Keep on Beginning!

Okay, it has been a while, hasn't it? The holidays are such a busy time for everyone, and the fun of watching a four and a five-year-old enjoy this time has been wonderful, if exhausting! Now on to a new year!

Resolutions? I don't do them. I believe that personal improvement, goal-setting, setting down vision are all ongoing aspects of daily life. Reviewing your progress is a regularly scheduled event.

So my goals for the next year are to keep improving, and to follow the vision.

I am a big-time book guy. Weekly library goer and Amazon.com addict. (I admit I have a problem.)

If you have access to a good library system, the audio book selection is staggering. I don't have anywhere near enough room on my ipod to carry all the audio books I have. This blog entry will describe some of my favorites.

Napoleon Hill - Think and Grow Rich (look for the version for the 21st Century) This is the classic study of what it takes to be successful. The 21st Century version adds some great insight gleaned from the wealth of contemporary millionaires. There's a link on the left of the blog to download a free PDF copy of the original version, formatted by yours truly. 'nuf said.

Awaken the Giant Within, by Anthony Robbins. I am a huge fan of Mr. Robbins. (In the interest of full-disclosure, he's one of the two people recommended here with whom I have an affiliate arrangement, so click on the link and buy stuff! Click Here) His enthusiasm and excitement are contagious, and his approach to self-improvement is real. There are a bunch of audio books from Tony Robbins available, too. Get thee to a library!

Brian Tracy -- Master Strategies for Higher Achievement: Set Your Goals and Reach Them - Fast! If you have a chance to read anything or listen to anything by Brian Tracy, do it. Although a lot of his specific works are tailored to sales, the general principles he espouses are guaranteed to make your life better. It's all about becoming a better human being.

Mark Victor Hansen -- Dreams Don't Have Deadlines: Living Your Dream Life, No Matter What Your Age. Yeah, he's one of the Chicken Soup for the Soul guys. I love this audio book. Being one of those baby-boomers, it is inspiring to hear his joyous stories of folks a lot older than I who have dreamed big and achieved those dreams.

Jack Canfield -- The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. Yep, the other Chicken Soup guy. The audio book is an abridged version, but still worth a listen. Use that car for what Zig Ziglar calls your "university on wheels." by listening to positive, uplifting ideas.

Zig Ziglar -- Goals : Setting And Achieving Them On Schedule. Again, this is an abridged audio book. Zig is also known for his focus on sales, but he is one motivating guy.

Dale Carnegie -- How to Win Friends & Influence People. There is a great unabridged CD version of this available. If you haven't read this, please give the CDs a listen. I don't think anyone has improved on this.

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer The Power Of Intention - Learning To Co-create Your World Your Way This may be a little new-agey for some folks, but this audio book is the one that turned me on to the potential for my ipod to be a life-transforming device instead of just a jukebox. (Though I still love to listen to tunes, too.) This is one of those that made me go out and buy the book, just to read it at my pace and have as a reference. I haven't found this on CD, but Audible has a great download of it available.

Dr. Joe Rubino -- The Self Esteem Book, and 10 Weeks to Network Marketing Success. (Two separate publications, BTW.) Dr. Joe is the other guy here with whom I have an affiliate relationship, and the reason is simple: I think the guy is a genius. He is a Network Marketing millionaire and the CEO of the Center for Personal Reinvention. Self-Esteem issues are at the root of so many of our worst problems. I cannot recommend his work highly enough.



My business opportunity
Have your Network Marketing Prospects Come to YOU!

Think and Grow Rich

This classic is referred to continually in the literature of the Network Marketer. I decided to include a link to the original version. The link will take you to a download site, where you can download the book for free. There is a permanent link over on the left side of the page that will take you to the same place.

Download the book here.



My business opportunity
Have your Network Marketing Prospects Come to YOU!

It's All Too Much

It’s all too much for me to take
The love that’s shining all around me.
All the world is birthday cake
So take a piece but not too much.

These words from the late George Harrison were first sung in the soundtrack to 1969’s Yellow Submarine. (Even my deaf five-year-old loves that movie, and can sign some of the songs.) I am often amazed at the profound lyrics that come out of young singer-songwriters. I guess I thought I was pretty profound back then, too.

Okay, that was a serious digression.

“It’s all too much.” Is there a more appropriate sentiment for this time of year in the modern world? Too many parties, too much food and drink, too much spending, too much advertisement, too much co-opting of symbols in the name of commerce. People not interested in hearing about your business.

So what to do? Take a piece, but not too much. Start experiencing the tiniest things, and work up from there.

