There once was an article about a 15-year-old kid who had dreamed his whole life of becoming a football star. He loved the game and played on his high school team, but in his junior year he started getting terrible headaches during practice. His parents grew concerned and took him to see a doctor who discovered that the boy had a brain tumor. It had progressed beyond repair and the boy was told that he would only have a few short months to live.
Despite the news, he showed up for practice that day and continued to play with the same dedication he always had. When his parents shared the news with his coach, he decided that he would play the boy as the starting quarterback at their next big game.
The day of the game, a loud parent, unhappy with the boy’s performance, began yelling at the coach. “What are you doing? Get that kid out of there!” Others began chiming in with him to criticize the coach’s decision until the coach, in the middle of the game, 
walked straight up the bleachers, grabbed the parent by the scruff of the neck and said, “I don’t care if we lose this game a hundred to zero, that boy is playing in this game! He’s got six more weeks to live and he’s living his dream tonight, don’t ruin it for him.”
That parent was uninvolved and had no idea what was going on. Some of you will have parents, family members, even best friends who are going to be unhappy with your decision to start a business. They may tell you, “What are you doing? Get out of there!” They may mean well, but they’re most likely misinformed or uninvolved. As leaders, sometimes we feel like grabbing your biggest critics by the scruff of the neck and saying, “Look here, he’s got a dream thumping in his heart and a group of people who believe in him who are helping him to live that dream. Don’t ruin it, don’t steal his dream from him.”
As you build your business you will run into your share of people and situations that are going to attempt to ruin it all for you. Sometimes it’ll be because they’re uninvolved or uninformed like the loud parent at that football game; other times it’ll be intentional. And the hurt and the disappointment you feel will be very real. But don’t ever let that steal your wind – your dreams are worth it.
Let’s face it; some people are negative about almost everything. Perhaps they “tried” something and failed and consequently have a hard time believing you, or anyone else, can succeed when they didn’t. Maybe at some point they gave up on their dream and lost hope in their life so they’re incapable of being hopeful for anyone else. In the worst cases, there are people who misdirect their anger and rather than using their skills and talents to improve the quality of their life, they use them to try and take everyone else down with them.
Until recently, we’d see and hear from these people on the bathroom walls and around the rumor mill, but today there is a new medium available to them: the Internet. And just about everything on the Web, including the good, the bad, and the outright lies about people and business, are now indexed by search engines. Because of the anonymity of the Web, damaging lies are now easier to tell, and it is easier to tell them without consequence.
In some cases, there is an economic motivation by the author. Perhaps the responsible party is an affiliate, a supplier of a competitor, or the competitor itself. From www.meatstinks.com (McDonald’s) to www.homedepotsucks.com, www.walmartsucks.com, www.harvardsucks.com, ww.fordreallysucks.com, no business is immune to it. It’s just part of business and life in the information age.
There are many credible sources of facts and information available to you and your prospects to help dispel the critics like the websites www.thisbiznow.com and www.quixtarfacts.com, as well as some DVDs available directly from Quixtar®. Visit these sources to hear the other side of the story and to find out what IBOs, business executives, civic leaders, and brand experts have to say about Quixtar®. You will also discover many leading companies and brands that have chosen to affiliate themselves with Quixtar® and hear what they have to say about your business. Quixtar® is also a member of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and the Direct Selling Association (DSA).
When I was just getting started in the business, there were people who told me that it wouldn’t work, I’d never make it, I was crazy, stupid, you name it. Since I’ve built the business, they’ve stopped 
saying that I’d never make it; instead, they questioned where the income was really coming from along with my character, my motives, my teaching, and anything else that justified their decisions in life. It’s always easier for us to point the blame at someone or something other than ourselves. I’ve even had people who were once close to me, maybe because they didn’t appreciate my success, or for whatever reason they had, spread a bunch of negative junk about me.
As much as I’ve wanted everyone and everything to be the way I’d hoped they’d be, the reality of it is that life is what it is. And the only thing we have control over is our own actions and whether or not we’re going to allow those disappointments to get in the way of living our dreams and helping people. It’s your decision what you choose to focus on.