Here is an extract from the Blog of Michael Oliver - a generic Sales Trainer in the network marketing industry. He has THE KEY to building a successful business which will not suffer from the usually high attrition rates that most do these days. I have referred to him before now and no doubt will in the future. He has fantastic advice for anyone who is open to learning, especially how to improve communication between people in any situations eg in relationships, work and anywhere you want to make an impression or want to persuade someone to change their mind/behaviour. I recommend reading his book which you will see if you visit his blog on the link below.


" . . . If you want a successful business, then having an enthusiastic
and motivated team is essential. Ideally, your team would be
made up self-starters.

Unfortunately, many network marketers find themselves spending a
lot of time working with their team to keep them on track. That
means building your business can be more stressful and time
consuming than it needs to be.

However, there's a simple, yet very profound, thing you can do
when you first talk with a potential partner. It will pay big
dividends for both in that you won't have to continually
encourage them or follow up with them to make sure they're doing
what they said they would.

As a result, you'll save time and have a more productive team.

To discover the key to an enthusiastic, self-motivated and
productive team, read this week's newsletter. Simply click on the
following link...

http://naturalsellingblog.com/productive-team/ . . . . ."

Beware Of The Duplication Trap – Part II | michaeloliver.com

Beware Of The Duplication Trap – Part II | michaeloliver.com

Helping Families In Our Community

I'm a person who is naturally attracted to ways of helping others. I've done lots of studies on various modalities, one in particluar I really like is NVC or Non-violent communication, developed by Marshall Rosenberg. I have put some of the tools into practice in a classroom where I was a relieving teacher a little while ago. It worked well. There was an altercation in a sewing class involving 2 children about 14 yrs of age. One of them lashed out at the other. It ended up in tears, as you would expect. I took them both aside in the room and dug a bit deeper into what may have caused the problem. The outcome was that the offending student had lost her brother earlier in the year from an accident and the other, a boy from another culture, had lost a young brother several years ago. Obviously there was underlying incompleted sadness on both sides and through the process I was able to demonstrate the opportunity for greater understanding and empathy for each of them.

I found this exercise very satisfying and was able to use it with a whole class again at a later date when there was another incident between 2 boys.

Whenever I see young children suffering or not being treated in a way that supports and enriches them, I feel great pain for them. They are so vulnerable and trusting of adults around them. After all, children are not small adults - they are fragile, young souls craving love, acknowledgement and nourishment, both the nutritional type and importantly, the emotional type. They need training on how to cope with life and if parents do not do this at an appropriate level they will grow up with difficulties in being effective adults. In observing how children and adults relate in my community, I see that very often they are not given suitable explanations about why things are as they are, for example. If you explain to children, simply and in language they can understand, they will be able to understand better and perhaps work things out for themselves at a later time.

Suffice to say then that if anything crosses my path that provides a way for people to relate and communicate better I am interested in learning about it.

I have studied The Spalding Method (www.spalding.org) when I was living in Australia recently and that is a wonderful way to teach children how to read, write and spell in a way that empowers them to help themselves. I now teach 2 students using this approach.

More recently I have come across something else which I know will have huge repercussions on families in general.

The mission of FamilyIQ is to empower individuals and parents to improve their personal, partnering, and parenting skills in order to build stronger and more effective families. Their Vision is to change the world one family at a time. FamilyIQ is a values-driven company. They believe that values which are nurtured, promoted and upheld can motivate positive behavior and foster unity. They aim to promote and protect the culture of values within the context of entrepreneurialism. Our core values are multi-faceted: meaning that they apply to us as individuals, families and as an organization.

The Values of the Company are simply:

1. Family
They believe that the Family is the foundation of all great societies. Families come in various sizes and styles and each one has the capacity for love, respect and appreciation. The organization is a family and every member is needed and important. We aim to sponsor a culture of unity with our employees, members, and customers.

2. Trust
Trust is the foundation of all healthy relationships. In families and in business, we strive to foster relationships based on earning trust with each other. This is done in part by keeping commitments, respecting one another and living with integrity. FamilyIQ will work tirelessly to not only earn but always keep the trust of our families, business partners, members, employees and customers.

3. Loyalty.
They believe that trust leads to loyalty. They believe that loyalty is the key to profitability and growth in a business and in relationships. Our goal is to foster loyalty with our families, business partners, members, employees and customers.

4. Growth.
Growth is a by-product of treating others like family, earning and keeping their trust and nurturing lifelong loyal relationships. Growth is inevitable as we live our values. We believe that FamilyIQ will grow to be a world-wide organization as we live our values and provide our products to those like minded individuals who share our values.

