Got It!!

The beautiful part of our business starts once you figure it out. Venkat is personal to us and has been with us for a few years now. He saw us breaking leg no 4 as well as breaking leg no 5. 

He was just over and was saying that when we were breaking those legs he was either too new or not too CORE and could not grasp what was creating the growth. But he has seen us working leg no 6 very closely. In fact he was with me in many of the plans that I showed in leg no 6 - plans out of which CORE IBOs have come out and lot of depth has happened below them already. He has seen me working with a binderful of lists - calling from all of them at the same time and doing plans to plans to plans to list to plans to list to plans to kits to list to plans to more kits to lots of PV. And he was saying just now “Once you saw it, you cannot NOT get it...I got it now....I really understood the difference between 99 degrees and 100 degrees....” And that’s the only thing you need to figure out - once you understand that there is no secret...you really got the secret.

Waiting for the secret to be revealed only wastes time that should have gone into working and showing plans. Once you KNOW that the secret is maximizing the number of plans, you start using the secret which is WORK. But you have to get it to get it...nobody else can get it for you.

Right People

The biggest mistake of this business, I had heard when I just got started, is working with the wrong people. And conversely, the secret of growth is, working with the right people. You always believe in people, but you never believe people. And as the business becomes bigger and bigger, I realize the truth in these teachings more and more.

The right people show signs very early. There is no doubt in that. 

1. They will learn things in one time.

2. They will do what you tell them to do.

3. They will start listening to CDs early on and start liking them too. 

4. Most importantly, they will start associating at all functions - all by themselves. 

5. They will start figuring out stuff by themselves - they are solution seekers. They will not have to be told how to get to the open, or how to take a leave for a function.

When we hear diamonds talking about these qualities from the stage, they seem very theoretical. But when you start seeing such people in your organization, you start believing it. In retrospect it is very easy to say that somebody who is a Platinum or a Diamond today had all these qualities. 

But true success is in identifying the traits in somebody early on, and starting to fine tune them as the next level of leadersin your organization. My upline always taught me - producers produce more. You always work with the 20% producers and they are the ones who will carry 80% of the load at any time. So, the next time you draw your organization, try to mark who has all these qualities. If you find 5 of them, Platinum is a done deal!!

Being Artists

There is a fundamental difference between science and art. Science can be learned from books - you can read enough and become a mathematician, an engineer, a physicist, a chemist and so on. But art cannot be learned from books. You can’t become a musician by reading books, just like you can’t learn sculpture or painting or any other form of art for that matter by reading a book. To learn art, you need to become an apprentice to an artist. You can only learn by observing them perform and by performing alongside them.

Our business is more an art than a science. Some people think they can just listen to a CD or read a book or attend a seminar and build a huge business. But creating and keeping organizations is an art. Influencing people and leading them is an art too. And thus says Renuka “Most things in this business can’t be taught...they have to be caught”. And that is the reason you need an upline mentor who you can observe and spend time with and duplicate. And over a period of time, you will be able to develop an originality of your own, but inspired by the family of leaders that you belong to. And that’s how we have developed our style - inspired by the leaders who have led us and taught us - Deepak and Shalini Choudhary and Manipal and Renuka Reddy.

I was reading somewhere today - A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; and a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist. It is in this third way of working that real success in our business lies. And all you need is somebody who can take you by your finger and show you how to do it using your hands and your brain and your heart......

Power of submission

The Power of submission is the basic power we talk about. But it is not just submission to a human being. It has its real meaning in submission to the Supreme power we call God. 

But the moment we say submission to God, it starts seeming that we are being fatalists - waiting and counting on something unseen to come and do things for us - and how can we leave everything to God - and if we do, what will WE do then from our side? What is our role in our success?

What we forget is that all we do or have or are, is not from us anyways. It’s not just the results which come from outside us, but also the inspiration to work that comes from that divine source of power. 

The smaller the goals you set out to achieve, the more it will fan your ego. And the bigger the goal you set out for, the more you will need to involve words like God and faith and belief and vision. The moment you want to think of moving mountains, faith will have to be brought in automatically.

Submission is a much easier way to live than “control”. People might be able to succeed with the latter too, but perhaps the path is too tedious. Just like you can “not be” in submission to your upline and build a big business, but it’s going to take too much energy and too many mistakes. 

The stronger the man, the easier it is to be in submission. Trees that are stiff and do not bend in the wind, fall. But the ones who are strong are the ones who bend down with the winds, only to stand up again, this time taller than before.

Takeaways

There is a limit to the money you can use - you will buy a couple of houses, a couple of cars, a plane maybe, an island, all the jewellery in the world, all the gadgets available and then get fed up with it all. 

