Most children that I have asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” do not really know for sure.  As an adolescent, I remember the feelings of uncertainty regarding my future career choice.  After getting married and starting a family, I still felt uncertain about the direction I wanted to take.  Previously, I had worked in a warehouse, a machine shop, with Coca-Cola, as a landscaper and an electronic technician.  It was marvelous to look around at everyone busily doing the various jobs that make up our modern world.  In a small way I was part of this professional world.  I felt like I already had what mattered the most in life; faith in God, a wonderful wife and children.

I was happy.  Yet, on the other hand, I would often ask myself, “Is this what life is all about?”  I would look around and hear people at work say, “I sure hate Mondays . . . where did the weekend go?”  Wednesday was always called “hump day.”  As if getting through a couple days at work was an ordeal to overcome.  And of course there was the famous TGIF!!!  I would hear people greet each other with “Take it easy” or “Don’t work too hard.”  I always wondered when I put forth my best effort if anyone really noticed.  I quickly learned that some jobs were just more enjoyable than others, and also included a greater capacity for potential.  Could there be an ultimate job?

I was invited to a friend’s house in April of 1976.  I expected only a quiet dinner with our wives.  Instead, that moment became a great focal point in my life.  The visit was really an opportunity meeting and my first introduction to the wonderful world of network marketing.  J. Paul Getty said that, “I would rather have a 1% return on 100 men than a 100% return on myself.”  This idea of multiplying your efforts with a team of other people was the most powerful concept I had ever considered, and I have been consumed with this marvelous idea ever since.  At the meeting, circles were used on a blackboard to illustrate Getty’s point.  I couldn’t sleep that night.  All I could think about was how those circles duplicated and leveraged my time and effort so quickly.

I had always been willing to work hard.  Now I had a plan!  I had a road map to follow.  I was going somewhere exciting and I was going to bring a number of people with me.  At that first meeting I was given the book: The Magic of Thinking Big and a couple of audio cassette tapes.  Never before had I seen a book about “positive thinking”.  As I read through the pages, previously unknown doors opened that I didn’t know existed.  I learned that where you will be in five years depends largely on the books you read, the tapes you listen to, and the people you associate with.  Over the years that book and those two tapes have grown into a large personal library.  What a wonderful and sobering thought.  We are all creating our own lives simply by choosing what we think about.  Our life is what our thoughts make it.  Napoleon Hill said, “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, he can achieve.”  Earl Nightingale stated that, “Success is the progressive realization of a wor  thy ideal.”

What career has the most potential for the greatest number of people?  I have now been involved in network marketing for 32 years!  This business has changed my whole life!  I have been able to build a successful team of friends who in turn have literally changed the lives of thousands.  I earn an income that now exists independent of my own efforts.  I enjoy enough money and time freedom to offer my children the advantages and opportunities that any parent wants for their kids.  I wake up Monday morning or any other day absolutely enthralled about being able to go to work!  I am reassured on a daily basis that I am involved in something important.  Network Marketing and Nikken in particular is becoming the ultimate business career that this world has ever known.

At the recent Nikken MBA, we got even closer to glimpsing a future that we are creating.  The world is getting flatter, and you can get prepared through Nikken!  Doug Braun showed us a movie titled “Shift Happens!”  Very insightful!  - click this link to watch  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

Dave Johnson
Nikken Royal Ambassador