10 ideas to help you listen actively:

1. Put your own preconceived ideas aside, as well as any attempt to interpret.
2. Be physically available.
3. Let your interlocutor express himself/herself without interrupting.
4. Ask open questions.
5. Stimulate him or her to specify his point if you think it is needed.
6. Give him or her lots of visual and verbal signs of interest.
7. Rephrase his points of view in his or her words, then in your own.
8. Leave blanks.
9. Show empathy.
10. Keep neutral and benevolent.

Don’t forget to listen and show respect for your interlocutor, if you want this respect to be mutual!

1. The energy is centered on yourself; the other person perceives your will to convince him or her. There is nothing else to say except that he or she is forced to react, not to act, if he or she wants to communicate.
2. The energy is essentially centered on the other person. He or she finds himself/herself in the position of the actor, called upon to express himself/herself and to advance his or her own point of view.

A lot of communication problems can be resolved by realizing how this attitude reversal guarantees a much more profitable exchange. It is important to have a high regard for your interlocutor, at the risk, if you omit to do so, of competing against much more efficient systems than human relationships. Communication requires that you really care for the other without losing your own point of view and sensibility, as well as try to find an agreement fitting both.

Two qualities set people who shape their lives apart from those who allow their own lives to control them. These two characteristics, which will make the difference in your ability to make your goals become reality, are self-discipline and a positive attitude. The last one is one of the most powerful resources in the world. Someone’s attitude can have a positive or negative influence on all the aspects of his or her life. It has an impact on relationships, self-image, will to undertake and of course highly influences your ability to face difficult situations.

For example, men and women who try to adopt a good attitude and keep it, will eventually succeed better than others. The question is how to acquire such a positive attitude? You need to view your attitude as one of your most precious assets and take the greatest care of it.

Almost everybody succeeds in looking at the bright side of life when everything’s fine, on the other hand, we often get discouraged when things do not turn out the way we expected them to. Be aware that only you are responsible for your mental attitude; focus on the things that go well!

Just like self-discipline and attitude, the will to honor your commitments towards yourself will have a positive attitude in your relational marketing business as well as in your life.

Success implies personal commitment in order to do what’s necessary to inspire, train and guide the people who will follow you and your company!
- Joe Rubino

We are now entering an era of entrepreneurship. Newly voted laws have resulted in leveling the playground, but still, the changes that are taking place on a technological level are clearly tipping the scales in favor of every single entrepreneur. Home-based companies in network marketing are one of the most rapidly growing components of our economy; and this tendency will keep growing.

Keep in mind that there are several elements to consider before embarking on an MLM-business. Have a look at them here.

“How many stones do you think could fit into the bowl?”

Every student makes his own guess; after which the teacher fills the bowl with stones and asks his students again:

“Is the bowl full?”

Since it was hard to fit the last stone into the bowl, every student is eager to approve. Next, the teacher begins to smile and takes a out a bag full of gravel, out of which he manages to pour some in the space left over between the stones.

“Is the bowl full?” he asks again.

Given that they don’t want to be deluded twice, the students are wary and reply in the negative. And they were right to do so, as the teacher promptly takes a water jug and manages to pour almost half of its content into the bowl.

At last, he asks:

“What do you think did I want to make you understand?”

“That even if we think our schedule is tight, it’s always possible to find time for other tasks, especially AFTER having taken your class!” shouts one of the students.

The teacher smiles again in amusement, but kindly sends him packing

“No, What I wanted to show you was that, if I had not chosen to put the bigger stones first, I would not have been able to put them afterwards, because there wouldn’t have been any space left.”

The bigger stones being, of course, the more important things…

And for any businessman, the important things – in his professional life of course – are the things that will generate money. Not because he is attracted by profit only, but because he is aware of his own value and of the value of time.

“Allow your vision of success to act in the same way as a ground wire does for a lightning rod. The negative things that inevitably occur in life and business strike at your thoughts just as the lightning strikes the lightning rod. But no matter how powerful the bolt, its force is neutralized because the ground wire carries the negativity always harmlessly.” (Joe Rubino)

When confronted with disappointment, the average individual wavers and ends up accepting his or her failure. However, if you keep your dream alive every day, you will find it much easier to react in situations that could influence your attitude in a negative way. Keep in mind that failures are only temporary.

• Determine who are your best associates, the ones that make up the 20% mentioned above.
• Devote 80% of your meetings to that 20% of your best associates. Grant them 80% of your training budget.
• Determine which 20% of your working field yields 80% of results, and train an assistant to take care of the 80% remaining tasks that are less productive. By doing so, you will be free to carry out the tasks at which you are highly capable.
• Ask the 20% of your best associates to give on-the-job training to the next 20% of your associates.

The question you could ask yourself is: “How can I identify the influential members of my company?” I suggest you make up a list of each of your associates. Then ask yourself the following question about every single one of them: “If this person carries out a negative act towards you, or stops supporting me, what would be the impact of if upon me and my company?” If you cannot keep your freedom of action, tick the box next to the associate’s name. At the end of the list, you will have ticked about 15 or 20% of the names. These constitute vital relationships, upon which you have to build and invest the resources necessary to the growth of the company.