poppyWell, I’ve been talking about this for awhile – just not publicly. I’m a professional network marketer and have been for over a decade.
I sell stuff.
I ask others if they want to sell stuff too.
Then I teach them how to build, run and grow their own business.
I nurture these professional relationships into an organization of conscious, ethical, heart centered, profit minded, sustainability focused team of business partners.
That’s what I do. That’s my job description, alongside the minute yet crucial daily-do-details of being IN business.
On July 15th I am celebrating eleven years in this industry which has challenged me, grown me up, pissed me off, celebrated me, lifted me, loved on me and taught me everything I need to know about life, business and what success truly means to me. I think:
Success is like spirituality, politics, sex, religion and money. It’s personal. It’s deeply personal and daringly unique to every walking soul out here.
Today I start blogging about what it means to be a Tall Poppy in the Network Marketing Industry. I hope you’ll join me in what I hope to be a vivid and conscious conversation.
More to come.
Because it’s ok to be a tall poppy, especially when you already are one.
xxT
This is my ‘network marketing’ selfie. Funny isn’t it? Same woman, different piece of me.
TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and with her Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers Coaching Program, she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
Yesterday I decided to ‘come out’ – can I even use that term if I’m not gay? Can ‘coming out’ apply to being ‘seen’?
Yesterday I quaked a little bit, you know the human part that worries that people will think you’re weird and you’ll end up alone, wandering back alleys with nothing but stray cats following you, their bent tails resembling the off-ness of you, eating samosas out of a bag, muttering poetry with every step, and wearing nostalgic too old sneakers and smelling like patchouli…? That part. I quaked about the possibility of all of that happening, and then I decided to risk it. But then,I kinda like the smell of patchouli.
Yesterday I didn’t stop until the message stopped me.
Yesterday I decided I’m going to be seen.
Yesterday I said I am. I do. I share.
Welcome to my page: Work with TinaO
Here it is:
I’m committed to helping you to LIVE.
That’s a pretty broad statement isn’t it? Yes, I think so too. Yet that’s what I’m here for, and that unique message was delivered straight to me via me through my very own Dear Tina journal…
My Dear Tina personal practice began on March 13th 2014, and through these very pages, my own calling to help others truly live is what showed up. And who am I to argue with myself? Because that would be kinda silly don’t you think?
What am I talking about?
Life.
Living.
You know, this ride we’re on for however long we’re invited to be here (which none of us knows how long that will be even though we talk a big talk and stay up at night thinking about or avoiding it).
It’s this thing called LIFE, and it’s super distracting(oh the schedules, appointments, paperwork, pings, dings, deadlines), often ridiculous (the fights, flights, climbs, and confrontations), kind of depressing(broken dreams, resentments, shattered hearts, deaths and disappointments), is also wildly thrilling (think: love, laughter, accolades and ambition), is fantastically possible (with our bucket lists, breakthroughs and aha moments), and is ultimately, an intoxicating ride(hate it, love it, forget about it, and want it…)called LIFE.
My work is to help you LIVE FULLY without having to:
FIGURE IT OUT or
ESCAPE from what you don’t understand.
Live only in the ‘meditative or spirit world’
or be an EXPERT.
or be a LEADER.
or become ORGANIZED.
or know how to PRIORITIZE.
and for freak sakes… to once and for all FINALLY GIVE UP the painful practice of NEEDING TO BE ON TOP OF IT ALL.
Gawwwwd aren’t you exhausted of being on top of it all???
I sure was. It gave me cancer. And that’s how I came to be here with you.
Dear Tina…
…teach others to listen, what to listen to, how to navigate the voices. Dec. 26th 2014
…You will create a process for people to follow that encourages self listening. December 26th 2014
…Show others the way through the mess of busyness. It is not necessary. Lead Tina. Lead. August 2015
…Disease is transformation Tina, and you have transformed. Do not shrink back. August 29th 2015
…You have been asked to help others connect to the whole self. You’ve been asked to help people reacquaint themselves. December 1st 2015
So there it is.
And that is how I will work with you. You will learn how to listen to your innate wisdom and together we’ll build a way of LIVING that is truly yours.
I call it Your Living Story, or #liveyourall
I showed it to my husband because he has the best ‘total-bull-shit-sniff-test’ out there.
and I passed his ‘sniff’.
I’ll never forget the day I shook in my boots across our kitchen island, over the toast and butter and apples and and and… clutching my Sunday morning coffee, crazy weekend hair flying and sheepishly looked up and said to him: “I think I want to write a book, speak, and run workshops and stuff. I can’t stand the expert industry, but I think I might be one. I don’t want to lose you. Will you still like me?”
