Last night just before midnight my daughter working in Africa called.  She’s the only one who ever calls me at that hour, fortunately for me.

Where she is  email is unreliable.  I actually do better keeping up with her on Facebook, so when she makes a post I get to see it along with all her other friends.

But for news, she usually calls me.  Or if she needs me to do something for her.  And then I get to relay the info to her grandmother (my mother).  It’s like a short phone tree.

This is a determined, beautiful young lady who has worked hard and long to get where she is – the post doc position in Nigeria is a stepping-stone for the next place in her life, which is to be back in the city where she has done all her graduate work, except for the research in Israel for her thesis.

She was offered a great position and she’s going to take it.  She’ll still get to travel internationally, which is something she’s a real pro at doing.  Maybe she and Mom and I can go on another trip together.  The ones to Africa and Galapagos were fantastic.  And she and I went to the Chilean Fjords for her PhD present, also awesome.

Maybe she’ll meet a nice fellow up to her standards and I’ll finally get to be a grandma.

Isn’t that why we raise kids in the first place?  To be able to play with the grandkids and then give them back?  That sounds like the best of both worlds to me.

Hoping you have good news for Independence Day yourself -

Wendy Weber, the Singing Network Marketer

I’ve recently discovered what a great asset the Facebook social network is for keeping up with people. 

It really is the only way to know what is going on with my daughter working in Nigeria.  And I just added an old school friend whom I see whenever I visit my mother in Chicago.

I just read that her husband had been in a cycling accident and I was able to sent my get well wishes.  I wouldn’t have known that if we did not connect in that social networking site.

My mother taught me to write letters and send hand written thank you notes.  I still send the “thank yous” in writing by mail, but keeping up by letter is a huge time drag.  Even my mother emails these days, as my daughter made her get a computer and learn.  I sometimes have to go into her email and help her straighten it out, but by-and-large she does pretty well, and she’s in her upper 80’s.

I have to laugh when people in their 50’s tell me they’re much to old to learn!

I had gone for months not looking at Facebook.  I rarely go into Myspace.  I do Facebook more regularly now and need to get back to the many friends I made on Myspace.  I also “tweet” on Twitter, which shows up on Facebook.

I have even set up a Facebook account for my other daughter.  We talk nearly every day.  She does not type or have access to the internet except at my house.  I plan to have her tell me what she wants to say and we’ll get her going.

I wonder if I should set up account for the birds, meaning my blue-headed pionus parrots Sueño and Gracie.  The former has a page on Birdchannel.com, the web site of Bird Talk magazine.  He’s on most of my business cards and labels and even on this blog.  He’s in some of my YouTube videos.  He’s a star – why not?

Great place to network, whether for personal or for business.  It’s, well, networking.

Wishing you great use out of your Facebook account,

Wendy Weber, The Singing Network Marketer

Believe it or not, not everyone in the world cares about the death of Michael Jackson.

I don’t.  My boyfriend doesn’t.  Except for the Jackson Five performances on TV when I was little (I love harmony) I did not like Jackson’s music.  I’m sorry for the family’s loss, but that’s it.

My supervisor at my job informed me of Jackson’s death.  I was somewhat surprised because of his age, but was not thrown into the depths of despair.  Everyone around me was surprised at my reaction.

My eldest mentioned him on a post in Facebook.  She likes his music.  That’s fine for her.

Will anyone care when we lose Itzhak Perlman or Yo Yo Ma?  Or other great classical performers?  I will also be sad to lose some of the great folk singers and Broadway musical stars.  Maybe some of you will, too.

I respectfully reserve the right not to mourn Michael Jackson or listen to any of his music.

This does not make me a bad person, just, perhaps, different from you.

Wendy Weber

Last week Leila and I went with our friend  Carol to see the Paradise Valley Community College (PVCC) production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Into the  Woods which intertwines different fairy tale stories and has some moral lessons to make.

I happen to really enjoy this show because of the clever weaving together of the stories.  Carol and I both have seen it before.  Leila had not seen it but was familiar with the songs from the CD I have played in my car.  She loved it.

