Mary Amoedo is a Christian, a wife and a mom of 3. This former engineer whose passion for personal growth combined with her love of people has helped her and her husband, Richard, to become one of the most successful couples in direct sales. They are currently the Global Master Distributors for Velovita, a health and wellness company focused on helping people biohack their way to peak performance. It’s their passion to help others achieve their dreams that has catapulted them to their current level of success.

In 1998 while in her young 20s, she was introduced to the concept of personal growth and development, and it radically changed her life. Since then, she has been on the never-ending journey to be everything that God created her to be.

Mary leads as a servant leader and has a calling to coach and train other women in having it all without sacrificing anything. She has found a powerful way to intentionally integrate her faith, family and business. Her desire is to help as many people as she can to become free – financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

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I am excited to have Mary on the show. I have known her for over a dozen years. It is not just that I have known her, it is that I have watched her impact so many people's lives personally, professionally and mine as well, and she is someone who literally walks the walk and doesn’t talk the talk. We are going to talk about some interesting and deep conversations about leadership and balance. What does that mean? How does your faith play into it? I would like to say Mary is going to pour into you and I want you to be open to receive.

Let me tell you a little bit about her. Mary Amoedo is a Christian, a wife, and a mom of three. This former engineer whose passion for personal growth combined with her love of people has helped her in her husband Richard to become one of the most successful couples in direct sales. Mary leads as a servant leader and has a calling to coach and train other women and have it all without sacrificing anything. She has found a powerful way to intentionally integrate her faith, family, and business. Her desire is to help as many people as she can to become free financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

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Thank you so much, Mary, for being here with me.

Thank you so much for having me, Patty. What an honor.

I have to tell you that it is an honor for me to be able to share you with my audience. You meet those people in your life that you are like, “If I could introduce them to you and have them know you and know your heart like I do.” I know they are going to and it is a privilege for me to be able to share you with them. Let's dive in right away. You and Richard are one of the most successful couples in direct sales and I have seen you show up, lean in, and be leaders for a multitude of years. When we talk about being successful, let's start there. In your words, what does success mean to you?

I read this in a book years ago and I can't remember the author. I wish I did so I could give him credit. It was, “Success is being respected the most by people who are closest to you.” It is not about money, fame, and things, but at the end of the day, it is about your relationships. If your relationships are not rich, saturated, and present with love, you got nothing.

That is so true on so many levels. Let's talk about leadership. You have been a leader in every aspect from the minute that I have known you. I have seen you do it in church, as a friend, and in business. I have always admired and respected you for that, but how do you develop yourself as a leader? It is for those of the people in the audience who maybe do not feel like one.

I never saw myself as a leader before. I did not go set out to become a leader. It developed over time. I was looking to be better and be more effective. All a leader is someone that other people want to be like. They say it all the time. Nobody chooses who follows them, but everybody chooses who leads them. To become a leader, you got to be someone that you would want to follow. It is all about you being the best version of yourself. I always tell people, “Pick an area that you want to develop yourself in whether that is in your finances, physical fitness, thought processes, or parenting. Any area of your life that you want to get better, dig into that area. Get better because that will bleed into other areas.”

Why? Because when you heighten your awareness in how you are being in one area of your life, you will naturally heighten your awareness in how you are being in other areas of your life. Getting better becomes something that you have a hunger for. Once you have an experience of having a breakthrough in an area or becoming someone that you never thought you could be, that starts to become addictive. You start to see, “Where else can I get better?” The first step in becoming a leader is becoming better.

I know that you shared with me once when we were having lunch that you told me that you and your husband, Richard check yourselves into a hotel by yourself and focus, talk, and have discussions on where you guys want to focus and pour into, whether that is your children, church, or business. Where you feel called to do that, you guys formulate a plan for that. I remember thinking how amazing that was that you did that. How long have you guys been doing that and how effective has that been professionally and on a personal level as well?

