Chris Cicchinelli's Blog, page 4

Olympic Athletes and Being Mentally Strong

If you’re like me, you’ve probably been curious about The Olympic Games, which kicked off with the opening ceremony on July 22nd. So my curiosity led me to the same place you might get your information: the all-knowing Siri. Do you talk to Siri like I do? I asked her about Olympic athletes and what it takes to become Olympic ready. Here’s what she had to say. 

Becoming Olympic Ready

According to Siri, it begins with a dream to prove your athletic ability on an international stage. You need to choose a sport, train rigorously with persistence, and possess the right mindset. This is what happens before the athlete even starts training. This is where the dream begins, but for these athletes, they can’t stop there. They start with a dream but then they put their dream into action. Remember when I talked about the difference between Dreamers and Doers? Dreamers talk, and doers do.

Once the athlete is in the right mindset, with goals in mind, it then takes around 10,000 hours or 10 years of practice to get to The Olympic Games. Think about that commitment for a moment. That is an immense amount of time to devote to your sport.

And even then, if you mentally and physically prepare yourself, there’s still not a guarantee that you will make it to the opening ceremony. As few as 1 in 30,000 competitive basketball players will get to the Olympics in their lifetime. With statistics like that, it’s easy to get deterred. But it takes mental toughness to persevere.

How mentally strong are you?

You can be as physically strong as you want but if you’re not mentally strong, you’ll fall down, you’ll give up, your efforts will be futile. It doesn’t matter if you’re an Olympic athlete, a 13-year-old volleyball player, a 19-year-old college athlete, or a 10-year-old Indian Hill Brave. You have to be mentally there. You have to be mentally in it.

To help you assess your mental toughness, ask yourself these questions:

Do I have what it takes to get through the tough times?

When something bad happens, a mentally weak person might think “life is unfair” and they blame other people for their misfortunes. They think people are out to get them. They don’t take ownership of their mistakes.

The mentally strong person owns up to their mistakes. They look at the situation as a learning experience and work to improve for the next time. Take the role of the victor, not the victim.

How do I make sure I am living according to values that really matter to me?

There will be people who don’t like you and don’t agree with you. You can certainly listen to what they have to say, but don’t sacrifice your values. Don’t just agree with them to keep the peace. To continue with the sports analogy, you’re not there to win the argument; you’re there to have a tennis match. You’re there to keep the conversation going so that you can get your point across successfully.

Remind yourself: my job is NOT to please other people. If you try to make everyone around you happy, the one person who becomes unhappy is you. The more you try to put sunshine and rainbows over someone else, the more you find yourself in rain clouds and darkness.

A hard lesson for me was learning to stop pleasing people. I realized I can’t let others control my thoughts or my actions. I need to live by my values. I know that I’m not always right, but I have to set clear boundaries that I can live within.

How do you assess failure?

Failure is part of the road to success.

And think about it. Athletes will fall, they’ll miss goals, they’ll be injured. Failure is part of all our successes. Athletes understand you have to take your medicine. You must accept the good and the bad. It’s not fun, no one likes to lose, no one plays to lose. At the end of the day, failure is going to teach you more about yourself and show you how you can improve.

If you aren’t already doing it, you should evaluate yourself on a monthly basis. Think about skills you can examine month to month. Are you organized? Are you exercising? Are you taking mental breaks? Assess your progress and identify the failures first. Then you can look for what you can improve.

How can you make sure you win next time?

Do you feel like this is a hard question? Of course, it is. But you have to remember that all you can do is your best. Ask yourself: “am I putting my best self on display?”. It’s a tough thing to do every day, but it’s an honest and important question.

First, you need to identify what “your best” is. Create a roadmap for your life. Do you want to get up and look good? Make breakfast for the kids, put them on the bus? Are you giving your significant other a kiss before they go to work? It all goes back to making smart goals. Because if you don’t have measurable goals, you’ll never be able to track your level of success.

If no goals are set, your best becomes an enigma you’ll search for forever. If you have the mental toughness, you will define success. If not, you might start picking yourself apart.

We are stronger than we think we are and we are stronger than our strongest excuse. We’ve learned more about ourselves over the last year than we ever thought possible. Keep that in mind and adopt the approach: I can recover from anything anyone throws at me.

