Do you know the number one predictor of success? This study of four year olds provides a definite answer to that question:
Categories Personal Development by 
Coaching great John Wooden passed away on Friday. In addition to his legendary success in teaching students how to win basketball games, he left a greater legacy in the lessons he taught his students about the importance of good character.
On the radio this weekend, I heard an audio clip of Coach Wooden describing the difference between "reputation" and "character". Your reputation, he said, is what others think of you; your character is what you really are.
Malcolm Forbes, Sr., publisher of Forbes Magazine and father of the current publisher, Malcolm "Steve" Forbes, Jr., once shared a story that helps us understand the importance of character. This remarkable true story, entitled, "The Gingham dress," also proves that the old adage is true, we never should judge a book by its cover.
A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly without an appointment in to the Harvard University President's outer office.
The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard and probably didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge.
'We'd like to see the president,' the man said softly. 'He'll be busy all day,' the secretary snapped. 'We'll wait,' the lady replied.
For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't, and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted.
'Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave,' she said to him!
He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, and he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office.
The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple. The lady told him, 'We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus.'
The president wasn't touched. He was shocked. 'Madam,' he said, gruffly, 'we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery.'
'Oh, no,' the lady explained quickly. 'We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard.'
The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, 'A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard.'
For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now.
The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, 'Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?' Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto , California where they established the university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.
You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them.
Categories Personal Development by
Napoleon Hill, author of, "Think and Grow Rich," explains, "What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve":
Categories Inspiration, Personal Development, Wealth & Money by
In "The Slight Edge," Jeff Olson talks about the power of doing "the little things" over and over again, consistently, over time, until the compounded effect of those small efforts produces dramatic change. Brian Tracy, in "Create Your Own Future: How to Master the 12 Critical Factors of Unlimited Success," calls this same phenomenon, "the principle of accelerating acceleration."
Tracy, who sees the principle as a corollary of "law of attraction, says, [page 48], "Whatever you are moving toward [i.e., a goal] begins moving toward you as well." His characterization of how the principle operates should be in every network marketer's start-up kit:
"When you first set a new, big goal and begin moving toward it, your progress will often be quite slow. You may be frustrated and think of giving up. The bigger your goal, the further away it will seem. You may have to work on it for a long time before you see any progress at all. But this is all part of the process of goal attainment."
"The 20/80 rule helps to explain the principle. . . . For the first 80 percent of the time that you are working toward your goal, you will only cover about 20 percent of the distance. However, if you persist and refuse to give up, you will accomplish the final 80 percent of your goal in the last 20 percent of the time that you spend working on it."
Sounds like he's seen the "Time vs. Money" chart, doesn't it? In case you haven't, the chart is a graphical depiction of the growth of your business over a hypothetical five year period. In the early years, you put in a lot of time relative to the money you earn. At about the mid-way point, you are putting in the same amount of time but your earnings are commensurate with your efforts. In the later years, you earn a lot of money relative to the amount of time you work. Tracy continues,
"Many people work for weeks, months, and even years toward a big goal and see little progress. They often lose heart and give up. But what they didn't realize is that they had laid all of the groundwork necessary and were almost at the take-off point. They were just about to start accelerating toward their goal, and their goal was about to start moving at a great speed toward them.
"This principle of accelerating acceleration seems to apply to almost every big goal that you set for yourself. You must therefore decide in advance that you will never give up." [emphasis mine]
In a job, you work so many hours and you get paid for that time. In most small businesses, there is a correlation between the amount of work and the amount of income. But network marketing is different. It's not a small business, it is a "big business," as Robert Kiyosaki tells us in his books, and there is no such correlation. In building your network marketing business, you are creating an asset that you could sell or leave to your children or that will provide you with a retirement income for the rest of your life. It may take you five years or two years or ten but when you know in advance what you are working for, it's not hard to decide that you will, indeed, never give up.
Categories Goals & Goal Setting, Inspiration, Network marketing/MLM by
This clip, from the movie, "Facing The Giants," is a poignant reminder that we can do more than we think we can. It also shows you why you should never give up.
We've shown this at our team retreats. If you need a bit of inspiration, or a kick in the seat, watch this clip and ask yourself, "What could I do if I didn't know I couldn't?"
And go for it.
Categories Goals & Goal Setting, Inspiration by
"In the First World War, sailors whose ships had sunk floated around in lifeboats, cold and hungry, for days, sometimes for a week or so. Then they'd start to die. The mystery was that a greater proportion of the younger sailors died first.
"How could this be? The young mariners were fitter and should have lasted longer. Eventually it was realized that many older men had been sunk before, or knew a colleague who'd been sunk and had been rescued alive. Simply knowing that they'd been saved before reinforced the will to live. They knew there was a route to survival. They didn't fret or worry. They knew that hanging on to life worked.
"It was decided to brief all crew that they might be stuck in lifeboats for many days, yet that they would then likely be rescued alive. Survival rates soared."
From, "Living the 80/20 Way: Work Less, Worry Less, Succeed More, Enjoy More," by Richard Koch
This story helps explains why it's so much easier to succeed in network marketing (or franchising) compared to other kinds of businesses. In this industry, new people are surrounded by others who have had the success they seek. They can more easily believe they can succeed because there is plenty of "social proof" that they can. "These others did it, using the same tools and the same systems, so I know I can do it, too."
And when you believe you can, it is much more likely that you will.
That's why stories are so important. It's why going to the big events are so valuable. It's all about building belief.
W. Clement Stone, founder of Combined Insurance Company and publisher of the original "Success" magazine said, "What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve".
Paul J. Myer was a friend of Stone. Mr. Myer owns over forty companies and was a pioneer in the personal development industry. I have the following quote from him on my wall:
"Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe,
and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass."
Categories Network marketing/MLM, Personal Development by
Why do some people succeed in network marketing and others don't? Ultimately, it's the amount of one's activity, as I wrote about previously. Differences in belief or philosophies drive different levels of activity which deliver different results. But according to a Stanford University study of human behavior, there's another factor explaining the differences in performance we see in all aspects of life.
The factor, uncovered in the study of four year old children, was simply the ability to delay gratification. The ones who could delay their gratification had better social lives, were more intellectual, better off financially, and were happier than those who couldn't.
The study is discussed in "Don't Eat The Marshmallow Yet!: The Secret to Sweet Success in Work and Life" by Joachim de Posada, Ph.D. and Ellen Singer. Here's the book description at Amazon.com:
"Arthur is a chauffeur who is intellectually gifted. Jonathan is no less bright than Arthur, equally hard-working, and a billionaire. So why is Jonathan in the back seat of the limousine and Arthur in the front? What explains the difference between success and failure? And what does it mean to you and your children?
"Joachim de Posada, a world-renowned motivational speaker, found the answer in a landmark Stanford University study of children who were able to delay gratification-in the form of a marshmallow they'd been given to eat-with the promise that they'd be rewarded with an additional marshmallow if they resisted eating the first for fifteen minutes. Ten years later, the children who held out had grown up to be significantly more successful than those who had eaten their marshmallow immediately.
"Posada saw that the key difference between success and failure is not merely hard work or superior intelligence, but the ability to delay gratification. "Marshmallow resisters" achieve high levels of success while others eat all their marshmallows at once, so to speak-accumulating debt and dissatisfaction despite their occupations or incomes. But it doesn't have to be that way. Using a simple parable and real-life examples (including basketball great Larry Bird and major league baseball catcher Jorge Posada, Joachim's cousin), this life-changing book shows readers how the moves made today can pay off big tomorrow-if they just don't eat the marshmallow…yet!"
Categories Book Reviews, Network marketing/MLM, Personal Development by
