What lies are you living by?

Hi all,

I wanted to follow on a little from the last post here.
Since I have been on my path to self discovery I have be chronicling my progress, journaling if you like, of course this is one the fundamentals of growth and personal development, and I guess I must thank Zig Ziggler for the fact that I started, after all he says that everyone should write a book of their lives. So that's what I did, well at least I started it, its far from finished! In fact it is now starting to get exciting.
Now journals serve a great purpose, not only do they log your progress on your journey, they also provide you with a map in case you get lost. You can always go back and look at something you have written to find your way again.
It is often when we go back through these entries or chapters that we gain some useful insight into, not only who we were/are at the time of writing, but also into the strength of character we really have. We have so much potential!

I was privileged enough to be invited as a guest speaker on an associates of mines (Great Leaders in my business) team call this evening, and it was a great experience, I took so much away from it my self, and John Lavenia talks of this in his book a little bit, it goes something like this;

"These tend to be powerful experiences where people gain a whole new level of understanding on things. But at the same time, I can't give anything away. I learn lots from these interactions as well."

So it is safe to say that I benefited greatly from the call, if for nothing else but reaffirming my own belief, my own resolve.
So you really do get who you are, I choose to be a leader in my chosen field, and because that's who I am being then that's what shows up in my business. The leadership possibilities now show up as a direct result of what I am thinking.

I want to share an extract from one of the chapters in my book, something that I had not read in a while and it was the perfect time for me to reflect upon it, to remind my self of who I really am and again who I choose to be!

First City would allure people to the Seminar by offering a free digital camera, or a ‘vanishing credit card’ to value of $5,000, meaning they would pay your credit card if you ‘won’ the prize, funny thing is, I can not recall it ever being drawn.

By this time I had lost all faith in this company. A funny thing happens to a good moral person when this occurs. How could I in good faith tell all the people at one of these seminars that they needed to have faith in this company when I no longer had it, I still believed, and to an extent still do believe in the product they provided, just not in the way they provided it.

I called my manager in Auckland and told him that I could no longer work for the company as I had lost all faith that they had any integrity what so ever. He told me that I should take a few days to reflect and think about how ‘good’ I would have it. This of course meant that I would not be able to speak at the seminar that night, which was a Tuesday. It left it down to the last two staff members that First City had left in Christchurch, Bruce, or Colin. Bruce, who was the manager I had taken over from was very receptive to doing the speak that night…..well no we wasn’t really, he had decided (as I would have too) that he was going to take some stress leave. So now we are down to Colin, by this stage it was not unusual for one person to do the whole seminar by themselves. The only problem with this was the fact that Colin’s partner and their son were flying back to Australia the next morning at 4am and would be away for a month, this was the last night he would see them for some time.

Colin and I thought that the best thing to do under the circumstances were to cancel the seminar, as there was no one that really could, or was willing to do the seminar. The national sales manager was really not all that impressed with this idea. He rang me and told me we couldn’t afford to cancel and would I mind doing the seminar as Colin could not and neither could Bruce. I told him that I did not think it was a good idea considering the state of mind I was in, remember I had lost all faith in this company’s ability to follow through on its promises. He convinced me, against my better judgment to do the seminar.

The seminars always started at 7pm, with registration at 6.30pm and usually only took about three quarters of an hour. On this particular night the seminar was at the George on Peterborough Street in Christchurch, I happened to, at the time live just across the road, so I was able to walk to the venue. I went over at about 6pm to start setting up for the seminar, I had this nagging voice, my conscience, it was telling me what I was doing was wrong, you can not in good faith tell these people they should do business with this Company. I had two choices, I could not leave the seminar, as there were people who had given up they’re time to be there, that was my responsibility. The choices I had, were to stand by my moral beliefs and integrity, or sell out for the sake of a company I no longer believed in.

It was not until I closed the door for the seminar and went into start that I knew what it was I had to do. I have been told that doing the right thing is never the easiest thing. I guess that could be part of the reason that not many people always do the right thing. I summoned up all the courage I had, courage by the way is not lack of fear, it is having fear and moving forward in spite of it, and I looked at the people that had all come to collect their free digital camera and gain some knowledge that would help them retire comfortable and save 30-40% of their tax burden each year. As the tears started to well up in my eyes, in front of a full seminar room, I explained how this company, that some of these people were about to put their faith in, did not keep their promises to its employees, how would it keep its promise to strangers, strangers that were going to give them money. I did however show them a few things on what they can do to help their situation. I was called a few things on that night, conman, liar, cheat to name a few. I can not blame those people who felt robbed, in fact now I would like to thank them, it made me realise I was doing the right thing, they had given up their time that night, and time is the most valuable investment you will ever make, time is priceless. I continued through the seminar and believe me it got no easier in fact it was one of the most testing things up until that time that I had done. I know however that I did not lose my integrity that night, I stood by my convictions. Had I knowingly booked people to the next step that night, I would have been no better than the company who were not paying me for the service I was providing them.

You would think that after such a great level of commitment to the company that I had shown that night that I would have been cut loose fairly quickly, well, the total opposite happened. My manager offered me even more money to stay on board, they offered to pay me close $2,500 per week, before commissions to stay and work for them. That was the day that I realised that no price can equate to ones integrity. Once you sell out, there is a lot more than just doing good things for people to get it back. Once you sell out, you may never come back from that track.

So looking back on that today I regain even more strength, never give up on the truth, or your convictions, one way or another the truth will come to bare.

Namaste