One Step at a Time

This week, I talked to a client of mine who is a successful leader in a network marketing company. She was on cloud nine, having just had her best month of growth and hitting her highest level of income in her business ever.

Our call of celebration and excitement was so much fun, but I want to tell you the behind-the-scenes story that led to it. This is the stuff no one gets to see on social media or to hear when you hear success stories told from a stage.

About three months ago, this client was frustrated and discouraged. Her business was stable but not growing, and she found herself questioning her own abilities as a leader. It felt like no one on her team was engaged or wanted to really grow.

I challenged her to pause her analysis of all things for 90 days and to get back to the most simple, stripped-down daily steps of growing her business. Together, we got crystal clear on her “lead measures,” or the things that she can control each day that create growth in her business. She started taking action each day tracking these simple “lead measures”, NOT just staring so intently at the results or “lag measures” and letting them dictate how she felt about herself. #youarenotyourperformance

As she worked consistently and trusted the process, there were small moments in the 90-day process where she still felt anxious, wondering if it was working. She even texted me one day and said, “Where are the RESULTS?!?! I’m doing the work and nothing is happening!”

Sure enough, about 60 days into her renewed focus on these tiny daily millimeter steps, results started trickling in. New clients, new team members, increased income. By the 90 day mark, which was this week, I felt like I was talking to a different person.

The craziest part (and what I see consistently) is that the results didn’t come from where she thought they would. They rarely do. The people who decided to say yes to her opportunity and join her team were NOT the people she thought would say yes. In fact, she hadn’t ever even talked to many of them in her daily steps. Two of them sort of fell in her lap out of nowhere, reaching out to HER.

I don’t believe that’s a coincidence. When you are in motion and celebrating the journey of creation, you have an energy that is attractive and magnetic. Good things start to show up unexpectedly and it creates a vortex of momentum that becomes contagious.

Here’s what I want you to know. We don’t get to decide where the results come from or who will say yes or when. No matter how experienced or successful we are, we don’t get to fast-forward to the results, skipping all of the daily efforts.

We do get to decide what we do today to create growth. We do get to decide what we celebrate each day (efforts not results). We do get to decide to stay focused on what we can control.

It’s just the way business works.

Head down. Focus on what you can control. No drama.

I triple-dog dare you to try it and see.