No Pain, No Gain

No pain, no gain!  This is the common slogan of people who exercise or those who go on a diet. Single mums can also use as our battle cry. 

There is no question about it, being a single mum is very difficult.  We go through a lot of heartaches and pain.  As I have constantly advised my ladies, use your pain to gain whatever you desire for you and your family.

I strongly believe that lasting success comes from pain. Single mums have experienced one of the most painful episodes in anyone’s life; thus, if we use our pain in the right way, we can achieve lasting success.

Mary Kay Ash’s marriage is not working well.  Soon she found herself a single mum to three children.  She could hardly make ends meet.  To provide for her children she worked for Stanley Home Products.  But she was not doing well in this career either.  When the company had an annual sales conference, she wanted badly to come but did not have the money for her fare, accomodation and food. She was able to borrow from friends but only enough for her fare and a small room.  To survive in the three day conference, she lived on biscuits.

In that conference she witnessed the awarding of the Number One Salesperson of the Year.  This encouraged her and made her go up to Mr. Stanley and told him that she would win that award next year.  To which Mr. Stanley replied smiling, “I believe you will”.

Mary Kay worked day and night and reminded herself that never again will her kids go hungry; that she will be attending the annual conference not from borrowed money and that she will not bring with her biscuits to the conference.  Instead, she will have her own money to spend for the fare, money for good food and that she will receive the award as the Number One Salesperson of the Year.

Mary Kay pushed herself to success using the pain she is experiencing to propel her, to motivate her to reach her goals.  She did go up the stage that year to accept the award as the Number One Sales Person of the Year.

Later on she built her own company, Mary Kay Cosmetics. By the time of her death in 2003, this single mum has built a business empire with US$2 billion in annual sales and 800,000 saleswomen.

Talk about woman power! No pain, no gain!