Don't get me wrong...I haven't quit my DBA job. For 8-10 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, I will still fulfill the role of a DBA, and I will continue to do so to the best of my ability. But the shift to being a Network Marketing Professional with Ambit has already occurred where it counts...in my head, and in my heart.
The truth is that this shift occurred over a year ago, but I didn't recognize or accept it. Instead, I've struggled with it and rebelled against it without even realizing I was doing so. I still thought of myself as a DBA who happened to have a part-time business that I could work whenever I felt like it, and if the part-time venture didn't do so well I would always have my DBA skills to fall back on. That's not to say that this mindset is necessarily a bad thing. Many people run their Ambit or other network marketing business exactly that way, and it works out well for them. For me, though, the excitement I've felt about building my Ambit business has been much greater than anything I've ever felt about being a DBA (with the possible exception of the prospect of landing a DBA job with SpaceX and vicariously living out my astronaut fantasies, but that was more of a means to an end as well), and that disparity created a conflict within me that ultimately prevented me from being effective in either my role as a DBA, or in building my Ambit business. It's been an emotional roller coaster since day 1, and there were many periods where the ride was literally making me sick. For over a year I've been struggling with the balance between my DBA job and building my Ambit business, with the result that I didn't do either of them very well at all. Every few weeks I would go through the same cycle, starting with excitement about Ambit, followed by guilt over slacking off at work and therefore shifting my focus away from Ambit and back to being a good DBA for a while, which would then make me feel guilty that I wasn't building my Ambit business, all of which eventually resulted in complete and total lock-up, during which I was completely useless. Many times I nearly convinced myself that I could be happy being a DBA for the next 25 years or so, and that it wasn't a big deal if I wasn't successful in Ambit, but then I'd think about the fact that I've saved nearly nothing for my retirement, and the gloom became even darker. During the lock-up phase of the cycle I would hope for something to come along that would get me excited again about something, whether it was Ambit or being a DBA, but it usually didn't. If it happened to occur when an Ambit event was on the horizon I would just sit and wait for the event to drag me out of it, which works for a little while, but eventually the cycle starts again.
Simulcast 2014 was the latest event on which I planned to rely to drag me out of my ineffectual malaise, though I didn't have much hope that it would do so. I almost didn't go. When I got there I almost left before it started because I felt so out of place among all these cheering, excited people. But I stuck around to hear what the various leaders had to say, and to see what announcements would be made, and I'm glad I did, because it got me excited again. Hearing from the great leaders in Ambit is always motivating and inspirational, and listening to them had already started to lift my spirits, but there was one announcement that really got me fired up, and that was that Ambit was going to be moving into Virginia, which about 4 months ago became my new home. It's awesome to know that I can now talk to all my neighbors about Ambit with confidence, and without having to overcome the typical objection of someone who doesn't live in an area served by Ambit. I was stoked.
So I got serious again, and I resolved that I was going to be committed and stay focused and all that good stuff, but that nagging question about how I was going to stay that way and avoid the cycle still loomed large in my mind...until this morning.
Over the weekend my mom had told me about a video by Tony Robbins that had been posted on NetworkMarketingPros.com, entitled New Year New Life. I started watching it this morning, and at about 12 minutes into it he said something that flipped the light switch for me:
Haven't you had some area of your life where you raised your standard and your life has never been the same? Maybe at one time in your life you smoked cigarettes, or you did something, and you did it for years, and you kept trying to change it and kept telling yourself, "I should." And then one day something happened. Something just clicked you over. Something took you over that kinda tipping point, and inside yourself you said, "No more!"...Something inside of you shifted, and what was a "should" became a "must", and you've never gone back.It dawned on me that the reason I haven't been doing well at building my Ambit business, the reason for the cycle, and the reason my productivity as a DBA has been suffering is because I hadn't yet made a decision about what I was going to be. I was still waffling. I was trying to be both a DBA and an Ambit Consultant and not committing to either. I had to make a choice. But it didn't take long to choose. Knowing what I know about Ambit and about being a DBA, Ambit is the obvious choice. I don't dislike being a DBA, in fact there are plenty of days where I very much enjoy it, but the potential rewards from Ambit are far greater than anything I will ever accomplish as a DBA, so Ambit is what I choose.
The beautiful thing about this decision is that I am now free to put the appropriate amount of focus on both building my Ambit business and being a good DBA because I know where I'm going. With Ambit as my primary focus, being a good DBA requires less effort because I know it's only temporary. In the past when I've taken part-time jobs in order to supplement my income the part-time jobs were easy and fun because I knew they were a means to a greater end...they allowed me the freedom to pursue what was really important. That's what my DBA job is now...a means to the greater end of building a successful Ambit business, and I'm free to do it well because I know that I won't have to do it forever. A great weight has been lifted from my shoulders, the fog has cleared, and I can finally see clearly the path ahead.
