Easy for You to Say

It was 1993. A dental clinic on Nevsky Prospekt, the head doctor's office. Viktor draws a little circle on a sheet of paper and says, "This is you."

Underneath it, he draws three more circles. "And these are three people you'll tell about the product."

And in my head, right away, one after another, came three "buts."

I'm not a salesperson.

I don't know how to talk to people.

I don't have any contacts.

All three were true. I didn't know how to sell, and I was afraid to. I was afraid to speak in front of people too. And I didn't have many contacts. I made a list later, and it had five people on it. Five. They ran out in no time.

If someone had asked me that day whether this guy was going to make it in network marketing, I'd have been the first to say no.

At the end of the last chapter, I guessed what you were thinking: "Easy for you to say. You've got thirty years of experience and two million dollars."

Well. When those circles were being drawn for me, I had no experience, no money, no contacts. I had three "buts" in my head. Probably the exact same ones you have right now.

Then Viktor drew a second row. Under each of the three circles, three more. Nine people. And he explained: I wouldn't be the one telling those nine. The three would. I didn't need to find them, talk them into anything, or sell them anything.

All I needed to find was three.

That's when it clicked for me. I told myself: "Well, I can probably manage to tell three people somehow. I don't know how — but I'll learn."

My "buts" didn't go anywhere. I didn't defeat them or argue them down. I just added two words to them: I'll learn. Today I'd put it differently, in Vera's words from Chapter 17. I didn't change myself. I added myself a new option to choose from.

Now let's go through your "buts." All of them, every one I've heard in thirty years. I said almost every single one of them to myself at some point too.

"I'm not a salesperson"

I wasn't one either.

Before network marketing, I used to solder caller-ID phones and sell them myself at the market. I didn't like it. I was afraid to sell. Sometimes those phones just got taken from me, and it was scary and painful. I had my own business, but honestly, I didn't own the business — the business owned me.

That's exactly why those circles hooked me. There was no selling involved. People buy the product from the company, for themselves. All I had to do was tell them about it. Selling and telling are two very different things.

And in the last chapter, you saw you don't even have to go first. You can shine, and people come to you on their own.

"I don't know how to talk to people"

I didn't either.

For the first two days, I read the script into the phone in a shaky voice. A few years went by, and at a training at the Academy of Leadership, the trainers would yell at me: "Polukhin — sit!" Because I kept jumping onto the stage first, and there was suddenly too much of me.

And this book, I'm talking it into my phone.

You learn to talk. First from a script, then without one.

"I don't have any contacts"

Five people on the list. All five said no.

Then I found people through newspaper ads. Ten years later, through a website. Today, through the internet, and through this book.

Everyone's contact list runs out eventually. People never do.

"Everyone said no. My family tells me to drop it"

Remember my birthday from Chapter 3? Nine days after my first contract, right there at the celebration table, I gave my first presentation. My relatives laughed me out of the room.

You might ask: and later? Once the checks started coming, once there was that first million — did their attitude change?

No. It didn't.

I took the simpler route. Instead of changing my relatives' attitude, I replaced my relatives. With a different set — ones who have a normal attitude toward network marketing. That's my new family now: my wife and her relatives.

So there — I've cracked open the door to something personal. I barely talk about my private life in this book. The book has a different job to do.

My advice is simple. Don't spend years trying to win your family over. Sometimes they'll never believe you. Find the people who do. A mentor, a team, people you don't have to justify yourself to. At Happy People Network, that's exactly how we put it about ourselves: one big, strong family.

"I'm too late"

I said that one too. In 2004, when I joined Morinda.

The company had already been in Russia for a year. The top leaders were already in place. That ship has sailed, I thought. I'd never be first here. And for a few weeks, I was in a slump.

Then I told myself, in the present tense: "I am number one in Russia." A year after I joined Morinda, I was number one in Russia by check size. I told you all about this in Chapter 15.

You can miss the boat. You can't miss your own life.

"I'm already fifty. Sixty. Too late to start"

When people tell me this, here's how I answer.

