In the direct selling world, in order to succeed, you have to have an understanding of people and find out what they want so you can match what you’re selling to what they want. Lisa Grossmann has been in the direct selling space for 32 years. She attributes her success and longevity to the very first moment she got hold of Og Mandino’s book, The Greatest Salesman in the World. Filled with marvelous techniques and a blueprint for living, she says it translates itself incredibly well into business. Today, she joins Dan McCormick to share her success story from her humble beginnings to becoming one of the greatest salespeople in the world.

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The Blueprint For Living with Lisa Grossmann

If you’re new to the show, on behalf of the Og Mandino Company, my name is Dan McCormick, the Ambassador for the Og Mandino Company. This little gem landed in my hands when I was nineteen years of age as a young man with no self-esteem, no self-worth, no net worth. I was challenged to do something I wasn’t good at. That was read and study a book that I would soon realize that seven years later had a profound impact on my journey. Each and every week I get to find the greatest salespeople in the world. I had this clever little caption for my guest. I simply said we’re going to have our guest be the greatest salesperson in the world and we’re going to prove it. She is Lisa Grossman. Welcome to the show. How are you, Lisa?

I’m awesome and excited to be here. It’s a bucket bone for me to be talking with you on the same stage.

What’s interesting is when I called you, you said, “I love Og Mandino,” and that’s the case. Before we get to how we know each other, how you learned about me, me learned about you, I see you live all the time. I pop on your broadcast around the globe. For all of our readers, I would love it if you could give me three things that have shaped your life for each and every day. What are the three things that you think shaped you being what I call the greatest salesperson in the world?

It’s evolved, but at 58 you look at the world a little bit differently. I would say number one, approach the day with gratitude. I start every day and I end every day with gratitude because if you aren’t grateful for where you’re at, you’re going to be pointed in the wrong direction when you start to go somewhere. If you’re not grateful, it’s best to stand still because you will move in the wrong direction if you start moving. The second I would say is that always look at the long picture, long game, the horizon. Many people think that everything that is a one page open-close finished type of thing and they build their life accordingly.

Long-term vision is what propels us and if you spend too much time doing short-term thinking, the long-term vision disappears, you can’t even find it. The third thing that I would say is to remember that in life, no matter where you are, you can’t solve every problem alone, but you always have an army of people either that you know or that you can find in books or in teachings. There’s always more information out there. There’s always a way to get to a solution and there’s always somebody who’s been there before or somewhere similar before that if you hold your breath and look for it, you can find guidance. There are always guides around you.

Every week, someone’s given thought to those three things. I’m astounded every week how the principles that guide people’s lives are unique to them in their journey and they’re real. I can feel what you’re saying that almost thought you were speaking from Wallace Wattles when he talked about in chapter seven about gratitude, “You can never go beyond where you currently are until you’re grateful for what you currently have.”

If you also noticed, unfortunately now, people don’t utilize language to its full breadth because there are many different words. People often think they’re angry when they’re frustrated, but have you noticed that it’s impossible to be angry if you’re grateful. I don’t like anger. I prefer gratitude and being, “I can be perturbed or annoyed, but I seldomly get angry.”

Always looking at the long game. Nobody has ever mentioned that, it’s interesting that if you study Og and The Greatest Salesman in the World, and you think about how he laid those scrolls out for us, it is a long game. It’s a life long journey game and that paradigm was beautiful.

It’s because many people want to treat their life like a game of checkers and Og Mandino was chess master and a world chess master. The long game is where everything reveals, manifests and comes out. It’s funny because the title of the book is The Greatest Salesman in The World. He is, but I always thought of him as the greatest businessman in the world because he gave you advice to get through the day, but it was a parable to get through life.

In my morning reading, the word ‘remember’ came up over and over and you said, “Remember.” Og was famous for saying that there are three words you need to remember and that is, “I need help.” If you are not getting answers to what you need, just say, “I need help.” There are people out there if you’ll ask. Those are three marvelous things. I hope people are taking notes on that. When I reached out to you, I remember you were in a conference with Tony Robbins.

It’s interesting because I finished another one with Tony Robbins. It’s amazing when you have shifts externally. A lot of people think the external role is what drives them and it isn’t, but shifts in what’s going on externally caused you to take pause and make shifts internally. I realized we get busy being successful through other people’s eyes that sometimes we forget to go get better and to go plug into the things that help us, remind us, make us think, look at things differently. I found Tony again. Tony and I have had almost as long a journey together as Og and I, but not quite.

