Mahesh was standing at a white board, excited as Donald Duck, as he animatedly spoke about sportsmen. We were about 10 of us sprawled all over his living room on a summer Sunday morning. This was the one room in which he could let his hair down. He could bring his inner child out and speak of his dreams and nobody would smirk.
He had once wanted to be a professional sportsman and found professional networking came as close to that as was possible… because it is also about internal development and external well being. Because it also got ordinary folks to earn the kind of money Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Sachin Tendulkar, Pele or Adam Gilchrist did. Because it also relied heavily on teamwork, rather than individual expertise.
“But Mahesh, Tiger Woods is an individual expert,” someone objected.Behind his corporate mahogany table Mahesh’s life was different. Nobody would challenge him outright that way. People revered him for his business acumen and shuddered at his no-nonsense ways.
He liked that life too. But it was not getting him to his real goal. It was keeping him busy all right. “You want to be busy to be busy, or you want to busy to be free?” Asim often asked. This line suddenly flashed across my mind, as I wondered whether Tiger was busy or free when he played. And Mahesh replied.
“Tiger Woods? Do you even have a clue how many people are on his team? His caddy is one you see. A great source of mental energy. His coach, dietician, hairdresser… many more. In fact he needs his personal entourage because he can’t be seen at a barber shop. That’s the price you pay to be a celebrity… and you handle the attitudes and expectations of each person on your team… or you may not have the right attitude to be a world champ yourself.”
“Point taken boss.”“Same goes for any sportsman. If the skirt-stylist gets halfpercent off the mark, the mental agony that would create in Serena Williams’ mind could cost her the US Open!” Mahesh continued. “If Michael Schumacher’s tire-fitters took a fraction of a second longer than expected they could cause millions of dollars of practice and pain to go down the tube. Do we regard our teams with that ferocity? Are we really networking with the championship spirit? These are questions you have to ask yourselves…”
Suddenly I felt relieved that in network marketing I would have the money and none of the accompanying pain. Comparatively, networking was very forgiving. And I would have the time to pursue my real passions. If I could have an asset churn the money for me, I figured I could charge whatever I felt like as fee at my consulting company. Something I couldn’t have done ever in my 20 years of professional life. If I chose, I could offer it for free. Or to celebrities only. It didn’t matter. I was not going to be dependent on my ability for my income. For my survival. I could live a life of no compromise. That was thrilling.
“Moreover boss, I read somewhere, Tiger started playing golf at age 2 and it took him 13 years to be an international celebrity. Isn’t it silly people expect to be loaded overnight when they step into network marketing?” someone else remarked.
“Well, I don’t” Mahesh quickly clarified. “Do you?” I would have loved to say yes. The excitement of stepping into a getrich-quick option was great. But I found myself saying a very emphatic “No” as I joined a chorus.
“Most people crash and burn within 48 hours of getting into network marketing because of this. They think they have the panacea and everybody they know must agree with them. But other people don’t get it. Just as they don’t get anything new instantly. And that’s why newcomers must tread along the path directed by their team. Networking can’t be done alone. Sounds obvious, but people simply miss that point,” Mahesh went on.
It was like something inside him was afire. He was in his element that morning.Srinivas added, “They take it on as a hobby. Try it for a while to see what happens. Nothing happens. A professional income of a few hundred thousand a year or a business income of a few million doesn’t arise out of a hobby mentality, does it?”
I found myself getting angry at this… as prospects who gave me a hard time with this one flashed across the screen of my mind. I was in awareness of myself. Happy again.
According to scientific research, the brain fires 60,000 thought signals everyday. How many of these do we really get a chance to catch? And act upon? Why not be selective and stay with only those thoughts that will positively contribute to our preferred future? Would the death toll from yesterday’s plane crash matter to us in any way? If it would just serve as a tea party conversation, can’t we think of being the messenger of more positive conversation?
If we immerse ourselves in positive thought, ideas and association, wouldn’t we always have a subject to speak on? Can’t we speak of positivity alone? I believe the time has come for this to take a significant spot in our social interaction. And a wonderful side effect of this happening will be a significant growth in trust. Negativity always sucks away trust.
As if stealing from my mind Shekhar said, “Trust is the cornerstone of any serious endeavor. Marriages last on trust. Sales occur because of trust. People take an action only when they trust that the action will bring the result they desire. Otherwise they simply dabble as they would in a hobby.”
I silently discovered was at the same word on a different plane. Words take on different meanings based on the orbit one operates in. I felt compelled to tender my point…
“Shekhar the more people start trusting this simple business, the more positivity there will be in society.”“How?”
“Well, that’s what they will talk about. And that will result in more social proof of networking and the positive, dreamoriented conversations it brings about.” I said
“And the more such conversations, the more it will be established as acceptable in society.”“Which in turn will result in more trust about the virtue of investing time with positivity,” I continued, enjoying the upward spiral I was creating with Shekhar.
“Which will lead to a higher consciousness of individuals …”
“Which will manifest in society as a whole.” I found myself articulating, as a rather utopian approach to the growth of civilization… but that was sincerely how I felt.
