Welcome to the 140th edition of the MLM Woman Newsletter with some more fresh ideas to help your business thrive this fall.

If you like this month's issue, please be sure to let your friends know about it too and invite them to come and visit us. Also, if you have comments, questions or something to share after reading this month's articles, please visit our MLMTalk Discussion Forum and join in the lively conversation!

You can also view the articles from this month's issue at the MLM Woman Newsletter blog. This blog will be updated each month with new content from our monthly newsletter. So head over and take a peak.

And also be sure to check out our Moms in Business Blog and MLM Marketing Blog for lots of additional tips and resources which are added throughout the month.

Yours in Success!

Linda Locke, Editor MLMWoman

Taming the
Motivation Monster
By Dr Jill Ammon-Wexler
© 2008 All Rights Reserved

One of the greatest mysteries we face is how to get, and stay, motivated. But some new research into how our brains work has provided exciting clues about how to tame the “motivation monster.”

Recent research has proven there’s a direct route from your eyes to a unique part of your brain called the amygdala (ah-mig-da-la). So what? This happens without going through the conscious portion of your cerebral cortex (your thinking brain.)

Here’s how it works, and why it is so important: Suppose you are in your garden, you pick up a rock to move it, and a rattlesnake crawls out. That image is propelled directly into your amygdala to initiate an immediate life-saving response.

You leap out of reach of the snake before you are even aware of what you saw, or why you reacted. Interestingly, this powerful direct pathway can also be “trained” to carry images of anything of critical importance to you ­ such as your master goals.

The secret is this: The more emotion tied to those images, the more likely they are to be rushed directly to your amygdala. And once they're there ... the more likely they'll cause an automatic positive response in support of your goals.

This is why packing your goals with hot desire and emotion builds and sustains motivation. The more intense your emotion, the more likely you’ll notice anything in your field of vision that relates to reaching your goals ­ even if you are focused on something else at that time!

Building “Motivation Power”
We humans are motivated by basically two things ­ gaining pleasure, and avoiding pain. Anthony Robbins claims that that pain is a greater motivator that pleasure, and I tend to agree with him.

Here's a little exercise that could help you fire up your emotions, and get your “amygdala shunt” working for you:

Imagine walking into a room and meeting the “you” of ten years from today. What will you look like? How will you be dressed? Where will you be living? What will your lifestyle be like? What car will you be driving? Will you be running a business? If so, how successful will you be? What will your net worth be?

You really only have three choices about how your image of the “you of the future” will look. Your choices look something like this:

Choice One: Somewhere between how you are today, and a totally broken mess. Here’s where the “avoiding pain” motivator could kick in.

Choice Two: An exact duplicate of how you are now except ten years older. Absolutely nothing will have changed in a decade. Again ­ not a very satisfying picture for most of us, and perhaps a strong “avoid pain” motivator for many.

Choice Three: A happier, healthier version of the “you of today.” This will kick in the “gain pleasure” motivator.

Selecting Your Best Motivator
Obviously, no one would choose to visualize choice number one. But in doing so, you may in fact create a hot and intense “amygdala shunt.”

So every time you see some image that reminds you of NOT moving ahead, your amygdala shunt will spur you to take automatic action. “Make that phone call NOW,” it will insist ­ and you will have the telephone in your hand before you even think to procrastinate.

If you choose option number 2, you are effectively saying that nothing will change over the next ten years. You will be older ­ but your lifestyle will basically remain the same as it is today. That is ­ the “you of 10 years in the future” will be identical to “today’s you.”

You will still face today’s problems and frustrations, but will have ten more years of them piled up. This is an active decision to remain in your comfort zone ­ which is actually only an illusion of safety.

It’s an illusion because in today’s rapidly changing world, what you call your comfort zone is being eroded beneath your feet as you read this.

That leaves option number three. This is the arena of dreams and wishes. If all we had to do was have a dream, and if would then automatically come true, none of us would ever have to set goals ...and try to build the motivation to achieve them.

