Challenge of Success

It is a challenge to succeed. If it were not, I’m sure more people would be successful.  For every person who is enjoying the fruit from the tree of success, many more are examining the roots. They are trying to figure it all out. They are confused and frustrated by what seems to be some strange, complex and elusive secret that must be found if ever success is to be enjoyed.

While most people spend most of their lives struggling to earn a living, a much smaller number seem to have everything going their way. Instead of just earning a living, the smaller group is busily engaged in designing and enjoying a fortune. Everything just seems to work out for them. While the much larger group sits in awe at how life can be so unfair, complicated and unjust. “I am a nice person,” the man says to himself. “How come this other guy is happy and prosperous, and I’m always struggling?” he asks himself. “I am a good husband, a good father and a good worker. How come nothing seems to work out for me? Life just isn’t fair. I’m even smarter and willing to work harder than some of these other people who just seem to have everything going their way.” he says as he slumps into the sofa to watch another evening of television.

But you see, you’ve got to be more than a good person and a good worker. You’ve got to become a good planner, and a good dreamer. You’ve got to see the future finished in advance. You’ve got to put in the long hours and put up with the setbacks and the disappointments. You’ve got to learn to enjoy the process of disciplines and of putting yourself through the paces of doing the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable. You’ve got to be prepared and willing to attack the challenges if you want the success, because challenges are part of success. 

That may sound like a pain, but let me tell you that the process of going from average to fortune isn’t really all that difficult. Thinking about it is the difficult part. Anticipating all the effort and the changes and the disciplines is far worse in the mind than in reality. I can promise you that the challenges you’ll meet on the road to success are far less difficult to deal with, than the struggles and the disappointments that come from being average.  Do you really like the way things have been going? Can you imagine how much worse it could get if things don’t change?

Confronting and overcoming challenges is an exhilarating experience. It does something to feed the soul and the mind. It makes you more than you were before. It strengthens the mental muscles and enables you to become better prepared for the next challenge.  As you learn and grow, the greatest reward is within yourself.  Feelings of improvement and self-esteem are developed because you are not settling for average. YOU CAN DO IT!!

Empty Boxes and Orders

There are two types of sales people. The first type is called the ‘It Is Not My Fault Salesperson’. They will routinely bring back excuses on why they didn’t make the sale. The second type is the ‘Empty Boxes and Orders Salesperson’. This sales professional is given that name because they will routinely bring back empty boxes that use to hold the product, and even have back orders.  Our company doesn’t have boxes or products that go in boxes but I think you get the idea.

If you are in sales you must decide which group you will fall into. Now, does this mean that if you are an ‘Empty Boxes and Orders Salesperson’ that you will bring back empty boxes and orders 100 percent of the time? Of course not. Every now and then you will bring back boxes of product and no orders. You will have times when it seems like you can’t sign up an affiliate that loves non-profits nor doesn’t want to work from home. However, because you are not the ‘It is Not My Fault Salesperson’ you refuse to allow yourself to make excuses or blame the situation or prospect for the lack of sales. Instead, you ask the question – What could I have done differently to earn the relationship? What could I have said that I didn’t say that might have caused them to move to action?

When you shift the responsibility for making the sale from the prospect to yourself, you are shifting your mindset from a victim of sales to a creator of sales. Victims of the sales environment have skinny kids and empty bank accounts. Creators of a positive sales environment take their kids on exotic vacations and need their own personal banker to handle all the money.

I use to sign up more people than anyone in the office. When the day was over, I would tell everyone that I needed to do a few things differently in order to get more the next day. People would look at me and say,”how could you have done any better? You were great and created excitement with every person in the room!’ I smiled and said, ‘Yeah, I guess you are right. But you know what?  That’s just my attitude.  After every sales presentation that I give I always ask the question, ‘How could I have done more? How could I have created more awareness?’  In other words, I always looked at what I could do to get better.

The ‘It Is Not My Fault Salesperson’ refuses to ask those probing questions of themselves because in doing so they are admitting that they alone are responsible for the outcome of their income. Take responsibility for your numbers and results and I can’t wait until you are bringing back empty boxes and orders more often than not!

Seven Self-Motivators

Seven Self-Motivator reminders for you to review on a regular basis.

#1 - Get Serious: Make a decision to go all the way to the top. Up to now you’ve thought about it. Up to now, it’s passed your mind. Many of you made the decision, and you’ve made up your mind to go all the way to the top, and your lives have taken off. It’s the most extraordinary thing. Your life is one, like in the shadow going up the dark side of the hill until the moment you decide that “I’m gong to be the best at what I do. I’m going to be in the top 10 percent.” And suddenly you rose into the sunshine, and your life is forever different - wonderful. Get serious. Don’t fool around anymore.

#2 - Identify Your Limiting Step to Sales Success: What’s your limiting step? What’s the one skill area that’s holding you back? What’s the skill? What’s the quality? What’s the action? Ask other people. Find out what you need to become good at. Sometimes it may only be one skill. If you became really, really good on the telephone, you could possibly double your prospecting effectiveness and double your sales. If you became very, very good at getting the order at the end from qualified prospects, you could double your sales. If you became very, very good at managing your time really manage well, you may be able to double your presentations and double your income. If you were more encouraging, perhaps people would gravitate to you and follow your lead better therefore, doubling your income. Find out what’s holding you back. What is the critical limiting step that’s determining your success today?

