I hope you have great plans ahead. Here are some links to check out this weekend
Time is precious-how to be less busy
Secrets of People Who Don’t Have Clutter
Don’t short yourself when creating a budget!
If you would like to learn more about our business, you can email me at candidnetworkmarketing@gmail.com or check out our website here.
Many people would love to be able to quit their job, and work for themselves. It’s a scary notion, but an exciting one, if you decide to take that jump to become an entrepreneur. Most people are stopped by fear. Time, money, and lack of knowledge all come into play.
I’ve recently been reading The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki. It was a book that was assigned to me in one of my college business classes, but as a mom, and a full-time student, I wasn’t exactly a thorough reader. I was in survival mode. As I have been re-reading it, I have found so many fantastic things to share. I’ll probably be basing several posts on some of my favorite parts, but I would encourage you to read it as well. If you want to learn about starting a business, or really any venture, it’s a gold mine of information.
Pretend you are at the end of your life. You will soon be gone, and you wonder if you made any difference in the world. As an individual, did you accomplish anything? Did you improve yourself, or were you just here for no apparent reason? What did you do to better yourself, and the people around you?
Think about how long you have been alive. If you died tomorrow, would you be satisfied with the efforts that you made?
You will make many choices in your life. Sometimes your choices will help you, and sometimes the choices you make will only hurt. Why did you choose the way you did?
When it comes to starting a new venture of any kind, Kawasaki says you really only need to ask yourself one question. It is similar to the concept of “why”, but has a key difference.
“Do I want to make meaning?”
Meaning is not about power or money. It’s not even about impressing all of your neighbors, or those old classmates at your high school reunion. He goes on to list some examples:
-Make the world a better place
-Increase the quality of life
-Right a terrible wrong
-Prevent the end of something good
While having this large world view is fantastic advice for a business, I would like to focus on individuals here. I enjoy covering business topics, but would like to keep my overall focus on individuals, so I would add these. Here are some other questions you could ask yourself in order to decipher if what you are starting has meaning:
Am I becoming a better friend?
Is this helping me to become a better leader?
Am I learning a new skill?
Am I serving others?
Will this improve my quality of life?
Will this improve my family’s quality of life?
How does this help me to become a better person?
In many network marketing companies, the people involved are often encouraged to find their “why”. What this means, is that in order to continue to motivate themselves, they need to have a reason for doing hard things. For many people it’s money. They want a fancy house, a car, or an exotic vacation. The point is to keep that “why” in your head when you have to step out of your comfort zone. That’s fine if money motivates you enough to get things done, but for me, that has not been the case. I need better motivation in order to step out of my comfort zone.
Making meaning is the most powerful motivator there is. Whether you are starting a business, a charity organization, or simply working toward an individual goal, it is crucial to have the proper motivation, so when you hit hard spots, you can get through them.
Keep in mind, your motivation has to match your goal. If you are starting a business, and only worried about your own quality of life, it will not be enough. You need to think larger, and stick to the examples that Kawasaki gives. If you are trying to lose weight, improving your quality of life could be a great motivator.
The next step is to make a mantra. Kawasaki specifically talks about business, but individuals can benefit from a mantra just as well as a business. A mantra is your “why”. It is not something long, that you have to write down. It is generally very short. In a large business, it helps employees and employers to be unified in their motivation and goals. It needs to be something that is easy to remember, and can be repeated. Here are some examples that he gives:
Authentic athletic performance (Nike)
Fun family entertainment (Disney)
Rewarding everyday moments (Starbucks)
Think (IBM)
We can easily apply a mantra into our own lives, whether we are starting a business or not.
I mentioned before that one of my goals is to keep a cleaner house. In that scenario, it could be something like
Clean home: Happy family
My goal is to have peace in my home, and for my family to be as happy as possible. It’s short enough to remember, and it’s something to remind myself, when I am tired and I don’t want to clean my kitchen.
Once you have a goal, and the proper motivation, the only thing left to do, is to get started. So what are you doing here? Get off the computer, phone, or tablet, and get started on making meaning in your life.
It’s Wednesday today, which means I have a video for you! If you’ve ever thought about starting your own business, but you’re not sure how to do many things that a business entails, this is one to check out. Starting a business requires time, money, and dedication. Things you may have to think are about product development, marketing research, product storage, shipping, website design, accounting, and many other details.
This is the traditional route that many people take, and I applaud them. If this all seems overwhelming to you, there may be something to help. Check out the video, and let me know what you think.
If you would like to learn more about our business, you can email me at candidnetworkmarketing@gmail.com or check out our website here.
Many people would love to be able to quit their job, and work for themselves. It’s a scary notion, but an exciting one, if you decide to take that jump to become an entrepreneur. Most people are stopped by fear. Time, money, and lack of knowledge all come into play.
