B.C. and Me, Part 3: Getting Excited

It has been way too long since I wrote anything here about LegalShield. I'll catch up over the next few days, Lord willing and da crik don't rise.

Brian Carruthers' book, "Building An Empire: The Most Complete Blueprint to Building a Massive Networking Business," continues to inspire and challenge me. I still have to work at maintaining a stance of teachability as I re-read portions of it.

He makes much of the fact that in network marketing it is critical to follow the system that the company you're working with has in place.

While he never names LegalShield specifically, the system he describes looks totally like LegalShield's system to me. It consists of seven steps:

1. Get excited
2. Make your list
3. Book a Private Business Reception (within first 3-5 days)
4. Book a Private Conference Call (within first 3-5 days)
5. Weekly Business Briefing
6. Trainings (Events and Calls)
7. Corporate Convention

There's more, but he treats other things as ancillary to what one graphic calls the "Seven Step Funnel."

Now, about that first step...

As I've said before, in high school I was so strongly emotional that sometimes I wished I could be like Star Trek's Mr. Spock. When the Army sent me to Okinawa, I became involved with Campus Crusade for Christ, whose teachings helped to deepen my distrust of my emotions. A single image, in particular, burned itself into my brain. It looked something like this:

The idea of it was that we should base our faith on facts, not on feelings; that when our faith lines up with facts, the appropriate feelings will follow. But I took it to mean more: that feelings should be ignored.

That led to a lot of bad stuff for a long time.

I am learning to pay attention to my feelings without being controlled by them (I think). But still, when I saw that the first step of the system was to "get excited," I recoiled. The idea of willing oneself into a specific emotional state as part of a system for conducting a business repulsed me. Indeed, it sounded cultish.

Until I thought about it a little more, and realized that we talk ourselves into emotional states every day. That performing artists will themselves into emotional states before going onstage. That athletes will themselves into emotional states before going onto the field or the court. That soldiers will themselves into emotional states before a charge. That emotions energize motion, that they are fuel for action. That, in short, emotions are always in play, and it is advantageous to play them well.

Then I thought about it a little more more, and realized that in order to get excited, I simply had to contemplate the facts about LegalShield:

1. We offer people the opportunity to gain wisdom, power and prosperity via access to the legal system for a monthly cost that is less than that of a night at the movies. 
2. We offer identity theft detection, and have licensed investigators who will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to restore a member's identity to its prior condition after a breach.
3. As a LegalShield rep, I can get paid well, get paid daily and get paid forever.
4. As a LegalShield rep, I can get paid well, get paid daily and get paid forever on someone else's work.
5. The company has a declared goal of creating more millionaires than any other company.
6. I have begun doing the things that reps who have already earned $1 million or more did to get there.
7. A survey indicates that 60% of Americans would like to have a legal services plan if they knew that such a thing existed. Our market penetration is less that 2% of the population. That means that 58% are just waiting for someone to tell them about it.
8. The company's new mission statement speaks of helping people to gain life-transforming skills, and the title of the corporate business opportunity presentation now has the phrase, "a powerful journey." These suggest that LegalShield is positioning itself as a personal development company for its reps. I have always wanted to help people do better at life; sponsoring associates may become my best way of doing that.

You know what? I'M EXCITED.

B.C. and Me, Part 1: Rediscovering Fire

If you've been with me for a while, you know that I have several business ventures underway, and that one of them is being an independent representative for LegalShield. About a month ago, my mentor in the business, Phil Berger, loaned me a copy of "Building an Empire:The Most Complete Blueprint to Building a Massive Network Marketing Business," by Brian Carruthers. Mr. Carruthers is one of the highest earners in the history of LegalShield; the book's cover says he has more than 350,000 people in his downline team.


             

Phil told me that the book would be a quick read.

Maybe it is for most folks. In my case, I started off fairly quickly, but soon had to slow down - not because I found it hard to follow, but because I found it hard to swallow.

My first speed bump was on page 16, where Carruthers says that there are three things required to succeed in network marketing, and the very first thing he names is "having a burning desire."

I had heard that before and had always recoiled from it, telling myself that a burning desire was not necessary, that the only thing necessary was a specific set of behaviors.

I told myself that for years. This time, when I saw "having a burning desire" listed as the first requirement for success in network marketing, something different happened: I questioned my own response. WHY was I so turned off by the idea?

After all, even if it's true that the only thing really necessary to success is a specific set of behaviors, does not a burning desire make those behaviors more likely? So what was my problem?

Once I asked the question, the answer was all to familiar: Fear. This time, the fear of disappointment, rooted in the experience of having been disappointed so many times.

Then, it occurred to me that many of those disappointments resulted from failing to do what I might have done had I maintained a burning desire. So I have gotten caught in a pattern in which fear dampens desire, which in turn inhibits behavior, thereby producing results that confirm the fear....ARRGGHHHH...

Here's the real kicker: I ENJOY HAVING A BURNING DESIRE. It feels GOOD! Heck, it feels GREAT!! Especially when the burning desire is not merely for something as paltry as a certain sum of money, but is on the order of changing the world.

So given the benefits of having a burning desire, and the extent to which the fear of disappointment suppresses burning desire, the next question was, "What can obliterate the fear of disappointment?" Not, enable me to work around it or trudge through it. Obliterate it.

The answer came instantly: confidence obliterates fear. Mega-confidence. Hyper-confidence. Faith.

And what bases do I have for such confidence? The list came quickly:

1. Other people's experiences: there are a whole bunch of people who have done well with LegalShield, and some who have done ridiculously well. Brian Carruthers is one of the latter.
2. My own experience: Last year, I finally engaged in some very basic behavior as a LegalShield rep that could get me paid, and it did.
3. The law of numbers: The more people I talk to about LegalShield, the more will say yes. Simple.
4. The power of practice: The more I pay attention as I talk to more people, the better I will get at it, and the more people will say yes.
5. The help and encouragement of peers and mentors: I am part of a group of LegalShield reps who meet monthly to help each other along, and I recently learned of a weekly meeting nearby.
6. The company: Formerly Pre-Paid Legal, LegalShield has been around for 40+ years. If I do my part, they'll send the checks.
7. Ephesians: Seriously - how can I believe that and not have mega-hyper-confidence?

Discovering that list within myself sparked an emotion that I had experienced too little in recent years, and that I want to prime myself to experience much more of in my remaining years: eagerness - the energizing blend of confidence plus urgency, often topped with curiosity: "I can't wait to see what happens!" 

With all that in mind and in heart, the flame of desire begins to stir. There are some things that I really want, dang it:

I really want to establish a passive income of $50,000 a year. Because I want to devote myself to changing the world, not to paying bills. And because I want to play with money, not toil for money.

I really want to enroll 500 people as LegalShield members so that they can to live more wisely, more powerfully, more confidently and more prosperously by having access to a national network of law firms.

I really want to help 50 people to earn $100,000 - or to otherwise achieve their dreams - as LegalShield representatives.

There's more, but I want to define it more clearly before declaring it. And those three are enough to expand me; they're enough to make my flame grow.

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NEXT: B.C. And Me, Part 2: Humbling Myself