It is often said that you should spend time with successful people in order to learn from them and absorb their mindset. Why does this need to be said if it provides obvious advantages? This is because you are often intimidated by successful individuals, or have the wrong perspective of their generosity and willingness to share knowledge and services. Adjusting your perspective to match more accurately to what others have in mind helps you interact more smoothly with them.
If you felt that a successful person was trying to keep you from becoming successful, you wouldn’t be motivated to work with them in order to learn from them. You would avoid spending any time with them, due to the worry that they would be focused on tearing your efforts down. This thought process leads you toward less social interaction with those that would help you the most.
The point that cancels out this possibility is that successful people are in fact successful because they don’t use up their time or energy tearing others down. A person can’t be on both sides of the fence. If you were to spend an hour trying to hurt your competition, you couldn’t use that hour building expertise working on your craft. The same is true of the people you admire, so the root of your admiration is that they stay on the fruitful side of the fence.
The next step is to not view successful people as isolated individuals that are not likely to want to interact with you. It is more likely that someone who works hard will make time to team up with you on a project or creative endeavor, because it would then be another item of effort that is already part of their routine. If you want to pitch your book idea to authors to check how they think you will fare in the current market, you want to pitch your idea to authors that are current and active. You might think that asking a less active author would be the way to go, as they would seem to have more time available, but they are less active due to their priorities being elsewhere. You want to work with the people who visibly have the priorities you value.
Based on the information from this article, are there any people who come to your mind as individuals you should contact to get a team effort started? Think about how you would benefit if you called them or sent them an e-mail. People who are in high positions due to their continuous efforts are more than likely to want to interact with you.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Armen
so true that it’s easy to get intimidated by successful people. or make up a story that they’ll never help you or want you around. stupid creatures us humans
not sure about “People who are in high positions due to their continuous efforts are more than likely to want to interact with you”
…but the whole thing – the whole thing you’re getting at is so illustrative of how we make up elaborate stories about things.
they’re just people.
they might be friendly. they might not. you can’t generalise this from their success.
but here’s the thing.
they don’t have to like you for you to learn from them. in fact, wanting them to like you will prolly make them not like you.
just learn from them. be honest and be around them. and be humble.
that’s the main thing i think. be humble.
awwwsome stuff. got me thinking
keep well and in touch
alex – unleash reality
Alex: Hello to you. You bring up a valid point about that my line there, and I would add on to it with “as long as you are bringing something of your own value to the table.” As with the person who is often thinking about something being the person not doing it, the person wanting someone else to like them doesn’t usually do the things to make them like them.
I am appreciative that you are doing good things to influence others towards more open communication habits, through leading by example.