It's a programme that, amongst other things, has developed a revolutionary assessment test designed to produce awareness, knowledge and skills in nine critical areas of healthy family functioning.

I think you'll agree with me here that this company will be seriously contributing to the health of our communities in the near and distant future.

If you'd like more information on the products and the business model please first visit the website then contact me on nzglobalsolutions@gmail.com

Take Action - Create Miracles

Some bold suggestions to get some action happening in your business this week.

These steps must be done first every day before everything else!

1. Choose one dedicated hour first thing in your day

2. Choose only 3 actions that will move you forward... write them down on a piece of paper, eg 1/4 A4 page.
3. Choose only actions that advance your dream
4. Each action must easily be accomplished in 5-30 minutes maximum
5. Eliminate ALL distractions during this hour
6. Choose bold actions and be bold!

This action has the power to shift our life and create miracles!

So choose different actions x 5 days per week, = 15 actions, x 4 wks/mnth = 60 actions x 12 months = 780 actions per year.

'If I knew I'd get a YES to my question, what would my bold step BE?

All it takes is to re-arrange your priorities so that you put your business first in your day!

I would love to hear if you undertake this programme and what kind of results you get. I am starting this on Thursday this week Sept 1, 2011. Let's keep ourselves accountable.

www.FollowYourStar.co.nz

How to Make a Decision - Easily

Do you find it difficult to make a decision - any decision ?

How do you make a choice when you’re stuck at a fork in the road?
www.followyourstar.co.nz

How can you decide when two or more possibilities seem equally good?

I’ve been learning (but haven’t mastered) the principles of Effortless Decision-Making. It’s a way of making decisions where you can flow through the constant stream of decisions we must make every day of our lives, without getting stuck, without being paralyzed by fear. We choose, and flow, and we let go of worry.

What follows is a very brief guide to making effortless decisions.

Let go of perfection. We’ll never make perfect decisions, and wanting to make the perfect choice keeps us paralyzed.

Get more information. Don’t let this hold you up, but if you’re stuck it’s often because you don’t have the necessary info. What info do you need? Can you easily get it? Get it now if you can, but don’t be held up by the lack of info. www.followyourstar.co.nz

Try and err. If you don’t have enough info — and that’s usually the case — just choose. It doesn’t really matter what you choose, just make a choice and let go of the idea of making the right choice. Now live with that choice for a bit, and see what happens. This is called trial and error, and it’s often the best way to get information. We try something, and see how it works out — and then we have more information to make better decisions in the future. When you look at it this way, decisions are just a series of trial and error experiments, and it doesn’t matter what the outcomes are, because any outcome is good information.

Try intuition. If you’re stuck and don’t have enough info, let go of worry and just make a choice. How do you make a choice? You could flip a coin, but you could also just go with your gut reaction. What does your intuition say? Start listening to it — often it’s an unconscious decision based on lots of factors that we can’t consciously process, so a part of our unconscious brain processes it and comes up with a split-second decision. Intuition can be wrong, but that’s still OK: we’re going to learn from the results no matter what. So just learn to hear your intuition, and go with it.

Let go of worry. If you learn the above principles, it’s easy to see that there’s nothing to worry about. You don’t need to be perfect, and a decision is very rarely the end of the world (at least, no decision has led to the end of the world yet). Sure, history is littered with the corpses of those who made bad decisions, but there are a million times more decisions that were made without any really bad consequences. You won’t die, you’ll just learn. So don’t worry — just choose.

Practice, and flow. You’ll get better at this with practice, as you learn to let go of perfection and worry and see decisions as experiments. You’ll learn to do it better, faster, with more intuition. Soon you’ll flow through your daily decisions with ease. Do it consciously at first, keeping in mind all of the above principles, but it gets easier as you go.

Making decisions is something we do all day long, and it doesn’t have to be difficult. We build certain decisions up in our minds because we think they’re incredibly important, but in truth they’re rarely that big a deal. This isn’t the Cuban Missile Crisis — we’re not deciding the fate of a nation. See choice as an opportunity to learn, and you’ll be happy for every single effortless decision that comes your way.

Thanks to Leo Babauta at http://zenhabits.net/ A really good Blog :)

Which is Better - Yoga or Exercise ?

There is no shortage of evidence that yoga is good for you. The evidence is there in the scientific and medical journals as well as the myriad yoga classes that are available somewhere on most streets these days. Certainly the “West” has embraced parts of the Eastern yogic practice with enthusiasm but is it just another way to keep fit that could equally be accomplished by regular walks and gym sessions? A new study has provided the answer to that question.