The sparkle of a bright light off of a strand of tinsel.
The smell of a Noble Fir when you stroke the soft branches.
The sound of boots squeaky-crunching on sub-zero snow.
The feeling of frosty air entering your nostrils and being warmed by your body as you breathe deeply.
The giggle of a child hiding behind a Christmas tree.
The pattern of frost on a window pane.
The way that crystalline beauty can come from freezing a mud puddle.
The whisper of wind through dry grass and trees.
The immense solitude of a northern beach
The smell of sunscreen and sensation of warm sand between your toes on a southern beach.
The smell of sunscreen on a beautiful bluebird powder skiing day.
The sound of your own breath as you snowshoe through woods.
The play of lights reflected on a storefront window, regardless of what’s inside.
A cookie.
Eggnog. (Okay, I personally dislike the stuff, but some people love it.)
A crackling fire, even if it is that one on TV.
“It’s a Wonderful Life” (in black and white) for the 100th time, complete with teary eyes at the end.
Finding last year’s Christmas cards from friends.
Re-using last year’s Christmas boxes and recalling what was in them before.
Conspiratorial children who can barely contain the secret of a present they got you.
The long-suffering dog that lets you put those stupid reindeer antlers on his head one more time.
Breathing deeply in the silent glow of the night, after all is calm.
Breathing.
Breathing.

So take a piece, but not too much.

So take some peace – all you want.





Earn A Free Vacation

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Integrity

Integrity:

1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility

2 : an unimpaired condition : soundness

3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness

synonyms see honesty

I got an angry email this morning from a guy I had contacted as a prospect for my Network Marketing business. He had seen my web cast presentation. Something, and I still have no idea what, set him off. His email was scathing, vituperative, foul-mouthed, scatological, and any other words you might think of for something rude, crude, and completely unnecessary.

My first reaction was, “Oh yeah?! I’ll give him an earful.” I quickly thought better of that. Seldom has anything good come of an angry email. As some wise person said, “If you wrestle with a pig, win or lose your getting’ filthy.” So I restrained myself.

My second thought was to construct a detailed reply, showing him the benefits of the Network Marketing paradigm, the honesty of our company, and the help I would be providing him in building his business. Then I thought about what that would do. Would I convert him to my way of thinking? Not very likely. Would he become a banner-carrying evangelist for my company and our business. Not in a zillion years. Would it be a monumental waste of my time, emotion and energy? Yep. So I restrained myself again.

DELETE. End of episode. That email is now banished to somewhere in the nether regions of cyberspace. I suppose the anger and rage it contained are still spinning around in the head of the guy who wrote it. Sad for him, really.

The first time I got one of those emails it really upset me. I was angry. I was insulted. I was even a little scared. What if he was right? What if I had signed up for a scam? I called my sponsor, who chuckled in a “been there done that” way and filled me in on all the ways that people were going to try to tear me down. He went through all the ill-informed objections people would present me and basically said, “Let it go. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

Some times it takes a lot of confidence to keep doing what you believe is right. That is where the integrity comes in. We usually think about integrity as being that first definition, firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values. This is essential for us living a life of self-respect and honesty. But the third definition, the quality or state of being complete or undivided, becomes a truly spiritual value.

We know that we are doing something of value. We know that we are acting within a code of moral values. Time, knowledge, and self-knowledge allow us to be complete and undivided.

“I am a person of integrity.” We hear it often. Let’s just silently live it.

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http://www.EarnAFreeVacation.com
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http://joelaberge.GetNetMLMProfits.com
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So I’ve been doing some reading about blogs, and how they are ultimately a reflection of the person maintaining them. I realized that mine have been a little impersonal. I really haven’t put a lot of myself out there for people to know.
So this will make up for that previous lack. Be forewarned, it’s not a 100% happy tale.
In the beginning of my network marketing career (Okay, it’s been only about 8 months.) my intent was simple. I wanted to be able to make enough money to be home when my kids left for school and when they arrived home. Seems simple enough, right? The reality is a bit more complex. My reasons for wanting this business to succeed are extreme.

In 2002 my wife, Lynn, and I were blessed to adopt a beautiful newborn boy. (We aren’t the youngest parents in the world. I am now 52, and Lynn’s 43.) Robbie is an amazing personality, full of life and waking up happy every morning. He’s also devilishly handsome and charming and at age five has the girls eating out of his hand.
When he was 14 days old we learned that he is deaf. There was the initial denial and shock, and then some sadness at “what he’ll miss”, but he seemed to be doing fine. We later learned that he has some residual hearing in his right ear and that with the latest and greatest hearing aids he can distinguish a lot of speech.
He’s learning to talk now, but has recently stated his perceptions of his own limitations by telling us that he can’t take a ski lesson because he can’t talk. It was sad to hear, but he didn’t have any sadness – it was just a statement of fact, and some concern about how a specific thing would be accomplished. When we told him that one of us would be there to help him talk, he was fine.

Fifteen months after Rob was born, in July of 2003, we received a call from the adoption agency. Robbie had a new, full-biological sibling. A tiny baby girl. Less than two and a half pounds tiny. She spent 84 days in the neonatal intensive care unity, endured heart surgery and a necrotizing bowel infection, addiction to Fentanyl and morphine, but came home with us. She was a struggle, going through a lot of pain and withdrawal, sleeping fitfully, and mostly scaring the heck out of us.
How were we going to deal with a deaf son and this super-preemie who all the doctors predicted was going to be a lot of work? I don’t know. Some times you don’t have a choice. You deal with it. People have dealt with lots worse.

