How many people leave school and think that’s it. They think “I have finished that phase of life now its time to draw the line under it.” They get a job, work hard, set up home have a family and work though to retirement. They spend most of their evenings tired out watching one box before they finally put them in another box and nail the lid on. Box to box.

Well maybe it used to work that way but those days are well and truly gone. I was brought up in that old mindset and I guess like many of my old schoolmates I could have stayed there. But I have found there is something much more exciting, constant and continual learning and the application of that learning can bring rewards the old mindset could never have asked for or even imagined.

We educated our children at home…all 8 of them. When I say we I really mean my wife Steppy who worked such wonders with little resource. I am not sure al the children have quite grasped their advantage yet but they are doing very well for the main part. What the homeschooling did for them was teach them to be resourceful, to seek out the information they needed at the time they needed it and to build the habit into them of always wanting to satisfy that curiosity. I believe it taught them more than anything else to think for themselves. The girls especially will argue with the old dinosaur they think I am on all points. I feel a bit put out sometimes but I am glad deep down that they can make their own minds up about serious issues…and we don’t have to agree about everything to be in unity and love one another. Otherwise how would we ever make progress if someone didn’t disagree with the previously accepted norms.

Thats is what I have been getting out of the Master Key MMA. I am not taking on board the views of the authors we are reading without question, I am processing them and they are making clear the reason why some things I knew by faith can actually be shown to work on a scientific basis. For instance some of the things Jesus said were not clear to me but I would accept them simply because He said them…and that was enough for me…but I have discovered things in the course that have made it more than enough.

I have had several WOW moments during the last 5 weeks when I thought, do you know, Jesus said that really clearly in John’s Gospel in this chapter and such and such a verse, He said we could not understand it at that time but when the Holy Spirit comes He would lead us into all truth. I thought WOW!  Jesus knew about all this science two thousand years ago.  Then I realised, well actually He knew a long time before that…because He set it all up that way in the first place. Some things we learn through our five senses and our powers of deduction but when He the Holy Spirit comes He really does leads us into deeper truth,  not by sense knowledge but by revelation.

In case you are wondering its not code…it stands for MasterKey Mastermind Alliance. Its a group of like minded people studying some serious self development material together. Charles Haanels’s Master Key System and Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman to start with but more important works will be added later.

35 years ago as a very raw 25 years old I started my first sales job.  It was with an electric shower company called Instalow. They gave me three days in the classroom and then threw me out with a presenter and a curtain swatch. There were a few leads knocking about but they were not for the likes of me. It was a case of knocking on doors and drumming up some business of my own. Most of my fellow trainees were gone after a week and I was sorely tempted to throw in the towel myself but I had nowhere else to go and I always was a bit stubborn so I stuck around. I sold the odd shower mainly because it was a bit of a boom time and it just about kept me afloat.

Then a new National Sales Manager called Frank Sinclair and his partner the National Sales Trainer Pat Edrich rode into town. They had a plan, which is always a good start. They hired about 50 young kids straight out of school and fed them lots of excitement and the motivational stuff that Pat was clearly devoted to.  I was instantly a senior sales person and I had to move fast to stay ahead and work loads of leads these young guys were producing. Pat had me saying “Do it now” 20 times whilst nodding vigorously and smiling. He had us saying things like.”If it is  to be it’s up to me”. and “Every day in every way I get better and better”….and “I feel happy, I feel healthy, I feel terrific”. I had no idea why…I thought he was nuts but I was enjoying the ride and the excitement so I stayed and played the game. A few weeks later I sold 5 showers on one Friday in Northwich, Cheshire. All these years later I still have proud possession of all the certificates for 4,5,6,7,8+ sales in a week. I met my wife there too, she was one of the young canvassers,  so it was a fun time that I remember fondly.

The problem was I never really understood what was going on. I didn’t get it. The stuff Pat was teaching was really deep and meaningful but I just thought it was fluff and excitement. I am still selling 35 years later and I have always earned a good living but now all the same materials are back in my life. Mark J is going through it all again in Master Keys MMA. Not similar stuff…word for word. It must have been what Pat had just discovered and was trying to teach us.  If I had grasped this back then, if I had known what powerful, scientific information this really was I can only guess how different things might have been. I have nothing to complain about and don’t think I am complaining but I know if I had had more colours on my palette and appreciated what I was being given I could be a multi millionaire right now. I could have achieved so much more.

When I tell my 16 year old twin boys, they have not got enough colours on their palettes to appreciate the things I have learned by experience they just laugh…just like I did back then. In the Greatest Salesman in the World Og Mandino says “…experience teaches thoroughly yet her course of instruction devours men’s years so the value of her lessons diminishes with the time necessary to acquire her special wisdom.

What would I do to have those years again and the wisdom to know the power of thought. Even more what would I give to have my children learn from all my life of lessons and just pick up the batten. It seems everyone wants to re-invent the wheel. Maybe its just that the young people think their elders don’t understand that times have changed. They certainly have changed… but principles never change.