"My personal success can never compare to the joy I feel when I have the opportunity to coach someone along their personal journey to enjoy a beautiful life without limits. Helping others achieve the realization of this lifestyle is beyond words – it’s so amazing and fills me with intense gratitude and excitement. My greatest desire now is to focus my time and energy on helping even more people. People just like you. I’d like to invite you to consider what your life would be like without limits. Now is the time to begin your own personal journey to enjoy a beautiful, limitless life, and I’m here to help you, every step of the way!"

Power Of Example

Growing up as the oldest of three children in her family, Debra Gebhardt felt the responsibility that comes attached with the definition of being the oldest. Thankfully, Debra had the strong examples of both her parents to lean on. “I’ve never seen two people work so hard; their work ethic was unbelievable,” she says. “It has benefited me tremendously to strive to live toward their examples because they set the bar high. They raised me with the belief that I could accomplish anything I wanted in life.”

Creating Value, Giving Back

Debra’s strong drive and work ethic have led her to many exciting opportunities, both personally and professionally, throughout her life. Over 20 years ago, she worked as head of a seizure unit in a children’s hospital. Although she loved what she was doing, she yearned for a profession that would allow her flexibility, creativity, time, and financial freedom. Most importantly, Debra wanted to make a more powerful impact on the world around her. “I believe we all want and need to feel a part of something much bigger than ourselves and give back something meaningful to the world,” she says. “It’s important to me to know that my time spent here is spent creating value that will benefit the lives of others.”

For Debra, the network marketing profession was her perfect match, and she dove right in. “This business model made sense and just felt right,” she says. “In traditional business, you struggle, work hard, and people try to hold you back because they don’t want you to threaten their space. In the network marketing profession, it’s all about helping others excel and working together as a team.” For Debra, being part of the network marketing profession was right in sync with her personal missions of giving back to others.

Her focus on others made her a natural leader, mentor, and thriving business builder. During that time, Debra helped open and develop many international markets which created a seven-figure yearly residual income, allowing her to retire in her 30s. Looking back, Debra says, “That was an exciting time filled with so many new experiences including tremendous personal growth, travel, and establishing incredible friendships that continue today."

Game On!

At that point, Debra took time off to pursue a personal goal she had dreamed of accomplishing for years—she wanted to play tennis competitively. “I am motivated by challenge!” she says. In fact, Debra’s passion for helping others is matched with her personal drive for a good challenge, which meant game on for Debra. With her heart and mind firmly set on her goal to play competitively in Division 1, and open tournaments with professional players, Debra began training and finding the right team of experts to help direct and accelerate her progress.

“I started tennis late in the game and was told I could never achieve my goal because I didn’t begin playing tennis at age six,” she says. “This feedback only fueled my fire and determination because they were judging me and making decisions about what I could or couldn't accomplish. These decisions had nothing to do with my potential because they were based on their limiting beliefs and ideas. They didn’t know my heart or my drive,” she says. “I may not have raw natural talent, but I was willing to go through a brick wall and not give up in order to reach my goal.”

Debra takes this same fueling-the-fire approach to building her business. "It’s human nature for us to judge others based on what we see and hear in seconds. Sometimes people will fool you. I've learned not to judge people because I realize that I don't see what's inside them. I don't know how passionate they are or how hard they are willing to work to make their dreams a reality. Raw talent doesn’t necessarily always bring success. But hard work and a never-give-up mentality will always yield positive results.”

Expert Results

While building her first business, Debra learned that if she wanted to reach her goal of living a limitless life, she needed to learn from the best. So she surrounded herself with experts in order to get the best training and hands-on experience possible. When it came to tennis, she did exactly the same. She hired some of the best coaches in the profession as well as coaches for footwork, technique, fitness, and sparring partners.

“I had an amazing coach!” she says. “I knew that if I really wanted to compete professionally, I had to listen to my coach and execute his instructions. He had the experience and had achieved what I wanted to achieve—he had been there—so I trusted that he knew how to help me get there, also.” Debra adds, “My clear sense of purpose, knowing what I wanted and why it was important, is what helped to anchor me through the ups and downs. The same is true for business; if you want success, you need to have a clear reason and you need to be coached by an expert.”

