How do you do it? Copy successful people. I really don’t feel like beating about the bush today. The heart palpitations are yet to cease and at the moment I am feeling very assertive and to the point. Let me give you some snippets of thoughts intended to drive you to action.
If you want to guarantee success in any field of endevour-psychological, spiritual, financial, whatever, find someone who has achieved success in that field. Read their books, study them and/or talk to them and figure out:
1) What do they think and how do they think?
2) How do they spend their time? What do they do with their time?
3) What do they do with their bodies especially when engaged in the field of endevour that you are pursuing success in? (This tip is more valuable than you would think)
Back to One of My Favourite Subjects: the Media
This yet again is why I think the type of media you consume is so important. When you watch a movie or listen to a song, you see how the characters or artists think and feel about life. You see how they use their physical bodies and for an hour and a half or three minutes and x seconds you get a glimpse into how they spend their limited time on this Earth.
Autobiographies are Brilliant
The man who invented or thought of the autobiography is absolutely brilliant. For argument sake ( 😉 ) let’s say I have studied him and know what he was thinking when he invented the autobiography. I am sure he thought to himself:
You know what, I have this war I have to win/sheep I have to sheer/woman I have to woo/ job I have to get………..Rather than me struggling and taking years of trying and failing to figure out just how to do it, why not just ask someone who already does it well. Why not just sit down with the best sheep sheerer/ladies man/game winner/employed person that I can think of and ask them, “How do you do it?” Then I can take that knowledge and do what they do and chances are that I will get the success they will get.
Few Things are Constant
In this world there are very few things that 99.99% of us in this human experience share:
a) Physical bodies that are roughly similar in design.
b) Brains that are similar in the way they are constructed.
c) Time that goes on in a linear fashion and that anyone who is Westernized measures in 24 hour cycles.
That means that just like Bill Gates, you have a body, you have a brain and you have twenty four hours in a day. Don’t you think it would be worth the time to figure out how a man like Mr. Gates spends his time, uses his body and his mind. Don’t you think that would move you a little closer to living like Mr. Gates.
Now I Understand Why the Rich Hang Out With the Rich and Keep Getting Richer
There are many things I don’t particularly like about the culture of wealth. One of the things I absolutely adore is how business people think about business relationships. When successful business people (this pretty much applies to successful people in all field of endevours that I have briefly studied) are deciding who they want as friends, they think to themselves:
What type of person do I want to become? What type of life do I want to lead? What do I want in my life?
Then they make friends with people who either are on their way to becoming or are these things. This guarantees success for a number of reasons. One of them is the fact that you have examples to copy. You have successful people/ soon to be successful people around you whose thought patterns, body patterns and habits of time use you can learn from and apply to your lives. This is definitely one of the things that pushes you exponentially further along to the path of success.
What Brought this About? The Australian Government
What made me think of writing this article was a news story that I heard today about the new Australian government. These guys have hardly been in power but already they have lived up to so many of their promises:
1) One of the main things that got them in was the scrapping of workplace reforms that were instituted by the previous government. They did that.
2) They apologized to the Aboriginal community who btw, truly make you envious of the fact that you live in Africa. In my entire existence I have never seen a community that has been so psychologically damaged by occupation/colonization like the Aboriginal people of Australia.
I am not a political pundit like many of you. If any of you writes a blog post about the track record of the new Australian government please send it through. However, from what I can see, this is quite possibly the best government ever. They are not only fulfilling their promises but actually improving their country. So I thought to myself , ” If someone writes a book about Kevin Rudd, the way he’s going, I will be the first to buy.”
The Power of Mentors and Role Models
Ultimately this is what mentors and role models are all about. I guess this post was a little long winding but in short my advice to you, if you want to succeed:
Find someone who started out like you currently are, or as close to possible as you currently are, and managed to achieve success. Read their books, listen to their tapes or lectures. Write them a letter or an email and ask them how they did it. If possible get them to mentor you and guide you. If you do this, and you follow your mentor’s instructions to the letter, I see absolutely no reason why you cannot achieve his success.
Finally: Why is the Way You Use Your Body Important?
1) Emotion: For those who didn’t know, every emotion that you experience has a physical component to it. I wish I could find my psychology text book from many years ago to give you the exact definition but I do remember that the text book made it very clear that an emotion is not only a mental but a physical experience. This explains why you never see depressed mourners smiling or Grammy award winners hanging their heads and dragging their feet as they claim their award.
When you figure out how someone uses their body you get a deeper understanding of their mental states and how they feel when they are performing at a high level of success. Copying that brings you a little closer to their experience.
2) The Moves: Just like the Brazilians have the soccer moves and skills necessary to win the World Cup ( I know, it was Italy, but in my delusional heart, Brazil and France won). Leaders tend to carry themselves with a certain posture (usually a very open, head up type of posture), speak with a certain tone (usually loud and clear) and use certain gestures repeatedly. Copy their posture and you are assuming the body of a leader and complement this with the mental habits of success and you are basically galloping to the finish line.
I am feeling a little under the weather today so apologies should this post not have my usual zest. I shall rest up and come back tomorrow with double the gusto. Any thoughts, ideas or things that I have left out? Either leave a comment below or contact me.
Be blessed and bless others,
Mwangi
I agree with you to some extent though I’d like to say it differently. Learn from people who have succeeded. Personal dimensions i.e. time and place, can make it hard to imitate success. Being at the right place at the right time counts a lot.
PS. I didn’t finish reading your post because the background makes it hard to read.
Hey SSembonge,
I think it is absolutely critical that we copy their habits of time use if we are to imitate their success. As for place, though I didn’t mention it in the article, I think that we should also try as hard as possible to be in the proximity of people who will advance as forward, after all many times it’s not what you know but who you know.
I once heard luck described as when preparation meets opportunity so that’s an alternative way of looking at ‘being in the right place at the right time’ that gives us more control of the situation.
When you say difficult to read is it because the text doesn’t stick out against the brown background or what? Please be specific so I can know what needs adjusting:Was the text too small??
Have a good one bro
Mwangi,
The font size is OK. I think it’s the background. On a laptop LCD screen the contrast makes it hard to read the words against the patterned background. Try a light background like off-white or an even light brown.
Nice blog, I may add.
Thanks for the kind words bro. I have now added to the technicians to do list: make the font stick out more against the background.
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Kudos. A great piece and I agree with your points. It is worthy of note that your emphasis is on learning from the success of others, not trying to DUPLICATE their success.
Those are two different goals. Nobody will mind if an African engineer design an Operating System that works better than Microsoft Windows and Mac OS.
However, anyone trying to repackage Microsoft Windows and Calling it “Microhard Doors” will have a hard time getting any patronage.
Mentoring is the right step for any newbie in any field. It saves time, effort and resources. It often doubles growth rate. My progress in blogging is largely attributed to help from my mentors. Quite a nice article. Cheers. 😉
@Tony: I think I realized a key distinction that I didn’t see when I first engaged in this discussion. People have a strong tendency to emulate “tactics” that someone uses and employ them “out of context”
As far as I can tell it is much more important to understand the “principles” and “strategies” that guided someone’s success, and also employ their tactics but adapt tactics to your unique situation with full knowledge that the principles and the strategies are 80% of the results, whereas the tactics are ultimately just 20%
That’s why Trump can go bankrupt and come back to be a billionaire………