The study surveyed participants aged 18 to 65 years from yoga classes and fitness clubs across the Washington D.C. area in the United States. The people surveyed were assessed for general health, psychological wellbeing, anxiety, depression, coping abilities, mindfulness, and perceived stress.

The findings showed that regular yoga practitioners and habitual exercisers were similar when it came to self-reported anxiety and depression.

However, the yoga practitioners were ahead in many other regards. They reported less joint pain and less headaches than those who engaged in aerobic exercise and weight training. The yoga folk also had higher scores for mindfulness and coping skills but lower scores for perceived stress than those who were regular exercisers.

The researchers emphasised that mindfulness and a consequent stress reduction was central to the greater benefit offered by yoga. So it seems there’s nothing wrong with exercise but yoga does give that little bit more.


I remember one of the first yoga classes I went to. I walked to the location and afterwards felt so light that I could have floated home. I like to walk early in the morning as it warms me up for the day and I feel alert and ready for work. If I climbed out of bed and went straight to work I wouldn't feel nearly so good - still bleary eyed and my mental state not so awake. After a short yoga 'stretch' my body feels painless and flexible so in that way it is good. I work at home and sit down at the computer/desk for several hours at a time and my lower back does hurt most days, except when I do my stretches first. So in summary I like both as they do different things for my body and mind. A combination of both would be ideal on a daily basis.

I seem to be able to concentrate better earlier in the day and of course, as I said above, my mind is way more alert, so like to do my work as soon as possible in the morning after my exercise then I have the rest of the afternoon to do the other things I need to.

How about you - what sets you up best for the day - Yoga or exercise?

If you are interested in what I do you can get a taste at the website here www.retireearly.co.nz

What is YOUR North Star ?

As you journey toward your inner compass you will be faced with a multitude of life choices along the way - choices that will either draw you nearer to finding your True North or pull you further away from this amazing inner light.

When you acknowledge and honour your True North you are saying that you believe that within you lie the answers that will give you greater happiness and higher potential, ignite your passions and allow you to live your dreams - in short, the answers to living the life you were born to live, a life in which you 'Compromise Up' and stop selling yourself short.

There may be times when you feel utterly alone - lost and even without hope. But when you discover your True North you will soon locate and then unleash a powerful life tool to call upon when you need it most - a dependable and accurate compass that you can count on to always bring you back to that fixed point of who you really are; your authentic self, among the ever evolving constellations of your life. If you are to discover your True North, you must 'Compromise Up' and willingly accept into your life the best that life has to offer.

By 'Compromising Up' I mean that you need to raise your standards to a higher level so that you can create the healthiest emotional and physical environment in which you can thrive, be your best self and live your best life. You need to know that standing up for yourself and wanting better, not settling for less, but expecting the magnificent rather than the mediocre, the greater rather than the good - is not selfish by any means. Rather, expecting the best for yourself is an extension of your self-worth and the level of esteem in which you hold yourself.

It also is a reflection of the standards by which you live your life and the things in life that you feel you are worthy of receiving. 'Compromising Up' is simply treating yourself with greater respect and living by higher standards to show the world that you respect yourself and that you deserve more, not less, in your life. It also speaks to the value that you place on your time and energy.

Two of the most valuable resources we possess as human beings are our time and our energy. How you honour these two precious resources is a direct reflection on the kind of people and circumstances that you allow into your life or the choices you make.

When you 'Compromise Up' you gain the respect and admiration of others and you attract the best that life can offer because you think enough of yourself not to just accept the mediocre that life dishes out.

To find out if you are settling for less, think about what you hear yourself saying or doing in didfferent situations in life, for example: "I don't like to make a scene", "I stayed in a job I hated because I didn't have enough faith in myself to go look for something where I was using my talents", "I prefer not to rock the boat", "I never send food back in a restaurant, no matter how badly it is served up" Why do we say these things ? Maybe it's becuase we are taught to put the needs of others ahead of our own. Why do we allow certain people to treat us badly or with no respect? Whenever we do, and accept what is, instead of what could be, we are making choices that further distance us from our True North and the life we deserve.

So, clearly, the lesson here is to choose Abundance over Self Deprivation. When you speak up for yourself, demonstrate your confidence, ask for what you deserve, act with conviction, expect more rather than less and take a stand for something, you will automatically be choosing a life of greater abundance. You will be compromisng up and moving on a path that gravitates closer to your internal True North.

Extracted from "Discover True North" by Anne Bruce
Buy a copy here: http://www.thenile.co.nz/books/Anne-Burce/Discover-True-North-A-Program-to-Ignite-Your-Passion-and/9780071403009/

If you liked this article I would greatly appreciate your popping over to my Biz page and 'liking' it here: www.facebook.com/Followyourstar thanks so much.