How Much do you listen to someone’s advice vs listen to yourself?: This is My Story:
Torey is Founder & Leader of URBN HMES: A client focused real estate experience that blends conventional principles with modern lifestyle to ensure comfort and optimal performance in a constantly changing marketplace.
It is such a common theme in the business universe to seek out mentor’s, or people who have done what you are looking to do before you. For me, I intend to make this a regular practice of reaching out and connecting with elite entrepreneurs within the real estate world. The purpose of reaching out cold is one of two things: 1) Establish a relationship with the individuals, & 2) Pick their brain to educate myself to further enhance my being.
The advantages of reaching out to others in this fashion are I have been able to create serious rapport with these people due to my style of communication. On the flip side, seeking advice from high performing strangers can be something that has the potential to do more harm than good. Let me explain:
Generally speaking, high performers can tend to be drivers and are aggressive around their thoughts and beliefs, which shows in their passion for what they do. The problem I noticed with my conversations is that everyone has a lack of time and therefore has a lack of context. This means, the high performer you are talking to is providing advice, it tends to be strong willed to their belief, not taking into account your true situation and place in life because they don’t truly know who you are, what you are doing, and how you are doing it.
For example, I recently was grateful to receive the advice of: “Stop what you are doing and work for someone who has done what you want to do for free to enhance your education.”
Now, pulling this article into full context, knowing I am the only person who understands my goals and my current life position fully, I ultimately know what’s best for myself in my gut. Now to pick apart the above statement, here are my thoughts regarding it:
- My newest mentor was adamant that I should be a resource to someone who has done what I am aiming to do in order to expedite my success by donating time for education, aka work for free to learn more. I agree with this statement.
- My newest mentor was also adamant that the way for me to do that is to jam on the brakes and start working for the new mentor, for free, full time. For me, I disagree that this is the right approach for me at this time. Month’s ago, I could have agreed, but being my current progress and state of my business, I think this is over the top. I know this action may be right for some people, but it is not the right course of action for me, because I know me.
The above illustrates how positive advice can potentially leave you in a shipwreck, as it would have really done with me if I dug deeper into it for longer than a day and dwelled on it. To me, this journey has been about knowing me, learning from others, and carving my path by creating the life I want to live.
By knowing my north star, I was able to see that something as dramatic as stopping it all was not the right move for me. Now, I agree with the overall concept, so the question becomes, how can I benefit a future mentor by offering some of my limited free time to working for them in return for a greater education. In this case scenario, I think the best course of action is to take the end goal, and reverse engineer it back to how can I accomplish that goal while making it work for me. Luckily, I know life is not black and white, so there is always a solution. Thank you North Star for helping guide me there!
