A few months ago, I was asked by a company to speak on the question of how to find meaning in work. "Great," I thought, "a company that thinks about important questions!" Then came the rejection, with a surprising explanation: They couldn't hire me because I was "also active in network marketing." Recently, someone asked me in an indignant tone: "Why can you actually do something like that?". By "something like that", the questioner meant that network marketing is one of my many activities. But I've also had people from the network not take me seriously or even insult me: "How can you do anything other than the network? You're betraying us!"

I'm currently looking into this topic because I'm starting to work more intensively in the network again and I keep getting asked whether I do this as a side job, so to speak, alongside all my other activities, and how I can manage it. People who didn't know this part of my work before also ask me whether I'm sure I can do "something like that".

Systems are neutral!

First of all, I would like to make it clear that the systems themselves are neutral, regardless of whether they are a bank, a government or a network company. You can use a knife to butter a sandwich, kill people or save lives. How the knife is used is decided by the person holding it. In the same way, people decide how to fill the systems in which they operate with content.

A bank in itself is a neutral system, and there are banks that do an enormous amount of good for people and humanity, and there are banks that have inglorious histories. But this is not due to the banks, but to the people who fill the "bank" system with intention and content. It is the same with a network company: It's not the system, but the content that counts. And it is the way in which people express the content with their personal intention that counts.

Sure, there are investment bankers who betray their souls just to make money. There may also be poor mendicant monks who we just assume are living their purpose, but who knows what their real intention, their real story is? If I hold the door open for someone, how is someone else - from the outside - supposed to know whether I'm doing it out of genuine kindness and helpfulness or whether I'm just trying to suck up?

The Arbinger pyramid

You may be familiar with the Arbinger pyramid, a simple model that helps explain why some things work well in a company and others do not. We often use it in management consulting:

One example: Companies often try to motivate their employees to do different or better work with bonus payments. But what if it doesn't work? With the help of the Arbinger model, we ask: Can these people even deliver these performances? Has enough training been provided?

If we then look at the training level and offer suitable training to teach employees new skills, and there is still no success, we continue to ask: What is the relationship in the teams, in the company, the organization, the community? And that brings us a little closer to the issue.

Imagine a soccer team training, training, training, but the team spirit is not there. Everyone realizes that the performance can't be good then. But even if you manage to build a team, it may still not work out. We move down one level in the pyramid towards the foundation: what are our relationships with the outside world like? To the world "out of the box"?

And then we often find that there are deep-seated boundaries: "If they don't belong to us, they're bad!" or "If they don't fully belong to us, they don't belong to us at all!"

This explains what I luridly described above as professional racism as a human trait that probably dates back to the Stone Age: "If you don't belong to us, we don't trust you." This may have been important in the Stone Age, when tribes fought each other with clubs, but today? Nonsense.

Many hats, one purpose

I myself am committed to the Winspiration Association and to increasing public awareness of the Human Development Index. Governments should not measure the prosperity of their countries by how many bills have been written and paid, but by aspects such as education and happiness. (See also my forthcoming new book).

I am involved in network marketing because the company - Nikken - has good products that can be helpful for health, and because with Humans Being More it represents a philosophy that says that we humans can and should make more of ourselves.

And I am committed to Win-Win AG as a consulting company because its products, such as Brain Trust® Mentoring or the coaching and consulting training courses, are based on the fundamental idea of Purpose-Driven Profit.

You can see the similarities between these three "hats" that I wear: the aim is for us companies and individuals to create a meaningful, purpose-based life.

It's not about the surface, but about the intention behind it. Remember the example above with the door held open: the system of an association, or a network company, or a management consultancy is neutral. Our content for everything is the purpose that each person can find in it. We support people in coming into their power and not only finding their purpose, but above all living it.

All are welcome

Everyone is welcome to join the Winspiration Association, either on their own or as a supporting member; to use the products in the network as a customer or to participate as a partner; to take part in mentoring and training at Win-Win AG as a life entrepreneur and to become part of the community.

In all these areas, our aim is to support people in achieving Purpose-Driven Profit: to realize themselves in an optimal economic situation, to live from the inside out and not the other way around. The same applies to myself, and because I have made this my mission, I can be active in all three areas.

I am therefore grateful for the criticism with which this text began, because it makes me want to find out how we can improve our external image in order to make our intention, our abilities and the possibilities for support even more clearly visible.

We hope you all have a wonderful, purposeful time!

Yours sincerely
Wolfgang Sonnenburg