Always look at the source…
I talk about this in my book, iSucceed, because many people make the mistake of treating all information equally.
What’s worse is often people have the habit of trusting information acquired from friends and family, rather than professionals or people with firsthand experience.
Information is only as good as its source.
Say we’re talking about marketing, who would you trust?
- Your professor at college or
- The lady who just made $1,000,000 on her last campaign
What about education?
- Your mother or
- The man who has been at it for 22 years and is passionate about the subject
Stocks?
- Your local financial advisor or
- Warren Buffet
I’m hoping you went with number two in every case…otherwise I guess I’ve failed to convey this message on this site or in my book.
When it comes to information we want:
- Reliability
- Recency
- Excellence
- Passion
What do I mean by these? Well, first off we need to know that our source is reliable. How do we do that? Simple – Google is your friend. Unfortunately, even the best get bad press (often more so) but assuming they have evidence to back up their claims and a large following you’re likely in good hands.
Recency requires them to be in the game today. So what if you were a big hot shot way back when, the question should always be – what have you done for me lately? We want to know they are pursuing excellence today, not just resting on their laurels as is what often happens to many talented sports players.
Excellence requires dedication and hard work. If they have a website, are they constantly sharing ideas and information? Are they giving lectures as well as attending trainings to stay on top of their game or simply just coasting along.
And when it comes to excellence I do believe that every successful person is deeply passionate.
Take me, I’m passionate about 3 areas: English, success and finance. I can talk for hours upon hours on these topics and people know exactly where I stand on each of them. I really like basketball, comics, movies and magic but they’re just not on the same level.
I think you’ll agree – i’s rare to find an indifferent success.
To me, while you can somewhat fake excellence (because people are easily fooled by qualifications), people can’t fake passion.
They either have it or they don’t.
So that’s how I judge my sources. Whether you agree with my criteria or not, I hope you have your own process of weeding out sources.
Which brings me to today’s post: inspiration.
When it comes to success inspiration, or ironically desperation, plays a critical component.
You either get pumped up, or scared to death, and decide to make a change in your life.
My path consisted of both inspiration, in the form of mentors, and desperation, in the form of a giant tsunami bearing down on me.
While both are powerful, on this site, I like to focus on inspiration because I have greater control over it.
So here are 5 sources that I believe everyone could use to inspire themselves:
- Shark Tank (TV show)
- Fancy.com
- Books
- Tony Robbins (audio, dvd and books)
Let me explain. Shark Tank is a show about budding entrepreneurs seeking investments in their businesses. What a fabulous show to stimulate your mind about just what people want and how you can turn even the simplest ideas into a cash cow.
And if we’re talking about ideas, be sure to check out fancy.com, a site that I came across recently. Simply fabulous products from the cheap, $15, to the expensive, $150,000. You find clothes, furniture, watches, books and so much more. It’s amazing just to flip though your interests to see what is available and it does give you ideas.
Books, don’t think I need to say any more about this as I’m constantly harping on the importance of reading. Let me just say that there are books on every subject matter imaginable from some of the greatest minds that have ever existed, and yet many people never bother to read them.
Whether you’re looking to get a leg up on your competitors in business, as a lawyer, as an entrepreneur, or in the medical field, books are a great place to start.
I always remember Jeffrey Gitomer saying something along the lines of, “When I’m looking for a new idea, I read a book over 50 years old.”
I hesitate to put Facebook on my list of sources because it can be a time-vampire…sucking your life away from you if you’re not careful. But having said that, it is a great way to reach out to people all over the globe (FB just hit 1 billion users) and used correctly you can gather information on restaurants, books, experts, movies, jokes, health and pretty much anything and everything.
My final source of information is Tony Robbins himself.
When it comes to the self-development field it’s hard to find anyone more passionate than Tony Robbins and despite everything he has achieved, he does get a bad rap from time to time.
Just the other night I was talking to a few friends and his name came up. A few of them had heard of him, a few hadn’t. But I’m the only one who has actually gone through his material.
That didn’t stop one friend from saying that he had read some “interesting” things about him.
Is he perfect? No…no one is. What he is, and what he has done stand for themselves.
When you’ve been the leader of an entire industry for over 20 years, you know you’ve done something right.
There are so many nuggets of wisdom contained in his audio programs or books that they pay for themselves many times over.
Let me just say this – to ignore such valuable information on hearsay baffles me.
In the end, it’s your life, so you choose the sources that you feel suit you best.
Are these my 5 main sources of information? Not at all, over the years I have changed sources to cater to my needs at that time. Starting out though, it’s good to start small which is why I selected these 5 sources for you today.
Give them a shot. I think you’ll be glad you did.
Adrian Shepherd