finance

Network Marketing: Good or Bad?

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Now here’s a subject that will strike a nerve with most people, so don’t take any offense to this but it’s something that I have had on my mind for a while. To clarify I am a fan of network marketing, and as controversial as it may be it is incredibly important to business now and in the future. Businesses like network marketing operate at a scale that is above what most people consider to be an option, kind of like preparing your food before your week start to guarantee your success in your diet like with Quick Paleo Meal Prep. Again before we get into this I would like to ask you to keep an open mind and consider the possibilities of options outside of your situation, and how branching out could lead to great things!

MY EXPERIENCE IN NETWORK MARKETING

I was always one who had a hard time considering businesses who recruited and sold, like network marketing, as legitimate businesses. When I heard about friends who started working with a company and wanted me to watch a presentation I would always nervously respond with a vague answer like “yea, that sounds good” or “hmm that’s interesting”. But I later realized that the only reason that I really didn’t have the same passion for what they were offering me was that I wasn’t interested in what they were selling. Most of the time those companies were pushing supplements that could be found at the grocery store for 80% less and you wouldn’t be harassed about setting up recurring orders to lock you in. However, I encountered a company that struck a cord with me, Primerica Financial Services and this company, if you haven’t heard of it before, is about getting people out of debt along with providing life insurance as well as investments. They also handle car and home owner insurance as well as long term care, they have the financial world by the throat essentially. And this was something I could be passionate about! I started as fast as I could and learned all I could about the company and what it took to be successful with them, which didn’t take much convincing because the top earners were pulling in about 4 million per year! Sadly after 2 years of giving it everything I had I came up short and with little results, or so I thought.

WHAT I LEARNED

I am still with the company and am passionate about investments, but I have found alternate ways to make passive income and develop myself as a business owner. And I have Primerica to thank for it, I would have been stuck in the same dead in job chasing a paycheck and doing my best to just survive if I had not been introduced to this company! After coming to know Primerica and the joys of being paid with passive income, I quickly learned how to work hard and develop other avenues that would benefit others while providing a source of income for my family that allows me to be around more. I learned that these companies are around as a sales force for the larger companies they work with, and offer a REAL opportunity for those who are willing to work. The only problem is, and this was my problem as well. most people just don’t want to work! Most of these companies have an incredible system in place, and if you just run the system you will win, and if not then you won’t which I know all to well. However, I would not trade my employment with Primerica for anything! I learned so much and made so many friends who are now winning in life as well.

IF BUSINESS IS YOUR GOAL

I would HIGHLY recommend you find a local Network Marketing company that you can be passionate about, if you’re not passionate then you won’t be able to gain anything monetarily or emotionally from the experience. Find a company that fits your interest and stick with it for up to two years, and don’t give up because you just might make it! Don’t join a company with the goal of quitting and saying you did it, but give it everything you have and learn all they can teach you about being a moral and ethical person in the business world. You will learn so much that carries over into learning a different business, not to mention that if you get uncomfortable there like they teach you that you won’t have any trouble at all handling rejection of any kind! So if you know you want to be a business owner in the future then go join a company and get out of your comfort zone! I’m not paid a dime to say any of this, but I want you to experience what it’s like to push and grind without knowing if what you’re doing is going to pay off, to go up to strangers and ask for help, to go talk to people and be in situations you would never have thought you’d be in before. I believe in you because I know the impact it can have on your life, and the person it can transform you into! Just do it and have fun with it already!

YOUR CHALLENGE

If business is truly your goal then make time to look into a network marketing company to work with and learn from. Find one you’re passionate about and join, and DON’T LET MONEY STOP YOU, If you’re doing it for money then why is money also your reason to not do it?? Just join and connect yourself to leaders and learn business in the trenches, you might not be there forever but you’ll learn more about yourself and others than you could imagine!