He said:Tina, that train, your train has already left the station, you just haven’t decided to get on yet. I know you. This is who you are. It’s who you’ve always been.
p.s. if you are a cancer survivor or have loved ones you’d like to honour, check out my #100love campaign. I swim, bike and run for them.
TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and with her Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers Coaching Program, she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
Not only does Network Marketing have a bad reputation in the minds of many people, while the trash talk may be misinformed, some of the issues have traces of truth to them which has lead me to the following questions: Would I ever leave? Would I ever go back? Would I do it all over again if I could?
Here’s the deal: I’m a decade in. I’ve made it to the top. I’m a pioneer in Canada. My family still lives on my network marketing income. While it was once six figures and gave me trips to Maui, trips all over the United States and Canada, Tiffany jewelry, a luxury car, purses, bags, swag, shiny things and more… I’m not motivated by stuff. That’s all nice and everything but it doesn’t get me out of bed and over my own procrastination or resistance.
Still, after five years of ‘taking a break’ my family of five still lives on the income that my network marketing business pays me. Crazy right? Or is it smart?
Trash Talk: So much promise, so little return.
Truth: You get what you are willing to build. What is worth sweating over to build?
Here’s the thing: I don’t respect ‘follow the leader’ groups (come on now, as if one person could have the answer for everybody), nor do I find any enjoyment in hotel hypey meetings (rah rah rah blah blah blah), and I really cringe when I hear ‘tactics’ for selling that involve ‘overcoming objections’, or ‘facing your fears and doing it anyway’. Why do objections need to be overcome? And surely our fear instinct has a purpose. How about just listening to the objection and being fearful of what is truly dangerous? I got to the ‘top’ of my business without ever having to overcome anybody’s objections or feel my fear and do it anyway. I didn’t do what I was afraid of. I did what challenged me instead, and I listened for the YES that worked for my clients and for me.
Trash Talk: It’s a cult.
Truth: You’re a business owner.
Here’s the dilemma: Business success in network marketing is based on your ability to teach thousands of people how to follow a simple business system over and over and over again – a.k.a. duplication. The truth is, network marketing success is no different than implementing the ideas in Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth. So really, people, calm down, it’s not brainwashing, it’s following a system. That said, without ‘jargon’ and ‘hype’ and ‘rituals’ and ‘a top ten list’ how does motivation and duplication happen? And while we’re here, how do you mass duplicate “just tell the truth and serve the people”.
Trash Talk: I hate those rah rah rah motivational selly things.
Truth: Find your own motivation, you’re not a sheep.
Here’s the challenge: Network Marketing isn’t for everybody (neither is team sports), yet anybody can do it.
Not everyone is going to find fulfillment in the network marketing industry, not everyone is going to generate wealth. Not everyone is going to enjoy the process either yet the doors are always OPEN for ANYONE to join in, and lots do.
I soooooooo respect an open playing field.
I sooooooo champion all-access-opportunities.
I live by ‘all’ is greater than ‘some’.
Trash Talk: Coffee isn’t for every-body
Truth: yet almost everybody drinks it.
Here’s the insight: In today’s wacky world of broken rules, cracked systems and mega-marketing (like who do you believe anymore?), we all need three streams of income to be bulletproof. I learned this from my friend Cat in Toronto. She said to me “we all need three legs to stand on because when (not if) one gets broken, we still have two to stand on”. True right? In the decade that I’ve been in this industry, I’ve had a third baby, almost lost my marriage, let go of my house, had a life-direction breakdown (okay, a mid-life crisis), parented emotional teenagers, lived through a recession, saw friends lose babies, divorce and experience financial ruin, and to top it all off, last year I had CANCER.
Mother Fudrucker. Are you kidding me?
Yes indeed, we all need three legs to stand on because sometimes it takes more than six weeks in a cast to mend a limb. Sometimes the leg is severed and simply needs to be replaced and that takes time. Over the last ten years, my network marketing business has been the only constant revenue our family has had, be it a gangsta paycheque or an average one. I sometimes forget that’s a worthy leg to stand on for sure.
Trash Talk: Why do you need a plan B if you already have a plan A?
Truth: Because you do.
Conference feet take a break in Calgary
Here’s what I’ve learned: Nobody wakes up dreaming about building a career in network marketing (well, none that I’ve met anyway), but everyone wakes up needing cash for food, shelter and peace of mind. Some people wake up desperate for a chance to GO FOR SOMETHING BIG, but most simply just want to be happy. Lots of people yearn to be appreciated, to be known, to be part of a community, and a select few decide to create it themselves.