The strongest thing we have is not the muscles, it’s the mind.

How do I get comfortable being uncomfortable?

It can be challenging to figure out how to handle uncomfortable situations.

When I think about Olympic athletes, I can only imagine how uncomfortable they are as they put in those 10,000 hours, those 10 years to be the absolute best in their sport. They constantly have to ask themselves “how did I handle being uncomfortable?”. Their mental fortitude and clearly defined goals gave them what they needed to push through.

Some people might be feeling uncomfortable about what they have in their bank account right now, about their debt, their retirement – but they remind themselves they will get there. Uncomfortability paralyzes most people, but you have to push through. You cannot stop working. Instead, you need to embrace being uncomfortable.

If you have the success mantra of “I’m going to get through the tough times”, you can probably see the direct correlation with Olympic athletes. Mentally tough people are in control of how they think and how they feel. You are the only person in control of your life. Decide what you want and decide how you will deal with situations where you are faced with uncomfortable moments. What’s your equivalent of being an Olympic Athlete? Is it being a successful business owner? Is it being a good parent? Define the goal and start working toward it now. Commit to the process and detach from the outcome!

You’re the person in control, decide what you want and go get it.

The post Olympic Athletes and Being Mentally Strong appeared first on Chris Cicchinelli.

Dreamers vs. Doers

Do you remember the game MASH? Yes, I’m talking about THAT MASH- Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House. When I was a kid, I thought this game would single-handedly determine the type of adulthood I would have. From where I would live to how many kids I would have and what kind of car I would drive. As a kid, this game allowed me to dream without even really realizing I was doing so- and I know I’m not alone. We all had these expectations growing up- things we wanted to do and things we could do! No dream was too big, and no goal was out of reach. But at some point, many people, maybe you included, realized dreaming wasn’t enough and became doers.

What’s the difference between a dreamer and a doer? Dreamers talk, and doers do.

Dreamers can take you to another world with their stories. They can paint this world vividly and make you feel like you’re actually in the dream with them! Doers? Well, they turn this world into their reality. When I think about a good example of a dreamer turned doer, Jeff Bezos is someone who immediately comes to mind.

Bezos was raised in Houston, Texas, home of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center and the place where Neil Armstrong and his crew left Earth for the Moon in 1969. As a kid, he was inspired by watching the Apollo 11 moon landing and became obsessed with Star Trek and space aviation. Later, his family moved to Miami, Florida, where he graduated valedictorian from high school in 1982. In his commencement speech, he spoke about his future space ambitions.

Fast forward to 1994, when Bezos founded Amazon in his small home in Seattle, Washington. Amazon wasn’t space, but it was definitely a big deal! His book-selling website opened for business on July 16, 1995. Its homepage greeted users with the proclamation of being “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore.” Bezos’ appetite for innovation seeped through all levels of the company, cemented by his ideology that it was “always Day 1 at Amazon.” He encouraged his employees to take risks, even if that led to spectacular failures.

In the year 2000, Jeff Bezos resurfaced his dream for space travel and founded his space project, Blue Origin. To fund Blue Origin, he sold $1 Billion of his Amazon Stock each year since 2017 which currently amounts to $5.5 Billion. On July 20, 2021, just after 9:00 AM ET, he accomplished his goal to travel to space. Blue Origin successfully completed its first human spaceflight with four private citizens. One of those citizens was Jeff Bezos, an astronaut and a dreamer turned doer. Talk, about, full circle!

Bezos was putting out his big space ambition into the world as he graduated from high school.

That’s the difference between dreamers and doers- dreamers are known for just talking about their future goals and aspirations.They think about it, say it out loud then allow roadblocks and distractions to stop them from fulfilling. On the other hand, doers start fulfilling their dreams even when it’s not obvious they’re doing so. They lay the groundwork and plant the necessary seeds to turn their dreams into a reality.

Speculate vs. Experiment

A dreamer will speculate and contemplate all the pros and cons of their goals- so much so that it eventually turns into inaction. A doer will experiment and innovate. Doers are willing to try new and different things to reach their goals. If you’re dreaming about making six or even seven figures and providing a better life for your family, you need to look at the pros and cons of reaching your dream. If you’re a doer, you will be proactive about experimenting and implementing the necessary steps to go get what you want! Trust me, the risk is worth the reward.

