Self Improvement – Mastering the Vision Thing
Personality types – your approach to work
How do you interact with those around you? How do you see yourself? How do you resolve problems? If you understand these things about your personality, you can make more progress with less confusion. You will engage your creative energies consciously and constructively. Consider some typical psychological models:
Hero - The explorer, decision-maker, adventurer, leader, servant of humanity.
Showman - The entertainer, artist, master of perception, imaginative creator.
Warrior – The persistent achiever, master of focused concentration, craftsman; powered by aggressive energy.
Scholar – The eternal student, wise teacher, steward of knowledge, compassionate nurturer.
“Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.”
-Marcus Aurelius
Life and love as art
Life should be rich, full and satisfying. Life is our gift to enjoy. Life is our obligation to produce and serve. Life should be lived with style and grace; it is its own art. When you create something, make it appealing as well as functional. Your extra effort is an act of love for yourself, your Creator and your society.
“We have come to think of art and work as incompatible, or at least independent categories and have for the first time in history created an industry without art.”
“The vocation, whether it be that of the farmer or the architect, is a function; the exercise of this function as regards the man himself is the most indispensable means of spiritual development, and as regards his relation to society the measure of his worth.”
-Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
“To love is to transform; to be a poet.”
-Norman O. Brown
“The secret of art is love.”
-Antoine Bourdelle
“The art of life, of a poet’s life, is, not having anything to do, to do something.”
-Henry David Thoreau
“… a first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.”
-Abraham Maslow
The entrepreneurial personality
Do you have what it takes to run your own business? There are some personality traits that are common to entrepreneurs.
A representative of the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, explains about entrepreneurs: “They have a high need for achievement. They have a high tolerance for ambiguity and are comfortable adding their own structure to ambiguous situations. They usually have a single vision they do not swerve from, and they believe they control their own destinies.” Entrepreneur, February 1996, p. 30.
“Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.”
-Albert Einstein
“I call intuition cosmic fishing. You feel the nibble, and then you have to hook the fish.”
-Buckminster Fuller
Decide to be Manager
Anything less than achieving “manager” leadership level in a network marketing plan is haphazard. It’s OK to be a distributor, but both the commitment and the rewards are limited. The big jump in responsibility (and financial reward) comes with being a manager. It takes planning to stay a manager.
The first step up the “ladder of success” is deciding that you want to be a manager. This is an important commitment. You want to start out well balanced and firmly committed. Once you begin climbing and you take others along with you, your responsibilities increase. You will want to plan first and know what you need to do.
Learn how to become a manager. Go back and read the marketing plan brochure and the distributor manual. Ask your sponsor or their manager for advice.
Learn how to stay a manager. One company ran a statistical analyses of their computer records and found that managers with 10 or more active distributors rarely had problems staying managers.
“No one knows what he can do until he tries.”
-Publilius Syrus
“One comes to be of just such stuff as that on which the mind is set.”
-Upanishads
… and then you get letters …
Once you have achieved “Manager” status, you’ll realize that you certainly didn’t do it alone. Your distributors will teach you more than you ever taught them. And, you’ll get letters like this (real) one:
Dear [Manager],
I’d like to take the time to thank you for being a great manager and a good friend and for all of the good things I’ve learned from you. You are why I am where I am today. Last month I ranked 2nd among recruiters (Area Managers). I have 7 first line managers and 2 second line managers. I have been invited to Convention again this year, all expenses paid. My husband and I have been invited to [the president’s] house for dinner next Saturday night and to a special photo session before the Awards Banquet. I am very excited but also overwhelmed by all of this. I still don’t know why. I do nothing but educate my people and it just makes my organization grow. Again, I’d just like to tell you and [your spouse] ….
Thank You
Cast your bread upon the water
“Casting your bread upon the water” is a reference to the scripture at Ecclesiastes 11:1. It refers to the rewards of exceptional generosity. Bread is the “staff of life.” When you are willing to part with something valuable, your generosity will be repaid. (As long as we’re on the subject, compare Luke 6:38.)
