Hi everyone! So today’s exercise in bettering myself is one where I was asked 3 questions. I’ll share them with you (along with my answers) and maybe you can do the exercise yourself.

1. Am I stuck in a rut? If so, which ones?

Hmm…stuck in a rut. Well, I think I definitely WAS about a week ago when I posted that really blah post. But now? Not really. I think I got out of it. The only ruts I’m in are in my personal life. I’m in a health rut.  Not that I’m unhealthy. My medical stats are better than ever. Low cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, etc.

I feel healthy. I eat healthy for the most part – tons of fruits and vegetables (but yes I do have some Cokes and sweets too). No meat (I’m a vegetarian).

Yet I have energy enough to be productive but actual movement is my rut. Just walking from the parking lot to the school makes me out of breath. THAT can’t be good!

So I’m in a movement rut. I am productive around the house (not much movement there doing dishes or laundry). I’m productive in work (sitting on the couch). So I need to make a plan to move more.

It’s not about weight loss or beauty. It’s about being able to walk from my car to the first grade room and not be so out of breath I can’t talk. That’s humiliating.

2. Do I fear change? Fear success? Fear becoming someone different, even though I long to BE different? Why?

Hmm. I usually do fear change. I’m conflicted because I do want to grow into a big name/leader, but that means more scrutiny and pressure to do things out of my comfort zone. I’m a hermit. That doesn’t do over well with me. I do push myself, but not at a pace that’s uncomfortable for me.

3. What self-improvement techniques have I tried before? Why did they work or not work?

I’ve seen counselors in the past for self esteem. They all sucked. My nutritionist is the person who actually boosted my self confidence, oddly enough. Her nutritional advice branched out and affected every part of my life. I feel like she saved me from depression just giving me permission to be fine being me.

I’ve read self help books. Snore. Even the one I’m reading now is all about the author. I like the callouts in the sidebars that have exercises. (Like this one).

I tend to learn from experiences. Sometimes someone influences me in a way that makes me think about things and change or fine tune my opinions.

I do love the mind maps I’ve been doing now.  I’m a mind map machine. I log in and have the tab open all day, toggling back and forth.

Overall, I think  I have guts enough to kick my own ass and better myself in some ways. Some things I just haven’t found a solution for yet.

I know I used to be lazy with housework. Now I’m doing laundry, the whole kitchen, vacuuming, picking up, etc. AND working. AND working on my relationships.

Some day I will find my perfect solution for adding movement into my day. I’ve tried doing video games (on Kinect). I’ve tried joining gyms (got there at 3 AM every morning for awhile to work out with a personal trainer). I’ve tried getting a zoo membership so I could walk the Ft. Worth zoo, but it’s out of my way and I hated driving over there. I hate workout videos with a passion. I did the walking with the hubby thing, but I prefer solo workouts.

I don’t know my solution yet. I do know when it comes to business, I’m gutsy in being vocal. I’m gutsy in standing up against wrong. I’m NOT gutsy with technical change. Shiver! I am gutsy with trying new things (just takes me 2 years to get used to the ideas).

What about you? Got guts? No guts?

Tiff

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Hi everyone! I’m reading several self help books (more as resources to help me teach confidence than for personal growth), but of course it always winds up with me learning things myself, too. One of the exercises I did today I felt like sharing with you. Maybe you can do the exercise, too.

When we, as marketers need to grow, we look up to other people – we want someone to be our guide. So it’s important for you to look at your life-long influencers to see who you let affect you (good or bad) and in what ways.

I took a look at my top 4 influencers in my life. Not all were good. Here’s what I discovered during this exercise…in no particular order.

Influencer #1

My Mom. Growing up, I always viewed my Mom as this powerful woman. She won awards for her writing. Men fell all over her (she was thin and tan and blonde and beautiful). Her writing – both fiction and non-fiction – was just so inspiring to me. She mostly influenced me in a positive way.

She made me strive to better myself professionally and in the talent department. That’s what has helped me become the writer and marketer I am today.

Not everything was positive, though. My Mom was an influence to me in two negative ways – and now I try to be her influence against this. As a child, I watched her (and still do) always be worried about her appearance. Always dieting, even when she was a breath-taking perfect beauty. That rubbed off on me.

She also dragged out negative relationships, crossing her fingers and hoping they’d get better when the other person wasn’t worthy of her. That rubbed off on me, too.