At the end of the day, if you’re a dreamer, you have to start thinking differently. Dreamers listen to fear- doers work through fear. You and I both know, humans are only born with two fears in life- the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises; everything else is False Evidence Appearing Real. Learn to work through fear and tune it out. If not, you will kill your dreams right away because of it.

Lastly, dreamers compare their life to others, and doers construct their life. You need to stay on top of innovation, or your brand will be lost in the noise. Don’t let others rob you of your dreams, and don’t rob yourself of your ability to achieve them. Figure out better ways to do your business for the future.

You can dream, sure. But you also need to DO. You can live your life by design- but it starts with a dream and ends with YOU doing everything you can to fulfill them.

The post Dreamers vs. Doers appeared first on Chris Cicchinelli.

Side Hustles

“Never depend on a single income. Make the investment to create a second source.”- Warren Buffett

Did you know 45% of working Americans report having a side hustle? And, when you single out Millenials, that amount rises to a staggering 50%! Why do so many people today want to have a side hustle more than ever before? Maybe because more than half of American workers are unhappy and not fulfilled in their full-time employment, or they could just need the extra funds! Whatever the reason, having a side hustle is never a bad idea.

At Pure Romance, most of our Consultant base use this opportunity as their side hustle. Often times Consultants ask me how they can “sell” this opportunity to others who could benefit from a side hustle but are hesitant. There isn’t one specific answer, and that’s a good thing! There are many great reasons why having a side hustle is a logical option- let’s explore a few.

“I don’t need a side hustle!”

How many times have you had someone tell you this? When I hear this, my rebuttal is, “Do you like paying off debt? Do you like to save money?”. Unsurprisingly, their answer is always yes. The fact of the matter is, having a side hustle makes fulfilling your dreams a faster process! By not having a side hustle, you’re choosing to be a sideline watcher- someone who sits on the side and watches everyone else get ahead. I like to think of having a side hustle the same way I think of having insurance. Why do you have insurance? To protect yourself in case of an emergency. The same applies to having the extra money from a side hustle.

“I need you to show me how I can make extra money through a side hustle.”

Most people are used to clocking in at work, doing the same things day in and day out, having a salary, and collecting a weekly or bi-monthly paycheck. At Pure Romance, the bottom line is that you earn what you work for. Every day doesn’t have to be the same because YOU decide when and how much you want to work (yes, the secret is you!). 90% of people who make money at Pure Romance make it by selling a product. If someone is hesitant about this opportunity, invite them to shadow a party, be open and candid about your experience, and give them a glimpse into your life. Show them that there is only a guarantee that they’ll make money if they WORK for it!

“I don’t have time for a side hustle.”

How many times have you heard this one?! The bottom line is, most people have more time than they think. Did you know the average person spends 2 hours a day on social media? That’s 14 hours a week! If you’re already on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or any other social media platform, why not figure out how to monetize this time with a side hustle? People make time for the things they care about, and that will benefit them.

“A side hustle isn’t achievable for me.”

I’m here to tell you, a side hustle is achievable but only for those who have motivation. I often remind people that to be successful in a side hustle, you need to be motivated to get up, make that extra phone call, send that extra text, attend team meetings, stay engaged, just simply SHOW UP. By going the extra mile, you’re already setting yourself up for success.

“I don’t really need to network.”

“It’s not what you know- it’s who you know.” Does that quote ring a bell? Because it’s true! Even the president networks! Having a side hustle will allow you to meet people that you may not have had the opportunity to meet otherwise. Forming connections, community, new friendships are all viable reasons to be a part of a side hustle that’s bigger than yourself. And you never know, someone you meet may lead you to a bigger opportunity down the life! However you view it, having a group of people to hold you accountable and push you to be your best self is a reason to celebrate and embrace connections.

The future is changing, people! The days of waiting 2 weeks for a paycheck are quickly coming to an end as more and more companies and side-hustles move to weekly and even daily paychecks. The fact of the matter is, in today’s age people love to work BUT only when they want to! That’s the great thing about the side hustle culture and Pure Romance- you can work when you want to and reap the benefits of that work faster than ever before. Having a second stream of income allows you to put more money away, pay off debt quickly, and protects you in emergencies. If you don’t believe me, take it from the great Warren Buffet- “Never depend on a single income. Make the investment to create a second source.”