But there is no limit to the love you can use in your life. Nobody ever got fed up of that. And Taru’s birthday yesterday was a testimony of that. It was not about the flowers or the cakes or the gifts or the cards either. It was about what came written inside the cards - the messages of true love written in them. And you can live on them alone for months on end. 

And there’s really no limit to the recognition you can get. We’ve not even hit Diamond yet and all you need to do is stand beside us on the BBS stage - the feeling is unmatched  and humbling too - so much recognition for something you would have done even without it.

Unfortunately most businesses out there can give unlimited money - something that you stop wanting more of after a while. But they give pinches of love and recognition- that of which you want oceanfuls of.

You miss college days all your life because you miss those friendships, those heart to heart talks with friends, that uncontrollable laughter which shakes your bones, that appreciation of a quality in a friend. 

Join this gang and you’ll never want to go back to any life but this!!!!

Faith, Teachability and Counselling...

Bodhidharma went to China and would sit facing the wall and then preach. He used to say- when a real student comes, I’ll turn and face him - talking to you folks and talking to a wall is anyways the same thing. 

And then came along a guy called Huineng - he kept standing behind him for 24 hours. He said- “Please look towards me...” and when he didn’t, he cut one hand off - and said if you don’t, I’ll cut my head too. Bodhidharma said, “I don’t need this head of yours...I want you to cut off that head...”. For the first time in 9 years, he faced and talked to someone - and Huineng became his successor.

The moment you think you know a lot, or know anything at all for that matter, it’s impossible to learn. The moment you listen with your brain, you are interpreting every word that you’re hearing. And you are coloring it with your belief. You cannot really be listening to the teacher while evaluating at every moment whether he’s right or wrong. To really learn you need to have faith. Real learning can start only when you’ve given up on what you already know. When you are willing to have 100% faith on what is being taught. Go Diamond 2008, I was in that state of mind- ready to believe all that was being taught. And one function did the magic.

The Dream of Association

Though we talk all the time about dreams of time and money and security, the dream which has pulled me all the while has been the dream of association, the dream to belong to the club and then have a club of my own. 

The first dream was to be able to call Deepak/Shalini friends. They had such an aura around them, such a pull in them. Deepak is a man of standards in life - standards in living and in thinking as well. And the first dream was to get approval from him. In him I could immediately see a father figure. 

The first time I went to the PASE meeting at Rajan’s house, there was magic in the air and a dream was born - the dream to have a group of friends like that PASE with whom I could hang out. And then, when I went to the first major function - the Britt school, the awesome stage presence and the recognition is something which became an instant dream. What else in the world can transform a measly software engineer into a celebrity.

Shaju’s open and his team of leaders became an instant benchmark of the kind of team I wanted to create. Till this time there was no knowledge of how it will happen, but the dream kept getting stronger and stronger.

And that’s why the first open meeting on arriving in Bangalore was a big jolt - from a carpeted, padded, suit and tie full room of people to a dilapidated school auditorium with people as varied as a marketplace can boast of. The first FED was a huge jolt which almost threw me offtrack. Thankfully Deepak transformed the disappointment into an urge to create what I wanted to be a part of.

The first PASE meeting in Bangalore with the local leadership was a welcome change in the environment but I was always visualizing something better. 

And this dream is what led to our own PASE with our kind of people. And we started changing the open meeting environment and then the seminar environment and we will slowly but surely change the major function environment as well. Our Eagle clubs started setting new benchmarks of standards and this time’s 9% leadership just showed how it has become an integral part of us. We hardly prepared ourselves or our team for it, but it just shaped up meticulously well, like an army of soldiers setting camp. 

The next dream is to do our own function in the Chennai stadium and to do our own annual silvers and up, like The Gala Seven Springs. And then to do our own Platinum club and Emerald club and Diamond Club.

Kungfu Panda

Kungfu Panda literally opened the doors of my heart and the moment he understood - there is no secret - it was as if all the wisdom and knowing stormed in. Osho says - Only the heart of a child is heard” - because it just believes. It does not doubt - even thinking is a doubt - it just believes. Each time you close your eyes and think “I’m visualizing Diamond, I’m visualizing this or that...” it’s not really visualizing. It’s thinking visualization - true visualization is when you’re just there - no doubt - as if it’s already happened.

And that’s the “Tathastu” of the all powerful rishi, the seer, the Mahatma - he just believes it and sees it for you. Just “being there” is enough - has enough power in it to attract the forces of the world to make it happen.

We will be Founders Diamond with 7 legs, 10 Emeralds, 40 Platinums, 4000 to Functions and all that we want. But the irony is that the moment we will be there we won’t want it at all - because we’ve really had it in our mind already - and having it in reality is no different once you’ve really visualized it. When you have just thought of visualizing - that’s when it comes as a suprise.

Keep moving...

