We each have a unique path in life. We also have much to share with the world.
I welcome comments and input to anything I share in my blog so that many can benefit from the open forum.
First, I like to pose some questions.
What is success to you?
Have you achieved it?
Are you on your way?
What is it that you are looking for in reaching it?
Let’s enjoy the journey.

Over a five-year period of time when I was age 25 to 31, my first mentor Mr. Shoaff taught me some extraordinarily simple things, before his untimely passing at age 49. He only went through the 9th grade in school. He never finished high school, never went to college, never went to a university. So he put his experiences and ideas in very simple language, which, I think for me—a kid from the farms of Idaho—was so important.

When I would say, “This is all the company pays,” Mr. Shoaff would say, “No, that is all they pay you.” I thought, “That is a new way to look at it.” I told him things cost too much. But he said, “No, you can’t afford them.” Well, that was a new concept for me. He promised that if I would improve, then I would qualify for more money. So I learned that we don’t have to work on the company, we have to work on ourselves. Now if it had been technical, I would have missed it. If it had been mystic, I would have backed away. But it was just basic, blunt “a-b-c” stuff that I hadn’t thought of before. For me it was the beginning of what he called “personal development.”

Mr. Shoaff also taught me that life puts some of the more valuable things on the high shelf so that you can’t get to them until you qualify. If you want the things on the high shelf, you must stand on the books you read. With every book you read, you get to stand a little higher.

And the “biggie” that forever had an impact on me: “Success is something you attract by the person you become.” That phrase changed my life. Success is not to be pursued, but to be attracted by the person you become. Put your energy into becoming a better you, the best you. Learn the skills. Practice the skills. Attract the success.

Those few simple strategies and ideas helped change my life, forever, for the better. Thank you, once again, Mr. Shoaff.
We can all learn from these simple ideas. Success is easier to achieve when it is simple.
Have a great and simply happy day!

There are forces that can aid the mind that are hardly dreamed of by the average person. When you learn to believe more in the value of thought and its laws you will be led aright and your business gains will multiply.

Here are a few quick ways to change this:

1. Get them hot, local leads so they have to talk to someone right away.

2. Ask them when they are going to talk to someone and start building their business. Or are they just too busy helping their boss build a big house for his retirement?

3. Build their confidence with an inspirational CD.

4. Reduce their fear of rejection by teaching them the proper rejection-free scripts for approaching prospects.

5. Reduce their fear of rejection by positioning them as messengers of hope, and remind them that they should only talk to the prospects that volunteer and want more hope in their life.

6. Motivate their spouse.

7. Create a vision by using one of the “Big Al” skills.

8. Work with your new distributor to jointly set the first few appointments.

These are just a few ways to jumpstart your new distributor into action.

If we don’t intervene, many distributors have such low self-esteem and confidence that they become professional “javelin catchers.”

One of our jobs as a leader is to develop a new distributor to the point where he can lead himself.

It takes a team to become successful and your team members are your jewels. Treasure them.

But sales coach Jim Cathcart asks this: ”Who is glad they know you?”

That’s why people do business with others they know and trust. When you offer value to another person, then they have a reason to care about staying connected with you. Cathcart offers these five tips for building better business relationships:

1. Approach each contact as the beginning of a long-term high-value relationship. Expect great things over the long run, and do your part to help both of you achieve your desired outcomes.
2. Plan to be loyal to your customers whether they are loyal to you or not. And be trustworthy, so they will want to be loyal in turn.
3. Continually ask yourself, “What else could I do for them without asking for something else?”
4. Give them the option to occasionally “have a bad day” without becoming upset or judgmental toward them. Nobody is always at their best.
5. Don’t always ask for something, occasionally just give them something or just listen to them without trying to “fix” them or sell to them. Enjoy building long lasting business relationship.

This is a Good question, but most people did not expect the answer he gives.

Jim Rohn bypassed the obvious (and necessary) points about hard work, persistence and preparation. Most people that asks this question actually were very hard workers. And they had the great attribute of being seekers; they were on the outlook. But Jim know they were missing a very valuable point: attraction. Here is what Jim Rohn shared.

I always thought opportunities and success were something you went after, but then I found out that I needed to turn it around. Opportunities and success are not something you go after necessarily, but something you attract—by becoming an attractive person.

That’s why I teach development of skills. If you can develop your skills—keep refining all the parts of your character and yourself, your health, your relationships, etc., so that you become an attractive person to the marketplace—you’ll attract opportunity. Opportunity will probably seek you out. Your reputation will probably precede you and someone will want to do business with you. All of the possibilities are there by working on the philosophy that success is something you attract.

