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On today’s Solopreneur Hour is one of the first people I met after moving to Denver and traveling around Europe, spreading my parent’s ashes. I had $14 to my name, and I didn’t know what I was going to do next. All I knew was I didn’t want to work an hour for a dollar ever again.
Today’s guest was previously a Victims Advocate for a Police Department and after reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki begrudgingly joined a Network Marketing Company and had never looked back. Now the author of the book Living Your Life Alive, Autumn Shields.
Michael and Autumn Discuss:
- How and why Autumn chose a career around the police and courts
- Why her dream job was not enough anymore
- Why Network Marketing?
- The misconceptions about Network Marketing
More About Autumn
Autumn raised in a family of Entrepreneurs. She grew up watching her family work hard and grow multiple businesses with multiple revenue streams in the landscaping industry around the Denver area.
From a very young age, Autumn would help her family in the offices and learn the different businesses, untoward to her the leadership skills that would be passed on.
She would grow to watch her parents work hard but also play hard, but when she landed her dream job, Autumn realized she was working hard, living the dream but was not playing hard.
She was brought up with her parents work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit, but these gifts did not unravel for her until her mid 20’s.
Dream Job, A nudge in the right direction
The day Autumn decided her dream job was on a career day in 8th Grade! As early as that. The teachers asked, what do they want to be? She knew she wanted to work with Cops but didn’t want to be a Cop, and she knew she loved the dynamics around the courtroom but didn’t want to be an attorney and loved counseling people but didn’t want to be behind four walls. Law and justice were the lures for 8th Grader Autumn in the pursuit of her dream career.
Autumn wanted to do something different every day; she felt her parents lived a ridged life with their business, doing the same thing day in day out. While interviewing a lady from Colorado for career day, who’s job was a Victims advocate for a police department, she said a key phrase that rang true to her, “I get to do something different every day, no two days are the same.”
This experience was what Autumn describes in her book as a “Nudge”. A “Nudge”, Autumn describes as something that won’t go away, something that you cannot ignore and burns deep inside of you and keeps you always thinking about it. This career day and interviewing the lady from Colorado was her first real nudge in her life.
The dream begins to fade (17:52)
Family happened, Children happened, Divorce happened, Remarrying and new family happened. Life happened for Autumn, living paycheck to paycheck and growing restless while also remaining optimistic that things will get better.
Days were merging, and there were never enough hours in the day, the desire never was to be a stay at home mom. Something had to give.
People get too optimistic about tomorrow and not about making changes for today, Autumn lived like that for a few years, just thinking tomorrow is going to be better, tomorrow is going to be better, but she loved what she did. She watched so many of her friends not finding anything that they loved, and she loved what she did, but she wasn’t living her life and wasn’t playing hard. She had the make-up to play hard.
The search for a part-time job
At the same time while looking for a part time job, Autumn found Robert Kiyosaki book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, the book got her thinking how can she get her money working for her, all she knew was trading time for money. She thought when it came to residual income that you had to write a song and create an album and hoped it went big or win the lottery or drill for oil, she just didn’t know there were other options out there.
She just kept going to work loving her job and not living her life. Her mom said to her “You know Autumn I know you are happy at work but you are in your mid 20’s, and you don’t have a life. You have no friends, and you just work all the time” Autumn replied, “I know, but I am working towards something,”What are you working towards? You are just living paycheck to paycheck!” “I know mom, but I love it!”
Network Marketing: Ignorance and a bribe turned bliss (20:55)
Everyone know’s someone connected to a Network Marketing company; we have heard the bad experiences and the real experiences. The not so good stories have tarnished Network Marketing and imprinted negative images on most people.
These negative images were no different for Autumn. Begrudgingly she went to a Network Marketing event at her local gym. She had a lot of misconceptions over Network Marketing. Autumn thought it was about people who only wanted to make a couple of hundred bucks a month. Then she saw the guys making big bucks and thought they must be something special. She thought she didn’t have the talent and skills they have, so because of this, she always shied away from it. Like a lot of people, it was down to ignorance and being uneducated about the industry.
On her third event, she was bribed to come with a hotel room for her and her husband which swung the invite. After trying and failing to pigeon hole the attendees, she was on the edge of her seat for the training in leadership and living life, all things she wasn’t expecting to learn. These were subjects that were missing from Autumn’s life, from that day on she was hooked.
Now 13 years into her Network Marketing business and she completely transformed her life.
Autumn’s Day to Day Routine (61:07)
- Try to identify most proactive hours, which for her are always in the morning
- Get up early
- Meditation/pray time
- 30 minutes of personal growth – podcast or a book
- Success stories to get in the right mindset for the day
- Something physical
- Proactive work- what as a leader do I want to do that is proactive that will be easier for my team, creating a system, putting up that calendar or calling that prospect
- In the afternoon were not so proactive, she does reactive work like answering emails and calls, taking care of this and that,
- Try to identify what hours I am most efficient at and make sure I take advantage of those. And limit distractions during that time.
Selected Links & Resources
- eMyth Revisited by Michael Gerber
- LivingYourLifeAlive.com
- Living Your Life Alive Book
- Rich Dad Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki
- WD Sumit & Thrive Conferences
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