The Light Bulb

Tatyana found me on her own.

A year and a half ago, I built a website. I worked on it for a long time, wrote it with care, fussed over the design, put up my own photo. Then I set it up for search. It's called SEO, Search Engine Optimization. Simply put, someone searches for something on Google, and Google shows them your page.

That's how Tatyana found me. We connected, and by the next day she was ready to sign up.

I didn't do anything to make that happen. Didn't call, didn't talk her into it, didn't handle a single objection. We just talked, friend to friend, and got to know each other.

Afterward she told me: "I read your site, saw your photo. And that was it. Total trust. I knew: there's my sponsor."

Someone showed up already knowing everything about me. Honestly, it felt wonderful.

Now remember how this usually goes in network marketing.

You join a company, and the first thing your sponsor says is: "Make your contact list." Then they hand you a script. You call down the list and invite people to a meeting.

The list runs out fast — nobody has that many contacts. Then the cold contacting starts: social media, the street, events, calling strangers. Same pattern. Call, introduce yourself, ask a few questions, invite them.

Ask yourself a simple question. Who starts that contact — you, or the person you're calling?

You do. You picked them, you dialed the number, you're aiming your pitch straight at them. To you, they're an objective. Plainly put — a target.

Picture an archer. He shows up with his bow, sets up his targets, and shoots. The target never called him over. Nobody's standing out in a field with a sign that says "take a shot at me."

Now put yourself in the target's place. You're living your life, everything's fine. And suddenly a call. Someone you haven't heard from in ages reads something off a piece of paper and asks you to check out a link. You never asked for this. First thought: here we go — somebody's trying to unload something on me again.

It hurts to be the target. And if the archer keeps shooting, again and again, aiming dead center every time, it hurts more and more.

I got a taste of this myself once.

It happened at an open-air clothing market in Moscow. I'd gone there for jeans. And every single vendor there was an archer, and I was the target. They'd drag me into their stalls, push merchandise on me. Nobody asked what I actually needed. I'd say "jeans," and they'd start piling everything on me. I'd say "blue," and they'd offer light blue.

It felt awful. I was being pushed. I was being wounded.

I left without buying anything.

That's exactly how someone leaves when you call them out of nowhere and push something on them. Maybe politely, maybe not — but they leave. And they remember your number for a long time.

Now, the script deserves a word of its own. People often confuse it with shooting, but it's not the same thing.

In Chapter 3, I told you about running newspaper ads. I didn't have a word for it back then, but that was the light bulb too. The ad shone in the paper. The person opened the paper themselves, read it themselves, and called me themselves. I wasn't aiming at anyone.

They gave me the script so I'd know what to say to whoever called. For the first two days, I read it into the phone in a shaky voice. I was doing this for the first time in my life. Hadn't learned yet what to say, hadn't learned to ask people questions. I was afraid of making a mistake. On the third day, I threw the script away and started talking in my own words.

A script is a cheat sheet for a beginner. You need it while you still don't know how. Let a beginner read off the paper at first and not overthink it, and once they've got their footing, let them throw it away. Those two days helped me.

A cheat sheet, by itself, doesn't shoot at anyone. The shooting starts when you use it to call people who never asked for the call.

Same thing with the street. At Neways, I used to go out and survey people on the street. I'd walk up, ask them to answer a few questions, talk, invite them. The results were slim. But I did figure out what it's actually for.

The street is training for beginners. Working through your fears: fear of people, fear of approaching them, fear of rejection.

That's why I never went alone. I always brought one of my distributors along as a partner. I'd approach the first passerby while my partner stood next to me and listened to how I did it. For the next one, they'd approach while I stood by, cheering them on. The main thing I wanted to show them was this: it can be done.

Remember the guy who was afraid to pick up the phone? A few years later, he was taking beginners out onto the street and teaching them not to be afraid of people. Today, I can strike up a conversation with anyone, about anything, without a second thought.

And here's what I noticed back then. I could stand next to someone, show them, cheer them on. But the step toward a stranger — my partner had to take it themselves. Nobody could take it for them. Not even me.

And shooting stays shooting. Fast, but short-lived. It hurts people, and nobody likes being pressured. The contact list dries up, and your name carries less weight with every shot.

There's another way. I call it the light bulb method.

Picture this: night. An empty street. Suddenly the power goes out across the whole city. Pitch black, can't see a thing. And in just one street lamp, a bulb is still burning — it's got its own power source. The lamp lights up a small patch of ground, but you can see that light from far away.

And down the street walks a person. They're looking for a particular house, holding a slip of paper with the address on it. No phone. Darkness all around. And then they spot the lamp in the distance.

"There it is! That's the light I need!"

They walk toward it themselves. Come up, check their paper, find their way. And they say to the lamp: "Thanks for being here right when I needed you."

The lamp never ran after them. There was just a bulb burning inside.

So what is this light, exactly?

It's what you know. Your experience, your stories, everything you have to share. Something useful, and nobody's forcing it on anyone. Whoever needs it comes on their own.

And here's another difference. The archer picks targets — specific people. The bulb shines on everyone nearby. Not everyone needs your light. Let them walk on by — that's fine. But the ones who do need exactly you will see you.

Bulbs come in different kinds, too. When I was shooting video, I needed daylight-white bulbs for the studio. I didn't buy the warm ones — they wouldn't have worked for me. It's the same with us: everyone shines with their own light. And the people who come to you are the ones who need exactly that kind.

Someone notices you and walks straight over. Someone else gets a little curious and takes a couple of steps. People come closer and warm themselves. They like what you're giving them, they like your energy. And one day the person is ready to talk, on their own.

And now the most important part. Remember Chapter 15? People hear your state far more than your words. A diamond doesn't sparkle in the dark: the cut is who you've become, and the light is what's passing through you right now. And remember Chapter 19: the source of that light is love.

