Wow... this morning I got up early while it was quit to write my blog. I committed to myself (and possibly everyone who reads my blogs) that I would write at least one blog a month this year. Whoops... it is February 1st and I am not sure how January got missed!
Well, there I go again lying to myself. I know exactly how January got missed, I did not prepare. I had a few topics that were mulling around in my head for the past month and I may use those to write about later this year, but quite honestly I did not prepare soon enough. I did not make it a priority. I figured I could do it the next day and guess what? Last night after a long day my brain was fried and deep down inside I knew I could write something and I also knew it would be crap. I made a commitment to myself I would not write crappy blogs. I lied to myself, I broke a contract with myself and I could kick myself and feel bad and feel like I was justified. I can come up with a million excuses (there I said it... excuses) to justify why I didn't get it done. So NO excuses, tell the truth to myself and then do better. Write a great blog, I didn't really have to confess any of this to YOU (I mean ME). But guess what, that is counterproductive. Last night I went to bed, told myself I would sleep on it and I would be inspired in the morning and here I am. And, I told myself the truth. I did not blame anyone else, I did not point any fingers and it actually felt good.
I even wrote something like that on my vision board I made this past weekend. If you look on my Facebook you might be able to find a photo of it. There is a story behind the photo of Johnny Depp... DM and I will explain. Try saying this when someone asks you about something you know you should have done and you didn't. "I take full responsibility for... (whatever happened). Our usual first response is all the excuses as to why we did not get it done. We take offence, become defensive and you can feel the energy get sucked out of the room. What if you said you take full responsibility and say how can we (meaning YOU) make this right. We ARE HUMAN! Mistakes happen, things get missed and how we handle the situation determines how we show up in life. Think about it… Are we always making excuses for everything? I was. Hell, I was blaming dead people because they told me something (past programming) and I made decisions and excuses based on what they told me when I was a kid. It is funny how we remember all the bad stuff and only a few good things. I (meaning all of US) have to take responsibility, my life is my life and I get to choose how I want to show up in it. Do I want to show up with an excuse or do I want to show and take responsibility? Believe me, once I started taking responsibility I felt more powerful. I felt good and I liked it. I am often in awe of myself. It is hard to believe I have come this far. It was not alone that is for sure and a lot of people have supported me along the way. I look back at where and who I was when I started this journey. I could not sleep at night knowing there was nothing I could do and I felt like I was just floating along in life and everyone else was in control of my life. Something in me changed, I became disgusted, I knew it, and I wanted something different. It was downright scary and I cried a lot. For me, leadership is realizing that YOU (meaning me) have to take responsibility. I made a decision... Do you want to be a GOOD leader or do YOU (meaning me) want to be a GREAT leader? A friend once told me to watch the leaders around me and distinguish the good from the great. There are lots of differences and I will discuss many of them over the next several months in my monthly blog. However, today it is about taking responsibility. I think you know what I am talking about. I am going to mention at least one or two of the great books I have read during my "Journey Of Self Discovery." It is always amazing to me what YOU (meaning me) learn from reading or in this case listening to a lot of GREAT books. "Edgy Conversations" by Daniel Waldschmidt - Powerful!! How are you playing life... are you the best you can be or are you just floating along? You probably have a lot more purpose in life. This book was recommended to me by my good friend Tom Chenault. Dan Waldschmidt is a great guy and I have had the honor to chat with him on several occasions over the past year or so. He is very wise... but it wasn't always that way. I learn so much from my mentors, my friends, my family and from the GREAT books I read. Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. I hope it helps you on YOUR (this time I really do mean YOU) "Journey of Self Discovery." Cheers, Marianne 303-667-1271
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Image Is... Within!Let's face it... success is an inside job! What does that mean? Success has nothing to do with the people around you. We find it easy to point fingers at everyone as to why we aren't successful.
