Chapter 13--The Brain by Margi Starr

This is a direct quote form a "lesson" posted by my good friend Margi Starr in our 30 Day Mental Cleanse forum :  

Chapter 13--The Brain by Margi Starr

I was in three different airports over the past ten days:  Columbus, Phoenix, and Denver. Their bookstores are filled with the latest and greatest books and magazines for all different interest groups.

In previous years I would have chosen a popular novel or maybe a decorating magazine to enjoy during my plane flights.

However, I realize more than ever that what we feed our Brain is crucial to our personal development. Since our Brain is a broadcast and receiving station, it only makes sense that if we truly want success, we must be dialed into the types of information that will help us achieve that. Popular novels and decorating magazines probably aren't going to get me there.

This time the magazine that I bought was one I’ve never read before. Inc. 500 features America’s most successful entrepreneurs.  It dawned on me that maybe I could learn something from it.

The article “Wired for Success” by Leigh Buchanan talks about the impressive growth some private companies are achieving in a time when our economy has stalled. 

The author shares a study that proves success is not because people were at the right place at the right time with the right résumé.  Rather it is because of ten qualities that are exhibited by successful entrepreneurs. These are the individuals that call themselves “unemployable,” not because other companies don’t want them, but because other companies can’t contain them. That alone is a powerful statement!

The ten qualities of a successful Inc 500 Entrepreneur are:

1.   Risk Taker

2.   Business Focus

3.   Determination

4.   Delegator

5.   Knowledge Seeker

6.   Creative Thinker

7.   Confidence

8.   Promoter

9.   Independence

10.   Relationship Builder

In network marketing, RISK TAKING looks different than for someone who is beginning a company from the ground up and with massive overhead. The Risk that many of us face is the Fear that keeps us from sharing about our product or opportunity, or in getting out of our comfort zone to meet new people. 

BUSINESS FOCUS:  For success to happen, we must treat our MLM’s as businesses instead of as hobbies.  That means being ALL IN and giving the time and attention that is required to learn Skills. Feeding our brains with material relating to network marketing and personal development develops an appetite for more of the same. 

We know 95% of Network Marketers are struggling.  The 5% who achieve success are those that are DETERMINED and push through resistance.  Friends and family are notorious for telling us we're crazy.  A good amount of Determination will turn a deaf ear to those comments and cause us to be more Determined than ever.

Many of us know people who for whatever reason decide to switch companies or quit network marketing all together.  Lately, a friend of mine decided to do this.  In our conversation I wished her well in her new venture, but what I realized is that her decision to leave made me more DETERMINED than ever to stay with my current and forever company.  

You see, I am one of those MLM warriors. I tried nearly a dozen companies and wasted thousands of dollars before I found Mentoring for Free.  True, they weren’t Five Pillar companies, but that was not the reason I did not succeed.

The real reason I failed was because I had none of these top qualities of an Entrepreneur.

I allowed Fear to paralyze me….

I treated each one like a hobby instead of a business…

And I had no Determination whatsoever! 

As soon as I found one little thing that didn’t seem to work, I jumped to something else. I was not ALL IN.  Instead I found excuses as to why that particular company or product wouldn’t work.  

Here at Mentoring for Free we learn how to evaluate a company based on the Five Pillars.  Once we find a company that meets the Five Pillar criteria we are urged to do something really radical—COMMIT to it as you would a marriage partner.  

Say “I do” and be Determined to grow your business as you would grow a marriage. Avoid the temptation of looking around to see if there’s something better. When you start having a wandering eye for a different company, it divides your energy and wrecks havoc with your mind.  Your brain will be in a total state of confusion.  It won’t know what to send or receive.  

Whatever is holding you back from success with your current Five Pillar company will most assuredly follow you to the next company and the next one. 

Continue to work on each of the Ten Qualities of an Entrepreneur mentioned above. 

IF (and that's the bottom line) you continue to be ALL IN and Coachable, you WILL achieve the success you desire.

