As you can see, I got busy scribbling on my whiteboard. I was getting some stuff out of my head having to do with comfort and resistance.
There are two different sides to this: comfort causes a person to not want to change because they’re afraid of this resistance, and I broke everything down as to why it happens.
This whiteboard is in my office. My videographer came in one day and I ran him through this, and he said, “Wow, you were busy!” It is my experience having to do with network marketing and training a lot of people, and observing their resistance to change because of comfort.
I’ll just remind you that in my first seven years of building with my current company, there were 57 millionaires on my team, so I’ve seen a lot of people go through this experience and I want you to see it.
Get Focused & Productive
In this series, I’m really trying to get people to the Pipeline. The Pipeline is where the money is made. Every single company begs for people who know how to do this. Affiliate marketing has to do this. Real estate has to do this. Everything has to do this in order for money to be made. The Pipeline is everything.
I built a bridge to this Pipeline because some people have already done this bridge in other kinds of businesses and can jump right in and to the Pipeline, but some people haven’t done that, and need this bridge.
In this series of videos, we’re on the bridge and carving out the space so you can get focused and productive. That’s this step.
These are the subjects I’ve covered previously, and the last one was the doctors’ study on the emotional cycle of change. Now we are on how to overcome resistance in network marketing.
If you need to watch (or review) previous videos you will find them here.
Your 10-Year Vision is Everything
My brainstorm happened because I want to help people. I went through the whole experience and I started out at the ten-year vision and then worked backwards. That’s the way this happened.
Your ten-year vision is the motor, it’s the fuel, it’s everything. It’s the only thing that’ll pull a person through the resistance. That is a big deal.
People think it’s fluff, but it’s not fluff. The people who call it fluff probably don’t have a vision that motivates them.
Then you drop back on your vision to five years, one year, third quarter, second quarter, first quarter, the week, today, yesterday, and year beginning – all the way as far back as you view it.
Comfort vs. Resistance
A person sits between looking at comfort versus looking at resistance, and their resistance to change.
What is it? It’s the victim of past decision.
They’re playing, in essence, victim, because of a prior decision. That’s what the resistance is.
There’s a book called The War of Art (not The Art of War). In it, the author talks about this almost invisible force field. Resistance: It’s hard, it’s difficult to change. It’s difficult to start drawing. It’s difficult to write a book. It’s difficult to do these things. He names it, “the resistance.”
I was looking at it and I thought, “Wait a minute. What really is it?”
A person chose something at some point, for example, “I need a job.” They go out and they get a job and they get into a routine. Then they’re offered something that could potentially be better, and they say, “Okay,” and they sign up.
Then they think, “Oh, I don’t know what to do. I’m frustrated. I don’t know… I don’t know.”
It’s this resistance thing, but what is it really?
It’s because he’s got comfort sitting over here in his current habits and routines.
It’s the same thing in a diet. If you’re trying to lose weight, you’ve made earlier decisions. That’s your comfort, and you’re resistant to not eating the chocolate or the sugar or whatever it is. That is the resistance, and it’s just simply a prior decision.
You’re now playing victim to it, but it’s your decision. It was your decision back there, and it still is your decision here. It’s one of those things where you’re playing a game in your own mind.
You want to lose weight and you walk into this buffet, and over there is the dessert area. You think, “Hmm, I better not go over there.” Then you find yourself over there. And you think, “Who brought me over here?” You’re playing that game with your mind.
Focus Week to Week
You have today. You may not have 10 years. You may not have five years, or one year, or three quarters, or two quarters, or one quarter, or a week. Tomorrow’s never promised. Don’t worry down that line.
I’m always focused on week to week. That is always the way I sprint. I know where I’m going, but I’m on a sprint for a week. I can’t do anything about tomorrow. Today in this moment is what’s important. A moment ago was the past.
I have a question: Where do they (whoever “they” are) put history? Is there a continent where they put all history? Where does it live? Where does history live?
Nowhere. There isn’t a place for history. It is in your mind. You can go to an ancient city, and see old coliseums there. You knew somebody was here before.
