There's a lot of talk about balance today. You're supposed to have balance in your relationships, your finances and really your whole life puzzle. There's nothing wrong with having balance in life. The challenge is that there isn't a single elite athlete, super entrepreneur or high performing person that I know of who has complete balance in life. What they do instead is choose which areas to go out of balance in, so they can focus on what they want to go all in on.
Because focus is sometimes more important than balance, depending on who you choose to listen to. If it's something you want to do that other people have done successfully, it might be worth listening. There are plenty of people who want to give you advice, and most of them talk about balance.
For a while I took a break from the factory and tried to build a career in traditional marketing and sales. It ended with me walking around with five different business cards, because I lived with such a ”scarcity mindset” that I didn't dare let go of anything. I said yes to every opportunity I was offered. If one thing didn't work out, maybe another one would take off, that was my mindset. Chris Brady talks about ”shining objects”. All that glitters isn't gold, and if you throw yourself at every single thing that sounds exciting, you lose focus on the road you're driving on. One day I dropped everything, went back to the factory, started with direct selling on the side and the rest is history.
Then, when I stopped being a CNC operator against my will, when the factory went bankrupt, I had no unemployment benefit to fall back on because I had a company. I'd started with direct selling, which wasn't exactly generating any income at that point, but rules are rules, I was told. (Looking back, several people have come up to me and said I should have stood my ground, because you could have argued it was a hobby business I did in the evenings and at weekends, but I got a flat no and didn't have the energy to push it through right then and there.) It meant I had to choose between closing down the company to receive unemployment benefit, or focusing full time on direct selling from one month to the next. (At least I saved money by leaving both the unemployment fund and the union in one go.)
That's where I chose focus over balance, because I worked harder for a period than I ever had before. I did what was needed to get the result I was after, because the alternative was to look for other industrial jobs and I wasn't prepared to do that. When a couple of hundred industrial workers lost their jobs at the same time, there was competition for whatever jobs existed at other companies.
It was a matter of supply and demand, but that was only half the truth. I also wasn't ready to go back to the shop floor at a factory, so I had to do something else, and I dreamed of doing direct selling full time. I asked my mentors: ”The factory has gone under, what should I do?” And I immediately got a question back: ”What do you want to do?” I answered: ”I want to do direct selling full time.” To which the response was: ”Then do it.”
I chose to go from 7 to 8 hours a week to 70 to 80 hours a week, because I wanted results so badly. I wanted it to work financially so badly that I could step over to full time. The tunnel vision convinced me it was already done. I gave everything, and it turned out to be enough.
Hunger creates focus. Balance is good, but focus is sometimes better if you want a breakthrough. Now, I'm not saying you have to reach the top, that's up to you, but there are so many people handing out ”good advice”, which can be downright dangerous if the people you listen to haven't done what you're setting out to do. Get yourself a mentor who has made the journey and is qualified to help you. Someone who knows what focus means. Ask what to do step by step and you'll have the right conditions to build your direct selling organisation for real.
”Some people try to accomplish so much with so little focus that it leads to almost nothing.”
