Many years ago, I was invited to a friend's house for what I thought was a social gathering. To my great chagrin, it turned out to be (YIKES!) an Amway meeting. Some of you may have attended those meetings back in the days when they *tricked* you into attending (which I'm sure they no longer do). The experience may have affected your beliefs about Multi-Level Marketing.
After attending that high-pressure recruiting session, my beliefs about ANY MLM company were negative. Before long, the MLM industry got a bad name and I started hearing about pyramid scams and ponzie schemes. I soon believed if it said MLM, it must be a scam.
Years later, another friend of mine was heavily involved in MLM and kept trying to convince me to join a company in which he was involved. I told him I'd never get involved with MLM because I did not want to participate in high-pressure sales of overpriced laundry detergent to uninterested friends and relatives. Besides, they were all just scams.
He kept after me, however, and when he showed me his $2,500 commission check, it convinced me to take a look at my beliefs about MLM. My friend gave me the book, WAVE 3: THE NEW ERA IN NETWORK MARKETING, by Richard Poe and I began to grasp the money-making potential and residual income possibilities of MLM.
The simple fact that I was willing to do something different and the simple act of reading this book changed my beliefs and changed my life. I joined the company (which sold a high-tech, Internet-related product, not soap), held meetings at my house (told people why they were coming), and started my FIRST business!
I was able to create a whole new way of making money. I no longer felt trapped by my day job and started to think that maybe I had just been programmed into believing I had to have a 9-5 job to make a living.
Sometimes we hold onto old beliefs and we're not even sure why. Sometimes we don't even know where they came from. Usually we don't even give these beliefs a second thought, until something happens to bring them to the forefront of our minds.
Let me give you one more example of a simple act that changed a belief and led to a positive outcome for me.
I had been day-trading in the stock market for a number of years and in April of 2000 the *wind changed* and the market started to move in a different direction. The balance in my brokerage account also took a sharp change of direction from up to down! I knew I had to do something different because I certainly did not like the direction in which I was
headed!
One of the things I had heard over and over again from the stock market GURUS was, *never trade during amateur hour* (the first hour after the market opens). I heeded this advice for a long time. Why? Because I believed what the experts told me. One day it occurred to me that there was so much action during amateur hour that, if I could anticipate the overall direction of the market, I could make some nice trades. So, I decided to TRY it! I started trading amateur hour. And guess what? I got good at it and made some of my biggest profits during that hour!
If you are tired of the direction in which you are headed and want to make some changes in your life, you cannot hold onto the same old beliefs. They will keep you moving in the same old direction. You cannot continue to go through life on automatic, repeating the same things that may have worked in the past, but are no longer working.
Whether you believe you have to work 9-5 to make a living, whether you believe you shouldn't trade stocks during amateur hour, whether you believe you shouldn't play the stock market at all, or whether you believe all MLM opportunities are a pyramid scam, these beliefs will keep you moving in the same direction. Perhaps this is OK with you. But, if you are not happy with the direction, you need to change the beliefs!
Learn to think for yourself and follow your own intuition. Do not continue to believe something just because someone told you it was so or just because you've always believed it! When you change the belief, you will feel the wind shift. Then you can adjust your sails to always reach your destination.
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Anita Foley of http://Wealth-Happens.Tripod.com publishes a motivational ezine providing information & inspiration, articles & resources, opportunities & action plans for netpreneurs. Get Your M.B.A. (Motivation, Belief, Action) in every issue! Subscribe: mailto:Wealth-Happens@GO-Subscribe.com