The key is to continue making yourself a more attractive person by the skills you have, the disciplines you have, the personality you’ve acquired, the character and reputation you have established, the language and speech you use—all of that refinement makes you more attractive to the marketplace.

Personal development is the never-ending chance to improve not only yourself, but also to attract opportunities and affect others.

Success in today’s world comes down to your ability to share your ideas, expand your influence and involve others into a worthy mission or cause. That means you need to learn to present.

By the way, EVERYBODY is a public speaker. Maybe you’re presenting your ideas at an office meeting, interviewing for a new job, or trying to convince your friends which movie should win the Oscar. Whatever the situation, being able to speak effectively in public is essential to success.

A recent survey conducted by Distinction discovered that, of the executives and entrepreneurs surveyed, more than 86 percent said being able to present effectively has a significant impact on their income and success.

According to most studies, people’s No. 1 fear is public speaking. No. 2 is death. Doesn’t that sound insane? People would rather die than speak in public. That means if you go to a funeral, more people would rather climb into the casket than give the eulogy!

First off, let’s put this into proper perspective: No one has ever died giving a bad presentation.

Someone once said: the reason why there is NO reason to be nervous is that people care far less than you think.

Remember this: People are not judging you as much as you think, because they don’t care as much as you think. If some disaster does happen, something explodes or you trip and fall, at least you know you will have more attention from the audience now than in the 30 seconds before. Now you can use that attention to do something good. Certainly, whatever you say next will be remembered. If nothing else your tragedy will give the audience something fun and funny to share. It’s not a big deal, really. The only one making it so is you. It’s all self-imposed fear conjuring. I think knowing this helps enormously.

No More Jitters
You might find it helpful to know that some of the most successful and famous public speakers have the same issues we all have.

• Mark Twain, who made most of his income from speaking, not writing, said, “There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars.”
• Elvis Presley said, “I’ve never gotten over what they call stage fright. I go through it every show.”
• Bono, of U2, claims to get nervous the morning of every one of the thousands of shows he’s performed.
• Thomas Jefferson was so afraid of public speaking that he had some one else read the State of the Union Address. George Washington didn’t like speaking either.
• Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Walters, Johnny Carson, Barbara Streisand have all reported fears of public communication.
• Even Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, Jack Welch and James Earl Jones… and as we now know, the former King of England, all had stutters and were nervous speakers at one time in their lives.

So, hey, if you are a bit nervous, you are in good company… and there is a great chance you can still be stellar at it.

Who Do You Think You Are, Anyway?
Here’s another tip someone shared with me about being nervous before speaking. If you are nervous that means you are being an egotist—making yourself way too important. Instead you should be making this about the audience. Think about them, their hopes, dreams and ambitions. You are there only to serve them. The spotlight should be on them, not you. When you take the spotlight off yourself and make what you are there for about them, not only does your nervousness go away, but you also empathize and connect with your audience better.

“No one cares about your product; they only care about themselves.”

Principle No. 1:

“What matters to you, doesn’t necessarily matter to them.” Don’t look at your presentation from the viewpoint of what you want to tell them. Instead throw all that out and ask yourself: What do THEY want to hear? What’s important to them? What problems, concerns, worries, frustrations, needs or desires do they have? What is going to give them hope, comfort, security, meaning and be exciting to THEM?

Principle No. 2:

“People don’t remember what you say; they only remember how you make them feel.” Now what you say is important, but it needs to be on point with the ultimate feeling you are trying to lead them to.  Determine what matters to them and how you want them to feel, then craft your ideas into moving stories, analogies and metaphors to give them a memorable experience.

1. Build consensus. Abraham Lincoln was great at bringing together the people around him to help make up for his weaknesses. “The fallacy of leadership is thinking if you can lead in one area, you can lead in all areas,” Maxwell says. Value the opinionof others before making a decision.

2. Practice humility. Instead of talking about their own accomplishments, leaders look to give the team the credit.

3. Take risks. Leaders are not afraid to step out and say this is what needs to be done. Winston Churchill, for example, stood alone against Parliament in his opposition to Nazism. “Churchill had the courage to do what he felt was right even in the midst of  severe opposition,”

We do see the characters of true great leaders are very different from what the world is portraying. A true leader is always looking for long term benefit. That is what needs to brought back into the leadership in the companies and government and our country.