RESOURCES: Primerica, Barbell Business, Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump, entrepreneur.com

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Attack Your Weakness

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We all have kinks in our armour that we are aware of, whether it’s emotionally, physically or mentally no one is completely immune. Realizing this truth alone will be enough to catapult you far enough, but if you’re wanting to reach every bit of your potential then that requires change. And the best change is usually with your diet, we are only well from the inside out. The book Quick Paleo Meal Prep is a great resource to get your life back in line with your goals, by making failure impossible by removing the bad choices. Once you’ve realized these shortcomings then you have taken action, you will be amazed at what you’re truly capable of! 
LOOK AT YOURSELF 


Too often we are afraid to stand in front of a mirror for longer than ten seconds for fear that we might notice all our imperfections. Instead of seeing these things to work on as “flaws”, look at them as an item on the to-do list. Do this with your physical body first, and then you will learn how to spot things as something to work on and not a disaster. Once you’ve mastered this I would suggest taking time out to look at what most of your days consist of. I know when I did this I realized I was wasting 60% of my day with nothing…it was a sad reality :/. But you have the opportunity every day to look at the last few days, and analyze the choices you made and how that helped you or if it did anything at all. I know this sounds strange, but to know where to start you have to know what needs fixin’. 

You wouldn’t want to pay for a brand new engine in your Ferrari if the only problem was it needed a new fan belt and that’s it. 

TAKE ACTION


Now the worst thing you could do is see the things you need to work on worse than they are. Tony Robbins’ quote has stuck with me since the first time I heard it, “See things as they are, don’t see them worse than they are.” So what I’m trying to say is accept where you are and be prepared to make changes. Simply looking at yourself and walking away to do nothing is the sign of giving up…period. Make a plan to change one thing at a time until you’re noticeably different. If that means shaving off your love handles then great, if that means adding an inch to your biceps so you feel proportional then great, if that means cutting out two episodes of Netflix before you go bed to start an online business then great! Just do something to get the thing done!!!
YOUR CHALLENGE

This afternoon or whenever, take 3 minutes to look at yourself in the mirror. Sounds simple but people have been known to cry after just one minute. Look at who you are physically and as a person. Acknowledge the good and write down the bad, this will be your list. Work down the list one at a time, with patients and joy, you’ll be amazed at the changes you can make!

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Nutrition For Life 

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It’s not that your tired all the time, but you just need the energy to make it through the day right? Good food means good fuel, and one sure fire way to ensure good fuel is to limit the options of bad fuel. This can be done by pre-preparing meals and Quick Paleo Meal Prep is the best solution I’ve found so far to accomplish that! And anyone speaking from experience with proper nutrition knows that the quality of foods going into your body is paramount to your success in undertakings. 
TO KNOW WHAT’S RIGHT, KNOW WHAT’S WRONG


In this day and age we do more to avoid the stick than we do to get the carrot, so let’s address the stick in our diet. The foods you want to avoid are obviously the things that are highly processed, and a great rule of thumb is that if its in a package and is white then leave it alone! Most foods that are white and processed at all are white due to the addition of bleach or chlorines to make it white. Even if you find the “honey breads”, they were once whitened with chemicals and then died another color to look tan and “natural”. Scary stuff but true. Also if you have the discipline then eliminating sugar is one of the best things you could do for yourself, along with high fructose anything. Our bodies aren’t meant to handle the levels of sugar that are being pushed on us daily. We get used to these high sugar doses and that’s why when you go on a paleo diet you never have that “satisfied”feeling, because we have gotten used to the high calorie content and abundance of sugar in everything, that it feels like we’re starving when it’s cut off. 
TAKE SMALL STEPS


Big changes are never changes that last, it’s the small incremental shifts that shift the direction of the future. Start today by cleaning up just one meal per day, just one! Stick with that until it becomes habit and then make another SMALL change. If you keep taking these comfortable baby steps you’ll look up at a much slimmer and more energetic version of yourself! Remember though that this is not about this bikini season or fitting into that dress for a wedding next month, this change is about making a new you for the long lasting future. Anyone can be a flash in the pan and have a great one or two month testimony, but the person you want to be is the one who is consistent for life. 

“I don’t fear the man who did a thousand kicks in one day, I fear the man who did one kick for a thousand days.”

