Create passion and commitment!

Most MLM companies recommend that their distributors create and maintain a “Dream Book”. This can be a powerful tool for discovering what your real goals and aspirations are, or in other words, why you want or need to succeed in your business. This is often referred to as your “Why”. When I first started out in MLM, I was a miserable failure at doing this, because I did not understand what I was supposed to be doing and why I was doing it. Oh, I was certainly enthusiastic about it, so I rushed out and bought some wonderful glossy magazines (which I could not afford) with fantastic pictures of beautiful homes, boats, cars, clothes and all the other trappings of the high life. I meticulously cut out the pictures (I got an A for scissor work in kindy), glued them into my beautiful hand bound book, and added my own creative touches with coloured pencils, glitter and everything else I could think of. It was an impressive work of art and I was convinced that it would have the enthusiastic approval of my sponsor, and it did.

The problem was that I had become so absorbed in the process of creating a beautiful piece of art, that I had completely lost sight of the purpose of the exercise. When I think back on the contents of that “Dream Book”, I think that it should rather have been called a “nightmare Book”, because I was not passionate about its contents and nothing in it inspired me. It had been a complete waste of time, effort and money. So the question is, how is this supposed to work, and what is it supposed to accomplish? In order to answer these questions, I would like you to do a little exercise with me. I am sure that many of you will have done this before, but it will serve very well to make my point.

Imagine that you are holding a lemon in your hand. Create as clear a picture of it and what you are about to do with it as you can. Imagine the feel of it, what it smell like, even see its colour and texture. Now imagine taking a sharp knife and cutting it into four pieces. Now pick up one of the pieces from the cutting board, and notice how juicy it it, the board is wet from it. Now lift the piece of lemon to your mouth and take a good bite of it. Feel the tart, sour juice fill your mouth and run down your chin. The glands in your mouth immediately react to the tartness of the juice.

OK, now be honest, did you have to swallow I little extra saliva after that exercise? Of course you did. This illustrates very clearly that even though you were completely aware of the fact that there was no lemon in sight during this exercise, your thought process and your imagination were able to elicit an involuntary physical response, as if the lemon was real. This is an amazing, powerful and important ability. This principal can be used in different ways which can affect our lives significantly.

Your “Dream Book” or your goals or your “Why” needs to be so important to you that it creates a physical change in you. You need to be passionate about it and you need to look at it, think about it and refine it every day. This will flood your brain with dopamine, a hormone which makes you feel good, able to make better judgements and even increases intelligence. Consequently, you perform better, are more creative, achieve more and are far more likely to remain committed and to achieve your goals. If you listen to the stories of successful distributors, you will find that many had a very powerful why, rooted in severe financial difficulty or need. Resigning from your job without any other income may be a good way to create your own powerful Why, but I don't recommend it! Passion, enthusiasm and exciting goals, will make the journey far more exciting and enjoyable.

I can't stress enough the importance of this principle, and it is something only you can do for yourself, nobody else can do it for you and it is essential for success.

I absolutely love this business!