Hello Steemians, how are you all? I hope that after last’s lesson/joke you are all in good spirits.
Today I wanted to talk about something that I’ve never been able to truly understand all throughout my life, and I qualify it as a mystery!
Let’s continue! I saw hundreds of people along my journey always choosing the wrong path, always turning the wrong way by choice even if their road leads them to the abyss, financial or otherwise.
Just to be clear about my opinion, especially for those who are new to this blog. I separate my life between my artistic career, that I started very young in my life, and my entrepreneurial life, that came later on. If you read my earlier posts I’ve shared all the ways that they relate to each other.
To be concise, I had the opportunity to train thousands of people directly, and the last ten years of my life I’ve spent doing presentations for possibly more than half a million people all over my home country.
An important detail is that the experience gives me a profound understand of people, I learned a lot and if you read my story you will know that I’ve been inside different social and business circles. I’ve played soccer with friends inside a favela and I’ve shared drinks with CEOs.
This was very important for me, and as I’ve shared on my other posts, I never really had a one on one mentor per say. I literally had to break my bones alone, and of course made mistakes as I’ve discussed before.
But when I was in the midst of training people, I discovered an interesting fact of about 90% of them. They ask for advice, because they need help and they are not doing well, but do the complete opposite and not pay attention at all.
I remember this one time this person I was mentoring called me to get some guidance on his finances, he had made some mistakes and he was not doing well. He had debts he could not pay, so it was very urgent for him to get his cash flow in check.
I do need to visit the cash flow idea with a lot more detail, since it’s not common knowledge, and it will require quite a bit of explaining.
But continuing my story..
I told this person about a possible solution, and gave him tasks to perform, step by step and to be quick about it so that it would work out.
Two weeks later I get a phone call, this person is complaining about everything. I asked him if he had done as I said, and he replied telling me he did not like my idea to begin with.
So I asked him, why would he waste my time asking for help? He answered because I had more experience. So I said: “that makes no sense… You understand that I know more about the subject that you, then why do you not follow it?”
Something that happens a lot is that people tend to think that our parents are all knowing, and ask them for advice on everything. For example, How much sense does it make to ask your parents for Entrepreneurial advice, if they’ve been employees all their lives? They can love you, but not know how to advice you. Their advice is always going to be based on opinions and good intentions, not in facts and experience.
In other words, advice given by people who have not experienced the situation are not very valuable. They are based in opinions and hypothesis, and if you ask for opinions from everyone you might drive yourself crazy.
Continuing the story, the person of course agreed with me and told me he would do as I said. I had guaranteed him it would work, as I had done this myself countless of times before.
A week later, he calls me telling me he had done it, and I asked him: “Ok, so what happened now? - But then he told me, he had executed the plan different from what I had said. In frustration I asked why, as he was explaining his variance, and just told me that he found it more effective this way.
I lost my patience at that point and said to him: “Listen friend, I understand you want to use your head to get out of this situation, but it was your way of thinking that got you into trouble in the first place, and you are trying to use the same way of thinking to get out?”
He sat there and thought it through: “Yes, It's true, I could be acting like a mule”
I continued: “It’s not a maybe, you are! Because I gave you the perfect plan and you chose to take a gamble, and you keep on making the mistakes over and over”
“Now there is something that really bothers me, on top of you not listening to advice, you are also taking up my time. I should be spending my time with people that sincerely want my help”
He apologized embarrassed, promised to listen and left.
Three months later we spoke, he had solved his problems and he had done exactly as I had told him to get out of the situation.
That is why I call this situation a mystery, because I don’t understand how people can act like this irrationally, of course I’ve thought of some ideas but I will leave those for a separate post.
This is the question I want to leave with you today:
“Why make the mistake, when someone else already did?”
I swear I think i know the answer to these questions now, after dealing with thousands of people. But I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter.
Now I do want to say that I’m not the owner of the truth, I’m just sharing my experience in hopes that you all find it valuable for your own lives.
Remember: I would be grateful if you understood the importance of resteem these posts to build a community with a positive mindset. This is my greatest goal here and you who accompany me know! This is my greatest truth and I do with my heart. Many of these information that are useful to you may be important to other people who need information for your personal growth and that is the most important thing to achieve any goal in your life and remember: Give a upvote between you who take the time to comment and discuss constructively. This has happened here and I am very glad to see you helping each other.
A big hug for everyone, I’ll see you on the next chapter
Follow - @chbartist