It has changed.

The world.  It’s changed.

The days of being effective to build a large organization are over.  When Covey’s groundbreaking book first broke, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, simply by practicing the 7 habits one became effective and could easily grow a nice 6 figure income.

There are a lot of reasons for this: micro-wave mentality of prospects, the lying con artists peddling magic systems, fear…the list is pretty long.  By leveraging Covey’s 7 habits we did well, blessed, but in today’s world, we need something extra: greatness.

The 8th Habit let us know how to draw greatness out of ourselves and others.

No, I am not arrogant.  I am not saying I am great.  What I am saying is greatness is within all of us…not all of ME!  As we put into play the 8th habit, others got on board and collectively we created greatness.  And, since people who join networking want to be a part of something bigger, they will always choose greatness.  Always.

Books are shortcuts, not Guru’s websites

Follower’s of this blog know I have a short-cut.  OPM…Other People’s Minds.  We covered a few books that were huge shortcuts for me and over the next few days, I will breakdown Covey’s 8th Habit and share how I used his stuff to survive and excel in this interesting time, the confluence of the internet merging with MLM and tough economic times. I did a 4 parter on the Speed of Trust.  You can get to the first installment here.

What is the one thing?

Finding your own voice.

Look, all the bottom-feeding crooks selling secrets, magic systems and other crap are not going to go away.   There is no penalty for them…no sense even worrying about it.  But if you can find your own voice and tap the greatness within yourself and your team, they can’t touch you or your organization.

We have a problem.  Most people are not fulfilled or excited about your business or team.  That is what makes them easy targets – they get distracted, spend money for magic and then quit.  Interrupting that cycle by creating fulfillment and excitement with greatness is easy because people want to be a part of something bigger.  Make it bigger in an intangible way and you’ve got something special.

Me? Great? How?

First, we have to understand the problem.  Most MLMs and the leaders run the Industrial Age type of management practices.

  1. A belief you must control people
  2. Carrot-and-stick motivational philosophy

The carrot-stick thing does not inspire people.  Telling them how great it will be when they get to $10,000 a month and how bad life will be if they fail never worked very well anyway.  Today, it’s the kiss of death.  They joined you, in part, to get away from that crap.  It does not work.

Covey points out that most organizations that are great all started with one thing in common.  Someone who changed him./herself.   That is what inspires people.

Is your life better?

Well, you don’t need checks to prove that.  It’s nice but no one really wants to work for money.  Sure, they want what money will buy, but who would work for money if you couldn’t do anything with it?

Covey states, and I found it to be true in my own experience, “Greatness involves transcending the negative cultural ‘software’ of ego, scarcity, comparison, and competitiveness.  Be honest, haven’t you thought some of these things and used those lines of reasoning with prospects?  That is fine, but it far off the mark of greatness.

8th Habit

When you discover your voice, you find greatness.  Conforming to other’s moves us away from greatness.

The Three Gifts

We are born with 3 gifts and most of us forget that.  Reclaiming them puts us on the road to separating ourselves from the pack.  What is really cool is we can help other’s reclaim their voice, understand their 3 gifts and we are on our way to something special.

Gift 1 ~ Freedom to choose

Our past, our experiences, our genes – these things influence us but do they determine us?  Not once we really understand we have the freedom to choose.  We can choose to try to find an auto-responder that will grow our business (what a joke), or we can choose personal growth …and learn how to choose.

It is that space between something happening and us reacting that we need to take charge of instead of defaulting. Happiness is the handmaiden to this power you have, you were born with.  Learn from Pros, and learn from the Masters of personal growth.

What I found in networking is people know the junk systems don’t work, but if we don’t lead, new and inexperienced people get eaten alive by the gurus.

Gift 2 ~ Natural Laws and Principles

It is that space between event, small or large and your reaction that application of Principles can shine.  Be honest and trustworthy and people listen.  What I found in MLM was telling people what they want to hear because you may feel threatened they won’t sign up or they will quit is a bad thing.

