“We are always hungry for more.”
I love this core value because it does an excellent job of explaining what our community is like. In this community, we are never satisfied and always ready for the next challenge or the next adventure. Sometimes, as an outsider looking in, it’s easy to think that we love being busy. But it’s simpler than that.
Sharing a small portion of my story this week can explain how I became hungry many years ago. I know I am always hungry for more every day, and I may be hungry for many things, but it’s only one thing I am hungry for: HELPING people.
Almost 20 years ago, a friend of mine talked me into helping him on a part-time basis. He had recently started a business selling liquid multivitamin, and he was spending so much time talking to potential and current customers on the phone all day. This meant he needed help shipping the product when the orders came in.
Although I had very little interest in doing this, I eventually agreed because he was a good friend and needed help. I did let him know very clearly that I would consider helping him ship orders, but if he thought that I was going to talk to people on the phone or pitch the company’s products or business opportunity that he was crazy. He could rest assured that I would never do it. He said “Okay,” and shortly after, I started helping him ship these multivitamins to people worldwide.
My friend’s name was Jack, and when I started helping him ship these vitamin orders, I realized I never really had a chance to talk to him while I was there because he was always on the phone. By the way, the liquid vitamin was named NutraBurst®.
One day Jack asked me to do something he had said he would never ask. He said, “Can you please answer the phone and take messages for me, so the customers know that they will get a callback?” I was upset with this request, but eventually, I gave in and figured just asking for a name, and a phone number would not be a big deal. He also asked me to ask them their concern or question, which is probably the smartest thing he ever did and here is why.
After a few days of taking messages for Jack, I received calls where the person would ask me a shipping question. These questions were often fundamental, for example, “Did my products get shipped yesterday?” The first time I received that question, I was faced with a moral dilemma. I knew I could find the answer to that question, but did I want to find the answer and tell the caller, or did I want to have Jack do it?
Eventually, I lost the moral battle, and I gave in. I put the caller on hold and I went and found the answer. I returned to the call to give the good news that the product had indeed shipped the day before. What happened next literally changed my life. The caller started screaming with joy. She kept telling me how happy it made her that her NutraBurst® was on its way because she was worried that she would run out. She kept telling me how much the product and the company had made her feel so good and how proud she was to be a part of everything. She went on to tell me at least five times during the call just to let her know that the product was on its way.
I remember hanging up the phone when the call was done and feeling so good about what I had just experienced. It felt really good helping that lady and I wanted that experience again. My enthusiasm to answer the calls and take messages improved and I hoped each time the phone rang that the person would have a shipping question that I could answer.
I did receive the occasional shipping question and each time I did the customer was happy when I resolved their question or concern, and I was happy to help them it made me feel great. I realized I loved helping people, but I could not help many of them because I did not know the answers to the questions they were asking. This was when I decided I needed to learn as much as possible so I could answer those questions and help those people.
I started educating myself on everything. The products we were selling, the ordering process, the compensation plan, the ingredients and what they did, and just about anything else I could learn. I wanted to help every time someone called and I guess I was hungry for more!
Those events led me to become who I am today and serve in the way that I do. Many people may watch me and think I am always hungry to do anything because they see me do so many different things every day, but the reality is I’m not hungry to do many different things I’m always hungry to do just one thing. That one thing is to help people!
That’s right, I am always hungry for more and I will do whatever it takes every single day to help people. If that means talking to them on the phone, coaching them, inspiring them, being a good example, going live and engaging with them, traveling to visit them, recognizing, or celebrating them. Whatever it takes, I will do it. All those things help me help them, and that is really what I am always hungry to do.
So, you see, I am always hungry for more every day, but that doesn’t mean that I’m hungry for many things. In my case, I’m just hungry for one thing: helping as many people as I can each day. I never get tired of helping people, I never decide to go to bed early when people need help and I never mind getting up early to help more people. This is something that I never realized I loved to do until my friend Jack asked me to help him.
That’s the ironic part. I agreed to ship vitamins to people around the world for a small salary but what I received was so much more. I found my passion, I found my purpose, and I saved my own life. For me helping people is like breathing oxygen; I can’t live without it and somehow, I get paid to do it. God is good and I’m grateful he helped me find a place where I could help many people every day and feel great about it.
At Total Life Changes, we are always hungry for more! Every day we are launching new initiatives or coming up with new ideas, or introducing new products and many other things. At times, it may appear that we love doing a million things, but the reality is it’s just one thing we love doing; HELPING PEOPLE make a total life change! We love doing it, we love being a part of it, and we love doing it again and again and again.
Thank you, Jack, for helping me realize that helping people made me feel great and something cool to do. I now enjoy being surrounded by thousands of people who love doing precisely the same thing every day. Not sure exactly what we’re going to do next, but I know we are hungry to do it because it will help people, and that’s all that matters.
Thank you for reading this week and for always being hungry for more. I hope you are hungry for this message every week, and until next week, I hope your hunger for helping others keeps you from starving. Read that one again—I kind of like it.