We do that once a year. It is called our annual vision trip. We try to do that in early December to prepare for the next year. We learned that from Pastor Jimmy Evans. He and his wife, Karen, have a ministry called MarriageToday. Several years ago, we did a simulcast event at our church with hundreds of couples. That was the one thing we pulled out of that was we were going to do this vision trip. Out of all the hundreds of couples that were at that event, I only know two other couples who have ever done it.

Only one of those two does it consistently every year. We have done it consistently and for most couples, he says, “You take 2 or 3 days out. Half the time you spend having fun. In the other half, you work on your marriage. What do you want to work on with your kids and your relationship.” Who are relationships you want to foster or other couples you want to be with, and mentors you want to have?” You discuss all those things.

Areas in your relationship that you are having an issue with. There is a great structure for you to address things that you do not necessarily want to address or do not know how to address. There are workbooks and videos. We started doing that and it is now probably 4 or 5 days that we usually go because we also work on our business. We are unique that we work together also. We have worked on our business, marriage, and ourselves.

One of the things that I can tell you is there has been a couple of years where we have skipped it because in 2019, our daughter got married and we were having a lot of things that were happening. We could not squeeze it in and we could feel the effects of it because we did not have that game plan strategy and mapped out the whole year.

A lot of times, people map out their own year, but when you are married, if you do not map out your year and how your family is going to go, whatever happens, is by default. It is accidental. It is not intentional. If you do not operate with a plan in your family and your marriage, do not be surprised at 1, 2, 3, or 5 years down the road, you are dealing with the exact same thing you have always been dealing with because there is no structure for having any breakthrough or progress in that area.

That makes a lot of sense to me. We think about all the things we do professionally and we think, “I am going to hire a coach or I am going to do this or that, and we do not think anything of that. That is an investment. The reality is what greater investment can there be into you as a couple in all those different areas so you pour. I have always believed input equals output.

You cannot be effective in your job and in your business if your home life stinks. You can do it for a period, but you can't do it over a sustained amount of time because how you are in one area will eventually bleed into another area. If you are struggling in one area, you eventually going to struggle in another area if you do not turn that around. For us, our marriage is foundational. How our marriage goes is how our kids and business goes. For us, especially any couples that work together, it is super critical that your relationship is working and that you guys are working together. Otherwise, it starts to bleed into everything else.

Leadership Fueled By Freedom: Your core values will dictate what balance looks like.

It leads us to something that is also very important which is balanced. How do you balance all those areas in your life and not go out of your mind?

People think that balance is getting equal time to everything that is important to you, and that is not realistic. If you think about balance, it is giving attention to the things that require it in that season. If you think about a boat. If you have got one area of the boat where it is weighted. In order to balance it, you have got to give attention to the other side of the boat to balance out the weight.

It is the same with your life. If you have got something that is heavy that is happening, what balance might be is giving all of your attention to that area. If you had a sick child that is in the hospital, what balance looks like is you are in that hospital with that sick child and everything goes to the wayside. Where people struggle is they think that they have got to give all this equal time to all these areas and it is not realistic because life does not look that way.

In one season, if you are struggling in your marriage, you might be given extra time to that marriage, and you might be spending less time with your friends. If you were in physical distress, maybe you are having a health challenge or in that season, you are spending time at the gym. You are spending a lot of time cooking or eating right and less time doing other things.

The one thing that I always say is you got to understand your core values because your core values will dictate what balance looks like. For me, one of my core values is relationship. When someone asks me to go to the movies, I do not say yes to that because to me, that does not foster the relationship. If they asked me to go to dinner, then that fosters the relationship. Looking at your core values will dictate where you should invest your time because time is like money. You are either spending it or investing it.

Sometimes, in different seasons of your life, one is more than the other. I always am working on where am I spending my time, money, energy, and resources. All of those things come into play. Even there was a time back in the day when even when you filled out a resume, one of the top things they wanted to know is that you could multitask, but we have gotten away from that.

Now we want to know that you know how to focus. I love what you are saying about not doing things equally because that does make a lot of sense. You need to be focusing on what is important right now. The question then becomes, “What do you focus on when everything seems like it is important?”