Luckily, the fact that she raised me to be a strong woman in other ways, I’ve been able to kindly accept myself and stop putting myself down in the looks department. She didn’t teach me this, but she did make me strong enough to accept the lesson when it was presented to me. She also has helped me to see past relationship issues in my own life, even if she was blind to her own.

Influencer #2

My kids. I was a party animal before Dylan was born. I was golfing and going to college, but really had no desire for anything in the success department. I just kind of went through life doing whatever. It wasn’t until he was born that I “got it” – I understood what life was all about then.

From that point on, I made Dean’s list in college. I busted my ass in all work-related things – not just because I wanted to give him everything life has to offer, but because I wanted to be a good role model for him. My kids today see me putting them first. If I didn’t love them so much, who knows if I’d work hard to ensure they had tuition to a good school or healthy, homemade meals. They make me a better person.

Instead of not caring about what’s going on in the world elsewhere or locally, their existence has influenced me to care more about humans in general. I look at someone and I know that they’re someone else’s little Dylan or Shawn or Scarlett. Even if that person is 90 years old – they’re someone’s child. My kids have been a total good influence on me.

Influencer #3

My mentor. Craig stepped into my life at JUST the right moment. I was at that success breaking point, where I was being courted by all the big names. It was finally my chance to cash in! Boy that’s tempting.

But Craig kept my mind steady. He assured me that I could do these things without pairing up with the wrong people. He taught me how to keep my ethics and morals intact. He solidified my faith in good people…people who just do good because it’s the right thing to do.

Craig knows there are times I disagree with him. He never pushes me, but he doesn’t back down on his own stance, either. I’m the same way. He has been a 100% good influence on me.

Influencer #4

My dad. I love my dad, but his influence was both positive and negative in my life. He tried to buy love, which wasn’t necessary. I grew up knowing that if I asked for something, he’d find a way to give it to me, and that makes me look back on myself as a spoiled brat at times. I hate feeling that way about myself. It was what I was taught.

Even after dad was in a drunk driving wreck with me, (I was 11 and we got broadsided by an 18-wheeler because dad blew through a stop sign), he continued to drink and drive.  At age 16, he’d hand over the keys to his brand new Mercedes and stock it with wine coolers and Everclear so I could have a party night on the town. I was 16 – with a lot of friends telling me how COOL that was – who was I to turn that down? I eventually smartened up on my own. My dad? He has alcohol-induced dementia from drinking himself into too many stupors.

But there are ways my dad was a very positive influence in my life. He was always a gentle, loving dad. Even though he made poor parenting decisions, I never questioned his true love for me. He was an older dad, and I’ve seen some dads be impatient with their kids. Not my dad. No matter what, he would stop what he was doing to help me if I needed it. He was protective of me in other ways, making sure nobody brought harm to me. He made sure (along with my Mom) that all my needs were met and that I was sent to a good school.

Business-wise, my dad taught me something fundamental. Don’t hurt people. He was an insurance salesman and would always watch out for his customers, letting them know if they did NOT need something (he could have easily pushed it on them). He would refuse to sell them a policy if it would mean a financial hardship. He sought out truly good companies to work for – he never worked for an unscrupulous one.

What does this tell me about my influencers of choice?

They don’t have to be perfect. They just have to have the right intentions. Sometimes, their mere existence is enough to change my world (like my kids). Sometimes their mistakes, which aren’t introduced to me with bad intent, are lessons in my life to help make me a better person (like my parents).

I don’t regret the mistakes my parents made because it eventually helped me improve my own life. The kind of influencers I seek out have to have a good heart. That’s all I ask of people – a kind, loving heart for others.

It’s why, when I get contacted by many JV partners, I simply ignore the communication or reply with a no thanks – because the heart isn’t showing through. That’s a necessity for me.

Tony Robbins is sort of an influencer for me. He’s made some mistakes, too. I see him getting involved in some “business stuff” that looks like money makers only. Like some of the work at home ventures he’s been seen on. But overall, I think the man behind it all is someone who cares about people. I hope that his involvement is more a fault of business managers steering him in his vast corporation rather than him okaying something I think isn’t 100% good for people.

So who are your top influencers? Who makes your world better or worse? Influence isn’t always a good thing. I remember smoking a cigarette for the first time in THIRD grade because my best friend wanted me to. That’s when stores let you walk in and claim you were buying them for your Mom. Thank God I never took it up as a habit.

