The Belief Mindset

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If you want to see the average earnings, please visit the page at www.empowernetwork.com forward Hey guys, this is Lawrence Tam, and I want to welcome you to the Inner Circle Audios with Empower Network, and you're here listening to this probably on your way to work or maybe on your morning run, or maybe you're walking the dog. Whatever it is, the Inner Circle Audios are built and designed to kind of help you build your business from the inside out, and what I mean by that is listening to successful people, successful stories, marketing tips, different angles you can take to approaching your business, and on top of that, just making you a better person, making you a better person to work with, because a lot of the business owners that we work with in Inner Circle are in direct selling, network marketing, affiliate marketing, and it comes down to being someone that you would want to follow, or be mentored by, or the Inner Circle is to grooming you to be an industry leader in whatever niche you're doing, be it real estate or selling cars. So, I have an interesting interview today, and it's pretty cool considering I actually did not know this was her background, and I knew of her, and I knew she's been very widely successful with her and her husband. They actually don't live in the United States, and they've been traveling a lot, and I'm not going to take up too much of her time in introducing her, but definitely if you're, maybe if you're at work, maybe if you want to sneak outside and have your smoke, or have your morning walk, or if the kids are being rowdy, just crank up the Inner Circle Audio on your stereo, and just kind of have them hear this successful person talking about where she's been, how she's gotten there, and how you can duplicate that same success. So let me introduce to you Erika Oudaniel.

Hi, Lawrence, how you doing? Did I butcher that, or was that close enough? No, you did it really, really well. Yeah, fantastic. At 10 points, you did that really well.

So it's actually Erika and Alex, and when I met you guys, I believe you were in the transition of moving somewhere really far away on a tropical island. Yeah. We're in the process of moving to Bali. Yes, yes, and that's one of the places I wanted to travel to, and it's like, wow, she's building a business like halfway around the world. But tell us a little bit about yourself, like your story, your history, and I think you've made a good amount of money on the internet, and just kind of bridge the gap between someone who's listening, because I believe a lot of the points that you've sent in, they're very familiar with anyone who's listening, who's maybe starting off in their journey with building a business, and especially doing it online.

Yeah, well, thank you so much, Lawrence, and thank you so much for having me here. It's such an honor and a privilege. I remember when we were first getting started, listening to the Inner Circles, it was the lifeblood. It was the thing that literally took us from being completely, totally clueless newbies to where we are today, and I must say they were the absolute lifeblood of our business in the very early stages. Of course, they still are today, but in the beginning, it was the Inner Circles that got us through.

So it's such an honor and a privilege to actually be on one of these calls, so thank you so much. So to start our story, Alex and I are the least likeliest of people you would ever find online doing what we're doing today, and how we got here is by a series of really bizarre twists and turns, and I'm going to start the story kind of like at the beginning with our previous career. We were art auctioneers on cruise ships, and we had the most glorious life. Let's scoot back. Let's scoot back.

That's not a very traditional ... I mean, there can't be more than a couple thousand of those positions, so explain what that is and say the title of what you did again. Well, actually, there's only about 110 of us on the planet, so it's a very, very, very small niche in the art world, but we were actually art auctioneers. How do you say it in American? Art auctioneers?

Art? Oh, I love that accent. Art auctioneers. Art auctioneers. So basically, selling art, but you auction it, right?

Yeah. But when things were good, meeting our quota was easy. Our commissions were horrible. Not like here. I think our commissions, gosh, if I can remember, they were like between 8% and 12%.

8% to 12%. Yeah. So imagine that. But life was beautiful. We had a really privileged life.

We were on board basically as passengers, even though we were working. So we had people cooking all our food. We had people making our beds. We had people serving us 24-7 until—life was beautiful until 2008, and I feel really bad in a way because my husband and I, we'd only just got married right before the financial crash of 2008. We'd just come off our honeymoon, we were on such a high, and we were just about to build this most amazing life, and then everything crashed, like literally everything crashed around eight years.

Alex and I, we don't have any other skills. Neither of us have any formal education. We don't have any qualifications. The only thing we could really fall back on if we wanted to was restaurant work. We both had a previous career in food and beverage.

I'm in my mid-40s. I don't plan on going back bussing tables. So we, for the next three years, started searching online, believe it or not, for businesses outside of cruise ships that would eventually get us off cruise ships and back home doing something profitable. Both of us knew that we were completely unemployable. We both knew that there were no jobs out there that were going to satisfy our entrepreneurial spirit, and we knew that we could never be employed.

