Or perhaps we should be asking… What is your why? And why don’t you have one?
The challenge is that most people do not know what their why is and may go through most of their life without ever knowing until a mentor teaches them how to discover their why.
The easiest way to help someone find their why is to simply ask them the following question… “What would you do if I gave you a suitcase containing One Million dollars in cash and said you must spend it in the next 30 days?” It was actually 1.1 million but we are going to donate 100 thousand to your favorite church or charity, so you have one million dollars to exchange for goods and services. The catch is you have to purchase these goods and services in the next 30 days. You cannot buy stocks, bonds, undeveloped property, and no more than 10% on precious metals or jewelry. And no more than 10% to your parents or children combined.
I am appalled at how many people say, “I don’t know.”
Why ask the Million Dollar Question?
For 47 years I have been opening my presentations by consistently asking… “What would you do if you were given One Million Dollars and were told you had only 30 days in which to exchange it for goods and services… and at the end of thirty days you would have to give back any money left over.
Typically, people answer a new home, a new car or a vacation, yet I am appalled at how many people say, “I don’t know.” To me that is an indication that that we are in an age where many people have simply stopped dreaming. Our challenge as leaders is to get them dreaming again.
You can’t set a life oriented material goal unless you first have a ‘dream’ to convert to a ‘goal’. Now there are business building goals that fall into several categories such as number of presentations made, number of new distributors enrolled, volume generated, rank achievement, etc., but the impetus to accomplish those goals is driven by the feeling derived from having the greater lifestyle goal to purchase a new home or to be driving a new car, or taking that long awaited Hawaiian vacation with the entire family or Mediterranean cruise.
The exercise of imagining how they would “exchange”, (I prefer the word ‘exchange’ rather than spend because you are actually ‘exchanging’ the money for the goods or services you are acquiring but it is too early to engage in that explanation at this stage of the game) their million dollars is a fun way to get their dreaming mechanism juices flowing.
To force their thinking in the direction of material purchases it is important to exclude any investments such as stock shares, bonds, mutual funds or undeveloped property. I also point out that the total amount was 1.1 million and we will give that to their favorite religious organization or charity. I also add that although they likely would not be so materialistic with their purchases that this is simply an exercise to get their brain imagining these things.
An effective tool to get them dreaming is to use the Million Dollar Question “Dream Sheet:” that contains a list of suggested items they could do, achieve or purchase with their million dollar. Send them home with the dream sheet and ask them to check a few items (or add some of their own) and bring it with them to your follow-up meeting in the next 48 hours. Let them know you will explain what the circle in the center of the page represents when you see them in the next day or two. (It represents their current income. Point out that their dreams do not fit into that circle and to afford their dreams they must expand that circle by generating extra earnings.) In many cases one or more of the items they check will become one of their early goals.
Once someone has begun to dream, THEN we can help them find their real “reason why”.
Their ‘reason why’ may be noble and altruistic. Their ‘reason why’ could be to buy a new home for their aging parents, perhaps a brand new customized wheelchair enabled van for a paraplegic brother or sister, or open an orphanage, but until they can set smaller goals and actually achieve them, they will never believe they can accomplish the BIG reason why!
Until they realize they can set a small material goal and achieve it, they will never believe they can achieve a big goal let alone accomplish a major “reason why” in their life.
Note: This exercise is not to find what will become their actual “reason why” but rather to stimulate their ‘dreaming’ process as many people have stopped dreaming. Finding their real reason why for many will be a process until they hit that one thing that turns them on. Once someone has begun to dream, THEN we can help them find their real “reason why”.
Remember, this is a process that may take several weeks or months to help them discover their REAL REASON WHY. Without a mentor guiding them through this process it could even take years. Ask ten of your distributors what their ‘reason why’ is and you may be surprised to find they do not have one. Oh, they may have some quick answers, that sound good, but it is not their real reason why. If they had a real reason why, (a why that would make them cry), they would be working passionately day and night to make that why a reality.
Additional steps to converting the dream into a goal and then then finding the ‘reason why” involves creating a Dream Board and learning how to write affirmations. We will cover this in future articles
Enjoy the journey,
Paul Morris
Your Why is What? by Paul Morris
one-million-dollars-to-spend-paul-morris
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He has been known as the mentor’s mentor.
He was a former Amway Executive Diamond and had been #1 in the nation with several network marketing companies.
Paul had used the principles he taught to build several organizations to in excess of fifty and one hundred thousand distributors. One organization was approaching one half of a million distributor/customers.
Paul had held monthly volumes in his downline organization alone, in excess of 15 million dollars per month.
Many people ‘practice what they preach,’ but it is said of Paul, that Paul ‘preaches what he practices’ and had practiced his entire life.
On the social/spiritual side of life, Paul had spent much of his free time in Scouting, Jail and Prison Ministry and other outreach ministries.Most of all he was a GREAT family man.
Whether it was a group of 14 in a living room or a crowd of 14,000 in an auditorium, Paul iwas sure to have them laughing, crying, and ultimately motivated and inspired to become all of that which they are capable of becoming.
Paul’s philosophy was that, success in this industry is not measured by the dollars you earned but rather by the lives you have touched and influenced in a positive way.
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