Leave Nothing To Chance

 

There is so much more to network marketing than the money. More than anything else, it gives you freedom and choices. Jeff Weisberg uses that power of choice to travel the world and experience connection on a whole new level. From Tulsa to India to home sweet Sarasota, Jeff lives a life that he wouldn’t have imagined possible had he stuck to the 9-5 formula. Sitting down with his dear friend, John Solleder, he shares some of his unforgettable experience as a veritable Mr. International in network marketing. He also tells you the biggest reasons why you should consider network marketing as your Plan B, if not your Plan A. You, can listen in or not. It’s your choice, but it’s a choice that can lead you to even more choices down the road.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Mr. International, Jeff Weisberg

We have a very dear friend of mine, an industry legend, an icon in the network marketing field who’s also been an entrepreneur, frankly, outside of network marketing, and had some success there as well. He’s a world traveler. There are very few places in the world he hasn’t done network marketing or the very least, visited. Jeff Weisberg, welcome.

Thank you, Dr. Solleder.

It’s good to see you. I know you’re living in beautiful Sarasota, Florida, and I’m a little envious, especially when I’m in Dallas and it doesn’t know one day, whether it’s winter or summer, but what are you going to do?

We’ve got to get you out of here sooner than later.

We got some things to talk about that are relevant like myself, you’ve been doing network marketing and entrepreneurship for how many years?

I’m involved in network marketing for a little over 3.5 decades and started as an entrepreneur when I was 19 and I’m 60, so a long time.

I know you’ve got a remarkable lifestyle that we’ll probably talk about it a little bit. Let’s start at the top. My fourth book Leave Nothing to Chance came out. I know that you’ve read it and I know you were impacted by a couple of different principles in there, but is there one that grabbed you in particular that you like to talk about?

I don’t know if there’s one particular, I think the first one about, wake up excited, I agree. How you start your day is how you finish your day. If you wake up in a bad mood, the wrong side of the bed as people say, that could be an issue. I’ve always been a believer and start the day good, have the right attitude, get up on the right side of the bed versus the wrong side of the bed. Another chapter you have in there is mindset, all about personal growth and development. The personal growth comes, like Jim Rohn would say, before the fortune, or as our co-mentor, Larry Thompson would say, “For things to change, you got to change. For things to get better, you got to get better.”

Mindset is big. Not that any of them are in that order, but the last one is about showing love for others. Being involved in network marketing, if you don’t care about helping people grow and build, you’re not going to grow and build. It’s one thing if I’m selling a widget as a person, that doesn’t mean anything versus helping people with our product or service or helping people grow their business. If you don’t like people, it’s hard to work with them and to be successful in network marketing, especially your report card is based on how many people you help. I think that principle is important.

All of them are great. If I had to pick the three that I liked the most probably would be number one is waking up every day. If you’re in the right mindset, if your attitude’s good, if you feel good physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, your day’s going to be good. The people you’re around, you’re going to be more of an energy giver than an energy sucker, as we say. There are two kinds of people. You walk into a room, they either suck the energy right from you or you walk into a room and they light you up like you’re on all kinds of psychedelics. It all starts in the morning.

That’s an old expression in Latin, Carpe diem, seize the day. I know like myself, you get up early. I know you like to train in the morning and get your workout going and I know that’s a big part of your day as well. give everybody an idea, you shared with me a little bit about your normal day now. If it’s Monday, you’re doing what in the morning?

I’m not an early riser like you. I get up after the sun, you get up way before the sun. I’ve never had a job. I know people laugh at that. I dropped out of college to get involved in network marketing. I got into the Amway Business at nineteen, so I’ve always been my own boss and I’ve always had to employ myself. We can talk about some different concepts and books later. I always felt in the morning because I’m not a morning person that I got to wake up slow, get my prayers, my gratitude going, and work out in the morning because if I don’t work out mornings. I’m not going to get it done in the afternoon or evening. I know myself.

Now that I’ve been living in Sarasota, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I’ll go to the gym. Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, we’ll bike ride on the beach because we live on the beach. As you walk out of our condo, it’s about 100 meters from the beach. I got into pickleball so a bunch of us get together and play pickleball on Saturday. I try to every day do something. I turned 60 and I think that if you’re going to live another 30, 40 years, 50 years even, maybe you never know, knock on wood, you got to take care of your health first, your mind, your spiritual and then everything else comes after that.

