The Invisible Sign that says "Make me Feel Important"

I have been amazed lately at how often I get tripped up in my business because of my own internal issues. One of my trip-ups is talking myself out of approaching someone about a facial or the business opportunity:
- "She doesn't wear makeup"
- "She's way too busy"
- "I don't look good enough"
-"I don't feel confident enough"
-"I don't want her to think the only reason I'm talking to her is to take her money", or
-"They will think I'm pathetic, I went to college and here I am selling lipstick").

My second is to spend so much time thinking about my own problems/struggles - even just thinking about my trip-ups and wondering "Where is my confidence? I KNOW I've been confident in my life, why is it lately that I struggle with this so much?"

Something that helps me a lot is to listening to audio training from women who have been successful in their MK business. They have overcome SO much! Some examples:

-Auri Hatheway: her parents were immigrants, her dad went to prison for narcotics-trafficking (after mortgaging the family home three times) worked alongside her mom cleaning houses to pay it off. She says "At the age of 7, I was TIRED".

-Gloria Mayfield Banks - Struggled with dyslexia as a child, and went on to earn her MBA from Harvard. She overcame a domestic violence situation and grew her Mary Kay business as a single mom with multiple children.

Caterina Harris- Had about $100,000 of debt after graduating from a private university and beginning in a job for a non-profit organization in her twenties.

Kathy Helou- Overcame anorexia, depression and hospitalization, but won a set of MK skincare on "The Price is Right", and it changed her life.

Cindy Williams- grew up around her mother's 7 alcoholic, physically abusive husbands. Never went to college. Worked in a bar.

Sherril Steinman- Started working MK after burning out from her flower shop business. She was raising twin boys and lived in a town of less than 1,000 people when she started.

Pam Shaw - Began her business drowning in debt, putting a lien on her car to order her inventory. After achieving national leadership, she journeyed through her husband's Lou Gehrig's disease and grieved his death without her commissions dropping.

Judy Kawiecki - Started her business with 2 kids, while caring for her ill husband (heart problem), mother-in-law, and sister-in-law (cerebral palsy). Today continues her business as a cancer survivor.

Laura Armstrong - suffers from General Anxiety Disorder, yet has become a Top Sales Director.


And that's just to name a few. Though I haven't met all these women, they coach me almost every day. I even have little pictures of them around my office with speech bubbles, reminding me of inspiring things they've said that I need to be reminded of.

I will get into a confidence groove in my business - but the "feeling" never lasts longer than a few weeks. When I hit a snag, I tend to retreat into my head, letting doubt and fear stop me from continuing to put forth effort. Lately, however, I have been trying to push past whatever I'm feeling and remain faithful to the daily effort I know I need to make. Just yesterday, I heard in an audio training: "Every day that you are doing the right thing, you are being a success, even if the results haven't shown up yet".

Well, I took my heart before the Lord and said, "Lord, sometimes I feel like I don't have what it takes, and sometimes I get so swallowed up in my problems that I forget about others. Please help me to take the focus off me, and show me who I could bless today. Help me to be detached from the results, but still be faithful to the daily activity I know I need to do. Let me do it out of love for You and as an act of fidelity to You". And the Holy Spirit whispered back - I experience so often that a flood of grace is waiting for the posture of my heart to be receptive to it by exercising my WILL to just get over myself!

It's very true. In Mary Kay, there's an oft-repeated phrase: Imagine that every person you come in contact with is wearing an invisible sign around their neck that says "Make Me Feel Important". That's what I'm trying to master - to see the sign others are wearing and to remove myself from that equation. Cheryl Warfield says that if you put your focus on others, your own pain goes away. When I get out of my head and choose to love on another person, whether or not MK is connected to that... I'm transformed. That's how my business has stretched me to grow. I guess that's why I'm calling this blog "The Pink Transformation".