He’s a student of Jim Rohn and a remarkable teacher. When I was nineteen years of age, I didn’t like reading, learning, didn’t know how to study and was not anything other than anxious for financial success. When the individual put this hand at the first network marketing meeting I went to, standing in the parking lot and he said, “This changed his life.” I remember where I was. I don’t know if you have any of those recollections of where you were.

I knew. What’s interesting is our perspectives are different. I love to read, but because of it, I’m demanding of my authors and The Greatest Salesman was not the first book that was recommended to me and it was on a list. The book that everybody goes and reads first is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Great information, but I wasn’t in love with the book because I felt like I was reading other people’s stories and I didn’t relate to his style. The next book that I read was informational.

When I fell in love with The Greatest Salesman in the world was because it spoke to me because it wasn’t technique-driven, he tells you how to live and they turn out to be marvelous techniques and a blueprint for living which translates itself incredibly well into business because I’m not saying that all those other author’s words weren’t authentic. Their focus was so much on telling you how to do it and how other people thought before they did it, it never resonated with me to the point as, “I could use this book to be the greatest salesman in the whole world. I could use it to be the greatest person in the world. If you try hard to be the greatest person in the whole world, you will become a great salesman.

I’m moved by that because I had the same exact feeling. It was my first book, by the way.

I was thinking that you didn’t love to read. It turns you on to reading. For me, it had to be that good to make me turn it into basically a diary for living, which is what it became.

Direct Selling: If you try hard to be the greatest person in the whole world, you will become a great salesman.

Like you, when I read Think and Grow Rich, it didn’t resonate with the techniques, but the principles of Og and the storytelling, how it weaved in life story principles. Og says in the beginning of the book, “Only principles endure.” When we think about those principles and he writes in that first scroll, “Today, I begin a new life.” Whenever I do the show, I have the hard copy of each one of those scrolls in cardstock. “Today, I begin a new life,” that’s a principle for Og coming from alcoholism. I will greet this day with love in my heart. Scroll number two, the gym. You mentioned in the preconference, “I will persist until I succeed,” and we were talking about, “I will laugh at the world.” There are many amazing principles.

What are you saying there? Character is character, but actions and attributes, decisions. Everybody asks people 116 times what’s the most important thing. We usually start with belief, but I’ve always thought it was persistence and consistency because even if you believe terrible things, if you’re not persistent in your pursuit of terrible, you’re not going to get terrible anybody more than you’re going to get wonderful. You have to go out and keep knocking on the door and the universe will open up for you. He said that and that’s what I loved. It. wasn’t how to influence people or how to get in their head. It was basically be you and strive to be the best version of yourself, because within everything else will show up.

Do you want to measure your thoughts? Literally, in a matter of minutes, you can take our online assessment. It’s called HabitFinder.com. What you’re going to do is go to HabitFinder.com/actnow. There it is right there, and you literally can measure your thoughts. Are they aligned with what Og is teaching in the principles? You’re literally able to take that assessment in a matter of minutes, be able to look at your internal world, your dialogue you’re having with yourself, and maybe even find out how you feel about money, how you feel about relationships, how you feel about people.

I remember the first time I took the assessment and Dave Blanchard called me and he says, “How do you feel when you’re looking at a room, you’re standing in an audience? Do you see green or red lights?” I immediately shifted towards, “That is my strength. I can see the people in the room that are nodding their heads with me, that are with me, that are ready to take the opportunity.” I think you may have taken the assessment many years ago, but it is a fascinating thing when you can take an assessment and align your thoughts.

I’m going to take it again. Here’s the reason that a lot of people should take these things seriously. Somebody asked me, “What’s your super power?” I know what I think I’m good at, not nearly as good, but I had seen somewhere, “Find your strength or find your number one superpower.” I went through this test and what was fascinating to me was it came back with a word that I would have never described as either a habit or a superpower. If you make a list of 100 and pick 1, it wouldn’t have made either list.

What’s interesting is it’s both because it said that my superpower is perspective. Would you ever think perspective is a habit or perspective as a superpower? It is true because my greatest strength is much like what you said. I have an ability to take a step back and see the big picture, which gives me a perspective that often my audience or people that I’m talking with doesn’t and when you have that, you have that ability to zone in on where somebody at and where they want to go versus, “Who wants to make money?” 100 out of 100 people raised their hands and now what do you do?