Find out how to build and tell people you are their coach, not their friend …and while ‘you may not like what I have to say all the time, 6 months from now you’ll love what this business has done for you.  I don’t deal in fairy tales or magic systems…we work to grow, like all worthwhile achievement.’

Gift 3 ~ The Four Intelligences

IQ – Mental Intelligence

Our ability to think and reason, comprehend and grow is stunning.  Not anyone can be a doctor or lawyer but everyone has an IQ high enough to master networking.  Anyone can learn a few skills.  You have what it takes to know what the top earners at your company know AND to understand it AND to do it.

Like any venture, if we are going to make some money…in a Flower Shop, Real Estate office or Restraunt…we are going to need some skills, we’re going to need to learn some things.  Our IQ tells us that.  The same is true about networking.  We need to learn some skills.  Once we learn them we need to teach them…just like we’d need to teach someone we hired at a Flower Shop a few things.

Folks, your IQ tells you this is true and glorified auto-responders will not build a business.   See, our IQ also tells us that we have to teach people what to do in networking and that same Intelligence knows it cannot teach what it does not know.

PQ ~ Physical Intelligence

Your body had somewhere around 7 trillion cells.  You read that correctly… 7 TRILLION…and they work perfectly day in and day out.  That is coming from your brain. If your subconscious mind can run 7 trillion cells effectively, it can build and run an organization of 10,000 people.  Does that make sense?

EQ ~ Emotional Intelligence

We can all get better at this.  When to speak, what to say…in an appropriate manner is something we all have the capacity for.  Start by learning about people and turn the clock back to the 1940s when manners were stressed with young people.  Open doors for others, wave folks ahead of you, say please and thank you.  See, manners are the sugar all are attracted to.  Don’t say ‘huh?’ if you don’t hear someone…say, “I’m sorry, could you repeat that please?”  Will manners build your business?  Indirectly, yes.

If you get serious about going 1940s with your manners, opening the door for your wife, etc., you’ll be so stunned at the response.  Your EQ will seek and find ways to raise the bar in all your affairs.  You’ll just get better with people. Start with simple manners and your EQ will take over and bring you to the next level.

SQ ~ Spiritual Intelligence

Ge in touch with it because at the core of all people, all over the planet is the yearning to connect to others and to the Creator.  By respecting this all the time you gain greater understanding of what I already stated…people want to be a part of something bigger.  I never really talk about my spiritual belief with others…but they know and there is no more powerful voice finder than seeking spiritual growth.  I found all the answers are there, and prospects seem to be drawn to people who are a part of something bigger.   They sense that you are a part of something bigger and it inspires them while it keeps us in balance.

Everybody knows we can find one or more areas that we can instantly improve in and begin to find our voice.   A voice coming from these 3 gifts resonates with people because they all have the same 3 gifts…same 4 Intelligences…and once you find that voice by tapping the God-given gifts, people will listen.

In the next couple days let’s take a look at some additional tips I picked up from Covey to so your team can come from One Voice.  It helped me and it’s helped everyone who understands people need to be inspired, not by speeches or fancy websites that promise much but in fact do not deliver.   I learned from Covey’s 8th how to “express” the voice and how to teach others to use their voice to hit the ‘sweet spot’…and networking became easy despite a changing landscape.

SUNDAY THOUGHTS WHILE SHAVING

Kauai Updates

Daughter Chelsea coming over to live here for a year or more…bringing Tommy, my English Setter with her.   I know I mentioned this before but talking to Chels this week brought a tear to my eye.  She claims it was me going after my dream that inspired her.  Is there anything we can do more powerful than doing…instead of telling kids they can be anything they want to be and doing nothing about our own dreams?   I remember when she was just a kid hoping to make the basketball team.  She dreams bigger now…how about you?

P90X Update

On track and a little ahead of my goal to do it 2x and get rid of 45+ pounds by April 25th.  It’s work, really hard.  Networking is much easier.  But I’ve improved and I am getting results…sounds like network marketing to me.  Work and doing P90X whether I feel like it or not…and some days I don’t feel like it.

