You wouldn't be truly motivated or challenged by someone whose story you can't relate with.
Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels
I remember when I was trying to gain financial independent, about nine years ago, I attended a business conference. It was organized for young adults, people who were within my age grade. We were taught on money and how to attract it. Emphasis was on the simplest business that can be done in Nigeria. We were shown how to make a living from providing simple services with a touch of excellence. We were told how small businesses could be ran to produce huge ROI (Return on investment)
Our host wanted to end the the three days conference on a motivational and inspirational note. He didn't just want us to walk out of the conference without a strong urge to begin something for ourselves.
What better way to motivate and inspire people than to bring people who are already in the audience's prospective position to come and share their story?
In this case we all wanted to either start a business, grow our already existing businesses or build a career. So our motivators have to be people who were already doing either of these. They have to come and tell us how they started and the level of success they have achieved within the period they have been doing what they are doing.
Our host thought of bringing some of the biggest players in the game. He wanted renounced gurus in the world of business to come and speak to us. He was just a man that had affinity for big names.
But one of his guest speakers warned him against bringing in the big dogs to come speak to us. His reason was that those gurus will be too high for us. The things they'll tell us are not going to be things that we can readily applied by us.
First; they will be far older than us in age. This will be a good reason for us to procrastinate.
We will leave there thinking that we will achieve everything they have achieved when we get to their age.
Second; they will be mentioning figures we only see on the pages of paper. This will make the whole thing to be unrealistic to us and thus become a demotivation instead of a motivation.
Third; they'll tell high stories. Stories of how they flew from London to Paris to attend a seminar and how they met and dined with the Queen while in England and so on.
Those guys will be too high for us, since they are far from where we are.
We might leave the conference with excuses instead of reasons. If the convener of the conference had gone ahead with his plan of bringing in the big names, the whole aim of the conference would've been defeated.
The guest speaker rather opined that he brought in persons who are our peers, those who are small business owners, yet their profit is huge enough to pay their bills and even afford them a bit of luxury. He also needed people who haven't been in business for a long time but have recorded
a remarkable amount of success in their few months or years as business persons.
He simply needed people whose stories' we could relate with.
He wanted to strip us of every bit of excuses we might have had.
I was glad that our host adhered to his suggestions and brought in people with those qualities.
At the end of the conference, I was left with zero excuse. I went ahead to start up a venture for myself. Many persons who were in the conference did same, because we were given a tool and model to follow after.
Having a model makes our journey to be quite easier, since their progress becomes our source of inspiration.
In choosing a model, that is someone to follow after, we usually look out for the biggest players in the league. While there is nothing wrong in knowing these big players for the purpose of networking primarily, the truth is their journey might be entirely different from ours.
I started engaging more in the Proof of Brain community because I was intrigued by the name "proof of brain".
I said to myself
"so people are showcasing their intelligence here, what a place to be. I love intellectuality, I believe I'm going to get that intellectual vibes here"
Second; I saw good writers here, I wanted the excellence they exude with their pen to rub off me.
Whenever I see trending posts and good piece of writing in particular, it naturally arouses my interest, I will want to know who the author is. Clicking on the person's profile link will reveal the year or month he or she joined the platform. Most of the people with trending posts use to be those that have been here for a considerable amount of time.
When I see that, I will say to myself;
"these people have been here for a quite a long time, @Mmykel don't worry you will get there after you might have remained here for a long time."
I carried that erroneous mentality until I came across a trending post by someone whose story I know too well. I had to stop lying to myself, I rather promised myself that I'm gonna put in the necessary amount of work to be seen on the platform.
Seeing someone whose story I could relate with, stripped me of all excuses and refueled my drive. It made me see possibilities.
Right now this person, whose name I won't mention is my model in the Proof of Brain community. I want to work as hard as she does, to climb up the ladder here.
You wouldn't be truly motivated or challenged by someone whose story you can't relate with.
If you're like me, who is trying to find his feet in Hive and POB community, who is that one person who challenges you to put in the work?
