First Purpose

"Alright, we've covered the theory. Now for practice. Everyone up on stage."

The whole room stood up and headed for the stage. I headed for the exit.

I went outside and stood there for about half an hour. By the time I went back in, it was already over.

Remember how at the Academy I used to jump on stage first, and the trainers had to yell "Polukhin — sit!"? There was a stage here too. But that day, I bolted for the street.

I should tell you who exactly I was running from.

His name is Marik Khazin. A personal-growth trainer, one of the greatest I've ever met. I went to his trainings for about fifteen years afterward. But getting there in the first place wasn't easy at all.

I lived in Petersburg, and Marik ran his trainings in Moscow. He was a corporate trainer for our company, and my partners — mostly women — would go see him. They'd come back raving about what had happened to them there. And every time, it was the same thing: how much they loved him.

I'd look at his photo and not get it. Bald, big nose, short. What did they see in him? Why was everyone in love with the guy?

It irritated me. Honestly, it set me right off.

And underneath the irritation sat fear. I was scared to end up at one of his trainings. I thought: what if I fall in love with him too? God forbid. Picture it — a strict leader suddenly going around telling everyone he's in love with Marik. A nightmare.

Then the company took us on an incentive trip — to Greece, I think. And Marik ran a short training there, about an hour and a half. It was called "Contact Dance."

For twenty, thirty minutes he explained the theory. I made it through that part — sat in the room, listened. Then he said: everyone up on stage.

I got so scared. Here it comes. It's about to happen to me too.

So I walked outside.

When I came back, the look on everyone's faces... Pure euphoria. Everyone wired, happy. And everyone declaring their love for Marik all over again.

And I was relieved. I'd dodged it. I'd gotten out of it.

Some time passed. I was back in Petersburg and saw an announcement: the company was inviting everyone to Moscow for a training called "The Art of Communication." Led by Marik Khazin.

And my leaders, my distributors, started telling me one after another: we're going. We're going to Moscow, to Marik's training.

And that's when it hit me.

My leaders were going. What about me?

A leader is supposed to lead their team. Be out in front, even when they're scared out of their mind. If the team goes and the leader stays home, that's a bad sign. For the leader most of all.

I didn't stop being scared. But I made a decision: I was going, fear or no fear.

Scared, but going.

Moscow. A big hall, two hundred people, maybe three hundred.

Marik briefly explained what was ahead, and then said:

"Alright, let's not drag out the theory. Let's do a small exercise."

I didn't leave. I'd come to see this training through to the end.

We split into pairs. I won't describe exactly what we did — in the retelling, it's just an exercise. What was happening inside me was something else entirely.

I did it. And I didn't die.

I was alive. More than that — I felt something I'd never felt before. Even now, writing this, I get goosebumps.

In that moment, I understood the sheer power in that man. Such strength, such love, such mastery. Bald, big nose, short. And all that power.

It turned everything in my head upside down. A point of no return.

And inside, I said to myself the exact thing I'd been most afraid of:

"Marik, I love you."

Every fear I'd had came true. I fell in love with Marik, just like everyone else. Except it turned out there was nothing to be afraid of.

At the end of the training, Marik announced that in a couple of days he'd be running another one just outside Moscow. Three days, with lodging included. The title was three words: "Time, Vision, Purpose."

And it hit me like a punch. By then I'd been through a mountain of trainings with Mark and Sofia. I'd opened the jewelry box, gotten a new name. But I still didn't know my own purpose. The question "what for?" that the last chapter ended on was still hanging there, unanswered.

I went up to Marik and asked:

"Marik, what do you think — should I go to this training?"

Even though the answer was already inside me. I just wanted someone else to confirm it. I was still doubting myself.

And what else could Marik say? He'd seen me at the training.

"Of course. You absolutely need to be there."

Two days later, I was just outside Moscow.

We did two things there. First, we wrote out a vision: a detailed description of one day in our lives, five years out, as if we were filming a movie about ourselves. Then we worked out our purpose — one sentence about why you're alive and what you do for other people.

Three days of total immersion. And the second half of the flip — this time, of my whole life.

Because what I walked out with was this sentence:

"I grow personally, and I help other people grow personally, using network marketing."

Look at how it's built.

"I grow personally." Me first. Not the team, not my partners, not the company. I'd already understood that after LifeSpring: your check is a mirror of you. Until I grew, my check wasn't going to grow either.

"And I help other people grow personally." I'd already been doing that for a while. Thirty people had come with me to LifeSpring. Mark and Sofia had run a training for my team. My team went to Marik's training in Moscow before I did. I just hadn't understood that this was my thing.

"Using network marketing." That's where it clicked for me. Network marketing comes at the end of the sentence. It's not the goal — it's the tool. The way I grow and help other people grow.

Before that, I'd thought it was the other way around: the business was the main thing, and the trainings just helped it along. The sentence flipped that completely.

And this is about the diamond again. First you cut yourself, then you give light to others. If all you do is cut yourself, you end up with a beautiful stone locked in a safe. And if you try to light the way for others without cutting yourself first, you'll have nothing to light with.

Years later, I noticed something about this story.

Marik gave me the method. Marik said, "Of course, go." But the answer was already inside me before I ever walked up to ask him the question. I didn't receive that sentence — I worked it out. It was lying inside me, like the stones in that jewelry box. The training just helped me pull it out.

And I realized something else — where that sentence had been waiting for me all along. Right behind the same door I'd once walked out of, onto the street.

Here's what I understood then: the thing you're running from is often exactly the door to your next step. Fear doesn't always mean "don't go." Sometimes it means "this way."

I never actually stopped being scared. I just went anyway, fear and all. And found my "what for" right behind it.

And once you have your "what for," trainings stop being a collection. I've been through more than a hundred of them. Without that sentence, it would've been a shelf full of diplomas. With it, it became a path.

I went back to "Time, Vision, Purpose" two more times after that.

The third time, I didn't go alone. Natasha was with me. And something happened there that's still hard to believe.

But first, I need to tell you who Natasha is, and what she showed me.