But the fact is ­ dreams only come true if we wake up and go to work. And unless you are a most unusual person, you usually find that the problems and challenges of everyday life take priority over working to manifest your dreams.

So ­ obviously holding a happy picture of some future life may NOT build the intense fire and desire required to create that desired lifestyle!

If your motivation is NOT adequate to overcome procrastination, you might want to take a good hard, look at what you DON’T want in your life. If you can fire up some intense emotion about NOT continuing to have that in your life, you may well find your amygdala shunt pumping some new action-energy into your life!

About the Author
Jill Ammon-Wexler is a doctor of psychology, former consultant to the Pentagon and a Presidential Commission, and a peak performance advisor to top executives and entrepreneurs. Her powerful “Take Charge” personal achievement ecourse is being used is 27 countries by thousands of individuals seeking the ultimate in personal empowerment. http://www.quantum-self.com/smash_your_limits.htm

Come visit the exciting Self Discovery Community. Discover the most interesting, unusual, stimulating and creative methods of self discovery on the web today! Free sizzling weekly ezine, and the web's first Brain Gym ezone. http://www.quantum-self.com

Becoming a Leader
in Direct Sales
By Audrey Okaneko

Direct sales is all about creating sales. You’ll create personal sales retailing the company products to individual customers and you’ll create team sales by building a team and supporting their sales efforts.

In order to lead a team, you’ll need to develop and learn some leadership skills.

Leadership is learned. We are not born with leadership skills. Think of the many leaders you know. There are leaders in your local PTA. There are leaders in your community. There are world leaders. Each leader we know learned the skills that brought them to be the leader they are today.

There are several ways to learn leadership skills:

1. Read books - Our local bookstore has an entire section on leadership. I’ve read books by several different authors. You’ll find that men and women teach a little bit differently and you’ll find that depending on profession, skills may be taught a bit differently also. If finances don’t allow a book budget right now, use your local library. I’ve found some real gems at our library.

2. Subscribe to newsletters – One of my favorite authors is John Maxwell. Not only have I read most of his books, I also subscribe to his newsletter. Each newsletter offers new ideas and new food for thought.

3. Attend seminars – Over the years I’ve attended seminars ranging from how to deal with difficult people to how to improve your listening skills. There are so many topics out there to choose from. Not only will these seminars help you become a better leader, but they will help you in every relationship you are involved in, business and personal.

So what are some of the topics you should consider learning about?

1. Listening – I know that we all have two ears and we all hear, however really listening to the person speaking is a learned skill.

2. Communicating – I continue to learn more and more about communication. It is such a fine art. Each person we speak to and interact with is unique. How we communicate with one person may not be the same as how we communicate with another person. Learning how to effectively get our message to each unique individual is key in leading a team.

3. Problem solving – If you are in direct sales, problems will come up. For example, it’s December and a top selling product has become unavailable. You need the skills to be able to help your team accept this in a positive way so that sales are not lost. You need to be able to help your team present this small obstacle to their customers, so that they also will not lose the potential sales.

Consider investing 30-60 minutes per week into learning and developing your leadership skills to help you build a larger network marketing team.

About the Author
Audrey Okaneko has been working at home since 1983. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or visited at www.recipe-barn.com

The Power of
Positive Thinking
by Maggie Kress

In today's environment, we need all the positive thoughts we can think. Without positive thoughts we can fall into a negative trap, a trap that is hard to pick ourselves up from. It took me a lot of years before I found that the only way I could continue to survive was to think positive.

I have been blind in my left eye since I was 7 years old. It was caused from Toxoplasmosis, which is a parasite carried by either cats or birds. I did everything any other child would do. I played softball, but did not know why I could not hit or catch a ball. I found later that it was caused by lack of depth perception.