Successful reps simply do the things, whether they feel like it or not…that unsuccessful people make a decision not to do.  Period.

APROPOS OF NOTHING

1. Are people jumping from 1 free sign-up deal to another more and more or is it just me thinking they are?  2. Anyone else sick of pre-launch deals…and the sure to follow ‘extension’ of the pre-launch.  Launch already, jeez. 3. Red Sox have a ton of free-agent decisions to make.  And they will make them and spend about 50 million.   Every wonder why confident prospects, the know-it-alls, have to talk to their spouse right after they just told you how smart they are?  4. Frozen passion fruit belongs on everyone’s bucket list. 5. If I had a buck for everyone who ever told me they’ve ‘dabbled’ in networking I’d never have to work again…neither would my kids.   Why is it so hard for them to say they failed?

5 UPDATES FROM MY MENTORS

1. Consider the rights of others before your own feelings and the feelings of others before your own rights. John Wooden

Not always easy to live by but the benefits are amazing.  Reps telling prospects how great they are doing and avoiding simple questions about what they’ve actually made…or how long they’ve been with a company violates people’s rights…OK, it is a cute way to lie.  Why do uplines teach that?  They folks that teach the standard bullshit like…’you wouldn’t believe me if I told you’ should be brought behind the woodshed and have the tar beat out of them.  Teaching new people to lie by omission is just wrong on both Wooden points.

2. It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts. John Wooden

Once people make a few bucks you can’t teach them anything.  I don’t worry about sponsoring up…it doesn’t work.  What works is looking for discover-it-alls…instead of know-it-alls.  I’ve always said while I have learned a lot from companies and uplines, the overwhelming wealth of knowledge we’ve been blessed with came from downline teachers.  This week was no exception.  I learned 3 things from 2 different reps this week that blew my socks off.  How about you?

3. Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations. Einstein

Kinda like Wooden that way…thinking of others.   Liars figure and figures lie…we all know this.  But reps still remain loyal to thinking people join because of some obscure feature of the marketing plan…I can’t tell you how many times reps tell me about 50 minute+ conversations with prospects and the reps cannot tell me what the names of the prospects kids are or if they even have any.  Good grief.

4. Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations Einstein

This one is for prospects.  Doesn’t it drive you crazy when a prospect says they want to think it over…say a 40 something-year-old who is broke.  Gee whiz pal, you’ve been working for 20+ years and you’re broke.  Maybe you need to figure out your best thinking got you broke and you need some help thinking.

5. Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist. George Carlin

Best recruiting advice I ever got.  After they vent and belittle the thing they failed at, if we remember they are idealists…all we have to do is ask them what their ideal is.  Once they tell me…I just ask if they have any way of attaining it.  Always ‘no’, followed by ‘what do you think it would feel like to have that?.  Then, ‘so not having that feels how?’ followed by the very simple, “Would you like to do something about it?’  Idealists are optimists…don’t play defensive.  Get them to talk about their ideal and find out if they want to do something about it.   True idealists cannot help going for the ideal…

believe

mark januszewski

worlds laziest networker

About the Author

  • There are so many nuggets of wisdom in your posts that one could be a semester’s worth of content. Great stuff!

  • “I learned from Covey’s 8th how to “express” the voice and how to teach others to use their voice to hit the ‘sweet spot’ ….and networking became easy despite a changing landscape.” ..Mark J
    I have to get this book even if this is the only thing I learn. Thanks for rattling my brain cells.

  • “I learned from Covey’s 8th how to “express” the voice and how to teach others to use their voice to hit the ‘sweet spot’ ….and networking became easy despite a changing landscape.”….Mark J
    If for no other reason, I have to get this book. Thanks for rattling my brain cells.

  • Thanks for this post, Mark, great as always. I must send you one of my favorite quotes of all time, from Helen Keller: “I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do something I can do.”

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