughing, which was challenging as I was trying to keep the same walking pace and not fall off the treadmill.
I am guessing the guy’s initial plan was to persuade everyone to take it easy and relax instead of sweating it out on the exercise machines. But in any case he got a whole bunch of smiles from everyone who saw him.
For me this great little quote was a reminder of how important it is to bring fun into everything you do.
Sometimes if I feel stressed out or upset I put all my work aside and spend 10-20 minutes reading funny quotes of famous people.
Do you have your favorite funny quote(s) that makes you laugh every time you read it? Or maybe your child or your friend said something really funny the other day? What is it?
Share your little funny quotes and stories with the rest of the world! And let’s make this a mood improvement page!
How to Network: Day 10 of a 30 day challenge designed to help you gain balance in your life. Tom Wood and Dr. Sheila Murray Bethel outline strategies for networking your way to success in any field.
At the end of every day, there’s a very important question you should ask yourself in order to ensure that you are ON track.
It is a simple self-checking mechanism that allows you to know immediately whether or not you are REALLY working your business the way you should.
In this video, I quickly discuss that important question, and then give you a little extra insight into things that are up and coming…for YOU!
My purpose is simple: To serve the needs of those in the direct selling and network marketing industry to the best of my ability.
In other words, my purpose is to help YOU make money in this profession, primarily through education. In order to do that more effectively and to increase the “entertainment” value, I’ve made a few office changes…as you will see in this video.
Yes…I know there is an outlet showing in the wave. That was on purpose! I could have easily edited that out using a cropping feature, but I didn’t for a reason. When and If you get into using video for ANYTHING, pay attention to the details. I wonder if any of you who watch this will pick up on a purposeful audio glitch as well. If so, I’d welcome your comment…want to see if you can figure it out.
As you can see…or will, once you watch this video, there’s some cool stuff I’m doing for you guys to teach you more via video.
Good stuff. Enjoy the day!
To get into my MLM Power Hour Call, simply dial 641-594-7500, code 248873#. It starts every Monday night at 5pm Pacific Time.
“People don’t change their behavior unless it makes a difference for them to do so.” - Fran Tarkenton
Motivation is the driving force behind most of our actions. It is a reason why we get up in the morning. Why we drive to work five days a week even if we do not enjoy it. Why we set goals and why we keep on moving forward.
Motivation is that one factor that often makes a difference between long-awaited success and an untimely failure. Our productivity, determination, leadership qualities, achievements, enthusiasm and self-esteem largely depends on our ability to motivate ourselves and others.
Understanding your motivation.
To put it simply, we take any kind of conscious action for two reasons: 1) because we feel like doing it or 2) because we have to do it. The first type of motivation is called intrinsic, the second – extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is internal and deeply personal. We do something, for no other reason than the inner sense of enjoyment and fulfillment. In other words, we act because we truly want to!
Intrinsic motivation is stimulated by curiosity, challenge, adventure, personal interests, duty and desire.
Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, is rooted outside the person and based on two basic external drives: seek pleasure (reward) and avoid pain (punishment). Extrinsic motivation is stimulated by incentives, fear, outside circumstances (peer pressure, competition), deadlines and social approval.
Whenever you start doing any task, take a moment to reflect what your primary motivators are.
Discovering your intrinsic motivators:
• Are you looking forward to doing this task? Is it related to your hobbies or interests in some way?
• Do you find it challenging, but interesting?
• Are you motivated by an inner sense of duty or your core values? Do you feel that you must do your best, because it would not feel right to do a so-so job?
• Do you feel that the accomplishment of the task will bring you inner satisfaction and fulfillment?
Discovering your extrinsic motivators:
• Are there any financial benefits involved in doing this task?
• Is there any type of fear that holds you back and makes you procrastinate (fear of failure, fear of social disapproval)?
• Do you feel that you would work bester if you had a clear deadline?
• Are you looking forward to some kind of acknowledgement or appraisal for your work?
Combining both types of motivation in an optimum way.
Both types of motivation are not mutually exclusive. In order to achieve maximum results with minimal efforts, there are must be a balance between your levels of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.
What can you do to improve your motivation today?
