"Success is not something you chase or pursue. Success is something you attract by the person you become." - Jim Rohn.
The words of a network marketing and prosperity legend. Those of us in home business arena are probably familiar with the man, and almost certainly familiar with the concept he teaches.
One of the most important lessons anyone in direct sales learns at the early stages is that it isn't your title, or your position, or your pitch, or any of the external features that people gravitate towards...
It's You. If you're an attractive person, happy, excited and full of life force, people will move toward you.
Same is true in reverse. The strength of your advertising, or product, or marketing plan doesn't matter if people aren't attracted to you.
We know this, and most of us commit to living it.
So how come most of us aren't passing the same message along to our kids?
Having moved in both the worlds of public education (as a high school guidance counselor) and personal coaching for the past few years, I become involved in a lot of conversations with MLM families who have school age kids.
The number of famiies who want to know about the "right college" or the "right major" to enter is amazing. The clear message they send is that if they start out their careers with The Magic Diploma from the school with the right name, things will line up the right way for them.
Hello?
Nearly all guidance counselors can help a kid get into college, tell them how to do all the right things, get a degree and maybe even a fancy title.
But how do we help our kids become, happy, healthy prosperous citizens in the local and global marketplace?
For too long the idea has been to get our kids into the "right" college. Public and even private schools still buy into this model.
It's a broken model. Sadly, they either don't know it or are powerless before the idea.
In truth the idea of "go to the right college, get a good job is an industrial age holdover for parents who wanted something better for themselves than the factory job they had alongside their own parents.
And it's a phenomenon schools don't care about. They're not evaluated on the success and prosperity their graduates manifest. They're judeged by test scores, what percentage go to colleges, and less formally, the names of the places they go.
Those of us who were well schooled in the principles that make network marketers successful should be looking at things just a little bit differently for our kids.
What can we do to help our kids become more than just another rodent in "The Rat Race?" Here are a few starting points.
1. SIT DOWN with your high school age child and determine what they might like their lives to look like in a few years. Don't worry about what occupation they might pursue. Just see if they can develop a vision of a successful lifeSTYLE.
2. WORK BACKWARD. Talk with them about some of the things they will need to achieve in order to fulfill that vision. For some it may be a traditional college education. For others, it may be a different path altogether.
3. BUILD THE PERSON, NOT JUST THE RESUME. Many parents put a huge amount of pressure on their kids to perform their best in school. While good grades never hurt anyone, there are so many things are kids can do to become happy, forward thinking prosperous individuals NOW. Help them to cultivate a hobby or some other passion. Help them to start their own part time business, or charitable cause.
4. LIVE BY YOUR WORDS. It's not enough to preach prosperity and success. SHOW them success by being a role model of it. It doesn't matter your position in your company. Role model the kind of behavior you want them to take on for themselves.
There's an extraordinary opportunity for home business parents to help their kids participate in lifetimes of prosperity on their own terms.
If you can use the same desire for change that got you into the home business field in the first place, then instill that passion and courage in your children, the possibilities are unlimited!
