Want to Succeed? Take a Look at the People Around You!
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I recently met with a friend and fellow speaker who was helping me set up my marketing and business goals. I was giving him resistance on some business decisions he wanted me to make, and mostly it was because I had been given advice over the years that seemed contradictory to what he was saying. When I told him this he said, "you're playing in a different sandbox."
I had no idea what he meant, so I asked.
"When you were a kid, you played in a sandbox," he responded. "Some kids played in your sandbox, some played in a different sandbox. The ones who played in your sandbox with you were the ones who had similar interests and ideas to you. Your business is the same way. Your career is headed down a certain path right now. People who are on the same path (whether ahead or behind you) are in the same sandbox. People on a different path, no matter how successful, are in a different sandbox. When you take advice from people, make sure they are in the same sandbox as you."
This idea opened my eyes to a lot of things about my business. I started looking at things differently. For a long time I was afraid I was doing something wrong because I wasn't doing things the way some people were telling me. At the same time, I was finding very limited success trying to do what other successful people were.
This concept of "sandboxes" made me realize that I wasn't doing anything wrong - I was just doing things differently. It also made me rethink the advice I had been both giving and taking. From that point, I learned three critical lessons:
1) Don't take advice from people not in your sandbox!
People are wonderful at giving advice - they will often give it unsolicited! They also will tell you things as if that is the only way to do it, because to them, it is the only way. It is easy to be seduced by this advice, especially when we perceive that the person giving the advice is more successful than we are. But in truth it doesn't matter how successful the person seems. If they are on a different path than you, their advice will not help you.
2) Make sure you are in the right sandbox!
I have a friend who is
a brilliant music composer and he is building his business as a film and TV composer. A little while ago, he took a short term project writing music for a University-produced musical. Over the course of the project he found himself going crazy dealing with the personalities and nuances one finds in college musical theater. He was talking to me about it, and I told him that he was in a different sandbox. His sandbox was the world of professional music composition for film and TV. He was currently messing around in the sandbox of university sponsored musical theater. There's nothing wrong with musical theater, it's just different. When I said this to him, he realized that he was driving himself crazy over nothing - rather than trying to fir into the mold of the musical theater composer, he finished the project and realigned his activities to focus on the sandbox he really wanted to be in. He is much happier now...
3) Be wary of people trying to keep you in your current sandbox!
If you have been doing things a certain way for a long time and decide to change, you may face a lot of resistance from the people who are playing in your current sandbox. They will try to dissuade you and tell you that you are crazy for doing things a different way. They may do this out of insecurity - they don't want you to move on and move up and leave them behind. They may do this with the best of intentions - in their minds they may honestly believe that what you are doing won't work. Either way, you can't be held back by people on a different path than you. Listen to what they have to say, but before accepting their limitations, remind yourself what the source is relative to who you are.
Take a few moments and ask yourself, "what sandbox am I in? Is it the sandbox I want to be in? What advice am I taking, and are the people giving it in the same sandbox as me?" These simple questions will create a profound mental shift to help propel you to wherever it is that you want to go.
Avish Parashar is a dynamic professional speaker who shows organizations and individuals how to get what they want using the Art and Science of improv comedy. He weaves together humorous stories, witty observations, and interactive exercises from improvisational comedy to get people laughing, learning, and motivated! Avish is most commonly called upon to deliver programs on Motivation, Sales, and Communication
For more free articles, downloads, and resources, visit http://www.AvishParashar.com
To learn how to apply the powerful principles of improv comedy to your own business or life visit http://www.ImprovforEveryone.com