You said something about spending your time and looking at where you spend your time. People need to shift where are you investing your time. Everything seems important, but what is going to give you the biggest return on your time investment? When everything is important, at the end of the day, what is going to give you the greatest return because sometimes everything is important.

What most people forget about is investing time in things that are going to pay you long-term. One of the things that is a major investment for me is my kids because that is my number one job. I only have one shot to raise my kids and that is it. Once that shot is over, it is over. There are 50 million ways I can make money. If any business ends, you can start another business, but you got one shot to raise your kids.

If all things are important, sometimes you got to put something to the wayside temporarily to devote attention on something that is critical right now. There have been seasons where I have got a mound of work and a lot going on. I have got people wanting attention, people asking for coaching, deadlines for the business, and then I look at my kids and they need me. They need some time and attention.

To have a greater return on investment is investing that time in my kids. Can I do that every day? No, I can't but you have got to look at your schedule and your schedule is going to dictate. If you look at your schedule and your bank account, that is going to indicate what is most important to you. If what is most important to you is not being dictated by your schedule in your bank account, then you need to reevaluate that.

I think that is where people struggle, especially with mamas, when you are working, if you are a business owner, you have got a business, employees, and kids. There have been seasons where I feel like, “I am not winning at any of those areas.” Everything is okay, but when you are a top producer, and I know a lot of men and women that read your blog are top producers, it does not feel good when things all feel okay when you are used to having things being extraordinary. If your marriage, kids, finances, and business is okay, that does not feel good for someone who is a great producer.

I always look at, “What is the one area in my life that if I impacted that area would have the greatest ripple effect on all the other areas of my life.” For me, that is either my spiritual walk with God or my relationship with my husband or kids. Those are the areas that if I focus on that, you would have a ripple effect on the other.

It is not my business, finances, and my working out. It is usually my relationship with God or my relationship with my husband and kids. The thing is when everything seems important, you got to ask yourself, “What is the one area that if I focused on would have the greatest ripple effect in all those other areas,” and that is where you focus.

I heard this quote once, and at first, I was like, “That slapped shot beside the face, but when you think about it was quite profound.” If you feel like you have a problem and that problem can be solved by throwing money at it, it is not a problem. I feel like when you think about things, a lot of times, you are like, “All of these things are going on.” As you said, you can always make more money.

That is something that if you are willing to do the work, you can make money. You are right. Those other things that are in our life are only here for right now, and it is important to know what it is that you want to focus on. For me, as a speaker, something that was super important when I was going to be traveling was to down with my husband and say, “These are what we want to do and accomplish. Doing this will get us there faster,” but where was the balance between getting there faster, being gone, and being at home with my husband.

We talk about it a lot and I am always asking him, “Whenever this does not feel right to you, all you have to do is say so.” That is not the only way. It is like when you go to the gym and they are like, “I want to work on my abs.” If you have a bad back and you can't get on the floor and do sit-ups, there is another exercise to work that muscle. That is not the only way you have to do it. Sometimes, it may seem like, “This is too much for me to do.” There is another way.

Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

There is always another way. I remember John Maxwell saying, “Instead of asking, can I or can't I, which is what most people go default to is I can or I can't. If there is something you want, you should start asking yourself is, ‘How can I?’” It is working for that muscle group. How can I? If I can't do set-ups, how can I? If I can't make this happen this way, how can I?

Asking how can I brings up creative things that you can do. I will tell you one book that impacted me in that thought process was this book called Leading on Empty. It is a book for people in ministry, but it spoke to me as a leader so much because I was leading on empty. My tank was empty. I was giving and giving. Giving to my kids, marriage, team, and business. I felt so mentally and emotionally drained.

One of the things he says in that book is, “Ninety-seven percent of all the things you do, anybody with enough training can do it.” You are replaceable but that 3% is something that only you can do, and that is something that you got to do first. That changed my thought process on a lot of things. There is only a handful of things that God set aside for you to handle, and you got to handle that, it changes your perspective.