It’s interesting because you have traveled the world far more. I’ve been around the world like you, but you’ve done it far more extensively. I saw you on Facebook celebrating a couple of years ago when you were over Asia somewhere.

November 25th for three weeks to do a tour and I’m still here. What’s fascinating about it is somebody asked me this is the first time in five years, except when Steve was having some surgery, that I have gone longer than three weeks without being on an airplane and longer than six weeks without being on an international flight. We got the miles a year and one world, “Go.” Do you know what’s funniest? I don’t listen.

Talk about that journey. How long have you been in the direct selling world?

November 2020 will be 32 years.

You heard an audio cassette for me you said.

Do you remember you did a series of tapes? Brian was young when we hooked up because he’s younger than me. I was maybe in the space 1 or 2 years, he would have had to be 19 or 20 years old and I said, “I know business. This isn’t like any business I’ve ever done.” I respected that it was a business, but I couldn’t figure it out. I said, “Same thing. You were my Og Mandino, everything I was hearing was how to sell.”

If you come from business, you’ve got a good idea of how to do sales and marketing. I wanted to understand the business and to understand that in this business, you have to have an understanding of people and not how to sell them because it’s easy to sell if you’re a good salesperson, but how to find out what they want because if you could match what you’re selling or sharing or educating to what they want, then you get a type of enrollment and buy-in that you don’t get because somebody bought something. My initial for you in a network marketing is I was all hat, no cattle. I got amazing frontline and no downline because I could sell no problem. I was selling the wrong thing.

I always look at my highlights in the beginning of The Greatest Salesman and he says, “You’ve mastered the art of living, not for yourself alone.” You went from having a great frontline and now you’ve got thousands and tens of thousands of people. You’ve been a pioneer in the Keto weight loss field for how many years now?

I don’t know if I’m a pioneer because I waited two years before I was involved with the company. Having said that because I was retired from the field and lots of others. Three years, but I’ve been involved in the Ketosis Revolution back in the days before they knew about fats. When Robert Linn wrote The Last Chance Diet out of the Cooper Clinic, that’s the business my family was in. What’s interesting is I’m not Keto. I do intermittent fasting and low carb and we’re having great success, but my new relevant revelation after 100 years is that diets don’t work.

Changing your lifestyle works and which brings me back to something that came from this book. Many people are dieting because they don’t like the way they look and it’s temporary. They go on diets, “I can’t wait until this diet is over so I can X.” They arrest behavior, but they don’t change behavior. All great change comes through changing of habits, which is when you replace one for another. If people stopped chasing diets and they started chasing health, buying the best tools, supplements, training for their mind, body and spirit that they would all be healthy because there’s no such thing as healthy obesity.

The Greatest Salesman in the World

How much does that play a role in the mind?

I think it’s all in the mind. I say that because we have to make a lot of changes with the way we eat, how often we eat, but at the end of the day, willpower is never enough to do anything because you have to change the picture that you see. This is what I think by the long game and goes back to Og Mandino. One of my favorites is he said, “That your life ends up being or you are become the sum of your experiences or the sum of your actions or what you do on a daily basis.” I think that’s true. What happens is people will say, “We get on stage.” We don’t do it to impress people to validate what’s possible.

They see your house or all the things you’ve been able to accumulate in a long career with a lot of time put in and they’ll say, “I want that. I would love to have a house on the hill.” Maybe they would, but if somebody only lived in a two bedrooms apartment their entire life and there’s nothing wrong with that, they can no more see themselves living in your house next week, which is usually their attention span. You could when you started. I didn’t think I’d end up writing it up. It’s wasn’t where I started to go. I think that you have to commit to the vision of what you’re creating. People have to see what they want their life to look like to have the pole to make the habitual changes because if it’s willpower, you’re not going to quit smoking from willpower because smoking makes you happy and you might die many years from now.

That’s not reality or, “I want to make a lot of money, but in order to do that, I have to get up. I have to show up for the training and event. I have to keep making the phone calls. That’s uncomfortable and I’m not that uncomfortable where I’m at.” It all starts in your mind and that you have a clear vision, which you’re allowed to change over time or grow and that you commit to it and because that becomes the guide post every day that gets you to survive the day when the day isn’t good. I don’t know about you, but 26 days out of every month and 4 of them remind me how wonderful it is to feel alive and how wonderful it is to have the privilege and honor to get to do what I do.

