by Margaret Hirsch
The quote by Elinor Roosevelt goes: “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and small minds discuss people.” Once you know this you can stop yourself being pulled into the conversations discussing other people - they are not worthy of your time. Events also come and go but discussing ideas, now that’s not only thought provoking but can be mind-blowing.
Gossip is never good for anyone, as soon as people start, “did you hear about so and so…" then I just switch off. The Kardashians are not the sort of people I would ever like to mix with, let alone discuss their divorce or recent conquest. This doesn’t interest me in the least and is not worth any of my time. Other people’s private lives are none of my business and I will not give them any of my time or energy.
Average minds talk about the weather or what’s on the news, none of this has any bearing on my life and especially the news which is mostly negative and makes you feel lousy about yourself.
What I really enjoy are people who are thinkers, who come up with new and novel ideas, about changing your mindset for the better. They give ideas on the latest apps that can really help. I have recently ditched my loyalty and credit cards and now have everything on my phone thanks to a friend who showed me how easy it was to do. I am interested in things to make life easier and make me better, smarter, and faster, people who remind me that the only person I have to compete against is myself - just to be a better me today than I was yesterday.
I love being around positive people who keep seeing the glass half full and working on ways to fill it up completely. People who invite you to their house and go out of their way to cook a meal you really enjoy, mastermind groups where you mix with likeminded people and get to hear their perspective on things that interest you.
In life you go through three phases, you learn (school, varsity and learning your profession), you earn (you start to climb the ladder of success and as you do your earnings increase as does your lifestyle) and then you get to the stage I am at when you are able to return (in so many ways, intellectual, financial and mostly good advice learnt the hard way).
I truly love being a mentor to my colleagues at work, the Mrs SA finalists, schools I visit, orphanages where I work voluntarily. All the hard work I did over the years, the hard knocks I took, the learning both academically and in the real world, give rise to an understanding of life and how it works that I can pass onto younger people and fast track their success. They can learn by my mistakes. My own mentor, Mr Bob Rickards who came into my life when he arrived to help for a couple of days and stayed for 30 years, moulded my life in a way no textbook ever could. It took him 40 years to learn the art of sales and running a successful business and he taught me in 2!! Great speakers like the father of motivation himself Mr Jim Rohn who taught the modern-day motivators like Tony Robbins and so many others.
People will pass through your life as mentors, they can teach you what to do and by their actions you also know what not to do. They can teach, but it’s up to you to learn. When the student is ready - the teacher will appear - make sure you are ready and grab every opportunity you can to learn from successful people and you will soon become one of them.
Much Love,
Margaret Hirsch
