I grew up in rural Ontario as a third generation farmer. I was home schooled in a small schoolhouse, and learned to work with my hands out in the fields by my mid teens. For my family, the objective in life was to lead a simple life. Looking back, I can trace much of my success back to the lessons I learned back then.

We learn by observing. I learned a lot growing up by observing my family do things and emulating them myself. Doing this over and over by repetition is what developed those skills more. There was no ego about what we did – the only way you got recognition was to do good work. And our mantra was “whatever you touch, make sure you leave it better than you found it.” It is a culture of controlling what you can control and not worrying about what you can’t.

The only choice I could make on a day to day basis was to pick what color I wore. Everything else was more or less determined by what everyone else was doing. And I learned that what represented me was the quality of my work. I only controlled a tiny percentage of my life and the results in it in that environment. For example, we can’t control the weather, the cost of what we need to farm, or the cost of the land we have to buy or rent. All those factors are very important in determining what our yield would be, and they were all out of our control. All we could control was the dedication we had to the quality of the work we did.

As an entrepreneur, you have a very different situation. You have control over the vast majority of variables that determine whether you will be successful. Unlike farming, you can choose to create an environment every day that gives you a greater likelihood of success (as opposed to being at the mercy of the weather, land prices, and other variables that you can’t affect.) And that’s where your POWER comes from.

Each of us has a choice to distinguish ourselves every day. At any given moment, you’re being one of two characters, and the decisions you make in that character determine what you do. And the more often you make that choice to be one way versus the other, the more those choices will influence what happens to you. Your choice is this: am I being a leader, or a victim?

What that boils down is whether you’re being proactive or reactive. Leaders are proactive; victims are reactive. If you make the decision to control what you can control and do what you can do, you’ll be proactively constructing your day instead of being reactive to what happens to you that day. Staying in a productive, proactive, responsible mindset is what makes you a leader and gets you to where you want to be. 99% of people don’t do this; they choose to be victims and let their circumstances dictate to them what they can achieve. They give the decision making power over their own lives to factors they choose not to control. And that’s not how to get to where you really want to be.

Most things will never go exactly the way you want them to. That’s life. You have to be clear about the things that aren’t in your control. But just because you can’t control certain variables in life doesn’t mean you have to let those things stop you! Stop being a victim, and just do it.

There’s any number of things you can choose to do today to proactively build the life you want for yourself. But you’ve got to have fun doing it. How do you structure your day to get things done and have fun? At the end of the day, if you’re not having fun with what you’re doing, you’re not going to be successful at it. Productive people find ways to have fun doing what they love, and the value of what you do will always be greater when you’re enjoying yourself as you do it.

Value is created by solving a problem and providing a solution. The awesome thing about being an entrepreneur is that we can create a benefit for ourselves out of thin air by solving problems for others. Entrepreneurs have the ability to change their lives and become successful because of the value they provide to others in the form of the problems they solve. Serve the needs of others, and your needs will be served in turn. That’s how you be a good leader and entrepreneur. And that’s how business should be!

Think of the first 20 people who come to mind in your life. These are probably your family, close friends, and co-workers. These folks make up your circle of influence: the people who have the most sway on your life and circumstances.

Your circle of influence will either be a means of helping you achieve success or an obstacle holding you back from it. It’s up to you to determine which it will be.

Entrepreneurs don’t usually rely on willpower alone to be successful. If that were always true, your results would be equal to your effort all the time. Willpower by itself is the ignition to your engine, but it doesn’t determine what the road will be like on your way to success. It can’t take you to the finish line itself.

This is why diets often fail. This is why reading personal development books don’t instantaneously make you a better person for life. Because you can’t will yourself to success.

Willpower can only bring you as far as when you’re being persistent and really focusing on your work. And, really, how many hours a day can you truly “dial in,” completely control your thoughts and block out mental obstacles? Maybe a few. But definitely not the whole day. It’s impossible to be disciplined 24/7.

And here’s the good news: you don’t have to be that disciplined to be successful.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a break where you can let up on your willpower and not immediately lose ground? Of course it would be – and that’s where your circle of influence comes in.

How do you set yourself up for success where it becomes less about your own efforts? You do what you can to surround yourself with the right external forces that keep you going even when your internal ones aren’t driving you to go on as strongly. And one of those that you can control is your circle of influence.

What if every time you took your eyes or hand off the wheel when driving, your car would screech to a halt? That doesn’t happen. You have cruise control to keep you going with less effort needed on your part. And that’s what a good circle of influence can do for us in life.

Our results in life are identical to the average results of our circle of influence. We have to recognize that circumstances dictate some of our results – good and bad. And your circumstances includes your circle of influence. It either works for you or against you 24 hours a day.