That’s the old adage. You can’t live life in crescendo every day. It’s going to be some plateaus. It’s fascinating that you stayed involved, interested, engaged. When you recommit to a Tony Robbins curriculum or to A Greatest Salesmen curriculum or Napoleon Hill curriculum, 32 years later, you’re still on the journey of learning. That’s fascinating. Where does that drive come from, do you think?

One of the things that I realized early on, it’s interesting, I’ve interviewed a lot of people that have done well or had conversations with. I’m a natural interviewer as you are because I’m always wanting to learn to many successful people. I saw themes come out and one of them that always struck me is that when you decide to go after something that is interdependence in your life, like something that’s going to create a team and people to embrace your vision. If you’re not committing for every day the rest of your life to be both a teacher and a student, you don’t understand what you decided to do. I’ve always been committed to learning because there are always people that are following you that expect you to know more than you did yesterday. You have to because they’re striving, but I love learning. I love knowledge. I love new ways of looking at things. I think what it stems from is if you go get me down at my core, I love to solve problems. I love puzzles.

As I look at your three things here as we wind up, I think about I love the approach to the day with gratitude. I love looking at the long game. Especially you validated that principle by saying, “Twenty-six days out of the month and maybe 3 or 4 days a month, we’re living life in crescendo.” We’re celebrating new accomplishments, rank advancements, pin titles, trips one, cut commission checks, new houses, cars, whatever people might be doing for themselves or their community to remember that you’re not in it alone. Those are valuable things.

You can see how I landed in direct selling. We met well here.

You have an interesting paradigm because you’ve been both on the corporate side and on the distributor side, you’ve been inside companies and on the outside working with the field. I can see where you like that problem solving. What would you say for someone that might be starting? I tell them about the first book I ever read.

The first thing I would do with somebody is congratulations. If you truly made a decision to get up out of your chair and go change your life by committing to help others change theirs, you’ve set yourself apart from about 95% of the people that will sit in the chair forever whining about what happened to their life. The second thing I would say to them is always remember and never forget. Don’t ever take yourself too seriously. On the flip side, take everybody you meet seriously whether they get into your business or they don’t get into your business or they become a customer or don’t become a customer. Skills will develop, but first and foremost, I’ve committed to marrying the process.

This is why to already marry the process, trust it, divorce the result, and always remember we’re in the choice business. There’s no pressure on you. Your job every day is not to convince anybody of anything. It’s not to impress people with your phenomenal story that maybe you feel you don’t have yet. All of this to go out and remind people by asking their permission that they have a choice, that wherever they’re at, there are other things available to them. They have other options and if they would like, you can connect with something that may or may not change their life, but they’ll never know unless they at least take a look and that’s what I tell people. I took a look and I knew something. I want to say one thing, I don’t know if it comes into play, but I know what every single person who ever got into a network marketing company at the minute that they decided to do it, I know what they were all thinking.

Every single one across the board. They had some problem in their life that they couldn’t solve. Whatever it was. Financial, they were burnt out, some problem. They sat down with somebody, got a glimmer of something and they met some other people. Like Dan and like in your upline they said, “There is something I want and I don’t know, but I have this feeling that possibly, if I get together with this group of people and this story that resonated with me, maybe I can get it done.” That moment they say yes.

If you always remember how you felt, why you said yes, you’ll always be able to help other people connect to why they said yes because the number one reason people doing this is they stopped talking because they’re afraid of what other people think. What you think and why you did what you did is important and don’t let what anybody else says stop your resolve, that you have the right and deserve to have the best life you can have. That’s how I feel about the space.

That’s why she’s the greatest salesperson in the world. She’s in that chair and I get to interview her about her journey. It’s special because you mentioned the word a couple of times and it was an amazing book by Og called The Choice. One of my favorites, I love rereading it every 1 or 2 years. I love how you said, “Marry the process and divorce the result.” That’s the consistency factor in you. I can feel that you like showing up every day. You’re excited every day to meet that next new person.

When I show up and not excited, I’m confident that if I keep showing up, the excitement will reveal itself. “Doing what you said you’d do after the mood is past.” I love Og Mandino. Thinking about the other books and it was real. I can understand why you are carrying this forward and it’s great that you are. Did you ever think when you read that book that you would be the person that would be holding the legacy of Og Mandino in your hands?

When I read the book, I’m married at twenty. The only time I ever saw him speak live was in Calgary, Alberta with my wife where she’s from. It was called Achievers Unlimited. I’ll never forget it. You go, “There’s a man of wisdom and principle.” There’s somebody that I want to read. I want to study. I want to be like, and he also said something that was interesting in the scrolls and that is how much essentially can you make by mastering one speech?