That sounds like a great lifestyle, to say the very least Jeff. Let’s go back to a young Jeff Weisberg, 19, 20, 21, you’re getting influenced about network marketing, self-employment, working for yourself, everything that you mentioned here. What was the first book that you read that had a strong impact on you and why?

Leaders are readers. Click To Tweet

When I get into the Amway business at nineteen, Dale Carnegie had How to Win Friends & Influence People. I got into Toastmasters and that was a book they recommended, and Amway recommended it because it was very personal growth. Back then it was not as much reading as it would be, we had cassette tapes. I know you remember what those are. That was the first book I read. Network marketing, you’re in the people business and it was probably the first book by far that had a business mental book that had an impact on me. I got into reading, but then I got lazier. The book’s on tape. Now you’ve got things like Audible and everything. I have a handful of books still now, but most of them are here on Kindle. I can read them wherever I am and I also can listen to them. If you’re at the gym, for example, Monday, Wednesday, Friday when I’m at the gym, I either have a book on tape or podcasts going on.

When you’re doing downtime, it’s maybe hard to pull a book out, but you definitely could listen to it. You’re driving in the car. I learned early in my career, turn your automobile into a university, instead of listening to music, listen to personal growth, so again, books on tape. They don’t call them books on tape anymore. One thing you always taught me, you and Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, readers are leaders. There’s always something you can learn. Now obviously, you got the internet, you can find something out in a second. You got Google on your phone. It’s easy to read anything. I don’t care if it’s articles in the paper. I don’t care if it’s magazines. I don’t care if it’s books. The more you learn the better, and now you can get a college degree with far more information off your phone than you could go into a library.

All leaders are readers and all readers are leaders. Isn’t it interesting how that works both ways? I’m doing the same thing. I’m on the treadmill at the gym. I got podcasts going all the time of a number of different people and because you’re training, what better time to be feeding the brain while you’re feeding the body? Let’s talk a little bit more about this subject, Jeff, because I find it fascinating that interviewing people like yourself and so many other interesting people that have been successful in life, that every one of them read. Let’s go to your all time three books besides the Bible. The three books that you cannot live without. You’ve put them in your briefcase when you travel, they’re always somewhere close to you. What would be those three books?

The first one is The Millionaire Training. You’re on the book on the cover. I’m in the book, many friends of ours are in the book. These principles in this book, I didn’t read early. I listened on a cassette tape, Larry Thompson, one of the co-founders of Herbalife and the guy that developed The Millionaire Training, put it into a book with all of our stories in here but by far that was something I listened to over and over. Now, it’s in a book. Listen to it, read it because it’s available now. Another book, The Greatest Salesman In The World by a guy that most people probably in the personal growth have heard of, Og Mandino. It’s an excellent book.

A lot of these books are business-focused, but you can learn life lessons from it. The Millionaire Training, for example, I was a single dad raising my sons from the age of 4.5 and 6 years old, and a lot of things I learned in The Millionaire Training were not about network marketing or business. They’re about life like how to employ yourself. That’s about life. About procrastination, that’s about life. About mindset, that’s about life. The film and the projector, that’s about life. A lot of these things that you get out of books are maybe geared for one niche, but it hits several parts of your life.

I’ve been blessed. I was all about lifestyle and I guess I’ve been blessed where I was able to raise my sons because of our industry. Travel, like you said. I’ve been to 51 countries, taking them with me. Even you and I have been to several together with some great stories, but probably shouldn’t be on this show. From of this industry and because of what I was able to learn, as somebody who dropped out of college, I was fortunate. I think you got to keep the mind going. Another book you might’ve seen before, Moving Up: 2020 and Beyond, a little plug for Dr. John Solleder. It’s a great book, what you’ve done. I had a little bit of part in it on the building internationally. Some of the concepts you can use for personal, for business, and life. Another book, I don’t want to get political at all, but a lot of people know about Robert Kiyosaki. The other guy next to him that people might’ve heard of, Donald Trump, pre-presidential. The Midas Touch and I love the tagline, “Why Some Entrepreneurs Get Rich and Why Most Don’t.”

