I'm a Canadian living in United States for last nine years. This is where I've called home for my family and where my three sons were born. And although I am not a homegrown American I was deeply affected by terrorist events that transpired in World Trade Center/Pentagon/ Pennysylvania area.

What struck me most about these events was utter senselessness of it all. To me, any loss of lives in an incident like that is absolutely senseless. I don't care what someone's 'reason' for doing something is.

That doesn't give them permission.

I believe incidents occurring at World Trade Center and Pentagon will be recorded in history books as one of America's pivotal watershed moments.

Think about it.

Multiple thousands of innocent lives ended during a one-hour period of time. A loss of this magnitude has not occurred for a long, long time on American soil.

Essentially entire world, at least global traveling population for time-being, has been impacted by this event. What country in world that uses air transportation will ever be able to again see their flying iron behemoths as just another alternative method of quickly getting from point A to point B? I doubt that world air travel on a global scale will ever be same again.

Now is a loss of this magnitude unprecedented? Of course not.

Almost 500,000 Americans die from smoking related illness every year. About 60,000 of those who die are not even smokers, they die from second-hand smoke. Tens of thousands more are murdered from acts of violence and from accidents involving moving vehicles and accidents in home. Every year.

Year after year.

I saw an investigative report on television recently that revealed that a country in Southern Hemisphere (the name of country escapes me) is having a civil war that has caused an estimated loss of lives in millions during past several years.

Millions of lives.

And is this front-page news in America? No.

And why not? Because it's happening somewhere else. It's not 'home territory' to Americans. But this is not an 'American mind-set thing' mind you. So don't think that only Americans are a bunch of myopic (short-sighted) folks.

HUMANS are a bunch of myopic folks.

We're only thinking of our own and ourselves so generally what goes on in rest of world goes on, for most part, unnoticed.

Now I'll step off my soapbox and get into depth of this insight and how it relates to you and your MLM business.

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M.L.M. Means... Mighty Lesson Made

I still have need to go to a J.O.B. to earn a living. I'm not where most of us want to be and why we start this whole deal in craziness with our main program. At least not yet.

My work happens to cause me to be working for local municipal government in a high-rise downtown. I'm on street side of building, on fourth floor.

During last two weeks I found that I left building at end of day very disturbed internally. This occurred each week to point where I found myself getting very emotional and just having to release feelings in order to function properly. These days that didn't seem like 'me' that I am.

I realized that we had a bomb scare about one block away from my office several days after World Trade Center/Pentagon incident, but that wasn't what seemed to be continually eating away at me.

It took me over a week to figure it out but I finally did.

Of course it had to relate to incident at World Trade Center and Pentagon, but it seemed that this was impacting me on a somewhat individually personal basis.

You see, part of all of this that really affected me was that all of those people, those innocent people, were just minding their own business. They were doing what most of us do. They were working for a living. They were earning a living. They were supporting themselves and their families and loved ones. They were contributing to American economy and paying taxes like everyone does.

They went to work that day just like any other day. Another day at J.O.B.

I know there were visitors in building, but they too were probably mostly in building conducting business for an offsite business they worked for. I'm assuming most of this, but I hope you get gist of what I'm saying.

Regardless. These folks were just sitting there and working. I realized that that too was what I was doing every day in my office cubicle up there on fourth floor of that municipal office building.

I was doing what I've been doing most of my adult life so far, working for someone else and going to daily drudgery of my office work and eking out a living to support my family and my other commitments. I too was going to work and minding my own business.

Each day I found myself going to work I found myself thinking "what would happen if this were MY last day on this planet. What would I have for MY family?"

I found myself thinking, "sure I'm working on my biz, and sure I'm working on my prospecting but what am I really doing to make it all come together. Am I doing all that I really can do in time allotted to make it all work for me? Am I getting closer to seeing what it is I started all this stuff for?"

I continued to think like that and I kept thinking of all those unfortunate folks who didn't have say in what was going to happen to them. The decision that ended their lives so abruptly was not theirs to make.

And it isn't something that's working to our advantage as beginning network marketers.

I'll explain.

Now you know and I know that there is one and pretty much only one reason that we joined our MLM main company, right?

It's same reason that industry is so powerful at attracting so many folks to it.

You know what it is...

Money.

Right?

Ask someone why they joined their MLM deal on day that they join and you'll find that about 99% of them joined to make money.

I know, I know. Your company has SUCH great products. Right?

Well, they might be best products out there. That's not issue here.

The issue is what direction we are told to take our efforts in when we are just innocent MLM beginner's.

~~~~

Well, when we get deeper into our main MLM company's message and we forget 'why' we really joined this industry in first place, that is when we get into trouble.

That is when things can start to go downhill for us, if we aren't alerted to what's going on.

You see...

... What's first thing that most main MLM company's tell their new distributors to do?

Get on products, right? Whatever product is...

Telecom.

Vitamins.

Magnetic shoes.

Toothpaste.

Whatever.

"Just, get on products."

~~~~

THIS part makes sense to me. It should for you too.

You need to experience your products in order to best tell others about them.

Nothing misleading here.

But what happens after this is what generally is what gets misleading and sends most new MLM'ers into a downward slide they never recover from.

And then one day, they're gone.

I'll explain.

~~~~

After new distributors 'get on products', they are told to learn about products.

Why does this happen?

Answer: so that distributors can know what they are 'selling' or 'sharing' with folks.

That's what big founding company distributor or diamond upline tells these impressionable beginning MLM'ers to do.

They are told that "they, as a distributor of product, HAVE to know products."

- They have to know how they work.

- They have to know dosages, amounts, frequency.

- The ingredients.

- And who should be taking them and for what and for how long.

Never mind worrying about contraindications and all that potentially medically-damaging stuff.

I speak from first-hand experience. My first two MLM deals were both consumable products.

And I was told for both companies that I had to know products before I could 'really' sell them to others. They told me it just made sense to do it that way.

I was told to focus on products and money will follow.

Well, let's see what happened. And what happens to virtually most new MLM'ers.

I was spending majority of my precious new free-time learning about products and all that other stuff instead of working on reaching out to folks and getting them involved in business opportunity I was in.

I was basically totally focusing on learning just about all that I could about products so, you know...

"I could tell people about them."

~~~~

Well, what happened to business side of things?

Didn't I and most others join MLM to MAKE money?!...

I relate this to an experience I had in mid 1980's after I graduated from University and found myself unemployed for two years.

At least unemployed in sense that I wasn't working in my academic field of choice.

I found myself eventually selling new cars at a local dealership.

(And you think public looks down on MLM! ;-)

Anyway,...

The day that I started with new car dealership was same day this fellow named Lionel started.

Lionel and I were quite different in our approaches in 'selling'. I found myself thinking that I couldn't possibly 'sell' someone a $20,000 car without MY first knowing everything about it.

I mean, 'what if they asked me something about it'? And I didn't know answer. Wouldn't that just blow sale?

So what happened?

Well, as I was busy figuring out all package options, combinations, and features of each of dozen new car models on lot...

...Lionel was actually SELLING cars to people.

From his very first day.

I had to stop him and in my naiveté I asked him how he could do that.

I asked him how he could sell something that he didn't know anything about, or at least only minimal information.

He answered that he didn't really care that he didn't know everything about cars. And in fact knew very little about any one of them.

He said that when his potential customers asked him something about car they were looking at and he didn't know answer -- he just said "I don't know. But I can find out for you".