#3 - Get Around the Right People: Who are the right people? The right people are the people in this voice room. Get around winners. Get around positive people. Get around people with goals and plans, people who are going somewhere with their lives and have high aspirations. Get around eagles. As Zig says, “You can’t scratch with the turkeys if you want to fly with the eagles.” And get away from negative people. Get away from toxic people that complain and whine and moan all the time. Who needs them? Life is too short.

#4 - Take Excellent Care of Your Health: Take excellent care of your physical health. That means good diet, good exercise. Everybody knows they should eat better foods, get regular exercise and lots of rest. That’s very important. Get a good night’s sleep. Be fully rested, and tonight get really rested. You don’t have to watch the Letterman Show…

#5 - Positive Visualization:  See yourself as the very best in your field. Remember, all improvement in your life begins with an improvement in your mental pictures. Visualize yourself, see yourself as the best continually. You are the best. Isn’t that right? So therefore, see yourself as the best.

#6 - Positive Self-Talk: Talk to yourself positively all the time. Control your inner dialogue. What do you say to yourself? Say, “I’m the best.” Say it. Say I’m the best. I like myself. I can do it. I love my work. Yes, that’s how you talk to yourself. And the more you say it to yourself…someone may say, “Well, what if you say those things to yourself and you don’t believe them. Isn’t that lying to yourself?” No, that’s not lying to yourself. It’s telling the truth in advance. Because it doesn’t matter where you’re coming from - all that matters is where you’re going. Talk to yourself the way you want to be, not the way you just happen to be at this moment. Remember, you may have gotten where you are today largely by accident. But where you’re going in the future is purely by design.

#7 - Positive Action: Get going. Move fast. Develop a sense of urgency. A sense of urgency is the one thing that you can develop that will separate you from everyone else in your field. Develop a bias for action. When you get a good idea, do it now. Only 2% of people in our society have a bias for action. And if you’re already in the top 10%, you can move yourself in the top 2% by resolving that whenever you have an idea, do it now. And the faster you move, the better you get. And the better you get, the more you like yourself. And the more you like yourself, the higher your self-esteem is. And the higher your self-esteem is, the greater your self-discipline. And the more you persist, then you ultimately become unstoppable.

Rags to Riches

More than eighty percent of self-made millionaires in America began with nothing or in many cases, less than nothing. I can certainly relate to that because when I was growing up and right into my early 20s, I never had any extra money with which to start a fortune. It seemed to me that there was always enough, if not more than enough bills, to absorb every penny I earned. I was always in debt.

Be Ready for Your Opportunity
Even if a great business opportunity did come along, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything with it. As I began studying financial success and self-made millionaires, I noticed that almost everyone around me was in the same boat. The idea of becoming really wealthy was a distant dream with very little possibility of coming true. You may be in the same situation, with more bills than money or assets.

Look at the Numbers
The statistics are a little scary.  According to insurance industry statistics, out of one hundred people who reach retirement age, only one will be wealthy. Four out of the hundred will be financially independent; fifteen will have some savings put aside. And the other eighty will be dependent on pensions, still working or broke, after a lifetime of well-paid work in the most affluent society in human history. Why does this happen?

There are two main reasons why people retire poor. First, they never decide to retire rich. They wish and hope and pray, but they never make a firm decision that they’re going to do it. Second, even if they do decide to retire rich, they procrastinate until it’s too late. They always have some good reason for putting it off.

Start With Desire and Decision
If you sincerely want to beat the odds, to achieve financial independence and retire wealthy, there are four critical steps that you must take, all starting with the letter D. The first step is Desire. You must want it badly enough to make an unshakable commitment and to be willing to make sacrifices. The second D is Decision. You must make a decision right now to do whatever is necessary, be willing to pay any price, go any distance, to achieve your goal.

Practice Determination and Discipine
The third D is Determination. Keep at it until you succeed, in spite of all the problems and obstacles you will experience. And the fourth D is Discipline. The discipline to master yourself and develop the habits necessary for achieving financial independence. Those are the four Ds. Desire, Decision, Determination and Discipline.  You can measure how successful you’re going to be in the future by measuring how well you’re doing in each of these areas on a scale of one to ten.

Forward

YOU ARE ROCKING!  Do you have enough leads and are you making enough dials?  That is what we always have to come back to when there are not enough good new people getting started. Contests and things are good short term motivators, however the reality is you’ll be doing double the personal volume you are now and you still won’t be at your “BEST”.  Let it come naturally and don’t stress about it.  Many people make a choice deep down that they are doing fine now and therefore stop themselves from growing as fast. They want to feel as if they are doing “fine” because they are trying to protect their self-esteem and not feel like a failure. 

Rephrase how we look at it.

If we looked at it in a healthier manner, we would realize that if we increased our expectations of ourselves, we will also increase our self-esteem and change our lives for the better.  We can grow into whatever we want to be, so why would we ever want to protect a level of growth that is not consistent with our goals and desires for ourselves and the world.  So…we are more than happy with where we are now today and living in a full excitement and anticipation for improving with each moment.