Influencer Lesson No. 7: If you are on the outside looking in, you may have only one chance.
On a couple of occasions I have talked about the time my elementary school classmates invited me out to play ball and after the game while talking one of my classmates gave me a compliment. Instead of graciously accepting the compliment, I said something nasty.
That was my chance. And I blew it.
One Chance
Many times in life you only get one chance. Maybe it’s the in-group. It could be your dream company. It could be a chance to work with your hero. If you perform well, you’re in. If you drop the ball, you are left with the disheartening thoughts of what could have been. You need to be ready when it’s time to shine. So what do you do?
Luck
I often hear people talk about luck. Particularly resentful people attribute the success of others to luck and that the success is purely arbitrary. That’s not true. Luck is opportunity plus preparation. When proactive up-front efforts are taken, it greatly increases the capacity for people to capitalize on opportunities when they present themselves.
I won’t say that everyone has the same frequency of opportunities that others have, but if we walk through life thinking we have no opportunities, we are tragically quite wrong. We stop looking for opportunities and opportunities rarely go looking for us.
Here’s the secret many people have never been told. “If you can be helpful to anyone, you can find opportunities.”
Be Helpful
What is a job application? When we fill out a job application, we offer to help. If someone has a flat tire, we may stop to help. If someone’s lawn is overgrown, we can knock on someone’s door and offer to help. Everyone we try to help is another testimonial, another connection, another demonstrated example of our character. We may or may not know who we are trying to help. But two remarkable benefits happen when we help others. First, we engage the wonderful social norm of reciprocity. If I help you, you are more likely to help me going forward. This is valuable in itself, but the second benefit is truly amazing. When we help others, we advertise to everyone watching our worth and value. Much of our society has become jaded and insular. When we step up to proactively search for ways to help others, we stand out! Everyone wants us to be a part of their team. This is when a rapid stream of opportunities come sailing toward us.
So if there are people out there who are realizing more success than we are, we need to be asking ourselves: Who are they helping? How are they helping? How many are they helping? We may come to find they are deserving of every opportunity they enjoy.
We then need to ask ourselves: Who am I helping? How can I help more people? How must I improve myself to be more helpful? Finding ways to be more helpful and helpful to more people is how we make our own luck.
In that spirit, I hope you found this message to be helpful.