It’s funny because there are two different people. One’s Trump, the name flamboyant, the whole thing, Trump: The Art of the Deal, if people probably know him. You got Kiyosaki, Rich Dad Poor Dad. His rich dad’s friend, his real dad, poor dad. Education versus business. CASHFLOW Quadrant, I think this was a great book as well and it had some interesting things in it from Rich Dad, Poor Dad. There’s been a lot of other books. Everybody talks about Think and Grow Rich, of course, Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. I think that I’ve tried to get books that you might tell me, “Jeff, you might check this book out because it’s a great book.” You were telling me now with this whole quest that you’re on about eating plant-based and everything, David Wolfe and a book to take a look at.

There’s a lot of different things I try to read. I believe self-education is far better than college education because you could pick and choose what you want and focus on what’s important to you so you’re not spending a bunch of time on things that aren’t. Now with technology, John, you can find out anything right here that any doctor, lawyer, accountant, or engineer can find out literally in seconds. Read about it and learn, there’s no excuse. YouTube is not reading per se. It’s videos, it’s watching, but if you want to learn how to put a bike together, you could read a book for example, or you could watch a video.

You and I didn’t grow up with this, but technology now, there’s zero excuse for people not to find out anything about everything they want in multiple languages, cultures at the split second of when they want it. Not having to go to a library. When I was a kid, my parents had the World Book Encyclopedia. They spent thousands of dollars on these nice fancy books and they’re on the shelf, and you had to get a renewal every year because it updated all the information. I look at that and I’m like, “Could you imagine waiting a year to see what’s going to happen from 2020?” Now a day sometimes is too long. For people out there that are not readers, do it on an Audible and make it part of your daily ritual. We learned early in our careers. Read five pages a day, read ten pages a day. Don’t try to read a book, sit down and read 5, 10 pages a day because you’ll do that every day. You’re not sitting down and reading a book every day.

Even now, John, there are some software you can download on your phone where books will be like the Cliff’s Notes version. You’ll take a book like yours, it’s 205 pages, but maybe I don’t have the time to read this book, so somebody has already read it. Somebody has taken it, collapsed it into maybe 10, 12, 15 pages, and taken all the meat and potatoes out of your book, and I got it right now. Thousands of books have done that. With what you’re doing with this whole readers-leaders concept and the book clubs and everything, I think is the greatest thing around there.

Thank you, and all that information that you gave. When we were kids anyway, that the statistics were the 3% of people have library cards and 3% of the people were wealthy. They are the same 3%. I don’t think if they were the same exact 3%, but I’ve got to bet that people like Dr. Ben Carson, for example, who grew up going to the library or Dr. Michael Greger, who is huge in the nutrition world. Those were guys when you read about them, they talk about their grandmothers and their mothers taking him to the library, leaving them for hours. They pick a book off the shelf and start reading it. They both have had amazing careers as to have many examples like that. Let me ask you this, Jeff, what are you reading now? What’s on your bookshelf or your coffee table as we speak?

I was reading your book and also, like I said, The Millionaire Training book, going through the stories. We’ve known each other for a long time. We met in 1992, and yet when I read your chapter in the book, you learn things that I didn’t even know. When I read chapters about other people in the book, from what they learned from The Millionaire Training, you learn that type of thing as well. I think your Moving Up: 2020 and Beyond book is another great example. There are tidbits you can use about network marketing, but even some of the stuff in the book, because things are evolving so much. The Greatest Salesman In The World is something that’s never going to get old or Think and Grow Rich or How To Win Friends and Influence People.

Things like this are evolving books. That’s why you’ve done a couple of different additions because, with technology, things are changing. As our mentor, Larry Thompson, taught us, concepts, they are constant. Techniques change. The things that are in a book like The Greatest Salesman In The World, or even your new book now, Leave Nothing to Change. Those principles are going to stay the same. The techniques and the way they’re used, like some of the stuff in here that might change, but the concepts are going to stay the same.

I’ve gotten big into podcasts. I’ll make sure that I’m either listening to a podcast. Several guys I like with a lot of information, I might want to get into health and wellness with like a Ben Greenfield. I might want to listen to Lewis Howes, who’s interviewed over 1,000 people on his podcast. He’s the modern day Larry King. I like Gary Vaynerchuk and some information he has. I’m a big Tony Robbins fan, Grant Cardone. I try to get a little mixture of everything. Some of the stuff that David Wolfe that you turned me on to because he’s an interesting guy.