Margi Starr

Thank you Margi for allowing me to repost this.  See more great "lessons" here : http://30daymentalcleanse.info/index.php/board,221.0.html

Or join us in our forum here : http://30daycleanse.com/

The Folded Napkin ... A Truckers Story

I'm not sure where this originated, but it is fantastic!  Grab your tissues, you're going to need lots!

The Folded  Napkin ... A Truckers  Story
 If this  doesn't light your fire .... your wood is  wet!

  I try not  to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring  Stevie.
His placement counselor assured me that  he would be a good, reliable  busboy.

But I had  never had a mentally handicapped employee and  wasn't sure I wanted one.

I wasn't sure how my  customers would react to  Stevie.

He was  short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial  features and thick-tongued speech of Down’s  Syndrome.

I wasn't worried about most of my  trucker customers because truckers don't  generally care who buses tables as long as the  meatloaf platter is good and the pies are  homemade.

The  four-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned  me; the mouthy college kids travelling to school;  the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their  silverware with their napkins for fear of  catching some dreaded "truck stop germ," the  pairs of white-shirted business men on expense  accounts who think every truck stop waitress  wants to be flirted with.

I knew those people  would be uncomfortable around Stevie so I  closely watched him for the first few  weeks.

I  shouldn't have worried. After the first week,  Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby  little finger, and within a month my truck  regulars had adopted him as their official truck  stop mascot.
After  that, I really didn't care what the rest of the  customers thought of him.
He was like a  21-year-old kid in blue jeans and Nikes, eager  to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his  attention to his duties.

Every salt and pepper  shaker was exactly in its place, not a bread  crumb or coffee spill was visible when Stevie  got done with the table.
Our only problem was  persuading him to wait to clean a table until  after the customers were finished. He would  hover in the background, shifting his weight  from one foot to the other, scanning the dining  room until a table was empty. Then he would  scurry to the empty table and carefully bus  dishes and glasses onto his cart and  meticulously wipe the table up with a practiced  flourish of his rag. If he thought a customer  was watching, his brow would pucker with added  concentration. He took pride in doing his job  exactly right, and you had to love how hard he  tried to please each and every person he  met.

Over time,  we learned that he lived with his mother, a  widow who was disabled after repeated surgeries  for cancer. They lived on their Social Security  benefits in public housing two miles from the  truck stop. Their social worker, who stopped to  check on him every so often, admitted they had  fallen between the cracks. Money was tight, and  what I paid him was probably the difference  between them being able to live together and  Stevie being sent to a group home. That's why  the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning  last August,
the first morning in three years  that Stevie missed work. He was at  the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve  or something put in his heart.

His social worker  said that people with Down’s Syndrome often have  heart problems at an early age so this wasn't  unexpected, and there was a good chance he would  come through the surgery in good shape and be  back at work in a few months.

A ripple  of excitement ran through the staff later that  morning when word came that he was out of  surgery, in recovery, and doing fine. Frannie,  the head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a  little dance in the aisle when she heard the  good news.  Marvin  Ringers, one of our regular trucker customers,  stared at the sight of this 50-year-old  grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy  beside his table.
Frannie blushed, smoothed her  apron and shot Marvin a withering look.

He  grinned. "OK, Frannie, what was that all about?"  he asked.
"We just  got word that Stevie is out of surgery and going  to be okay."
"I was wondering where he was. I  had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery  about?" Frannie quickly told Marvin and the  other two drivers sitting at his booth about  Stevie's surgery, then sighed: " Yeah, I'm glad  he is going to be OK," she said. "But I don't  know how he and his Mom are going to handle all  the bills. From what I hear, they're barely  getting by as it is." Marvin nodded  thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on  the rest of her tables.

Since I hadn't had time  to round up a busboy to replace Stevie and  really didn't want to replace him, the girls  were busing their own tables that day until we  decided what to do.  After the  morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She  had a couple of paper napkins in her hand and a  funny look on her face.

