How Do You Want To Be Remembered ??

Woody Allen is often quoted as saying : "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want achieve immortality through not dying"

Short of achieving immortality the same way, I've always said that I would like to be remembered for being a "scurvy elephant". Now, thanks to the Wikaniko opportunity, I have the chance to help build a whole team of "scurvy elephants". For those unfamilar with the work of Dr Wayne Dyer, allow me to explain.

Wayne Dyer was raised in series of foster homes. One evening he came home from school and asked his foster mother, "What's a scurvy elephant ?" She said that she had no idea what he was talking about, and asked where he had heard such an expression. It seems that young Wayne had overheard the school principal say that Wayne Dyer was a scurvy elephant.

His foster mother called the school, and spoke to the principal. "Oh no, " he replied "Wayne always gets things wrong - what I said was, Wayne Dyer is a disturbing element"

Down the years there have been many "scurvy elephants", those disturbing elements who held on to their truth, and their convictions, and who gladly endured poverty, imprisonment, ridicule, physical abuse, and in some cases even death, rather than give up their beliefs.

Henry David Thoreau said, “If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away.”

In doing his research for his book, , which told the story of many of these "disturbing elements", Wayne Dyer concluded that the majority had three things in common. The three characteristics of what Abraham Maslow called "self actualising people"

I believe that when the history of Wikaniko is written, the most successful distributors will be seen to have had these three characteristics.


First, they are "Independent of the good opinion of others". They are more than happy to step to the beat of their own drummer. As Wayne Dyer put it, "Be sure you’re stepping to the music you hear—no matter what other people think. My understanding of the13th verse of the Tao Te Ching is this: it’s crucial to remain independent of both the positive and negative opinions of other people. If you gain their approval, you’ll become a slave to outside words of praise. If you gain disfavor, you’ll spend your life trying to change other people’s minds about you. Either way, you lose your selfhood. If you want to follow your passion, be independent of the good opinion of others. Give yourself permission to two-step, march, waltz, or boogie to your own beat."

When we are sharing the Wikaniko opportunity with others, we are going to encounter many people whose opinions differ from ours. We may even encounter a few who are downright hostile. But then they are merely expressing their opinion, based on their point of view. How do we become independent of their good opinion ? In my view by developing a  strong confidence in the core values of Wikaniko, and in its products. And, again in my view, this can only come from personal experience. Anyone who comes into Wikaniko and doesn't transfer at least some of their personal monthly spend to their own Wikaniko shop, from my point of view, simply hasn't understood the concept.

Second, Maslow wrote, they are "detached from outcome". They focus clearly on the process not on the results. They have both eyes on the purpose, and not one eye on the reward. Neale Donald Walsch once said "Gandhi moved through the space seeking a result, but not requiring one, desiring an outcome but not demanding one. I firmly believe that if we focus on getting the right information out there, and supplying the right products at the right time, and back that with that firm conviction that only comes from personal experience and belief, the sales and the rewards will follow automatically.

Lastly, said Maslow, such people "have no investment in power or control over others". Everyone in Wikaniko is responsible for running their own business - and as such team leaders can only offer support and guidance. It's been my experience from many years managing teams that loyalty and respect cannot be bought, or gained through fear of loss, they have to be earned. Wikaniko offers me, as Team Leader, not the chance to have power and control over others, but to actually share with them the power that only comes through strength of numbers. And to exercise that power for the good of all.

Years ago, when I first began to write, and post my writings on what were then E Groups, I would anxiously "hatch" the computer, waiting for the kind words of others on the forum, dreading the poor comments, but worse still hating it when my post seemed to be ignored. Then I listened to the contents of that Wayne Dyer tape that I have just shared with you, and began to integrate those characteristics into my life.

Now I don't feel the need to defend my position, which means I give up the need to make others wrong. I can focus on doing the things I love doing irrespective of the outcome they produce.

Wikaniko is co-operative marketing, not competitive marketing, if we all pull together then we can achieve more, much more,  than as individuals we can ever dream of ... We can become "disturbing elements" in our families, with our friends, and colleagues, and in our communities, marching to the beat of a different drum, and deliver our message - that as a race we must stop abusing this planet, or join the dinosaur and the dodo in extinction - through , as Gandhi said,  our lives lived.

As Bayard Rustin wrote "Every community needs a band of angelic troublemakers"
Just like Amway, I can see Wikaniko becoming more than just another work from home business, I can see it becoming a way of life.

Remember Gandhi said that "We must BE the change we seek", not "We must do the change we seek"
But then being rather than merely doing is a big enough topic for a later post ...

For now I'd like to close with these words from our archives ... the source is lost in the mists of time.

"DIFFERENT DRUMS - DIFFERENT DRUMMERS"

If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong. Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view. Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same considerations, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly. Or yet if I act, or fail to act in the manner of your design for action, let me be.

I do not , for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.

I may be your spouse. your parent, your offspring, your friend or your colleague. If you will allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself so that some day, these ways of mine might not seem so wrong and might finally appear to you as right for me.

To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me , you might come to prize my differences from you, and far from seeking to change me , preserve and even nurture these differences.

I believe that the human race is facing the possibly the greatest threat ever to its survival. How do you want to be remembered ? As part of the problem, or part of the solution ?

Mitakuye Oyasin
Mike P