Hey! Welcome to this episode of MLM Renegade. I’m really excited about this one. Personal development has become really important to me here over the last couple of years. I’ve spent a lot of time doing what I would consider personal development type activities, and frankly, with network marketing, with MLM, being ready to change the person that you are is really is really important. Being willing to adapt and to become the best version of yourself that you can be is part of the end goal.
One of my leaders and mentors said, “Network marketing is really just a personal development program attached to a compensation plan.” In a lot of ways, that’s absolutely right. As I read my books last year, I think I counted, 15 of them were specifically about network marketing, but like 30 of them were about being a better me, were about personal development, high-performance habits. The Four Agreements, which wasn’t my favorite, was still a personal development type book. The Obstacle Is The Way, which I’ve talked about it. I’m going to continue to talk about, because it had that much impact on me. That level of personal development is important.
In The Obstacle Is The Way, they actually talk a lot about stoicism. There’s some really famous stoics from back in ancient times, ancient Rome. Really, you get Epictetus; you’ve got Marcus Aurelius, who was the Emperor of Rome; you get Seneca. There’s a lot of those guys, and they had some really interesting things to say in that time. It’s funny because, especially reading meditations from Marcus Aurelius, it’s one of these things, but I’m not sure. When I write in my journal, it’s very personal to me. I’m trying to express my emotions and trying to get outside of my own head. I’m sure that’s what was doing in this time, as well. He was journaling to think, that for me maybe, that 2000 years from now somebody could be reading my journal and guiding the way that they do their life from. It kind of blows my mind. Honestly, I’m not sure I would want people to do that, but I’m glad that he wrote those things down because they have an incredible, incredible capacity to help me and other people change.
I’ve been doing a challenge with Ryan Holiday, who is the author of The Obstacle Is The Way. It’s a Stoic Challenge. It’s for the first 14 days of this year. Each day we have a different challenge that we need to do. One of those challenge days is to educate people on stoicism and to talk about it. I’m going to talk more and more about that moving forward, but today I want to talk about three steps to personal development. You guys may have seen this on my Instagram feed–that’s MLM Renegade Instagram feed; please go follow it–but I was actually writing this down. I was coming back from a trip to San Francisco. I was sitting on the airplane, and basically, I had my book, and I had my journal here that I was writing into trying to collect my thoughts. I find I do that a lot, especially with all the things that I’m trying to accomplish in my life, being able to sit down and write them down, and get them down somewhere outside of my head, helps bring them into much more clarity. I encourage everybody who’s listening to do the same thing.
I’m going to talk about three specific steps and that we can, that we can use to for better personal development. There is a lot of personal development out there. I can recommend any number of books, and maybe I will. The first step is to be fearless. Making progress hurts, just like when we go to the gym to work out. If you’re working out, you’re trying to make your body better, you’re going to be sore. Well, if you’re trying to personally develop and become a better human being, you’re going to be sore, it’s going to smart a little bit at times. Making a change challenges the status quo, and that’s hard. Challenging the status quo is where growth happens, just like when you go to the gym. It’s through that challenge that you grow muscles, that you grow more strength. When you’re able to do that, you’re able to become a better person and to become the person that you were meant to be. One of the biggest things about being fearless, though, is not being afraid of new opportunities to grow, sometimes we get complacent.
One of the other books I’m reading right now is Atomic Habits. Fantastic book. Highly recommend it. Go pick it up. One of the things that I’ve realized in reading it is that these new opportunities for growth, they’re hard and they can make you afraid, but really what happens is you have this opportunity to do something hard. One of the things that I try and instill in my kids is this idea that I can do hard things. Honestly, I feel like that is one of the biggest lessons that any of us can teach any of us, kids of any age from nine days to 99 years. Anybody should learn that doing hard things is awesome. I’ve told you guys a little bit of the story about climbing Mount Rainier 14,411-foot peak, and it was fantastic. I learned a ton about myself just to keep going, keep putting one leg in front of the other and one foot in front of the other, and drive, and put my head down and then take a look, evaluate where I was and then keep going.
I’ve I like to ride my bicycle. I’m kind of masochistic with it. I’ll be honest. I think maybe I’ve talked about it before. I’ve ridden a couple of times now, the Huntsman Cancer 140. It’s 140-mile bike ride for cancer research. I should probably prepare better than I have the last couple of times that I did it. But doing that and just putting my head down and going and not being afraid of that opportunity to grow, like I do on a bicycle. There’s another ride that I want to do is called LoToJa. It’s a, from Logan, Utah, to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It’s 200 miles, 12,000 feet in elevation gain over that 200 miles. And it happens in one day. That’s a really long bike ride. To be perfectly truthful to myself, I am not ready for it. And if I am going to be ready for it, I need to do a whole lot more preparation. People have died on that bike ride a couple of years ago who had a tragic situation where there was a cyclist killed. I don’t want to be that guy, but I do want the opportunity to grow, so taking that challenge is a big one.
There’s a lot of things that I want to do, but there’s also there’s the lazy part of JR that wants to sit on the couch and watch TV and eat popcorn–that guy exists–I refer to him as the natural man. And the natural man in me, he would much assume things that are easy, he would much assume not have to stretch, not have to get up in the morning to go ride a bike for 15, 20, 25 miles or to go work out to try and make myself better. That guy’s lazy. I try and stick the natural man and put him off. I try and take what’s good of him, that hey, can you get me a body, but at the same time to scare him off because I want to do a lot more than he wants to.
