"Eighty percent of success is showing up."

- Woody Allen

In their best selling book "Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond", authors Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge echo that sentiment as it pertains to health and fitness. Chris often talks about how you have to "show up" for what is required even if retired. If you want to maintain health and fitness, particularly in the later years of life, you have to make the personal commitment and have the personal discipline to show up to perform your required tasks, just as you were required to do during the years that you worked a job.

If you have not worked a job in a long time, but have been successful at a home business, or even a traditional storefront business, you know what I am talking about. If you have are a successful attorney, accountant, doctor, dentist, or any other self-employed individual, you are keenly aware that this concept of showing up for work, even when you are the boss, has been a major contributor to the success you have enjoyed.

I am a network marketer. I AM my own boss. Sunday, my boss told me to get out of bed and do some work...and I complied. As the boss, I was aware that the tasks needed to be done, and as the employee I performed those tasks diligently and to the best of my ability, just as I would have if I was still working in someone else's office.

Before I go further on this topic, I'll answer the question that's on the tip of your tongue. What good is it to be the boss if you still have to work just like in a job?

Well, I get to make the executive decisions, I DO work in my pajamas (every day is dress-down Friday), I start when I feel like it, knock off early if I want to, grab my keys, jump in the Prius and go for a drive, or toss some clothes and a laptop in the car and go to Florida occasionally. I get to take my wife to lunch whenever I want, and I can drink beer with my lunch and not worry about customers or the boss smelling it on my breath. I just told a friend on the phone last night that the next time he was in town, give me a call and I would come over and have lunch with him. I could say that because I am at work right now, and if he calls, I can stop what I am doing and go see him.

Oh yeah, I made a six-figure income last year. That part helps.

But none of that would be part of my life right now if I did not show up for work every day that I am supposed to be there.

This is where so many who are new to network marketing or running a home business or home based internet business make their mistake. They are not aware that they may now be the boss, but they are still the employee as well.

A few years ago, I worked for a huge national business. I trained people who had never worked in the industry before to go out and work virtually independently in a field where they could make a large income. The key was that they had to "show up" for work without any supervision and little guidance. A great many of them failed simply because they could not or would not meet that one very major requirement.

Among the people I taught were several with very little education or intelligence, but those who had a great work ethic, the ones who did show up day after day, were able to take care of themselves and their families better than they ever could have hoped to.

Network marketing and home businesses are like that. They do not run themselves, and things that need to be done do not get done just because the "boss" says, "Make it so, Number One!"

If you want to succeed in network marketing or with your own home business, show up for work.

Donovan Baldwin is a Dallas area writer. A graduate of the University Of West Florida (1973) with a BA in accounting, he is a member of Mensa and has held several managerial positions. After retiring from the U. S. Army in 1995, he became interested in internet marketing and developed various online businesses. He has been writing poetry, articles, and essays for over 40 years, and now frequently publishes articles on his own websites and for use by other webmasters. His network marketing business is provides low cost Health Benefits to individuals and both traditional and nontraditional family groups. He is actively seeking those interested in starting their own home business. He also has a blog where he posts articles on home based internet businesses and related subjects.