Welcome, fellow ntwrkrs! I’m beyond thrilled to have you here for this chapter about safeguarding our glass balls—in other words, those critical, irreplaceable elements in our lives that demand our utmost attention and care. In this book (along with these other incredible ladies!), I aim to ensure that you walk away with every invaluable insight you came for, so let’s begin!

For those of you who don’t know me, here’s a bit of my background. I proudly wear many hats in life: a devoted wife, a loving mom and grandma, a survivor of addiction, and a passionate entrepreneur. For the past twenty-eight years, I’ve taken an incredible ride alongside my life’s co-navigator: my husband and business partner, Mark. He’s not just my spouse but my best friend and confidant, with whom I’ve weathered storms and enjoyed life’s triumphs.

Together, Mark and I have raised two extraordinary children and now are devoting practically all of our spare time to our granddaughter, the most recent bundle of joy in our lives! Our journey began first in corporate America, where we both honed our skills in business management at the same utility company until 2019. That year marked our leap into the world of Network Marketing—a leap I took with Mark by my side (although he might say he was more ‘brought along’ for the ride).

We started with a modest social circle of two hundred fifty friends on Facebook, and over time, we cultivated a digital family of over a million followers across various platforms. Now, leading a thriving organization of Network Marketers, we champion the art of blending business ambition with the joys and demands of family life. Isn’t that a balance we all strive for?

Before delving deeper, let’s discuss the art of juggling—a skill we, as women and mothers, have certainly mastered to perfection. From ensuring our kids’ lives run smoothly to steering our businesses and finding time for self-care, it’s a daily balancing act of priorities! Yet not everything we juggle bears the same weight. Some balls are rubber, bouncing back when dropped, while others are glass—delicate, invaluable, and irreplaceable, symbolizing our deepest family values and moments.

In this chapter, I’m going to guide you through seven pivotal steps: sharing your vision, identifying your glass balls, negotiating life’s terms, scheduling priorities, executing with purpose, systemizing your world, and the art of continuous improvement.

Are you ready to embrace this journey? Fantastic—let’s set the stage for a transformation that intertwines success with the essence of who we truly are.

Share Your Vision

Let’s start at the beginning: sharing your vision. Many of my friends and teammates often confide in me about feeling adrift, sailing solo without the supportive wind of their families or partners behind them. This leads me to a pivotal question I’ve had to ask myself in the past and now pose to you: Have you laid out your vision and intentions to the people closest to you in life? 

When I first launched my current business venture, I did it without so much as a nod to Mark. I figured I didn’t need to tell him what I was doing; after all, it was so simple! I was going to host a party, invite friends, sell some products, and then close the chapter and move on with a bit of extra money. Little did I know that the small party I’d planned would lay an amazing but demanding path ahead, brimming with opportunities to build our dream lives.

As it turned out, when the business began to flourish, Mark felt completely sidelined. He longed for the shared daily moments that were now swallowed up by my new endeavor. It was after I arrived home from an event, bubbling with enthusiasm, that I finally realized I needed to take a moment to truly share my vision with him. I sat down with him, laid out the possibilities I saw before us, and invited him to be part of this journey—to share in the creation of what we could build together.

So, if you haven’t shared your vision with your loved ones, or if it’s time for a refresh, the action step I want you to take is to write down your vision and share it with your family.

Whether your vision is new or you’ve been after the same goal for years, take a moment and write it down on paper. Literally, write it down! Visions evolve as we progress in our business. As you articulate your vision, consider: What sparked your journey? What does success look like for you? Is it the freedom from financial worry at the grocery store, the ability to wholeheartedly say yes to your children’s desires, or planning a family vacation without the constraints of a budget? Be as detailed as possible!

Once you’ve crystallized your vision, finalize this step by sharing it with your family. Encourage them to be part of this dream, not necessarily by contributing directly to your Network Marketing endeavors but perhaps by shouldering a bit more around the house, freeing you to focus on your goals. The end game? More quality family time, enjoyed together.

Identify Your Glass Balls

As mentioned earlier, ‘glass balls’ represent the essential and irreplaceable elements of our lives—family traditions, moments of joy and celebration, significant milestones, and birthdays. They require our attention and prioritization due to their profound importance, not to mention the consequences and loss we face if they are neglected. The glass balls will shift and change as you move through life’s stages, making it crucial to stay attuned to new priorities and emotions as time passes! 

The birth of my children introduced me to the complex dance of celebrating Mother’s Day, a holiday that, for all of my life beforehand, was dedicated solely to my mom. It became challenging to bask in the love and attention of my children while also wanting to make the day special for my mom. The solution? My sister and I decided to dedicate the Saturday before Mother’s Day exclusively to our mom, ensuring she felt loved through meals together, massages, and other gifts that showed her she was cherished! This adjustment allowed us to enjoy our own Mother’s Days guilt-free, knowing we had fully honored our mom in a meaningful way.