It just wasn't in our mindset. I've been an entrepreneur since I was a little girl, and I've never, ever, ever had a normal job in my entire life. And so after three years of searching, we had still found nothing. And this is where the story gets interesting. I go and get my hair done one day, and I had a beautiful Filipino hairdresser, and he's blow-drying my hair all straight and looking all glamorous and everything, and he goes, Hey, Erica, did I tell you I have a travel business?

And I looked up at him in the mirror, and I went, What do you mean you have a travel business? That's some good ad copy. Yeah. Do you know where I'm going with this? Oh, man.

My ears were like, do-do-do-do-do-do. I could not believe my ears. What am I hearing? And so, of course, he gave me a link, and I went and looked at it, and I saw it. Look, hon, I didn't even know this was MLM.

I didn't know this was network marketing. I just heard it was a travel business. Boom, I'm in. Tell me no more. I'm in.

And I remember running back to the cabin, and I said, Honey, honey, I found the answer. I know what we're going to do. We're going to go home. We're going to sell these travel cards, and we're going to be rich. Oh, my God.

Life's going to be so amazing. And luckily, my husband was a little skeptical, and he's like, Really, Erica? And so, we actually checked this thing out for about six weeks, and we spoke to some people, and basically, everyone was saying the same thing. It's true. You just get five who get five who get five, and you're going to make all this money.

I'm like, It can't be that hard, right? But anyway, my husband was still a little skeptical, and God bless him. I'm glad he was, because he grounds me sometimes. I think everyone has that turning point where they get to that moment where they just say, You know what? Enough is enough.

I'm sick and tired of this BS. And our income had been steadily going downhill for three years. And that one check, realizing that we hadn't even made a two-digit income for the week, that made me sick. And I snapped. And I remember, I'll never forget it.

We're in the art gallery, and it was a horrible art gallery, if you can imagine. We were 10 stories down, like in this pit. And kids, we were kind of like under a buffet that was 10 stories above us. Kids could throw pizza and pasta on their heads if they wanted to. The gallery, and it's like spaghetti strips all running down your paintings.

It's just disgusting. And I grabbed my husband's hand, and I looked him in the eye. And I said, hon, if we work this hard on our own business, as we do this stinking job, we have to be successful. We have to be. And in that moment, we made a decision.

We made a decision to go back to our room. We drafted our resignation. And I think it was a Friday that we did that, and by Sunday, we were off the ship, and we were flying back home. That was it. We were going to go home.

We were going to save New Zealand with our travel cards. Everyone was going to love what we were doing, and we were going to make so much stinking money. And guess what? It didn't happen. It wasn't until we got home, back to New Zealand, that we worked out that we were in the MLM business.

We were in the network marketing business. We didn't know that there were any stigmas attached to MLM, multi-level marketing. We didn't know that people didn't want what we had. We didn't know that you can't just ring up all your friends and family and do these home meetings and everything's going to be fine. We knew none of that.

We burnt our bridges, actually, quite drastically. And now we're back in New Zealand, back in our home country, with no war market and no idea how to sell this business. We had no clue. And that's how we ended up online, because our hometown, there was just no interest, zero interest whatsoever, because it was an American company, too. So building an American company in New Zealand, it just wasn't happening.

And so we went online again, looking for a way to now get leads for our multi-level marketing business. And that's how we ended up finding Empower Network, because one search led to another search, which led to another search. And I remember it was 4.30 in the morning, and I had stumbled upon this amazing couple. And they were teaching everyone how they were going to be famous on Facebook in 90 days. And I'm like, bam, I'm in.

I need to know how to do this, right? And so I listened to the entire thing for 90 minutes. At the end, I was as high as a kite. I was buzzing. I'm like, I found the answer.

I know exactly how we're going to build this business. I know exactly how we're going to do it. And I remember I ran into the poor husband. Once again, I ran into the bedroom, jumped up on the bed and said, honey, honey, I found the answer. Everything's going to be fine from here on in.

And he goes, what are we doing now? I said, we're going to be internet marketers. And he's like, Erica, have you got any clue what internet marketing is? I said, no, no, but we're going to do it. And he goes, well, what do you need to start with?

I said, well, apparently we need a blog and we need a Facebook account and we need to know what Twitter is. So darlings, you know, if you're listening, I want you to know that Alex and I started out as the quintessential clueless newbies. We couldn't have been any dumber. We didn't even know this was an industry. We didn't even know this was a business model.