-Bruce Lee

 

Consistency is the secret sauce in life!
YOUR CHALLENGE

Make one change in your diet for the better TODAY, and hold onto that change until it becomes habit. Continue this and you will be able to change anything! Progress is preceded by action, so get to it

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How Your Fitness Affects Your Business

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If you haven’t already, please check out the YouTube channel
Are you ever so tired after a long day at work that the thought of working out just sounds exhausting? Or you wake up in the morning after snoozing through 45 mins of alarms to avoid the workout? This could be related to your diet, which is easily remedied in the book Quick Paleo Meal Prep, this book outlines how to structure your meal plan and get ahead of the potential hindrances to your workouts. But above all else you need to find a way to get through the 5pm or morning blues, because you could be leaving hundreds if not thousands of dollars in revenue on the table! 
WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT WORKING OUT?


Well for starters there’s no better way to get yourself firing on all cylinders than to apply a jolt to your system! Let’s look at your morning workout, you’ve been asleep and mostly motionless for a good 5-8 hrs, and I’m assuming your not vibrating with energy once you get your 45 minutes of 5-10 minute broken sleep cycles from hitting the snooze over and over. This isn’t going to fade away as the day goes on either, you might get a pick me up if someone cuts you off in traffic or spills their coffee on you, but the tired feeling will stay with you. 

Now I’m sure you know the inverse of this story, you wake up and force yourself out of bed and into your workout clothes, get a decent breakfast and head to the gym. After 45 minutes you would have spent half asleep and procrastinating, you’re now amount the top 20% of performers! You leave the gym with momentum and success on your mind. You get to work and hit the ground running, while leaving the other morning zombies in the dust! You out perform everyone consistently all day, and all because you made one decision to get the day started with activity! The same goes for the afternoon workouts. 
WHICH WORKOUTS FOR THE MORNING


You want to do something that’s going to involve as much physiology as possible to get the full benefit. I recommend a compound movement that focuses on STRENGTH! Not only does heavy training get motor skills working, but if your training at or above 80% of your max then you’re involving the nervous system, and you’ll be vibrating by the time you’re done! Follow this up with some high intensity something or other and you have a recipe for a great start to the day! Stay strong! 
YOUR CHALLENGE 

Don’t skip your next workout, and implement some sort of moderately heavy training followed by high intensity cardio for 4-8 minutes. I promise you that you’ll be able to note a lasting surge in energy for the rest of the day!

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When Should You “Lean Out”

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I started a YouTube channel as well, check it out here
life is all about balance, yin and yang, hot and cold, fat and skinny. The best way to create this balance is with proper nutrition above all else, which is addressed in the book I collaborated on “Quick Paleo Meal Prep.” This book goes over all the fundamentals of fixing your junk diet and manipulating portions and ingredients to take you from fat to ripped, or skinny to Froning. However this post is about “leaning out” to keep the gains going, whether it’s fitness or business, there’s always a time for rest and recouping. 
YOU CAN’T PERMA-BULK

  


By perma-bulk you know that I’m talking about the people who are always “bulking” with the intention of consistently adding muscle month after month. I’m not saying this is impossible, but I do know that your body has a point of critical mass when you’re constantly shoveling food in. After a while of realizing there will be a constant stream of food in excess, your body begins to store it as fat because that’s its primary method of operations after centuries of living on the edge of survival in the wilderness. So if you consistently shove in high calorie foods with no variation then you’ll only start to see “gainz” around your belt line. 

SAME GOES FOR BUSINESS 

I know first hand that you can’t mash the gas pedal everyday for too long before the wheels start coming off in one form or another. Whether it’s growing apart from your family or pushing the ones you love out of your life with your constant focus on work, to maintain these great things takes times of intensity and times of rest. 
WHEN TO “LEAN OUT”


I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on the Internet, see your licensed physician before applying anything you’re not used to. 

I personally go through a sustained low calorie diet anywhere from 1-3 months per year. This helps to reset the metabolism and give your body a chance to clean out all the garbage it accumulates during the bulking phase. Now I would get down to the point where I have a visible six pack and constantly visible vascularity just for the sake of asthetics and the beach season is usually when this happens. But you can get down lower or somewhat above, as long as you maintain it for at least a month and a half. I use the month and a half as a minimum because your body adapts quickly around the 90 day mark, and if you drastically shift around that point you’ll have the best results from my experience. We will discuss how to lean out healthily later, crash diets aren’t fun or useful for most people. Until then stay strong! 
YOUR CHALLENGE 

Set a time to go through a “leaning out” phase, whether it’s business or fitness. And make time for family and enjoying the good in life, it’s a struggle at first but the rewards are well worth it! And you’re worth it! 