If you don't believe in what you're marketing, then you're never going to make it. Click To Tweet

It’s pretty cool stuff as well. I always wanted to be a doctor. The only problem was I hated school so the thought of four years of college and four years of medical school was never going to happen. I love doing research on health and nutrition and this whole stuff that’s going on with COVID and everything, reading and it doesn’t have to be a book on it. There are articles, there are all kinds of things you can do.

Let’s say rest a little bit another way here. You’ve been in the industry a long time, you’ve been successful in a multiple number of companies over the last several years. How do you get a new distributor off to a flying start? There are so many new people that are starting in the industry as we speak. A lot of them are young and a lot of them are people who like you and I way back when we started, we’re coming out of the Carter Administration here in the US with high inflation and ridiculous interest rates. It wasn’t a lot of opportunities.

Now, network marketing has been identified by a lot of young people in particular, but you also have a lot of people that because of the pandemic have lost jobs, lost businesses in some cases, and maybe they’re our age. They’re in their late 50s, early 60s, and they’re looking at this for the first time and saying, “I never thought I would, but I better get myself a plan B here and I hope I’m going to go back to work, but maybe I never will. Either way, I need to get that plan B going.” How do you get them off to a flying start? First two days, first two weeks, first month, etc., any advice that you have for new people reading?

I think what you’re saying is true, I think because it’s COVID situation, people are focused on their health, not saying it, but focused on it because everybody’s freaking out about catching COVID. You build your system up, you’re going to feel better. People are focused on their health, maybe instead of going to Starbucks and spending $3, $4 a day, I’ll put that into my nutrition regimen. Without a doubt, people are focused on their money now more than ever because either A, they’ve lost a job, or B, their company has gone out of business and they’re waiting for some check or they’re on unemployment. They realize like you said, a plan B is probably a plan B-plus more than anything. I think that the market space with this whole gig economy and everything is bigger than ever. With me now, because there are so many companies out there, I believe that you got to be a product of your product or a product of your service.

I think that there are so many products out there, so many different services out there that if you don’t believe in what you’re marketing, then you’re never going to make it long-term. Too many people get into the business on the money, the hype and their friend calls them or the opportunity, or they don’t want to miss out, but they don’t even believe in the product or use the product. It doesn’t matter. You got to be a raving fan. You got to believe in yourself. It’s got to be like if I called you up said, “John, I had got involved in a new opportunity. I’m all excited about I’ve been using the product. That’s a hair growth company.” You’d look at me and you’d say, “Yes. Okay, Jeff,” I’ve got no interest because the product doesn’t work. If six months from now I saw you and my hair looked like yours after you tried to pull it off to see if I bought it or not. I said, “John, remember that drink I told you that helps grow hair? You’d buy it by the container.” You got to be a product of the product, that’s number one, and getting people started.

Number two is people got to have goals. I think they got to have a money goal, how much they want to make over different periods of time, call it 90 days, 180 days, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, they got to have a time goal because it’s going to take time. It’s network marketing, it takes work. I think they’ve got to have a time, “Am I going to put in five hours a week?” “Am I going to put in 25 hours a week?” What time am I going to put in?

They are going to have target goals. The goal of, “I want to make $1,000 a month,” is different than the target goal where I’m going to talk to five people a day or I’m going to get one customer a week, or I’m going to recruit two distributors a month, whatever those targets are. I think you got to make sure that they’re focused on what we learned about called income-producing activities. We get paid for doing two things, John, in our industry. I don’t care if you’re John Solleder the legend or the brand-new person. We get paid for talking to people about our product or service and we get paid for talking to people about the opportunity. Anything else you do is not an income-producing activity.

 

That doesn’t mean I talked to you about the business and you get in, now I got to help you get started, but what am I talking to you about? A product and the opportunity. Income-producing activities have always been an issue because people think they got to learn more to do more. “I got to go to this seminar.” “I got to go here.” “I got to go there.” “I got to learn everything.” No, you got to go do. You can read all the books in the world about how to do network marketing, but if you don’t call anybody up, you’re not going to make any money. You could know the business better than anybody. We all know how to become Arnold Schwarzenegger. You’re an example. You’re in the gym every day. Anybody in the world can read like we talked about how to be Arnold, but it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t go do.

