S-t-r-e-t-c-h that Comfort Zone!
by Jack Bastide

We always hear about how we should get out of our comfort zone in order to be successful in Network Marketing. However, for most people, getting too far out of their comfort zone can actually be harmful.

You wouldn't tell a person who is very shy and brand new to Network Marketing to go and cold call a bunch of strangers. Even if they were willing to do so, the massive rejection they would get might turn them off to network marketing forever.

The correct way to get a new person to be comfortable with the phone is for you, their sponsor, to do the calls and let them listen in. As they become more comfortable they can say a little to the prospect also. Before long their comfort zone will stretch and they won't even need you any more!

I recently had an experience that allowed me to Stretch my comfort zone a bit and it was a good experience. I was riding on the New York City Subway and next to me there was a woman reading Tony Robbins Book "Awake the Giant within you." Since I had read the book I decided to engage her in conversation and asked her she liked the book.

Having been born and raised in NYC its been drummed into me not to talk to strangers and frankly I don't know what possessed me to talk to her. Well it turned that she had just come back from a Tony Robbins Seminar and was very excited to talk about it. We chatted for a while and exchanged business cards. We may do business together, and we may not, but you can never have too many positive motivated friends!

What I did here was S-t-r-e-t-c-h my comfort zone just a little bit and it paid off. I didn't jump totally out of my comfort zone by approaching a total stranger about my business. I simply began a conversation based on a common interest, the book she was reading. As we spoke I then mentioned the business but by this time I was comfortable doing so.

When I first got into MLM one thing my sponsor told me to do was "Walk and Talk." This was walking around and asking total strangers if they were open to a business opportunity. I'll never forget the time I walked up to somebody and asked them if they were interested in earning extra income. He looked at me like I had two heads and said, "You've got to be kidding!"

After being laughed at a few times I stopped doing it, it was too far out of my comfort zone. Later, we did it in teams and it was more comfortable I still felt a little foolish but since there were others around it wasn't as hard. My comfort zone had s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d a bit.

Another perfect example of stretching the comfort zone is when I first started promoting my web site, SickofTheBoss.com. What I did was find the busiest corner I could find, hang a big sign around my neck that said Sick of the Boss?, and handed out fliers every morning before work promoting the site. It took a lot of nerve for me to do this because I thought that people would laugh at me. It also happened that the busiest place I could find was about a block away from where I worked and I was always in fear of a co-worker walking by.