Look at your influencers and see why you let people in. If you can see a common denominator among your influencers, it might help you see how you allow people to make an impact on your life. For me, it’s intention and heart. For some, it might be power and pressure.

Tiff

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Hi everyone! Yesterday someone (a scumbag) emailed me in a real blatant scumbag manner asking me a question. It was one of things where, I hate to bring it up because then it teaches more thieves how to be a thief. But at the same time, it needs to be addressed to help you prevent theft!

The email I got was from someone who wanted to know WHY he should buy my PLR when all he had to do was just look at the titles in my PLR article packs, do a search for them and find them to copy free online.

I wonder if it was Scumbag Steve here to the left (Google it if you aren’t familiar).

Well aside from him being a &^%^$@ THIEF (grrrrrrrrrr!!!), which he obviously didn’t care about, I pointed out that he doesn’t know if what he finds is something that’s been edited by the former PLR buyer or if they’re using it as is.

So for instance, he might go search a title from my PLR Mini Mart store and find several people using that content. He wants to swipe it and bypass paying me for my hard work. But let’s put that aside. Let’s say it was YOUR blog that he found. But you, being the good PLR buyer that you are, had altered that article significantly.

Yet you left the title intact.

Oops. This guy might swipe your content, thinking it was just PLR anyway and how would you know?

Creeps like this piss me off. Someone who informs you they’re a thief up front isn’t worth helping, but I can help YOU.

Anytime you buy PLR, most of what we include are the PLR pack name, title and word count. YOU need to do yourself a favor by changing the title of your PLR article if nothing else. That thief can’t see the actual article, just the title – so don’t give him any ammunition to dilute the PLR pack you just bought with his lack of ethics.

God I swear I wish the Earth could be rid of idiots like this. I get SO angry.

I’m very grateful to you guys for being such honest, ethical people. It may take us longer to succeed (it did me), and we may not make some sort of quick money grab by scamming people, but we also won’t be the focus of some federal investigation, worry about going to jail, and just have to live with ourselves being scumbags.

Tiff

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Hi everyone! I swear I don’t know when this happened but at some point in my life, every single thing started being filtered through my “marketing mindset.”

When I say everything I mean EVERYthing.

For instance, I was watching Mad Men this week during my lunch (it’s a new guilty addiction and I’m just now on Season 2 so don’t spoil anything for me) and as I’m watching, I’m not just enjoying it. I’m analyzing it with my marketing mind.

When the ad reps meet to discuss the lipstick campaign, I sit there watching how Peggy gets into the mindset of women consumers. She bucks the advice of showing a rainbow of lipstick colors because women don’t just want to be one of many – they want to be THE one.  They want to “mark their man.”

So true…

And then when Don Draper was having guilt pangs about the company not being loyal to Mohawk Airlines, I was sitting there thinking, “You’re not loyal to your WIFE, but you’ll worry about client loyalty?”

Then it hit me … he caved in the end. It immediately made me reflect on how I analyze marketers when I look for trust issues. I DO look at their personal life to some degree. Some are so phony. I know one marketer who plays up his religion yet he’s screwed me out of a lot of commissions. Such a Godly thing to do. I’ll bet he cheats on his wife, too.

There are so many “do gooder” marketers who really DO have a line they cross when the money’s just right. They’ll compromise their ethics in a heartbeat if it’s a good enough opportunity for them. Same with Don Draper. He couldn’t pass up American Airlines in the end.

I do this all the time. In the store or newspaper or on TV – if I see some ad that’s blatant spammy nonsense, I eye roll. I instantly picture the marketing department with their “whiteboard rooms” (remember when every “cool kids club” marketer had to post a pic of their room with one whole wall as a whiteboard? lol) thinking of how they can rip off consumers with weight loss lies.

I guess it makes me a little more consumer savvy.

But it also has a detrimental effect, too. There really is bliss in ignorance in some cases. Just once I’d like to sit through an episode of Mad Men and not see some genius marketing move or compare their lack of ethics with someone I know in our marketing world.

Kind of draining. I just want mind-numbing TV once in awhile.

Oh well. I’ll chalk it up to being a hazard of the job.

Do y’all do this or am I being obsessive all by my lonesome?

Tiff

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