Jumping straight out of the pages of Leave Nothing to Chance, this super nurse turned into a super distributor and has built a lot of success for herself and others through network marketing. Her success is such that she has earned her rightful place as one of the featured cases in John Solleder’s book. Living and serving out of chilly Saskatchewan, Patricia is all about serving other people – whether in the wards or in building new distributorships that impact many people’s lives. Listen in as she shares with us her love for learning and personal growth, as well as some advice for newbies in network marketing.
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Super Nurse To Super Distributor
It is my honor to talk to another good friend of mine, somebody who was featured in the Leave Nothing to Chance book, Patricia. She lives out in Saskatchewan. Patricia, you’ve had a very interesting career. What did you do before you got involved in network marketing?
I was a registered nurse for many years and I worked 30 of those years in a university teaching hospital here in Saskatchewan and I loved it. I worked all over the place, all the intensive care, ICU, CCU, PICU, and NICU. I also worked with the MRI scanner and medical imaging doing that part-time so that I could work on the wards with adults. I was a pediatric nurse for twelve years. I’m a very practical hands-on person.
That’s a long time and you still look like a kid, so that’s a long career doing something. I’m sure it has its days like anything did but I know it’s something that was a challenge and something that you did to help a lot of people. Thank you for doing that.
Thank you.
In the last few years, many people looked for that plan B, a new career or something new to do. I know you got involved in network marketing. Is this your first network marketing experience?
First and only one.
You’ve done a great job in the company that you’re in, so much so that you were featured in Leave Nothing to Chance. How did your husband react when you showed him that in your new career that you were being written about?
Listen to your reason, it's the heart of the matter. Click To TweetHe said, “Wow.” He was very happy for me. It was the first time I’d been in a book and it was amazing for both of us.
It was well-deserved because I’m familiar with your story. Along those lines Patricia, when you read Leave Nothing to Chance. When it finally came out and you had in your hands. You could sit there with a cup of coffee or tea or whatever in Saskatchewan and had the time to read through it. Not only, about yourself and some of the other great people featured in it, but the fifteen principles that are in that book, is there one that stood out to you that you feel strongly about? If so, elaborate on it.
Principle number two, “Listen to your reason, it’s the heart of the matter.” I have a big heart and I love to help people. This book was very utilitarian. Meaning, practical. It spoke to all the principles, practicality, realness, reality, real people and listening to your reason. Everybody’s got different reasons for whatever they go into their business for. Being able to continue helping people through direct selling was wonderful for me. I could stay at home and do more home life and take care of my family. It was an extension of my passion for who I was and what I was doing and what I would always do for the rest of my life. It was who I was, but I could do it out of the comfort and the freedom of my own home here.
That’s a very strong principle. We have to find our reasons to do things. In your case, what you’re doing is a continuation of nursing, maybe with a little bit less stress.
A whole lot less stress. I am still able to educate people but first of all, understanding what their needs are. If my business or my products provide an opportunity to help them, wonderful. We then go forward. It’s been a very comfortable but direct way to help people.
Let’s talk a little bit about books. I know you’ve got a passion for reading. When you started, whether it was in your new career in network marketing or maybe along the way in your nursing career, we read so much, but that first book that had an impact on you and on your life and how you thought, what was it?
I don’t know what my first book was because I am a voracious reader. I can tell you both the categories though. In the very beginning, I read everything I could get my hands on. In my school, which was grade 1 to 12, there were probably about 500 books and I devoured them all very quickly in a couple of years. That expanded to what I was interested in. I’m looking at my bookcase. It’s the sciences going down into chemistry, biology and quantum physics. I’m very big at getting into the details of things and then spirituality, getting into the details of spirituality, religion and so on. My newest category added on is business.
Leave Nothing to Chance: 15 Principles for Success and the Stories that Inspired Them
Is there a business book that stands out?
I always have books on the go. I pick up any one of them. There is Moving Up and Leave Nothing to Chance. There are lots. I’ve got different authors and books in here. It’s wherever I need to go to learn something, get some knowledge and details. I’m all over the place in business also.
Let’s talk about that and it could be any of those categories that you mentioned. If you had, with all the reading that done all these years, if they were three books that you had to pick. If you were on a deserted island and they said you could only bring three books, what would they be?
Currently, because in a little bit, that would all change anyway. It is in no particular order because there can’t be one favorite because it’s always, “What is the interest of the moment?” Glutathione by Dr. Jimmy Gutman, The Comprehensive Guide to Glutathione, Right Now!, Leave Nothing to Chance because that’s always the stable fifteen principles for success and Eric Worre’s Go Pro. That’s what I would have on that Island.
I’m glad a couple of my titles are included in there and Eric is somebody I have great respect for too. Those would be great business books. How about a non-business book? If you had to pick one from your spiritual category, for example, what would it be?
Heal Your Body by Louise Hay. It’s a very small and basic book. That is the seed to so much more.
She’s a great writer. She’s one of my favorites in that category as well. Those would be a few titles that could help our readers. If I came to your house right now, and said, “Patricia, what are you reading?” What’s on that coffee table in front of you right now that you are reading when we aren’t online?
Network marketing is social commerce. You can stay at home and still help as many people as you want. Click To TweetThe Comprehensive Guide to Glutathione from Dr. Jimmy Gutman. I’m learning how a certain person’s life that I’m working with now. I’m learning some information towards that.
It’s something specific for a specific customer. I know Dr. Gutman and he’s an authority on that subject. He’d be a great guy to read. Let’s go in another direction. You’ve been around very smart people in your life. Network marketing, I know it is new. You’ve been around some great people there. I’m sure you were around some great people during your nursing education and career. Would you agree and if you’d like to comment on this, that all people that are in leadership positions are voracious readers. Is that an accurate statement?