It feels that way to you because somewhere inside, you've programmed yourself to die at eighty. In that case, sure, it's too late to start. Or maybe it wasn't even you who programmed it. Maybe somebody else put it there.

And here's a hypothesis of mine. You've probably heard this one going around these days. In a few more years, artificial intelligence will be running at full power and will find ways to extend life and reverse aging. And people might live to a hundred and twenty, a hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred years. At that point, fifty or sixty is practically adolescence.

That's still just a hypothesis. But look at what's already happened right in front of me.

For years I dreamed about a book and couldn't figure out who would write it for me. I pictured someone interviewing me for ages and then writing it all up in my own words. I barely believed it would happen. And today, I talk my stories into my phone, and an AI turns them into chapters. You're reading Chapter 23 right now. Five years ago, nobody would have even imagined this.

We don't know what's coming tomorrow. We can only guess. So why bury yourself ahead of time?

"No money to start. No time"

These two "buts" are the ones I hear most. Thirty years running.

Usually it's the person working a salaried job who says it. Staying late, earning peanuts, barely making ends meet. Where would they get the money or the time?

To people like that, I just say: "Congratulations. Yes, you've got no money and no time. And it's not going to work out for you, because that's what you've decided. That's your choice. I'm not going to argue with you."

With an entrepreneur, I ask a question instead. Has there ever been a time in your life when you suddenly had to buy something, right now, and you had no money? How did you make it work?

And they always remember. They came up with something, found it somewhere, made a deal with someone. An entrepreneur always finds the money when they really need it.

Think of your own moment like that too.

And time is where it gets even more interesting. An entrepreneur has no free time at all. Everything's booked: tasks, meetings, negotiations. But they know their own schedule. So they can shift this, move that, and carve out an hour or two for their network marketing business.

Someone on salary, meanwhile, actually does have free time. They come home from work and rest. The only thing is, they find it hardest of anyone to organize themselves. They're used to doing nothing after work.

But don't rush to file yourself under "employee" and close the book.

An entrepreneur isn't a job title. It's a stance you choose. Someone on a salary who spends their evening looking for an hour to put into their own thing is already an entrepreneur. And a business owner who says "I have no time" is, in that moment, thinking like an employee.

Plenty of people in network marketing just buy the product for themselves, and that's fine. But it's entrepreneurs who build the business here. Which stance you pick is up to you.

"Everybody in MLM is a scammer"

I won't lie: there's manipulation in network marketing. I've fallen for it myself.

At Herbalife, I borrowed money to buy myself a qualification, and I nearly ended up without a roof over my head. That was Chapter 17. And years later, I followed someone I trusted into an investment company and paid for the experience in cash. That was Chapter 21.

Let me tell you about one more manipulation. A classic of the genre — you've probably seen it yourself.

A sponsor announces a promotion. Meet the requirements, get a gift. And the real masterstroke is a raffle. One gift, raffled off among everyone who met the requirements.

A hundred people met them. One got the gift. Ninety-nine walked away with nothing.

So what was the point of all that effort? If you're going to announce a promotion, give the gift to everyone who earned it.

But even when everyone gets a gift, there's still another question worth asking: who actually needs this promotion?

Usually, the sponsor. They're short on volume to hit a new qualification. So they hand over some of their own money for gifts, to get people doing more. And people never meant to do more in the first place. Everyone had their own pace. Some just wanted to work quietly through the internet, through content, shining like in the last chapter.

And then the sponsor starts pumping them up: "Come on, come on!" And the person gets thrown off their own pace. Overdoes it. Picks up a bow and starts shooting at targets. And sometimes they start pressuring other people too.

I don't like promotions like that. It's deliberate manipulation. And the person being manipulated usually doesn't even notice.

Now you know. And you'll notice.

There's another side to this too. In Chapter 21, I told you how I branded a company a pyramid scheme myself, without even looking inside. That was MWR Life, the company I work at now. Slapped on the standard label, and that was that.

So "everybody in MLM is a scammer" is just as much a label as "everybody here is honest." Some people scam, some don't. You'll have to check for yourself.

