I Don't Want To Do This!

“I’m not interested in starting any kind of business, because I don’t want to do the things I know must be done to have any chance at success!”

This is what most of your prospects, leads, or visitors to your opportunity meetings won’t tell you. They just say “No.” What they really mean is they don’t see how the turning point you are offering can do what they want in the way they want it. This could be a “turning point” in their lives, because they are listening to you and hoping against hope you can give them, without any activity on their part, what they so desperately would like to have. These are the ideas so many want in any business they investigate; they all want to be entrepreneurs, especially with all the hype and promises of the Internet. What so many really want is:

• To get rich quick (like tomorrow).
  
• To not only get rich quick but MAKE A LOT OF MONEY quickly.
  
• To be able to quit their job and tell the boss where to go immediately after starting their business.
  
• To immediately acquire complete financial security, all the bills paid, vacation any time anywhere, big house, new car.
  
• To achieve all these things achievable with NO WORK.
  
• To achieve all these things with no costs involved; the money just flows in.

Will they come right out and say these things? Of course not. If you talk to them, they will answer your questions with what they believe you want to hear; you’re their sponsor and they think you should certainly be able to drag them along by your coat tails and get them what they want for nothing!

As a promoter, all these ideas (misconceptions) make your job nearly impossible. You actually feel like this yourself, don’t you? Your job is to first get yourself away from thinking negative thoughts, even subconsciously. Only then can you have any way to change how your prospects are thinking. No matter what you do, only a small percentage will ever come around. This is why most authorities tell you to be happy with all the “no’s” because you’re just getting them out of the way to receive that “yes.” From the following discussion of how to change your own deep-seated ideas, write a little outline of things you can use to change the concepts others have and thereby increase your sales and recruiting success. 

In Culture Matters, the authors say,

In this world the optimists have it, not because they are always right but because they are positive. Even when they’re wrong, they are positive. Pessimism can only offer the empty consolation of being right.

The idea behind this article is that people think they see problems with any business because they will have to do something they don’t like. This is always true, but there are ways to work around things you don’t like. For example, you may want to consider outsourcing or hiring a part-time assistant (this could even be a family member with possible income tax benefits). In my own case, research and writing have become my major business. There is only so much of this I can do--which somewhat limits income opportunities--but I like it much better than being tied to schedules and playing office politics, all the while worrying about when I might get a pink slip. Perhaps an idea you discover here will help you as well.

Among those proposing ways to overcome negativism is Charles “Tremendous” Jones. To him everything is “tremendous,” and he uses this term in the titles of some of his books. Charles Jones was a successful salesman at the age of six and went on into insurance where he retired at age 37 with $100 million in life insurance attributed to his organization. Since then he has established himself as a consultant and writer; his work includes Life Is Tremendous with two million copies in print. Some ideas attributed to him are:

• Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.
  
• No one is a failure until they blame somebody else.
  
• If you can't be happy where you are, it's a cinch you can't be happy where you ain't.
  
• Every problem is an opportunity to cash in on.

Charles Jones simply will not accept anything but a positive approach. The last idea about opportunity from problems is powerful. If you don’t want to do something, find another way to get it done and thus profit from your “I don’t want to” problem.

Another powerful approach to overcoming our own “I don’t want to do this” thinking is advocated by James Allen, a nearly unknown writer from 19th century England. Among his 19 books is As A Man Thinketh, which basically says that our own thinking is responsible for what we are doing and for what our personal situation is right now. These ideas would not have been possible before Protestantism changed its beliefs to the ideas that man is innately good and possesses a divine rationality.

Though this thinking developed around the time of Charles Darwin and others in their efforts to reconcile science and religion, the belief that each of us can strongly influence our destiny is valid today. Incorporate this kind of thinking to succeed in life or business. These are a few thoughts from As A Man Thinketh:

• Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.
  
  
• All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts.
  
  
• He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure.
  
  
• A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.
  
  
• A man is literally what he thinks.

You can see that what you allow your mind to think has a tremendous influence on what happens to you. You can replace the things you don’t want to do with other ways to accomplish the same thing. All these ideas take place within your own mind, so how can you get your mind going in the right direction?

First, determine just what it is that you want from your life:

• Do you want personal financial freedom?
  
• Will you use this freedom for houses, cars, and vacations?
  
• Will you use your wealth to help others in some way?
  