For me, I am the only mom that my three kids have. If I were to pass and Richard is ready to get married again, they can have another stepmom, but she will never be me. That is something that only I can do. Only I can be a wife to my husband. Only I can work on my health and wellness. Only I can have a relationship with God. That is for me to do. All this other stuff is fleeting. You are absolutely right. If you can throw money at it, it is not a problem.

Sometimes, you have to give yourself grace. I remember, I struggled with some of the things that people send you had to do a business like, “You have to blog.” That was big for me. It was so much for me because not that I can't write, but it is not something that I do as easily as speak. I struggled with people telling me that is what I needed to do. When I finally took a step back and said, “No. I need to find another way,” that way for me was to publish a magazine. It is published quarterly. That freed up so much time for me rather than having to write every single week in a blog. There is always a different way to do something.

You do not have to do it the same way that everybody else does it. You get to be uniquely you, and I always like to say feed your soul. What’s important to me is doing things that feed my soul. For me, one of the things that I believe is when I am doing things that need to generate revenue, then I need to focus on generating revenue. When I am doing things that feed my soul, I do not care if I make a dime. Those things feed my soul.

The goal is to be able to know when you should be doing one and when you should be doing the other. That is always where I have always got my clarity and knowing when. There are times that I am the most creative in the morning. I am a lot like, “When is the time that I should be doing relationship-building things?” I know when I should be having those phone calls that deepen relationships, when should I be focusing on revenue-generating things, and everybody needs to know what those things are for them. That is important. For me, there is no emergency.

I am in marketing. It is not like there is blood involved or anything. There is never a marketing emergency. Unless I am out of town speaking, there is no way that I pick up the phone to answer to anybody on a weekend. That time is for my husband and that is our couple time. That is how it is and that is a boundary.

I think it is important to have those boundaries to be able to get that balance. We do not always learn these things all at one time. Sometimes we learned them because we have people in our life. We have coaches and mentors and I think mentorship is super important. How do you find a mentor that can help you grow? Obviously, you have been through a lot of growth. You focus a lot on personal and business growth, but how do you find a mentor that can help you grow?

It all depends on the season of life that I am in. I am always looking at what is the area. You do not have to have a mentor that you know that you are meeting with. A mentor could be someone from afar. It could be someone famous that you follow. You read their books, you listen to their podcasts, or you watch them on YouTube.

Mentors can come in a lot of different avenues, especially in this day and age. There is no reason why you do not have mentorship. You need to look at what is the area of life that if that were to dramatically improve, would impact all the other areas of your life. That is where you start to look and develop yourself.

A lot of people collapsed mentorship and coaching. They think, “I have a coach and mentor.” I do not think those are the same thing. I feel like a coach is there to help you produce a specific result. I might have someone who coaches me in my health, at the gym, or in public speaking skills. That is a coach. Sometimes, you do not have to pay for them but it is typically someone who is here to help you produce a specific result.

A mentor is someone who is there to help you grow. It is someone to help you grow your capacity. I always hear people say, “My plate is full,” but people also say, “Do you want something done? You give it to a busy person because they have a different capacity.” I tell people, “What a mentor is for is to help increase your capacity.” If you have a plate and your plate is full, go get a mentor to help you increase your plate size so that your capacity for handling more is there. Many people get looked over for promotions and opportunities because they have not grown themselves and their capacity.

People who ongoingly get an opportunity is because they have been intentional about growing their capacity. That is what a mentor is for. Look for areas in your life that you want to improve. Start diving in and start asking questions. That is the main thing. Our society has smacked people down and conditioned us not to ask questions, especially in a lot of households, I have heard kids are not encouraged to ask questions, like, “Do not talk. Only ask questions when someone talks to you.”

That is where you are going to develop yourself by asking questions until you get the answers you need. People who are in growth and development do not mind getting questions asked. People like you and I, Patty, and people that are reading this show love sharing their wisdom because they did not get here on their own. They got here because someone poured into them. People like that are usually more than happy to pour into you.