We had zero clue. So no matter where you're starting right now, if you're starting with a Facebook account, you had more than we had. So I just want you to know that we are the quintessential clueless newbies. And you know, it was just, oh, what can I say? I think the fact that we'd never tried anything online before, I think that was one of the best things that ever could have happened to us because we had no preconceived ideas.

We had no negative baggage. We had no negative stories. All we knew was here's a system. If we do what they say, we're going to be successful. And that's basically what we did.

We just plugged into the system, followed the eight core commitments and did exactly what they told us to do. Now, you know, the first couple of months weren't easy. We know we had, we had our own personal struggles, you know, building the business from New Zealand. You know, you feel isolated. You are at the, excuse my French, you are at the arse end of the planet.

It is right at the bottom of the world, like it's right at the bottom, you know. And you know, Power Network was brand new at the time and Power Network was right at the top of the world. It's in the United States of America, you know, all these, you know, legends and rock stars that are rocking it in the US. And here we are in little old New Zealand, you know, that little internet marketing business so alone. So you know, our first couple of months were really, really tough.

You know, we were really isolated and we had our struggles. But this is one of the things I want to really impress upon people listening to this call is that we had made a choice when we left Sherps that we would have no plan B because as you know, the famous Will Smith is so wonderful at presenting this concept. Why have a plan B? Because it's only going to distract you from plan A. So we had no plan B.

There was no other thing that we were going to do except make this successful. And our only options were basically to get a job in New Zealand, which just wasn't going to happen. And the only other option, even if I could have sweet-talked my way back onto Sherps, was to get back onto Sherps. But one thing that a lot of people don't know is that I actually developed an autoimmune disease on Sherps in the last year. And I developed that because I couldn't get access to healthy foods.

I couldn't get nourishment. So my body was literally breaking down. So for me to return to my old job, even if I could have got my old job back, for me it felt like a death sentence. It was like, I will never get healthy. I will never get well if I have to go back to Sherps.

So I had a couple of reasons why I was going to make this work no matter what. But the main thing I want to get across is we decided to have no plan B. It was this or nothing. We came close to a few breaking points during our first six months where we nearly actually divorced. The pressure was so intense and the desire to win was so strong that it was literally ripping us apart.

I remember it was May of 2012. We had some really, really dark, dark days. And you know what? It would have been so easy to quit. It really would have been.

But when I kept thinking about my why and why I was doing this and what it would mean to have to give up, I just kept digging my toes and I just kept digging my toes in deeper and deeper and deeper. And it was really funny. The first event was coming around, and this is actually where I finally got to meet you, one of my heroes. The first event was coming around in June of 2012, but I was being such a wussy. I was being such a wussy.

I could not justify jumping on a plane all the way from New Zealand and going all the way to the other side of the planet for an event, for something that really hadn't taken off the way it was supposed to for us. And this is how powerful the mind is. I actually had made myself believe that the event had passed so I didn't have to go. How awesome is that? And I remember because I was getting mad at David Wood because David Wood kept saying, you know, if you don't come to this event, you know, you're not going to be a success in your business.

And if you don't come, you're a wussy. And if you don't come, yada, yada, yada. And I was getting really mad at this language and I'm like, how dare he call me a wussy? He doesn't know what I'm doing. He doesn't know that I'm blogging 12 hours a day.

He doesn't know I'm doing all this stuff, right? How dare he call me a wussy? And I'm like, I was determined not to go. And I'll never forget, there was one comment made where someone said, you can't just build this business from your computer. You've got to get out there and meet the leaders.

You've got to get out there and meet the business owners. You've got to get out there and meet like-minded people who are doing what you want to be doing and who have the results that you want. And I was, oh man, talk about pig-headed. I was like, I know better. I had not emptied my cup.

I was absolutely determined that I could build this, you know, from my computer from New Zealand. And I'll never forget, I received two emails in the space of one week. And one was from a guy who had been building his business from Australia. And he talked about the value of getting to his very first event and he said he didn't want to go. You know, it's from Australia to Las Vegas.

It's so far away. I just don't want to go. He was making all these excuses, very similar to the excuses I was making. And he decided he would go and he said it was the biggest breakthrough of his life. And he went on to turn it into like a $25 million company.

So that kind of annoyed me like, oh, wow, I've messed up big time. And then I got a second email that week from someone who was actually in Empower Network. And he was discussing the very first event that he was trying hard not to go to. And he was making every excuse in the book not to go. But he went and he went on to make a ton of money.

