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This is a piece I originally wrote in 2004 ... "How terribly rare, to find a place or a group of people that opens its arms to anyone who cares to join. Not even the whisper of an agenda. Makes you feel as if you’ve found a place to call home, a place to bring others so they can be home, too." Andrea
Sloan Goodsaid's
The last three days have been an eye opener the likes of which I have only experienced once before. I have finally found the way to introduce all of the people I know to network marketing the way most of them already feel it should be. I struggled for YEARS to find a way to do what a mastermind group has offered me. I Am
Dumbfounded, Amazed & Excited Until
now, I haven't been able to connect the dots between But now, because of what I have learned, my cart will never be before my horse again. I Will
Mentor First And Sponsor Second So incredibly empowering! Did you hear what I just said?! It’s crucial! I’d better repeat it just so I know I’ve got it right. I will NEVER put my cart before my horse again. I will mentor first and sponsor second (or maybe never, and that’s OK) for the REST of my LIFE. How terribly rare, to find a place or a group of people that opens its arms to anyone who cares to join. Not even the whisper of an agenda. Makes you feel as if you’ve found a place to call home, a place to bring others so they can be home, too. Well, let me qualify that just a hair ... maybe there is an agenda here ... The agenda is to open people’s eyes to themselves and the people around them. Help them see with clarity the possibilities, the ways of communicating with each other that will foster understanding and acceptance and most important, partnerships. When you learn to genuinely build relationships, network marketing holds an endless bounty of friends and fellow team members. My name is Andrea Sloan Goodsaid. Even now as I type that after how many years of marriage? Let’s see ... my older daughter is 11, so this July, John and I will have been married for 10 years. Wow. My Expiring Driver's License Is Forcing The Issue Even as I type out my full name, I still hesitate. It has always been important to John that I "want" his name. Happily, I have finally grown accustomed to it. But still ... in my mind it's "his" family name. It's also our children’s family name, and very comfortably so. Never any question of that in my mind, what their last name should be. Funny how I have held on to my attachment to my "birth name." I wonder if it’s like this for adopted children? But my 10 year Montana driver's license is expiring. We live in Virginia now. Somewhere, long ago, I also managed to ... uhh ... misplace my social security card. So now I need a new license & SS card and ... well ... I have to decide what I want on my death certificate ... oh yeah, and my tax returns. So, consider me Andrea Sloan Goodsaid until further notice. Would
You Like To Get Yourself a Snack I can wait. Then I'll tell you a little more about who I am and where I came from. I have all the time in the world now that I’ve found the folks who have inspired me. I am
Andrea Sloan Goodsaid (say, I think it might be here to stay I live in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia back in the mountains a bit. There are trees and cows and my best friend and husband (just fyi, that’s one person, not two). John & I have two beautiful daughters, 11 and 3, and an assortment of critters. But the Blue Ridge Mountains and cow fields are a far cry from the heart of New York City, where I was born and raised. Smack dab in the middle of the city, in fact, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. So I grew up a city girl. But you’d be hard pressed to guess it by the look of me now as I sit here in my pajamas in the middle of a weekday joyfully?! pulling this stuff from my formerly resistant mind. By All Rights, I Should Have Gone REALLY Bad! So true. Sometimes I think my only saving grace (and btw, I don’t sound like a New Yorker, either) was that my parents were both born and raised in Ohio. Some sort of Midwest influence saved me from the many temptations that the city offers young kids. I went to public school. My parents divorced when I was 5. My brother & I were effectively latchkey kids, once it was clear we would survive the after-school hours home alone. I should have been sucked into SOMETHING. But I wasn’t. My Mom saw to that. My Dad, too. He didn’t move far away. He was always "there," close by. Dad once told me about a letter my mother wrote him after my younger brother (it’s just the two of us) went to college. It was something on the order of "thank you for raising two amazing kids with me." Wow! THAT has stuck in my brain and been a guiding force in my own marriage! Oh, geez. I was warned the tears would be streaming. I guess that means I’m doing this right. Lol. I've Always Had an "Alternative" Twist ... ... an entrepreneurial spirit. From my Mom, I inherited the attitude that as long as I did my best in whatever I wanted, that was good enough. From my Father, I learned second-hand what it was like to be in unfulfilling jobs. You just keep searching until you find something that suits you. My Dad finally found it when he retired at the minimum age of 62 (almost to the day). He bought himself a lathe and has become an amazing wood turner. When the time came for me to make decisions about college, my Mom just wanted me to be happy. My Dad told me that school was the thing to do, unless I had a better plan. I didn’t