In sharing the “simple” routine required to do this business, I left out one key factor to success in this company:

You can not do this alone.

Team is essential.  Without one, you will not survive in this business.  But with one, you will thrive.  This is why it is so crucial to plug into the people and the system provided for you.  My support team does 3 necessary things for me.  They are:

Teachers

Worker Bees

Cheerleaders

1)  Teachers.  My sponsor (the person who recruited me) was there to show me the ropes when I first got started and be an example for me to model.  The company provides so much training in the form of videos, conference calls, and live training events, that she didn’t need to be the one to teach me everything.  But once I learned from those tools, I needed to know how to put that into practice.  This is what she and others on our team were able to do for me.  My friends did the activity that was taught, so I could watch, experience, and learn from what they were doing.

They took the information provided from those training resources and put it to action for me to see.

2) Worker bees.  Are you surprised by the idea that someone in your upline is actually working for you?  Everyone has the idea that in this business model the people who are lower in the tree do all the work while the people higher up in the tree reap all the benefits.  I always thought that too, but that is not true at all!  They will put as much effort into your success as you put in for yourself.  And don’t be fooled by this idea that this business doesn’t require work either.  Right now, while we are in the early building stages of the company, my friends who are quickly rising to the top are working harder than anyone I know.

I was (and am) lucky to be on an incredibly strong team, so I had a lot of the right support.  But it wasn’t just about what they could do for me.  I also took the initiative and asked for it.  I reached out to the people on my team who were successful and said, “I want to be like you.  How do I do that?”  And I’ve learned that it’s a two-way street.  As a sponsor myself, I can only help if my teammates are accessible for me to help them.  How great is this?  We each get to be accountable and responsible for our own businesses.  We do not have to rely on anyone else for that.  I get to choose for myself, and my sponsor will help support my goals, however great or small they are.  They will actually be there to do some of the work with me.

3. Cheerleaders. Never before have I worked with a group of people who are so positive.  Since like attracts like, we are attracting people who want to have better lives, be better people, and help others do the same.  With that comes the responsibility (or you could say privilege) to encourage each other when we do well and even when we don’t do well.  This business is full of ups and downs like any other job.  The biggest difference is you get a lot of praise when you do well.  I mean, a lot.  We celebrate the small things all the time.  And when things aren’t going well, there is always someone there who can help you remember why you chose to do this in the first place.

I got to see this firsthand this month.  It was my best month to date.  Things really started clicking, and I was able to get more new clients, make some major headway in my team building efforts, and even get a nice promotion.  But it wasn’t without some personal setbacks.  I still made some stupid mistakes along the way.  I didn’t follow up, or I misread situations, or one time I even became uncharacteristically too aggressive with one person.

  But through that, I learned who, how, and what I want to be (and not be) in this endeavor. 

It reminded me to be myself, remain patient, and let go of control.  In the end it was a good lesson for me, but as is human nature, I got too caught up in my old perfectionist ways.  While I was celebrating the good things that were happening, inside I couldn’t help but worry about my perceived failures.

Throughout that, my team was there.  Many of them didn’t even know that instead of only celebrating the wonderful things that were happening, I also felt like a jerk, dwelling on a mistake I made which felt huge at the time.  But something cool happened that didn’t usually happen in my old job.  Their happiness for my successes was contagious.  Their excitement helped me to focus on the good stuff and forgive my blunders.  Those that knew that I was disappointed helped me to understand that our failures make us appreciate our successes even more.

I can’t help but compare this process to the only career I’ve ever known before.  I actually had some great support in dentistry.  The perpetual positivity and celebration was rare, but I could share the horrors of my day and someone would be there to console me.  Someone was always there who simply understood because they had encountered nightmare situations or unintentionally made the same mistakes at some point.  I may not have ever had such a positive a team cheering me on like I do now, but I did get support when times were tough.  I realize now why that wasn’t enough.  I wanted more positivity and less negativity in my life.  In fact, I needed that.

Why shouldn’t I have that?

Now I get to take the support, positivity, and teaching that was offered to me, and I get to pass it on.  And that’s pretty cool.