Do you do what you say you will.

You have to set the example for yourself.  I know it is hard.  There are so many days when I just don’t want to pick up the phone but I know I let myself down as well as my team when I don’t do this.  Even if no one else knows about it; I do.

The only way to master follow through is to do it. 

Even when it is hard; even when you don’t want to; you have to anyway.

If you don’t you will only find your self getting into all those bad procrastinating habits again and once again you will find yourself accomplishing nothing. 

So follow through.  Remember though that there are times when you need to reschedule something.  It happens.  Just pay attention and make sure you aren’t just rescheduling all the time and that within a weeks time you are following through on all that your promise.

I say it all the time: THE FORTUNE IS IN THE FOLLOW UP.

Popularity: 60% [?]

Being certain that no matter what happens you are going to accomplish what you have set out to do. 

Make the decision to commit.  Oh man don’t you hate when I show you how these all tie together…

Are you committed? 

By becoming committed you are saying that you will not quit; not matter what; you will not quit.

Now that doesn’t mean that if you commit to something and you honestly give your best and it fails that you keep doing it no matter what. It means that you commit to learning from your mistakes and you commit to getting right back up again and trying something else to achieve what you have decided you want for your ultimate life.

Folks I have started my own business, done contract work for others, and joined at least 4 other network marketing opportunities. 

I want to achieve financial security as part of my ultimate life so while many of these endeavors have not gained me any financial gain I am committed to finding the right opportunity to allow me to reach this personal goal. 

I know I have found it in Tampogo so I have committed to creating my success in Tampogo and even when I lost so many of my original recruits because I did not get them on autoship; because I was committed to making this work; I learned from my mistakes and I kept going…

Because of this commitment I am seeing real growth, taking part in the bonus pools and ultimately not just achieving financial security but creating my ultimate career as a mentor, teacher and entrepreneur.

Not too shabby if I say so myself…

So remember commitment is about not quitting not about the funny farm as in

They’re coming to take me away haha hehe hoho

To the funny farm where life is wonderful everyday…

OK that one really ages me; how many of you remember it?

Popularity: 57% [?]

Can you make decisions?  Better yet can you make quick decisions?  Even better than that can you make Good Decisions quickly?

This one is a deal breaker for so many people.

They refuse to make a decision and will find every excuse in the book to avoid making that decision.

BE HONEST; you know you’ve done this. 

We constantly second guess everything we do. 

Decisiveness ties into every single thing we do in life.  Even when we think we are not going to make a decision; we just did.  We decided to do nothing. 

You have to get very comfortable making good, quick decisions so here’s what you do; every single time you need to make a decision face it straight on and decide. 

Even the simple things like do I eat this or that or do I brush my teeth first of take a shower first.  Just make a decision; remember even if it is a bad decision you will have become better at making quick decisions and you’ll know how to make a better decision next time.

Just MAKE the decision.

Popularity: 50% [?]

Are you honest with yourself?  Are you holding the mirror up to your life and being true to yourself?

Until you can be 1000% honest with yourself you will not ever make headway. 

This used to be one of my biggest downfalls.  I gave myself so much more credit for things I was doing at work than what was the reality.  Then I would get mad because no one could see what a great employee I was. 

Lucky for me I had an amazing supervisor who took me aside and kindly explained this concept to me. 

and

Lucky for me I paid attention… I was able to be honest with myself the rest of my career and because of this I have always risen to the top of any organization I am in. 

I am so honest that even when things were hard I accepted my faults and mistakes and learned from them.

A great example is how during my first 30 days in Tampogo I did not realize how important autoship was so I didn’t expect my team to get on autoship…  What a major mistake.  I have since then lost most of those people because they never made the commitment to their business.  Thank you Isaac for being that intelligent mentor and taking me aside and explaining to me why autoship was so important.

And

Thank you to me for paying attention.  I was honest with myself and accepted the fact that I had done a bad job of explaining this fact so I made sure to improve that aspect of my recruiting process.

That is why I now am a part of the power of ten because not only can I get an irep to join but I can retain them and keep them on autoship.

If I had gotten upset and blamed this on everyone but we I would have never improved my recruiting and guess what I bet I wouldn’t be here right now…

Popularity: 39% [?]

Being able to handle the constant adversity that life places in our path.  There is absolutely no better way to become more flexible than to have a documented plan.  That darn DMO daily method of operation is back to haunt us.

Get yourself some kind of “calendar” it can be on your computer, a regular calendar or even a piece of notebook paper.

-write down what you want to accomplish each day. 

-Assign each task to a time period.

-Review it first thing each morning.

-Review it throughout the day.

-Review it before you end for the day.

By writing down what you want to accomplish you first and foremost relieve the stress of trying to remember everything and second have a way to quickly get back on track when life throws you a curve ball.

If you don’t think that I had to completely rearrange my DMO yesterday afternoon when I realized I had to prepare for this call you’re crazy.  I totally had to take everything I had planned to do from Noon yesterday till 4:00pm and put it either later in the evening or schedule it for another day.  This meant I had to even make some calls to reschedule accountability partners.  (by the way thanks again for being flexible and letting me reschedule you Pat…)

But because I had it all written down it was super easy to be flexible and help Isaac out by rescheduling items and getting right back on track and prepping this call. 

