Building a network marketing business is tough. Nobody said it was going to be easy.  Well, if someone did, they were not telling you the truth. It’s an uphill battle at first, but then it gets to the fun part…the part where “you can sleep when the wind blows.”

During that first part you are often tempted to quit. Don’t give in to temptation. Nothing worth having comes easy. In the beginning of building your network marketing business you do a lot of work and get only paid a little. But if you don’t quit if you keep your eye on the price and work hard then eventually you will reach a stage when you work very little in your business and get paid a lot.

Let me share a little story with you that will paint a picture in your mind you can pull up when things get tough, when you get frustrated, when doubt sets in and you are tempted to just “throw the towel.” Trust me, I’ve been there, plenty of times….

Truth be told, Arnold Schwarzenegger became famous because of his muscles and his movies, and with three boys in the house we sure watched a lot of those. However, it’s not so much the muscles or the movies that impressed me about the man, but rather his immense wisdom. It’s no surprise that he knows the secrets to success.

I know people always make fun of his accent, because after all these years that he has been living in the United States it is still very strong. But behind that heavy Austrian accent is a very smart man, and a very successful man.  Not only in the world of sports or Hollywood but also in business and politics.

When you really think about it, and I’m sure deep down you already know it, but what is really holding you back from the success you desire is fear. Am I right? So how do you overcome fear?

To answer that question first of course you will have to pinpoint exactly what you are afraid of.

In network marketing that could be a variety of things. For example: fear of rejection; fear of talking to strangers; fear of picking up that 500 pound phone and present your opportunity to somebody you don’t know, or worse somebody you do know well.

To tell you the truth, making cold calls has always been my weak spot. I don’t like it and I haven’t done it in years. Personally, I don’t think it’s a very effective way to be prospecting because even if you are a master at it, the people you bring on to your team most likely are not.

Most of you who are my regulars know how much I love quotes. I leave quotes everywhere. Here on my blog, in the comments I leave at my blogging friends’ blogs, on my Facebook Wall. Just everywhere I go I seem to leave a trail of quotes.

I found this great video below a couple of days ago where Tyler Perry talks about how to focus on just one thing and then believe in yourself to be successful. The words he said touched my heart at the very core so I knew I just had to share this with you all.

Now focus and belief are areas I struggle with myself occasionally and  I know I’m not alone. But both focus and belief are two of the very key ingredients to success. Success in anything for that matter.

Has this ever happened to you?  You are getting ready to write one of your weekly blog posts and nothing happens. You have been staring at the screen for 10 minutes and you are drawing a complete blank.

Writer’s block, arrgghh!  Not a single usable blog post idea comes to mind. Nothing! Zilch! Nada!

If you are anything like me, you are starting to get pretty nervous right about now. You know that your readers are waiting for your blog post. You don’t want to disappoint them, yet for the life of you you can’t think of anything that would provide the value your readers are used to.

Pretty horrible feeling, isn’t it?

When I first started out in my blogging venture I often shared inspirational stories. I know, I haven’t told one in quite some time. But, there will be one coming today which was inspired by a comment that was left on my last post by one of my regular readers, Tim Singleton. (Thanks Tim for the inspiration for this blog post!)

Tim shared his disappointment about a prospect he spent money and a lot of time on, educating him about his product and then in the end, lost to his sponsor. The prospect’s reasoning, Tim’s sponsor was a “bigger deal.” Huh? Are you for real?

As suggested, I installed the WordPress Jetpack plugin a couple of weeks ago because that was the only way to update the WordPress Stats plugin I had used up until then. Little did I know what this little plugin would reveal just a short time later.

Well, on New Year’s Eve I received my first annual report titled “Your 2011 Year in Blogging.” What I found out in this report was very interesting to say the least.

For example it showed me…

If you have known me for a while, you know that I love quotes. Not a single day goes by where I don’t use them or add a couple of new ones to my collection. Motivational quotes have become a part of my daily routine.

Why are quotes so popular?

Well, for starters they inspire, motivate, encourage and empower us. They give us hope, they teach and at times they even make us laugh.

“Bessie Braddock (to Winston Churchill): Winston, you’re drunk. Churchill: Bessie, you’re ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober.”

New Year's Resolutions

It’s 6 days in to the new year. So how are you doing with those New Year’s Resolutions? Are you still keeping them, or did you throw some of them overboard already?

Statistics show that “45% of Americans usually set New Year’s Resolutions;  17% infrequently set resolutions; 38% absolutely never set resolutions.”

Latest Blog Post Makes It 100

…97…98…99…100! Here I Am 100 Blog Posts Later

I can’t believe I am writing my 100th blog post today. I started this blog back on 30 May 2009, right when I was going through one of the “down phases” of the network marketing roller coaster. (Yep, if you have been in the industry long enough you know there are ups and downs. However, the downs make the ups so much sweeter.)

By writing inspirational and motivating posts I was hoping that I could find my way up again, and maybe help inspire someone else to stay the course as well …if by chance they found my blog in the sea of millions of blogs out there, haha.

My very first blog post was “Marketing Out-Side-of-the-Box”

For the next six months nothing much really happened. I was lost out there in cyber space and nobody seemed to know that my blog even existed. My visitor count was so low that I could count the people who found my blog on one hand.

The Starfish Story

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.

So… without further ado, here it is…