Star Builder

Background

Whether we realise it or not, we live life by a number of rules, boundaries that we won't cross. Now I'm not talking about those that are imposed on us by society such as driving offences, or attacking our fellow human beings. Here I am referring to those that we have learned as we grown up, and continue to go through life.

Well today I broke one of the rules that I had only recently and consciously established, read on to find out more....

Why Do We Establish Rules?

Rules in this sense are in NLP terms strategies which we use in life, they are in reality guidelines or rules of thumb rather than set in concrete laws of the land. We establish them through trial and error, or what we are taught by parents or friends, or indeed the media and influences around us.

Lets look at a simple but uncontentious example, when you're young you may not know that the oven gets hot and that you need to put oven gloves to take the baking tray out. You will more than likely be told by your parents that this is dangerous, and this will be reinforced by the first time in your life that you forget to put the oven gloves on.

This is now a rule by which you live your life, you know that the oven gets hot and that you will need to put your oven gloves on. Makes sense right?

The problem is that many rules lie below the surface, sometimes we are not even sure how we learnt them in the first place. What's more these rules may no longer serve us or be too generalistic and hold us back from being all that we can be. If they lie below the surface they can become part of our beliefs and our identity and the rules of consistency mean that we are unlikely to challenge them or allow anyone else to do so. In fact we will dismiss information that contradicts our belief and take on board information that is consistent with it.

My Golden Rule

Okay, this is not my only golden rule, but it is a nice figure of speech and it was an important one I learned the hard way.

If something is given away it is not valued by the person that receives it, if it is paid for then the person buying it values it. I have seen this time and time again, you do something with the best of intentions for someone else and they do not attach value to the gift.

Let me give you an example from my early days in network marketing, having given away product that I believed in that I thought would be of benefit to them, more often than not the product was either never used or thrown away. These products are not cheap either, and you are (and probably the person you gave it to) literally throwing money down the drain.

I cannot explain why this is, just trust me this is no way to build a business, and certainly no way to build a network marketing business, as the key to success here is duplication. In network marketing if you show to prospective distributors that you need to invest money and give it away like candy, any normal sane person will do the maths and run the other way.

Breaking The Rule

Sometimes you have to break your rule, but you have to understand why you are breaking it, and realise that it is your rule to break. Today I gave away a product to someone that needed it, that probably would not purchase it because money is tight and she would put her family before herself as she always does.

She has severe rheumatoid arthritis, and lately it has got so bad that she struggles to get up in the morning and walk down the stairs. He husband has changed his shifts in order to get the kids to school and help out around the house, whilst she struggles on with work knowing that she cannot afford to be signed off work. The doctors constantly change her prescription, which has led to the swelling of her ankles and little respite from the pain.

Ask yourself, when faced with this situation and you knew there was a product that you were distributing via network marketing that could possibly be of benefit, would you be generous enough to put others before yourself? For me the decision was clear, having heard such wonderful stories about this product even from one of my best friends mum who has found a new lease of life, the decision not to do so is against everything I was taught while growing up.

Wise Move Or Charity?

Having made a decision with my heart to give away a bottle to her, which I did this morning, you may ask yourself whether this is indeed a wise move or just a charitable gesture.

The answer itself probably will depend on her particular outcome which we may not know for a week or so, but if this helps her as it has done many others then it will be a good thing, and could have the following benefits:

• Be great for testimonials and referrals
• Possibly become a distributor so as to fund her own use, and even build a business that allows her and her family the freedom to enjoy life
• Give her family a better quality of life as they will have their mum back

The lesson here is that when we make decisions with our hearts to help others, despite the rules that we put in place to live our lives, we may very well receive more in return. Perhaps my golden rule just needs to be refined to cater for certain cases such as this.