The second the second step for a great personal development is to be willing. A lot of times we do things, but even when we complete them, we’re not really willing to do them. It’s just being willing is this idea that we’re going to submit to whatever is happening to us. Sometimes it’s being willing to admit our mistakes. We all make them. I definitely make mistakes, and especially, when it comes to my wife–after maybe doing some internal grumbling about it to myself and more being mad at myself that I did something dumb–I go to her and asked for forgiveness. Admitting those mistakes helps us grow, because that feeling of angst when you have done something stupid, that makes me not want to feel that again. Being willing to do that helps me to grow.
Being willing to look for solutions to problems. I’ve gone through a couple of periods of unemployment, where I’m working a day job still, haven’t got my network marketing business to the point where it can support our family yet. I’ve had a day job. I’ve been laid off a couple of times and it sucks. Let me tell you how much that stinks, and how much going without a paycheck is just like less than zero fun, and the stress that piles on my wife, the stress that piles on my shoulders. Being willing to look for solutions can be hard, because again, that natural man is lazy. Being willing to look for solutions, going out, putting yourself out there, finding a connection that can get you in with the job of your dreams; those are the sorts of things that you have to be willing to do.
You also have to be willing to kill sacred cows (!) Maybe you guys have heard this terminology before. Sometimes you have to break a little China to make it happen. I think that there are some things, quirks about myself, that maybe I like maybe I don’t like. But working on those to make them better, it’s really hard. Being willing to go out and to break bad habits, even if you it. Maybe you know it’s a bad habit, but you still like it. I have friends who smoke, and they know that they shouldn’t smoke, that it’ll give them lung cancer, but yet, they still like it. And maybe that’s partly addiction. It could be any number of things, but the bottom line is no bad habit is a good one. Let me say that again. No bad habit is a good habit. So be willing to get out there and to break those bad habits to get rid of those things that you’re doing that maybe you hold against yourself. I’ve got them too; everybody does. And when I am willing to look at those things and to really go after them, those are the times that I actually find myself the happiest.
Third step for better personal development. It’s all about time. Take the time to do it. Personal development is an every day thing. Personally, I spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day doing some personal development, now that could be reading or listening to a book that could be doing some meditation work on myself–which let me tell you, I find really hard. When I close my eyes and relax, my body wants to go to sleep. I have to fight that. It’s this matter of being able to find that happy medium spot. Be willing to take the time every single day to do it.
Pay the time that it takes to get results. This in network marketing, MLM, is probably the biggest thing that people screw up. Let me say it one more time. Pay the time it takes to get results. If you’ve been in a network marketing company for a month or two months, or 12 months or 24 months, or even 36 months, you haven’t paid enough time. Let me say that again. You haven’t paid enough time.
When we work a day job, we expect to work 40 hours a week for 40 to 50 years so that, hopefully, we can make 40% or 50% of our income in retirement. Let me get this straight. We’re going to work 40 or 50 years so that, hopefully, we can spend our golden years, if you will, where we don’t have to work, which are like maybe 10; that seems like an awful rip off to me. I mean, that’s not good. Whereas, in network marketing, you might work your butt off for five years to enjoy the next 50. Now, we’re talking about something. Now this, suddenly, the math starts to work out there. That’s an important thing to realize. It takes time and when you’re stuck in it every single day and you’re looking at your goals on a daily basis, five years from now seems like an eternity, but if you look back to five years ago from today, that was like yesterday. Keep that in perspective. Be willing to pay the time to get the results.
Here’s one of the things I picked up from Atomic Habits: 1% daily improvement. One percent, so we want to go and improve ourselves just 1% every day; 1% is not a ton of improvement. On a daily basis. When you compound that, now all of a sudden you’re 37 times above where you were when you started the year. If you can do that day in and day out, 1% a day for a year, that’s 3650% improvement. The amount that you have to do to improve 1% is miniscule. In the scriptures, when I read it talks about weak things becoming strong. When we have faith, and when we are willing to be humble and to put in the work, weak things can be made strong to us. That’s a scripture that I’ve long held close to my heart. It’s true. I’m excited the amount of the amount of growth I’ve seen in myself over the past couple of years, especially as I’ve been taking this journey in network marketing. I’m excited to have you guys along for the ride with me.
Here’s the thing, put it into action. We talked in our goals about being action-oriented. Put it into action. If you put personal development into action, you will see results. If you start out by running 100 yards, and then maybe a ¼ mile, and then a ½, and then a mile. You continue to improve, eventually you’ll be able to knock out that 5K or that half marathon or, heaven forbid, that marathon. When we are willing to do personal development, we are willing ourselves to be better. We are growing, and when we grow, we can become the person that we need to be.
As with any network marketing program, it’s not the compensation plan; it’s who you become during the journey that qualifies you for that income. Some of my mentors and leaders have made millions upon millions of dollars in network marketing. I’m actually going to have one of those mentors. It’s going to be up on an episode upcoming here. His name is Rob Sperry. He’s an absolute fantastic human being, and one of my original sponsors in network marketing. Gosh, been about eight years ago. One of the things that I’ve learned from him is that the compensation is always backloaded. Let me say that again, compensation for the work that we do, especially in network marketing, is always backloaded. It’s always delayed. We put the work in up front, we continue to work, and then we start to see the results. Somebody who plants a seed doesn’t come back three days later and say, “Oh, there’s no corn. I can’t believe this doesn’t work. Forget it.” and dig up the field again. It does not work that way. We need to plant these seeds. The seeds of personal development are the seeds that are going to make you a much more powerful leader and a much happier human being when you do it.
That’s all I’ve got for today. Guys, please go on your podcast service of choice–be it Stitcher, be it a Spotify, iTunes, wherever–leave a comment. Give me a review, please. If you love it, make it a five-star review. Leave behind a great comment. This really helps, and it really helps us. I’m looking forward to delivering some really great value for you guys here in the coming weeks as I’ve got some great things planned. I’m excited to work with you all. You, guys, have a great day.
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