The Essential Business Skill You'll Never Learn In School
By Marty Wilson, Speaker
In school, we have it drummed into us that copying is bad. It’s called cheating. And you WILL get punished for it. But this mindset is a MASSIVE disadvantage once you’re out in the real world.
In life – copying is good.
In business – copying is great.
In times of massive change – copying, modelling or getting help from mentors – is the absolute master key to success.
Forget about self-help and move into team help.
When I was first starting in Stand Up back in ‘97, I rang James O’Loghlin, Pete Berner, Kitty Flanagan, Akmal Saleh and asked them to help me get to their level as quickly as possible. For the price of a cup of coffee I got the benefit of THEIR experience.
Adam Hills told me: “Never lose your temper at the audience. It shows you are out of control and you have to be the Alpha Male in the room.”
That one little hint must have saved 100 gigs for me over the years - especially when I was living in the UK, performing for drunken poms at the time when Australia lost the Rugby World Cup and the Ashes in space of 12 months.
It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to do:
- learn a language,
- reorganize your workplace,
- improve your tennis serve,
- set up a children’s charity,
- find a partner for life,
- handle some massive change you’re going through, there is always someone who has successfully done it before, if you just have the courage, and the humility, to ask for help.
Blindly stumbling through life making the same mistakes as all those people who have gone before you is JUST PLAIN DUMB.
Sometimes we’re reluctant to do this because we’re afraid of what the person will say. But after doing over 1,000 interviews for my What I Wish I Knew series, I’ve realized that people who have their stuff together actually love mentoring people.
Being told that you are admired and are worthy of a mentoring role is a very complimentary thing. Trust me people love it.
So, who do you admire? Who’s business success would you love to emulate? What qualities would you love to possess? And who do you know in your life that already has those qualities?
Find them, talk to them, and model them.
Every aspect of life has short cuts that only those who ahead of you can share. So swallow your pride, ask them for a coffee and get the benefit of their 20-20 hindsight.