But when you really look at it, we can’t change a thing about the past. All we can do is learn from it and what success looks like throughout generations. History is basically worthless, unless you can learn some things about how tyranny takes place, or about how food was developed and things like that. Other than that, for you, history is not very valuable.
Looking to the past is where your excuse manufacturing machine is at full speed most of the time:
- “I’ve got bad genes.”
- “I was abused as a child.”
- “My spouse left me.”
- “I’ve been bullied.”
- “Nobody loves me.”
- “I failed school.”
- “I was fired.”
- “I was downsized.”
These are examples of being a victim of the past. So what? It doesn’t matter. It’s yesterday. It’s in history, wherever that continent is. All we’ve got is today, right now, in the moment.
5 Phases to Capacity, Confidence and Money
Strong Resistance. When you start, there is strong resistance. This is because you’re forming new habits. “I don’t know.” That’s a phrase that you keep on seeing in front of you. “Awkward. “Confusion.”
I drew this stick figure leaning back to represent the “heavy resistance” column because of an experience that I had in school where I didn’t know literally how to do school, and I would get confused.
The only solution that I had was to raise my hand and then if the teacher didn’t call on me, I never got that solved. The professor went on, and I really didn’t get it. I didn’t understand it. Then anytime I would try to study something later, like diving physics or explosive physics, I really had a hard time.
I found out that I was actually leaning back. I didn’t want to study, so I was carrying this resistance with me, and it’s of no value. That’s the reason I drew this person leaning backwards.
Resistance. Let’s move to the column labeled “resistance.” This is just an arbitrary that it’s the first quarter. Noice here we still have resistance. Earlier there was strong resistance. This is resistance. It’s minimizing a little bit.
In this column, you’re implementing and executing. That’s making change. You’re making the steps. “I’m going to change this and this and this and this,” or, “I need to do this, this and this and this, but I’ve never done it before.”
You have to implement and execute that. That’s one of the primary things you have to do. People make a goal with weight, and then they depend on one thing: their self discipline. That is tough. Yes, you can get through it, but it’s tough. It’s grit. I would rather put processes in place.
So you’re implementing and executing and what happens…..? It’s not working – zero sales. There is your valley of despair – what we covered in “The Emotional Cycle of Change” training.
He’s still leaning backwards. He’s implemented and started to try to execute, but he’s certainly not smiling.
Mild Resistance. Then we move over to the next column and we’ve got mild resistance.
At this stage you refine, and reduce useless actions. While you are implementing, you see that there are some things that you are spending too much time on that are useless. You begin to reduce wasteful activities and actions.
What you will find is, it works sometimes. 1 out of 20, or 1 out of 30 prospects will say yes. Now you’re a bit in doubt. It kind of works, but not really. Sometimes it works.
If you keep on going, a new habit is formed. It’s optimized. It works frequently. 1 in 10 prospects signs up.
Confidence & Capacity. Now my stick figure is leaning forward. That’s more of a run. “Hey, wow. 1 in 10! Gosh, look how much money I can make with this.” He’s got confidence, capacity to constantly make changes.
Once you move through this thing and you get in the habit of moving through this stuff, you build capacity and super-confidence. That is the only way you have confidence.
When you see a child that doesn’t have confidence, it is always because he doesn’t have confidence in his abilities. The only way you get confidence in your ability is to push through the resistance of change – or just never even look at it as a resistance, and just say, “This is just what we’re doing.”
Brilliant Ideas & Earning Money. As resistance seems to disappear, you’re really running now.You’re earning money. You come up with brilliant ideas. Why can you come up with brilliant ideas? Because you know what you’re talking about. You know what the scene is. You’ve talked to enough prospects to actually have really great ideas, because you’ve had experiences with the people that matter the most.
You can get some person who goes through a study of marketing and then goes to work for a company and is in charge of marketing, but never talked to a prospect. They’re almost useless.
The real heart, the real ability to serve has to do with the interaction between the prospect and yourself.
I’ve heard people say (and I’ve even thought it at one point), “Well, I don’t know anything about marketing.”