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Your Opinion Matters!

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Too many times in life we accept ourselves as someone with nothing to offer. We have things that we know, but shrink ourselves so as to not stand out. Nothing could be further from the truth! 
YOU KNOW IT ALL


Not in the literal sense of knowing everything, but your life has afforded you the unique experiences to grant you knowledge in different  areas. You may have grown up in an area that is filled with wealth, therefore you have the inate knowledge of sophisticated living that others couldn’t attain through years of study. The opposite is just as true, you could have bee so poor that you learned to appreciate life in it’s most simple elements. Either way, you and your experiences MATTER!
YOU HOLD THE KEY


There are things that you have a passion for that no one else does. You’ve taken the time to learn and grow your knowledge in this area, and that is an invaluable resource! Whether it’s fashion, investing, history or door knob shining, you hold the key to that information. Without people like you this world would be filled with the same person multiplied hundreds of thousands of times. It would be LAME! So thank you for your interest and passions. 
YOU EARNED IT!


I wanted to share this with you because I was involved (hopefully we have more content headed your way!) with the writing of a short kindle book “Quick Paleo Meal Prep“. It’s in the Amazon kindle store, just search the title and it’s either free or .99. But after it was done I couldn’t help but realize that if it weren’t for two people being passionate about something, things and information would never be shared like that. So anyway, you’re special and I support you! 
YOUR CHALLENGE
Find an area of your life that you’ve excelled in and take a moment to realize the joy it’s brought you. Also how that knowledge has been able to affect others lives. 

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Cheat Day: Mission Complete!

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You have been maintaning a paleo diet for six days, nothing but the paleo all day every day.  And then God said “let there be calories!”, and there were and they were good…soooo good :P. 

HOW IT WENT DOWN


My Saturday began just as any other would, eggs with spinach and black beans in the morning (kept under 450 calories), but then something changed.  I drove to Waffle House at 8am, and before I went in I downed 6 oz. of grapefruit juice (to reduce insulin spike and promote fast passing). Then I walked in and ordered the all star breakfast with an extra waffle (two eggs, two sausage, hash browns, toast and a waffle). After I ordered I went to the bathroom and did 60-90 sec. Of high intensity cardio. I came back and squeezed lime juice into my water (reduce insulin spike further), and proceeded to gorge myself for the next 10 min. syrup flowing and smiles all around! 

CAN YOU EAT MCDONALDS ON CHEAT DAY?


I’m not sure if you “can”, but I did. Yup, two quarter pounder delux with cheese! This was the point where I didn’t want to look at myself for about 3 hours. Luckily we were on a road trip to Baton Rouge, so I sat in the back and questioned if I was going to live or not. But then we arrived…

HOW MANY CRAWFISH CAN YOU EAT?


6 lbs. after a big plate of dip and fruit, the dip must have been a Paula Dean recipe due to the pools of butter at the edges of the dish. After I push away from the table I smell something in the air….CAKE!! Suddenly I find room for two large pieces of chocolate and strawberry cake. At this point I’m not sure if I’m over-doing it, but I like to push the limits so let’s go! 

WHO WANTS CRACKER BARREL?


I questioned my future after saying I would go, but my friend who was allergic to most of the food served was hungry and wanted a dinner buddy. So we saunter over to the barrel, and wanting to test my bodies limits, I order the chicken fried steak with two orders of mashed potatoes and green beans (after the plate of cornbread and apple butter). I was half way through my plate and was seeing spots so I decided to live to gorge another day. We waddle back to the hotel, and hugging my belly I roll into bed and pray I wake up tomorrow. 

DID I GAIN ALL THE WEIGHT BACK??

Nope, I weighed 174.6 lbs. Friday, weighing Monday morning I was a bloated 175.3 lbs. just one pound over where I started. So all in all I would say that cheat day was a success and I look forward to next Saturday already :)) just FYI as well, I lost 4.6 lbs. that first week on this regimen. 