That is my recommendation. Find the area of your life that you want to grow and start diving in. There are books and podcasts. There is a litany of resources that you can have completely free. You do not have to pay for mentorship if you do not have the resources for that. If you have the resources for that, I highly recommend you invest in yourself, mentorship, training, and development.

I feel like we all have gifts, but God did not give us those gifts and we can keep them in our living room. He gave us those gifts for us to pour into other people. I take that very seriously. Gifts are gifts that you use in your business and professional life. Those gifts are gifts that we share in our personal life but sometimes people will come to you out of nowhere.

Leadership Fueled By Freedom: You have to learn skills and develop yourself over time to have success.

I can't even tell you how many times somebody that I did not know and said, “I have been following you. I would love to jump on a call.” You did not even see it coming, and then all of a sudden, they wanted to have a conversation. They asked you questions, you mentored them a little bit, and then, later on, they will come back to you and tell you how much that changed their life, and you are surprised. You do not realize sometimes that the words and the actions that we take are things that other people are praying for.

I know you have that experience a lot. I heard a sermon one time that said, “You have to be in a good pouring position to experience the fullness of life.” What he says is, “In the pouring position, you have to be poured into, but you also have to pour out.” You can't pour out, you also have to be poured into, but you can't be poured into without pouring out.

There has got to be a balance. As you learn and develop, you got to pour out and give to the next generation or the next level of leadership. A lot of times, people disqualify themselves in what they have accomplished. Most of the time, as human beings, we only look at where we are, where we want to be, and how far there is to go.

Very rarely do we look back at how far we have come and said, “I have come a long way.” They discount all the growth that they have had from way back when to now, and they do not realize you have something that you can give to somebody else. You are not the same person you were several years ago, and you can help somebody with the wisdom that you have now.

I always tell my kids, “You can learn from experience or wisdom.” Experience hurts and costs more than wisdom. Wisdom is somebody else's experience. Sometimes, my kids choose experience. The great thing is people who are hungry to learn, they want to learn from wisdom. You have got some wisdom, whether you realize it or not, that you can give and pour into somebody else.

Let's talk a little bit about faith. Everybody does not always like to talk about that but it is a subject that you and I talk about a lot. How do you integrate your faith without alienating people or seeming too churchy? Sometimes, people are totally open to that. You can see that in the way that they live their life and they are so open for that.

The fact of the matter is our faith is such an important part of who we are. I could not have it be a part of my life or business even if I wanted to. I would not even know how to make a choice to do that. It is who I am at my core. How do you integrate it for you, Richard, leadership, your team, your family, and all the things that you do?

Like you, I do not hide it. I am also sensitive to where people are at. I always pray that God would have me be sensitive to where people are and I always pray that he would use me. I always listen for the prompting of the holy spirit to see where there is an opportunity to share. I do not always share, but if there is somebody that is struggling is in need, I do not care what their faith and background is. I always ask for permission, “May I pray for you?”

I remember I went to Brazil on a ministry trip. It was my first and only ministry trip. That is not my calling. God did not call me out to the mission field. I love the men and women who do that and I will fund their excursions and their trips, but that is not my calling, but I did go one time. I remember the pastor in Brazil saying that way back when Jesus walked the Earth, people did not call themselves Christians. Other people called them Christians because they were a little Christ and they saw them doing the works that Christ did.

These disciples, when they walked the Earth and someone had an issue, they did not say, “I will put you on my prayer list.” They prayed with them right then and there. That convicted me at that time like, “How many times have I said that I will pray for you?” I am in the moment intended to pray for them, but then when I walked away, I totally forgot about it because life got busy and that happens to the best of us.

After that ministry trip, when someone had an issue, I would always say, “May I pray for you?” They would look at me like I had three eyes and they said, “Now?” I said, “Yeah. If that is okay with you.” Since I started that several years ago, not one single person has ever said, “No, I do not want you to pray for me.” They always welcomed it.

That is how I integrated. If I felt a prompting to pray for someone, I would pray for them. I would ask the Lord to lead me in that and say whatever was on his heart for them. I always pray over my team, kids, and household. I even pray for my grass to grow in my side yard that is dead because God wants to give us the desires of our hearts. You might as well pray for it all.