A challenge we got network marketing now is people are learning and reading, but they’re not doing it. How did you become a legend? You didn’t build an organization with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people by not talking to anybody. You talk to thousands of people, whether they’re your people or your people’s people. Income-producing activities is we got to talk to people about our product or service. We got to talk to people about our opportunity. The last thing is simplicity. Keep it simple.

You look at the number one franchise of all time in the world is McDonald’s and it’s run by 18 to 22-year-olds. How is that possible? They got a simple system. Look at the uniforms. They’re adjustable because they know the turnover rate is going to be so big, but they’ve got a system that they plugged me, the 18-year-old, into and I do it. If it doesn’t work, they get the next 18 or 20-year-old to do it because it’s a simple system. You don’t have to get a PhD in how to make a hamburger. Simplicity is the best because like you and I both had done, we built our organizations in more than one country. If you’re going to go from the United States to Mexico, from the United States to Germany, from the United States to Japan and you barely speak the language and we built in a lot of countries where we don’t speak the language. I barely speak English.

When you go to these other markets, if you got this fancy sophisticated system and you can barely communicate, it’s never going to work but if it’s using the products, you don’t talk to people, keep it simple. A handful of basics done over and over again, you can be in Siberia. You could be in Dallas, Texas. You could be in Sarasota, Florida. You could be in Tokyo, Japan, you could be anywhere and you could build your business. That doesn’t mean when you get off this show, you start calling your friends and all these countries. No, work local, think global, but keep it simple.

Let’s go onto a couple of other things, Jeff. You and I have known each other for a long time. I count you as one of my closest five friends in the world, which I’m not sure if that’s an honor or not, but you and I are buddies a long time. We have been around the world and part of this show is to share with people some of the experiences. For example, I know we laugh about it, but Jeff was one of the first people in the industry that ever owned a part of a company in Israel a number of years ago. This was back in the late 1990s.

1995 and 1996.

He brought me over to do some consulting and then worked on some media stuff and things for him. I was living over there and he tells me one morning, “I’m buying part of a soccer team.” I said, “We know nothing about soccer.” Even to this day, I don’t know anything about soccer maybe you do at this point, Jeff. Tell us that story a little bit about your purchase of I think it was called Hapoel Yerushalayim that you became a partial owner. Tell that story because you were ahead of your time. At that point, it was only Rich DeVos who owned the Orlando Magic from our industry who had ever invested in a pro sports team. You may have been the second guy. You may not, maybe there were others, but to my knowledge anyway, you were the second guy. Comment on that a little bit.

If you focus on the “why,” the “how to” will come. Click To Tweet

It was pretty fun. We had a company over there marketing the American Eagle Gold Bullion coins which gold back then was, $300 an ounce. You see what it’s done now. It was a direct sales company and I was approached by some of the people to be a sponsor, my partners and I, of one of the top soccer teams in Israel. Let’s put the proper perspective. It’s not like buying the LA Galaxy like Herbalife did or something. If you think about the LA Galaxy, they’re the sponsor, so every Jersey that everybody wears says Herbalife on it. We were going to be the sponsor of it and we did that. The owner needed some money and he said, “Would you an interest in buying into part of the team?”

I’m thinking of soccer, the biggest sport in the world like you said I knew nothing about it. I still know nothing about it. We bought in 20% of it and we were the official sponsors and part owners of the team. It was pretty interesting. Do you remember we were going into the arena and pulling into the tunnels and sitting with all the big shots? being in our industry of network marketing, or even being an entrepreneur, there are so many opportunities and doors open up when you focus on things. You talk about reading books and everything, but I’m real in energy, and what you focus on grows and the Law of Attraction. We’ve got a vibration. Everything we do in life has vibration. You can sit here and focus on what’s not working or focus on what will work.

I learned in Amway early in my career by one of the top speakers one day. He said, “Most people focus on the how-to, they need to focus on the why. If you focus on the why, the how-to will come.” If you set the goal out there and Grant Cardone now has taken it to the next level with 10X. If you want to make $10,000 a month, 10X it. You want to have 500 distributors, 10X it. His whole thing is exactly what we learned way back when in 1979 and 1980. You focus on what you want, your why. You’ll figure it out energy things will happen. When we were in Israel, I was never thinking of the team or anything like that and things happen when you open your mind and you imagine these things. It comes from feeding your mind. It comes from waking up in the morning, like your first principle. Wake up with the mindset. If you wake up with the right mindset, things happen, and so that evolved in Israel. It was a time and it’s twenty-something years later, and every time we talk about it, we crack up with all the stories.

