Gratitude is pertinent not only to your business but to life! On the surface the topic of gratitude may not seem applicable to network marketing but in reality the topic is pertinent in multiple ways. Not just to network marketing but to life. I think it was Jim Rohn who I heard say -

"You must learn how to combine ambition with thankfulness".

There are a lot of go getters, warriors if you will in the market place who seem to be charging all the time. There is no doubt they are ambitious, but sometimes you question the gratitude they have. In network marketing we have so much to be thankful for.

• Our opportunity
• Our Products and Services
• The people; our upline, downline and sidelines
• The lifestyle the opportunity to create residual income offers
• And just to live in a country that allows us to participate in the free enterprise system!

I am thankful to have the opportunity to travel around the country and conduct training seminars for companies, organizations and events. At every meeting you will find 4 basic types of people in attendance.

1. Newbies who are fired up and not really even sure why
2. Serious Learners who usually don't say much, but are there to learn and internalize all they can, these people are on their way to becoming Intelligent Leaders.
3. Heavy Hitters (within their own mind), these are the ones that I find amusing. They usually attempt to dominate my time during breaks and they want to make darn certain that before I leave town I realize how successful they are. (During the actual seminar they are usually hanging out in the hallway or sleeping in the back row)
4. The Intelligent Leaders who have multiple members from their organization with them. These people understand it is not about them, it is about their people. They usually will come up to me with their entire team and ask for a picture with their group. They will introduce themselves quickly and then do what I call INTRODUCE AND BRAG.

They will introduce me to each member of their team and brag a little about each one of them. These are the people that show a spirit of thankfulness or gratitude. People are obviously following them, because they understand that "people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care!"

These are the people that build empires in this industry.

Unfortunately the network marketing industry is full of people with swollen egos. I heard a speaker say one time that network marketing is full of people trying to prove the kids that made fun of them in high school... wrong. I have been thinking a lot about this lately, and I have a lot more to say. So much that I recently bought the domain name MLMEgo.com, for a future project. I will go so far as to say that some "gurus" have a worship complex. A following is not enough; they must constantly have their egos stroked by their downlines, they become warped with a "Need to be Worshipped" complex.

You see this with many people that came out of the Bill Gould organization of the mid nineties. I recently visited a company website, and over 50% of the website was doing nothing but talking about the owner and all the celebrities, sport stars, and Politician's he had his picture taken with. I guess he doesn't realize that the masses understand that if you attend enough charity benefits and make your donation, anybody off the street could amass a nice collection of photos with themselves and celebrities. The website was terrible and there was nothing that answered the question all prospects really want to know and that is, what's in it for me?

Let's face it if the company President's picture with Celebrities causes a person to join, you probably don't want them anyway! Granted, I have seen other websites with start up companies, where the owner or top distributor had a strong, successful background in the industry and that was the only story they had to tell in the beginning. But ladies and gentleman, the company I am speaking of is around 5 years old, and the owner has never sponsored his first distributor, there is a difference!

There is a Bible verse that says something like this paraphrase: "He that wishes to be great, may they be the servant to many" People with swollen ego's find serving difficult and expressing true, heart felt gratitude even more difficult. Sure they can spew the 'rah rah' cheers with the best of them, and they might say the right things from time to time, but most of the time it is a show, it is not heart felt and we all know and feel the difference.

So as we enter this Thanksgiving Season and as you build your network marketing team, my hope for you is that you learn to combine BURNING AMBITION with a TRUE SPIRIT OF THANKFULNESS.