[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/algorithmforlife.com\/dream-more\/inspire-and-be-inspired\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/algorithmforlife.com\/dream-more\/inspire-and-be-inspired\/","headline":"Inspire, and be Inspired","name":"Inspire, and be Inspired","description":"Your circle of influence Find a mentor. 5 Monkeys Study […]","datePublished":"2023-01-02","dateModified":"2023-03-01","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/algorithmforlife.com\/author\/algorithmlife\/#Person","name":"algorithmlife","url":"https:\/\/algorithmforlife.com\/author\/algorithmlife\/","identifier":1,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7d9ce54bf7884db06c868d4c3d9f401d81cecc940d6403409642a6a34d06caa8?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7d9ce54bf7884db06c868d4c3d9f401d81cecc940d6403409642a6a34d06caa8?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Person","name":"Dave Burnett"},"url":"https:\/\/algorithmforlife.com\/dream-more\/inspire-and-be-inspired\/","about":["Dream More"],"wordCount":1802,"articleBody":"Your circle of influenceFind a mentor.5 MonkeysStudy your inspiration’s inspiration.The wisdom of others – wisdom is a framework.Help 5, have 5 peers, and 5 people who are where you want to be.OQP – only quality peopleDevelop your communication skills.\u00a0 Once you open your mouth, you tell the world who you are.Find someone to emulate.\u00a0 Someone who embodies everything you want to be in a certain area of your life.\u00a0 Someone who lives the life you want to live. When you find that person, learn everything about them you can.\u00a0 Consume all their content.\u00a0 Understand their lives.\u00a0 Understand what work they’ve done, what sacrifices they’ve made, and most importantly, what the choices have cost them.\u00a0 If, after doing all that, you still want to emulate them, then approach them as a mentor.\u00a0 Ask them if they mentor people.\u00a0 If they are interested in having someone learn from them.\u00a0 If they are, then you are good to go. But it may not be that easy.\u00a0 I was rejected many times before I found my mentor.\u00a0 I saw great people who inspired me at a show, or at a speech they gave, and went up to them as a complete stranger and asked if they would give up some of their time to pass on what they know.\u00a0 They said no.\u00a0 That was hard, but I didn’t take it personally, nor should you.\u00a0 Perhaps they weren’t at the right place or time in their lives to pass on what they knew in any way other than what they were doing.\u00a0 That’s OK.\u00a0 I kept looking until I found my mentor, Warren Rustand. Even then, he initially said no, but I persisted.\u00a0 It took over 6 months, over two dozen emails, and a 27 page letter to get him to say yes.\u00a0 The best part is all that persistent effort was worth it.\u00a0 Who I am today is a result of the work I’ve put in, but it’s much easier to get where you want to go when someone who’s been there shows you the way. This result verified a philosophy I learned a long time ago:\u00a0 Find the person who is the best in the world at whatever you want to do.\u00a0 Pay them whatever they ask to pass on that knowledge, because whatever it costs you in the short term is a fraction of what it would cost you in the time, effort, and energy that you would otherwise have to pay to learn it yourself. Finding a mentor is important, but even more important is the impact that others close to us have on our results.\u00a0 Stop for a moment and take a look around.\u00a0 Who do you choose to spend time with?\u00a0 Not just a mentor or coach, but everyone.\u00a0 Who do you surround yourself with?\u00a0 Who is closest to you in all areas of your life? Write it down.\u00a0 Who are the 5 people you spend the most time with in your life.\u00a0 Then expand or break it down into the 5 people you spend time with each of the areas of your life – Personal\/Family\/Business (work)\/Community.\u00a0 Now coldly evaluate those people. Are there any toxic influences there?\u00a0 Is there anyone there you should spend less time with?\u00a0 Anyone there you should cut out of your life?\u00a0 If there are people you want to stop associating with, then who are you going to replace those people with?\u00a0 Also, who are the great people you spend time with?\u00a0 The people who make you strive for more, the people who help you get to the next level?\u00a0 Now that you are aware who is good for you, and who isn’t, make the decision to spend more time with those who lift you higher, rather than tear you down to their level. This takes me back to an old experiment that was conducted on social behaviour of monkeys.\u00a0 There were 5 monkeys in a zoo enclosure, and in that enclosure was a flight of stairs.\u00a0 At the top of that flight of stairs experimenters placed some bananas.\u00a0 As you know, monkeys love bananas.\u00a0 As the monkeys tried to climb the stairs, the experimenters prevented the monkeys from reaching the bananas by spraying them with a firehose of water.\u00a0 This knocked them back forcefully, but didn’t injure them.\u00a0 One after another, they tried to climb the stairs, until finally they gave up.\u00a0 Having learned the lesson not to climb the stairs or you get sprayed in the face, they stopped trying to reach the bananas. A few days later one of the monkeys was swapped to another enclosure, and a new monkey was introduced.\u00a0 The experimenters again placed some bananas at the top of the stairs, and the new monkey immediately tried to get them.\u00a0 This time, however, the other monkeys held him back.