Absolutely. During my work as a nurse while we’re proceeding and it’s quiet time, sometimes we would discuss the latest thing that we were reading. It was remarkable to me how a lot of us were reading the same things. There was a common thread of interest in certain subjects and in fact, certain authors. That was very interesting to me and surprising too.
That readership, it’s amazing. I spent most of my life around network marketing but I’ve also spent not an equal amount of time, a lesser time around high-level athletics, coaches, professional athletes, Olympic athletes and all that. I find the same thing when I walk into that world is everybody who is successful is always reading and commenting on, “You got to read this book or that book,” and it’s interesting. That’s a common thread I think, in success. I’m sure the great medical doctors certainly are extremely well-read. They have to be obviously on that subject, but I’m sure they read some other things. They are great lecturers and teachers, and that leads me back to another question. How much time do you take per day in your self-development journey?
It’s hours. It depends. If you mean like reading, I will listen to an audiobook for at least 30 minutes a day. I will read for an hour a day and people might think it’s odd, but I do have scientific textbooks literally on my kitchen table all the time, constantly. I stopped reading the fiction probably when I was in my teens and went on into the sciences and so on and so forth. Listening to videos, probably in total for sure 4 or 5 hours a day. It’s not because it’s a job because, it’s enjoyable. It’s what I do. My mind loves information, knowledge and detail.
Would you say too now that with things like podcasts and audiobooks that you mentioned that there’s so much to learn and yet I think we’re at a time in humanity and in this timeframe that we live in with technology being what it is in a positive vein that we’ve got access to so much good information, almost too much information at times? You don’t have time for the Harlequin romance to read them, but when there’s so much good stuff to fill the mind with.
Absolutely. How many years ago, I don’t know if you heard but I read somewhere the challenge of our future is going to be to pare down the information that we bring into our lives. I thought, “Interesting.” That rang true for me, but little did I know that I would have the availability of all the mail coming in, the paper mail, email, paper books, electronic books and electronic information so that most of our energies would be to push that away. Whoever would have thought? It is a whole big sorting out and being very particular as to what you’re going to allow into your life, because there was so much electronic banging at our doors, so to speak. I am very particular and you have to be disciplined or else you go down that rabbit hole and get lost there for hours. I don’t allow that to happen.
Super Distributor: The challenge of the future is how to pare down the information that consume. We need to do a lot of sorting to determine what we allow into our lives.
Let’s switch gears a little bit, Patricia. You’ve been now a distributor in your company for a few years. You’ve had some good success. You’ve done most of it, I think regionally. Most of your distributor basis is there in your part of the country. The question I asked so many people that I’m interviewing who are distributors like yourself and myself, what we’re doing here is building distributorships for a living. How do you start a new person? What advice do you give them? How do you help them to get off to a flying start?
There are two things, understanding to a great degree so that you’re getting them and then offering to pair up with them. As the saying goes, “Lock arms with them” and offer education. Teach a man or a woman how to fish and you’ll be able to feed yourself for life. “Would you like some information that would do that for you?” That’s how I look at it.
We’re living in an interesting time. COVID-19 certainly has affected the world. It’s hard to believe it’s been around a year already as we’re speaking. I see two categories of people looking at our industry of direct selling as an option that perhaps before it didn’t. The first category would be people that are our age group, 50s or 60s. Maybe they’ve had a career like you did in something else, maybe they’re newly retired. Maybe they’ve been either a business owner and that their business is going to radically change or has radically changed because of the pandemic. They don’t have a business to go back to in some cases or they do, but it’s going to be watered down financially because so many people now have figured out that they can do what we’re doing. Do a lot of stuff on the internet that they used to have to do face-to-face.
There’s that category that are looking at network marketing, multi-level marketing, maybe for the first time, and considering it seriously, at the very least as a plan B, as a backup plan. There’s that other category, the young person, people that are say 20 to 25, 26 or maybe 30 years old. They’ve got all these tremendous internet and technology skills that they’ve gathered because they grew up with a gadget in their hand that we didn’t. They are also in that same situation where they’re saying, “What’s out there? Where do I go? What do I do?” What’s your best advice to those two individuals, that 60-year-old and a 25-year-old if you were talking to them? If they were in your living room right now, what would you tell them about this industry? What have you learned the last couple of years that they could use to make a good decision, to get involved in network marketing?
They could use it to make a good decision. Two words, social commerce. If you want a way to socialize safely and distance and way beyond your scope of around your home place, socializing on the internet is a way to do it through video conferencing and all of that. Like anything, you can keep it as small or as large as you want. Social commerce is how I say it. You can stay at home. You can still affect people’s lives. You can help one or as many people as you want. You can reach out or not. The world is your oyster. It’s so open. It’s so available. It’s so much as whatever you want to make it.
I haven’t heard the term social commerce before, but that’s a great term. You put social media and all the socialization of the internet with being able to make money and monetize it. That’s a great term. I’m going to use that one. Patricia, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your leadership and your past career. I know you helped a lot of people. I know a little bit about your career and some of the folks that you helped through some very difficult health challenges. Thank you for all of that. You’ve been a blessing to a lot of people.
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We’ve got another great guest that’s going to be in our next episode. You’re going to want to follow this show. Some of the top leaders in the network marketing world, people who are thought-provoking and intelligent that are going to be able to share some of their story with you so you can make a good decision to get involved or if you are involved, to take some of what they’ve shared. Remember all leaders are readers.