It is so convenient to read philosophy and to like renunciation and meditation. Inactivity seems very attractive. And to believe that it’s the path to grow can be very deceptive for most people. 

Growth is always in moving - nothing stationary can grow. Stagnant waters always stink - it’s the flowing waters which are healthy and which carry life in them. 

Try turning the wheels of a standing car and it’s clear. It’s very easy to steer a moving car. And that’s the same reason you need to set bigger goals to move forwards in life. 

So many of us want to grow our personality, grow from the inside, grow spiritually but we are all like the car - only when we are moving towards a goal, only when we are attempting to go Eagle and Platinum and Emerald and Diamond do we try newer things; for what we have, is not enough to reach there. And only in that moving is change possible and steering of our life very easy. 

It might seem that sitting and reading a book and contemplating is enough to change us but it is not possible. It’s only in the fight that any change in our personality or our thinking can be realized; and when amidst all the ups and downs you can remain stable and still, any spiritual growth realized.

Pay yourself first

Pay Yourself First - is the key to becoming wealthy. And you can read that in pretty much any book on personal finance. You always save and invest first and spend later. That’s the only way you can accumulate wealth.

But it’s not just in terms of money that it’s true. It’s as much or even more true for the second commodity of life which is limited - time. You want to pay yourself first in time for yourself - for your own growth, for contemplation, for self reflection and then spend it. That’s the only way to become truly wealthy in life too

The Perfect Platform

Was just talking to somebody who came over and he was mentioning that he had never imagined in his life that he will one day set his goals, fight for them, achieve them and celebrate the completion of those goals. 

And I was thinking, it’s so true. Though we read in almost all books on self growth how important this process is but for the most part in our lives it just remains a nice topic read and appreciated - never acted upon.

One of the biggest blessings of this business is the opportunity it gives us to be able to set our own goals, fight for them, achieve them and celebrate them. Every concept we read, needs a platform to experiment and implement it. And if the concept is people skills, learning human behavior, goal setting, self discipline, mind control and using the subconscious mind, there is no better platform than a business in Network Distribution. I feel blessed all the time to be living such a perfect life.

Material journey - an end in itself or a means to an end...

Set a goal that excites you, that stretches you, that makes you lose your sleep. I had heard of all these and Platinum and Emerald were just such goals. But after that, Diamond started seeming so far, it just got lost. Meeting Naren, I met a man setting big goals for himself – breaking 2 Diamonds and 10 Emeralds and going EDC – building a 15000 sft house and buying a BMW – a man running after his dreams with passion and without a doubt, and in turn inspiring so many others to go for theirs and in the process discover who they are and what they are made up of. 

I never found a purpose in engineering – it never could really play the music inside me. But this business of achieving dreams and inspiring people to be a better them and in turn helping them achieve their dreams, had a profound impact deep inside. I found a purpose through this work – creating a better human being – money and dreams being the medium for the change. I think an inherent purpose all of us carry deep inside – whether we have realized or not – is to become a better “us”. There is an innate calling to move upwards – mentally, spiritually, socially, financially. 

If the foundation be based on principles, values, Godliness and goodness, the journey towards our material dreams can only serve as a vehicle for inner growth; for it is not possible without visualization, peace of mind and the use of an inner strength. And if the foundation is not based on the right principles, the same journey can lead to a spiraling downfall towards frustration and agony. 

Stillness of the mind, peace or its visualization are not what you can strive for after attaining your goals materially. The material goals have to become the means to an end and only then will it happen. A giving heart, acceptance, focus, sharing, hard work are the qualities required to get there. The journey is the reward. And new journeys will have to keep getting created to keep realizing more and more. 

Is the journey to your material goals undertaken in total peace?

Till we keep a distance between our deepest desires of achievement and our desire of a spiritual life, there will always be a struggle. It has to become one – there has to be a blending of the two. Material achievement should become the means to an end – the end being a spiritually developed nature. 

If you want to develop a driving that is the fastest, with the least noise, with the least fuel consumption, least wear and tear to the tires, it will surely require becoming one with the car; and it will require a lot of races to be run, improving upon the previous race each time. 

Just like it is easy to turn the steering of a moving car, very difficult to turn a stationary one so it is with life – each journey will make us a better traveler – for the goal is not reaching the destination, the goal is to become a better traveler. 

Till you understand that all you have will be left behind and will not go with you; what will go with you though, are your character traits and your thoughts with your subconscious – any journey will only be a means to refining your inner self – looking inside all the time as to what you are going through traveling the road and working continuously to change and improvise ourselves. 

But without goals…without aggressive goals, which will strain your inner self,  how do you ever realize more than what you already know?

A Platinum journey needs you to work on the qualities of hard work, a pleasing personality and some charisma, which attracts others.

