The American Declaration of Independence asserts that we are all created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, including Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

According to the late Elliot Jacques, a pioneering Canadian researcher in organizational development (perhaps best known for having coined the term mid-life crisis), we are also each endowed with a distinct, fixed capacity for complex thinking—what he termed cognitive complexity—and in this specific aspect we are perhaps not created all that equally.

I write about this in an editorial in the July issue of Networking Times, which just hit the stands (Barnes & Noble, etc.). (You can read the journal’s editorials for free on their web site, www.networkingtimes.com, just by registering.) Here’s an excerpt from that piece:

“According to Dr. Jacques, one’s innate capacity for cognitive complexity is revealed by how far into the future one can project. Most people, said the research, can envision up to two or three months ahead, beyond which the horizon of their imagination dims and fades. A smaller group falls out at one year, a still smaller group at two, then five . . . and only a tiny minority have the inborn capacity to picture a decade or more into the future. We have a term for that tiny minority: leaders.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence and Framers of the American Constitution clearly had the goods, in the cognitive complexity department. And chances are (since you’re reading this blog), so do you: having any level of keen interest in the entrepreneurial business of network marketing, it seems to me, takes a pretty decent dose of the capacity to project into the future.

Here’s the problem: you can’t do this one alone. You’ve got to bring others with you. Do they have the horizon of imagination as you? Often, not.

One of the most common prospecting pitches I’ve heard people teach in this business goes something like this: “If you could see what I see about this business, nothing would stop you from getting involved in it. . .”

All well and good . . . except for that pesky little word, if. Because in many cases, that other person doesn’t see what you see—and can’t.

Back to my article:

“The rewards ahead are stunning. But who can see that far down the road? You can. And they can see you. Others may not see the destination as clearly as you do—but they can see you. And seeing your belief, your firm grasp of where this is leading, is sometimes enough.”

Happy Fourth!