The post Side Hustles appeared first on Chris Cicchinelli.

Intentionality

Are you intentional with how you’re running your business? One important lesson I’ve learned as a business owner is that intentional thinking, goal setting, and planning are vital to success. You see, I started my career in merchandising- from there, I transitioned to marketing, then, I ultimately landed in sales. Although each role had its unique responsibilities and end goals, one thing that rang true for each position was that being intentional brought me the success I desired.

The world we live in has changed drastically in the last 36 months, more drastically than I’ve EVER seen it change! While change is scary for most, I know and you know that change is inevitable. Instead of running from the change, I used it as an opportunity to be more intentional with my lifetime value and the lifetime value of Pure Romance. I made it my mission to hone in on how this value can benefit customers. My first order of business? I had to make sure my team and I were doing a better job each day at collecting data!

The Power of Data

Do you have organized information on each member of your team? What about specific information on each of your customers? Or even the members of your VIP or preferred customer groups? From the very beginning of my career, being intentional has been at the forefront of my business goals. From intentional messaging to the particulars of how I reach new customers, every aspect has a well thought-out intention behind it. There’s no denying that we live in a data-driven world. From the internet and cell phone usage to a simple trip to the grocery store, data runs everything! The honest truth is that without data, your business won’t survive. It is the power you need for your business to be able to grow. But, what do you do once you collect the data? Ensure you’re intentional with creating a plan around it. Incentivize your customers based on their buying habits or demographics, consistently follow up, and get ahead of their needs before they even know they need it!

The Law of Awareness

A pivotal part of data collection is being aware of your customers. Are you aware of who your typical customer is? Are you knowledgeable about their buying habits and keeping this information at the forefront of your mind? Now is the time to start refining your business, but, in order to do that, you have to have a clear understanding of your customer base. If your customers all look the same, start evaluating how you can diversify your team and business plan. What can you start doing differently to attract a diverse segment? When you begin working on this plan, remember to always be intentional and thoughtful about your strategies. While attracting a new customer base is valuable, you want to ensure that you do so ethically and genuinely.

The great thing about our world is that we don’t have to create a data and awareness culture- we’re actively living in it! Don’t let these practices pass you by. Now is the perfect time to get ahead of the change. Wrap your mind around this, then start putting action into play. It’s time to be intentional in thinking about what you have and don’t have. Do you have your customer base laid out? What about purposeful goals for the remainder of the year? Are you fully aware of your business practices and how they’re working to benefit you long term? We’re not playing checkers here- we’re playing chess. You need to be constantly strategically thinking. You have the ability to pivot- you’ve likely proved this to yourself time and time again. Remember, change is inevitable, growth is intentional.

The post Intentionality appeared first on Chris Cicchinelli.

Empathy in Action

em·pa·thy – the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner

If you’ve watched or read the news the past few months, you’ve likely heard the debate about whether or not transgender students should be allowed to compete in school athletics. I’ve listened and read many discussions about the topic, and one thing I’ve noticed lacking on one side of the conversation is quite simply, empathy. Let’s face it- you can never truly understand a person until you can consider things from their perspective. One thing to note- empathy and sympathy are not one and the same. While sympathy is simply “the feeling of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune,” empathy is much deeper. Being empathetic is being aware, being sensitive, and meeting others where they’re at.

I would like to challenge you to put yourself in the shoes of a transgender teen. You’re 13. One day you come home from school, turn on the tv, and hear a debate about whether or not you should be allowed to play sports in high school. The people arguing that you shouldn’t be allowed to play sports don’t see what you go through on a daily basis. They don’t see or feel the isolation you experience. They don’t see when you’re upset about being different. They don’t see or understand your confusion because all of your friends are going through puberty, and you’re not. They don’t see you trying to fit in each and every day. They don’t see any of this, but yet, they are making judgment calls on if you should be allowed to play volleyball. One thing about empathy, when you lack it, you’re only able to see through fogged lenses.

