A Wake up Call and the Future of Network Marketing

I love how Huge a part personal development has to play in the world of Network Marketing. It just shows you...business growth = personal growth and visa versa. There is no other way! It becomes more and more apparent every day!

Rohn: The 3 Parts of Personal Development

Life is all about creating skills and value and taking them to the marketplace to see what they return for you.

One day my mentor, Mr. Earl Shoaff, said to me, “Jim, if you want to be wealthy and happy, learn this lesson well: Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job.” I must admit that this was the most challenging assignment of all. This business of personal development lasts a lifetime.

You see, what you become is far more important than what you get. The important question to ask on the job is not, “What am I getting?” Instead, you should ask, “What am I becoming?” What you become directly influences what you get. Think of it this way: Most of what you have today, you have attracted by becoming the person you are today.

Related: Rohn: You Can Have More—If You Become More

I’ve also found that income rarely exceeds personal development. Sometimes income takes a luck jump, but unless you learn to handle the responsibilities that come with it, it will usually shrink back to the amount you can handle. 

It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development. So here’s the great axiom of life:

To have more than you’ve got, become more than you are.

The marketplace is a demanding place. There is plenty of opportunity, but you’ve got to get ready for it and prepare for it. We’ve got to spend a portion of this year getting ready for next year, and we’ve got to spend a portion of this decade getting ready for the next decade. Hopefully the reason why we’re here, looking well, doing fairly well, is because we spent a portion of the last decade getting ready for this decade.

So a big share of life is spent getting ready, getting prepared, and part of it is the development of skills. I’ve got a good key phrase for you to start with in developing skills that make for success in the marketplace. First, it starts with personal development, self-improvement, making measurable progress.

Personal development is a push. It’s a struggle. It’s a challenge. There wouldn’t be any winning without a challenge. That’s what life is all about. It’s the struggle and the challenge to develop ourselves and our skills to see what we can create in the way of value in the marketplace.

Life is all about creating skills and value and taking those skills and value to the marketplace and what it will return for you. Now it also has a social part, a spiritual part as well as a physical part, and we’re going to talk about some of those parts.

New habits don’t come easy, but they can be developed. Sometimes when you develop a lot of momentum in one direction, it’s not that easy to change but it is possible. It isn’t easy, but it’s possible. Somebody once said, success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.You’ve just got to read the books, learn the skills, put yourself through the paces, do the mental pushups and get yourself ready.

Inspiration is fine, but inspiration must lead to discipline. It’s one thing to be motivated, but it’s another thing to be motivated sufficiently to take the classes, do the reading, do the repetition, go through it over and over, until it becomes part of you. And those are challenges. They’re not easy, but they’re challenges that if you win and develop and grow, that’s what determines your place, your return, your equity, the worth you get from the marketplace.

I’ve divided personal development into three parts. Let me give you those:

1. Spiritual

I know when you talk spiritual you can get in an argument most anywhere, but I have a single belief that says humans are not just animals. Some people believe we’re just an extensions and an advanced form of the animal species, but I believe humans are unique. Spiritual qualities make us different from all other creations. Now I’m an amateur on that side of it, so I can’t give you a lot of advice there, but I would recommend you be a student of the spiritual side of your nature. And whatever you have to read and assimilate to develop in that area, I would strong suggest you do. 

2. Physical

The mind and the body work together, so we’ve got to give some attention to both, mind and body. Development of mind and body. On the physical side, you’ve heard the phrase that says treat your body like a temple. A temple. Not a bad word. Something you would take extremely good care of. Treat your body like a temple, not a woodshed, right? A temple. Take good care of it.

The only house we have to live in currently is the physical body we have and that’s part of success in the marketplace. That’s physical well-being. It’s feeling good about yourself physically, so that you stride into the marketplace with a sense of self-worth, self-confidence,having taken care of that end of it. It covers several parts, including good nutrition. Physically you can do extremely well if you just pay some attention. Read all the books about nutrition to make up your own mind. There are a lot of weird conflicts in the nutritional aspect, but you just have to read and decide for yourself a good plan for you, a good health plan.

Then there’s physical appearance. Be skillful enough to take care of your appearance in the marketplace. It has a lot to do with your acceptance. A big share of it is how you appear to other people—on the job, performing, company, community. You say, well, people shouldn’t judge you by your appearance. Well, let me tell you, they do! Don’t base your life on should and shouldn’t. Only base your life on realities. Sure, when people get to know you they’ll judge you by more than what they see, but at first they’re going to take a look. So, physical appearance is part of the physical side of personal development.

Be conscious of self, but not self-conscious. There’s a certain point that we need to be conscious of ourselves, take care of it, then let it go. Some people worry about their appearance all day and it detracts rather than adds. So take care of it, and then let it go. Do the best you can, and let that get the job done. Be conscious of ourselves, but not to the point of being self-conscious.

3. Mental

Here’s the third part to personal development: the mind. Stretching your mind, developing good thinking habits, good study habits, pursuing ideas, and trying to find ways to apply them to human behavior and the marketplace. All of that takes mind-stretch and mind-exercise. Part of it is stretching yourself in reading habits. You can’t live on mental candy, so you’ve got to have the full range of mental food in order to grow. We call that mind-stretch.

Your willingness to tackle subjects that are difficult and that most people have decided to let slide gives you an extraordinary edge in the marketplace. How can you master part of the high skills, the extraordinary skills that make you an unusual performer in the marketplace? It takes mind-stretch. Some people skip poetry and literature, history and a lot of things that seem a little difficult to attack. But if you always back away from something that seems a little difficult at first, you leave yourself weak. You leave yourself unprepared in the marketplace. So, don’t be afraid to tackle the heavyweight stuff. It may be a lot easier than you think once you get into it and learn skill after skill.