have a better plan. So, off to Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, on a full scholarship. Hampshire taught me that not knowing what I wanted to be was OK. And 2 years later, when I found myself torn between two subjects, neither very inspiring, with not much guidance, I left. Of course there was a guy involved too, but that’s another story. I went back to NY and worked in retail boutiques, during the Gulf War. I was 23, sick of the city and done with my boyfriend. Nothing looked exciting. I decided to leave New York. But I was broke. So I came up with a plan to move to D.C. My brother lived there, and my mother’s sister and her family. But how to do it? Well, after many tears and finally admitting to ourselves and each other that we didn’t make one another happy, Russel asked me what I wanted from him. I told him! "I want you to stop cheating on me. I want you to help me pack so I can leave you. And I want 6 months to get myself moved." Hard to believe, but that’s EXACTLY what he did. Pretty
Interesting. I've Written All These Words For the last 15+ years, since leaving NYC, I have made my living as a glass jeweler. My whole high school experience was art-focused. I went to that "Fame" school and "majored" in art for 4 years. My Mom worked as a commercial artist all my life. Her studio was filled with yummy supplies. People have always labeled me artist. I don’t see myself that way. Hmmm. And you know, now that I think about it, I've always been resistant to labeling. I resent it. (I don't resent it ... it's more about the shallowness of it all ... maybe there's a better word?)
My father is black. My mother is white. So I was always neither ... and both. I was labeled "mixed" (among other things). I was tagged early in school as "smart" ... and felt different because of it. I was given my scholarship because I was smart AND minority. How’s that for a double whammy? "Andrea? She Makes The Money!" I used to be in a co-op with another crafter. We were both in the store one day. A customer asked about our work. Being recognized and appreciated for my art has always been uncomfortable. I held back out of the conversation a little bit. The customer turned to me and asked "And what do you do?" I stumbled a bit. The other guy jumped in and said, "Andrea? She makes the money, that’s what she makes." It was amusing. And true. But I didn’t feel proud or happy about it ... just different. Again. But now back to the ‘how’ I got away from New York. Russel took a stained glass class, then taught me what he’d learned. I took to it right away and started making too much to keep around the house. So I Sold A Few Things At Markets & Craft Shows That hooked me. Not so much the creating part. Definitely not all the appreciation for things that I made, though that wasn't entirely unpleasant. What excited me was the idea that people would give me money for something that I made out of nothing! Man! THAT was VERY exciting! I quickly realized I could do craft shows in New York and D.C. and move my stuff each trip. So I have been a self-employed jeweler most of my adult life. I Love
Making The Decisions ... I first heard of network marketing from a Robert Allen tape set in 1996 . The topic was "Multiple Streams of Income." My tired production jeweler mind said, "AHA!" You won’t have to this forever after all!" In 1997, I stumbled across my first "keeper" (or so I thought) MLM. Oh, I have occasionally been sidetracked. But what’s really impressed me is that the little bit of concentrated business I built way back then endured. The company isn't perfect and others have come behind it. But I picked up my distributorship after 2 years' absence, dusted it off and kept building. THAT was big. One thing missing from my career as a jeweler is other people to work with. Partnerships have always appealed to me. But they rarely work. In MLM, you pick & choose who to work with ... to everyone’s benefit. I've never had a mentor in MLM. The pressure was always on me to be the upline that I never had. With the tools and training I have now I can just focus on attracting new people who want what I want. Now I have a complete system to plug folks into and train them with. And I'm just now getting crystal clear on what it is in a comp plan that translates into walk-away income. THAT is what I want! My Perfect Day My perfect day is when John and the kids and I are all healthy, happy, & financially carefree. We each busily pursue whatever it is that pleases us most that day. Then we all come home, sit down at the table (in all these years, we’ve always had a table and never any chairs!) and share our excitement. We all feel heard. Finding My "WHY" Is Not a New Idea For Me Others have tried to clue me in to the importance of it. But no one has ever impressed on me just how crucial it is - and caused me to take action - like listening to the call last night did. Here's why I MUST succeed at this business: because there is no better way to have the flexibility my lifestyle demands and still stay sane! I want time with my kids while they still want me. I want to be able to enjoy my husband and myself while we are at our best in health. I want to take the time sooner than later to find my hobby of choice. I want to partner with other like-minded people to help them pin down their WHYs, too ... so I won’t feel so different anymore. Network marketing is the only logical solution. And building online is working perfectly. Click Here if You Want to Build Online Too (link to my personal mastermind system) |