I am thankful that there are more and more people in this world living their truth. I’m thankful to live in a world where more of these individuals feel comfortable and protected enough to do so. The bottom line is, I don’t know everyone’s life or story, and neither do you. What I do know is, I choose to meet every single person where they’re at and love them for who they are. When you meet people where they’re at, not only is it a positive interaction for them, but for you. You become more empathetic, mature, respectful, and ultimately grow as a person

LC & Me

As many of you know, this topic is near and dear to my heart because I am the father of a transgender daughter. The journey that LC and I have been on has been nothing short of amazing. I call it our journey because our relationship is unique to us. LC has a journey with her mother, siblings, friends, and teachers, and they all shape her life in different ways. Through our journey, LC has taught me to not be judgmental, to look at things through clear eyes, and overall, how to practice empathy daily. It’s so funny because I often have friends and acquaintances tell me that they “feel sorry for me” because of my life changes. Bottom line, I don’t need sympathy- as the proud father of a beautiful transgender daughter, I need you to be understanding. Be someone open to learning and to understanding other people’s points of view. I want you to be someone who makes everybody feel like somebody and practices empathy daily.

Grace, Class, and Respect

These three pillars are a game-changer. Whenever I find myself frustrated, I remember these to keep me going and accountable. When you’re having a conversation with someone, especially someone who may be different than you, practice grace. Be willing to be receptive and to learn from this person. Be willing to take the conversation to the next level without judgment- when you practice grace, it shows that you have class and value respect. People’s lives can look different than yours, and that’s okay! You can still greet them with kindness, gentleness, and understanding. In business, this can become your superpower- in life, it can make you a better person.

Expand Your Views

What if every day you looked at the world from a different point of view and tried to walk in someone else’s shoes? I challenge you to be curious about lifestyles, go to new places, and try new experiences. We live in a world where people crave to be seen and heard. Whether it’s at work, home, on social media, etc., acknowledgement is the ultimate form of satisfaction for many people. Let people know you understand where they’re coming from. Everyone you ever meet knows something you don’t know. If you want to expand your horizon and grow personally, it starts with being open and receptive to meeting and talking to new people. The more open you are, the more love you will receive. The more love you receive, the more you’re able to give.

Being empathetic will expand your audience, attract people to you, and elevate relationships at the end of the day. My journey with my daughter LC has been beautiful, especially because of the number of positive individuals we have attracted in our lives. Does everyone understand LC and her journey? No. Are we trying to win everyone over? No. Am I aiming to treat everyone equally through education, love, class, grace, and respect? Yes. And, I hope you will too.

The post Empathy in Action appeared first on Chris Cicchinelli.

Patience – The Ingredient to Maximum Success

Remember that patience is an essential ingredient in achieving maximum success

Excerpted from The Secret is You by Chris Cicchinelli who charts his two-decade journey transforming Pure Romance into the world’s largest in-home/virtual party company of its kind, while also sharing his innovative approach for empowering women to become successful entrepreneurs themselves. The Secret is You is now available for pre-sale order with an April 2021 delivery. Purchase the book here.

 

You rarely hear about the months and years of hard work behind the scenes that go into making an iconic brand. Often, businesses need to be brought back from the brink of collapse to ultimately thrive.

Take the case of Federal Express. It was founded in 1971 with $94 million in seed capital but was on the verge of bankruptcy two years later when the founder flew to Las Vegas and played blackjack with his last $5,000, which he turned into $24,000. He was therefore able to keep his payroll going for another few weeks. FedEx turned its first profit in July 1975.

Jeff Bezos ditched a cushy Wall Street gig in 1994 to sell books out of his garage online with a company he named Amazon. He did nothing but lose money for the next several years and was still $791 million in the red in 1999. He didn’t turn his first profit until 2003, nine years after founding the company and six years after taking it public.

The sports megabrand ESPN launched in 1978 and soon needed a $1 million cash infusion from Anheuser-Busch to keep it afloat. It didn’t turn its first profit until the mid-eighties. Elon Musk incorporated Tesla in 2003 and didn’t see his first profitable quarter until 2013, a decade later. Bill Gates founded Microsoft in 1975 and spent the next decade prepping it to go public—in 1986. As recently as 2005, Facebook still faced a yearly net loss of more than $3.6 million. In 1997, Apple was just ninety days from going under entirely.

It bears repeating: nothing happens overnight, or even close to overnight.

