The Top 10 Things I Learned in 2009
// December 31st, 2009 // View Comments // Uncategorized
Well folks, another great year has come to an end and it would be all for nothing if we don’t take a moment and consider what we learned, how we grew, and how we will grow because of it. For this reason I am compiling a list of the Top 10 Things I learned this past year.
- Social Media is like a Steroid: Social Media is a great accelerator, regardless of you being a good or a bad networker it will speed up your results, as such either a lot more people will know like and trust you, or a lot more people will wish they never met you and want nothing to do with you.
- Application is Key: It is one thing to learn a whole bunch of cool tips, but it’s an entirely other thing to actually apply them. Without application you will never truly learn your craft, you will simply be a collector of facts without a clue of how they apply to your life and which facts you are more adept to work with.
- “Collaboration Kills Competition”: Working with UnStrapped.com and being in Social Media Altitude taught me this one. When you work in a group of like minded people looking to achieve a similar end result you are far more likely to outperform and crush your competition. Working alone limits your to your own ingenuity and limits your ability to achieve maximum results.
- Punctuality is Next to Godliness: Something I’m still having trouble with myself but have learned first hand is to always be 5 minutes early, and ready to go when class is in session, the meeting starts, or the phone rings. If you are not ready to meet your opportunities you are not likely to ever receive them, you will burn bridges which are harder to mend and you will loose the respect of your friends, family, and clients. Believe me, you don’t want to drop the ball.
- Implementing Plans is Key: You can plan the rest of your life all year and never achieve success if you never take the first step. Stop making plans and goals and start making action items to move you closer to achieving your goals. As my favorite fortune cookie says, “Even if you’re on the right track you’ll get ran over if you just sit there.” Get out and DO something this year!
- You Control Your Emotions: Sometimes it is hard to believe that you decide to be happy, angry, and sad but you really do. You may think that something good or bad happened and because of that you are happy or sad, but in reality, how you reacted to said event determined what you felt in response to it. Always approach bad situations looking for the silver lining, always remember, even a failure is a success if you learn from it.
- You Become Your Environment: We have all heard “You are what you eat.” And a few of us have heard that “the five people you surround yourself are a reflection of your true self”. But how many of us actually take this as truth and use it to improve our lives? If you surround yourself with low achievers and generally negative people, you will start to act like them, alternatively if you surround yourself with successful people who are generally positive you will start to act like them. This is why your parents always obsess(ed) over the crowd you spent your time with. Think about it, who are the five people you are closest with; how much do you act like them? How similar do you all think? Get the picture?
- Do What You Love: I have the fortunate opportunity of an obvious hobby to allow me to pursue my passion of yo-yoing, but if you don’t have a big out there hobby or sport you love it can be hard to find out what your passion is. Once you do find it however, make it your mission to it all the time and spread your enthusiasm with it. It may not have been possible back in the 1900′s with big media but in the 2000′s with social media, you have no excuse not to be doing what you love for your living. If you’re not doing what you love you’ll be miserable and unmotivated, monetary incentive can only push you so far, true passion will push you over the edge.
- Always Read, Always Write: As one of my mentors once recited to me, “You should always be carrying the book you are reading in one hand and the book you are writing in the other.” It’s a powerful bit of information you will probably initially take for granted, “Why on earth should we be reading and writing? Don’t we live in the 2000′s with facebook, myspace, youtube, and online TV?” I have discovered that by reading (actually READING) a book it creates more of an impact on your life simply because you have to dedicate your full attention to a book to comprehend it. Writing on the other hand gives you an opportunity to put down what you learned and allows you to reflect. Going back in what you have written gives you an opportunity to grow.
- Look for Mentors: You can NEVER have enough mentors, period, end of story. You will always need someone who knows you and is looking out for your best interests around to keep you in check. You need people in your life who are willing to spit the brutal truth in your face and give you CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. Without these people to look up to and bounce ideas off to you’ll be running around in the dark with a dead flashlight. If you don’t know who should be your mentor think about what you want to do. If you want to be the best dancer in the world you better find yourself another dancer who has more experience who is willing to take you under their wing. If you want to be the best entrepreneur around you better surround yourself with other entrepreneurs who HAVE achieved success. Find the one who stands out among the rest and ask them if they’d be willing to mentor you.
- The Bonus Tip: The one thing that holds us back most is the fear of what would happen, if you want to get a job you have to ask, if you want to get a girlfriend or a boyfriend you have to ask, if you want to get that raise you have to ask. We as a group generally fear rejection, but if you can push past that initial fear and simply ask for what you want, you are leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else who didn’t.
I didn’t write a post about it before because I didn’t have any pictures but with this write up in the paper I guess I do now! It was a really fun night, got there early, around 5:30pm and chatted with a few of the police officers who were setting things up, showed them a few tricks and then waited for the kids to show up.
