Anyone who has ever taken the leap of faith and dived into Network Marketing has run into what I call, energy vampires … naysayers, and critics who question your sanity and decry the business as a scam or pyramid scheme.
Ironically, often these are family members or friends who you care about, and who care about you. They want the best for you. They believe they are protecting you and saving you from ruin. They will tell you all the reasons you will fail and why you’re making a huge mistake. If you allow them to, they will suck the positive energy out of you and make you question whether you have what it takes to be successful.
I have delivered nearly 1,900 presentations worldwide over the past 31 years. In every single one of those presentations, I have talked about ENERGY! It is vital if you wish to reach your potential as a breakthrough leader in network marketing and in life to know that to everyone you touch, your energy IS your example.
People won’t remember that much of what you say, no matter how well you say it. But they will never forget your energy!
They get your energy before you open your mouth and long after you close it. They even get your energy the way you send emails! Email doesn’t stand for electronic mail in my book. It stands for ENERGY mail! So, if you want to energize others, you must first learn how to energize yourself!
Every so often at my presentations, individuals have come up to me after the event and said something like this, “Brian, I have TONS of energy… except when I get around HIM! I have this one person in my life who sucks the energy right out of me. He is my energy vampire!”
I always respond to these people the same way. I never do it to be harsh or cruel. I do it to set them free. I tell them, “If you have someone in your life who you believe is sucking the energy out of you… STOP IT! Just stop it! It is NOT THEIR ENERGY! No one can take your energy away from you without your permission. And anyone can take it when you give them that permission.”
I know. I learned this lesson the hard way. Please learn it here today, the easy way, from me. Learn it from my painful journey to discover this powerful truth so you don’t have to travel the same tortuous path.
You see, the man I was certain was my energy vampire for a good many years of my life, also happens to have been my hero growing up. He was a man by the name of my father!
My dad was tall, lean, quiet, and tough. He was a cop, LAPD. If there was one thing I wanted more than anything as a kid growing up it was this:
I wanted my big, tough daddy just once, to give me a hug…just once to tell me he loved me…just once, to say he was proud of me. But he couldn’t do it.
You see, my dad lost his mother when he was seven years old, and my uncle told me that when she died, it was as if a big part of him died. He became quiet, serious, and guarded.
But I didn’t know any of that as a kid. All I knew was that I wanted my dad to love me, hug me, and be proud of me. But he couldn’t do it.
As I got older, that hunger to be loved and to be good enough led to an unconscious drive in me. Deep down inside, it was the idea that maybe if I became great at something, maybe if I did great in school or sports, maybe THEN I’d be good enough. Maybe then my dad would give me a hug. Maybe then he’d tell me he loved me. Maybe then he’d say he was proud of me.
But he couldn’t do it.
So, by the time I was seventeen and going off to Stanford University, I began to say, “To heck with him! I don’t need him. I’m doing well, going to a good school, I don’t care!”
It was a big, fat lie! Maybe more than ever, I wanted my dad to be proud of me.
Over the next fourteen years (I’m a slow learner!), I had essentially zero relationships with my father. No cards, no letters, no visits… If I called home to speak with my mom and my father answered the phone, we had precisely that same conversation consisting of four words. He’d say, “I’ll get your mother.” All those years I pretended it didn’t matter. But, deep down inside it was eating at my spirit.
Finally, after fourteen years, two events happened in my life that opened my eyes to a powerful truth: If things are to change, I MUST CHANGE!
First, my wife, Carole, and I met, fell in love, and got married. And on the most wonderful day of my life, filled with inexpressible joy, a wound opened underneath the joy that simply wouldn’t heal because my dad wasn’t a part of it.
A year later, the second event that would open my eyes occurred. It was the birth of our first child, our daughter Kelsey. She was his only grandchild. And he had never seen her, never held her, never known this beautiful little miracle. And so, despite the incredible happiness, I felt as a new father, that wound just got deeper.
Finally, I went to Carole and we talked. I told her that as tough as it was growing up around my dad, I didn’t want our children to never know their grandparents. Together, we decided to go and visit them.
I made another decision about that visit that was every bit as important. I decided that for the first time in my life when we went to see my dad, I would be MYSELF!
You see, I had always tried to be who I thought he wanted me to be. When around him, I always tried to be the way I thought he wanted me to be…quiet, tough, and impenetrable. But that’s just not me! I’m a goofball! I cry at the openings of supermarkets! I actually cried at Mickey and Minnie on Ice! My children were mortified!
So, we went to see my parents. And for the first time ever, I brought my own, authentic energy. Here I was, madly in love with my wife and baby and overflowing with pure joy.
And in one day of being my genuine self, of owning my true energy around my dad, my life changed forever.
As soon as I held on to my energy, I realized for the first time how much I love my dad! I could finally see how much he taught me and gave me. It was my dad who taught me about work ethic. It was my dad who taught me about honesty and courage. But I had missed those truths because I had been so busy being bitter that I couldn’t get better.
As I opened to the clarity of how much he meant to me, I had an even bigger epiphany. For the first time, I saw that my dad had ALWAYS told me he loved me! He just couldn’t say it and he couldn’t show me with a hug or physical affection. But he had been doing his best to let me know that he loved me and was proud of me my whole life in the only way he knew how. He had worked two jobs all my life growing up. He worked as a policeman all night and construction all day so we would have enough. He couldn’t tell me he was proud of me, but he found an old, beat-up bike and worked on it in every spare moment he could for months. And there it was next to the Christmas tree when I was eight years old. But I hadn’t ever understood what he had been trying to express before because I was too busy being bitter to get better.
For the first time, my dad and I actually talked.
And I found out that all those years I thought he didn’t even know, much less cared what I was doing in school and sports, he had been telling all the other cops! He just didn’t want me to have a fat head!
Today, my 92-year-old dad is one of my dearest friends on earth. Recently we traveled to see him and my mom and brought our two little grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren with us. I watched as my father got down on his knees (and it’s a long way down there when you’re 92!), wrapped his arms around his great grand babies, hugged them, kissed them on the cheek, and said, “I love you.” At that moment, I knew he was telling me, too.
We talk often on the phone because we live on opposite sides of the country, and he ends every call now by saying, “I love you, son.”
That never would have been possible had I not released the energy vampire I had created…..
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He has delivered over 1,800 presentations around the world over the last 30 years.
The author of 15 books including his bestseller, BEYOND SUCCESS, and his brand new THE ROI OF KINDNESS.
Brian was rated #1 from over 40 Speakers at 4 consecutive INC. Magazine International Conferences.
With degrees from Stanford University and UCLA, Brian has appeared on Good Morning America and CNN.
Brian was recently honored as one of the top 10 interactive keynote speakers in North America, and one of the top 60 Motivational Speakers in the WORLD!
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