By 2020, Apple had a net worth of an astonishing $2 trillion, Amazon more than $1 trillion. Facebook and Microsoft had a market capitalization north of $500 billion, Tesla $450 billion, and FedEx and ESPN $60 billion. It dramatically underscores the point that patience can pay off big. None of them started out like gangbusters.

The post Patience – The Ingredient to Maximum Success appeared first on Chris Cicchinelli.

A New 90 Day Challenge Starts April 1st

New seasons call for new beginnings. How will you reinvent yourself this season?

Everything in this world must change and evolve. It’s time for you to challenge your limits. Change will not happen overnight – it takes time for change to become a habit.

Join me for the next 90 Day Challenge as we keep our goals in sight and push each other for consistent growth. Staying focused may be a challenge, but I know you have the courage to win!

Follow the steps below to join:

Fill out the 90 Day Challenge Survey Monkey (this allows me to be your accountability partner and gives you an opportunity to win prizes on Live Love Win and Rise & Grind!) – https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JLB2Q83  Fill out and print the editable PDF and hang it in your business space to track your goals.90 Day Challenge Form –  English  |  Spanish  Start the process today and begin tracking your success!

 

Here’s to new beginnings!

The post A New 90 Day Challenge Starts April 1st appeared first on Chris Cicchinelli.

Stay focused on your goal and your routine

Excerpted from The Secret is You by Chris Cicchinelli who charts his two-decade journey transforming Pure Romance into the world’s largest in-home/virtual party company of its kind, while also sharing his innovative approach for empowering women to become successful entrepreneurs themselves. The Secret is You is now available for pre-sale order with an April 2021 delivery. Purchase the book here.

Every woman has a reason for getting involved as a sales consultant with our company. It could be running from a bad job or a bad marriage. It could be simply not having enough money. It may be credit card debt. Not everyone wants to tell me their reason, because it’s often deemed too personal. Money seems to be the most forbidden topic, one that people just don’t want to bring up, even more so than sex.

One woman who did tell me her reason was Christine, who had $60,000 in credit card debt after ignoring her payments for five years. (It happens that 87 percent of households in the U.S. have debt, and the average household credit card debt is $5,700.) She had just obviously overspent in relation to her income, had completely ignored the bills, and now was paying the price.

Christine started a really strict plan to pay down the debt by slicing her spending to the bone. She personally gave me her credit cards and was able to knock off $18,000 the first year. She called me in tears—happy tears, I assumed at first.

“I can’t do this anymore!” she complained to me.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “You paid down almost a third of your debt in a year. You’re ahead of schedule on the five-year plan. Keep up the good work! What’s the problem?”

“The problem is, it’s not happening fast enough.”

“Well, hold on,” I replied. “Tell me again how long it took you to build up the $60,000?”

“Five years,” Christine admitted.

“Well, what makes you think you should be able to take down in one year what it took you five years to accrue?”

“I just want to make it happen,” she reasoned.

I think she wound up paying off the debt in two and a half years, which is precisely half of five. Accomplishing goals is all about just putting yourself in a routine and making it happen. In this case, her goal was to get completely out of debt. Anything that moved her toward that, even if she was taking baby steps, was progress.

This is what you need to remember: stay focused on the big picture and be true to yourself, and that will sell you. No one expects you to be perfect. We get ourselves into debt, drink too much, get traffic citations, and screw up right and left. But if you’re moving constantly toward improvement, no one will begrudge you your shortcomings.

The post Stay focused on your goal and your routine appeared first on Chris Cicchinelli.

Success Built by Determination

Excerpted from The Secret is You by Chris Cicchinelli who charts his two-decade journey transforming Pure Romance into the world’s largest in-home/virtual party company of its kind, while also sharing his innovative approach for empowering women to become successful entrepreneurs themselves. The Secret is You is now available for pre-sale order with an April 2021 delivery. Purchase the book here.

Typically, nothing worth achieving happens overnight. You know it. I know it. Even your dog probably knows it. Getting in shape, whether it be physically, mentally, or financially, takes time. None of us wants that pain, that anxiety, but it’s often a necessary step to having a better body, a sounder mind, or a more robust financial life. The thing with this kind of pain is, it subsides over time. It’s the short-term sacrifice that brings you the long-term gain.