The best way to learn about marketing is to listen to the prospect. What are their pains? What keeps them up at night? What would they be doing if they didn’t have to have this job? All of these kinds of things. When you know the answer to questions like these, you have the right to communicate to them about a business.
I’m in the weight loss space. When I talk to somebody, I say, “Well, what have you tried before? What didn’t work?” He gives me 10 different things. Well, then maybe it’s not what he was trying to implement. Maybe it was that he didn’t have a process to implement it. You see? That’s how I can really serve.
Focus and Concentration
What you focus and concentrate on, you will get.
If you keep looking at the comfort, that’s where you’re going. Then you’re just going to go into that cycle where you are consistently looking at new things, getting an idea, saying, “I’d like to do that,” and then jumping back over here to the comfort, and quit the idea. Even if you tried it, you quit it and went back over to your comfort.
What you focus and concentrate on, you will get.
Quality and Quantity of Actions Determines Time
A lot of people have asked me, “Tim, how could you hit $60,000 a month part-time, and then $151,000 a month by your fifth year? What did you do? How can you do that in such a short period of time?”
I’ve always made the comment, “Time is not it. Quit thinking time. If you think time, then you’re really in the wrong gutter, like in a bowling alley. You’re not thinking about what I ever think about. What you should be thinking about is quality and quantity of actions that lead across the Pipeline.”
There is just nothing quite that breaks resistance when you get a, “Hello?” and you say, “Hi…” and you begin to try to have that first part of that conversation. It’s awkward. “I don’t know what to say.” That’s what I mean by this. But once you’ve done that 10 times, 15 times, 25 times, 200 times, 2000 times, then does it really have to do with time?
A person can sit in network marketing for 15 years and put 10 people across the Pipeline.
It’s not time, it’s quantity.
Then after every single call, you do an after-action assessment. Look at what you did well and what you can do better at. If you do that, you’re going to get quality into your world. That’s going to cut down time.
You can’t avoid quantity. I’ve given you my numbers in the training, “Sponsor 40 People Down a Line” about how many I do in order to build multiple teams of $100,000 a year.
High Effort vs. High Return
So going back to “comfort” – at the start, it is small return/high effort until you get through it. It takes high effort to change. You’re going to have a lot of effort.
After you get through it, you have a high return in terms of having. You have money, you have brilliant ideas, you have communication skills, you have presentation skills, you’re focused on serving.
No matter what you ever do, this skillset will pay you and reward you more than anything else, because you are the closest person to the customer. That always makes you the most valuable player in a company, in any kind of company, if you’ve got that.
So to me, it is absolutely worth that effort at the beginning, because it doesn’t take that long. We’re not talking about a 12-year degree to become a doctor, who’s going to be working all of the time, and a whole lot of time, can’t take time off. Or other positions where you go through a lot of school.
I didn’t go through school. This (doing the business) is my school. I eventually found out, “Wow, I can make millions and millions and millions, and I can help others make millions.” Doctors don’t help others make millions.
I really think it’s worth the effort.
Winning Is a Habit
I will give you another quote, which is from Vince Lombardi. When I was growing up, he was somebody that I greatly admired, as well as another football coach, Bear Bryant.
Vince Lombardi said:
“Winning is a habit. Watch your thoughts, they become your beliefs. Watch your beliefs, they become your words. Watch your words, they become your actions. Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character.”
And that has to do with whether or not you are going to always be moving towards your comfort. When I said, “Whatever you focus and concentrate on, you will get,” that’s what I was talking about.
If you look back over at comfort and that’s where you side, then that’s what you’re going to get. The more you look at that, the more you will get that.
The more you say, “I’m going to look at my vision,” then you’re going to be moving through the resistance.
Your Feedback
What was/is your experience of change in network marketing? Some of you may have been all the way through it now, but I just want to get an idea from you, the reader: what is that change for you? What was it like? Need help with your message? Here’s my training for what to say and how to say it. If you don’t have a team or haven’t recruited anyone (or less than 10 people), this is THE course you should get – Network Marketing Training Course
