Personal development, personal change or growth, are all common in the network marketing playground. There are often referred to as the pivotal piece in a breakthrough or success in the industry. It is possible that you’re familiar with Stephen Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. Great book – and even more impressive is how versatile these lessons are, and can be applied to any business, or person, as a whole.
The idea of this book and the habits it teaches is to provide a holistic and integrated approach to professional and personal problems. It encourages you to live life with integrity, service, dignity, and fairness.
Really, to provide an opportunity for powerful lessons in our lives, to evoke personal change. I want to take the time today, to use these principles (to some degree) and how you can apply them to your network marketing business, or in any business for that matter.
The Seven Habits for Personal Change Through Powerful Lessons
The book itself suggests, and I don’t disagree that there are three (3) layers to developing these habits; Dependence, Independence, and Interdependence. Knowing this, and more importantly, understanding this, will help you develop the necessary layers, steps or strategies to have you productive and effective in your business.
- Be Proactive
- Begin with the End in Mind
- Put First Things First
- Think Win/Win
- Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
- Synergize
- Sharpen the Saw
You might notice, or relate to the first steps being more so a private victory, one that is established and celebrated by you. The latter of the steps are described as the public victory. It involves your relationships, personally and professionally. And the last step ‘sharpen the saw‘, you could maybe call this start all over, repeat, practice makes perfect – and so on.
Where the concept of the powerful lesson comes from…
… is that each of these principles is developed as a result of a lesson, or task. It could be something someone has sourced us to complete, or a task we’ve delegated ourselves to do. Regardless of where it was ‘assigned’ the desire for a personal best should never waiver.
Now, there are dozens of ways to define and interpret these 7 habits, but let’s spend a bit more time focused in the area of who you can apply them to your career in network marketing.
Step One for example, and being proactive. Being out there, growing your network, developing yourself, talking to prospects or potential customers, utilizing the system for your business, connecting with and goal setting with your sponsor or coach, and much more. It is your business, own it.
The great news is, in their stage, you don’t need to know everything, in fact, many of those powerful lessons in personal change come from …
… failing. And then getting back up again.
Let’s talk about beginning with the end in mind. What is the end goal? What are you aiming for? DREAM BIG! What are the steps to get there? If you are a fan of SMART goals, this is a great time to jump in there with them (if you’re not, we’ll look at a post in the near future to help you with those).
I want to touch briefly on the importance of a win/win attitude. In network marketing, there are situations that will find us hearing the word ‘no’ quite often. Be it from family friends, or cold market prospects he really is, we are going to hear it.
And that is OK.
What’s key, however, is asking for referrals. Because the great news is, I’ve seen time and time again a dud lead us to a stud, so to speak! That is a prime example of a win/win. The no was still a no, but because of your actions, it led you to a yes – that’s a win!
Although we could probably talk all day about each of the different habits, the last one I want to touch upon is the last one, sharpen the saw – or the axe? Don’t forget the beginning. Getting back to the basics. It is common for people to come into the network marketing industry, attain some great success and get comfortable.
Getting comfortable in life is one thing, getting comfortable in your business is another. You want to always be prospecting especially when it’s likely you have a team that will follow what you do. It is important to stay plugged into events or company incentives.
Now yes, it is a powerful industry that when you build the right layers of leadership, it will continue to pay you for years to come, but a solid foundation is so key. Being available (to some degree) is important to your group, and your own success.
I hope these few points of the 7 Habits of Effective People were beneficial to you and your business, and if you’re not applying them, you should be. They coincide with working smarter, not harder. It is the ability to maximize the hours in your work day – it is about taking powerful lessons to affect, personal change.
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I look forward to hearing from you!
And, definitely, check this out in the event you are looking to see how it is I have changed my life through the Network Marketing Industry over the past 12 years (and how you can too!)
Rick Billings
COACH. TRAINER. HOME BUSINESS ENTREPRENEUR.
Email: rick@rickbillings.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/rickbillingsentrepreneur/
Skype: rbillings3