"What's  up?" I asked.  "I didn't  get that table where Marvin and his friends were  sitting cleared off after they left, and Pete  and Tony were sitting there when I got back to  clean it off," she said. "This was folded and  tucked under a coffee cup." She handed the  napkin to me, and three $20 bills fell onto my  desk when I opened it.
On the outside, in big,  bold letters, was printed "Something For  Stevie."  "Pete  asked me what that was all about," she said, "so  I told him about Stevie and his Mom and  everything, and Pete looked at Tony and Tony  looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me  this." She handed me another paper napkin that  had "Something For Stevie" scrawled on its  outside. Two $50 bills were tucked with in its  folds. Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny  eyes, shook her head and said simply:  "truckers."
That was  three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the  first day Stevie is supposed to be back to  work.
His  placement worker said he's been counting the  days until the doctor said he could work, and it  didn't matter at all that it was a holiday. He  called 10 times in the past week, making sure we  knew he was coming, fearful that we had  forgotten him or that his job was in jeopardy. I  arranged to have his mother bring him to work. I  then met them in the parking lot and invited  them both to celebrate his day  back.

Stevie was  thinner and paler, but couldn't stop grinning as  he pushed through the doors and headed for the  back room where his apron and busing cart were  waiting.  "Hold up  there, Stevie, not so fast," I said. I took him  and his mother by their arms. "Work can wait for  a minute. To celebrate your coming back,  breakfast for you and your mother is on me!" I  led them toward a large corner booth at the rear  of the room.

I could  feel and hear the rest of the staff following  behind as we marched through the dining room.  Glancing over my shoulder, I saw booth after  booth of grinning truckers empty and join the  procession. We stopped in front of the big  table. Its surface was covered with coffee cups,  saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly  crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins.  "First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up  this mess," I said. I tried to sound  stern.

Stevie  looked at me, and then at his mother, then  pulled out one of the napkins. It had "Something  for Stevie" printed on the outside. As he picked  it up, two $10 bills fell onto the  table. Stevie  stared at the money, then at all the napkins  peeking from beneath the tableware, each with  his name printed or scrawled on it. I turned to  his mother. "There's more than $10,000 in cash  and checks on that table, all from truckers and  trucking companies that heard about your  problems.

"Happy  Thanksgiving."

Well, it  got real noisy about that time, with everybody  hollering and shouting, and there were a few  tears, as well. But you  know what's funny? While everybody else was busy  shaking hands and hugging each other, Stevie,  with a big smile on his face, was busy clearing  all the cups and dishes from the  table.. Best  worker I ever hired.

Plant a  seed and watch it grow.

If you shed a  tear, hug yourself, because you are a  compassionate person.

Keep it  going, this is a good one. The Folded  napkin

BILL Cosby HAS GONE AND DONE IT AGAIN...

Here is a direct quote that appeared on FaceBook :

BILL Cosby HAS GONE AND DONE IT AGAIN...

They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English.
I can't even talk the way these people talk:
Why you ain't,
Where you is,
What he drive,
Where he stay,
Where he work,
Who you be...
And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk.
And then I heard the father talk.
Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth.
In fact you will never get any kind of job making a decent living.

People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an Education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around.
The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.
These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids.
$500 sneakers for what?
And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.

I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit.
Where were you when he was 2?
Where were you when he was 12?
Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol?
And where is the father? Or who is his father?
People putting their clothes on backward:
Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong?
People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn't that a sign of something?

Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up and got all type of needles [piercing] going through her body?
What part of Africa did this come from??
We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa .....

I say this all of the time. It would be like white people saying they are European-American. That is totally stupid.
I was born here, and so were my parents and grand parents and, very likely my great grandparents. I don't have any connection to Africa, no more than white Americans have to Germany , Scotland , England , Ireland , or the Netherlands . The same applies to 99 percent of all the black Americans as regards to Africa . So stop, already! ! !
With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap ......... And all of them are in jail.

Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem.
We have got to take the neighborhood back.
People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands' -- or men or whatever you call them now.
We have millionaire football players who cannot read.
We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We, as black folks have to do a better job.
Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us.
We have to start holding each other to a higher standard..
We cannot blame the white people any longer.'