1. Pique your curiosity. We have all heard that curiosity killed the cat. But an unfortunate and tragic death of a poor cat set aside, curiosity is one of the main driving forces for learning, exploring, and discovering. Curiosity feeds us with knowledge, sparks our fantasy, and prompts us to explore different ideas, try new experiences and search for new limits. Whenever you are faced with an important task, ask yourself what can you learn here? How can you make it more interesting? Maybe you can try to do it differently? Or maybe you can check if it is possible to complete this task in less time and set your new personal time record? For example, if I do not feel like cooking dinner, I search the net for the fastest recipes and see if I can beat an estimated prep time of 30 seconds.
2. Keep your mind open. Your subconscious beliefs, self-perception, prejudices and biases largely influence your motivation level. And the more you hold onto them, the harder it becomes for you to step out of your comfort zone and accept change. A huge step to boosting your inner motivation is to challenge your old limiting beliefs and keep your mind open to new ideas and opinions (even if they are different from your own).
3. Turn theory into practice. They say “appetite comes with eating”. And this is very true! If you want to increase your motivation, switch from theory to practice. Do not wait for the right conditions, perfect opportunity, or a sign from heaven that will convince you that today is THE day! Applying your knowledge right away allows you to get immediate feedback on your actions. You can sit and guess whether something will or will not work out, but you will not find this out until you try!
4. Find your purpose. Wise men of old times believed that a person who is not passionate about anything, cannot truly enjoy life. They just kind of go with the flow, passively reacting to whatever challenges life throws at them. If lately your life has started to seem tasteless and boring it might be the first sign that you are moving away from your life purpose. Finding what you truly want to accomplish in life and directing your actions accordingly, is the most powerful and efficient way to boost and strengthen your inner motivation and regain your enthusiasm.
5. Reward yourself. Sometimes a promise of a reward can be the fastest way to motivate yourself and others into doing something. In goal setting one highly used motivational techniques is making a list of benefits that you will gain after accomplishing your goal. Similar, bribing yourself with a little treat can often help you to stick to your objectives and stop procrastinating.
However, be careful not to overdo it! Rewards work great when you already have inner drive to succeed. But they may be inefficient if you are trying to force yourself into pursuing long-term projects. Psychological studies show that people who are intrinsically motivated tend to perform at a higher level for a longer period of time than those who are motivated solely by compensation.
6. Set clear deadlines. There is something disturbing about not being able to finish a task on time. In fact there is a rather large group of people, who claim to work best under stress, which translated into simple English means “I usually wait two days before the final deadline in order to begin working on my project”. To be honest those people frequently demonstrate miracles of productivity and praiseworthy perseverance when it comes to meeting deadlines at the last second. But if there is no deadline – the work might never get done. If this sounds like your working style, do not beat yourself up! Make use of it! Always set deadlines for any task, no matter how small it may be.
7. Challenge yourself. Studies show that most people are more motivated when the task that they are working on presents some kind of challenge. You have probably noticed it yourself that if a task that you are working on is too easy, you become bored and your mind starts wandering. On the other hand, if the task seems too difficult it quickly becomes demotivating. The key to improving your motivation is keeping a healthy balance between the challenge of the task and your ability to accomplish it. The best tasks or objectives are ones that are almost, but not quite, too hard!
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ow to Build Trust and Rapport: Day 9 of a 30 day challenge designed to help you gain balance in your life. Tom Wood and Nido Qubein share skills for developing the trust you need to have influence and connection.
NO WAY!! This is going to be a platform for you to socialize on. You can be a member of ANY company and ANY business and it will not contradict a thing…as a matter of fact it will HELP you and set you apart!
2. What is moneza?
Well, imagine if you will that there was only ONE place you had to go on the Internet to be “social”. I mean it is so overwhelming right now because everyone tells you that you need to be on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFinder, Ning and all these other social networks…and the truth is…it is overwhelming people. At moneza…we are going to simplify your life by giving you a platform where you only have to go ONE place to enter any content. One place to blog, update, share, chat, email, market and search.
This is not going to be just another social network or just another online marketing system. This is going to be EVERYTHING you need!
3. When are you launching?
Well we are close to phase 1, which is called the meCards. If you want to see what they are going to look an function like, you need to be on the webinar on Monday, February 9th. To be on the webinar you need to Join Moneza. Once you have signed up, which is Absolutely FREE, we will send you the link to Register for the Webiaar which is just Days Away.
4. Do you just want my money?
We do not want a DIME from you. The meCard is ALWAYS going to be free. We will never expect you to give us something for nothing, but we are going to do that for you!
