My wife and I are partnered in a health and wellness business in which success is defined and celebrated ultimately by how many people we can help. Well, we were a little over a year into our business and aiming to reach the top level of our profession and we knew we had a LOT of work to do to get there. We knew we couldn’t do it by ourselves either. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
We rallied our team around the vision of creating a massive positive ripple of health, vibrance, of change in the world and got to work. We committed heads down to a 90-day cycle. We’ve found businesses work in 90-day cycles and the current 90-day cycle will be a result of the work done in the last 90-day cycle. Especially in network marketing and direct sales businesses.
We knew for us to reach the top, we had to bring other people with us. It wasn’t about us, it was about helping everyone else. It was all we were focused on in that period and it ended up taking two 90 day cycles, but we finally achieved the top promotion. And we did it together. We did it by helping a lot of people grow THEIR businesses and reach new heights they had never seen before. We did so by generating that massive ripple of health and prosperity in the world. It felt GOOD! We were celebrated for it and got the opportunity to be recognized and walk the stage in front of 20,000 people from our company in the crowd. Walking the stage was an amazing feeling, but as soon as we stepped off that stage my wife and I looked at each other and both said “we’ve got to help other people feel that exact feeling!” That is now our mission. We have no more promotion levels to hit as we have reached the top, but we are now focused on helping others willing to put in the work to achieve the same.
Do you feel comfortable sharing a story from your own experience about how you felt unusually low, and vulnerable as a result of your business? We would love to hear it.
My biggest low in my business is directly connected to my highest high, which I don’t think is a coincidence. My high was achieving the top of our profession and doing so with a lot of other people. My low was the result of our first 90-day cycle pushing to reach that top level as a network marketing professional in our direct sales business. We set our sights on achieving the top, we knew what we had to do and we got to work towards that. We really got to work. This was probably the hardest I’ve ever worked and it honestly felt like a GRIND.
I knew it wouldn’t be forever so we kept pushing. In entrepreneurship, you have to be willing to work like most people won’t (for a short period of time), so you can (eventually) be able to live like most people can’t (until long into their career). We went to every length to achieve this goal and everyone in our lives was aware of that.
I remember we were in Hawaii for a week with my Dad and we worked the entire time. I was aware of it, and I felt bad, but my priority was achieving this goal and we had to do it before year’s end to earn the award, earn the trip to Maui.
Long story short, we didn’t achieve our goal by year’s end. And it crushed us. We had worked SO hard. We had exhausted our resources. We weren’t sure what else we could have done. So it put us down for a few weeks. We were exhausted. We felt defeated. We questioned our leadership. But after a few weeks of feeling bad for ourselves, it gave us time to reflect.
We realized we were focused on doing this for the US. That’s not what it’s about. And never is. We lost sight of the fact that if we helped enough people achieve what they want, we’d get what we wanted and achieve our goal too. So we refocused and recommitted with an outward focus and that led me to my highest high.
Based on your experience can you tell us what you did to bounce back
Entrepreneurs need time to think. Time to reflect. Time to live into their feelings. We did just that. We didn’t dismiss missing our goal; we put everything we could into and couldn’t move on right away. We sat in it. We reflected on it. We learned from it. We GREW from it.
We look back now and it was the greatest blessing in our business to date because it was a period in which our leadership grew the most after reflecting on it.
So in the end, our lows are our greatest opportunities for growth. Every achievement, every growth spurt, every miracle in our business first begins with a problem. So when you have a problem you are truly blessed, because you are a candidate for growth…for a miracle. And if you have a small problem, you are equipped for small growth. If you have a big problem, you are equipped for big growth.
No matter how successful you are as an entrepreneur, you will always have fairly dramatic highs and lows. And yes, this is different from someone with a “regular job.”
In my prior career as a VP at a finance firm, there was a level of certainty. I’d be going to the office, Monday through Friday, I generally knew my hours, I would get paid the same amount every two weeks, I had health insurance and benefits, and I knew the potential raise and potential bonus I’d get at the end of the year. The human brain craves certainty, and that is why most people end up in the aforementioned scenario of a “regular job.”
Entrepreneurship is going against our brain’s desire for certainty.
With that said, entrepreneurship is the greatest self-discovery and greatest self-improvement program in the world. Better than any course, any schooling, anything I know of. Our business will never exceed our level of personal development. When you can find ways to add value to the marketplace, entrepreneurship also has the highest potential compensation package.
However, it is the road less traveled. It is a road that does not offer safety or security. It necessitates taking a bet on yourself. Taking risks. With risk, with a lack of certainty, lack of safety and security comes inherent highs and lows. It is also a journey. There is no arrival on this path. As you grow, as you build a successful business as a network marketing professional, you realize you have unlocked even greater potential in you, you can visualize new heights, and you start the trek towards that.
When you seek new heights, you put a whole bunch of obstacles in your path, and with that will come the highs of achievement and progress, and the lows of perceived failure, rejection, and setbacks. Successful entrepreneurs look at “failure,” “rejection” and “setbacks” differently though. We look at them as opportunities to grow, to improve, to learn, to take note in our journal, and to move forward. Entrepreneurs are resilient and find the balance of riding the wave of highs and lows that inherently come with the journey.