Karen: Alright. Hi guys. Welcome, and today on this podcast we have Jaime Covey. And Jaime is an amazing network marketer, and today what we’re gonna be talking about is a little bit about Jaime’s journey.
So Jaime has had some challenges over the years with anxiety, and as a network marketer, obviously, what you do is talk to people. And that was a struggle for a long time with Jaime. And so I know that she’s not alone in her challenge. I know there are a lot of you listening that have probably had some of those same challenges, so today Jaime is gonna talk a bit about her journey and where she was, where she is now and a few tips that you can walk away and implement to really help you if this is a challenge that you’re facing.
So Jaime, I’d love to have you introduce yourself.
Jaime: Thank you, Karen. Yes, my name is Jaime Covey, and I am here today to talk a little bit about my story and my journey in my network marketing business. So I definitely have had some challenges in my network marketing business. Anxiety is something that I have really struggled with for most of my life ever since, I mean, my earliest memories now. From childhood I can see the trickles of anxiety that were present there, not really knowing, obviously, at the time what that looked like or what that was. But now I can look back and see that I was a pretty anxious person for most of my life, and so, this is something that over the past ten years has really, I think, become more apparent in my life.
I became a mom and all these new pressures and things decided to overwhelm me. I had three kids really close together and I was a stay at home mom. And so all of those things really I think compressed that anxiety within and we had a lot of issues. I’m really familiar with the struggle. With the darkness. With the isolation. And I jumped into my network marketing business really as a tool for me to support myself. With my anxiety, my product is something that is very helpful to people who are dealing with anxiety. And so I was really looking for something natural that could help me. I wanted to get off some of the medication that I had been on. I feel like I was an emotional zombie. I really had no feelings anymore. I was masking everything with medication. And I didn’t wanna live my life like that anymore, and so, I started using my product to really support myself with that transition and I found that it was helping me a lot. It was really helping keeping me calm.
And so I started off in network marketing like a lot of people do, a customer who falls in love with the product and then becomes a representative of it. So I think that is a familiar story to a lot of people, and so I started shouting from the rooftops all about my product and what it was doing for me and my family, and next thing you know, I’m having people in my home and I’m hosting events and I’m up in front of people talking and sharing and educating them on everything that is my product. And this was a really exciting time for me, because I felt like I was passionate about something that was really helping myself. It was helping other people.
But after a few months, I really started to feel overwhelmed by the sharing of the information. I, like a lot of people, was looking at other leaders in my company for, what are they doing? They’re so successful. What are they doing? And so I was watching every class, every presentation, every webinar I could find. I was reading books. I was taking things from all these different leaders of my company and regurgitating them in my presentations. A lot of the things I was saying were great, but they weren’t me at all.
After a while I felt like, first of all, I felt totally overwhelmed because I was communicating all of this information and I didn’t really know what I was talking about. I’m not a scientist. I’m not a therapist. I’m just me, and I was using all these scientific words and lingo and I must have sounded so awesome, but I really did not know what I was talking about, really, and there was this huge fear that people would ask me questions that I was not able to answer. And that was a huge, huge fear when I was in these situations.
Karen: I love so much the honesty and really sharing where you’ve been, and I’m sure that a lot of our listeners can relate that sometimes when we start a business and we’re new and we’re just starting out, we have a tendency – what I heard you say a little bit – is that tendency to compare and despair. And really compare what we’re doing to what other people are doing, and then sometimes we start to make adaptations that don’t feel authentic to who we are.
And so what I’m hearing you say is that you started to do that, and that really snowballed the anxiety. It started to get more and more. Is that on track?
Jaime: Yeah, that’s correct, one hundred percent. And it got to the point where I was having actual panic attacks before a class, during the class. I was canceling classes. And I was so, so overwhelmed with fear that I stopped, basically. Stopped teaching and stopped communicating about my product. Because it became this source of misery rather than the joy that it should be. I was really lost at that point. And I had some success. I had a little bit of success, and so it was really, really hard for me to get to a point where I was having some success and then the anxiety overtook that joy and I was at this crossroad. Like, do I even want to continue with this? If this is what it’s gonna be like for me, the answer is no, I don’t wanna continue.