What really struck me was the teamwork involved with putting on any kind of a show.  Everybody has to be working in concert with each other or it won’t work.  We’re talking about the actors, the director, the stage manager, prop people, costume folks, lighting and audio people, and the musical director and orchestra or band.  Wow!  It’s awesome when it all works.  They practice and test and rehearse and test a lot before the performances.  Also, if the performance needs to be tweaked, they then work together to do it better.  Oh, and then there’s the audience – there’s no real show without the audience!

Anyway, I do a lot of things solo, but also a lot in concert with others.  There’s my job – we all take phone calls, but the team works together to help each other and do activities as a team.

My network marketing team works together – there’s no way to really make it big without teamwork.  I love our team training calls – I don’t feel alone and I learn so much as well as contribute myself.

I’m looking forward to more shows next year with my Phoenix Theatre season tickets, concerts that my boyfriend Bob plays in, any other shows or concerts that I want to attend, and my own network marketing team.

And it’s all fun – has to be, I’m a blue personality!

Wishing you teamwork in your life,

Wendy Weber

Recently I had been dealing with a case of the shingles, an illness that people who’ve had the chicken pox can get later, usually triggered by stress of some sort.  That’s what happened to me.  It’s at best an uncomfortable illness and at worst excruciating.  Being somewhere in the not-as-bad-as-it-could-be part of the spectrum, I still suffered and had pain, burning, and itiching of the skin.

The physician’s assistant who diagnosed me prescribed an anti-viral medication.  I did not get any other advice.  So I contacte my network marketing team and also the product specialist at my company and received a supplementation regimen and also a recommendation to take a lysine supplement to keep down the argenine in my diet.  I googled this and verified that lysine starves viruses and argenine, which has some great benefits for the body, also feeds viruses.  I eliminated temporarily the foods that are high in argenine and concentrated on the ones that are high in lysine.

I did not miss a day of work, but did suffer, as I do not like to take pain medication and only took it when the discomfort got bad enough to get some relief.  Actually, lying down helped and heat to the affected area on my body helped.

When I finally saw my own doctor and mentioned about the lysine – she knew why that was.  I do not believe she would have recommended it, though.  Medical doctors say they get in trouble with the AMA when they talk about natural remedies. 

Good thing I had my own knowledgeable team who, in a sense, mentored me through my illness.

It put me in mind that the mentors I have relationships for my network marketing career are valuable and prescious to me.  I don’t have to make the mistakes they made, although, if I’m not listening or believing them, I could fall into some of those traps.  But I don’t have to.  I can make other mistakes while I am moving forward and then share these so that my team doesn’t have to make them. 

The world changes so fast.  There is so much to do and to know.  That’s why mentors are so important.  This is not a business you can do in isolation.

Wishing you the knowledge that an experienced mentor is golden for your network marketing success,

Wendy Weber

Some common sense is required for network marketing success.  What happens to so many people is that when approached with a presentation that’s glitzy, hits all the right buttons, i.e., the desire to help people, the opportunity to make unlimited amounts of money, the ability to retire in five minutes, people tend to let common sense fly away.

I was thinking about this today.  I’ve been battling a case of the “shingles”, which is an illness that people can get who have had the chicken pox and is generally caused by stress.  It’s a painful, uncomfortable illness that can drag on for weeks and can show up in different parts of the body in different people.

My network marketing company has great products and my daughter and I use many of them and generally keep very healthy.  But this illness is usually a result of stress that causes the bit of the virus lingering in a nerve ganglion to flare up, cause pain and an ugly rash. 

Well, I had to visit the doctor to get diagnosed, because I didn’t know what the rash was.  I was recommended to take an anti-viral medicine, which I did, as well as an enhanced supplement protocol recommended by the supplement guru at our company to help defeat the virus sooner.  I’m not crazy – I will use medical intervention when appropriate, which is not often, but I will do what I believe is necessary.  As Michael Dlouhy would say, I’m a “critical thinker”.

Well, I’m lots better and the pain has gone away and the big scab on my back finally came off.  I’ve been managing the rash with my products to keep up a level of comfort while it diminishes.  Well, the rash started to itch and is spreading again, so I’m going to pick up some anti-viral topical cream on the way home from work.  I’ll still do my supplement regimen, though.

