Motivation Monday-Top 5 things you need to be a leader

Being a leader isn't something that always comes naturally, and even for natural leaders, there are five skills you should master.

1. Be approachable-You can't think of yourself as better than even the newest person on your team.  Remember when you didn't know what you were doing and you asked a million questions?  Your team leader hopefully answered them gracefully and patiently.  It's time to return the favor.  Return messages, phone calls, and emails from your team. 
2. Walk the talk- If you're not practicing what you preach, your team will see that, it they will find it acceptable.  If you're going to talk the talk, be ready to walk the walk because the biggest success comes from your team duplicating a good program set forth by you.  All of your future team leaders beneath you will start out by following in your footsteps.  What path are you showing them?
3. Be an example-If you want to set a professional example for your team, be professional.  You can only set expectations by being a good example and leading your team by your actions and behavior.  
4. Always be teaching- Use every opportunity you can to teach and motivate your team.  
5. Honesty- If your'e not honest, you build your foundation on falsification.  Honesty and transparency are qualities that every good leader has.  If you don't want to be honest, go into politics.  Your team needs you to share your struggles and your successes.  Sharing your struggles after you've learned from them can help clear debris out of the path of your team.  

Remember, you're a trail blazer.  You are showing your team the way to the top.  Being a leader is a responsibility, not a right.  

XOXO

The Stun Gun Girl

Motivational Monday-Don't do what they do. Don't think like they think.

I did not create this video, but I am in love with the message. If you're feeling down, play it. Play it every time. Then pull yourself out of bed, or off the couch, or off of Facebook and DO what you're meant to DO!

 Just a little motivation for your Monday.

XOXO,
The Stun Gun Girl


 

Motivational Mondays-Feeling unsupported

 “The worst part is that my friend started doing [enter business here] and she’s watched me try to grow this business for six months, she’s never hosted a party for me, but she’s pushing me to buy from her every day now.”

“Everyone invites me to their events for their business but never comes to any of mine.”

“I shop with [enter business] all the time.  I share their business with everyone, and I send everyone to them.  I sing their praises all the time, but they have never, ever, not even once shared my business, purchased from me, hosted a party, or come to an event.”

There are times when it feels like everyone with a business is just focused on making sure you see them without ever paying attention to anyone else's business.  When you’re feeling down about your own business, these feelings amplify.  I have seen friends stop being friends because both of them started different businesses and were so focused on themselves that they forgot about each other.

We all want our businesses to be noticed.  We all want our friends and family to support us in everything we do.  We all want the praises we sing for other businesses to be sung about us in return.

This rarely happens, and you can’t measure your success by using the people who don’t shop with you as the ruler.

Every single day, even top earners in your company have to wake up and make a choice.  Do I work my business today, or do I let yesterday’s failures lead the way?  What do you think they choose?

If the very top of your upline spent as much time dwelling on the people who don’t do business with her, would she be at the top of your upline?  Not at all.  Does that mean she never feels what you’re feeling?  Absolutely not.  Every person who has ever owned a business has struggled with feeling unsupported. 

Should you stop singing the praises of businesses you love just because they don’t sing back?  No way!  Just because your favorite local business isn't doing business with you now doesn't mean that they never will, unless you stop loving them out of spite.  Why don’t they return the favor?  There isn't a need right now.  Does that mean there never will be?  No.  Keep singing, because when they do realize a need for your business, they are going to remember your connection with them and do business with you instead of someone else.

Keep working on the relationships you build with other local businesses.  Set the bar for how you wish all businesses behaved and let that bar dictate your actions.  Stop focusing on all of the people who don’t notice you and focus on the ones who do.  You will see so many businesses rise and fall around you.  One of the things that makes businesses fail faster than ice in a hot oven is focusing on the nagging negative like people who don’t support you, join other teams instead of yours, or never do business with you.  The businesses that succeed roll up their sleeves and find the people who will support them, will join their teams, and will do business.  Be the reason someone chooses to do business with your company.  Go out there and work it.