So we got to deal with worse. In late 2005, after going from doctor to doctor to doctor to try to get some resolution to severe lower abdominal pain, Lynn was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. After radiation and chemo, she had surgery. The surgery revealed cancer in a large number of surrounding lymph nodes. Subsequent PET and CAT scans showed that she had metastases in her liver and elsewhere. The diagnosis was terminal. The medical professionals gave her 6-20 months.
The good part is that she’s already lived beyond that. She is relatively healthy by cancer-standards, getting out for a few hours of skiing or fly fishing once in a while, and still able to enjoy the kids. Her only outwardly visible sigh of disease is that she requires a lot more sleep and doesn’t have her old stamina.
Lynn is considered “permanently disabled” and her cancer is still terminal. We are happy that she’ll get through the holidays without starting chemo, but no one knows what the future will bring. Her drive and focus are to be there as much as possible for the kids, and to have as positive an influence on their life as possible.

So that is just about all of the stuff going on in my life. I maintain a full-time job as a project manager while I try to grow my network marketing business. Remember, that goal is to be able to afford to be home when the kids leave for school and when they get home from school! I also think that I’ll need to be ready as a sign language interpreter for Rob at a moment’s notice. How’s that for a “Why” I’m in the business?




I’m posting this to my blogs. My other one is www.MyPotentialNow.com

If you’d like to see more about my business, check out www.earnafreevacation.com

Forward this to friends if you like. I’m not looking for charity. I believe in my network marketing business and love to help others be successful in it. There’s plenty of success to go around. If you get a chance to come to my blogs and comment on this, I’d love to hear from you.

Making the world a better place, One smile at a time

Joe Laberge

How Soon Is Now?

Where do you want to be five years from now? Have you ever asked that question and had someone look at you like you have two heads? (I apologize if I have offended any of the bi-cranial in the audience.)

"Five years," they say. "I can't tell you where I'll be in five WEEKS!" Yep, heard it myself. Heck, I even used to say it. But here's the big non-secret: It doesn't matter whether you plan it or not, five years from now is coming!

Planning for retirement, planning to pay for your children's' education, planning to buy a home, planning to drive to work. You can ignore the future if you want, but the future doesn't care; it's coming anyway.

If you want to have three million dollars in the bank in 2010, you need to be putting aside way more than $20,000.00 per month starting now. That's one way to plan, but it scares the living daylights out of most people, so they do nothing. And you know what? That three million never shows up.

Here's a much better idea. DO SOMETHING NOW! You may not make $25,000 this month, but if you don't do something toward your goals you'll never get there.

Make a plan for today. Just today. Just the next hour, even. Just right now. Now is the only moment you have, but how you use this now will make a difference in how you feel in the next moments. What you do in the now will make a difference in what you are able to do in the next moments.

What was that excuse? You're too old? Nonsense. You have just enough experience to get it right. You're too young? Nonsense. You have enthusiasm and vigor. Not enough time? Everybody has the same 168 hours each week, the same 24 hours in a day. Time is not the issue. Doing things is the issue.

Do it now! What have you got to lose? You might possibly regret doing something. You will definitely regret doing nothing! And remember, an object in motion tends to remain in motion, so overcome your inertia and get moving.

Five years from now is now a couple of minutes nearer.

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http://www.EarnAFreeVacation.com
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10 Weeks to Network Marketing Success


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Where Does 'Moral Law' Fit Into MLM?

C. S. Lewis, the renowned Oxford scholar and author (Think Chronicles of Narnia in addition to many scholarly works.) wrote of The Moral Law. He described it as the aspect of being human that makes us jump into a raging river to save a drowning toddler, even if our own life might be endangered.

It seems that as humans we are hard-wired to help others. Unless we suffer from sociopathic tendencies, we can't do otherwise.

In this holiday season, with its suggestion of giving and charity, that helping characteristic is even more pronounced. Charities report most of their donations are received this time of year.

In our Network Marketing businesses we are given an endless stream of opportunities to help others. When you think about it, if we don't help others, our own business will stagnate and die. What a great deal! We get to share 'enlightened benevolence.' We get rewarded for our helping others succeed.

There is a flaw in this whole scheme, though. There are always people who want way more help than others. These squeaky wheels seem incapable of helping themselves. They expect that you, as their sponsor, are going to build their business for them.

It is a hard reality that you cannot possibly help these people. If you focus on them, you won't have enough left to give to the people who will grow their businesses and themselves.

The airline attendants always tell you to put on your own oxygen mask first, and then help others. This is good life advice, good business advice. Take care of your business first, and that will allow you to take care of others.
This time of year we all tend to try to pack in too much. Too much activity, too much family, too much food. It is vital for us to take the time to reflect on our lives and business, and to make smart choices. Give yourself a rest. Breathe deeply. Help where you can but know when to say no.

Your business is worth it. You are worth it.





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http://www.EarnAFreeVacation.com
______________________________________________________ http://joelaberge.GetNetMLMProfits.com
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