My Flame Burned Out

This is dedicated to Sarah.


I turned my heat on today for the first time this Winter.
It's funny really. In my house, its like we have this game every year. I go as long as possible without turning the heat on. That is until of course my wife and son can't take it anymore in the house without it and they finally say- "That's it Dad. Give it up. You have to turn it on! So I know we've reached the point when its time.

Just like every other year, I got up off the couch and went to the thermostat. I slid the lever over to the "Heat On" position, and proceeded to set the desired temperature. Only this time unlike every other year, my wife called out to me from the other room "There's cold air coming out of the register!" I went over to where she was and she was right. Cold air. (I believed her.) Really. I just needed to verify that she wasn't suffering from a poor hand circulation condition or something.

I went down to the basement where the furnace lives and took the sheet metal cover off the side. I saw the blower there looking me in the face while hard at work. No problem there. I then took a quick glance at the filter. Nice and clean. Nothing wrong there. I then leaned in to look at the pilot flame. Bingo! There was no flame.

I then proceeded to follow the instructions for re-lighting the pilot. I shut off the main gas supply valve, turned the pilot valve to the "OFF" position, and turned the thermostat setting all the way down to the lowest setting. I waited a couple of minutes till I was sure all of the residual gas fumes had dissipated. I then turned the gas valve back on, put the pilot valve in the "Pilot Light" position, lit the pilot, turned the valve to the "On" position and set the thermostat back to the desired temperature setting. A little while later, Presto! Nice warm house.

Once this job was done, I needed a nap. Just kidding. Once this job was done, I started to reflect back on the whole process and noticed several similarities between the pilot in my furnace going out, and the pilot in some people's Network Marketing business going out.

When someone first turned us onto our Network Marketing business, we were shown the possibility and the vehicle to create wealth beyond anything we ever experienced, or in most cases, ever imagined for ourselves. Someone lit our pilot.

Once are pilot was lit, we were told to not be discouraged by the nay sayers and people who would have us believe that our new business is a pyramid scheme, ponsie scheme, or worse. We were taught to filter the fuel we would allow into our system.

We were also told to attend business meetings frequently, get on all of the training calls, read good motivational books, and listen to good tapes to make sure we were filling our lines and our minds with a good constant supply of clean, high octane fuel.

We were taught to set our thermostats for our desired results by setting long term goals. We were also told to keep our blower running and to perform the proper activities daily to help us propel our business forward.

What happens next is really a pretty common theme with most Network Marketers somewhere witin the first year of business. The pilot light gets smaller and smaller. For some it eventually goes out. Never to be lit again. So what happens to cause this? It could be a couple of different things.

For some it could be that they didn't believe that the bad, cheap, negative fuel of family and friends trying to discourage them from pursuing their dreams would clog up the filter and stop good clean oxygen from keeping the flame ignited.

For others, they may not have kept the blower running long enough by doing the daily business activities that always eventually delivers the warmth of the flame to all the registers of our lives.

Whatever the reason, did you properly troubleshoot the reason your light was dying and bring it back, or did you just let it burn out only to kill off whatever heat and energy you had generated to that point? Don't let your flame die. Keep your system running long enough to enjoy the heat of the fire of your desired setting. It takes a little while to heat a house and a life. Be patient. AS long as you keep your flame lit, it will come.