Motivational Mondays-the first Monday of the month challenge

Today is a new day.  A new Monday.  Not only is today a new Monday providing you a clean slate for the week, it’s the first Monday of a new month.  No matter what happened in the month before, today starts it all over.

What does that mean?

New month, new promotions, new leads, and a blank canvas just waiting to be filled with ideas.

Today is a perfect day to start a new training, implement a new process, and pick up that dreaded phone and start calling your leads.

Was last month a rock star month?  Great!  You have a record to beat!

Was last month a dismal failure leaving you feeling worthless and incompetent?  Even better, you have the opportunity to crumple that month up and toss it in the garbage. 

The word of the day is PROCRASTINATION.

We've all done it, we've all battled with it, and we've all lost to whatever show we were plowing through on Netflix.  We've all drifted off to sleep with a million great ideas that we’ll start working on TOMORROW.

Not this time.  Here’s your Monday challenge this week:

Sit down and list the top three things that distracted you from success last month.  If you feel you had a successful month, list three things that you still feel you could have done better.

Those are the three things you’re going to work on today.  For each of those three things, list three ways to overcome them. 

Is one of your items television? I’m not asking you never to watch it again, I’m asking you to think about setting up a reward system.  Something like, I get three minutes of television for every call I make.  Is my show an hour long?  How many calls do I have to make that day?

Is one of your challenges not calling leads?  Set up a reward system for calling them.  Maybe you will reward yourself a pedicure if you can call ten leads every day this week.

Your biggest defeats will come from yourself, so it’s time to train yourself to work on those weaknesses by rewarding yourself when they are complete. 

What’s holding you back today from being Captain Amazing?

Motivational Mondays-I hate Mondays

Every Monday, the same thing happens.  Everyone drags their feet, grumbles about the fact that it's Monday, and sets themselves up for a negative unproductive day.

As a society, we've made it appropriate to hate the beginning of the week simply because we have to go back to our jobs from a long lazy weekend....or more likely, we're exhausted from a crazy two days of shuttling kids from event to event, running around like crazy people, and trying to cram in as much playing into 48 hours as we possibly can.

No wonder we hate Mondays.

How can you expect to have a productive week if you and everyone around you starts it out with anger, resentment, disgust, hate, and loathing?   You can't!  

Whatever you put out into the world is what comes back to you.  If you fill your environment with negativity and your feed with negative memes, what happens to you as a business owner?  Your Mondays will never be good because you have created a negative connotation, would you agree or disagree?

At some point, if you want to start your week off successfully, you are going to have to shift your perception.  It won't be easy, because it's been beaten into us that Mondays are bad.  Many of us grew up believing they were the worst day of the week because our parents always said it was.  Changing a pathway in the field of your brain is going to take more than just agreeing with me.

You're going to have to work at it.  You're going to have to remind yourself every Sunday night that tomorrow is Monday, and it is going to be the most amazing day.  You have to do it every single week until it becomes habit.   When you wake up in the morning, you're going to have to remind yourself to get excited, and you're going to have to send a ripple into the universe that says, "Guess what?  I no longer hate Mondays!  I accept them, I love them, and I refuse to squander the gift of an entire day!"


And change your memes.  

Once you take the steps to reclaim Monday, something amazing is going to happen.  You're going to accomplish tasks, you're going to be productive, and if your business runs on a 5-day work week, your are going to see a 20% increase in your business as a whole.

Once you take control of that day and find a reason to make it exciting, you will see a boost in your mood.  People around you will take notice and want to make the change in their own lives.  Your entire environment will become more uplifting and you will feel more fulfilled.  There will be no more spending and entire day dragging yourself around in a series of forced movements, because you refuse to let a bunch of silly cartoons and negative Nancy's get you down.  

When you shift your Monday perception, so will the rest of the people on your team.  Not only will you have 20% more productivity, so will they!  How exciting is that?

