Dennis brought over the cute terrier he cares for. It was about time to pick up my daughter from school – so we thought it would be fun to take “George” along. Of course, she love him, her eyes beaming with pride. As other kids just walked home, she had a dog on a leash. Too cool.

Once home we needed to head out to the local Target. But it was hard getting my 6 year old in the car. She was busy telling everyone on the street about the new dog her brother was taking care of.

She especially spent time with Ms. Kist, because Ms. Kist has a dog.

She knew she would have great rapport with a fellow dog owner. I noted how she was pasionate about the pup and sharing was just another great outlet.

Kids have great skills at socializing. They watch and see what someone has in common – and use that to break the ice. They make friends fast and enjoy them.

Just a reminder to always always always find a common point you can both easily relate to. Next, unless your business is a common point, don’t mention it until it is.

Did you have a nice weekend? Everything you planned? We checked out a new church Sunday, called “Summit” church. They’ve been meeting at the local high school and I am sure this group is going to grow with or without us. They’re doing the right thing.

I want to let you know what I’ve been up to the past few weeks. It’s really exciting to me because I believe it will help a lot of people. This project came straight from my heart and has been so easy to put together.

What I’m doing is writing a small book on marketing using my experience in the Amazon Jungle. I grew up around many plants and animals that are prime examples of what it takes to make it. The fun part of the whole book is how I relate those critters and flora to humans.

My Dad, who was a missionary in Brazil for over thirty years, always had a slide presentation at churches when he came home from the field. I remember him working hard to make his presentation easier for people to relate to.

For instance – how do you relate that you buy all of your groceries every six months? That you need to learn how to become a jack-of-all trades? And what about the 700 mile trip to the dentist?

Dad was good at relating; putting it in terms that people living in suburbia could wrap their mind around. And so that’s what the book is about – relating how everything jungle will help you become a better person at your business.

I hope you’ll join me. The first few chapters look really exciting!

As a sneak peek – I tell about the first animal you’re likely to find in the Amazon, a parrot. Parrots as pets used to be around when you’d land coming from the United States – right at the airport. They were in makeshift cages and later I found the locals were trying to sell them.

They do pretty well in cages, but in the jungle they are so fascinating. Parrots nest in one of two places – either the hollow of a tree, or a small cave they make in the side of a cliff. Both are high enough so they are away from predators like snakes. Plus, parrots stay in groups, called “pandemoniums” – they make a LOT of noise. But a bonus comes to the cliff dwellers as they ingest the clay from the cliff as a means to absorb toxins from berries that make up their diet.

Parrots, like almost all animals I saw in the jungle, are keenly aware of their surroundings. You can’t approach them as they will simply fly off. You can keep luring them with food – but they will only come around if there is a lack of food in their community. In the jungle, this is rare.

So how do you make friends with a parrot?

The locals make friends with the babies. They sometimes steal them from the nests and raise them by hand. After months of feeding and training – these new parrots will bond with the owner for life, all because of trust.

In fact, my parrot, a yellow-headed Amazon, did not have a cage. He lived in our home, making his perch near the roof. He was around most of the time – but sometimes my parrot would wander off with other parrots for weeks at a time. We never clipped his wings and he flew where he wanted. Total trust.

Okay, so how does this relate to you?

Like the parrot – you need to shelter your business mentally from negativity. And stay motivated by hanging with your “pandemonium”. Make sure you have a group of positive parrots around you! Even so – take your daily dose of detoxing clay in the form of scripture reading and other motivational books.

When you get near a wild parrot, they simply fly away. They always have the advantage. If caught, though trained, they will never trust you. So how does this relate to marketing? This we have to take to the domesticated parrot world.

When you approach a pet parrot, most will have no problem with you. They will check you out making eye contact. If they don’t trust you, they will physically show you in several ways. First – they’ll back up a bit. Next, watch their wings – they normally raise them just a bit in a defensive move. And lastly, if they feel you will harm them – they’ll call out and may go for your fingers or whatever else is sticking out.

You can easily relate this to your prospecting to people. They do the same thing. If they trust you, you can get them to eat out of your hand. If they don’t – you will know right away by looking for signs of defensiveness. Be good at being cognoscente of people’s actions.

Bottom line today – you must first gain trust before you can make a move. It’s that simple.

Next time – I’ll share a little about what I learned from the beautiful jungle orchid – and how it can help you day to day. I hope you’ll join me then.

First, thank you to the many who e-mailed regarding the post on C.S. Lewis.  The biggest question was – Great, Dave… we know we need to “believe” that we can conquer our fears, get through our challenges, but HOW do we get this “belief”?  This… “faith” that things will happen?

Going back to the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, recall that Lucy did not always have success in going through the wardrobe to Narnia.  When surrounded by the doubting vibes of her siblings, she began doubting herself – and the wall, or back of the wardrobe would not budge.

So what did she do to overcome her failure?

She began to complain and tell her brothers and sister that it was their fault and that she didn’t see how she could ever get to Narnia again and that she was turning in her C.S. Lewis badge and selling all her Narnia paraphernalia on eBay.  Like they say – it’s not for everybody… and Lucy now knew she wasn’t one of the 1% that make it to the kingdom.  She quit.