~Dr.. William Henry 'Bill' Cosby, Jr., Ed..D.

If this resonates with you, I salute you!  If you take offense with this, go take it up with Dr. Cosby!

CHAPTER 8 DECISION: THE MASTERY OF PROCRASTINATION By Reggie Liggins

This is a direct quote form a "lesson" posted by my good friend Reggie Liggins in our 30 Day Mental Cleanse forum :

CHAPTER 8
DECISION: THE MASTERY OF PROCRASTINATION By Reggie Liggins

The Seventh Step toward Riches

"It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped." ~ Tony Robbins

"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

"The biggest risk is not taking any risk... In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks." ~ Mark Zuckerberg

Napoleon Hill said something really interesting towards the end of chapter regarding our school systems here in America.

He said, "Generally, the youth just out of school seeks any job that can be found. He takes the first place he finds, because he has fallen into the habit of INDECISION. Ninety-eight out of every hundred people working for wages today, are in the positions they hold, because they lacked the DEFINITENESS OF DECISION to PLAN A DEFINITE POSITION, and the knowledge of how to choose an employer."

I have seen this over and over again in my time. What amazes me sometimes is when people go to school for 4 years or more to learn a trade or skill, and then don't even end up working in that field. Stranger still is the extraordinary number of people who go to school to study business and even get an MBA, but have no intention of going into business for themselves. Instead their goal is to earn a safe, secure salary instead of the possible fortune that could await them if they were to dare to chase a dream and start their own business.

Decisions do mark the course of our lives. And not just the big ones, such as what to do for a living. But all of the little ones that we make every single day. What to eat, whether to exercise or not, whether to listen to our family or listen to the television, whether to make one more business call or to call it a day. As a father, I often tell my children that the things they do today will determine where they will be tomorrow, so make good choices (decisions).

In his book, "The Compound Effect", Darren Hardy says: “In essence, you make your choices, and then your choices make you.” The basic premise of the book is that where are you right now in life, the status of your bank account, health, relationships, etc., are the accumulative result or "compound effect" of all of the choices and decisions that you have made in your life to this point. And that if we want to change the quality of our lives, we need to change some of the choices that we make on a daily basis. Basically every small little choice matters, so we need to make better decisions.

One of the bad choices I used to make was to outsource my decisions to others. I used to decide to "go along to get along", and you know, "don't rock the boat". My favorite phrases were, "whatever you want to do" or "it doesn't matter to me". (I lied by the way, it did matter). So many of my decisions were rooted in my desire to have people like me, also known as worrying about what others might think. That type of thinking unfortunately carried over into my business when I first started network marketing. It was like I thought the business was good enough for me and my family, but that it wasn't good enough for anybody else. So I "decided" not to tell certain people about it because I was afraid of what they might think or say.

What those decisions cost me in lost potential revenue I will never know. What I do know is that I didn't give them the opportunity to decide if my business or product was right for them. I decided for them that what I had was wrong for them because of my stinking thinking. As far as I know, I deprived them them of the opportunity to become financially free or benefit from using exceptional products.

As evidenced by the story of the founding of America in this chapter, the decisions we make do not just affect ourselves.

They tend to have a ripple effect, in our families, in our communities, at work, everywhere. Since joining Mentoring for Free, I have learned one of the secrets to success in this business is to forget what I want and to focus on helping others. My job is to find out what they need or want and then do all that I can to help them get it. Zig Ziglar famously said that if we help enough people get what they want, we can have everything that we want.

So if you are in network marketing, make a decision to just help people. And whether you are in network marketing or not, make a decision to chase your dreams. Don't settle for the first job that comes along unless it is THE job that you want.

Our time here is too short to settle for what you don't want. I believe you can have whatever you want in this life if you make a definite decision to go after it with all that is in you. Just decide.

I leave you with the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."

Peace and Prosperity,

Reggie Liggins

Thank you Reggie for allowing me to repost this.  See more great "lessons" here :
http://30daymentalcleanse.info/index.php/board,215.0.html

Or join us in our forum here : http://30daycleanse.com/