subject: Community Abundance [print this page] Community Abundance Community Abundance
Many people around the world are struggling to be able to afford the things they want, or need. Tight knit communities, as well as nuclear families, often have 2 parents working just to be able to pay for their homes, electricity, water, and phone bills. In the United States, most people are in debt and working diligently to get out of it. Whether it be from student loans for college, credit card debt, or mortgage payments, many families in the US are struggling. In many countries fathers must leave the family to work in a country with a stronger currency to be able to offer their children the things that they feel they need. Why?
Humans have created a condition that is a downward spiraling consumer culture, we have become addicted to things, hypnotized by our creations. We have focused so much on what we can make that we have neglected to notice the destruction in our path. The suffering of humans stems from this addiction, as well as a lack of knowledge. When studying what different classes of people buy, wisdom can be achieved and a solution can be found. Studies have shown that on payday, the poor by stuff, things that eventually loose value, break, and turn to trash. This is not to say that the other socio-economic classes don't buy things as well, but that it is the majority of the percentage bought by the poor. The middle class is not much better off when it comes to what they buy, they by liabilities; cars, homes, loans, credit card purchases that they have to pay off, and so on. This keeps them indentured to having to pay off interest rates and trapped in a rat race where they can not become wealthy. Also, the middle class represent themselves in the workplace, which means they work, generally, for someone else. All they get paid on is their own work and the absolute maximum that they can be paid is 24 hours worth of work. What then do the wealthy buy? The class of people who control most of the resources, buy assets; things that increase in value or pay them a residual income, i.e. stocks, real estate, businesses, etc. Also, one of the things that they do is they hire other people to work for them to achieve more productivity than they could do alone.
So, how does knowing that help in achieving abundance for oneself and community? This knowledge can be a gem of wisdom that inspires what one buys and can guide toward buying things that are sustainable; able to produce or at the least maintain themselves. This is the first step to becoming abundant, learning to live with less and buying those things that will generate rather than deteriorate. Whether that be, stocks, land from which one can grow food, seeds, a business, organic products (environmental sustainability), CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) shares, an animal that produces something or investments in community spaces. This alone will not create wealth, but it will reduce debt.
So, then how do we create financial abundance? The answer to this is simple and yet profound. We work together to achieve our needs. In our rural Costa Rican pueblo that means, whenever there is a need for something, lets say the road needs to be repaired (here the government isn't responsible for fixing many of the roads), the community will throw a party, with a cover, provide entertainment, sell goods, take a long horse ride and all proceeds go toward the road. Everyone, from the elder grandma to the newborn baby are there, all supporting their community. Every town, village, and city in Costa Rica has a community center for events and this is where they hold their fund-raising functions. Survival of the most cooperative.
To take this to the next level and generate wealth, there is a business model that has been created for this. It is a model that not only provides anyone the opportunity to create wealth, it generates cooperation and group success, while, in some cases, deeply educating people about things that genuinely benefit their health. Too good to be true, it exists. Lets explore a bit more to get really clear. Above, we learned that the wealthy hire other people to get more work done, this way they can double, triple, quadruple their productivity. The down fall with hiring employees is that they are getting paid, not for their productivity, but rather on a wage. This can be dangerous for the employer, as if their employee isn't very productive, the company can lose money. So, a solution is to pay an employee commission, i.e. for their productivity.
An example of this is the real estate industry, there are brokers who train agents, and both get paid a percentage of the house they sell. The broker, who has the experience or training, puts his time and energy into training an agent and they both benefit from the sale. If a broker wants to make more money, or increase his productivity, then that person will train another agent, the more agents that broker has the more money is made. The problem with this model is that one day one of the agents may decide that they want to earn more money and become a broker as well. Now that agent turned broker, who knows all the tricks of the person who trained them, becomes the original broker's competition. This is not a cooperative model. What if that broker wanted to encourage the agent from day one to become a broker, and benefits from the agent becoming a broker, than we have created a cooperative situation that encourages each person to fulfill their highest potential.
Does this sound familiar? This is the structure of the Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) or Network Marketing industry. The vision that inspired this industry to exist was to generate abundance for the people who enjoy they products they use, by spending the marketing budget on the consumers rather than traditional methods. So, if MLM is so great, than why does it have such a bad reputation? This is a simple answer, it is because the people who market the products, often called distributors, have little training. Because the distributors are average people, who didn't necessarily have a background in marketing, two unfortunate things tend to happen. One is that they get really enthusiastic and go out pressuring people and connecting with people for the sole purpose of selling them things and the other person feels cheapened by the experience. And two, is that they don't know what to do, don't feel capable or supported, buy the products with the vision of making money, but don't activate their business and end up "loosing money," they then become disenchanted and stop Network Marketing. Often, in a legitimate MLM, the person got something out of the experience, products, and if they value those products they really didn't lose much money, but the hope for an income and that disappointment can make them feel that there was a loss.
Many people who had very little opportunity in the traditional business world have become wealthy from MLM. People, like you and me, who had good training, people skills, and determination have made millions of dollars while supporting the financial abundance of thousands of people. Communication is something that is learned, abundance stems from cooperation, and each person holds their destiny in their own hands by the choices they make throughout their lives. What choices will you make that will determine how you live and whether or not your community can generate abundance? Each of us is given the chance to be great, if we hear the call and act on that, we can achieve all our dreams, if we ignore it or tell ourselves we can not do it, than we will remain stuck in whatever blocks we have created in our lives. Make the change, however you can, you are powerful.