K: Well, and let’s face it, most people get into network marketing because they want freedom and they want to be doing something that they love. And so for you being at that crossroads where you had to make a decision: do I press forward and live in this misery and this anxiety every single day, or do I take a step back?
And so I know that today you have a successful network marketing business, and so, tell me a little bit about how your business is different today, and then really what were the steps that you took to get from this place of where you thought, “Oh my gosh, I can’t do this anymore; this is too overwhelming and anxiety-ridden,” to where you are today, which is a totally different place?
J: Yes, I feel like a completely different person.
K: Yeah. I can see it. I mean, I remember, yeah. I can see it on your face.
J: I’m a totally different person, and I think the biggest thing for me was the overwhelmingness of my class. I was really trying to communicate too much information, and at the time, there really wasn’t another way. This is how everybody was doing it. And I said to myself I wanted to make this really simple. Simple is not overwhelming. And so I wanna do this more simply.
That was in my mind, and I was trying to wrap around, okay, well, how do I do that? No one else is doing that. That means I’m gonna have to do something totally new. And that’s when literally a week later I met Tasha. And she was talking about the presentation and how it should be simple, and how we should really talk about the top ten oils and how they serves our customer better than giving them all of the things. And I was like, yes! At last!
K: A light bulb moment, yeah.
J: Yeah, it was a huge light bulb moment for me. And it was like a weight came off and it was almost like I was given permission to go this direction and to do what I felt like my heart was wanting me to do. And so I jumped into one of the very first your direct sales foundation. I’m pretty sure I was maybe the first one after the beta on those courses. And I learned how to simplify my presentation and how to communicate with my customers in a way that did not overwhelm me.
And I also was able to do one-on-one appointments. I mean, that was a huge lift of anxiety for me. Because, again, people weren’t doing one-on-one appointments in my company. We were doing classes and parties, and the idea of sitting down with someone like this, that was like, I can do that? That’s allowed? ‘Cause that’s what I would prefer to do. This is what I like to do. This is how I like to connect with people. It’s one-on-one. Getting to know them. Getting to know their kids, their struggles, and talking with them, and you can’t really do that in a class setting. And so that felt really inauthentic to me as well, you know, when I was doing it like that.
K: I love what you say there, that you were able to continue doing the business utilizing your strengths. That there’s not a cookie cutter mold for, okay, everyone has to do it this way. But what you were able to do is take your individual strength of connecting one-on-one and really use that to make your business less overwhelming for you, but also serving your customers in a better way because you’re using your gift of connection. And I think that that’s so awesome.
I love everything that you’ve said here, and one of the things that I love so much is that when you had two choices, so you said the fear kind of took over. And one of my favorite quotes that I love is, when you’re afraid, you have two choices. You can forget everything and run, or you can face everything and rise. And the fact that you were at that point where you were really ready to forget everything and run, but you gave it one more try, and you thought you know what? I’m gonna try and continue learning and I’m gonna try some new things and do it a different way that feels better for me.
Your result is really that you were able to face those fears and rise up. And I think that that’s so encouraging for our students who may be encountering some of these same challenges. And so if we really look back, what would be three keys to being able to move out of that place and into where you are today if you could give our listeners three tips?
J: Yeah, the number one thing I would say is that I outed it. So from the very beginning, I started talking openly about what I was experiencing with my family, with my friends. I’m very open on my social media accounts of my struggles with anxiety and depression, and that was huge for me because the more that I talked about it, it felt like the grip was slowly releasing off of me. Because letting the light in and letting people into my story and letting people love on me and pour into me when I was at a really dark place was huge. And if I didn’t let them know that I was struggling, I would never have had that community rallying around me.
So the number one thing I would say is don’t keep it to yourself. I mean, anxiety is this isolating disease and there are people walking around suffering around us all the time and nobody is talking about it. And I feel like we all should be talking about it.
K: I love that.
J: That was number one. Talk about it. Put it out there. Find a friend who you trust and tell them what you’re going through. You’ll be surprised at how freeing it is to talk about it.