Most of us have ALL that it takes to be successful in network marketing:
like people.
love the product you sell.
learn to communicate.
practice remembering that yes is an answer just as much as no is and that neither is better than the other, nor is it to be taken personally.
be habitual.
be reliable, be kind – and above all else…
LOVE PEOPLE (more than you like them).
Yet… so few think they have what it takes.
Even me sometimes, and I’ve been to the top. I drank the kook-aid. I wore the logos. I cried at the conventions. I even drove (drive) the car.
Trash Talk: So many people fail in network marketing.
Truth: So many people quit.
The truth is: I respect this industry more than any other industry I’ve ever been in because it’s real and there’s nowhere to hide or to pretend. The truth will ALWAYS out in network marketing because it’s a people based business. People have the best ‘sniffer’ I know. They can feel authenticity, they can smell a ‘sell’.
Oh yeah, and really… like come on… where else can I work 15 hours/week like it’s a ‘j.o.b.’ and make gangsta money? Where else can I go to ‘business school’ and get paid to learn how to be an entrepreneur? How else can I make ‘career’ money without having to have a career?
What other business allows you to have all the crazy goodness that comes with a franchise opportunity without having the million dollars you need to buy a frickin’ franchise? I can’t deny that. Just look at the numbers. Truly, don’t listen to the rah-rah-opportunity -this-will-change-your-life-stuff, just look at the bloody numbers. They don’t have ‘spin’ on them.
I’m an artist. I’m a momma. I’m a wife. I’m a writer, I’m an athlete (well, becoming one again), and I’m a coach. I don’t have time for a job. I got shit to do. Big shit. Big loud, fabulous, life-affirming, world tilting shit to do. I’m not here to waste my life pretending to play small when I’m not. No. That’s not me. I have a calling to fulfill, and so do you.
Network Marketing is not my career, yet it encompasses all the things that I’m designed to do: build community, see greatness in people, write, speak, perform, and make a difference in this insane world of lying lying lie lie lie selling. Thank you Jerry Seinfeld – you crack me up. Did you you click the link? Here it is again.
Network Marketing, you are the gift that keeps challenging me to grow up, to ‘fess up, to lift up, and most importantly to SHOW UP. Without you, I wouldn’t know what I know now and I wouldn’t be here on TinaOLife living out the calling that’s been with me since I took my first breath.
So to answer my own questions:
Would I leave?
ummm probably not, that just seems stupid. That’s callous, I know, but really, some things are pretty obvious when you can finally see them.
Would I ever go back?
Well, I’m certainly not working my biz the way I did ten years ago because that was sheer insanity (even though it worked), and technology has changed since then, so I don’t have to. It’s kinda nice to have a global business from the comfort of my bed and in my fuzzy slippers.
Would I do it all over again if I could?
That’s the easy hard one to answer: Yes. Yes I would. It’s kinda like: “if you knew what you know now about marriage and having children, would you do it all over again?” – yes, yes, yes and more yes. It’s frickin’ hard. It’s totally real and it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.
The deeply challenging things that expand us usually are.
xxT
Wanna know about my business? email me. overburynation@gmail.com
TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry. She teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
I didn’t know that my kids would be like other people’s kids. My eldest two are in or approaching their teen years and motherfudrucker are they ever doing what teens do. It’s a nasty stage to parent through yet such an important one for them because this is where they either grow grit or not, and then they suffer the consequences of not knowing how to pick themselves up out of the mud later in life.
And as we know, there’s a lot of mud to come.
Here’s a snippet of what happened in my family this morning. I wrote it for my ‘downline’ (network marketing jargon for team) because I recognized how insanely similar this is to the lessons we’re called on to learn in our business. I hope it speaks to you as it seems to have spoken to my team.
Very interesting experience with my teenage son this morning. It made me think of our business and what it takes to design, get, and live a life we love. Here’s what happened:
We have a rule in our house, ‘as soon as it gets too hard to get up for hockey, hockey goes away’ – and right off the hop, since the boys were 7/8yrs old, they’ve been able to get up, sometimes as early as 4:30am to get on a 5:30am boat for a 6am practice. No kidding. Cold, tired and hungry… Yet off they would go.
