All right, guys, welcome back in, today. I was mulling over what I wanted to talk about this week, and I’ve thought a lot about parenting. I had a Facebook picture pop up, those memories that pop up. Well, this one was from nine years ago and it was the baby picture for our baby. Our baby’s now nine years old and is active as anything. This picture was all four of our kids. I can’t believe how little they looked, and it warmed my heart. What it got me thinking was just the satisfaction that I had from seeing that picture and then comparing it to some of our newer family pictures.
I’m really proud. Our oldest son, who’s 18, he’s about to graduate from high school. He’s just got accepted to all the state universities here in Utah and really excited for him. He made the decision and the choice to go and serve a mission for two years. He’s been called to serve in Toronto, Canada, so he’s going to go and serve the people of Toronto for two entire years. I’m really proud of him. It swells my heart, and that is one of the rewards and one of the payoffs for being a parent: seeing your kids grow up and do the right things.
I was thinking about that and trying to apply it to our business to help with some of the difficulties that we run into every single day with building a network marketing company. This week I’ve been thinking a lot because the company that my wife and I are working with just opened a South American country. I don’t want to dive too far into it. You guys can check out at MLMdonedifferent.com if you really want to check that out. With all of this, it’s been just fascinating to see how people are rewarded and how people respond to rewards.
I’ve been in sales, you guys know, for parts of three decades, and more than two decades in total. Through all of that, I’ve found what works for me is rewards. I’ll tell you; I love winning a contest. In fact, I get tooth and nail just into winning that contest. I’m very competitive, and that’s part of the drive and part of what makes me. What I’ve realized more than that is I really appreciate a pat on the back and words of encouragement. When I get a, “Hey, man, nice job!” from my boss, oh my goodness, my day just elevates to an entirely different level and my productivity increases. I am able to do things that maybe on a different day I just can’t do.
It got me thinking, what am I doing for myself? As my own boss, as my own CEO, as an entrepreneur, I spend a lot of time working hard and beating my head against the wall sometimes and trying to get things to happen. Maybe in your network marketing business, you’re a leader. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, right? You can help people see the vision, but if that doesn’t get into their heart, they won’t run with it on their own. I’ve been thinking about that, just trying to figure out what would work and really realizing that part of my voice, part of the benefit that I bring to the world, is some of these experiences that I have, some of these opportunities that I have had to grind through and to get through something difficult and to see management styles that work and that don’t work.
Coming up on 10 years ago, I worked for it for a guy, who shall remain nameless. He’s a very good guy, but his management style was the nastygram. I’m sure you guys are all familiar with it. It was an email that came in and it was usually in multiple colors. Many of them red or yellow highlights, bold, italics. Basically, he’s yelling through an email and that was his management style. He was managing by fear. For me, it didn’t work; in fact, I just rolled my eyes.
Sitting at my kitchen table and we had a nurse coming from the life insurance company to take all our vitals and all that, so that we could get some life insurance for our family. As I was sitting there, I got one of these nastygrams that came through, and my blood pressure spiked. The lady was taking it, and she had look at the readings and her eyes got to be the size of dinner plates and was just like, “What’s going on?” I’m like, “Oh, I just got this email for work.” She’s like, “Okay, I need you to calm down. Go sit over there, turn off your email, and in 10 minutes we’ll take your blood pressure again.” I did that. I left and I came back, and I took my blood pressure and it was much more normal, so obviously, I wasn’t dying.
It got me thinking, the cortisol levels that shoot into your blood when something negative like that happens, just terrible for you. I got to thinking, okay, how do I apply this to entrepreneurs and to people who are becoming self made, who want to build a network marketing business, or who want to build a brick-and-mortar business, what is that? I came upon treating yourself. You have to treat yourself. You have to reward yourself for the hard work that you’re doing.
Generally speaking, in a day job, the reward I get is a commission check or a pat on the back for my boss. I started this new job in medical device sales. Two weeks after I start the job, my boss started the job. So I’ve been there just about as long as him, it’s not like I’m going back to this fount of knowledge that he has because he’s learning it as well as we go. Yesterday, he called me just to give me a couple of words of encouragement. Just to say, “Hey, man, I’m really impressed with what you’re doing. I love your work ethic. I love how hard you’re working, and I know that you are going to crush this.” Let me tell you that took two minutes out of his day and elevated my day for the entire day. In fact, I’m still riding that high.
