5 Reasons Why Successful People Avoid Mediocre Role Models

If there’s a magic pill to success, it boils down to one golden rule:
Find the most successful person who has accomplished exactly what you want to accomplish and learn as much as you can from them.

You can sit there complaining at your lack of progress and you’re bound to stay exactly where you are.

Ask yourself this: who has accomplished exactly what I want in life? Who is in the exact niche field that I want to get into? How can I get advice from him or her?

“Don't wait. The time will never be just right.” - Napoleon Hill

Should you leave unsuccessful or mediocre role models behind, even ones who are willing to give you advice?

Before leaving your old mentors behind, make a point to understand why and how they are pulling you down.

First, people who have achieved some success but not great success give poor advice. A great mentor will give you the best, timeless advice backed from decades of experience, while a mediocre one will give you advice that randomly worked for his unique situation.

A great role model will give you a map that works for every terrain, not a one-off tip to buy a lottery ticket.

Also, a great mentor is someone who understands your personality and caters teachings to your strengths and weaknesses. That doesn’t mean spoonfeeding you. They’re busy. A true teacher does not have “one magic bullet” when you ask for advice. They have a wealth of different strategies.

Tired of feeling overwhelmed by the information available? Maybe all you need are a couple steps to find the best information to listen to and a plan to avoid deceptively bad advice. A mentor can provide that.

Here’s how to find and why you need the right mentor...
1. Mediocre Mentors Make It Impossible To Reach Your Full Potential
Here’s an analogy:

You want to cook a gourmet meal. It will take direction and help. Mentors can be like chefs in the kitchen. They all have different opinions on how to make the best gourmet meal. If the chef has a mediocre, struggling restaurant, he will teach you what’s worked for him, even though it’s a poor strategy.

Having the right chef in the kitchen can make all the difference. Wise, experienced master chefs with decades of world-class knowledge can guide you in the right direction.

On the other hand, too many cooks in the kitchen can implant the wrong ideas into your cooking process. Their mediocre ideas are partially right and partially wrong, which drag down your effectiveness.

A study of mentor-protege relationships found that proper mentoring leads to positive improvements.

There is an unwritten set of criteria on what kind of people are considered a mentor. Use this list as a guideline to find a mentor:
He or she is older than you and has achieved incredible success in your niche skill or towards your specific goals.
He or she has over a decade of experience in the field.
He or she is willing to give you feedback at least once a week in person.
2. Poor Role Models Point You in the Wrong Direction
Another reason why successful people avoid unsuccessful role models is because they are dangerously deceptive in how “great” they appear. They really are better than you are right now in your goals, which convinces you to trust their “expert” advice. Experts deluded with overconfidence and unaware of their luck will likely sneak in advice in areas outside their expertise.

On the flip side, a billionaire with 40 years of experience in a specific industry can help you discover time-tested strategies and point you in the right direction.

Why should you take this seriously?

Because you don’t need to take in small bits of good but not great advice telling you: “Social media is hot! Jump on the bandwagon to market your business” from a millionaire who made his money in real estate rather than social media. In the information age, you have the luxury to choose who to listen to.

Success can be a lonely journey, but should you find the advice of a role model who admires your drive and has achieved the dream life you want, then that person alone can get you there faster.

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn

3. Good but Not Great Role Models Can Waste Your Time
Have you ever been taught a technique in a sport by someone who you found taught it wrong? You might have forgot, but those wasted minutes of your life will not be returned to you. Unsuccessful people will take advice from anyone who sounds even a little trustworthy and looks a little more successful than them.

Such mindless learning only creates a garbage can of somewhat good and somewhat bad information. Think about how many months of time that will waste in effort over your lifetime.

You shouldn’t have to waste this time. Long ago, information was rare. Females and minorities had no chance to obtain a book. Those who did had to pay a lot for a single book.

The advice you could learn wasn’t perfect but it was better than nothing. This is no longer the case. In fact, we’re flooded with too much information now.

To be able to succeed in the modern information era, you must be very selective with which how you listen to. Keep questioning why you should listen to a person, and you will pick better advice while remaining reducing overwhelm.

Decide how close to your dream lifestyle this person has come and assess if he’s a good fit.


"If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room."

4. Great Mentors Get You Where You Want Faster
The biggest enemy you must overcome to success if yourself. You are the biggest reason that you haven’t achieved your goals sooner. Procrastination, taking mediocre advice, reading articles you shouldn’t, choosing the wrong role models - all these are metrics that you can control.

What if you can achieve all that you have ever dreamed of in less time than you ever thought possible? How can you believe you can achieve your dream of running an IT business from a beach when you’re taking advice from someone in real estate who doesn’t have time to travel?

A great example of taking bad advice is the fable of the Frog and the Scorpion. Basically, the Scorpion gave all these sweet words convincing the Frog that he wouldn’t sting him. And the Frog eventually let the Scorpion hop on his back…

Only to be stung.

If we are to climb the ladder of success and achieve our dreams, we need to stay focused.
5. A Mentor Who Has Achieved Your Specific Goals Can Give Better Direction
You don’t need to go far online to find “business” or “life” experts who will give you very broad advice on your success.

But if you choose a specific mentor who has achieved your specific goals, you get specialized advice to suit your skills and dreams.

Let’s say you want to built a million dollar crossfit business in a Southern region of your country. It’s better to go to a Crossfit entrepreneur who has done that and has experience with the Southern culture. Most “jack-of-all-trades” business gurus can only give you generalized advice like “work harder” that doesn’t help much anyways.

I know it can be tough to find the person in your field. Look for free videos online. Look for cheap books. You’d be amazed at what you can find in the information age. After a lot of research, if you still can’t find someone, that is when you can slowly broaden out how specifically you look.

If your dream is to travel the world working a small amount of hours, it’s better to find someone who has achieved that than a rich man who is tied down to his work.
Conclusion
The right mentor can speed up your journey to success.

But most people don’t take any time in choosing properly. Making the right choice can make all the difference.

What’s the #1 message you learned that you will take action on now? .



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#goals
#inspiration
#life_path

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