02 July 2009

Choosing Your Path

Fifteen years ago I packed up my little red Acura Integra with my favorite books, my camping gear, mountain bike and few pairs of skis and headed to the Rocky Mountains. My goal was to visit many different small resort towns in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah and decide where I wanted to live next. I had a checklist of the items that comprised my perfect town. The plan was to visit and stay long enough in each location to be able to work through the checklist and determine if this was the place for me to live.

And so that's what I did. I stuck to the plan and to the checklist. In Moab I lived in my tent in the snow for 3 weeks, warming up at the laundromat and washing in the Library. Taos found me sleeping in the fields of a bed and breakfast that was a famous hippie hang out in the late sixties. (Ram Dass spent time there, among other well known enlightened beings), and working in an Nepalese clothing store. I got myself a ski pass job in Crested Butte and was able to stay for three weeks with friends of friends and ski every day for free.

In the end I settled on Crested Butte because it fit most of the parameters on my list. It also felt like home. I had chosen my path as soon as I decided that living in Northern Maine was not the right place for me. I developed a goal, a plan and the steps needed to carry it out. I created my destiny by taking the time to become clear about what I was looking for and motivated to go find it.

It is the same when you are an entrepreneur and home business owner. People have said that "you create your own luck". I believe this to be true in that you have the power to set the stage on which the play unfolds. In my coaching and teaching I often bring people back to the basics that they seem to have forgotten once they became caught up in their business process. I suggest that they step back in order to see the big picture. I have them write about their goals, their why, the future that they imagine. Once we have that, we create the plan. It is only a matter of choosing the best path and walking down it...while remembering to pay attention to the scenery on the way and make adjustments when necessary.

In life, many people do not choose their paths. They let the path choose them by falling into a job because they need one, or buying a house in their home town because it's what is expected. Network marketing is like this as well. Many people fall into it because they were introduced by a friend and it sounded like an easy way to make some money. When it becomes obvious that it's going to take more work than they expected to create that income, they become disillusioned and drop out, often bashing the industry on the way. But those who CHOOSE to become a serious network marketing professional---those who educate themselves about the industry, the methods, the outcomes---they are the people who in fact do make good money and find their way to residual income and freedom. It comes back to choosing your path--in life and in business.

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