I always listen for the holy spirit to lead me in that. I do not apologize for it. The one thing that I have had to do that has been a struggle for me is observing a Sabbath. It says in the ten commandments that you should work six days and on the seventh day, keep it holy unto the Lord. Pastor Robert Morris of Gateway Church did a sermon about taking the day off on a Sabbath, and I am terrible at doing it.

I felt convicted and I started doing it. It has made a world of difference, but I let all of my teammates know, I let my leaders know, “A reminder, I am not going to be in the chats from 3:00 PM Saturday to 3:00 PM Sunday. If anything is on fire, text me or call me, but I won't be checking my messages in here.”

It has made a world of difference for my team because they see it as an example. It has made a world of difference for me because I can refresh myself. It is something that people ask me about it. I tell them it is my active obedience because if it were left to me, I would work seven days a week because I love what I do. For someone of faith, we have got to do and put priority on what God has called us to do. As a Christian leader, he has called me to be an example in the marketplace in all facets.

It is in my relationship to him. It is in the time I spend and invest in my business and my relationship with God. It is how I treat people and I lead that way. People are surprised, especially in our profession. There are great things about our profession and there are not great things about our profession, but I am out to change people's perception of that because of how I lead.

I remember doing an event with John Maxwell. A lot of people know who he is, some people do not know which I am surprised. He is a Christian, author, speaker, and his main thing is leadership development. I remember working with him and thinking, “I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be an example where people would be drawn towards having a relationship with Jesus because of the example he is.”

Leadership Fueled By Freedom: Find someone who matches your faith and your beliefs.

That is the place I stand from. Years ago, I created my personal mission statement which is on my wall. That is in all of my Zooms. It is to glorify God by being thoroughly used for his purpose. Whatever purpose that is in that moment, that is what I am going to do. Maybe that is taking out the trash, scrubbing toilets, or mentoring someone, but that is what I focus on in that moment.

Going back to that part about praying right now, I have been on the receiving side of that with you. I remember when I shared with you when my mom passed away and you said that, I was totally blown away. I remember thinking, “What?” That was my exact reaction, but it made a huge impact in my life and I was forever grateful for it and stuff.

I have to say that people lead in different ways, how we mentor people, how we lead, and how we love. It is not the same for every single person, but I love it. Going back to what we were talking about earlier about how you lead, work with your husband, Richard, and you are a very successful couple in direct sales. I want to address that for a minute. As leaders, what would you say is a common myth about the direct sales industry?

There are so many common myths. There are the myths of the people who are not in the industry, and then there are the myths of the people who are in the industry. The one common myth of people not in the industry is that you have got to be a pariah with your friends and family to have success. You have got to have some inherent skill of being able to sell to have success, and that is not true. I always tell people that direct sales is an actual profession. You have to learn skills and develop yourself over time to have success. Can anyone do it? Yes. Does it take time? Yes, and that is with anything. You and I can decide, “Let's go and do a marathon next year.”

Can we both do it? Yes. Is it going to take us both some time? Yes. Do you and I both need to be on different paths on getting there? Yes, but it is not a myth that only certain people can run a marathon. Anyone can run a marathon. Will you be in there like win the Boston Marathon? Probably not. You have to have some talent to win and be number one in the Boston Marathon, but you and I can both run it.

That is one of the common myths is that you have to have some inherent skill or be some annoying person to your friends and family. The other myth that I hear a lot, even from people within the industry, is that you have to sacrifice so much to have success. One of the things that I have seen a lot in our profession is people work themselves to death in this profession because you can. That is not just in network marketing. That is in any business that you are a business owner. You literally could work 24/7. You know that as a business owner, Patty.

You could wake up, work until you pass out, dream about work, wake up, work until you pass out and dream about work. Over and over again for years. The thing about our profession is you got to have a cadence that works. I always tell people, “This is a marathon. It is not a sprint. There will be seasons where you will sprint, but you have to have a cadence that you can run the race and finish it.”

