I recently wrote a series of Time Management Help but I see so many of my friends in Internet Marketing suffering from a sense of being overwhelmed, that I feel compelled to revisit it with some hard, cold advice.  I hope this helps you.

When I was right out of graduate school and in my first corporate management role I was really revved to get ahead.  It seemed that my fast-paced company couldn’t go fast enough to fully benefit from what I thought I had to offer.  I was constantly inserting my ideas and my recommendations and opinions into everything I could.  All I could imagine was how I was being held back by this monstrous bureaucracy.  After 6 months I was actively looking for another company.  To me the grass was definitely greener on the other side of the hill.

Fortunately for me I had a mentor who happened to be my boss and a world class PR and Advertising pro.  He watched as I restlessly struggled and pushed.  It must have been humorous to him, but he saw something worth working with and helped me understand a great truth.

In one of our weekly lunches he told me the story of how he was also young and aggressive early in his career, and he had a mentor as well who saw something worthwhile that should be grown and nurtured.  Certainly in his case it must have worked.  So I asked him what it was that his mentor had told him decades before.

The advice was timeless he said.  And just as great advice always is, you’ve got to let it sink in a bit to fully appreciate it.  The advice his mentor gave him, and he was then passing on to me was simple.  “Bloom where you are planted”.  With all that build up I was expecting something like “don’t invest in derivatives”, or “go raise capital and start your own firm”.  But “bloom where you are planted”?  What was I, some kind of an Orchid?

But over time this advice rang through my racing mind and helped me settle and focus more and more.  My career began moving and I was on my way up the ladder.  By forgetting about the grass on the “other side of the hill” and focusing on my own patch, I was able to grow my own reputation, departments, and responsibilities into something valuable for my company.

If you are a network marketer or an online marketer this advice is absolutely good for you too.  It seems that so many of us fall prey to the “grass is greener” syndrome, just as I did as a young manager.  In the case of home business, this results in joining additional companies, hopping around from training to training, or system to system.  It really doesn’t take long until you have more than you can manage.  In many cases your businesses are all in start-up or stalled because there is not enough energy and attention to move them forward.

So it becomes a matter of focus.  As I have written before, focus is the real key to success.  Well, there are others, but focus is definitely on the key chain.

So “bloom where you are planted”.  If you have multiple businesses and none of them are performing well, decide which one you most want to grow and focus your attention on that one.  Sure people in your other companies are going to be disappointed, and some of your downline in those companies may ask you to reconsider, but focus.  Work one business at a time until it is running smoothly, then add.

If you are distracted by offers for training and tools, focus.  Look at your business and decide what is necessary to grow it.  You may find that you already have all the training and tools you need.  Decide what needs to be done in your business, make a plan, and then do it with focus, energy, and do it with massive action.

Bloom where you are planted my friends.  I hope this helps you as much as it has helped me.  I have to dust it off once in a while and remember myself.  Best of luck!