The light bulb is you. The newspaper, the website, the book, the video — they just help your light reach people. What actually shines is what's inside.

Maybe that's why my website worked back then. I wrote it with love, and it came out warm. Tatyana felt that warmth before either of us had said a single word to each other. Remember Chapter 4? People see you before they hear you. She saw me in a photo and read my stories. That was enough.

At first, the light bulb is small. It runs on a single AA battery.

You've taken your first steps, understood something, learned something. That's already something you can share. Maybe there's just one person next to you, your first partner, still working the old way. Your light bulb can already shine for them.

Next, the battery needs charging. Learn, go to trainings, read books. But knowledge by itself doesn't charge anyone. Until you start actually trying things, it doesn't do much good. You try, you make mistakes, you try again — and the charge grows. Then you can switch on a stronger light.

And the most powerful light of all is a searchlight. It shines very far — even into other countries. That searchlight is the internet. People show up there every day looking for information. If your light isn't there, they won't find you.

I learned this firsthand in 2004. I came to Morinda completely alone. For a few weeks I ran newspaper ads, held presentations, and nobody signed up. My light bulb was too small. So I built a website. I wrote about the company there, and about myself.

That's how Dima from Novosibirsk found me. In Chapter 18, I told you how my team started with him. Here's what I left out back then: Dima came on his own. I wasn't aiming at him. I didn't even know he existed. He saw my light from Novosibirsk and reached out: interesting, tell me more.

Twenty years stand between Dima and Tatyana. The internet has become something completely different in that time. But light is still light: a person sees it from a distance and comes on their own. You just have to let people know you're there. And shine.

What's the most powerful searchlight today? Let me tell you how I do it myself.

First — a book about yourself.

When someone reads your book, it's just the two of you talking. You tell your stories, they listen. They learn your stories, see what conclusions you drew, how you acted. They see the wins, and also the failures and the weak spots. And without meaning to, they compare: "I did that too. I had failures too. And wins too."

That's exactly what you're doing right now. You've read all the way to Chapter 22 and know more about me than a lot of people who've known me for years. About the black box, the trolleybus, the mustache, the cockroaches in the dorm, the time I nearly drowned.

Almost nobody writes books anymore. Everyone thinks it's hard. I thought so too.

For years, a book was just a dream for me. I imagined I'd need someone to interview me, over and over, process it all, edit it, and write the book for me. In my own words. And I understood that wouldn't happen anytime soon. I told you about that intent in Chapter 14.

And it came true in a completely different way. Today there's artificial intelligence. I speak my stories into my phone, and an AI turns them into text. Adds the punctuation, helps pull out the meaning, rephrases here and there. But it's my voice. My stories. I read the finished chapter and I'm amazed at how beautifully it's written. And I realize: yes, that's what I said.

So writing a book isn't hard. I'm living proof.

Second — short videos.

Reels on Instagram, Shorts on YouTube, TikTok, Clips on VK. Different names, same thing.

Why these, specifically? They don't just get shown to your own followers. If you've got ten followers, or a hundred, that's not much. But when people like a video, they share it, and the platform picks it up and keeps showing it to more and more new people. People start recognizing you.

People love watching short videos. The main thing is to shoot it so there's a hook in the first few seconds and people watch to the end. And once you've got a book, you've already got your material — you just retell episodes out of it. And at the end you say: more on this in my book.

You can't say much in a short video. All you can do there is get them curious. Where someone really gets to know you is in the book.

Third — getting to know each other.

After the book, the person wants to meet you in real life. Or online, if you're in different cities. They already know you, so the conversation feels friendly from the very first minute. Like it did with Tatyana and me.

Fourth — a tour of the business.

You can offer this after the book. No pressure at all, just as a suggestion. The person's already asking on their own: so what company are you with? Maybe they're looking for somewhere to go themselves right now.

And then here's what happens.

People don't choose a company. People choose a person. If they've read your book and chosen you, they're simply curious where you work.

Remember the setting from the last chapter? They look at it themselves, with their own eyes, by their own criteria. If the setting suits them, and the diamond sparkles and they like it, they've got no questions left. They see the whole piece of jewelry at once: the stone and the setting together.

And they write to you: "I want in."

Nobody shot at anybody. One person was shining. The other walked toward the light.

And one last thing. You can hire someone to build you a website. Someone will help you with the book. Someone will shoot your videos. Everything your light travels through, other people can help you build.

But nobody can charge your battery for you. A street lamp can't drag anyone over to it. And nobody can make the bulb inside it burn, either. Only you can do that.

Here's what I understood: the archer looks for targets, but people find the light bulb on their own. Targets get hurt; people warm themselves by the light. You can learn to shoot straighter in a week; learning to shine brighter takes a lifetime. And you shine with who you've become. The book and the website just carry that light further.

What does this mean for your business?

If you're a beginner, don't be embarrassed by the cheat sheet. Read off the paper until you've got your footing, then throw it away.

Don't call people who never asked you to. Put yourself in the target's place and feel what that's like.

Go out on the street like it's training — for the courage, not for the recruits. And bring a partner along.

Stop chasing everyone down. Your light isn't for everybody, and that's fine.

Charge your battery: learn, and try things right away. Knowledge without practice doesn't shine.

Get online. If you're not there, nobody will find you.

Write your own book. Put your failures in it too. That's exactly where the reader recognizes themselves.

And let people choose you first. They'll choose the company after.

I know what you're thinking right now. Maybe even saying out loud.

"Easy for you to say. You've got thirty years of experience and two million dollars. I'm not a writer. I'm not a salesperson. Everyone's turned me down. I'm too late. I'm not like you."

I've heard those "buts" hundreds of times. And I used to say almost every one of them to myself.

The next chapter is about them.