These are about the top questions I keep getting, so I hope that clears everything up and gets you even more excited to get out there,
Watch This Video presented by my friend and colleague Mike Healey to Learn More…
John Sculley was sitting in his office scanning through the papers on his desk. Having been president of PepsiCo for 6 years now he knew the price of success. He was great at what he was doing, his company paid him a handsome salary, his employees admired him and he had a reputation of one of the most skilled marketers of all times. His life was perfect. The only person that was darkening his picture perfect life was Steve Jobs.
Apparently the man did not understand that “No means No!” Jobs continued to bug him, trying to convince him to work for Apple. Sculley was absolutely sure, there is nothing Jobs could offer, that would top what he had right now… It turned out he was wrong…
Four hours later he decided to quit his job. On April 8, 1983 Sculley became CEO of Apple. What did Steve Jobs offer him? Nothing he had not offered before. The only thing he did was asked Sculley one simple question, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water to children, or do you want a chance to change the world?”
Sculley chose the latter and during his tenure Apple has increased its sales from $800 million to $8 billion, creating a revolution in computer technologies.
Now I want to ask you a question – How do you want to spend the rest of your life?
If you are still unsure how to answer this question, or feel that you are not living up to your potential, there is a wonderful method that allows you to see beyond your past failures and current limitation and get a little preview of what it could look like and, most importantly feel like.
Here is what you need to do:
Take a piece of paper or open a word document and write “My New Life Story” at the top. Go ahead and do it right now! Do not turn it in to one of those exercises that you read, think “Hmmm… It’s an interesting idea. I should try it sometime”, and then never get back to. You have nothing to lose, but a lot to gain.
So, you are sitting in front of a blank piece of paper. This is your future. You can make it whatever you want it to be. Imagine that you are a great writer and start writing.
Where are you?
What do you do?
How do you feel?
Who are you with?
You are the leading star of this story and it should describe the real you, someone that you can become. We all have those persistent dreams that follow us month after month, refusing to die. Do not be afraid to put them in writing. Write freely. Do not think of grammar or analyze how realistic what you write is. Your story should come from your heart, not your mind.
At some point a little voice in the back of your mind might say, “What’s the point? This is never going to happen. I am not being realistic!” That voice actually is trying to protect you from failures and disappointments. But it also keeps you a prisoner in your own comfort zone. Ignore it and keep writing. Without even realizing it you create your own reality every single day. You make decisions. You choose your work place, your friends, area where you live, and goal that you want to pursue.
It is a truly liberating experience to give yourself permission to dream BIG and allow yourself to work towards those dreams. And when you follow your passion, real magic starts to happen. You meet people that offer to help you and give you great advice. You see new opportunities that you have not seen before. And challenges and set-backs that you encounter seem temporary and manageable, because you know what to work for.
There are so many people who spend a lot more time and energy dreaming about living someone else’s life, instead of taking actual steps to become their best selves. I hope you are not one of them.
Thursday, 7:41pm
Reno, NV
“Please allow me to introduce myself…” (Stones, Sympathy For The Devil)
Howdy…
This is one of those lessons that arrived accidentally…
… and I had to stop and ruminate about it for a while before it made sense.
I’m lucky I learned it early, too.
It’s provided me with a home base of sanity when the chaos has reached shuddering crescendos and it was hard to think straight (let alone make snap decisions when crisis loomed).
You may find it obvious.
That’s fine. Just don’t go thinking it’s obvious to the rest of the mean ol’ world out there… cuz it ain’t.
Here’s the story: One of my first jobs working for Gary Halbert was to fly to Detroit… and interview a guy who’d just lost 750 pounds.
Yeah, you read that right.
Gary had an idea for a diet product based on the dramatic tale of this now-slender young man. It had to be a true story, too, cuz we found it in The National Enquirer.
I mean, it was dripping with credibility.
The photo of the kid at his heaviest made people just stare and blink. We’re talking about filling up a king-sized bed all by your lonesome, with a little tiny face lost in folds of flesh.
The last time he’d been on a scale, they hauled him over to a machine that weighs horses.
Now, there’s more to this story, of course… including my first encounter with a Michigan ice storm (I flew out there in freakin’ December, wearing my stylish, thin, warm-for-Los-Angeles leather coat… and learned a lesson about chill factor walking out of the airport, tell you what).
Also including the side-story of how the kid, now down below 200 (yep, he really had lost all that weight) went through multiple operations to remove the excess skin, which was donated to burn clinics.
And more. I can regale a room with the stories from that adventure for an hour.