Remember there is no instruction manual to life so you have to write your own…

Popularity: 34% [?]

Building your confidence in order to overcome fear.  You cannot eliminate fear but you can control it; here’s how.

1. Remove Doubt – Make the decision that no matter what; this is what you want to do.  DO NOT LISTEN to that voice of doubt in your head.  Just have faith; blind faith at this point that you will make it.
2. Be 100% committed. Commitment destroys fear and doubt. Stay with your plan and fight through adversity.
3. Surround yourself with like-minded individuals, people with vision and dreams who are awake and stirred to do great things.
4. Keep yourself moving forward in action mode. Lack of action creates idleness which opens the door to fear.
5. Stay involved by plugging into tools that increase your skills and feed your belief system. Listen to conference calls and CD’s, attend seminars. Protect and feed the growth that you are experiencing.
6. Practice your core skill sets daily. Focus on your highest and best use of time, the activity that gets you the greatest results. If you’re in any kind of sales profession, that means spending most of your time attracting and talking (presenting) to new prospects.
7. Make the decision to never quit. Once quitting is not an option, there is no room for fear.

Every single thing we share in T3 training directly affects and builds confidence which in turn controls the fear.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Learning how to become YOU so that people want to be like you… 

Most of us try to emulate the people we learn from.  After all imitation is the highest form of flattery right…

Not when you are trying to persuade someone.

Persuasion is communicating in a way to create belief or action.

If you try to be someone you are not basically you are just a shell of you.  It is critical that you not only talk the talk but walk to walk.  Meaning you better not just be saying it but you better be doing it. 

Now every single one of us can go out on the internet or go to the library and find dozens of articles and books dedicated to teaching people how to persuade others with tips and techniques that are supposed to trick people into believing in you or taking action like you.

I read a lot of them.  But for years this was one of the major skills I was missing therefore while I was fantastic as an operations manager I was never going to make the jump into sales.  I was a great presenter and everyone liked listening to me but no one was taking what I shared and applying it. 

Hmmmm.  Sound familiar.

Then someone told me that if I truly became me and wasn’t embarrassed or self conscience about my beliefs, practices and expertise I would automatically become more persuasive. 

They were 100% correct.  

Now I spend more time using examples that reflect my actual experiences, share techniques that have worked for me, give advice on what hasn’t worked for me.

By reaching within and realizing that every single one of us has something they can teach to everyone else I was able to take pride in me.

Now when I present, talk or share with others all of a sudden I get calls, emails and compliments about how I am truly inspiring and teaching others and by using the same approach when I recruit I not only have people sign up for Tampogo but they stay on board and make a real effort to plug into my blog and these calls which in turn creates success for them.

All I am doing is being myself; The loud and half insane smarter networker from Howell Michigan.  By the way that is located by:

Holding up your right hand in front of your face and with the palm facing you; then taking your left pointer finger and pointing at the base of your right thumb.  Now move your left pointer finger left one inch.  You found Howell..

By the way how were my communication skills;  see I just practiced on all of you…

Popularity: 26% [?]

OK we know that communicating is the action of conveying information; exchanging ideas.

But most of us immediately think of communicating as only a verbal practice. 

But external communication consists of so many things and here are the main three:

            -Spoken Word

            -Body Language

            -Written Word

How do you use these and improve these skills?

Spoken Word:

Almost everyone at some point or another has had to get up in front of others and convey information; whether it was for school, business or your church social group.  Most of us have a natural innate fear doing this.  But this is a learnable skill.

Important factors to consider when improving your verbal skills are first and foremost know what you want to say.  Be sure you are prepared.  Some of us are great at ad-libbing but if you aren’t just write some notes down on index cards in order to keep your thoughts focused.

Make sure your tone matches your message.  If you are a network marketer for example and you are calling a prospect and your entire message sounds like a recorded robot how many people do you think are going to want to join your opportunity? Or you are just sitting down and talking to your kids about strangers but you are jumping out of your skin with excitement; don’t you think you are sending the wrong message.

Practice what you preach.  Someone who is not using the products they promote will very quickly find themselves with no customers and a Parent who preaches about not smoking and then smokes in front of their kids well I don’t think I need to say more on this.

Body language:

It is probably the most forgotten aspect of communication.  We are often so worried about what we are saying that we forget what our body is saying about what we are saying.  If you are presenting and your arms are folded and you are hunched down do you think your audience is going to be drawn in.  The very best way to tune into your body language is to practice your presentations in front of a mirror.  Even if it is only a phone presentation you would be shocked at how your body language transforms itself into your tone.  So get in front of a mirror and practice and watch the actions and movements you make to be sure they hold true to the tone and message you are conveying.