And I got so angry at myself. I'm like, Erica, you are such a foolish woman. Like everyone's telling you what you're supposed to be doing and you think you know better, right? You think, no, no, no, I can do it my way. You can't.

You have to follow the system. And so I don't know what made me do it. Remember, here I am believing my events already gone. I've lost this massive opportunity to do something for myself and for my business. But I went into the back office and I looked up the dates of the event just to prove that the event had gone right.

And I saw that it was one week away. And I'll never forget it. I picked up my purse. I opened it up and I pulled out my credit card and I threw in my numbers and I bought my ticket. And I then went on to kayak.com.

I bought my plane ticket. I booked my hotel. And five days later, I was gone. That's crazy. Wow.

Wow. I was gone. I was gone. I was on that bird. And it was really funny.

Before I left, I made a video. I went down to the beach in Napier, New Zealand. And I sat on the beach with my video camera, my little, you know, my little iPhone. And I was so angry. I was just so, I don't know what I was angry about.

I was just furious. Furious at this. Potentially lost moments and just how much of a small player I was being and it was just really bizarre I posted this video all over YouTube put it on my Facebook I put it everywhere I could and I started getting signups all the way to Atlanta every time I got off to my you know I stopped to my next airport. I'd you know hook up my phone on Wi-Fi. Oh David would congratulations.

You just signed up a new member. Congratulations. You just signed up You know and it went on all the way to Atlanta. I think by the time I got to Atlanta That's 17 new members That's what he meant he meant if you go to an event you get signups and I know it's not exactly how it happens But there was something my message changed the conviction of my voice was that everything was different from that one video And it's that one video when I was super mad on the beach that I posted on my Facebook wall They just changed everything and so by the time I got to Atlanta I had a very clear idea of who I wanted to meet and I remember Oh Lawrence I was so nervous about meeting you. I saw you on the Friday And finally on this Sunday, I said stop being a wussy You've gone all the way to meet this guy And I remember I caught you outside the doors on the Sunday morning and I was so nervous and I kind of you know Edged up beside you and I'm like, hi, I'm Erica from New Zealand.

You said from where I said From where and you just so impressed that I'd gone all that way and you know I think we've been friends ever since you know, you found out that I'm in your downline and It was beautiful and I always remember the last thing you said to me on that Sunday night You pulled me aside. It was so simple It wasn't like you gave me some, you know magic strategy, you know to you know, get traffic or anything like that You said one simple thing It's just so basic. I don't even know why this stuck in my head the most but you said Go home cut videos and build your business. That's all you said I cut videos and I built the business, you know, it's just like wow, you know, it was that simple I'll stop it. And that's one thing I want to say too I think a lot of people they try and over complicate this and one of the things that Alex and I are famous for is Not being complicated at all.

We blog we cut videos and we tell people we're doing, you know We keep it super simple, you know I think we only started trying paid traffic when ITF came out internet traffic formula came out in April of 2014 that's the first time we you know tried paid traffic. So we got to where we were, you know We hit that 100k figure without doing paid stuff, you know, and that just that just blows my mind income disclaimer You know, you know our results are not typical because we're not typical We actually follow the eight core commitments go to impoundnetwork.com for slash income to see every earnings But you know We just followed the system and that first event was a massive breakthrough for me because I saw 1,200 people in a room 1,100 of whom all stood up saying yes, I made a commission. I'm like That's a lot of people in one room. It's a lot of people And Yeah, and I started talking to you know old-timers, you know those veterans Like decades and they're like Erica that doesn't happen. I'm like, what do you mean doesn't know what you doing?

I'm like, okay. Well, this is pretty cool. I feel really good. And so I went home My husband came back to me and for the next three months. We just went crazy We just went hell for leather and there was a competition going and we said, you know what?

we are going to be in the top 200 of the next competition in San Diego and we're gonna have 10 team members at our event and BAM We've gotten to the top 200 and we had 10 people from our team sitting with us in San Diego and this is my second big breakthrough we got to meet Dave Woods on the Saturday night and he asked us about the business and what we were doing and we told him the numbers we've done so far and We hadn't had a five-figure month at this point and he looked us dead in the eye And he said next month you're gonna hit 10k Well, guess what happened next month we hit 10k So four months after four months of just going absolutely Full bore steam ahead. We had a first five-figure month and you know, if you go through the inner circle trainings I think you know Dave shots got one of the best trainings in there about How to break out of the newbie zone always be promoting your last result Well, I'm telling you sweetheart the minute we hit that 10k month BAM that was all over everywhere I wanted everyone to know we've done it. We did it in four months basically from committing in June of 2012 Up into October 2012. So in four months, we had our first five-figure month and That's when everything took off You know when we were able to say we've done this and now we're gonna leave New Zealand and we're gonna go traveling and then You made that video that we're going to Bali and we're so excited about going to Bali and then the internet didn't work But then the next event was coming around and the next event was in Austin, Texas and we looked at each other said, okay They've got this huge competition for top 35. Let's go to top 35.