In a marathon, it is 26.2 miles. You can't sprint the first 5 miles and have gas left for the last 20 miles. You got to have a cadence that can sustain you for the long haul. You might find yourself wanting to sprint for half a mile around mile 10. I do not know. I am not a marathon runner, but you can't keep that cadence the whole time.

In this business and profession, you do have to find the right mentorship that is going to pour into you. One of the benefits of people who join our team is they get both me and Richard. They get the male and the female perspective on everything, whether that is building a business or a family. For us, I tell my leaders in advance, “I am going to warn you. You start moving up in leadership in my organization and our business, I am going to be all up in your business. You are going to have not a great business. You are going to have a great marriage. Your finances are going to be great. You are going to have thriving kids because it is not okay for me for you to make a bunch of money in our business and have your life suffer.”

It is not okay. It is not okay to make all this money in the business and then have your kids hate your guts because you neglected them in the process. It is not okay to make all this money in the business and you are going through a divorce because you gave all your time and attention to your business. Until leaders like myself decide and put their foot down that is not okay, it is going to be prevalent in the industry. I see it all the time and it is just not good. It is so disappointing when I hear people having that experience in the industry because it is unnecessary.

The role of leadership is important. No matter what you are doing, I could see in your industry, how very important that is. What advice would you give to somebody who maybe had been in another company, direct sales, or network marketing company and did not work for them? Maybe they got a little bit of success but we did go through the pandemic. A lot of companies in every type of business fell by the wayside.

Maybe they are having to rebuild or now they are working from home. There are a lot of different things that are going on right now. If somebody was thinking, “Is this for me? Could this be what I am looking for?” They decided, “I have tried to do this before and it did not work. I did not have a very good upline and very good leadership. What advice would you give to somebody in that situation besides coming and talking to you and Richard?

The first thing I would tell people is not to give up. I tell people that finding the right network marketing company is a lot like dating. When you date someone, the first day is like rainbows, butterflies, and fireworks are all firing. If you date someone for a little while, you either find out 1 of 3 things. You find out that this person totally sold you a false bill of goods. Who they said they were and who they are, are completely different, and that happens in network marketing. People have the bait and switch. They say the company is this, the products are this, they are mentors, how they lead is like this, and they are not that.

The second thing that can happen is you realize you are not a match. They are nice enough people, but you do not have the same core values and do not want the same things. The chemistry is not there, and that sometimes happens in network marketing too. Sometimes, it takes you being involved in the company a little while to realize, “I am not super in love with the products. I am not excited about the culture here. These are not my people. I do not feel like I fit in.” Something about it does not feel right. There is nothing wrong with the company. It is just not right for you.

The third thing and it is under wonderful circumstances is it is meant to be. You find the person, the chemistry is there, you have a great time, and you want the same things. It does not mean there are no problems or you do not have to fight for it. It means that most of almost everything you are looking for is there and you work towards something.

That happens in network marketing too. You got to find the right company with the right ingredients that you are looking for. No company is going to be perfect like no person is going to be perfect. You got to pick which company you are going to have problems with like you are going to pick which spouse you are going to have problems with. I am sure you and Dave have plenty of problems, but different than if you were to marry somebody else.

That is the same thing. You got to figure out what are the main things you are looking for in a company and do not settle on good enough. For us, when we were looking for a new company, it took us an entire year looking because we were very specific about what we were looking for. The number one thing we were looking for was great leadership. Leadership that had experience in our profession, had a great track record and reputation, had experienced running multimillion, multibillion-dollar corporations, and had enough financial backing to grow and scale the business.

Leadership Fueled By Freedom: Everything rises and falls on leadership.

The second thing we were looking for was something in health and wellness that had products that were unique and cutting edge. We did not want another pill and powder, or some of the same things that you see in the market. We wanted something different and unique that you could only get from this company. We did not want something that you could go to the grocery store and buy.

The third thing that is important is the final litmus test. There are other things that were important but these were the big ones. The third thing was a culture that we could be proud of. We wanted some company that had a culture that I would be proud to bring my best friends or bring my dad to and say, “This is the company I represent.”