So flash ahead 6 years and my eldest is now 14yrs and is in high school. He is often home later after his games, like 10pm and then the next morning he’s up for school at 6:30am to catch the bus at 7:05am. This morning (and multiple others this year) he had refused to get up saying ‘I’m too tired’. He’s 6’2 and 180lbs with his own mind, his own convictions, and his own chutzpah. I don’t believe in ‘making kids do anything’ anyway (unless the issue is human decency), but the truth is, I couldn’t make him get up now even if I tried.
Soooooo… I realized, this kid CAN get up, he does it all the time. He has a TRACK RECORD of doing what is challenging, he’s simply choosing not too because he doesn’t WANT TO. The REWARD or the REASON isn’t compelling enough. So… Given all of our ‘What’s your WHY?’ training, I decided to up the ante on his ‘why’. On my 5th attempt to get him out of bed, I said, ‘Mister, this has to stop. Here’s the deal, for every morning that you are like this, you lose a practice. You have two minutes to get up or there’s no hockey tomorrow.’
He didn’t get up.
What the Truck?
I go back in and do the thing I would NEVER DO in a coaching conversation. I implore with him:‘Why would you do that? Why would you choose being tired over playing hockey? It’s worth so much to you. Why would you choose to be right about how stupid it is to go to school when what you’ve worked so hard for over the last six years hangs in the balance? Why would you do that??? Help me to understand because I don’t LOVE hockey, I love you.
He says to me: because I’m tired.
Classic.
In our business, the response is different but the same, it sounds like this: ‘Because it doesn’t seem to work for me’
Also Classic.
His dad has now been texted in because he’s on his way to work already (now 6:55am). He sends this: No school, no Maple Ridge on Friday (Game).
I walk back in to his room (which I often do in our our biz too… I walk back in) and tell him the news. – An exasperated GROAN comes from under the covers as he knows he really has no choice now. Well he does have a choice, just not one he’s willing to make. He’s backed into a corner because IT JUST GOT REAL.
The phone rings. It’s his dad. I hand him the phone.
‘I don’t want to talk to dad, he’s just going to yell at me’.
I say: ‘Listen dude… You made this bed, you don’t get to opt out of respecting your father. You don’t have to like what he has to say, or even agree with it, but you do have to listen.’
I leave the room. He listens, hangs up, gets up and in 9 minutes gets himself dressed, packed and fed and out the door.
No he’s not talking to me. No he’s not happy. Yes he is honouring his CONVICTION to play hockey by doing what is least pleasant to him.
Here’s what I see, some of us are pleasers, others avoiders, some are team players, others loners, we do what we do for personal reasons and we choose to get back into the ring to go another round FOR WHAT MATTERS TO US, but only and I mean only WHEN IT GETS REAL and unfortunately, as is the way with the human experience, the magic only happens when our backs are against the wall. Oh boy.
Sooooo back to business… What we have is the brass ring. There is NOTHING and I mean NOTHING else out there like this that MOST PEOPLE can do to get the kind of return that comes with this biz model.
High pay for low time High freedom for low responsibility High friendship, lifetime friendships, deep meaningful walk through fire kinds of friendships without having to give up who you are. A life first job without having to give your own life up in the process.
No education needed Low investment needed
So when it feels hard for you to ‘do the do’, ask yourself, ‘what would have to happen before I was willing to REALLY do it? When would I cross the line into true LIFE LEADERSHIP and be willing to be the last person standing to make this business a success?
Unless of course you don’t really want what you said you came for… But I doubt it.
I said to Todd when it all blew over, this lesson were in with our son right now has NOTHING to do with HOCKEY, and everything to do with building the GRIT it takes to DO THE DO in order to LIVE YOUR LIFE on YOUR TERMS and not the terms of others.
Sometimes you have to get in to the ring with yourself in order to win.
Thinking of you. Thinking of your grit. Seeing your magnitude. And holding you accountable to your WHY.
And the same with me. Me too. I’m just like you.
Some days I’d rather just say I’m too tired. But where will that get me?
It’s okay to be tired when you are. It’s not ok to be tired when there’s still life and will and Fire and a want inside of you. Some days you just gotta dig a little deeper.
Xxxt
So, I ask you. Do you have grit? Are you willing to be the last one standing to have what really matters to you? What is it going to take?
Tonight a handful of team members from my network marketing biz are gathering at Xenia Retreat Centre for a Mastermind Retreat away into their business and their lives.