Mahesh too had thoughts on this. “The 2010-2020 decade is significant for humankind because new levels of trust are expected to arise. Has anyone read ‘The Speed of Trust’ by Mark Covey?” Unfazed by the silence, he continued, “The rise of consciousness and enormity of literature being developed in the early 21stcentury on this issue gives every reason to perceive this as the time for massive trust to take over.”
Network marketing thrives on trust. It has been maligned by untrustworthy operators who have made their quick buck. But as in any industry past the formative stage, a shakeout is happening in network marketing as well. The wave of trust that the new networking leadership can usher into the world can well precipitate the metamorphosis of the human race at large.
*****To the outsider, this entire episode might appear crazy. It would have appeared so to me, a few years ago. So I do understand how that feels. But as you have journeyed with me so far into this book, let me ask you, “how will it hurt you to get to the bottom of this?” I mean how exactly will it hurt? Will you have a time challenge to associate with positive people? Will you have an ego challenge in accepting that there’s stuff you really know nothing about? Or will you be afraid to remove the mask of self-importance you wear till you die?
Do you see, by asking these questions I am merely nudging you into a greater awareness of yourself. That’s step one to living to your full potential. Being in awareness of your thoughts and emotions. So trust. And participate in the creation of a better world for our kids. Talk to a network marketer today.
*****“And this is exactly why we must focus on the Training guys” said Mahesh back in his sportsman role. “Network marketing is not an obvious business. Because it takes place on the inside. The outer manifestation – as a few thousand people on a strategically designed network – is no big deal. Any corporation can put together such teams in minutes, with a single inter-office memo. The issue in network marketing is that nobody gets paid just to fall in line. People naturally operate from an employee mentality. The fear of ‘not falling in line’ drives them. A ‘takers’ attitude. We only volunteer to follow our dreams for a bit… and in the absence of any tangible result, we stop trusting. But if we don’t stop… like the business owners who invest in the development of their systems don’t stop… we will be
yanked out of the ‘takers’ attitude and plugged into the ‘givers’ mindset.”
“Will that be a permanent shift?” Asiya asked, internally stirred by something.
Asiya was one of my early partners who I’d imagined would replicate my Malaysian experience in India. Burka-clad, ambitious and ready to fight for freedom. Only, nothing till then had stirred anything in her. It was making me cry, but that was how life was.
“It may take time depending on the extent of baggage the person carries from their past, but the shift is definite. When it happens, you’ll be thrilled,” replied Mahesh.
That was a message for me. I found myself smiling involuntarily.“I can think of an example in what I do”, said Vijender. “A few years back, as President of the Rotary I found I was leading a pack of volunteer members. Each had his own agenda, and life to lead, but we were all voluntarily together in the Rotary for social good. I had a dream that in my year of Presidency I would build drinking water projects in fifty villages. To organize everything to make that happen called for enormous strength from inside me but that was also exactly what made that one year of Presidency so rewarding for me.”
“Exactly Vij”, I said as I recalled that year he won our trust and focused us on his vision. “Which was why so many of us made those far-our trips to the villages. Can you do the same for your family’s dreams? Your network will respond the same way you know.”
“You mean they will think of my family’s all-expenses-paid vacation in Bahamas the same way as they’d think of a drinking water project?”
“No, not really. But they will see that you believe that the vehicle you both are on will carry you to your dreams and thus it will carry them to theirs. The transference of belief is the same.”
Nand interjected, “Isn’t this where the difference between individual vision and collective vision come in? How will it work?”
“Let me ask you this Vijender… you said that Rotary year was rewarding… why?” I asked planning to answer the question by deflecting it.
“I learned a lot. Felt I grew.”“How?”
“Leadership I guess. Until that year I was merely managing my factory. From that year on I was able to lead my team through delegation and commission three new plants as well.”
“Wow! If that’s what being pushed into leadership can do to you in one year, imagine what it would be like as a way of life. Three factories are like 3 teams – or 3 showrooms as Mahesh would put it – each with its own quirks!”
I couldn’t help laughing out loud. “Why Nand, they do! You’ve heard of the huge social benefit organizations Jim Dornan, Doug Wead, Jay Kubassek, Beverly Sallee and so many others head up. Guess it makes sense to leave industry to the folks who’d rather not enjoy their true freedom. Besides, training is a huge industry. My dream is to build the world’s first B-quadrant training institute and that will take a lot of ground work, training and resource
mobilization, which I am doing right now as we build our networks.”
Nand, typically pensive at 58, reflected, “we spend the first 20 years of our lives training for the next 60. If only we kept voluntarily training ourselves in parallel we could do so much course correction.”
“And avoid the mid-life crisis around 40, when we realize we are not where we wanted to be and have no clue why,” added Vijender.
That last comment jolted me a bit. In fact it took me back to the plane I was boarding, returning from Malaysia. I too had had a dream… to retire at 40… and that was round the corner… and I wasn’t close. Was I heading for a crisis? That was when, on the flight, Nama had popped the question…