One of my all-time favourite motivational quotes is: “There are only two things that will change your life; the people you meet and the books you read.” This quote summarises my life story; I am the product of meeting the right people and reading the right books.
A famous saying goes thus: “If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go further, go with others.” Another one says that, “He who travels alone goes fast, but he who travels with others goes further.” I would like to remind you again that if you really want to go beyond the limits in your life, you only need three things: people, people and people.
I recently read two interesting books with interesting titles. The first one by Robert Kiyosaki is titled, Why A Students Work for C Students and B Students Work for the Government. I can tell you for free that one of the reasons C students employ A students is the simple fact that most C students are known to be street smart and charming.
They are very good with people and very good with numbers. They can easily influence and are convincing because they have what I call ‘likability.’ They are likable and like people too; they know how to treat people, respect them and make them feel valued
They are less egocentric and more people empowering. They understand the universal truth that the greatest desire of every human being is to feel important, and whenever they interact with others, they apply this law. They make others feel superior to them, and in the process, find their way around them, cross all barriers, go beyond limits and reach the summit of their potential.
A story is told of a conversation between a retiring university vice-chancellor and an incoming one. The younger man asked the retiring one for a word of wisdom on how to take the university to the next level.
The old scholar told him to take good care of all the students because after graduation, they would go out and get jobs. Because they were sharp, they would grow pretty fast in their careers, and some would become chief executive officers of major corporations or important personalities in government.
By virtue of their professional and social status, they could come back and support the university in a big way. His second piece of advice was this: “Take extra care of your C students, for they shall employ your A students.” Think about this.
Throughout history, legendary leaders have had great people skills. Your people skills will take you to places your brain and papers cannot.
The second thought-provoking book I read was by Robert Shemin titled, How Come that Idiot’s Rich and I’m Not? Upon reading this book, I realised that most ‘idiots’ outsmart most educated fellows for the simple reason that for their advancement, the ‘idiots’ solely rely on their gut and power of leverage.
What is leverage? It is simply using other people’s goodwill, other people’s intelligence, other people’s resources, other people’s influence, other people’s ideas and other people’s contacts.