I remember when you were telling me about Ronaldo, I didn’t even know who Ronaldo was. You were telling me, “Why don’t we tell them at a press conference that you’re going to bring Ronaldo to Israel?” I did that. Here’s what you got to be careful, for those of you reading. Watch what your friends tell you to do without doing a little bit of research. I got no idea who Ronaldo is and we’re having a press conference. I’m the guy from the United States and Israel is a small country but a very rich country. John says to me, “Tell them we’re going to bring Ronaldo to Israel.” When we got to this press conference, I tell them we’re going to bring Ronaldo to Israel. Next thing I know, I’m in the newspaper in the next couple of days, more than Bibi Netanyahu, who still the prime minister now, was in the newspaper. If you remember, I must have a stack like this of being quoted and pictures. We even have a couple of pictures of you and I standing together that the media took that was all over the place. It was hysterical.

It was something else. I think that’s when I came up with the line, to my knowledge, network marketing company owner that owns part of a sports team. Since then, Arthur Williams bought the Tampa Bay Lightning, and of course Herbalife and AdvoCare and one of the other Utah companies that escaped me right now. They’re all sponsors of professional soccer here in the US which is smart, obviously, because audiences from all different cultures that see their name and say, “What’s that?” It’s good but you were ahead of your time. That was very fun.

We spent some time together in Europe. Also, I know we spent some time in the Netherlands together and Germany. I think we spent some time and we may have even met up in England at one point. I think you and I were in the UK at the same time when I was living over there, in the early 90s. At some point, I know we crossed paths over there. We went to India together to do some business. You want to comment on any of those trips and some of our cultural experiences?

Part of it, I can. Part of it, I can’t, obviously.

 

The parts that my kids are, your kids could hear.

The things that you’ve taught me. It’s amazing. When you think about it, we went to India and the business gives you an opportunity. You’re going all the way to India. It’s 2000, so there are no cell phones, Zoom and Facebook. It was December of 2001. We go fly all the way to India and we get there and we’re wondering like, “Come on, are people going to be here?” They were lining up outside. You remember in New Delhi, we went to Hyderabad and we went to Ahmedabad. We went to the Taj. We were doing events. For those of you that want a quick funny story, I’m 6’4 and 225 pounds, John is 6’2, or 6’3, 250 or 260 pounds. I don’t know if you guys have ever seen the movies with a rickshaw, but it’s these little, whatever you call them deals with the dude with the little like a three-wheel motorcycle in front. That’s how you get around kind of as a taxi.

The two of us get into a rickshaw and because we’re so big, it weighed down. The front end of the motorcycle was up in the air and the guy couldn’t even drive us because we were so big and heavy. Most people in India are smaller and we look like King Kong. It was so funny. We had a blast. The people were so nice. We went to a wedding. I still have the hat that you wear as a groom at the wedding. We went to people’s homes. Experiences that you read about or dream about, we’ve been able to do. We were in Thailand. We were in India. We hit India. We were there for two weeks, traveling everywhere and you see a whole different world. Europe’s a little different. We spent time in Europe together, had some crazy times there.

Network marketing gives you an opportunity to do some amazing things. It’s not all about the money. When you look at your different principles, number nine, it was caring about people. To me, it’s not the money. It’s what you become in the process and the relationships. We happened to meet because we got involved in the company same time through one of our mentors, Larry Thompson. The people you meet, you have lifelong relationships. You find out when people get married, they have kids, they grow up. It’s mind-boggling. We’ve had some funny times, India, Thailand, Europe, Israel, that’s some amazing time plus even around the United States.

You’re making a great point because I know we’re having a lot of fun and we should. We’ve had a lot of fun times together over the years. I had a lot of laughs. We had a few cries too, unfortunately, a few sad times, unrelated to the business, really more on a personal level. At the end of the day, one of the things that stand out, as I look back on our career together, in the time that we’ve worked together, spent together, when we were in India. I don’t know if you remember this or not. I think the fellow’s name was Muhammad, but I might be wrong. We were invited to his home and I’m Christian. Jeff is Jewish. This gentleman happened to be very Muslim and his mom made us dinner. The way that they would eat is they would sit on the floor and eat with their hands. He’s a very nice business guy. He prepared our food.