Let's go for a black lanyard and We kind of wondered if we could but like oh, let's just put it out there Okay, so we're gonna go for a black lanyard, right and we worked our tails off I mean, I think I think we alienated every living human being on the planet that knows us because And those were just grinding into our computers videos and videos and blogs and blogs and we were just talking to anyone we could like we did not rest right and Come January of 2013 and Austin we were on those white couches, you know, we had that black lanyard, you know, it's like dang What can't we do? Do you know what I mean? Like when you set your mind to something and you just go for it and you block out all distractions and you just go forward What can you do? I? mean it just it blows my mind it blows my mind the power of Intention the power of what you can do when you set your mind on achieving something You put it out to the universe and you say by this point This is what I'm achieving and you just go for it and you Completely block out any possibility of failure is not an option.

I mean, it's just It just blows my mind just absolutely blows my mind So, of course, you know, then the next goal was to hit a hundred K. It's like man if we can hit a hundred K for We are solid, you know, and that was the next goal. So it's kind of like If there's one thing I want people to get it, you know Take away from this call is the fact that this is the first thing we've ever tried and all we did was follow the a core Commitments, that's all we did. We did exactly what they told us to do, you know, and it just yeah Is this the system you have in your hands is? Phenomenal if you simply believe if you simply believe that yes If I do exactly what they tell me to do this will work and to completely remove any doubt from your mind I think that's the key factor to we had no doubt That was not an option It was we are going to succeed Yeah, that's pretty powerful.

I mean being able to just say look there is no other thing that we were gonna focus on and you'd laser targeted exactly what you wanted You were being clear and concise. You had a time frame You knew exactly what you wanted to hit and you didn't allow your excuses of well, we're new. We don't have a list we don't have a pedigree of Network marketing background. No, that's all excuses. And once you made a decision you just started tearing it up And I honestly believe I honestly believe the fact that we were so clueless the fact that we Simply believed and what everyone was telling us.

I think that was our greatest asset So for me building from New Zealand and not knowing anything about anything out there in the big internet marketing world I think that was our greatest asset. We knew nothing. We knew nothing but what Empower Network was teaching and I think that is the strongest key to our success is that we had a completely empty cup that only Empower Network could fill I honestly believe that's the key Yeah, and see that's I mean that's a really good point because there's some people who come into The Empower Network to learn how to market and let's say they know a little bit about internet marketing and they feel like oh, you know That's that's not the way I'm gonna do it and then they don't succeed and then they blame You know, whatever system that they're using or Empower Network for not succeeding for them But they didn't even do exactly what we're telling them to do in the eight core commitments go to events I mean literally, I think every single person I know who's made over a hundred thousand There's probably a rare few There's some underground guys The majority I would say a 95 to 97 percent of everyone who's made over a hundred thousand in Empower Network have been to an event and you go to events and the cool thing is a lot of it's just the belief level that I mean when you see a room of people and The majority of them stand up and have made a commission It's it kind of rattles your perception of what's what's real because you go to anything else. I mean Anything else The majority of people is never the ones producing anything because it's just the way it is I mean if I remember I went to high school we had 1,400 freshmen 700 graduated in four years. That's half Graduating high school is not something hard.

So It's just one of those things now some probably moved away, but guess what some people moved in to Why would half of the student body not graduate high school And so I think a lot of us are conditioned to having backup plans like getting a in the States We have something called the GED where you take a test and that's like the equivalent of passing high school Without actually, you know going through four years of high school and I think a lot of people just want these shortcuts because they've just been groomed to consider like well if it's too hard there's Got to be something else for me. And the thing is what is exactly hard? And I think once people find things that are actually difficult things that actually push them They will be shocked on how far or how fast they can achieve something as long as they just put some effort into it's like someone who's never lost weight before and When they firmly dedicate 90 days to it, they will be in the best shape of their life now Maybe they won't have a six-pack, you know, maybe they won't be like mr. Olympia But in 90 days if someone just made a Dedicated effort to making a change and had it on the forefront and it like that's exactly what I'm doing every single day It's kind of hard. It's I mean not say impossible, but it's kind of hard not to see results and That's what you did.

