For the first 15 years of my life, there were no wars, there was prosperity, there was faith in government and faith in the future.
Fifteen year olds today are living in times of uncertainty having felt the effects of three wars, devastating hurricanes, financial hard times and now perhaps an unprecedented loss of faith in the future of our financial institutions. These are tough times.
Compounding matters for me personally are a business failure at the end of 2007 and then a marriage that failed shortly after it began seven years ago that is finally coming to its ugly conclusion. These should be tough times for me, but I can’t let them be because I have two beautiful, loving little girls who are turning to me for security and strength.
Instead of struggling, I am scrambling to identify everything that I have taken for granted and to take as much control of it as I can. Here are some examples.
Although I am a full time Team Beachbody Coach, I enjoy e-commerce and have an online store that sells Beachbody products like workout DVD’s and nutritionals as part of my Howtobefit.com website. For perhaps as long as 48 hours, my web hosting company has been having problems and my store is down and I am losing money every day that it is down. I put my faith in that hosting company and they have failed me for the last time. As soon as the store comes back up, I am moving it to a hosting company that has 100% uptime guaranteed.
I have a wonderful computer that was built for me by a great local computer company here in Albuquerque. When I got it, I also got an external hard drive to back up this computer. But I have had so much faith in it, that I never backed up my files. I have now backed up everything that I possibly can onto this external drive because of that just in case situation that I might never thought would have happened.
I have life insurance and health insurance simultaneously for the first time in my life. But they are only for the just in case situation. I always have and always will take charge of my own health and longevity by following the sound principles of daily or almost daily exercise, good nutrition, taking supplements and healthy lifestyle choices. I enjoy great health and don’t have to depend on a less than satisfactory health care system, am productive at work to be able to keep providing income and hopefully won’t have to be totally dependent on leaving my girls something when I am gone from a life insurance company that might not even be around.
I am also investing more than ever. Not in investments that so obviously now could fail, but rather, I am investing in people. I am investing my time and energy in my team of coaches who then invest, like I do, in the lives of people who are also taking charge of their health and wellness by being members of the Team Beachbody Club and doing what I do – exercising, eating nutritiously, taking supplements and making good lifestyle choices. I am rewarded for investing in my coaches and members, not just monetarily, but also because these individuals are succeeding because of my investment of time and energy in them.
In the process of backing up my computer, I came across an article that I saved entitled, “Succeeding in Tough Times”, by Kyle Wilson and it is excerpted from week twenty one of the Jim Rohn One Year Success Plan. He begins the article by saying, “I’ve been noticing that while many companies and individuals might be struggling right now, that there is also a group of companies and individuals flourishing. I’ve also noticed there are some common characteristics found in these companies who seem to be doing well during some of these uncertain times.”
I wanted to list for you just the first sentence from each point in the excerpt to give you something to think about and to challenge to learn more and expand your thinking. The five points are:
1. These companies and individuals operate from a win/win philosophy and inherently value their relationships (customers, employees, vendors, friends, family, neigbors, etc.)
2. These companies and individuals have an entrepreneurial mindset.
3. These companies and individuals have an excellent work ethic and focus.
4. These companies and individuals have made a commitment to succeed.
5. These companies and individuals operate out of faith.
The question at the end of the article and my question to you also, is, “How do you rate yourself in these five areas? As a Team Beachbody Coach, I can honestly say that I rate very highly and that is why in these tough times, I am succeeding.