Your challenge: starting today, even if you’ve downed a few donuts already, start the paleo diet with the intention of pigging out Saturday to restart your body. It’s amazing!! 

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It’s All About The 80/20 Folks!

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It’s Friday!! That means that tomorrow (and a little Sunday) is my day to go as wild as I want with my food, and I don’t even feel bad about it! No one can do the same thing over and over day in and day out, we just aren’t wired that way. So I encourage you to think as you read over this about what areas in your life you’re not giving the propper amout of rest to.

 

12,000 Calorie Day

That’s my goal every Saturday, and even though I never hit it, I satisfy every craving I had during the week. If you are following the Paleo Diet for weight loss, it’s reasonable to assume that you’re dramatically underfed most days. So balance this out with at least one day of the nastiest cheating you can stomach! This will not only fix the cravings, bring you to a reasonable amount of calories and bring you back mentally; this will reset your body to burn fat faster in the next week! That’s right, eating like a pig for one day has the potential to reset your body and enhance the fat shreddage!

GO NUTS…responsibly

I know after all of that you’re wanting to schedule your cheat day ASAP, wake up and dive headfirst into the tallest stack of panckakes you can find for breakfast, but let’s pump the breaks first. You need to set your body up to succeed on these days. Not only is this going to shock your metabolism, but your digestive track will be the primary casualty if you don’t take the necessary steps. First start the day with 40 grams of protein, some small beans and caffine on an empty stomach, this will boost metabolism and start your tummy off easy. Then before the first encounter with the enemy, drink 6 oz. of grapejuice to minimize the insulin spike for the rest of the day. Follow this with 16 oz. Herbamate tea, cooled to room temp., before every meal thereafter. This will promote fast exportation of whatever you put in, all the goodies with out the baggage!!

One Last Thing

And this could mean the difference between success and failure on these days. Imediately prior to every meal after the breakfast do 60-90 sec. of intense exercise, preferably out of sight and not at the table. This will open the glucose pathways to muscle that has been stimulated, that way the calories can go to a good cause, the swole patrol :). If you are diciplined enough to follow a mostly paleo diet for 6 days this shouldn’t be close to an issue, unless you’re a weenie, you’re no weenie are you??

GOOD LUCK!

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Are You Investing In Yourself?

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It’s tax refund season! You know what that means, the government took your money that you earned for a whole year, and now has decided to let you have it back, interest free! Wow they really are looking out for us aren’t they… Not really. 

YES IT IS A REFUND

Everyone gets so excited every year to get THEIR money back, it blows my mind when people come up to me asking how much I got back. Then we compare amounts, and when they find out that most of the time I had to pay the government money they look at me like I’ve made a horrible mistake. But let’s think about this, I changed my withholdings to keep the maximum amounts. That means that I can put what I would have had taken out in taxes into a fund of some kind, then when it comes time to pay uncle sam the NECESSARY AMOUNT (no more no less!), I take it out of the fund and use the interest gained as a cushion to be compounded every year. So in the end this person fought tooth and nail to get whatever money they could back, looking in every loophole and tax bracket they could. While I literally made money on the money every year, and never had to worry about paying too much. Sounds like a win to me…

WHAT TO DO WITH THE REFUND?

Well  you can go out and get that new tv you’ve been wanting, that new gaming system or a down payment on a car you can barely afford. But what do all of these things have in common, they’re liabilities! A liability is something that you spend money on, then you spend money on and keep spending money on it, the liability never yields anything of value to you! Instead how about you take time on the internet to invest in something that will actually help, go to a seminar on how to start a business online, look into real-estate. I wouldn’t recommend buying stocks though, I did that one year and it was a lesson well learned, it takes much more thought and consideration than buying something that will give you knowledge or income.

START A NEW HABBIT

Look at things you buy from now on as an asset (money maker) or a liability (money taker). Learning and applying these two words will yield incredible returns in most areas of your life! And the sooner you can fix your taxes to change the withholdings to keep the money that’s YOURS, the better. Just go to your HR person and ask to have your withholdings done so that you keep the maximum, this is easiest if you’re on a salary because you can look at your taxes from last year and just invest that amount monthly. Then just sit back and enjoy the interest earned and knowledge applied 🙂

Have a great day!

Cory

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