Dangers of Following the Crowd – A Lesson From Jonestown!
Last week i watched on TV about the incredibly sad Jonestown massacre. This was an American cult led by Jim Jones and it became internationally notorious when, on November 18, 1978, 909 “members” died in Jonestown, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning, in an event termed “revolutionary suicide” by Jones and some members on an audio tape of the event and in prior discussions.
To the extent the actions in Jonestown were viewed as a mass suicide, it is the largest such event in modern history and resulted in the largest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the events of September 11, 2001.
This really made me think about how we as humans often NEED someone or something to grab onto.
This is by no means bad… I really believe that it is a perfectly normal human nature to want to believe in something and belong to something bigger then ourselves.
In my legendary (in my mind anyway) way of thinking and explaining things out, I ask that you just please bear with me here and yes this is eventually getting to a big point of running your business.
- Were people fools for wanting something “bigger” to have hope in?
- Were people fools for wanting to see what this “Jim Jones” was talking about?
ABSOLUTELY NOT… in my opinion anyway.
What i personally think was foolish however was blindly giving up on everything else, without proving it to yourself
When i listened to the interviews with the followers, I had to ask myself…
“Did this really fit into what they knew was right… or were they just blindly following someone else?”
In any of my membership sites, I always make a couple things clear…
1. “Do NOT listen to theory mongers”.
If you are giving them money and they are not willing to show you real life proof that is recent, well then how can you trust them? I always do real life live examples in my training to show people exactly what i am doing, that i am actually doing it and that it works. I know 100% for certain of a couple very popular products that did well on clickbank and were 100% theory and not from actual results the supposed authors claimed. One of them even tried to claim traffic results from the product itself but was actually based off of a former product launch that got a massive spike in traffic from his buddies emailing their list. Do not worry i have never and never will recommend or promote their products!
2. “Make it YOUR plan”.
What i mean by that is use what I teach you as a launching pad… do not just solely rely on what i teach as the end all be all. Figure out what works for you and fit it into your business model… if it all fits, that is GREAT… but if only parts of it fit or even none of it fits… well that’s great too… as long as you are basing it on your own proven results.
Did you catch that last point there… “as long as you are basing it on your own proven results.”
I remember last year, a member of one of my sites arguing with me about a strategy I recommended and how he did not want to implement it because he read an email from someone. First of all the email he referenced was 100% bullcrap (in my opinion) totally just trying to scare the person so they would buy their product. This however was not what bothered me so much as to the reason he gave for making the decision. It was because someone he trusted, recommended he check out a free report… from someone else who he never listened to before or has seen results from before.
So… what this came down to was even though I was openly showing real life proof of what i was recommending the person do and that it really worked… the person still went blindly in a different direction because (without proof) someone told him something that convinced him to give up on everything else and invest in him instead… without any real life proof!
So back to the two questions…
- Was he a fool for wanting something “bigger” to have hope in?
- Was he a fool for wanting to see what this “Supposed Expert” was talking about?
ABSOLUTELY NOT!
But ABSOLUTELY YES for blindly giving up on what he could see with his own eyes was working!
If you can get one single thing from this post… i hope it is this.
BE CAREFUL! If someone is telling you something and is not willing to show you real life proof (that is their own and not someone else’s) but still wants you to risk giving them money… are they really trustworthy?
Do not just follow the pack…
LEARN + IMPLEMENT + TEST –> then if it works, do not just give up on everything else… fit it into your business model and move forward!
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