When I turned 16, I wanted to drive a car so I went for my driver's license. During the eye test, they asked me what number the arrow was pointing to and I said what arrow? They knew immediately that something was wrong so needless to say I failed. I cried, but they told me if I could get a doctor certificate stating that I could drive with one eye, they would give me a license and that is what I did.

In 1964, I met my soul mate, and we married in 1965. I worked a full time job in research at a tobacco firm in Kentucky. In 1967, I had our first daughter, 1968 our second daughter and 1971 our youngest daughter. In 1978, my husband was sent out of state. It was only supposed to be a few weeks, but it turned into months. I quit my job in Kentucky and the girls and I joined him in Los Angeles, California.

And this leads me to the start of my Positive Thinking. One night while driving the freeway, I noticed I could not see the passenger side of the car. I thought I was just under a lot of stress because I was supervisor over 3 shifts in the Quality Control Department of a Laminating Corp. I was on call whenever the shift worked, which was 24 hours a day. I lived 30 miles from my work so I was driving in the dark both ways. I really thought that my Toxo had reoccurred. I went to the eye doctor right away and they did an MRI on my eye, but they could not tell what it was. I continued working and driving the freeways until one night I had a very difficult time finding my way home because it was dark and I could not see the lines on the road.

Shortly thereafter, I resigned from my position and set out to find something closer. The town we lived in was small and there were very few places to get a job. I was sent to Loma Linda Hospital where they diagnosed my condition as Retinitis Pigmentosa aka RP (a progressive eye disease with no cure). I now knew some day I would be legally blind, but I did not let that stop me. I went to a local company that imported speaker components and I was hired as a Quality Control Supervisor. My central vision was very good then, but I had lost some of my side vision and was losing the rest gradually. I did this for several years until I was no longer able to work.

In 1989 I had to give up driving. This was so very hard for me because I felt my freedom had been taken away. I am a very independent person and always liked doing things for myself and not depending on others.

So after being out of work and on disability, I decided I needed to do something and I thought about Avon. It was something I could do from home or walk to neighbors. As you see my POSITIVE THINKING was getting stronger. I no longer feared what people thought about me and focused on being a better person.

You see you MUST think and care for yourself first. This sounds very selfish, but it is not. If you have self confidence, you can help others. That was a hard lesson for me to learn. I was always a worrier, but when I turned 50, I realized my life was more than half over and I needed to worry less. Worry does not solve anything. If you keep a positive outlook, you are able to figure what you need to do to solve the problem. Some problems are not solvable, but we need to learn to either accept this and move on or find another solution.

Several years later, my husband also had to go on disability. He was the major breadwinner in the house. Normally, this would devastate me when I could no longer think of a way out. We had to file bankruptcy. But I decided to look at the things lost as just stuff that could be replaced later or not at all.

Our middle daughter and her husband bought a farm in Missouri. She did not like it because it was too rural so she asked if we would rent from them and they would keep it as investment property. When this happened, I thought, there goes my Avon. I had made Presidents Club for the past few years and I thought there is no way I can do it in a rural area because there are no homes close by and I knew no one. But the first year I made it by 11 dollars. Now we have lived here for 6 years and I have not only made Presidents Club, but Honor Society for the past 3 years. So you see if you keep POSITIVE THINKING you can accomplish your goals. Negative thoughts just close your mind to any good thoughts you may have. You really can do anything you set your mind to if you just keep THINKING POSITIVE.

I am now 71 years old and to give you some idea of how much sight I have, a normal sighted person has 170 degrees of field in each eye. I have only 3 degrees of field in one eye and the sight I have left is cloudy. My computer makes me feel like I am a sighted person because I have special programs that help me to see or talk to me. This helps me to feel useful. I now have my own website which I am working to improve.

I really hope my story inspires you even if you do not have a physical handicap, because negative thoughts can handicap you too. Just don't ever give up. You can do it if you just keep a POSITIVE outlook.

About the Author
Maggie Kress is from Lebanon, Missouri. http://www.youravon.com/mkress
wwjd1@tds.net, 417-426-5931

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