You put your head down you absorb the information and you just went to work it and a lot of people I see who don't have results One of the things that you've done that proves it works is you actually did the work a lot of people go Well, I bought the products and I still haven't made my first thousand dollars and the question I always ask is How many blogs do you have? Let me blog posts specifically. Do you have and I had a gentleman yesterday say well, you know I've been in the business for a little over a year and I blog Every single day sometimes twice a day and I spend literally five to six hours every single wakey moment blogging and The question asking is okay. So how many blog posts you have? Do you have over?

365 blog posts and the answer was no I go. Well, how close are you to 365 is like well It's like under 50 So people have this conception that they're working and building their business and they're telling themselves. I'm working hard. I'm working hard but see Erica actually produced the work and You must have heard the saying, you know talk is cheap, you know Physically do the work what we teach you in empowered and especially in inner circle I have multiple people who sell cars for a living and The things that we teach them inside of the 15k We're teaching them how to use proper words to connect with people and you were talking about it, too You were talking about how you're selling art with different selling modalities Why don't you explain that? I mean, that's the type of stuff that we teach and it applies to any business Yeah That's an interesting thing when you know when you're actually dealing with someone, you know face-to-face on the cruise ships and you're selling different levels of Let's call them products, you know different levels of paintings different level of products to different types of people You have to know what kind of modality you are talking to and one of the best things, you know We do when you're working face to face.

It's all about rapport and noticing, you know What type of personality you're dealing with? You know a lot of people They're going to be you know, I don't you know auditory. They're going to be you know, kinesthetic. They're going to have different ways of connecting with you and For us on you know when we were selling, you know, basically, you know larger scale items we needed to be really cognizant of the type of Person that we were dealing with, you know, we would need to work out, you know What kind of background they had would need to work out? You know what their kind of income level was what their tastes were, you know?

We had to look ask lots and lots of leading questions to get them to where they wanted to go with a certain work of art We also had to be very up on our you know, our selling cues, you know, we had to Ask the right questions, you know alternative choice questions We had to just be very specific in our language patterns to help them Get to where they wanted to go and also to help us So we what we wanted to sell and it's very similar to what we do here in Empower Network as well You know You have to be listening to pick up on all the cues That your people are telling you when they're coming into your world with Empower Network And I say this so often a lot of mentors here in Empower Network teach this it's like We're not really dealing with products here We're dealing with people and once you understand people and what their needs are and how they are expressing those needs to you know, you will have massive success when you understand human psychology in anything that you're doing And I think that's something that you know Empower Network teaches very beautifully is how to really understand what your prospect needs from you and how you get you know That out of the prospect when you're talking to them So that kind of answer your question there, yeah, no, it definitely does and so That's pretty cool that you can bridge some of your past experiences into your business and everyone should be Bridging past experiences like how I was an engineer and use selling art you can Bring over the things that made you money in past industries jobs Occupations into internet marketing internet marketing I think a lot of times gets a bad rap because it sounds difficult. It sounds like oh, I don't know what that is really, it's just connecting with people and solving their problems and People are just afraid of the unknown and this is kind of what the inner circle does and it kind of breaks down the barriers of what you believe is true or Just something that was told to you because you had nothing else to fill that void. You just had some unknown You're like, I don't know what it is. So I'm scared of it And so that's kind of like one of the some of your major struggles, right? You were we were talking about earlier before this call, you know, you were saying I guess everyone guesses.

I got this, too People are probably I've asked you why don't you just get a job? Oh, don't get me started Oh Lord, oh Right, I mean like you're a grown woman and people are giving you advice on how to live your life and Now seeing what you've accomplished, but before you've accomplished it's just crazy. How many people will give you advice on how to make money? But it's like they're not making the money they wouldn't make so it's kind of interesting It's an interesting situation that when someone who doesn't have a good system on their own end on the generating income They want to give you something that has trapped them. So why don't you talk about that?

You know what? This has been one of the most painful parts of our story and one of the most painful struggles for us is You know, we and I'm sure a lot of people listening, you know our experience things as well So I'm glad you did bring this up Family and friends, you know, they don't understand what it is that you're doing and In the first instance, you know, they may be fearful that you're you know being taken advantage of you know You're doing something that they don't understand and oh my god, you might get into this and that and yada And I mean, I've been accused of being in Scientology Apart from something Tom Cruise does It's just bizarre and They that they're fearful for you because they can't see you getting results initially They don't understand what you're doing And you don't have time to explain it all to them because he's so busy trying to make it work, right? And so they get worried for you and then they start projecting their fears on to you Saying stupid stuff like, you know, there's something at Mike and things never gonna work. Why don't you go and get a real job or They see you just sitting at home all day long and they go you're so lazy. Why don't you get a real job, you know?

