What is important to you in your world? Is this what drives you? How much has it changed for you in the past ten years? Or rather, how much has it changed you?
I’m dedicating my life to helping people, this is becoming apparent. It is a little strange to think I chose this direction. Somehow, I feel that more realistically, this direction has chosen me. Yet when I really sit down and think about it, I can’t imagine it any other way. How much of our individual beings are a result of circumstance vs. innate biology? Then there’s the whole nurturing component, which only exponentially increases the variables such as religion, morals and values, and even culture over the span of many, many years, which that! (time), in and of itself, plays such a starring role in development.
Recently, I’ve been spending my time surrounded by many amazingly creative and talented individuals. I found myself in this awkward friend transition a while ago, which is presently allowing me to really reflect on what it means to not only be a solid friend, but a solid person. I’ve been working toward re-directing energy into positive and fulfilling situations, like my incredible job, from which I have already met countless caring and like-minded persons. It turns out though, that the clock kept ticking, the Earth, spinning, and even though the scene of my formative years and old stomping ground was familiar, down to the pot-holed bike path on Avenue X, personalities and situations (mine included), were not. Single friends now had significant others, professional-student friends now had professional careers and new lives were beginning to enter this world, as well. Relating these two worlds became more difficult than I expected. But thank goodness for the fantastic relationships I’d gained through the world that now seemed like an ethereal dream. And then some friendships picked up exactly where they had left off. It just felt nice to be sitting face to face at a table at the most bizarrely fabulous jewel of a dance club, discovered the month of my departure. Of course, we weren’t sitting at the table for long…
I’ve been placed in the role of a mentor in my career. Even before this though, it seemed natural to just share random tid-bits of knowledge or experiences. Almost like, by holding back on transferring that knowledge, a disservice was taking place. Then, with the reinforcement of the role model mentorship to hundreds of youth every month, adding family, friends and acquaintances to the mix became second nature. Who knows, maybe I’m just clouding people’s minds with useless information, but something more in me hopes that’s really not the case. In Gambia, I found this book called The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, in which he describes the components that make up epidemics and social phenomenons. According to Gladwell, it is a combination of this “rule of three”, the first one having specifically to do with people, coined as “the law of few”. He explains that in economics, this is known as the 80/20 principal, “which is the idea that in any situation roughly 80 percent of the 'work' will be done by 20 percent of the participants”. All of a sudden, I was reading further into what seemed like a label on my own personality. This “law of few” involves three different types of people: connectors, mavens and salesmen. As someone who “seeks to pass information along”, did this mean I was a maven? He goes on to state that “Mavens are really information brokers, sharing and trading what they know”, and due to a combination of social skills, knowledge and ultimately, the ability to communicate, have an impact on how things are transferred among society. Perhaps this is one reason I feel compelled to publically post these thoughts…? In addition, connectors are "a handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack [... for] making friends and acquaintances because of their ability to span many different worlds [... as] a function of something intrinsic to their personality, some combination of curiosity, self-confidence, sociability, and energy ". And finally, salesmen are people with ability to persuade and negotiate because of their powerful and charismatic personalities. After reading this book, each new person I meet is viewed in a new light and I’ve even begun to go back and place these “labels” on certain people in my own social network.
Social networks are ever evolving and expanding, exponentially so in this 21st century! I always tend to wonder how or for what reason these people are specifically entering my life and mine theirs. The other day, I was told I was inspiring. What’s funny though, was that I was thinking the very same of them. Recently, too, the idea of the importance of exchanging compliments has resurfaced. For some reason, the process of receiving is almost more complicated than handing them out. Today, though, I am able to do both at the exact same time: Mom and Dad, I’ve been told more than once by near strangers in the past couple of months that you both reared a good chilen. Just wanted you to know that.
Gladwell, Malcolm. (2000). The tipping point: How little things can make a big difference. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.
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