I’ve recently been reading The Art of Start by Guy Kawasaki. It was a book that was assigned to me in one of my college business classes, but as a mom, and a full-time student, I wasn’t exactly a thorough reader. I was in survival mode. As I have been re-reading it, I have found so many fantastic things to share. I’ll probably be basing several posts on some of my favorite parts, but I would encourage you to read it as well. If you want to learn about starting a business, or really any venture, it’s a gold mine of information.
Whenever you start something, especially a business, you will need other people. Great things just don’t happen from one individual. Even if one person ends up getting the credit for it all, you can bet there was a support team right behind him or her. The following excerpt, found on page 116 in the FAQ section, talks about finding these kind of people:
Q. When interviewing candidates, should I be honest about our organization’s weaknesses as well as our strengths?
A. Let me get this straight: You’re wondering if you should lie to candidates knowing that if they take the job, they’ll eventually discover that your organization sucks?
Always tell it like it is. Lower their expectations. You’ll encounter three types of responses to your candor. Some candidates simply need an explanation of the problems. Go down the list of problems and explain them. Chances are, they just want to know what they’re getting into, and you won’t scare them off.
Other candidates want the challenge. For them, problems are the opportunities. You should consider telling this type, “You’re the guy we need to save us. Can you step up and be a hero?”
You will scare off the third kind of candidate. This person probably wasn’t well suited to a startup anyway. You’ve done yourself a favor.
Your current situation may not be a traditional start-up business, but I think we can all take something away from this. It’s important to be honest in every facet of life. Whether it is a business relationship, or a personal one, trust has to be formed in order for the relationship to function.
As you have probably gleaned from the title of the blog, my husband and I are independent business owners in a network marketing company. It’s important to be straight-forward, especially when dealing in business. That’s why we chose the title Candid Network Marketing. While many people in the industry are honest and good, the industry as a whole has a bad reputation for vague information, and it is our goal to change that reputation. There is so much opportunity for success within a legitimate network marketing company, but too many people get turned off from the lack of transparency. Just like any business, there will be weaknesses as well as strengths. It would be foolish to try to hide either one.
The best way to build any relationship is through honesty. People are bound to trust you more through hard truths, than through pleasant lies. Even in a simple friendship, if you always have your “perfect” mask on, you will never get close. It will always be a more superficial friendship if you are not honest about who you are.
In the end, all that matters is that you do you. Represent yourself, your family, your business, your church, or what whatever you are representing, but do it with transparency. Represent with honesty. The right people will be drawn to you, and the people that don’t appreciate that honesty, are not worth your time.
If you would like to learn more about our business, you can email me at candidnetworkmarketing@gmail.com or check out our website here.
Think of a new skill you are currently learning, or would like to learn. It’s so exciting to learn something new, isn’t it? I love learning new things, but I often get caught up in “practice mode”. I learn, and learn, and I never actually “do”. So how do you know when it’s time for action? I’ll tell you.
It’s right now.
This post is for all of you, who are afraid to act. You can learn about a subject, and never get any practical skills because of fear. This was a problem for me when I first started a business with my husband. I knew what I needed to do, but I was afraid. Instead of jumping in, swan-dive style, I stood around the pool, learning about water. Let’s stick with the swimming analogy for a moment. If you are on the sidelines, testing the properties of water, will you ever learn how to swim?
I’ll let you answer that yourself.
This is basically what I was doing. I took some business classes in college. I studied, and read articles and books. I studied the business model, and learned what others were doing in the same field. I did not act. I was too afraid.
I would now like to proclaim that I am ready to act.
It feels so much better to actually follow through. Granted, it hasn’t been a beautiful swan-dive into the water. It was more of an awkward walk-in, as if the water were too cold. As I have walked, I’ve tripped over my own feet, and stumbled down the stairs.
It’s not how you get in the water though.
It’s only important that you get in.
Learning as you go is actually one of the best ways to learn. The best way to do this, is to have a mentor, or teacher. You need to find someone you trust, and then actually trust them. I probably would have gotten into the water much more gracefully if I had sought advice from my mentors.
So here is my advice: Find someone who knows how to swim. Once you have found your teacher, trust them enough to just jump in.
If you would like to learn more about our business, you can email me at candidnetworkmarketing@gmail.com or check out our website here.
There is a weekend of possibility ahead! I’m planning on cleaning and organizing my bedroom, so I can get the crib set up in preparation for our April baby! Nesting is starting to kick in! We also do our weekly grocery shop on Saturday mornings (when all the samples are out. YUM!) It should be a productive weekend. What are your plans this weekend? Here are some great links to check out:
I think I need this alarm clock
Personal Finance facts that people often get wrong
What does it mean to be mentally strong?