"I'm not like you"

True. You're not. And you don't need to be.

That day in the clinic, I didn't become a different person. The shy guy stayed exactly where he was. I just gave him one more option: tell three people.

And in Chapter 6, I told you that every person has a jewelry box of diamonds inside them. The rough diamonds inside you are yours, not mine. No need to copy me. You're the one who'll do the cutting.

"I've got nothing to tell. I don't have anything of value"

I hear this one constantly. No results. No big organization, no big check. Nothing exciting happening in my life. What would I even hook people with on social media?

And the person stays quiet for years. Never says a word about themselves, stays invisible. And then wonders why they "don't have people."

Remember the light bulb from the last chapter? If you've decided you've got nothing to shine with, you just never switch it on.

But there's plenty to shine with. You've got you. Your wins and your failures. The lessons life has taught you. Your values, your knowledge. People find that interesting — trust me.

The trouble is, you can't see it from the inside. A person stays caught up in the daily grind and doesn't notice what they've actually got.

To see all of it, you have to pull it out of yourself. That kind of work is called unpacking. You get asked questions, lots of them, and you answer.

In the old days, people filled out a long questionnaire for this. Slow and boring. People kept their answers short because nobody wants to write a lot. And what to do with those answers afterward was never clear.

Today, artificial intelligence asks the questions. And you answer out loud, like you're talking to a friend.

I went through this kind of unpacking myself. Answered out loud, question after question. And I often noticed: while I was talking, I started understanding things I'd never seen before.

On one question, the goosebumps hit so hard I had to stop. I suddenly saw something simple. I've been telling people stories my whole life. Someone asks me something, and instead of advice, I tell a real-life story. Mine, or one of my partners'.

There it was — my value. It had been with me the whole time. I just hadn't noticed it.

This very book grew out of unpacking sessions like that one.

And then artificial intelligence gathers your answers into a single document. Out of it come posts, short videos, even a book. About you, in your own words.

So "I've got nothing to tell" is a label too. You just haven't looked inside your own jewelry box yet.

"I'm not a writer"

Neither am I. I talked this whole book out loud. You already know how that works from the last chapter.

When partners came to me with their own "buts," I always gave them the same answer. Half joking, half dead serious:

"Of course it's not going to work out for you. That's what you decided, after all."

Because everything turns out exactly the way you decide it will. Decide it'll work, and it works. Tell yourself "it won't work out for me," and it won't. It's really that simple.

Remember how I got called a black box back in seventh grade? Someone stuck that label on me once, and I wore it for years.

It's the same with objections. "Not a salesperson," "too old," "no time," "too late." These are labels on the lid of the jewelry box. Except nobody stuck these particular labels on you. You put them there yourself.

Here's what I understood: an objection is a label a person sticks on themselves. It locks the jewelry box tighter than any padlock. And it can only be taken off from the inside.

What does this mean for your business?

When a partner tells you their "but," don't argue with it. Agree: "Of course it won't work out, since that's what you've decided." Let them hear themselves from the outside.

Instead of arguments, tell your own story. How you were scared, didn't have the skills, didn't know a thing. It's hard to argue with a story. It's easy to recognize yourself in one.

Ask the entrepreneur about the time they needed money fast. They'll find the answer themselves.

Don't spend years trying to win your family over. Find your own people.

Before you throw yourself into a promotion, ask yourself: who actually needs this? Me, or my sponsor?

If it feels like you've got nothing to tell, go through an unpacking. You'll be amazed how much is in there.

And don't bury yourself ahead of time. Not at thirty, not at sixty.

Now take another look at your list. Or at all the "buts" from this chapter.

"I'm not a salesperson." "I don't know how to talk to people." "I don't have any contacts." "I'm too late." "I'm too old." "I've got nothing to tell." "I'm not like you."

Did you notice which word almost every single "but" starts with?

I didn't notice it myself for a long time. Not until years later. And I realized that word had been right in front of my eyes the whole time. Just like the secret of the black box.

That's what the next chapter is about.