…on “How come I can’t say it’s for everybody…”
(Of course people do say that, but to no avail.)
When you’ve benefitted from something you’re selling – a product, a business, a way of life, a set of religious beliefs, it’s natural to think everyone will, or should want it too. So off you go trying to save the world. But soon we’re back, exasperated: “I thought everyone would want this.”
Welcome to the urge to convert: the most natural tendency in the world when we’re trying to sell something from products to religion. But from the point of view of the heathen out there, er, everyone else out there who’s not part of our particular group, AKA consumers), this attitude is not a good thing.
You have discovered this, yes?
Marketers and sales people are not usually welcome guests. Think the nationally legislated Do Not Call List. Have you signed up for it?
Nearly 120 million people (!) have, and with that, they’re telling sales people: Please don’t call us selling your thing. We don’t want to be bothered.
The Buddha knew that. But more important, he knew this: that those who experienced his teachings for themselves, would make his best representatives.
So even after he had experienced his great enlightenment, he didn’t tell the people that he had found the way or that his teachings were the best out there. Nor did he tell them that they all should follow him. Despite his life changing experience after 7 years of seeking.
Instead, he told his listeners NOT to believe him, NOT to take his word for it. He insisted his followers test and experience his teachings for themselves, first, and THEN decide.
“Oh monks, just like examining gold in order to know its quality, you should put my words to the test.” -Blessings of the Wind, T. Wise.
Imagine marketers saying that today. (!!) Much less insisting on it like the Buddha did.
The Buddha, using this approach, has been loved and cherished for 2500 years. Those who carry on and spread the word do so because they’ve experienced something with his teachings, personally. And they tell authentic stories about their own transfomations, big or small. They delight in the idea that you too, might feel such a good thing.
It’s a wonderful example of the power and staying power of personal experience and belief, over the shouting and screaming of marketers who tell us their thing is the latest greatest and a ‘must have’ for everyone. Yeah right. They may want us to think so, because they benefit when we buy. But do we?
Maybe sunday is an appropriate time to wrap a constructive (although more than a little off-topic) point in a mischievous tone…
>when you’re selling… a product… a set of religious beliefs, it’s natural to think everyone will, or should want it too.
Is it? Or is that a characteristic more common in specific religions?
‘What’s god got to do with it?’… I know of no other industry in which religious ‘faith’ plays such a large part – and the culprit is Christianity.
Doubt me? Then consider (just as an example – there are others) the role of ‘above’ in Mannatech… at corporate and distributor level we don’t have to travel far to trip across stuff like ‘The Lord built Mannatech around an amazing discovery given through prayer’ and ‘Mannatech was established when the founders knelt with family members gave themselves to the Lord.’
In an effort to foster the suggestion of ‘please make wise business decisions’… perhaps we need a counter to the ‘I’m on a mission from above’ nonsense by which many conduct their enterprise.
And… have you ever encountered someone proclaiming ‘Buddha told me to sell discounted utilities?
Bottom line: that whole schtick of ‘I prayed and he answered… the lord told me’ surely switches off more than it turns on… it may have been fine for Johnny Cash, but in as a method to shift NM product it just ain’t cuttin’ it.
With his ‘Hello, I’m Johnny Cash’ intro… ‘the JC in Black’ introduces himself with sensible understatement – the opposite of that ‘shouting and screaming of marketers’ thing.
And didn’t ‘the other JC’ just strap-on a pair of sandals and quietly get on with doing good stuff with an absence of hoopla?
gulliver, I think you missed the whole point. The issue here is not what Christianity does or what Buddha does.
The attitude of ‘I have found the greatest and the best so you must have/need it’ is the point.
If your fellow associates or management say something about their faith and that ticks you off, then take it up with them.
My rejoinder to anonymous is simply: ‘Didn’t miss anything’… re-read line one of my comment.