But this isn’t a post about losing weight.
No, it’s much more important to your life than that.
Let’s continue: Gary and I began a rocky relationship with this kid for a few months, trying to film him for his product (a self-help course for people wanting to lose massive amounts of weight steadily)…
… while navigating the kid’s mounting arrogance, ego and control-freakism.
Gary and I loved to delve as deep as possible into the working personalities of people — that’s where the genius of all great advertising lies.
So we spent many an evening wondering what made this kid tick.
Finally, I hit on something. “You know what? Something inside him caused him to get so big in the first place.”
Stay with me. It’s not as obvious as you might think.
Halbert’s eyes lit up. We were on to something.
See, at first the kid seemed nice, loving and family oriented. Poor guy had just sort of lost track of his size, and oops, got big. Perfect spokesman for a diet product or course.
Soon, though, you could almost feel the invisible manipulation tenacles slithering around your throat as he challenged anyone who dared to question his authority and superiority on… well, everything.
Now, I’m no shrink. But we soon realized how that kid had used his obesity to control his family to the point their entire lives were devoted to his care. Like slaves.
And he liked it that way. And he shed the weight when he figured out another way to keep them under his thumb (by becoming a celebrity via fat loss).
Okay. So this kid, who at first seemed kinda sweet and loving, turned out to be harboring a nest of demons.
So what?
Well, it was one of those “a-HA!” moments where half a lifetime of puzzles suddenly were solved.
Here’s that lesson: Everybody has demons.
Everybody.
You, me, the mailman, your little love-bug honey, the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker.
Not all the demons are malicious. Some are fairly innocent… like a constant craving for chocolate, which can impact your desert choices at a restaurant if you’re the type of couple who likes to share.
Or like a fear of heights, which can impact your vacation plans together.
And there are common demons, which seem to inhabit most of the population: Fear of change, greed, road rage (a cousin of feeling powerless against The Man), whack-job political suspicions, predudices… and I’m sure you can add to this list easily enough yourself.
And there are demons whose main job is keep things confusing: The passive-aggressive little trolls who excel at twisting reality into forms only they recognize.
This realization — that everybody’s got demons — at first was a huge relief.
Personally, I had always assumed (for no good reason) that if it was unclear who was at fault in any given situation involving me… I should take the blame.
It just seemed wrong to assign bad motives to other people. And I knew I had demons in my head — desires and fears and the lingering inchoate rage of barely surviving puberty and struggling in the adult world.
And I kind of enjoyed believing I lived in a world with mostly demon-free people around me.
I could handle my beasts (most of the time).
But the thought that someone else might be harboring the same impulses I had rattled me to the core. Better to pretend there were pure souls out there in the majority.
This is COMMON, folks.
This is standard operating procedure for most human minds… to not go down that rabbit hole inside your brother’s core.
It’s why the neighbors of the serial killer next door always express surprise. “He was a nice, quite man. A little odd, but we never suspected anything.” (Despite the occasional screams from the basement…)
As a marketer, you have to abandon many of the pleasant illusions that comfort everyone else. Like believing your customers are different. Or that you can sell lots of stuff by appealing to the “noble” virtues of your audience.
I’ve often cautioned friends who were nibbling at the edges of the entrepreneurial experience: You will be startled, at first, by what you discover about your fellow earthlings.
The sheer volume of fear, desire, greed and sick need is unsettling. It’s a jungle/madhouse/war zone out there.
However, once the initial shock wears off, you’ll be fine.
People are infested with demons of varying levels of nastiness.
So what?
They’re still lovable. The world is still gorgeous. And knowing how the universe operates — rather than pretending to know, and being wrong (like most folks) — offers you a supremely better life.
For one thing, you won’t often be fooled. You’ll be a wicked-good salesman, too… because 99% of all selling is based on understanding the psychology of the process.
And your philosophy of how to live well can evolve (and thrive) based on reality… not wishes and dreams.
Now… what is the FIRST practical application of this advanced knowledge?
It is this: Look around…
… and figure out who’s watching your back.
Most people’s heads are crawling with demons they don’t realize or acknowledge…
… and yet they LISTEN to the gibbering.
I’ve seen this too often, both in business and in private life.
When people operate alone, or in isolated situations, they “take their own counsel”.
What they THINK they’re doing is going over the facts, weighing options, and judging the pros-and-cons objectively.
However, what they’re actually doing…
… is taking whispered advice from their demons.