Lillian from Bakersfield, California, says “Caring and giving genuine service is like casting bread upon the water: it always comes back. I just keep going at the business of helping people to better health, and I keep talking about the benefits of the business. There always seems to be people who want to hear more.”
One of the most valuable things we have to share with others is our time and attention. Time is stuff of which our lives are made.
“He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.”
-James Allen
Time: Use it or lose it
Every moment that is wasted is time you will never get back.
Take advantage of every available opportunity to advance your purposes. Feel free to share the Nature’s Sunshine philosophy with just about anyone you meet. Share your success with others and help to enrich their lives.
Make time to relax and enjoy the rest that you have earned – and then get right back to work doing good and enjoying every minute of it!
“I was so full of sleep at the time that I left the true way.”
-Dante
“Sed fugit interea, fugit inreparabile tempus. (But meanwhile it is flying, irretrievable time is flying.)
-Virgil
“Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them.
-Dion Boucicault, London Assurance (1841)
“No time like the present.”
-Mrs. Manley, The Lost Lover (1696)
I see (I. S.E.E.) what I should do
Integrity - the things that you choose to do should not conflict with your best values. Your actions should have purpose and meaning. They should be responsible and honest.
Service – Your actions should build up and create rather than destroy or take. Contributing to the welfare of others out of love will make you stronger and “make the world a better place.” “Consciously or unconsciously, every one of us does render some service or other. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger, and will make, not only for our own happiness, but that of the world at large.” Mahatma Gandhi
Enjoyment – When you find joy in doing what you love to do, your life will flow. Your creativity and enthusiasm will bring success. It is a gift that we can rejoice and do good and see good for all our hard work.
Excellence – If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Why commit to doing something if you don’t care enough about it to be persistent, determined and see it through to a conclusion you can remember with satisfaction?
“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
Help for a hurting world
If your neighbor was lost and confused and you knew how to solve his problem, wouldn’t you speak up? Who really is your neighbor? The world is filled with people who know that they’re getting progressively less healthy. They are confused and frightened. They don’t know where to turn and they don’t like it. You can help. You’ve tried something that worked for yourself and your family and you can tell them about it.
At one NSP convention, the Senior National Manager shared his philosophy with the attendees when he pointed out that “There’s a hurting world out there. Who is going to help them? If not me, who? If not now, when? If not, why?”
“Today … we know that all living beings who strive to maintain life and who long to be spared pain – all living beings on earth are our neighbors.”
-Albert Schweitzer
“When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.”
-Joseph Campbell
Draw a treasure map
If you haven’t been somewhere before you may need good directions and a road map to get there. When you have a goal to reach, decide how you want to get there and plan your route ahead of time. Follow your map and you will find your treasure.
Verlyn tells distributors to map out a plan. “Draw a ‘treasure map’ – things you’d like to have or accomplish within one year’s time. Don’t quit until you accomplish them. Don’t just dream… also have it come true! Decide you can do it, then do it with enthusiasm. If you can get on fire about what you are selling, others will feel your excitement.”
We start from the foundation of our values. This allows us to develop a vision of where we want to go. When we commit to that vision, we have goals. Next we develop a strategy to guide us in achieving our goals. We commit to specific tactics; the things we must do next. If the things we do are truly consistent with our values, then we will be happy and feel productive.
“Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.”
-Seneca
Copyright 1996, 2010, David Satterlee
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, which essentially says that you are free to share the work under the conditions that you attribute it fully, do not use it for commercial purposes, and do not alter it.
Mark Albion is a social entrepreneur. He has cofounded six start-ups, including Net Impact (formerly called Students for Responsible Business), is the creator of the Making a Life Worldwide newsletter, and wrote the New York Times bestseller Making a Life, Making a Living. In his former life, Albion taught marketing at Harvard Business School and consulted to Coca-Cola, Proctor & Gamble, and other major corporations.