Stay with me for a moment and imagine this scenario.

It’s day two of the longest horse race in the world: 625 miles in 10 days through nasty, challenging terrain in the Gobi Desert. It’s called the Mongol Derby and every participant rides 25 different half-wild Mongolian horses. Day one was pretty good.

But the beginning of day two looks ominous. Enormous thick dark clouds reach to the far horizon. The drops of rain soon become buckets and buckets of water dumping from the sky. It lasts for seven brutal hours.

All 46 riders are now suffering from severe chaffing of their thighs, which are constantly rubbing against the wet leather saddle. On day three the rain continues its attack for 6 more consecutive hours. The punishment continues for 7 hours on day four.

During the 10 days about half the riders become eliminated because of
heatstroke, hypothermia, concussions, broken bones, and assorted other accidents and ailments.

Nobody enters this race for fame. Few people outside of friends and family have even heard of the Mongol Derby. And nobody enters for money. The winner gets the first high five crossing the finish line – plus a belt buckle. The only reason I know of this race is that our daughter, Molly, did it. Her goal was not to win but to finish before the ten-day clock struck noon. To train for this race, she rode just about every horse in the county, often for owners who were glad to have her exercise their horses.

During her training she was bucked off one, resulting in a concussion. In a different incident, the horse took off with her foot caught in the stirrup. She was dragged along a barbed-wire fence, requiring multiple 3 stitches. Molly gets asked two obvious questions about the Mongol Derby: “Why did you do it? What did you learn?” The why is her “deep love of horses and riding challenges.”

And what did she learn? She answers, “I learned it is a privilege to be able to choose your challenges and suffering.” Now let’s bring this around to network marketing.

If Molly said she would like all the benefits of a successful network marketer, would you enroll her?

She has a track record of grit, persistence in the face of adversity, and good people skills. But you wouldn’t know if you should enroll her until you asked some key questions about her reasons and desire for becoming a successful network marketer.

So I did.

And I discovered I would not sponsor her. She doesn’t have the requisite attitude. She's interested, but not passionate. She cares, but not enough. I wouldn't bet on her to be successful.  She makes extreme sacrifices to ride the Mongol Derby. But she would not make the necessary sacrifices for success in network marketing. She could comfortably learn the skills but she probably wouldn’t apply them. She doesn’t have a sufficient “Why” to be successful.

Teaching the skills of sponsoring a prospect to be a distributor is much easier than helping them clarify their personal “why” of network marketing – their motivation. So, we typically do the human thing and focus on the simpler and easier part, teaching skills.

A person could have the necessary personality to be successful, but they also need the interest and the desire to be an MLM entrepreneur. Molly doesn't. If I did sponsor her, I would keep my expectations really, really low. I also believe Molly could sense my low expectations and then go about living down to them. If I kept my expectations high. I’m pretty sure I would just frustrate her. It’s a no-win endeavor for both of us.

Here is the key principle. If I keep pushing, encouraging, and supporting Molly for greater success, then I am pushing my goals onto her when she doesn’t have the fire to follow through for her own reasons. The fastest way to frustration is to push someone to reach your goals instead of theirs. I will go on a trail ride with Molly but never the Mongol Derby.

With this foundation of goals and motivation in mind, I’d like to propose a way to streamline and strengthen your downline. And I’ll conclude with some essential principles to guide you while working with your downline.

How to Streamline and Strengthen Your Downline

There will be people in your downline that you believe have great potential but take little action. Here’s an idea. Talk to them about why you think they have so much potential. Then ask about their level of desire for greater success.

But don’t stop there. Ask why they have that degree of desire. Inquire about the price they believe they will pay for success. Ask if they believe greater success deserves the price. And do they want support from you or others to strengthen that desire? These are the questions I asked Molly to measure her motivation.

If these distributors seek more support, then inquire about the specifics. If they don’t currently have the desire, say you appreciate their clarity because clarity on life priorities is valuable as it helps everyone focus on more relevant goals. This approach can be a win-win. Either response gives more clarity about where to focus important efforts. Most training in network marketing is on skill acquisition. However, I believe if the attitude, desire, and motivation are strong enough, they will often compensate for holes in skill training.

Think of what happens when houses get destroyed by floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, fire, etc. People look at the wreckage that used to be their home and they start to work. They don’t say, “Well, nobody taught me how to deal with this mess, so I won’t do anything.” They jump in and start cleaning, sorting, and learning as they go.

Principles to guide you when investing in training your downline Here are some principles to guide you when trying to decide if someone in your downline is worth investing your time and energy.

Look for courage. My definition of courage is taking sustained action when the desire to be a successful networker is more important than fears, insecurities, self-protections, and lazy bad habits.

Whenever I work with someone to overcome their fear to act, I have tremendous respect for their willingness to face the demons lurking in their subconscious closet. These people may not feel brave when they say, “I want to get over this fear.” But at that moment, they are heroic to me. They are demonstrating courage.

Your attitude toward overcoming fears and insecurities creates the foundation and drive to apply the skills you learn. A courageous attitude enables you to shift away from ineffective patterns. New behaviors unfold and some fears melt away. A courageous attitude is the grease that gets the cogs moving again. You benefit – heart, mind, and soul – and your growth becomes inspirational for your downline. Courage supports all of us to follow the directions of a good trainer and apply what we learn.

However, if distributors focus exclusively on skill acquisition the self-critical part of their brain will have a field day when talking to a prospect. “Should I have said that differently? How am I supposed to respond to this objection? Dang, that was a dumb answer to that question. Are they really listening or just indulging me till they can change the subject?”

The focus on doing it right will make their brain so busy they will lose an emotional connection with the prospect. Sometimes the relentless focus on training becomes an excuse to avoid taking action and avoiding rejection.

Support Clarity

If distributors can focus on how they aspire to be when talking to a prospect they will create better connections with the prospect. If they aspire to be a good listener, patient, curious about important goals in the prospect’s life, and not take “No” personally, almost all discussions will be more genuine. Without a strong success attitude, many in your downline will experience an accumulation of frustrations and then finally quit to end the anguish.

But quitting could be their best choice – if they clarified their priorities and weren’t yet ready to pay the price of greater success. I think it’s good that network marketing has so many challenges. Because your values and priorities get tested and clarified. Ultimately, I think it's our attitude towards success or failure that determines if we will persist in the face of adversity.

Of the many things I respect about this profession is that it helps clarify our values and priorities. I think people who drop away are not failures. In fact, what they have done is decide what is not appropriate for them. And that can be valuable. To know and understand some choices are not good for you can be as worthy as deciding what the correct choice is. Either way, that clarification is a win.

If I talk to someone who I think would become an outstanding success and they take a different path, indeed I feel a loss. But I might be saving myself a lot of grief by not trying to drag them across the finish line. And it might be a significant discovery for them to say, “No thank you.”

Everybody wins, and that is the real heart of network marketing.

To summarize a few key points:

• Your attitude determines your reaction toward challenges, setbacks, and rewards. And whether you think the rewards are worth the efforts and emotional risks.
• In almost any life endeavor when great skills go up against a resistant attitude bet on the resistant attitude to undermine the process and outcome.
• A growth attitude strengthens courage and courage strengthens the key attitude.
• Be grateful for network marketing that places such a premium on developing courage in multiple areas of your life: business skills, relationship skills, coaching skills, and personal development skills.

Network marketing is a profession that offers exceptional success in life and in relationships.