A kind word goes so much further than a negative one. I heard a study somewhere say that it takes 10 positive comments to counteract the damage of one negative comment. Ten positive for one negative. Because our psyches, our brains are so willing. We’re problem solvers. We want to solve problems inherently. Part of that is a great thing, and the other part is terrible. I’ll tell you why it’s terrible. When we latch on to something negative, our minds grab hold of it, and it tries to solve the problem. It tries to fix it. If it doesn’t come to an easy conclusion, it can get trod down really quickly. When it gets trod down, negativity happens, and negativity is the death of creativity. Let me say that again. Negativity is the death of creativity. As entrepreneurs, as business owners, we need to be creative. We need to creatively problem solve.
I am a huge, huge fan of Brendon Burchard and Benjamin Hardy; these guys have incredible content. I’ve read their books, I watch podcasts and videos. These guys do amazing stuff, especially Benjamin Hardy. He’s probably helped me more than any single person. I cannot wait to shake his hand one day. I know I’m going to have that opportunity. I don’t know when, but I will. In fact, I want to get him on this podcast episode. So, anybody who knows Benjamin Hardy, I want them on the podcast so please help me out.
Benjamin is fantastic, and one of the things that he’s taught me, through time, is to get up in the morning and immediately start experiencing the positive emotions of success. The positive emotions of treating yourself to something good. We all have wants, and sometimes success is suppressing those wants and desires, and sometimes success is indulging in those wants and desires. If it is something that is just going to make you happy, do it. Treat yourself. Do it. Because you’re going to get more positive endorphins out of that, you’re going to feel that emotion of success, you’re going to feel that emotion of what it feels like to accomplish some goals. You can grab hold of that and remember that and project that forward. As you treat yourself, as you go out there and spend time working, and then go and reward yourself with something good.
This very morning, one of my mentors, Steve Larsen, sent me a voice message and said, “Hey, man, I really appreciate everything you’re doing for us.” I’m spending some time doing some sales consulting and whatnot with him. It was a shot in the arm. I was so excited. This is a fan boy moment. I found Steve Larsen, and in the late fall and purchased a course from him. If you guys want to know about that, contact me. It’s amazing. I attended an event that he was putting on, and it was incredible. Right after that is when I got laid off from my job. Well, because of that, I was able to go and talk with him a little bit and help him with some of the sales stuff that he needed for his people. He got this voice message to me and said, “Hey, man, I really appreciate everything you’re doing, and I’m excited for the growth that we’re having and for the part that you have in it and for the work that you’re doing.”
Let me tell you, I’ve been riding on cloud nine. Steve is a stud. I put down as one of my goals for 2019 that I wanted to count him as a friend. Well, I’m not going to say I’m there yet. We haven’t gone skiing yet–that is a very good indicator of friendship to me–but we will. I know we will. I’m excited for it to happen. He and I share a lot of the same values. I love listening to him and watching his journey. Again, I can’t I cannot recommend him enough. He’s a stud. He’s going to be a guest here on the podcast in a couple of weeks. I’m excited for it. I’ve been excited for it. I had to schedule him four months in advance, so that tells you how in demand he is. I’m really excited for it.
Guys, I want to wrap this up. I don’t want him to make it too long today, but really treat yourself. Spend some of that hard-earned money and get yourself something nice. Do something for yourself that is going to help you remember why you are doing this. Because why you do this is probably for somebody else. There is nothing that says that you can’t take a little bit of satisfaction. In fact, if you’re not taking satisfaction, you’re probably doing it wrong. If you’re not patting yourself on the back at least once in a while just to remember, hey, you do awesome work, do it. Remind yourself of that. When you do, your life gets better. I can’t emphasize that enough. Gets better.
One of those things I’ve learned from Stephen is he likes to yell at you, and guess what? I’m probably going to do with that a little bit more too because, hey, it gets my energy up and gets me excited. You guys probably don’t know this, and my wife would laugh, right before I publish an episode of this, I put on some heavy rock and roll music and I rock out. Today. I was seriously doing like my Rocky routine or whatever as I’m getting ready, because it gets my heart rate up, it gets me ready to go. When I can do that, I can have more impact on people, and I can have a better impact on my day. I can get satisfaction out of what I’m doing. And, honestly, publishing these and seeing your reviews and comments gives me a great deal of satisfaction. That is part of my reward, those words of encouragement. Please, if you can leave us an awesome review.
I’m excited. We’ve got some great things coming here in the coming weeks, and I’m with some amazing trainers within MLM. Next week, Rob Sperry is going to be with us. Rob is an old friend of mine. He’s one of the top trainers and all of MLM, and I cannot wait to spend some time with him on an episode. Guys, take care, have a great one. Make it your best day ever.
Hey, thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe, and if you loved us, leave us an awesome review on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you consume your podcasts. If you’d like some free training for your team on how your recruiting efforts can be bettered and brought into the 21st century, go to podcast.MLMRenegade.com and get your copy of the Renegade Recruiting Kickstarter.