A while back watched an episode of The Jeff Probst Show and they had a guy on there who made up being a so called “Guru” and had a following. He realized over 4 months that he was way in too deep. He did finally come clean on the whole Guru thing and let people know that he was a fake.
But as I have watched that show and also watched people, they are just looking for something to believe in. As a leader, it is your job to give them that something. So many people have been beat up by the job system that they just don’t believe in their dreams anymore.
I do not want to down the job system because it is what puts food on the table for millions of people and has for many years now but things are changing. As I look into the job world we are seeing more and more people losing their jobs. It isn’t like it used to be where you work for your whole life at one company. That is over. The average person will change jobs every 5-7 years so they never build anything long-term.
Also with a job, when someone has a job for too long, they tend to start shrinking their dreams to match their income instead of finding ways to improve their income to match their dreams. Over time people get so conditioned from the job that they lose any interest in doing more with their life. Many people just give up on that idea because they have been fed the lie that dreams are for kids but now you have to grow up.
Another thing that a job does is that it kills people’s creativity. Granted there are some jobs like Google and Facebook where they do things a little differently in order to spur your creativity but that is not the norm. Most jobs just kill a person’s creativity because eventually you get to the point where you can do the job blindfolded and you are never challenged anymore. At that point you become not only bored with your job but then bored with life as well and that is a very bad combination because then you start doing careless things to make up for the boredom.
So because of all this people become skeptical when you are talking to them about business. When you run into these kinds of people you just need to be patient with them. Yes sometimes they make it very difficult but you have to see things from their perspective. Walk in their shoes in a sense.
See if you are able to turn a skeptic around then as strong as they were against what you are doing, they will then be that strong for what you are doing. Sometimes they will be your biggest advocates because you turned them around and gave them something to believe in again.
I am not saying to just waste time on the people who are that skeptical. You just have to use your own judgement on that. Many times they are just trying to drag you down so you want to make sure that is not the case or if they really want to understand where you are coming from.
If they just want to drag you down then RUN the other way as fast as you can because there are plenty of people who will believe in what you have to offer. Go and find those people and your life will never be the same. Go give them something to believe in.
Everyone wants something they can believe in and you have to become that for many people. Can you do that? I believe you can and if you do it right, people will follow you forever as long as your heart is in it and you are open towards them.
So instead of saying you would like to sponsor a leader, say I want to become a leader worth following. When you start becoming that kind of leader you will start attracting other leaders who believe like you!
Be Inspired or Be Left Behind!
Chris Benton