This tradition is a glass ball for me; it’s a treasure that I do everything in my power to protect. One year, this commitment was put to the test when Jesse Lee Ward invited me to speak at an event. I was thrilled and honored, but the date clashed with our Mother’s Day tradition. With a heavy heart, I declined, explaining the significance of this glass ball in my life. It was a choice between honoring a cherished family tradition and a professional opportunity, and my family tradition won because I had identified it as a glass ball.

So, to help you identify your own glass balls, I want you to sit quietly, reflect on your current life situation, and make a list of the non-negotiables.

What are these traditions and moments that, if missed, would leave a lasting impact? There’s no right or wrong number of glass balls to have, so list as many as you can think of. Recognizing these will guide you in prioritizing and safeguarding what truly matters to you and your loved ones as we go through the next steps in this process.

Negotiate Agreements
Now, let’s explore the art of negotiating agreements, a key step in building a mutual understanding and a robust support system within the family. Acknowledging your family’s concerns is key to preventing misunderstandings and establishing clear expectations. 

In the first section, I wrote about Mark’s feelings of being sidelined when my business started to take off. When I realized the importance of sharing my vision with him, I also expressed how much his support meant to me and the business. I asked him to come along and share the tasks with me, allowing us to work together and enjoy more quality time as a family, since now there were two people at the help instead of one.

It’s vital, however, to choose tasks for others wisely, ensuring they bring joy rather than feel like a chore. This isn’t about asking family members to be secretaries or janitors while you get to do all the exciting work! For example, Mark has a passion for cooking, which made him the perfect star for our cooking videos. This task naturally extended to him handling grocery shopping and organizing our video schedule, blending his interests with our business needs, as well as enabling us to cherish our moments together more deeply.

For yet another perspective on family involvement, I’ll take you behind the scenes in the logistics of our trial products. While I handle the marketing and campaign visuals, Mark takes charge of website updates, inventory management, and order fulfillment. Don’t worry, this strategy isn’t limited to spouses; teenagers in the family can also lend a hand, providing them with valuable experience and involvement. It really can become a family affair!

So, when you decide to negotiate an agreement with your family, your actionable step is to set aside time to discuss agreements and explain the envisioned outcome with your family.

Understand that while your children may wish for your presence at all their games, compromises are necessary. Maybe, in service to the vision—say, earning enough money to go to Disneyland—you explain that you can attend one game a week instead of every single game. Negotiating with your family is all about setting realistic expectations and communicating openly, ensuring that no one feels overlooked or taken by surprise.

By sitting down with your loved ones to negotiate these agreements, you pave the way for a more harmonious journey, where everyone feels valued as an important part of the success story!

Prioritize & Schedule

Let’s now get into the critical steps of prioritizing and scheduling. Having identified our glass balls, it’s essential not to let them slip through the cracks of our busy lives! I’m a strong advocate of dedicating time each week to plan out your schedule, emphasizing the importance of self-care at the forefront. Remember, you can’t effectively support others if you’re running on an empty tank.

Take a moment to think about what refuels or recharges your spirit. Whether it’s a date night, a workout session, or a few quiet moments with a book in a bubble bath, make sure these rejuvenating activities are scheduled into your calendar. This practice ensures that glimpses of joy are woven throughout your week, motivating you through less appealing tasks like email follow-up or expense tracking. Start with calendar blocks for your self-care and the glass balls, then organize everything else around them.

To simplify this process, consider embracing the technology most of us have at our fingertips. Our family relies on an app called Cozi that has been a game-changer! It allows each of us to maintain individual calendars while sharing a collective family calendar. This interconnectedness ensures we respect each other’s commitments, like knowing not to schedule over Mark’s golf days without his input. It’s an excellent tool for keeping everyone’s priorities in view and managing the balance between glass and rubber balls effectively.

So, if you want to master the prioritization and scheduling of family life, your action is to dedicate time and technology to proper scheduling, beginning with yourself and the glass balls, and then filling in the rest. 

There are many apps out there available to optimize planning, and the best one is the one you and your family will actually use! 

Execute With Intention

All the sharing, negotiating, agreement, and planning in the world won’t matter if you can’t execute with intent. Purposeful action is what truly drives progress and sets it apart from mere activity. If you’re told that posting on social media can grow your business, but instead of creating strategic content to drive prospects to your website, you post a funny cat meme, then clearly, all the instruction in the world isn’t going to grow your business! Executing with intention is about knowing your purpose and the expected outcome from the beginning.

Early on in my Network Marketing career, a colleague and I (both novices) heeded Jesse Lee’s advice to ‘go live’ frequently. My friend’s keto nacho recipe video unexpectedly went viral, but without a plan for harnessing its momentum, she was overwhelmed and eventually let the opportunity slip. This wasn’t a failure; rather, it was a lesson in the importance of planning and intention.