Source

Jim Rohn

 

June 19, 2016

The 7 Gifts of Adopting a Personal-Development Mindset

There is no greater path to success than through your own self-development. Those who are radically successful are immersed in themselves. They are endlessly curious and passionate about self-education. To rank among them, you must invest in yourself so you may manage your actions effectively, regardless of what life places in your path.

Related: The 3 Personal Development Goals Successful People Pursue Habitually 

It is through self-development that you become ready and able to be proactive in all of your efforts, challenges and successes. By being proactive, you are not waiting for success to happen; you go out and make it happen. You may not achieve every goal you set, but as you develop yourself, you are guaranteed to live a richer, deeper and wider life. Making a commitment to your own development is the first step on the path to living your personal legend. The following are the gifts of adopting a self-development mindset:

1. Sense of self

Any type of self-improvement begins with a keen awareness of who you are and what are your values, beliefs and the larger purpose you wish to pursue. True satisfaction cannot manifest from chasing someone else’s dreams. You have to know who you are and what you want. Take care to remind yourself that you are more than the sum total of other people’s opinions of you. 

The experiences you have in life and business can have meaning only if you truly understand them. The path to understanding can come only once you've arrived at some level of self-knowledge. With a solid sense of who you are, you can start planning, designing and pursuing your own identified goals and objectives. In pursuing your own goals, your experience of success and fulfillment comes directly from the liberation you feel from being on your own journey. 

2. Sense of curiosity

To live successfully, you must be deeply curious about all the possibilities your future holds. It is important to have an unquenchable thirst for your advancement. Curiosity inspires you to deliberately push through the unusually painful trials and errors in your business, leading to an acquired self-discipline which teaches you to cast your fears aside. With fears pushed out of your way, you open yourself to the fullest experience life and business can offer.

Curiosity creates a longing to know more, do more and be more. It inspires a zest which makes it possible to see any situation as an opportunity for your advancement and learning. When you approach business with a sense of adventure, there is no situation, however limiting, physically or economically, which cannot be filled to the brim with interest in and curiosity about how it will all work out.

3. Sense of direction

The more you develop yourself, the clearer you become on the things you want to achieve. This clarity makes decision-making easier. Having a sense of direction improves your ability to prioritize. You become certain about which objectives are important in the short term and which are necessary for your long term. With a sense of direction, you become focused and effective.

Related: Breaking Bad ... Habits: Beliefs That Stifle Personal Growth

There is nothing that will help you organize your efforts more than being focused. Direction provides commitment. It is difficult to commit to something that has no foreseeable future or path. If you are filled with doubt and a lack of clarity there is no way to launch your ideas. Self-development gifts you with direction and, thereby, the commitment to achieve your ends.

4. Sense of follow-through

Knowing what you want to achieve makes it easier for you to see the benefits of taking action. Even when the tasks are not enjoyable, seeing the benefit of following through on them makes it easier to take the necessary steps to produce your desired results. There is much truth in the saying, where there is a will there is a way.

When you are committed to personal development, you find a way to develop the necessary will. Purpose is what gives you the incentive and motivation to get the things done which you need to do in order for you to become successful. Your idea of success and the vision of what that will look like is where your incentive to follow through originates.

5. Sense of urgency

A sense of urgency drives hard work. Urgency creates a mindset to work as if your life depended upon it, especially if you have fewer resources than your competitors. When you are the underdog, you will dig deep inside yourself in order to thrive.

Urgency prompts you to activate quickly when making decisions. You get off the dime and do something. Keep in mind that it is easier to steer a moving object, so if you realize you have made a poor decision, a sense of urgency allows you to adjust. If you wait too long, you miss opportunities.

Urgency is all about getting results quickly and efficiently, but it does not eliminate assessment. If you want faster results, you must assess what is and is not working, then eliminate the efforts you've identified as wasteful.

6. Sense of resiliency

There will be tough times in life and business. Resiliency prevents you from viewing any challenge as the end of the world. Resilience allots you the patience, awareness and fortitude to continue moving forward, even if that means completely changing course. Self-development gifts you with the perception that everything that happens (good and bad) happens for reasons which can only be in line with your best interest. With this type of mindset, there is no obstacle that will hold you back.

When tough times occur, you need the skills to deal with them effectively. Personal development cannot prevent all bad things from occurring, but it will help you deal with them when they do. You will have greater confidence and pliability, along with the personal and interpersonal skills to cope with any challenge you face as you climb the ladder of success.

7. Sense of connectedness

Relationships are a double-edged sword. They either lift you up or drag you down. They either bring you closer to your goals or push you further away. When you improve your personal development, you are better able to see which relationships and partnerships are worth investing in and which you need cut loose. You also develop the skills to make the most of those relationships which have the most positive impact on your life, your business and your overall success.

Adopting a personal-development mindset is about making the commitment to taking the time to invest in your greatest resource -- you. When you put effort into developing yourself, the rewards are unfathomable. Many people are put off by personal development because they see it as a weakness or something that shows they do not already possess the skills necessary for success. If you assume you already know it all, you will not succeed. The greatest achievers in life and business know the key to success is their ability to manage themselves in a variety of situations. That ability comes through personal development.

Sherrie Campbell

- Contributor

Psychologist, Author, Speaker

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