What are you waiting for?  Take your Monday back!

Sunshine O'Connor is a successful Senior Mentor of a Damsel in Defense team working as a Damsel in Defense Independent Pro.  If you're looking or a crime-fighting team with a heart, contact her at sunshine@yourdamseldiva.com or on the web at yourdamseldiva.com.

My wish for you

This is my wish for you:

I don't want to breed a culture of fear.  I want to breed a culture of education.  I do NOT want you to be afraid.  I want you to walk around this world with confidence because you're prepared, whether it's from an attack or a break down in your car.

I want you to join me in the war against sex trafficking.  I want you to be aware of what's going on outside of your doors every single day, and I want you to want to fight against that.

I want you to notice your surroundings and be prepared to take action in them.  If you see a person being hurt or taken, I want you to take action.  

My job isn't to make you afraid of the world.  My job is to prepare you to live courageously without fear.

If you want to start a new financial life by starting your own Damsel in Defense business, I want you to do that with full support of a team dedicated to helping you succeed.  I want you to confidently show the products, share the opportunity, book presentations, and sell enough to help save hundreds of lives.  I want the ripple that goes out into the world from you to be one of positivity, courage, and faith.

Help me declare war on sex trafficking by booking a presentation, ordering from my website at yourdamseldiva.com, or joining my team.  I can't do it alone.  I can't do it without you.  Together we can make a difference in this world.  Email questions to sunshine@yourdamseldiva.com

Don't be afraid.  I can teach you how to be safe, how to help others, or how to become financially independent.

What are you waiting for?

I'm looking for you

Do you want to be part of something bigger than yourself?

Left to right:  Mindy Lin, me(Sunshine O'Connor), Bethany Hughes
at the Portland Damsel Drop-In

Last Thursday, Mindy Lin and Bethany Hughes, the founders of Damsel in Defense, came to Portland to present the Damsel Mission for everyone who may not have had the amazing opportunity to hear it right from the source.  We packed Hot Lips Pizza on Hawthorne Blvd, and from that moment on, so many things happened.

First, let's rewind a bit to my wonderfully terrible experience at Leadership Retreat in Boise this January.  I worked soooooooo hard to get there only to get so incredibly sick that I had to fly home early and go straight to the hospital.  From getting a phone call the next day from Bob Hipple, our CEO, to the personal message from Mindy Lin on my Facebook page, I knew I was part of something huge.

I say that all the time.  I am part of something amazing.  Something larger than myself.  Something that creates the same sort of emotion in me that I get when my heart wells with pride over one of my children.  I don't say it all the time because I'm trying to sell you something, I say it all the time because it's undeniably true and I feel it from the very depths of my soul.

Back to the co-founders being in Portland.....

At the time they came, I was feeling a little disconnected from my Damsel family.  Our team meeting the month before had to be cancelled due to a freak snow storm, and so it had been a really long time since I was in the same room with my sisters.  I didn't have the best month as far as business growth, so I was really beating myself up for all of the things I didn't do, and I was in sort of a funk, so to speak.

The first thing that happened was a giant hug from my amazing Director, and cheerful hellos from the girls on my team.  It was like a hand reaching into the mire and dragging me out.

Then, Bethany Hughes told me she was so glad I was there and how terrible it was that I had to go home during Leadership Retreat.  That was the hand dusting me off and setting me back down on the ground.

Next, Mindy ran up to me yelling my name and gave me a bear hug.  She told me how upset she was that I had to leave Leadership early and that she was so excited when she saw my name on the list of people who would be there that night.  That was the hand that strapping me into the jet pack.

After that, we heard some stories from Directors that were both beautiful and heart wrenching.  That was the hand checking to make sure my belt was tight.

Then Johnna Johnson, the Vice President of Field Development for Damsel in Defense spoke about the realities of this business, how we have exploded right out of the gate, and where we're heading.  That was the strike of the match.