Conversely, it’s easy to read an unmotivated person. They sit back and allow the conversation to control them rather than being assertive and on top of it. I have absolutely no stats on this, but I’m guessing that the more determined you are, the more successful you are. I know one thing: I hate dealing with people who are apathetic or listless in their manner. It shouts to me that they just don’t care enough to succeed.

By the same token, I’ll admit right here that patience isn’t my strongest suit, and for that reason it’s something I often work on. It drove me a little crazy that it took me ten years at Pure Romance to officially become a millionaire. I’d always hear, “Well, you’re a millionaire on paper,” which made me nuts. There’s a big difference between having it on paper and having it in your bank account.

For too many people, immediately isn’t fast enough. And if something doesn’t happen as quickly as they snap their fingers, they lose interest. You don’t want to be that person. Instead, you want to be the one who doesn’t bail at the first sign of trouble, who stays in for the long haul, who communicates a vibe of patience and determination and brings a sense of stability to the table.

I would rather risk being the one who stays too long at the party than being the one who takes off before the action begins. That should be you, too. In essence, don’t give up on things. Let them play out. Understand that good things take a while to evolve. It goes hand in hand with your evolution as a person.

The post Success Built by Determination appeared first on Chris Cicchinelli.

Roadmap to Your Best Life

“You’re successful with your system. You just don’t know it.”
– Chris Cicchinelli

With the pandemic lockdown slowly but surely ending, now more than ever, it’s crucial to make sure you’re controlling your time. Don’t let others hijack your time, and always put yourself in a situation where you’re able to decline things that aren’t pushing you towards success. Only you can paint what success looks like for you, and it starts by recognizing why you’re doing the work you’re doing.

Why are you here?

I’ll be honest, the reason I got into Pure Romance was because of money. Sure, I wanted to help my mother Patty, but at 24, I didn’t consider the impact I would be making over my 21 years at Pure Romance. So, why are you here? Maybe it’s to earn more money like 24-year-old Chris? Or to purchase a new vehicle? Maybe you’re simply stuck in a rut and wanting to try something new? Everyone has a different “why” and a different path to success. I’ve learned during my time as CEO that with this path comes some natural uncertainty.

Do you ever feel like your path to success isn’t clear? Do you question if you’re doing the right thing? If you answered yes, you’re not alone! Everyone’s business has a uniqueness to it, and this uniqueness can cause even the most seasoned business owners to be unsure of themselves. When unsureness hits, the first thing we often do is compare our business to others? When you see someone else’s success, you might look at your own business and say to yourself, “there has to be a simpler way to do this.” I’m here to tell you there is!

You may not realize it, but you already possess the things that will make you successful. You have your system, and you know what works for YOU. Most people who feel like they’re in a rut or aren’t getting ahead are consistently inconsistent- therefore, they’re getting inconsistent results. If this is you, fight this inconsistency by always focusing on your why and keeping your end goal at the forefront of your mind.

Survive < Success

Survival doesn’t mean just getting by. You aren’t working your a*** off to just survive. You’re working your a** off to succeed. You should get up each and every day with a plan on how you’re going to seize the day, be more efficient, and be better than the day before. And, if you’re struggling with the concept of success, take some time to write down what success looks like to you. Your picture of success could change monthly or even daily- that’s due to growth. 21 years ago, my view of success was being able to make more money to purchase a car with a radio. Now? My view of success is being able to help as many women business owners as possible.

The Ultimate Success Formula

This is what it all comes down to. This is how to achieve the outcome you deserve.

Know your outcome (clarity=power)Know why it’s a must (purpose=power). Whether your purpose is to increase your income or max out your 401K, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s YOURS.Know what you’re gettingChange your approach until you get your outcome!

Say you want to take your kids on vacation (1). Why is it a must? Because you want memories with your kids (2). What are you getting out of it? A sense of accomplishment and the memories you’ve worked for (3)! And, if you find yourself stalling out and not getting what you want? Change your approach (4)!

Life is abounding fullness and joy and strength of mind, body, and soul. You deserve this and more. You deserve to get out there and achieve the success you’ve always dreamed of. Never treat success as a scarcity- treat it as a valued family member. What would you do for a family member? Anything. Are you willing to go that same extra mile for your success and to live your best life?

The post Roadmap to Your Best Life appeared first on Chris Cicchinelli.