If you want to see what effect your circle of influence is having on your life right now, try this exercise.

Write down those 20 people who come to mind. These are the people you interact with the most. You can also put down people you admire or have an influence on you in terms of being where you want to be. When you write down your 20 people, divide them into groups A and B. Group A inspires you and add value to your life. Group B is generally negative and gives you the feeling of taking away from your life.

For each person in group A, write their positive influence on your life as a number on a scale of 1 to 10; the higher the number, the more positive of an effect they have on you. In Group B, write those on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of their influence on you in a negative way; the higher this number, the more negative of an effect they have on you. (You’ll notice when you do this that the closer they are to you, the more influence they have on you, for better or worse.)

Once you’ve done this, add up the number in group A and B. Anything above a 50 would be above average for group A; if you have below 50, you might not be hanging around with the right people. For group B, you’ll want this to be less than 50.

Now compare these numbers. If group A’s number is bigger, your circle of influence has a positive effect on your life; if group B’s number is bigger, it’s affecting you negatively. If they are about equal, they cancel each other out, and you’re just treading water in your relationships and maintaining a status quo. From this exercise you’ll see who has influence over you, and you should recognize that they only have that influence if you give them the power to.

Realize that you can add more positive influences that increase the positive score group A can provide for you while taking away from the negative influence of group B. What this will do is allow the circumstances that affect your life to have a more powerful positive effect on it, without you having to actively work for it or will it to happen.

Choose your influences carefully and don’t put yourself in a position where people are taking from you. Put yourself in the position where you’re surrounded by people who add value to your life, and you’ll find that you’ll get three parts results for one part of effort in life.

It’s like swimming downstream – no matter what you’re doing, the current is carrying you along to where you want to go. That’s the support mechanism that can be in place for you if you create the right circle of influence around you.

In today’s internet marketing industry, there is a sense out there that some people aren’t making the kind of income they want to be. And it’s not just their bank accounts or lifestyles that are suffering. People don’t have a sense of direction in their businesses and a clear goal of what should come first on their way to success. If people had their priorities in the proper order, I feel like they could be operating much more efficiently than they are today.

The three pillars of success in our industry are marketing, technology, and the products and services we offer. It’s true that each of these are important factors in our pursuit of success. But what’s more important is having these priorities in the right order.

Most folks in our industry (myself included) have at one time or another grouped them in that order: marketing first, technology second, and products last. And that’s not the way we should do it if we want any kind of sustainable success in our businesses for the long term. (That’s why we’ve been working our butts off on enhancing the PRO product line for the past couple of months!)

It’s the age of products and value. This isn’t the marketing age (early 2000s) or the technology age (a couple years ago) anymore, when the best marketing or technology platforms basically guaranteed you success no matter what you were selling. In this day and age, your business will live and die by the value you provide in your products.

Apple is a great example of this. They’re so good at providing value in their products, just having an Apple product has become a status symbol. It doesn’t feel like a product but an extension of yourself and your brand. Their marketing is a close second priority to them (and let’s just say that their technology is a given). Ever notice that their marketing focuses on the experience of the product, and not the tech specs? You won’t see a commercial about a MacBook with the processor speed stats. It’s about the experience.

What can we learn from this as PRO members? Let’s get our priorities and pillars in business in the right order. Let’s provide value in what we offer first.

The law of cause and effect states: for every action, there is an equal and proportionate reaction. By providing value in your products, you’re giving the universe a chance to compensate you for that value. If your bank account isn’t showing the kind of compensation you want, you’ve got to remember to keep your pillars prioritized in the right order. (And money isn’t the only means of measuring value, but we’ll use it that way here.)

We are the world’s first mentorship community for entrepreneurs. As a PRO affiliate, you represent a cutting edge, top tier product line that we’ve done tons of work to put value into. That covers most of that first pillar, but there’s a part of this that only you as a representative of those products can control. YOU matter to everyone out there looking for a way to make their lives better because you bring them that value – not just through PRO, but through yourself. And that’s the variable that you control.

There’s lots of PRO affiliates out there, not to mention lots of affiliates for other programs. What gives PRO the most value is the way you represent it. Once you discover how to be that last, powerful variable to the equation of “Why join PRO?” for folks out there, you’ll have discovered the most powerful way you can change your life with PRO.

The people who join PRO won’t just join because of the value of the products. They’ll join because of you. Because of how you articulate yourself and how you can add value to their life. Because of YOUR story. That’s the X-factor I’ve spoken of before. You and your story is what puts the power in PRO to change that person’s life for the better – and through that, change yours too.