Tuesday, March 9, 2010

"Mga Wallet na Butas": Why Being a Sucker Sucks


I have seen a lot of people attending our public Gatherings from our Wealth Courses, Cashflow Gatherings and Millionaire Mind Gatherings. I have seen people come and go. To date, we have served more or less 2000 Filipinos in our Wealth Courses and conducted more than a hundred Cashflow Gatherings. Everyday participants would tell us that they want to become part of the community as Core Team members and only a mere 10% of those who told us their intention, really committed to it and made it.


Here are just some of the reasons we often hear from those who gave their intention to become a Core Team yet in the final test, did not make it:


1. I can’t stand being rejected.


2. My reputation is very important to me.


3. My spouse and family don’t want me to continue.


4. My career is my priority right now.


5. I am very busy. I don’t think I can still have time for this.


6. I am comfortable with my life already. I’d rather be where I am now.


7. The tasks are difficult. Hindi ko kaya.


8. I am afraid to fail.


9. I am already successful. I don’t need this anymore.


10. Silence. Dead Silence (When you text/call them, follow up on them, they are not responding anymore).


One of the challenges we face in this world is that people tend to become CONSUMERS (Instead of INVESTORS or PRODUCERS), not just of product or services but of people.


First and foremost, our Wealth Courses is free. The one conducting it are volunteers. They are not paid to do it. I often hear participants after the sessions asking the facilitators, how much are you paid to do this? It seems to them that such passion and commitment can only happen if a person is paid handsomely.

The members of this community stepped forward to give time and service to the Filipino people. People most of the time they don’t even know. Aside from their commitments to their family etc., they still find a way to squeeze in another commitment and that is to serve the country for God. They are not consumers but people with the strongest desire to their lives away in sacrifice and service to others.

This is why this community is relentless of who we select to join us in our mission because we want to every ounce of our investment to have exponential impact in the lives of every people.

Core Team members will always ask, Coach sayang naman ung mga di natapos and hindi na bumalik, what can we do to make them go back and finish what they have started?

With 10 years to go to fulfill our mission, the truth of the matter is that, we want to prevent having our best efforts wasted by those we invest in. In the community, we practice elevating our intentionality. We invest wisely and strategically. Our investment is on the few of the right people who will evolve into influencing many.

Sometimes in life, we become unintelligent, even foolish when we don’t choose how to spend our time in a discerning manner. We end up spending out time with consumers who take, rather than spending our time with investors who give. Come to think of it, are you willing to throw money into a hole if you knew it would be wasted? So why are we sometimes willing to spend our investments on people who have holes in them, knowing that our investment would probably be wasted?

There is this ancient prophet Haggai talks about how some resources are wasted, “give careful thoughts to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes but are not warm. You earn wages, but only to put them in purse with holes in it”. What the prophet Haggai knows is this, if we’re absorbed with taking FOR ourselves, we’ll never feel as though we have enough.

Just look at your relationships, does it have an exponential impact? Are we mostly spending time with people whom Haggai describes as “purses with holes in them”?

Let us first understand what sets consumers apart from investors on how they spend their time. Consumers always look for what they can take from others while investors always look for what they can give to others. Instead of holding on to something that has been given to them, investor’s give it away and do something about it. They multiply someone’s investment in them. They focus on how they can make a contribution in the world and how they reproduce more good in someone’s life. Consumers are relationally greedy and never satisfied with the investment someone makes in them. No matter how much people give themselves to consumers, its never gonna be enough. No matter how much a consumer is given, they always feel they deserve more and becomes angry if someone doesn’t give more.

Have you ever felt interacting with someone who always seems to drain you or suck energy out of you because she always wants something more from you? The person has a demanding spirit and is never satisfied. Instead of seeing your investment as a gift, he/she is focused on how you have failed or disappointed her and wonders why you are holding more from him/her.

Investors are those who energize you everytime you interact with them. They enter relationships looking to give more than they can get and give positive contribution even if it’s just a brief moment. Investors realize that what they give to others is not dependent on what has been give to them. Instead, it comes from what they are willing to give.

This is why even in the business world, people who are consumers cannot produce. They end up always consuming, while the investors are those who produce and end up being wealthy. In the book, Killing the Sacred Cows of Garret Gunderson, consumers focus on what they get instead of what they can give, they avoid responsibility and rarely create real value. Producers on the otherhand are responsible and creative people. They practice enlightened self-interest, the belief that the way to bring happiness is to serve others. They are happy, wealthy and successful or they are on their way to becoming so.

We are not serving the world by simply consuming. As George Bernard Shaw said, we have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it. This is exactly what the community teaches, that we become producers and sadly not everyone is cut to become one.

Our priest told us one time during mass. We Filipinos are mostly consumers even in our spirituality. We are consumers of grace and never producers of it. We don’t share to others what we get from our relationship with God.

Indeed, how we relate to others shows on how we will be able to make it in this world. People come to our gatherings to learn how to be in business, yet they end up just getting information and not doing something about it. The sad part is that, they don’t allow people to contribute to them by asking coaching and support when they encounter difficulties that is why they end up quitting during the process and finds reasons why they will no longer continue.

This is the reason why in the community, we choose to invest our time wisely. We seek to minimize leadership investment that might deposited into a purse with a hole in it. However, we minimize potentially wasted investments and maximize potentially greatest investments without devaluing anyone in the process. This is why we always say, “whoever comes is the right person”. Most of the time those who come and completes the process embody an investor spirit. This is also at the top of the list of people we look for to join us in our journey.

Do you select the people you choose to invest in? If you invest on a person who does not invest on others, you have an impact on only one person. But if you invest in those who will receive it, apply it, and then reinvest in others, your impact grows exponentially.

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If you embody an investor spirit At hindi ka "wallet na butas" o butas butas, then we invite you to join us in our mission. Contact the person who invited you and learn how you can start creating exponential impact on others.

Entrepreneur Coach is inviting you to join her exclusive online business community www.ca2020.net and Create Abundance International Community at facebook http://createabundance2020.com  Read what community members say about Create Abundance at http://iloveabundance.vox.com. 

Posted via email from Entrepreneur Coach

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