Drop Your Rocks: Daily Positive Thinking Leads to Success

There is a modern day parable that goes like this*:

As we travel through life, we collect experiences. Each experience has positives and negatives (whether we see those positives/negatives or not; nothing is absolute). For each experience, human nature is to pick up a piece of that experience and carry that piece with you as you progress through life. Imagine the negative aspects as rocks. Each negative aspect of an experience is like a rock that we pick up and put in our pocket. The more we see as negative, the heavier our burden. We could start by carrying pebbles, little things that annoy us. This can progress through stones and rocks. Traumatic events that might happen in our life might be boulders. These negative "rocks" begin to collect and weigh us down.

Drop Your Rocks.

In order to reach your goals, have the success you dream of, and fill your world with happiness and positive thinking, you need to suppress negative thoughts. You need to rid yourself of all the accumulated negativity that has built up in you over your life.

Negative thinking can include negative self-esteem - feeling like you will not be good enough, or maybe that people will judge you. It can include thinking that your past experiences have made you into a certain person, and trying to step out of that role will have negative consequences. Negative thinking can even be creating worst case scenarios in your head - what ifs that always result in a bad thing happening. It's thinking that you need people to accept what you do, or that you will always feel a certain "pain" and you have to accept that. Negative people hate, blame and complain.

Drop. Your. Rocks.

Positive thinking is ridiculously more powerful than you can even imagine. It really is magical. Like a unicorn that can make awesome things happen for you magical. You need to bring good things to you through after you have chosen to drop the negativity.

Positive thinking can truly make things happen, but it is a soft skill. It's not really "measurable". Sort of. Positive thinking can lead to greater productivity, better relationships, and personal joy.

When your brain is happy, it can actually be more creative, and create more ideas. When your brain is sad or afraid or angry, it produces fewer ideas. This brain science is something studied in education, in psychology, in business. The science behind the idea that neurons can be rerouted (in positive or negative directions) is called neuroplasticity. Brains like to be happy, and that happiness leads to more productivity.

Positive thinking attracts people who also want to feel happy or inspired. Human nature is to push away things that are negative (even though there are some people who are "negative Nancys", "energy vampires" or others who seek negative situations). You will find positive messages will bring more communication, more connections and stronger relationships.

Finally, when you begin to focus on thinking positive thoughts and dump the negative ones, you will find yourself experiencing more moments of personal joy. Don't get me wrong, life throws some nasties at us, and that won't quit. But when you develop a daily habit of seeking positive thinking, you will find yourself wanting to think, wanting to enjoy, wanting to play, wanting to create. Do it! Meditate, go for a run, play a game, start a journal or draw. Whatever you feel yourself compelled to do, just go ahead and do it. Your brain will begin to create those new neuron paths, and you will feel good as you do more of those things (whatever they may be - led by your personal interests).

So drop those rocks that you are hauling around with you. Letting go of those negative burdens actually helps you move toward success.

think positive thoughts . smile . choose happiness . healthy choices . positive words and actions . be productive . be creative . develop relationships

* (I've heard variations of this exist in spirituality and in Alcoholics Anonymous. I think it is a relevant enough metaphor that sermons and self help programs shouldn't be able to "own" it. I think the idea is transferable and can be applied to secular scenarios.)

Personal Branding Yourself For Direct Sales

Personal branding is the idea the YOU are the brand. Brand You. You are not just a direct sales consultant, you are a... makeup expert, jewelry lover, home decor fanatic. Focus on your passion. For example, choose one category from the Avon product offerings (makeup, jewelry, Avon Living home goods) and focus on creating a presence around that category niche. Your passion for that focus will show, and it will become part of who you are as a personal brand.

Use a blog to build your personal brand

If you have a blog or a social media presence, you should spend your efforts promoting, creating content and curating other information about your niche. A blog is one of THE best ways to showcase your personal brand. How does this work? Well, take home decor as an example. Go through the products for home decor. (Avon Living is THE place to go if you love home goods!) Start writing blog posts about those products, about that lifestyle, about home decoration, about entertaining, etc. Pin the products, but Pin MORE than those products. Pin current trends in the home decorating industry. Share home decor ideas through magazines and home decorating websites. Curate home decor photos. Create lists of easy ways to decorate (plugging in a few Avon Living products, of course). You are building your personal brand not by only promoting your Avon Living products, but also by creating a niche expertise and establishing long term trust as a source of valueable information. People WANT to know what the Top 5 Spring Decorating Trends are. They WANT to know how It's Easy To Entertain for Afternoon Tea. (Include the Bright and Cheery Tea Kettle photo and link to your estore). They NEED the super helpful information in your Floral Pillows For a Fast Spring Refresh (Include the Watercolor Fleurs and Bird Pillow Covers photo and link). THIS is the type of information people want, and the more of this you create, the more customers you will see. The more of YOU that you put into it, the more personal it becomes, and therefore more desirable.

