A Few Thoughts On Ambition by David Ledoux

I found a great little quote today in a magazine called Good Stuff. It's attributed to Charles Baudouin, and does a great job explaining ambition.

"To be ambitious for wealth, and yet always expecting to be poor; to be always doubting your ability to get what you long for, is like trying to reach east by traveling west. There is no philosophy which will help a man to succeed when he is always doubting his ability to do so, and thus attracting failure. No matter how hard you work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors and make success impossible."

I had to read the quote out loud three times to make sure I fully got its meaning. It really is at the core of everything I have been learning and teaching and doing for the last 15 years. It does a great job of answering the mysterious question, "Why are some people more successful than others?"

Napoleon Hill's Think & Grow Rich talked about it. Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz analyzed it. Personal Coaching for Results by Lou Tice danced around it. Mach II With Your Hair On Fire by Richard Brooke explored it. But was is "IT" really?

Imagine the scenario in an MLM company. A heavy-hitter personally recruits 100 people frontline to him in 2 years. How did he (or she) do it? Not just the "what-did-he-say?" or "what-ads-did-he-run?" or "what-autoresponder-did-he-use?" meaningless stuff. But more importantly, "What pictures did he hold in his mind?" "What did he say to himself?" "What belief systems did he have?"

Now let's look at the frontline 100. Chances are 80 of them will quit within 12 months. Fifteen remaining will struggle, while just 5 will have some semblance of success. Why? They all started with the same opportunity. What made the difference?

This partially addresses the downline building style of many serious builders. They tell their teams, "Go wide fast!" Why? Because they usually have no idea who will build the business, nor any idea how to build leaders that stick!

On the other side of the same coin, a few industry leaders know exactly how to build leaders, but find it so exhausting and time consuming that they would rather let Mother Nature take its course. It is often far easier to hunt for people who have the correct inner dialogue, mental pictures, and belief systems necessary to handle the hurdles, challenges and difficulties in building a big business.

The true secret behind MLM is that it is a leadership development factory disguised as a way of moving products and services. Products and services have no feet. Products do not move people. People move products. And leaders move people.

If you want to become rich and successful in network marketing, the path is simple. First become a leader yourself. Then find and develop other leaders. The HOW is a lifetime of work on your words, your pictures and your beliefs. There is no better time to start than right now.

Good luck, I believe in you!

David Ledoux