The Importance Of Positive Role Models In Life To Success

Nothing gets accomplshed by itself. Even to raise a tent takes planning. The tent. The pegs. The hammer and tools. And a plan.

Yet many people do not understand what you might consider to be clear to your two year old. “Tell the truth” and “Don’t take what is not yours”. Look at a simple hamster. A hamster will intuitively know several things that are basic to success in life.

First not to be interested in life and inquisitive. Second not to bite the hand that feeds it. Thirdly if you give a hamster some food, say for example some sunflower seeds it will promptly hide these items in other words to save the seeds and not swallow them right away.

Many people you will meet in your travels may repeat simple phrases and slogans such as “Those that do not plan – plan to fail” or such truisms as “The job is not done until the tools (or paperwork) is either put away or finished.

Yet the amazing thing is that most of these same people do not comprehend the simple truths your child learnt in kindergarten or the hamster seems to know intuitively instinctively.

How can this be? Why is it that apparently intelligent or in many cases non intelligent people cannot grasp these simple and apparent truisms.

The answer comes down to two factors. Firstly the examples these people saw in life whether it was from their home and family environment or other important role models. Secondly in life and in many job or power structures a person is promoted not to the station that he or she is best at or most competent but rather to the stage at which his terrible incompetence stops that person in the organizational structure.

Think of it who is it that influenced you to good worthwhile habits in life. What is a family member, an uncle a neighbor? This person may have inadvertently set you on the good path. It is much better to learn from a good role model than have to overcome the mistakes that a poor role model will leave you to overcome. Or it may be a person from the outside. For example one man who grew up in a terrible home environment realized very clearly that in his life his role model of note was a math teacher who when discovering that a student was not at an exam physically left the school to bang on the girl’s door to in effect drag her to school for the test. This person clearly stated that his life had been one big party and this taught that “”kid, life is serious” Interestingly enough this person later went on to a successful career in real estate and insisted that because of rigorous drillings of this math teacher that he was able to quickly calculate sums in his head to clinch real estate deals.

Secondly it should be understood that in life people do not stop at their level of competence. Organizations whether it is at your place of work, your church, school or non profit group tend to promote people until even after trouble begins. Organizational structure is such people are seldom trained for their jobs. They are thrust into a position that they are not trained for and bumble through. And guess who their role model in their new position. Guess what it is was their predecessor of boss who guess what was also unprepared ann. not trained. The cycle repeats itself endlessly, the person in many if not most cases stops at a level where his incompetence not competence is his hallmark.

It is amazing that if America is held up as the world standard or efficiency and effectiveness in comparison to many cultures and economies. Imagine what it is like elsewhere in the world.