It took about 12 years of sheer hard work, seven days a week, 12 hours a day—on the court or at the gym conditioning—for Debra to reach her grand slam goal with tennis. “I did get to play competitively at a 5.5 level!” she exclaims. “I did what many people told me was impossible to do!”

An Ace—On and Off the Court

Reflecting back, Debra feels grateful she had the opportunity to go through this very rewarding process. “This experience has been invaluable to me personally and professionally because while pursuing my tennis goals, I was continually reminded how humbling and dependent I was on other's experience and knowledge. Those particular situations helped me to clearly remember and define what it’s like to want something with all of your heart, yet not know how to accomplish it. I had to believe, trust and lean on my coaches as we worked together. I had to be consistent and embrace and execute their advice to achieve my desired outcome to play professionally,” she says. “I was really re-learning from a different perspective, compassion for the journey with its highs and its lows and fine tuning new elite coaching skills to add to my arsenal and previous experiences.”

The Perfect Serve

On the court, Debra perfected her serve, and off the court in her career, she has perfected her service towards others. Her passion for giving back and desire for a challenge made it easy for her to say yes again to network marketing. Her introduction to Qivana was perfect timing. “Looking back, I have to laugh because we didn’t have the product yet,” she says. “But what impressed me more than anything at that time was the executive team whose resume read like a Who’s Who list for a Fortune 500 company. I know that a company is only as good as the people behind it and we have a rock solid, tremendous team. I feel privileged to be part of taking their mission to the world.”

Debra describes herself as an “all-or-nothing” person, so once she joined Qivana, she immersed herself into a disciplined daily routine of sharing the opportunity and product with those who she respects and admires most. “I believe my past network marketing experiences allowed me to get on a fast track because many of my past lessons taught me to make better judgments,” she shares.

Lean On Experience

Success comes from working as a team, and teamwork is a core value that Debra teaches all her business partners. “When I first became involved in network marketing, I was so independent and thought I had to do everything on my own. I failed miserably at first,” she says. “No matter how strong you are, you have to learn to lean on the people on your team. Although we must be responsible for our actions, we cannot achieve success without the cooperation of others. People are the lifeblood of our business.” She adds, “You can’t be successful if you only think of yourself and don’t really care about others. In network marketing, you can lean on the experience and credibility of your team and help cut the learning curve, allowing yourself to earn while you learn.

Leading By Example

Debra’s commitment and focus have helped her be recognized and celebrated as Qivana’s first woman to become a Presidential Diamond. “I really can’t take the all the credit for my accomplishments. I was able to achieve this because of a dynamic team.” She adds, “When looking for people to bring into the business, I try to think of how I can best fill their needs or wants, not mine. I realize it’s not about what I want but how I can help them achieve what they want.”

Debra’s advice to business partners is to take their new business seriously. “Treat your new business as though you just invested all your hard earned money or maybe even mortgaged your house to get started. I can assure you that if you do, you won’t walk away as easily when you experience challenges.”

Clear Vision

Her clear and decisive vision ultimately comes down to the fact that she loves what she does. “This business is so much fun, it hardly feels like work!” she says. “There is nothing better than seeing the people you are working with spread their wings and fly from the nest. I love being a small part of helping people change their lives from improved health to achieving financial goals. I feel privileged, and I look forward to working with my team until all have crossed the stage of accomplishing their goals and dreams!”

Be Inspired

For Debra, inspiration comes from many sources: her parents, her mentors, her coaches and most notably her sister, Donna. “She was in a serious car accident over 20 years ago which left her paralyzed from the neck down. All these years, I’ve never heard her complain once. She made me realize the value of life, and that the things we do to make life better for others is what’s really important.” Debra is grateful to have the opportunity to apply this knowledge in her business. “I know that when I look back, I’ll be able to say that I have left something in place that has meaning and value to the world - something that I am proud of. I know that serving others through the vehicle of network marketing is that opportunity.”