Online marketing is no joke. You’re managing 5 different social media channels with regular posts and engagement, blog writing, blog commenting, article writing, paid advertisements…and everything else you need to do to run your network marketing business. Many of our clients who try to follow all of our advice come to us a week later and ask:
“It’s impossible to get it all done! There are not enough hours in the day to do everything!”
Our advice to these multi-tasking marketers is twofold:
- Develop a healthy mindset
- Find and use helpful tools and resources
Next week we’ll delve into the free multi-tasking social media tools we recommend to make your efforts more streamlined and efficient. But this week we want to focus on a more holistic solution to the problems so many business owners face, including:
- Not having enough time
- Getting lost in the details
- Cutting corners to save time
- Thinking the “Grass is Always Greener”
We don’t look to the smartest marketer in the world for our solution, nor the hottest trending article on the internet. We are inspired by the simplest role model we can find: Winnie the Pooh.
If you have never read The Tao of Pooh, we highly recommend it for YOU and your business! In this book, Benjamin Hoff follows the classic characters of Winnie the Pooh to tell an allegorical tale of living in harmony with the flow of nature. The wisdom and truths in this book will help you stop fighting against the forces of nature and become a happier, more effective business owner, business decision maker, manager, team leader, and human being.
Here are a few of the inspiring themes we hope will impact you on a personal and professional level:
SIMPLICITY
Benjamin Hoff chose Winnie the Pooh as the subject of his allegory for a reason: Pooh is a simple animal (it’s a good thing). “Simple” doesn’t mean stupid or ignorant. “Simple” means empty.
Empty of stress.
Empty of expectations.
Empty of distractions.
Empty of anxieties.
An open mind, ready to receive.
“The surest way to become Tense, Awkward, and Confused is to develop a mind that tries too hard – one that thinks too much.” (Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh)
“The masters of life know the way, for they listen to the voice within them, the voice of wisdom and simplicity, the voice that reasons beyond cleverness and knows beyond knowledge.” (Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh)
A successful company is not the one that knows the most or has the highest number of higher education degrees among their staff. A company that becomes a timeless success is deeply in tune – with their own voice, with the flow of the industry, with their value, with their strengths, with their weaknesses.
In other words, intuition is an entrepreneur’s simplest and greatest tool.
TIME
The Tao of Pooh encourages us not to fight the passing of time.
“The main problem with this great obsession for saving time is very simple: you can’t save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.” (Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh)
You can try as hard as you can to fight against the clock, but it will continue ticking. Instead, you have the power and responsibility to choose how you will spend the hours of your day. What is most worthy of your time? What should you delegate to others? What should you cut away?
Time is moving. It’s time to embrace and move with it.
BUSINESS IS THE JOURNEY
Your life and your business are happening right now – how have you chosen to experience the journey?
“A way of life that keeps saying ‘Around the next corner, above the next step,’ works against the natural order of things and makes it so difficult to be happy and good.” (Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh)
“Do you really want to be happy? You can begin by being appreciative of who you are and what you’ve got.” (Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh)
Are you joyful and grateful in the present, or impatiently anticipating greener grass? Are you reserving your contentment for the next big sale…or setting all your hopes on a “fast track” program that cuts corners instead of enjoying the process of steady, diligent growth?
Make no mistake, we at FMP believe in setting intentions or goals for ourselves and focusing our efforts and energy on making those intentions come to life, and we encourage our clients to do the same. But that doesn’t mean we should LIVE for the goal at the expense of the present. Setting goals means you will happily and purposely walk in the direction you have consciously chosen.
And keep in mind that no matter what goals you set, you are just as happy and wise now as you will be when you reach your goal. Nothing on the other side of the dream will make you more content than you are in this present moment. To put it another way, if you aren’t happy now, no amount of money or higher status will magically bring you lasting inner joy.
“Wisdom, Happiness, and Courage are not waiting somewhere out beyond sight at the end of a straight line; they’re part of a continuous cycle that begins right here. They’re not only the ending, but the beginning as well.” (Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh)
OWN YOUR WEAKNESSES
(And Use Them for Success!)
Surely you know someone who has been brought down by their Achilles heel – a weakness in the company that a competitor found and leveraged for their own gain.
Learn what your weaknesses are, appreciate them, and figure out how they can be helpful.
“But rather than be carried along by circumstances and manipulated by those who can see the weaknesses and behavior tendencies that we ignore, we can work with our own characteristics and be in control of our own lives. The Way of Self-Reliance starts with recognizing who we are, what we’ve got to work with, and what works best for us.” (Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh)
“Sooner or later, we are bound to discover some things about ourselves that we don’t like. But once we see they’re there, we can decide what we want to do with them. Do we want to get rid of them completely, change them into other things, or use them in beneficial ways? The last two approaches are often especially Useful, since they avoid head on conflict, and therefore minimize struggle. Also, they allow those transformed characteristics to be added to the list of things we have that help us out.
In a similar manner, instead of struggling to erase what are referred to as negative emotions, we can learn to use them in positive ways. We could describe the principle like this: while pounding on the piano keys may produce noise, removing them doesn’t exactly further the creation of music.” (Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh)
Use What You Have
Here’s a secret: you already have everything you need to get where you want to go! We have seen so many clients stunt their own success because they are so focused on trying to obtain everything their competitor has that’s out of their reach.
“You complain that your tree is not valuable as lumber. But you could make use of the shade it provides, rest under its sheltering branches, and stroll beneath it, admiring its character and appearance. Since it would not be endangered by an axe, what could threaten its existence? It is useless to you only because you want to make it into something else and do not use it in its proper way.” (Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh)
This is only the beginning! If you liked this post, you will LOVE The Tao of Pooh. Read it from cover-to-cover for professional and personal inspiration.
We’ll leave you with our favorite poem from this powerful, simple book:
How can you get very far
If you don’t know Who You Are?
How can you do what you ought
If you don’t know What You’ve Got?
And if you don’t know Which To Do
Of all the things in front of you,
Then what you’ll have when you get through
Is just a mess without a clue
Of all the best that can come true
If you know What and Which and Who.
Recent Comments