An Emerald journey requires selflessness, thinking about others’ goals, even if it is ultimately for your own, but hopefully the journey makes you internalize it (and sometimes maybe not…but then the journey was wasted)

A Diamond journey would need consistent, persistent work, internalization of values, visualization, staying positive (keeping away from negative) and self discipline.

But a mega Diamond and CAM journey would require the ultimate “becoming” all ofthe above and not just “trying and practicing” all of it. 

When these journeys become the end we lost the purpose of our visit to this planet earth – they have to remain a means to an end, which is stillness of the mind and thus becoming one with the universal energy.

Subconscious - counselling at its best

We can run the business in 2 ways - with the conscious mind and with the subconscious mind. Whenever I’ve tried to run the business with the conscious mind, it’s not just very tiring but very confusing as well. 

Once you are decided on your goal and it has penetrated into the subconscious it’s very easy to achieve it. All you need to do is sit quietly, relax, breathe normally and let your entire body loosen. And there is no need to think of anything - your subconscious will just fill your conscious mind with ideas, with reminders of things crucial which you didn’t remember and so on and so forth. All you need to do is write them down and keep acting on them as they keep coming. The ideas keep coming sequentially and it’s just amazing how they will get the entire jigsaw puzzle to fit in perfectly.

Learnings from leading leaders

It’s easy to work with weak people but there’s no glory in it. Only when you work with leaders do you get a feedback that helps you expose your own blind spots- the things you don’t know that you don’t know. And here are some learnings over the years that I journalled to keep in mind - which means that these are the things I am working on still...it’s a process which might take a lifetime to assimilate:

1. Communicate - the only way to lead leaders is to stay in communication with them. 

2. Leading leaders means you must admit mistakes that you do - you cannot assume that strong leadership will not notice your mistakes and it’s always good to take them in your stride and move on. There is no loss of face in admitting you messed up that particular time.

3. Leading leaders means you are principle centered. You have to be fair towards people and cannot take sides.

4. Leading leaders means that you are loyal to people who are loyal to you - you cannot be opportunistic and bend towards your profit and benefit. The only way to have a long term relationship with leaders is to work with WIN-WIN.

5. Leading people means that you are not “telling” them what to do but “leading” them to the right thing by developing their own thinking. You give a man a fish you fed him for the day, you teach a man to fish, you fed him for life. 

6. Leaders like to be treated nicely - they don’t like being bossed around. And so when you lead leaders, you treat them like you’d like to be treated - “nicely”

7. Leaders are always trying to find opportunities to make emotional deposits in other people’s accounts because they know that’s the only way they can withdraw at a later point in time when needed.

Follow Through

Everybody wants to learn the art of doing the follow up because that is the step that helps bring people into the business. But one has to understand that follow up is not a one time activity. What is more important is the follow through. 

When we sponsor people we actually don’t sponsor them - we just sign them up. It takes them a few weeks or months to really get ‘sponsored’. In fact the moment they sign up, they suddenly start evaluating everything around them trying to justify whether they made the right decision or not. And more often than not, negative attracts us more than the positive. Our mind wants to find reasons not to have to put in the extra effort and go uphill. This is the time when we need to do a follow through. 

Every time I meet people after I sign them up, the first question I have for them is “Do you have any questions?”. And almost always they do have questions which all revolve around some feedback or hearsay they got from the people around them. Each time I meet them, I have to treat them like prospects and empty their mental garbage. At the same time I give them CDs/Books to help protect further garbage from coming in. And in the matter of a few weeks itself the prospect turns into a real “downline”

Beginnings

When we went to Manipal/Renuka’s place in the US after finishing Emeraldship, one of the many gifts that Taru got was a scrapbook with beautiful quotes from Renuka. But that was not the best gift. The best gift was an advice that came along with the notebook. She said that the best thing we could do was to write down things that we are doing in our business - for years later they will be relevant and will help the future generations of leaders that we will create. 

And we did it - we noted the turning points of our business in this notebook - accompanied with beautiful pictures and quotes that it already had. 

And here is one of the first entries from it, dated 5th November, 2004:

“ Got Arpan/Nidhi, Manoj/Priya and Akash/Shilpa together and it wasmagical - we played some videos including our Emerald recognition video. With 20STP club Manoj opened 5 personal kits in the last month. They talked about how they did it and he said that he does the whole plan like a story of how he met me and got impressed and how successful I am and what a privilege it is to be able to associate with me - creates an aura around Ankur Gupta and that’s what goes and creates a magic result. Build the business around a person and not around a meeting. We’ll have 100 people from these 3 IBOships and break 3 silvers here for sure”

And how amazing, in just a few years from that night, all these 3 couples are going to start Emerald qualification in a few months. It’s just about keeping on keeping on and not giving up - having the patience and the faith that things will work out.