Published in the: “WCL 2008 Home Business Profiles”

Editor’s note: As regular readers know we like to do a lot of profiles of emerging businesses and emerging business people. Because of this, there is never any guarantee that our stories will command broad appeal.

Nevertheless it is gratifying to hear comments, when something we have done, actually does click. In this edition we are pleased to offer a relevant story of two very remarkable people. It is clearly not for everybody. We know it will not resonate with every reader, but frankly, we will be completely thrilled if only a small number of  people understand it and only few act on it. Read on!

Joyce in Sydney Harbor (Opera House Behind)

Joyce and Peter look like your average Winnipeg suburban couple. They appear to be semi retired and have both experienced fairly successful professional careers.

It doesn’t quite matter what they did before. It is what they are up to now that is important.

About four years ago as they both prepared to bid adieu to the boring daily grind, they cast around to see what they could do together to keep active, involved, and attain some personal satisfaction,  and perhaps travel.

Peter in particular is a knowledge junkie. Joyce is more the personable and engaging one.

Together, over a period of several years, they pored through franchises, business opportunities and multi-level offerings,  rejecting virtually everything for being too phony, too flighty, or too much work for the limited return.

These were people who did not have to choose anything at all, but deliberately wanted to be active and contribute to the world around them. They decided on something from a group called “Liberty League International” and have been going gangbusters ever since.

What is it that they are up to? Joyce and Peter have entered a blossoming sector of self help and personal development. It is common knowledge that many baby boomers have started thinking about improvements to their physical and financial health, and whole new industries have responded with offerings.

Quietly however, small portions of this same demographic are now considering improvements to their state of mind, emotional attitude, personal wealth, and spiritual well being.  Joyce and Peter are smack in the forefront of this promising industry and you definitely can not find what they have to offer at Wal-Mart.

Although Winnipeg based, the couple has become so much in demand that they are often on the road in their nifty motor home, or skipping through airports on their way to yet another conference. There appears to be a growing demand for coaching towards a positive life experience, and substantial financial change.

It is time for a little reference. There was a very famous guy by the name of Abraham Maslow whose scientific work led him to describe the basic, but escalating requirements of human need. More or less he described human desires in the form of a ladder of hierarchy. People worked their way up one step at a time seeking the next higher level only after completing the lower one.

Anyway he suggested that no matter who you were and where you came from, in either the prehistoric days or right up to modern society, a human’s first need was physical like air, food, water etc.

Once you were functional like an animal, the next need was a cave to hide in, then you ventured up the scale a bit and sought out some social interaction with friends and family. Having fulfilled those lower level needs, he postulated that a human beings next desire is self esteem, and after reaching that level, for the few attaining all the things on the lower rungs, it finally becomes a quest for the last rung which he called self actualization, or perhaps what we might call today, personal growth and fulfillment.

Because the baby boomer generation has beavered away for so many years at chalking up remarkable achievements in worldly goods and creature comforts, the theory of Joyce’s emerging business is that a few people might now be ready to consider that last rung of personal growth.

 Joyce and Erin Brockovich 

Well in Joyce’s case, she was a psychiatric nurse. It was a decent paying professional role, yet after years of drudgery she realized that the money was not everything and she needed more. Like most people she entered the health care field with idealism and dedication to help those in need. Unfortunately she found that working days were full of an ongoing and persistent grinding down process from association with depressed and psychotic people (and that was just fellow staffers).  

She needed to make some changes to maintain her own positive perspective on life and she finally had the courage to do so. She made the most difficult and yet most important recommended change, by switching the people she associated with to be able to interact much more regularly with positive and uplifting fellow humans.

From there she found that the trail she had set out on, although it was not widely known, was also not entirely secret. There were some learning tools and there were some publications, and she and Peter began to gobble them up.   

Readers might be familiar with a certain amount of self help material from the television coverage by Oprah and others on the very popular film, “The Secret”.  This production dealt primarily with the “Law of Attraction”.

Another popular promoter of personal growth, Andy Andrews, is the writer of “The Traveler’s Gift” where readers are encouraged to embrace a structured process to improve their odds at life.

Although quite different from the proven 12 step process used by organizations like AA to change from destructive or addictive behaviours, Andy Andrew’s 7 step formula has also been designed to effect behavioural change. In his case it has been used successfully by many high achievers to keep them performing in a powerful and positive manner.

For many seekers of personal growth these simple concepts are quite helpful, but for those with a bit more curiosity and intellectual capacity, getting a bit more breadth is really important and that is where a generous and experienced guides come in.

Joyce made it her avocation to search out that breadth and now her research has brought her an active association with the distribution of LLI’s  enhanced material. At this point Joyce’s quest for personal change, although it is a life long journey, has not only been set firmly on the right trail but, through helping others, had also become a highly significant home-based business.

At the introduction to this article, the disclaimer said that only a few people might actually be interested, so how might one determine if they fit in that category?

Proponents of personal development suggest that probably only about 3% of us will ever get up enough of Maslow’s steps to even consider personal growth.

In part, Joyce and Peter are looking for folks that might be within that 3% and wanting to access additional new material and seminars on their own, and who want to achieve a heightened measure of financial freedom. 

For those people, the study material is one thing, but the biggest win is the connection with like minded community members to reinforce each others progress.

A more important aspect is the provision of help to people who are just at the edge of the 3%, those who really know they need something but are not sure what.

Now that Joyce and Peter have several years of experience on their own, they feel an obligation to help make the journey for other travelers, a little easier.

Although they are now active internationally, their hearts are never far from home. They believe that Winnipeg is a particularly difficult environment for people who choose to undertake this type of personal journey.

The easiest way to make the point about local attitudes and peer disciplines might be to describe the crab bucket syndrome. Crabs collectively never want to see a fellow crab claw its way out of the bucket, so if one starts to reach the top, all the lower crabs grab the progressing one and try to ride on its back until the weight becomes so great that the group all falls back down to the bottom.

For those that are interested, Joyce and Peter would like to show you how they climbed out of the rat race and managing to do something others often find very difficult to achieve.

If you think you may be getting to the point of having a discussion about your future, you should first be assured that their business is not multilevel marketing, it is not religion, and you do not have to spend stupid amounts of money.

You can start off with one simple home-study course and make your own decisions from there. If you choose to go further, the ongoing association with like minded travelers may appeal to you as it does to many. Possibly a small minority of you may want to become associates of Joyce and Peter. That isn’t required, but it is open to you as well.      

How do you go about finding out? The easiest way is to go right to their web site and do a little reading.

The address is www.outstandinghomebusiness.com   

If it makes sense to you, go ahead and contact Joyce for some discussion over the phone. If you are internet challenged you can call her direct at  204-257-4766       .

What she is working to do in the initial discussion is figure out if you are really ready for change. Clearly not everyone is ready. You may not be.

She might recommend that you go back to your job and work your way through one of several books. If you are ready for a bit more of an introduction, they do have some home study material.

One of the niftiest things you can do is sign up for their free “Wealthy Attitude Daily Reader” which emails you short inspiring narratives every morning.

So that basic question might be, “Are you really ready to set yourself free?”, and that’s what Peter asked me as he passed over a well worn copy of “The Traveler’s Gift”

Joyce being free on the Beach

Pursue the Means - Live The Dreams