Obviously, we weren’t going to eat with our hands. His mom prepared a separate meal for us. She gave us some plates and we sat at a table and we had a beautiful evening, as I recall. To me, when I look back, one of the things that network marketing has done for me and probably for you and probably for a lot of our colleagues and friends is to bridge those gaps with people. Maybe people that you never would have met in your life that are of different cultures, different faiths, different orientations, that stands out to me. It’s one of my great memories of our industry and our many travels together. If you want to comment on that, Jeff, and we’ll start to wrap up.

Hindi was amazing, to different cultures. We went to a couple of people’s houses. We went to that doctor’s house too. We went to that wedding thing. You meet cultures whether you go to a foreign country or not, it gives you an opportunity to learn all about the culture. It’s one thing to read about it, it’s another thing to be there. Israel is the Mecca for a lot of different religions and people go for different reasons and to spend time there is amazing. What I can say about network marketing is that if somebody new looking to get involved in it, it can be far more than a business. It could be far more than a product or service. It could be a lifestyle and you don’t have to become a mega gazillionaire.

At the end of the day, it's the relationships that are going to give you fulfillment, not how many Rolex watches you have. Click To Tweet

My dad used to tell me, “You don’t have to be a millionaire to live like a millionaire,” meaning that the guy who makes $10,000 a minute is no more happy or successful than the guy that makes $10,000 a month, as an example. Once you’ve got your debts paid or your debt-free, and once you’ve got money put away, then everything else is like Monopoly. The lifestyle and the experiences and the relationships to me are far more important than 17 cars, 15 yachts, and 27 jets. At the end of the day, it’s the relationships that are going to make a difference and give you fulfillment, not how many Rolex watches you have.

I’m not saying don’t have nice cars, don’t have nice clothes, this or that. Traveling to me was always something I wanted to do. I grew up in Los Angeles. My dad used to tell me, “There’s more to life than the San Fernando Valley.” He got me to go to Israel when I was in high school on a nine-week program. He said, “You want a car?” He bribed me. He doesn’t like it when I tell this story, but I wasn’t going to go. He goes, “You want a car?” I said, “Yes.” He says, “You’re going to go to Israel.” I went. I didn’t want to go. It changed my life. From that point on, I wanted to travel the world. To me, if you said “Jeff, would you rather spend $100,000 on a fancy car or would you rather spend $100,000 and travel the world?” I’d rather spend the $100,000 and travel the world. Some people would be happy staying where they live and driving the fancy car, but it gives you an opportunity to have options. You could pick what options you want.

What we’re talking about now with these stories, we continue to talk about cars we’ve had, or a watch we’ve had or this or that, but who cares? You’re not remembering that. You’re remembering the crazy times. You’re remembering the fun times. You remember the moving time. You remember the relationships. India will be a trip I’ll never forget. Israel will be a trip I’ll never forget. Tulsa will be a trip I’ll never forget. Europe. It’s the magic moments that I think people talk about. With this COVID situation, John, it’s changed my mindset because it can be over in a minute. People are getting sick, going to a hospital. You’re never seeing loved ones again. We have some mutual friends that have passed from COVID and other things that have been caused by that. Life is this short and at the end of the day, you need to enjoy every minute. Your book starts up with waking up with the right mindset. It’ll change your life forever.

I think of those experiences and I think one other that was unique for me, we went to a Seder dinner. I think we were in Tel Aviv. We may have been in Jerusalem. I don’t really remember, but we went to a Seder dinner, and because of network marketing, here’s a guy who grows up in New Jersey, in my case, and had the same ambitions you did. I knew there was a world beyond New Jersey and New York. I’ll never forget having this Seder dinner, one of the best meals I think I’ve ever had in my entire life, by the way. It was unbelievable, the food. I can’t eat like that anymore, but it was remarkable. I remember that and you, of course with me, it was one of your distributors that had hosted that night. It’s a remarkable experience again.

When we talk about network marketing, we talk about great products. We talk about great compensation. We talk about all that but to Jeff’s point, it’s the lifestyle. It’s the relationships. It’s the fact that if you do this right, and someday this COVID thing is going to be over. Thank God, hopefully, sooner than later, but we’re going to get back to traveling where you go? “I’m going to this city,” and you know that you have a friend there that you can pick up the phone. Maybe they’re in another company. Maybe you haven’t talked to them in ten years and say, “I’m going to be in town, doing a meeting for a couple of days. Let’s get together and have a cup of coffee.” It’s a remarkable industry that we’ve been able to do that in.

