Chicken Soup for the Network Marketer's Soul Book

Shane has recently been featured in the new Chicken Soup for
the Network Marketer's Soul Book:
 

About twelve years ago I took a look at MLM for the first time. I was intrigued by the idea of making money while helping others do the same. At first I was skeptical; it seemed too good to be true. See, I’d come from a family of traditional business owners and had been running my own traditional businesses for seven years. I was locked into that mode of thinking.
 

So I started building my MLM business slowly, as a part-time venture.

I had always been a work-first, play-second type of person. When my friends and family were out having fun, I’d be working, working, working.
 

My youngest brother Troy owned a traditional business too, but there was one major difference between him and me. He would always take the time off to enjoy life. Troy might decide, on a whim, to close his business for a week to go on vacation or take a hunting or fishing trip. I would always say, “Troy, you can’t do that. You can’t just ‘not go to work.’ You can’t operate a business like that!”
 

He would just smile and say, “I know. I just really wanted to do it. I can always make the money back later.” His logic dumbfounded me. I mean, I liked to have fun too, but I could never see myself putting leisure ahead of business.
 

As my MLM career began to gain traction, I noticed that our monthly residual income was growing every single month. This was the first time I had ever experienced getting paid on a monthly basis for something I had done in the past. What a concept: do something once and get paid for a lifetime! I started to dream that I could create permanent financial wealth for myself and my family while also freeing up lots of time to spend with my two children, Tyler and Karly, and my wife Dana. How powerful would that be?
 

I kept working my traditional businesses during the daytime and pursuing my MLM business nights and weekends. But I began to enjoy my MLM business more and more-I especially loved the “people” part of it-and my traditional businesses less and less. I couldn’t help feeling that the latter was stealing precious hours of my life in exchange for dollars, and that my family was paying the price.
 

I found myself increasingly drawn to the whole idea of residual income, but my conditioned thinking told me: “Put in the long hours or you’ll never get anywhere. It’s a pipe dream to believe you can create wealth and fully enjoy your life, your friends and your family.”

Traditional business thinking says you have to pick one or the other.

On March 8th, 1997 I received a phone call I’ll never erase from my mind. My brother Troy had been caught in an avalanche while snowmobiling. Rescue crews had not been able to locate him.
 

Within a half hour, several carloads of his family and friends were barreling toward that fateful mountain. All the way there, I kept thinking: Maybe everything will be okay, maybe he’s found a safe place to wait to be rescued.
 

When we got to the base of the mountain, nightfall had set in. The emergency staff informed us that it was too dark and dangerous to head out to the accident site. The next news they gave us was even bleaker: they would not be sending search crews out the following morning either, due to hazardous conditions.
 

This was simply unacceptable. So our family and Troy’s friends decided we would have to be the search team.
 

At the first rays of dawn, about thirty of us struck out. It was the most difficult challenge I ever faced in my life-mentally, physically and, emotionally. About two hours into the search we found Troy’s body. I remember looking at my older brother Todd and asking, with my eyes, “How could this have happened to our family? How?”
 

That day changed my life forever. It took me a long time to digest the tragedy, but what finally hit me, with crystal clarity, was this: the time we spend right now with our kids, spouses, family and friends is more precious than all the money in the world. Literally. Life is too short to exchange dollars for hours.
 

In the months following Troy’s death, I lost the ability to function physically and mentally in my traditional businesses. They stopped generating income and the debt was piling up. Fortunately, residual checks from my MLM businesses were still rolling in and they were paying my other businesses’ debts and allowing my family to survive.
 

It was at this time in my life I knew it was time for me to become a full-time network marketer and sell off my traditional businesses that owned me.
 

MLM has allowed me to rescript my family’s life and future forever. Turns out traditional business thinking is wrong.
 

I have now been in the business for an amazing twelve years and my family and I are living what can only be described as a dream life.
 

What is a dream life? It’s a life that gives you the financial resources to do and buy the things you previously only dreamed of. But more than that, much more, it’s one that gives you time to spend with the people you love.
 

Time. You can’t put a price tag on it. And, thanks to Network Marketing, I don’t have to anymore.

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