Strategies this, Strategies that… it’s driving me nuts!

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Hello all,

I hope you are having an excellent weekend. It's 12:16pm on a lovely Sunday here in sunny Chile. Things have been a little crazy these days around the World with the usual Christmas insanity that  takes everything by storm. I have never liked this and I don't think I ever will. Sure, I love giving and receiving presents, I love the Christmas spirit… but why do people have to go SO nuts and shop, shop, shop non stop! I mean, how can some people be sooo materialistic. And hypocritical. Many of these people will then complain that they're in debt and that the crisis is hitting their wallets. That they can't make it to ends meet, etc etc. Well, who the hell told them to go and shop like crazy!! From my point of view, there are two main factors here:

  • Social pressure
  • Marketing

That's right. I have knowledge in Marketing because it was one of my main subjects at University. I had several courses on how to do Marketing and how to understand the consumer's mind, our mind. Now, I always liked Marketing, I thought it was fun and cool… when done the right way. Marketing does not create needs. Marketing creates desires. Our needs have always been there, ever since we lived in caves: eating, drinking, sleeping, communicating, having relationships with others; even entertainment. But what Marketing truly does is to create desires in our minds, which most times make us need things we never needed before. Let's look at some of the most recent inventions that we can no longer live without: the cell phone, and the internet. Desires are meant to satisfy our needs.

Now, communication has always been a need. As living beings, as social beings, we need to communicate to others. When phones were invented, we only needed to communicate when we were at home, or at work, or near a public phone. It never came to our minds that we would need to communicate from just about EVERYWHERE, right? But when cell phones were created, Marketing made us believe that we needed to be connected ALL the time. And we thought it was awesome! At least, most of us. Now most people simply can't live without a cell phone, it has become a need. But it started out as a desire. Are you with me here? Ok. So, Marketing is what made you believe that you needed a cell phone. Truth is, you need to communicate, you don't need a cell phone. And before you never needed to communicate from the supermarket, or your car, or a party, or whilst walking down the street. Right? You managed in other ways. But the cell phone sort of made things easier, right? Think about it. This is where the social part comes in. Many of my friends, for example, refused to have cell phones at the beginning. They were expensive, complicated and made them slaves. But sooner or later, society made them give in and they ended up buying cell phones too. Why? Because their mothers, friends, family, etc. needed to communicate to them no matter where they were, and started pushing pressure on them so they would get a cell phone. I don't know about you, but I don't know anybody who doesn't have a cell phone. It's crazy! I have one too, of course, but sometimes I really just want to throw it away. Sometimes I just don't want to be found. And I can't just turn it off, because then people would be scared if they can't reach me! As I mentioned in one of my previous entries, life is one endless prison. We are prisones to the system, to the people, to our cell phones!! When I go out without my cell phone I feel naked. I really do. And I bet many of you feel the same. Then I just have to go back home and get it.

Now, it's a similar thing with the internet. I have been using the internet for about 12 years, pretty much when it started to become massive in the mid 90's. I was so excited! I was going to be able to communicate at a much bigger scale! I would be able to email my family in other countries, and meet people online seemed like such a thrill! Chatting was a big thing! People joining chat rooms and downloading chatting programs… I bet you remember ICQ, don't you? I had more than one account ;). Then there was IRC, and then MSN messenger and yahoo messenger were created. I started creating accounts everywhere, without realising the consequences. I was becoming an addict, and addictions make us prisoners. Addictions don't let us be free. I realised that the more profiles and accounts I created, the more of a slave I became, because I had the need to check what was going on on all of them! I had four different email accounts, I was on severa chat rooms, and on several forums. I had two different MSN messenger accounts, and sometimes I'd open both simultaneously, because I had different people on each account. I was aware of the problem, but I couldn't stop. I remember writing an essay about it for one of my courses at the University. It was about how the internet, instead of giving us freedom, it was turning us into slaves. I was a slave of my multiple accounts that I had all over the net. Luckily, as I grew older (well, I'm 25 and I'm still using many of these), I learnt to control myself and my need to be online all the time. I'm still addicted so many online communities, but now I have some control over it.

So, to wrap it up a little, I'll tell you what  the title of this entry is really about. If you have read some about me or my entries, you'll know I am a home business owner. Well, I have a home business and also a full time job. I started my home business because I wanted to stop being a slave. And it looked like the best alternative at that moment. But I'm far from being free and I know that. And it's perfectly ok. I'm happy about my choices. Time is my most valuable asset right now. Time and my mind. I don't want to lose or waste either of them. Anyway, being in the Network Marketing industry can become a tad dangerous and is more complicated that it seems. What's really bugging me is how all these people out there are going about their strategies, and how their strategies are the best thing you will ever learn. The best kept secret. The ultimate thing. It's driving me mad and making me want to punch some of these people in the face. Many of these people are successful and are making money out of the poor people who buy their products and their trainings. I don't even understand why they sell all that stuff, if most of them didn't even create it in the first place. They gathered a bunch of information and put it together in a new and marketed package and sell it as if it were something new. They all claim to have the best strategies, that they have been using these strategies for years and that they work wonderfully for any home based business!. They say they're sooo easy to use! And that you'd be a fool if you missed it, for the ridiculous price of $37 for something that has a value of thousands!! Ok. Well, I don't buy it. I don't buy it because all they're doing is using lame marketing sales pitches to teach you NOT to sales pitch!! How hypocritical is that?? They tell you not to stalk people and not to pitch your sales. They tell you they have the best strategy ever! But it's more of the same! And most of those people fail to tell you one thing. No course, no book, no super solution and no awesome strategy out there is going to make you successful unless YOU believe in yourself and create your own. Grab all that knowledge and create NEW knowledge. Yes. You know why? Because if you copy all their strategies you immediately become “another brick in the wall”. You have to get your own approach and your own thing going on. They tell you that they will teach you to stand out and how to be interesting and be noticed by other people and make money! Seriously, WHY?? Why do you need someone to teach you how to be interesting. You don't need that. They just have experience making people believe that they're cool. If enough people believe in something it becomes true! Seriously. Just because people think they're cool. Now, you need to do your own thing. Get books, read stuff, learn new things… but create your own. And that's what I'm working on right now, and I hope you will do that too.

Thanks for reading, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!!!!

CAROLINA.

Caro in the south of Chile
Caro in the south of Chile
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