Jeff, I want to close on this. You’ve read the books. You listened to the podcasts, you’re doing the work. You’re 60 years old. You’ve had a remarkable life. You’ve had a remarkable journey. You’ve been all over the world. You’ve had a lot of fun. You’ve had tremendous experiences. You made a great living for that matter. Why should someone look at network marketing, not only as their plan B but maybe their plan A going forward to experience some of the things that you have?

I think first and foremost, being your own boss is the first thing. You can have a great job and get paid a lot of money. The guy that’s going to take over now for Jeff Bezos at Amazon, he’s going to get paid a lot of money, but he’s also going to work 24 hours a day. It’s taken them years and years and to get there. Ninety-nine people out of 100, they were going to do that. When you’re your own boss, I know it sounds cliché, but you can go to bed when you’re tired and you can wake up when you’re rested. I don’t have an alarm clock. I set a call at 9:00. I set a Zoom at 8:30. I set a call at noon. You have to get up to be on that but that’s you doing what you want. I’m not saying anything negative about a job, but you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket because especially now we’ve learned from COVID, anything can happen. If you look at any great investor, if you said I got $100,000 to invest, nobody will tell you to put it all in one stock, into one cryptocurrency or into one option. They’ll tell you to spread it out because why? You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket.

 

Having a job, whether you make$1,000 a month or $100,000 a month and having no other source of income in case that job ends, whether it’s the company’s fault, the owner’s fault, or the world’s fault, like COVID. COVID has changed the world. If you have a plan B and God forbid something happens to your plan A, you got something to fall back on. Network marketing is a very simple business. It’s not easy. It takes work, that’s why it’s called network marketing, but anybody can do it. Not everybody will, but anybody can. You can start it for very little money and it’s part-time.

Buying a McDonald’s franchise takes a lot of money and time. Buying a pizza franchise takes a lot of money and time. Network marketing doesn’t take a lot of time, it’s part-time. You got six million people in America doing network marketing, five million are part-time and it doesn’t take a lot of money. You’re not inventorying and warehousing. You’re not Amazon. You don’t have to buy anything and can build a business almost with any company now with a cell phone, computer, tablet, or laptop.

The last thing about it, John, is it gives you choices. Life’s all about choices, wanting to be able to do what you want. If you’ve got a supplemental income and maybe it turns into a plan B for some of you like it did for us. It starts with a plan B, it goes with plan A, but it gives you options and it gives you choices. It gives you a chance to do what you want. You may read this and say, “I got zero interest. I live in Chicago. I’m happy. I never want to leave. I never want to travel.” That’s great. There’s going to be something you do want though, and it gives you options and choices to be able to do.

We like to travel. It was a coincidence when we met, that he built a business around the world and travel, I traveled. Not everybody wants to travel. Some people like cars, some people like clothes. Some people like the boat, some people like airplanes. What I can tell you is that network marketing gives you choices. At the end of the day, that’s what life’s about. It’s having choices to do what you want, when you want, how you want, and with whom you want.

Jeff, we’ll end there. Thank you so much. Your words of wisdom are timeless as always and appreciate spending this time together. This is the show called Leave Nothing to Chance based on the book, Leave Nothing to Chance, and the principles in Leave Nothing to Chance, which is available on Amazon. In addition to our other books, Moving Up: 2020 and Beyond, and also available by the way in Spanish. If you’re reading and you speak Spanish, we’ve got them in Spanish as well. Thank you so much. Our next show is going to be with Arlene Lowy, another industry icon, a long-term friend of mine. Look forward to that as well. Jeff, thanks so much.

Thanks, John.

Important Links:

• Jeff Weisberg
• Leave Nothing to Chance
• How to Win Friends & Influence People
• The Millionaire Training
• The Greatest Salesman In The World
• Moving Up: 2020 and Beyond
• Midas Touch
• Trump: The Art of the Deal
• Rich Dad Poor Dad
• CASHFLOW Quadrant
• Think and Grow Rich
• Psycho-Cybernetics
• World Book Encyclopedia