The Day I Nearly Died

When I was about 5 years old I nearly died.

My parents had taken me and my sister for a 2-week holiday by the beach in Devon, England. There were two swimming pools dug into the sand there, one for little people like me, and the other, 6 ft deep, for adults. Since I couldn’t swim, I was assigned to the tinies’ pool, and made to promise that under no circumstances would I go near the adults’ pool.

One day I found myself alone in the children’s pool, and it quickly became boring. I’d seen people swimming many times, so I was absolutely sure that I could swim too. I even knew how to do a dive like I’d seen my father do. So off I trotted, on my own, to the almost empty 6ft deep pool and dived in! It was a pretty good dive too.

To this day I can see the light green water with the sun shining through, and my hands flailing as I tried hopelessly and helplessly to get to the surface. There’s no doubt at all that I was drowning, and no one except me knew it was happening.

Fortunately there was a man swimming in the pool at the time. He somehow realised that I was in trouble, swam across, and and pulled out by my head, just in time. Not only had I had a terrible fright, but I was in serious trouble for the rest of the holiday. I was extremely grateful to that gentleman, and I never went into a deep pool again until I’d learnt to swim properly!


So what on earth has this got to do with network marketing? Well, I think the little spirit of independence inside me all those years ago is very much like the spirit of independence inside us all throughout our lives. We get told very simply what to do, but we think we know better. And we get into trouble. Nowhere is this more true than when we take up network marketing.

Marketing is an art, which takes considerable experience to master. When we begin, we don’t have that experience, but of course we think we know everything. There’s a very simple way to do network marketing, but it sometimes gets a bit boring, just like the children’s pool. We start to look around for approaches which are different and perhaps more exciting...... and it’s then that we get into trouble.

I put together a blog item a few days ago about the absolute importance of training in network marketing. I still hold to the sentiments expressed there. I too thought I knew how to do things differently, and for yet another time in my life I learnt the hard way that I was wrong. The simple way, as presented in decent training, is the only proper way forward. We depart from that way at our peril.

So please, don’t drown in the sea of network marketing alternatives, follow the training and advice given by your upline. That way you’ll then live to enjoy a long and happy network marketing life.

Arnold Cummins