I thought it was time for another story. I love stories. Do you?
Stories have a way to connect and stay with us like nothing else ever could. They tap into our inner feelings and make us part of it. The reason why we remember stories is because they pull on our emotional strings. … They make us think and they make us feel. And it’s that feeling that helps us remember.
The story I am going to tell you today is one of my all-time favorites.
You’ve probably heard MLM trainers before recommending that you should “step out of your comfort zone.” Well, I even mention it on a few of my blog posts here at The EnlightenedNetworker.
That’s great advice! But what if you are just not quite ready?
What if you don’t feel comfortable of stepping out of your comfort zone completely and do things you are just not ready for yet. That’s okay! We’ve all been there at one point or another. It’s all part of the growing process.
Don’t panic!
Instead of freezing and doing nothing at all try to just ‘stretch your comfort zone’ a little bit. It’s much better to grow a little than not growing at all.
It’s not a straight shot to the top. Just like in life itself, there are peaks and valleys, ups and downs. It takes hard work, dedication, perceverance, and yes, failure too. But as long as you fail forward, believe in yourself and never let doubt creep in, you’ll be alright.
Someone shared this quote from Michael Jordan with me…
Michael Jordan
June 21, 1991
Wins First NBA Championship
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot …
Sometimes we wish we had all the answers. It would make life so much easier, wouldn’t it?
Well the little story below will give us the answers to the questions above. But having those answers could we still fail?
The Three Questions By Leo Tolstoy
It once occurred to a certain king, that if he always knew the right time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to listen to, and whom to avoid; and, above all, if he always knew what was the most important thing to do, he would never fail in anything he might undertake.
And this thought having occurred to him, he had it proclaimed throughout his kingdom that he would give a great reward to anyone who would teach him what was the right time for every action, and who were the most necessary people, and how he might know what was the most important thing to do.
And learned men came to the King, but they all answered his questions differently.
Sometimes I feel I write this blog just as much for myself as for you, my visitors. I have been extremely busy lately. Learning new things, figuring out new WordPress plugins, and gadgets and widgets. I’m almost at the point of burnout.
You can only burn the candle at two ends for so long.
Last night, while laying in bed, unable to sleep because my mind was still going a thousand miles an hour, I remembered this story below. I love motivational and inspirational stories. Lately I’ve been putting them into custom greeting cards and sending them to my customers, team mates, friends and family.
So here’s the story …
The Mayonnaise Jar and Coffee
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar… and the coffee…
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began,
I was cleaning out some files to make more room on my hard drive and came across this poem by Jim Rohn. I thought it would make an excellent tribute to one of the greatest mentors of this century. So here it is…
“I wish for you a life of wealth,
health, and happiness; a life in which you give to
yourself the gift of patience, the virtue of reason,
the value of knowledge, and the influence of faith in
your own ability to dream about and to achieve worthy rewards.” _Jim Rohn
I have listened to a lot of leaders in my 10+ years in network marketing. Only a handful have really inspired me. Jordan Adler, my upline in SendOutCards is one of them. I listen to him every Monday when he makes his team call and then I listen again to his recordings. Jordan has the ability to paint pictures in my mind. Very vivid pictures. He makes me think. He gets my imagination flowing. He truly inspires me.
Here’s what he shared on one of his first calls of the year and I would like to share it with you.
2010 can be your best year ever. Begin to imagine what life is like living each day without regard to what things cost. Imagine what life is like knowing that when you spend your money it comes back again next month whether you go to work or not. Your bank account is overflowing. Each month, you give excessively to your favorite charities. You see money as a life giving tool that can help people. You feed your source of inspiration by donating your time to worthwhile causes because you have the time and you don’t have to work quite so hard to make your money.
You are in your perfect home with your family.
You are taking the dream trips you have always imagined.
You practice saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘we can’t afford it’. That nagging underlying fear doesn’t exist any longer. You are free. You feel empowered and alive. You have money set aside to secure your future. You have money to invest and to play with. You have more than enough money to live your life exactly the way you want it.
Money isn’t everything but it certainly makes life easier.
Let those pictures run through your mind. Imagine it to be reality. Imagine it in the present. You’re sitting at the beach feeling the warm sun on your skin and the sand between your toes. You hear the sound of the waves and the wind in the palm trees. It’s real. At this moment it is very real.
Have you ever imagined something and then it became reality? Your imagination is a very powerful tool. Keep using it to make your dreams realitiy. Imagine the life Jordan painted for you…because you deserve it!
“If you can DREAM it, you can DO it.” ~Walt Disney
Who inspires you? What does your dream life look like? Leave me your comments in the box below.
When I was in grade school in Germany I wanted to take an English language class that was offered as an extra curriculum class. (Back then English and French weren’t part of the curriculum like they are now.) The Beatles just started to get real popular and I wanted to understand what they were singing. Since I had to have the permission of my teacher to take that class I went to ask her if she would allow me to go. Here’s what she told me, “Ilka,” she said, “I’m sorry but I can’t give you permission to take that class. Your grades in German are so bad you will never make it. You’ll never learn English. You can’t even speak German properly.” (Well, who at the age of 10 really does?)
I was crushed. Twice a week my friends would take “Walter & Connie” classes and I couldn’t go with them. So I saved up the money for the audio lessons – they came in the old 45 records back then – and taught myself. After I had the basics down I started translating Beatles songs with the help of a dictionary. And after that, I bought every English language book I could find in the bookstores of my hometown. I looked up the words I didn’t know in my dictionary and just kept going. With each and every book I got better. That teacher couldn’t stop me. I was bound and determined to learn English … and I did! What’s funny is, that years later when I met my husband (he was stationed in my hometown), he had me spell-check his letters to his mom before he mailed them home.
Here’s a video of a few people you might know that didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer either. They tackled that thing that couldn’t be done and they did it!
“If you never failed you never lived”
P.S. Also see my post below … “It couldn’t be done”
A couple of months ago I posted this on my old “The Enlightened Networker” blog. This morning I needed a little reminder of the difference between good and great. So I watched this movie again to encourage myself to give it that extra little push that makes all the difference in the world. I thought I’d share it again with you all. Maybe you need a little reminder too.
Did you know that…
At 211 degrees, water is hot.
At 212 degrees, it boils.
And with boiling water comes steam.
And steam can power a locomotive.
The one extra degree makes all the difference.
Are you reaching your goals, your dreams, whatever you set out to accomplish in life? Maybe you need to push just a little harder. Remember in last year’s Summer Olympics, Michael Phelps won another Gold Medal by one hundredth of a second.
So many times in business as well as in life (or sports) it is that one extra degree that makes all the difference in the world.
“To get what we’ve never had we must do what we’ve never done.”
Carla J Gardiner
Janette Stoll
Marcus Baker
Michael B Wilbraham
Michael Novak
Peter Fuller MBA
Ryan Biddulph
Soren Egstrup
Stacy
Tragena Owen