Recently a friend was telling me, her and her husband got a divorce and during the process he told her that she (my friend) was the reason he had not been successful. Think about that. She walks around carrying the burden that she was the reason he did not accomplish what he wanted out of life, and he walks around free knowing it was all her fault! When we are ready to take responsibility for our life/situation, that is when true success happens. How do I know... because I am living proof. I use to stand around and point fingers, I even pointed fingers at people who had died! I believed they effected every decision I made and because of them I made bad decisions. I had a database of excuses for everything. Any of this sound familiar? I'm just asking. I remember the day I became aware I was responsible for everything showing up in my life. I was reading a book while riding my stationary bike in the middle of our living room. We were drowning, our whole family... our debt was to the roof! After crying hysterically I realized that if I wanted anything to change then "I" had to change. How scary was that?! Very!! I had not come to this conclusion over night, it had taken some time but suddenly personal development books were on my list. The good news was I realized I could change and that was frightening and exciting all at the same time. I am not saying it has been easy, the fact of the matter is that I am not done yet. What I can say, is that along the way I have helped others start their own Journey Of Self Discovery and together we are discovering just how amazing we really are. We have found a purpose and it is exhilarating to say the least. This was the book I read that started it all! When you are ready... The Wealthy Spirit: Daily Affirmations for Financial Stress Reduction (Paperback)by Chellie Campbell Many of you who have read my blogs in the past know where I am coming from, for those of you who are new, here is a quick re-cap. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and so eventually I was. I owned my own successful Marketing and Advertising business with clients like Subaru Corporate, Level(3) and Digital Globe for over 18 years.
One day I woke up and realized I hated my job and I was the boss! Several months prior to that my mom was diagnosed with cancer and my daughter was in a near fatal car accident a week later. I could not work, not physically or emotionally. As I was taking care of my family my business was dwindling to nothing. Why you ask? A million reason, however the main one was that I was the only person bringing in the sales. I had plenty of people to do the work, I just wasn’t able to go out and get the business, again for a million reasons. We dipped into our savings, we dipped into our 401K. Eventually my mom passed and it took months and months of therapy for my daughter to recover. I eventually was re-introduced to network marketing and that is when I was ready to listen. So... now we bring you to today! I have mentioned what I am doing to a few people over the past several years and it is funny how they want to see me do it first before they would consider joining me. The real question is do YOU want to do it. It has nothing to do with me. Over the years I have ranked up, I receive a car bonus, our lifestyle is improving and hope is back in our life. I continue to build my business and I win a FREE cruise. What does a FREE cruise look like... amazing. All the while those people are standing by watching. You see I know because I did the same thing for way too long. I stood by and “watched" most of my life away. After loosing nearly everything, my husband and I realized we don't have a lot of time to make up all the money we used during the time of our family crises. My goal was to never be in that situation again, thus residual income via the profession of network marketing. And, what this blog is really about is that I was on a cruise for a week which was paid for by my company and I just had my largest residual income... mind you I was out of the country for a week on a cruise!!!! Have I worked hard over the past few years, you bet I have, the only difference is when I owned my traditional business nothing grew unless I was working. And… that is when I woke up and realized I hated my job and I was the boss! I had to make a change, I stepped out of my comfort zone, took a leap of faith and never looked back. What a blessing it has been to have the profession of network marketing helping us to get our life back... we have hope again! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I was thinking about this a lot this morning and I posted something on Facebook and suddenly I was blogging. Funny how that happens.
I have dabbled in network marketing for 20 plus years. I watched people around me drive pink cars and become a part of the millionaire club. I know exactly how you feel. They can do that, it just isn't for me however, I would join yet another network marketing company. Dabble for a while and then quit. After our family experienced devastating financial loss and I became completely burned out on what I was doing, network marketing showed up in my life yet again. It is not easy when you own your own company and you realize that you just don't ant to do it anymore! It took me two years to transition out of owning my own business to owning my own time. There is a big difference. What I discovered is network marketing does not work if you don't and there my friend is the only difference between people who are and people who are not successful in network marketing. I decided to work my network marketing business like a business. In my other business I had an overhead, way more than I do in my network marketing business which is fondly refereed to as "Auto Ship" or "Just In Time Shipping" or receiving all the amazing products that you use on a daily basis. Anyway you look at it all business have an overhead so get over it! What ever you call it it, it is the life blood of your business! When you do it, your team will do it because without it, money