🎯Goals aren’t for everyone

What my MLM failure taught me about unconventional pathways to success.

Ok. Let me clarify. Goal setting the way our culture does it is not for everyone.

I’ll tell you a story about something that happened to me that illustrates my point.

My parents were distributors for a multilevel marketing company for 25 years. Just in case y’all didn’t know, NO one is involved with the same MLM company for 25 years. That means from the time I was 12-27, I listened to tapes on their “5x5 plan.”  The 5x5 was a set of goals neatly wrapped and tied up in a bow.

This plan said all my family needed to do was get 5 people doing 5k of business a month who also have 5 people doing 5k a month, and we’d be making 5 million a year in 5 years. 

The most important thing was to believe it. If we could feel it, like….REALLY believe it; others would believe it too, and we’d get rich.

When I left college, I attended a big event where Ralph Oats, the founder, spoke on the 5x5. He told us to share our goals publicly. That would make us more committed to them. 

I give you Ralph Oats: The man who should have invented oat milk but started an MLM instead

I had grown up seeing this man as a cult-like religious figure. You did what Ralph told you to do if you wanted to be financially independent.

So naturally, I booted up my laptop, posted the 5x5 on social media, and tagged all of my friends in it.

Everyone in this photo is now a millionaire. JK. The company shut down 2 years later.

One month and a few dozen sales presentations later, I had 0 people doing 0 business in my network. 

I was publicly humiliated.

I felt a cavernous sense of shame and proceeded to self-combust. I lost several friends over this. I lost a budding relationship. I even became homeless for about six months, but that’s a story for another time.

The 5x5 plan worked for Ralph. It worked for other apparent iron-willed builders with a touch of narcissism. Why not me?

It didn’t work for me because I’m an ENFP, meaning I am not built for linear, analytical approaches to success. I’m designed to probe the world around me with feeling and intuition and respond to the opportunities reality presents. 

Another way to say this is that I’m sensitive. I’m sensitive to what others want, how they feel, what they think, and why. I feel everything deeply.

The crazy thing about it is that when I’m not “shoulding” all over myself and beating myself up for not being like other people, it actually works for me.

I know this because 2014-2019, I built a million-dollar business and a community of 5000 Catholic creators, without setting a single goal for myself. 

But then I get into these funks where I think I’m supposed to be an INTJ, ENTJ, or some other analytical type (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates). I think that I need to be a hard-charging visionary who gives no shits about your feelings because feelings slow people down. 

I think I’m supposed to be this guy:

In Dec of 2019, I had one of these unfortunate moments and decided to once again set goals.

By 2020, Sherwood Fellows will have two offices, one in DFW and the other in Detroit. Our team would double in size. We would 10x what we brought in through our Catholic Creatives initiatives last year…etc.

And then COVID happened.

My business went from 1M in revenue to 300k in revenue over 6 months. 

• I let go of the whole team

• I sold Catholic Creatives (whether this was a win or a fail depends on my dopamine levels at any given time)

• I moved my family out of our dream house to live with my parents' for the next 3 years

• I tortured myself until I just about had a mental breakdown

I’m rebuilding now. Next month will be my first 25k month since 2019. I don’t know if my company will work out. I don’t know what 2024 will bring.

I do know that I have a habit of flaying myself for “failing” that I’d better take into consideration this time.

Scott Adams’ book “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.” helped me to understand this dynamic in myself and gave me the tools to deal with it.

“Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous presuccess failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do.”

Because I’m an intuitive feeler, I feel this dynamic more profoundly than analytical types. It’s not a big deal, I need a system that takes this into account.

That doesn’t mean no goals, but instead focusing on habits that I have direct control over and will improve my life no matter what happens in the world.

So with that in mind here’s what I’m committing to this year:

• Saying no to everything that’s not important.

• Checking my bank account every morning

• Affirming myself and making a gratitude list every morning

• Planning my month and week ahead of time

• Reviewing the day and the week at their end

• Writing/podcasting once a week

Because I believe that these practices will 

• Keep me focused on what’s most important

• Will help me stay grounded in reality

• Will help me believe in myself

• Will help me grow a little bit every day

• Will help me play and explore the world as myself

If I can do these things, my finances and relationships will care for themselves.

And no, I’m not publicly sharing my yearly goals; that’s for God, my wife, and my team. 

So take this as permission to set goals and habits in a way that’s useful for YOU; that considers your past, your personality, and your values.

Don’t try to be everyone else. Be you.

Ubi Spiritus Domini Ibi Libertas,

Marcellino D’Ambrosio