Finally, Mindy and Bethany gave their story from the very beginning of Damsel in Defense to what the future holds, including every failure and triumph along the way.  They also talked in depth about the mission of Damsel in Defense, the charity work we're doing, and things the future holds.

That was the fuse of the jet pack being lit.

I will succeed at this business.  Failure is not an option.  There is too much of a larger picture that I am part of.  After sharing tears with Mindy and Bethany, who shared tears with girls who had been sold by their families into slavery, I can't look into their eyes without seeing those girls looking back at me for help. Knowing that the more I do, the more girls are saved, the more victims are advocated for, and the more lives will be lifted out of hell and given a chance to soar is the fuel in the jet pack that will keep me moving forward.

Later that night, my aunt, who is actually my "other" mom, shared with me a horrific story of her kidnapping, brutal beating, and near death experience as her attackers were trying to force her into prostitution.  Had I not gone through the life I have gone through, had I not been reborn as a survivor, had I not found Damsel in Defense, had I not had every experience along the way, I may have never known that about one of the people I love most in the world.

Like I said, and I will continue to say, I am part of something amazing.  I'm saving lives and I'm changing lives.

If you want to join a sisterhood dedicated to a better world, let's talk.  For more information visit yourdamseldiva.com or email me at sunshine@yourdamseldiva.com.  Let's talk about your future.

Motivational Monday-Are you afraid of the phone?

Let’s get real with your business today and ask the hard questions that most people in a Multi-Level Marketing company struggle with:

• Why am I so afraid of the phone?
• Why do I feel like the people on the other end of the line might kill me?
• Why does my heart pound as I wait for someone to answer but pray that I just get sent to voicemail?

Fear of the phone is a very real thing.  We feel like we’re invading people’s private space, we feel like a nuisance, and we feel like a telemarketer.

Stop right there.

You are not a telemarketer in the sense that you are not calling a random list given to you in the hopes that someone who did not reach out to you at all will set an appointment with your company.  There are no managers wandering the sales floor like sharks just waiting to see that phone in the air, hungry to hear someone yell, “CLOSER!”  That is called ‘cold calling’, or calling people who have had no previous contact with you or your company.

You aren't a robot being paid to bug people during the dinner hour trying to get them to do something you don’t want them to do.

You are calling from leads that you generated yourself, and this is called ‘warm calling’.  They would not have taken the time to fill out that slip at your event, or opt-in on your blog, or contact form on your website if they weren't willing to take a phone call from you.  As a matter of fact, it would be rude to not contact someone who obviously wanted to be contacted by your organization, and if you don’t do it, they will find someone else.

I think back to when I found Damsel in Defense.  I went to a gun show with my husband and off in the distance, I saw a big pink banner and lots of sparkles.  Like a fish to a big fancy lure, I was drawn directly to it, abandoning my husband in a sea of army green and black.  What I found was amazing!  Self-defense products for women?!?!  Stun guns in pink?!  I needed to have these things so badly.  I filled out a contact form and waited.  I called the number they gave me, and got nothing.  Three weeks went by and I began to get frustrated, and almost gave up on the company as a whole, but just before I did, I contacted the corporate number and said, “Don’t you want my money?!”  They reassured me that someone else would be contacting me shortly.

Lucky for me, the person who contacted me was amazing.  She did two parties for me before I decided it was the company for me, and she turned out to be an amazing mentor and is now my Director, and I have worked my way up to Senior Mentor.

Was the original gal afraid of the phone?  I’ll never know, but she didn't get my business or me as a teammate because I didn't receive the call I was expecting to get.

So, the next time you sit down with your stack of leads and get ready to give them a call, think of each one of them as me, jumping up and down waiting for you, wishing desperately that you would call me so I can learn more about the products, about you, and ultimately about the company. 

What are you waiting for?

If you're ready to learn more about Damsel in Defense, email me at susnhine@yourdamseldiva.com or find me on the web at yourdamseldiva.com.  Let's chat about your future!