is not made. Imagine that, the movement of product makes you money! I also realized when you don't work, you don't make money! Just like in the "real world." In the beginning it feels like you are working a lot for nothing and you are. However, once you make a little bit of money you realize how truly easy this is. So, you work a little more and make a little more money and suddenly it all starts making sense. We all get a little piece of the pie and the goal is to have hundreds and thousands pieces of pie. Who doesn't love pie?! Is it hard, you bet it is, is it a lot of work, you bet it is! I can tell you from experience. Do you feel like quitting? In the beginning you feel like quitting a lot. I am not going to lie to you. Quitting is only an option until you decide that you are not going to quit. When you decide that you are committed to being successful, committed to doing what ever it take. Committed to learning this profession just like you did all the other professions in your life. Only then will YOU become successful in network marketing. And then... you WILL make an obscene amount of money! So, in closing... NETWORK MARKETING DOEN'T WORK... UNLESS... YOU DO! ![]() It is true I had the privilege to attend the last GoPro Recruiting Mastery with Eric Worre... in the photo to the right with me! I seriously did not know what to expect at this conference. I had read GoPro and I understood the premiss of becoming a professional network marketer. Let's face it, I have been one for the past several years I just didn't know it. I have nearly 3,000 contacts in my phone and I have been a professional connector for nearly three decades. People call me when ever they need to connect to someone, and why do they do that... because they know me. They know the people I work with, the people I know and the integrity I bring to the table. I only work with people that have the same sense of integrity in everything they do, as I do. I am not saying that I am perfect, none of us are, however the integrity comes into play when we mess up, when we drop the ball, when we are just plane human. How do you get into integrity with someone. You do the right thing, you man up and admit you messed up and make it right. It is the same in any business and any profession. And, now I understand Network Marketing is a profession and needs to be treated as such. You, the people around us and I, have to remember we have to have integrity with our business, with our company and with our team. What we do is a direct reflection on who we are. If you want to build your team with integrity then you have to be in integrity yourself. Are you inspiring leaders in your business or are you pushing them away? Are you someone people will want to follow or someone people will want to run away from? You have to ask yourself... are you acting like a professional or not. Eric talked about the event as being a tipping point for the profession of network marketing and I whole heartily believe what he is saying is already coming true. Soon when people ask you want you do and you will tell them you are a professional network marketer they will ask you to tell them more. I personally witnessed this. One of the young men on my team and I were making a stop in a local market before calling it a day. Two young people greeted us with samples of some very delicious products. Of course we had to try the samples. One thing led to the another and a conversation ensued (prospecting). Pretty soon we were exchanging email's and phone numbers. The young lady asked the young man next to me what he did for a living... he proudly answered "I am a professional network marketer." And, yes he read Go Pro. The young women immediately asked him for his phone number and wanted to know if it was oaky for her to call him about that. The tipping point is already happening. We are the messengers, we have to be proud of what we do and realize that this truly is a profession and one of the strongest business models out there. Thanks to Eric Worre and his vision for you and me and our profession! Cheers! Marianne 303-667-1271
![]() I started thinking about how much I have changed on the inside and the outside over the past several years. When I bring it up to people they quickly say you were already a good person, or you were already beautiful. It is not what they could see on the outside, though that has certainly changed too. It was what I could feel on the inside that needed some work. I knew I wanted to change but I did not know where to start and quite frankly it seemed overwhelming and very difficult at first. It wasn't like anyone told me I had to change, I just knew that I wanted to. It wasn't that I was a horrible person, at least I didn't think that I was, however something told me deep down inside I had so much more to give. I realized I did not have right venue to do to do what I needed to do. It was 2004 after my daughter had been in a near fatal car accident and my mom was diagnosed with cancer all within a week. My daughter and I had just drove to Texas to visit my mom in the hospital where she had been diagnosed with brain cancer. We drove back to Colorado on Sunday night and Tuesday my daughter was in a near fatal accident and they did not know if she would live through the night. At an all time emotional high my business was the last thing I was thinking about. Remember I was living the dream and I owned my own business. I knew I needed to be with my mom and my daughter but my responsibilities to my business were demanding. I was fortunate because I was able to work from my home and I had amazing people around me helping me. However, I was not out building my business during this time. As you can imagine once the current projects dried up so did the income. It wasn't like I wanted to be a different persona I just knew I could be a better person with death at my front door, my mom and my daughter my priorities started to change. I began thinking about how I could reconfigure my business so I could make money even if I was at the hospital with my