• Do you want to develop your spiritual self over your financial person?
  
• Would you enjoy being successful?

These are only a few objectives you may choose, but perhaps they will stimulate your thinking. You may now think about a plan for your life. You can search the Internet and find maybe thousands of ideas about how to develop elaborate life plans, set goals, and construct detailed business plans. Unless you must have an in-depth plan to borrow money or be accepted in some group or into an educational institution, it is better to keep your plans simple. The more you work on a plan, the less time you will spend actually doing something; you can plan your life away without ever getting any closer to what you want.

All of your plans should be written in a few very simple statements; you can always make changes and you should do this as circumstances and your ideas change. If you write them, you can keep them in front of you so you stay focused on what you wish to do.

When you decide what you want to accomplish with your life, you will probably realize there are some financial aspects. This is where you will determine if you need additional training in order to generate necessary funds and if you should begin your own business even if it is just a sideline to your “real” career. Should you decide on a business these are some main considerations:

• What kind of business would you enjoy?
  
• Will people buy whatever you want to sell?
  
• What will you have to do to make this business work?
  
• Can you afford it (on your own or by scratching up funds from somewhere)?
  
• Are you willing to do the things you must do (the whole point of this article)?

All these amount to many things to be done. Just the prospect of all this may be overwhelming and could be one of the biggest things you “don’t want to do.” There are two powerful sources available to help you. Both are outside the mainstream of conventional thought. They are:

• Using your subconscious.
  
• Employing meditation.

I personally use both of these concepts on a daily basis, especially the subconscious. Though I had read about them for years, I only began to seriously study and use them about 12 years ago when they helped me survive a disastrous period in my life; they helped me not only survive but prosper again! Don’t frown on these ideas without at least trying them.

Among the functions your subconscious performs for you (while you don’t even know it is working) is the creative cycle:

• Recognition - realizing a possible creative opportunity.
  
• Incubation - letting your subconscious work on the details.
  
• Illumination - subconscious suddenly shows how the idea might work.
  
• Verification - actually going through creation and testing of the idea.

Your subconscious is a boundless energy source. Thomas Blakeslee studied the right brain and found it to be the source of creativity, artistic ability, emotion, intuition, and most of the personality traits. The left side is the part that controls language and executes the designs conjured by the right side. The right brain’s importance is recognized in the ritual Zen which uses ceremony to silence noise (busy thinking) in the mind so the right brain can do its work.

Though it is possible and necessary to stimulate your subconscious at any time, one of the best times is associated with sleep. R. Joseph quotes psychologist William James as saying,

The unconscious mind, particularly during sleep, acts as a doorway or portal through which God can exert his influences.

Joseph further states this thinking goes back to Freud and Jung who noted the concept of The Collective Unconscious, which says there is a part of the unconscious which contains a very ancient psychic dimension, the earliest residues of ancestral life and earliest memories of our ancient ancestors. The author goes on to say that when people begin to utilize fully their unconscious subconscious abilities, there will be exposed an infinity of possibility. Use your subconscious along with meditation and you can’t imagine the power you possess.

How is meditation useful? It is a private mental exercise conducive to a heightened spiritual awareness which causes ideas to be created where none existed. Many meditation systems exist, most originated in a religious context. Concentration, use of fixed pictures, devices such as a rosary, and music appear to enhance the results of meditation. In many ways meditation is similar to prayer except that, in the sense we are using it, we aren’t trying to communicate with a higher power as the end result; our focus is on developing some aspect of our individual selves.

Meditation can be very involved and there are many schools of meditation. A very simple way to begin is presented here. Three basic steps are:

1. Assume a comfortable sitting position.
   
   
2. Close your eyes and relax all muscles in your body.
   
   
3. Disregard every thought as it comes into your mind for about 20 minutes; this disengages your brain functions and allows your inner mind to work creatively.

When you are finished you may have a solution to some problem or have a new idea.

Stephen Hawking relates the effectiveness of meditation in an observation about Sir Isaac Newton and his gravity theory. Most of us have been told that Newton was hit on the head by a falling apple. Hawking researched the idea and found that Newton conceived the theory while in a contemplative mood and witnessed the fall of an apple. Could you be likewise inspired?

So now what is it you don’t want to do since you have found there are forces within your own mind to figure other ways to get things done? Don’t let “I don’t want to do this” prevent your success in whatever you wish to do, including starting your own business!