The worst one I had was just get real will you just get real and I'm Copy any more real than I am right now. I am doing this god damn it This was the hardest thing, you know when we made the decision to quit our jobs I actually did make the mistake of you know Ringing home and advising my family what I was about to do and the response I got was a very stony cold Get real and I'm like, oh that was like a dagger in my heart a dagger and I remember I couldn't really breathe because you know, we don't really have these conversations in my family and At the moment, you know things are still very strained because I chose to not get real I chose to Not, you know go home and get a real job. I chose to not go home and work nine-to-five I chose to do something unreal surreal. I chose to do something surreal that no one understands and given my Choices like given my time again. If someone said would you do the exact same thing the exact same way?

I'd do it. Heck Yeah, I wouldn't change a thing because I've learned so much about myself That I never knew before I never knew I could be this strong I never knew that I could stand up for something I believed and I never knew that I could Be bold enough to go against the grain and say, you know What you guys can stay all the way over there and when you're ready, you know, you can come back into my world But this is who I am. This is what I'm doing. And you know, you can either like it or lump it I really don't care and this was a huge awakening for me Because I've always been the pleaser. I've always been someone who done what everyone has wanted me to do, basically, and this is the first time I've ever had the power that I have been empowered to be me.

I wouldn't have got that if it hadn't been for the personal development side of Empowered Network. I started personal development back in my 20s and I'm really lucky. I got to see Tony Robbins a couple of times in my 20s and there's one thing I learned from Tony in my 20s. It was one statement. I'm big on these one statements that stick with me.

He was up on stage and he said one thing, if you want to go out and do something and someone else has done it, I want you to remember this one sentence. Possible in the world, possible for me, it's just a question of how, and it stuck with me for 20 years. When I wanted to be an art auctioneer, I was actually told, get real, you can't be an art auctioneer. I'm like, watch me. Basically, within two years, I was in the top 10 of the company.

I was the top producer. What I did was I watched someone who had the results I wanted. I modeled what they did. I did exactly what they did and I became one of the top 10. When it came to this, I just remember Tony Robbins' statement, possible in the world, possible for me, it's just a question of how.

When I went to Atlanta and I saw all of these normal people up on stage making this ridiculous money, I'm like, possible in the world, possible for me, it's just a question of how. The how is in the products. I know I've gone off on a bit of a tangent, but I did a lot of PD, a lot of personal development work in my 20s. On ships, it was just a riot. For 10 years, I did nothing but have a good time and then back in my 40s, I'm back to personal development again.

A bit of me regrets stepping away for 10 years, but now, I'm so happy to be back. If Empower Network had not enforced the eight core commitments with one of them being read daily, I wouldn't be who I am right now. I wouldn't be on this call. I wouldn't be talking the way I'm talking. None of these words would be coming out of my mouth and I certainly wouldn't be standing up for what I believe in.

I'd be playing small and just being who everyone else wanted me to be, that small little safe mouse doing what she always does, just going with the flow, getting a mortgage for 40 years and just doing that thing. That would be me. Empower Network gave me the strength and the power to stand up, step into my power, step into the most beautiful, truest, authentic version of myself and say, hey world, here I am. My name is Erica and I'm okay doing what I'm doing. If you want to come and join my world, you're most welcome to do so.

Yeah. Yeah. That's killer. That is killer. Let's think about this.

Okay. So not having a plan B, going straight forward and so a lot of that comes down to the way you've been able to succeed is the fact that you knew exactly where you wanted to go but also really people don't fail in the industry. There's no real failing. It's more of just a learning curve. You learn from mistakes.

You grow as a business owner but people really fail in the industry because they quit and since you did not quit, you just kept going. You actually, I mean in a very short amount of time, generated ridiculous results for somebody who has no internet experience and it just goes to show us like man, if you really wanted something, I mean how bad do you want it? I believe if you're why, why don't you talk about this, like your why of how that pushed you and why, I mean most people would just be like, yeah, you're right, I'll just get a job because it just makes sense because everyone tells me the same story but you had a why that basically made you do and become successful. So what is with the why and how can people take their own why to reach their own goals? I had a why that ripped my heart out.