daughter or had to travel to see my mom. My daughter lived but my mom passed four months after her diagnoses. This morning I was thinking about how much has gone on in the past several years and the transformation and journey I have taken during that time. The image of a butterfly came to me. The process they go through must be hard, and yet easy because they all do it. I must be scary, and yet rewarding because look at the beauty and the coolest thing of all is they can fly. Find your purpose... discover the person who is within you... bring them out and then fly! Thanks for stopping by today and I hope this has helped you in some way. Cheers! Marianne Niehaus 303-667-1271 ![]() I was chatting with someone yesterday and I mentioned that I was having yet another record breaking month. I mentioned how I loved this industry for what it is and for what it offers. There was a short response back from this person, how they had wished they had known about what I was involved in sooner. This person is also a part of the direct sales industry, this got me thinking. I had been in direct sales before, I had worked for the corporate world, and I had owned my own traditional business for over 15 years and I seriously thought I was living the dream, but it was really more like a nightmare... can you relate? There were times when I was making very good money, however during those times I was unable to enjoy my success. I was crawling into bed at midnight or later, had to stay behind while my family went out with friends, or went on vacation. I attend late meetings, and made sacrifice after sacrifice... all in the name of "living the dream," sound familiar? Now I am sure most of you who own your own business have never experienced what I went through, but for those of you who have... can you relate? I read a few books and came up with a little exercise for myself. I took a spiral notebook and for several days I wrote down all the things I did in a day and how I felt when I was doing them. You know, interacting with people; friends, clients, vendors, etc. What I discovered after several days, much of my "job" that I thought I loved was not that much of my day. Many of the things that I was responsible for made me feel sick to my stomach or I found my self completely avoiding necessary tasks that had to be done as a business owner. When certain clients called I could barely bring my self to answer the phone. This started me thinking that maybe I didn't "love" owning my own traditional business as much I thought I did. I would have to say this was a pinnacle discovery on my part. Once I analyzed everything I had documented in my note book, I decided to focus on the things I did in a day that I loved and enjoyed doing, what a difference in how I felt at the end of the day. The awareness was liberating in many ways and frustrating in others. My next goal was to figure out how I could either restructure my current business to incorporate more of what I actually enjoyed doing or figure out something completely different. No one could have predicted where I eventually would land.... not even me! Network marketing is not my gig, I had tried it several times and I was never successful. Because of that, I avoided netwrok marketing like the plague until a few years ago. Believe me I know how you feel, I felt the same way, but let me tell you want I found out.... I wanted to swim with the dolphins! Not only literality but figuratively too. I wanted to hang with like minded people. Come back and follow my journey of self discovery and why today I call myself a "Professional Network Marketer." Does anyone have a similar story on a road of self discovery? Thanks for reading!
I wrote about this in the past but it is becoming more and more apparent that maybe this guy knew something at a very young age that many of us haven't yet discovered. When Riese, my son admitted to me that he had discovered what the meaning of life was... I did what all mother's do... oh really what is it? I have been on a journey of self discovery for several years and now my 17 year old son was going to tell me the meaning of life. "Find YOUR meaning of life," he said to me. It was spoken in such simple terms it took a minute for it to sink in. You can imagine my surprise, this is from my son, a teenage boy! Most of our conversations were movie quotes and jokes him and his friends had pulled. Nothing quite so profound had been spoke between us until now.
I think about this often and I have shared it with many people. You can see it behind their eyes. They are not on the path that they thought they would be on. Their life is not what they thought it would be and I can see that they are so much bigger then they can. I can see that because someone saw that in me. Somewhere along the way I had gotten lost. I guess I could have decided to just stay where I was and go with the flow, all the while thinking there was noting I could do. But, I didn't, I started surrounding myself with people who had had a tragedy in their life as well, but they were doing something about it. Now I know that when they looked into my eyes they saw the same thing they had seen in their own reflection many years before. I had lost hope! How could I help my family, my friends, my self with no hope. We see it ever day behind people's eyes. It is not about the words that are coming out of their mouth, I know I was saying those same words, but they had no power because I had no belief in them. Ironically, I sat in a meeting a few weeks ago and experienced that very thing. I was listening to a person say the words but I could see in their eyes they did not believe it. First... you have you figure out YOUR meaning of life? Second... do you believe what is coming out of your mouth? |
Marianne Niehaus
We never know what to expect in life... sometimes the darkest moments become the brightest moments. Like you, I have had a life of ups and downs and at certain points in my life I wasn't sure if I could go get much further down. Archives
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