And that seldom turns out well.
Much later (as the dust settles and the survivors of the decision begin to climb back on the Maslow hierarchy-of-needs staircase)…
… they’ll ask themselves “What the HELL was I thinking?”
And the answer is: You weren’t thinking at all.
You let the demons into the control room.
Now, how does this affect you as a business owner or entrepreneur?
I’ll tell you: Most of the biz owners I consult with are essentially isolated.
They don’t have confidants to tell their secrets to… they don’t have people who share their burdens… they can’t brainstorm ideas because no one around them understands what’s going on…
… and they sink or swim, every day, locked inside their own head.
With all those demons tugging and whispering and planting astonishingly dumb ideas in their brain.
This is, essentially, what separates the winners in the marketing world from the never-ending queue of losers.
The winners always — always – network relentlessly…
… and rely on the power of mastermind groups and coaching to stay on the cutting-edge, motivated and happy and on the best possible path at all times.
I know what it’s like to be alone out there. I started my career completely solo, clueless and barely managing my fear (and the near constant deluge of bad ideas popping into my skull).
I used books as a crutch, and it worked to a point. I learned a few tricks, and I used the “What would Claude Hopkins do?” philosophy when stuck.
However, as soon as I discovered like-minded souls in my Los Angeles area sandbox, I formed mastermind groups, or joined existing ones.
There is no second-best way to maximize your potential, at anything.
One professional, all alone, may be occasionally brilliant, and may develop a killer reputation. And actually enjoy the job.
However, you team two pro’s together… especially when they’re simpatico on biz philosophy… and you get way more than just “times two” the brilliance.
No, you get a big-time multiple of brilliance. It wasn’t just Halbert and I teaming up — it was also bringing our mutual support teams together… the people both of us already trusted for advice and criticism and brainstorming.
Our network was instantly many times larger, and amazingly more powerful.
And — best of all — we finally had someone we trusted and respected… to tell us when we were being fools, or idiots, or about to jump off a cliff.
It works like magic to put your butt on the right track, chugging steadily toward the rewards you seek.
Being alone sucks.
Teaming up rocks. It’s the only way to fly.
This is why, when you scratch the surface of a top marketer, you discover a long history of using brainstorms and mastermind groups underneath.
I’ve always had partners or people I trust (and solicit opinions and advice from), ever since I discovered the sheer awesomeness of sharing brain-wattage with fellow travelers.
However, I’ve never officially hosted a mastermind group.
Until now.
People have been hounding me to do this for a very long time. Certainly, whenever I’ve held Hot Seat seminars or Writing Sweatshops, the effect is very similar to a mastermind.
Except it’s just a one time thing.
A real mastermind is ongoing. So you get to know your colleagues, and they get to know you.
And so their perspective on your plans is coming from a place of trust and familiarity, and a desire to root for your success…
… and to watch your back as you progress.
This is the great victory of a mastermind: You are no longer alone out there.
You’ve got a group of smart people invested in your success.
And you can finally tell your demons to go bugger off…
… cuz you’re getting solid input and criticism now. The right stuff for powering your rapid ascent up the levels of success and happiness.
Okay, blatant pitch:
I’m now hosting two mastermind groups… for the first time ever in my career.
We started with one. My biz partner Stan Dahl and I decided it was high time to bring together a great group of people committed to the mastermind concept…
… and get busy.
We let word of this mastermind slip at the recent Action Seminar… and we immediately had more people wanting in than one group could possibly handle.
(The right size for a mastermind is no more than 12… very small and tidy. Any bigger, and it’s a seminar, not a mastermind.)
So… we split the original single group… into two groups.
Which allowed us to customize each group… so we have one that is primarily for entrepreneurs and small biz owners…
… and another one primarily for copywriters and consultants.
Stan and I have over 50 years between us as professional marketers, business builders, consultants, freelancers, and entrepreneurs.
I can say — without blushing — that we are among the “first choice” consultants hit on by marketers who understand the value of experience and current savvy.
We’re “Success Junkies”, and proud of it. And we bring a wealth of knowledge, insider advantages, vast resources, and breathtaking skill to the table.
And we’re personally hosting each and every mastermind session of these two new groups.
I’m just letting you know about it.
We start both of them in early April… so you can still grab bragging rights for being among the very first members.
I just checked, and as of right now (while I write this) there are still a couple of spots open.
If being part of a regular mastermind group with me sounds interesting, go here to find out the details of joining:
