A celebrity was
recently on a tv talk show promoting a book he wrote about being successful. He said that he attributes his success to several
simple principles. First, he spends the first 10 minutes of his day thinking of
things he is grateful for. Then he mentioned a vision board where he keeps pictures of his goals to remind him of
what he is working on. The talk
show host asked the celebrity what kinds of things are on his vision board. He
said his current goal is to become a billionaire. Good book sales should help
him towards his fulfilling his vision.
I couldn't decide what part of this interview upset me the most. I didn't think it was any one thing he said, including the fact he blew through several marriages with children on his way to the top, that got under my skin. The whole thing just felt wrong. (1) Afterwards I thought about it for way too long, trying to understand what my problem was with the guy’s message. Was I jealous of his money? Did I resent his success and fame? Was it my own sour grapes of bitterness causing that nasty taste in my mouth?
It took some time to tease out what my problem with the
celebrity’s message was. At first I went
to the obvious answer, “It’s the economy, stupid!” as the solution to my angst.
There are plenty of articles written about how the poor and middle-class are systematically
suppressed in our economy and how the deck is stacked against the have-not’s.
(2) Then I thought about my childhood
and how I grew up knowing that the world is a tough place to make a living,
especially without the advantages of inherited money, good looks, business connections,
or superb physical and mental health. Having a vision board wouldn’t bring any
of those intangible assets to reality.
In my poor and lower middle-class neighborhoods while
growing up, the most commonly tried solution to the problem of not having
enough money was always MLMs (Multi-Level-Marketing companies) like Avon, Tupperware, Herbal Life and Mary Kay. Since the American dream of owning a business
was out of reach for my neighbors,
participating in a MLM was a way of reaching for the stars, owning your
own piece of the pie, being your own boss and last but not least, Your Potential
is Limitless! The sign-up sales pitch always featured the wonderful qualities
of whatever was being sold and more importantly, the amount of money to be made
from your family and friends as they sign up to sell the products under your
direction.
I never saw anyone, including my own family members, make
anything more than maybe getting their initial $100 investment back. (3) The
hurdles of overpriced goods, no customers able to afford the merchandise and no
way to break out of our poor neighborhood to sell to wealthy people willing to
sign up to shill the same products, all conspired to make chasing the MLM dream
just that, a dream.
As an adult, my heart broke as I watched my infatigable
brother try over and over to become his own boss by selling products through
MLM companies. At first I tried to be supportive and I bought my fair share of
worthless collectable figurines, kitchen gadgets, and magazine subscriptions. I
knew that Rex’ s mind was full of scenes of happy children with toys on
Christmas morning. He wanted to create wealth so he could make the world a
better place. How could I not support his optimistic, happy-go-lucky determination
to achieve his goal? Those are the stories America is made of; people who with
little more than hard work and a never-say-die attitude that pulled themselves
up by their bootstraps and made it happen. Of course, those people didn’t have
one-tenth of the challenges my brother dealt with every day of his life.
I did what I could, as long as I could, before I stopped
buying Rex’s products because really, how many porcelain angels with wings was
I supposed to own before the universe would kick-in and honor my brother’s pure
heart, rewarding him with his fervent desires?
As you can guess, Rex didn't win in his quest to own a
Fortune 500 company specializing in being Santa Claus, delivering free gifts to
children all over the world. But he did
win in ways that mattered to me and to many others. He won in teaching me how
to forgive, how to not be a walking-wounded soul and how to truly love. And that is a vision board that I can
embrace.
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1. I’m not Debbie Downer. Really, I’m not. And yes, I read
The Secret. And the DVD was given to me as gift by a friend who wanted me to
see the book acted out in movie form. I watched it.
2. Because so much of the talk about the economy devolves
into political shouting matches between those who scream,”Get a job, you lazy
loafer!” and those who scream right back, “White/Rich privilege!” I prefer to research on the academic side of
the issue. This is a good place to start
for a long history of American economics and social policy. http://www.russellsage.org/
3. I personally know one person who made it big with MLMs.
It took her 30 years of selling everything under the sun, but she finally hit
upon the winning combination of a strong network of distributors from previous
ventures and a product that was hot. I am thrilled for her success and assume
she has a fully stocked vision board. If
you are interested in talking to her about her journey, contact me and I will
hook you up. But don’t be surprised if she uses her highly refined skills of
persuasion to sign you up to sell. Yes – she is THAT good.
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