They say that you will do so much more for someone else than you will ever do for yourself. My why for me personally was I had a negative why. Basically my negative why was I can't go back to ships otherwise I'll die because basically I won't be able to feed myself with proper food. I won't be able to get nutrients I need to beat this autoimmune disease and so my why was I can't fail otherwise I'm going to die so it's pretty strong. However, that wasn't the image that was my true why.

I love my husband more than anything else on this planet. I've waited a long time to find Mr. Right and I was very fortunate to find him in Venice one day and he is my fairytale romance, he is my soulmate, he is everything I never knew I wanted and I could see that us working on ships, it was killing us, it was absolutely killing us. When the money wasn't coming in, you can't have a good quality of life, you can't have fun because everything is so unstable. We got to the point where we were living off our savings on ships like we were paying to have a job.

We were dipping into our savings to pay our staff, we were dipping into our savings to pay for our life on ships. It was just ridiculous. We were going into a negative and so we had to get off ships. It got stressful and there were moments when it was 50-50. It's like, oh man, really?

This thing might not work out and on this one image, there is one image that I will never forget for the rest of my life that was my absolute why, was watching the man of my dreams, the man that I love so much put on his suit, put on his tie on the ship getting ready for work and he's got this tie and he's yanking it tighter and tighter and tighter around his throat and you can see that he just wants to freaking strangle himself and his face is going red and you can see how much he hates what he's about to do and his fist clenches and you can see the blood like pumping in his veins and he thrusts his fist into the ceiling of the cabin and punched a dent into the cabin ceiling. I don't know if you've ever taken a cruise before but they're not very strong, these ceilings, right? And he punched it and he goes, I've expletive, I hate this job. It was pretty intense and he stormed out the door and he slammed the door shut and off he went and I'll never forget being home thinking if we ever go back to ships, I'm going to lose my husband, like this is just not going to happen, this is just not going to work out. So he was my why and I think you have to have a why that rips your heart out because you're going to be challenged, you're going to have those moments where you're going to look at the computer and just want to throw it off the freaking balcony because stuff isn't working and then you have to go to your why because your why is the only thing that's going to pull you back to that computer and make you learn one more thing and make you apply one more thing and make you tweak one more thing until you get it working.

If you don't have that why that rips your heart out, if you don't have that why that makes you cry, you are going to cave in to an obstacle that may come across your path and believe me, as an entrepreneur, you're going to have obstacles and you're going to cave in and go, you know what, my job's not so bad, I can do that for another 40 years, I can do that, it's okay, I'm going to live the rest of my life in quiet desperation, just hoping I just get by, but if you've got a why that makes you cry, trust me, you're fire will burn so deep inside your belly that you will just keep going no matter what and you will just pray, you will just pray day in and day out that you are three feet from gold and trust me, every single person who keeps trying is literally three feet from gold. You don't know when the miracle is going to happen, but trust me, if you quit, that is the only certain way to guarantee failure, that's the only way, that's the only way. That is key because I mean, if you don't exactly know why you're doing something, guess what, you're going to stop, why am I losing weight, I don't know, well, let's go have some buffets, you know what, why are you reading a book, well, it's because I like reading, I like to learn new things and so when people's ideas go from like, well, I'm in school to learn but when I graduate, I stopped learning, you have to have some drive to encourage yourself to move forward and to grow and if you're in a job that doesn't allow you to grow or you're basically just kind of like coasting, isn't that what life's about and that's not a good way to live and I truly believe everyone has the ability to have massive, massive success and this is what the inner circle's about, the inner circle's about really where do you want to be and is this what life is for you because making just enough money to kind of cover bills, that doesn't make sense, it just doesn't make sense and one way to really kind of put that in perspective, go to a cruise ship, go to Las Vegas, go to a really nice beach resort, you'll see people who actually don't just live just to pay the bills, like people actually have found ways to be ultra successful, now how did they get there and if you're not there right now, what do you need to change in your life to achieve something much greater and Erica hit it on the head, sometimes it's not just you, it might be something external to yourself, just like myself, if I was a single guy, I would not be in this industry, why, if I'm an engineer working for myself, I'd be still an engineer making enough money because I don't really have anything else that I really need. So figure out what you really want, what is your why in building your business, understanding that you know, depending on where you want to go and how fast you want to go, the inner circle audio is here for you, helping you tap into your inner greatness. So signing off, Erica and Lawrence, thank you for listening, see you on the next inner circle audio, peace.