“Get excited and enthusiastic about you own dream. This excitement is like a forest fire – you can smell it, taste it, and see it from a mile away.” ~Denis Waitley
This is part of long series of articles that will eventually become the rough draft of my book tentatively titled “Building Your 100% Referral Business”. You can go to the start of the series here: “Business by Referral Part 1”
I ended the last post talking about how in spite of being surrounded by financial success in my company, I had a really big problem – getting bigger by the day – and I did not know how to handle it.
Surrounded by Success and Miserable
So, what was my big problem? Stress and fear – like I had never experienced before. I had learned how to sell and I had learned how to teach others to sell and how to manage them. And I was really motivated to succeed. I was going to make my company a success or die trying. Looking back, those words came very close to coming true!
As I forced myself to sell, to set a great example for my salespeople and to achieve my financial goals, I became more and more stressed. I was terrified of rejection! Every time I picked up the phone to call another business, I had to fight myself to make it happen. Fear and stress were my constant companions and I compensated with the only tools that worked for me – food and cigarettes.
100 Pounds of Fat and 100 Cigarettes a Day
In just a couple of years, I took my company from startup to being a money-making machine. In the same time, I took myself from fit to one hundred pounds overweight and smoking one hundred cigarettes a day, just to get by.
Fear of rejection was killing me and I was masking my fear with food and cigarettes and it worked – for a time anyway. I don’t remember the day that I realized my success, at least the way that I was achieving it then, was going to kill me. But I did finally figure it out. After I figured that out, the next few years got really interesting:
• I sold my company allowing me to retire for nearly 10 years and follow my dreams.
• I decided that I would figure out how to get past the fear of rejection which led me to NLP – more about that later.
• I dedicated 2 years of my life to becoming a Master of NLP – which got me past the fear of rejection and became the basis of my future coaching work.
• I became fascinated with personal changework which led me to Tony Robbins and becoming one of his unpaid assistants. I cannot say enough good about Tony and what I learned from him.
• Along the way, and by working with thousands of clients, I discovered how to build businesses strictly by referral – bypassing rejection almost entirely!
So, like most struggles and problems, mine came bearing gifts in disguise. Oh, and I quit smoking 15 years ago and have never gone back – although I do sometimes dream of the nicotine gum that I used to help kick the habit. And the weight, well, that issue has had its ups and downs! I’ll talk more about that another time as well.
This I know: Master the art of building your business by referral, and you will not only have a wonderful, delightful and sustainable business, but you will not need to worry about the fear of rejection. Your future clients will seek you out and they are presold and ready to go!
I’ve got quotes from two of my heroes in this post. If you don’t know of these men, their lives and their accomplishments, you should fix that soon. Thoughts and ideas shared by Denis Waitley got me through college and Earl Nightingale’s personal work and the work shared with the world through his company helped me countless times over the years. Thanks and kudos to both!
Till next time…Jack
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“The key that unlocks energy is desire. It’s also the key to a long and interesting life. If we expect to create any drive, any real force within ourselves, we have to get excited.” ~Earl Nightingale