Using this as a learning opportunity, she devised a strategy for future live sessions, clearly defining her intentions and follow-up actions. Her preparation paid off when another video featuring a product we sell went viral, propelling her to achieve a company rank that came with a car reward—all within two days of the video’s success. The moral? Know your desired outcome before taking action. It’s not about ticking boxes—it’s about meaningful engagement and preparedness for what follows.

In the context of Network Marketing, the action step here is to devise a method to capture attention and contact information and establish a solid follow-up plan. Aim for a system so robust that anyone could step in to assist, especially when a post gains unexpected attention. 

Acting with intention is a powerful declaration to the universe, setting the stage for not just good but amazing results!
Set Up Systems

In my view, setting up the proper systems is akin to practicing good form in athletics. Just as athletes recognize the significance of form for optimal performance, the same principle holds true for the systems you employ to manage your business. 

A few years ago, I received a Peloton bike as a Mother’s Day gift. I was eager to dive in and level up my fitness! I skipped out on the introductory videos, jumped on the bike, and did my best—only to be humbled by the superior performance of someone much older in the class. My initial lack of form not only left me trailing the group, but I was physically incapacitated for days! I spent some time recovering, returned to the bike with the proper gear, seat adjustments, and a focus on good form, which then led to an immensely rewarding workout that produced the results I was looking for after just a few sessions.

This analogy perfectly mirrors the necessity of systems in your business. Without intentionality and a systematic approach—like pedaling a bike without considering form—you’re likely to find yourself exerting effort but making little progress. The goal is to ensure your business activities are as efficient and effective as possible, so you can spend as much time as possible practicing self-care, tending to your glass balls, and being with your family.

The action step I want you to take is to scrutinize the repetitive tasks within your daily operations and look for places to automate the work. Are you manually responding to the same queries over and over? Could shortcuts or templates streamline these processes? If you’re frequently explaining a product or program, consider whether a video could convey this information more consistently and save time. 

Implementing systems and ‘maintaining good form’ in how you conduct your business activities will not only increase efficiency but also drive momentum and results!

Review & Improve

Once you’ve adopted the practices outlined above, a weekly review can be transformative—offering the chance to reflect on successes and areas for enhancement. I consistently allocate 15 minutes at the end of each week for this purpose, where I look back at the schedule and celebrate achievements like adhering to my exercise routine or making on-time appearances at my children’s games. Then, I look for the places where I missed the mark or could have done better. It’s not about self-criticism; rather, it’s about growth opportunities!

I began using the weekly review when Mark and I were thriving in our business. Even though we had found success at work, we both sensed that there was a disconnect at home. Implementing a weekly review allowed us to pinpoint and address these feelings. For example, we realized the importance of rekindling simple rituals lost in the hustle of our business growth, such as greeting each other and spending a few minutes connecting when coming home or making sure that dinnertime wasn’t interrupted. As it turned out, these moments of connection had been overshadowed by our business commitments!

By dedicating time to review our week, not only did we acknowledge what we did well, but we also were able to uncover subtle yet significant elements of our relationship that needed attention. Scheduling a regular date night made it easier to have open discussions about what we missed and how to reintegrate those aspects into our lives. Simple adjustments, like putting our phones away during dinner, significantly improved our connection as well.

Weekly reviews aren’t just about business or personal productivity; they’re about maintaining the quality of our relationships and ensuring we don’t lose sight of what truly matters. They encourage us to make intentional changes that enhance both our personal lives and professional endeavors!

So, the simple action step here is to schedule time each week to reflect and adjust. It’s a valuable step in fostering continuous improvement and preventing small issues from escalating!

As we wrap up this chapter, I want to reiterate the key concepts we’ve explored. Overall, the importance of safeguarding your glass balls cannot be overstated—those irreplaceable aspects of life that demand our attention. 

The first critical step is sharing your vision with your loved ones and involving them in your journey and collective goals. 

The next step is identifying what’s essential to your family (while acknowledging that fulfilling everyone’s desires simultaneously isn’t always feasible) and setting clear expectations about your availability. 

Then, it’s understanding that prioritizing self-care is essential—remember, only a full cup can overflow to nourish others! 

After that comes embracing technology to put the non-negotiables on your calendar while remaining flexible with less critical tasks. 

Up next is executing every action, particularly in your business, with a clear intention and outcome in mind, ensuring you’re prepared for any scenario (including the unexpected viral moments!).

Then comes the understanding that systems are your ally in progress, not just a means to avoid stagnation but a pathway towards your objectives. 

Finally, it’s dedicating time weekly to review achievements and areas for improvement, aiming for even a one-degree enhancement in your endeavors. Remember, even a slight shift could be the catalyst for achieving your goals!

It’s been a privilege to share my insights on Network Marketing and the art of balancing life’s priorities with you on these pages. ‘The perfect balance’ may be elusive, but the act of harmonizing professional aspirations with family life is absolutely achievable! I hope this guidance propels you and your family toward the success you dream of. Take care, ntwrkrs!