Mark Twain once said…
“If the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that it is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long!”
When you are in business your ’frog’ is the biggest, most important task on your list… the one you are most likely to procrastinate about. It is also usually the one task that can have the greatest positive impact on your life and results.
Brian says the first rule of frog eating is…
“If you have to eat two frogs…. eat the ugliest one first!!”
In other words, if you have two important tasks, then start with the biggest, hardest and most important task first. Discipline yourself to start immediately and then to persist until the task is complete before you are distracted with something else.
Think of it as a test… treat it like a personal challenge. Resist the temptation to start with the easiest task. Remind yourself that one of the most important decisions you make each day is your choice of what you will do immediately and what you will do later, if you do it at all.
Let’s look at how this relates to our direct selling businesses.
How many of us have decided that the dishes need to be done and the washing needs to be put out BEFORE we do our business calls?
When we finally decide to sit down to do them… we think we should first check emails for a minute.. or facebook?
And then…. ooops too close to lunch time. I better not phone anyone at lunch time.
After lunch… better take the washing in… oh.. pick up kids time… too close to dinner.
Oh it’s ok I’ll do them tomorrow. Does tomorrow ever come? Nope…
Once I trained myself that my high 5 – or my 5 business building calls came before everything else, my business went through the roof. It also gave me a feeling of satisfaction and a choice about how I could spend the rest of the day (instead of a guilty feeling that I hadn’t got to my calls yet!).
Direct selling is about relationships and if we are not talking to people, we are not building relationships and therefore not building a business…
Unfortunately, kissing your frog and having it turn into a handsome prince (ie having the task somehow magically turn into the results we need) isn’t an option and only exists in the fairytales.
What is your frog?
Please share with us in the comments below and start by eating your frog today!
Celine
The legendary Eat That Frog! (more than 450,000 copies sold and translated into 23 languages) provides the 21 most effective methods for conquering procrastination and accomplishing more. This new edition is revised and updated throughout, and includes brand new information on how to keep technology from dominating our time.
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You can purchase your copy here. You are invited to read each chapter as you follow along with Celine’s articles and share you thoughts, experiences, success stories and challenges as we go.
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