\u00a0 Beating and holding him down until he learned not to climb the stairs.\u00a0 It didn’t matter why, he learned that behaviour from the group. One by one, the original monkeys were swapped out of the enclosure, until there were no more original monkeys left.\u00a0 All of the monkeys now in the enclosure were introduced after the last water blast had stopped, but they had all been trained by their peers not to climb the stairs.\u00a0 So even though not a single drop of water prevented them from climbing the stairs, the peer to peer influence did. I retell this story because from my experience, you become a reflection of those you spend the most time with.\u00a0 You start to take on the beliefs of your group.\u00a0 This is your circle of influence.\u00a0 Your happiness, your economic situation, and your other relationships will begin to either move in the right direction, or rapidly fall off a cliff.\u00a0 The people you choose to spend your time with have the greatest impact on your life. Another way to think about your circle of influence is across all of the four main buckets of life there are other people you can help, and who can help you.\u00a0 Let’s keep this simple and focus on three more groups of five:\u00a0 Those people on the same level as you, those people on a level above you, and those people on the level you were at not so long ago. The five people who are at the same level as you are are your five peers.\u00a0 These can be people of like mind and station in life, whom you admire and are good for you.\u00a0 Then there are the five people who are above you, who are operating on another level, whom you want to become like.\u00a0 These five people can show you the way, and lift you up to their level the more time you spend with them, and the more you learn from them. But there is another five to bear in mind.\u00a0 The five people who are not at your place and experience in life.\u00a0 They potentially strive to be where you are.\u00a0 You can reach back, invest your time, and lift them up to your station and share your experience.\u00a0 You will be amazed by how much you gain, by giving back and helping others rise up. When you find someone worthy of following, worthy of your time and effort to emulate, ask them the question of who is their inspiration.\u00a0 You will be amazed to find that the person who inspired you, is also inspired by others.\u00a0 Almost nothing is unique or original, and there was someone before them who lived the values you now hold in reverence.\u00a0 Find out who it was who inspired them, and study your inspiration’s inspiration.\u00a0 That way it will give you not only a common ground with your inspiration, but may also give you insights and something to take away that you didn’t know existed. The good news is wisdom is a framework, and what I know of this framework I’m doing my best to share here, but I hope you only use this as a starting point.\u00a0 If you take the time to teach yourself, because wisdom is seldom taught, the steps that need to be pursued to achieve some level of wisdom, you will learn there are commonalities at it’s core. I can’t say I know all the steps in the framework, as this is my journey too, but continuous learning is one of them.\u00a0 I hope to keep learning, keep striving, and learning even more.\u00a0 But when you start, as I am, you must always be humble in your learnings, and follow the wisdom of those who inspire you. Whether that be the wisdom of a great athlete and the steps they take to achieve greatness.\u00a0 Or a great preacher, who’s religious knowledge is vast and can be applied even in today’s crazy world.\u00a0 Or some other leader who is worthy of your admiration, understand the steps they take, and the actions they perform to become all they can become, and be everything you admire. Whenever, and wherever you are investing your time, keep in mind the fact you only want to spend time with quality people.\u00a0 You only want to spend time with people who are worthy of it.\u00a0 Now don’t fall down the slippery slope of judgment, as it’s easy to dismiss the diamond in the rough.\u00a0 It’s easy to be put off by initial impressions, but keep an open mind.\u00a0 You can usually tell who is a good person, and who isn’t.\u00a0 Just do your best to only spend time with quality people. The final step on inspiration is not only where you find it, but becoming it as well.\u00a0 In order to be inspiring, you have to inspire, and this comes down to your communication.\u00a0 If you’re speaking to someone, when you open your mouth, you tell them who you are.\u00a0 Do you swear?\u00a0 Throw away words needlessly?\u00a0 Talk in unformed thoughts?\u00a0 This will tell them as much about you as any deep study of your mind would. This is something I had to relearn.\u00a0 When I suffered my brain injury, I had to start again as I couldn’t form the words I needed, or find the things to say that I wanted to.\u00a0 It was all I could do to make sense in the world.\u00a0 But I kept going, I learned the words again, and I discovered all the things I wanted to say, were there for the saying.\u00a0 So, with some practice, you too can form the words you want to say, and become all the things you want to become with a little practice and hard work. Everything you do inspires me, thank you.\u00a0 I hope you keep up the good work."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Dream More","item":"https:\/\/algorithmforlife.com\/dream-more\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Inspire, and be Inspired","item":"https:\/\/algorithmforlife.com\/dream-more\/inspire-and-be-inspired\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]