We wanted a culture. We could bring our kids to the conventions and the things that they would hear would be a blessing to them they would grow where they are because our kids grew up in this industry. Our oldest is 25 now in 2022. She was ten when we started in this industry. It has been an incredible ride and I can say that we looked for an entire year and most companies did not pass a leadership test. Once they pass a leadership test, a lot of companies did not pass the product tests.

At the end of the year, we finally got to a company where we could go to the culture test, and we realized these are not our people. We were not willing to settle with a company that did not have those three main things. That was what was important for us. What is important for whoever is reading might be completely different. Their requirements might be different than ours, but after fifteen years in this profession, I can tell you those three ingredients are super important. If you do not have those three ingredients, you are going to struggle.

For me, with my kids, I tell them, “You have got to find someone that matches your faith and your core values.” If their faith does not match, you are going to have an uphill battle in your relationship. Find someone who matches your faith and your beliefs, your beliefs and your faith. Something that people do not spend a lot of time thinking about is what is most important to them in finding things that are consistent with that. As I said, you’ve got to find your core values and have things be driven by your core values.

I wish we had so much more time, but one of the things that a lot of people do not do enough of that you said a lot of is they got to know themselves. They get to know who they are. If they do not spend time getting to know what works for them, what feeds their soul, and what makes their hearts sing, they are going to struggle and bounce from one thing to the next. Something is not going to feel right because they have not figured out the formula that works for them. When you know the formula that works for you, it makes choosing much easier.

Listening to you say how important those three things were, it was like you are those three things too. A lot of times, the thing that we are looking for, we need to know that in order for us to have it, we need to be it. We both come from networking. I would like to say, “You need to show up and be the person that you want to have been on the other side of that.”

Show up and be that. As I was listening to you with those, I was like, “You are those things.” Were you doing those things several years ago? I do not know. I did not know you then. I believe that you were though because I met you not long after that. The bottom line is if you have the right leadership team, they can help you to grow and get there. I believe that in the direct sales network marketing industry, your first question should not be what is the comp plan. That should not be your first question.

I asked so many people why they chose a certain company, and it is unbelievable to me when people say the compensation plan. That is unbelievable. The number one reason should be leadership. Everything rises and falls on leadership. If you put a plant in bad soil, it does not matter the condition of the plant, it will die at some point. If you put a dying plant in good soil, it does not matter. It is a matter of time before that plant starts thriving again. The soil is the thing that makes the difference.

We could keep going. I think I am going to have to have you back on the show again. Maybe we could get Richard to join us as well. As if you did not already share enough, what would you say is the number one strategy for Marketing, Media and Money?

My number one strategy for life, and this I learned from my old Pastor Keith Craft, was to know your core values. Have them so clear that you can write them out. It is not a laundry list. It is a few, maybe 5 or 10, but these are the things that are so important to you at your core, the things that you value. Everyone has core values, but most people have never discerned what they are. They never verbalized it.

When you know your core values, all of your money, marketing, and business decisions should be dictated and driven by your core values. If they are not consistent with your core values, you will either not go, will not succeed, or at some point, you won't feel right. When it is consistent with your core values, things will start to flow. I am not saying it will all be easy but it will feel right and when things feel right, you will eventually find your flow.

Thank you so much for being here with us, Mary. I appreciate it. I know everyone is going to want to connect with you. What is the best way for them to connect with you?

The best way to connect is either find me on Facebook or on LinkedIn. I love to connect with you. You can follow me there. The one thing I am proud of that I am now starting to do is doing Wisdom Wednesdays on my Facebook profile. There are so many things I want to share, and I am going to do that regularly on Wednesdays.

You have so much wisdom too. Thank you again, Mary, for joining us. To the audience out there, thank you for joining us on the show. If you enjoyed this episode, and I am sure you did, please subscribe and review the show on your favorite platform. That is the end of this episode. I look forward to see you again. I hope you have a phenomenal day, and remember if your day is not phenomenal, you have the power to change it.