My dad has said on more than one occasion, “If you want to make an enemy, send someone a check for $50 every month for no reason. Then after a few years of that, just stop sending him the check. He’ll be livid.”
I’ve come to realize that there is a lot of truth in this statement. I see it playing out in my own family. We’ve had a good stretch of abundance, and my family members have come to expect things to just flow. “Mom will figure it out. Mom will give me the money for that.” But, lately, I’ve had to be a bit smarter with my money. Some people become very upset when Mom has to say “No.”
At times I let this get to me, start doubting myself and my choices, But, then I remember you can’t plow under a garden and expect green beans to grow tomorrow. I’ve taken a major rebranding leap in my business, letting my flagship site (IdeaMarketers) go because it was doing more damage than it was good. Some people don’t really understand why this was necessary. But, I did what I felt was right. Google was penalizing people with articles on the site, and I couldn’t in good conscious keep promoting something that could harm people. I took it as a sign that the time was right to follow my own passion and message and created IgnitePoint.com as a way to do that.
Some people who had articles on IdeaMarketers write me, very angry or hurt. They believe I’ve done them a great wrong by closing the site. Funny, the ones who gripe are never the ones who contributed monetarily to the site. The ones who complain are the ones who got a service free for over a decade. Now, that I’ve had to shut the site down, they believe I’ve done them a great wrong.
I’m learning a big lesson in life. You cannot invest in someone else if they will not invest in themselves. In fact, the more I do for free for people, the less likely they are to do the work, and the less likely they are to reap results. People only value what they pay for. When you enable people, you end up with those who do not respect you, who use you, and who blame you when you can’t deliver the free goods anymore.
For any success in life, there is a sacrifice required. There are dues that must be paid. You can’t grow a plant full of green beans unless you sacrifice a bean to the ground. I’m learning that I can’t pay other people’s dues for them.
I can’t keep giving things away for free thinking that I’m doing some great service to the world. I’m not. I’m actually performing a disservice because I’m making folks believe that they’ll magically be successful without any effort on their part. People must sacrifice for their own dreams. If a person isn’t willing to invest in their success, they will never reap it. That investment might look like money, time, energy, or resources. But the investment must be made by the person who wants the reward.
Once an investment is made, then other people can invest in you, but not until you’re willing to invest in yourself.
This principle has been driven home for me lately by witnessing those in my mentoring programs (that I started offering at the end of last year). The people who pay to be in them get far better results than any of the people I gave my services away to for free over the years. I thought that since I had a good flow of money coming in from my flagship site that I should use my spare time to help people with their businesses and not make them pay – that it was my way of giving back. But it didn’t work. I believed in them more than they believed in themselves. Had they invested in their own businesses, they would be much farther along now.
People who are investing in my programs are getting books done. They’re stepping into their messages more fully; they’re forming joint ventures and improving their bottom lines. Had I offered these mentoring programs for free, I guarantee you there would be no such results.
Lesson learned: From now on I won’t be investing in anyone who doesn’t invest in themselves first. It’s for their highest good and mine.
About Marnie Pehrson Kuhns
Marnie Pehrson Kuhns is a Certified SimplyAlign Practitioner™ who uses music and creativity to mentor you past barriers, fears and doubts to discover, create, align with, and deliver your soul’s song (the mission, message or purpose you are on this earth to live). Marnie is a best-selling author with 31 fiction and nonfiction titles. If you'd like Marnie and her husband Dave to work with you personally on Your Great Reinvention, get a FREE 20-minute strategy session with Marnie here.
- More Posts(415)