If you would like to learn more about our business, you can email me at candidnetworkmarketing@gmail.com or check out our website here.
Have you ever used one of those old-fashioned hand pumps for water?
You use the handle on the right to pump, and water comes out of the spout on the left. If you have any personal experiences with these, you know that you have to pump for a long time before any water comes out. If you stop pumping, you lose all of your efforts, and when you start again, you have to re-do all of that pumping you previously did. Once you get water coming, you have to continue pumping or the water will stop. It takes some patience and hard work, without seeing immediate results.
When you make a goal, you will not always see results right way. Just as you would with the water pump, you have to build up momentum, and have some faith that it will yield results. This principle can really relate to any goal you make in your life. It could be weight loss, business, money management, learning a new skill, trying to be a better friend, or whatever goal you have made for yourself. Many people make goals in January (new year’s resolutions), but do not always keep them. February and March are notorious for empty gyms, and forgotten resolutions.
I’ll let you in on one of my goals that I made for myself a few weeks ago. I want to more regularly have a clean house. I can feel myself starting to slack. Right now, the dishes are not done. There is spilled popcorn on the floor, and dinner dishes are still on the table. I will talk more about the specifics of goal making on Monday, but for now I would just like to encourage. Obviously I need encouragement, so I’m assuming you could use some too. Keep your momentum up. If you have made new year’s resolutions, don’t quit. Don’t lose all that you have worked for in January, just to revert back to old habits in February. Let’s keep each other accountable, and help each other achieve our goals.
If you would like to learn more about our business, you can email me at candidnetworkmarketing@gmail.com or check out our website here.
Beginners in network marketing often make the mistake of taking on the personality of their mentor or up-line. They come across as being disingenuous because they are trying to act like someone else. This is highly unattractive. Even if you’re not in network marketing, it’s important to find out who you are, and not shy away from it. I’m not loud or outgoing. I’m a pretty quiet introvert, but that’s OK. I’m happy with who I am. Whether you’re trying to build a business, or build a friendship, it’s important to be yourself. 🙂
if you’re interested in learning more about our business, you can send me an email at candidnetworkmarketing@gmail.com, or check out our website!
For those of us in the United States, we celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday this last weekend. For those who many not know (or who may not remember since they were in grade school), MLK was one of, if not the, biggest names in the American Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.
Many people may remember the speech he gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.
What is most surprising to me is that many people tend to forget that he was also a Christian pastor (which would explain why he was so involved in the plight of those who were marginalized during the era of Jim Crow Laws).
In learning more about the man Dr. King was, I came across this quote from him:
Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
Stepping aside from the religious aspect of it, there are many things that require a “leap of faith”, if you will. For those of you still in the dating scene, a leap of faith is required to ask that special someone on a date. In business, a leap of faith is required to know who to work with and how much capital is worth risking. Even in some of the scientific fields, a leap of faith is sometimes needed when working out a specific hypothesis (quantum physics does a lot of this, believe it or not).
In the end, faith is a call to action. It was faith that motivated MLK to stand for what was right, even while being unjustly imprisoned, watching his family and friends be tortured, and, yes, even to stand in front of an entire nation to champion the cause of civil liberties for all.
So here’s where we stand. Are we going to continue faithful in the cause that we have set ourselves to? As this is the beginning of the year, are we going to have the courage and the faith to step into the unknown and work toward bettering our lives.
In the end, the choice lies with us as individuals.
Work with the Candid Network Marketers!
You are in pursuit of success. You are inspired and motivated. Every day, you get closer, and closer to your goals. Your goal may be to be finance or business related. They may be something else entirely. All of us want to feel important, or appreciated. We want the world to see how great we are. These things aren’t bad. In fact, it’s good to strive for success. The one thing I hope none of us forget is our families.
Some of us have very traditional, nuclear families. In my family, I am the mom. I’m married to my husband, and I have 2… almost 3 kids. (April is gonna be an exciting month!) These are the people that I care about most. It doesn’t have to look like this though. The most important thing, is that we have people in our lives that we love, and those people love us back.
Who is in your family? They may be blood-related, they may not. Think about those people who you wouldn’t want to live without. This is your family, and any pursuit of success in other areas should never get in the way of those relationships.
Today was a special day in our family. It was my son’s birthday. He turned two today, and the whole day was his. We played, ate chocolate cake, and did all of the things he loves best. My sweet two-year-old, is one of the most important people in my life, and I wanted to show it, but it meant that I put all of my business-related things on the back-burner. I realized that I had no idea what was going to go on the blog today, but that it was OK. Some days are family days, and family is always more important than any other kind of success. My family is my first priority, and that is the way it should be.
Candid Network Marketing 