Lessons from the Rock

"Help! Help! Oh no... no... NO!"

I heard the screams of terror coming from the young woman who was hanging by her fingers, off-balance, 300 feet off the ground on a sheer cliff in Yosemite National Park. She was 15 feet in front of her last clip. To non-climbers that means that if she falls it will be the 15 feet to the clip and then another 15 feet after the clip plus another 10 feet of rope slack and stretch if her belaying partner is any good. She'll slam in to the wall after falling 40 feet. It could certainly mean her death.

Her belaying partner (the guy holding the rope at the bottom of the pitch), is trying to keep her calm, but she's not listening anymore. "Oh, No... I can't hold on any longer... I can't hold it...". Her voice is lonely and desperate. It's the sound of pure terror. I can hear in her voice that she feels like she is about to die. I start to believe it, too. My heart begins to race. Am I about to witness someone dying in front of my eyes? Why am I so helpless here? My climbing buddy whispers an unconscious prayer that only God and I could here, "Oh my God! Help her!"

I begin to pray silently for the woman I'm about to watch die on the rock. She screams her mantra one more time. This time she's crying. Crying as if she had just heard the news of her own death and had not accepted it yet. "No.. no... no...". Her fingers give way to gravity. It was the most gruesome site I had ever seen in my life. A failing body falling in slow motion until it finally slammed against the rock so hard the sound could be heard for miles. It was a sound I had never heard before. It was something I had never seen before. Her body hung motionless from a rope on the side of a 1000 foot cliff.

People who had been watching began to cry. One girl became hysterical. It was all so tragic. Then, to everyone's amazement, in just a few minutes the woman on the rope began to move. We saw that she had been knocked out, but was not dead. Relief came to me instantly as if I had seen a resurrection. As my breath back, a part of me was re-born.

We waited liked what seemed an endless time until she had been rescued from the side of the mountain. Then we wanted to go over and meet her and to check on her condition. As we walk up to where she was, we found her just sitting there. She was not saying anything to anyone. A dazed look was frozen on her face. Then, as the ambulance arrived, another miracle occured. She got up and started to walk unassisted toward the ambulance taking her to the hospital. Just as she passed by, she turned back to us, starred directly at me and said, "the rock doesn't care".

My friends and I were baffled at her mysterious statement. Then on the trip home we began to understand her wisdom and the important lesson she had shared. This lesson came from the rock.

What we learned that day hopefully is the same lesson you may be learning from your network marketing business business. Network marketing may not be as dangerous, but the lesson is just as important. The rock is the rock. It's not responsible for anything that happens to you while you climb. You may live or you may die. The rock doesn't care. It's the same for each climber. The rock doesn't care if it's raining. It doesn't care if you've had a bad day. It doesn't care if you went off your route. The rock doesn't care.

The same goes for network marketing. Your compensation plan doesn't care. It doesn't change for you if you've had a bad day. You business doesn't care if you are a man or a woman, black or white. It doesn't care about all the "stuff" that's happening in your life right now.

While you certainly are not risking death in your network marketing business, you do take a risk. You risk not getting to the top. You risk falling. You risk your time, your money, your reputation. It's not something to take lightly because you have only one person to blame if things go wrong and one person to thank if things go right. We say a lot that your success and failure is because of your team's efforts. But anyone who's made it to the top knows that their team's efforts are a result of their leadership. Someone has to go first. Just like that woman who was leading the climb. Someone has to show the people what can be done.

I heard from a friend that the woman who nearly died on that day came back 6 months later and completed it. She put a few more clips in and was a little more cautious, I'm sure. But she did what most people will not do. She finished. She took responsibility and made it to the top. She didn't blame the rock. She didn't blame her guide book. She didn't blame anyone. She knew that the rock didn't care. It was up to her to care if that route on that rock was to be conquered. And because of her passionate courage, she inspired many other people to climb rocks and take routes they've failed before.

So maybe you've had some trouble with your network marketing business. Maybe you haven't met the goals you've set out for yourself. Let me ask you a question. Are you dead? Will you quit? Or will you lead others through with the inspiration of your courage and dedication to succeed?

Climb high. Don't quit.
The rock doesn't care, so make sure that you do.

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