Create an image

Let's talk about image a little bit. Brands have logos. Brands are not logos. Your brand should be your beautiful face. And your name. (Not Avon's logo.) You are your brand. If you want to design a "logo" make it your name.

Back to that Avon brand question... selling Avon is what you DO, it is not you. You DO other things, too. (Whatever that might be.. family, dogs, sports, cooking, etc.) So when you brand yourself, you have a title with Avon, you can use the Avon banner on your headshot photo, but you are not the Avon brand, and you can't use the Avon logo for yourself. When you develop your brand presence, you want to share who you are, not only that you sell Avon. People buy from people. It sounds crazy, but instead of saying, "Hi my name is Sarah, and I would like to share the Avon brochure with you." try saying, "Hi my name is Sarah Smith, and I want to help women feel beautiful."

It is important to keep your personal brand consistent. So, if you have a blog, a Facebook page, Twitter, Pinterest... keep those all looking and feeling the same. They should all have your name, your photo as your profile picture, and the same image look and fonts used for images. While you are at it, consider reserving your social media account with your name for all social media tools, even if you don't setup your profiles on those accounts yet. KnowEm? is a super useful tool.

It's official - your brand is you, your presence, and your personality.  (Online and offline). So now what? What exactly are we supposed to do with that?

How to Create Your Personal Brand

Start with the story.

• Your personal story and your personal values. Master your own story first because when you do, you can more easily empower others.
• Why you joined Avon and started your own beYOUtiful business. You have to feel confident with your own reasons before you can persuade others. Make it real and engaging.
• What your "mission" is. Your personal mission. What do you want to accomplish with your beYOUtiful business?
• The Avon story (make sure to leave this one for last - nail who you are first, then you will be better prepared to share the Avon story.

Begin with engagement.

• Share your story on social media. Any and every social media you feel comfortable with. However, make sure if you have a social media, you work it. If you never Tweet, shut down your Twitter for now.
• Talk to everyone about who you are and what you do. In person, online, everywhere!
• Get your target market to engage; ask them to share what their favorite nail color is, or what they wear for sunscreen.

Develop an image

• Get a good headshot photo and use that everywhere. If you have a friend that loves to take photographs, enlist their help! Otherwise, work with a local photographer to get yourself a couple of professional looking headshots. Try to update them seasonally, if you can.
• Pick a visual "look". The color scheme, the images, the personality of your look should be consistent everywhere you have a presence.
• Choose 2 to 3 colors to always use in the content you create. There is a psychology to color, too...
• Select 1 or 2 fonts to use consistently, including 1 font to always always use for your name. Avoid frequently used and outdated fonts like Comic Sans, but don't go so fancy that the letters can't be read easily.

Create content

• Think like a journalist. Create an editorial schedule.
• Write blog posts. The more the better.
• Try to create content in a doable quantity, but to gain a following your content also needs to be quality. (Hint, pure promotion is NOT good quality.)
• Not sure where to start? Set a goal of one blog post per week. If you find you can do more - awesomesauce! Try to avoid doing less (52 blogs a year is not that many). Also, when a post has more than 1,500 words, it gets more social media engagement.
• Expand your content into ebooks, infographics, videos, etc.

Curate content

• Think like a museum director. Share relevant, pretty content with frequent rotation.
• Share content created by other people, and share product information from other companies. I know this sounds counter intuitive, but curating industry knowledge actually creates more credibility for you and customers trust you more.
• Some marketing speak: "Position Avon as a thought leader." What this means: In your curated content, make Avon an expert, and showcase Avon products as the best choice.

Promote content

• Think like a marketing executive. Have a plan and a "look".
• This is where most new reps focus all of their attention. Promotion should be about 1/3 of your total content. Any more than that and your content will be flooded with sales type stuff and people will be turned off.

Dos and Don'ts

What to do

Be real. You are you and nobody else is you. Be authentic. (But not TOO authentic - refer to drama llama)
Be online. Even offline customers will look you up online. make sure your online presence reflects your offline business.
Be valuable. Write a mission statement.

What NOT to do

Be a drama llama. Do not share personal details, like your dog's poop or your recent breakup. Don't ever talk about politics or religion. Customers don't care and it will turn them off forever.
Be everything. You need to create a niche and focus on one thing. If you try to be everything to everyone, you will be spread too thin and you won't be able to focus your efforts.

3 key words to make personal branding amazing: