I Began My Great Journey

Thank goodness we don’t do network marketing alone. I had serious insecurity and fear around my business. I had owned my own business before but for some reason, in the beginning, this business felt different, even though it really wasn’t. For example, if you opened a restaurant in town, would you be afraid to invite your friends and family to try it out? And so I began my great journey to finding a shift in mindset, and a path of personal growth, realizing success through failure in this, my second business. Earlier I mentioned that life gives us the opportunity to fail. Well, entrepreneurship is one of the things in life that I would call the failure fast track. Do you want to fail fast and hard and over and over and over again? Then start a business. You will also get up. And over time you will learn how to get back up faster and stronger than the time before. My goals evolved as I evolved as a person and as a leader in my business. I went from not even really having goals, to jotting them down on a sticky note, to writing them on a large piece of paper, to typing them out, to putting them in a paper planner, and finally even making a dream board for myself. Now, I don’t always hit my goals.

Tear It Down

On one occasion I was particularly downtrodden in my business. An amazing woman on the other side of the world wanted to get started with me. She was going to be one of our leaders as we launched a country in Asia. But as quickly as she decided to get started, she changed her mind. I went on to assure them that I was currently in that moment working hard to acknowledge my disappointment, own it for what it was, and then set it aside and move forward so I could learn from it. My own personal journey across several different businesses and many other experiences in life have helped me to redefine failure. I have made so many mistakes. That’s when negativity sets in. It’s when your primitive mind wants to protect you. It wants to prevent you from getting hurt so it tells you not to try anything new, and certainly not to go back for more if you get burned. A fearful mindset will prevent you from progressing. Part of achieving success through failure is learning how to push that fear and doubt aside.

Between A Laugh And A Tear

Push the negativity out, replace it with focus and desire to succeed. Believe in yourself and become the best version of you that you possibly can be. Realize that success is not what the world defines for you. Rather, it is what you define for yourself. Decide what makes your journey special and define what success means to you. If it’s making a million dollars, then that’s just as good, too. Don’t know how to do something? And I still am, every day. Pursue your goals in a way that is vulnerable and accepting of the fact that you are not perfect, and you’re not supposed to be. You will make mistakes, and that’s okay. Acknowledge them, celebrate them, and get back up. Amanda is from Orange County, California, and has been married to her best friend, Mark, for 15 years. Amanda’s passion for the beauty industry also serves as the inspiration for sharing live beauty tips and makeup tutorials with viewers on various social media channels.

Everybody Loves a Winner

She loves makeup artistry and teaching women how to feel as beautiful on the outside as they are on the inside! She is an Independent Brand Partner with Nerium International and was recently featured both on the cover and inside Beautiful You magazine. The things in us that are not perfected. We are human and that is ok. In fact, we have many. The combination of our callings and our imperfections is what creates the need for failure. Indeed, it is the most powerful way that we learn. The unique lessons we gather as we travel the trail of shattered attempts are actually the very gems that we have to offer to others. They are our bits of joy, hope, clarity and peace. Without our brokenness, we cannot fully serve others. I am very open and public about my life. I have been married twice, and divorced twice. I have had a miscarriage at 12 weeks and a stillbirth at 22 weeks. I have had some powerful and unique birth experiences. I am happy to share what I’ve learned as I feel prompted. I have had many failures in my life, at least the kinds of things others would consider to be failures. I see them as powerful lessons for which I am forever grateful, and I would not change any part of them. Some are easier to talk about than others. Some come with shame, some do not, and all come with sorrow. I feel some anxiety as I share one of my biggest failures in a way that I never have before. It is a powerful and deeply painful story, one that has caused me more sustained trauma and heartache than anything else I’ve endured. We certified and trained birth educators to teach a method developed by a team of phenomenal people. More than that, I believed I was filling my life purpose through this mighty organization. I felt part of the reason I was on this earth was to change the world through birth education. I believe that a great deal of unnecessary trauma happens before, during, and shortly after labor and delivery, and that with better education, much of it can be minimized or totally avoided. I have seen great damage to families, couples, and children as a direct result of a lack of information and an overabundance of fear. They have dwindled down to just a few boxes left gathering dust, stacked in my front hall closet, never to complete the measure of their creation.