We’ll eat (always). We’ll talk (of course) about how we can live more healthfully and passionately. We’ll dig in (needed) to the areas of our business that are clunky and beg for attention. We’ll get clear about what goals/targets/intentions really matter to us and what we’re willing to truly show up for this year. We’ll sharpen our skills (stretch always) and we’ll take on this live/work balance conundrum that is so personal to each of us. We’ll lift each other up because it’s often easier to see greatness in others before we can see it in ourselves.
It’s just another day at the office – rich and challenging because none of us ‘have’ to go to this work, we choose it instead. Wow, it’s so much easier to procrastinate our way out of that isn’t it? It’s a business of people, as in we get paid when we sell stuff to people and when we nurture and coach people too (which isn’t everybody’s natural skill set and it takes time to learn) – makes it complicated. A lot of us struggle with getting paid when there’s ‘people’ involved! ack! How can that be fair or honest? Here’s the thing I’ve learned over a decade in the industry, it’s actually the most honest work I can do. When there’s a face, a heart, a dream, or a family on the other side of what I do, it is my deep privilege to show up. These are people after-all, not faceless ‘team members and prospects’. Crazyyyy but my best friends have come from this business. These are the people who have walked through personal and professional fires with me and I with them. I don’t need to get paid for that, but wow, what an illogical bonus that I do.
Whatever you do for a living, my wish for every single one of us is that wherever you are Monday to Friday and beyond, that you’re part of a community, you belong, you love and are loved. That’s real wealth.
Yes I’m in the network marketing industry but this isn’t a pitch because that would be dumb. You’re way smarter than that. And let’s be straight here – your ‘salesperson sniff test’ would have my offer hung on a hook over your fireplace so fast I wouldn’t even have a chance to squeak out my why story. Let’s be real here. The scent of a seller can be picked up from miles away.
Two of my sons are at that age where career choices shouldn’t even be in their consciousness, but it is. They are fourteen and twelve. Let me ask you, when you were a teenager did you give two licks about how you would want to spend 40-60 hours per week trading time for money? No. You had a dream (if you were lucky), you may have had a whiff of a passion (if you were blessed that way), and you may have even figured out a couple of things that set you apart from your fellow students (if your parents or teachers saw it in you). But honestly, could you foresee that you would be doing what you are doing right now, back then? And would your profession today have made you want to buckle down at fifteen years old to get good grades in order to do it?
For a small percentage of us – the answer might be yes, but it’s complicated isn’t it? Getting to where you are today, even if you are totalllllllly fulfilled and in your ‘Vein of Gold’ as Julia Cameron calls it, was likely not as simple a process as earning As and Bs in grade ten. For a large percentage of us, our j.o.b. has nothing to do with our dreams or our passions, but instead has become that thing we do j.b. (just because).
I think J.O.B.’s are given a bad rap in the network marketing industry. I think running your own direct sales organization, serving clients and supporting new team members to reach the heights of their potential is also a j.o.b. and it’s just as challenging, time consuming, frustrating and as wildly fulfilling (often more so) as it is to go to ‘work’ each day.
I started in this industry over ten years ago and while, just like any j.o.b., I’ve loved it, been frustrated, been enamoured and crushed, felt purposeful and useless, been side-swiped and blessed… this is my j.o.b. and shhhh… listen closely because I’m going to whisper this… selling and recruiting is not my passion. Sometimes I feel like I’m bad-mouthing the industry when I admit that selling isn’t my “it” because there is such a push out there these days to Live Your Passion, to Be Your Genius, to never Sell-Out on your Dreams… Here’s my big aha that smacked me silly a few years back: Why did I ever believe I had to choose? When did having a job = bad, and living a dream = good? What if having them both = peaceful? = happy? Being a network marketer is my skillset and not my soulset. It requires my mindset to flex positively like a muscle I’ve trained to respond, and this j.o.b. asks only of my body that it do what it’s designed to do: eat for fuel, sleep for repair and breathe to live. It’s not romantic or dreamy eyed, yet it’s warm and it’s just as real as any job I’ve ever had.
The network marketing industry isn’t weird, it isn’t a cop-out, and it sure isn’t a short cut either. It’s a j.o.b. just like everything else we can do to earn an income. I love it because it fits me. Would I have chosen this as a profession in grade ten? Ummm absolutely not. Would I have studied for it in college? Are you kidding me? No no no no no… most definitely not. Funny eh? Somehow I ended up here and this overlooked, highly judged and wildly misunderstood industry has grown me up like nothing else I’ve ever done has.
In it’s simplicity, network marketing or direct sales is just another way for people to come in from the cold. I earn a good, honest living, and my needs are being met. I’m peaceful and that’s all that truly matters to me.
xxT
