In the classes that I taught this past semester, I found myself constantly trying to neutralize words with my students. Teaching Leadership can be a very vague task, and part of it is getting students to understand the value of an objective perspective. So much of what we do in life is subjective, which eliminates our ability to see things as clearly as we'd probably like. That said, whenever we used terms that typically get a negative connotation, "power, ignorant, and self-preserving," to name a few, I reminded my students that we simply perceive these as negative terms because of how they've been framed.
What I didn't get to do as much is look at the other end of the spectrum - identifying words that are typically framed in a positive light, but should also be used objectively. One word that I did share with them was "service," and how our society likes to associate "service" with giving blood, building houses, or serving soup. Meanwhile "service" can also mean the service of any purpose. After all, that's what we as people do, we serve our own purposes. Ghandi and Mother Theresa served purposes, but so did Hitler and Stalin.
Now that you see what I'm getting at, the word I truly want to focus on is "hope." Six years ago, if I polled the nation about what "hope" meant to them, I would venture to guess that a majority of people would center their thoughts around the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life, as "hope" for a cancer cure is their mantra. More recently though, I think the poll would be a bit more split, as the 2008 Presidential election introduced another widespread use of the word.
Ok, ok, I know - "what are you getting at, Chris?" Here's what I'm getting at; we have been so conditioned to embrace the concept of hope (no, not just by the ACS), that it has become something that is sold to us on a daily basis. Whether you love, like, or hate President Obama, it's irrelevant to how excellent his 2008 campaign was; simply put, he dominated. While there were countless factors that contributed to Obama's success, one of them was that he sold us "hope." Again, love, like, or hate the President, you also can't deny that he did not deliver on the hope that he promised in 2008. Relax people, I'm not saying that he failed miserably, but I am saying that he didn't really deliver the country into the situation that he promised...and I think even he would admit that.
Hope is easy to sell because there's no accountability for "what could be." "Hope" will always be in the future; when manifested in the present, hope is no longer hope, it's "results" or "success." President Obama is far from the first person to sell hope, but he isolated it and marketed it better than any public figure I've ever seen. That said, politicians have been selling hope for a long time; making promises is a piece of cake.
Furthermore, look at the world of professional sports - hope, hope, and more hope. As much as teams pretend to celebrate "small victories," today's sports industry has become so championship-oriented, that in each of the big four (NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB) there is simply one successful team at the end of the season and 29-31 unsuccessful teams. Following the end of an unsuccessful season for 99% of the league, all of those teams kick off their off-season by selling hope to their fans. "Here's what we'll do different," "here's what we'll fix," "we're gonna sign the best coaches/players/executives." I call bullshit. And we're just as guilty as they are. We've been blindly buying hope for so long that we've created a culture that almost begs people to sell it to us - politicians, sports franchises, bosses, friends, family. How many Facebook statuses do you read that tell you what someone's going to do, not what they're doing?
I want to be clear that I'm not discrediting the concept of potential here. I understand that sometimes you want to know, not what I've done, but what I will do for you. Fair. That said, there is a quintessential identifier that helps us understand potential and prevents us from confusing it with the wrong "p" word. The identifier is "practice" and the wrong word is "proclaim." Potential is practiced and witnessed as success, while hope is simply proclaimed. So many of us are intoxicated by the idea of hope that we proclaim its success before it even occurs...ultimately crippling said success.
Everything you've just read is simply a long-winded preface. Last night I was in Barnes and Noble, looking for the next book I wanted to read, and decided it would be from the management section. Lucky for me (sarcasm), I picked the section that Amway mentors instruct their mentees to poach potential clients from. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Amway is a 100% legitimate corporation that generates billions in revenue and sells millions of products annually. However, they are no Amazon, as they operate on a referral-based, multi-level-marketing, pyramid structure. In the last 8 years of my life, I've been approached by an Amway IBO (Independent Business Owner) 8 different times. I've attended the company's seminars, had close friends operate within the company, and have done hours of research across the spectrum of available material.
When most people criticize Amway, they call it a "scam," but it is not one, so much as it is a "scheme." Now what does that mean? Well a scheme implies that there is a calculated plan that needs to be implemented. Such is the case with Amway. The scheme is that you get people to do one of two things (preferably both if you're an A-list salesman), 1) you get them to use Amway's website to buy their personal products, or 2) you get them to become an IBO on their own, and operate below you in the pyramid. The main way that you get money in Amway is that you earn points through products sold - so the best way to get those points is to not only have people buying products, but to also have other people getting people to buy those products. Enjoy the clip below for a humorous, though still accurate explanation:
The other thing Amway does really well is that they leave no gap unplugged. They convince their clients that people will call the process a "pyramid scheme," and that they don't need to worry about it. They use terms like "business team" and "business owner" to empower the hopeful into signing up. Amway, and various other multi-level-marketing schemes sell hope with the best of them. The seminar that I attended featured a parade of speakers talking about financial freedom, retiring your parents early, making a monthly 5-figure income "on the side," and paying for new cars, homes, and education. They sell the process like it's this piece of cake that requires no work, meanwhile they fail to highlight the fact that the people who make all the money are the one's who recruited IBO's that work as much as real business owners do; full time. Here's the kicker - as with most hope that is sold, when it comes time for accountability, mum is the word. When you don't make the fortune that is promised to you, who are you going to take your complaints up with? The friend, family member, or random Jim that got you in? Guess what, they've got just as many answers as the mime at the local circus.
So is this post mainly motivated by my frustration with constantly being approached by Amway IBO's? Yup, you bet. But I wouldn't rant unless I had a message. The message is that we are ALL guilty of wanting to hope, and that's completely human. I want to live in an ideal world as much as anyone. The reality, however, is that there are no shortcuts in life, you get what you pay for, you reap what you sow, and if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
In a world and culture that is so desperate for something to hope for, let's take control of our own aspirations. Instead of relying on a Presidential candidate, a sports team, or a business opportunity to give us hope, let's build hope on our own terms and share it with others by turning our potential into practice. I'll tell you what, creating results that are real is a lot more fulfilling for both sides than creating a vision that is always just out of reach. It's time that we stop letting a society that doesn't pay much attention to the "individual" have so much influence over our decisions, convictions, and emotional state. Stop buying hope, stop selling hope, and start creating it.
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