Moving Into Leadership

It’s hard to believe this now (and just a bit embarrassing to share!), but I was rolling my eyes when I started hearing all these references to “personal growth and development” right from the start of my business.

What on earth, I thought! I was 50 and had had lots of life experience – wasn’t I full grown already? And how hard can this business be? Read from notecards, share awesome products that sell themselves, take orders, show others how to do this too – simple! Was I ever in for a reality check! I have now grown so much that I know I’ve only begun, and I will push myself the rest of my life to grow even more personally and in my leadership skills to be the best version of myself…..and the very best leader for each of you.

This is a business where the leader goes first in all things, and often the leader goes alone (in vision, in belief, in commitment, in activity). It’s a business that depends about 10% on your skills and 90% on minding your mind. That 90% includes maintaining a positive attitude, being grateful for all you have in every moment, and giving no energy at all to any negativity from any source. It means learning to recognize and quickly exchange stories that do not serve you and take you closer to your goals for true stories that do serve you. It means working when no one is watching and being willing to have the same conversations over and over. It means planting seeds and staying attached to the activity and not the immediate results or lack thereof.

And all of that requires feeding our minds DAILY. See the document below with our recommended books; commit to reading one book each month, or at least reading for 20 minutes every single day. Listen to the online Learn & Burns and SoundCloud trainings your upline recommends on their FB pages. There is an awesome weekly call by ENVP Donna Johnson always on SoundCloud. Read the Arbonne Success Stories so that you fill your mind with this truth: These are ordinary men and women who simply took an extraordinary opportunity and ran with it. WHY NOT ME?

Being across the country from my upline, all the above was my Arbonne lifeline from the moment I began to take personal growth seriously. If you’re in town with your upline, still take ownership of your own personal growth so that you will have the confidence to sponsor out of town and show others how to lead themselves first.

Rita Davenport has retired, but she was Arbonne’s president for twenty years. If you want to see what personal growth really looks like, read her book Funny Side Up. Rita grew up in abject poverty, and reading her story will make you know why the heart and culture of Arbonne are what we experience today. I’ll end with a quote from Rita: Arbonne is a personal growth and development company disguised as a skin care company.