Direct Selling: If you truly decided to get up and change your life by committing to help others change theirs, you’ve set yourself apart from about 95% of people.

It’s funny because I always thought of it. My notes would say somewhere that you said, “Double down on what you’re great at. Don’t worry about what you’re not great at and then share it with as many people as you can.” He’s right, one principle well-defined that brings clarity to an audience that inspires them to action will change your life more than almost anything you can ever do.

I’m glad that we were able to connect. I know we haven’t crossed paths a lot in our lifetime. I chime in when I see you go live. You’re consistent. That is probably one of my top five favorite words is consistency and trusting the process. I can’t thank you enough for the wisdom you’ve shared with our readers. I certainly hope that your team will get a sense of what you’re trying to.

I want to thank you. It’s such a privilege. This was a bucket list moment for me. You start off in the space and you’re sitting in the front row, taking all the notes, thinking that maybe one day you’ll get on the stage and it’s like a dream that maybe one day you’ll get to stand there next to the people that inspired you. I want to thank you for all the people in your career, in the industry, in the whole space at large, you’ve always been such a contributor and you make such a difference in many ways. You certainly did in my life and through me, people that I’ve trained because so much of it goes back to stuff I listen to you all while walking with my Walkman. I appreciate you.

We’re going to have to reach out to Brian and get him on the show and have him share the journey because I remember giving him the book and talking about the book. If you have not liked the page on Facebook, please do, follow us. Please feel free to share the broadcast to one of your pages if it was of value to you, comment, leave a review on one of our podcast sites. You can go to GreatestSalesman.com, you can certainly take the assessment. Feel free to align your life and your thoughts with the principles that Og left us with by taking that free assessment. By the $90 value, we give it to you for free at HabitFinder.com/actnow, scroll number nine, which is why I did the #ActNow. Don’t delay or hesitate. It’s your only your life we’re talking about here. It’s only the rest of your life. Let’s be active and act now.

That’s priceless. I want everybody to understand, clarity is power. If you want to have great success with other people, you have to know yourself first and anything that can save you time, saves you money and going to help you clarify who you are and how you feel is going to make you better able to find your tribe and the people that you are going to resonate with. I’m going to take it as soon as we get off of this again, while everybody too, and I would suggest that you take it right away.

We appreciate your time. I know you’re busy. Enjoy taking the assessment and I’m learning a little bit more about you. Thank you for all of our readers. I’ll be back. “Unbelievable. Have the greatest day of your life,” as Og would say. You can go ahead and read the scrolls and see how many times he says, “Have the greatest day of your life.”

Important Links:

• Og Mandino Company
• Lisa Grossman
• The Greatest Salesman in the World
• Think and Grow Rich
• HabitFinder.com
• HabitFinder.com/actnow
• The Last Chance Diet
• The Choice
• Facebook – The Greatest Salesman Official

About Lisa Grossman

There’s only one Lisa Grossmann. Those who know her know how giving she is, how brilliant she is, and how she instills positivity in all those around her. She’s become one of the most sought-after industry trainers and speakers — in an industry overflowing with them — and a thought leader’s thought leader. But there’s a reason for that. She is who she is. There are no airs. No punches pulled. She’s a realist, a humanitarian, a genius — all rolled up into an amazing visionary. Lisa is inspiring. And real.

Many years ago, Lisa was fortunate to have found a home in a network marketing company rich with industry heavy hitters who mentored Lisa. Always a hard worker, she listened, learned, and flourished. Lisa put in several years of very hard work developing a robust business and strong team. Network marketing, she believed, was the business of the future — one where she could determine her own worth, work her own way, give others the same opportunity, and she was good at it. But she was great at understanding the business of network marketing.

Through the years, Lisa developed into an extraordinary businesswoman, a multi-million-dollar earner, and an energetic entrepreneur, always willing to impart her knowledge, mentor others, and share her remarkable vision.

With an incredible ability for inventive thinking, innovative vision, and genuine affection, Lisa has created an inspired culture like no other and amassed a community of thousands of friends, followers and associates. Her intuitive insight inspires the hearts and minds of all those she touches, whether from the stage, in small groups, individually, through online webinars, or in casual Google hangouts. In every setting, Lisa is generous with her time and talents, readily shares her knowledge and wisdom, masterminds solutions, and helps others design and create their own culture and community that reflect their special vision.

She is, without question, one of a kind. Inspiring. Fascinating. Real.