Did I mention I’m itching like crazy?

So the point I’m making is that I’m using common sense for what I think should work for me.  I think that generally I will try all the natural, non-invasive rememdies I can find, but if that does not work, I will seek medical care. 

As in health, common sense needs to be used in selecting and working a network marketing business.  Do your do diligence.  Don’t take anyone’s glitzy word for it, as much as you want to believe.  Read your policies and procedures.  Know how many people it takes ordering regularly for you to make $10,000 a month (or whatever amount you desirie).   We’re not talking about the sign-up bonus.  That’s a one-time occurrence.

Do you want to retire?  You can only do that on recurring income, income you get over and over again for work you did once.

Use your common sense – get educated, and it doesn’t have to cost any money – before you throw your body and soul into a business that will fail later – or sooner!

Wishing you common sense for your network marketing success.

Have you decided to choose a positive attitude for network marketing success?

W. Clement Stone said:

“There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference.  That little difference is attitude.  The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.”

We learn through the 30  Day Mental Cleanse and many other sources that you can only have a positive or a negative attitude at one time.  You cannot have both.

We all struggle with this.  It’s not that difficult to turn a negative thought into a positive one.  But first comes awareness that the thought is a negative one.

It usually takes time and practice to become aware of things we  do on a regular basis.  Does awareness of  negative vs positive thoughts seem daunting?

Why not try this:  Be aware of your breathing.  Most of us are shallow breathers most of the time.  We do not routinely take a deep breath unless we sigh or do physical activity.  Or sing. 

Practice doing some deep breathing; breathe in deeply throuth the nose for 10 to 20 counts and then blow out forcefully through your mouth.  Do this a few times and see how it feels.  Be aware of how it feels.

Then start to be aware of your thoughts.  Can’t remember to do that?  Write up a few sticky notes and place them around to remind you.  Eventually it will become a habit.  You can think your way into a positive attitude.

Wishing you the awareness to choose a positive attitude for network marketing success,

Wendy Weber, the Singing Network Marketer

It can take a good while to begin to see progress in network marketing.  I’ve learned to be positive and have faith and trust for network marketing success.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is.”

- Albert Einstein

Thank you Dr. Einstein.  This fits right in with this week’s lesson with the Mental Cleanse Mastermind on faith as well as this week’s lesson in my Mussar class which is on trust.

My Mussar program, which is about 1000 years old, has a lesson that “trust is build on a foundation of faith, since you won’t be able to trust God if you don’t feel that God is a presence and a factor in your life.”  Also, “strong trust makes you brave.”

Now, in the Mental Cleanse program the force to trust isn’t necessarily God – some people don’t believe in God and that is okay.  But the universe is another view, since I’ve come to believe and have faith that there is something greater than I or the world.

I had to learn to have faith – Napoleon Hill says that “faith is the head chemist of the mind.  When faith is blended with thought, the subconscious mind instantly picks up the vibration, translates it into its spiritual equivalent, and transmits it ti Infinite Intelligence, as in the case of prayer.”

Faith can be developed, as I managed it, through autosuggestion and repetition of the idea or concept you want your subconscious mind to believe – it believes what you tell it, whether true or false, whether positive or negative.  I might as well give it something positive to believe.

Once I understood I was the mistress of my own fate and what I told myself and came to believe about myself created my outcome, things started to turn around for me.

There is a story in the Mussar readings that a family singled out and sent to Siberia was thought to be unlucky.  However, that family survived the Holocost, because the other families were rounded up and sent to the death camps.  We never know what the outcome will be; we rarely know the whole story.

This has been a particularly valuable ability for me to learn: if something bad or frustratiing happens to me, I thank God and am grateful, because I am certain there is a reason.  I’m supposed to go later and meet someone or avoid an accident.  I’m supposed to see something that would not have occurred earlier.  If I don’t get something I wanted I wasn’t supposed to have it – it would have been a disaster or there is something better out there for me.

This saves me from a lot of anger and frustration and I have definitely been saved from things I’m not supposed to have which would have caused me bad consequences.  Has any of that happened to you?

Wishing you the ability to have faith and trust for network marketing success,

Wendy Weber, the Singing Network Marketer