K: And not be ashamed, right? Not being ashamed of it.
J: And not be ashamed.
K: Yeah. So good.
J: Okay, so the next thing is there’s this quote that I hold on to and it’s “feel the fear but do it anyway.” I really embraced that. Like, I am an anxious person, I have anxiety, I have a disease, it is part of who I am, and so, I am going to feel fear a lot. But that doesn’t mean that I need to stop doing the things that are bringing me joy and bringing other people joy. And so, feel the fear and do it anyway.
I found a way to simplify my presentation to meet with people one-on-one. The outline, that really helped me out, because when you’re in the middle of a panic attack and you’re talking to someone, your thoughts are so everywhere, the outline really keeps me focused and it helps me get through the information that I need to get through without panicking about where I am. And so that outline was, I have the thing memorized, but I take it with me to every single appointment and I always read from my outline. And then, yeah, I stopped focusing on all of the things.
Looking at how everybody else was doing it. And simplify. Simplify, simplify. I can’t express enough that if this business is overwhelming you then it’s too complicated. Then you’re doing something too complicated, and you can simplify things.
K: I love, too, Jaime, what you said just a minute ago that I think is so good when you paired it with the simplifying is really what it’s about is the connection with people. And I heard you saying this, I don’t even know if you realize that you were saying this but what said is you took the focus off of yourself and put it on the other person. And a lot of times when we’re in the middle of that fear, we’re focusing on what we’re saying rather than focusing on how can we serve the person that’s sitting next to us? And stepping outside.
What it sounds like you did is step outside of yourself. And instead of focusing on oh my gosh, what are the words I’m saying? That outline allowed you to really be present with the person and focus on their needs. And that’s so powerful.
J: I was able to listen and, exactly, that has been huge because I feel like when people meet with me, they do feel that they’re being heard and seen, and that’s important to me. I want all my customers to feel seen by me. They’re coming to me with a lot of really heavy stuff, and I wanna help them.
K: One hundred percent. I love that.
J: I would say those are probably the three biggest things. I mean, there’s so much more. My journey is long and complicated, and there’s lots of other things that have been sprinkled throughout it, but yeah, outing it, doing it anyways even if you’re scared and simplifying.
K: Yeah, and getting help if you need help.
J: Oh yes.
K: Just to throw that in here, and hopefully our listeners know, but we know that there’s somebody out there that may need to get some extra help. And so taking the step to do that too. But I love those. So step out, do it anyway, and simplify.
Thank you, Jaime. I know it’s not easy to get on here and talk about this. And Jaime and I kinda joked that this is our practice run. No one’s watching this one because that feels so scary. So she did anyway. She’s here. Look, doing the hard things, doing the scary things.
And Jaime, how do you want people to feel after listening to this today? What do you hope they walk away with?
J: I think one of the biggest things I hope the people listening feel is that they’re not alone. There’s so much power in the “Me too.” Like, “Me too. Yes, me too!” And I hope that some of our listeners are saying that. Or feeling like yes, “I can relate to that. Yes, oh my gosh.” So I hope that people are feeling like they’re not alone. That’s definitely one.
Then also I hope people start talking about it. I mean, that is my thing. If you follow me on social media, I am real, I put it all out there, and I’m sharing my story with people. It’s helping me heal, and I think that the more that we are all talking about what we’re experiencing, I think that is important, and I think we should be doing a little bit more of that.
K: Yeah. Awesome.
J: Walking together.
K: Absolutely.
J: Hand-in-hand, let’s go.
K: Let’s go guys. We’re not meant to do this alone, and I think community is so important and having a sense that you’re not alone. There are other people surrounding you and you’ve got your tribe. Guys, I hope that this was helpful today. Just know that there is hope if you’re someone who does have this anxiousness, this fear around being with people. I hope that you’ll Jaime’s tips. Try it, see how it works, and let us know. You can comment on this and we’d be happy to connect in with you too, so, thanks guys.
J: Thank you.
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. To sign up for our upcoming webinar on closing, go to emergesalestraining.com/freetraining. Have a great day!