Finally, Written Word:

So much is written about how to write.  The most important thing I want people to remember and concentrate on when writing is the message.  Just this morning I was talking to my neighbor who is in the process of writing a novel and we were discussing how so many people have trouble writing because they are so worried about the laws of writing.  Does my noun tense match my verb tense; am I using complete sentences; is all my spelling perfect.  STOP IT!!

When I write I first get the idea down.  By approaching my advertising, blog posts, web content and emails in this way I am able to express what I really want to.  Then I go back and review it for spelling and so forth.  Because of this I probably have a little more success with getting my thoughts and message across.  Try It…

These are just some very basics to improving your external communication.  Remember practice is what is going to perfect everything and anything you do.  So practice even if it means you just share your communications with close family and friends. 

Heck, share it with me.  I am happy to listen, read and if you want give you feedback.  Leave me a comment.  Remember if we all help each other we all succeed.

Popularity: 24% [?]

This skill ties in with the first skill of communication; the only difference is this skill is controlling that little voice that is inside of you.

Remember:

Communicating is the action of conveying information; exchanging ideas…

Inner communication is the action of conveying information or exchanging ideas with yourself.

It is that voice that is sometimes a cheerleader and sometimes a wet blanket. 

When you can control that voice and use it to build yourself, your confidence and your decisiveness then you have mastered inner communication.

If instead; when you find yourself excited one minute, only to find yourself doubting something or finding excuses why you can’t get it done the next, then you have not mastered this skill.

Master inner communication is one of the most important skills to learn in order to achieve any goal.  Without it you will sabotage your own efforts through self doubt, self denial and self pity.

We talk to ourselves all day long but do we listen to ourselves?

NO…

We cover up that inner voice with radio, T.V., texting, talking on the phone, playing video games; whatever it takes to drown out yourself.

Try these techniques:

Sit on your couch with nothing on (that means turn off the phones too) and just listen to what is going on in your head. 

Try to concentrate on one small line of text like: “I am a good person” and see if you can concentrate on that line of text for 5 minutes.  Pay close attention to what you “hear” and how you “feel”. 

After 5 minutes stop and wrote down what you experienced. 

(This works really well in the car when you are driving too; just pull over to write down your experience.)

Did this line make you feel good, amazing, fantastic and ready to tackle the world or like me when I first began this process did it make you feel like you couldn’t possibly say that about yourself because; I don’t do enough for my family, I don’t make enough money, I don’t give enough to charities…

Notice I asked “did this make you FEEL”; feelings are the number one way to tune into how we communicate with ourselves. 

If we are feeling good we are probably offering ourselves encouragement and support; if we are feeling bad I can almost guarantee that the little voice is telling us how we cannot possibly do this…

Try this experiment for 5 days in a row just to get used to tuning into your feelings and finding that voice in your head. 

Now take this experiment and make it a part of your day. 

I had to incorporate it into mine almost ever hour at the beginning.  (Even if you are at work; just stop for 20 seconds and tune out to tune in.)  It doesn’t take long and no one needs to know what you are doing.  

Once I began to notice what I was saying to myself and how it made me feel I then was able to attack those feelings and improve them.

I used the emotional scale to review where I was and just attempted to raise myself a notch or two up.  (Search “emotional scale” and you will find a post with the entire list of 22 emotions in a previous post.)

Another technique I use to improve my inner voice is to think about a really special moment in my life when that voice was being a cheer leader and concentrating on how that made me feel. 

Some of my personal favorites are the days my children were born.

By concentrating on these I am able to replace the more negative voice with a positive voice. 

The last tool in my arsenal to improve my inner communication/feelings is to smile.  Yup, just smile; you will be shocked at how it can change your outlook.

That little voice will always try to point out all your downfalls but with concentrated practice you can and will change that voice into a cheerleader which will change how you outwardly begin to communicate.

Are you beginning to notice how these all work together?…

Popularity: 19% [?]

Communication; we all do this everyday or at least we think we do.  Most of us just talk we don’t really communicate.

Talking is the action of sharing words.

Communicating is the action of conveying information; exchanging ideas…

Big difference when you think about it.

Communicating effectively is a skill most of us need to master.  It is the basis upon which so many other skills are built.

So how do we learn to communicate? 

We do it…

We practice…

One of the easiest and fun ways I have learned to do this is to try this exercise:

Explain a process to someone and then have them complete the process based on your explanation.

Try explaining how to tie a shoe to someone without showing them.  If you can master this; you have become a good communicator. 

Maybe this one is kind of complicated so start out small; how to dial a phone is a great example. 

In order for this to be effective the person you work with must agree to only do the steps you communicate to them; in the order that you communicate them.

This may be hard for someone to do at first but if they are committed to helping you they will make every attempt not to inject their own base knowledge into the exercise.

Try this exercise with several different tasks:

Dialing a phone

Making a peanut butter sandwich

Sending an email

Tying a shoe

Getting onto your website and signing up…

So how I built upon my skill set till I am so comfortable communicating I am able to effectively convey the information to sign up for my business opportunity.

So now we know of the first of the 10 skills needed to create realistic goals that we can achieve to create lasting change in our lives.

Tomorrow we will tackle number two.

Popularity: 24% [?]