No!  Of course she didn’t do any of that.  I love working with kids, because their minds are not polluted with negative things.  If Stephanie on Full House says the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus are best buddies, well – that’s truth!  So if you achieved getting to Narnia once, you certainly can do it again, no?

Lucy focused on her past successes.  There’s the key.  That’s it.  Focus on your past successes.  But there’s more to it than thought.

You can’t very well open a door by thinking of the key.

You must close your eyes and play the successful moments over and over, like a movie.  Bright, alive, with sound!  Do this until you feel the way you felt when it originally happened.  This is the key.  This is how belief comes.

Olympic athletes are SO good at this that they do it all day long.  Before any event you can see them running the race, jumping, finishing… all in their mind – over and over.  And do you think they’re just looking at the track?  No!  They’re recalling the time they cleared every hurdle, ran every step, cleared every pole – successfully!  Their mind makes them believe they can do it again, and again.

Homework: So now it’s up to you.  You now have how to dream where you want to be and today – the key to putting yourself in the belief that you can do it.  High self-esteem.  Successful you.  You have done it before and you can do it again – no matter what your siblings say.

Take a sheet of paper and write down five things you were successful at.  Where you shined.  You were at the top of your game.  You made your best sale or recruited your best business builder.  Keep this list for the next few days at your computer so you can review it whenever you sit down to write or read online.  Look at one of the things on your list and close your eyes and put yourself back in that moment.  Run it like a movie through your head.  Smile.  Stand.  Make it real.  Just like an Olympian!  Remember – that the Gold Medal is won first in the mind, in the heart – then on the field…

This was just too much – and even the Hybrids character joined in! See you in Atlanta!

After getting back from Las Vegas, Adriana and I just wanted one evening to kick back and relax.  Put our feet up and watch something with the family.  We’d all seen C.S. Lewis’ classic, “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” from “The Chronicles of Narnia”, and I thought Adriana’s mom had not.  So, we were going to watch this, and try to put the audio in Spanish – since her mom doesn’t understand much English, and Spanish is a close second to Portuguese.

Turns out we couldn’t find the DVD remote, so we were left with translating as the movie played out.  But I’ve found, since growing up in a foreign country and translating for many of my non-English speaking friends, that many times I had a deeper understanding of the subject if I had to break it down into another language.

And that’s what happened with the story of Narnia.

I’ve been raised in a Christian home, my Dad was a minister, and my Mom many times a Sunday School teacher.  Both were missionaries to Brazil for over 30 years.  Yet there were times that I struggled with believing the whole salvation story – the whole God created everything.  A few times unbelief crept in and made me ponder if that is all truth.

Yes, I’d be brought back to my senses by just looking around me.  God’s handiwork is everywhere and none of this, I believe, could happen by chance.  Soon I was believing again that God is the Creator, sent His Son to die for us, and we’re here to serve Him.

When translating Narnia for my mother-in-law, it became incredibly clear to me that the only way anyone of the kids got through the back of the wardrobe was if they had a thread of belief that it could be so.

Let me explain.  Remember, Lucy was trying to hide during the game of hide and go seek, and chose the wardrobe to hide in.  As the youngest, she believed in almost anything.  I’m sure she believed in the tooth fairy and Santa, and hey – if a magical land appeared at the back of a closet – that would be awesome!

And that’s just what happened.

But when Edmund went to look, all he found was the hard wood back of the wardrobe and he tapped it in disbelief.  And so it was until he, after following Lucy into the wardrobe, beginning to believe himself, that the back opened to Narnia and the lamppost.

When I translated that part, I reinforced something that I wondered about for decades – the way God wired the universe is that when we choose to believe, it opens up for us and works.

Please don’t miss this because it’s the crux of the whole thing.

When you believe, things (universal, beyond our control type of things), start moving to make it so.  Because Lucy believed, Narnia was “always” there.  When Edmund and the others finally believed – Narnia was there for them.

The stronger my belief in God and His plan, the more it is revealed to me.  See, even if I choose not to believe it – it is still there – but it is blocked from me.  It shuts down, doesn’t appear, is the wooden back of the wardrobe and keeps me from blessing or whatever else is there for me.  Just like that wardrobe, if I don’t believe it – it’s not there for me.

This hit home while I was watching the movie and Adriana and I talked about it later that night.  We thought about how true this principle is and how it works with our business.

Did you know that when you simply believe you can reach your goal in your business that all things begin to open up for you?  When you step out in faith, doors open.

And, just like Edmund – when you have your doubts, doors close – people shut down to you.  You can’t reach your goals because the back of the wardrobe is solid, a barrier.

Could it be that simple?

If so, what things can strengthen our belief system?  Certainly NTC did this for us.  Other factors help:

1. Staying involved in the system by completing the work required of someone at your level.  For example, on our team we have several calls and the StartNow Workbook which MUST be finished.

2. Staying plugged in to team phone calls and showing up at team meetings.  When you don’t, you really are reinventing the wheel – and unfortunately, your team will follow you.

3. Go to any major event/meeting within a three hour drive.  You’ll meet others and be able to network.  At NTC we learned as much networking with crossline as we did from keynote speakers.

4. Are you doing your 30 minutes of self-development each day?  This is a great belief-builder.

This is a long post and maybe a tad controversial.  I offer that it does work for me and I wanted you to know so you could try it in your life – because if this is the key for you – then you’ve made great progress today.  Let me know what you think and if you feel the same way.