486: Sabbatical Episode: Finding Community (Part 3 of 5): Learn From People Ahead, Connect With People Beside

Today we’ve posted Part 3 of our 5-part podcast miniseries, Finding Community. In the first two episodes, Sean gave us the crucial steps for replacing the negative inputs in your life with positive ones. With all that new positive energy, we can get to work pursuing our creative passions! But once we’ve created our great work, then what? We want to share it with the world. We want to forge friendships, make connections, build an audience around our work! Today Sean shares exactly how to make that happen. Getting someone famous to promote you. Everyone wants a shout-out from a famous person, right? It would be great if someone with huge reach promoted your thing to their audience. The problem is, it’s too late. If you try to befriend someone famous so they’ll promote your work, they'll see you coming. Everybody wants something from them. So how do you get someone with influence to promote you? You have to befriend them before they’re famous. Oh sure, you’re thinking, if you could predict who was going to be famous you wouldn’t need their promotion! Good news: you CAN predict who’s going to be big using The Greatness Formula, which you’ll hear about in a minute. Two types of positive people. Positive people—the people you want to surround yourself with—fall into two categories: - People to learn from: those many levels ahead of you in your field. - People to connect with: those on the same level as you. Obviously, you want to connect with people who are already famous and successful in your field, but it doesn’t work that way; learn from them instead. Connect with people on your own level who will someday have influence. Seek out people who are driven, taking action, making great work, have a positive mindset. These are the people to surround yourself with. This leads us to The Greatness Formula: how you can recognize greatness before it happens: The Greatness Formula: Mindset × Action + Time You want to identify: - People with a positive mindset (you know it when you see it). - Who are consistently taking action. - It’s only a matter of time before they achieve greatness. Attach yourself to these people! What level are you? When we talk about people being at different “levels” in their field, what do we mean? It’s a combination of experience, notoriety, and success. These numbers are arbitrary, but let’s say you have 2,000 hours of practice as an artist: you’re a Level 2 Artist. Now you know not to pursue someone who has 18,000 hours of practice—they’re a Level 18 Artist! Find other Level 2 Artists who match The Greatness Formula. Find the Level 2 Artists who are making work, sharing it with the world, practicing their art daily. Because these people are at your level, you can connect with them. Attach yourself to them. What does that mean? Well, how do you get a best friend? By being a best friend. Here’s the Best Friend Method: - Comment on their work. - Share their work. - Make a video for them. - Write a thoughtful email. - Send a package. - Repeat the above 100x. When you find a person who’s going places, you want to become their greatest supporter. That last step is the key: Repeat 100x. There’s one more key to connecting with someone who’s going places: You have to embody The Greatness Formula yourself. Embody The Greatness Formula. In the last two parts of this series, we talked about cutting out the negative, and replacing it with the positive. In order to pursue greatness, a positive mindset is crucial. But a positive mindset alone is not enough! The part you may be missing is taking action. You can’t just have a positive mindset and do nothing—that won’t get you anywhere. When you have a positive mindset and take action, people will notice. They’ll recognize The Greatness Formula, even subconsciously. Since you’re following the 14/7 rule discussed in Part 2,

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